Eric's Giants Blog

Poor Rich Aurilia

While the Giants are enjoying a breakout season from the most unlikely source (who really thought the Giants would get above replacement-level performance from Deivi Cruz, and that he'd actually be drawing a few walks? You can be sure this overly critical fan missed that one), a former Giant has fallen on some hard times.

Over this past weekend, the Seattle Mariners cut former Giants shortstop Rich Aurilia.

When I was first getting serious about baseball (which I freely admit was far later than it ought to have been) during the short dry spell between the 1993 non-playoff juggernaut team and the recent six-year run of Sabean miracle teams, two guys came up from the relatively barren Giants minor league system and quickly became my favorite two players.

Of the two, my favorite was the slick-fielding, average-hitting patient and inccorectly-pronounced Bill Mueller. I always felt like Mueller was just a massively underrated player, a guy whose defense was gold-glove worthy but who didn't get enough attention because his bat didn't make him stand out, even though he brought very real skills to the plate. When he was traded for Tim Worrell after his off-season in 2000, I was very upset (even though Worrell turned out to be a great acquisition). When he was brought back after his short, injury-filled tenure with the Cubs, I was thrilled, and thought the Giants were going to make him a cheap and home-grown solution to the void filled by David Bell's depature for Philly. Instead, they signed Edgardo Alfonzo to a four-year contract and let Mueller head to Boston, where he won the batting title I'd been waiting for.

My other favorite Giant was the hard-hitting, Brooklyn-born, hard-working shortstop my brothers and I referred to as "future hall-of-famer Rich Aurilia". We just loved that guy. Totally out of step with my current approach to player valuation, but Aurilia when he came up first in 1995 and then played part-time behind Ray Sanchez before finally getting a starting job in 1998 - the guy just seemed like a ballplayer to me. Looking back, he wasn't actually that good. Those first few stub seasons predicted relatively well what he'd become - a guy who could hit for an acceptable average and had nice power for a middle infielder, who couldn't control the strike zone and who played decent (if not pretty) defense. In short, s solid, stand-up player.

Aurilia really only had a three-year shelf life. He took over the starting job in 1998, but didn't do a whole lot with it (.726 OPS) but had two solid seasons in 1999 and 2000 (.780 and .783 respectively) before having a career season in 2001 (a season in which he perpetuated the myth of The Bonds Effect, as he hit ahead of Bonds that year). After 2001 he had some injury problems and never again reached his 1999-2000 level of production, to say nothing of his 2001 numbers.

Since 2001 Aurilia has put up season OPS of .718, .735 and was looking at .641 when he was cut by Seattle. What seems unfair about this is that, at age 32, this isn't all that surprising a development. Looking at his career since he became a starter:

1998: .726
1999: .780
2000: .783
2001: .941
2002: .718
2003: .735
2004: .641

Two of these years look like aberrations, don't they? 2001 was obviously a career year and a fluke. This isn't a player who could be relied on to hit .320 or hit 37 home runs again. But expectations were set by that year, and he's never been able to live up to them since. If Aurilia had put up .718 and .735 in years following .783 instead of .941, would people have been so disappointed in him? Unlikely. And .641 is really bad, but he's adjusting to AL pitching in a tough pitchers' park over fewer than 300 ABs.

There isn't really a message here. I like Aurilia, but what he's doing now doesn't entitle him to much. He was never great defensively, but as he gets into his mid 30's, playing shortstop regularly is going to be a stretch unless he starts hitting again, at least as well as during his two consolidation years. Is that likely to happen? I think in a part-time role, yeah - it really might. Put him in a position to succeed, playing some shorstop and some third-base in the NL and preferably in a ballpark where some of his moderate power can translate into more home runs and fewer flyball outs (Aurilia is an extreme fly-ball hitter, one of the reasons I always wanted him hitting BEHIND Bonds and not in front of him) and he might continue to be a good major-league player through his mid 30's. He could be an older Shea Hillenbrand who can also fill it at the middle-infield positions, picking up 300-400 ABs for a good team, and there are worse things to be than that.

And because he's still one of my favorite players and one of my favorite guys in the game, I'm hoping he finds that right situation.

posted by Eric @ 7:26 AM