[Brutus]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

Maybe we will never find out, but I can certainly envision Hamilton coming up and being Michael Bourn like for his first handful of years (the .681 OPS in his first four seasons version, not this years version) and fans not really falling in love with that, infield hits or not. I talk to a lot of people about Hamilton, average fans wise, and they all are just absolutely bonkers type of giddy over him. Maybe I am reading into what they think he is going to be, but I get the feeling that they think he is in his prime Jose Reyes in the making and I just don't see that happening. And if that is their perception and he turns out to be a much lesser version of that, well, I can see them making him the whipping boy.

I can't speak for others, but I wasn't very high on him until this year. The speed is nice, but it can only take a player so far. It's when the guy started getting on base at such a high clip that I started coming around on him. And it's the walk rate that has me up and taking notice because that leads me to believe, coupled with an expected high xBABIP going forward, he'll get on base a lot.