SB Nation - Ray Olmedo

Heroes of the Zeros: Shortstop

Slyde — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:00:17 -0000

All of you people who have been saying, "Wow, this has to be the worst position ever," here's the list you've been waiting for. It's kind of funny that coming into the aughts, the Reds were riding basically 48 straight seasons with 4 starting SS, all of pretty good quality. Since then, well, not so much. Good luck finding a worthy starter in this list. I really have no idea who is going to win this one. Voting is after the jump.

Click header to sort table by column
	Years	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+	wOBA	WAR
Juan Castro	2000-2008	571	1469	1361	130	323	70	6	25	125	76	244	.237	.276	.353	.628	61	.269	-4.6
Royce Clayton	2006	50	164	149	13	35	8	0	2	13	11	32	.235	.290	.329	.619	56	.274	-0.7
Travis Dawkins	2000-2002	45	99	89	7	15	4	0	0	3	8	28	.169	.237	.213	.451	17	.201	-0.8
Alex Gonzalez	2007-2009	178	700	636	71	158	39	1	19	81	39	111	.248	.299	.403	.702	79	.297	1.5
Wilton Guerrero	2001-2002	119	236	220	25	67	6	2	1	12	9	30	.305	.332	.364	.696	78	.302	-0.7
Jerry Hairston	2008-2009	166	637	568	94	163	38	3	14	63	44	82	.287	.342	.438	.780	103	.334	2.5
Paul Janish	2008-2009	128	381	336	41	69	23	0	2	22	33	58	.205	.290	.292	.582	54	.263	0.9
Jeff Keppinger	2007-2008	188	778	700	84	202	40	4	8	75	54	36	.289	.342	.391	.733	90	.318	1.1
Barry Larkin	2000-2004	473	1850	1646	266	456	106	11	30	167	175	184	.277	.347	.409	.757	95	.329	4.6
Felipe Lopez	2003-2006	371	1566	1384	215	367	73	10	41	159	157	317	.265	.340	.421	.761	97	.331	2.7
Ray Olmedo	2003-2006	171	388	352	39	81	12	2	2	25	24	72	.230	.280	.293	.573	52	.254	-2.3
Chris Sexton	2000	35	118	100	9	21	4	0	0	10	13	12	.210	.310	.250	.560	43	.258	-0.3

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/20/2009.

Thursday's Frosty Mug

KLSnow — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:09:33 -0000

More photos » by David J. Phillip - AP

LaTroy Hawkins and Glenn Robinson faced each other in high school. This is the kind of thing that passes for news in December.

Browse more photos »

Some things to read while trying not to dance.

LaTroy Hawkins was in Milwaukee yesterday for his physical, making his deal official (FanShot). As mentioned previously, he's due $3.5 million in 2010 and $4 million in 2011, plus $550k available if he maximizes his incentives. One thing I didn't know until reading it afterwards: Hawkins grew up in Gary, Indiana and played basketball against former Buck Glenn Robinson.

I've mentioned previously that the bullpen situation is starting to fill up, but realized yesterday that I've been leaving Carlos Villanueva out of all of my projections. As Adam McCalvy noted in his story on Hawkins, the bullpen now has Trevor Hoffman, Hawkins, Todd Coffey, Mitch Stetter, Claudio Vargas, Carlos Villanueva and David Riske, and barring a trade or injury, it looks like Chris Smith, Chris Narveson, Chuck Lofgren and Zack Braddock, among others, are on the outside looking in.

While there may not be much competition for a spot in the bullpen, there will be an interesting race to see who opens the season as the backup catcher. View From Bernie's Chalet handicaps the candidates, and is hoping for George Kottoras to open the season in the majors, with Jonathan Lucroy in AAA and Angel Salome on the trading block. Two quick thoughts on that:

Kottoras is out of options, so unless one of the prospects blows him out of the water this spring, he'll likely make the team.
You can never have too many catchers, so don't be surprised if the Brewers hang onto both Lucroy and Salome and try to work out some kind of rotation in Nashville.

Speaking of competitions involving backup catchers, we need your vote to help select a backup catcher for the BCB All Decade Team. As of this writing, Mike Rivera leads Jason Kendall by 15 votes.

At Mike Cameron's press conference in Boston yesterday, we heard some insight for the first time into Ken Macha's feeling toward the running game last season. 2009 was the first time in Cameron's career he's had single-digit stolen bases, and he said he "ran into a little situation where I had to abide by the rules of the manager, even though I’ve been pretty successful, I mean, 80 percent of the time that I’ve ran." Macha has admitted he'll have to open up the running game a little more this season, but this is the first time I can recall hearing a player talk about restraints last season.

Every now and then the Mug provides me an "Ask and you shall receive" moment. Yesterday I asked about differences in attendance at Miller Park based on the starting pitcher, and Wisconsin Sports Tap did the research, discovering no correlation. Many, if not most, Brewer tickets are probably purchased too far in advance to predict starting pitching assignments, so that's likely what I should have expected.

In the minors: FanGraphs unveiled their Top Ten Brewer Prospects yesterday. Alcides Escobar sits atop the list, as he likely will in just about every set of rankings coming out this winter, but Brett Lawrie climbed in front of Mat Gamel for the #2 spot. We'll be doing our Community Prospect Rankings in January, and I'm curious to see where Lawrie will rank there.

Around baseball:

D-Backs: Signed pitcher Rodrigo Lopez to a minor league deal.
Dodgers: Signed infielder Jamey Carroll to a two year deal worth $3.85 million and signed reliever Luis Ayala to a minor league deal.
Orioles: Signed reliever Mike Gonzalez to a two year deal worth $12 million, and third baseman Garrett Atkins to a one year deal.
Rangers: Signed pitcher Geoff Geary and infielder Ray Olmedo to minor league deals.
Tigers: Re-signed infielder Ramon Santiago to a two year deal.

