Scutaro Deal Gives Red Sox Odd SS Platoon
Decent shortstops are hard to come by, but the Red Sox have now traded away two potential starters this offseason. After trading Jed Lowrie to the Astros for Mark Melancon, Ben Cherington and Company completed a deal this weekend to send Marco Scutaro to the Rockies for Clayton Mortensen and $6 million in salary relief. In each case the Red Sox dealt from depth to solidify perceived weaknesses. Melancon improves the Papelbon-less bullpen, and the $6 million previously due to Scutaro can now be reallocated to the starting rotation.
Given the issues the Red Sox faced with their rotation last year, the newly available money can go a long way towards signing Roy Oswalt or acquiring Wandy Rodriguez. Last season, the Red Sox offense and bullpen were statistical bests in the American League, but the overall rotation struggled in both the performance and health departments. Jon Lester and Josh Beckett pitched well, but Clay Buchholz couldn’t stay on the mound, and the rest of the rotation was a mess. All told, the Red Sox rotation posted the highest walk rate in the league and finished in the bottom third in ERA, FIP and SIERA.
Without much money available to improve the starting staff, the Sox turned to both Aaron Cook and Vicente Padilla on minor league deals, hoping to recreate the Bartolo Colon/Freddy Garcia magic the Yankees experienced. Now, the Red Sox have the capability of acquiring someone who can offer a greater level of assurance in improving the rotation. But it doesn’t come without a cost, as the Sox are now forced to use a platoon of Nick Punto and Mike Aviles at the most important position in the infield.
Over the last three seasons, Scutaro has been the best of the Red Sox four shortstop candidates. He posted an above average wOBA and rated average-ish in the field. Lowrie fielded similarly but his .317 wOBA trailed Scutaro’s .338 mark during the span. Aviles had a .305 wOBA and the worst fielding rating of the bunch. That leaves Punto, who has a +21 fielding rating since 2009, across multiple positions, and above average baserunning to boot. He can’t hit, but has proven himself a very good fielder. At that position, the no-hit/all-glove player has some value. However, combining that type of player with a below average bat that can’t field feels more like punting the position.
As a playoff hopeful, the Red Sox shouldn’t really forego the shortstop position just to sign an older Oswalt coming off an injury-shortened season. In the PuntoViles Platoon’s defense, the utility they provide to the Red Sox isn’t in what they have done, but rather in what they can do moving forward. In a platoon, it’s possible to mask the weaknesses and heighten the strengths. In this case, however, those generalities don’t necessarily apply.
In approximately 30 percent of his career plate appearances, Aviles has a very good .350 wOBA against lefties, compared to a .307 mark against same-handed righties. However, those career splits include his rookie 2008 campaign, when he hit .325/.354/.480, put up a .360 wOBA and posted a +11 fielding mark. Suffice to say, he hasn’t come close to those stats since, and his 2009-11 numbers are more indicative of his expected output.
Focusing strictly on the last three seasons, Aviles has still performed better against lefties, but the wOBA gap substantially shrinks to .320 vs. .314. That difference isn’t statistically significant, and his numbers against opposite-handed hurlers certainly aren’t gaudy for an advantageous platoon split.
Essentially, the Red Sox have two shortstops that can’t hit, and only one that can field. Plus, the good glove belongs to a 34-year old part-time player that hasn’t played over 100 games since 2009 and hasn’t spent more than 500 innings at the position since 2008. The Red Sox offense will still produce well, especially if Carl Crawford regresses, but it isn’t yet clear that the trade-off of the shortstop position for Oswalt is beneficial to the team. This isn’t a traditional platoon in any sense of the term, and it’s hard to envision how this tandem will pay dividends over the course of a long season.
Eric is an accountant and statistical analyst from Philadelphia. He also covers the Phillies at Phillies Nation and can be found here on Twitter.
It’s not really a platoon as such – it’s a guy who they hope can be the regular plus a better-fielding backup/utility man, like Lugo and Cora. That side of the infield doesn’t look great defensively.
If Iglesias shows any improvement at all with the bat may as well roll with him.
Ya, surprised Julio wasn’t even mentioned. Obviously an option.
Yeah, I also heard Julio Iglesias fancied trying his arm at baseball
Whatever puts butts in the seats, man.
We agree, Iglesias is “obviously” an option.
