Tenth Player Awards for 2000
- Tony Phillips, we hardly knew ye
October 15, 2000
The 2000 post-season awards debates are long over, and our collective eyes have begun to focus on the soft haze of the 2001 season. But I'd like to give 2000 one final send-off with the recognition of my favorite type of player: the indispensible utilityman, the tenth player, the irregular regular who provides his major league team with productivity above and beyond his titular status as a bench-warming scrub.
I loosely dub this the Tony Phillips Award, without awarding it to any one player. Tony Phillips had a long career as an underrated but extremely useful player. He didn't excel in any particular statistical category, nor was he a defensive wizard, but he was a key part for virtually every team he played for, contending and cellar-dwelling alike. For a few seasons, he was a "regular" without a fixed position, playing infield and outfield positions for the Tigers for whoever was in a slump or needed a day off.
You can't properly call a player like this a regular, or a role player in the traditional sense, or a utility player, since they get more plate and game apperances than your usual scrubini. Not every team has to have a player like this, and it's probably inaccurate to call such a player indispensible since clearly many teams get along without such a player. While the term "tenth man" has been overused in a rather ambiguous way, it may be the best way to describe this kind of player. He's a fifth wheel, but the fifth wheel in a car is the spare tire, which you may occasionally desperately need, and one that can bear the load at full-speed is a great thing to have on board.
I use the following four loose criteria for picking out my tenth men awardees:
- the player in question played two or more positions regularly, and was capable of playing at least three positions
- he did not start the season as a regular or play more than about half the season as a regular
- he was either a key pinch hitter, regular late inning defender, and/or started for an injured regular above and beyond the normal call of a bench player's duty
- had qualities of scrappiness and being game, whatever the heck those mean
- was effective when he played
All that said, as with most of my subjective judgements, a player may waver from the above criteria if they seemed to fit other aspects of the spirit of the award. The list is a bit slanted towards the NL, which has more players and more opportunities for multi-positional utility thanks to the lack of a DH. And in the spirit of most of my top ten lists, there are eleven entries, because we all know eleven is one louder, and they're in no particular order at all.
Positions played by the player in 2000 are listed in parentheses.
- Terry Shumpert, Rockies. (LF, 2B, 3B, SS, 1B, DH, PR, PH).
The closest to a true Tony Phillips, in that he switched between left field and second base most of the year, and had a little pop and speed in the double digits, and hit virtually everywhere in the lineup. It may be significant that the Rockies' first off-season move was to pick up the late-blooming Shumpert's option.
- Denny Hocking, Twins. (2B, CF, RF, 2B, LF, SS, 1B, DH).
Incredibly enough, Hocking played more than ten games at seven different positions! As bad as the Twins were, it's hard to see how they could've finished the season without Hocking plugging virtually every gap in the sieve-like Minnesota lineup at one time or another. He had a career year with a .373 OBP in 373 at-bats and a respectable .789 OPS.
- Benny Agbayani, Mets. (LF, RF, CF, DH, PH, PR).
His story got a little extra press since he had some post-season heroics, but it's worth repeating. He was taken out of spring training to Japan only because the Mets were allowed an extra couple of players on their roster and there were a few malcontents who didn't want to make the trip. He survived the trip back by virtue of a game-winning pinch-hit grand-slam homer in Tokyo. He was perpetually in danger of demotion for half the year as the byzantine internal politics of Mets management played themselves out, and endangered his own cause by being incredibly streaky. But he filled injury gaps across the outfield despite some defensive limitations, and was used by Bobby Valentine as both lead-off hitter and clean-up man at various times during the season. In the end, in 350 at-bats, he had a nice .391/.480/.871 with 15 homers, 59 runs scored and 60 RBI, which is a respectable platoon season by anybody's measure. In short, he allowed the Mets to get a long way with a very mediocre set of outfield starters.
- Dave Hansen, Dodgers. (PH, 1B, 3B, DH, LF)
He was pretty much a pure pinch-hitter and day-off backup, although he filled in at various times for slumping or limping regulars Beltre, Sheffield, and Karros. Well-publicized was Hansen's setting of the major league record for pinch home runs in a season, with seven. Less well-publicized were his overall numbers of .415/.570/.985 in only 121 at-bats, since he missed a third of the season with his own injuries. But he always seemed to have at-bats that counted, and that counts for something, and frankly seems a bit like John Vanderwal: he could be a productive regular if only he weren't so good at his bench role.
