Red Sox sign OF Chris Young to two year deal

[lexrageorge]

It is a subject for its own thread but my problem with Farrell is what he does with struggling guys as opposed to some kind of hit or miss proportion. Xander was buried at 3B when he should have been playing SS either in Pawtucket or Boston. Instead we sat around waiting for Stephen Drew. JBJ's 2014 was just dumb. Farrell and Cherington kept him on the major league club far too much without using him, instead giving at bats to the the corpse of Grady Sizemore, all the while looking for the first excuse to move to Castillo. WMB whatever, I don't think he was going to be much, but jerking a guy in and out of the lineup haphazardly at 24 isn't the way you develop anyone.

So the point isn't the actual performance of the players. It's that when given options (please note, due to injuries he had little choice with Vaz and Swihart), the evidence thus far has shown that he will move on from a struggling prospect to the next shiny object (or hopes of rebuilding a decrepit veteran). This it the reason for my comparison to SoSH posters. And of course this may be a reflection of the fact that the team was expected to be very good each of the last two years and failed miserably, making it harder to have patience. But I don't care too much about outside influences, because they aren't going away any time soon.

Nowhere in my post did I comment on the performance of the team relative to Farrell, nowhere did I attribute any causation for any performance to Lovullo. I realize others do this, but those points are irrelevant to my concern expressed here.

Bogaerts in 2014: After Middlebrooks got hurt in May of 2014, Xander was shifted to 3B when the Sox signed Drew. It wasn't Farrell's fault that Drew was washed up. And Bogaerts early season success in 2014 was fueled by a 0.421 BABIP in May that was unlikely to continue. If moving Xander from SS to 3B was such a disaster, then you cannot criticize Farrell for wanting to keep JBJ and Betts in CF and RF, respectively. And Bogaerts usage in both 2014 and 2015 indicates that Farrell was not willing to "move on from a struggling prospect to the next shiny new object". He stuck with him, and by September of 2014 Xander had shown signs of improvement.

JBJ: Bradley got 384 at bats in 2014. He played nearly every game in April and May when Sizemore was still on the roster. He missed 20 games from mid-August to early September after he was sent down to Pawtucket. But he otherwise got his share of at bats.

Castillo had all of 36 at bats in 2014, and did not start until mid-May in 2015. So Farrell did not look for the first excuse to move to Castillo.

 

[dbn]

Year____sOPS+ vs LHP (PAs)____sOPS+ vs RHP (PAs):

2015____169 (175)___61 (181)
2014_____61 (93)___105 (273)
2013____101 (175)___70 (200)
2012____124 (134)___94 (229)
2011____158 (158)___94 (501)
2010____128 (175)__113 (489)
2009____145 (135)___70 (366)
2008____133 (181)___90 (518)
2007_____95 (154)__100 (470)

Any context to the underwhelming 2013 and 2014 seasons?

 

[lexrageorge]

Year____sOPS+ vs LHP (PAs)____sOPS+ vs RHP (PAs):

2015____169 (175)___61 (181)
2014_____61 (93)___105 (273)
2013____101 (175)___70 (200)
2012____124 (134)___94 (229)
2011____158 (158)___94 (501)
2010____128 (175)__113 (489)
2009____145 (135)___70 (366)
2008____133 (181)___90 (518)
2007_____95 (154)__100 (470)

Any context to the underwhelming 2013 and 2014 seasons?

First, Chris Young went from earning over 600 plate appearances per season to about 370 starting in 2012. That reduction does mean that more seasonal variance can be expected, as a significant slump or hot streak over 100 at bats can have an outsized impact on his overall season ratings.

In 2013 his strikeouts went up: roughly 1 in every 4 plate appearances ended in a K, which is slightly higher than his career average of around 22%. But his K rate went back down below his career norms in 2014. Extra base hits were slightly below his career average of 5.9% (5.6% and 5.4% in 2013 and 2014, respectively). In 2015, he was right on his career average. However, we're talking about 21 extra base hits; a couple either way skews the percentages.

His home run percentages showed a dip in both Oakland and NY Mets; not surprising, given that he would have played half his games in the Coliseum and Citi Field. And, as expected, his HR% recovered nicely after he was traded cross town to the Yankees.

His BABIP also dipped quite a bit: 0.237 in Oakland, and 0.226 while he was with the Mets in 2014. I'm guessing that's a big part of his underwhelming 2013/14. Some of that dip would be due to park factors, but such a marked dip indicates that he also got quite unlikely. He did hit more fly balls, but not substantially so. So my working assumption is that a big part of his dip was due to the relatively small sample sizes attributed to playing in a platoon situation. Which, in turn, makes his BABIP luck have an outsized impact on his overall batting stats. I'm not convinced OPS+ takes into account BABIP style luck.