Patience With the Kids, Please

JBJ. Middlebrooks. Betts. Holt. De La Rosa. Ranaudo. Bogaerts. Webster. Barnes. Owens. Vazquez. We are not a patient lot in New England. Before we start clamoring to trade Bradley, Jr. & Middlebrooks & Webster & others I want to impart a little patience by comparing our 25-26 year olds & younger players to other major leaguers & their development. Example - position player - Michael Brantley, age 27. I have watched Brantley in spring training for the past several years & I say to myself how come this guy is not producing more? How come he is not a better-than-average major league ballplayer? You see the tools & ability in spurts. Well, Brantley is finally a much better-than-average player this year. In fact, he is the 4th best hitter in the AL with a batting average of .323. At age 24 Brantley became an everyday player after 2 years of partial play. His average after his 1st full season was .266. It has taken him 3 full major league season to get where he is today, one of the best hitters in the AL at .323. The talent was always there. Sometimes it just takes time for a player to put everything together. Example - pitcher - Justin Verlander. At age 23 Verlander threw 186 innings with an ERA was 3.63. 2 years later he throws 201 innings, but his ERA balloons to 4.84. 3 years after that he throws 251 innings with an ERA of 2.40. Now regarded as one of the best pitchers in baseball, Verlander took 5 full seasons in the bigs before he delivered his best season at age 28. I'm hoping that these 2 comparison show Red Sox Nation that we will not know what we truly have for talent in these young 20-somethings until they get a year or two or three under their belts. What if the Tigers gave up on Verlander at age 25 when he posted a 4.84 ERA? Maybe Ben will find out that he gave up too early on Felix Doubront, even though Doubront was not a good fit here. Let's give Big Papi, Pedroia, Ross, Napoli & other vets that Ben brings in in the off-season a chance to help these kids mature. Don't give up on these kids just yet.