The Blue Jays, Phillies, Mariners and A's also finalized their four way deal involving Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee. It's been a time for change in Toronto over the last few months: Jordan Bastian noted that the Rogers Centre features three-story images of Alex Rios, Scott Rolen, B.J. Ryan and Roy Halladay. All four will now need to be removed.

In the interest of keeping conversation going and providing fresh content on the site each day, I occasionally post things that wouldn't be front page-worthy during the season, but keep things lively in December. Occasionally when I do that, someone stops by the comments to make sure I know I'm wasting their time, or ask why we're voting for bench players on the All Decade Team. Yes, I know those posts aren't hard-hitting news, but they beat spending a day ranking and discussing your favorite Pixar movies, like Keith Law and Rob Neyer did yesterday.

Earlier this week he celebrated a birthday, and today former Brewer Matt Kinney is the subject of Lookout Landing's Faces series.

Happy birthday today to 1986 and 1989 Brewer Bryan Clutterbuck, who turns 50.

Drink up.

Reid Brignac Promoted

R.J. Anderson — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:32:10 -0000

Per Marc Lancaster.

Elliot Johnson played shortstop last night for the Bulls, and with Sean Rodriguez, Henry Mateo, and Ray Olmedo around, I suppose the Rays feel Brignac's ability to fill in for Jason Bartlett is a better usage of his time than playing for Durham.

Tampa Bay Rays Spring Training Notes; Longoria WBC Update

Tommy Rancel — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:34:38 -0000

Lancaster has some notes to pass along.

Evan Longoria hasn't heard from Team USA in over a week and is assuming that he will not be on Team USA.

"I’m just going under my own assumption that I’m not going to play and I’m going to take the necessary time to get ready for the season,” Longoria said.

Longoria expects David Wright and Chipper Jones to be the team's third basemen.

“I think it’s just going to go based off seniority,” he said. “Those guys were chosen before me and I think if they want to play they’re probably going to be the two guys that’ll be on the roster.”

If this is true, the Rays will only be missing Akinori Iwamura(Japan) and J.P. Howell(U.S.A).

All positions players(minus Iwamura) have now arrived in camp. Ray Olmedo reported a date late after experiencing Visa issues.

Ray Olmedo is here, as expected—and seems to be a popluar guy around the clubhouse. He spent quite a bit of time sitting over in the corner chatting with Carl Crawford.

Finally, a follow-up quote to R.J's post on Carl Crawford speed/health.

"Compared to last year, like night and day," said Crawford, who tipped the scales at 225. "It's better than I felt in a long time. I needed to do what I could to be on the field as much as possible."

Average != Bad

R.J. Anderson — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:13:37 -0000

Unbelievably, when a player is "average", that does not mean they're bad. It means average. As in: better than replacement level and fringe level, worse than superstar level and above average level. An "average" player is still worth ~2 WAR, mainly because replacement players are awful and yet still make up most of the minor league population (in terms of skills translating to major league success) which means average players are a valuable commodity.

Applying this information tells us of a difference in classification when dealing with average and replacement levels of talent. Ray Olmedo is a replacement-level infielder. The "average" version of him might be Asdrubal Cabrera. Gabe Gross is an "average" outfielder. Jason Tyner is a poor man's Gabe Gross. This will sound odd, but average talent is still good talent.

Smart teams recognize this and add average players in their cost-controlled seasons, less smart teams pay big money to these same players during free agency. Smart teams realize that fringe level players should be paid as such; others sign Aaron Miles for two years and 4.9 million. Generally though, unless your team is full of superstars (it's not) you can do a lot worse than having average players fill bench slots.

Bumped due to Burrell swamping yesterday.

Rays Sign Olmedo, Salinas, Sadler, Weber

R.J. Anderson — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:14:22 -0000

MIF Ray Olmedo, P Doug Salinas, OF Ray Sadler, and OF Jon Weber

Olmedo is a switch-hitting middle infielder who's bounced around the league the past few seasons. He's not much of a hitter whatsoever, but as a fielder there's slight value, just not enough to make up for his bat. Not to be mean, but Olmedo is essentially the definition of a replacement level infielder. In other words: welcome 2009's Andy Cannizaro everyone. Woo.

Salinas is a 20-year-old fresh off his release from the Seattle organization. A native Venezuelan, Salinas has posted decent strikeout rates and fine FIPs throughout his minor league career, but has some issues with free passes. Salinas used to reach 90+ on his fastball and was signed as a "fun project" by the Mariners. There might be some potential there. Jason Churchill of Prospect Insider said this about Salinas in early 2007:

.Expect Salinas to gradually add velocity and settle into the low-90s but he must not overuse his slider and destroy his live arm. He will have to develop confidence in his fastball and stay away from the upper portion of the strike zone as he starts to face better hitters.

And eight months later David Cameron said this:

Doug Salinas - Age is the main thing on his side, as he rarely topped 90 MPH and showed a couple of 62-68 MPH breaking balls that have no chance of getting real hitters out. Stuff did not match the hype.

Apparently Salinas still hasn't add velocity, making his fastball below average and has no out pitch of note. So much for potential.

Sadler is a former Cub draft pick with a total of eight major league at-bats, those coming for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2005. Sadler's spent the past few seasons in the Astros system, hitting decently, if not well, and seems like Durham insurance. Sadler should never see the light of St. Petersburg outside of spring training.

Weber is a re-signing. You know him from spring training and from apparently being a good guy in the Durham community.