radsoxfan said:
Taking your contemporary guys..... why exactly does Middlebrooks belong in this group?
Minor League career #s;
Belle: .298/.361/.533/.894
Vaughn: .284/.378/.490/.869
Sexson: .278/.344/.474/.818
Davis: .318/.374/.596/.970
WMB: .274/.331/.453/.787
...
Because I referred to the fact that WMB's milb OBP was .350 at AA and AAA, comparable to Albert Belle. I discounted the fact that he had an OBP < .300 in 200+ PA's at Lowell when he was 19. And all of the 4 had very low OBP when they first reached the majors. Davis had excellent OBP in milb, but with his 4 years in Texas, barely had a career OBP > .300 before he went to the Orioles in 2012. He'd shown power, but not much else when he was traded to Baltimore at the age of 25... same age as WMB.
\If you want exact clones of each other, it's going to take time to research, but these 4 are the ones that came to mind.