Bugs and Cranks sits down with Tom Kelly, former manager of the Twins. I thought his description of Pedro Florimon shows a disconnect between the new school and old school in terms to evaluating players:

Since Greg Gagne’s departure following the 1992 season, the Twins have really struggled to find a suitable replacement. With the exception of Cristian Guzman, it’s been pretty bleak, what are your early impressions of Pedro Florimon?

I’m always a guy that wants to see a player do it for a couple of years in a row before I get too excited about anybody. Florimon, I think, has been okay. I think he’s played real good at times, and maybe not so good a couple games here and there. Do try to remember he is still a fairly young fellow (26), so there are going to be some mistakes as we go along, but I think he’s got a very strong throwing arm, I think he’s got excellent range, I think he puts up pretty competitive at-bats, I’m sure he’d probably like to improve that some, but he’s a viable player, there’s no question about that. I like him, I’d like to see him improve, keep on improving and working at his game, and he seems like he’s going to do that. I would anticipate him maybe securing that position here in the long run, again time will tell, and like I said earlier, I like to see guys do it for a couple of years before I get too excited about them, but he certainly has a chance.

A 26-year-old is not young in terms of baseball, he’s a player in his early prime. If someone can’t hold a major league job by the time they are 26, they’re never going to be a star, and if they do start it will probably be for a short time.

Florimon did not produce much offense in the minors, with a .321 career OBP and a .354 career slugging percentage. I’m not surprised that at the MLB level, he’s posting OBP and slugging percentages even worse than that. If he sticks, it will be due to his defense. Given his terrible offense and age, however, he’s not likely to get much better. There’s not a big reason to like him long term.