It’s been a while since I rapped at y’all, but I had something that I’ll be sharing with you over the course of the next few months, called…

Player Skill Assessments

This part is pretty dry, so you can skip ahead if you just want to see what the results are.

Basically this whole project came into being when I was watching a Red Sox game where Julio Lugo seemed to destroy everything he touched, like some sort of reverse Midas (everything he touched turned to shit). Someone I was talking to at the time, Tom, asked if Lugo was the most useless player in the history of baseball, to which I answered in the affirmative.

The next morning, I got to thinking…is he even the most useless player on the Red Sox? I mean, his paycheck keeps him in the lineup, but if they made the same amount of money, wouldn’t he still start over Cora? How good or bad is he given that shortstops in the American League hit somewhere at the level of your really good Little League player (you know, the kid that’s shaving at age 12, and when he’s not playing SS, he’s pitching faster than any Little Leaguer should, terrifying Johnny who would rather be doing anything but playing Little League? I digress)?

So after some thought, and some reading, I figured 13 “skills”…real quick metrics that are both easy to figure out, and tell you something very straight forward. Then I broke them into three categories…at bat, strike zone management, and on the bases. These 13 skills (I’m not quoting the whole time, keep in mind that skills is just the best word I could think of) were then compared to the league average at the position he played. So, if Lugo was truly the worst player to ever be formed by carbon, he would at least show up to be solidly below average against his exact contemporaries.

As it turns out, Lugo is pretty good at some things, bad at others. Egg on my face, yo.

The thirteen skills are:
At bat:
Batting average
On base percentage
Slugging percentage
I assume you know what these are; otherwise I’d doubt you would be reading this blog.
Iso – Slugging with singles removed
BABIP – Batting average on balls in play (the assumption being that hitters have some control over this, based on being the ones that actually put the ball in play)
Contact rate – This is the percentage of plate appearances where the hitter actually puts in ball in play. Having a low contact rate in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, but the trend is very important. In this exercise, I include the league average just for context, more than something that tells us anything important about the players’ skill set. But I will include pretty graphs!

Strike Zone management
BB% - This is unintentional walk rate with hit by pitches added in. The reason that I include HBP is that there is some evidence that certain hitters tend to absorb more pitches than others, and it’s not just because the hitter is a jerk. I mean, look at Craig Biggio.
K% - Fairly straight forward
K: BB – Strikeouts per walk. This is also fairly straight forward…remember, high numbers are bad!

On the bases
R/TOB – Runs scored as a percentage of times on base. This doesn’t really recognize a repeatable skill per se. Runs are as much individual function as team, but slow and bad base runners really don’t score as much as fast/good ones. League average is important here.
Spd – Bill James’ speed score. It’s found in the 1987 Baseball Abstract, and basically puts five speed factors (stolen base%, stolen base frequency, runs, triples, and avoiding double plays) on a 10 point scale and averaged. Its name is kind of a misnomer, as it doesn’t measure speed as much as the player’s ability to make use of his speed.
SB% - Stolen base percentage
Sb.tob – Frequency of stolen base attempts. This doesn’t measure much except the percentage of times the player decides to run for the hills

This isn’t meant to do anything analytical other than to create a type of profile for the player. There are 100’s of others I might have included, but didn’t…but I’m satisfied with what I have for right now. Without further ado…

Jason Varitek and the Red Sox catchers

I mean, they totally suck, right?

Well, Kevin Cash has had a history of being just awful, but Varitek has been a little different. His history with the Red Sox is almost as long as time (he made his MLB debut with the Sox in 1997 when he was 25), so there is a certain segment of the population don’t realize there were Red Sox catchers before Varitek.

After three years of perfectly meh baseball, he broke his elbow in 2001 diving for a popup that knocked him out for the season. Unfortunately, this was right as he was starting to reach his potential as a hitter, and was one of the most productive catchers with the bat in baseball.

The next season he was still recovering, and in 2003, he broke out, having his first really good full season of his career. Hitting 9th over 50% of the time.

This is where the story becomes interesting…Jason Varitek became a masterful handler of the pitching staff! Between winning the World Series, being named captain, and hiring the PR firm of Francona and Schilling, Varitek became more of an entity…praised for his defensive prowess (winning a Gold Glove in 2005) despite not being able to throw at all (seriously, check his SB numbers…it wasn’t all Derek Lowe’s fault). A Cult of Personality was built around Varitek, to the point that in 05-07, he wasn’t hitting much, and was still called one of the most valuable catchers in baseball.

