…But Jason Bay is pretty darn good.
“The Red Sox need to replace Manny.”
“Jason Bay won’t be able to handle the pressure of Boston.”
These are variations of quotes that I have been hearing ever since Manny was traded, and Bay being obtained.
Indications are, according to many it seems, that Jason Bay should have his career numbers thrown out the window because they were put up in Pittsburgh. If players don’t produce in the large markets, then, well, they aren’t very good.
That is actually a theory that I have hated for many years now. I don’t deny that the pressure of playing in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia is a little greater than Pitt or KC. And I won’t even doubt that it may take a little longer to adjust to that additional “pressure.”
But when we get down to it, most of these players are doing what they have done their entire lives, and eventually almost all of them will be able to perform the way they should, whether that be good, mediocre, or downright awful.
And even some Red Sox fans seem to be wary of 2009 because of the absence of Manny.
Look, I understand why having no Manny could cause concern. Manny, after all, has accomplished things on a baseball field that I have never seen before, especially from the right side of the plate. The 2007 postseason is a great example of just how incredible of a hitter Manny Ramirez was. His “domination” of good pitching nonetheless, was near remarkable, in baseball terms. Pitchers such as Fausto Carmona and CC Sabathia seemed over-matched, and ace pitchers are not usually over-matched like that. It was almost as if Manny was the one with the ball in his hands.
So I understand the hesitance to say that Jason Bay is the second coming of Manny. Because it wouldn’t be true. He just isn’t that good.
However, don’t misinterpret that for Jason Bay is actually very good.
This is the Jason Bay that outside of a miserable 2007, has been great for a while now.
Bay was 8th in WARP1 in 2006. 6th in 2005. Much lower according to Warp in 2008, but still good.
One thing that Manny has done more often than Bay is hit the ball hard. And after watching the two players, the difference seems visible, too
During the past seven seasons, Manny has bettered the 20% line in “Line Drive %” six times. But that is further proving a theory we all have to begin with, Manny is a great hitter.
Bay on the other hand, over the past six seasons, has hit the 20% line drive mark only twice.
Proving what? Again, just another reason to know that Manny Ramirez is a better hitter than Jason Bay is.
But what I wish is that fans would understand that Jason Bay is a good player regardless. And in baseball especially, the team concept is truly embraced. Baseball players don’t “carry teams,” not like say a basketball player is capable of doing anyway.
So Jason Bay isn’t Manny Ramirez. Bay isn’t going to be a first ballot Hall of Famer. And Jason Bay isn’t “the best right handed hitter we have ever seen.” But this team has a great pitching staff, a very good defense, and somewhere between an above-average offense and a great offense.
I doubt that the marginal difference between the 2009 versions of Manny Ramirez and Jason Bay is going to be the reason that the Red Sox fail to win another World Series ring.
…Not to mention, Bay comes at a price of $7.5 million this season, while Manny would have cost $20 mill, and actually IS going to cost $25 million for his services this season.
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Jason Bay said, up front, that he is not Manny. Taking him at his word ignores that Jason’s 2008 #’s came pretty close to Manny’s 2008 Red Sox #’s, and his 2007 power #’s, and especially his 2006 swoon #’s.
It seems Jason thrives on Boston’s high-octane atmosphere, as he helped bring a team back together, and well into the playoffs. He is now surrounded by really good hitters in a hitter-friendly park, so let’s see how good he can be vs. his Pittsburgh self . . . not vs. Manny, who is gone.
In terms of replacing Manny, it is significant that as he faded from the team, his bat was replaced not just by Bay, but also internally as Youkilis, Pedroia and JD became feared hitters. Adding Rocco this year, and a healthy Papi, Mike and Lowrie, takes any pressure of J.Bay to replace anyone. Manny’s bat has been replaced, by the team.
BTW. ESPN just projected top MLB top 20 players at every position, and Bay was the only Red Sox ranked, behind Manny of course, (no doubt based on his L.A. season-ending #’s.) Hard to believe that neither JD nor Ellsbury made that cut.
Just a thought… I don’t understand why fans like us should care that Bay will cost the Sox less money than Manny would have. It’s not as if the FO is sure to reinvest the savings into the club. Sure, it’s good for their bottom line, but I don’t count the money factor into my personal evaluation of the state of the Sox.
@ Ted,
Then you are choosing to ignore a significant part of how the team operates and attempts to improve itself. Fewer dollars for star players might mean more money for the draft and player development. The goal is to develop a great team, not necessarily great players.
We should care about player costs because the Sox don’t have an infinite amount of money, and the spare cash they have laying around may help as suggested earlier with player development, or might be used to plug a hole or bolster the bench or bullpen at the trade deadline.
Ted, what “tadthebad” said. The money can be invested in other areas.
Gerry, I wrote this because Jason Bay seems like a scrub sometimes the way “they” talk about this lineup post-Manny. I guess that I shouldn’t really get to worked up about what ESPN analysts say, since my reliance on the numbers produces similar results to the “Sabermetrics” crew which understands that Bay isn’t much different than Manny in 2009 (or shouldn’t be).
Agreed, Devine.
It’s odd the way Jason Bay continues to produce, and yet continues to get overlooked. My Astros have a very good starting left fielder in Carlos Lee (well, very good offensively… competent, defensively,) but if you told me that the Red Sox had just traded us Lee for Bay straight up, I’d be ecstatic.
I’ve never really understood the argument against small market players. Carlos Beltran was a prime example – he went from Kansas City to our team, where he lit up the playoffs. I’ve never done – or seen – a statistical analysis of players leaving small market teams to go to larger markets, but I don’t suspect that there’s much of a drop in performance, if at all. It’s still too early to tell on Bay, but his limited time in Boston looked pretty good to me – very close to his career line.
Again, limited sample size, but he had a monster playoffs to the tune of .341/.471/.634.
Exactly. And much of the TEAM had good #’s despite their injuries. Manny has been replaced by a team, and Bay is essential to that team.
And I neglected to give the context of the Bay ratings by ESPN. It was the top 20 outfielders, and only Bay was ranked. Out of 120 MLB outfielders, that’s not bad, but it seems low.
Youk, with his GG and errorless streak, was ranked #8 among 1b, and they displayed his monster 2008 offensive stats. Doesn’t make sense. So what stats did they use? Beckett and Matsuzaka were ranked near the bottom of the top 20 pitchers, and Lester didn’t make the cut, but Beckett’s 2008 #’s & injuries don’t make sense for this.
Papelbon was ranked #1 reliever (not closer) but no one else, like Oki, who has had two excellent years, or Saito who after two AS years in 06 & 07 also managed great #’s in a short ‘08.
That’s all I saw, but I don’t understand how they rated these players, and I don’t think I’m being a homer by saying that Ells, Lester, Oki had top 20 years in 2007 & 2008 at their positions, and project improvements for 2009.
For $45 Million, we got a clueless, dumb-as-dirt, goober-picking country dufus who couldn’t string a subject, a verb and a direct object together if you put a gun to his head.
Add to this the fact that we signed the dipstick for stratospheric megabucks at a time when no other team in the known universe wanted him. Let me repeat that. No one else was bidding.
http://playwrighter.blogspot.com/2009/03/hey-dodger-fans.html