.261/.302/.330

As Shania Twain would say, “That don’t impress me much”.

He almost made my list but he I need to see some results before he cracks the top 5 shortstop prospects. He should crack top 5 next year though.

Although I admit that people are split on whether he will stay at shortstop or second. However, Cubs scouting director Tim Wlken states “He’s going to be a special player. He’s got every chance to be as good as or better than (five-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove shortstop) Tony Fernandez.” That leaves me very optimistic as Tony was the best defensive shortstop in the AL when I was growing up. The following a few of the sources I based this on:

http://www.goatriders.org/2009-top-prospects-no-11
http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081014&content_id=468878&vkey=news_milb&fext=.jsp

my feelings are hurt.

Has to at least be in the top 5

No, I don’t think I am. What are you so impressed by? Why are you so certain that he’ll be a stud?

Look at Gordon. He’s slightly old for his league, and even then his stats aren’t overwhelming. Yes, he’s hit for .300 this season (which I suspect is the only reason you guys are even looking at him… I’d be interested to see what you’d have thought of him if he was hitting .299). However, that .300 average is supported by a .368 BABIP, and a 16.2% K%. While many hitters can get away with that type of K%, Gordon is doing with virtually no power.

See, here’s the thing about Gordon. In my opinion, he has exactly one plus tool (his speed). It’s a valuable plus tool to have, because it can mask a lot of other deficiencies. For instance, Gordon has used his speed this season to mask his complete lack of power, turning singles into doubles and doubles into triples and so on. That’s great, but even with that ability, he’s still looking at a .095 ISOP. And that’s going to go down as fielders improve at higher levels, since he won’t be able to cheat quite as much with baserunning decisions.

Which brings me to my next point: Despite his overwhelming speed, Gordon has been a piss-poor baserunner this season. It’s evidenced by his 73.6% SB%. Again, this is something that would in most cases be a pretty good number. In Gordon’s case, it brings up some questions, because he hasn’t shown any discretion or decision-making ability on when he should steal. Instead, Gordon has just been overpowering catchers literally whenever he gets the chance. And, while his speed allows him to do that, it doesn’t bode well for him going forward.

Don’t believe that point? Well, let’s dig a little deeper. Assuming that Gordon only stole 2nd base (a faulty assumption, I realize), we can look at how often he reached first base. We’ll call this a “first base outcome”, and calculate it simply by adding up singles, walks, and intentional walks (this doesn’t account for fielder’s choices).

By my count, he got a first base outcome 172 times. Now, since he attempted a steal 95 times, this would mean that he attempted a steal 55% of the time he reached first base. But wait! What if there was already somebody on second when Gordon reached first? In fact, Gordon had a first base outcome with runners on 59 times! This means that he had a bases-empty first base outcome only 113 times, compared to the 95 steals, which brings the percentage up to 84%. I have no way of knowing whether or not the running remained at second once Gordon reached first, so this is still a limited study, but I think it proves my point. He didn’t really make any choices about when he was going to steal, instead just attempting to run on everyone and hope that his great speed could mask that fact.

So, in terms of his offensive profile, he has an average inflated by luck, hits tons of groundballs, has no power, has poor baserunning instincts, and has poor plate discipline. While I do like his speed, that’s just not enough to mask his other flaws. He’s going to get exposed at higher levels. Note that his current luck-neutralized line is .274/.340/.362. A lot less pretty.

But I would appreciate it if you would post your top 5.

Dewey and I are from Toronto and life long Jays fans.