ESPN the magazine predicts the AL east

[Stotle]

And that was in direct response to you mentioning that people around here were treating Machado in the same fashion as some are treating Bogaerts now. My point was only that OH members, O's fans, other commentators, etc. had much more justification to believe that Machado had established himself as a + major league player. All I was saying is that I am not ready to hop on board with Bogaerts > Hardy or any form of anointing him as a + in the Red Sox column of a Sox-Orioles comparison. Not sure why you bring up my O's fandom as you are the one who initially introduced Machado to this discussion.

Kind of going in circles here. My point was nothing more than there isn't a substantive difference between Machado entering his first full year and Bogaerts entering his first full year. Your claim that Machado established himself as a solid Major Leaguer in his partial season is, in my opinion, not convincing statistically (score sheet at MLB level and MiLB track record) or anecdotally (what we saw on the field).

Reference to fandom was simply assigning a rational reason for you watching Machado regularly and (I assume, perhaps wrongly) not watching Bogaerts regularly.