The Twins have signed Mike Olt, the corner infielder announced Sunday on Instagram. It’s surely a minor league contract for Olt, who hasn’t seen action in the majors in recent years.
In fact, the 30-year-old Olt is coming off the third straight season in which he failed to appear at the game’s highest level, having spent all of 2016 in the Padres’ minor league system and both ’17 and ’18 in the high minors with the Red Sox. Before that, he received MLB time with the Rangers and both Chicago teams from 2012-15, during which he batted just .168/.250/.330 in 400 plate appearances.
Olt’s subpar major league performance has been all the more disappointing given that he was a first-round pick of the Rangers in 2010 and a former top-50 prospect, though unfortunate vision problems seemingly changed his career trajectory. To Olt’s credit, he has performed well at the Triple-A level, where he has slashed .254/.355/.464 with 115 home runs in 2,765 PAs. He went to the plate 279 times with Boston’s top affiliate in 2018 and hit .224/.357/.430 with 11 homers.
Missed a good opportunity to write Twins to Mike Olt!
And, in a surprise move, Twins pay Olt $30MM just to quiet the fans who complained that they didn’t spend enough this year on salaries.
LOL
That concussion(s) derailed his career. A baseball player who has his eye/brain connection messed up can never really be a good baseball player. Too bad, I thought Olt was going to have a great career.
I must have missed where we consider .244 “performing well”
Please let’s stop using batting average to prove anything. Okay? we know so much more about baseball than that these days.
Sorry David but the game is still the same. .244 average, 11 home runs is not what you hope for at the AAA level.
Ok .250 OBP over 400AB not SSS. Not “performing well”
What about OPS, I believe that much more valid than batting average. At AA and AAA the last two years he has had an OPS of around .750 (below average for a corner infielder). He hasn’t had a great minor league year in 7 years. (Just looking at the stats, not knowing him from adam).
I must have missed where batting average was meaningful as a stand-alone stat.
Right? It does, however, give you a pretty accurate idea as to whether or not a guy can bat a baseball and get on base by doing it.
I believe the reference was to Olt’s triple A line, which is 254/355/464. That’s an 819 OPS, which is good. He’s a quad-A guy, owing probably to the concussion stuff, but if I’m looking at a slash line I’ll take OBP and SLugging over batting average. The difference between batting 250 and 300 is 5 singles in 100 at-bats; But not making outs is more important than that, so OBP is a much better measure of not making outs.
The only problem with that is his AAA line is incorrect in the article. His ACTUAL AAA line across 5 seasons is .232/.328/.429, which is a .757 OPS, which is NOT good.
I’m actually trying to figure out where they got their stats from because they say he has 2,765 AAA plate appearances, but he actually only has 1,052, which isn’t even remotely close to what the MLBTR article says.
Edit: Ok, I figured it out. Their wording is very misleading. They explicitly state he’s done well at the Triple-A level, but the stat line they produced immediately after that statement was for every level of his minor league career, not just AAA.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=olt—001mic
Yes, OPS is is the definitely the overall stat to look at, but having a low average in the minors indicates the player can never make it in the majors.
yawn
Would be cool to see him in Oakland with fellow king of the world Jurickson Profar
I don’t understand this…Profar turned out a very productive 2018 season.
The two aren’t really alike, except both being the infielders. Profit was a top prospect who put it together last year
Sorry but his minor league Sox stats were not “solid” nor do I consider him having “performed well at the triple A level”. That said I wish my nothing but the best as he could become a nice 2019 story. Doubtful but who knows?
Seems like he was mostly at Portland (AA) last season when was watching them, tho won’t swear to it. he still looked lost for the most part, whether or not it’s concussion related. He reminds me of Wil Middlebrooks in that he just hacks at everything from his eyes to his toes.
And dugout to dugout!
On this edition of whatever happened to that guy…
Olts minor league signings and re signings are rivaling mark prior
Except that Olt actually plays in a few games whereas Prior took $2M for the Padres for a grand total of 0.0 innings.
Exhibit A for why so few prospects should be untouchable.
Thad’s mission to reconstruct the 2012 Rangers knows no limits!
Rangers wouldn’t part with him for Dickey six years ago, lol. Thank goodness they indirectly got the Mets Syndergaard.
Steve Holt!
Matt LaPorta, Brien Taylor, Mark Appel, Drew Henson, Brandon Wood, and Dallas MacPherson are all pulling for you, Mike!
Drew Henson – he was the QB that Michigan kept trying to play over some smallish unheralded kid named Tom Brady.
OBP can be misleading in the minors, especially for older guys. There are a lot more minor league pitchers who can find the strike zone. A patient minor league hitter can have a good OBP and a bad average in the minors if only swings at strikes but still doesn’t hit them with authority. That’s the kind of guy who’s in deep trouble against the better pitchers and fielders in the majors.
That should have been “can’t” find the strike zone for minor league pitchers, of course.
Agreed. High batting average in the minors means the prospect likely has a good hit tool and the ability to barrel up balls which also means good skills on pitch recognition.
There are many players who sit on mistake pitches and earn high OBP numbers as lower MiLB levels where pitchers are learning control and developing their off speed pitches. Those free passes coming from passive plate approach often dry up rapidly in AAA as veteran players and AAAA types who often don’t have MLB caliber stuff can place their pitches and throw strikes with regularity.
Batting average means far more in MiLB than it does in MLB.
I thought Mike Olt was a pitcher at some point, I am totally wrong with that. Maybe there was another Olt who’s a pitcher.
Isn’t he the type of player who goes to Japan and becomes a legend of sorts?
I didnt even know he was around still
We can just disregard this move after the twins sign manny!
Ahhh. The yearly Mike Olt Minor league signing. I almost missed it this year!
The Twins signed My Colt! 🙂
The Legend Continues
this guy has future pirates player written on him…
Some might think this was a bad signing but I don’t see anyone suggesting any Olturnatives.
Olt. The guy who started over Kris Bryant for a few weeks.