The I-told-you-so gang is out in full force talking about how JD Drew is in fact damaged goods and how the Sox should have stayed away from the outset.  Well sure, maybe he does in fact have lingering health concerns, and that’s why there’s this thing called the physical before dotting I’s and crossing T’s.  The Red Sox are performing diligence to make sure that he is not in fact damaged goods.  If he is, they will either not sign him or renegotiate more favorable terms to bring the risk/reward characteristics of the deal more into line.  On the other hand, if this microscopic look at Drew’s health situation offers them another layer of security regarding their investment, all the better.

In other words, I just don’t see any downside here.

My favorite baseball quote in a while comes from the original idiot (or was that Millar?).

“There’s not too many first basemen who could save two, three runs a game,” Damon said, “but I’ve seen Doug Mientkiewicz do it and it’s amazing.

Wow.

Link to article.

I have held off on chiming in because I didn’t have much value to add.  My pals that seem to know a lot about this whole situation are really psyched, and ZIPS and PECOTA and the other good projection mechanisms think that D-Mat will be a tremendous asset.  I will put up a roster overview soon enough but get pumped, Sox fans.  This is going to be one dynamic squad that we will be treated to in 2007. 

Pitchers & catchers in a couple months or so…

Hats off to Nick Cafardo for this piece in today’s Globe containing a number of great J.D. Drew quotes.

“I’m not a rah-rah guy and never have been. That’s not who I am. I’ve never been [a] show boat, or thrown my helmet or my bat or tried to upstage anyone. Maybe sometimes those types of players get the attention and I don’t. I’m not going to try to be something I’m not. I try to lead by example.”

If you’re one of these provincial types that carries on about how hard it is to play baseball in Boston (w/o any sense of irony no less) and how J.D. Drew is unfit to play here or do much else in life really, I urge you to check this article out. 

All we know at this point is that the Red Sox have added J.D. Drew.  That, on its own, is a very good thing.  The money is not yours, and in a market that doles out $100MM to the Carlos Lee’s of the world, is really not all that bad anyway.

Welcome, J.D.  Looking forward to big things.

Jon Heyman of SI has the Dodgers and Angels still involved while Yahoo Sports has the Padres back in the picture, and mentions Seattle, San Francisco and Washington to boot.  Just when you think the market is heating up for Manny, the Herald reports that the Sox are no longer being proactive, simply listening and have even set a deadline of tomorrow for conducting Manny talks.  Is the market cooling?

Boston is in a position of strength here, and conducting themselves accordingly.  Stay tuned.

Boston declined Trot Nixon arbitration last night and so ends the Red Sox career of a true fan favorite.  Trot has always been one of my faves as well, and not because of the pine tar on his helmet but rather because I always thought he just understood what it took to be the best offensive player he could be.  He would swing at a pitch outside the strike zone about once a month and was never overmatched.  For much of his tenure with the Sox, he played a damn good right field too.  In 2003, he was a downright superstar.  I thought I would pay my own tribute by offering up a little trip down Trot-memory lane by linking to the 5 games in Trot’s career that stand out the most for me.

5) Labor Day, 2003

After plodding through August, at the end of which they found themselves trailing in both the division and wild card races, the Sox went to Philadelphia for a make-up game with the Phills.  After squandering the lead in the bottom of the eighth, the Sox clawed their way back through a combination of a bases on balls, a wild pitch and an infield hit to tie the game at 9.  Trot came to the plate with the bases full and delivered a grand slam to give the Sox a 13-9 victory.  Boston would go 17-9 in September.

4) October 27, 2004 - Game 4 of the 2004 World Series

Trot has always been a patient hitter, thereby allowing him to zero in when the count was in his favor.  Up in the count, he had the discipline to lay off a bad pitch and therefore had the luxury of really gearing up in case a cookie came grooved down the middle.  Over his career, Trot has hit .253/.605/.506 in three-ball counts.  So when he got up 3 balls and 0 strikes with the bases loaded, two outs, the Sox leading 1-0 in the 3rd and the mediocre Jason Marquis on the hill, Terry Francona gave Trot the green light.  He delivered with a two-run double high off the Busch Stadium wall in center field.  It was the defining moment of the World Series clinching game.

