Hitting The Cutoff Man

It’s a great time to be a baseball fan, possibly excluding those poor souls in Kansas City, Pittsburgh and a few other places. But as you will see, even those fans have reason for some excitement.

While the scourge of performance-enhancing drugs certainly has not passed on entirely, the game has been blessed with a fresh generation of stars that plays the game clean (so far as we know) and incredibly well.

In an effort to illustrate the stunning collection of young talent already at the Major League level, I will compose an entire 25-man roster of players who have at least 100 plate appearances or 50 innings pitched in the big leagues but were 25 or younger at the start of 2010. Since a player’s prime usually begins around 26, this gives us a look at guys who are likely to be on the upswing.

Today we’ll do the position players, and tomorrow we’ll move on to the pitchers. Feel free to let me know if I missed someone in the comments.

C – Brian McCann, ATL, 25 years old. It’s hard to believe McCann is still 25 (he turns 26 next month), but he made his Major League debut at 21 and was an All-Star at 22. McCann is no Joe Mauer, who is a little too old for this list, but he has an .853 career OPS and the most home runs of any MLB catcher since 2005.

C – Matt Wieters, BAL, 23. Wieters came up last season with tremendous hype, and while his performance wasn’t awe-inspiring, it was solid and encouraging for a 23-year-old catcher getting his first taste of the Majors. Even with his inexperience and position, he was about a league-average hitter.

1B – Prince Fielder, MIL, 25. Fielder isn’t the type of player (big and slow) who is likely to age well, but he sure is fun to watch right now. In a little more than four full seasons, the big man has 160 home runs, and last season he was third in the big leagues with a 1.014 OPS.

1B – Pablo Sandoval, SF, 23. Kung Fu Panda has played mostly third base thus far but is expected to move across the diamond this season after the Giants signed Mark DeRosa. And make no mistake – the guy can flat-out rake. In 717 career at-bats, he’s put up a line of .333/.381/.543 while playing half his games in a terrible hitters’ park.

2B – Asdrubal Cabrera, CLE, 24. This is cheating slightly, as Cabrera played mostly shortstop last season, but second base is the weakest position in this age group and Cabrera played there a lot in 2008. He had a breakout year with the bat in ’09, and while he was a bit lucky, the Bill James projection still has Cabrera OPSing a respectable .779 next season.

3B – Evan Longoria, TB, 24. According to Fangraphs, Longoria was the seventh most valuable player in baseball last season despite being in his second year. How? He’s a solid hitter with good patience and excellent power, and he plays a beautiful third base. Over the past two seasons, Longoria’s Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) of 33.4 is the second-best mark of any player at any position, behind Carl Crawford.

3B – Ryan Zimmerman, WAS, 25. Not a lot of people know about Zimmerman, who has the misfortune of playing for the woeful Nats, and that’s a shame. He isn’t quite Longoria, but he’s awfully close. Last season, he was second to Longoria in UZR at third while putting up a career-best .888 OPS.

SS – Troy Tulowitzki, COL, 25. Hanley Ramirez is slightly too old for this exercise, so Tulo gets the nod here. After a rough, injury-marred 2008, he bounced back in a big way last season. Although he didn’t play up to his capabilities defensively, he had a career year with the bat, producing of a line of .297/.377/.552, with 32 home runs.

SS – Elvis Andrus, TEX, 21. Erick Aybar would also be a solid choice, but Andrus is four years younger and already better defensively. He was third among MLB shortstops in UZR as a rookie last season, and while the bat wasn’t anything special, he has plenty of time to improve in that area.

OF – Matt Kemp, LAD, 25. The Bison made his big league debut in 2006 as an extremely raw package of skills and has developed in leaps and bounds since. He hits for average (.299 career mark), has learned to take an occasional walk, has prodigious power that still hasn’t fully materialized, and is shockingly fast for someone who weighs in around 230 pounds (69 steals the last two years). He’s still not a great center fielder because he takes some bad routes to fly balls, but there are few players in the whole league with a higher ceiling.

OF – Justin Upton, ARZ, 22. Upton was first called up to the Majors as a teenager in 2007 and quickly has become one of the best all-around players in the game. He hit .300 and slugged .532 last season, stole 20 bases and was fourth among MLB right fielders in UZR. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to imagine him as this generation’s Ken Griffey, Jr.

OF – B.J. Upton, TB, 25. Justin’s older brother had an excellent year with the bat in 2007 and a solid one in 2008 but tailed off badly last year, putting up a .686 OPS. He is likely to rebound, however, and if he does he will be extremely valuable, as he already is one of the top few defensive center fielders in baseball.

OF – Andrew McCutchen, PIT, 23. The Pirates don’t have much, but at least they have their center fielder and leadoff man of the future (until they inevitably trade him, at least). McCutchen stormed onto the scene as a rookie with an .836 OPS, 12 home runs, 22 steals and average defense in center after getting called up in early June.

OF – Colby Rasmus, STL, 23. Adam Jones and Denard Span also were great options here, but Rasmus wins via music video tiebreaker. Rasmus is already a top-five defensive center fielder, so it’s just a matter of his bat developing after an unspectacular rookie season. More patience and a better performance against lefties would help, but Rasmus did show his power potential with 16 homers in 474 at-bats.

Here’s a potential starting lineup out of that group.
1. J. Upton, RF
2. M. Kemp, LF
3. E. Longoria, 3B
4. P. Fielder, 1B
5. P. Sandoval, DH
6. T. Tulowitzki, SS
7. B. McCann, C
8. B. Upton, CF
9. A. Cabrera, 2B