[Syd Thrift]

I remembered Yelding having some huge minor league season but looking back on things it looks like it was just a speed thing. He did have a really good year in A ball in 1987... at age 22, after moving down half a level. His minor league stats look just plain awful, and yet I remember actual statheadish publications screaming about how his arrival would be so awesome. I'll stand corrected on him.

Hamelin I know was an older rookie, but that's an argument for a descent into mediocrity after a solid first season. Hamelin completely fell apart in 1996. He did bounce back but was never anywhere near as good as he was his rookie campaign.

As for Claudell Washington, I think work ethic was cited more than bad hype. A player good enough to start in the major leagues at age 19 is, generally speaking, a very, very good player. A guy who can post OPS+es of 108 and 119 has a good shot at being stupendous. I saw A-Rod at a similar age and what Washington did was a lot more than what Rodriguez did. No, he never turned into that player, but to put it in an OOTP model, when every scout in the land thinks a guy has that kind of potential, he probably does have that kind of potential. He just didn't reach it, is all. To model a player like Washington correctly, it's not enough to rely on scouting error.