Not true at all. Jim Callis strongly preferred Ruiz. Generally Moran is seen as more safe, but Ruiz has all-star potential if he taps into his natural power.
Moran is the safest best to be a good player in the majors. Ruiz has the better ceiling. I like Moran.
Moran has several attributes that give him more future upside/development than many people believe: cold-weather guy, young for his draft class, projectable body. I think of Moran as a better, 3B version of Conrad Gregor. Strong hit tool and if the power develops just a little more (e.g. 15-18hr range) he'll be a solid above average player with a chance at a couple of all-star teams. Nearly the same thing can be said about Ruiz though. Kiley Mcdaniel put 55/50+ grades on Moran's future hit/power tools and 55/55 on Ruiz.
Ruiz is clutch. I have seen it multiple times. When Lancaster needed a big hit, Ruiz came through for them.
I'm taking a wait and see approach on Moran. He put up .346/.444/.531 slash line in college with a 82/131 strikeout to walk ratio (overall), so it's not difficult to believe he's underperformed his potential thus far. Power potential definitely favors Ruiz but Moran did have a cumulative .185 ISO in college so its not like he has no power.
Reality is that none of us know which of Ruiz or Moran will develop into a good mlb player. Maybe neither, maybe both, maybe one is solid and the other great. We have become so prospect oriented that, generally, many around here tend to over value prospects. Building a strong system is very important so don't think i'm saying there isn't value to those guys, but it's truly a bit of a crap shoot when it comes to how these guys will play out. How many of all of these great prospects have truly produced for the big league club so far? Think about this.... Go back to 2011 our top 10 prospects (BA) were J Lyles, Deshields, Villar, Folty, J Mier, JD Martines, Paredes, T Bushue, Wates and Ovando Not a single one has made a positive impact on the big league club. Lyles, Villar, Paredes and Martinez all got good shots but none did much (although JD looks the part now that he is gone). Obviously the story is still to be told on Folty and possibly DDJ 2012 Singleton, Cosart, Springer, Villar, Clemens, Santana, Obie, DDJ, Folty, Nash Now we are getting into the group that was put together during the true tear it down and rebuild it. Cosart looks the part but has been moved for more prospects (one of which this debate is taking place), Springer certainly looks the part and we can "hope" still on Singleton And you can do that every year, top 10 guys are guys that have potential obviously, but they truly are all crap shoots and it's impossible to know who will become what. I have a lot of confidence that Correa will be a major league SS, the hope is he is a star but even that story is yet to be told. Appel should become a rotation guy, but who knows to what level....everyone else on the list is such a crap shoot, that if you have a chance to get a proven mlb guy who definitely helps you, then make the deal That's what I love about this trade
I was leaning Moran until you provided this. Never knew Ruiz had a high clutch tool. Do you know what his clutch tool was last graded at?
to be fair, our farm system was atrocious then. Top 10 prospects in a garbage system doesn't mean anything in correlation to other top prospects/systems
Don't disagree, but look historically at top 10 in highly ranked systems and you will see more failure than success there too
