Abner Abreu

[Prosecutor]

I just noticed Abner Abreu was released by the Braves in June. He hit .207 in A ball in 58 at-bats. It looks like he's done.

In 2010 this site had him ranked as the #5 overall prospect in the organization. He was compared to Vladimir Gurerrero in terms of raw tools, IIRC.

Just goes to show how inexact a science this stuff is.

By the way, Nick Hagadone was #3 that year and Jason Knapp was #6. A lot changes in two years.

In fact, if you look back at the 2007 rankings, only one of the top 30 prospects from that year ever had any significant major league success - Asdrubal Cabrera. The second most successful from that group - Tony Sipp. It's amazing how bad our farm system was five years ago. I just hope it's better now.

[GhostofTedCox]

Sorry to hear that. At the time, I thought it was a risky move to trade him for Fukodome.

[OhioBaseball]

I liked Abreu's upside, and not saying it's you, but comping his tools to Vladimir Guerrero's (one of the greatest RF's of our generation) is irresponsible.

[Prosecutor]

I liked Abreu's upside, and not saying it's you, but comping his tools to Vladimir Guerrero's (one of the greatest RF's of our generation) is irresponsible.

From the 2010 scouting report on Abreu:

Some scouts have compared him to a young Vladimir Guerrero in the minors not only because of the promising power bat, but because of the high level of defense he plays in right field.

When Guerrero was in the minors he was not one of the greatest RF's of our generation, he was just another diamond in the rough. I don't think it's irresponsible for a scout to say that Abreu reminds him of Guerrero before Guerrero became Guerrero.

[OhioBaseball]

I liked Abreu's upside, and not saying it's you, but comping his tools to Vladimir Guerrero's (one of the greatest RF's of our generation) is irresponsible.

From the 2010 scouting report on Abreu:

Some scouts have compared him to a young Vladimir Guerrero in the minors not only because of the promising power bat, but because of the high level of defense he plays in right field.

When Guerrero was in the minors he was not one of the greatest RF's of our generation, he was just another diamond in the rough. I don't think it's irresponsible for a scout to say that Abreu reminds him of Guerrero before Guerrero became Guerrero.

Minor league prospect coverage is way different today than it was back when Guerrero was in the minors, but he absolutely was a top prospect, even if he didnt get the publicity that the Jurickson Profars of today receive. The guy had more extra base hits than he struck out and batted no less than .333 in full-season ball. He was an excellent prospect that may not have given the coverage he otherwise would have had he been a prospect today, with tons of coverage on the internet and even by major news sources. As a 21 year old in AA, he struck out only 42 times but hit 59 extra base hits. That's ridiculously good.

Abreu was nothing nearly as close in talent or performance. I liked his potential but he couldn't even hit a decent breaking ball. Comparing him to Guerrero was clearly exaggerating his talents, which is pervasive in minor league prospect coverage today. Most prospects fail to live up to potential. Rather than talking about how great someone is at one or two things, the good coverage focuses on the weaknesses b/c it tells more of the story. It's just hard selling a product that you're saying has major weaknesses that may prevent him from ever being good in MLB so naturally there isn't much of it around. Heck, if you look at Perfect Game, the parents of players at their showcases are big customers of theirs. I remember a guy from another showcase company that's now Baseball Factory telling me about all of the angry emails he got from parents if he wrote something like, "his arm action isn't clean". Rather than dealing with the harassment, he just wouldn't put it in his write-up. It hurts the quality of analysis, but it's like that with most internet coverage.