MLB To Complete Sano Investigation This Week

Get it done NH.

I know he is not 16. He must be between 19 and 22.

Hey guys this is my first post on mlbtr. With that said if the Pirates sign Sano, they will have quite the young core with McCutchen, Alvarez, Tony Sanchez, Milledge, Tabata, Andy LaRoche, Duke, and Capps.

Welcome to the city of champions Mikey.

"Hey guys this is my first post on mlbtr. With that said if the Pirates sign Sano, they will have quite the young core with McCutchen, Alvarez, Tony Sanchez, Milledge, Tabata, Andy LaRoche, Duke, and Capps."

Just like the 2005 Devil Rays team that had a future core of Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, Jorge Cantu, Jonny Gomes, Delmon Young, B.J. Upton, Joey Gathright, Jason Hammel, Jeff Niemann, Elijah Dukes, Scott Kazmir, Dewon Brazelton, Wes Bankston, Doug Waechter, Chad Orvella, Seth McClung and Reid Brignac?

How many of those guys would you say have "panned out"?

Crawford, Upton (kinda), Kazmir, and Cantu, while a couple of those guys still have a chance to be decent regulars, but it's unlikely that there are any other stars in that group.

Even the most stacked young core can greatly disappoint when most of it hasn't accomplished much at the ML level.

Not saying that it'll happen to the Pirates, but the Rays shuffled through a couple young cores before Silverman/Friedman/Hunsicker and co. settled on this roster, which is excellent.

BucSox,
How would Sano have a better chance at making him their starting SS by 2012 more than the Os? The Orioles have a very direct path to the majors at SS from rookie ball. Yes, the Orioles have Itzturis signed but not past 2010.

"Well to be fair Baldelli was injury ridden. Nieman and Hammel both seem to be doing well at least well enough that they should be on a MLB roster."

Right, but there was a time when every single one of those guys projected to be an everyday player in the majors, and a lot of those guys were projected as stars.

When it comes down to it, the Rays' current team includes almost none of their previously vaunted young core.

Instead, an extremely prudent front office recognized the flaws in many of these players and moved them for value or replaced them with superior players that they felt better fit their vision of the Rays, which includes defense, pitching, athleticism and a well-rounded offense.

"

We're jumping the gun waaay early on this kid. He can easily be a bigtime bust. What we have to realize is that, in spite of having unteachable talents today, Sano is still miles away from the majors. If he played today in the minors, he's still very raw and will need time. You can't judge who will win the car race by looking at the car parts."

Obviously.

Michael Ynao hasn't thrown a single professional pitch yet, and for every Miguel Cabrera, there's at least one Joel Guzman.

This kid is CAPABLE of being a superstar, but only a small fraction of those kids actually figure out how to maximize their physical tools.

But the fact of the matter is that a 16-year-old with the tools to be a superstar doesn't come by very often, and his market value is huge.

Sano is going to get a pretty penny if he's 16, and someone could potentially get a massive return for their investment.

Sano will almost absolutely not be ready to play by the time he turns 19, assuming that he's 16, and the odds that he sticks at shortstop long term are minimal.

Sano sounds a lot more like Miguel Cabrera than Elvis Andrus.

@scribbletone: you hit the nail on the head with respect to Sano staying at SS - I've read previous places that many project him to move to a corner OF position or possibly 3B.

I've thought of a question: Why would the O's be after Sano when Weiters is just now came into the bigs?