As commenter Andrew* pointed out a few weeks ago next year will be an interesting year for Jay Bruce. In his first two years in the bigs Bruce has showed serious power potential but widely divergent BABIP results (.298/.222 respectively.) While Bill James sees him putting it together in '10 to the tune of 38 dingers fans are a bit less optimistic, projecting Bruce at 28 HR's as of this writing. Both projections put him around the 90's for R's and RBI and mid to high single digits for Steals. When you combine those numbers with the youth and breakout potential of Bruce you get a solid second or third OF who could challenge some of the top OF's for value in 2010.
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Jay's current ADP over at mockdraftcentral.com is 124th, near guys like Michael Cuddyer, Denard Span, and Nyjer Morgan. Bruce is probably the most likely of this group to breakout and I'd lay better than even money that he outperforms these guys even without a breakout-type season.
Keep an eye on Bruce's ADP; if it's still lingering in the 9th ot 10th round on draft day then he'll be an excellent value in '10. Remember that taking a guy a round or two earlier than market value is not overpaying if you value him at two or three rounds better than market value.
* Check out Andrew's comments in the Cheap in 2010 comment section if you want to see more number crunching on Bruce's potential.
