Luke Scott made a potentially troubling appearance on the Home Plate station on XM radio last night. I have stated before that I believe the current roster construction is going to leave a few players quite unhappy with their role. Luke Scott had never been shy about voicing his opinions, and he appears to be the first one speaking out. Luke first spoke about the recent restriction on firearms in the locker room. I think this picture will explain his stance:
Luke has never been shy on his thoughts on firearms, or about his faith. We don’t cover these sort of topics on here because they aren’t baseball related and they aren’t THAT funny. Luke’s comments about the Orioles were much more concerning. Luke made it known once again that he is not happy at all as a primary DH. Luke made similar comments before the start of last season, but this year he seemed much more adamant. Luke also says that last year the Orioles promised him that he would still get half of his at bats as an outfielder. That obviously did not happen and he did not seem very happy about it. Luke wants to play the outfield and doesn’t see himself as a defensive liability. Well Luke, that’s because you aren’t.
Advanced defensive metrics such as UZR will tell you that Luke is an average to slightly above average defensive corner outfielder for his career. The Orioles have a cluttered outfield situation right now and it is going to be next to impossible to get him much playing time in the outfield without injuries. He appears to be 5th on the depth chart as it currently stands with Nolan Reimold, Adam Jones, and Nick Markakis slated to get the lions share of the playing time. The Orioles had a very brief experiment of playing Luke at first base last season where he did not embarrass himself in my opinion. It seemed worth a longer tryout to me as it seemed that could be the best way to solve this situation. Luke has played first base before in his college days and briefly in the minor leagues, it is not a completely foreign position to him and let’s also not pretend it is an extremely difficult position to play in general. I think with a little experience there it would have been very likely that Luke could have been a more valuable first baseman than Garrett Atkins will be, by a good margin. Atkins defensive ability there is certainly not established and while he used to be able to hit, he has real potential to be a 4.5 million dollar disaster at the plate.
For me, the ideal situation would have been to go into the season with Luke as the starting first baseman with Brandon Snyder waiting for the call if he falters. With Scott at first, that would free up left field for more playing time for Felix Pie who proved he deserved in the second half of ’09. This would put our best defensive outfielder (Pie) on the field and relegate our worst defensive outfielder (Reimold) to the DH role. Everyone wins in this situation, our best players are on the field and Luke is happy playing defense (He did say he was open to playing first regularly). As it currently stands, Luke will probably be treated a lot like he was last year, DH vs right handers and a lot of sitting vs lefties. Luke was also our best hitter vs left handed pitching last year despite his platoon reputation and he splits aren’t as drastic as you would think for his career. Sure, he is streaky and he isn’t a superstar, but Luke is a solid corner outfielder and probably deserves a better fate than the Orioles have planned for him. At this point, it seems obvious they intend to let him try to establish some value with a good start and then move him somewhere where he has a better opportunity, and I hope for his sake that is the plan.
This is not a problem that will be uncommon for this years team with reasonable health. There doesn’t seem to be adequate playing time for Scott, Wigginton, or Pie in what appears to be the teams roster/lineup plans. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more events like this occurring in the near future, stay tuned for more pissed off O’s…
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Agreed for the most part.
When Pie, Jones, and Reimold make it through a full season I’ll worry about over crowding.
And whether you agree with Luke’s gripe or not, I’m not for him airing this shit in the media. It rarely helps things.
He won’t be here opening day, which is a shame. We need more guns in Baltimore.
That’s a bold statement. Ill bet you he is still here opening day. The wager is one desert eagle, paid for by the loser and given to the winner.
Luuuuke must be inscribed on the handle.
Instead of a laser sight it has a light saber attachment.
strongly disagree with your description of scott’s fielding contributions and the casual treatment of his sicke ing streakiness, which consists of a few hot weeks and several cold months. scott tries for homers, rarely hits to left, has no speed and played first base with the grace and style of an elderly camden yards usher. he should gripe less and work on his game. reimold’s the worst outfielder? puh-leeze. he can outrun, outthrow, outhit and outhustle scott. cut luke, play pie more and spare the team scott’s often automatic out.oh, and reimold is a team guy, not a whiner like rev. scott.
UZR and other defensive metrics suggest that Scott is an average defensive outfielder. Reimold proved to be well below average in his time last year, however he is more athletic than Scott and was banged up so he could improve. Last year, defensively Reimold was the worst despite his throwing arm and speed. He gets bad jumps on balls and he was horrible when coming in on anything in front of him. He may be better now that he is healthy, and I am a Reimold fan. He certainly has the tools to be a better outfielder than Scott, but it hasn’t happened yet. I do agree that he will likely be a better hitter than Scott. Scott is streaky but usually not as drastic as last season, despite an awful second half he still had the second best OPS on the team and led the team in homers in only 449 at bats. The guy works the count pretty well and gets on base at decent clips and hits for power. You are underrating him, especially if you believe Garrett Atkins will be better. Scott has a career OPS of .844 and OPS+ of 118. He is a solid hitter.