3) October 15, 2003 - Game 6 of the 2003 ALCS

With the Sox clinging to a paper thin 7-6 lead in the ninth inning, Bill Mueller doubled with one out off of Jeff Nelson.  Since Trot was coming up (he was batting lower in the order because Andy Pettitte, a southpaw, had started the game), Joe Torre went and got his lefty reliever Gabe White to face Nixon and try to keep the insurance off the board.  White would hang a breaking ball that Nixon deposited in the upper deck of Yankee Stadium to give the Sox a 9-6 lead.  I was living in Boston’s North End at the time and I remember opening my window and yelling out into the night.  I wasn’t the only one.  Neighbors screamed back and forth to one another, “we’re gonna do it,” “Pedro goes tomorrow night,” “way to go, Trot!”  Little did we know how the series would end.

2) October 4, 2003 - Game 3 of the ALDS

Not much to say, really.  I happened to be in attendance at this one and it is the only time I can remember hugging multiple strangers in succession.  With Oakland’s lefty-killer Ted Lilly starting the game, Trot was on the bench but boy did he come off of it in a big way.  In the bottom of the 11th of a game (and a Series for that matter) the Sox really should have lost (remember Eric Byrnes missed the plate), Nixon put one into the CF bleachers off of young Rich Harden to give the Sox a walk-off, 3-1 victory.  The bomb set off utter jubilation in Fenway, and the Sox rode the momentum to a dramatic victory against a feisty young Athletics squad.

1) May 28, 2000 - The Pedro-Clemens Epic

Pedro pitched a complete game shutout, striking out nine and yielding just four hits.  Clemens went the distance too, striking out 13 (thirteen!) and giving up only five hits.  The Sox looked like they would go quietly in the ninth, as John Valentin and Jason Varitek made successive outs to kick off the vistors’ half of the final frame.  Then Jeff Frye managed a single and Nixon came to the plate.  Nixon would drive a 2-1 Roger Clemens fastball deep into the right-center field bleachers at The Stadium, and forever endear himself to Red Sox Nation.  Think about it, Sox-Yanks, Pedro-Clemens, in the Bronx and Trot stepped up.  Clutch and never overmatched, it was quintessential Christopher Trotman Nixon.

Godspeed, my man.

Long-respected hub journalistic staples, delusional interweb hacks and ordinarily thoughtful bloggers alike are tripping over themselves to kill JD Drew before he even hits the tarmac at Logan.  At best all I can say is that a local baseball loving public deserves better analysis from its “sports experts” and at worst I will say that those lining up to take their shots at Drew carry on like self-aggrandizing blowhards, positioning themselves to cheer on the hometown team unaccountably if wrong, and pat themselves on the back if right.

Said Bob Ryan the other day during a conference call Theo Epstein was kind enough to schedule with the local media, “On behalf of an eager constituency, let’s hope the rumor is not true. Thank you.”  How courteous, Bob.

We have come to expect hackery from the Dirt Dog, but an anti-Drew petition?  Really?  Already as low as they come, Dirt Dog has yet managed a new one.  Dirt Dog runs a “fansite,” with pictures and big font and little more and so he has to figure out ways to maintain fan interest.  Of course when it comes to the running of his site, he’s morally bankrupt and perpetually unaccountable, so you see what he is up to with Drew.  I mean he kills Manny all the time too.  What does he propose the Sox do?  But it’s always so transparent what’s going on over there.  If the Sox are going good, he’ll see his traffic.  If they’re not, a rabid fanbase will turn to the Dirt Dog to assail those Red Sox not living up to expectations.  Either way, he’s covered. 

