When will JD get his Due?

[TheKilo]

You call him the 10th best RF, I'd challenge you to name the 9 who are better.

 

Also, how many more RBIs would Drew need for you to feel he was worth his contract?

[Dipre]

You call him the 10th best RF' date=' I'd challenge you to name the 9 who are better.[/quote']

 

He'll start by Ichiro. Then i'll lol.

[ORS]

Do you know what that 8% means? His OBP in the situation is ~.300, so his career OBP of .392 is only 1.2% outside the margin of "expected" error. Pulling 2.4% of the data from 5000+ data points, it's very possible you get something like his bases-loaded results. Furthermore, he's demonstrated success similar to his career production in many other "run scoring" situations. You cherry picked.

 

And, as far as RC vs. RC/27 goes. I didn't suggest one was a better analytical tool for determining JD Drew's worth. It was better for answering the specific question that you attempted to answer and botched. FTR, since you suggest it doesn't change things much, JD Drew was 3rd among qualified RF(source espn.com). Again, I realize that RC captures the playing time that has worth, but don't make s*** up.

[rhet]

Do you know what that 8% means? His OBP in the situation is ~.300, so his career OBP of .392 is only 1.2% outside the margin of "expected" error. Pulling 2.4% of the data from 5000+ data points, it's very possible you get something like his bases-loaded results. Furthermore, he's demonstrated success similar to his career production in many other "run scoring" situations. You cherry picked.

 

And, as far as RC vs. RC/27 goes. I didn't suggest one was a better analytical tool for determining JD Drew's worth. It was better for answering the specific question that you attempted to answer and botched. FTR, since you suggest it doesn't change things much, JD Drew was 3rd among qualified RF(source espn.com). Again, I realize that RC captures the playing time that has worth, but don't make s*** up.

 

I cherry picked a situation: bases loaded. Even though that situation is a small subset of his total PA, a sample of 128 PA in that situation provides statistical significance with a margin of error of +-8.66% of the proportion (.206 BA, .297 OBP) at a 95% confidence. That means you can be 95% confident that his true BA with the bases loaded is between .188 and .224 and his OBP with the bases loaded is between .272 and .322. Obviously, those averages are significantly lower than his actual averages when the bases aren't loaded. The flaw in my argument isn't the sample size, as you erroneously assert, it is the implicit neutralization of an age/experience variable which changes over a career. Nevertheless, it was a stat I was interested in because it is the one situation where OBP directly correlates to RBI.

[Dipre]

I cherry picked a situation: bases loaded. Even though that situation is a small subset of his total PA' date=' a sample of 128 PA in that situation provides statistical significance with a margin of error of +-8.66% at a 95% confidence. That means you can be 95% confident that his true BA with the bases loaded is between .188 and .224 and his OBP with the bases loaded is between .272 and .322. Obviously, those averages are significantly lower than his actual averages when the bases aren't loaded. The flaw in my argument isn't the sample size, as you erroneously assert, it is the implicit neutralization of an age/experience variable which changes over a career. Nevertheless, it was a stat I was interested in because it is the[b'] one situation where OBP directly correlates to RBI.[/b]

 

It's also the less likely situation where a hitter comes up to bat.

 

The very basis of that argument is wrong.

[rhet]

It's also the less likely situation where a hitter comes up to bat.

 

The very basis of that argument is wrong.

 

Not wrong, as I have proven statistically. Just not to your liking.

 

But what do I know, I'm just a colossal idiot.

[a700hitter]

I don't understand all this arguing about JD. He hit the Grand Salami in Game 6 of the 2007 ALCS. He's a really good player, but not worth $70 million for 5 years. That doesn't mean we can't make fun of him when he asks out of games. Someone calls him Nancy and people pop a blood vessel. Do we have to be so serious?

[rhet]

I don't understand all this arguing about JD. He hit the Grand Salami in Game 6 of the 2007 ALCS. He's a really good player' date=' but not worth $70 million for 5 years. That doesn't mean we can't make fun of him when he asks out of games. Someone calls him Nancy and people pop a blood vessel. Do we have to be so serious?[/quote']

 

Plus, he's hot as hell right now. Let's hope he carries that on for three more weeks.

