Wolf, you are correct that Nix and Holliday show some similarities. Both showed great promise as 19 year olds in Low A ball (Asheville), and followed that up with reasonably promising showings as 20 year olds in High A. Then both of them tanked big time. Holliday then had shoulder trouble, forcing the move from 3B to the OF. When he recovered, he had a couple really uninspiring seasons at AA, putting up an OPS numbers of 766 and 708 at ages 22/23. I can't remember what the prospect rankers were saying about him at the time, but that's probably because he was viewed as essentially a non-prospect by then. I don't think there was any good reason to believe (based on performance) that he'd get more than a cup of coffee, at best, in MLB. And then Dustan Mohr hurt his leg celebrating an opening day victory, Holliday got called up from the Springs, and, well, he never looked back.
Nix's 19/20 year old seasons were very, very promising in Low A/Hi A. But as we all know, he followed that up with 3 truly putrid years in -- 2 in AA, one in AAA. (OPS: 628, 644, 630). I had no idea why they protected him on the 40-man roster after that final ('06) performance. But, hey, maybe Schmidt/Geivett and the boys know something that I don't know. He didn't exactly dominate last year (793 OPS), but his leap back to respectability was totally unexpected. And if you take away the slow start, you can construct an argument (not that convincing an argument, but still) that he's taken a great leap forward.
So there's some similarity there. Will the Rox catch lightning in a bottle twice? Pretty unlikely. (One big difference: Holliday is huge, Nix is 5'11" on his tiptoes). But given the other 2B options, the new focus on Nix doesn't strike me as a bad idea. Certainly better than throwing Barmes out there again.
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