The Case for Mike Morse

If Yuniesky Betancourt goes on the disabled list--as he likely will--the M's are going to need a starting shortstop.

Who plays shortstop isn't their biggest problem, though. When "Chad Gaudin" strikes you out 11 times, I mean come the f on. They need offense.

Mike Morse is the answer to both conundrums.

Let's take shortstop first. The current major league roster contains three potential shortstops -- Chris Woodward, Ronny Cedeno, Josh Wilson. Go ahead, look at their stats. I'll wait for you.

...

I hear you gagging, so you must have seen them. All three are atrocious hitters.

Morse's career OPS, which at .762 is no great shakes, is still more than 100 points higher than Cedeno or Wilson's, and nearly 100 points higher than Woodward's. (Note: Woodward has 33 career homers, 20 of which came in 2002 and 2003. Long time ago, and a "different era" if you will.)

Morse is hitting over .300 in Tacoma with an .828 OPS. Woodward, by contrast, was OPSing .766.

You've seen Morse enough to know that he has a little pop in his bat (very little, but more than the punchless trio mentioned above). At 27, he's entering peak hitting age. And he's versatile; he can play all four infield positions. (Though he should never, ever again be seen in the outfield).

The knock on Morse is his range. Fielding stats hate the guy, Baseball Reference concludes that Morse's 2005 defensive performance, stretched out over a whole year, would have cost the M's 27 runs.

Not to go all Joe Morgan, but I don't see it that way. Morse isn't fast, but he's tall and athletic and, to my eyes, covers a decent amount of ground. He's made 3 errors at short this year in 21 games, which isn't bad. Sure, he's not Omar Vizquel, but he's not Rich Aurilia either.

Also, I remain wary of fielding statistics. The latest ones depend on human biases, as someone has to chart hits and record how hard the ball was hit. Sorry, there's too much variation in how people can perceive batted balls for that to work. Last year, "Ultimate Zone Rating", which is supposedly the gold standard in defensive stats, told us that Ryan Sweeney, Austin Kearns, and Alex Rios were all considerably better right fielders than Ichiro. I'm not buying what you're selling, Ultimate Zone Rating.

Moving on, there's this: Morse pretty much always does well when I'm at the games, and I have season tickets this year.

The M's have been saddled with a crummy defensive SS all season, and their run prevention hasn't seemed to suffer. Run production is the issue. And Mike Morse is the only guy in the organization with even a modicum of pop in his bat who can legitimately play shortstop. (Although, if they want to give Mike Carp a try, I won't object too much.)

MORSE FORCE UNITE!