Hello sdtribefan,

While I think his inexperience and "looking lost" can be overcome, you make a good point about his being "too big" for the position, which could make his range subpar even for LF.  That's something that could become a problem down the road and necessitate Weglarz switching positions, either to 1B or DH (Hafner's newly-signed contract will probably not have much length left by the time Weglarz is likely ready, leaving that position as a possibility.)

Just my 2 cents.  

Take care and have a great day!

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regarding 11th grade versus 7th grade, i'd say there's two things you want to keep in mind.

1) it doesn't reflect the same thing when you fail in 7th grade as when you fail in 11th.

a 7th-grader who fails probably blows off their work and is irresponsible (after all, the underlying work is simple, and the way that it's graded is far from rigorous). an 11th grader who does poorly is more likely to lack scholastic aptitude.

similarly, a rookie baller who isn't a top prospect may not be one because he's yet to figure out how to hit a breaking ball, or hasn't refined his strike-zone judgment. a triple-A player who's a C+ is likely a C+ because he underlying lacks ability to be a top performer in the majors; he receives a C+ simply because he will most likely hold a roster spot on the 25-man in the upcoming seasons, which, in and of itself, makes him at least somewhat valuable. however, he lacks to tools for any future improvement.

2) related to the last point, these grades are about predicting future performance.

a C+ in 7th grade may well predict that someone's not focused enough on school to ever be a top student. but that grade alone wouldn't be a great predictor of whether that kid will ever be able to do, say, quantum physics. what the grade DOES predict is that the kid needs to make improvements in his treatment of school, or that he isn't the first candidate you'd choose to be a future valedictorian.

a C+ in 11th grade says that you've established the range a person will finish in. you can fairly well predict what that person will (and won't) do in college.

in terms of PREDICTIVE ABILITY (what these grades are about -- to everyone but casejud, that is), a rookie baller will have a VERY high range of possible outcomes. some of these outcomes are with much higher ceilings than the triple-A player; some with much lower. the triple-A player has a much more restricted range of potential outcome

essentially, the triple-A player's value comes from his certainty to contribute, but he is punished for his lack of upside. the rookie-baller's value comes from his potential upside, but he is punished for his lack of certainty/high probability of not contributing at all. for this reason, the two grades don't really mean the same thing.

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the EE/creative writing analogy was more about pitchers to hitters, which you say you already get, but i'll explain what i meant anyway.

at most schools (those with some grade inflation -- i.e., those without true enforced curves), it is much more difficult to get an A in EE than it is in creative writing (i can tell you that, where i went to school, the mean grade for a creative writing major is an A-, while the average grade in EE is a B- or C+). different departments grade differently.

consequently, when you're applying to graduate or professional schools, admissions departments are looking for different grades from different majors. for instance, being family friends with many of the people who do admissions at my law school, i can tell you that he rails on and on about how UNIMPRESSED he is with people who majored in things like communications or soft psychology and got straight 4.0s (if they had nothing else distinguishing on their records), whereas a 3.6 from engineering or chemistry might be sufficient.

in this case, the analogy isn't about the difficulty, per se. it's about differences in ability to measure the field, and the differential distributions this creates. anyone who follows (and tries projecting) prospects knows how different it is to try to figure out a pitcher's future -- some "bad" ones turn out great and some great ones fail miserably. all in all, your confidence in your own ability to rate is much lower. there are, however, many more "potential" prospects, since a lot more pitchers could be good.

all in all, this means you might want to evaluate them on a different scale than hitters. after all, you don't want to put 40 pitchers ahead of every B-level hitting prospect, because so many of those pitchers will be worthless compared to the low-risk hitters. but, at the same time, a lot of those pitchers have much more potential. it's alright to mix the grades, but it makes just as much sense to say "the grades AREN'T the same, because we're measuring different things."