Mike Morse will be 29-years old on opening day and has just 237 major league games and 685 plate appearances to his credit. He spent four years languishing in the northwest as a member of the Mariners before moving to Washington and becoming a prominent part of the Nationals’ outfield rotation.
Morse accrued 293 of those 685 plate appearances last season after becoming a full-time starter in mid July, and he had pretty significant value in those final three and a half months by batting .289 with 15 homers. Morse won’t steal bases—it’s up to Jayson Werth, Nyjer Morgan and Roger Bernadina to do that—but he is capable of hitting over .280 again with similar power output projected over more at-bats.
When Morse was in the lineup, he spent most of his time batting fifth through seventh. A 2011 projected lineup courtesy of Roto Champ has Morse slotted in sixth, sitting right behind Ryan Zimmerman, Werth and Adam LaRoche. That should give Morse a good amount of RBI opportunities.
Assuming 500 at-bats, which I think is reasonable, we could be looking at a 20-homer, 80-RBI season with a good batting average coming from a widely undrafted player.
