Referring to Christian Vazquez as "Mini Yadi" is Outrageous

By Djack

ESPN- "Near the end of the 2014 season, a few weeks after he was traded from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Boston Red Sox, right-hander Joe Kelly came up with a nickname for his new favorite catcher.

"Mini Yadi," Kelly said then. "I call him that."
Three years later, the sentiment still applies to Christian Vazquez, even though the moniker hasn't caught on for general consumption.

Even after Tommy John elbow surgery erased Vazquez's 2015 season and slowed his projected maturation into the second coming of Cardinals star Yadier Molina, Vazquez, 26, continues to draw rave reviews from pitchers who adore throwing to him."

I don't care what the reason is for calling him "Mini Yadi", you don't disrespect one of the games greats by comparing him to some mid-level prospect. Vazquez is 26 going on 27 and he's yet to play more than 60 games in a season. Matter of fact, he's not even the real starting catcher on his own team, Sandy Leon has appeared in more games than Vazquez this season. Yeah he might be a good defensive catcher, but still comparing him to Yadi is just disrespectful. This is an 8x Gold Glover that we're talking about, not some Joe Shmoe. Vazquez is yet to play a full season and we're just handing out some of the greatest compliments ever to this guy, it's quite absurd.

Letting Joe Kelly make outrageous comparisons for his teammates is a honorable move on his part, he's just trying to build the guys confidence, but for any non Red Sox fan to believe it, though, that'd be outrageous. Let's stop comparing guys that haven't played a full season to legends of the game, it's ridiculous. It's not just the Red Sox either, Yankees have been doing same shit with Judge and Jeter. It's completely outrageous and needs to stop because it comes off as unappreciative of what those legends were to the sport. If a guy who played 150 MLB games can be called "Mini Yadi" how much can you really respect what Yadier Molina has done. I think Christian Vazquez is more like a mini Jose Molina at this point, a much more fair assessment in my opinion.