Dollar a day: Mike Aviles

Marco Scutaro and Jed Lowrie have been shipped outta town, leaving Mike Aviles as the primary shortstop for the first time in his career. Go ahead, let it out: Wahoo!

Aviles is a contact hitter with a diverse skill-set better utilized in fantasy than in real life. But we don’t care how the Red Sox make out from the Aviles signing—at least not in this sphere. The better riddle to dwell on is whether to spend a finite dollar on Mike Aviles in crunch time.

Aviles has been good for 14 steals in each of the past two seasons, which were made up of 424 and 286 at-bats, respectively. Those numbers pro-rate to 20 in 2010 and 29 in 2011, and a middle ground would be a good estimate, in my humble opinion.

Aviles has the pop too. Haven’t you heard? For a 5-foot-10, 204-pound small fry (don’t forget our context here), Aviles can clear the fences adeptly. He hit eight dingers in his 2010 stint and seven last years. Oh, and he hit 10 in 2008.

Lastly, but not least, Aviles can hit for average. His .288/.318/.419 is somewhat unimpressive, especially when the last two numbers are considered, but luckily, many of you will need to consider only his batting average.

A 10-homer, 25-steal campaign supported by a .290 average is nothing to scoff at. Mike Aviles, ladies and gentlemen, is nothing to scoff at.