Between employing David Ortiz at designated hitter and Mike Lowell and Kevin Youkilis at the infield corners, the Red Sox have had a trio of reliable cornerstones in their lineup the last three years. Unfortunately for their pennant hopes in 2009, there is the very real danger that all of them will be delivering less at the plate, but to make a bad situation worse, the organization has only one possible patch available, a minor league first baseman who may not be ready until midseason, if then.
This might seem a bit of a surprise, because the combination worked very well for them in 2006 and 2007. Before 2008, Youkilis had shown that there was more to his game than a good eye at the plate, and if he wasn’t a power hitter of the class you normally get at first base, he was producing numbers consistent with the first sackers the Sox have employed in the aftermath of the Mo Vaughn era. Lowell had rebounded from a career-worst season with the Marlins in 2005, re-emerging with a career best .320 average and 120 RBI in 2007 (winning himself a three-year extension in the process). Big Papi has been the heart of the club, and had batted .302/.402/.612 since coming over from the Twins in 2003.
Then two legs of this tripod showed signs of folding in 2008. Lowell underwent surgery in October after a partially torn labrum in his left hip limited the 34-year-old to .225/.286/.357 rates in the second half before he was shut down in mid-September. The resultant move of Youkilis to third base meant the Sox were forced to experience Sean Casey‘s second-half slump before settling on late-season acquisition Mark Kotsay for the playoffs, a decision that proved disastrous. Lowell’s rehab is supposedly going well, but the combination of a severe injury and a player in his mid-30s rarely augurs heightened production. Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA forecasting system envisions him showing no more durability than he did in 2008, while projecting a further decline in offensive production, dropping to .272/.332/.442.
Lowell’s not the only old-timer trying to come back from injury. Ortiz tore a tendon sheath in his left wrist in 2008, and saw his swing significantly affected. Although still productive upon his return (he hit .277/.385/.529 in 55 games), he was far from the intimidating hitter who had ranked among the top five MVP vote-getters for five years running, and after more than 50 games on the shelf, the wrist was still “clicking” on him late in the season. PECOTA projects that Ortiz will recover his health in 2009, but not his former productivity, predicting rates of .269/.375/.504, a level of production equivalent to the injury-hampered numbers from last year.
Alone of the three, Youkilis emerged from the season not only whole, but improved. For the second year in a row, the former “Greek God of Walks” cut his walk rate, eschewing ball four for a more aggressive approach at the plate. The change was small, but significant, with Youkilis swinging at more pitches and putting the ball in play earlier in the count. The result was a .312/.390/.569 breakout, Youkilis maintaining his doubles power of earlier years, but also boosting his home-run total to 29-13 more round-trippers than the year before.
The problem is, that was then, and this is now. Youkilis got a late start to his major league career and, at 29 years old last season, may have enjoyed a late-peak season. That peak was abetted by a .347 batting average on balls in play (BABIP), a very high rate of success. Youkilis has had high BABIPs throughout his short career, but last year does represent a career high, so he should be expected to lose ground. As such, PECOTA foresees Youkilis returning to his late-model John Olerud ways, providing a weighted mean projection of .275/.366/.475.
Add that up, and the Red Sox have three key players potentially going in reverse, all in the same season. Over the winter, general manager Theo Epstein did little to add quality depth to surmount this problem once his pursuit of Mark Teixeira came up short. If Lowell is slow to recover, Youkilis remains the prime option to take over at third; moving shortstop Jed Lowrie in Lowell’s place is a possibility (he started 22 games at the hot corner last year), but that would force the restoration of Julio Lugo to the starting lineup, and Lowrie and Lugo starting at the same time would only exacerbate their run-scoring problem. If Ortiz isn’t his old self, free-agent signee Rocco Baldelli could substitute (at least sometimes, given his channelopathy), but he’s not really a DH-quality bat, and in any case may be required to substitute in right field for the fragile J.D. Drew. Youkilis is in less danger of tailing off as severely, but were he to miss extended time, the Sox would have difficulty substituting for him from among what’s on the roster-Ortiz hasn’t worn a glove for more than 10 games in any season since 2004, and the re-signed Kotsay shouldn’t be seen as a serious substitute.
The one in-house band-aid available to protect them from such hurts is their top prospect, Lars Anderson, only 21 but coming into view. An 18th-round pick in 2006, Anderson batted .317/.408/.513 at High-A Lancaster last year, then moved up to Double-A Portland and continued to rake, hitting .316/.436/.526. These are terrific numbers for any player at these levels, particularly a 20-year-old; the Portland numbers translate to .292/.399/.489 at the major league level. PECOTA sees him capable of hitting only .256/.336/.400 in the majors this next season, but as Anderson is quite young and has yet to experience much of Double-A, let alone Triple-A, it is bound to be conservative. Long-term, Anderson projects as a quality middle-of-the-order hitter in the big leagues, but the immediate problem is that Anderson is only one man, he’s only a first baseman, and even if he has the upside to deliver at the plate as effectively as the trio of Ortiz, Lowell, and Youkilis did in their best days, that potential probably won’t show up in 2009.
