Drew is walking through that door
- Thread starter jsinger121
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If the Sox don't start winning some damn games this signing might be an exercise in futility.
That said, X has been hitting fine and playing good D at SS since the Drew signing. He obviously isn't sulking.
That said, X has been hitting fine and playing good D at SS since the Drew signing. He obviously isn't sulking.
Was Drew too tired to DH for the PawSox on Friday night? It doesn't matter, I don't really care.
The Sox are winning games, after losing a bunch, and this signing remains an exercise in futility. Something that always was can't become an exercise in futility.
The best prospect, (FYI, this guy is the closest thing to a Trout we have) that EARNED his World Series ring by playing a learn as you go 3B in the post-season and is currently the best hitter (maybe player) on the team at 21, is going to have to move to another position because WMB sucks and the team spent $10-million on a can't play anywhere but SS Stephen Drew for a 4-month rental to "save the season."
Where in the $100-million player development manual does this move equate to smart? If X can't play SS I think they'd have made a note of that during his accension through the system. Was X kept at SS because WMB was blocking him at 3B? I sure hope not.
Also, has anyone looked at the starting pitching (pre-DL stints) and LF for hot spots of despair for the FO to fix? If the Cardinals would trade for the Sox current minor league AAA pitching talent, problem solved! If not, bend over.
The signing of Drew smells too much like a Lucky Valentine move.
In general, if this is REALLY a top-5 minor league system dominated by arms, opportunity is knocking!
As for Drew, guess what, nobody in MLB wanted him and he didn't want $14-million dollars to stick around for another season (I'm a huge fan of this decision). Meanwhile, he's been honing his skills at Camp Boras for free.
Now let's make the 21-year-old, already better than you've ever been at baseball player move to 3B to make "it work."
In order for the return of Drew to make sense to me, I guess my head just going to have to explode from the amount of baseball clarity I'm about to gain from taking Sabermetrics 101.
The Sox are winning games, after losing a bunch, and this signing remains an exercise in futility. Something that always was can't become an exercise in futility.
The best prospect, (FYI, this guy is the closest thing to a Trout we have) that EARNED his World Series ring by playing a learn as you go 3B in the post-season and is currently the best hitter (maybe player) on the team at 21, is going to have to move to another position because WMB sucks and the team spent $10-million on a can't play anywhere but SS Stephen Drew for a 4-month rental to "save the season."
Where in the $100-million player development manual does this move equate to smart? If X can't play SS I think they'd have made a note of that during his accension through the system. Was X kept at SS because WMB was blocking him at 3B? I sure hope not.
Also, has anyone looked at the starting pitching (pre-DL stints) and LF for hot spots of despair for the FO to fix? If the Cardinals would trade for the Sox current minor league AAA pitching talent, problem solved! If not, bend over.
The signing of Drew smells too much like a Lucky Valentine move.
In general, if this is REALLY a top-5 minor league system dominated by arms, opportunity is knocking!
As for Drew, guess what, nobody in MLB wanted him and he didn't want $14-million dollars to stick around for another season (I'm a huge fan of this decision). Meanwhile, he's been honing his skills at Camp Boras for free.
Now let's make the 21-year-old, already better than you've ever been at baseball player move to 3B to make "it work."
In order for the return of Drew to make sense to me, I guess my head just going to have to explode from the amount of baseball clarity I'm about to gain from taking Sabermetrics 101.
[having to move Bogaerts in the middle of a hot streak] is exactly why I was not a fan of the Drew signing.
Now either Drew plays third, and is what a marginal at best upgrade to holt with WMB and Cecchini options when healthy/ ready respectively.
Or Drew plays short and you move your stud kid to a different position right as he was settling in. Are they giving up on him at SS? Which would seem premature at best. If not then shouldn't he be playing SS everyday and improving and focused on that?
I basically don't understand any desire to mess with X, and if you aren't touching SS then why sign a not cheap SS? I get the fear that WMB would be out for a while and Cecchini isn't ready, but if Drew ends up handling third I would much rather have tried Cecchini there and see what happens or ride the Holt. IF Drew ends up displacing X at SS for the rest of the year I think that is a mistake.
That said Drew comes up plays well and ends up being traded for something before the deadline then I will have to find something else to complain about.
