From the Files of Why the Fuck Not: Give Aubrey a Shot

No, not Huff. My admiration and enjoyment of Aubrey Huff and the way he plays baseball is well-known, but no, I'm referring to the guy the Orioles brought up to replace him after they sent Huff to Detroit to earn the temporary disgust and ire of that franchise: Michael Aubrey.

Aubrey was acquired from the Cleveland Indians' affiliate, AAA Columbus, a little over halfway through the year, and played on the Norfolk Tides for a bit before the rosters expanded and the Orioles brought him up to play first, since Huff had been sent off to Detroit, Ty Wigginton was somewhat of a black hole, and Luke Scott was and still is uncomfortable playing that position. In his time in the big leagues last year, he did the following:

2009: 95 PA of .289/.326/.500 (.826 OPS) for 114 OPS+, 4 HR, 7 2B, 5.7 BB%, 11.5 K%, 0.5 UZR (3.0 UZR/150)

Now, there's a lot to be very concerned about there. The first thing is that walk percentage; you'd want that to be about, well, twice that for your first baseman at the least, or any power hitter really. I'm commenting on it because it matches his stats in the minors last year fairly well (.33 IsoD). Ninety plate appearances isn't enough to make a judgment about any player. His slugging numbers there are very nice, but there's not really the sample size you want to back them up. In the minors, however, there are: .436 in AAA in 2009; .454 in his minor league career across all levels (for what little that's worth). BAbip looks to be around .305-.310 for his career; it was actually a bit lower than that (.289) last year in the majors, but Aubrey made up for it with his power surge.

CHONE is pretty dire for Aubrey's 2010 (.264/.302/.417), and ZiPS isn't much better (.275/.311/.415). Why, then, should the Orioles consider giving him the start at first to open the season, provided he has a good camp? The most obvious reason is that those numbers mean even less than the ones he put up in 90 PA in 2009, by many, many orders of magnitude; the science of projecting future seasons -- as opposed to analyzing previous ones -- is imprecise on the best of days and in the kindest of interpretations. The second-most obvious reason is that the Orioles are paying him minor-league prospect money. Aubrey's 27 years old, cost-controlled, and if he flops, he can be shuffled back into AAA or to the bench as a utility/pinch-hitter in favor of Brandon Snyder, who looks like he could be fairly competent at the plate for the Orioles at some point in the next few years. But under no circumstances should they rush Snyder to the majors to try to fill a hole they could fill with other guys on the big club (hell, move Atkins over there if his bat actually comes back) in a season that's already shaping up to be pretty brutal.

And Aubrey seems like a decent guy from the interviews I've seen and read, and the Yard's right field porch seems to suit him well. There's worse things than giving a guy who maybe doesn't strictly fit a major league paycheck for a couple weeks while you figure out where you're going in the future during a rebuilding year.

My preference, obviously, is the whole Jones to left, Pie to center, Reimold to first gambit described in an earlier post, but let's face it: that's not looking very likely at this point. If Luke Scott is going to throw a bitch-fit over the prospect of playing some at first, give him what he wants, let him DH and occasionally play left -- it's not like he'll be taking playing time away from any other designated hitters the Orioles have on the 40-man roster -- and give Aubrey a long look at first. Maybe he'll find his power game, now that he's hit his prime. Maybe he'll flop. It doesn't really matter, because the Orioles aren't really playing for anything this year, and Aubrey's already in the system and already on the roster.

I mean, why the fuck not?