What's going on with Brent Brewer?

[Never Outhustled]

After a 449 OPS in June (ouch), he has a 748 OPS in July.

[igor67]

2nd round picks are pretty valuable, but there rate of making the majors is a lot below the first round rate. I don't have exact percentages, but I certainly think it is reasonable to take a big swing for the fences on a guy who could be special even if he has a low probability of making it. You certainly don't want to do it all the time, but I agree with Patrick you have to keep taking your shots to have a chance at the All-stars.

[hauser42]

Colby is right with the Bill Hall comparison.

 

I'm not a huge Bill Hall fane, but he was drafted as a great athlete and I think rushed a bit to the bigs. He could have used sometime to work on patience at the plate. When Brewer was drafted and I read about him, first thought was he could be a another Bill Hall in the future. Brewer has time to decelop as this team doenst need to rush him with the depth this team has right now.

[TheCrew07]

I like Colby's post, don't necessarily agree with his comps, but I like the post.

[mothershipconnection]

Umm, if we are judging which sports athletes should be playing by the highest paid player in that sport, why aren't baseball players playing golf instead? I guess they had to settle for baseball because golf was just too hard for them, it involves too much walking around.

 

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It's so much harder to make an Olympic track and field team than it is to make a baseball team that it's laughable to even compare the two. There are 750+ (because of callups and injuries) jobs available every year in baseball, compared to 70 spots every 4 years in U.S. Olympic track and field. In addition, the field of possible track athletes includes basically anyone who ever played any sport. If a guy was especially fast or strong but mainly played football or basketball or soccer or wrestled, I guarantee the coaches had him go out for track as well.

 

You can just as easily make the case that pro baseball, football and basketball players aren't good enough to make the track team as you can the opposite point.

 

Yeah, not real sure where you found anything to get snippy about. In fact, I'm pretty much convinced that you took what I was saying, added a couple of paragraphs, an "ummm", and an "it's laughable to even compare the two."

 

What I said was that the world's best athletes often aren't as good at the mainstream sports as they are in their arena. Simply being super-athletic doesn't generalize all over the range of sports one can play. Michael Jordan was both one of the best athletes in his sport's history and a failed baseball player.

[kramnoj]

MJ hit .202, but I actually think that is impressive for a guy who hadn't played organized baseball in over a decade. He also had 51 BB in 436 ABs, which is a better walk rate than some prospects. He stole 30 bases against 18 CS, which obviously isn't normally good, but again I think is impressive for a guy who was doing it almost entirely on instinct and natural speed.

 

I followed his season fairly closely in daily boxscores, and if IIRC he actually walked a fair amount to begin the season, but the fans that would come to games would boo, because they came to see him hit. He swung more to please his fans, which lowered both his average and walk rate.

 

I actually think he could have made it as a major league outfielder if he had dedicated himself to that instead of basketball, but not near the level that he reached in hoops.

[JoeHova]

What I said was that the world's best athletes often aren't as good at the mainstream sports as they are in their arena. Simply being super-athletic doesn't generalize all over the range of sports one can play. Michael Jordan was both one of the best athletes in his sport's history and a failed baseball player.

Yeah, shocking that guys are better at the sport they've devoted their lives to than they are at others. Your point seemed to be that anybody who isn't playing one of the main 3-4 money sports is inherently incapable of playing them, when that doesn't follow at all. That's what I took umbrage with.

 

And I agree with Kramnoj, a 31 year old guy hitting over .200 in AA after not playing baseball since high school is pretty impressive. It may have suited the agendas of some people to point to that as an epic failure, but plenty of guys who are drafted in the top 10 rounds never even make it to AA. Sure he sucked if you remove the context but there were 7 prospects on his team that had an OPS within 100 points of him and he had the 2nd most steals on the team (albeit at a poor percentage). Actually, he was 5th in the Southern League in steals that year and 10th in walks.

[Never Outhustled]

My boy Brent Brewer with a big night tonight, 3-5 with a double, a homer, and a sac fly. His OPS in August is now higher than July. To put into perspective what he's accomplished, he is just the 2nd 20 year old Brewers prospect to have a 700+ OPS month in Brevard County. I mention this because I think he's unfairly been compared to players at the same level as him, despite the fact that he has far less baseball experience than his peers.

He is still a terrific prospect, with a huge ceiling, and a floor that's being raised almost daily.

[agent39]

He looks amazing out there. I was there for both home runs this week, in addition to a couple of the best defensive plays Ive seen all year. If he can keep it together he can be special.

[dadofandrew]

Brewer is doing fine for his age, people forget that when looking at stats and future potential. He's a baby, he'll be fine. He has 2-3 years before he needs to even be at AAA.

[homer]

Reminds me of Bill Hall in quite a few ways.

[zelouswheeler4prez]

i don't exactly agree with the draft the best player available in brents case, because he is so toolsy, its really up to him developing, and we'd be praising jack z if he was doing better. He's a young guy, and he's got a lot of time to develop. (he's also been hitting the ball quite well lately) I still enjoy watching him, because as its been said, its either star or bust, and he's been a mystery so far.