Cuzittt Grades 2002 Red Sox, Pt 2
From SoSH
Everyday Players
Offensive Player of the Year
It amazes me that a player of the calibar of Manny Ramirez is the player many in the media point to as the problem on this team. It is not that he does not have his foibles, but that his assets are so huge, one should be able to ignore the small foibles Manny brings to the table.
How good is Manny? Well, he led the American League in Batting Average and On Base Percentage, and was second in Slugging. Apparently not good enough for some people. But, let's stack him up against his teamates in counting stats.
Manny missed 40 games due to a freak finger injury. Despite this, He led the Red Sox in Batting Average, On Base Percentage, Slugging Percentage, OPS, Walks, and Home Runs. He was second on the team in RBIs and Hit By Pitch. He was third on the team in Extra Base Hits. He was fourth on the team in runs scored and hits. He was 5th on the team in Doubles. All while missing a month and a half.
More importantly, he was consistent. In 4 seperate months, his OPS was OVER 1.100 (once over 1.200). 4 times his On Base Percentage was over .450 (once hitting .500). 4 times his Slugging Percentage was over .650 (once over .750). His worst full month was July, where he was coming off of his finger injury, when he had a .283/.392/.566/.958 month... having the 2nd Highest OBP, SLG, and OPS on the team for the month.
In every full month he played, he drove in 20 or more runs. In all but one full month did he fail to score at least 20 runs (August - 17).
And, his overall numbers are dragged down by the 13 games he played prior to the All Star Break, where he clearly was still playing himself back in shape (.256/.373/.279/.652, 6BB, 2 HBP, 1 Extra Base Hit (a Double)).
His Batting Average was his Second Best of his career (2000 - .351). His OBP was his second best of his career (2000 - .457). His Slugging % was the third best of his career (2000 - .697, 1999 - .663). He lowered his strikeout rate, He raised his walk rate (over 2001) while drawing fewer Intentional Walks. He hit HRs at the same rate he has for the past few years, and his Double Rate was on pace to reach levels he had not reached since 1997 (40 doubles).
And, better yet, he was a better hitter with runners on base.
Sure, he is not speedy. Sure, he is nothing more than an average outfielder (Although he had his best outfield assist rate ever, with 6 in 71 games). Sure, he occasionally looks goofy. But, he did exactly what any rational person could have hoped for.
Overall Grade: A
Talking about Nomar for the 2002 season is a difficult scenario. How much did his lost of a year hurt his season? What is a normal Nomar season?
Let's look at the good things first. He was in the top 5 in RBI, he nearly had another 200 hit season (ending with 197), he scored over 100 runs, and he had over 50 doubles. His final line of .310/.352/.528/.880 was quite good, even if not quite Nomaresque.
Nomar led the team in Hits, Doubles, Extra Base Hits, RBIs, and to his detriment, Grounded into Double Plays (tied with Shea). He was second in triples, Second in Homeruns (tied with Trot), and Second in Runs Scored. He was great with runners on base.
So, what was bad about Nomar's season? His On Base % was his worst since his rookie year. And both were low for essentially the same reasons, his relatively low Batting Average (.310 is much lower than his league leading totals of 1999 and 2000), but also due to his relative lack of walks. He had 20 fewer walks than he had in 2000, and 10 fewer than he had in 1999. Of course, a large number of the walks received in both years were intentional walks, of which he only had 4 for this year.
However, there were highlights as well. His 56 Doubles were the most he ever had. His 85 Extra Base Hits were the most he ever had (tied with 1997). His 24 Homeruns were well within his normal range prior to his wrist injury (1999 - 27, 2000 - 21)
His Defense suffered slightly as well, as he garnered 25 errors, the most since 1998.
The oddest part of Nomar's season. The 156 games that Nomar played in was the MOST he has ever played in a season. The 154 games played in the field were the most he has ever played in the Major League. Perhaps he would have had a more Nomar like year if he had been played in a similar fashion to his best years? More importantly for next season, Nomar had a severe dip in June and July, but came back with two consecutive 900+ OPS months to end the season.
Overall Grade: B+
Trot is one of the many offensive performers who was incredibly inconsistent. His overall OPS was OK (.808), but he had only one month with an OPS near his overall number (June - 810), while 2 months were in the 700 OPS range, and one in the 600 OPS range (May). He also had one month in the high 900s, and one over a 1000.
Trot's main problem with his offense this year was his lack of Batting Average. His .256 Batting Average was the lowest of his career, and was a full .014 points lower than his previous low in his rookie year of 1999. This, couple with his slight decrease in Walks (14 lower than 2001, and well of the pace of 2000) led to a dramatic decrease to his lowest On Base Percentage of his career (.338, .019 points lower than his rookie campaign).
