Baseball America's Jim Callis responded to someone else's tweet, asking, who's better: the Angels' Jean Segura, or the Astros' Jose Altuve.
His response:
Segura. Not close, despite the little guy's numbers.
Of course, we disagree. But let's take us a gander, eh?
Jean Segura is 21 years old, BA's #57-ranked prospect, pre-2011, and a SS/2B playing in the Angels' Cal League team in Inland Empire.
So far, in 37 games for Inland Empire, he's hitting .276/.343/.428. In his five-season career, he's hitting .315/.372/.446, with 143K:99BB (1.44 K:BB ratio), with 47 doubles, 22 triples, 18 homers.
Okay.
Jose Altuve (also 21 years old), in 52 games at Lancaster, hit .408/.451/.606. Combine that, with his 16 games at Double-A Corpus (where he's hitting .394/.420/.712), and he's hitting .405/.444/.631 in 2011. So maybe you're still unimpressed. In the same five-season span as Segura, Altuve is hitting .326/.387/.483, also with 166K:133BB (1.25 K:BB ratio), with 85 doubles, 24 triples, and 28 homers.
So it's safe to say that we will disagree with Callis. If we take defense into account, Altuve has a lifetime .969 Fld% at 2B, committing 49 errors in 1597 chances. Segura has a lifetime .971 Fld% at 2B, with 32 errors in 1094 chances.
Not sure what criteria there is that would make this "not even close," but we call bullcrap.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
