The latest rumors have the Red Sox signing Mike Cameron to play left field in a platoon with Jeremy Hermida.

Cameron has had a long strange career.

For starters, he's a pretty unlikely member of the 4-homers-in-a-game club.

Here's a reminder of the post-1954 members of that group:

I suspect that Cameron's name will be the oddest one in this group for many years to come, although Whiten and Horner also had comparatively short major-league careers.

Here's another thing about Cameron. While he's not a terribly good hitter, his OPS values always end up above average. He has a string of 11 straight years with an OPS+ of at least 104 and his career value is 107. He's no superstar with the bat but he's solid and, perhaps more importantly, consistent.

Since 1901 here are the players with the most seasons having an OPS+ of at least 104 but a batting average no higher than .273.

Interesting group, eh? Joe Morgan is the odd man out here because, as the only middle-infielder on the list, he was actually an above-average offensive player (for his position) and managed to make the group. The rest of these players were all good, most had a couple of excellent seasons, but none was a superstar.

Cameron and the rest of these guys all fit a similar mode: decent power and decent walk rate. Bumps to OBP from walks or to SLG from occasional homers--that's how these guys kept their OPS+ values on the good side of 100 despite having lower batting averages. (I know the search limited to .273, which is not a bad batting average, but keep in mind that Cameron's career BA is .250. Most of the guys on the list above were below .260 in their careers.)

Here's another club for which Cameron carries a membership card: striking out in at least 24% of one's plate appearances (minimum 3000 PAs):

This is kind of surprising, isn't it? It makes Cameron seem like a pretty good slugger and run-producer, at least if you cherry pick Jim Thome and Ryan Howard off here. On the other hand, grouping him with Jose Hernandez and Pete Incaviglia paints a different picture, as far as perception goes.

You can put me down in the Mike Cameron fan club. He's not a perfect player, but he provides significant offense and is very consistent. At the right price, I'd take the guy on my team.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 9:45 am and is filed under Game Finders, Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.