Brett Lawrie to White Sox

[jjkoestler]

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/12/white-sox-to-acquire-brett-lawrie.html

[LouisEly]

If this guy is such a valuable asset, why is he on his fourth organization at the age of 25?

[SRB]

lol at this sentence in the MLBTR article:

 

Of course, Lawrie has always been regarded as a high quality defender.

 

#OnlyBrewersFansRemember

[jerichoholicninja]

lol at this sentence in the MLBTR article:

 

Of course, Lawrie has always been regarded as a high quality defender.

 

#OnlyBrewersFansRemember

 

I don't get it. Isn't it true? Or is this supposed to be about Lawrie telling the organization which position he was going to play?

[StearnsFTW]

If this guy is such a valuable asset, why is he on his fourth organization at the age of 25?

 

Because he's not. And, yes, I know you know that.

[MrTPlush]

Brett Lawrie is a solid 2 WAR player...do you know what the White Sox sent out there last year?

[DHonks]

well, I stand by my prediction from a few years ago:

 

5/10/12:

"Given what we know about Lawrie, I could see him playing on several teams, having occasional great years, like Gary Sheffield. We know from the comments that he thinks the universe revolves around him."

 

9/28/13:

"I still think he's going to wind up with a career like a poor man's Sheffield. He'll have some very good years, but he'll be traded over and over, whenever he starts to complain about teams not winning and being treated poorly."

 

In fairness to Sheffield, his overall career really took off and he had many productive seasons, especially as he aged and matured. Perhaps the same will happen with Lawrie

[Fear The Chorizo]

I would call him more of a poor man's Milton bradley, because he is nowhere near the talent that Sheffield was. Talented, but someone teams seem to not want in their dugout for very long. To this point, Lawrie has shown no signs of making brewer fans regret the trade that brought back marcum...that is saying alot, because while marcum gave the brewers a great 2/3 of a season in 2011, he fizzled down the stretch that year.

[MKE81]

This board gets more and more comical. Lawrie a poor man's Sheffield. Too funny. Sheffield was a 2x All-Star before he turned 25. His career BA is around 20pts below Lawrie's career OBP at this point. Lawrie is exactly who the Brewers thought he'd be. An average every day player and an ego maniac (love when people strictly cite a player's WAR as if that's the be-all-end-all regarding a player's worth). Maybe Lawrie does mature with age. But he still won't come close to sniffing a Sheffield career. He's a poor man's Cirillo at this point

[1992casey]

I wouldn't use the Cirillo comparison because Jeff is a likable guy, and by all accounts, he was a good teammate.

 

I think that if you're using "poor man's" whomever to describe someone, there's quite a bit of leeway. I think the critical comparison is that Sheffield and Bradley were both continual sources of distraction (putting it kindly). "Poor man's" simply puts Lawrie somewhere below (anywhere below) these guys talent-wise.

[CheezWizHed]

lol at this sentence in the MLBTR article:

 

Of course, Lawrie has always been regarded as a high quality defender.

 

#OnlyBrewersFansRemember

 

I don't get it. Isn't it true? Or is this supposed to be about Lawrie telling the organization which position he was going to play?

 

I remember watching the guy play 2B for the 'rattlers. Easy ground ball to his side, he barely moved, didn't get in front of it, did an Ole' with his glove and walked out to RF to take the cut-off from the RFer.

[homer]

But dude can Edward 40 Hands with the best of em.

[CheezWizHed]

Try to steal his beer and that is when he REALLY gets defensive...

[I Heart Brewers]

Guys, he's a poor man's Bill Romanowski.

[RobDeer 45]

Another Doug Melvin win?

[SRB]

lol at this sentence in the MLBTR article:

 

Of course, Lawrie has always been regarded as a high quality defender.

 

#OnlyBrewersFansRemember

 

I don't get it. Isn't it true? Or is this supposed to be about Lawrie telling the organization which position he was going to play?

 

When we traded him he was a bat-first player with no position and huge questions about his defense. To the extent that it's comical to think of him as a glove-first 2B/3B. Unless I'm completely mistaken...

[Boomer5]

He is a perfect example of what we DON'T know in a prospect. We can measure most every possible ability on the field but we dont receive a lot of reports on the man himself and his character. When we see a transaction we tend to focus on those because we simply dont know enough.

 

In the case of Lawrie, the guy was a train wreck once we learned the truth about him.

 

A big part of his fairly high WAR apparently came from a weird anomaly in zone rating when he plays 3rd, and when adjusted, he is what he thought he was, to paraphrase Denny Green.

[homer]

http://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/no-slug/585410266703df6c852142f79a174826.jpg

[sveumrules]

When we traded him he was a bat-first player with no position and huge questions about his defense. To the extent that it's comical to think of him as a glove-first 2B/3B. Unless I'm completely mistaken...

 

You got it, SRB. Lawrie, to me is a great example of how imperfect prospecting is and why it's funny to me that people get so caught up on something like a "top 30 organizational prospect". Lawrie was the 16th overall pick in his draft. Following that he was ranked 81st, 59th and 40th by Baseball America on their top 100 lists with a reputation as a typical Brewers bat first, no glove/position prospect. This is a guy that's been watched by all the scouts, numerous times over many years. He gets to the big leagues and outside of 171 plate appearances in his first season he has been a league averagish bat with plus defense at 2B/3B, pretty much the opposite of what everyone was told to expect. If all the scouts and listmakers can be so wrong about one of the most watched guys in the minors, how much can they possibly know about guys farther down the organizational lists?

[homer]

I feel like it's really hard to fall off a top 100 list once you're on but very difficult to get on it if you don't start out top 100 when you are drafted/acquired.