Saturday, December 8, 2007

Let's Meet...Omar Infante

Omar Infante was acquired in a three-player deal that included Jose Ascanio going to the Cubs and Will Ohman coming over to the Braves. Infante is essentially your average utility infielder who the more he sticks around, the more money he makes that he doesn't actually deserve to make.

Infante has been in the bigs since he was 20 and six years later, not much has changed about what Infante brings to the field. His AVG is about a dozen points under the average, walks are nonexistent, and he has a bit of pop but nothing that outstanding. In 2004, he got into most of the Tigers games at second, third, and short. He even posted a league average OPS with the help of 16 jacks. However, in his last three years, he has seen his time decrease and his numbers justify that. His best adjusted OPS over the last three seasons is 90, or 10% below the league average.

After the last six years with the Tigers, Infante was part of the trade that sent Jacque Jones to the Tigers last month from the Cubs. He was supposed to play the same role with the Cubs that he had played with the Tigers in the recent years. The 25th man who can play 2B/SS/3B/OF for you.

Infante made $1.3M last year, which...really makes no sense. He will make probably $1.5M in arbitration, which might force the Braves hand to just non-tender him. While Infante is probably better than Chris Woodward, it just doesn't make much sense to keep him around for that kind of cash.

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