There’s certainly a dearth of big baseball stories this time of year, as most of the offseason craziness is over but pitchers and catchers have yet to report.
Of course, there’s a few lagging free agent signings now and then, and since that’s the closest thing to “big news” these days, I want to be on top of the few semi-big stories that come out. So I do what every baseball writer in my position does–keep MLB Trade Rumors refreshing every so often.
One story MLBTR (which is great, but you already knew that, right?) has been covering today is the Orioles’ pursuit of Vladimir Guerrero. Baltimore offered Guerrero a $2 million, one-year contract earlier today, and he apparently wasn’t enthused.
But according to MLBTR, Baltimore has a rock-solid Plan B:
"The Orioles are one team that has shown interest in minor league free agent Kevin Mahar pending the resolution of the Vladimir Guerrero situation, MLBTR has learned. Teams are considering Mahar as an outfielder/first baseman at the Triple-A level, after the 29-year-old hit .261/.342/.423 for the Phillies’ Double-A affiliate."
Umm, what?
Kevin Mahar played 34 games in High-A two years ago at age 27 and slugged all of .384. That’s a 1B/OF, about five years too old for the level, not cracking a .400 SLG.
That’s bad.
Mahar hasn’t played Triple-A ball since 2007, and it’s not like he took an excursion to Japan in the meantime–he played for the Phillies’ High-A team in 2008 and for their Double-A team in 2009-10.
There’s too much weirdness in that MLBTR blip for me to wrap my head around, let alone dissect.
The Orioles want to sign Kevin Mahar; that’s believable enough. It’s not like they’re brimming with talent, and he’s proved to be an adequate Double-A hitter, so he can be an adequate backup/veteran mentor there, I suppose. He can also regale the youngsters with tales of his seven-game, 3-for-18 performance in the majors in 2007.
But Triple-A? I mean, I guess he could play there in an emergency, but who wants to go out of their way to clear Triple-A space for a near-30-year-old corner guy who can’t crack an .800 Double-A OPS?
But that’s not the most ridiculous aspect of the blurb.
No, that would go to the two references to the fact that the Orioles are one of several teams hellbent on this Mahar-to-Triple-A master plan.
The fact that a guy in Mahar’s position has any offers is surprising in itself, but the fact that multiple teams apparently are locked onto him, and for a promotion to Triple-A, is mind-boggling to me.
I also love the fact that he’s presented as an alternative to Guerrero. Can’t you just see that conversation unfolding somewhere in Camden Yards?
“Guerrero doesn’t want to play for us for that little. I mean, dude was a 2.6 WAR player last year, and our offer was for like 20% of his worth…”
“OK, who do we go after now. I mean, there’s Casey Kotchman…”
“Oooh, let’s get out a list of all MLB players from the last ten years and pick a name at random!”
“Uhh….”
“Here we go, Kevin Mahar! And he doesn’t field well, so maybe he can even fit the DH role! He even hits righty and his last major league team was Texas! It’s a perfect fit…he’s just like Vlad!”
What teams see in Mahar as any sort of close-to-the-majors guy, I don’t know. I guess the news cycle is just this slow–some of these blurbs that come out are pretty loopy.