I think we are seeing this in the farm too much. There are a bunch of good pitchers who we have NO IDEA if they can make it or not, and their clocks are ticking. Trade them or use them. The farm has way more players than the team can use, yet once again rather than move them or use them we bring in a solid short term vet. Delaying the whole process.
Barring a huge resurgence (which would likely need to be led by the young talent! the most important thing happening this year is the farm.
IF the Sox use the players on the farm to get the right talent and keep the right guys the way is set for a decade long window of serious contention. Meanwhile screw it up and trade the wrong guys, and keep the wrong ones you could set back the franchise for years.
Yet the team and fan base gets antsy about young players a quarter of the way into the season THE YEAR AFTER a totally shocking world series win!
[I moved this post and a bunch of others here from the Xander thread. I also did the edit at the top of this post. - smas]
Now either Drew plays third, and is what a marginal at best upgrade to holt with WMB and Cecchini options when healthy/ ready respectively.
Or Drew plays short and you move your stud kid to a different position right as he was settling in. Are they giving up on him at SS? Which would seem premature at best. If not then shouldn't he be playing SS everyday and improving and focused on that?
I basically don't understand any desire to mess with X, and if you aren't touching SS then why sign a not cheap SS? I get the fear that WMB would be out for a while and Cecchini isn't ready, but if Drew ends up handling third I would much rather have tried Cecchini there and see what happens or ride the Holt. IF Drew ends up displacing X at SS for the rest of the year I think that is a mistake.
That said Drew comes up plays well and ends up being traded for something before the deadline then I will have to find something else to complain about.
I think we are seeing this in the farm too much. There are a bunch of good pitchers who we have NO IDEA if they can make it or not, and their clocks are ticking. Trade them or use them. The farm has way more players than the team can use, yet once again rather than move them or use them we bring in a solid short term vet. Delaying the whole process.
Barring a huge resurgence (which would likely need to be led by the young talent! the most important thing happening this year is the farm.
IF the Sox use the players on the farm to get the right talent and keep the right guys the way is set for a decade long window of serious contention. Meanwhile screw it up and trade the wrong guys, and keep the wrong ones you could set back the franchise for years.
Yet the team and fan base gets antsy about young players a quarter of the way into the season THE YEAR AFTER a totally shocking world series win!
[I moved this post and a bunch of others here from the Xander thread. I also did the edit at the top of this post. - smas]
I'm not s huge fan of the Drew signing -- I think it was simply unnecessary, and I would have rather saved the money given their slim chances even if there was nothing else to spend it on, but moving X is not in my mind as a reason to not sign Drew.
X is fine switching between SS and 3B for 2/3rd of a season. His makeup is supposedly off the charts and all we have heard is how smart he is and how hard he works. If you think switching positions for a few months will significantly harm him, you must think that all these reports of makeup are wrong and have a lower opinion of him than all his teammates, scouts and coaches. I mean, he could be Jeter and refuse to move, something that Sox fans have given the Yankees crap for for years (I know Jeter was much more established).
He also did the same thing LAST YEAR and 1. looked fine at the plate and in the field at third, given it was his first MLB experience too and 2. looked great this year back at shortstop. Why would one think he couldn't return to short next spring? It's not like they are asking him to catch.
He sounded disappointed after they made the move and then put his head down and played the best stretch of his season. Those are both good things. If he outplays Drew defensively at short I imagine he will get the majority of the starts there. But he'll also be pretty good at third. This is not a problem.
X is fine switching between SS and 3B for 2/3rd of a season. His makeup is supposedly off the charts and all we have heard is how smart he is and how hard he works. If you think switching positions for a few months will significantly harm him, you must think that all these reports of makeup are wrong and have a lower opinion of him than all his teammates, scouts and coaches. I mean, he could be Jeter and refuse to move, something that Sox fans have given the Yankees crap for for years (I know Jeter was much more established).
He also did the same thing LAST YEAR and 1. looked fine at the plate and in the field at third, given it was his first MLB experience too and 2. looked great this year back at shortstop. Why would one think he couldn't return to short next spring? It's not like they are asking him to catch.
He sounded disappointed after they made the move and then put his head down and played the best stretch of his season. Those are both good things. If he outplays Drew defensively at short I imagine he will get the majority of the starts there. But he'll also be pretty good at third. This is not a problem.
