A small percentage of Orioles fans voiced their concerns with Andy MacPhail and the Orioles organization signing Vladimir Guerrero to his 1 year, $8 million deal back in early February. Washed up, broken down and too old were often used to describe the future Hall of Famer by his naysayers.
They pointed to his statistics in the second half of 2010 as the reason Vlad was finished being productive. But, as I pointed out, it was just a bad month for the slugger.
In an Orioles uniform, Guerrero leads the team in average (.310) and hits (55), is second in home runs (5) and fourth in RBI (19).
With runners in scoring position Guerrero has a .317 on base percentage and he’s driven in seven with two outs and runners in scoring position.
With Nolan Reimold’s arrival to the big league’s, a number of fans remembered the disappointment in missing their fan favorite left fielder this season as he failed to make the club out of spring training. This season, the 27 year old struggled at Triple-A Norfolk (.237 AVG, 6 HR, 22 RBI), but has already gone yard in his first game in the bigs this season.
I still stand by my February opinion, that signing Vlad Guerrero was the best thing the Orioles did this offseason. Sure, it didn’t fill a need, but Guerrero has greatly helped this Orioles offseason, he’ll improve their record and will likely help bring in some young talent at the trade deadline.
The odd thing is his RBI are really low, given his high average and #4 slot. Shows you how bad Derrek Lee was in that 3 hole.
How can you not like a guy like Vlad? Its like Buck said yesterday, he plays with the joy of a little leaguer.
We sure are getting a lot of singles from the clean-up hitter! Where’s the booming power? If it isn’t a 20+ homers and 90+ RBI season, then the pickup of Vlad is a dud!
Vlad has an empty BA and .777 OPS. Nuff said.