===  Just Settin' Em Up, Coach ===

I/O HQ:  "Strong" hitter whose splits suggest possible platooning in the majors.

Clean swing with good bat speed and significant power to pull side.

Very aggressive, not particularly interested in working counts; this could be exploited in MLB, so possibility that Mangini is a AAAA player. 

Soft hands, good arm but range at 3B may not be acceptable in majors.

..............

I/O The Rest:  Not in Hardball Times' top 12.  Not in Baseball Prospectus' top 20.  Not in Fangraphs' top 10.  Mangini ranks #16 at Prospect Insider.  That's ahead of Liddi, Choi, Poythress, Wilhelmsen and Halman. 

..............

Mangini's Results:  Mangini was a big-time college player, drafted #1-supplemental, who hit the M's minor-league system and looked very lukewarm his first 2-and-a-half seasons.  

No, "lukewarm" isn't the right term; he looked cruddy.  His first full season out of the ACC, he slugged only .431 at High Desert, A ball.  With a weak EYE.  

College World Series teams get argued for playing A+ baseball in the postseason -- that's before you ever talk about moving from college to the minors.  And here's first-rounder Mangini two years later, looking like org filler in the low minors.

Lesson learned:  some guys need lots of AB's to jell.

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As we so often nag ... you can't get too up or too down on a minor leaguer just because of 400 at-bats.  The Mariners did what they so often do:  they took a player they believed in, and reacted to his weak performance by promoting him.

Mangini, promoted to AAA, suddenly started looking like a 1st-rounder, hitting .300-and-plenty with a pro-rated 45 doubles and 25 homers.  In a big park.

Which brings us to right now.

......................

We remember Ichiro's first spring training... ten days in, Lou grumps at Ichiro, "Hey, can you pull a ball?"

"Just setting them up."

Al Martin, sitting on the bench nearby, related that he wanted to smash Ichiro's face in... what arrogance...

Lou asks Ichiro to show him a pulled line drive.  Ichiro goes out that day and smokes three frozen-rope hits to right... remember that?

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SSI Crunch on Mangini