Mike Olt was acquired in July, along with CJ Edwards, Justin Grimm and a player to be named later (Neil Ramirez), for Matt Garza. Olt was having a horrible season and there were vision concerns at the time of the trade. I seem to recall it being better or even all fixed at the time of the trade, but then we got word that his vision troubles continued. Now it's all fixed again, so make of it what you will.
For me, time will tell. Mike Olt wouldn't be the first good prospect with a very high strikeout rate to whiff in AAA and never make much of himself at the MLB level. A year earlier Cubs fans witnessed the same thing with Brett Jackson and the two compare very well to one another. MLB is hard enough, but when you're only putting 65-70% of the balls in play, it gets very difficult to keep a job.
The Cubs don't have a lot at 3rd base that would be in Olt's way and he definitely wants to win the job. Luis Valbuena was the primary 3rd baseman in 2013 and while he got off to a good start, his numbers came back to Earth later on. He finished the season with a 95 wRC+, which isn't much for a 3rd baseman, but for the second year in a row he was very good defensively. His UZR in 2012 was 13.3 at 3rd and it was 8.3 this season.
The end result for Valbuena has been a productive Cubs career. He was worth 1.4 fWAR in 303 PA in 2012 and was worth 2.0 this year in 391 PA. That's 694 plate appearances, or a full season, and he's been worth 3.4 fWAR.
Fangraphs is much more friendly to Valbuena. His WARP over two years with the Cubs is just 0.8 and his rWAR 2.1. Regardless of which you prefer, or just average them and be done with it, he's only been paid $1.4 million over those two years. He's been productive and while not a great hitter, he's made up for it defensively.
Interestingly, he has reverse splits over his career, but has been worse against lefties the last two. The career numbers are more telling though he has only 216 PA vs lefties. We should still expect he'd be better vs. righties. I'd be fine with him not even playing against lefties.
Mike Olt mike make a good platoon partner with Valbuena. Olt has crushed left-handers in the minor leagues, but has only been decent against righties. Olt is also supposedly a good fielder so you'd not lose anything defensively.
I have a hard time believing this front office would just hand the job over to Olt after the disastrous season he had in 2013. They've got a decent 3rd baseman in Valbuena so my guess is that the Cubs would like to see what Olt can do at AAA before calling him up. He does have 1 or 2 options remaining so I expect the Cubs to use it.
Or they could trade him this offseason. We've assumed for some time that Javier Baez will slot over to 3rd when he gets to the big league level, which could be relatively soon. The front office has said that Baez will begin next season at AAA and if they want to get him used to 3rd before a call-up, I could see him starting the year there. That would leave no opening for Olt and the Cubs are definitely not going to hold Baez back in favor of Olt.
Not far behind Olt is Kris Bryant who plays 3rd. They also won't hold Bryant up to keep Olt at a certain position.
Of course, Olt's value is at an all-time low. That would suggest it's not the time to trade him, but he's got talent and several teams would undoubtedly like to acquire him.
For what little it's worth, I think Baez remains at shortstop at Iowa and Mike Olt plays alongside him. Kris Bryant starts the season at AA Tennessee.
I'm skeptical that we'll see an improved player next year. It seems the cause of the vision problem was being hit in the Dominican Winter League. Some players never recover from such incidents.
Comments
I want to win the 3rd base job too! We’ll see how well that works…..
That said, I would love to see Olt get back on track and be a solid middle of the order guy. I’ve been a fan for a few years now and I hate when the guys I follow fall apart like he did.
LukasQuote Reply
I think Olt is an interesting case only because of the strange physical problems he was dealing with last year. *If* his doctors can get his tear ducts to work normally again, I think that we could at least discount the struggles he had this season. Unfortunately for him, even if he does turn back into the player he was, the options behind him are likely to be too good for him to stick for very long unless he becomes an even better player than he was once projected to be, which is tough to see happening at his age
T CQuote Reply
Lukas wrote:
That was exactly my response when I saw that headline on cubs.com earlier.
