SS carousel in Boston
Nomah Garciaparra manned shortstop for the Olde Towne Team for 7-1/2 years from 1997 through mid-season of 2004. Since then, no SS has lasted more than a year. Orlando Cabrera was here for three wonderful months – but then Sox management decided Edgar Renteria was a shinier bauble, so he was brought in to replace Cabrera. After one year, the Sox decided Renteria was a mistake and the infield defense needed to be upgraded – so Alex Gonzalez was brought in. Gonzalez was spectacular in the field, and if not for games lost due to injury, would have (or at least should have) garnered serious Gold Glove consideration. The Sox decided he wasn’t worth a multi-year deal (especially the one that he got from Cincy), and decided that they now needed to upgrade offensively at SS. Are you following this? So Gonzalez is out, and the latest horse on the Red Sox SS carousel is Julio Lugo.
We’ve heard of Theo’s longing for Lugo for quite a while now – and indeed, Theo now has his man. But is the Julio Lugo signing a good signing? While Lugo buck the recent trend and perform well enough to stay in Boston for more than one season, unlike his three predecessors? Only time will tell – but perhaps a look at the numbers will tell us what we should expect. I’ve compared Lugo to his three predecessors to try and get an idea of what we’re getting.
Career:
Player (age / yrs in ML) – BA/OBP/SLG - - OPS
Lugo (31/7) – 277/340/402 - - 742 OPS
Gonzalez (30/9) – 246/292/392 - - 684 OPS
Renteria (32/11) – 288/346/402 - - 748 OPS
Cabrera (32/10) – 269/317/403 - - 720 OPS
They’re roughly the same age – although there is quite a range in amount of MLB experience. Looking solely at career numbers, it looks like Lugo is another Edgar Renteria. He’s certainly an offensive upgrade over Gonzalez, but that shouldn’t be surprising. Perhaps mildly surprising, Lugo has had better career numbers than Orlando Cabrera. But let’s see what each has done more recently, over the past three seasons:
2004-2006:
Player (games played) – BA/OBP/SLG - - OPS
Lugo (437) – 284/348/405 - - 753 OPS
Gonzalez (400) – 249/294/397 - - 684 OPS
Renteria (451) – 285/341/407 - - 748 OPS
Cabrera (455) – 268/317/385 - - 702 OPS
All are very close to career numbers – with Cabrera being the farthest off of the three. Renteria and Cabrera have been very reliable, in terms of games played. Lugo’s missed a little time – and Gonzalez has missed the most games of the four. Lugo has the best OPS of the four, although only slightly better than Renteria. Indeed the OBP and SLG numbers are very, very similar for Lugo and Renteria.
All four of these guys have spent some time in both leagues. Thus, it’s helpful to look at OPS+ (which simply measures OPS vs. league average and attempts to account for any differences between the two leagues – to help arrive at an “apples to apples” comparison):
OPS+ :
Player (career) – 3-yr avg - - 2006/2005/2004
Lugo (92) – 98 - - 94/105/94
Gonzalez (78) – 80 - - 77/85/79
Renteria (96) – 96 - - 107/91/90
Cabrera (84) – 85 - - 95/82/79
Yet again, perhaps no longer surprising by now, Lugo compares fairly closely to Renteria. Renteria has done better over the course of their respective careers – but Lugo’s done better over the past three years. Interesting to note that Renteria and Cabrera have climbed over the past three years – while Lugo and Gonzalez have been up-and-down. Looking solely at their time in Boston, Cabrera had a 97 OPS+ in his months here in 2004; Renteria had the 91 in 2005; and Gonzalez had 77 in 2006.
Specifically regarding Lugo, he was pretty close to being a league-average hitter over the past three years (as an OPS+ of 100 would be league average). If a team can get league-average hitting from the SS position, that’s good.
Aside from the rate stats, let’s look at a few counting stats – for the past three years specifically:
2004-2006:
Player – HR/RBI ; Runs Scored ; SB/CS
Lugo – 25/169 ; 241 ; 84/25
Gonzalez – 37/174 ; 160 ; 9/4
Renteria – 32/212 ; 284 ; 43/21
Cabrera – 27/191 ; 239 ; 64/9
Gonzalez is the “slugger” of the bunch, eh? Renteria’s put up the best numbers overall using these metrics. Lugo doesn’t look as appealing when comparing the common counting stats. He does appear to have the best speed (as measured solely by stolen bases) – and the worst power (as measured solely by home runs). The Runs Scored and RBIs are so dependent on where a guy bats in the order and who bats around him, but still interesting to compare those numbers for the four players in question.
Enough about the offense, what about the defense? As we know, that was Gonzalez’s specialty and arguably the biggest reason, by far, that he was brought in last year. Defensive stats are less reliable than offensive stats, but we’ll use what’s available to us:
Career:
Player – FP/lgFP ; RF/lgRF
Lugo – 965/970 ; 4.39/4.05
Gonzalez – 970/971 ; 4.30/3.94
Renteria – 969/970 ; 4.21/3.95
Cabrera – 978/970 ; 4.33/3.98
Looking at the FP vs. lgFP, Lugo appears to commit more errors than the rest. But then looking at the RF vs. lgRF numbers, it doesn’t appear to necessarily be a case of Lugo getting to more balls than the rest.