MuzzyField said:
Now I know what the editors who had to read Jack Kerouac's piano rolls felt like. (Except for the "I think this might be a pretty good book" part).
The answer is pretty simple.....in light of Middlebrooks's injury (and quite possibly in combination with his suckage), the Red Sox needed a third baseman. X can play third base. But since he's currently playing shortstop, the team needs a shortstop. Drew is a good one; maybe even the best one available. Perhaps "nobody wanted him" because of the draft pick compensation, which would have disappeared tomorrow, and created some competition for his services. And they got him without surrendering any of those in the "top-5 minor league system dominated by arms," two of which, as you may have noticed, are being put to use this very weekend.
Although the front office could have gone for seppuku over failing to anticipate Middlebrooks's suckage, they've instead tried to solve the problem.
Usually, "I don't care" isn't followed by 250 words of outrage.
[was responding to LondonSox]
Do you really think Cecchini is ready to contribute this year? By various reports, the defense isnt ready, hes struggling lately (average down to the 280s now) and no extra base power. I personally dont think Cecchini is an option at all this year (other than a Sept callup). His name really shouldnt be brought up as an option at this point.
WMB is still a huge question mark. First, when does he come back? Its basically June and he hasnt even been cleared for baseball activities yet. Are they a month away at this point? If so, we are talking ~2 months without him. Then, when he comes back, are we going to get the poor hitter weve seen for a good while now?
Personally, I like a roster with X, Drew, and Holt over one thats X, Holt, and Herrerra.
No one is giving up on X at SS. I thought that was made clear. In fact, they mentioned he will get games here and there. X is a beast, switching him to mainly 3B for 3.5 months isnt going to hurt him at the plate. Hes still going to get valuable SS instruction and some time there. I havent given up on this season.
Do you really think Cecchini is ready to contribute this year? By various reports, the defense isnt ready, hes struggling lately (average down to the 280s now) and no extra base power. I personally dont think Cecchini is an option at all this year (other than a Sept callup). His name really shouldnt be brought up as an option at this point.
WMB is still a huge question mark. First, when does he come back? Its basically June and he hasnt even been cleared for baseball activities yet. Are they a month away at this point? If so, we are talking ~2 months without him. Then, when he comes back, are we going to get the poor hitter weve seen for a good while now?
Personally, I like a roster with X, Drew, and Holt over one thats X, Holt, and Herrerra.
No one is giving up on X at SS. I thought that was made clear. In fact, they mentioned he will get games here and there. X is a beast, switching him to mainly 3B for 3.5 months isnt going to hurt him at the plate. Hes still going to get valuable SS instruction and some time there. I havent given up on this season.
Yep, because moving him to 3B for the last 2/3rds of his rookie season means he's never going back to SS, right?MuzzyField said:
They've DLed two starters this week and brought up two starters from AAA to replace them. They've also recalled Nava and now have Hassan up as additional LF/RF candidates. They're making use of the farm because they aren't going to spend prospects to improve the rotation or LF short term when they're 4th in the division right now.
No, it smells like a team with free cash on hand looking for a way to improve that doesn't cost them prospects. Dempster's retirement freed up all the money they needed to sign Drew. They obviously would have preferred the draft pick but that wasn't happening and WMB couldn't stay healthy. So for nothing other than cash they got a pretty nice 25 man roster upgrade (replacing Herrara with Drew).
And that opportunity is best presented to all those young arms with capable defense at two of the most important positions on the field. Bogaerts has improved a lot at SS in the last few weeks but he's still not as good as Drew. Holt is a passable 3B stop gap but his arm and speed of reaction just aren't up to the job full time. How bad will the Drew signing look if RDLR is rolling until all of a sudden Holt two hops a throw on a routine grounder, followed by Bogaerts rifling an attempt to turn two into the seats behind first?
Pitchers benefit from good defense. Young pitchers especially. Getting Drew back and moving Xander over will make life easier on the pitching staff. That's a good thing.