However, his slugging percentage remained near his previous levels (His Isolated Slugging was only .001 points lower than 2001). His 36 Home Runs were the most of his career, and his 24 Home Runs were the second most of his career. He also had his best year in driving in runs (6 more than 2001), but did not score as often (19 fewer than 2001).
Trot ranked 2nd on the team in HRs and Walks, 3rd in RBIs and Doubles, and 4th in Runs.
On the defensive side, he made 5 errors (which is right around his norm) while making 7 assists (also near his norm). He occasionally made some very poor plays (at some very inopportune times), but also made some impressive plays. Overall, his defense was what was expected.
Trot played in 152 games, like Nomar, the most he had ever played in. Additionally, he started in all but 6 of the games, which is the most games he had ever started (by quite a lot). It is possible his decrease in batting numbers is due to his large increase in playing time.
Overall Grade: B-
Johnny is another tough player to profile. And the reason he is so difficul to profile is because his career had two years which are far outside and above the other years he has had. If one compares him to those years, he doesn't look as good, but if you look at the balance of his career, he looks like he had another good year.
Johnny was brought in to the Red Sox, in large part, to be the leadoff hitter. As such, I believe the most important number to look at is the On Base Number. His .356 number is lower than what I would like from a leadoff hitter... yet that number was second on the team to Manny Ramirez (Cliff Floyd in his two month stint was also better than .356). His .356 OBP was also the third best of his career, lower only to his two "anamolous" years of 1999 and 2000.
The difference in Johnny from his two big seasons and the 2002 Johnny Damon was in his Batting Average. His number of walks has stayed steady over the past 4 years (in the low to mid 60s), but his batting average has wavered quite dramatically... his .286 average being .039 points lower than his best Batting Average in 2000.
His slugging was also within the general area which he has previously shown, Mid 30s in Doubles, Near Double Digits in Triples (Led the league this year with 11), and mid teens in Homeruns. His Stolen Bases were slightly down from his top years (down 15 from 2000), but his caught stealing numbers were within the norm he has set for himself.
But, like Trot Nixon, Johnny was inconsistent. He had 4 months with an OPS below 800... and from a fan perspective, his 947 OPS in April may have led to greater expectations than he could reasonably be expected to meet.
His defense was quite good, with only one error and seven assists. He was occasionally caught too close and some balls did go over his head, but not often enough to downgrade his defense too much.
Johnny played in 154 games this year, which is down from his previous years numbers. However, considering the number and wide variety of injuries he had over the year (including a broken finger), it may have been prudent for Grady Little to sit Johnny more than he did.
Overall Grade: C+
What can be said of Brian Daubach that has not already been said, either this season or in another. Brian may very well be the most consistently inconsistent offensive player on the planet. For the fourth consecutive year, Brian had 20 homeruns and 70 RBIs. He had a 50 Walk season for the second consecutive year. He has had either 2 or 3 triples in each of the last 4 years. He had 62 runs scored for the year, which is only 8 more than his low of 54 last year. He had 118 hits, which is 5 fewer than his best, and only 11 better than his worst season. He had 24 doubles, his worst year ever, but only 9 fewer than his best.
Basically, Brian Daubach has established that he is not a player who will consistently hit the highs of his rookie year, but he is a a player who will consistently put up numbers around his final numbers of this year (.266/.348/.464/.812)
But, I did say he was consistently inconsistent. As such, he had 3 months where he had an OPS over 900, one additional month with an OPS above 875... but 2 months where he put up an OPS under 615. Essentially, Brian Daubach is feast or famine.
Coming into the year, Brian Daubach was coming off the bench. Unfortunately, due to injury (Manny) and poor performance (Offerman and Clark), Brian Daubach was forced to play 137 games this year. A good number (especially in May and June) were played at a position where he had not played consistently since he was playing in the minor leagues. I certainly believe his awful June (.149/.232/.297/.529) was in part due to his play in the outfield.
His defense was neither great nor awful, much like his offense. He did commit 5 errors at first base, but did not commit an error in the outfield (and garnered 3 assists).
Overall Grade: C
The question of how to consider Jason Varitek's season is really a two part question: What is his normal offensive output and how much weight do you put into his injury of the previous year?
Most of his numbers look very similar to what he put up in 1998, 1999, and 2000. His numbers are off from those he had started putting up in 2001... but with a catcher, wear and tear often starts decreasing the numbers later in the season.
All of this being said, his numbers were down slightly. His doubles were down from his numbers in 1999 and 2000. His Homeruns were the same as 2000, but were well down from the early pace of last year. His RBIs and Runs were consistent with that of 2000, but a bit down from 1999. The biggest problem with his year was his decrease in walks, Off 19 from 2000, which placed him with a lower OBP (than 2000) despite an increase in Batting Average.
His defense was quite good, with his number of errors being his lowest in any full seasons, as well as having a good year in assists and Double Plays. Additionally, he was the main catcher on a team with 3 of the 4 top ERAs in the league.
