AL Rookie Roundup

Jason Michael Barker

Welcome to an expanded edition of the round-up, featuring not four, not five, not six, not seven, but EIGHT of the American League's finest youngsters. Last month we looked at Ben Grieve, Magglio Ordonez, Ken Cloude and Rolando Arrojo. In addition to those four, we welcome back two sluggers who missed time due to injury, as well as a young shortstop and one of those damn Yankees.

Ben Grieve
G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	OBP	SLG	AVG
117	449	78	130	30	2	15	68	66	84	2	2	.390	.465	.290

It seems that Grieve may have hit the wall, having played 117 games of Major League Baseball this season. His season high for games played is 151, but most of those games came at the minor league level (last season, split between AA, AAA, and Oakland). Certainly, playing in the bigs is more demanding both physically and mentally, not to mention the added travel.

Grieve posted a .916 OPS (.408 OBP, .508 SLG) prior to the All-Star break, but since then he's struggled to .688 (.341 OBP, .347 SLG). He hasn't lost his eye at the plate, as he's still walking at a decent rate, especially for a player his age. He just isn't hitting anymore, batting just .229 since the break with only eight extra-base hits in 118 at-bats.

Magglio Ordonez
G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	OBP	SLG	AVG
106	389	52	111	21	1	11	53	20	40	5	4	.329	.430	.285

Grieve may have lost his stroke since the break, but Ordonez seems to have found his. After really struggling in April and May, he started to turn things around with a solid June, and now appears to have put it all together since July.

Ordonez hit .275/.316/.419 (AVG/OBP/SLG) before the break, but has seen both his power and on-base numbers improve dramatically since. Partly due to nine doubles in just 105 at-bats, he's slugged .457 the second half. Add that to his .362 second-half OBP and you,ve got a .816 OPS, a fine number for a rookie.

Ken Cloude
G	GS	CG	SHO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	WHIP	W	L	ERA
22	22	0	0	118.2	134	78	75	19	60	84	1.63	7	7	5.69

I just watched Cloude throw 5.1 innings against the White Sox. His line: 9 H, 8 R, 7 ER, 0 BB, 3 K. It may sound funny, but he really didn't pitch that badly. He was around the plate (a little too much, perhaps), as 67 of his 93 pitches went for strikes. He didn't walk a batter, which has been his problem all season. Despite giving up single runs in the first and fourth, he really was pitching pretty well until things fell apart in the sixth: single, double, double, out, single, error, hit batter. He was then pulled. Maybe it wasn't just Cloude, though - it's now 14-2, Chicago.

This must have been particularly frustrating for Cloude (as an M's fan, I know it was for me), as he was coming off two of his best games of the year: an eight-inning, five-hit, one-run performance against the Red Sox, and his next-to-last start, in which he went 6.2 innings and gave up three runs while striking out seven. It's games like those that make me think he's going to bust out next season. It's games like tonight that make me wonder if he's the next Bob Wolcott.

Todd Greene
G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	OBP	SLG	AVG
3	8	1	6	2	0	0	2	0	1	0	0	.750	1.000	.750	(Majors)
30	108	16	30	12	0	7	20	12	17	1	0	.360	.583	.278	(AAA)

After spending the entire season either injured or with AAA Vancouver, Greene is finally up with the Angels. Off-season shoulder surgery left him unable to play catcher, his primary position, because his throwing arm isn't strong enough. After trying to build up strength in the shoulder, Greene has given up playing backstop (at least for this season), and will spend the rest of the year playing 1B, LF, and DH. Playing the outfield shouldn't be too much of challenge for him, as he was originally an outfielder before being converted to catcher early in his career.

Regardless of where he plays, the stocky Greene has a great deal of pop in his bat and should help the Angels down the stretch in their battle with Texas for the AL West title.

Rolando Arrojo
G	GS	CG	SHO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	WHIP	W	L	ERA
24	24	2	2	158.2	148	61	58	14	48	119	1.24	11	8	3.29

Quite probably the best starting pitcher ever on an expansion team, Arrojo has been among the American League ERA leaders all season. With a little run support (he's only getting 3.63 runs per game), he might have won 20 games this season. He's struggled a bit lately, which may simply be due to the fatigue of a full season.

I had a chance to watch Arrojo pitch (albeit on TV) against the Mariners last month, and it's not hard to see why he's been so effective. He changes speeds well, and his pitches have incredible movement. In addition he throws from a variety of arm angles - from completely over the top to nearly sidearm, which is particularly tough on right-handed batters.

Orlando Hernandez
G	GS	CG	SHO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	WHIP	W	L	ERA
13	13	2	0	91.2	74	33	29	6	32	92	1.16	8	3	2.85

Livan's half-brother has been simply awesome since joining the Yankees this June. He's shown excellent command of the strike zone (3:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio), has held opposing hitters to a .339 slugging percentage thanks to just six home runs allowed, and has worked into the seventh inning in all but four of his starts. His performance all but eliminated the Yankees' need to acquire Randy Johnson before the trading deadline. Much like Johnson, "El Duque" throws very hard and his slider has incredible movement.

David Ortiz
G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	OBP	SLG	AVG
56	191	31	51	14	0	7	34	27	47	0	0	.366	.450	.267

Ortiz, once considered a dark horse ROY candidate, put on quite a show before suffering a broken hamate bone in May. Since his return in early July, he has struggled to put up the kind of numbers he did prior to the injury. However, this isn't really a reason for concern, considering the time he missed and the nature of the injury. Ortiz missed nearly three months of live action, meaning he's still working on getting his timing back at the plate. Also, it isn't uncommon for hitters who break a hamate bone to lose a significant amount of power after returning from the injury. Ken Griffey, Jr. suffered the same injury in 1996, and he didn't fully regain his power until the following season.

Mike Caruso
G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	OBP	SLG	AVG
96	373	51	115	12	5	4	38	7	26	13	6	.328	.399	.308

Caruso is somewhat buried by all the good shortstops in the league (Rodriguez, Jeter, Garciaparra, Vizquel), but he's having a solid year, especially considering he entered the season with virtually no experience above single A. Just 21 years old, he has held his own at the plate despite not walking nearly enough. He doesn't strike out much, however, meaning it isn't so much his plate discipline as it is that he just swings at everything. For the season, he's averaging only 3.0 pitches per plate appearance, an incredibly low number (league average is around 3.5).

Defensively, he leaves something to be desired (27 errors so far this season), but that's something he can work on. Caruso isn't of the ARod-Nomar-Jeter class, but he's young and certainly has more upside than some of the players that managers keep trotting out at shortstop (Kevin Elster, Royce Clayton, Mike Bordick and Rey Ordonez all come to mind).

Jason Michael Barker often wonders if there's any chance the graphics on television broadcasts of baseball games will ever include intelligent stats such as OPS instead of such gems as "hitting .298 over his last 31 games." If you've got contacts at FOX or ESPN, pass their names and email addresses along to jmb@strikethree.com.