Dojji

That's definitely interesting. Thanks for the advice.

It's not about a WAR that is not negative. It's about a WAR that has a puncher's chance to beat out Cody Ross's 1.2-1.6 range. If you can get a win over replacement from his glove, then all he has to do is play up to about his AAA level and you should be coming close. That said I do recognize that it would be an incredibly ballsy move and is unlikely to happen this year. This front office doesn't ACTUALLY trust the numbers and sabermetrics as much as people think and they're almost paralytically subservient to fan opinion. No one on this team has enough internal testosterone to bench Cody Ross (a potential 20 HR guy) in favor of a guy who gains his wins above replacement almost entirely on defense. My only point is that it may have worked if they did.

You have this way of wording your point in absolutes, using the most powerful language possible. It's a sign of very good writing skills, after all, it takes a good grasp of language to even do it, but it has a kind of intimidating side effect. I used to do the same thing, and I'd turn a lot of people off. Once I realized what the problem was I went to a lot of effort to soften my tone. If you didn't leave people feeling like they'd been stepped on, you'd be "piled on" a lot less. Just saying.

And here we see Emmz, playing the role of a large barrel of kerosene at a fireworks factory. I love ya Emmz, but it really doesn't take a lot to set you off sometimes.

If they're anything like the auditorium seating at my college, I want nothing to do with Fenway seating. I could occupy 2 of those, and if I lost all the weight I need to lose it'd still only shrink me to 1 1/2.

Maybe they know something we don't.

By most standards, Crisp had one down year at the plate in 06 and was otherwise reasonably competent (if wildly streaky). if Crisp wasn't your cup of tea you probably wouldn't like Lin because he's the same thing with less power. However, with metrics getting better about projecting what kind of value a player actually had you can start making cogent arguments about what to expect from defense-only outfielders and other such frivolities. I do think Lin would be a better outfielder then either of McDonald or Sweeney, and would easily provide more overall value than either. I also think that Vince Coleman is an interesting comparison to Lin. Shallow sabermetrics HATES Coleman. He never got on base that much and didn't have power at all. He also wasn't great as a defensive centerfielder -- in fact he compares unfavorably to Ellsbury as a defender. But there was value to Coleman even in a sabermetric framework. He made his daily bread as a speed burner and table-setter, living on his super-elite speed. Coleman was good for about a win over replacement in any given year on the basis of his offense, with a couple outliers in either direction. Yes, even with the non-ideal OBP situation. OBP is a very important number, but it isn't everything. Lin isn't as fast as Coleman. Who is? But he is as fast as Ellsbury. Lin has elite speed. He has the speed to steal 50+ bases if he gets on base enough. He's a player who could make a living playing what Valentine plays "real baseball" and possibly turn that into wins over replacement on offense. Combined with the defense Coleman never had, you could theorize a useful player out of Lin -- if you were willing to stay out of the faux-sabermetric OBP-driven pigeonhole and look at the whole gamet of possible sources of value.

I am consistent. I was separating oWAR and dWAR. Crisp's overall WAR in 07 was 4.1, 2.6 from defense. Getting half of that from an elite defensive prospect (say. 1.5) isn't that unreasonable. That's purely dWAR. It's been 4 years since Ross has beat that level of production if you combined both oWAR and dWAR. And considering that you really have to absolutely suck eggs as an offensive player to pick up negative oWAR, it could stand up and is no greater of a risk than the pretty risky over-30 platoon power hitter (seriously, does NO ONE remember Tony Clark???) of the comfortable mediocricy of a guy like Sweeney. Willy Taveras got a positive oWAR for a line that went .251 /.309/.296. I'm not sure how, but he did. We are NOT talking a high standard here.

How about a ballpark I can sit down in?

Move the Pawsox to the Fens? I'd love it. Could it pay for the AAA franchise? Fenway is not cheap to maintain. The interest there for me is because that would allow the franchise to do things like decide to host playoff games or other special ballgames at the Fens (Patriot's Day?)

I've already demonstrated repeatedly using wins above replacement that he has a very good chance to be an upgrade over either. People overvalue the offensive component, probably because it's just plain easier to keep track of properly.

I've never been to Fenway. There's a couple points where I might have managed to scrape the money together and go but was daunted by the reputation of the tiny seating. It's no great mystery that people are bigger than they were 100 years ago, and I'm big for a modern person, clocking in at well over 350 pounds. There's no way I could actually visit Fenway and take in a game without leaving with a significantly gimpy gait, either from the constipated seating, or from having to stand for 3-4 hours with little relief. The place just isn't built for me. I'll tell you all this right now. A 50,000 seat stadium, if they could find a place to put one with T access, bigger seats and all the amenities, would have 50,000 fans paying just as much as 30,000 fans pay right now, to take in those baseball games. Demand is sky high. It's not a question in my mind. They would make more money if they abandoned Fenway, at least they would once the fan revolt died down. They are tying their wrists and ankles together revenue-wise sticking with history over good business practice.

I didn't do the ZIPS projection.

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

Offense is everything then? I'll be sure to tell Vince Coleman that.

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.

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.

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.

Yeah, duly noticed and fixed, thanks. And ross's offensive value isn't much. If Lin can hit at replacement level, or somewhere close, it really isn't that unreasonable to think he can pull his weight on D. Oh, and yes there is diminishing returns on run differential -- it comes when you ignore either part of the equation in favor of the other.. That's why having a differential at all is important. I can't believe you'd try to tell me otherwise.

Fenway's right field is a bit unique. I'd take the more athletic player patrolling that outfield over a bat that's just barely above average. A better argument is what happens when and if Kalish gets healthy.