Who Is Today's Otto Vélez?

Otto Vélez's major league career began in 1973 with the New York Yankees. The Yankees signed Vélez as a 19-year-old out of Puerto Rico in 1969, advancing through the system resembling what we call today a three-true-outcomes hitter, striking out more than most other batters but making up for it with above-average power and exceptional plate discipline. In his last full year at AAA, Vélez averaged almost a walk per game as part of a .269/.450/.562 season. The corner outfielder never fully clicked in the Bronx, however, and he never consistently saw the field until he was selected by the Toronto Blue Jays late in the 1976 expansion draft.

For the next six seasons, "Otto the Swatto" walked at a 15.1-percent clip, eighth-best among qualified hitters over that stretch, and his .204 isolated slugging percentage ranked 25th. (He was 23rd in strikeout rate.) Vélez never made any All-Star teams or got awards votes, lacking baserunning and fielding skills and just once hitting .270 or better, but he was a good bat for a good number of years. In 1981, his batting average on balls in play cratered, and the next year, his power abandoned him. The Jays cut him that September, and after a cameo with the Indians in 1983, Vélez's career was over.

Otto Vélez is not a particularly interesting or notable player, except in a few small ways: being one of the first Blue Jays players, having a great nickname, and having a hitting profile that would have found him many job opportunities decades later. But he is an apt model for the following exercise.

Often, I come across players like Vélez: guys with decent careers that I am positive I would know if I followed the game during their playing days, but whose careers have been all but forgotten. You may find their baseball cards tucked between those of someone who eventually became a manager, like Ron Roenicke; whose son now plays, like Sal Butera; who now broadcasts, like Rex Hudler; who was part of a memorable World Series team, like Shane Mack; who had a memorable name, like Oddibe McDowell; who was involved in an unforgettable moment, like Sid Bream; or who otherwise exists in your brain in some way as a "baseball name." But you never remember the guy whose card is still tucked between those ones. You keep flipping through them, and that's it.

What I want to know is this: What current player is having his card thoughtlessly moved to the back of the deck in 20 years? Who is today's Otto Vélez, a decent player that contemporary fans know, but who will be forgotten?

In order to find today's Vélezes, we are first going to toy around with some numbers.

During his career, Vélez put up 9.4 wins above replacement (using the FanGraphs version). Over that 11-year stretch, that ranked 188th among position players with at least 400 plate appearances. On a per-plate-appearance basis, he ranked 159th. Either way, his fWAR was within a standard deviation of the average player to see the plate that often. Assuming normality in either stat, that means he was in roughly the middle two-thirds of players.

(The z-scores for each: fWAR z-score: 0.2; fWAR/PA z-score: 0.8)

So first, we need to find guys who, over the past 10 seasons, have logged 400 or more plate appearances and are within one standard deviation of the average both by fWAR and fWAR/PA. To truly find the most above-average players, we will set the minimum z-scores at 0.2 – meaning all players we look at will be between a fifth of a standard deviation and a whole standard deviation above average.

So we begin with 68 players. Next, we will remove all All-Stars and players who did not appear in 2017. This takes out Salvador Perez, Charlie Blackmon, Nick Punto, Derrek Lee, Alfonso Soriano, and 40 others, putting us at 23 current Vélez candidates.

To continue, we have to find guys without any great achievements or other notable aspects of their career.

First, there is what  I will call the Jeopardy! Rule: if they are answers to good questions in a game of Baseball Jeopardy!, they are excluded. Billy Hamilton holds the single-season stolen base record in the minors. He is out. Grégor Blanco was a part of two Giants World Series teams and made a crucial catch in Matt Cain's perfect game. He is out. Jarrod Saltalamacchia owns the longest name in major league history. He is out.

Additionally, any other major awards will disqualify players: Gold Gloves, Silver Sluggers, postseason MVPs, and anything similar will result in disqualification. So do World Series rings. Franklin Gutierrez, Yan Gomes, and Stephen Drew are among the handful cut on this step.

Our Vélez candidates are down to 13 now. Vélez himself had about five years of being a regular player, and he only played for three teams. We'll whittle down our candidates to those who have had at least five seasons of 81 games or more, and those who aren't journeymen that bounced from team to team every year.

We'll call the "journeyman" threshold five teams or more. Francisco Cervelli, Didi Gregorius, Seth Smith, and Alejandro De Aza are among the eight players leaving the Vélez pool.