His 132 games was only the third most of his career, but considering his injury from the previous year, it is possibly he was used too much by Grady Little. It seems likely that his two worst offensive months, which happened to come in August and September, may have been caused by fatigue. It also seems of little surprise that he only had 9 of his 38 Extra Base hits in the final two months of the season.
Overall Grade: C-
Shea is an interesting player to look at solely due to the wide divergence of opinions on him. Is he going to be a star? Is he going to be out of the league in three years? Did he really improve his patience and his power?
Well, Shea did increase almost ALL of his numbers from the previous season... but this includes Plate Appearances. His number of walks did increase, but his percentage of walks only rose slightly. His number of Hit By Pitch increased quite a bit... but not unreasonably so (12 this year, 6 last). His number of Home Runs increased, but like the walks, his percentage increase was only slight. He did increase his number of hits and his number of doubles (in both number and percentage), leading to a 110 point increase in OPS.
But, was he very good... or was he just that bad last year? Well, he was more consistent this year... he never had a monthly OPS under 600, where he had 3 last year. From that simplistic look, he was better. However, he had two really good months (850+ OPS), but they were in the first two months of the year. In three of his final four months, however, he had an OPS below 730 (The fourth month was a very reasonable 817). So, what happened? His homerun power went away, as more than half (10) of his homeruns came in the first month. That is the big change. Obviously, his number of hits (and more importantly, his number of hits/ABs) also decreased, but not as dramatically. His Double Rate actually increased slightly in the last 4 months of the season.
Also of interest is that nearly half of his walks (11 of 25) happened in the first 2 months of the season, but if one absents intentional walks, fully half of his non-intentional walks happened in the first two months (10 of 20). Which doesn't even take into account that many of the walks later in the year were unintentional-intentional walks.
Essentially, his decreases are related to a loss of home run power (he went more than a month between June and July without hitting a homerun) and his lack of taking a walk (he went over two months between unintentional walks, and went the entire month of June without hitting one). It seems unsurprising that his two best months came when he was walking AND hitting homeruns... it seems plausible that the two events are related.
Shea looked more adept at third base, but still made a boatload of errors. His error rate will need to become better for him to be considered a good Third Baseman.
Overall Grade: C+
Rey Sanchez is a defensive wizard. At least, that was the saying prior to the season. It was the reason people wanted him on this team. By all statistics, he was a very impressive defensive performer. He was credited with only 4 errors (although, in all honesty, he should have been charged with a few more). He has a very high zone rating. So, let's conceed that he is a very good defensive player, and move to the bigger question... was his defense enough to carry his offense?
Well, the answer of course is dependent on the person answering. I, personally, this he is not. It is very difficult to hide a player with an overall OPS of 660, especially when he did not get a large number of chances at 2nd Base (While Rey ranked near the top in almost all defensive categories, he was near the bottom in Range Factor, which measures chances per game). He overall numbers are what one has come to expect, a decent looking Batting Average, which hides a horrible On Base Percentage due to the fact that he does not walk (17 this year, which is well within his norm). He doesn't hit for power, only hitting 16 extra base hits (slightly lower than his norm, but not dramatically).
But, his poor overall offense is actually masking how poor he actually was. Rey Sanchez actually had one tremendous month, a month where he had a 931 OPS (May). How good was this month? Every other month he had an OPS LOWER than his Overall OPS. He had three months under 600, and one under 500 in OPS (and this is absenting June where he only played 3 games). Excluding May from Rey's record for the year, he ended with an overall line of .260/.295/.295/.590. Fully half of his extra base hits happened in May. Nearly 30% of his hits for the year happened in May. He had one great month... otherwise, he was a complete drain on the lineup
Overall Grade: D+
Dissapointing Offensive Player of the Year
Looking at the final stats of Tony Clark is not only painful, it is mindboggling. How can a player fall so low so quickly? Here is a player who has never failed to hit above .250 in any season, and has a career average of .270, hit near .200 for the year? How can a player who has never failed to hit double digits in homeruns (including 13 in 60 games in 2000) hit only 3? How can a player who has hit near 30 doubles each year end up with only 12? How can a player that averaged 60 walks per season end up with only 21? What happened?
I don't know, and I doubt anyone can really come up with a reasonable explanation. However, what I will say is that Tony started out horribly (something that has happened often in his career), starting 17 games in April and hitting only .171/.216/.257/.473. After that, he rarely started in as many as 5 straight games again through the year. He did start in just over half the games in May (with his OPS rising to .613), but after that, he never started as many as half the games in any month, and only started 13 games in the final two months.
Now, I can not blame Grady Little for not playing Tony more than he did... especially after his first two months. But, I do wonder if Tony was given a full week of starts at some point in June or July if he might not have broken out of his funk... and become a useful offensive player.
