lr's holding down the "how much upside can we REALLY expect from DJ?" category beautifully, but there are so many variables in the minors when it comes to walks / batting eye, and power, and ability to hit quality breakers, et al.
You can guess many things from a minor league slash line, but the major one is this: who wants to swing, and who wants to work the count - and what they do with the pitch once they make contact.
DJ wants to swing. He wants to hit hittable pitches, and with his batting average he's definitely making contact. But his K rate is high for a dude who is JUST swinging at hittable pitches. There's some fishing in his game. He has a diving problem at the plate, and I dunno how much he's cleaned that up in High Desert. Deej was a HR monster in college (and not just in Albuquerque) but whether he can be a crusher in the big leagues - in SAFECO - is undetermined.
You would think DJ would be in the Aramis Ramirez mold. But Aramis had quite a bit more patience in the minors than in the bigs. Will DJ find the walks? Eric Chavez started his minor league career off a bit like this, but he was younger and didn't strike out quite as much. Adrian Beltre is that kind of hitter in the bigs, but Safeco chewed him up. Of course, guys do learn how to take walks... A nice hitter like Paul O'Neill had a .5 eye in the minors, a .75 in the bigs, and had years in his peak where he had more walks than Ks (I know, steroid-era asterisks, but still).
Like I said, the big question: who IS DJ, and how much can he help us? I don't think we can say for sure yet. I'd like to see what happens to his walks and Ks now that he's in AA where the pitching and umpiring are both better. As Plawsable says, he's demolishing righty pitching. As lr says, if he can't pound the ball around (and out of) the park while catching enough grass to keep his average high, then his upside at first remains limited. It's hard to be Roberto Clemente (.315/ .360/. 475, 6% walk rate, 130 OPS+), especially if you wanna strike out a bunch.
More likely that you become Joe Carter (.260 /.305/. 465, 6% walk rate, .4 EYE, 105 OPS+ with a nice little 110-130 OPS+ peak). Of course, Joe was a multiple time All-Star and MVP vote-getter with 400 homers and 1400+ RBIs in his career who was "only" worth 19 WAR... while he helped Toronto toward hoisting some kind of trophy or other.
Maybe that's an inkblot test. Say DJ Peterson = Joe Carter. What's that worth to you?
~G
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