This player has more extra base hits this season than Michael Young, Ibanez, Hawpe, Damon, Cano, Zimmerman, Branyan, D Lee, Bay, Tulowitzki, Kinsler, Youkilis, J Upton, C Lee, Miguel Cabrera, Utley, Mauer, Kemp, and Zobrist, among others.

He has as may extra base hits as Sandoval, Adrian Gonzalez,  and Hanley Ramirez.

He is within 6 extra base hits or fewer of Fielder, Reynolds, Lind, Howard, Braun, Ethier, Morneau, K Morales, Dunn, and Longoria.

Of course, he is still quite a bit behind Teixeira (8 behind) and Pujols (15 behind)

He is ONLY 23 years old!

I'm sure everyone has guessed by now that I speak of Billy Butler. There are caveats here - he does play 1B, where this sort of production is expected, and he does need to convert some of his doubles to homeruns to truly match some of the guys listed above - but let me repeat something: HE'S TWENTY-THREE! It is probably gonna happen!

Rany had a great post today, in which he pointed out that amid a season that has been largely disastrous, two of the former 3 first round draft picks that we are counting on to be the cornerstones of the future have made the leap and done exactly that - set the stage for being the cornerstones we need going forward.

We all get caught up in the day to day disasters of this franchise, and (rightfully) are concerned with the abilities of the GM and the player development system, but having two probable stars going forward, under team control for 3 and 4 years respectively, is actually a good start towards building a contender. At least this season hasn't been a total waste, at least in this respect.