Sort of: Dustin Pedroia, who actually made it to AAA in his age-21 season. Of course, Niedermeyer was playing second base and slugging .508 when he was promoted.

Brantley’s notable, I think, but as a prospect I wouldn’t necessarily call him beguiling, particularly as a left fielder. And I think Taylor Green fills a much bigger organizational need.

I always liked Brantley better, mainly because the tribe needs some speed. I admire the way the Angels and Twins play ball, and to me the worst four words in baseball are “Garko on the basepaths” or “Garko running to first”.

Are there strong pro-Green anti-Brantley people?

Well then FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WE MUST HAVE HIM TO ANSWER THAT BURNING QUESTION.

and Brantley doesn’t have a higher ceiling than Green

Leave it to Cleveland fans to whine about losing Brian Barton. I don’t really get the comp anyways. Barton was always old for his leagues, while Brantley has been young. Barton showed more pop, maybe in part because he was older, while Brantley has much better contact skills.

Barton was 24 and 25 when he posted similar AA numbers. Brantley is only 21 yrs old.

Since clark covered the “It’s Brian Barton for god’s sake” angle, I’ll take the “Of course we didn’t give him away. We got $50,000 for him.” angle.

Hello APV,

I too value Brantley a bit more than Green for the following reasons:

1. Many mention Green can fill an organizational role, but realize that if the Indians are missing a great deal of in their farm system, it’s pure speed, along with good BB/K ratio and high BA/contact ability – i.e. prototypical leadoff hitter. Brantley profiles to be that type of hitter, and to his credit, is exhibiting those skills at age 21 at AA, that critical level that often separates the “contenders from the pretenders.”

2. Being that Brantley is only 21-YO, he certainly could gain more power over the coming few years. And while some are mentioning that he may only be Crowe, arguably, he has a solid chance of being better than Crowe because Crowe wasn’t succeeding at AA at age 21 (he had his successful season in High-A at age 22, showing how advanced Brantley really is as a prospect).

3. Green is a solid prospect, and I think the FSL does not help his power numbers, but he is already 21-YO, so his margin for error (i.e. struggling at a level) is slim. If he falters at AA or AAA, that will really hamper his ability to become a starter at the ML level, and that’s what we are expecting from him in order to choose him as the PTBNL prospect.

4. As others have mentioned, Green has not played 2B regularly, so essentially, Green could be in the same vein as Jared Goedert (not age-wise), but position-wise. We are presuming he’ll make the transition easily to 2B, but there’s no guarantee of that, no matter how good of a defensive 3B he is. It’s not often that 3B turn into 2B, so just because Green is great defensively at 3B doesn’t guarantee he’ll be great at 2B at the ML level (or even being adequate over there. Recall that Trevor Crowe had experience at 2B and 3B at the University of Arizona before being moved to LF, and he couldn’t handle the transition to 2B at the ML level, so there are no guarantees Green will be able to play 2B, since I believe he has no experience over there at any level, college or professionally). And if Green can’t stay at 2B, that really drops his value as a prospect, since I’m not sure he’ll hit for enough power to be a 3B, plus the fact we have Hodges, and perhaps Mills, ahead of him on the depth chart at 3B. In any case, the benefit of acquiring Green to shore up an “organizational hole” would be gone if Green can’t handle 2B at the ML level.

5. As APV mentions, Brantley has the potential for some real ++ skills; Green is solid, but doesn’t offer any outstanding tools outside of potentially plus defense and above-average power, but again, Green is older than Brantley and has only done it at High-A – he hasn’t faced the AA test yet, which would tell us more.

Overall, while I think Green wouldn’t be a bad choice, I too am more intrigued by Brantley – he has the potential to give us that legitimate top-of-the-order presence that Kenny Lofton gave us back in the mid-90s (all due respect to Grady, he’s not the top-of-the-order presence Lofton was in his prime – Grady’s streaks and slumps and increased power makes him more of a legitimate middle-of-the-order hitter in my mind). And, as implied above, acquiring Brantley would give the Indians increased options to moving Sizemore down in the order and taking more advantage of his power.

Additionally, while Green would provide a solid prospect, you still have Rodriguez, Goedert, and Phelps (who the Indians think very highly of, even being called the “most complete hitter/prospect” they obtained from the 2008 Draft and one that has a good chance of moving quickly) to man 2B in the future, and unless they’re bowled over in a proposed deal for Peralta, 2B is likely not going to open up very quickly (as either Cabrera or Barfield will be manning it for the next year or two). Therefore, I don’t think the 2B depth is that devoid where we absolutely have to take Green – he’s solid, but I think Brantley has more ++ skills that could turn him into more of a difference-maker than Green, plus he’s shown he can handle AA at a younger age than Green, giving him the slight edge for me.

Just my 2 cents – no offense.

don’t forget, Jody Gerut was the Sporting News Rookie of the Year.

I think the only real argument against Brantley is the injuries. If the list is LuCroy, Green, and Brantley and the Indians think Brantley will be the healthy Brantley is a no-brainer.

This is making the whole PTBNL thing very interesting; a month ago it was hard to pick Brantley or LuCroy. Now it seems easier.

Actually, maye this PTBNL thing is just making it easy for me to get sucked into small samples.

My point, which I tried to apologize for over-stating, was just that among the possibilities of things Michael Brantley may one day become, Jody Gerut seems more likely to me than does Tim Raines. I’m hopeful that he’ll prove me wrong if we pick him.

And, of course, I’m just glad that there is a PLTBN at all, which is why I’m interested to begin with.

As Fred Ox points out above, Raines played 88 games in the majors at age 21. Good games, too. Lofton didn’t make it to the majors until he was 25.

So age would indicate, to me at least, that Brantley won’t become Tim Raines. That doesn’t mean he can’t become a very good player, but to say he’s comparable to Raines, simply—as you point out—on the basis of his age isn’t defensible. It is extremely unlikely that Brantley will have a major league career in which he walks 1330 times.

First- I think without looking into it, I was a little harsh (and perhaps Jay too) on Gerut. The comp looks pretty good, at 22, Gerut had a similar year, with the OBP, low K skills at AA. Not AS good as Brantley in speed and because of age, but its a fair comp. Also, Gerut was on a path to a pretty decent ML career before having every knee injury I’ve ever heard about. (to say nothing of the miracle of him making it all the way back to the majors this year).

Next, on Raines. My bringing him and Lofton up was based mainly on the notion of seen around LGT before that a guy like Brantley’s OBP will go down if he doesn’t develop power. I wanted to come up with successful players that had similar skill sets, i.e. lack of power, but high OBP and good speed on top of it. Is Raines the extreme? yes. Is Brantley the next Raines? Probably not. But guys with these skills can succeed and actually be very very good if not great. Add into this, the potential for Brantley to develop even a little power and that Green is older, a level behind, and has worse BB and K numbers, well, I don’t think its close.