The Red Sox are facing a positional logjam heading into 2010. While later in the offseason we'll be detailing replacement and reconfiguration ideas, a quick overview as this regular season winds down is an excellent way to start thinking towards next year. In particular, the Red Sox have two major concerns: defense and players that qualify at corner infield and DH.
Their defense has been one of the worst in the league this year, ranking ninth from last in UZR/150 at -3.2; there's plenty of blame to go around. Only Dustin Pedroia and J.D. Drew have had UZR numbers totaling more than 10, which accounts for approximately 1 win via defense. Conversely, we have seen Mike Lowell, Jacoby Ellsbury and Jason Bay cost the team upwards of -10 UZR/150 each: an entire win per player!
With the acquisition of Victor Martinez, we've seen Kevin Youkilis spend more time at third base than in recent years. His UZR/150 at third this year is -9. He used to be an extremely solid defender at third base, but his range has suffered as he began to develop more of a first baseman's frame over the past 1.5 seasons.
Let's also not forget that Julio Lugo cost the team 7.9 runs at shortstop in only 32 games defensively. That is a UZR/150 of -38.6; the equivalent of costing us 4 wins if he had played an entire season.
Overall, all of this poor defense has driven up the BABIP of the pitching staff. Naturally, this negatively affects their ERA. The Red Sox pitching staff has a combined BABIP of .319, worst in the league. BABIP accounts for a measure of luck(balls having eyes), but also defense.
Outfield Defense
Repairing the outfield defense might be the easiest. Jason Bay is unsigned going into the offseason and seems likely to get overpaid to the tune of 12-15million somewhere else. Matt Holliday is the biggest name in the outfield this offseason and with a career UZR/150 of 6.3 he has been average to above average in left field. That would leave Ellsbury as the weak link and perhaps some work on his defense could put him closer to a neutral fielder.
Another option is an in-house solution: Allow Bay to leave and move Ellsbury to left field since Ellsbury has posted solid UZR numbers in left field and could add a win value over Bay in defense, and Josh Reddick becomes the starting center fielder in 2010. Reddick has an amazing arm and is considered an above average fielder. His bat and plate discipline is improving and even if his production is only comparable to Ellsbury's, he'd add at least a win purely through defense.
Resigning Bay brings back his 3 WAR value, but continues to expose Ellsbury's defense in center, costing 10 runs defensively. The same occurs with a Holliday signing unless Ellsbury was moved during the offseason.
Crowded Corners
The infield defense has also struggled this year. Lowell's hip injury has made him nearly worthless in the field. His offense has been above average with a wOBA of .354, but his defense has dropped him to a 1 WAR player for the current season. When Youkilis has moved over to give Lowell time off, defense at third base only barely improved. Playing Lowell at third daily is not helping the team.
So without a candidate to take over third for Lowell, we now have 5 candidates to share time between catcher, first base and DH:
- Mike Lowell's defensive has deteriorated, and would benefit himself and the team's defense splitting at least 50% time at DH.
- Victor Martinez is not as good defensively as Youkilis, and his bat plays better behind the plate, but his defense is at best, barely average. Victor would also benefit splitting time between C, 1B, and DH.
- David Ortiz is strictly a DH at this point, and cannot be moved. He's also on the books for $12.5 million next year, with plummeting trade value.
- Jason Varitek has both a team option and a player option for 2010. I doubt Tito plays Varitek any less than 80 games behind the plate unless he has a drastic dropoff.
- I've gone over Youkilis' burgeoning power, and he's still most efficiently used as the primary first basemen.
How can you solve this one? All are under team control and only Youkilis has a deal for beyond 2010. Martinez has a team option for 2010, which is fairly cost efficient at $7 million dollars that will most likely be exercised. With a dreadful batting average and OBP this year, Ortiz would even be a tough sell to a non-sabermetrically inclined AL club.
The solution here is not very clear. If you move Lowell, you have to fill third base. If you use Youkilis at third you might not be gaining much in defense over Lowell and losing at first base. If you acquire an outside player to fill that spot you are still stuck with too many players between first and DH. Unless Theo can drastically change the landscape of the infield, we may have one more year of dealing with a bloated configuration at the corners.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Troy-
MGL has done us all a great service by giving us a new way to evaluate defense through UZR. Yet too many people misunderstand the metric or misuse it as I think you are doing here.
It is NOT meant to be an end all be all for evaluating how well a player played defensively or how well he will play defensively in the future.
The one thing main thing that people misunderstand about the metric is that it is influenced by random chance especially over smaller sample size. Though MGL has some factors to try to minimize the problem, a player can have chances that are more or less difficult than average given the distribution of balls hit into his zones.
Defensively a player has fewer chances than he does offensively. You mention Kevin Youkilis play at 3B for example. Kevin Youkilis had only 86 total chances at 3B this year. After 86 ABs you might accept that your offensive statitics could be greatly influenced by random chance. The same holds true for defensive statistics.
To read more on UZR there are excellent articles at BBTF and on fangraphs.
Thanks Roger.
I completely understand the limitations of UZR and consider it much the same way I do ERA or batting average. If you have a large enough sample you can begin to establish a baseline and see trends.
Youkilis is the toughest to establish since he has never had a full season there and his numbers are up and down from year to year. This is actually his most innings at third since his rookie season.
While you are correct that Youkilis has only 86 chances his problem is range not his errors. Range is a factor of how many balls he didn't get to and he has a -3.7 range factor in 419.1 innings defensively at third. That is slightly different form saying 86 chances = 86 AB's.