Moving along the diamond we come to the men of the gloves. The Sox did quite well for themselves in the 90s/early 2000's until they traded away Nomar......then along with a World Series we received the gift that kept on giving - the revolving door. Renteria - Gonzalez - Lugo - Scutaro - Aviles - Drew.....Hopefully that trend ends with an X.
One small edit: I'm limited my lists to those with 30 or more games played rather than 20.
25 Years of Red Sox: SS
YEAR | NAME | G | wOBA | wRC+ | DEF | WAR | CWAR |
1988 | Jody Reed | 94 | 0.347 | 114 | 13.8 | 3.4 | |
Spike Owen | 76 | 0.317 | 95 | 1.1 | 0.9 | 0.9 | |
1989 | Luis Rivera | 90 | 0.301 | 84 | 2.6 | 0.7 | |
Jody Reed | 77 | 0.353 | 118 | -3.1 | 3.1 | ||
1990 | Luis Rivera | 112 | 0.283 | 69 | -5.3 | -0.7 | |
Jody Reed | 50 | 0.346 | 112 | -3.6 | 2.8 | 9.3 | |
1991 | Luis Rivera | 129 | 0.317 | 90 | 6.8 | 1.6 | |
1992 | Luis Rivera | 93 | 0.260 | 53 | 5.3 | -0.3 | 1.3 |
John Valentin | 58 | 0.354 | 116 | -3.0 | 0.9 | ||
1993 | John Valentin | 144 | 0.350 | 109 | 29.5 | 5.2 | |
1994 | John Valentin | 83 | 0.394 | 130 | 15.3 | 4.1 | |
Carlos Rodriguez | 32 | 0.322 | 84 | -1.3 | 0.1 | 0.1 | |
1995 | John Valentin | 135 | 0.405 | 138 | 30.4 | 8.2 | |
1996 | John Valentin | 118 | 0.360 | 106 | 4.4 | 2.8 | 21.2 |
1997 | Nomar Garciaparra | 153 | 0.374 | 122 | 18.3 | 6.4 | |
1998 | Nomar Garciaparra | 143 | 0.402 | 139 | 18.7 | 7.3 | |
1999 | Nomar Garciaparra | 134 | 0.434 | 157 | 0.2 | 6.3 | |
2000 | Nomar Garciaparra | 136 | 0.432 | 154 | 15.0 | 7.6 | |
2001 | Mike Lansing | 76 | 0.293 | 74 | -2.4 | -0.3 | -0.3 |
Lou Merloni | 45 | 0.305 | 82 | 3.8 | 0.5 | 0.5 | |
2002 | Nomar Garciaparra | 154 | 0.373 | 127 | -1.7 | 4.8 | |
2003 | Nomar Garciaparra | 156 | 0.369 | 124 | 7.2 | 5.7 | |
2004 | Orlando Cabrera | 58 | 0.332 | 97 | 0.9 | 0.7 | 0.7 |
Nomar Garciaparra | 37 | 0.369 | 121 | -6.3 | 0.5 | 38.6 | |
2005 | Edgar Renteria | 153 | 0.319 | 90 | -1.9 | 1.7 | 1.7 |
2006 | Alex Gonzalez | 111 | 0.300 | 73 | 14.6 | 1.3 | |
Alex Cora | 63 | 0.277 | 58 | 2.9 | 0.0 | ||
2007 | Julio Lugo | 145 | 0.286 | 66 | 5.7 | 0.6 | |
Alex Cora | 33 | 0.297 | 73 | 4.3 | 0.5 | ||
2008 | Julio Lugo | 81 | 0.315 | 85 | 1.9 | 0.7 | |
Alex Cora | 69 | 0.329 | 95 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 1.0 | |
Jed Lowrie | 49 | 0.326 | 92 | 10.7 | 1.6 | ||
2009 | Nick Green | 81 | 0.297 | 70 | 2.6 | 0.2 | 0.2 |
Alex Gonzalez | 44 | 0.335 | 95 | 5.1 | 0.9 | 2.2 | |
Julio Lugo | 32 | 0.324 | 88 | -8.4 | -0.5 | 0.8 | |
2010 | Marco Scutaro | 132 | 0.321 | 93 | 0.2 | 2.1 | |
2011 | Marco Scutaro | 109 | 0.344 | 112 | 5.8 | 2.7 | 4.8 |
Jed Lowrie | 50 | 0.298 | 81 | -1.9 | 0.1 | 0.1 | |
2012 | Mike Aviles | 128 | 0.288 | 75 | 9.7 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
2013 | Stephen Drew | 124 | 0.337 | 109 | 10.9 | 3.4 | 3.4 |
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Top Offensive Seasons: While SS is notoriously an offensive-light position, the Sox had the luxury in the late 90s/early aughts of having a middle of the order bat playing the position in the form of Nomar Garciaparra. Nomar put up far and away the best offensive seasons with marks of 157 and 154 in 1999 and 2000. His 139 mark in 1998 was nothing to sneeze at either . John Valentin, who preceded Nomar, put up the 4th best mark with a 138 in 1995.
Top Defensive Seasons: You would expect that Def ratings would be high at SS and they are. Nomar was pretty solid with the glove as was Alex Gonzalez and Stephen Drew but John Valentin heads this list with 30.4 and 29.5 marks
Top Overall Seasons: Alright, raise your hand if you thought this would be anyone other than Nomar. John Valentin's 1995 season actually was better by WAR standards that anything Nomar put up over his career. Valentin actually had the highest WAR of the majors that year......go ahead and read that again if you will. Higher than Barry Bonds, Albert Belle, Edgar Martinez, etc. Nomar's 1997-2000 run takes the rest of the top 5.
Worst Season: The Sox have done surprising well at SS over the last 25 years with hardly any below replacement level seasons. I'm going to give the worst award to 2001 with Mike Lansing and Lou Merloni trying to fill in for the injured Nomar they combined to put up a 0.2 WAR. Honorable mention goes to 2009. Nick Green starting at any position for 81 games is probably not a good year for you.
Worst Defensive SS: You don't get many atrocious glove types at SS usually. Scutaro was not spectacular but passable but I'm giving this to Lugo because he was being paid like a superstar SS and did little spectacular both with the bat and the glove.
Average Seasons (2.0+ WAR): 16 of 25
Above Average Seasons (4.0+ WAR): 9 of 25
Star Seasons (6.0+ WAR): 5 of 25
Notes: John Valentin might be the most underrated Red Sox player ever. Despite his 1995 WAR he finished 9th in MVP voting. Of course they knew nothing of advance metrics back in those days. Across 5 seasons he put up 21.2 WAR.
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Top Red Sox SS of the Past 25 Years: Nomar Garciaparra
Imagine an infield of peak Nomar to team along with Pedroia. Nomar's 4 year run from 1997-2000 was truly something to behold with each season at 6.0+ WAR and he threw in a pretty darn solid 2002-2003 after coming back from a 2001 injury. 5,000,000 batting glove adjustments be damned!