Donavan Tate expectations advice?

[DaProspectKid]

Hey all I have been buying some Donavan Tate stuff since 2010 Bowman came out and I was wondering what you guys thought about him. Can he stay healthy enough to be a star??? I know he has yet to play a pro game and its risk at this point but I just wanted to hear what you guys had to say about him. Who would you compare him to at this point? I have been thinking about buying one of his better cards but Im not sure if its worth the risk because who knows when he will actually get on the field decisions decisons.

 

[jlecates]

I've been a big Tate supporter going back to his sophomore year at Cartersville, and I've always liked what I saw, but I have to admit the recent rash of injuries is starting to alarm me a bit.
As a player, when healthy, he has four above-average tools. Arm is plus (clocked at 95 MPH at the PG National), speed is plus (6.34 in the 60), defense is above average to plus (just needs reps to get his routes to balls down properly), and most scouts had his raw power graded as above average to plus. The big knock on him is that he is inconsistent as a pure hitter. I saw him probably around 8 times during the spring/summer of '08, and his biggest problem was hitting advanced breaking stuff - however the bat speed was tremendous, and velocity wasn't much of a problem for him to hit (in fact it was Jake Eliopoulos, who at the Under Armour Game, made him look silly by working nothing but curveballs basically). Mechanically his swing is pretty sound - his front side is a little soft and therefore he doesn't get his lower half incorporated as much as he should, but he is extremely strong and the bat speed and power still show in spite of. He really needs some AB's though, and missing all this time is the worst thing in the world for him given that he was already splitting so much time between football and baseball in high school. Best case scenario is he is Andruw Jones (in prime) crossed with Carlos Beltran; worst case scenario is he becomes a player who misses time with injuries and never accumulates the AB's needed to make him even an average major league hitter.

 

[ThoseBackPages]

doesnt he belong to the padres?

 

[jlecates]

doesnt he belong to the padres?

yes

 

[All The Hype]

doesnt he belong to the padres?

This hurts Tate's card ceiling in a big way..look at Adrian Gonzalez's stats for the last few years and then go look at his card prices. The two don't match. There's really not much reason to believe Tate will be much different.