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You're Fired!

If Theo Epstein were to get the hammer and Red Sox ownership hired me, a baseball fan, portly , needing a daily 2-3 hour nap, afraid of working too hard lest it ruin my "healthy glow", to run things on Yawkey Way, here's what I'd do:

First off, I'd try and fit Ty Wigginton on the roster and payroll.  Wigginton's face looks, well, big.  If you only looked at his face, you'd guess he was on the Major League Eating roster.

The fact is, Wigginton is a versatile major league who hits for power.  Let's check his fielding:

Innings at each position:

3b - 4239.2

2b - 925.1

1b - 591.2

lf - 290.0

rf - 47.2

of - 90.2 (Baseball Reference has OF listed as a position and I was just too lazy to figure out what OF meant, other than outfield, versus specifically breaking down leftfield and rightfield).

The idea here is that Ty has played many important positions.  Just being capable of playing 1 or 2 of those positions would be enough to qualify a player as a utility player, but Wigginton can basically handle the corner OF positions and the corner infield positions and can even mix in some 2b.

If you assume at the moment Kevin Youkilis is your 1b next year, Dustin Pedroia is your 2b, Mike Lowell is your 3b, Jason Bay is your LF and J.D. Drew is your RF, you can basically expect almost 100 games  lost due to injury, no?  Wouldn't it be nice to plug in a player that hit 22 HRs last season, had a .350 OBP and a .530 SLG versus an Alex Cora or a Sean Casey?

The big problem with Wigginton is that he is arbitration eligible, made $4.35mm last year and is likely to make much more through arbitration.  Let's say he gets $6.0 or $7.0mm in arbitration, is that too much for a buy that basically fills in at a corner position in both the outfield and infield and can even play some 2b and represents only about 8-12% offensive drop-off.

For those of you wondering about his defensive skills, here are his career Range Factors and Fielding Percentages vs. League Average at each position:

3b:

2.65 - career range vs. 2.72 league average per 9 innings.

.951 fielding % vs. .956 league average fielding %.

2b:

4.89 - career range vs. 4.96 league average per 9 innings.

.984 fielding % vs. .984 league average fielding %.

1b:

9.16 - career range vs. 9.47 league average per 9 innings.

.997 fielding % vs. .994 league average fielding %.

lf:

1.77 career range vs. 1.92 league average per 9 innings.

.966 fielding % vs. .984 league average fielding %.

rf:

2.26 career range vs. 2.19 league average per 9 innings.

1.000 fielding % vs. .984 league average fielding %.

Anyway, not to get too carried away with Wigginton, but wouldn't he make an ideal bench player?  In fact, considering the way baseball usually unfolds, he'd play extended time at each position (Drew just pulled his left nostril while you were reading this).

Well it's getting late, so to finish up the last few moves I'd make if I were GM of the Red Sox, I'd sign Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and trade for Russell Martin and give them all 10 year deals at $2mm per year.  Done and done.  Man I'm good at this.

Comments

ok, I resisted replying long enough, you used 498 words to discuss merits of signing Ty Wigginton.

Then in 52 words you, tongue in cheek mention Teixeira, Sabathia and Russell Martin.

$6-$7m per is too much for any bench player period. I get your point about the number of games he likely would play due to the hangnails etc. of Drew and the likelihood of missed games by others. Unless the dude can catch, $6-$7m should be spent elsewhere.

bl

Bl,

Wigginton is probably too expensive, no doubt, but with this cast, his bat would come in very handy. Would you rather give him 450 PA or give those same PAs to Alex Cora and Sean Casey? Because a super-sub is likely to get some much action, I think it is an important thing to address with more than just "good glove" guys.

Hey BL, I sent you an email earlier this week, just want to make sure it didn't get sent to your spam filter.

Peter - got it, thanks.

Andy - was just giving you a hard time, might be money well spent, thought you went overboard though :)

BL, me, overboard? Impossible. I'm as steady as Ozzy Osborne's hands.


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