 

If he does, maybe he'll "get his due", even from me.

[Dipre]

Not wrong, as I have proven statistically. Just not to your liking.

 

But what do I know, I'm just a colossal idiot.

 

Lol we're arguing like grown-ups. Stop it.

 

You can't base your argument around the bases-loaded situation because you're cherry picking.

 

To score runs, you need to get on base.

 

What is wrong about that statement?

[rhet]

Lol we're arguing like grown-ups. Stop it.

 

You can't base your argument around the bases-loaded situation because you're cherry picking.

 

To score runs, you need to get on base.

 

What is wrong about that statement?

 

For the tenth time, my argument has nothing to do with Drew's ability to get on base and possibly score, if someone behind him knocks him in of course. The issue is his seeming inability, as a middle of the order hitter, to knock them in.

 

And those are my final words on this topic tonight.

[Dipre]

For the tenth time, my argument has nothing to do with Drew's ability to get on base and possibly score, if someone behind him knocks him in of course. The issue is his seeming inability, as a middle of the order hitter, to knock them in.

 

And those are my final words on this topic tonight.

 

Knocking people in is situational.

 

He's had wonderful 90+ RBI seasons before, and even a 100 RBI season before.

 

His "inability" to get the holy grail of awesome that is RBI directly relates to the amount (or lack thereof) of chances to drive runs in than some of his other teammates during his stay in Boston, as Kilo illustrated.

 

And those are my final words on the topic until you respond!

[example1]

I just can't believe that JD Drew has inspired this much conversation. I think Theo's comments are the main reason it was fired up here (and other places). I agree with Theo that when you combine his consistently high OBP with his good baserunning and above average fielding, he's a very nice player for the Red Sox to have on their team. He plays some of the least exciting baseball one could imagine, and as a person he comes across as extremely boring. Baseball and production wise, that doesn't matter.

 

I could be convinced that he isn't worth what he is being paid, assuming that we're talking about the current Red Sox team. I don't know if the current team would sign a player of his background for 14m in this climate (over, say, Bobby Abreu for considerably less).

 

If we talk about the team when he was acquired after the 2006 season I think there were a lot of offensive question marks that justify just getting the job done.

 

2006 Sox (most games started):

 

C- Varitek

1B- Youkilis

2B- Loretta

SS- Gonzalez

3B- Lowell

LF- Ramirez

CF- Crisp

Rf- Nixon

DH- Ortiz

 

Clearly the FO was very concerned about getting some steady offensive production. They were always on the look out to move on from Manny in LF, Trot was washed up, C, SS, 2B, CF, RF, were all producing below what any team competing for a title would want in terms of either OBP or OPS.

 

*Pedroia was coming up at 2b and they thought he was good, but he was a huge question mark nonetheless.

*There was no obvious replacement for Varitek (and he was signed)

*Crisp was a recent acquisition, young and cheap. No obvious replacements who were better in CF.

 

That leaves SS and RF and Lugo and Drew were by all accounts the best available. Drew especially.

 

In his 8 full MLB seasons, Drew had the following OBPs:

 

2000: .401

2001: .414

2002: .349

2003: .374

2004: .436

2005: .412

2006: .393

 

That's a picture of well-above average consistency. That's Youkilis-esque. Actually, his .392 career OBP is better than Youkilis's .391.

 

Talk about consistency. This is kind of weird.

 

Drew's career OBP: .392

Drew's OBP all seasons before Boston: .393

Drew's OBP in his 3 seasons in Boston: .390

Drew's OBP this season: .393

 

That's what Theo paid for. When you're looking at the team they had in 2006, their plans to move on from Manny ASAP, the young guys they wanted to try to bring up and the inherent risk in that transition process, it makes sense. Theo may have paid a bit more to ensure that Drew would be content playing in such a heated and profile conscious market.

 

It would sting a lot more if Drew hadn't also put up two straight .900+ seasons in 995 PA's.

