The Futility Infielder

This entry is about a player with the following line:

 G   AB  H  2B 3B HR  R  RBI  BB  SO  SB CS  AVG  OBP  SLG

162 603 199 35  1 27 128  91  84 116  13  8 .330 .424 .526

A pretty special player, eh? Let's put him in there with a few 2003 stat lines of some randomly-chosen stars:

         AB  H  2B 3B HR  R  RBI  BB  SO  SB CS  AVG  OBP  SLG

Mr. X   603 199 35  1 27 128  91  84 116  13  8 .330 .424 .526 

Ordonez 606 192 46  3 29  95  99  57  73   9  5 .317 .380 .546

Pujols  591 212 51  1 43 137 124  79  65   5  1 .359 .439 .667 

A-Rod   607 181 30  6 47 124 118  87 126  17  3 .298 .396 .600

Rolen   559 160 49  1 28  98 104  82 104  13  3 .286 .382 .528

Soriano 682 198 36  5 38 114  91  38 130  35  8 .290 .338 .525

Okay, based on that one season, he's not the best hitter in that group, but he's certainly not the worst, either. Those stats can sit next to the big boys at the dinner table; he's got power, he's got a good batting eye, and he's even got a bit of speed if not necessarily the best judgement on the basepaths. His line looks especially good next to Scott Rolen, who's having an MVP-caliber season in the NL this year. Yet this player languishes in the relative obscurity of a last-place ballclub. His team spent top dollar for some free-agent hitters in the offseason, but he's outhitting them, and the club has actually fallen one spot in the standings.

There's a catch to that player's line. Those are true stats, but they've actually been assembled over two seasons due to injuries. That line consists of the last 162 games played by Melvin Mora of the Baltimore Orioles, who went on the disabled list on Monday with a hamstring injury and a sprained ligament in his left foot. He's played 66 games this year, hitting .347/.433/.556 with 12 homers, 60 runs scored, and 43 RBI. A litany of injuries, including being hit in the face by a pitch and tearing a knee ligament, limited him to 96 games last year, during which he hit .317/.418/.503 with 15 homers, made the AL All-Star team, and topped the league in batting for a good spell. He won the Futility Infielder of the Year award, too. When I wrote up that profile, I wondered what his stats would look like if he'd played a full season, and while I'd been tracking him, I was quite shocked to find how, um, timely, his injury was.

At the time those 2003 numbers looked like a pretty big fluke from a versatile 31-year-old who'd never topped a .750 OPS in a season, but Mora has picked up right where he left off this year. And while both Miguel Tejada (.314/.362/.511) and Javy Lopez (.319/.370/.481) have hit better than their career levels, it's Mora who leads the team in On Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage. Signed to a 3-year, $10.5 million contract in the offseason, he's also had to deal with converting to third base, a position at which he'd played only seven games in his major-league career. It's been a rocky transition, 15 errors in 64 games, a .919 Fielding Percentage (lowest of the 24 regular 3B), a .699 Zone Rating (22nd) and a 2.71 Range Factor (10th). Yet he's third among AL 3B in Win Shares, behind only Alex Rodriguez and Hank Blalock, though injuries to Eric Chavez and Troy Glaus have thinned the ranks a bit. At his salary, he's a bargain.

But the Orioles are struggling. They're 36-46, in fifth place behind not only the Yankees and Red Sox but also the Blue Jays and, yes, the Devil Rays, who stand 42-41 in third place at this writing. According to ESPN's Jerry Crasnick, owner Peter Angelos is losing patience, though most O fans have long ago lost patience with him. Angelos, according to Crasnick, might even fire first-year manager Lee Mazzilli if things don't improve. Though Lopez and Tejada have performed well, two other free agent signings, Rafael Palmeiro (.242/.353/.405) and Sidney Ponson (3-12, 6.29 ERA) have been big busts, and the starting rotation has put up a combined 5.56 ERA.

One bright spot for the O's lately has been the play of the man who's spelling Mora, 30-year-old journeyman David Newhan, who's hitting .405/457/.662 with 4 HR in 81 plate appearances. Coming into the season, Newhan hadn't played in the bigs since 2001, and in parts of three seasons, had never drawn 50 PA, hitting a sub-Mendozoid .163/.247/.302 in 97 PA. Now he's got the pundits invoking Wally Pipp when they discuss the job he's done in Mora's absence. No matter. While Mora should return "good as new" according to Baseball Prospectus injury expert Will Carroll, the O's might be well served to ride those two hot bats and return Melvin to the outfield to replace the woeful and injured rightfielder Jay Gibbons (.223/.290/.345), or the woeful but healthy Larry Bigbie (.263/.327/.393) or Luis Matos (.239/.290/.359).

Anyway, here's wishing Melvin a speedy recovery so he can get back to terrorizing AL pitching as he has for the last season-and-a-half and showing the rest of the baseball world what a fine player he's become.