Brett Lawrie And The Hot Corner

The entire city of Toronto has fallen in love with the British Columbia product. Yes, he's Canadian, but it's my civic duty to inform Toronto that British Columbia hates us. Not just British Columbia, but all of Canada hates us. We're not the New York City of Canada, it's not a love/hate relationship; kids from Red Deer, Alberta don't dream of making it to the big city. The only Canadians that idolize Toronto are those from the suburbs outside of Toronto and they just like our fancy discothèques. Who wants to cheer for someone from Etobicoke anyways? People from Ohio, that's who. Hell, Cincinnati is basically Kentucky, anyways.


So ...that Brett Lawrie kid, eh?


Everyone, including the trained chimpanzees running the prediction models, love him.

Season	Team	G	PA	HR	R	RBI	SB	BB%	K%	ISO	BABIP	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
2012	Steamer		599	19	79	73	16	7.5%	18.6%	0.209	0.301	0.264	0.326	0.473	0.345
2012	Bill James	153	628	22	92	75	30	7.0%	18.8%	0.211	0.324	0.284	0.337	0.495	0.361
2012	RotoChamp		590	26	80	85	25	10.2%	17.3%	0.238	0.306	0.281	0.366	0.519	0.386
2012	Marcel		286	11	39	37	8	9.1%	17.5%	0.217	0.318	0.285	0.359	0.502	0.375
2012	Fans (87)	143	605	24	97	102	23	8.6%	18.3%	0.222	0.320	0.286	0.356	0.508	0.378
2012	ZiPS	148	659	27	90	79	24	6.7%	20.5%	0.223	0.314	0.275	0.333	0.498	0.362
			561.2	21.5	79.5	75.2	21	8.2%	18.5%	0.220	0.314	0.279	0.346	0.499	0.368

Other than Marcel, Sky-net tends to think that Lawrie is in for a full season of baseball. If Lawrie reaches the 600 Plate Appearances threshold, it's not out of the question for these very lofty predictions to be cemented as his 2012 numbers.

The consensus seems to be about 25 HR, 85R, 79 RBI, and 23 SB with a .279 AVG and while those statistics are certainly ambitious, they're not a pipe dream.

Everything seemed to change after he joined the Blue Jays organization, though. Lawrie had posted very good, but not spectacular statistics across about 1000 plate appearances in the Brewers organization. Brett Lawrie is still of the age where huge steps in production are common, but the city of Toronto is still basing it's optimism on around 500 plate appearances split between Las Vegas and Toronto. While Lawrie's .661 SLG in Vegas may add credence to his .580 SLG in Toronto, one must remember that Las Vegas drastically inflates statistics. Jays' catcher, J.P. Arencibia,  posted a similar SLG in Vegas. As did Eric Thames, and basically every other Blue Jay with even the slightest hint of power.

Just as I wouldn't be surprised to see Lawrie post god-mode numbers, I also wouldn't be surprised to see him strike-out more while walking less. Lawrie's peripheral statistics seem to support his 2011 season, and players that establish themselves at such a young age have a greater chance of becoming star players, but the expectations heading into 2012 are grand.