It makes sense because they weren't getting a draft pick, had the extra money going unused, haven't done well enough so far to consider moving prospects to fill short term needs, and didn't have a real 3B on any roster from AA to MLB. This is Sabermetrics from a resource management standpoint 101. Drew costs Cherrington nothing. He costs Henry/Werner/Lucchino ~$10M, sure, but Cherrington will have all the same resources and tools at his disposal this winter in exactly the same condition with or without Drew. So the 2014 team gets better with literally zero impact on the future, unless you think there is some nebulous "development loss" for Bogaerts in only playing SS against lefties (assuming Farrell is smart enough to use Bogaerts' positional versatility to platoon Drew with basically any Red Sox player not named Daniel Nava). This protects the farm from being sold out if they make a solid push the next few weeks and get within a few games of first. That is when the Lucchino "make a splash" move would be pushed. A big deal at the deadline in hopes that the new piece slingshots them past the competition into first, giving up some top 10 farm talent in the process. This preempts that with a cash only acquisition.
Cherrington has made a decent number of moves that I didn't care for. Trading both Lowrie and Reddick in seperate deals for dubious relief pitching for example. This isn't one of them however as it costs the Red Sox nothing long term.
Question: If the Red Sox need to make a mid-season move that they think will put them over the top, but also put them over the luxury tax, do you think that the Red Sox make that move? If the answer is yes (which I think it is), why is there hand-wringing over this 10M dollars?Toe Nash said:
Agree with the rest of your post about X. Its not a problem.
TheShynessClinic said:
rodderick said:
As we move forward, voters will become more and more savvy about the MVP award and how to value the contenders. This will favor Trout. He's already been on the verge of winning it twice. That's not going to work in Bogaerts' favor, even if he ends up getting to something near Miguel Cabrera levels of offense. By that point (and I'm not suggesting it's likely, just exploring a hypothetical) voters are going to be more inclusive of elite defense when casting their votes. I'm not saying Bogaerts can't win one, but Trout is a very big roadblock to get past.
As for the resurrection of the Drew signing debate, I'm liking what I'm seeing out of him defensively lately and in a different situation, I'd love to leave him there. However, these are the players they have, and the best team includes both Drew and Bogaerts on the field over the long term. I understand the signing and was supportive of it when it happened. Bogaerts stepping it up defensively (and offensively) has made it seem less necessary in hindsight, but it's not fair to criticize these moves purely by how they turned out.
That said, I think people are overestimating the difference between a short stop and a third baseman offensively. The AL slash lines for the two are as follows...
248/314/399
253/315/360
Can you tell which is which without looking it up?
The first one is third basemen, the second is shortstops
Moving Bogaerts to third for the rest of the year is not going to significantly diminish his offensive value relative to his position, and it's going to give them better overall production out of short and third combined than they were likely to get out of Bogaerts at short and Middlebrooks at third. Sure, they may have made a different move in June or July, but it's tough to get too far with that argument since it's so speculative.
The only concern I have at this point is that it will be lost time developing him defensively, but I think that concern is overblown as well. He's 21. If he's moved back to short in the spring and left there, I think he'll be just fine long term. The potential loss is pretty small considering the big defensive gains they are going to see with Drew and Bogaerts at short and left, and the slight uptick in offensive output. If they are going to make the playoffs this year, it's going to be close and those gains will be a big part of why.
No, Drew might not be worth 2 wins over the remainder of the year, but I don't think he has to be for his signing to have made sense.
I wrote I would rather save the money even if there was nothing else to spend it on (meaning no other payroll). So yes, I believe they would make this potential move either way. But if they saved the $10m I figure they would re-invest it in Fenway or use it to go over the tax another year, or hire some analysts, or something that is probably better than the marginal impact of Drew over Holt / waiver pickup in a season in which you're not going to compete anyway.HillysLastWalk said:
Sure it's not my money and they are probably doing any of the above things they want to either way, so maybe that doesn't matter. And I guess they can trade Drew later. It's just a lot of money to maybe move from 83 to 85 wins and it seems that could be better spent or saved.
Edit: On the other hand, if they think the team has 95-win talent as it did last year going forward, they will need the extra two wins to move from 89 to 91 or so, which can make the difference between playoffs or not (given the poor start - those losses already being "in the bank"). I just don't see that as the case with the starting pitching issues.
None of those young players have been taken out of the lineup though, so are they really getting antsy? Or does the FO realize that Xander will still mature defensively while playing 3B this season, improving his play at SS next season, meanwhile they get to add a nice upgrade to the 25 man roster in Drew for the cost of simply money.LondonSox said:
Signing Drew now is the same concept as them signing Victorino, Napoli, and Gomes before the 2013 season. Reasonable cost veterans who fall somewhere between good role player and very good regular, but none are "elite" and therefore do no carry the price tag or more importantly, the loss of draft pick.