In short, if Youkilis, Lowell, and Ortiz fail or slump to the levels that PECOTA expects, the Red Sox will need awfully big years from just about everyone else-especially incumbent MVP Dustin Pedroia, the even more fragile Drew, or Manny-replacement Jason Bay-to avoid losing so much offense that finishing higher than third place in baseball’s toughest division becomes a matter of destiny instead of forecasting.
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I understand why PECOTA projects a regression for Youkilis--it will always project one. However, from a scouting standpoint, it appears that Youk acquired a new skill in 2008, to pull with more consistent authority. Given the skill set with which Youk entered 2008 (a tremendous eye) it isn\'t that surprising that he was able to make an adjustment to hit for more power. I see no reason to believe that Youkilis\' power output in 2008 is not his \"new norm.\"
NYY\'s loss of Abreu is more than redressed by acquiring Teixeira--but they still lost Abreu in RF. So notwithstanding NYY\'s substantial improvement in their starting rotation, it seems that neither BOS or NYY is keeping up with TB & while I agree that they are in a battle for 2nd, the Yankees are the ones losing that battle, despite their (typical) spending spree.
It\'s noteworthy that, prior to last season PECOTA projected him for the following 2008 line: .265/.368/.458.
As we all know, Youk crushed that line, posting a line of .312/.390/.569.
It seems like a lot of the gain in AVG and SLG came at the expense of isolated patience, as PECOTA expected Youk to walk 79 times, and he only ended up walking 62 times.
For 2009, PECOTA is currently predicting that Youk will improve his walk mark to 70, but lose a large number of hits and homers.
What\'s striking is how similar last year\'s PECOTA\'s prediction for 2009 is to this year\'s PECOTA projection.
Last year\'s projections pegged Youk\'s 2009 for .272/.379/.466. This year, PECOTA says he\'ll put up a line of .267/.360/.480.
That seems very bizarre to me; it seems like PECOTA actually liked Youk better BEFORE his breakout year. Last year, he exceeded his PECOTA projections by 138 points of OPS. Somehow, Youkilis beating his projection by 138 points has led PECOTA to shave 4 points off of his 2009 projection.
It seems like they\'re seeing his drop in walks as real, whereas the batting average increase and big increase in power production are just statistical noise.
Watching him play last year, it really didn\'t seem like his approach had been seriously adjusted. While I\'m not sold that Youkilis will post a .569 SLG next year, I think you can confidently assume that Youkilis will exceed his weighted mean projection for 2009 by a significant amount.
The only way this works is if there is a subsequent trade of Bay for a stud 1B or 3B. Doesn\'t seem likely.
Doing a quick sort with the excel file:
-Ortiz\'s projected VORP is 1st among DHs, 2nd among AL DH/1B to Miguel Cabrera, and 10th in the AL overall.
-Youkilis\'s projected VORP is tied for 3rd in the AL among 1B (and doesn\'t include his defense of course) and 30th in the AL overall.
-Lowell\'s projected VORP is 6th in the AL among 3b.
PECOTA does predict the three to \"slump,\" but it predicts the rest of the league to slump just as much. Also, Lowell and Ortiz weren\'t very healthy last year, they got no production from the catching position, Julio Lugo was slugging .330 for half the season and Jacoby Ellsbury was mostly lost at the plate, and while it cost them in the playoffs, the team somehow managed to score the second-most runs in the league. Only Pedroia and Youkilis had career years. The catching probably won\'t produce more offense, but it shouldn\'t be much worse. It\'s tough to expect a lot of regression from the Red Sox\' offense.
I think one can easily make a case that the Red Sox had a bad offseason in the free agent market. Lots of risk, and no sure bets. But sentiment was the guiding factor? Was it sentiment that led them to pursue New England native Rocco Baldelli? Maybe. But I don\'t see Cris Carpenter or Tom Glavine walking through that door. And what sentiment would they have had for players they never employed like Saito, Smoltz, or Penny?
Perhaps one could claim that sentiment drove them to sign Mark Kotsay, or Jason Varitek. OK, I would buy that.
But that\'s about it.
As to the players you actually mention in support of your misty watercolored memories theory, your argument makes little sense. Ortiz was signed three years ago to a club-friendly deal that ties him up at $12.5M a year through his prime, and Lowell was signed in the 2007-08 offseason after a healthy and productive season. Neither of them was signed this year, and both were healthy when they did sign in years past. So did the team ignore evidence of injury or decline and sign the players? No. They already had the players signed. Was it sentiment that led the team to keep those players, then? Or was their trade value minimized by their injuries?
