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By Sully, 1/6/2005 4:52 pm

Check out the comments section for this post over at Surviving Grady. I am in the midst of taking on the fanboy sect of Red Sox Nation.

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By Sully,

While the Red Sox roster appears to be set, there does remain one item of business. You see, the Red Sox currently employ two good first baseman, a luxury to an extent but less so when you consider that neither has all that much interest in being a part-time player. While I am not a big chemistry guy, better to have people happy than not and more to the point, better to fetch value for a talented individual than have his abilities waste away in your dugout. So I’d like to take a look at Kevin Millar and Doug Mientkiewicz, determine which would be better to keep and which to trade. I am not going to entertain the possibility of landing Delgado, tantalizing though it may be.

Millar and Mientkiewicz are both good first basemen. On the whole, both perform at a level that sits comfortably above the league average and simultaneously well below the upper echelon of premiere first-base talent. In consideration of their respective salaries, Millar makes $250,000.00 less than Mientkiewicz but his contract would also come off the books for 2006. Mientkiewicz is signed through 2006. If you were to factor in money, you would give a slight nod to Millar. But Millar is also a year older than Mientkieicz and sports the classic quick-decline slugger body type. So with respect to age and durability, a slight edge goes to Mientkiewicz. The external factors don’t really give a clear edge to either player so let’s take a look at performance.

Three Year Splits
Millar: .292/.365/.484
Mientkiewicz: .268/.364/.401

WARP3 (Wins Above Replacement Player over 162 games) Totals since 2001:

2001: Millar – 5.4, Mientkiewicz – 7.6
2002: Millar – 5.3, Mientkiewicz – 4.5
2003: Millar – 5.5, Mientkiewicz – 6.4
2004: Millar – 5.3, Mientkiewicz – 0.7

I use WARP3 because it incorporates fielding ability, something that narrows by a long way the significant edge Millar holds when you consider hitting ability alone. There’s a lot to consider here. Off the bat it is clear that Millar is the better hitter, Mientkiewicz the better fielder. And it is also clear that Millar is a damn consistent ballplayer. He hits a bit each year and doesn’t kill your club in the field. Five wins is nothing to sneeze at, being able to pencil in five wins without blinking is phenomenal and paying $3.5 million for a virtually guaranteed five wins is a true luxury. But what of Mientkiewicz? Eliminate 2004 and he stacks up quite favorably to Millar. Should we put a lot of stock in his 2004, a year in which he battled injuries, was Pipped by rookie sensation Justin Morneau and played sparingly for the World Champs? I am not so sure.

I think the Red Sox’ decision is easy. Float both names out there, see what the market would yield for either player and pull the trigger on which player fetches better spoils, or in Arizona’s case, plunder.

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By Sully, 1/5/2005 8:50 am

Wade Boggs will be enshrined in Cooperstown this summer, a fitting tribute to one of the best ball players ever to wear a Sox uniform. I have belabored Boggs’ case in this space so no need to go into it further but just for kicks, take a look at his 1987 season; he batted .363/.461/.588 for an OPS+ of 173 and an RC27 of 10.78. And he was a pretty good third baseman!

That’s all I got at the moment though I plan to be back soon with Millar-Mientkiewicz analysis. In the interim, my girlfriend Johanna (a Cubs and Ryne Sandberg fan) and I have a trip to Cooperstown to plan.