In our continuing series of “For Better or Worse 2009″ and community projections, I now give you Jacoby Ellsbury. To catch up on the rest of the series you may have missed so far, go here.
Looking over the 2009 Boston Red Sox roster, it’s fairly common opinion that, between the depth in both the rotation and the bullpen, the Red Sox pitching staff will be one of the best in baseball this season. It is also fairly common opinion that the most glaring worry point heading into the season is the overall offensive efficiency.
Enter Jacoby Ellsbury. We know that this offense needs the pop in the middle of the lineup from David Ortiz and that a healthy Mike Lowell and J.D. Drew will add the depth and production that is needed to field a well rounded and complete one through nine. But there may not be anyone who will dictate the overall efficiency of the Red Sox offense in 2009 than their young leadoff hitter.
“Wait a minute,” you might say, “that’s a little hyperbole. Isn’t it?”
I don’t think so and I’ll give you two reasons why.
First off all, Jacoby is the table setter for the rest of the offense. If he, or whomever is leading off if he struggles out of the gate (a point I’ll tackle in a second), gets on base regularly, everything else will start to fall into line behind him.
But if Ellsbury struggles, as he did through extended periods of time in 2008, and Terry Francona is forced to move him to the end of the batting order, the flow of the entire lineup is disrupted.
The most likely scenario would move Dustin Pedroia to the lead off position, out of the two hole in which he thrives and J.D. Drew up to the two hole moving Mike Lowell on down up a spot and further weakening the 6-9 spots in the line up.
More than anyone else on the team, Jacoby Ellsbury’s performance could dictate the performance of the players around him.
The good news here is that the projection systems that are traditionally very conservative, all have Jacoby performing at levels greater than his 2008 campaign. While they don’t expect much of an increase in home run power, they do see a hitter able to drive the ball more consistently yielding higher rate stats across the board.
But as we have noticed before, a straight up year over year player comparison isn’t quite enough for us to give our assessment of whether Ellsbury’s production in 2009 will make the Red Sox better or worse than they were in 2008. Given that Coco Crisp played a majority of the time in center field last season, to truly get an idea of the bar Ellsbury needs to raise above we need to examine his expected performance in that context.
People often overlook that Coco’s season last year wasn’t as bad as years past at the plate. When you add in the fact that Ellsbury’s extended slumps occurred while he was playing left field as Manny Ramirez filled the vacated DH role, the Red Sox got decent production out of their center fielders last season. The bar isn’t too high, but it’s high enough that even with the positive forecasts, Ellsbury won’t clear it by leaps and bounds.
Where I do think that Jacoby Ellsbury will help this team create more wins in 2009 is in the field.
We’ve all come to regard Coco Crisp as an excellent fielding center fielder, and while I would agree with that assessment (especially in regards to 207), defensive metrics (specifically UZR) show that Coco actually lost value in the field in 2008. Crisp’s UZR in 2007 was a tremendous 22.0. In 2008, that value, which represents the number of runs above or below average a fielder is in both range runs and error runs combined, dropped all the way to negative 8.9. Contrast that with Ellsbury’s 14.9 UZR totals last year and you can see a potential 2.5 game swing in center field defense between the two (10 runs = 1 win).
2009 represents Jacoby Ellsbury’s time to step up and own the mantle of center fielder/lead off hitter of the Boston Red Sox in the way that Johnny Damon did from 2002-2005. The question remains, is he ready?
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You are so right about his ability to influence games. Playing CF the entire year could give him stability, confidence, and a GG. Thanks for the insight on Jacoby’s hitting while playing CF, which shows a full year in CF could also bring back the hitter we saw in 2007.
Technically, he could be in for a sophomore slump, but as this is really his 3rd year in the spotlight, he should instead take it to the next level, like Pedroia did.
Whatever, the middle is solid with Ellsbury, Pedroia, Lowrie, and if they all hit anywhere near what we have seen, their gloves, bats and 80-90SB should win more than a few games.
Fortunately, I have heard that the difference in lineups can be like a total of two wins…
Unfortunately, this division is very difficult and two wins may be the difference…
http://statisticianmagician.mlblogs.com/
That link was an accident.
Personally, I think last year WAS his sophomore slump. This is the year, IMO, Ells kicks it into high gear. More power (probably in the form of doubles and triples), a little more patience, a similar SB total, and a GG: these are my wish list for Ellsbury in ‘09.
Interesting comment. Sophomore slumps happen for a variety of reasons, like pitchers adjusting to you (Ellsbury), having trouble with the spotlight, trying new things that don’t work, injuries, fatigue, confidence issues, being brought up too early from MiLB. All of these things actually happened to Ellsbury. He started off well, fell into a slump, started to recover.
Let’s apply your logic and these reasons to another possible all-star, Clay Buchholz. Hitters adjusted to him, a 23 year old adjusting to the spotlight while replacing Curt Schilling (ouch!), new arm slot that didn’t work, nagging injury, confidence issues, brought up too early.
I know there are holes in this reasoning, but that doesn’t mean it’s not essentially valid. It leads me to believe and hope that both Ellbury and Bowden will have impressive seasons. Let’s also hope Lowrie and Masterson can stay rock steady in their uncertain roles.
Your analysis of Ellsbury overlooks the fact that he sustained a significant wrist injury that curtailed his prouction. He wasn’t the same after that. When healthy he has the upside of a top leadoff hitter.