Despite a rough full season in AAA last year that amounted to a lowly .213/.290/.308 slash line, Peter Mooney has showed up at camp this year, hit in eight of his first 17 games including a string of four straight and reached base in nine of them. Looking at Mooney’s career walk rate of 11% including 9.5% last year and his career 1.11 K/BB including 1.44 last year, its easy to see Mooney is an extremely patient hitter and an annoyingly pesky guy for opposing pitchers to face. Standing just 5’6″, the left-handed Mooney cuts down on an already small strike zone by getting low in his stance and makes his living fighting off tough pitches and waiting out others in route to wearing you down and forcing you into making a mistake. It is the perfect resume for a guy at the back of the bench you can throw in many situations whether it be to jump-start a rally, wear down a cruising starting pitcher or finish off a game. The biggest hitch in Mooney’s game has been poor bat-to-ball skills a hinderance made possible by subpar bat speed. Despite almost always swinging at good pitches to hit, Mooney misses barrels and instead hits the ball off the ends of the bat, leading to weakly hit ground balls. Without the speed to beat them out, Mooney has most often been a ground out victim. This is made relevant by his career 1.13 ground out/air out ratio and a BABIP that has never failed to fall short of .300 and stood at a career low .243 in AAA last season. However, last season in the Arizona Fall League against some of the league’s top young pitching talent, Mooney hit .278 over 80 ABs and has continued that type of production into Marlins’ camp this spring so it is also evident that Mooney has made some type of positive adjustment.

Cristhian Adames