Youkilis alone of the three was signed this offseason; perhaps that is where they were overly sentimental? But I don\'t know; the player had his best year at age 29, and his deal ties him up through his prime without getting into crazy money at any point. What is sentimental about tying up the guy who finished third in the MVP vote through his age 34 season?
Besides, you allude to a point that effectively undermines your argument: the team\'s pursuit of Teixeira. Acquiring Teixeira would have forced one of those three aforementioned players to be traded. It wasn\'t sentiment that caused the Teixeira deal to go south, it was Leigh Teixeira on one hand, and the Yankees money on the other.
And since we are on the topic... Who besides Teixeira would have upgraded the team at those spots? Nick Swisher? Please. Adam Dunn? Well, who is to say that won\'t still happen?
Overall, I think you are correct to observe that the Red Sox do have some serious risk of decline at a couple of key lineup spots. But to chalk that up to an excess of sentiment when the team a) seemed willing to discard one of the three players when they elected to pursue Mark Teixeira and b) didn\'t make all of these decisions during the time frame you discuss seems completely off point and erroneous.
I can\'t speak for all of us, but I love to touch people.
Seriously, I think the subtitle of the piece \"Sentimentality Run Amok?\" is misleading. I don\'t think the Sox\' decision to go with Lowell/Youk/Ortiz has anything to do with sentimentality. The reality is they tried to address the issue but once they were unable to land Teixeira the other options in the FA market weren\'t going to provide an upgrade and players like Dunn, Abreu, Ramirez (OK, maybe not) aren\'t yet at a point where they will accept a one year deal as a reserve.
Goldman talks about the Sox needing to upgrade based on PECOTA but the Depth Charts released yesterday show them as a 98 win team. I agree with the underlying premise that the Sox have some fragility that could prove fatal but I don\'t see sentimentality as being the driving factor for it.
Also, Steven writes for the YES Network, and is thus on the Yankees\' payroll. The Yankees are going to run Derek Jeter out at shortstop, pretty much for old times\' sake. Where is his article about that?
That said, I take issue with the premise of the article. The Red Sox are one of the few teams that allow beloved free agents to walk (often to your Yankees). Both Ortiz and Youkilis are signed at below-market rates, and Lowell has two years and 25 million left, which is hardly peanuts but isn\'t especially overpriced otherwise.
The combined salaries of these three players is 27 million, less than an awful lot of teams will pay for 1200-1800 PA\'s of the type of production that these three players are likely to put up. All three players are projected by your website to rank in the top half of AL players at their position. Ortiz is projected to be the very best at his position, Youkilis is projected to be third best even with his nonsensical bearish projection (see above). Lowell is projected to be the 6th best, which is nothing to scoff at.
The Red Sox medical staff is widely considered to be among the league\'s best, they have one of the best 1B prospects in the game, a number of band-aids in Pawtucket (Carter, Bailey, Thurston), a ton of good prospects should they need to make a trade, and a good deal of money should they want to take on another team\'s bad contract. I fail to see how this situation is as notable as the Yankee\'s SS situation, or the Rays\' closer situation, or the Blue Jays\' rotation situation, or the O\'s, well, entire pitching staff situation. To me, the Red Sox 1B/3B/DH situation looks pretty good.
Beyond that, this is a Baseball Prospectus article, not a YES article, and I guarantee you Kay and the Steinbrenners aren\'t reading it; if they were reading Steve they would certainly have a better backup catcher than Jose Molina, for one thing.
Beyond that, we at BP just ran a piece about the problems that Jeter at shortstop creates for the Yanks both in the near term and beyond only week ago: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=8462
Seriously, go get a late pass.
Come on, there have been similar articles about the Yankees and other teams as well. This article addresses expectations, that\'s all. Who cares?
Definitely a tender bunch.
Oh and if anyone at BP wants to bet me a free subscription or book versus the wholesale dollar value on the over/under of the Pecota for Youlis, I\'ll take it. But I doubt anyone will.
As for the commentary on Sox fans, ekatta: When have we NOT been touchy?! You love that we\'re touchy! It gives you something to be snarky about. Besides which, to expect us not to freak out about such a pessimistic article is ludicrous. Particularly so against the backdrop of what PECOTA is predicting for the team as a whole this season.
So, while I happen to agree that the article is a worst-case scenario that is unlikely (and the PECOTA numbers look like dropoffs but really aren\'t in the context of the overall projections - we noticed this when we mulled the Yankee projections over at RLYW), he\'s not a Yankee homer trying to take down the Sox. He\'s just a glass half empty kinda guy. :)