Enough Esoteria. What Else Have You Got?
As exciting as search criteria like the above can be, it can only take us so far. Let’s take a look back at what people were saying about him when he first signed.
Over The Monster published some articles at the time with quotes from prospect experts around the web. In this piece they quoted Ben Badler of Baseball America who had the following to say:
"“Devers might be the best hitter on the international market. With good bat speed and a compact lefty swing, Devers has strong hitting instincts and feel for putting the barrel to the ball. After going from 5-foot-11, 190 pounds in January up to around 6-foot-1, 215 pounds today, Devers has shown solid game power as well.”"
A few months later they quoted Kiley McDaniel here who wrote:
"“Devers’ power is fringy right now but he can hit the ball with authority to all fields and his power already shows up in game situations. This type of power ages well and while he doesn’t have physical projection, Devers is young enough that he’ll add some good weight and drop some bad weight.”"
The sky was the limit, but hype follows many international free agents and most of them fall well short. Devers needed to go out and perform to keep his ceiling intact.