Drew fits the exact same criteria, though in a round about way. No one was signing him before the draft so the pick was already lost. The Sox had need, their competition could as well, but the Sox can strike first because the pick is already effectively "lost" by forces outside their control.
It was an ideal move for them at this point. They had the money (from Dempster retiring), they had the need. Most importantly it cost them zero prospects. That's what really matters here. They've slightly improved the 2014 team's odds of winning while in no way hurting the future of the club. That's a win/win.
Thanks Drek. I appreciate the reply and do see much value in what you're saying. It's why I love reading the content on this site so much. Please note, living in Florida, I have to endure the Rays telecasts when they play the Sox and may have needed to be shot with a tranquilizer gun after the game.Drek717 said:
I'm not anti-Drew, but even before the 10-game slide, I felt this team's mounting health issues in the field, defense and pitcher comfort with the starting catcher, and poor starting pitching in general were much bigger concerns than the problem Drew solves. If WMB doesn't get hurt and just kept sucking, does this move get made?
However, repairs on any ship with some structural issues have to start somewhere. I think this is how I will reconcile this move as we head through the summer. I do worry Farrell will defer to the veteran and ignore the obvious platoon and if the Sox are out of contention in September they won't move Drew out of the way and return to plan X.
Also, If extending the lineup with Drew and some healthy bodies allows JBJ to figure out ML pitching in the 9-hole while patrolling CF, I'm all in. JBJ is already better in CF than Ellsbury and not just in arm. It's sure nice to be reminded that a throw from CF isn't required to bounce 4 times before reaching a cutoff that is already further into the outfield than it should be (and no longer needs to be) to compensate for a wet-noodle arm.
I hope we see performance from the young arms that not only backs up the prospect propoganda, but also helps the team acquire a middle of the order bat before the start of the 2015 season.
MuzzyField said:
To piggy back on what Drek said, I would think the recent spate of injuries underscore the very reason that the team thought it wise to add a solid player that cost only money, seeing as then need him yesterday in addition to some of the pitching prospects people were talking about shopping. Heck, Holt was starting even before Pedroia got injured yesterday.
Does anybody want to see Lackey try to maintain his composure with a Cecchini/X/Holt/Nava infield backing him up? Egads, I just got shudders.
Answering a post from the Bogaerts thread here:
I think this is an oversimplification and/or overstatement. Defensively, no question: Drew's a better fielder at a tougher position. But offensively, I think the most you can say is that Middlebrooks has yet to show that he can be a better hitter than Drew with any consistency. Yes, Drew was a much better hitter than WMB was last year or has been so far this year, but the minute you go past those samples it gets more complicated.
Ponder this: WMB's career major league wRC+ is one point higher than Drew's (97 to 96). Sure, there are all kinds of ways you can dissect that to make it look fluky, but I don't think you can dismiss it. Another data point: Drew's wRC+ as a 23-year-old in AAA was 108. WMB's was 193. OK, there's a sample size issue there, because WMB only spent about a third of his age-23 season in AAA; he spent the rest of it in the majors racking up a wRC+ of 122 -- a number that Drew has yet to match in any major league season, whole or partial.
Does WMB appear to have stalled? Sure, and because of that I think the Sox did what they needed to do here. But he has also shown an offensive ceiling higher than anything Drew has ever achieved at any level. Calling Drew the better hitter of the two and saying "there's nothing marginal about it" is at least a couple of bridges too far.
Corsi said:
I think this is an oversimplification and/or overstatement. Defensively, no question: Drew's a better fielder at a tougher position. But offensively, I think the most you can say is that Middlebrooks has yet to show that he can be a better hitter than Drew with any consistency. Yes, Drew was a much better hitter than WMB was last year or has been so far this year, but the minute you go past those samples it gets more complicated.
Ponder this: WMB's career major league wRC+ is one point higher than Drew's (97 to 96). Sure, there are all kinds of ways you can dissect that to make it look fluky, but I don't think you can dismiss it. Another data point: Drew's wRC+ as a 23-year-old in AAA was 108. WMB's was 193. OK, there's a sample size issue there, because WMB only spent about a third of his age-23 season in AAA; he spent the rest of it in the majors racking up a wRC+ of 122 -- a number that Drew has yet to match in any major league season, whole or partial.
