The Durham Bulls in 2014 — The Hitters — Part 1

This is the first of a two-part piece on the Bulls hitters in 2014.

In 2014 21 different ballplayers came to bat in a Durham Bulls uniform. That’s a couple more than in 2014 (19), but quite a few less than in previous years. Lack of turmoil may have helped the Bulls, at least a little bit. 

Of those 21, two were on rehab assignments, Wil Myers and Brandon Guyer, so we won’t be paying much attention to their numbers.

We’ll put up two tables as we go along, the first sorted by number of games played and in the next post we’ll put the same table sorted by wOBA. The less familiar stats such as weighted on-base average (wOBA) and weighted runs above average (wRAA) are explained at the links. Players with an asterisk are on the Rays 40-man roster. Data sources are Baseball Reference.com and Fangraphs. We’ll talk about the players listed by number of games played.

Bulls Player Stats Sorted by Games Played

Name	Age	G	PA	AVG	OPS	wOBA	wRAA
Mikie Mahtook	24	132	550	.292	.820	.366	16.1
Justin Christian	34	127	520	.271	.778	.350	8.8
Vince Belnome*	26	118	492	.245	.740	.341	4.8
Mike Fontenot	34	113	454	.276	.714	.328	-0.3
Wilson Betemit	32	111	453	.217	.694	.311	-6.5
Ray Olmedo	33	104	404	.224	.551	.259	-22.3
Hak-Ju Lee*	23	93	357	.203	.563	.268	-17.2
Ali Solis	26	73	266	.203	.514	.234	-19.9
Cole Figueroa*	27	71	312	.282	.761	.350	5
Robby Price	26	70	249	.216	.604	.285	-8.6
Jayson Nix	31	55	216	.272	.748	.339	1.6
Jeremy Moore	27	55	218	.262	.827	.368	6.7
Jerry Sands*	26	54	219	.268	.825	.369	6.8
Curt Casali*	25	46	183	.237	.694	.322	-1
Kevin Kiermaier*	24	34	143	.305	.823	.369	4.5
Mayo Acosta	26	32	94	.133	.408	.198	-9.6
Nick Franklin	23	27	113	.210	.578	.273	-5
Tim Beckham*	24	15	65	.258	.572	.256	-3.7
Eddy Rodriguez	28	13	49	.152	.443	.198	-5.1
Wil Myers	23	7	31	.250	.961	.409	2
Brandon Guyer	28	5	26	.400	1.238	.533	4.2

Mikie Mahtook (132 games) led the 2014 Durham Bulls in just about every offensive category. He played in the most games, had the best wRAA, the most RBI, most stolen bases (only 18 though), and more. With maybe just one more hit in the last couple of games he would have finished above .300. He spent about half his time in center field and the rest pretty much divided between center field and left field. In a perfect world we’d like to see a slightly better walk to strikeout ratio. His was 0.34 (the team best, Cole Figueroa, was 1.50). At 24 he is one of the true prospects on the team and we expect the Rays are going to have to put him on the 40-man next season. Even so, we expect to see him back in Bulls uniform next season and we’ll be happy to see him. Stats. 

Justin Christian (127 games) had a fine year with the Bulls. The 34 year old right hand batting outfielder batted leadoff much the year and fairly equally divided his time between the outfield positions.  That would be because much of the year the Bulls only had two true outfielders and he and Mahtook had to cover the deepest fields of whatever park they were in, while an infielder played the shallowest field. Will he stick with the Rays system? Hard to say. Certainly the Bulls needed him this year and we were glad to have him. Our hope would be for him to return. Stats.

Vince Belnome* (118 games) had a very disappointing year, although things picked up near the end. He never looked very comfortable at the plate and was nothing like the star we watched in 2013, where his numbers eclipsed anyone’s on this year’s team by far. What the Rays (and the Bulls) are going to have to figure out is whether 2013 or 2014 should be the expectation. Mr. Belnome did get his first callup this year, appearing in 4 games with the Rays and picking up a double and an RBI. Will he stay on the 40-man? Hard to say. At a guess, the Rays are going to give the 26 year-old another year. Stats.

Mike Fontenot (113 games) is a favorite of WDBB and we were somewhat surprised at his low wRAA stat. It seemed to us that he was doing better over the year. He did a solid job at second base. I was also a bit surprised to see that he only stole 5 bases. Sure seemed like he was a threat out there. At 34 he’s probably heading back into the free agent pool. He’s given the Bulls two good years and no reason not to have him back for another, depending on what the Rays are looking for in the future. Stats.