[Spudboy]

I just can't believe that JD Drew has inspired this much conversation. I think Theo's comments are the main reason it was fired up here (and other places). I agree with Theo that when you combine his consistently high OBP with his good baserunning and above average fielding, he's a very nice player for the Red Sox to have on their team. He plays some of the least exciting baseball one could imagine, and as a person he comes across as extremely boring. Baseball and production wise, that doesn't matter.

 

I could be convinced that he isn't worth what he is being paid, assuming that we're talking about the current Red Sox team. I don't know if the current team would sign a player of his background for 14m in this climate (over, say, Bobby Abreu for considerably less).

 

If we talk about the team when he was acquired after the 2006 season I think there were a lot of offensive question marks that justify just getting the job done.

 

2006 Sox (most games started):

 

C- Varitek

1B- Youkilis

2B- Loretta

SS- Gonzalez

3B- Lowell

LF- Ramirez

CF- Crisp

Rf- Nixon

DH- Ortiz

 

Clearly the FO was very concerned about getting some steady offensive production. They were always on the look out to move on from Manny in LF, Trot was washed up, C, SS, 2B, CF, RF, were all producing below what any team competing for a title would want in terms of either OBP or OPS.

 

*Pedroia was coming up at 2b and they thought he was good, but he was a huge question mark nonetheless.

*There was no obvious replacement for Varitek (and he was signed)

*Crisp was a recent acquisition, young and cheap. No obvious replacements who were better in CF.

 

That leaves SS and RF and Lugo and Drew were by all accounts the best available. Drew especially.

 

In his 8 full MLB seasons, Drew had the following OBPs:

 

2000: .401

2001: .414

2002: .349

2003: .374

2004: .436

2005: .412

2006: .393

 

That's a picture of well-above average consistency. That's Youkilis-esque. Actually, his .392 career OBP is better than Youkilis's .391.

 

Talk about consistency. This is kind of weird.

 

Drew's career OBP: .392

Drew's OBP all seasons before Boston: .393

Drew's OBP in his 3 seasons in Boston: .390

Drew's OBP this season: .393

 

That's what Theo paid for. When you're looking at the team they had in 2006, their plans to move on from Manny ASAP, the young guys they wanted to try to bring up and the inherent risk in that transition process, it makes sense. Theo may have paid a bit more to ensure that Drew would be content playing in such a heated and profile conscious market.

 

It would sting a lot more if Drew hadn't also put up two straight .900+ seasons in 995 PA's.

 

 

 

Excellent work Example1.

 

 

I just want to add that Drew's performance in RF is the best that I have seen since Dwight Evans. No one really talks about this.

 

He makes good reads, get good breaks, plays balls off the fence/wall, and makes good throws.

 

That is not so easy in Fenway. And he does it everywhere.

 

I think that the FO paid about $2mil/year more than necessary to sign him, but I'm glad he is the Sox right fielder never the less.

[Jacobysgirl729]

I agree with a700. Drew is a very good professional player who's well paid for what he provides' date=' which is extremely valuable for this team. His worst fault is that he's a bit stoic and doesn't tell the world what he really thinks. And if that's a guy's worst fault then he's doing pretty good.[/quote']

 

Yeah i agree!

[ORS]

I cherry picked a situation: bases loaded. Even though that situation is a small subset of his total PA' date=' a sample of 128 PA in that situation provides statistical significance with a margin of error of +-8.66% of the proportion (.206 BA, .297 OBP) at a 95% confidence. That means you can be 95% confident that his true BA with the bases loaded is between .188 and .224 and his OBP with the bases loaded is between .272 and .322. Obviously, those averages are significantly lower than his actual averages when the bases aren't loaded. The flaw in my argument isn't the sample size, as you erroneously assert, it is the implicit neutralization of an age/experience variable which changes over a career. Nevertheless, it was a stat I was interested in because it is the one situation where OBP directly correlates to RBI.[/quote']

You are using the 8.66% wrong. It's not 8% of the probability. It's the expected error range within the probability. BA and OBP are already probabilities.

 

Thus, the expected error range is + or - 0.0866...or, 86 points on the BA / OBP scale.

