…that Hoffpauir is a better player than Lee. It just suggests that the Cubs should consider moving Lee to the outfield.

(And he’s a she.)

But if he turns out to be a guy who shows up in MLB in his late 20’s, and has a few years of good offensive production, I’d much rather that it was the Cubs who got to benefit from those good years.

Phil Nevin, Jack Cust, even John Jaha getting his first shot up in MIL at age 30. Just because someone isn’t a super-blue-chip 20-year old doesn’t mean they’re worthless.

But give the man a chance. He was raking the ball last season while up, and has continued to do so this spring. He has earned that right.

I understand age being a factor, but why does it have to be a more significant factor than his batting average? It is obvious that Lou wants to see how consistent Hoff can be this spring by the 60 ABs he has to lead the team, and he has answered that challenge no doubt. You wish to mention strike outs, which yes it is high, I agree but he is not off pace of Sosa or Soriano during their Cub careers.

Yes he does not walk a lot, but neither did Sosa when you remove the amount of IBB’s he had, but people made excuses for his inability to be a strong defender and hitter until he was 27 and his career really took off, at the age of 30. NO I am not saying he will ever have numbers like Sosa did, do not get me wrong, but it’s a sample to show a late bloomer.

Sosa was the lucky (?) to be on some bad Cubs teams, that let him learn on the job, which Hoff likely would have done if we had similar teams the past few seasons (as DLee likely would not have been resigned or would have been traded).

For another example of a late bloomer, let’s look no further than the A’s rght-hander Brad Ziegler, who began his career as a traditional starting pitcher and made it up to Triple-A, many figured he had hit his peak at AAA and was done. He became a reliever and made his debut last season at age 28. And for the record, he set the American League record for consecutive scoreless innings to start a big league career. Not to shabby for a 28 year old "prospect" if you ask me.

Now there have been quite a few rookies at the age of 30, and none will make you write home, don’t get me wrong, but there were many who stuck around 5+ years, which means that they figured it out enough to be useful, which could very well be the same with Hoff.

And here is the list of the 30 year or old rookies, again I know not the most impressive list, but it proves anything is possible when given the chance.

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/lists/rookies30.shtml

Both of them were very effective, in a “high” minor league, at ages 27 and 28 (and Fukudome at age 29 and 30, too.)

The Japan league may or may not be a higher level of play than AAA, but it’s still not MLB level. And both players were obviously among the elite players in their respective leagues.

Hoffpauir looks for all the world like a classic late bloomer, who suddenly developed a power stroke at age 27. He backed it up, and then some, at AAA at age 28. It may be a total fluke, but those kinds of AAA numbers would make any team take notice.

And when you consider that the Cubs had to invest $48M in Fukudome’s age 31-34 years, while Hoffpauir will cost them the league minimum…. well, I don’t understand the animus toward the 29 YEAR OLD ROOKIE. It’s not like we’re developing a surplus of power bats in the last few decades.

And wasn’t D-Lee on that list originally?