Blake Murphy Sports Writing

Title: Who is New Blue Jay Randy Ruiz
Date: August 18, 2009
Original Source: The On Deck Circle
Synopsis: The Jays’ called up a portly and interesting non-prospect in Randy Ruiz, and while his Quad-A tag kept expectations low, his story was worth a read.

The recent call up of Randy Ruiz over Travis Snider has Jays fans talking. At first, I was being asked questions about arbitration eligibility and Snider’s Triple-A performance. But now, after a five game audition where Ruiz has gone 7-for-21 with two homeruns, the questions have started to focus on the Rod Barajas look-alike.

Questions like Who is Ruiz? Why are the Jays calling up a 31-year old career minor leaguer? Why is he a career minor leaguer? Did he eat Travis Snider? Do they really expect us to believe he’s only 240 pounds? Why wasn’t he called up for All You Can Eat Day?

But seriously, the question I’ve pondered most is this: how does a player with such a strong minor league track record get tagged with the ‘Quad-A’ label (a player who’s skill level sits somewhere between Triple-A and Major League) without getting a shot in the Majors to prove himself?

The Quad-A tag is generally reserved for players who dominated in the minors and struggle in the majors, but Ruiz wasn’t even given a chance until his age-30 season (last year), and it was just a 68 plate appearance audition with the Twins.

So, with an OPS consistently above .850, I tried to find out if Ruiz was unlucky at each of his 11 organizational stops, if he was always blocked by better players, or if there’s just something about Ruiz that has kept teams from giving him his apparently deserved chance.

To keep things more simple, I ignored a lot of Ruiz’ moving around in the earlier stages of the minors. To make his odd situation public, though, look at the print screen below of his career transactions, from Baseball Reference:

Obviously, this isn’t a player who has endeared himself to many clubs. I could find no information that would lead me to believe it was an attitude, contract, or motivational issue – these moves always seem to be “baseball related.” It should be noted that his defensive limitations likely played some role, as he his generously listed as a first baseman but is really a Hafner-like DH-only player.

Anyway, I decided to focus on the last few seasons, as Ruiz was performing closer to the Major League level. That is, I looked at 2006 to the present.

It seems to me like Ruiz may have just been cursed by being a DH in National League systems for the most part. When he was in the American League, he was either on a team that couldn’t afford a late-prospect risk on the 25-man roster (Yankees), or one where he was blocked by a great player (Morneau). Fangraphs projects him for an .802 OPS for the rest of the year, so it’s clear that his minor league statistics translate well to the Majors. They don’t hand out 2008 Triple-A Rookie of the Year Awards to just any 30-year old.

Now, having played for 20 different teams across 11 Major Legaue stops, Ruiz seems to have found himself a Major League job for the rest of 2009. With Alex Rios given away, Adam Lind will see more time in the outfield, opening up a DH spot. Ruiz, a right-handed hitter, actually hit right-handed pitchers as well as lefties at Triple-A this year, so it may be a full-time gig more than a platoon audition.

It should be an exciting two months with Ruiz at the plate (don’t expect to see him in the field). His demeanor, swing, and base running are all fun to watch (for varying reasons), and everyone seems to love the story of journeyman-made-good.

Getting his first real Major League opportunity, the hefty slugger will look to parlay his .320/.392/.584 (25 HR, 106 RBI) line from Las Vegas into a 2010 bench role with the big league club.

—
What? Hell yeah I self promote and cyber-stalk celebrities via Twitter! You can follow me here.