"My argument had nothing to do with stats - it was about player quality." How do you determine player quality if you're ignoring stats? What makes Quintanilla NOT an everyday player but Machado an everyday player? That you say that? That somebody else says so? Based on what? Quintanilla's career Minor League OPS is .817, including .801 at AAA, where Machado has never even shown his face. Machado's career Minor League OPS is .776. So clearly it's not the Minor League pedigree telling you that Machado is an every-day guy and Quintanilla is not. So what is it? His high school stats? The eye test? Daniel Cabrera got an A+++ on the eye test, and that's why we gave him years worth of regular starts that were beyond painful to watch on balance. I'll take numbers over the eye test any day.
Of course, I'm not saying that Machado is a lesser player than Omar Quintanilla. That would be ridiculous. I think to some extent that he's been overrated as a prospect, but I think he's got a very good chance to be a top 5 SS in baseball, or a top 10 3B, if not better. The reality is that I'm trying to lead you to what should be the obvious counter-argument. Quintanilla accumulated some of those minor league stats as recently as this year at age 30. Machado accumulated his as recently as this year when he was the youngest player in his league in AA. You're right. Machado's youth absolutely contributed to his lack of success. That's exactly what I want you to think. Because Machado has never been younger for his level than he is right now. He needed months to adapt to AA pitching, and as soon as he's started to catch up with it we bump up through AAA the whole way to The Show. If he holds his own, great. But there's not a lot of evidence that he'll be able to do so sustainably on his Minor League track record. He hasn't show the uncanny, ridiculous ability to hit guys who are much older and more seasoned than himself in the minors the way that a guy like Mike Trout has. For most of the season he looked very much like the youngest guy in the Eastern League. And now we put him in the Major Leagues? I don't see it.