In an effort to avoid bumping the Shortstop mega thread. I think that this deserves its own discussion.

MRI to be taken on Saturday, pending the results we don't know how bad it is but it doesn't sound good. If he is DL'd and out for an extended period of time I think they have to give Lowrie a long look at SS, I just hope we don't see Cora starting a bunch of games and Lowrie sitting on the bench.



Globe




Bradford

He's putting up solid hitting numbers at Pawtucket. I don't think he's gonna get any more ready than he is.

Lugo got hurt? YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You may thank me in the form on money and alcohol.

A few Sox fans sold their souls for this one.

I'm not gonna cheer Lugo's injury, that's pretty cruel.

Though, it's been "Lowrie time" since freaking May.

For a team to give up on a player that they owe $18 million over the next two years they need to know for sure that the replacement is both cost effective and can play well. Hopefully Lowrie is up to the task.

Cripes, if it were the A's, they'd throw Lowrie out there without a second thought and he'd do great. No hopefullies required.

Speedy recovery for Julio Lugo! I cannot wait to see Jed Lowrie get some real playing time.

I second that! All the best to Julio.

That said, best case at this point is Jed takes his place as the starting SS form here forward and Julio comes back to MLB with his NEW team and has a great "rest of his career"

From Rotoworld:

The Red Sox are expected to recall infielder Jed Lowrie from Triple-A Pawtucket before Saturday's game.
Lowrie will replace Julio Lugo, who injured his left quad while attempting to beat out a groundball on Friday night. Lowrie has hit .268 with five homers and 32 RBI at Triple-A this season. It will be his third go-around with the Red Sox this year.
Source: Providence Journal

He looked pretty hurt to me. Like weeks to months. Quads are a bitch.

I think its Lowrie time. He's probably got every chance to win the job now. Im not overly optimistic though, b/c I think Lowrie is being slightly overrated. His defense isnt good at SS. Worse, it isnt good in ways you wont notice by watching him. He better hit... I do think he will. Love his approach at the plate.

If you can't see his weaknesses as a fielder, then are they really there (tree falling in a forest)? RF and ZR? Speaking of those, I see that Lugo is dead last in RF, second to last in ZR (Crosby) and dead last in fielding percentage, by a lot (.945 to next to last Bartlett with a .967). He also doesn't seem to use much grey matter when it comes to patience at the plate, trying to steal third with two outs and other baffling stuff. I feel bad for the guy for getting hurt, but between his horrible hitting last year and his horrible fielding this year, he's the worst Red Sox shortstop during my watch and I remember DiMaggio coming back from a heel injury to steal the pennant from us in '49.

Next worst Red Sox shortstops: Don Buddin, Eddie Bressoud, Milt Bolling, Doug Griffin, Glenn Hoffman, the last two being good field-no hit. All of those guys were from the "dead era", i.e., Sox with Williams in his last few years and not much else, up until the Impossible Dream Team. That's about 1952 to 1967. Since then, Sox SS's have been decent to good to Nomar.

Yes -- lack of range (which does apply to RF and, I believe, ZR). I don't know if it applies to Lowrie, but I don't think many fans are going to be able to discern good versus bad range just from watching on TV.

Projo just reported that Lowrie has been recalled...

Joe McDonald - Red Sox recall Lowrie to replace injured Lugo

BOSTON -- The Red Sox recalled infielder Jed Lowrie from Pawtucket on Saturday to replace the injured Julio Lugo.

...

Lowrie left Saturday morning from Norfolk, where the PawSox were playing the Tides. He's hitting .268 with 5 homers and 32 RBI for the PawSox this season. He has played mostly shortstop for Pawtucket.

This will be his third stint with Boston this season. He began his major-league career with an eight-game hitting streak and went 3-for-4 in his final game in Boston on May 10 against Minnesota. In 17 games with the Red Sox he has a .310 average with one homer and seven RBI.

he makes $9M a year.
whether we like it or not, I got a feeling THIS is going to be his team for a while.

Lowrie is starting at short tonight.

It's pretty stupid to just blindly follow defensive stats when not one of them is even close to actually capturing everything that goes into defense. I look at them plenty, but they aren't the be all end all of any discussion like some would like you to believe, Malzone.

