Now, now, don't laugh just yet. But with his solid play recently, hes in the discussion. The Sun ran a nice article on him today, with MacPhail himself offering some praise:

"The way he's been playing since he's been forced into it, he's an everyday major league shortstop," said Andy MacPhail, the Orioles' president of baseball operations. "He's playing well defensively, he's showing signs with the bat, he can run some. He's done everything well.

"He's one of those guys getting better with playing time. Sometimes, the more you play someone, the more you see that they are really designed for the role that they gravitated to. In his case, the more often that he's been out there, the better he has been."

Baltimore Sun

Of course, we are all high on him a bit right now I presume. The last 13 games hes hit at a nice.295/.326/.432 clip. And defensively hes doing his thing; he certainly passes the eye test, but in addition over at fangraphs hes near the top of the leaderboard for many of the defensive metrics they use (like UZR).

Of course his overall season stats are ugly though, sporting the exact same statline as Cesar Izturis (both have a .620 OPS). This is obviously the biggest hole in his game and the only thing that will prevent him from being a major league regular on a good team. While its too early in the season to get a truly solid gauge of the guy (for all we know he could sink into an 0-20 slump soon), you can lump me in the optimistic crowd for Andino for many reasons.

1) He has the raw ability. He was the 52nd overall pick in the 2002 draft. And as we have seen the past few weeks, he has all the tools necessary to succeed.

2) The Marlins botched his development in almost every way possible. With Andino being drafted out of high school in the Miami area and Alex Gonzalez's days numbered on the big league squad, the Marlins rocketed Andino up the minor league ranks in an effort to get their "shortstop of the future" and hometown kid to the show. For example, despite batting a combined .238 over 900 ABs at the A level as a 19/20 year old, the Marlins promoted him to AA the next season where he not only flailed away but "earned" a September call up as well. The other mis-steps are too numerous to go into full detail, but the worst was probably last season. With Hanley Ramirez tearing things up, Andino was an afterthought. So the Marlins kept the 24 year old Andino on the major league roster for four months where he collected a measly 63 ABs. Pretty much a full season of lost development.

3) Now, this is where point number 2 gets important, because when given consistent playing time, Andino DOES improve. Make no mistake about it, this guy isn't a prodigy in any way. He was clearly a slow bloomer and needed probably two seasons at each level to get the swing of things. His minor league stats tell the story of when he repeats a level:

A (2003): .188/.266/.252; .518 OPS

A/A+ (2004): .281/.316/.377; .693 OPS

and

AAA (2006): .255/.303/.363; .666 OPS

AAA (2007): .278/.322/.428; .751 OPS

AAA (2008): .287/.356/.497; .853 OPS (181 ABs)

Its one thing if a guy stalls out and doesn't improve, but its another if hes showing progress (however slow it is). What hurt him the most was playing only a single season at AA, the most important level for any prospect's development. He badly needed a second go at the level but was instead promoted to AAA.

4) Hes only 25. He has a ton of baseball in him.

Theres a chance he could develop into a Orlando Cabrera or Julio Lugo type of hitter, a lot of ask considering his weak minor league statline, but still a chance. The league average SS bats at roughly a .715 OPS clip, so that would make Andino one of the better SS in the league (when factoring in his defense). Next season maybe him and Izturis could become starters 1A and 1B, see how he does, and reassess things then when Izturis's contract is up.

So what do you say guys, am I being too optimistic? The chances of him being a scrub are far greater than him amounting to anything, but at the very least hes showing flashes of having a long future with the O's.