Forgetting high-minded sabermetrics for the moment, I believe Russell is about to eclipse in Yr 3 what Sandberg did in his Yr 3. Ditto in comparing Jeter and Larkin as well. I base it on a few things, but basically Russell is already a better OPSer, one yr younger, than all 3. His minors’ OPS beat all 3 as well, so no fluke here. Finally, for the long haul, when we consider he’s already a better fielder than all 3, it is not enough to say he’s a future All-Star–he’s already that–but Cooperstown is very much on his GPS.

I’d be interested if anyone has done a study of players who had significant offensive increases between their rookie and 2nd year (and possibly even significant increases above norm in their 2nd to 3rd year) and see if this correlates to an “anti-regression” paradigm that PECOTA and others seem to rely on…