Omar Infante is a classic
“glove first” shortstop prospect in the Tigers organization. Infante, one
of two foreign imports (along with Ramon Santiago) that will likely
comprise the future light-hitting double play combo for the Tigers, was
signed out of Venezuela in 1999. His primary impact will be on the
defensive side of the ball, where he exhibits very good range accompanied
by the less common ability to make the routine play. His arm is not as
good as Santiago’s, so out of the two, I would say it is more likely that
Infante will end up at second base if they are both starters in the
majors. He definitely needs to continue to improve on the offensive side
of the ball, which has been difficult for him to do on the Tigers’
timetable (5 levels in not quite 3 years). Omar is a very light hitter,
with only 45 extra-base hits in nearly 1000 professional at-bats. He does
hit the ball to all fields, as he should with his skill set, and may in
time get strong enough to hit 25 to 30 doubles and 5 to 10 triples a
season. For now, at six feet, 150 pounds, he isn’t a good bet to quickly
add to his two career homers. In his first few games this season, Infante
has shown the kind of patience that will be required from him if he
obtains a starting role in Detroit. He still swings and misses too often
for my liking, but most people do in baseball today. He will never be
better than a league average hitter, but he could be serviceable with some
more work. His speed is above-average, and his baserunning instincts seem
quite sound for his age and experience. Overall, I think that Infante
could help a team with a strong core if he continues to progress.
The Tigers are not a
strong organization for hitting prospects, and their major league lineup
only has four players that could be considered potentially above major
league average in Higginson, Young, Rivera, and Fick. On the positive
side, that means that there is quite a bit of room for prospects to
operate. On the down side, it means that the team will likely have too
many sinkholes in the lineup to be a consistent threat in the near future,
as well as the present. More importantly for this column, it means that if
Infante can progress enough to become a near-average hitter, he will have
a spot in the Tigers’ future. He has been pushed very quickly, and could
compete for the partially empty (Shane Halter?) shortstop job in spring
training next season. Infante is a bit like Felix Martinez was when he
broke in (although even younger at age 20 in AAA), which ought to further
illustrate the fragility of prospect status in baseball. I hope that
Infante becomes known for something other than a sucker punch in his first
few seasons in the bigs. One final note on Omar: if his hitting does not
improve, he does have the skills to be a good utility infielder. I think
it is more likely that he will be a starter than a backup five years from
now, but his hitting is just poor enough to make me wonder. As a
tangential comment, I would say that one of the drawbacks to the
“stathead” method of prospect projection is that it causes one to get
overly excited about extremely young prospects. Infante, for example, was
one of the youngest players in AA last year, and since he wasn’t
absolutely horrible he jumped up all of the “stathead” prospect lists. The
problem is that Infante is never going to be a great hitter, whether he is
22 or 16 now, because he just does not have the tools for it. I would
align myself more with the statistical method of analysis than the tools
method in general, but each side needs to respect the fact that the other
has its merits as well.
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