Look at Ray Ray Run

I never have said it doesnt matter. Not once. Please don't misrepresent my words. It does not make as much of a difference as the majority of you believe. I had about 1000 coaches, both from teams and my own personal coaching, and development is more so on the player than any coach or organization. Its not as if the Sox system was full of Frank Thomas' that the team sabotaged with "bad development." My entire argument has been that it is much more likely the Sox have been poor at drafting and evaluating talent than it is that they are drafting good players and not developing them correctly. I don't think the Sox created Tyler flowers, but if you're going to say the Sox cant develop catchers with no proveable data to back it then I'm certainly going to present Tyler flowers as a counter point.

They took a guy with extreme framing and mobility issues behind the plate and turned him into a + defensive catcher. The organization he "went too" was the same one whom he came from originally in which he had big defensive questions.

This is a weird take given that the Sox developed Tyler flowers from an incompetent back stop to a + backstop.

The bat is just a bonus with McCann.

Catching metrics are about as reliable as Adam Engel with an at bat in a big moment - especially this early in a season. McCann has been, by most accounts, one of the better defensively catchers in baseball this year. A catchers defensive impact is so difficult to measure. It is one of the few things in which I'll actually accept "eye tests" from scouts on.

He had a monster summer and then reclassed late. He was PG's #1 junior in the country following the summer and before his reclass. So scouts didn't have a lot of time to see him or scout him.

If you look at video of his swing in 2016 on YouTube and the one from this past season and at showcases the changes are pretty nuts. His numbers two years ago at PG were average and then last year they were off the charts. Incredible athlete, quick swing with huge power. Edit: this guy doesnt know what to do with his hands while he talks. Edit 2: a little more on the kid Traditional stats also show this: In 31 at-bats against top-500 talent, he hit .538 with two home runs and a .613 on-base percentage. “He just can kind of do it all,” Sabers said. “He’s got the five-tool potential.” Despite the talent and apparent readiness of Fletcher, Sabers speculated he wouldn’t be picked as high if he is in the 2019 draft as he would in 2020. Scouts would have to “scramble” to get inventory of his abilities as Fletcher tries to prove he’s better than some top 2019 talent. “Quite a few other (2019) position prospects, just at the high school level, have kind of established themselves with scouts,” Sabers said. “To jump ahead of those guys would be a little tough at this point.” Sabers thinks he could be an early-round pick in 2019. If Fletcher were to be in the 2020 draft, though, Sabers thinks a big summer could boost him to the top half of the first round.

I heard that one mid game too in a previous broadcast. I thought they were talking about this year but I could be mistaken.

Beat me to it. Yeah, I heard that and now I wonder if they came out of it good - kid is a monster. He even said it was an interesting one.

They just asked hostetler about how many states he visited this year for scouting... he said almost all of them.. we even went to Thornton Maine to see a high school game. So he went to see Fletcher. What I wonder is if fletcher was the one with the shit attitude they were passing on, or if they like him so much they sent hostetler personally and may be looking at him in the 3rdish.

Lol he just admitted he went to personally see Trejyrn Fletcher this year with his trip to Thornton Maine

Actions speak louder than words or lineage when it comes to Hotetler.

Yes, to me Vaughn is the clear cut #2 prospect in this draft, but Adley has that catcher risked attached to him which always worries me. Still, I think they are clearly above the rest.

The hilarious thing is Buster was better than Rutschman but somehow Buster fell in the draft a little; not much. Wieters was always overrated. The concern with Adley is that he is not MLB ready as Buster; Buster was a better catcher despite only playing it for 2 years as well. That development time is concerning for any catcher. Catching is so difficult to quantify, and offensive skills diminish faster than any other position. Catchers take longer to develop... Wieters being a switch hitter made him no better.

ding ding ding

I'm not sure anyone is stating that Vaughn's floor is a 1000 OPS. His floor is around an 850 OPS imo, but I am high on Vaughn and a big believer in his outcomes. I've never seen college production like this with the new bats.

Vaughn a better hit tool than Bryant and Vaughn's numbers are actually better considering that he played in the Pac-12 and Bryant played in the WCC. You cant really use Frank's college numbers as a comparison because Frank got to use the old bats. If Vaughn was using the old bats he'd have like a 1600 ops.

There are 20 hitters in MLB right now that are right around 400 or more. I understand your reluctance but this is also the problem scouts are having... that's where Vaughn projects and it's up to the person on whether they want to accept that or not.

If Vaughn develops as expected, he's slashing 300/420/550+.

Yes, but it won't work. Vaughn makes Hoskins look like Rickey Henderson defensively when it comes to athleticism. Vaughn just isn't a great athlete despite having an incredible and athletic swing.

The guy has 85 XBH's in 156 college games. ? People didn't think that would happen with the new bats. Adley has been an AMAZING college player and hitter.. and he has 70 in 180 games.

Vaughn will not be able to move from first base.

His hit tool grades higher than every power hitting prospect not named Vlad Jr.

Standard normalization of college stats based on key rates - similarly to what ZIPS would do. The article actually discusses how Vaughn has been a nightmare for analytics people because he falls outside of the SD for every college hitter in the system... so when you project his outcomes by using a standard college/mlb statistical regression you get the numbers above... (I'm sure they vary based on analysis) and if you heavily weight BB% (which in Vaughns case you should because he's so high on the spectrum that his college walk numbers actually do help us project his MLB outcomes) You actually bump those numbers up to: 254/378/514 Most people working the analytical baseball world will have a hard time accepting that slash line for someone who has never left college. Hence why teams are searching for reasons to discredit the number and opposed to accepting it. Vaughn is a fucking animal.

I would take Frank Thomas over Francisco Lindor... also, this is a reach comparison imo. Abrams is raw, unpolished and has an immense amount of development to do to reach that level. Its certainly possible. Some people would argue that Vaughn is already one of the best hitters on the planet and will only develop further. If Vaughn didnt get any better, he projects around 248/365/510 right now as a big leaguer. Getting Vaughn to develop further into a top 5 hitter is much more likely based on his current production than getting a high school SS and developing him into a top 5 SS. It's not dumb or outrageous to compare Vaughn to HOF talent first baseman because by all accounts, through this age, he ranks better than the vast majority of them.