When you're drafted third in the country as Eric Hosmer was great things are expected of you. When you cruise through the minors destroying pitchers bigger things are expected of you. When you nearly hit .300 while almost pulling off a 20/10 season as a rookie the expectations fly through the roof. Alas, things have mostly flat-lined since then including Hosmer having a flat out disappointing effort in 2014. Can the 25 year old get back on the path of success in 2015?

THE MINORS

2008: The third player taken overall by the Royals in the Entry Draft. Appeared in three games at Rookie Ball. 

2009: Appeared in 106 games at Low-A and High-A hitting .241 with a .695 OPS. He hit six homers with 59  RBIs as well. Ranked 24th overall by Baseball America and 18th by Baseball Prospectus. 

2010: Saw action in 137 games at High-A and Double-A. Hit 20 homers with 86 RBIs and 87 runs scored. Also stole 14 bases with a massive slash line (.338/.406/.571). Ranked 8th overall by Baseball America and 12th by Baseball Prospectus. 

2011: Was on the field for 26 games at Triple-A. All he did was go .439/.525/.582 with three homers, 15 RBIs and 21 runs.

TOTALS: .312/.393/.494 with 30 HRs, 165 RBIs, 152 runs & 20 steals in 274 games.

THE MAJORS

2011: Appeared in 128 games as a rookie on his way to a 3rd place finish in the AL Rookie of the Year race. Hosmer hit .293 with 19 homers, 78 RBIs, 68 runs scored and 13 steals for the Royals.

2012: Slumped to .232 with a .663 OPS in a terribly disappointing second season. Hit only 14 homers with 60 RBIs, 65 runs and 16 thefts in 152 games.

2013: Rebounded to hit .302 with 17 homers, 79 RBIs and 86 runs scored. Also posted a .801 OPS with 11 steals in 169 games. 

2014: Back off the success wagon, Hosmer hit just .270 over 131 games (he missed 29 games after breaking his hand on a Jon Lester pitch). He also saw his power production plummet down to a .398 SLG and nine homers. Drove in 58 runs and scored 54 times. 

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THE SKILLS

Let me make a few declarative statements with Hosmer.

He's 25 years old.

Despite only being 25 he has four full seasons of big league work under his belt.

He's better than you think. It's your expectations that are out of whack.

Joey Votto sucks. Ask around. Even when he's healthy people complain about him. They say 'yeah he's good, but he walks too much and doesn't have enough power.' Really? Yeah, I really feel bad for Joey Votto and his .950 career OPS, which by the way is the 20th best mark in the history of baseball (min 3,000 plate appearances). The same affliction, to a lesser extent, is going on with Hosmer. As a corner infielder you're supposed to be a 25-30 homer guy, not a 15-20 homer bat, so people are always seemingly disappointed when their first sacker isn't Ryan Howard or Mark Teixeira. 

Let's dig into Hosmer directly.

Remember, Hosmer is 25 years old and he already has four years of big league experience. That rarely happens. He's a young veteran, and that should intrigue you.

To this point Hosmer has hit .275. That's not great. Certainly not horrible either. Moreover, in two of four seasons he's hit .293 or better. So what happened the other two seasons in which he hit .232 and .270? Data points.

(1) Hosmer has a .305 career BABIP. Solid. However, the number has been up and down in his four seasons: .314, .255, .335 and .312. Obviously the .255 is the outlier and we can pretty safely believe that the number won't be that bad in 2015.

(2) Hosmer has a career 19.3 percent line drive rate. Solid but nothing to really like - it's league average stuff. In three of four seasons the mark has been at least 18.5 percent (it was just 16.9 percent last year).

(3) Hosmer doesn't walk enough. His 7.4 percent walk rate is low, and through four seasons he has averaged 44 walks a season. 

(4) Hosmer keeps his strikeouts in check. Through four seasons he's averaged 93 a year.

Summing that up Hosmer is basically pretty average when it comes to the above four points. Nothing standing out in the plus or the minus. Just solid.

Here's an issue though.

For his career Hosmer owns a 1.80 GB/FB rate. That's fine if you're Danny Santana (Player Profile) or Adam Eaton, but that is not what you want to see from a guy who is supposed to be a run producer. The league average was 1.30 last season, so it's clear that Hosmer is certainly a ground ball centered batter. (A) That should help to bolster his batting average a bit. Why? Grounders become hits more often than fly balls do. (B) Hitting that many balls on the ground - his GB-rate is 52 percent for his career - limits the ability of a player to hit the ball into the seats. Let's go there next.

Hosmer has averaged 15 homers a season through four years with a season best of 19. That's not what anyone wants to see from a first baseman. We can all agree there. As I touched on above though, Hosmer shouldn't be looked at as a guy who will blast 30 homers. It's just not going to happen. Is it possible that he reaches 20 for the first time, a season after he fell to nine? I'm going to say yes. Here's why.

Hosmer had a 51.2 percent ground ball rate last season. That's extremely high, and not pleasing to be honest. Still, it was a three year low and below his career 51.8 percent rate. At least he's moving in the right direction, even if slowly. 

Hosmer had a 31.9 percent fly ball rate. That was a 4-year high. Again, baby steps but moving in the right direction. Still, the league average is 34-35 percent, so he's not even up to the league average.

Hosmer has had a decent HR/F ratio. At least he has three times. From 2011-13 his year marks were 13.5, 11.3 and 13.0 percent. Pretty easy to see that he had established a level. So we can pretty much write off the 6.8 percent mark that he posted last season, literally half his established level (HR/F levels often can be projected forward if we look at the previous three seasons). 

Hosmer does do something very well for a first baseman - he steals bases. In his first three seasons he swiped at least 11 bases. Last season that mark fell to four. There's no obvious reason that he shouldn't be able to get back to the double-digit level, though you obviously shouldn't be expecting it. 

Should also note the splits of Hosmer. He's clearly more comfortable against righties. Career numbers follow.  

vs. left: .265/.308/.363 with a homer every 63.5 ABs
vs. right: .280/.338/.444 with a homer every 31.0 ABs

But what about his last season push. Some things to note.

(1) Hosmer had a .321 batting average and .509 SLG after July 1st.

(2) Hosmer hit .351 with 12 RBIs over 15 postseason games in 2014.

(3) Hosmer adjusted his swing slightly. He's "loading" a bit early so that he can get his body into the swing quicker without having to accelerate his hands. He's also seemingly developed a "2-strike" swing in which he's more than willing to simply put the ball in play (check out Eno Sarris' review of a post-season at-bat).

CONCLUSION

So who is Eric Hosmer? He's a guy who hits too many balls on the ground to be a power hitter. He's also an extremely talented young man with oodles of big league experience. He's shown some growth in his stroke, can steal a base, and won't break the bank to add in 2015. If he returned to 2013 levels of production I wouldn't be shocked at all. Wipe out of your mind his 2014 effort and realize that Hosmer profiles as a rather stable run producer from first base. You'll just have to get your power from someplace else.

10 team lg: Hosmer shouldn't be rostered to start in this setup at first base unless you're building your roster in all the other spots. The power stroke just isn't big enough to comfortably start Hosmer at first, unless you've got power bats at other positions like shortstop and second base. 

12 team lg: Still not a first base eligible option here, but as a corner infielder I like. Remember, he could easily repeat his 2013 effort. 

15 team lg: We can talk about him starting for you in this format at first base. It would be a somewhat bullish position to take, but it is defensible.

AL-only: In this format he's a nice target. Others will fall all over themselves to roster Jose Abreu, Edwin Encarnacion and Victor Martinez. If you don't want to be aggressive at the position, Hosmer is a nice fall back option.