Does WMB appear to have stalled? Sure, and because of that I think the Sox did what they needed to do here. But he has also shown an offensive ceiling higher than anything Drew has ever achieved at any level. Calling Drew the better hitter of the two and saying "there's nothing marginal about it" is at least a couple of bridges too far.
Savin Hillbilly said:
Consistency matters, and Drew has quite a bit more of it over a larger sample size than WMB. I don't think you're going to find anybody that disagrees on WMB's ceiling as a hitter, but his pitch recognition skills and plate discipline haven't improved much, and unless they do, all that natural power is useless. Let us never forget the Wily Mo experiment when it comes to addressing "what could be" versus "what is."
Savin Hillbilly said:
Adrian's Dome said:
Didn't his post address both? It feels like in the face of what is (WMB has higher or comparable wRC+), you look very hard to trying to contradict that. Can you quantify "consistency matters"? How does that favor one player over another of same wRC+?
Middlebrooks had 3 or 4 great weeks to start his career and since then has been a sub 700 OPS 3rd baseman with average at best defense. Middlebrooks is also not going to be on a major league diamond for at least another month, by which time someone else will be hurt making the depth more important.
Nonetheless, The Red Sox are a better team with Steven Drew, especially against righthanded starters. Any attempt to prove otherwise is data mining and not watching baseball as it is played on the field.
Nonetheless, The Red Sox are a better team with Steven Drew, especially against righthanded starters. Any attempt to prove otherwise is data mining and not watching baseball as it is played on the field.
Because the sample sizes are insanely different, and Middlebrooks has been the kind of player that goes from looking otherworldly in short bursts to completely lost in larger ones, so to use one stat to compare his entire body of work versus the same stat to look at Drew's is...missing a bit of the picture.Unbearable Lightness said:
I trust I am not the only one who hopes they use Bogaerts at short against lefties with Wombat at third. I don't know how the utility situation would work out and how the backup of and 1b would work out but I want X and Wombat to get some time at their preferred positions.Plympton91 said:
This was the setup I was championing all off-season. Platoon Drew by having Bogaerts move over and WMB at 3B. Make up the rest of WMB's plate appearances by being #2 on the depth chart at 1B, 2B, and DH.Rasputin said:
At this point when WMB begins his rehab stint in AAA I'd even like to see them send him out to LF/RF some. He's got the arm for RF to be sure, and is a good enough athlete to where I think he could have the necessary range. With Bogaerts, Cecchini, and Holt all hitting better at their respective levels than him he's going to have to earn a full time role at 3B back again even once he's healthy. In the interim who's to say he can't be the RH equivalent of Mike Carp? High upside bat we're hanging onto hoping to see the light go on. Carp has fully regressed from last year, probably at least partially because he can't field anything but 1B, DH, and sort of LF in Fenway and therefore doesn't see a lot of ABs, so it's about time to replace that wishcasting for power with a younger, more versatile option.
Adrian's Dome said:
Differences in sample size ("insanely" or otherwise) is important in the precision of projections and says nothing about which player will be better. This will always be the case comparing veterans to younger players, like comparing Loretta to Pedroia. You have quantifid nothing and dismissed usefulness of data so that your subjective evaluation can appear to be the standard. There are plenty of data illustrating WMB's shortcomings as well as Drew's limited offensive outlook.
Adrian's Dome said:
That's fair. So, OK, let's do something a little more apples-to-apples. Will Middlebrooks is 25 and a half years old, has 742 major league PA and a career wRC+ of 97. At the end of 2008, Stephen Drew was 25 and a half years old, had 1508 PA and a career wRC+ of about 94 (averaging 2006/07/08 figures, pro-rated by PA).
And they had kind of similar entries to the bigs--both of them had a very promising partial first season (Drew: 226 PA, 114 wRC+; WMB: 286 PA, 122 wRC+), then fell off a cliff in the following year (Drew 619/70, WMB 374/83). The difference is that Drew succeeded in coming back in his third year with a solid offensive performance, while WMB hasn't--yet. Then again, the D'backs committed to Drew and let him take the job and run with it despite the struggles, while the Sox have not done that with WMB.
