Well it seems that the Red Sox really don’t want to rely on Mike Lowell at third base next year, even if it means sitting him and his 12million a year contract on the bench for a better defensive player. Indeed, with a bad surgically repaired hip that has made him look like a seventy five year old rather than thirty five, Mike Lowell has outrun his usefulness and Boston has signed the defensive wiz Adrian Beltre to man the hot corner for a reasonable one year $9million contract. While the move is not without risk, particularly in Beltre’s bat and the risk of having to eat Lowell’s contract, Theo and the Red Sox appear to have made themselves much better defensively with little long term risk.
As mentioned above, Beltre is making his money with glove at the hot corner, where he has been among the best in baseball by all accounts. Over the last four years, Beltre has averaged a rather impressive 12.25 UZR/150 and a RngR (Range Factor) of 9.15 (again zero being average for both measurements). Compare that to Lowell’s atrocious post-injury numbers last year of a UZR/150 -14.4 and RngR -13.3, it seems clear that the addition of Beltre turns third base from a defensive liability to a strength. Additionally, Beltre, entering his age 30 season is six years younger than Lowell, something every team wants to do, and at the below market price they got him for this is a steal.
However, there is the other more looming concern for Beltre for his bat that Boston must also consider. For sure, it seems like a long time ago that Adrian hit .334/.388/.629 with 48 home runs in 2004 and signed a lucrative four year deal with the Mariners because since that year Beltre has been mediocre at best. After coming in second in MVP voting with an unbelievable 163OPS+ (steroids, cough cough) Beltre has been pretty pedestrian with the stick, posting OPSs+ of 93, 105, 112, 108, and 82 respectively since coming to the American League. Now granted, Beltre hasn’t been totally useless at the plate, hitting at least 25 home runs three times, but the guy has done little else of value, never posting an OBP of .328 since coming to Seattle. To be sure, these are not exactly the MVP numbers that ensured Beltre his big payday, but when compared to Lowell’s number they’re actually not as bad as I originally thought. Maybe it’s just because I’ve seen Lowell hammer my Yankees for the last few years, but I thought his numbers would be more impressive than they actually are, which aside from a big 2007 season where he had an OPS+ 124 the rest of his career in Boston was pretty average, with numbers of 104, 103, and 106 respectively. These numbers are better than Beltre for sure, but there is at least evidence that by virtue of moving away from the cavernous Safeco Field to the cozy Fenway Green Monster that Beltre will be able to take advantage of much like Lowell did in the last four years.
In sum, I think Beltre could be a valuable addition, but there are still glaring concerns in the Red Sox lineup that Theo Epstein must address. While Red Sox’s management has vastly improved their defense with the signings of Mike Cameron and Adrian Beltre, both players project to be at best nearly as productive as the players they replace and at worse considerably less productive. It is unclear as to whether the increase in defense will make up for the runs they lose with their bat, but I will go out on a limb and say it won’t. In the case of Beltre, the Red Sox have put yet another player in an offensive-oriented position with less than stellar numbers to justify playing there. On paper, Boston may be able to justify the loss of runs by the gain of run prevention, but last year showed that in practice this doesn’t work that well. While Theo fielded a very good team, any Boston fan will tell you that the lack of a big time hitter like Manny and Ortiz had been in the past hurt them in big spots. Time and time again, particularly in the series against Anaheim, Boston’s lineup of good but not great hitters were shown to be vulnerable to pitchers who attacked the strike zone and forced them to swing. So while Beltre is a talented guy who at least has the tools to be a productive player for Boston, the Red Sox still have a long way to go before they approach the depth of the Yankees and their Muderers’ Row lineup.
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