SEASON SUMMARY

Mercedes started the season in the Orioles starting rotation and, despite one of the sorriest performances by a full-time starter in major league history, stayed there pretty much all season.  The co-winner of this year's Piñata Award got off to a miserable start, dropping his first six decisions of the year, and despite an occasional decent outing here and there, never pitched particularly well for any stretch of the season.

Mercedes seemed to hit a point in almost every game he pitched where he couldn't anyone out.  Five, six, seven, eight straight batters would reach base against him, spoiling what would otherwise have been a solid start.  It remains unclear whether he succumbed to lapses in concentration, general immaturity, or what, but it happened often enough to be a serious problem.  On the relatively rare occasions when this didn't happen, he simply pitched poorly from the word go.

Mercedes couldn't even complain about poor run support--though he probably did. The Orioles averaged 5.14 runs per Mercedes start.  In the 131 games they played started by other pitchers, the Birds managed just 4.03 runs per game.  In other words, Jose got better than a run a game more than the average starter and still finished with a .320 winning percentage.  (The team's overall winning percentage was .385.)  No, Mercedes got his share of the Piñata Award the old-fashioned way; he eeeaaaarned it.

The Orioles have made their share of questionable contract moves and non-moves in recent years, but one very wise decision was not signing Mercedes to a multi-year contract after the 2000 season.  Mercedes finished 14-7 in 2001 and pitched quite well over the second half of the season.  Still...his neutral W-L record for 2000 was a more equivocal 12-9, and even in this, presumably the best season of his career, Mercedes still allowed more hits than innings pitched and fanned fewer than 4.5 men per nine innings.  It wasn't exactly the stuff of legend.  (Mercedes was, in fact, at least as good in 1997 with the Brewers, but that's another story.)  Facing the prospect of signing a 30-year-old pitcher who had never had better than a decent season in his career, had a long history of injuries and ineffectiveness and who had, in fact, only had half a good season the year before, the Orioles did the wise thing:  they just said "no."  If Jose had come back with a good full season in 2001 he unquestionably would have been in for a big pay day from someone heading into the 2002 season.  Now he'll be lucky to get a guaranteed contract from anyone heading into spring training and that "anyone" almost certainly won't be the Baltimore Orioles.

When he's been successful in the past--which has been no more than occasionally--Mercedes has done it by changing speeds and moving his pitches around, all the time hitting his spots with good command.  His stuff is awfully mediocre--his fastball is no better than average and he has no out pitch.  When he's not hitting his spots almost all the time, he gets smacked.  When he's not hitting his spots much of the time, as was the case last season, he becomes a piñata.

TO CONTRIBUTE SIGNIFICANTLY NEXT YEAR, HE MUST:

1) demonstrate the same kind of impeccable command that he showed in the last couple of months of 2000

2) hit the ground running next season; after his 2001 performance, he's going to be on a very short leash in 2002

NOTES

Posted a humiliating 6.72 ERA in 14 Camden Yards appearances last year...posted ERAs better than five in five of six months last year, and better than six in four; he was just lousy, all year long...ERA was, in fact, worse after the All-Star break (6.08) than before (5.65)...obviously got a rep as a pitcher who liked to jump out on top with a first-pitch fastball:  batters swinging at the first pitch in a count hit him to the tune of .373/.381/.686...almost no platoon split; both lefties (.299) and righties (.288) whacked him around pretty good...highest ERA of any pitcher in 2001 with at least 30 starts; 11th highest in modern MLB history (i.e. since 1900); second highest in Orioles history (Pat Rapp, 5.90 in 2000).