u/LetsAgreeBeatlesSuck

I picked up a rider today who was using someone else's account. A block into a ride they ask me to stop. I asked them to put it in the app. They said their phone was dead.

I rejected the stop because it wasn't in the app and they started screaming and cussing at me. At this point I pulled the car into the parking lot where they wanted to stop.

When the car got to a stop, he said I should get out so we could fight. I no longer felt safe so I cancelled the ride and calmly asked him to exit my vehicle. He refused to get out

After it was cancelled, he changed his mind and wanted to be taken to his destination. I calmly asked him to get out of my vehicle or I would have to call the police.

He then accused me of being racist. And that I was going to "get fired for being racist". Finally he gets out after constant cussing and screaming and flicks me off as I drive off.

When I get home I get an email from support that shows his side of the interaction: "the driver went to the wrong address and didn't pick up the phone when I called him and just drove off"

I reported the incident to Lyft but given the false claim of racism I'm worried about suspension. Thankfully I have a dash cam but still don't want to deal with the headache

I keep seeing the same two takes about Luis Lara: that he's a smaller, switch-hitting redux of Sal Frelick, and that he's the kind of guy you flip for a rental ace at the deadline. I went and pulled the data on both, and I came away more convinced than ever that we're badly undervaluing what this kid is doing. Let me show you.

## The one number that should stop the conversation

Lara is 21 years old, playing his first season in Triple-A, and he's walking in roughly **15% of his plate appearances while striking out under 13%.** He walks more than he strikes out. If you prefer the rawer cut, that's 39 walks in 204 at-bats, a walk-to-AB ratio north of 19%.

I pulled FanGraphs minor-league hitting data going back to 2014, around 11,000 hitter-seasons. I filtered for hitters age 21 or younger with Triple-A time and asked a simple question: who else has posted Lara's walk-and-strikeout combination?

The answer is **nobody.** Zero matches in the entire sample. When I loosened it to "did any age-21-or-younger hitter with AAA time just walk more than he struck out, at any walk rate," I got exactly four players in nine years:

| Player | Year | Age | BB% | K% |

|---|---|---|---|---|

| Luis Rengifo | ~2016 | 21 | 12.7% | 12.7% |

| Alex Verdugo | ~2015 | 21 | 10.5% | 10.1% |

| Javier Sanoja | 2024 | 21 | 8.5% | 6.5% |

| Luis Urías | 2014 | 19 | 8.2% | 6.8% |

Every one of them made the majors. And not one of them walked at even 13%. Lara is doing the thing they did, plus carrying a walk rate two to seven points higher than any of them, all at age 21 in the high minors. The closest statistical twin I could find for the full profile, **Chase Meidroth** (18.8% BB / 12.7% K in AAA), did it a full year older.

This is not a "good approach for a prospect." It is, as far as nine years of data can tell me, an approach nobody his age has matched at this level.

## Now let's actually do the Frelick comparison

Here's the thing: the Frelick comp isn't crazy on the surface. Small frame, switch/contact-oriented bat, plus glove in the outfield, speed, light power. I get why people reach for it. But the comparison stops cold the moment you look at the one skill that defines a hitter of this body type: getting on base when you *don't* hit it.

| | Lara (2026, AAA, age 21) | Frelick (pro debut, age 22) |

|---|---|---|

| BB% | ~15% | 9.3% |

| K% | ~13% | 11.2% |

| BB vs K | walks **more** than he Ks | walks **less** than he Ks |

And in the majors, Frelick has settled in around a **7-8% walk rate** (7.4% in 2024, 7.9% in 2025). To be clear, Frelick is a good player. He won a Gold Glove, he put up a 3-WAR season in 2025, his contact skills are excellent. But his entire offensive value rides on batting average and defense, because the walks aren't there and his contact quality is genuinely at the bottom of the league (he had the worst average exit velocity and hard-hit rate among qualified MLB hitters in 2024).

That's the whole point. Frelick gets on base when he hits the ball. Lara gets on base when he hits it *and* when he doesn't. For a low-power, small-frame profile, that on-base floor is the difference between a useful regular and a genuine leadoff weapon.

So when someone says "Lara is just a switch-hitting Frelick," what they're actually saying is "Lara's best-case outcome is a guy who's already a major-league regular." A Frelick *career* is Lara's **floor**, not his ceiling.

## The glove is a pillar, not a tiebreaker

Lara won the **2025 Minor League Gold Glove in center field** as one of the youngest players in Double-A: 10 outfield assists, two errors all season. His tool grades are Run 70, Field 70, Arm 55-60. Baseball America has called him one of the best defensive outfielders in the game, full stop, not "for a prospect."

That matters because premium center-field defense plus plus-plus speed is exactly what lets a contact-and-OBP bat profile play every day instead of riding the bench. It's the same template that makes guys like Mookie Betts and Bobby Witt Jr. MVP-caliber without 40-homer power: stack elite defense and baserunning on top of a high-OBP bat and the WAR adds up fast.

And notice that even the flattering scouting comps, Jacob Young and Victor Scott II, are glove-and-legs center fielders with passive bats. The walk rate is the thing *none* of those comps have. It keeps getting left out of the conversation, and it's the most important part.

## The honest caveat (because I'm not just a homer)

The one real question is impact. Lara's average exit velocity (~88.6 mph), 90th-percentile EV (~102), and barrel rate (~4%) are below average. The six homers he already has in pitcher-friendly Nashville are a genuine and pleasant surprise, but they're sitting on top of soft underlying contact data. If big-league pitchers decide a no-power bat can be challenged in the zone, the walk rate could compress, and you'd get a high-floor regular instead of a star.

That's the bear case, and it's legitimate. The thing to watch the rest of the year is the exit-velocity trend, not the home run total. If the impact keeps ticking up, the ceiling talk gets real. If it flatlines, you've still got a plus-defending, high-OBP, base-stealing center fielder, which is a player you are thrilled to roster.

## On flipping him for two months of Skubal

Treat it as asset logic, not fandom. Skubal is one of the three best pitchers alive. A deadline rental of him is roughly a dozen regular-season starts plus a playoff run. The ask is that you give up **six controllable years** of a 21-year-old plus-plus defensive center fielder with a historically rare plate-discipline profile and emerging power.

That's the trade a big-market contender makes. It is not the trade a team whose entire competitive model is built on cheap, controllable, up-the-middle talent makes. And the "he's just another Frelick" framing is doing an enormous amount of work to make that swap feel palatable. The data says the framing is wrong.

## TL;DR

- Lara is 21, in AAA, walking ~15% and striking out under 13%. In nine years of minor-league data (~11,000 hitter-seasons), **no** age-21-or-younger hitter with AAA time has matched that walk/K profile. Only four even walked more than they struck out, none above 12.7% BB.

- The Frelick comp dies at the approach: Frelick walks 7-8% in the majors and lives on contact and defense. Lara already walks twice that rate, a year younger, at a tougher level. A Frelick career is Lara's floor.

- He's a Minor League Gold Glove center fielder (Run 70, Field 70) with plus-plus speed. The glove and legs let the OBP bat play every day.

- Real caveat: the power is light and the exit-velo data is soft. Watch that, not the homer count.

- Trading six years of this profile for two months of a rental is big-market logic, not Brewers logic.

Sincerely,

Mayor of Luis Lara fanclub 👀

Belligerent Rider / False Accusations

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