So he has a knack for getting the bat on the ball as a 17 year old in Low-A ball. If Villalona is like most teenagers he doesn’t realize there are certain things he just can’t do, so he probably thinks he can hit any pitch every pitcher throws his way. It doesn’t matter if the pitch is a foot outside.

Poor plate discipline has turned better athletes than Villalona into career minor leaguers/fringe MLB back-ups. I think there’s time for him to learn how to read the spin on the ball and identify which pitches he should lay-off. Two things are key.

First, the Giants need to emphasize to Villalona the importance of bettering his strike zone judgement. The easiest way to do that is to send him back to Augusta and, in short, tell him to do better. He’s 18 years old, he’s still well ahead of the curve and if he spends another half-season in Low-A ball its not the end of the world. I worry that promoting Villalona to High-A would be seen as a reward for his unimpressive performance in 2008 and that would merely reinforce to him that his way of doing things is best. He’s 18, he already thinks he knows everything! He needs a dose of reality.

Which leads to the second key point. Villalona needs to understand that he needs to get better. He needs to work on his plate discipline because that is his ticket to becoming a big leaguer. If he’s willing to put in the work (and I don’t recall reading anything that suggests his attitude is a problem… aside from being a teenager, of course) then he has talent to go all the way.

A B-grade is appropriate at this point. He’s got a long way to go but he has the tools to get there.

I just noticed his John Hancock on the baseball card… this kid has the penmanship of a 4th grader. And the language thing shouldn’t be the issue… it’s his name.

I think all the Giants fans understand there are warts to Villalona, warts that if unchecked, he would be the latest big bonus Latin free agent to lay a big egg. Juan Guzman, Wily Mo Pena, the list could go on and on. I don’t think any of us dispute that.

But it is not homer-ism to think that he has a lot of potential, which is what this site is all about, discussing a prospect’s potential (and his likelihood of attaining that).

Sure, he doesn’t walk much and strikes out a lot (though he reduced it greatly by season’s end). He has a big body that if he doesn’t get control of, he could eat his way out of baseball. He needs to work on hitting RHP better. I think we all get that.

What I think most people are forgetting is that he hit for an above average OPS in class A-ball when he should have been a senior in high school. How many senior high school players can do that, and with power, in A-ball? And he reduced his strikeout rate from 30% in first three months, down to 21% his last two months, while still exhibiting his power, raising his BA from .235 his first three months to .293 in last two months. How many high school seniors can do that? Heck, how many college students could do that? The league average was .257/.325/.382/.707 and he hit .263/.312/.435/.747 for the season, .293/.334/.462/.796 the last two months. He showed clear growth as the season when on, and which corroborates each other, his improvement in strikeout rate was accompanied by increase in his BA.

Also, entering the 2008 season, he had just had his first taste of organized ball. Most U.S. players got that when they were 6-7 years old. A quote from a Giants official when he was signed shows how wide the divide in experience is: “You can’t expect quick results when he’s just learning bunt signs for the first time in his life.” Most of the players in the Sally League probably learned the bunt signs as 7-8 year olds in Little League or PONY League (that’s around when my son learned that sign). By the time they are professionals, they should have that ingrained in their heads.

Villalona didn’t learn this until he was 16 years old, so in 2007 and 2008 he has been getting a crash course in learning all the things his fellow players had 10 years or more to learn and hone, while also dealing with a new language as well as living away from home, which is something every player deals with. And he still was above average in OPS/power, and improved greatly by year’s end.

Another thing people are forgetting is that even the younger players he was playing against were players who would be in their first year of college, and yet he not only held his own against them, for the most part, when he should be a senior in high school, but he was among the league leaders in homeruns, he was tied for 12th.

Sure, he has bad discipline, but most seniors in high school would have some problems facing pitchers with 3 years of experience in college, which on average the league had, the average age for a pitcher there was 22 years old. Still, despite that huge difference in experience, he improved his strikeout rate greatly from start of the season to end of the season, while keeping his power.

Admittedly, I can see why people call these “excuses”, but to me, they are facts. If you threw, say, a JV player against high school players, where there is a gap in experience and skills, you would expect him to fall flat on his face. That Villalona was not only able to hold his own but also excel in some ways is a major accomplishment to me.

And that doesn’t mean we Giants fans are ignoring his negatives, but given his newness to everything, I think these are major accomplishments. And you don’t lose 40 pounds unless you are extremely motivated to do so. He could have just sat on his laurels and think he would be able to excel at everything since he got the big money, but he works on his fielding still and worked to get 40 pounds off, when, frankly, many young people who just got into money and is now free from home and on their own, tend to pig out on fast food and gain weight while losing conditioning.

And I have no problem with a B grade. He’s in A-ball, about to enter Advanced-A ball, and while he did some nice things in A-ball, he still has things he needs to figure out. I think B+ is justified perhaps even A-, but I won’t lose sleep over that. I think people are overemphasizing his warts, if power was that easy to develop, maybe Duane Kuiper would have hit more than one in his career. People with power potential don’t always develop it. I think he deserves a promotion to Advanced A for his improvement during the season and for doing well in general.

Plus, he’s chomping on the bit, he originally wanted to make the majors in two seasons. You are dealing with a teenage ego here. So you have to balance that in there too. Luckily he did well enough (at least I think so) to get pushed to Advanced A. It was not like he was at the back of the class, he did better than average and now gets to see how he does now with another year of organized ball under his belt, another year as a professional.

And the obsession with positional flexibility is that position players are relatively limited otherwise and you have no idea which of the Jell-O you throw on the wall is going to stick. Unlike pitchers, who, depending on skill-set, can fill almost anywhere on a roster of 11-12 pitchers. Think positional flexibility wouldn’t have helped the Rangers when they had Teixeira, A-Gon, and Hafner? Heck, the A’s put McGwire at 3B, what if Rob Nelson was half decent and kept McGwire at 3B, I wonder how much of that would have downgraded his performance at the plate, struggling to field 3B?

Meanwhile, the Giants have a nice starter in Lowry, then they add Cain, then Lincecum, and now Sanchez replacing Lowry, and maybe Bumgarner in a year or two, Alderson too. Wilson could have been a nice starter too, but they made him into a closer. Romo, Hinshaw, and Matos look to be good bullpen guys, and if better ones develop, or if a starter falters but then excel in the bullpen, they get pushed out and the pitching staff improves.

With positional flexibility, you can Rubik’s cube the players to give them more opportunity to show what they can do in the majors as a hitter, before settling down to a position. Of course, not everyone can do that, plus you don’t want to push your best prospects all around. But as an general philosophy, I think that’s is a good idea, especially for marginal players who would end up as a utility player.