We’re not sure why exactly, but we’d love to see the Sox throw away 500 PA’s.
The guy with a 550 OPS at triple A? Well as a Yankee fan, I strongly encourage the Sox to play him as their starting SS.
Julio might have a better bat than Jose at this point…
Jose Iglesias may merit a mention in this article, but he would need to show *a lot* of improvement with the bat to be anything more than a backup SS. I know he’s been kind of hyped by sox fans, but this guy had a .554 OPS in AAA last year . . . and he didn’t exactly tear-up AA the year before.
Indeed. His minor league equivalency last season was .202/.244/.231/.475. That’s completely unacceptable, even if he’s Ozzie Smith defensively.
I don’t think there’s anything he could do in spring training to win the job outright. Maybe, after a month or two, if he’s tearing up Pawtucket and PuntoViles is badly struggling.
I agree. Iglesias is by all accounts a great defender. But is he really going to be a better fielder than Alcides Escobar? Because if he’s only very good, and not great with the glove, his bat will make him approximately a replacement level player.
Is Iglesias’ equivalent of .202/.244/.231 that much worse than Punto’s line from his last full season of .210/.291/.271, factoring the upgrade at defense? Factor in Punto’s recent spate of injuries, and I can see a case made for Iglesias being a mid-season callup and a full-time starter by year’s end.
Punto’s OPS was almost 110 points higher. And his defense, in case you weren’t reading, is still very good.
You missed the opportunity to say ‘Puntoing the position’. For shame.
“Suffice to say, he hasn’t come close to those stats since, and his 2009-11 numbers are more indicative of his expected output.” This isn’t entirely fair. He had a pretty serious arm injury and has not been given a legitimate opportunity to prove himself as an everyday player since. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they make it his job to lose and he ends up putting together a pretty solid season.
strongly agree. the apparently universal belief that mike aviles is a terrible baseball player has been baffling me for years now. his trajectory, as i see it:
1) the awesome 2008 season. he was old for a rookie and kind of came out of nowhere, so a lot of people were like, whut.
2) truly horrific numbers in 2009 before going down with tommy john. most people apparently take this as confirmation of their preconception that 2008 was a fluke, but it seems clear to me that he was playing hurt.
3) 2010: coming back from the surgery, the royals jerk him around a lot, he still winds up with a .304/.335/.413 overall line after a big september that wins a lot of people their fantasy leagues after he finally gets some regular PAs.
4) last year: the royals continue to jerk him around; he hits for a lot of power but no average (very low BABIP, mind). finally gets traded to boston and hits like a bastard for the rest of the year.
his SS fielding may well be pretty iffy, and he doesn’t walk, but i think he’s a much better hitter than his career line shows; strong contact hitter with pretty decent pop for an infielder, plus even a little speed. sox front office is acting like they agree, first by trading for him and then by doing this. personally i’m looking forward to seeing what he can do playing for a team that doesn’t seem to hate him.
Really disappointing trade. I understand that Henry might be sick of writing big checks but it’s not as though the team is losing money, and I doubt he’ll lower ticket/concession prices to reflect the decreases in payroll.
Actually, according to Forbes, the team did lose money last year. Though that only includes the team itself, and not the whole Fenway Sports Group (which owns NESN, among other things).
So, in other words, they didn’t lose money and most likely made a ton of it.
I’m sure NESN makes a ton of money for them. But it’s a good thing for the Sox that they own their own channel. According to Forbes, the Sox’ revenue has been pretty much flat for 4 years now. With no further plans to squeeze seats into Fenway, and player salaries always rising at a good pace, the only profits are going to be in broadcasting.
“The Red Sox offense will still produce well, especially if Carl Crawford regresses,” Wow, he could get worse??
I don’t think you know what regression is. It doesn’t mean to get worse. It means to get more averagey.
It doesn’t actually mean that unless you say it.
Yeah see that’s wrong. That’s what “regression to the mean” means. The term regression or to regress means “a return to a former or less developed state”. Basically to regress means to go backward. If Carl Crawford has a regress from here it would mean falling back to be the skill level he had has a high school Sophomore.
So if the writer meant regress to his mean he should have written regress to his mean. If he meant continue to regress to a state of further crappiness he should leave as is. There is no reason to not strive for total clarity and while we all know what he meant that doesn’t change the fact that it was poorly, in fact incorrectly, worded.