@ T C:
I don’t know that we could discount it. There are reasons beyond his vision to be concerned (strikeouts). I think it would allow us to look at his struggles differently, but also acknowledge that things are going to be difficult for him unless he finds a way to cut down on strikeouts.
In all likelihood, Mike Olt, without any vision problems, is a below average hitter at the MLB level. It sounds as though his glove is good enough, but the Cubs currently have a below average 3rd baseman with a good glove. Is Olt better than Valbuena? He certainly could be, but I’m not convinced he is or ever will be.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ T C:
Also, I very much agree with what you said about it being hard for him to stick with this team long-term unless he excels and the others struggle. I think he’s already been passed on the depth chart by Baez who probably slots best at 3rd. Possibly even Christian Villanueva. Bryant probably isn’t too far away from passing Olt if he hasn’t already.
It’s entirely possible that Mike Olt is 4th on the Cubs 3rd base depth chart among the future players.
dmick89Quote Reply
where did you see that the vision issues were fixed? all i’ve seen is that he won’t use the drops anymore because of potential glaucoma down the road.
it’s hard for me to imagine that getting tear ducts to start working normally is something that there are even protocols for. maybe they strapped him to a chair for a marathon of saving private ryan, philadelphia, the notebook, etc…
GWQuote Reply
@ GW:
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article/chc/fresh-start-for-mike-olt-gives-him-leg-up-for-cubs-third-base-job?ymd=20131017&content_id=63079390&vkey=news_chc
dmick89Quote Reply
The question is, does fixed mean it’s actually fixed or is this just the company line and the answer will be when they know?
dmick89Quote Reply
Apparently there are 100,000 idiots at Ohio Stadium. They seem proud of it.
dmick89Quote Reply
Where will Villanueva play in that scenario?
lbkcbfnQuote Reply
@ lbkcbfn:
I don’t know. The Cubs probably have to trade one of Olt or Villanueva.
dmick89Quote Reply
I hear olt’s tear ducts are doing towel drills, so everything is gonna be OK.
sitrickQuote Reply
@ sitrick:
That’s about what I think these statements about being all fine are. It’s just talk. I’m very skeptical.
dmick89Quote Reply
Debating whether it would be worth the divorce to look into season tickets for the I-Cubs next season. That team should be fun to watch, even if you assume(which I don’t) that Baez/Alcantara will be called up at some point. Bryant seems likely to end up there sometime in 2014 as well, and there is an outside chance Soler makes it there as well.
I wasn’t impressed with Olt when I saw him at Iowa, but that probably has a lot to do with his vision ‘issues’. I don’t know anything about those, so I can only assume they had a very profound affect on his ability to play baseball last season. Concussions are bad.
SamQuote Reply
@ Sam:
If you need someone to buy weekends from you, we can work on an arrangement. I am at least half serious.
sitrickQuote Reply
So I guess all of you just became Red Sox fans. Or Meteor fans.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
GWQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
Baseball Cthulhu!
sitrickQuote Reply
List of 30 HR hitters in National League:
1. Alvarez – PIT 36
1. Goldschmidt – ARI 36
3. Bruce – CIN 30
END LIST.
Does this make any of you feel better about Rizzo? 35 HR hitters no longer grow on trees. It isn’t 2001 anymore. Rizzo’s 2013 season is not a disaster. He’s walking and accumulating XBH. He’s only disappointing if you still want a 1B to perform as if it was still 2003 when every team had someone who could mash. I don’t think he’ll ever hit for average, due to aggressive defensive shifting, but there should be plenty of slugging. The narrative that Rizzo flopped this year is overstated.
jQuote Reply
Rizzo provided league-average offense (slightly above-average hitting and below-average baserunning) while playing a position that typically demands above-average offense. That said, all the defensive metrics liked his play at first this year.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Sam wrote:
Fixed
LukasQuote Reply
new shit: http://obstructedview.net/minor-leagues/stars-of-tomorrow-cubs-minor-league-recap-101913.html
dmick89Quote Reply