Whatever…my theory is that he does do a lot of homework, but there is no objective evidence that he makes pitchers better (which isn’t to say he doesn’t, just no one really knows if he does), and the only reason why he was given the praise he was for his defense was because of his offense (middling catchers never get praise, the great hitters, and the terrible ones do, with the later because there needs to be some reason to keep them in the lineup if they can’t hit their weight).

Sorry for the digression…but Kevin Cash’s awfulness is well documented and is easy to recognize without this exercise. Varitek is a little trickier, because his reputation is so good, and he’s getting old. A few years ago (when he signed the 4yr/$40 million contract), I found that there were just no catchers that even caught at age 36, let alone didn’t have a steep decline. I think the only ones I could really find were Bill Dickey and Carlton Fisk or something like that…either way the number wasn’t very high. Varitek is the benefit of modernized training and such, and with an iconic reputation…which is never easy to let go. It’s important to put into context what Varitek actually brings to the ball club.

At Bat

The reddish color means below league average.

Without much of a surprise, the two men managing the tools of ignorance for the Red Sox just aren’t hitting a lot. Cash probably wouldn’t be able to homer if he was playing baseball in a silo (or if Juan Cruz threw the ball 1,000 miles an hour down the middle), but at the very least, it looks like Varitek’s negative rates are on the shoulders of a low batting average.

Unfortunately, his batting average is almost 20% below were the league’s catchers (not exactly known for their hitting prowess) are hitting. What’s more troubling is his contact rate.

Now, I said earlier (in case you skipped) that a low contact rate, even compared to league, isn’t bad…it just means you walk, and strike out a lot. Where Varitek’s true offensive horror lies not in a low batting average or a low contact rate, but in a steady contact rate that hasn’t been able to stop his batting average from bottoming out.

Look at Varitek’s trend throughout his career…

His contact rate isn’t significantly lower than it ever has been…so there isn’t evidence that his bat has slowed to the point that he’s being overmatched. There is evidence that once he makes contact, the ball just isn’t going many places other than into a fielder’s mitt. His BABIP is low, which could either mean luck, or not being able to hit the ball hard enough on the line to make outs into singles.

One “good” sign is that Tek’s isolated slugging is still above average, even if it’s not as high as it was in his 03-05 peak.

Strike Zone Management

I’ve always wondered why catcher’s walk and strike out rates were so poor. I think it is because the physical demands of the position are so overwhelming that it completely mitigates their more intimate knowledge of the strike zone

Consistent with Red Sox offensive policy, both Cash and Varitek can take a walk. They also strike out a lot (which leads to their low contact rates), but it has the added benefit of making the opposing pitcher work and saving their legs for more important things like squatting. One unspoken downside to making right turns to the dugout is that it leads to more bench time, which leaves one susceptible to the hot foot, among other pranks.

On the bases

I know Varitek used to be able to run, but he doesn’t much anymore. His run rate is pretty horrifying, but it gets better when you notice that he generally hits in front of Crisp (.434 slug), Lugo (.338 slug) and Ellsbury (.385 slug). Still, his run rate is the lowest among Red Sox regulars, and if not for Alex Cora, it would be the lowest on the team. That includes Sean Casey’s glacial ass.

He’s 36 years old, and any thought of being John Waltham is long gone…there are a lot of miles on his legs, so it’s not so much “He runs well for a catcher” as much as “Hey Bill, Tek doesn’t need a wheelchair yet”. Francona has as much do to with Varitek and Cash being anchored to first when they get there as they catchers themselves do.

Outlook
Varitek has always been streaky, but he’s looked awful at the plate for the last two months. What was a foregone conclusion at the beginning of the off-season…re-signing Varitek…should now be discussed in a good amount of detail. Is it worth paying Varitek $5 million a year to hit .220 when you could pay George Kottaras $400k to hit .210?

Either way, there isn’t any better internal option, with Cash being worse with the bat or seems to be happy in his “work once a week chasing after the goddamn knuckleball” role. Kottaras and Dusty Brown aren’t nearly good enough to jettison Cash and relegate Varitek to the bench.

Truthfully, the Red Sox have no option for 2008…they have to pray that this is bottom right now, and that Varitek is gearing up for one of his .300/.410/.520 stretches and have it last for more than 7 games or so (like his last one did). The real danger of Varitek is that he’s going to hit just well enough to justify a multi-year contract, and we have to watch the death spasms of a pretty good career play out on a Red Sox team that is rebuilding the offense that has so long centered on Manny Ramirez.