Rays call up Wil Myers

Back on June 9th, a tweet from ESPN's Jim Bowden caused some arguments over whether the Rays would call up top prospect Wil Myers or not. Andrew Ball addressed this in his June 9th article here at Fake Teams.

Well, we now know that the Rays will finally call up Myers, and he will be with the team in Boston tomorrow night. Myers, as Andrew pointed out, is the reigning Minor League Player of the Year. Thus far in 2013, Myers was hitting .283-.354-.514 with 14 HRs, 12 doubles, 2 triples, 43 runs, 57 RBI and 7 stolen bases in 251 at bats at AAA Durham.

Over his last 162 games in AAA, between Omaha and Durham, Myers has hit 38 home runs, scored 109 runs, drove 136 runs, and stole 9 bases. In effect, Myers has played a full season in AAA, and is pretty much ready for the big leagues. He will play every day, most likely in right field, but fantasy owners will want to tap the breaks on high expectations for him. Don't get me wrong, he is an excellent hitting prospect, and will hit for power at the big league level, but he has had trouble with the strikeout in the minors, and I expect that to continue in the big leagues as well.

Myers will play his home games at Tropicana Field, which has suppressed runs scoring by 11% and home runs by 13% this season. My expectations for Myers for the rest of the season is a .250ish batting average with 12 -13 home runs, 45 runs, 50 RBI and 5 stolen bases.

Am I being too pessimistic on Myers for the rest of the season?

For more on the Myers promotion, and the Rays in general, make sure you check out the great stuff from the guys at DRaysBay, SB Nation's Rays fan site.