I’m dying == I’m dying for a beer.
Indeed, regression just means moving closer to the mean. Outliers on the positive or negative side are both candidates for regression.
In common vernacular it would read as Crawford getting worse. To mother’s basement dwelling nerds who don’t understand when someone is trying to make a stupid joke it would mean movement in either direction towards a statistical mean.
“regression” only means “regression to the mean” when it’s followed by the words “to,” “the,” and “mean,” generally in that order
Doesn’t really matter whether the author meant “regression to the statistical mean” or “regression to a former state”. Either way, regression means Crawford should improve. To use the term to simply mean “to get worse” is an incorrect use of language, IMO.
This is more addressed to the other responses than to HurtLockerTwo:
Given that we’re on a website with a heavy sabermetrics focus, the statistical definition of regression should be the first one you consider, and in statistics, regression means regression to the mean, whether or not it’s followed by the words “to the mean.” If that bothers you, then feel free to crack open a dictionary and read beyond the first entry for regression.
OK, now it seems pretty reasonable to expect to see Oswalt signed by week’s end… please.
The Red Sox have $160 million to spend and yet need salary relief and must punt a position. Gimme a break.
The Yankees have more money than Boston and they’ve been punting the shortstop position for years.
Getting above average production now means punting? Who knew.
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=826&position=SS#value
I try to be positive, but this article wasn’t written particularly well.
There was some logic to the Scutaro move. Boston is clearing money to get more starting pitching. That is most likely Roy Oswalt. Getting back Clayton Mortenson was just to keep the Commissioner’s Office happy and balance the scales. Truth be told, Crawford barely even belongs in this article. But whatever.
The point of the article is that the Sox just made themselves worse at shortstop in order to potentially sign a pitcher with significant back issues.
Scutaro could be relied upon to be at the very least a league average (2 WAR) shortstop in a bad year but more likely he’ll approach 3 WAR this season.
Now the best case scenario for the platoon is to just match Scutaro’s performance. More likely the combo will be worse. And to top it off, it’s coming from 2 roster spots rather than 1.
Doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense if you ask me.
The author meant “regress” as in “regressing to the mean” I assume, as it didn’t sink in at first. Regress is used as a negative by almost everyone.
“Regress is used as a negative by almost everyone.”
Never at this site.
Uh, I’ve certainly never seen it used in a positive light on this site. If you can point me to an article I’d be very impressed.
Sure:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/scutaro-deal-gives-red-sox-odd-ss-platoon/
Regression has specific meanings in statistics. It’s neither positive nor negative, it just is.
In this case, Eric was referring to “regression to the mean”. In other examples on this site, you’ll find instances of “running a regression.”
There may be examples on this site where regress was used in its non-statistical fashion, which almost always understood negatively, but if I were an editor for Fangraphs, since the site is so focused on statistis, I would have a policy of only using this term in its statistical definitions for clarity’s sake. Plenty of other ways to say “he will be worse than last year,” so best to avoid the other usages. Based on my reads, my guess is this is a stated editorial guideline or the writers are just so rooted in stats it wouldn’t occur to them to use it any other way.
This is being blown out of proportion – honestly. Scutaro, who posted a 2.9 WAR last year is due for a slight fall – if you put him at say 2.5 WAR, its easily imaginable that Aviles by himself could put up a 2.0 WAR season and you get a whole loss of 0.5 WAR. Tell me with a straight face that the difference between say Oswalt and Aaron Cook/Carlos Silva/Vincente Padilla is not bigger than that
But I think the point of the article is that the Sox could have both.
Yeah, as a Sox fan, I’m all for dumping Scutaro if it means they get to sign Oswalt. But there’s no reason they couldn’t have traded Scutaro for a prospect.
It’s not like they were actively shopping Scutaro. I’d have more confidence in the front office if they had actively shopped him for awhile, and found out that no one was willing to trade anything for him, and then settled for Mortensen. As it is, this trade came out of nowhere and they got the worst possible return imaginable.
Convenient omission of games played. It was 2.9 WAR in 113 games. That’s a ~4 WAR caliber performance.
1.4 bWAR. So yea, let’s not act like one stat on one site, calculated one way, is the be all end all of value. Especially not for a 36 year old SS.
