Yesterday, the Red Sox signed utility man Drew Sutton to a minor league deal. While many Sox fans have probably not heard of Sutton, he brings a lot to the table and could help the Sox in a pinch in 2011.
Sutton was the Houston Astros’ 15th round pick in 2004 out of Baylor University and has never been a top prospect type. However, he has some skills the Red Sox covet, on base skills in particular. In his minor league career, Sutton has a .378 OBP, which feautes very good walk rates. Unfortunately, that walk rate hasn’t translated to the big leagues and he has a 33.3 percent major league strikeout rate , but we’re talking about a mere 118 sporadic plate appearances here. He also features some pop (20 home runs in 520 at-bats in 2008) and has stolen as many as 24 bags in the minors.
The key here is that Sutton can play all over the infield and some outfield if need be. With a little help in BABIP, Sutton could pull off a very valuable season as a backup. He’s not the power threat that Bill Hall was, but he should put the bat on the ball more often and play better defense.
This move represents another case of the Sox taking a chance on a player with some, albeit limited, upside at a low cost.
In other hot stove news…
John Heyman, in his latest appearance on MLB Network, said that the Sox appear to be out of the Victor Martinez sweepstakes due to the fact that V-Mart wants a four-to-five-year deal. Heyman also pegs the Sox as the front-runner for Jayson Werth. Combine the two predictions and you have a hole at catcher with a surplus in the outfield. This leads me to my own prediction: The Red Sox trade Jacoby Ellsbury to the Angels for catcher Mike Napoli.
The Angels crave speed in their outfield and on the base-paths and the Sox love a catcher that can pop a few balls over the fence and draw some walks. Combine that with the Angels’ depth at catcher and Ellsbury’s supposed strained relationship with the Sox for a perfect match-up. Napoli was even claimed off of waivers by the Sox in August, but no deal could be reached at the time.
For different reasons, Napoli and Ellsbury match up almost perfectly value wise. Ellsbury’s best season-to-date was 2009, in which he hit .301/.355/.415 with 70 stolen bases. According to Fangraphs.com, he was worth 2.7 WAR that season. For the past three seasons, Mike Napoli has been worth 2.8, 2.7 and 2.7 WAR respectively. What he lacks in AVG he makes up for in power and walk rate. As a full-time catcher, playing home games at Fenway, Napoli could approach 30 home runs.
You heard it here first (or maybe someone else has already stated this, but I don’t know of it), Mike Napoli will be the Red Sox starting catcher in 2011.