The Orioles are in an unenviable position. Their chances of actually winning anything in 2020, despite the bizarre schedule and increased chances for unlikely outcomes, are to be blunt, bad. FanGraphs gives them a 0.2 percent chance to win a Wild Card spot. Baseball Prospectus says that’s too high and gives Baltimore a 0.1 percent shot. When you find yourself arguing over slivers of a percent it’s probably time to log off, figuratively if not actually. But, one thing the over-before-it-begins 2020 season affords the Orioles is evaluation time, time to assess if any of their not-so-young young players are anything more than stopgaps and/or trade chips. Three names stand out in this category: Renato Nunez, Hanser Alberto, and Rio Ruiz. What have they been? What can they be? Let’s take a look!
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We’ll start with Renato Nunez, who hit 31 homers last season. In fact, just about any pro-Orioles article about Nunez will mention that right up front (*cough cough*). You would think that hitting 31 homers in a season would be the thing to know about Nunez, but actually the real thing to know about Nunez is that he hit 31 homers and somehow wasn’t worth a single win by either WAR metric. That’s difficult to do because, you see, 31 homers is a lot! Thirty-one homers are very valuable! To burn off all that value you have to actively injure the team in other ways, something Nunez was able to accomplish. The feat is even more impressive when you consider the facts that he walked a reasonable if not impressive amount and didn’t strike out too much either.
So what was the problem? Well, his defense is considered below average and he provided almost no other offensive value. He had (relatively) few hits, a low batting average, a low on-base percentage, and (relatively) few extra base hits. The entire package is the kind of thing that would’ve earned him a long term contract in the 1980s, but sadly for him (and for the rest of us) this is 2020.
So what does this mean for Nunez going forward? A simple reading of the tea leaves suggests Nunez benefited from the juiced ball and if that disappears, so will what little value he provides. Bad defensive third baseman (one caveat – his 2018 defensive metrics were good), who don’t get on base and don’t have much power are, well, I think I’ve made the case. However, looking back at his time in the minors suggests the possibility that the power is legit. His exit velocities also indicate he squared often. If so, and he can find a way to supplement that power by, say, not being horrendously bad at third base, or by getting the occasional single in addition to and not instead of a home run, then perhaps there is a two-to-three win player in there after all. Should that be the case, the Orioles might be able to fetch something of actual value for him in a trade or, even more ideally, maybe he can hold down the position for a few seasons while the team builds itself up. We’ll see if Nunez can make that case.
Moving on to Hanser Alberto, the question isn’t can he stop sabotaging himself in the field and at the plate enough to make 31 homers actually matter. The question is more, can he repeat enough of 2019 to make himself matter going forward? Alberto doesn’t have the power of a Nunez, but he can actually play defense at an up-the-middle position to a league-average or slightly better standard. The question with Alberto is, can he continue hitting enough singles to have offensive value? He doesn’t hit for power and he almost never walks so the value has got to come from singles. That means hitting the ball hard enough to get it through or over the infield. In 2019 Alberto hit 96 line drives and came away with 70 hits, 61 of which were singles. Those liners aren’t going far but because of Alberto’s other skills, they don’t have to. If they continue to do so, the defense plays and Alberto is a perfectly cromulent two win second baseman. That has value. If he can find and tap into a little bit of power, well, now we’re cooking with gas, but I wouldn’t expect that to happen. That said, it’s 2020 so [shrugging emoji].
Rio Ruiz is our final ‘what is that guy’ guy. Ruiz came up in the Braves system, and at one point was thought to possess the skills for big things. Scouts say once a guy has shown he can do it, you know it is in there, but Ruiz hasn’t ever shown premium batting skills above High-A, and that was in Lancaster, CA, at an altitude where pitchers are allowed to bring their childhood teddy bears out to the mound with them for comfort. Since then the problem has been that, though Ruiz is an acceptable fielder at third, he doesn’t or hasn’t shown anywhere near the required power to play the position at the major league level.
The hopeful sign comes in the fact that he makes hard contact, yet, despite that, and despite the fact that he hit the ball on the ground a lot, he still didn’t hit that many singles. It’s possible he could be losing hits to the shift, or maybe his BABIP really was just bad luck, but one way or the other, there simply aren’t enough hits, or weren’t enough, to make him a playable every day third baseman. With a bit more BABIP though you could squint and see a player of some limited value. The question is, how hard do you have to squint and can you do it while operating a motor vehicle?
The common thread here is that all these guys have disappointed in their careers, but it’s not over yet. There is some potential left, despite their journeyman status and despite their advanced ages (for a major league prospect). The good news for the Orioles is they don’t have any commitments to any of these guys. This isn’t Chris Davis 2.0. The team can walk away from any or all three guys mid-season if need be. But the better result is that one or more improves upon whatever deficits they have as a player and becomes something of some value. None of these guys is the next Jose Bautista or but could one or more be a regular on a playoff team? Probably not, but…. maybe? And even if not, perhaps there is some trade value to be gained, that which would be helped along by a solid 2020 campaign.
So if you were looking for a reason to watch Orioles baseball in 2020 besides trying to forget everything else about 2020, there are three reasons. None of these guys are going to make or break the future of the O’s but maybe there’s more something there than there has been. After the first seven months of this year it feels like we’re owed that much, doesn’t it?
Orioles Analyst
Matthew Kory is a Orioles / MLB Analyst for BSL. He has covered baseball professionally for The Athletic, Vice Sports, Sports On Earth, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, two boys, and his cats, Mini Squeaks and The President. Co-Host of The Warehouse.