Baseball America - Mets Top Ten Prospects - 1999

[batmagadanleadoff]

He couldn't hit. He was a sad, incompetent and overmatched hitter. On hitting alone, he shouldn't have even been allowed to wear a major league uniform, let alone to play in a major league game. On hitting alone, he wasn't even good enough to play in AAA ball.

And as if that alone wasn't bad enough, he was hyped up, every single fucking day, as if he were the Babe Ruth of shortstops. Howie Rose blubbering nonsense about how he probably saved the Mets a run a day. My God! Do you have any fucking idea what it is for a team to allow 162 less runs than in the previous season? And then to attribute that all to one fucking player? Just one player? And not even a starting pitcher.

[Bob Alpacadaca]

Couldn't hit a lick, but I sure did enjoy watching him field! Three Gold Gloves. Finished fifth in ROY voting in an admittedly weak year. I'd forgotten that he spent time in Tampa Bay and with the Cubs.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I can't believe we're arguing about Ordonez almost 30 years later.

Those plays in that video- not really embellished

[The Hot Corner]

Rey was a very good defensive shortstop. However, I always that he often made routine plays look harder than they were and made difficult chances look extraordinary. He definitely had flair. Unfortunately, his offense was so anemic that there is no way his defense could ever have made up for it.

[The Hot Corner]

I can't believe we're arguing about Ordonez almost 30 years later.

Well, we have to have something to argue about.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I remember during those years, when the upcoming inning would have the Mets 7-8-9 hitters due up, with Ordonez the 8 guy, thinking it was just about certain to be a dead inning. Not a good thing for a contending club.

I see he hit .245 as a Met, which is higher than I would have guessed. But with a .290 OBP and .304 slugging.

I decided to compare him with Bud Harrelson: .234/.324/.287. Those are pretty awful too, but it was a different era, when fewer shortstops were expected to hit. By the time of Ordonez, there was A-Rod and Nomar and Ripken and Larkin and Vizquel and that guy in the Bronx. And we had Rey Ordonez.

[Gwreck]

. I decided to compare him with Bud Harrelson: .234/.324/.287. Those are pretty awful too, but it was a different era, when fewer shortstops were expected to hit.

With the known disclaimer that WAR is far from perfect in measuring defense, Harrelson had a pretty decent run from 1969 to 1974, averaging over 2.4 WAR for that 6-season span. Ordonez…does not even come close.

[Centerfield]

Harrelson was the better player. Looking at his OPS+, Harrelson was 75 as a Met. Ordonez was 58.

And the WAR numbers are not close. In 13 seasons Buddy had a WAR of 18.6 (avg. 1.43/season). Ordonez had a 0.9 WAR in 7 seasons (avg. 0.12/season). Basically, Rey Ordonez was a replacement player who got starter playing time and starter money.

The problem with the bottom of that Mets lineup is #8 is where you would bat your backup catcher, your emergency callup, a fill-in guy. On the Mets, that scrub batted 7th. So you get 7. Scrub, 8. Ordonez, 9. Pitcher. Just awful.

[Frayed Knot]

The biggest difference with Harrelson is that he took walks. That 100 point difference between his career BA & OBA is well above ML norms in his or in any other era.
Just for some perspective, Keith the Met didn't walk that often (90) and even Olerud wasn't much ahead of him (110).
Now part of that can be traced to batting 8th and being pitched around in front of the pitcher but those conditions still existed in Rey's time too and his 45 pt BA/OBA gap (65-70 is the typical ML avg) means that he was making outs at a much greater rate than Buddy even if the BA & SLG numbers were similar.
That's the biggest factor in the OPS and WAR difference.

[Edgy MD]

Harrelson also ran the bases well.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

bunted well too, where Ordonez clearly preferred popping out to shallow left to bunting