Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
Regarding Starling:
Painful to look at the guys taken in the next ten picks after him:
Archie Bradley (tearing it up, though Bundy got all the attention from that draft)
Francisco Lindor (Mondesi, just 2 years olders)
Javier Baez (exploded last summer. SS with big-time bat)
Jose Fernandez (Cuban emigre is already in the majors)
The Royals were linked pretty heavily to Bradley before the draft.
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Yeah, Baez and Fernandez look especially painful. I think Fernandez is going to become an 'every start watch' for me this year. It's uncommon to find a guy with that kind of easy velocity that can sustain it for 90 pitches, command it
and pair it with a knee-buckling breaking ball. Felix Hernandez seems like a lazy comp, but I'll be damned if I can't avoid making it.
That said, Starling
still has Mike Trout level tools. It's hard to really bang on the Royals for taking him; he's a generational athlete that is going to take more work than most thought to pull it together.
You do hate to see scouting reports bombing his pitch recognition, though. That takes a
looooooong time to click and is the area that's least likely to come together. Apart from "often finds himself tits deep in mounds of cocaine arranged haphazardly on random exotic dancers", there's not a much more cringe inducing line to read for a young player.