What if we went all-out on D? (warning: Dojji is thinking, read at own risk)

[Dojji]

I'm 110% all out with Lin in CF. If (big if) we were going to move him to the bigs' date=' I would put him in RF, where his defense is probably even more needed considering the angles, and his arm can be utilized. Having him in CF and moving Ells, who has gotten used to the nooks and crannys out in CF, to RF seems silly. [/quote']

 

The only reason I wouldn't support Lin to right, is because it sets him up for failure in the eyes of the fans. A CF with a light bat is semi-tolerable. A corner outfielder is right out. I'm not going to be in favor of sending some young kid out there to be burned alive because of fan prejudice.

 

Besides, you put your rangiest outfielder in center, and once you promote Lin, he's automatically your rangiest outfielder, whatever Ellsbury's experience in center. It's not like he's an idiot savant who can't learn another outfield position.

[Palodios]

The second, less obvious one is centerfield. I got nothing against Ellsbury, but the most lavish your praise can get for his defense in center is "Yeah, he good enough." He's not a liability as a defensive centerfielder, In fact he's an outright competent defensive centerfielder. What he isn't, is a great defensive centerfielder.

 

Enter Che-Hsuan Lin. Lin won't hit for much. Offensively he's pretty much a slap hitter. But as a defensive centerfielder I've never seen a guy who can cover ground like this guy can, and I'm including Coco Crisp in that. That and he has a plus arm which we haven't had in our outfields in forever. His speed is a match for Jacoby's and he takes far better reads on the ball off the bat. He's a defensive superstar, and if he could hit .250 and get on base OK, with his speed, he's someone's starting centerfielder. Why not ours? i'm sure the indispensable asset that is Ryan Sweeney can take a backseat to a guy who actually does something at an elite level. And I think the experiment would easily be worth sitting Cody Ross for as well.

 

I think you are overlooking one key detail. Crawford won't start the season in LF. If you want to argue for Lin, the most reasonable case is to debate that he is better than the current fifth outfielder on this team-- Darnell McDonald. Eventually Kalish will join the group as well, and he has five tools to Lin's one.

 

Do you really think Lin has any chance to start if Ellsbury, Crawford, Ross, Kalish, and Sweeney are on this team? Sweeney has an OBP of .350, and is the same handedness as Lin, and the other guys are far more complete players. It would be one thing if any of them sucked defensively, but all of them are competent.

[Dojji]

If there's plenty of room' date=' then show me something other than your opinion. What do you project for Lin offensively? For Ross? How much value do you think they gain in RF with Ellsbury's defense?[/quote']

 

Ross is pretty stable, zero to 1 WAR defensively, 1-2 WAR offensively, for his career he's somewhere between zero and 3, and over the last few years he's been between 1 and 2.

 

I would expect Lin to be able to provide between 1 and 2 WAR fairly handily based on his defense. Coco Crisp set a precedent where a really good defensive centerfielder can provide 2.5 in a great year, I'd expect somewhere between half and 2/3 of that to be an achievable goal for the kind of defensive talent that Lin is. He also has impact speed and a better offensive fundamentals than his minor league numbers suggest. He's also 22 -- improvement is hardly beyond the realm of possibility as he gains experience and confidence.

 

If he can provide anything above replacement on offense, he is a match for our best option when viewed as a whole.

 

Ellsbury to right defensively is trickier. He hasn't played there a lot, which can play havoc with the results. I don't think 1-1.5 WAR defensively for a player with Ellsbury's range is that much to ask, but it could diverge by a very wide margin considering that he's a CF and highly athletic, which helps him, but he's unfamiliar with right field, which hurts him. Considering that Ellsbury is less than 1 WAR in any given year defensively that might represent more wins Ellsbury can give us too. But it could backfire like his move to left did. So therein lies the real gamble.

[Dojji]

I think you are overlooking one key detail. Crawford won't start the season in LF. If you want to argue for Lin, the most reasonable case is to debate that he is better than the current fifth outfielder on this team-- Darnell McDonald. Eventually Kalish will join the group as well, and he has five tools to Lin's one.

 

Do you really think Lin has any chance to start if Ellsbury, Crawford, Ross, Kalish, and Sweeney are on this team? Sweeney has an OBP of .350, and is the same handedness as Lin, and the other guys are far more complete players. It would be one thing if any of them sucked defensively, but all of them are competent.

 

He has 5 tools to Lin's 3. Range and arm are 2 of the 5 and Lin has elite speed.

 

And he has 3 fully polished, complete-and-ready-to-go-now-at-an-elite-MLB-level tools, to Kalish's 5 present-but-needs-a-bit-of-work-and-has-trouble-staying-healthy tools.

