Getting close to time to close this thread. This guy is the same age as many college draftees, and despite his $3.9 million bonus a few years back, he'd likely be drafted in the 15th round range at the highest.
He'll be 21 next year and has no apparent physical projection left (to be fair to him, he clearly does work hard on that front; dude fills out a uniform). Good hands and a strong arm, but there are far too many mistakes even for a 20-year-old at SS. He cost the team 3 outs on defense today and was only charged with one error (yanked a short throw from SS about 15 feet wide while making a garden-variety off-balance throw; threw a literal grounder to first again on a short throw after a nice pickup up the middle; dropped a throw on a stolen base where the guy was toast).
That's not the problem. The problem is that there is zero possibility of this guy ever hitting. There's not a mechanical or approach problem to fix. He just can't hit: poor pitch recognition, poor swing decisions, poor results when he does swing, no matter whether it was a good pitch to hit or not. He had a "hit" today: it was a bunt that a bad-fielding pitcher lobbed off target to 1B and he got there before the dude got back to the bag. That wasn't the only time they had him bunt with runners on, and neither was a particularly good bunt.
Nobody who is this bad at the plate at this level at this age has more than trivial prospect value remaining.
