39.18 A Post-Bobby Lynch Jackrabbits Future #9 Matt Normore

[crobillard]

I told you we had a lot of high contact outfielders. Add Matt Normore to the list. He's very similar to another prospect I talked about earlier in this list named Julio Uribe. Normore has 9/9/5/4/9 potentials, but he suffers defensively with only 3/8/7 defensive ratings in the outfield. There's a few reasons Normore is high up on this list and so much higher than Uribe, but first let's talk about his past.

Normore was selected with the 80th overall pick in the second round of this year's draft. He only missed one game in all three years of high school. Combined in all three years he batted .375/.446/.611 in 491 at bats with 45 doubles, four triples, 21 homeruns, 65 walks and only 41 strikeouts for a combined 4.2 WAR. As I mentioned before, he's pretty bad defensively. He had a -2.3 ZR through his three season between splitting time in left and right field. He had six errors in total, but five of those came from right field.

He played 59 games in Rookie league this season. I expected him to perform well, but he actually ended up struggling a little to the tune of .234/.304/.393 in 214 at bats. On top of that, he spent all of his time in left field, but ended the season with a -4.4 ZR and two errors. Apparently, he's just not able to move unless the ball comes right to him. Pretty poor. If that wasn't bad enough, he didn't make any huge strides in his ratings to suggest he could be ready for the promotion next year. I mean he did bump some ratings through the year, but they clearly didn't help since his August saw him batting .198/.264/.317. Disgusting.

So, why does Normore deserve a #9 spot? Well for one he's a lefty. Wilson Villanuela and Myeong-hwan Kim are both lefties, but Normore is a lefty with a 9 contact and 9 AvK. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the superior split against RHP that I would love to see from him, but I would imagine he'll hit well against righties anyways and he might develop that split eventually. He has a long way to go at 4/6/4/3/5. He's also the only prospect listed so far that has a DURABLE injury rating. A high contact hitter with a durable rating. If he can hit well enough vs. lefties, he's the type of guy that could challenge for 3000 hits someday if he develops.