The curse of unbelievable potential
 

What are this guy's chances of living up to the hype?

Nothing ever does - except LeBron

Whenever Scott Boras gets involved, there's sure to be fireworks.

This guy has a cannon for an arm, can swing it, is a speciman physically, cover of Sports Illustrated...

But 16 years old and he's already looking for a bust in Cooperstown? GMAB.

Future HOF'er?

Read "Money Ball".

Baseball is, given certain physical attributes, a mental game more so than any other sport, except, perhaps, golf.

I wish the kid all the best.

I wish him the best too, but for some reason guys like that always seem to be the ones who end up with their careers cut short (injury, whatever).

Talented or not, you need a considerable amount of luck to make it to the HOF. You have to earn your way there, not just get in on the basis of potential.

A guy I know put it best, "success is where preparation and talent meets opportunity". If you don't have the opportunity, you can't be successful even though it's no fault of your own (hell, I'm sure an awful lot of people feel that way these days - lots of education, experience and training but no jobs and no work = no opportunity for success). And so it is with athletes - they can have the best talent in the world, but if they break a leg or get injured in a car wreck on the way to practice some day, no more opportunity so no more success.

That said, I hope this kid goes far. But don't count on it too much.

I agree. no matter how awesome he is at 16 in HS, very difficult to predict his success in MLB.

it's not even clear what position he would play, with his speed and batting you'd think he'd be an every day player, but throwing 96 at age 16, maybe a pitcher.

either way, he's never hit against Big League pitching, and he's never pitched against Big League hitting. so a little premature to put him down as a lock for the HOF.

Money ball was a great book. Baseball more than any other game is driven by statistics. Billy Bean found a way to be competitive on a budget.

Paradoxically, the Yankees found a way to suck with unlimited amounts of cash.

Talent can only get you so far. Expecially in baseball where I think Yogi said it best - "90% of this game is half mental."