Is there luck when driving balls to the gaps with regularity? I have seen every Frazier PA and there are rarely bloop or dribblers off his bat that go for hits. Is the luck theory that hitting it where they ain't isn't a skill?
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A little more love from ESPN with some comments from Barry Larkin: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:8312666
I always knew that Frazier would be a good clubhouse guy. I always noticed that when I was around him. Everyone loved Frazier and just had that great personality to help make a clubhouse work.
You can see that during games too. He's always grinning about something. He's jawing at the catchers and the umps when he's hitting and he's cutting up with BP when he's manning first base. He just seems like a normal guy who realizes what a great job he has playing a game for a living. I think he keeps the team loose. Every time he comes to bat, I find myself smiling...of course that may be more because of his hitting than his attitude. ;)
ROY Viewer poll on MLB network had Frazier blow everyone away with 57%.
The bolded part is SO IMPORTANT. Good point kal. It's understandable that people try to project, using minor league numbers (performance), in order to try and get a feel (gauge) what a player may do at the big league level. What else can one go on? If one wants to use the terminology "educated guess" that's fine, but it's nowhere near an exact science. Pretty incomplete IMO. The whole purpose of the various levels of minor league is about progressive development and getting to the next level. It's about taking a raw, yet talented and athletic kid and refining that potential that is already there.
Career-wise, Todd Frazier had pretty solid minor league totals. Now what does that tell me personally? That he has nothing left to prove at that level, and his next "test" is in the majors. He's done everything he could to prepare himself for that "test".
And so far, given the opportunity, he's passing that test with flying colors. That's really all that matters to me at this point. It doesn't necessarily mean he will continue to do so; but it certainly doesn't mean - simply by looking at minor league numbers - that at some point he's going to "come back to earth" or regress either. I just don't put that much stock in minor league numbers.
We can run down a gauntlet of ballplayers, either way, who have had either stellar minor league numbers, or even average careers, who washed out when it came to the bigs, or went on to success.
It's like trying to predict the weather.