re: The ATL Thread: Brew Crew vs Braves 5/25 7:10PM

quote:

---

Lol I'm not shitting on him I'm just saying I think he has a ways to go before I would call him an elite defender. He is no Inciarte or Heyward out there yet, despite what the small sample of numbers may suggest. There's a reason he's moving to LF.

He definitely has the tools to be a very good defender, but like stealing bases, he has a ways to go to reach his ceiling. He's still very young.

---

Yep. His scouting report in the minors that he was a good defender because of his speed, but he takes awful routes, and he's shown that so far this year. His future is definitely in left. Ender is an elite level defender in center, Mallex could be a good defender long term, but he has to improve his routes tremendously.

The one thing that really concerns me offensively is his walks. He was over 10% up until AA, but he dipped to 7.8% last year in Gwinnett, and its gotten even lower in the majors. He has to learn to look at more pitches per plate appearance. If he was qualified, he would be 164th in the majors at 3.50 per at bat. For context, there's only 182 qualified players in the majors.

He's still young, and can definitely get better, but he has a very long way to go before he will be a league average offensive player. He's still on pace for almost 2 WAR this year, which is nice since its all coming from his defense.