2006 in Review- Offensive Odds n' Ends

Today for the season in review we're going to hit on everyone I haven't talked about yet. None of them merited their own post for various reasons, which I'll get to as I talk about them.

Played the whole year but not coming back
We've got three players in this category, Joe Randa, Jermomy Burnitz, and Humberto Cota. Not much to say about Randa or Burnitz, in the long run they ended up producing just about how we (we being the pessimistic internet Pirate fans, see Charlie's community projections for them) thought they would. They were both bad ideas when we signed them, and that didn't change. Cota is a bit of a different story. Using BP's VORP rankings for 2006 (since I've been asked to explain my sabermetric stats, VORP is Value Over Replacement Player, BP's measure of how many runs a player is worth at the plate when compared to a replacement level player, the typical AAA call-up, at their position) Cota finished 1008th out of 1030 with a VORP of -10.3. Granted, he didn't really play much and was given no chance to get into any kind of groove at all, but damn, that's awful. Humberto will almost certainly be non-tendered this offseason. I actually kind of like Cota, despite all of his offensive misgivings. If Brad Ausmus and Mike Matheny have had long careers, Cota will probably get a shot somewhere next year.

Injured and/or disappointing
We get two players here, Nate McLouth and Ryan Doumit. Actually, it's not really fair to put McLouth here, he didn't get hurt until August 11th. Regardless of that, McLouth was pretty bad this year, putting up a .233/.295/.385 line in 270 ABs. He was given a chance to win the center field job with Duffy being sent down in May and he absolutely failed at it, end of story. Doumit, on the other hand, was limited to only 154 PAs due to two hamstring injuries, one that was very serious. He also spent most of his healthy time learning a new position. He only put up a .208/.322/.389 line, but 15 of his 31 hits were doubles or homers. As his minor league career progressed he started showing more power, so there's still some potential there, especially as a lefty. Still, he's gotten hurt just about everywhere he's played (missing tons of time with injuries in 2002, 2004, and 2006), meaning that it's stupid to rely on him for anything. A platoon with Nady at first or in right might not be a terrible idea if we can't fill both positions this offseason.

Didn't see much, but didn't really need to see that much
Mike Edwards, Carlos Maldanado, Yurendell DeCaster, and Rajai Davis are the four that fit this bill. Edwards saw some time early in the year as a roster filler because Tracy likes him, but that's about all I can say. Maldanado was a late callup to relieve Paulino because of Doumit's balky hammies and Cota's utter suckitude. I know he was the Indy Indians' MVP this year, but that speaks more about who was on that team than it does about Maldanado and his .283/.354/.390 line there. Keeping him as the backup next year while non-tendering Cota would be a futile endeavor, he actually might be a worse hitter than 'Berto (WTM's write up on him, here). DeCaster made a couple brief appearences, but only got to the plate two times and struck out both times. Rajai Davis is kind of like Chris Duffy only with less power and less contact ability. Twice this year he stole second but overslid the bag and was tagged out both times. He's not the only non-prospect in the system with this problem. I dunno, I have nothing else worthwhile saying about these guys.

Gone
Craig Wilson, Jose Hernandez, and Sean Casey were all sent to contenders in July or August. I doubt any of them will be back (if Casey or Jose K do come back, thinking about it will only piss me off so let's not do that) so there's no use in talking about them.

We'll start with the pitchers tomorrow.


Stats from the Yahoo! Sports, The Baseball Cube, and the BP Website.