Fantastic internet voices like Chad Finn don’t want to see any part of Drew, either.  Says Finn today…

I’m with Ryan. What’s the fascination, Theo? I know the skill-set and the OPS is appealing . . . but damn, it’s time to start giving consideration again to a player’s mental makeup. I’m tired of watching this supposedly progressive front office throw multimillion contracts to well-known Cowardly Lions who will shrivel under the scrutiny.

Of course Chad does not offer up any specific insight into Drew’s character, but has no problem dubbing him a “Cowardly Lion.”  What’s sad is that I am beginning to believe that a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts may be taking hold here.  Drew is human, after all, and if all one is greeted with at the outset of a new employment opportunity is skepticisim and snide commentary about his or her mental state, well, that might adversely affect an individual.

What the Drew discourse needs is an injection of reality, and so let me proceed with a series of facts relating to JD Drew, and further, to Drew as he stacks up to the rumored-to-be-departing Manny Ramirez.

_________

First, a Drew career recap:

He came up with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1998 at the age of 22 and lit the league on fire for the month of September.  In 1999 and 2000, Drew was pretty good (superb in 2000) but St. Louis Manager Tony LaRussa never entrusted him with a truly full-time job.  That changed in 2001, when Drew put up a superb .323/.414/.623 campaign, albeit in a season cut short by a David Wells fastball that hit him square on the wrist.  Wells, then of the Chicago White Sox, hit Drew on June 17 during an interleague tilt.  Although he finished the season strong thereafter, Drew would not see action again until July 31.

Drew experienced legitimately chronic and frustrating injury troubles in 2002 and 2003.  Recurring patellar tendinitis in his right knee limited Drew to 711 AB’s in the two seasons combined.  Frustrated, the Cards shipped Drew off to Atlanta after the 2003 campaign.

He went crazy in 2004.  Injury free and locked in, Drew put up his best season as a pro, hitting .304/.436/.569 in 645 plate appearences, all the while playing a very good right field.  Drew cashed in on his career season by signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers before the 2005 season.  Once again he put up stellar numbers, this time in spacious Dodger Stadium, hitting .286/.412/.520.  Problem was, just as he had his 2001 breakout season cut short by a David Wells fastball, so too was his 2005 cut short.  Brad Halsey plunked him on the wrist on July 3 and Drew would miss the rest of the season.

This past season, with Grady Little babying him all season long, he logged 146 games played and 594 plate appearences.  He once again played a solid right field, and hit .283/.393/.498 - a tremendous line for a guy playing home games at Dodger Stadium.

_________

Which brings us to the present.  Drew turned 31 just 11 days ago.  He has been chronic injury free for three full seasons now and really his whole career except for 2002 and 2003.  This is not to say that his hitting style might not lend itself to HBP’s or that his bones may not be more brittle than the next MLB’er (both things may be true).  That said, I am comfortable slotting the HBP’s into the fluke category, which thereby mitigates the perceived injury risk that a Drew signing bears. 

Since 2004, here is how he compares to one Manny Ramirez.  I resort to Baseball Prospectus’s WARP1, a catch-all stat that seeks to incorporate offense and defense and determine how many wins over and above a replacement player a given pitcher or position player contributes.  The figure is admittedly imperfect, but a good proxy nonetheless:

2004 WARP1
Drew: 9.4
Manny: 6.8

2005 WARP1
Drew: 3.9 (although a .321 EQA)
Manny: 6.9 (.317 EQA)

2006 WARP1
Drew: 7.3
Manny: 6.3

Total (2004-2006)
Drew: 20.6
Manny: 20.0

So what we have in Drew is a guy who has been a better player than Ramirez over the last three seasons, is 3.5 years his junior and played more games in 2006. 

And yet, here is the media (and others) eager to sack the man.  Well, be above it, Sox fans.  At least give the guy a chance.

Update: To be clear, the Drew or Manny argument is not necessarily material to the big-picture Red Sox roster optimization discussion.  Drew is not Manny’s replacement.  I included the comparison above simply to point out that Drew stacks up quite favorably to Manny irrespective of who may or may not be replacing whom.