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| Cody Ross watches his walk-off home run leave the yard |
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:
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| By many measures, Ross is #1 on the Red Sox |
-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.
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