Jorge Mateo has brought incredible speed and intriguing potential to the Baltimore Orioles roster since his first game at Camden Yards on August 6.

However, he’s simply had terrible timing.

He has failed to play in a win after getting designated for assignment by the San Diego Padres and arriving in Baltimore. I think it’s hard to blame someone with a .812 OPS who’s produced six extra-base hits and three steals in ten games during these losses, so let’s explore the idea of Mateo on this team going forward.

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

The first thing you notice about Mateo is he has blazing speed. Statcast says he’s in the 100th percentile for sprint speed and the eye test agrees with the assessment, especially after you see him hit a standup triple. He’s also had occasions where he is flying down the line on a routine grounder, putting extra pressure on the defense even if they still get him out.

Mateo is 3-for-4 on stolen bases so far and even when he got thrown out, he still managed to beat the throw and was out because of a poor slide rather than a lack of speed. He was also 5-for-5 in San Diego, providing a very efficient rate of stealing a base in 89 percent of his tries this year.  

You don’t need to be a student of sabermetrics to know that speed is always a valuable skill in a baseball player. Someone like Mateo can turn a single into a double and a double into a triple by either running the base paths faster than everyone else or by stealing the base. Even if Mateo is a below-average hitter, his value once he gets on-base is much higher than hitters who don’t have his elite speed.

I also don’t think we have the sample size to confidently say Mateo is a below-average hitter at the major league level yet. In 89 MLB games, he only has 161 plate appearances, a rate of fewer than two PAs per game. This means he’s spent most of his young career hitting without being in the starting lineup. Mateo started six of his 22 games with the Padres in 2020 and nine of his 57 games in San Diego this year, so he just never had a chance to get in a rhythm of constantly starting like what has happened so far with the Orioles.

The fact that Mateo couldn’t find playing time with the Padres isn’t exactly a damning indictment of him as a player. Mateo started 546 games at shortstop in the minors but he had this generational superstar named Fernando Tatis Jr. blocking his playing time there. Moving him to second wasn’t an ideal solution either thanks to Jake Cronenworth, who has a career OPS of .883 in his first 171 games. If Mateo wanted regular chances to start at middle infield in the majors, I can’t think of a less ideal situation than being in San Diego.

To put it delicately, the Baltimore middle infield this year hasn’t quite been up to the level of San Diego’s, which means there shouldn’t be anything preventing Mateo from continuing to get the playing time he never got during his two seasons as a Padre.

Given his situation and skillset, Mateo might be the perfect player for the rest of this season. He’s getting reliable playing time for the first time and we already know he has blazing speed, so let’s see if two months of playing time will lead to improvements in his hitting.

Even if he can’t show much progress in hitting, he’s still worth considering keeping around in the future. A speed demon who has already played every position but pitcher, catcher and first base is a major weapon on the bench and provides a unique option on the roster.

While I doubt if Mike Elias personally cares about this, Mateo also improves the watchability of this roster. Speed is always exciting to watch in a baseball game, especially as the game shifts towards three true outcomes that make speed less valuable and less common. 

I loved Mark Reynolds and Pedro Alvarez as Orioles so there’s nothing wrong with having three true outcome guys on your roster, but it’s also refreshing to watch someone who seems like the polar opposite of that kind of player. Homers are fun, but so are stolen bases.

Mateo also improves the watchability just being someone besides Pat Valaika. I’ve previously written about his struggles this year and I don’t think I need to explain why it wasn’t fun watching a 28-year-old have a batting average under .200. Valaika offered nothing in the short term or the long term but that shouldn’t be true for Mateo.

I’m not especially confident Mateo will be a key part of the next good Orioles team but right now I can’t see any argument against letting him start every game the rest of the season to see what you have. After all, speed never slumps.

Rose Katz
Rose Katz

BSL Analyst

Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).

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