If you were here last week for Your Favorite Rookie Sleeper’s Favorite Rookie Sleepers Volume 1, you might remember we were scheduled to discuss Tyrone Taylor today. A huge part of my fascination with Taylor came down to Lorenzo Cain being old and injured. I’ll be surprised at this point if Cain ever returns to his previous life as an everyday centerfielder. With Milwaukee’s signing of Jackie Bradley Jr., Cain became an extra piece. I know the Brewers front office initially said he’d remain the centerfielder with JBJ sliding over to right, but that was before Cain attempted to resume playing baseball, which did not go well. He’s laid up with leg troubles, probably needs a cane to walk, so there’s still glimmer enough for Taylor to break camp with the big club. Still, he’s less appealing to me today than he was last week. Jackie Bradley Jr. is a very good big leaguer in a great place to have his career year thanks to a very kind park for left handed hitters and less-than-exceptional slate of pitchers in the NL Central.
I still like Tyrone Taylor as a player and think he could break through in a big way next season when Cain and Avisail Garcia aren’t around, for what it’s worth. In hindsight, I should not have declared my next three sleepers that far out anyway. A week in Spring Training during the heart of Draft Season is worth at least a month of the off-season calendar, and I’d never pick three players I’ll be talking about a month from now, I think. I’m often a mystery to myself, truth be told, so let’s push forward and find out who’ll get the feature-piece treatment this week.
Please, blog, may I have some more?