Even some of the most distinguished sabermeticians out there say that the truth about defense probably lies halfway between statistics and reputation (what you can see).

I thought this might be the opportunity I've been waiting for that the Sox might turn the page on Lugo and acquire somebody for the rest of the season to bridge the gap to Lowrie. For a No. 9 hitter it doesn't have to be a lot as long as he rarely commits errors and has a high OBP. Lugo makes me modestly long for Jody Reed.

But Lugo is actually 8th among SS in OBP. Not sure they are going to be able to acquire anybody better. Maybe the Reds would trade Jeff Keppinger or the Pirates Jack Wilson, but Keppinger wouldn't be a whole lot better defensively and Wilson really wouldn't be an offensive upgrade. Eckstein would be similar and less defensively. Not crazy about Vizquel, either, though I think I'd rather have all 4, but there's little hope of significantly upgrading in OBP.

I'm very happy that now they have to use Lowrie. I just think the lineup is more potent with Jed. Lugo has a nasty habit of hitting into a double play at the worst moment. Jody Reed was a pretty good offensive short stop, he hit a few home runs and a load of doubles (he might have let the league one year). He was just a pain in the butt when Nomar came up and Jody didn't want to move to second base. A previous post listed Doug Griffin as a shortstop, I remember him as a second baseman. Anyway I feel better with Lowrie that Lugo.

Hopefully Lowrie plays so well that they can't put Lugo back into the lineup.

You're conflating Jody Reed and John Valentin here...both were similar players (good Fenway hitters, very underrated defenders) but it was Valentin who was the incumbent SS when Nomar arrived. Reed moved to 2B so Luis Rivera (!) could play SS in the late 80s/early 90s.

The entire incident was like a week long, too, wasnt it? Jimy Williams said it was an open competition IIRC, and then Nomar blew Valentin away.

Moot point anyway, b/c #13 could never stay healthy for any prolonged stretch after that. I really liked Valentin.

Sorry about the mix up, my old brain didn't click right. My first memories of a Red Sox short stop was of Rico Petrocelli, who we could really use. Bill Lee said one time if he ever had to go to war, he would want to take Rico Petrocelli and Rick Burleson. Love those Spaceman quotes. And they were both better than Lugo, although I think some one will dig up statistics to disprove that, but statistics don't always tell the whole story.

the money is also a huge factor, IMO.

back then we didn't know what Burleson & Petrocelli made.
now everyone knows the salaries and expects production to match.

if Lugo made $2M a year instead of 9, I think we'd view him differently.

Yes, because a higher salary requires a higher performance. If Lugo mad $2M a year that would make him easier to move if and when the Sox had enough of him. Instead, the team is forced to trot him out onto the playing field every game. Also, it locks more money into a single player that could be used on other positional needs or even help sign IFA and draft picks.

I agree, but I think people often make the mistake of worrying too much about performance fitting salary... the goal now is to win games, not to make sure we're getting our money's worth at every position. When we are discussing possible free agent acquisitions, yes, it matters then... but at this point if we made a mistake we have to forget who is paid what and focus primarily on putting the best team on the field.

Lugo does still has some skills that make him an asset, even if we all hate watching the guy play. He will never live up to his salary, no, but that doesnt mean we have to discard him because of it. We paid for a 9 million dollar shortstop and got a 5 million dollar one... but so what? A 5 million dollar shortstop is still better than nothing. Baby with the bath water, blah blah blah...

The one guy I wouldn't mind taking a chance on is Khalil Greene, in spite of his lack of production this season and annual poor OBPs. The guy is an amazing defender and may just need a change for his bat to start heating up. He'll never be a high OBP guy, but if he hits .260 with power and plays a flawless SS, then that's more than Lugo. The problem is San Diego is going to want the same type of prospects for him that they could have gotten last offseason, before his bat wnet in the tank this spring.

Khalil Greene is making $4.5M this season and $6.5M next season.

He is hitting .216 .264 .329 .593 this season with 21 BBs and 85 Ks and is a career .249 .305 .427 .732 hitter. Though he did put up 27 HRs and a .759 OPS last season. This season he is actually hitting worse on the road then at home. But from 2005-2007 he put up a road batting line of .273 .328 .500 .828.

