The Replacements

This spring, Fort Myers actually saw some roster battles take place, something that doesn’t happen often on a team so loaded with money and talent. Due to the injuries to Mark Kotsay and Julio Lugo, the Red Sox actually entered spring with legitimate aspirations of finding out who should make the final opening day roster. Such a thing is pretty commonplace on most teams, including the Pittsburgh Pirates, the perennial losers who constitute my second team if you will, who see such battles regularly given that they don’t have, aside from the core group, players talented or proven enough to warrant an automatic roster spot.

I sometimes think that writing about the Red Sox is actually more difficult than writing about teams like the Pirates since the Red Sox are very good and that’s really the end of it; its somewhat problematic coming up with things to write about on this blog as a result, something that has occurred to me since the season started. I mean, aside from the struggles of David Ortiz and the recent injuries to Rocco Baldelli, Jed Lowrie and to an extent Diasuke Matsuzaka, what is there really to write about other than simple game recaps, which I feel can be found pretty much everywhere since besides the Yankees the Sox are the most covered team in the league.

With that in mind its time to start looking deeper and finding stuff worth looking into on a level beyond that of a game recap you could find on the Boston Globe web site or pretty much any other sports web site on the planet that covers baseball. Going back to the Pirates comparison and the spring roster battles, the recent spate of injuries shows just how important the results in the Fort Myers dogfight turned out to be since Nick Green is now the starting shortstop and both Chris Carter and the newly promoted Jeff Bailey both project to see significant playing time over the next few weeks before some of the most established names, such as Julio Lugo, make their return.

Green, who actually hit a walk off home run against the Sox for the Atlanta Braves in 2004, has looked pretty sound on the field and hasn’t embarrassed himself at the plate. A career .240 hitter, Green is hitting as such right now but the most important impact he can have is on defence, especially at such a key position. Primary a second baseman, Green has played 1446 innings at second and 172 innings at shortstop, where he’ll be spending at least the new few weeks before reverting back into the super utility role he was originally brought in for.

At short, Green has a .957 fielding percentage and a 43.8 UZR/150 (Ultimate Zone Rating) which next to Julio Lugo (4.3) and Jed Lowrie (19.8) looks pretty great but the small sample size of Green’s time at shortstop doesn’t make for the most convincing argument; his 0.4 rating in 1446 innings at second base is probably more of an indication of what to expect, meaning that Green is 0.4 runs above the average second baseman so hair splitting aside he is an average second baseman. With that in mind it becomes relatively apparent that Green is a league average defender even if I haven’t gone into much detail, UZR is significantly more helpful than the traditional fielding statistics and in this instance may show that Green represents a helpful member of the team simply by being average; he is not, over the course of a whole season, going to be an All Star but at the same time he isn’t likely to hurt you much and when you want a fill in whilst your established starters are on the disabled list, you can’t really ask for much else.

So what I’ve hopefully got across there in my usual conclusive fashion is that Nick Green can help this team by simply being average across the board, a handy trait to have when you’re a depth player. As such he is worth keeping around, at least until Jed Lowrie comes back midseason. Its just as well he impressed during camp since I imagine the Boston press would be shitting themselves if he hadn’t done so well, even if most of that good performance was with the bat which I consider an irrelevance in this situation; Green is here to man shortstop in the absence of the injured players, anything he does with his bat is simply a bonus.

It also helps if he knows what he’s there to do, which seems to be the case.

On the other end of the scale is Chris Carter, considered an improving but still pretty awful defender, who is on the roster for his bat. In Pawtucket last year, Carter hit .300/.356/.515 with 24 home runs, performance that would indicate a plausible Major League player. This past spring he put up a .355/.380/.658 in 76 AB with a team high 6 home runs, enabling him to beat out Jeff Bailey for the final roster spot going into the season. Carter is different from Green as he has the makings of a regular in the big leagues; his bat is seen to have the potential to make him a legitimate starting option assuming the team in question can find a position for him.

Ok so in 6 PA so far this season he’s not yet managed to get on base but that’s hardly a sample size worth bothering about. What matters is his minor league record and how it projects to move up to the next level. To my mind, the indicators of that are power, the ability to make contact on a consistent basis and the patience to stay off pitches outside of the strike zone (however you don’t need all three; the Royals’ Mike Jacobs is proof of that lurid transgression).

In terms of power, Carter obviously qualifies; as well as the 24 in 2008, he also 19 in both 2006 and 2007. Not elite power perhaps but when coupled with the ability to post high averages, and more importantly high on-base percentages, you get, well you get Kevin Youkilis I suppose, before last years breakout so still a very good hitter. Overall at Triple A, Carter hit .308/.383/.518 over the course of 2673 PA, which to me says he can be a presence in the Major Leagues. I would have liked to expand on the patience and strike zone coverage side of things but I don’t have access to his minor league numbers for these qualities but suffice to say he can take some walks and doesn’t strike out at a horrific level, whilst posting high averages in the process.

That makes Carter valuable to someone, even if long term it isn’t the Red Sox; I would hazard a guess that given a starting role he could post a line of .275/.340/.450 one day which even though he is defensively challenged would still be useful production so long as he continues to come cheap. Basically I’m implying that Carter is another useful player to keep on the roster, although finding playing time for him has thus far been a problem given that the three positions you could conceivably stick him are taken and unlikely to be relinquished (DH, 1B and LF).

So what I’ve done there is spent an hour or so looking into two players who earned their way onto the roster and who have some value, especially in the face of the recent injury problems. It might be said that we already knew that but hey, it passes the time doesn’t it? In all seriousness though we’ve found two or three useful players this winter for virtually no cost that can provide about the same as backup players that have previously cost the team millions of dollars (Alex Cora etc.) which is unnecessary if the powers that be are prepared to take a chance on the inexperienced types that have shown the required talent to fill a role, something I would think more teams would be open to doing considering there’s a recession on. Of course when Julio Lugo, Jed Lowrie and Mark Kotsay are back the point will probably be moot anyway but until then, I’m going to watch our worthy spring training victors in action.