A Couple Things That Annoy Me Pt. 1

With the very aggressive offseason that the Sox have had so far, the wonderful world of sports journalism is all over every move. Of course, this means they are making some pretty stupid arguments and I am starting to get pretty annoyed. I will explain these in a more-than-one-part series I call "Things That Annoy Me."

1.) Julio Lugo vs. Alex Gonzalez

One of the most annoying arguments is that pertaining to one Alex Gonzalez. Gonzalez is poplarly known as perhaps the best defensive shortstop in Red Sox history. So people are not inclined to let him go, particularly for a player like Lugo who makes his fair share of errors. The basic line of thought was nicely summed up by Jackie McMullen during an appearance on NESN. She expressed regret at letting such a "special player" walk, "what happened to last years emphasis on defense," she lamented. There are so many things wrong with this position, but I will break it down into two basic arguments. Firstly, does anyone really think Alex Gonzalez is a better ballplayer than Julio Lugo? No. Well, that is to say that no one who has any idea what's going on thinks that. If you want to question the money they are giveing him, that's one thing, but there's no question that Lugo is a vastly superior player to Gonzalez. Lugo is probably not even that much worse defensively than Gonzalez, has he undeniably has better range. Gonzalez is very steady handed, and rarely makes errors, but Lugo will get to more balls. However, understaning that requires abstraction away from things immediately visible, which most people, particularly those in the business of writing about sports, seem to have a difficult time with.

The second thing I have a problem with here is: when and where did this 'emphasis on defense' happen? I must have missed that. Let's look it over. The Sox had a pretty bad outfield defense, if by pretty bad I mean very bad. McMullen is clearly thinking about the infield defense when making this statement, which admittedly was very good, but you have to consider how it got that way. Mike Lowell was perhaps the best defensive third baseman in the league last year, but he was an accident. Unwanted baggage in the Beckett deal. The Sox took him on because Beckett was good enough to justify it, not because they particularly wanted him. Sure his defense was part of the reason that the deal was deemed worthwhile, but they hardly went out and acquired a glove in that deal. Kevin Youkillis was another accident. Remeber how he was a third baseman, and no one really knew how well he would adjust? They picked up J.T Snow as a defensive replacement becasue they were so unsure. The defensive replacement at first, by the way, goes back to Mientkiewicz in the Nomar deal, and is a practice that arguably wastes a valuable bench spot. Anyway, getting back to my point: he was moved to first out of necessity, and the Sox were lucky that he was good there. Loretta was acquired much more for his bat than his glove, and Pedroia is a good bet to be better in the field than Loretta was.

And finally, we get to the object of Jackie's affection: Alex Gonzalez. Does anyone remember last offseason? Gonzalez was far from the Red Sox first choice at the position, they found thamselves with a hole there late in the offseason and had to plug it. Hence Gonzalez. He was not heralded at the time, and signed a short deal for reasonable money. Let me tell you a secret about why this is the case; Gonzalez is not a particularly remarkable ballplayer. He is decent but he is not a standout. His acquisition was not an intentional move towards defense, it was making the best of a market that, quite frankly, didn't have a whole hell of a lot out there.

So putting it all together, I see no intentional trend towards defense there at all. It just sort of worked out that way. That's not a bad thing, but the point is that acquiring Lugo over Gonzalez is not a change of strategy. It is a move to get a better shortstop, and in fact the best shortstop available this year.