Jake Fox vs. Matt Stairs

Next in our daily series (because we've done it two days in a row) which we'll call the um… Versus Series (genius!) we have Jake Fox vs. Matt Stairs. When trying to think about Jake Fox's future the first guy that comes to mind is Matt Stairs.

A short fat guy that started at first base, but got moved around because teams usually had a better first baseman. They seem like blue collar guys that'd talk to you in a bar... probably about home runs because thats all they really concern themselves with. Matt was drafted as a shortstop, Jake started off as a catcher. I know there are expert sites that will tell who who a player is most similar too, but screw it I'm going it alone here. Once again this looks like a pretty fair comparison when you look at how Stairs' career started out.

Matt scrapped together 126 at-bats over his first 3 seasons, none of which appearing in more than 40 games and had only 1 home run over that span of sporadic play. His fourth season, in 1996 at 28 years old is the year that compares well to Jake's current season at 27.

Stairs 1996- 61 G, 137 AB, 38 H, 10 HR, 23 RBI, 19 BB, .277 AVG, .367 OBP, .547 SLG

Fox 2009- 58 G, 151 AB, 48 H, 9 HR, 34 RBI, 11 BB, .305 AVG, .355 OBP, .550 SLG

Very similar numbers here at about the same age and experience level. So if Jake continues to follow the career path of Stairs, where would that take him over the next few years? Starting with the following year for Stairs, let's take a look.

Stairs 1997- 133 G, 352 AB, 105 H, 27 HR, 73 RBI, 50 BB, .298 AVG, .386 OBP, .582 SLG
Stairs 1998- 149 G, 523 AB, 154 H, 26 HR, 106 RBI, 59 BB, .294 AVG, .370 OBP, .511 SLG

Stairs 1999- 146 G, 531 AB, 137 H, 38 HR, 102 RBI, 89 BB, .258 AVG, .366 OBP, .533 SLG

These three seasons were clearly his prime, although he has stayed a useful player for many more years. If Jake approaches anything near these numbers over the next 3 years I think everyone would be thrilled. The only issue with that is with no where to play, it doesn't appear he will get the opportunity. Currently, it looks like next year he will be relagated to a similar role as this year which is how Stairs has been used later in his career. With playing time I'd say those numbers above are the potential/ceiling of Jake Fox.