Before we talk about what Mark Belanger could do, let’s talk about what he couldn’t do.
Hit.
If you’re at all familiar with Belanger, you know offense wasn’t his game, to put it mildly. The numbers are truly staggering. Belanger finished his 17-year Orioles career with a .227 batting average, .300 OBP, and .280 SLG. His OPS was .580 and his OPS+ was 68.
Belanger had an awful lot of time to put a lot of awful numbers, garnering 6,545 plate appearances with the Birds. For context, no other Oriole in history has had even a third as many plate appearances with a SLG, OPS, or OPS+ that low.