Sox Score Bargain with Carp

Carp has been more than just a feel-good story 

In their quest for outfield depth after injuries forced Bobby Valentine to use about a bajillion outfielders last year, the Boston Red Sox got Mike Carp for next to nothing on February 20th, when they acquired the 26 year-old from the Seattle Mariners for a player to be named later or cash considerations (a bag of balls, essentially). Carp was coming off a down year in which he batted just .213/.312/.341, and the M's didn't have much use for him after signing Raul Ibanez, Jason Bay and Mike Morse during the offseason.

The Red Sox didn't appear to have much need for him either, not with Jackie Bradley Jr. poised to make a big splash in the big leagues. But Bradley bombed during his first two weeks in the Show and was quickly demoted to Pawtucket for additional seasoning. That opened up playing time for Carp, who smashed three extra base hits in his first start with the Sox--a 6-3 win over the Cleveland Indians on April 17th--and hasn't stopped hitting since. After going 2-for-5 with a pair of RBI in last night's extra inning marathon victory over the Tampa Bay Rays, Carp hiked his batting line is up to an impressive .322/.367/.667 over 98 plate appearances.

Like Cody Ross last year, Carp's performed way better than anyone could have possibly predicted. He's taken his game to another level as one of the unsung heroes driving Boston's excellent first half. Carp has smacked more home runs than Dustin Pedroia, driven in more runs than Jacoby Ellsbury and compiled more total bases than Shane Victorino. Not bad for someone barely making more than $500,000 this year.

Carp came into the season expecting to spend lots of time on Boston's bench as the club's fifth outfielder (behind Ellsbury, Victorino, Daniel Nava and Jonny Gomes), but his heavy hitting has forced John Farrell to overlook his lackluster glove and pencil him into the starting lineup more frequently. After making just eight starts in the season's first six weeks, Carp's appeared in 15 of Boston's previous 18 games, starting 13 of them. Consistent playing time has helped him get in a groove at the plate; since the calendar flipped to June, he's belted three home runs, knocked in nine, and batted a scintillating .444/.484/.852.

When a player's that hot, you don't take him out of the lineup, regardless of where he stands on the depth chart.

Red Sox Sign Napoli

Red Sox fans will enjoy watching Mike Napoli rake at Fenway next year

The Boston Red Sox made their first major free agent signing this offseason by acquiring Mike Napoli for three years and $39 million

Boston's front office targeted the former Ranger weeks ago and wasted no time sealing the deal with him on the first day of baseball's winter meetings. It's easy to see why they coveted him so badly; Napoli is a) affordable and b) one of the best right-handed power hitters in the game. Since 2008 he's socked at least 20 home runs each season while slugging .522 and posting a robust .257 ISO. Over that span he owns the third-highest HR/AB ratio behind only Jose Bautista and Albert Pujols. He's on the wrong side of 30 and has played more than 114 games just once (in 2010--his last year with the Los Angeles Angels), but moving from catcher to first base should help keep his bat in the lineup.

Expect the 2012 All-Star to continue producing strong numbers in Boston, where he can take advantage of Fenway Park. He's a .306/.397/.710 hitter with seven long balls in his 17 games there and will enjoy taking aim at the Green Monster for the next several seasons. Surprisingly, the Red Sox have lacked a legitimate righty slugger since Jason Bay helped lead them to their most recent postseason appearance in 2009 (Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis don't count). Boston's lineup has become too lefty-dominant in recent years, but Napoli will provide balance. Interestingly, Napoli batted behind David Ortiz in last summer's All-Star Game, and could very well be protecting Big Papi next season depending on how John Farrell fills out his lineup card.

More importantly, this deal fills the void at first base created by the megatrade that sent Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto to the Los Angeles Dodgers last summer and shed more than $260 million in future salary commitments. It's good to see GM Ben Cherington put some of that freed-up salary to good use. He's already re-signed David Ortiz and brought in Jonny Gomes and David Ross, all on two-year deals. Cherington's aversion to long-term contracts makes the Red Sox unlikely candidates to sign either Josh Hamilton or Zack Greinke, both of whom expect to receive lengthy nine-figure contracts.

That's okay. Cherington has stressed the need for more discipline, and so far he's practiced what he preached. His next moves should be shore up the outfield by bringing back Cody Ross and signing Nick Swisher. Both are hard-hitting outfielders who double as positive clubhouse presences.

After the dysfunctional season Boston just had, this team could certainly use a few of those.

Ross Raking

Cody Ross watches his walk-off home run leave the yard

In what has become another crazy, whirlwind, injury-plagued baseball season for the Boston Red Sox, Cody Ross has stepped up and become the team's best position player in 2012. 

Let that sink in for a second.  On a team that employs the services of numerous perennial All-Stars/MVP candidates such as Adrian Gonzalez, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford, a team that has sunk over $173 million into its roster, Cody Ross (of all people) has been the best position player through the first 95 games of the season.  That might sound shocking to you, but anyone who's watched this team on a regular basis knows how valuable Ross has been.  And just to be clear, I'm not including pitchers or David Ortiz, who only brings his glove to the park for interleague games.  In fact, I'm not sure he would defend first base even if Bobby Valentine stacked Chips AHoy! on top of it (yes, I know he's slimmed down, but they didn't call him the Cookie Monster in Minnesota for nothing). 

But let's get back to this Cody Ross business.  If I made this claim a week ago, when Ross had just one hit in his previous 30 plate appearances, you might have rolled your eyes.  Really? Cody Ross? But on the heels of a monster series against the White Sox that saw him belt a trio of three-run homers, including a walk-off shot on Thursday, in a span of eight at-bats, that sounds a little more reasonable, doesn't it? 

