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Blash was always an interesting attempt at a ball-player.  He had a transcript issue that cost him his scholarship, moved to a Juco then he got drafted by the Rangers (ha!  Another hitter stolen from the Rangers) but didn't like the offer, then got kicked off his Juco team.
Which is how he fell to the 8th round - maturity concerns.  But the kid runs like a thoroughbred, has a great arm, easy athleticism, and a decent  Cammy-like swing with good batspeed.  The questions were whether he could stop hitting so many dang groundballs (hasn't yet) and if he could develop a batting eye (seems to have exploded on the scene doing so early in the year).
Nobody's gonna want to hear a Halman comp stylistically, but Halman had a high GB% too and didn't up his LD% til a few years into his career while being a raw, athletic player. The difference is in batting eye.  If I could give you a Greg Halman prospect with 120 Ks a year and 80 walks, would you take it?  Considering he was the #1 prospect in our system a while back without that sort of eye...
I would run screaming to the bank to cash that in.  Right now he's on pace (I know, I said a bad word) for 101 Ks and 135 (!!) walks in 550 plate appearances. Blash hasn't shown that kind of power yet, but he's got the frame for some thump. Jabari's an infant at the game of baseball who's had just a touch of pro instruction and looks to be absorbing it well.  He is doing more than I could have possibly hoped for at this point.  I just wanted him to do a Michael Saunders/Alex Liddi climb into the system, take some time to assimilate.
He's got two dozen more hurdles to clear on his way up the minor league ladder, but he put an asterisk next to his name in a hurry.  Maybe it's just a Peguero-like great month, but it'd be an awfully weird way to luck into a good month.  Most guys don't post a 1.3 batting eye and then forget how to take a walk later.  We'll see. He's definitely made me curious.
And the comment about March was that Walker was "interesting, control issues, far away from the bigs" in March.  It is now June 1 and we've got to consider whether they want to push him to the next league at the All-Star break already.  That's some handful of starts.  I hope they don't rush him - but I also hope he makes a big push for it with performance.
~G

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