Understand, I'm not saying that Drew isn't a better player than Middlebrooks, because of the excellent defense at the game's toughest position. I just think claims that he's a better hitter than Middlebrooks need all kinds of qualification.
Savin Hillbilly said:
It's worth pointing out that Drew's defense wasn't always excellent. He's had ups and downs in the field just as much as at the plate. In particular, his first three seasons were quite rough by UZR, while his next three were excellent. Recovery from the ankle injury sapped his range for 2012; in 2013, as we all saw, he was again great in the field.
nvalvo said:
Or maybe his defense was always excellent, except for the ankle recovery, and the standard error on UZR is just so huge as to make it largely meaningless. To me, it is no more reliable a stat than plus/minus in hockey, certainly a less informative statistic than, say, batting average. Maybe about as useful as wins for a starting pitcher.
I seem to recall that Drew didn't have a very good reputation defensively when he first broke in based on scouting/observation, not UZR, but that UZR then confirmed it. Also, while I'm not a big UZR fan myself he had about 3000 innings at short through his first three years with a pretty consistent strongly negative value. UZR isn't perfect but I don't think that given the sample size and how strongly negative they ranked him it's still making an at least somewhat valid statement.Plympton91 said:
The biggest UZR negative those three years by the way was his range, consistently.
Also, the Fielding Bible had him as +2 as a rookie (in a little under 500 innings), -1 his second year, and -2 his third (each of those where just shy of 1300 innings).
I don't think it is inaccurate at all to say that Stephen Drew had to grow into being a good defensive player. That said, Drew was also on the field able to learn. Last I checked WMB wasn't. Just like how he missed a good chunk of 2012, parts of 2013, and most likely played through several stretches in 2013 when he probably shouldn't have. WMB still has a lot of potential to be sure but he needs to stay healthy if he's ever going to see his defense and contact skills mature.
According to FanGraphs, from 2002-2004, Derek Jeter averaged a -1.5 WAR, then from 2005 to 2007 he averaged -13.1, and from 2008 to 2010 he averaged +0.6. So, according to UZR, he went from average to terrible and then back to average, even as he was aging though his late 30s. That simply does not pass the laugh test as a reliable stat, regardless of the sample size.
Plympton91 said:
What, it's not possible for players to go into fielding slumps, just like they do hitting slumps?
From 2005-2007 David Ortiz had a 1.038 OPS.
From 2008-2010 David Ortiz had a .854 OPS.
From 2011-2013 David Ortiz had a .972 OPS.
Yet no one doubts these numbers are legit indicators of Papi's offensive performance, despite increasing age. Why on earth should fielding be any different? Perhaps Jeter was positioned differently starting in 2008. Perhaps he started "cheating" more in terms of leaning one way or another depending on the pitch. Perhaps he finally had surgery for an annoying physical ailment.
Point being, there's nothing that fails the laugh test in those numbers regarding Jeter, and there's certainly nothing that fails the laugh test in terms of the numbers showing that Drew started off his career defensively suspect and then improved as the years went on.
Plympton91 said:
Wasn't that accompanied with a ton of press about how he'd started tailoring his workouts to improve his lateral range?
Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
Perhaps the addition of a rangy, Gold Glove 1B allowed for a somewhat rangy 2B to shade more up the middle which in turn allowed Jeter to shade more toward and focus more on balls to his right where he's generally been stronger over his career.
The only thing that fails the laugh test w/r/t Jeter's defense is that during that three year stretch where he was -13.1, he won two Gold Gloves.
Red(s)HawksFan said:
BINGO!
UZR is very dependent on the quality of the rest of the defense and, as Jolmy noted, positioning. Thus, the acquisition of a gold glover at an adjacent position, or a better coaching staff with improved use of technology can improve a player's UZR. Just like the acquisition of a high OBP #2 hitter can increase the number of RBIs for the #3 hitter, or the addition of a couple good hitters can increase the number of Wins for a starting pitcher. Hence, that's what I said earlier about how good a stat UZR is -- it's equivalent to using RBIs to judge a hitter or wins to judge a starting pitcher.