 

What it tells you is that given 128 pieces of data from a population of 5321, you can be 95% confident that the entire population falls with a range of .211 to .383 for OBP. That's it.

 

It doesn't tell you the confidence level of his "true" performance in a given situation. It tells you the confidence level for how well a part of a population represents the whole population. Given that the confidence level is only 95%, it should come as no surprise that the actual numbers for the whole population are outside the window. It's only 1 in 20, not 1 in 1,000,000. If you were to take his 5321 PA and randomly divide them into groups of 128, you'd have 41 groups, and you'd expect 2 to be out of the data range. We are talking about real expected errors given the sample size, not fractions of an error.

[Mr Crunchy]

Lets put things in perspective for a moment and please, nobody wet themselves over this.

Its a public forum for Sox fans to exchange ideas, points of view and to have civil discourse and obviously we dont want to slight JD Drew after he played 137 games.

 

I think hes better than average defensively in right field but there are other guys out there that did better offensively..Ichiro easily, thats obvious.

Bobby Abreu had 103 rbi this year for 1/3 of JD Drews salary, has a cannon for an arm too.

Nick Swisher hit 29/82 with an obp of .371 for NY and had some huuuuge hits this year.

Id take Markakis over him all day every day,hes simply better than Drew.

Id take Brad Hawpe over him

Jason Werth without a doubt is better than him,

Ryan Ludwick is performing better than Drew

Hunter Pence is right in the mix as well and hes 8 years younger.

I dont want to continue this list because its time for coffee.

So....

14,000,000.00 is enuff respect for jd drew and compared to these guys hes a f***ing thief and a rapist.

 

He had been labeled the leagues biggest underachiever by S/I's 380 interviews with MLB players, not me and the other sox fans but MLBs own players.

that tag has been removed and he has dropped down to the 4th biggest underachiever.

Tommy Paradis boy, Willie Mo Pena now holds that crown.

1. Wily Mo Pena

2. Daniel Cabrera, Triple-A

3. Elijah Dukes, Nationals

4. J.D. Drew, Red Sox

5. Mike MacDougal, P, Nationals

 

Is there a more painful indictment than being disrespected by the men who play the game with you?

Forget about the #s for a moment.

many here dismiss b/avg and rbi as meaningless stats,I suspect those people are vegetarians.

Lets get to the real crux of the publics distaste in this man,the real reason he isnt loved here.

The truth is his past tenderness will keep him on a lot of s*** lists for eternity,theres no gettin around it.

He can win a lot of hearts here if he plays well this October and maybe does something dramatic late in a game. 50 years from now every Sox fan will still know who Bernie Carbo is.

Will they remember David Jonathan Drew and will those memories be sweet or sour?

He doesnt compare that well statistically with the other right fielders, is this really debatable?

I think not but I have come around with this guy as he played very well in Septemebr and hes going into October very warm.

Its time for him to rise above all the negative vibes and come out swinging this week.

A little more aggression at the plate would make me happy, more power would really pump my gnads.

With the Angels loaded heavy from the Port side he's going to have his hands full but his faith in Jesus should propel him above the difficult matchups and into Sox legend status this very fall.

[Dojji]

I'm not a rabid Drew fanboy, but that's just proof that SI has NO idea what it's talking about.

 

Anything that puts one of the best OBP's in the league in the same category with Wily Mo Pena and Daniel Cabrera is either crazy or ignorant, and either way, whoever wrote this shouldn't be writing about baseball.

[RedSox2737]

Drew didn't have a very good first year w/the Sox, but he's turned that around. He's pretty consistant. I'd keep him...

[a700hitter]

many here dismiss b/avg and rbi as meaningless stats' date='I suspect those people are vegetarians.[/quote'] This is too funny. There is still a place for traditional stats. They are not meaningless in the proper context.

 

Lets get to the real crux of the publics distaste in this man,the real reason he isnt loved here.

The truth is his past tenderness will keep him on a lot of s*** lists for eternity,theres no gettin around it.

He can win a lot of hearts here if he plays well this October and maybe does something dramatic late in a game. 50 years from now every Sox fan will still know who Bernie Carbo is.

