If he keeps it up, when should Billy Hamilton be promoted?

[dougdirt]

Is Hamilton faster then Deion Sanders was in his prime?

If not I'm just curious how all those infield hits will play out in the pros. This isn't a knock, I'm just legit wondering whether those infield hits are due to speed or if MLB caliber infielders would gun him down.

Bottom line, his speed is great, and will be a tremendous weapon. But, he needs to be able to play defense (we saw with EE how frustrating offense but no D can be) and he needs to be able to hit (see Sanders, Deion). I hope he turns out, but he seems to me to be the type of prospect with some potential fatal flaws.

There is a difference between the errors that Hamilton makes and the ones EE makes. Hamilton gets to baseballs that other shortstops don't touch. So you can live with his errors. Edwin, without the errors, had merely solid range, so when you added the errors, it wasn't all that good. Put Hamilton on either side of the second base bag and he is among the most rangy players in all of the game.

With Deion Sanders and the speed, I don't think anyone on here can say one way or the other, but I imagine that it is very close either way. As I noted earlier, Hamilton hit just .196 on infield groundballs for Dayton last year. Hamilton isn't going to be getting faster and the defenses and fields will be getting better. His infield hit rate is going to dry up some compared to what it has been in his career. What he has done this year on infield groundballs is just insane. There is no reason to think it will continue or even come close to continuing at anything near the rate it has been for April.

Stat of the day: Billy Hamilton has 61% more steals than the guy in 2nd place in the minor leagues.