JABO: On Mookie and McCutchen
“I call him ‘Little Cutch,’” Victorino said, referring to Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen, the reigning NL MVP. “Watch him out there. His movements, everything, he’s like a little McCutchen.”
Shane Victorino on Mookie Betts, spoken in an interview last July.
Mookie-mania has taken over the Grapefruit League, as the Red Sox new centerfielder is #2 among all hitters this spring in batting average (.467), on-base percentage (.500), and slugging percentage (.867), causing others to see Victorino’s comparison as a lot less crazy than it sounded last summer.
On Monday, Ken Rosenthal asked a number of evaluators and many of Betts’ teammates about the comparison, and no one really pushed back too hard; David Ortiz even pushed the comparison further.
“I’d even go further,” Ortiz said. “He’s better than McCutchen at that time in McCutchen’s career. Go and double-check that.”
Ortiz isn’t wrong.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
oh God, Boston’s overrated prospect syndrome has reached the players. Lived the Piece though Dave, very well written and I couldn’t agree more.
It’s like when the running joke about how bad jeter’s defense was…. yet he still kept getting gold gloves.
Just because Jeter got those gold gloves doesn’t mean he wasn’t over-rated there. He was terrible there. You trust those gold gloves? Tell me more about the one Palmeiro won when he was primarily a DH.