A reader at Bucs Dugout goes back to a 2009 post I wrote about the strange parallels between the careers of Pedro Alvarez and the Royals' Alex Gordon. At the time, I was talking about how the Royals' aggressive promotion of Gordon to the big leagues suggested the Pirates shouldn't do the same with Alvarez (and they didn't).
↵Now, though, the parallel means something different: Alvarez is now struggling, just as Gordon did. Gordon, who like Alvarez was a top college hitter and the second overall pick in the draft, took a couple years of bouncing between the majors and minors before finally emerging this season as one of the American League's better hitters. It's a good reminder that whatever a player did most recently doesn't necessarily define him, and that there's still hope for Pedro. Maybe he'll be a bust, but maybe it's just going to take him a bit of time to learn to lay off breaking balls in the dirt.