Clearly the Red Sox believe Scutaro’s shoulder makes him likely done as a SS, with contributions from his back and his age. The Rockies took all his salary over–as a second baseman. This doesn’t get the Sox a SS but it does face reality and get it off the books.
But doesn’t this beg the question, why trade Lowrie? Melancon is pretty good, but I would much rather have Lowrie on my roster right now.
Umm, because he can’t field like a SS or hit like a 3B?
Ok, if he is not a viable SS then it’s hard to argue with that. If he can at least play a passable SS, I’d want the guy who still has some upside left over the current situation.
Which is why they picked up his 6mil option just 2-3 months ago… to backup Pedroia at 2nd?
“Get him off the books”? How about not picking up a CLUB option after the season was over… I hear that’s an effective way of getting him off the books; especially if the Red Sox believed Scutaro’s shoulder, back and age were issues.
I know Boston’s front office can do no wrong, but some of the justifications seem a bit silly. When Scutaro’s option was picked up it was a good value for a SS and allowed them to deal Lowrie (for a relief arm?) since they had depth. Now apparently Scutaro is a 2nd baseman and that’s what Boston thought all along and decided to pay him 6mil anyway?
I think he’s better suited at 2nd base at this point but if Boston thought that from the get go why pick up his 6mil option this offseason?
It’s worth mentioning that Scutaro’s contract had a $6M club option, a $3M player option and a $1.5M buyout. If the Sox did not pick up the club option, it’s unlikely Scutaro would have picked up the $3M, instead choosing to walk with the $1.5M buyout and free to pursue market value as a likely 2.5-3.5 WAR middle-infielder.
In other words, had the Sox not picked up the option, they would be $1.5M poorer and be without their newly acquired fringe prospect, Clayton Mortenson. If the Sox were planning on dumping Scutaro all along, picking up the option and trading him for peanuts seems to be smarter than letting him walk with a $1.5M party favor.
So they saved 1.5mil….this is Boston not Tampa Bay.
I don’t think they entered the offseason planning to sign and trade Scutaro, especially after dealing Lowrie early in the offseason. And the comment I responded to talked about the Red Sox believing he was a shoulder/back/age issue with 2B as his destination – that would suggest he should have been moved early in the offseason (when teams were looking for middle infield help). It took them this long to get Mortenson value back?
I think this is yet another case of people’s perception of Boston’s FO coloring the analysis of every move they make.
The fact of the matter is, picking up the option then trading Scutaro for something was a better solution than letting him walk with $1.5M and getting nothing in return. It probably wasn’t the hard-and-fast plan from the get-go, but it’s quite likely they considered the financial benefits of a Scutaro trade before picking up the option. The offseason approach is a fluid process – obviously GM’s don’t have a set-n-stone offseason plan. Instead they consider a number of possible scenarios early on, then adjust to a number of factors including FA market changes, the fall & winter leagues, arbitration cases, trade negotiations and player health.
You’re right, the Sox aren’t Tampa Bay, instead they are doing their best to avoid the luxury-tax and they’re damn close to the threshold. If they get far enough below the threshold, they can likely afford to address their needs at SP and/or RF. Funny how the Cody Ross deal dropped only a couple of days later, huh? Think the Scutaro move helped pave the financial means? Still think the difference between saving $4.5M or $6M doesn’t matter?
I’m coloring? Maybe. I’m wrong? You tell me.
Mortenson isn’t worth $1.50, let alone $1.5M.
I’m surprised that no one touched on the weirdness that Scutaro should have been worth a lot more than one horrid prospect, given the reasonably expectation he’d outperform his cost by $5M+.
who’s asking whether mortensen is worth $1.5M? the choice here is “mortensen AND $1.5M” vs “nothing”.
“I agree. Iglesias is by all accounts a great defender. But is he really going to be a better fielder than Alcides Escobar? ”
lol
Yes.
Scutaro has been fragile. Lowrie…fragile. Let’s wait for the next move
Punto is also fragile, 5 DL trips the last 3 years, 2 last year.
Fan Graphs had Scutaro valued over 22 million the last 2 years, you don’t do that on the bench. Scutaro generally played through his injuries effectively.
