2011 Red Sox Community Projections: The Deceptively Mediocre Jarrod Saltalamacchia

Looking back on 2011, you might be tempted to call Jarrod Saltalamacchia one of the pleasant surprises of the year. After a miserable start, the Sox' starting catcher really seemed to hit his groove in the middle months of Summer, and for a while had us all thinking we'd found a solid, if imperfect answer behind the plate.

And, certainly, it was a surprising year for Salty. Not many expected the guy to come out and belt 16 homers or put up a .450 slugging percentage, as you'll see below.

The problem is that not many expected a .288 OBP either. 

As good as the first four months of the season were for Salty, the last two were an absolute disaster, with Salty becoming an automatic out in September. And now, really looking back on the season as a whole, it's hard to feel terribly comfortable running with Salty outside of a platoon situation.

But, hey, at least the projections were decent.

The three "finalists" are Drabidea, HeyYoCraig, and Alfredo. Frankly, to me, Drabidea's best encapsulate what Salty was this season, so I'm tempted to just give it to him. But for fairness' sake, we'll go with Drabidea getting two arbitrary points, and Craig and Alfredo getting one. Or Drabidea gets one and they get a half if you want to nitpick these completely meaningless valuations.