Saturday, February 02, 2008
SEAN CASEY, WHY?
The recent acquisitions of David Aardsama and Sean Casey likely dictates that J.D. Drew is going to be in the lineup versus southpaws. Drew hit 224/285/353 against his same side in 2007. He was a little better in 2006 going 244/338/378. The LHRF has not hit lefties well since his career year back in 2004.
Thankfully, Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA forecasting system does not see Coco and Lugo being the automatic outs their spots in the lineup were last year. PECOTA has Lugo hitting 275/337/384 and Coco going 278/338/407. Thus, the Sox should not have a third of the lineup sucking $hit in a quarter of the games.
Why have any automatic outs? Casey can hit for average and get on. PECOTA has him hitting 275/330/380. Those numbers could be even better at Fenway, as he can go the other way and get some cheap singles off the Monster. But assuming Lowell and Youk stay healthy, he is not going to play. If one of the starting corners did go on the DL, the Sox could have brought up Brandon Moss or Chris Carter.
The signing of Casey must be that the Sox are scared to have David Ortiz play first base even to give one of the starters a day off. The Sox certainly know his health and skill level better than I, but with a healthy knee I thought they would try to find a complementary bat for Drew instead of keeping Ortiz off of first base for 10 to 20 games.
The recent acquisitions of David Aardsama and Sean Casey likely dictates that J.D. Drew is going to be in the lineup versus southpaws. Drew hit 224/285/353 against his same side in 2007. He was a little better in 2006 going 244/338/378. The LHRF has not hit lefties well since his career year back in 2004.
Thankfully, Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA forecasting system does not see Coco and Lugo being the automatic outs their spots in the lineup were last year. PECOTA has Lugo hitting 275/337/384 and Coco going 278/338/407. Thus, the Sox should not have a third of the lineup sucking $hit in a quarter of the games.
Why have any automatic outs? Casey can hit for average and get on. PECOTA has him hitting 275/330/380. Those numbers could be even better at Fenway, as he can go the other way and get some cheap singles off the Monster. But assuming Lowell and Youk stay healthy, he is not going to play. If one of the starting corners did go on the DL, the Sox could have brought up Brandon Moss or Chris Carter.
The signing of Casey must be that the Sox are scared to have David Ortiz play first base even to give one of the starters a day off. The Sox certainly know his health and skill level better than I, but with a healthy knee I thought they would try to find a complementary bat for Drew instead of keeping Ortiz off of first base for 10 to 20 games.
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Thank you - Red Sox!
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