Alex Gonzalez has signed 1-year, $3 million deal with the Sox, according to the Boston Herald. This means Tony Graffanino has got to be going somewhere now. He and Cora should combine for middle-of-the-pack production (which we got from Renteria last year) and stellar defense. Hard to argue with this signing.
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Sean – does he need an excuse? Wells sucked the first half; how is that really all that different? The games at the end seem more meaningful, but each one is still just 1/162nd of a season.
I didn’t like the Edgar signing either, but it sounds like from Theo’s comments that much of it was physical, that he just wasn’t in shape, for whatever reason. I have trouble buying the ‘it’s all in his head’ argument with any player, though.
Andrew, I totally agree with you about Clement. His career splits seem to indicate to me there is no second half collapse. But maybe we should play Clement in the first half and then bring in Wells to finish the season. Obviously Wells has a history of not performing in the first half since he didn’t last year.
I would also like to know how people can claim fielders either good or bad based on stats and then in various other posts state that the defensive stats that are currently available are not very good. If they aren’t good, they shouldn’t be used to judge anybody.
At one year, I like this signing a lot. Solid defender, relatively cheap, gives Pedroia time to season in AAA without blocking him forever. Can’t expect much from his bat, but playing half his games at Fenway and being in a superior lineup might help a little. Maybe.
Best of all, it fills the last major hole on the team. Maybe we need a better 4th OF, but other than that…bring on ST!
I’m high on Mohr. He can be our lefty platoonmate with Nixon and fill in LF and CF against RHP. We do need to cover our butt though, with someone who can play OF as well as INF in addition to Mohr, just in case. I think Willie Harris has pretty much sewed a spot up on this team because he fits that bill. We’ll see.
The key and best part of the Gonzales signing can be summed up in just two words: ONE YEAR. Good job Theo.
Whyyyyyyyyyyyy…..
We have better defensive production in Cora, and better offensive production in Graffanino, who has played almost a hundred games at short in his career.
I would feel better about this if the misc. defensive metrics rated Gonzalez as a good player. I don’t remotely see his upside over Cora, and part of me wants to keep Graffanino since he actually wants to play for this team.
Hard to argue? Pretty easy, I think. $3 million for a career sub-.300 OBP, sub-.400 SLG, mediocre to decent fielder? Worthless deal, waste of money. They could have found better production than that for the minimum salary somewhere.
Yeah, I seem to find myself with no shortage of arguments against either.
“We have better defensive production in Cora, and better offensive production in Graffanino, who has played almost a hundred games at short in his career. ”
if only 2 players could play one position throughout the whole game….
Sean and Mark, I’m a fan of Tony G, but he’s basically limited to second and first. Not short. I know he’s played a few games at short, but that was quite a while ago. Plus, Gonzalez isn’t as bad as you think. Two years ago he had a pretty solid year and may be helped by Fenway. He’s also one of the best defensive shortstops in the game. If Graffanino could play the outfield, he’d still have a spot on this team, but it seems as if he doesn’t. I’d rather take someone of Gonzalez’s hitting, which can still pack a punch, and his lightning defense over someone who doesn’t fit into our plans (whether or not he SHOULD be fitting in).
But my issue is that Gonzalez’s ‘lightning defense’ may be no such thing. I’m a bit worried overall that this team supposedly in-line with the SABRmetric revolution doesn’t seem to remotely pay attention to researching their new players. We get Clement who is known to collapse after the ASB, we get Renteria who has never played in a pressure situation and who can’t hit righties (which, as everyone knows, monopolize the AL East), and we get Mantei because he’s Curt’s friend.
Then, this year, we have holes at short, center and leadoff. We in turn get Crisp, who statistically is a bad center fielder and has a low enough OBP to be a liability leading off, we get Gonzalez because we need a slick fielding SS, even though every defensive metric has him being at best an average fielder. Also, 16 errors in 124 games is not good.
I’m also a bit confused because, if I’m not mistaken, isn’t SABR about being able to evaluate talent in relation to commodities we already possess? How big of an improvement over Cora is Gonzalez? Yeah, it adds depth, but does Gonzalez – Cora = $3m? I’m not so certain.
Obviously we’re the Red Sox so we can afford to throw $3m at somebody, and I appreciate that we’re amassing depth. But do we really need 2 copies of the same player?
I don’t want people to think I’m completely negative about this team, because on a macro level this is one of the best offseasons I can imagine. We managed to 1). get younger, 2). get cheaper, and 3). get better, all in one offseason, while our best player demanded to be traded and we lost our GM and everyone lost their minds. And we managed to not completely destroy our farm system. It’s remarkable, even if I have some serious questions about what the hell we’re doing.
1. The FO has said Crisp will be a good CFer. I don’t know where they get their stats, but there’s that.
2. Forget where I read it, but some AL team ’s defensive stats (if you don’t know, all teams have their ‘own’ stats they judge players by, and these stats are unknown to the public for the most part) ranked A-Gon as one of the three best defensive SSs in the game.
