原文在1/11出爐的BP TOP10 The Next Ten內
篇幅在裡面算長的 有興趣的記者自己看
Last year I included Lin in “Others of Note” on the Red Sox list. It was a
few hundred words on the vagaries of one-game looks, and the hope of finding
major league skills within bad performances. I was writing around what I
actually wanted to say—shocking, I know—which was that I thought Lin was a
major leaguer. If we had ranked twenty guys last year, he would have made the
Red Sox list, but that really wasn’t what I was saying either. It was almost
as shallow a system then. Lin had a big bonus number and shortstop utility.
That’s often enough. But I thought back to that one-game look as he went
back and conquered Double-A and spent some time holding his own in the
majors. It was a one-game look. They are dangerous. But if I had seen the
same things scattered over five games. A hard-hit triple, some nice plays in
the field, and an offensive performance otherwise representative of his poor
2016, the same flashes would have been there. I don’t know if I would have
come to a different conclusion. It isn’t like I didn’t know the warts. Of
course it costs nothing to say “I think Lin is a major leaguer” now. He was
and probably will be again in a future. I need to have the guts to say it
here for the guys that hit .220 or post a 6.00 ERA more often. Anyway,
looking forward rather than back—which is the actual task here—Lin still
doesn’t project for much power and struggled in a longer sample in Triple-A.
He can capably handle all three up-the-middle positions though, and that
makes him a very useful bench piece. And this year I’ll write it: I think
there might be more in the tank.