Stephen Vogt Is Lumpy, Obscure, and Playing Like a Star

Stephen Vogt doesn't look like a good baseball player, but he is. He wasn't billed as a good baseball player when he arrived in Oakland, but he is. He wasn't expected to be a good baseball player when he was drafted by Tampa, but, as it turns out, he is. Vogt is the quintessential obscure-o org player who is, as of now, one of the best hitters in baseball. Which means Vogt might just be the most Oakland A's thing ever.

The A's are baseball's Elephant Man: gnarled, strange, and frequently hidden from view. The A's are also poor—or cheap, it's a circular debate—and play in a rundown stadium that the team has no intention of keeping up, a bit too much like the fictional Indians of Major League. But sometimes being broke and ugly can be a blessing. Sometimes it leads you to Stephen Vogt.

Look down a list of the best hitters in baseball in 2015. The names aren't surprising: Bryce Harper, Nelson Cruz (okay, that one is still a bit surprising), Adrian Gonzalez, Anthony Rizzo, Miguel Cabrera, STEPHEN VOGT, Paul Goldschmidt. There's Vogt in between Cabrera and Goldschmidt. It's not a little bit shocking to see Vogt on that list at all, let alone above Matt Carpenter, Mike Trout, Russell Martin, Adam Jones, Josh Donaldson… the list goes on. It goes on because Vogt is very near the top of it, a point I feel needs additional emphasis. Were he were near the bottom it would not go on. It would stop pretty quickly. You'd probably be reading about someone else right now. Think about it.

Instead, somehow, we are talking about Stephen Vogt, who is the kind of athlete who could probably only succeed at baseball. He's listed at six feet, 215 pounds, the former of which might be a stretch and the latter of which is likely an understatement. He runs like someone who just opened his second beer and suddenly remembered that he left the lawnmower on. When he hits the ball he turns to run a bit like a penguin turns when he smells fish. He's 30, but with a beard, round face, and receding hairline, he could pass for 40. His middle name is Guy as in "just a." Also he is one of only seven hitters in baseball now with an OPS over 1.000.

So far this season Vogt is hitting .307/.413/.605 which is so far above his previous batting line he recently received a small bag of peanuts from a flight attendant. That's a lot of hitting for a 12th round draft pick picked between the decidedly mortal Isaiah Howes, and one of the greatest Sean McCauleys of all time, Sean McCauley. That's to say not much was expected of Vogt by the team that signed him. As if that 12th round thing wasn't enough, there's also the part where they sold him—not traded him, SOLD him—to the A's. The Rays, a baseball team charged with winning baseball games, decided that a relatively paltry sum of money would better help them do that than Stephen Vogt would.

In fairness to the Rays, it's not like Vogt did much to make them think they were giving away a hitter this good. In 25 plate appearances with Tampa during the 2012 season, his only time in the majors with the organization, Vogt hit zero. When your batting average can be spelled out, you are not doing well.

Vogt spent the last two seasons in Oakland as a sort of jack of all trades. In 2013 he played 44 games at catcher and a game at DH. Last season he spent 47 games at first base, 17 games in right field, 15 at catcher, and six at DH. Some players single-handedly win baseball games through their on-field heroics. Stephen Vogt was single-handedly the entire A's bench. He was a walking backup plan, good enough to be not quite good enough at just about every position on the diamond.

This year has been different. Vogt has nine homers, which is emblematic of the fact that he's simply hitting the ball harder. He's improved as a catcher enough for the A's to make him the de facto starter. You might think, "Okay, Vogt, sure, but his BABIP has to be like .400 and he's probably striking out a billion times and not walking ever, and this is a pretty lame literary device to be falling back on this late in an article." Actually, no. Well, yes to the last part, but no about Vogt getting lucky. Vogt might not be this good, but so far he's walked as much as he's struck out and his BABIP is at .302. He's not getting lucky, or at least his production has been matched by the skill in which he's used to produce it.

Will Stephen Vogt keep hitting like Paul Goldschmidt and Miguel Cabrera? If you want to yell "NO!" while swinging emphatically from a ceiling fan I won't stop you, but the A's have done this before. Remember Josh Donaldson? Stephen Vogt might not look like a star. He does not have a star's pedigree. But if anyone is equipped to turn a thirtysomething career minor leaguer into one of the best hitters in baseball, it's the cash-poor team that literally plays in raw sewage. For the price of nothing, even if he stops hitting better than Donaldson, Stephen Vogt is still pretty damn good.