Super dark horse candidate for Opening Day starting CF in 2024?

[Trov]

That is about as dark of a horse you can have.  The only way it happens is if he just crushes camp, several options ahead of him get injured.  Walker Jenkins has a better shot than E-Rod in my opinion, and he has very little chance as well. 

[nicksaviking]

This sounds reasonable, assuming E-Rod never records an out during spring training and has a 1.000 batting average. Otherwise this sounds minimally more ridiculous than him staring the season as the opening day CF in St. Paul. Nobody skips Wichita. Players are lucky if they don't have to stay there a full calendar year no matter how well they hit.

But heck, if he's raking and is the story of spring training, I'd be more than happy to indulge in the conversation.

[nicksaviking]

Not sure what happened here, but there are enough threads to discuss Sonny Gray and Kenta Maeda. I've hidden a boatload of posts, please stay on topic.

[SoDakTwinsFan]

On 11/20/2023 at 9:44 PM, lecroy24fan said:

Looking at the title of the thread I was expecting it to be Buxton.

Beat me to it.

[jkcarew]

Clueless. Not a good look for Fangraphs. 

[tony&rodney]

33 minutes ago, jkcarew said:

Clueless. Not a good look for Fangraphs. 

I have not seen him play in person. Have you? If you have, I'm just curious what you think.

As I stated above Longenhagen does go out and see guys and he is pretty well respected in the industry.

I too find it very hard to believe and I have watched him play many dozens of times via milb.com.

[jkcarew]

On 11/28/2023 at 10:09 PM, tony&rodney said:

I have not seen him play in person. Have you? If you have, I'm just curious what you think.

As I stated above Longenhagen does go out and see guys and he is pretty well respected in the industry.

I too find it very hard to believe and I have watched him play many dozens of times via milb.com.

He’s someone who was good at the high-A level at age 20. That’s great. But it’s not like he dominated. Struggled with K’s…improved as the season progressed to get his K rate just under 30% by year end.

My sense from watching him on MiLB is that the defense would probably play ok. But the bat isn’t ready for major league pitching. Also, he has some moments where it seems like there could be some maturity issues. (None of this is a knock on him…he’s 20)

To take that player and have him jump all the way to every-day center-fielder in the majors, would be something the 2021 Detroit Tigers might have done. It’s a total tank/rebuild move. Maybe, Longenhagen thinks that the payroll issues are such that the FO will be willing (or ‘forced’) to go directly from competing in 2023 to a tank/reset in 2024?