Crystal Ball: Phil Hughes
A Crystal Ball for Phil Hughes is dangerous for my sanity. First of all, he has zero major league experience, so this is even more highly speculative than your average CB. Secondly, Yankee fans seem to think that Hughes will turn into something like a combination of Walter Johnson and Roger Clemens, and that he'll do this right off the bat in the majors. Hughes is an outstanding prospect, certainly, the best overall pitching prospect in baseball in my opinion. But he's still just a prospect. There are all kinds of things that can go wrong with him. Hughes' PECOTA comps include guys like Bert Blyleven, Jim Maloney, and Don Drysdale...but they also include Rick Ankiel, Bobby Bradley, and Erv Palica.
So basically, whatever I do with this CB will be criticized by someone. If'it is too optimistic, the statheads will start screaming TINSTAAPP!!!!!. If it is too pessimistic, Yankees fans will put blog posts all over the internet about anti-Yankee bias on my part.
Bottom line: fire away all you want. I want discussion; that is the point of all this. But I'm not going to take it personally no matter what anyone says about it, positive or negative. It is simply one possible outcome, knowing what we know about Hughes today.