Brian Cashman told Jeter to that they believed his defense was hurting the team after 2007, and Jeter reacted by working on his lateral range and positioning (source). Given that information, both UZR and DRS would seem to tell the story of a player who finally started to focus on and improve the problems with his defense just as his body started to break down. This article breaks down some plays by Brendan Ryan and Derek Jeter from the 2011 and 2012 seasons and compares the results to a similar study Bill James did in 2006. The author finds, among other things, that Jeter now positions himself much further back than he did when he was younger.Plympton91 said:
That's a nice narrative to go along with mystique and aura.
But if "better positioning" can improve UZR then it's measuring the quality of a team's advance scouts, not the range of the player at the position.
Separately, how does UZR score the shortstop when he's playing behind 2B in a shift, but the batter goes against the shit and hits the ball right through the shortstop hole for a hit. If it's scored as anything other than "unplayable" then UZR is fatally flawed.
But if "better positioning" can improve UZR then it's measuring the quality of a team's advance scouts, not the range of the player at the position.
Separately, how does UZR score the shortstop when he's playing behind 2B in a shift, but the batter goes against the shit and hits the ball right through the shortstop hole for a hit. If it's scored as anything other than "unplayable" then UZR is fatally flawed.
Plympton91 said:
This is pretty much nonsense. Scouting is a part of the game. Hitters watch film on pitchers to try to get an edge. If a player can better position himself to improve his chances of getting to balls then why shouldn't that count in his favor? The point is to measure how effective a fielder was at getting to balls. The fact that one player may have a quicker first step while another player is better prepared doesn't make one better than the other if the results are the same.
Plympton91 said:
Advance scouts can talk tendencies and help formulate shifts, but any good infielder is moving within the at bat based on the pitcher on the mound, the pitch called, the count, and more. I'm not suggesting that Jeter went from horribly absent minded at that to hyper-aware, but it is something that you see at the ballpark and don't see at the telecast.
We will need a lot more data than is available to see if players can individually do it in a significant way, but I would bet it lies somewhere in the massive gray area between Pitch Framing and Clutch Hitting, but I have known very talented and good fielders reluctant to move around, and lesser fielders trying to gain a step before the ball has been hit. It wouldn't surprise me if Jeter took a step in this direction after being somewhat indifferent earlier in his career.
Whether that had an impact in actual outs because he actually took a step and a half to his right on a Petitte cutter, and a step and left on the following outside fastball, instead of a half step or no step I think is limited to speculation until we would actually have data on batted ball average distance from initial positioning to see if anybody has a Jose Molina like ability to make a difference in something that might feel random to some.
glennhoffmania said:
Right, and so a player on a team with good advanced scouts and a big video budget will then grade out better, ceteris paribus, than a player on a team with poorer advance scouts and a small video budget.
That's an interesting exercise in statistical gymnastics, it isn't "range."
Plympton91 said:
We're judging results, not just skill. How is this different from a player with access to better scouting of pitchers so he has gets on base more often than a player with shitty scouting who goes up to the plate guessing? Or to put it this way, would you rather have a SS with average quickness but who is very well prepared and gets to more balls, or a player with very good quickness and no preparation who gets to fewer balls?
joe dokes said:
That was DRS, which had him at +20 in 2012 (UZR of +4.5). I don't know how DRS handles shifts.
RBI and Wins judge results, too. They just aren't as predictive of who will hit well next year or on a different team as stats that are purer measures of skill.glennhoffmania said:
I don't believe that in the winter between his 3rd and 4th seasons in the big leagues Steven Drew all of a sudden figured out how to be a better shortstop. Sorry.
And, basically neither do people who understand UZR, because they say you have to "regress individual saasons heavily". That's a fancy way of saying, "our metric really isn't very accurate."
I'm just trying to work through all the reasons it isn't very accurate, and reminding people of that fact.
Plympton91 said:
Now this fails the laugh test. God forbid a player improves or something clicks with him.
Plympton91 said:
Putting aside the predictive nature of the measure, I think that after 3 years a SS *can* dramatically improve his play. Playing time and some success breeds confidence. That includes the confidence to let the count get to 2 strikes before swigning, but also the confidence to take the "risk" of anticipating what you think this hitter is going to do with this particular pitch based on what you've seen either on video, in this series, or even in this game.
Talent is necessary, but not always sufficient. Experience breeds confidence and anticipation, which are both necessary to go from average to elite, or from below average to above. And they are both skills which go into the calculus of determining a SS's range.
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