http://seedlingstostars.com/2012/02/...nted-analysis/What we have here, then, is a classic mixed bag. Rodriguez clearly has some big flaws and a long way to go, but he’s also incredibly young and shows signs of life in just about every area of the game already. It’s easy to run with either of those facets—on one hand, you can say “He’s not even producing in Low-A, so how can we see him as a MLB’er?” and on the other, you can say “He didn’t fall on his face against much older players and has great raw talent, so he’s a potential superstar.”
I thought it would be an interesting exercise to take a look at similar cases in the recent past, so I came up with a list of 25 players that were in Low-A at age 18 and had the same sort of passable but not outstanding results. Not all of them are great comparables for Rodriguez, as I’ll explain, but hopefully, going through this list in my typical exhaustive fashion will shed some light on the possibilities for a player of this (very) general profile.