But like I said before, if you've been paying attention to this team, then you've seen Ross blast enough bombs over that giant green wall in left to know he's having a pretty good year.  And for just three million bucks, he's a cost effective throwback to the days when Theo Epstein played rich-man's Moneyball, surrounding his superstar core (Manny Ramirez, Nomar Garciaparra, Pedro Martinez) with undervalued free agents such as Mark Bellhorn, Bill Mueller, Kevin Millar, David Ortiz, and Todd Walker.  After seeing the front office waste so much money on guys like Crawford, John Lackey, and Daisuke Matsuzaka, it's a nice change of pace to see them score on such a cheap investment.  It goes without saying that Ross has been a pleasant surprise as well as a veritable bargain on baseball's second largest payroll.

That's not the only reason to like Ross, though.  He's been incredibly accomodating, willing to do whatever the team asks of him--like play all three outfield positions or bat anywhere from second to eighth in the lineup--with a smile on his face.  His upbeat attitude, penchant for big hits (1.011 OPS with runners in scoring position), and patented celebratory bat-flips have made him a fan favorite even though he's been with the team just six months.  On January 23rd, the Bosox inked Cody Ross to an unheralded one year deal as a replacement option for J.D. Drew. 

To be honest, I didn't think much of the signing at the time.  I remembered the 2010 NLCS MVP coming up with some key postseason hits as he helped the Giants win their first World Series since moving to San Francisco, but hadn't seen enough of him to have much of an opinion.  At first glance he seemed like the prototypical Red Sox pickup, a righthanded power-hitter without much in the way of speed or defense.  All I knew was that I did not want to see Ryan Sweeney and his .378 career slugging percentage man right field all season long. 

The original plan was to platoon them, to get Ross's power into the lineup against lefties (he's feasted on them for a .940 OPS throughout his career, while Sweeney has an anemic .581 mark against southpaws) and take advantage of Sweeney's superior defense and plate discipline with righties on the bump.  But when Crawford opened the season on the Disabled List and Ellsbury joined him soon thereafter, that strategy went out the window and Ross became an everyday player again.  He's been the one constant in an outfield decimated by injuries; despite missing a month of action with a fracture foot his 65 games played are tops in Boston's patchwork outfield.  Valentine has been forced to trot out Marlon Byrd, Darnell McDonald, Scott Podsednik, Ryan Kalish, and Daniel Nava, among others.  There has been no stability.  But even if you didn't know who was going to make up two-thirds of the outfield on any given night, you could count on Cody Ross to show up and play his heart out.

And it doesn't hurt that he's having the season of his life at the plate, either.  The 31 year-old, who's been more or less average offensively for the past decade, is putting together a career year in his Sox debut.  Skeptics can say that he's overachieved and will be quick to point out that his 21.6 HR/FB% is well above his career 13.3% rate.  A pull-hitter with power, Ross's swing is tailor-made for Fenway, where he can take advantage of the Green Monster in left.  After spending the bulk of his career playing in pitcher's parks in Florida and San Francisco, he's flourishing in the old yard's friendly confines.  At home he's turned into Jimmie Foxx, slugging .640 there this season and clearing the fences once every dozen at-bats. Everywhere else he's performing like, well, Cody Ross, slugging .451 with a home run every 18 at-bats.  If he could play all his games at Fenway, he'd have a plaque enshrined in Cooperstown someday.  But then again, you could say the same about a lot of hitters.

Home/Road splits notwithstanding, Ross has outproduced all of his star-studded teammates not named Ortiz. If you remove Big Papi from the equation, Ross rates:

By many measures, Ross is #1 on the Red Sox

-first on the team in slugging percentage with a robust .565 mark, a solid 63 points ahead of Will Middlebrooks
-first with his .914 OPS and first with his 138 OPS+.  The latter figure, if sustained over the course of his career, would rank better than Ken Griffey Jr., George Brett and Al Kaline.
-first in intentional walks, with two! 
-first with a .291 ISO, which trails Ortiz by just two percentage points
-first in oWAR and oRAR
-second in home runs (16), just two fewer than Jarrod Saltalamacchia.  If Valentine can keep finding ways to get him in the lineup, he could eclipse his career high of 24, set in 2009 (his career year) with the then-Florida Marlins
-second in RBI with 50, five behind Gonzalez, who has played 28 more games and accrued 137 additional plate appearances
-second in runs scored (45) and nipping at the heels of Gonzalez, who leads Ross by one

I mean, I knew he had been good, but I had no clue he'd been this good. He's been the best righthanded hitter on the team, he's sporting a .380 wOBA and has been worth 136 wRC+.  That's damn good.  The question, as always, is can he possibly keep this up?  Aside from the slightly fluky HR/FB rate and isolaTed Power, all of his batted ball data checks out.  ESPN has him projected to finish the year with 27 home runs and 85 RBI. FanGraphs is slightly less optimistic, predicting a more significant drop off but a solid bottom line of 24 big flies and 81 ribbies.  Those numbers sound about right to me.  He's been playing a little over his head, but I believe his skills are legitimate. 

With Ellsbury and Crawford back in the lineup (knock on wood) there's a logjam in right and playing time will likely become an issue.  I for one would like to see Ross out there almost everyday; I don't care for Sweeney and his zero home runs and am not convinced that Daniel Nava is a capable major league ballplayer.  Obviously Ross's defense leaves a lot to be desired, and he's going to struggle against righthanders, but after everything that's happened this season he has earned it.