- Mike Kinkade, Mets-Orioles-Team USA. (1B, RF, PH, DH; also C and 3B in minors and on Olympic team.) OK, so Mike only had nine major-league at-bats last year. But he was team MVP at AA Binghamton as a catcher, and anchored the gold-medal winning Team USA at third, and in-between was the key functional part of the trade that brought Mike Bordick to the Mets. He's batted over .300 at every level he's ever played in and has won batting titles in three different leagues. Perhaps, like Phil Nevin, when he settles in on a position where he does the least harm he has a shot at being a major league regular. But last year he was useful to his baseball teams in a variety of ways that can be encapsulated in the word flexibility.
- Frank Catalanotto, Texas. (2B, 1B, RF, DH, PH).
He started out the year as one-eighth of the massive Juan Gonzalez deal and was perhaps the least-remarked upon portion of the deal, and he ended up having a more productive season than any batter in the deal, possibly Gonzo included if you look at expectation levels. In just under 300 AB he had a respectable .375/.457/.832, scored 55 runs, and smacked ten homers, and had a remarkably odd stint filling in at second base. He may yet play himself into a regular job somewhere, although frankly his usefulness would seem to be maximized as a floater.
- Melvin Mora, Mets-Orioles. (SS, CF, LF, 2B, 3B, RF, PH, PR).
He started the year in Norfolk and became the Mets' regular short-stop for a period, despite his unfitness for the job defensively, after Rey Ordoñez went down for the year. He hit well enough in streaks to keep him floating around the Met lineup, and had brilliant enough flashes to delude the Orioles into thinking he was a keeper, forming the other half of the Mike Bordick deal with Kinkade. Now that was useful He's not going to make anyone forget Cal Ripken, or Mike Bordick for that matter, but he may make them forget Manny Alexander.
- John Vanderwal, Pirates. (RF, 1B, LF, PH, PR, DH). Vanderwal turned 35 last year, which usually marks the waning years of a professional pinch-hitter. While he had the one outstanding .347 season as a pinch hitter with the Rockies, and was a very decent if one-dimensional left-handed bat off the bench over the years, it should be noted he started the year as a career .259 hitter. He got some early face time as a starter due to Kevin Young's struggles at first. When Wil Cordero started having his inevitable problems on and off the field, Vanderwal virtually slipped into the starting lineup. He responded with a remarkable year, setting career highs in AB (384), HR (24), RBI (94), Runs (74), and walks (72) and doing better than many expected in the outfield. The bottom line was a crisp .410/.563/.973. On a per-at-bat basis, that made him one of the top power hitters in the league last year. Vanderwal was rewarded by the Buccos in the off-season twice over: once with a nice two-year contract, secondly by being stuck back on the bench with the acquisition of the inferior Derek Bell. Try as he might, he's stuck with the role player label.
- Dave Martinez, Devil Rays-Cubs-Rangers-Blue Jays. (1B, RF, LF, CF, PH).
Martinez is one of those guys described as a "professional hitter" and has often been bopped around the league to fill in lineup gaps for teams in need of a cheap but competent first baseman-outfielder type. 2000 was more of the same, and how. Dave made four stops, having been traded three times in the course of the season and being useful for every one of his teams in slightly different ways. In Tampa Bay, he was practically the only health veteran. In Chicago, he served as the putative filler prior to the unconsummated Sammy Sosa trade. In Texas he shored up the lineup in the hot part of the season. And finally in Toronto, he provided that steady veteran left handed bat that helps keep teams like the Jays in the hunt for a playoff spot beyond their natural life expectancy.
- Geoff Blum, Expos. (3B, SS, 2B, 1B, PH, PR).
Bear in mind Blum was a utility man even in the minors! Blum's one of those guys on nobody's depth chart who nevertheless sneaks onto a major league roster despite his lack of pedigree. He spent the entire year on Montreal's roster, subbing at third and short for extended periods as the Expos' lineup suffered from the volatility of injury and failed expectation. Along the way he hit more homers (11) in the majors than he had at any minor league stop, played acceptable defense, and managed a major league .335/.449/.784, which was above any minor league total OPS he managed. He's allegedly going to be given at shot at the starting left-field job, but given his underwhelming minor league totals, appears best-suited for more of the same.
- David Bell, Mariners. (3B, 2B, PH, 1B, PR, DH, SS).
He's a strange duck, in that his literal pedigree (being one of the baseball Bells, see also Buddy and Gus) is stronger than his actual skill set. In 1999 he smacked 21 homers as the regular at second, so his .316/.381/.697 in 2000 may seem a little weak by comparison. And expectations have been unnaturally high for him all the way up. But the way Lou Piniella juggled the lineup in 2000, all the way to the playoffs, made Bell more valuable, as he provided a right-handed complement to both Carlos Guillen at third and Mark McLemore at second. You have to have a player like this step up to win the way the Mariners did.
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