Baltimore Orioles: 10 Free Agent Left-Handed Hitters Team Could Pursue

1. Carlos Gonzalez – OF

By all accounts, Carlos Gonzalez had the worst season of his career (that wasn’t significantly derailed by injuries) last season. He slashed .262/.339/.423 with 14 home runs, 72 runs, and 57 RBIs on a Colorado Rockies offense that seemed to really be clicking all year despite him.

So why do I like CarGo as a potential addition for the Orioles? Well, he figured out what was going wrong, made an adjustment, and the improvement was very noticeable.

In the first half of the season, CarGo was slashing .221/.299/.338, and in the second half he slashed .314/.390/.531. He figured out was wrong and made the correct adjustments.

One of those adjustments was how he was holding the bat. He used to wrap his hands around the bat so that his palms were on the handle of the bat and his finers were wrapped inwards, leading the barrel of the bat to drop more with a more undercutted swing. You can see that here in this fly ball out:

In the start of September, CarGo fixed this after noticing that he was wrapping his hands and started loosening his grip and holding the bat more with his fingers than his palms, leading ot a more level swing, as you can see here:

His success in the second half of the season was legit, CarGo made adjustments to his swing so that he was able to be successful again. This wasn’t age catching up to him or an injury, this was just an adjustment that needed to be made.

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CarGo would likely need to come to Baltimore on a pretty sizable discount, but if he was willing to do that, he’d be an awesome addition to the Orioles outfield.