There’s little enough right now for us humble fans to look forward on a day-to-day basis that we can appreciate watching a guy like Davis develop on the big league stage. For all the front office fumbling, bringing this kid up despite his need for a little more development in the minor leagues will at least energize the fanbase.
– NeverSeenThemWinOne, comments section this morning.
With increasing frequency, I’m finding that the reactions to posts here don’t seem to follow my original intentions when making said posts. Obviously, this reflects poorly on me and my ability to communicate whatever the hell it is I’m trying to say, but I think I’ve identified the problem. I’m adjusting to the (awesome) rigors of my schedule during the baseball season while trying to maintain some consistent flow of content here, and I think too often I’m crapping out half-formed thoughts and assuming readers can somehow divine what I’m getting at.
But whatever. You probably don’t care much about that stuff, so here’s this stuff:
To be clear, like NeverSeenThemWinOne, I am extremely excited to see Ike Davis playing for the Major League Mets every day. Though I have reservations over whether he’s actually ready to hit lefthanders and lay off breaking pitches, I want very much to see him try.
And I recognize he is a massive upgrade over Mike Jacobs, both in actual on-field value and in asses-in-seats production. Watching Mike Jacobs’ approach at the plate was starting to make me not want to watch baseball at all, or at least change the channel while he was hitting or something, and that’s terrible.
And Fernando Tatis, nice and versatile player though he may be, is just not exciting to watch play for a 5-8 team. I know exactly what I’m going to see out of Fernando Tatis, and though it’s decent, and probably better than a lot of people realize, it’s still not exceptional.
I don’t know exactly what I’m going to see out of Ike Davis, and that’s what makes it fun. I know how infrequently prospects actually pan out, and I realize, from a rational perspective, that we will be lucky if Davis turns out to be a deserving but unspectacular Major League regular like Paul Konerko or someone.
But I can cling to the small hope that Ike Davis is a Hall of Famer because he hasn’t done anything yet to show me otherwise.
Mike Jacobs? Not a Hall of Famer. Fernando Tatis? Not a Hall of Famer.
On a team like this one, I’ll root for uncertainty over the certainly bad or the certainly not-so-good anytime, especially when the uncertainty comes in the form of a young, highly touted homegrown player.
It’s a thrilling thing, and the Mets-fan side of me is absolutely thrilled. I don’t think he’ll hit .500 all season and I don’t think he’ll provide enough to make the team a great one, but I know he’ll make me more excited to tune in every night, and that means something too.
The post last night just aimed to point out that with this franchise, the way things are going these days, even something indisputably invigorating like the top hitting prospect ascending to the big leagues comes somehow mired in confusion and doubt. That part sucks. But the rest of it is awesome, no doubt.
Tedquarters 
Heck I dont care if Ike turns out to be a Hall of Famer, I’d take Paul Konerko in a minute. 3 time all star, averaged probably around 25-30 HRs and 90-100 RBI every year for about 10+ year now. hitting around .280.
That’s exactly what I feel Ike will be-just like Konerko which is great.
Top hitting prospect Ted? Writing off Fernando?
Not writing him off at all, just going by Toby Hyde’s rankings.
Toby rated them that way?
Very interesting!
Toby put a greater emphasis this year on major league readiness, and Davis is closer than F-Mart.
I’m excited for Ike but I’m also worried the fan base’s expectations are too high. On ESPN’s broadcast they were talking about things like comparing him to Heyward, which is completely unfair to Ike since he’s just not the same type of prospect.
And I don’t think anyone’s writing Fernando off, but at this point he hasn’t been able to play a full season in 3 years, that’s kind of a MAJOR problem for a prospect that after 3 years it’s hard to attribute to just bad luck. Add in the fact he hasn’t learned to control the strike zone/be more patient, which may have a lot to do with how much time he’s missed the last 3 years, and there’s a lot of reasons to take a wait and see approach with him. He’s still young enough that he can turn it around but the injuries have definitely slowed his development rate down, and part of the reason he was ranked so highly a few years ago was because of the age/learning curve thing.
Also I think it has to do with the position Ike plays. Since the other options at first base are currently dreadful, the hunger for Ike among fans becomes stronger.
If instead of his fast start, say Francoeur was hitting .100 like Jacobs was, Im surethe fans would be all over the idea of bring F-Mart up just like they are with Ike right now.
And to once again put in persepctive how young F-Mart is like you said, think about his age compared to Davis. Davis is 23 years old breaking in now. Fmart could spend all of this season, and all of next season in the minors, and still break in at the start of the 2012 season as a 23 year old, like Davis is doing now.
He could still break in at 23 years old, but a big reason he was ranked so highly by scouts to begin with was because of how young he is, obviously if he doesn’t break in until 23 he loses that value, which is why he’s dropping. Which doesn’t make him a bad prospect it just doesn’t make him as good of a prospect as he was 3 years ago when he was expected to be much much further along by now.
Agreed…his value or whatever in terms of being a ‘prospect’ drops with each passing year, but I still think at this point for his age he’s stil well ahead of many of his peers.
If Fernando figures out this health thingie in my opinion (I know who the heck am I:) he will be a star.
The cause of tempering expectations was not helped by Howie Rose repeatedly bringing up Straw’s debut when talking about Davis last night. I know everyone was excited but, c’mon, it’s not even a remotely fair comparison.
I 100% agree. I might be excited, but I’m not losing my mind about Davis.