 

And Sweeney is nowhere near a match for his own reputation on defense. Lin can field circles around him and provide, at the very least, high level speed off the bench.

[Spudboy]

Lin is only a stretch because CF is already competently handled. He would *still* upgrade center defensively' date=' and Jacoby would be a [b']far[/b] better right fielder than any of our current options.

 

That whole question in my mind centers around whether you'd rather see Cody Ross butcher RF defensively for 27 outs or Lin struggle offensively for about 4 a night. On the theory that Lin has the speed to beat out enough dinky-dunk hits to bat at about the same level he did in AAA (where he got more than a little unlucky) I'd trust him to be a slap and run guy who could make some contact and test the defense -- the kind of guy V likes to have in the bottom of his batting orders.

 

And if we did have Lin, Ellsbury, and Crawford, that is one heck of a fast outfield with 3 plus to plus-plus runners in it. I wasn't joking about how small the outfield gaps would be. Combine that with useful speed from Pedroia and Iglesias. and I can't remember the Sox ever having a faster baseball team.

 

 

I certainly can agree with this part of your idea Dojji.

[mvp 78]

Remember when everyone last year said a ball wouldn't drop between LF and CF?

 

Good times...

 

Lin's offense is so bad that it negates his defnsive upgrade. Ih he's a late inning substitution, fine. He should never start though.

[ORS]

Wait, what? Oh, you're bounding off into some theoretical thing I'm not interested in following you into just because I happened to choose to word my statement in an unusual way. You have a habit of doing that. Mildly annoying, especially when I'm struggling to articulate a point and you're tackling me strictly on my terminology.

 

The point I was making (or trying to make) is that while it is certainly possible to prevent runs but still lose a lot because your bats suck, which would certainly be diminishing returns, we're nowhere NEAR that point right now, even with Lin in center.

No, you suggested Ross's offensive impact would be diminished because the quality of the rest of the lineup. This sounds a lot like diminishing returns. When I questioned this, you took a hard line stating that diminishing returns absolutely applies here. Now you are back pedaling at high speed as I ask for elaboration on something you appeared to have strong conviction about. Which is it?

 

Anyway, my point remains. Diminishing returns does not apply. Lin and Ross's net contribution (offensive and defensive) will have their impact on team run differential regardless of the quality of the other players.

[Dojji]

I won't dispute that because I don't need to. If Lin plays anywhere near his abilities defensively, he has a puncher's chance to beat Ross in overall WAR as long as he can hit at least .240.

 

Stop treating Cody Ross like this offensive treat you don't want to miss. He's a 105 OPS+ hitter with a serious platoon split. If he plays regularly, it's probably going to be in a platoon role.

[User Name]

No he wouldn't. Lin's offensive WAR would be so far down in the negatives that any defensive value he brings to the table would be negated.

 

He can't hit for average because of low line drive rates, meaning that both his offensive skills (OBP and speed) would be compromised anyways. He's just not a realistic major league option. Both Sweeney (who can get on base and play D) and Ross (who's average on D but can hit) have more going for them than Lin.

 

As for Soxport's first post of the thread, why does the guy continue with this line of dribble? The Sox' whole philosophy for 2010 was Run Prevention, and it got a ton of publicity, and to a certain extent, media approval, just like Seattle's attempt from the last couple years.

[ORS]

I won't dispute that because I don't need to. If Lin plays anywhere near his abilities defensively, he has a puncher's chance to beat Ross in overall WAR as long as he can hit at least .240.

 

Stop treating Cody Ross like this offensive treat you don't want to miss. He's a 105 OPS+ hitter with a serious platoon split. If he plays regularly, it's probably going to be in a platoon role.

Ross isn't a treat. The problem is that Lin is turd. Replacement level looks like a pipe dream given his MiLB performance.

[User Name]

Ross isn't a treat. The problem is that Lin is turd. Replacement level looks like a pipe dream given his MiLB performance.

 

Career .702 OPS and ISOp under .100 during his Minor League career. His BA is also consistently low, meaning it would take a miracle for him to sustain his decent OBP in the Majors. And if he can't get on base, he can't steal either.

 

How is he an upgrade over Ross or Sweeney again?

[Dojji]

Career .702 OPS and ISOp under .100 during his Minor League career. His BA is also consistently low, meaning it would take a miracle for him to sustain his decent OBP in the Majors. And if he can't get on base, he can't steal either.

 

How is he an upgrade over Ross or Sweeney again?

 

Offense is everything then?

 

I'll be sure to tell Vince Coleman that.

[User Name]

Nice strawman.

