A cursory glance at Travis Demeritte’s stat line might lead one to think the he’s an offensive beast. He’s hit a powerful .272/.352/.583 at High-A this year, on the strength of an impressive 25 homers. In addition to his offensive exploits, he’s also swiped 13 bases and played solid defense at second base.

But there’s one bad attribute that largely outweighs all the good stuff: his 33% strikeout rate. Demeritte suffers from chronic contact problems, which have led to problematic strikeout rates ever since the Rangers took him in the first round back in 2013. Though he has the eighth-best wRC+ in High-A this year, he also has the fourth-worst strikeout rate. The latter suggests he’ll have a tough time replicating the former against more advanced pitching.

Demeritte’s strikeout woes, along with the fact that his power numbers are likely inflated by the hitter-friendly California League, suggest Demeritte has a long way to go offensively. My newly revamped KATOH projection system sees him as a mildly interesting prospect who’s pretty likely to bust. It projects him for 1.4 WAR over his first six seasons by the traditional method and just 1.2 WAR by the method that integrates Baseball America’s rankings.

To put some faces to Demeritte’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps for the powerful second baseman. I calculated a weighted Mahalanobis Distance between Demeritte’s High-A numbers this season, and every season at those levels since 1991 in which a second baseman recorded at least 400 plate appearances. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues. A lower “Mah Dist” reading indicates a closer comp.

Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.