This move makes sense in microcosm, but considering it on that scale ignores the fact that the Sox put themselves in this cash-strapped situation by offering Ortiz arbitration. Unless ownership insisted, there’s no good baseball ops explanation for doing so. Offering him arbitration necessitated draft pick compensation, and given the depression of the DH-market over the last few years, basically assured that no other team would be offering Ortiz a contract. Boston then offered Ortiz 2/$18 million; generous, given the recent market for DH. But why would Ortiz accept that, when coming off a stellar season where he was paid $12.5 million, he’ll be in line for nearly the value of the Sox offer for just one season in arbitration? Boston put themselves in a position with no leverage. The figure he’s submitted, $16.5M, seem far more likely than the Sox $12.65M figure given his ’11 salary and production. If Boston hadn’t offered him arbitration, they’d certainly have signed him for their 2/$18M lifetime achievement offer that no one else would match. The $7.5M difference between Ortiz’ $16.5M arbitration figure, and the $9M AAV of the Sox offer is $1.5M more than Scutaro’s $6M salary in ’12. In other words, had they been smarter Boston easily could’ve had Oswalt and Scutaro.
I don’t think that you can draw this line of logic because any number of transactions could have put the Sox in this position. Trading for Andrew Bailey (and his arb raise) added payroll, but you don’t mention that. Really every player on the team put them in this position.
I didn’t mention Bailey, because paying him $3.35-4.7 million did not put them in this position. They paid Papelbon $12 million last season to do the same job. In fact, trading for Bailey in lieu of signing Madson was in direct response to their budget constraints, and by any measure is favorable market value for a closer. Bailey’s arbitration raise isn’t the problem, and neither is Melancon, Punto, Sweeney, or any other offseason acquisition. All of those thrifty moves were necessitated by the problem: potentially paying a designated hitter $16.5 million in 2012.
Oh I don’t know. If Ortiz were not offered arbitration and was still a FA after the Yankees traded Montero….would have to think they’d be calling and making an offer. They are supposedly at their payroll limit, but I wonder if exceptions would be made to tweak their rival…it’s not like he wouldn’t fit their needs perfectly.
That’s fair enough, but does the prospect of losing Ortiz justify paying him $16.5 million? Even if that’s how they framed the choice internally, wouldn’t they have been better off letting him walk, DHing Youk, and spending that $16.5 million on a SP and 3B?
Any particular reason that the trade is not discussed or analyzed from the point of view of the team that actually improved as a result of this trade?
Seems sort of odd for one team to fill a giant gaping hole in the roster with a trade while another team executes a salary dump and for the focus to be solely on the team dumping salary.
There was another party to this trade?
Minor nitpick…. if his salary was 6mil, then this shaves at most 5.5mil assuming he is replaced by a league min player (unless Boston goes witjh a 24man roster?)
Why even pick up the option just 3 months ago? Other than Ortiz accepting arbitration, what has changed from when they picked up the option and traded Lowrie away for a reliever. The only thing I can think of is perhaps the Red Sox just assumed he would take a 2 year deal with an AAY significantly under what he would get in 1 year?
Was referring to Ortiz in the last sentence, and AAY should be AAV.
If they hadn’t picked up the option, they would’ve owed him a $1.5M buyout. As it is, they owe him $0.
Look at the last two WS winners. The Giants and Cardinals both had light hitting, slick fielding SS when they won the WS.
Both SS had OPS’s in the low .700 range. I don’t think Iglesias has their power, but he is also a better fielder than they are.
This probably isn’t the right forum to say this, but I think a strong-fielding shortstop has additional value that’s hard to quantify…that is, we love worm-burner pitchers, and worm-burner pitchers love guys to catch the, er burners. That confidence boost can effect the way pitchers pitch, in my opinion. I’ll double-check the glossary but I don’t think even FG has a # for that yet.
I’m of the opinion that Iglesias *will* get consideration. Remember Rey Ordonez? The Mets brought him up in ’96. He had a .592 OPS and 0.6 WAR in that first season. Or – I know this is comparing Iglesias to a HoF hopeful, but humor me – Omar Vizquel. In his first 3 big league seasons his OPS ranged from .534 – .595, and though he hadn’t added value with his base-stealing yet, still produced -0.1, 1.3, and 1.8 WAR. Point is, a really really good defensive SS may be worth a win or two if they can get their OPS up above the Carl Crawford-April line. We don’t know if Iglesias can do that – and we also don’t know if Puntaviles can stay healthy and be a decent fielder (Aviles) or hitter (Punto). So I don’t think the Sox are in any position to not at least consider the third option.