Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
This is the great thing about baseball. There is almost no such thing as a can't miss superstar. The commons bins are full of players most people expected to be superstars, but bombed. By contrast, everyone knew KOBE Bryant was going to be great as a teenager. Same with Gretzky. Same with all sorts of other guys. Sure, there are flops, but I am willing to bet it's a much smaller percentage. And, in baseball, even after five or ten great years guys can fall off a cliff. Maybe there are very sporadic examples in other sports, but not nearly as many as in baseball.
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Great minds think alike. At this point, I think he has a better chance of being Dave Kingman than an elongated Harmon Killebrew. Way too many strikeouts for me, and that goes for Trout too (the fastball 5-6 inches above the waist is Trout's weakness, followed by a slider breaking low and away, into the dirt. He likes them low, and after getting a strike he can't handle, will leave the zone for the slider. Mantle used to hit that very same fastball 450-500 feet). Rick Reichardt was once the new Mantle too, in 1966--Gee, guess how that worked out! Plus, a lot of things can happen in the next decade or so. Pete Reiser was a sure-fire HOF'er, until he proved beyond doubt his affinity for banging himself senseless into the concrete outfield walls of the time. Cesar Cedeno was going to be the next Clemente in the '60's, until...who knows what happened--the talent certainly ran out. Also, even Bill James, when asked early in the decade to predict the player who would hit the most homeruns in the '90's, chose Phil Plantier--Phil who???
Patience, guys. The phenoms' cards will still be there ten to 15 years from now, and it isn't at all unlikely that the cost for them will be less. Take it from a collector who was there throughout the speculative years of the early to mid '90's!
May collecting bring you joy,
Larry