That gives him two years to get promoted.

There are plenty of studies that show the younger you get into the MLB the longer your career is likely to be.

I think he can do it personally but with the way things are around here, chances are more liekly we will trade him before he starts his first MLB game.

We shouldn’t try and pigeon hole these kids to say he SHOULD do this and that.
It should come down to can he hit for average and play a position well enough to get into the lineup without costing you.

Murphy is a fine example of this. If not for Davis or Wright Murphy would be an everyday player right now! There would be no question about it!
And where his glove is suspect now would not be an issue with two years of regular play and one position. Improving your fielding is not that hard to do!

While it is common for people to say we rush and promote too quickly some kids the fact that promoting Lagares (despite his numbers at the time) actually helped him to improve on those numbers.

It does tend to show that looking at the stats from any level are maybe not as relevant as other things that can be seen in the player that merit promoting.

Each Level has it’s own focus and target for training.The lower levels work on Mechanical purity while others focus on other aspects like plate discipline. And while the numbers may not on the outside look good to us it might just be that the kid got what the focus was and showed he was ready to move on as he was good at what they focused on.

Gee once said something similar about his rise though the minors and noted that in one level they focused on mechanics and pitch location and not giving up hits. They didn’t care if you walked the guy just as long as you showed you could nibble and locate. Then when he got promoted it was all about throwing strikes and not walking people. SO he just threw strikes and got promoted again.

If you do what they ask you to do in the Minors they move you up regardless of the numbers it would seem.

And considering Lagares has done better as he moved up it just goes to show the numbers are not really important until you get to AA and AAA. And even then good AAA numbers still does not prove you will have good numbers in the MLB.

At some point the kid has learned all YOU can teach him (that doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t make him better) and it’s time to promote him and give him his shot!

That is more about knowing the player than merely his stat line!

I don’t know what will happen with Lagares in the future but he does appear to be rising to the occassion whenever he is given a bigger challenge and that can only be a good thing!

The ability to stick in CF will be important for Lagares value, if he can’t he’s probably a 4th OF as the article says, but if his play in CF is good enough he could be an every day player at some point.

I’d also like to see him increas his walk rate since it will be hard to sustain his .439 BABIP from AA last year.