On a purely subjective note, I can’t recall any Red Sox shortstop playing the position anywhere near as well as Alex Gonzalez did last year. He was such a joy to watch in the infield. I’ve been watching the Sox since the mid-70s, and nobody has made so many plays – ordinary and spectacular, especially on the double play – as Alex Gonzalez. Anybody hoping or expecting that Lugo will come anywhere close to Gonzalez defensively is kidding themselves.
But that’s the rub, isn’t it? The Red Sox decided going into the 2006 season that they needed defense at the SS position, and would sacrifice offense at the position to get it. Now, they’ve apparently reversed field and decided they should sacrifice defense at SS, to get more offense from the position.
To try to understand how offense and defense work together, I like to refer to the Win Shares stat – developed by Bill James, and maintained by the folks over at The Hardball Times, it serves to measure everything a player does to help his team win. Let’s see how these four SSs have contributed to team wins over the past three years:
WinShares:
Player – 3-yr avg - - 2006/2005/2004
Lugo – 19 - - 13/24/20
Gonzalez – 12 - - 9/13/15
Renteria – 16 - - 19/14/16
Cabrera – 15 - - 19/14/11
Bill James must still have a good portion of Theo’s ear. Based on James’ Win Shares stat, Lugo has contributed the most of the four to team wins – over the past three years. Last year, the two former Red Sox did the best – and the actual Red Sox SS did the worst. We’ll have to wait and see what 2007 brings.
Julio Lugo got a 4-year deal. It’d be nice if he actually plays well enough to stay around to finish out that entire contract in Boston… to bring a little stability back to the position.
In conclusion, Julio Lugo seems to me to be another Edgar Renteria – for slightly less money (although let’s not forget, the Sox are still paying Renteria about $4 mil/yr to play in Atlanta… and he played very well in Atlanta in 2006). Let’s hope Lugo performs better in Boston than Renteria did (at least from the perspective of Sox management)… or else we may be talking about yet *another* new Red Sox SS for 2008.
Okay, I’m done now.
February 21st, 2007 at 2:21 pm
So, is that good? Are you happy that Lugo is the SS rather than Renteria, Cabrera or AGon?
My choice will be and always has been Cabrera. He is arguably the best defender - your stats support that. He is the best baserunner - why would you use rate stats for everything, and then counting stats to determine speed? Especially with something like stolen bases, which is very dependent upon the team’s philosophy. Did Lugo become slower in the second half of last year, after moving from TB to the Dodgers? Of course not. Any player will steal more bases for the Devil Rays than they would have on the Dodgers. Cabrera’s 64/9 ratio of SBs is superior to the rest. He seemed to be the only one out of the bunch that thrived in Boston. Renteria, clearly was effected by the climate of Fenway, and we’ll see if there is a similar effect re:Lugo.
February 21st, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Fair question. I loved Cabrera while he was here, and I wasn’t alone (as evidenced by the rousing ovation he got in 2005 upon his return as an Angel - which he clearly wasn’t expecting but thoroughly appreciated, based on his immediate reaction and his postgame comments). We’re told that Lugo has Cabrera’s personality - his enthusiasm, his joy, his smile, his overall lover for the game… and that his personality should allow him to thrive in Boston (like Cabrera).
I thought they gave up on Renteria too soon. Course, I’ll never understand why he left St. Louis - a better baseball town than Boston since the fans are at least as knowledgeable and passionate, but nowhere near as suffocating and… well, nasty. The fact that Lugo compares favorably with Renteria offensively is a good sign to me, yes.
As for Gonzalez, he was such a joy to watch defensively. As you note, the defensive stats indicate that Cabrera is slightly better. That said, I freely admit that current defensive stats do not seem to be as good as offensive stats. Defense is difficult to measure. I liked Cabrera’s defense, but I *loved* Gonzalez’s defense.
In short, I didn’t really understand them letting Cabrera go to pay Renteria more - considering that Cabrera clearly did thrive in that environment and it was debatable that Renteria would (and many would argue that his 2005 season proved he couldn’t). I thought they gave up on Renteria too soon - although his rebound in Atlanta in 2006 could be seen two ways: (1) 2005 was just an off year, or (2) he was not (and never would be) comfortable in Boston and belongs in the NL. Maybe it’s a combination of the two.
As for Gonzalez, I feel they have enough offense and good enough pitching that a great defensive SS who contributes offensively on occasion would be preferable to a good offensive SS who’s average defensively. For the Sox, money isn’t an issue - although it should be noted that Lugo makes a lot more than Gonzalez.
Bottom line: I’m fine with Lugo - but what I’d really like to see is some stability at the position. It’s Lugo’s turn to try and provide that, and I hope he’s able to (while putting a couple WS rings on his fingers, preferably). And as I compared the stats, Lugo fared better vs. the other three than I thought he would… so I guess that’s good.
In other words, I don’t like Lugo any more or less than I liked the last three SSs (none of whom I liked as much as Nomah, for the record) - and I’m just hoping we have more than one season of Red Sox stats to ultimately compare him to his predecessors.