His strikeout percentage was what, 21%? Sure, it's not as pretty as
Here's a nice rebuttal of some of the claims against Poythress:
http://fansided.com/baseball/2011/01/27/debunking-myths-about-rich-poyth...
He didn't strike out as much as some other highly-touted players, he's not really old for the level, especially since it was his first full pro season, his BABIP was reasonable so whatever lift he got from the parks and league was not raised by luck, and while better against lefties he didn't embarrass himself against righties.
Again, I'm not saying I think he'll be Sexson. I'm saying if things work out for him that's his template. He could be Brad Nelson as well, no argument. That's why AA is so interesting this year.
BTW, Richie Sexson hit AA at age 21 (3rd full pro season, 4th overall) and posted a .775 OPS with low HRs. He wasn't exactly done as a prospect at that point. Prospects are allowed to grow - if they came into pro ball fully formed this wouldn't be any fun. ;)
Poythress had low-ish power, especially for the league, in the first half of the season. His power went up in the 2nd half, but his walks dipped slightly and his Ks went up. Noise, or meaningful? Dunno. Maybe he has to compromise his eye to drive the ball, load up and anticipate and therefore whiff more when he gets a different pitch than he's expecting.
Maybe he's just still figuring out pro ball. That's perfectly fine. I don't expect him to be a game-changer. He could be a platoon player, or nothing at all.
Or the man could be a valuable piece. Poythress, Chavez and Seager all had monster years in the Cal League for different reasons. We need one of them to be a valuable piece, either in a trade or for our team. This team is not done with this rebuild by ANY means. If Seager can replace Figgins for minimum wage, that's 9 million bucks we'll have to spend on someone else. If Chavez or Poythress can crank 30 HRs in the high minors and the pros, then we've got that RH power bat that we desperately need to even out our lineup.
Fingers crossed that we can start getting some hitters to GROW as hitters as they progress up the farm system. It'd be a nice change.
We're not gonna be drafting #2 again for a while, I hope, so some of our lower draft picks are gonna need to start workin out...
~G
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