I think the guy is a very very good player, but not great. It does bother me when he asks out of games for aches and tightness. In this ALDS, we essentially have no back up OF. Anderson and Gaithright are not options. The Angels have 2 lefty starters. If Drew asks out of one of those games, I will forever refer to him as Nancy. I will not care if he wins the strongest man competition someday. He'll still be Nancy to me. The brittle Baldelli has to go. I don't want him back next season. We need a 4th OF who doesn't need to take a half a bottle of Advil to PH and who has to be placed in a hyperbaric chamber if he plays two games in a row. The absence of his bat in this series could be significant.

[TheKilo]

Crunch, that's an awesome list of right fielders, now tell me those who were available in the 2006 offseason.

 

As for Abreu, Drew has close to a .100 lead in OPS and is a much, much better outfielder.

 

"doesn't stack up statistically"? are you kidding me?

[Dipre]

Crunchy, please stop making stuff up.

 

mmmkay?

[Dojji]

If history had gone a little differently and Theo had liked his chances a bit better in 2006, Bobby Abreu would have been our right fielder these last few years.

 

I wouldn't be crushed by that. Drew's better, but Abreu is respectable.

 

I'm going to say this honestly: I can't think of a right fielder at the moment that I would actually prefer to Drew. I can think of some that would be good serviceable RF's who would be assets to the team in a number of different ways, but that's another question entirely isn't it?

[Dipre]

If history had gone a little differently and Theo had liked his chances a bit better in 2006, Bobby Abreu would have been our right fielder these last few years.

 

I wouldn't be crushed by that. Drew's better, but Abreu is respectable.

 

I'm going to say this honestly: I can't think of a right fielder at the moment that I would actually prefer to Drew. I can think of some that would be good serviceable RF's who would be assets to the team in a number of different ways, but that's another question entirely isn't it?

 

Really?

 

Can you stomach Abreu's defense in Fenway's RF?

 

I certainly can't.......

[Dojji]

Really?

 

Can you stomach Abreu's defense in Fenway's RF?

 

I certainly can't.......

 

Like I said, I'm glad we have Drew instead. I'm just pointing out that Abreu isn't an awful ballplayer and he does many of the same things we praise Drew for.

 

That said, there's no denying he's come down with a bad case of Damonitis these recent years. His range is going downhill fast.

[Dipre]

Like I said, I'm glad we have Drew instead. I'm just pointing out that Abreu isn't an awful ballplayer and he does many of the same things we praise Drew for.

 

That said, there's no denying he's come down with a bad case of Damonitis these recent years. His range is going downhill fast.

 

I'm just pointing out that of the many things he does like Drew, defend RF ain't one of them.

 

And Damonitis doesn't begin to describe Abreu's RF suck.

[a700hitter]

I'm just pointing out that of the many things he does like Drew, defend RF ain't one of them.

 

And Damonitis doesn't begin to describe Abreu's RF suck.

How will you feel about him if he asks out of one of the ALDS games due to some random soreness?

[Dipre]

How will you feel about him if he asks out of one of the ALDS games due to some random soreness?

 

How would you feel about him if he hit one of the most important home runs in Red Sox playoff history???

 

Oh wait........

[a700hitter]

How would you feel about him if he hit one of the most important home runs in Red Sox playoff history???

 

Oh wait........

I like the guy, but I have to say that I will be really ticked if he asks out of one of the ALDS games and we have to watch Anderson or Gaithright be overmatched. What about you?

[Dipre]

I like the guy' date=' but I have to say that I will be really ticked if he asks out of one of the ALDS games and we have to watch Anderson or Gaithright be overmatched. What about you?[/quote']

 

Has it happened?

 

He's played 2 postseasons before this one and never "bowed out" for any reason.

 

If we see him out of a game it'll be because of Tito's silly platoon crap.

 

Stop the speculation.

[Dojji]

I like the guy' date=' but I have to say that I will be really ticked if he asks out of one of the ALDS games and we have to watch Anderson or Gaithright be overmatched. What about you?[/quote']

 

How about we cross that bridge when we come to it?