Comparing Red Sox: Who is the Best Player?

by Randy Booth on Apr 3, 2010 8:00 AM EDT in News

We're going to do a simple exercise comparing Red Sox players from 2007-2009. Ready?

Out of these five players, how would you rank them from best to worst?:

	PA	HR	RBI	BA	OBP	OPS
A	611	24	97	.302	.397	.920
B	674	13	68	.313	.375	.838
C	535	18	89	.299	.354	.835
D	516	18	65	.276	.390	.875
E	595	29	102	.280	.385	.917

Let's find out which player is which, after the jump.

Before we find out which is which, I'm going to make my list which may or may not be similar to what you've put together.

A is my No. 1. Good power numbers, solid average and gets on base. No. 2 is E, who shows even better power and gets on base at a good clip. My No. 3 is D -- the average is the lowest of the group, but this player has the second-highest OBP and third-highest OPS, with a limited number of average plate appearances.

B is my No. 4. Best average of the bunch and has a good OBP. C is my fifth-best player. The numbers are solid, just not as good as the rest. The OBP is a bit low, especially compared to the others.

So who are we looking at here?

	PA	HR	RBI	BA	OBP	OPS
A	611	24	97	.302	.397	.920 -- KEVIN YOUKILIS
B	674	13	68	.313	.375	.838 -- DUSTIN PEDROIA
C	535	18	89	.299	.354	.835 -- MIKE LOWELL
D	516	18	65	.276	.390	.875 -- J.D. DREW
E	595	29	102	.280	.385	.917 -- DAVID ORTIZ

Does anything pop out at you as being surprising?

A few things to factor in are some injured years. Lowell, Drew and Ortiz all missed some significant time over the past three seasons to drop some of their numbers.

My conclusions: yes, Kevin Youkilis is that good. Yes, J.D. Drew is underrated. And, oh man, I wish David Ortiz would pull those numbers this season...

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The health of the starting nine will be critical

Particularly at catcher and the corners. The dropoff between them and their replacements is too big to withstand long-term.

by lone1c on Apr 3, 2010 8:48 AM EDT via mobile reply actions

Youk is the best.

Then Pedroia. Drew or Martinez is hard to say.

But Youk is one of the top offensive players in the game and plays plus-plus defense at an admittedly easy position. In fact, his defense at the position is even underrated thanks UZR’s inability to include receiving abilities. GIving him a full season at first will actually probably even make him better with the glove enough to offset the loss of the whole third base value bump.

Pedroia is either an elite or just above average offensive player at his position depending on if the real Petey is 2008 or 2009 Petey. If I could safely say he was the 2008 guy, and 2009 was just a matter of luck/slumps (his BABIP was lower in 2009 then it was the last two seasons—actually, this was largely due to the number of fly balls he hit, which sort of reinforces the idea that he was swinging for the fences too much), then Petey would be in first for playing the harder position. As is, though, I gotta differ to Youkilis.

USG

by Ben Buchanan on Apr 3, 2010 10:40 AM EDT reply actions

But was the comparison really taking position into account?

There’s little doubt that Pedroia, Youkilis, and Drew are in the top five in MLB at their respective positions, especially if defense is factored into the discussion. However, presenting the data without positional contexts, it’s clear that Youk and Drew are a cut above the others offensively.

by lone1c on Apr 3, 2010 11:29 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions

No, it's not, but that's not to say we shouldn't.

USG

by Ben Buchanan on Apr 3, 2010 12:04 PM EDT up reply actions

Here's the position context

Youkilis posted an awesome .402 wOBA in 2009: It’s clearly an above average offensive contribution but 1st basemen are supposed to be above average offensive players so where does he ranks compared to the rest of the AL 1B?
Here’s the average wOBA for the AL 1 baseman: .358
Using the formula (wOBAyouk-wOBAal)/1.15*PAyouk I could convert this to wRAA to get this: 6.1 runs It means that Youkilis created 6 more runs that the average AL 1st baseman.
If we want to have more fun with the numbers, we could compare his 2009 UZR numbers to the rest of the AL:
Last year, the AL 1st basemen have an average -0.4 UZR, Kevin Youkilis posted a 15.2 UZR/150 at 1st base with his glove that’s 1.5 wins over the rest of the league!
In terms of positional WAR, things get out of hand, I mean just look at the numbers: Positional WAR for AL 1st baseman: -0.4!!! Compared to Youk 5.7 WAR (Although it considers the time he spent playing at 3rd base and LF) and you find out that the guy has put ~5.5 Wins over the average 1st baseman! Factor in his salary ( versus Tex) and we can conclude that the guy is a huge asset for this team.

"That was a lot of fun… You just keep pounding balls into the gap. The one thing you don’t want to do is hit a home run. That’s a rally-killer." Jeff Francoeur

by radiohix on Apr 3, 2010 12:22 PM EDT up reply actions

But we here all know you can't judge a player's quality simply by offensive numbers

Defense counts too. From the offensive numbers alone, Papi might be #1 or #2; throw in defense, and he drops to #4 or #5. By the same token, from offensive numbers alone, Pedroia would seem to be #4 or #5; throw in defense, and he’s #2 on my list behind Youk and just ahead of Drew.

by RSNexile on Apr 3, 2010 12:31 PM EDT reply actions