Anyways I do say it anyway I am just stating a point just like the Judicial system of America which I work for.

You are also willing to dismiss a monumental drop in K% and BB%. This is a huge sign that someone might have trouble adjusting to a level. If Lowrie wasn't your pet prospect, you'd be all over him for this. I know the sample size is small, but that's exactly why Lowrie needs to start the year at AAA. Votto has proven that he can handle AAA, Lowrie hasn't. It's one extra chance for Lowrie to fail, compared to Votto.

Votto is bigger (6'3" 200lb, to 6'0" 180lb), stronger (26.5 AB/HR to 53.6 AB/HR) and faster (68 SB, 100 ATT, to 14 SB 25 ATT). Forget about what the scouts say. The stats bear the athletic burden. If two players have identical performance records (they don't, Votto's is better), take the better athlete. They will have a better chance of adjusting to the higher level of competition.

I'd also like to point out that Votto's contact rate was nearly identical to Lowrie's at AAA...with a much better walk rate...with more power...over a much bigger sample size...

Lars is considered average/above average at 2B.

Pedroia looked the part of an above average 2B as well.

The only question mark is Lowrie who is most likely to be below average but just a question of how much so.  Overall its an IF short on range (though not by a ton) but makes up for the most part in fielding.

Sure that's not a great IF defensively, but I wouldn't exactly use the term atrocious either.

"all indications are still that he can't handle short and there's is no gaurantee that he'll be even average at second. That means if he fails defensively, which is still the most likely outcome"

You are a retard. There's no other way to put it. This is wrong in every way possible. Let's look at this methodically shall we?

Stupid statement #1: "all indications are still that he can't handle short" -Completely wrong. "All indications"? The EXPERTS at Baseball America believe he can handle SS. A lot of folks believed he couldn't had SS after 2006. this was because he had an ankle injury. Now that's healthy there are very few experts who question his ability to play SS.

Stupid statement #2: "there's is no gaurantee that he'll be even average at second" - Nobody... NOBODY... has questioned Lowrie's ability to play 2b. Well, nobody aside from armchair amateurs like yourself who don't know what they're talking about.

Stupid statement #2: "if he fails defensively, which is still the most likely outcome" How is that the most likely outcome since most experts believe he'll be fine at SS and he'll certainly be fine at 2b, where his bat still plays very well.

You're a retard, go back to your room and don't forget to bring your 'special helmet'

The first question is, what was Michael Young's grade heading into 2001? I'll bet it was less than A-. It's also notable that he didn't show up in the BA top 100 that year.

Second, Lowrie is NOT in Young's strosphere as a hitter. He is in Young's stratoshphere as a hitter at age 23. Realize that a player with Michael Young's statistical and scouting profile circa 2001 becoming a hitter as good as Michael Young is about 20:1...at best. Here's the real problem with giving Lowrie even that good of a chance of becoming Michael Young (as a hitter). When Young was coming up, he was thought of as athletic and toolsy. Whether he was actually good at defense is debatable, but he was typically viewed as a guy who was going to make it with the leather, not the wood.

Young and Guillen are great comps...for Lowrie's absolute ceiling. Guillen was also considered a toolsy SS coming up. There's also a floor, which is very low. There is also risk of failure, which is high.

As for Votto, he did his damage in AA as a 22yo. That's a big difference. If we wanted to come up with a formula for level played, I think it's fairly simple. We'll take PA and multiply by 4 for MLB, 3 for AAA, and 2 for AA then divide by total PA. Let's take a look at average level for Lowrie and Votto for their age 23 season;

Lowrie-2.30
Votto-3.14

Votto is more advanced and more athletic and while his k% is higher, so is his AB/HR. Votto can survive with his K% at it's current level, Lowrie cannot.

My voice scream louder on the negatives than the positves because I'm one of few that's not falling for the flavor of the month in this case. If someone were to try and argue C or even C+, I'd be on the other side of the fence. Usually if the grade is within one of mine, I'm not going to quibble. If it's two off, we definitely see things differently, and I want to know why. This is especially true at the higher levels of the prospect totem poll. My initial reaction was B-. I upped that to B for two reasons; first, he was injured in 2006, so I'll discount the stats from that year. Second, it appears he's improved defensively. From the "reports" I've read and the general feeling I get from following Lowrie, I believe there is a significant chance he can't handle short. You will certianly be able to find at least as many scouts that feel that way as believe he's average defensively. It's also funny that his defense suddenly improved when he was mentioned as a possibility in a Johan trade.

As for the lesson, it's a thing called EV. It's the root of all poker decisions, and close to the root of all prospect decisions. You put a player on a range of oucomes, ceiling, middle, floor, and come up with a value, hopefully tied to a number like MORP or some economic value. If you give a player a certian grade, he should be similar in EV to other players within that grade. This is not the case with Jed Lowrie. He's just not as good as the other A-, and significantly worse than many B+s. He's even behing a B that had just as big a breakout with the bat with a better glove at the same level, age, and position. Lowrie's problem is, he dosen't have a high ceiling to make up for the times he doesn't "make it". He's just not going to make it often enough to compensate and put him in the elite company. Calling Lowrie an A- is the equivalent of calling a turn check raise with TP in a low stakes live NL game. You'll be right sometimes, but in the long run, calling is a -EV play. By that same token, while Michael Young has produced at the level of an A prospect, since he would fail or be marginal far more often than he turned out like he did, to have him rated a B+, B, or even a B-, is going to be far more representative of his true value at the time. You don't go back and look at Michael Young and Dustin Pedroia and say I was wrong, I should have given them A's. No, you've got to take all the guys that failed into account as well. That's a little more difficult to do, because we forget the names of the failures, especially guys with scouting and statistical profiles of Michael Young.