We sports types love potential, and it’s easy to see why.
Potential is the expectation of future greatness without the burden of present failure. In our mind’s eye, it’s all of the joy, none of the pain. Idealistic hope minus pesky reality. What’s not to love?
In baseball, folks even take it a step further. Potential isn’t just a love affair, but an addiction. It’s something so prized that anyone with special potential gets a special title.
Prospect.
Respected baseball publications devote so much ink to Prospects that Chris Andersen’s skin is jealous. Baseball America made a cottage industry out of the practice, and the best career move a young player can make is earning a spot on one of BA’s Top Prospect lists. It guarantees him a smoother path to success and more chances if he flops. A 20th-round draft pick who struggles in the minors is cut. A second-round Prospect who struggles is “maturing.”
The machinery baseball clubs devote to finding these Prospects is mind-boggling. They hire phalanxes of scouts and coaches. They fund foreign academies and subsidize statistical consultants who might otherwise have a gig at NASA.
And they do it because the Prospect payoff is enormous. Find a great one and he’ll carry you for years at a bargain salary before his paycheck skyrockets with free agency. Perhaps you’ve heard of these Fielder and Braun fellows?
When you’re the Milwaukee Brewers, Prospects take on even more importance. Financially, you can’t compete with New York and Boston for the best free agents, so you must find the talent when it’s young and relatively cheap. Prospects are your lifeblood. Brewers fans know this all too well.
Well, Brett Lawrie was the Brewers’ prized Prospect. Didn’t matter that scouts said the second baseman played defense like a football player who “tackles groundballs.” Or that he had some questionable Facebook photos making the rounds. Offensively, Lawrie was projected to follow in the footsteps of Braun and Fielder. Fans drooled.
And when word came Sunday night that the Brewers traded Lawrie, many fans screamed. Even though Milwaukee got a solid pitcher in return – Shaun Marcum started the 2010 season as Toronto’s ace – some fans hoped it was a dream.
It was natural and understandable. With great Prospect comes great responsibility. Lawrie’s potential had been touted ever since 2008, when Milwaukee made him its top draft pick. If the Brewers were going to trade him away, surely they had to get more in return than Marcum. Yeah, Marcum went 13-8 with a 3.64 ERA in 2010, and nearly threw 200 innings to boot. But he’s a year shy of 30 with a fastball that tops out at 90. And he’s two years removed from Tommy John elbow surgery.
Lawrie was gonna be great. He had to be, because he’d yet to prove otherwise.
Marcum might be very good, but his problems were already proven. He couldn’t possibly measure up to Lawrie.
But then, who could? Maybe a Cy Young contender? For some, would anything short of that be “getting enough” for Lawrie?
Of course, the last time the Brewers went down this road, a Cy Young contender is exactly what they got. CC Sabathia lifted Milwaukee to the playoffs, but at the expense of top prospect Matt LaPorta. Even then, some believed LaPorta was too high a price to pay for three months of Sabathia.
How has LaPorta done since then? Actually, not very well. The one-time can’t-miss prospect has, well, missed. In 162 games with Cleveland, he’s hit .232 with 19 homers. Maybe he’ll get better, but maybe he won’t.
And that’s the case with Lawrie. Maybe he’ll fulfill everyone’s dreams of greatness, or maybe he’ll miss. We just don’t know, but pesky reality has a pretty good record against idealistic hope.
What we do know is that Marcum makes the Brewers better now, and he may do so well into the future. The Brewers control him for at least two seasons, and early reports are that he’s open to a contract extension. Heck, he even likes the Midwest.
Bottom line is, the Brewers partially filled a glaring need for starting pitching, and they didn’t have to touch the big-league roster to do so. Everyone’s wondered just how good these Brewers could be if only their pitching was good enough. Marcum could be a big piece of that puzzle. Perhaps even a dream piece.
Potentially speaking, of course.
Nutshells
– It’s not often words like humanity and grace highlight the second paragraph of someone’s obituary. When it happens, you know you’ve lost a great one, as Marquette did when Hank Raymonds died Monday morning.
-Just when you think Donald Driver may finally be out of magic, he goes and does something amazing like this. The old man still has it, and the Packers are lucky they still have him.
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