What we talk about when we talk about Jorge Mateo

Jorge Mateo's emergence for the Orioles has been exciting, but the reaction to it has seemed outsized. I decided to break down his season and decide once and for all.

It seems like everything Jorge Mateo does for the Orioles is spectacular, especially lately. And it’s talked about as such – on broadcasts, online, and by those who watch the team every night. 

It’s pretty fun to see, and his presence is one of many aspects of this Orioles renaissance that feel like a throwback to the last time they had one – standout relievers, timely hitting, and some dynamic defenders who are finally putting it together at the plate.

Mateo definitely falls into the last category. He is having the best year of his young career by far. But without daily exposure to the Orioles and any kind of intimate context with his season, I’ve been grappling with the duality that he probably is a good player who is talked about as much better than he is, and that I am just being dismissive in thinking that. 

This is going to be one of those articles where I figure it out as I write. Join me! (Also, subscribe below.)

Let’s start with the raw numbers. Mateo entered Tuesday’s game in Toronto with a .687 OPS and 27 steals, and thanks to his superlative shortstop defense, is tied for second on the team with 2.3 wins above replacement (WAR), according to FanGraphs. To put that into context, Cedric Mullins also has a 2.3 fWAR for a season in which he’s come back down to earth after his All-Star 2021, similarly buoyed by defensive contributions without being a top-end offensive contributor. 

Mateo, however, has been much more productive offensively of late. As The Sun’s Andy Kostka noted this weekend, Mateo started attacking his weakness – breaking balls away – around the beginning of July through intensive practice work on that specific thing.

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He’s been a different player since. From July 1 through Monday’s games, he is 21st in all of baseball with a .383 wOBA. There’s a bit of outperformance there – his expected wOBA is .312 – but it’s easy to account for considering he’s the type of player who can stretch an extra base on basically any batted ball, turning singles into doubles, and doubles into triples. 

He’s also struck out 20.9% percent of the time in that span, which is down from 32.3% at the end of June. It stands to reason that putting the ball in play more for someone with Mateo’s speed is a good thing, and credit to all involved for making that happen. 

Depending on how you slice it, you can also say there’s been improvement in his contact profile because of the changes. He hits the ball on the ground and in the air at about the same frequency before and after July 1, but since then his average exit velocity is up to 87.5 MPH from 85.1 mph through June 30, and his average launch angle is 16.7 degrees, up from 13.2 before that same demarcation line. 

So, is it still not a probability the Orioles make the playoffs, or are we supposed to think they can?

Those kind of improvements, even in a sample size that’s basically half of the first one, can make a difference as well. There’s absolutely no discounting Mateo’s improvement at the plate, and considering the Orioles were making a real tradeoff by having his glove at shortstop in the first few months of the season without having any real impact with the bat, changing that is a huge benefit to the club.

His defense was one regardless. In-season defensive metrics are difficult to use, but Mateo is pretty outstanding in all of them. He has anchored an infield defense that has made the Orioles’ pitchers more confident in throwing the ball over the plate, and combined with Rougned Odor to make one of baseball’s best double-play combinations.

Mateo is good for the Orioles in a lot of ways. He’s also good for an Oriole, which is different from being good for a top-tier big league shortstop. He entered Tuesday 12th in the league in fWAR, and his wRC+ of 92 is 19th out of 24 qualifiers. His 152 wRC+ and .899 OPS since July 1 is obviously far better than that, but one’s evaluation of him has to be made in the context of the rest of the league. 

That his season numbers are where they are considering how good he’s been for the last six weeks speak to how tough the first three months of the season were, but they really can’t be ignored. I don’t think anyone is denying that this version of Mateo is a good one to have around, but he’s not going to be this team’s shortstop once the Orioles decide Gunnar Henderson or Jordan Westburg are ready. 

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He and Ramón Urías have always been prime candidates to stick around in bench roles whenever the Orioles take the lid off the prospect bucket and have their best players at Camden Yards. This version of Mateo is probably better than that, but certainly not good enough to change what the Orioles plan to do when they believe Henderson is ready to start manning shortstop.

It might be good enough in the interim to give the Orioles cover from making that change now, though. The Orioles would probably be better offensively with Mateo shifted to second and Henderson at shortstop, but having a shortstop with an OPS near .900 since the beginning of July and a .988 OPS in his last 30 games doesn’t really create that much urgency.

Maintaining that for any meaningful length of time with elite shortstop defense wouldn’t just make him worthy of starting for the Orioles, it would make him one of the best players in baseball. Little other than simply having the talent to do so has made such an outcome likely for Mateo at any point in his career. 

Long-term, the Orioles have a page in their projection platform that says Henderson more likely than not will be that good, if not better, at his peak. Mateo won’t be changing any of those plans.

He has, however, been a lot better than I thought he’s been for what’s expanding into a meaningful sample size. I wasn’t necessarily expecting to come away thinking he’s actually been as good as everyone has made him out to be of late, let alone better. But he’s been really good, and there’s a tangible change in his work to back it up, as Andy’s story noted. 

The first three months of the season happened, too. But this version of Mateo has been worth the hype, and thanks to the handful of hours spent writing this story, I won’t be downplaying his play anymore.