Call-Ups and Hang-Ups: Detroit Tigers and Cale Iorg
By Wally Fish
Once again it is collaborative post time here on Call to the Pen. This month’s topic is September call-ups. To get the ball rolling, I posed the following question to each of our Lead Writers, “Which player do you want your team to call-up in September and why?” It is a simple question but I think you will find the responses to be very diverse.
Taking the path less traveled this month, I decided to post each team’s write-up individually instead of grouping them by league or division as we have done in the past. To mix things up further I decided to chime in with my own thoughts on each team.
Up 5th in our series is the Detroit Tigers. Representing Motor City Bengals is the site’s Lead Writer (and Call to the Pen columnist) John Parent. Check out what John and I have to say after the jump.
John’s Take:
When rosters expand on September 1, the Tigers would do well to call up shortstop Cale Iorg.
Iorg, the son of former major leaguer Garth and nephew of Dane, was a highly-touted prospect when he was drafted by the Rays in 2004. Instead of signing, Iorg spent a year at Alabama, then fulfilled a Mormon mission before re-entering the draft after two years away from baseball. He was signed as a 6th round pick by the Tigers in 2007.
The time away from the game certainly appears to have hurt Iorg in his progress to the major leagues. Once ranked as the Tigers third-best prospect by Baseball America after a solid campaign at High-A Lakeland in 2008, Iorg slipped after posting seriously high strikeout rates throughout his minor league career.
He spent all of 2009 with Double-A Erie and the numbers weren’t kind to him. Once labeled as the next Tigers shortstop, Iorg was passed over on the organizational depth chart by Danny Worth and Brent Dlugach as successors to Adam Everett. When the Tigers released Everett early in the season this year, it was Worth who came to Detroit to replace him.
Iorg has a good amount of pop in his bat, he’s posted double-digit home runs in each of his three full minor league seasons, but he doesn’t make much contact. After fanning 149 times in 491 at bats for the SeaWolves last year, Iorg struck out 139 times in 427 at bats this year while repeating at Double-A.
That didn’t stop the Tigers from promoting him to Triple-A Toledo in August and Iorg has gotten hot. He’s still striking out a lot, ten times in his first 40 at bats, and he’s never walked much (his career high OBP is .329 in 2008), but four of his first eight hits for the MudHens went for extra bases.
Now, if you’ve read this far, you have to be wondering why a guy who took two years away from baseball and hasn’t hit much at all in the three years since he returned should in line for a September call-up. The answer is his defense.
Iorg has remained high on the Tigers radar for one reason and one reason alone: his glove. He can play shortstop in the major leagues right now. In fact, he could handle the position defensively since he came back from Portugal. Not only does Iorg project as a quality defender in the major leagues, he projects as an elite defensive player. Iorg has great range, tremendous hands, and a powerful throwing arm. Seemingly every scout that has seen him has said as much. The guy can pick it.
But in order to play in the big leagues, he’s going to have to hit. The Tigers front office, their minor league coaches, and scouts have all agreed that Iorg has the tools needed to be a productive major league player. Once projected as an all-star level talent, Iorg’s lack of progress in the Tigers farm system has many wondering if he’ll ever fulfill that promise.
Is his recent success at Toledo merely a hot streak? Are we getting too worked up over an extremely small sample size? Probably, but the Tigers already have him on the 40-man roster, so there’s very little reason not to give him a taste of the major leagues.
The worst-case scenario is that Iorg would be used as a defensive replacement and pinch-runner. That’s all that would be expected of him. If he comes up and struggles at the plate, that would be nothing new for him, so I’m not worried about damaging his psyche. Show him the lifestyle, give him a chance to fly to games instead of boarding a bus, dangle the major league carrot at the end of his stick. Give him something to strive for and maybe, just maybe, you can get something to click.
Iorg may never end up playing in an all-star game, but he still has the talent and the tools needed to turn himself into a major league caliber hitter, the defense is already there.
~~~~~
My Take:
Iorg also has the name. His uncle Dane is a part of the magic that was the Kansas City Royals 1985 season, so by extension of bloodlines, Cale gets bonus points in my book.
As John points out, we all know that Cale can play defense at the major league level and we all know the Tigers were willing to run out Adam Everett and his wet noodle bat for a year and a half. I am fairly confident that Iorg could outhit Everett under most circumstances but that hardly amounts to heaping praise on their 24-year old Triple-A SS. For those of you not aware (and who could blame you if that is the case) Everett hit 0.228/.275/.310 in 479 PA for the Tigers. His once vaunted defense has been in steady decline since 2006 when his UZR/150 peaked at 25.8. Last season it had dropped to 8.8 and this year it was down to 2.2.
Is Cale Iorg a better player than Adam Everett right now? The answer is absolutely yes, but that is the same logic I used last season when the Kansas City Royals acquired Yuniesky Betancourt to replace Tony Pena Jr. Replacing the worst of something with the second or third worst of something is technically an upgrade, but can you really feel good about it?
I’m not saying that Cale would be the 2nd or 3rd worst major league SS and if pressed to decide, I’d certainly take him over Yunie and Iorg may turn out to be a fine major league SS in time. He defense is certainly legit and he has hit 0.300/.341/.475 in 40 AB with Toledo so far so there might be a bat in there after all.
When it comes to calling him up though, I’m on the fence. I get that there really isn’t a lot to lose by doing so, and the only way to really find out about a guy is to let him play. On September 6th he will turn 25. It would be a pretty cool birthday present to get the call and make your major league debut on your birthday. So I should be endorsing this potential move, but something about it just doesn’t sit well with me. Since I can’t define the reasons behind my doubt I have no choice but to support the idea of giving the kid a shot. All things being equal however, I’d let him finish out the season in Triple-A, work to get him into a fall or winter league and then throw him into the mix for the starting SS job when Spring Training starts up next year.
Honorable mention for me is 24-year old LF/CF Andy Dirks who has hit 0.322/.349/.610 in 63 PA with Toledo after hitting 0.278/.342/.425 in 434 PA with Erie (AA) prior to that. The Tigers 8th round pick in the 2008 draft was born in Burrton, Kansas which is just east of Hutchison and 213 miles from my house. How is that relevant? It isn’t, but I always root for guys that were born in Minnesota, Missouri or Kansas.