G goes with a Greg Vaughn comp:

Still, I do think he's got some Greg Vaughn in him, and I wouldn't turn down that by ANY means.  I could very much see a .260/.340/.500 hitter out of Poythress.  That puts him right in line with Vaughn and some other huge guy named Sexson as a dangerous right-handed power bat that's probably somewhere short of elite (especially in Greg's case).

Funny you should bring Vaughn up... in the early 1990's, Bill James comp'ed every then-Mariner to another ML player, and the Jay Buhner comp at that time was Greg Vaughn...

The career arcs became eerily similar, with both players being good hitters from ages 23-27 and then exploding into 40+ homer beasts once they neared 30.

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Will cheerfully agree that an ML #4-5 batter like Vaughn is a more appropriate hope for Poythress than are the HOF templates that we brought up earlier.

If everything breaks right for Poythress, a Vaughn-like career is the ceiling for which he'd be shooting, no doubts there.

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As we comp Poythress to the Hurt / McGwire templates, there are degrees of ability within that player template .... the similarities remain --- > huge natural power, very compact route to the ball, ability to overpower the ball to any field despite being quick to the pitch, etc.

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G-Money follows on,

Currently I have Chavez ahead by a nose in that race, but Poythress is stayin' with him.  Coming out of college they said he had one tool: Power.  His bat was too slow (Olerud had the slowest batspeed on his Toronto teams, btw, for all the batspeed-trumps-all afficianados out there), his eye wasn't great (holding at .5 with an acceptable K rate so far), he wasn't a good athlete (though he did play some 3B in college) and being that big with a huge strikezone he'd never hit for average.

That's a comment I've never seen before, and worth a book in itself...

Olerud's glassy-smooth swing *did* lack quickness.  The things he did to compensate are an interesting discussion...

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ALL the national guys have Chavez way ahead of Poythress, so G is more bullish on RP than they, but SSI is calling foul on all of the (elsewhere) Poythress modesty.  Rich is an adopt-a-player for me.

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Justin sez,

I'm a Poythress fan - lot of great things said about him prior to the draft, and he's starting to live up to them. If he was in Boston or New York, people would be demanding Top 100 recognition for him.

There's a bit of a power outage in the post-steroids era, and I've noticed teams seem to be moving away from the illusion that a .250/.375/.550 line indicates a selfish player who needs to be punished. I like Poythress's chances of getting an early opportunity more than the Buckys and Custs of the past.

Hmmmm.... 

Seemed to me also that there was a simple distaste for Poythress, from the establishment, and wonder if that plays in...

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Top 100 comment -- yeah, and consider this:  what has Poythress done wrong?  As with Choi, what has Poythress done so far to set any ceiling?

His career to date could fit into Manny Ramirez' line, or into a lot of HOF'ers.

We say Vaughn, and that's plenty optimistic enough -- a $1M Greg Vaughn would be a big part of a pennantwinner.  But like we say, Poythress is swinging the bat as well, age and level, as were Hurt and McGwire.

I think that the world is missing something on Poythress:  his quickness to the ball, and his immediate production straight out of college.  SSI is backing this guy, with gusto.

Cheerio,

Dr D