(At this point, it may seem like I am trying to find matches for Vélez specifically. I am not. What makes him a good model of the type of forgotten player I am looking for is that he might be remembered by a couple of fan bases, and he was probably vaguely familiar to the national baseball scene. At the same time, he was a significant enough contributor for long enough for him to be some kid's favorite player, and for that kid to be bummed he left. When a player moves around a bunch or mostly plays on the bench, seldom can he leave that kind of mark.

I'll put it this way: It's the difference between Jacque Jones and Pedro Florimon. Twenty years from now, Twins fans of a certain age will still remember fondly Jones, and everyone else will hear his name at the end of "Hey, remember...?" Florimon's name, after a career where it was often the 40th on the 40-man roster, will only finish that question in the towns in which he played.)

This leaves us with five players. Let's clean up this list for anything that should have been covered earlier but was not because a player technically fulfilled previous criteria. This means two players are getting cut: John Jaso and Peter Bourjos.

Jaso is a free agent and will likely stay that way, as he seems content to spend the next while on a boat somewhere. Bourjos is also without a contract, but he's young enough and okay enough to keep playing, so I expect he'll at least get an invitation to somebody's spring training. I'd consider him further, but he's probably playing for his fifth team this year, so he will also leave the list.

(UPDATE: Unbeknownst to me, just about right when I originally published this, Bourjos did in fact sign a minor league deal with the Cubs. If he makes the majors, he will be up to five teams.)

Our final Vélez candidates are:

Logan Forsythe
Nick Hundley
Jed Lowrie

Which player is most likely to fit this mold at the end of his career, then?

Hundley is the one I think least likely to do so. As a longtime catcher and the recipient of the Giants' Willie Mac Award, he has a chance to become a coach, and even a manager, rather than spend his post-playing days in total ignominy.

Previous Willie Mac Award winners include Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, former Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly, and a handful of players who have coached or are coaching as assistants or in the minors. Omar Vizquel, for example, spent a few years as a base coach for a couple of major league teams and now manages the White Sox Class-A affiliate. Bengie Molina, Marquiss Grissom, Robby Thompson, Chris Speier, and more recipients of the award have all served on major league staffs too. Hundley, if he goes into coaching, may not climb the ranks like Matheny and Brenly, but if you were trying to find the person in this trio who would, the smart money is on Hundley.

So, we are left with Forsythe and Lowrie.

Both remaining players, at 31 and 33 years old, have likely passed their peaks, so I do not expect either of them to suddenly have an All-Star season.

Each has some non-major league honors worth looking at, but I do not think either counts as notable enough to warrant disqualification: Forsythe won a silver medal at the 2007 Pan American Games; Lowrie was the 2004 Pac-12 Player of the Year and a First-Team All-American in 2004 and 2005 while at Stanford, and at the 2004 World University Baseball Championship, he won a gold medal.

Lowrie has the built-in interesting factoid of spending two stints each with the Astros and A's, and he holds the Oakland record for doubles in a season (49). Neither item is particularly fascinating, however.

Forsythe's status will largely depend on two things: if he wins a World Series with the Dodgers (and/or plays a major role in a future postseason run); and whether José De León, the player for whom he was traded to Los Angeles, has a good career of his own.

The former is relatively likely, assuming he stays with the Dodgers after his contract expires this year. If the Dodgers miss out on a title and then Forsythe leaves, then he becomes an interesting case: his odds of a ring will probably decline (depending on his new club), but he will be up to four teams for his career, putting him right up against the journeyman threshold.

De León's debut season was brief, thanks to a series of Disabled List stints. Depending on how strong a recovery he makes, the Forsythe trade may become infamous in Dodgers circles.

Because of these two possibilities, as well as Lowrie's age, I think I will award him the title of 2018's Otto Vélez. Lowrie had a very impressive season last year, but he just does not have as much time to win anything or leave a legacy greater than the one he has already established. Perhaps he will be traded to some contenders and be a part of their playoff run, but I think that is the one thing that will elevate him. (Apart, you know, from participation in a crazy baseball thing or finding a place in some other random trivia item that the sport seemingly always creates.)

So, congratulations to Jed Lowrie. We'll never remember you.

If you want to see all the players I examined for this exceedingly pointless exercise, here is a link to the spreadsheet. Information like accolades and trivia come from Baseball-Reference and Wikipedia.

I realize this post stuck to hitters, which obviously leaves some gaps. If I have the time, I will gladly find the most spare pitcher in today's game.