With all the talk about the newest Brewer's poor hitting, I thought it would be interesting to look at some players who once found themselves in a similar position.  Specifically, players in the last twenty years who had 1000+ plate appearances through their age-23 seasons and a very low on base percentage.  Below is the list of the bottom fifteen such players by OBP (fifteen was a convenient break-off point between guys at .305 and .310).  Below that is a table showing how each of those players' careers turned out after age 23.  I think there are some pretty interesting names involved.

Once again, the table below is how each player's career turned out after age 23:

Obviously Sammy Sosa had by far the best career offensively.  Journeyman Jose Guillen has had the second-best career.  (Gee, I wonder how that happened.)  Yadier Molina is a budding star and Jose Lopez is beginning to realize his power potential.  Christian Guzman, Juan Uribe, and (each) Alex Gonzalez have had lengthy careers and aren't bad players, but they're hardly stars.  I'm not going to touch Cesar Izturis or Corey Patterson.

Andujar Cedeno is interesting because he actually peaked at age 23.  He hit well in 1993 and 1994, especially for a shortstop, but fell off a cliff following the players' strike. He was out of the majors by 27 and died in a car accident at age 31.  Mike Caruso was the guy the Giants hoped Brian Bocock could be.  He made the 1998 White Sox after spending 1997 in High A ball.  All he did was hit .306 with 22 steals in his rookie year.  He too suffered a sharp decline.  You might remember Peter Bergeron's name from his time with AAA Indianapolis in 2004.

In any event, it's certainly possible for a young player to overcome a poor start offensively and turn into a decent player.  Certainly good defenders get plenty of opportunities to do so.  The chances of such a player turning into a star?  Not very good.

I, for one, certainly wouldn't mind being surprised.