2015 outfield picture

Not sure if this is a typo or you just keep forgetting, but jmei corrected you a couple days ago on this: Cespedes is 28, not 26. He will be 29 in one month, making the premise that "his best years are yet ahead of him" somewhat questionable.

He has a 2.1 BB%, 22.5 K%, and 108 wRC+ with the Sox. He's been good at driving in runs, but he hasn't produced in such a way that I'd want him as my cleanup hitter over a full season.

They're already running an experiment with Mookie this year-- playing him in the outfield. He's clearly not a finished product in the outfield defensively, which is why the rest of this season is so valuable-- because it gives him important developmental reps there while the stakes are still low. You have to weigh the 10% chance he plays 3B well against the 90% chance that he doesn't and just ends up wasting valuable development time just messing around at a position that he's probably not best suited-for long-term. Sure, the tangible cost of that lost development time probably isn't huge, but from my POV, it's so much more likely that he's a more valuable player in RF that it's still not worth the effort. The same logic is true with regards to trying him at 3B during next year's Spring Training.

Remember, this is the type of decision where the front office just has much more information at its fingertips than we do. They know much more than any of us how well his arm projects to 3B and whether he has the kind of mental aptitude/focus to handle learning a position he's probably literally never played before, on the fly (i.e., with no prior instruction, not even taking ground balls there), at the major league level. The fact that it appears that the front office has not seriously considered moving Mookie to 3B is thus fairly telling.

By the way, reading that Cherington quote as suggesting that they want to try Betts at 3B in ST 2015 is seriously stretching it. He says that they don't expect to try Betts at 3B and that they'll focus on 2B and the outfield for him. While he leaves some wiggle room to back out of it and GMs do occasionally lie/mislead/change their minds, the quote itself is fairly clear-- no Betts at 3B.

Yeah, still not sold on Cespedes at all. As I said before, I think he's basically Cody Ross with a better arm. Nothing I'd want to extend for top dollar or the years (5-6) that he'd want. I still hope they trade him in the off season.

It won't hurt him long-term (read: multiple years from now), but losing those OF reps probably hurts him in 2015. He's only spent a couple months at the position, and an extra month now probably helps a lot in terms of making him the best possible defender next April.

I just used the odds Eric provided, but just wanted to illustrate the point that there are tangible downsides to playing him at 3B this year (there's also the fact that WMB loses at-bats; even if he's likely a lost cause, you want to be as sure as possible). While we can't handicap the odds with any real accuracy, I honestly find it extremely unlikely that 3B is his best position long-term for reasons discussed above. If you think he's a plus corner outfielder, he has to be an above-average defensive third baseman to even start thinking about converting him, let alone for the benefits of giving him time there this season to overwhelm the costs.

Mookie now has 1.4 rWAR in 128 PAs, JBJ has 1.3 rWAR in 390 PAs. Food for thought.

I missed that message. My eyes must have played a trick on me because I got the age info from baseball reference, but now I see that I misread it. Apparently I picked up the 26 from his debut in the majors, rather than his current age. So my apologies.  Some of my analysis of him was based on the age I thought he was, and so I am going to back off on this argument for the time being. 

What is the team going to learn in 5 or 6 games at 3b that they aren't going to learn watching him take infield? The few reps he would take would do little to instill enough confidence in the team to go into next year with him as the lead candidate for the starting 3b job.

So the way I see it the team is going to have to bring in a 3b regardless. And if that's the case they should focus on making Betts the best possible OFer he can be.

Betts should be first in line of playing time until Castillo arrives, and even after that, he should be second in line. Most of their other outfielders are guys who should get no more than part-time play (Nava, Craig, Bradley), especially since they can steal reps at 1B/DH.

More broadly, I think every game Betts spends at 3B is a game better spent in the outfield. As others have mentioned, ten games in the outfield might not matter that much, but neither would ten games at third base. It's not about what the fans think, it's the fact that he's only played something like 75 professional games as an outfielder, which makes an extra 15ish games of obvious benefit. He'll get those ST reps regardless, but these extra handful of games provide the sort of game-speed reps that are crucial to helping him refine his routes and throws before he starts playing in games that really matter again.


If Xander wasn't there, I'd give Betts reps at SS. Even a below-average defensive SS is so hard to find that it'd make it worth it for me (i.e., the positional adjustment difference between SS and RF is 15 runs, and those extra 5 runs matter).

In your above analysis, you're thinking too much about defense and not enough about offense. Yes, Bradley is a better defender, but Betts looks like the much, much better hitter. A CF/RF/3B of Castillo/Bradley/Betts is almost certainly a worse overall configuration (considering both offense and defense) than Castillo/Betts/[acquisition], even taking into account [acquisition]'s salary (i.e., through a $/WAR-type analysis).

I agree Bradley needs those triple AAA at bats. He has a huge blind spot on everything thrown inside.

As for cespedes, I see no reason why he would get a huge contract after next season. His obp is around 300 as well.

Between cespedes, Craig and a ton of pitching prospects, we have the Juice to make some noise.

Let's give him a year in triple AAA and then we can reassess his overall value.

I'm about a week late to this conversation, but I was surprised by the number of people who seem to have no interest in Victorino. I think someone referred to him as having "way negative value." Certainly when a 33 year old has a bad year and can barely play I can see why, but I think it's useful to take a bit of a longer view. When I read the bolded comment above I was pretty certain that was incorrect, but I think I figured out how you got that idea--BR automatically splits seasons, so it looks like Victorino's last four seasons, including this one, are 1.5, 1.1, 5.8, and 0.5. But the 1.5 and 1.1 are his wins in Philly and LA, both during the 2012 season. His last four seasons have been worth (according to BR) 5.4, 2.6, 5.8, and 0.5. That looks like a different player.

I'm not arguing that it makes sense to count on Victorino for anything. But given that he's one year removed from being a top 20 player, I'm not sure that it makes sense to just eat his salary either.

Really, that's the issue with almost every one of the outfielders. The range in reasonably expected values next year is enormous for Victorino, Craig, Castillo, Betts, and even Bradley (though he's the obvious one to wait on for now). I have absolutely no idea what they're going to do this off-season. It'll certainly be interesting to watch.