Rey Ordóñez
| Rey Ordóñez | |||
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Ordóñez with the New York Mets
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| Shortstop | |||
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Born: January 11, 1971 Havana, Cuba |
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| MLB debut | |||
| April 1, 1996, for the New York Mets | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| July 19, 2004, for the Chicago Cubs | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Batting average | .246 | ||
| Home runs | 12 | ||
| Runs batted in | 287 | ||
| Teams | |||
| Career highlights and awards | |||
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Reynaldo Ordóñez Pereira (born January 11, 1971) is a former professional baseball shortstop. He played nine seasons in Major League Baseball for the New York Mets, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and Chicago Cubs.
In 1993, in Buffalo, New York, Ordóñez defected from Cuba to the United States. Ordóñez was a promising young player for the Havana Industriales club in Cuba at the time. In March 2013, Ordóñez finally traveled back to Cuba 20 years after defecting from there and was given a hero's welcome. This became possible under the new Cuban travel policy which took effect from January 2013, eliminating restrictions on visiting the island.
Before signing with a major league team, Ordóñez played part of the 1993 season with the St. Paul Saints of the Northern League. In 15 games with the Saints, he batted .283. He signed with the Mets as a free agent after the season, on October 29, 1993, and retired from baseball in 2007 after several years of injury-related absence from the majors.
Ordóñez joined the Single-A St. Lucie Mets of the Florida State League and later moved up to Double-A seeing playing time with the Eastern League's Binghamton Mets as well in 1994. Ordóñez made his major league debut in 1996. Ordóñez went on to win three consecutive Gold Glove Awards for his outstanding defensive play with the Mets. During the 1999 and 2000 seasons, Ordóñez set a Major League record for shortstops by playing 101 consecutive games without committing a fielding error. Furthermore, in 1999, Ordóñez committed only four errors while posting a .994 fielding percentage. It is arguably the best defensive single-season performance ever by a Major League shortstop based on the number of errors. Though he rarely struck out and was capable of laying down sacrifice bunts, he was not a particularly effective hitter. Besides a career batting average of just .246, he was not a good base stealer, drew few walks and had almost no power. His lifetime OPS of .599 was almost 200 points lower than the Major League average (.782 in 2000, for example).
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