
There isn’t, or shouldn’t be, a space on the roster for a lefty infielder who has hit badly for two straight seasons
A regular feature since Mike Elias has been the Orioles general manager is a roster move that shakes up the assumed picture within days of Opening Day. It’s happened the past three years before this and he’s done it again two days before Opening Day 2024. The Orioles on Tuesday afternoon announced the signing of veteran infielder Tony Kemp to a major league contract ahead of the start of this season.
Kemp, 32, languished as a free agent for much of the offseason before signing a deal with the Reds after spring training had already begun. Cincinnati chose to release Kemp a week ago, putting him back out there for anyone to sign. The Orioles, for reasons that cannot immediately have a rational basis assigned to them, have swooped in to pick up Kemp with days until the season begins.
Over the past two seasons, Kemp a lefty batter, has combined to hit .224/.306/.321. In the 2023 season, he rated poorly at just about every aspect of either hitting, fielding, or running. In bWAR terms, that was a -1.0 for the Athletics a year ago. The one area of exception is that he hardly ever swings and misses, and going along with that, he hardly ever strikes out. Kemp struck out in just 9.5% of plate appearances in 2023 – nearly unheard of in today’s game. He walked more often than he struck out.
There is some notional positional versatility in Kemp’s profile, as long as you don’t scrutinize it even a tiny bit. While with Oakland in 2022 and 2023, Kemp has played second base and left field in roughly equal amounts. His defensive numbers were not good at either one of these, and with his sprint speed being in just the 23rd percentile, it’s hard to figure he would be a good candidate to play any amount of time in left field at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
The immediate change to the roster with this move is that the Orioles designated infielder Nick Maton for assignment. Maton was already known to have not made the team and the out-of-options infielder was going to have to be DFA’d before the Opening Day roster was set regardless. However, Kemp signing the major league deal presumably locks him in to a 26-man roster spot, which means that someone who we had assumed had made the roster will now probably not make it.
The most obvious candidate here to be squeezed out now would seem to be Tyler Nevin, just on the basis of Nevin being the last position player who had made it onto the bench. Tough luck for Nevin, who appeared to make the team only for Elias to change his mind a couple of days later because some crummy-hitting, bad-fielding veteran came along who once got drafted by the Astros when Elias was an assistant there.
It’s also possible there’s some kind of surprise, unreported injury to an Orioles infielder – maybe Ramón Urías or Jordan Westburg – that will be revealed with an injured list stint when the Opening Day roster is set. If that ends up being the case, the Kemp addition would at least be somewhat less puzzling. There’s still the terrible recent track record, but at least then his notional value to the roster would be more readily perceived.
If it turns out that Jackson Holliday did not make the team so that the Orioles could have Urías in the starting lineup and Kemp on the bench, that really sucks. At least when it was Nevin as the bench option, there was the plausible (though ultimately misguided) rationale that Nevin is going to provide some value as a bench bat against lefties.
Kemp provides no value as a batter, fielder, or runner, unless Elias manages to shoot the moon with a long-term stinker turning it around like what happened with the team adding Aaron Hicks in the middle of last season. It’s true that Elias has done it before, but I won’t be holding my breath.
Perhaps the silver lining here is that having Kemp on the roster provides an easily-removable guy once the team deems that the already-ready Holliday is service time-ready. The Orioles are not substantially invested either financially or emotionally in Kemp and he can be shuffled off when it’s Jackson time with little heartburn. No, that’s not worth much to me either.