 

The point is that his offense would be so bad that it would negate his defensive contribution, as i pointed out two posts above that.

[Emmz]

Negative offensive WAR.

[Dojji]

Nice strawman.

 

The point is that his offense would be so bad that it would negate his defensive contribution, as i pointed out two posts above that.

 

It's possible, But it's far from definite. Lin had a lot of bad luck with balls in play last year.

 

The only calculator that predicted Lin was ZIPS, and it predicted a .250 AVG and about a .320 OBP. Not great, but combined with the speed, should be about replacement level for a CF.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=sa392978&position=OF#standard

[mvp 78]

Offense is everything then?

 

I'll be sure to tell Vince Coleman that.

 

He stole 100 bases. Lin would be lucky to get on base 100 times.

 

Lin makes Coleman look like Ted Williams.

[mvp 78]

It's possible, But it's far from definite. Lin had a lot of bad luck with balls in play last year.

 

The only calculator that predicted Lin was ZIPS, and it predicted a .250 AVG and about a .320 OBP. Not great, but combined with the speed, should be about replacement level for a CF.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=sa392978&position=OF#standard

 

He hasn't even hit .250 in AAA yet...

[Dojji]

I didn't do the ZIPS projection.

[SoxSport]

Speaking about speed, I saw a dugout interview with Ozzie Guillen during the Marlins game today.

They asked him if the team was going to run this year--with Reyes, Hanley, Bonaficio, etc. He said

hell yes--I'm all about running. Some teams don't run because they're afraid to make an out. LOL.

[Emmz]

Did he really say "LOL"?

[Youk Of The Nation]

It's Ozzie Guillen. He might have said that, but no one can be sure what he's saying.

[Spudboy]

Did he really say "LOL"?

 

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

[User Name]

It's possible, But it's far from definite. Lin had a lot of bad luck with balls in play last year.

 

The only calculator that predicted Lin was ZIPS, and it predicted a .250 AVG and about a .320 OBP. Not great, but combined with the speed, should be about replacement level for a CF.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=sa392978&position=OF#standard

 

The ZIPS predictions in this case use AAA data and attempt to turn it to MLB numbers. Without a significant amount of MLB data, they are basically worthless.

[seabeachfred]

Bobby V should read this post, because it's right on the money. Certainly a solid argument for Iglesias. Lin would be a bit of a stretch--the Red Sox are stuck in an offensive mentality, which may be why they've gone astray the last few years. Run prevention has not been a priority. In the pitching, the catching and the defense on the field.

 

It's disconcerting you don't hear these kind of arguments in the media--which is mainly offense-minded as well. All this emphasis on Iglesias hitting, for example--way overdone. The kid burns up the lower leagues, then has a partial off year hitting in Pawtucket--and he can't hit? I don't know--he's hitting so far in ST. Anybody calculate how many runs he would save playing SS this year?

 

Didn't we hear about this "run prevention" nonsense before the 2010 season when Ellsbury was moved to left field to "save his legs", one of the dumbest things Epstein and Francona did among their host of dumb things. It turned out Ells got knocked out of action and missed the whole season, Cameron in center was a disaster and got hurt too. We cannot afford to carry three weak bats in a lineup in my opinion. One reason is that with our questionable pitching we need every bat we can get in the lineup. Iglesias might make it this year sometime but those two other guys, one is a reserve and the other a mnor leaguer. Leave well enough alone I say----put the best nine players out there and hope they do their jobs and that the pitching does better than it did last year.

[VA Sox Fan]

Did he really say "LOL"?

 

Is this discussion really still going on? "LOL"

[Spudboy]

Dojji, I admire your creative and thought provoking approach here. But as so many have pointed out, the flaw in your plan is that Lin does not make-up for his offensive deficiencies with his D. And your supposition is supported by some else' s "projection". I liked watching him play in Portland. I root for young players that are exciting to watch. But this guy does not appear to be MLB ready. No matter how glovey he seems to you.

 

It seems that every year you get a boner for one of these guys. You struck gold with Danial Nava and his two week cup of coffee. Mark Teahan? Oh joy!!! It's all good though. Just fun stuff.

[mvp 78]

You know what, let's go all in on D. Sit Pedroia and Youk for Punto and Middlebrooks!

[Emmz]

No, Peddy is gold glove. You use Punto to counteract Papi's poor defense in the DH spot.

[VA Sox Fan]

No' date=' Peddy is gold glove. You use Punto to counteract Papi's poor defense in the DH spot.[/quote']

 

Who is Peddy?

[Emmz]

Pedy sounds too much like Pedo. Extra "d" is for the better.