After a dreary 0-6 start to the 2011 season for my squad, I figured I wouldn't go with your typical negative piece on the Rays' inability to score, but instead, I would squeeze all the good out of today's 5-1 bustdown by the Orioles Angels White Sox. While I have definitely gotten geeked up over B.J.'s two bombs and will be hitting Kane's for my free pizza courtesy of Hellickson's 10 K's, it was actually a head-first sliding steal of third that was my inspiration for this article.
Coming into the season, I was certainly in the minority of Rays fans who had actually heard of Sam Fuld. This is do exclusively to the fact that for most I've my adult life, I have cohabitated with a Chicago Cubs fan. This isn't to say that I knew the outfielder intimately. And honestly, the first time that I can recall viewing this guy's page at baseball-reference.com would be right now.
So let me just give the quick and dirty facts behind old Sam, with the assistance of fangraphs and b-r.com, of course.
Sam Fuld is 27 years old. He is 5'10" 180 pounds, a little guy. He has Type 1 diabetes, but in spite of the malady is known for his hustle and grit. He bats lefty and was drafted in the 10th round of the '04 draft by the Cubs. He cracked the Cubs' roster in in '07 and is playing in his fourth major league season in 2011. He was acquired from the Cubs, along with a group minor league talents, in exchange for one minor leaguer Matt Garza and Fernando Perez. It's interesting to me that he was involved in a trade with Perez, because he will likely play similar role this season to the one Perez played on the '08 pennant winner. While Perez has more speed, Fuld has more patience at the plate, but this isn't a comparison piece.
Fuld barely got any playing time in Chicago in 2010, spending most of his time in Triple-A, where he posted barely-above-average numbers. Likewise, his career numbers are underwhelming, with a career wRC+ of 96. However, in the spirit of optimism, I'd like to point out that the season in which Fuld received his most big league at-bats, he produced his best work to date. The season was 2009 and his at-bats reached 97. Fuld sported a .409 on-base percentage, due in part to a .299 batting average. Aside from hitting, Fuld has shown the ability to play lock-down defense at the corners of the outfield, with a career 53.3 UZR/150 in left and a career 24.1 UZR/150 in right. While these numbers are impossibly high to maintain (the flaw of UZR/150), this small sample shines some light on the type of defense that can be expected from Fuld this season.
While I know I sound like a lovesick Carl Crawford fan, it really was comforting to see a Rays' left fielder go 2-for-3 with a double and an SB. Whether Fuld's role develops into more than a fifth OF has yet to be seen, just five games into the season, I, for one, would love to see this little scrappy guy stick around long enough to rub off on our youngsters in 2011.
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