Futures Market: Cameron Maybin
With the call up of Justin Upton, it is widely regarded that the best positional prospect left in the minors (pitching would be Clayton Kershaw) is Detroit’s Cameron Maybin. Jay Bruce may have the edge in power but Maybin has speed and defense on his side. Here is a little bit about the Tigers’ outfielder of the future, Cameron Maybin.
Cameron Maybin (born April 4, 1987) (1987!!!) is a minor league baseball player in the Detroit Tigers organization. He was the tenth pick in the 2005 First-Year Player Draft and in 2006 played center field, for the Class A West Michigan Whitecaps. He has been consistently ranked as the Tigers’ top minor league prospect.
Maybin is one of those rare high school talents that people talk about for years. He holds the South Carolina state record for career batting average, ending his career hitting over .600. In the days leading up to the MLB draft in 2005, Maybin ‘s stock was falling due to unfounded concerns over his signability. Rumors were circulating that Maybin ‘s asking price was far higher than post-draft indications were showing. Because of this fact, the Tigers were able to steal him later in the first round.
A dazzling athlete, Maybin only got 21 big-league at-bats in spring training with the Tigers. But he put on quite a show, hitting .429, with a 1.425 OPS, and playing spectacular defense. And he wasn’t even 20 years old yet.
“He’s got serious talent,” gushed one scout. “If he hits, and I bet he will, he’s an off-the-board impact player,” said another scout.
Speed is his greatest asset right now, but don’t take that as the slightest knock on his bat, as Maybin did a fine job in his professional debut at Class A West Michigan in 2006. He’ll need to cut down on the strikeouts — one per 3.3 at-bats — but this is a future 30/30 man, quite a valuable commodity for fantasy. Maybin, who turned 20 in April, is closer to the majors than you’d think. ETA: early 2008.
He currently is a CF but projects as more of a corner outfielder. With the likelihood of Craig Monroe and Marcus Thames moving on and one of Magglio or Sheff moving to DH, expect the Tigers outfield to reload instead of rebuild. A future outfield of Granderson, Maybin and Gorkys Hernandez (a prospect who has been compared similarly to Maybin) will cover a lot of ground.
As one scout remarked:
“Maybin is one guy in the minors who could be MVP in 5 years”
Cameron Maybin’s current minor league stats can be found here.
Maybin is a player who I really need to see play. It simply is too hard to appreciate his potential by occasionally checking stats online — the team moved him from Single-A Lakeland to Double-A Erie recently, which was disappointing. He skipped Single-A West Michigan all together, so it looks like I’ll have to wait until he shows up in Comerica Park before I can finally catch a glimpse of Cameron Maybin. What I do know is that he is a terrific athlete, and from his numbers he appears to be worth the hype.