This year is what boosted Vogelbach back up for sure. Legit question: would you rather have Tank O'Neill or Dan Vogelbach? With Kyle Lewis out with that blown ACL, those are the top 2 system hitters. O'Neill is a huge ball of muscle but he can still move and throw as a corner OF, while Vogelbach is strictly 1B/DH.
21 year old O'Neill: .260 / .315 / .560 in A+ Cal last year with a .2 batting eye, .295 / .360 / .520 this year in AA with a .35 eye
23 year old Vogelbach: .280 / .415 / .435 in AA last year with a 1:1 batting eye, .320 / .425 / .550 this year in AAA with a .8 eye
O'Neill could turn into a pumpkin at any time (still has a 25.4% K rate, much improved from last year 30.5% but still borderline) but his raw power is as good as anyone's and he can play the OF which Vogelbach pretty much can't. Is O'Neill gonna top out at Wlad Balentien? Is he Mark Reynolds? Is he Nelson Cruz, who struck out 25% of the time in the minors at age 22 and 23 but has made a decent career for himself?
Vogelbach doesn't have O'Neill's in-game power yet (37% extra base hits in his minors career compared to 43% for O'Neill, which is Big-Mac-like). O'Neill's .242 career ISO is really impressive for a guy who's only 21. But if you were only going to keep one, would you keep the one with the batting eye who also has big power, or go flat out for the guy with the 70 power-scale number and cross your fingers that he can make enough contact?
We have both, which is nice - but we could always trade one for a Chapman or Miller, and the one that would go right now looks like O'Neill. Is he a chip you cash in before he turns into Ian Stewart or Greg Halman? Seattle's inability to get even ONE of their free-swingers to produce on the big league level makes it hard for me to buy into O'Neill as a long-term solution, but then he deploys that smooth uppercut swing designed to hit moonballs to the heavens and I think maybe he's the one we've been waiting for.
I found getting Vogelbach to be interesting, considering we picked up a similar body style in Joe Rizzo. Apparently we're okay with taking guys we think can hit and figuring out what to do with them. I would probably take take Vogelbach over O'Neill from a certainty perspective (I trust Vogue more to get me 110-120 OPS+ figures in a couple of years) but I wouldn't trade either guy. They're both aimed at being MOTO players banging balls off of and over walls for this squad when Cano is no longer a lynchpin and Cruz has retired.
And one's a lefty and one's a righty - just what you want in the middle of the order, right Doc? The future corner hitters on this team circa fall 2018 as it looks right now are Seager, Tank, Vogue and Kyle Lewis. I really hope that works out for us - if we can keep them all.