His defense was generally acceptable, sometimes spectacular... but he did end up with 6 errors.
Overall Grade: F
Another player who is used as a poster boy for criticism for the season... understandably. He ended up with a very poor Batting Average (.232) which affected his overall numbers. In the 4 months he was with the Sox, he had only 14 extra base hits. But, as poor as he was, he did have one good month (April: .286/.354/.476/.830) and one discernable skill, walks (33 walks, which raised his OBP nearly 100 points from his Batting Average to .325).
On the other hand, he also had the worst month of any player (with regular playing time) for the Sox this year, with his incredibly awful June (.148/.258/.148/.406).
Defensively, he only played at 1st Base, and was acceptable at the position.
Jose was released from the Sox in August.
Overall Grade: D-
Rickey Henderson was one of the best players in the game in the 80s and 90s. In 2002, he is a shell of his former self.
Rickey had a horrible Batting Average for the year (.223), a poor Slugging Percentage (.352 - 12 Extra Base Hits (but 5 Home Runs)), and his defense was lacking (poor jumps and no longer great speed). It says much about his lack of defensive prowess that Brian Daubach took over the regular starting outfield position for Manny Ramirez, not Rickey.
But... Rickey still has one discernable skills. He still has an itsy-bitsy strike zone, and he knows how to utilize it to great effect. He had 38 Walks this year... 2 fewer than the number of hits he had this year. This skill led Rickey to have an acceptable On Base % of .369. He also still had some skill in the art of the steal, stealing 8 bases (but being caught a third of the time).
Overall Grade: D+
Doug Mirabelli is a fine backup catcher. In fact, his numbers are very similar to that of Jason Varitek (.001 difference in OPS). But, he has one great skill, he can crush Left Handed pitching. Unfortunately, he rarely got the chance to do so.
Doug had a very poor Batting Average (.225), but was able to walk (17 walks vs. 34 hits) which increased his OBP to nearly 100 points over his BA (.312). As well, 14 of his 34 hits were extra base hits (7 doubles, 7 Homeruns) which led him to a very good .411 Slugging (.186 Isolated Slugging).
His fielding is considered very good, and he did nothing to disprove this opinion this year.
Overall Grade: C-
Carlos is a fun story, a player who was out of major league baseball for two years, and playing in the independent Atlantic League in 2001. And, he ends the season as the Pinch-Hitter Dujour for the Sox. But, how good was he really?
Well, in large part, it is hard to say. He only started in half the games he played in... and half of those starts happened in one month, June. And, it so happens that his best month was June, as he had an OPS of 803 (versus his overall OPS of 695).
Like Rey Sanchez and Shea Hillenbrand, Carlos is a player who needs to hit to be affective. He had only 7 walks for the season. He also isn't much of a power threat anymore, hitting only 13 extra-base hits in his 52 total hits.
Carlos rarely played in the field, but when he did play, his play was OK.
Overall Grade: C
Lou is the prototypical utility infielder. He can play 3B, SS, and 2B at an acceptable level, but is nothing more than a below-average hitter. He also tends to be the type of player where the more you see, the less you want to see. Lou had two months where he was primarily a starter (June and July), and his OPS for the months were near or below his overall average (.698, .715 vs. .712 overall).
What Lou brings to the table other than his defensive ability, is his ability to take a walkm walking 20 times (vs. 48 walks). He also has occasional power, hitting 18 of his 48 hits for extra bases.
Overall Grade: C
Both players were called up during the Manny Ramirez injury tour. Neither played very often, although both showed some skill... Bryant showing the ability to play multiple positions (Infield and Outfield), and Juan Diaz his power skills (both hits were for extra bases).
Disturbingly, Bryant Nelson was up for over 2 months, and was only able to gather 34 Plate Appearances (despite injuries from Manny, Rey, Rickey and Carlos). Juan was only up for 2 weeks, but only garnered 8 Plate Appearances.
Overall Grade: Incomplete
Benny Agbayani/Shane Andrew/Kevin Brown/Freddy Sanchez
These were the four everyday players brought up in September. Benny was played the most often, and showed some of the same skills he had shown previously with the Mets. He garnered 6 walks in only 13 games, which is better than the majority of players on the Sox, but only had one extra base hit (out of the 11 hits he did have).
Shane played at both 3rd and first, and was able to get a hit, a walk and a hit by pitch in his 15 plate appearances.
Kevin Brown was a calming influence on the bench, as he never started a game, only played in two, and got 1 plate appearance.
Freddy was the only real prospect brought up, started 4 games, but came into a total of 12 games (mostly as a pinch runner or a defensive replacement). He only had 3 singles in 16 at bats, but did add 2 walks. As a prospect, he didn't shine... but nor did he implode.
Overall Grade: Incomplete
