Freddie Freeman 2008 Stats Revisited

Hey guys, I wrote a post several months ago highlighting some of the achievements of Freddie Freeman, an 18 year old power hitting first baseman in the Braves farm system. At the time of my first post, Freddie had somewhere around 350 plate appearances, and since the 2009 season is just around the corner, I thought I'd take a moment to reanalyze Freeman's full season stats and compare them to some other players with similar minor league numbers.

Below is a chart including Freeman's A ball numbers as they compare to other hitters' overall minor league totals.

Obviously, Freeman still has to make it through AA and AAA ball before we can make some definite projections for him, but the fact that his numbers (especially his power numbers) match up with this group of hitters is worth consideration. Ryan Klesko, while not a superstar, usually hit in the .275-.300 range, with 25-30 home runs; Justin Morneau is currently entering his prime and has hit .300 or better twice in his career and topped 30 home runs twice; and Ryan Braun has a .301 average and 71 home runs in his first 2 major league seasons (Josh Reddick has shown the potential to be a similar hitter, and I discussed his numbers in a previous post this week).

With those comps in mind, I think we can attach a rough projection to Freeman as a potential .300/30+ home run hitter and an OPS in the mid .900 range. Once again, projections are subject to change according to future performances, but at this point in time, I'm very comfortable with the above basic projection.
...Read more