MacPhail's negotiations - confusing results

[Fairfax Bird]

So, you think he is ready despite being completely overmatched in his September call up? His OPS was horrendous. Granted it was a small sample size, but he hardly looks ready. I think he is at least a year away from the majors and perhaps two from putting up a good OPS at the ML level.

Nick Markakis. He was completely overmatched in his first couple of months. He figured it out. I think Maybin is in that caliber of ball player and will figure it out. Markakis put up a good OPS in his first year and got better in his second. It would not surprise me at all to see Maybin around a .650 OPS for two months and finish the season around .750. I venture with his plate discipline that he will do better in his first real go around than Bruce will in his.

[Sports Guy]

Markakis produced a 993 OPS in 150ish plate appearances the previous season in AA PRIOR to struggling that year. Maybin has never sniffed AA or a 993 OPS. Also, Markakis came on like gangbusters his last year before he got to the majors. Maybin might do that, but I think it is REALLY optimistic to project him to do that and use Markakis as a comp. Maybin may explode like Markakis, but projecting that is quite a leap IMO.

Maybin had 20 AA ab's:

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/M/Cameron-Maybin.shtml

[Fairfax Bird]

Markakis produced a 993 OPS in 150ish plate appearances the previous season in AA PRIOR to struggling that year. Maybin has never sniffed AA or a 993 OPS. Also, Markakis came on like gangbusters his last year before he got to the majors. Maybin might do that, but I think it is REALLY optimistic to project him to do that and use Markakis as a comp. Maybin may explode like Markakis, but projecting that is quite a leap IMO.

Maybin hit 4 homers in 20 ABs at AA and was crushing the ball when the Tigers called him up. Why they did it is anyone's guess. But he was horrible in 48 ABs. If he had been left in AA he might have had the same or even better results than Markakis. He can't be faulted that the organization made a mistake and jumped the gun. Look at Markakis and Maybin at the same age and Maybin is the one with much better stats.

[Frobby]

Right and Markakis exploded on the scene. As I wrote earlier, I guess you can plan on him exploding like that but I wouldn't want to bet on it. I bet I can find 10 counter examples of players that performed like him at high A at 20 that took multiple years to reach the majors. He may explode. I've never seen the guy. Maybe he is that good. I will admit that I just noticed the steals and percentage. I agree that his stats look very good. I agree that he is likely to become an extremely good player.

I'm just saying there is some doubt about him simply because he hasn't really played about high A ball and/or it may take some time for him to get to the pros for good. That wouldn't do it for me if I was trading a future HOF like Cabrera. As I wrote before, they got value, I just think they could have gotten either more value or more security.

I bolded a sentence I consider pretty key. We're arguing about a guy most of us have never seen, and none of us have seen regularly.