Sean – I swear to god, I could be on this until the day I die and still not convince people, but Clement really DOESN’T have a post-ASB collapse trend. In 2004, he was rough after the break mostly due to a pinched nerve in the neck; last year the reasons are less clear. But if you look at the several years of his career pre-2004, he actually tended to get BETTER in the second half.
And, Renteria has never played in a pressure situation? Are you serious? St. Louis is one of the most passionate baseball towns in the world! And even beyond that, we’re talking about a guy with a game-winning WS hit on his resume! How can you make a claim like that? Isn’t it possible that he sucked last year because he just sucked?
I won’t argue that Crisp isn’t an ideal leadoff guy, and I do hope they soften their stance on that and consider either Youk or Loretta, but I wouldn’t call .345 a liability, per se. In addition, I’d imagine that will improve at Fenway and with a move to the top of the order.
Andrew-
C’mon, Cardinals fans don’t complain about anything. I lived in Chicago, and I knew enough Cardinals fans who never said a single bad thing about their team. This offseason is the first time I ever heard people complaining out of St. Louis, and that’s because they let go of Sanders and Walker retired.
The Cardinals and, well, everyone else told both Edgar and the Red Sox that he would collapse up in Boston, but we decided not to listen. Frankly, I don’t really think he collapsed, I just never thought he was any good. His hitting numbers were almost exactly the same as his career, only his defense randomly went to hell.
I just don’t know why Clement randomly blew up two years in a row. Ok, 2004 was a pinched nerve, but what’s 2005’s excuse? To me, with him flinching after every ball put into play in his last game, I think he’s mentally cooked. At best, I’m hoping he pitches to a 3.5 ERA until July, then I can only hope Tito has the good sense to bench him. I’m expecting him to be toast from the beginning, but that’s just me. Luckily we have 6 other pitchers at the moment.
Nick-
About defense, here’s my stance on it. Defensive metrics are still burgeoning, and unlike the rest of SABRmetric values, there is relatively little corrolation. So, everything regarding defense has to be taken with a grain of salt, because there are so many different aspects.
I try to look at many different metrics before making a point, since if most of them come to at least some measure of agreement, I’ll assume it’s accurate. The main difference is, when I give a player’s VORP or WARP, I have complete confidence in its accuracy, while with defense I am somewhat less sure. This doesn’t mean I will ignore the issue, since I still think it is valuable to have.
There are a bunch of different ways to look at an issue, and the different metrics represent that.
As far as Clement’s excuse, his August was good, but I don’t understand his July, September and October meltdown. I can only hope he can be consistent this season.
WARP takes defense into account, FYI.
“Clement really DOESN’T have a post-ASB collapse trend. In 2004, he was rough after the break mostly due to a pinched nerve in the neck; last year the reasons are less clear.”
Getting smacked in the head by a Carl Crawford line drive might have had a little to do with it. He can say it doesn’t bother him but, given the power of the subconsious mind, how can he know for sure. It sure as hell would have bothered me.
Except that the theory doesn’t hold water. Take a look at Clement’s numbers: Clement started to suck a couple of starts before getting drilled by Crawford.
Andrew, what say you & I end this silly discussion once for all. Here’s the deal: we go fifty-fifty and hire a skywriter to fly over Boston and write in 300-foot tall letters the very same thing that I wrote in italics above.
Umm … I don’t know what skywriters charge these days. Maybe we can work Evan and/or Zach into the bargain as well?
Clement was an All-Star. What happened after has to be a combination of mental and physical issues. We leaned on Clement a bit in the first half, I think. The liner didn’t help, and I think he thought he was supposed to fail in the 2nd half – everyone expected him to. I still have confidence in him.
Sam, when did I deny that the above is true?
Though I will say this: why does the fact that Clement had rough starts just before it mean that the rest of his slide couldn’t have been related? How many times do SP’s have two rough outings in a row? Isn’t it at least possible that he would have bounced right back had it not been for the line drive? The fact that he had a couple rough starts beforehand doesn’t negate, in my mind, possible negative ramifications from the event itself.
But in general, I agree. I don’t necessarily buy the line drive explanation. As with Edgar, isn’t it perfectly possible that he just sucked? For no particular or easily-definable reason?
I was responding to Tom, Andrew. I know your opinion on this one: as you noted earlier, with some chagrin, we’ve been through this discussion before. And I agree with you. And like you, I’m tired of hearing that line-drive idea being used as an excuse for Clement’s miserable 2nd half.
Did the line-drive have something to do with his poor pitching? Possibly. But it was, by no means, the sole cause. But people keep referring to it as if it were.
Hence my skywriting idea. We’re fed up? Let’s do something about it!
Sam – sorry, misunderstood your post. And I agree entirely. Front me for the cash, though. I swear I’m good for it.
Sometimes ya gotta educate the people, see.