Imperial59

Cervelli has less than 100 career AB's in the majors over which he has a .648 OPS. I don't know how you could claim he'll be an improvement based on a poor offensive performance and such a small sample size.

Having Cervelli and Gardner at the bottom of your lineup for 50+ games probably means you'll see a decent amount of offensive regression. I don't see the Yankees as being nearly as good offensively next year. Nick Swisher's career average is -14 points from his OPS+ last year. You're losting another 9 points of OPS+ going from Matsui to Johnson at DH (IF Johnson stays healthy). And you're losing another 13-26 OPS+ going from Damon to Granderson.

When you take the positional difference into account, Bay is only better by a little bit.

lol Seriously though, Mike Cameron is one of the best overall CF in baseball. 29 CF had 400 AB or more last year and Mike Cameron ranked 8th in OPS among them. And among CF over the last 3 years, only BJ Upton has had a better UZR/150. He had the 4th best WAR of all CF last year and the 6th best WAR of all CF the year before.

That was my reaction as well. I thought Lowell was a great defensive 3B before last year, but Beltre takes it to a whole new level.

I appreciate it. I feel as if a lot of us find flaws in Jacko's arguments, but we're just so overwhelmed with his hatred for the Sox and his multiple lapses in logic per post, that we don't know where to start. I took a step back, identified what I thought was his largest logical inconsistency of the post and kept it short but sweet. I'm going to try to ignore all his smoke and mirrors from now on and just get right to the heart of his faulty arguments so he can't distract us from the facts with his wide ranging claims.

Hall's a decent pick up. His offensive stats aren't that sexy but he has a career .315 BABIP and the last couple of years, his BABIP has been about .030 points below that. His lefty/righty splits give him some value off the bench as a PH and he can play second, short, third and center pretty well.

No different than him running to his left to cut off balls in right-center. It's a lot closer to the infield in left field than it is in right-center in Fenway though.

"The thought being, Cameron has played center most of his career and he's got those long strides. Ells, kind of like [Rays' left fielder] Carl Crawford, has the short burst of speed and I think doing it like this, we're going to have a spectacular outfield." -Francona http://soxblog.projo.com/2010/01/ellsbury-will-p.html It's official. It makes the most sense considering Cameron's had a UZR/150 of 10 or better in each of the last two years while Ellsbury struggled in center last year. He figures to be an above average LF though where's he been spectacular over a small sample size.

That's what I saw a lot of people saying when we replaced Bay with Cameron. But let's take a look at some of the big picture. Catcher - This is by far the biggest offensive upgrade that the Red Sox will have going for them next year. Last year, Varitek started 109 games in which he hit an ugly .209/.313/.390 (80 OPS+). Next year, we can probably count on Victor Martinez for 100+ starts behind the dish. Victor Martinez had a rather typical year offensively last year and he hit .303/.381/.480 (127 OPS+) in 155 games between Cleveland and Boston. That's a startling gain of 47 points of OPS+ over about 100 games. Shortstop - Before we acquired Gonzalez (44 games) we had a plethora of offensively challenged shorstops. Lugo hit a surprising .284/.352/.367 (86 OPS+), Green hit a sad .236/.303/.366 (71 OPS+) and Lowrie hit an inept .147/.211/.265 (21 OPS+). Overall, Red Sox shortstops hit a measly .245/.307/.375 which is probably good for about a OPS+ of 75. That kind of production will be replaced with Scutaro who owns a career 92 OPS+. He's likely to provide something like a 15 point boost in OPS+ over 145 games or so. Third Base - We replaced Lowell, a .290/.337/.474 (106 OPS+) hitter over 119 games with Adrian Beltre, a career .270/.325/.453 (105 OPS+) hitter at third base. We don't really gain or lose much offense between the two. However, Lowell only played 107 games at third base. We had Kotsay (.257/.291/.324, 58 OPS+), Nick Green .236/.303/.366 (71 OPS+), Jeff Bailey .208/.330/.416 (90 OPS+) and Casey Kotchman .218/.284/.287 (48 OPS+) playing in the field for most of those games. So we can probably expect a minor boost to our offense next year. Left Field - We replaced Bay, a .267/.384/.537 (134 OPS+) hitter with Cameron, a .250/.342/.452 (111 OPS+) hitter. That should account for something like a loss of 20 points in OPS+ over about 150 games. So what do you think? Will our offense regress next year?

I never said anything about Posada starting less than 100 games next year. Why don't you address the point of Cervelli playing 50+ games next year rather than attacking me for something I didn't say?

Perhaps it was genetically modified.

All great points. I applaud you for being to humble in a public forum like this. I think Jacksonian has been a good role model for us all and I can't help but think that he's had some kind of impact on our current discourse. His ethereal influence is so tremendous that he permeates the Talk Sox message board even when his physical presence is lacking. It is simply overwhelming.

Can you name many hitters who had their prime years in their mid to early twenties and then dropped off significantly in their late 20's without injuries being a factor?

I think it's much easier for a player to juice up for a contract year and then get lazy again than it is for a player to juice up and then maintain that muscle for multiple years.

Who's to say he wasn't on steroids too? If they can help you hit a ball 400 feet, they can certainly help you throw a ball 60.5 feet.

I agree. He was 25 years old in 2004, so the prime age argument is a pretty big stretch. Not to mention, he never came close to those numbers in his age 27-30 seasons.

I'm glad we could be so civil about this. I just can't imagine that Jacksonian would claim it to be disingenuous to bring up Posada's 2008 season in a discussion of his durability because he had a shoulder injury when he himself claims that a Red Sox player is not durable because he had a shoulder injury in 2009. From the way he carries himself on this site, I am sure that Jacksonian is a man of integrity. I doubt he has any devious motives taking part in a Red Sox discussion board as a Yankees fan. He probably just really enjoys the comradery. At least that's just the kind of model citizen that I take him to be.

Probably has something to do with steroids.

No, I'm sure he wouldn't say that. He just said that trying to use a person's season in which they had a shoulder injury to project their health over future years is disingenuous. And I'm sure Jacko would hold both Red Sox and Yankees players to the same standards.