Michael Almanzar, Whom the Orioles Really, Really Want

Michael Almanzar (most likely) waiting to swing. Photo courtesy of Les Treagus / Norfolk Tides.

During the last home game of each Norfolk Tides season, the primary official scorer and I are challenged to name all the Tides' players in that season. In 2014, the last player we remembered was Michael Almanzar.

Michael Almanzar, an infielder, was drafted from the Red Sox organization in the Rule 5 draft before the 2014 season. He started the season on the disabled list, and played a handful of road games with Norfolk on a rehabilitation assignment. When that assignment was completed, there was no room on the 25-man roster and so Almanzar was returned to the Red Sox. However, the Orioles quickly reacquired Almanzar as part of the Kelly Johnson trade. The Orioles didn't protect him on their 40-man roster after the season, so he became a free agent. The Orioles re-signed him; for the 2015 season, he has been assigned to Norfolk. He's been the Tides' regular third baseman.

The Orioles obviously like Almanzar as they've acquired him three different times since the end of the 2013 season. Is their like justified? This season, I've seen him play third base in all six games I've seen. Although he is unpolished, he has the defensive tools to play third base. For some reason, he likes to play every ground ball off to the side, which leads to a number of do-or-die plays and perhaps more errors than otherwise. He has a strong-enough, accurate-enough arm to play third base.

The big question about Almanzar is his bat - will he be a good enough offensive player? My impression of the six games' worth of his offense - an admittedly small sample of 21 plate appearances - is that he is an aggressive hitter who may be trying too hard to hit home runs.

Here are the results of the 21 plate appearances I've seen:

Strikeout	3
Walk	1
Ground Ball	3
Line Drive	6 (4 hits)
Fly Ball	8

Almanzar was successful when he hit a line drive (I'd like to think that I wasn't biased in my assessment - that I didn't automatically call his hits "line drives".) But he did hit many more fly balls than ground balls. I think he'd be more successful if he leveled his swing and made less of a conscious effort to hit the ball in the air.

Here are the results of each pitch he's seen:

Ball	19
Called Strike	4
Swinging Strike	8
Foul Ball	12
In Play	17

Almanzar is an aggressive hitter, as he swung at 62% of the pitches he's seen. And while I can't tell if he's swinging at pitches outside the strike zone - PitchTrack isn't available in the minor leagues - the pitches he's not swinging at are generally outside the zone. If it's in the strike zone, Almanar's going to swing at it.

The below table shows the number of pitches Almanzar received at each count:

0-0	21
1-0	5
0-1	10
2-0	1
1-1	5
0-2	5
3-0	0
2-1	1
1-2	5
3-1	0
2-2	5
3-2	3

Given his aggressiveness, it's not surprising that Almanzar doesn't see a lot of deep counts, nor that he rarely gets ahead in the count. It may not be obvious from the above data, but of these 21 plate appearances, Almanzar put the first pitch in play 6 times and the second pitch in play 5 times, so in over half his plate appearances he saw two or fewer pitches.

Michael Almanzar looks like an athlete; he's trim and strong. It's easy to dream that he'll develop into a good player. But he turns 25 in December and time is beginning to run out. The Orioles haven't had to give up much to get him - $25,000 (the Rule 5 draft), Jemile Weeks (hitting .155 at Pawtucket) and Ivan De Jesus Jr (a subsequent minor-league free agent) (those two brought Almanzar and Kelly Johnson), and a minor-league contract. So, in that sense, he's a good low-risk gamble. But it seems that the flaws in his game will prevent him from living up to his potential.