The only way I could see the Sox interest in Greene is if the Padres were to take a partially subsidized Lugo off our hands in return.

One thing to note about Greene is that he has some of the same problems that JD Drew has, in that he is very even tempered/low key and fans/media are getting after him on talk radio out here because it doesn't look like he is trying or passionate....

I would also add that if a three way deal could be worked out. Greene to the Sox, Lugo to team C, Prospects/players to San Diego.....

It would be a real shame if we got someone else like J.D. Drew.

In theory, Greene's crappy season will lower the price, and I'd bet on this year being a bit of a blip. Not that I'd expect him to get back to his 6.0 WARP pace of last year, but 4-5 would be acceptable and an upgrade. The problem is the logistics of getting him and getting rid of Lugo, and whether it's worth the price. I'm going to venture a guess that the logistics aren't workable, but maybe I'm just being a pessimist.

Unless we eat the cost entirely (that is, release him), I think we've got Lugo 'til the end of his contract. And that's fine, if obviously less than ideal. The team around him is strong enough to make up for lack of production. The team as currently constructed can win in spite of him.

except it's not Lugo's fault he's making $9M a year.

No, it's not his fault at all. If I were him I would try and squeeze every penny from an organization. However, he shouldn't be surprised at the criticism that follows with every extra mil he makes. The FO gets their fair share of criticism for signing Lugo to the deal that they did but it has to work against the player as well for not living up to his end. Yes, the money is already spent on Lugo but that doesn’t change the fact that he is vastly underperformed and that his contract isn't hampering the team. Say that JD Drew continued to hit like he were last year. The fans would have every right to be upset that the FO dished out a 5 year 14M per to a mediocre player instead of spending the money on a better player and/or help out other organizational needs. Lugo has failed to remotely live up to his end of the deal. Someone like Coco Crisp can get away with regressing to a 4OFer because his contract just makes him a slightly over-paid 4OFer and if they needed, could go out and spend money on another OFer.

your opinion.
mine is that they way overpaid for a guy who wasn't that good to begin with and the performance they're getting is about what I expected.

The FA market for SS was/is pretty thin and Lowrie didn't do much of anything the year before, but the team could have signed a stop-gap defensive guy to plug into SS at a minimal price and try again the year after. If the Sox took that approach, they would be paying only 300K instead of 9M for a better bat and they would also have Rick Porcello hanging out in the minors.

Greene also never smiles, right? One of my son lives in San Diego and was up (Bay Area) for a while last year and we watched some games. In one, Greene hit a walkoff against the Giants (I think). My son says 'let's see if he smiles or anything'. Sure enough, they mob the guy at the plate and he shows nothing, not even a smile, like they were mobbing a ragdoll. I agree with TreeRol though, taking performance over emotion. Greene has never been much for OBP though (career .305). Lugo's is .335.

Greene also has a career .808 ops away from Petco. Though he has sucked everywhere this year. I was lobbying to trade for Greene before last year. Wonder what he would do with the monster.

People give Drew a hard time b/c he is not an emotional guy/dirt dog. If it is possible, Greene show less emotion than Drew. I can't imagine the type of reception Greene would get in Boston. The media and the fans would chew him up and spit him out in a matter on months.

And in theory, Greene wouldn't care. So I suppose it doesn't matter to anyone except the people who need to fill airtime and column inches, and the morons who pay attention to them. It's a win-win!

Maybe Theo will sign OC in the Off-season. Personally I think not keeping him is Theo's biggest mistake. Look at what we have paid out and endured by not giving a guy the money who wanted to be here. "Wanting to be here" is a big plus look at Lowell and Schilling as examples.
I know you guys are going to go on and on but I feel this and always will.

More power to anyone who thought OC was going to have 3 of his best 6 seasons after the age of 30. If you can make a case that anyone would've predicted he'd ever be worth, say, 3.5 wins in a season again after 2004 I'll believe letting him go was a mistake. But I'm not seeing it.

Seriously, he's had 3 of his best 4 OBP seasons ever in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Who saw that coming?

Very good point. And it seems that Drew really doesn't care. I would suspect that his problems from last year stem from his son and nothing else.

Kyle

I keep reading about Drew's son and while I agree that could have a huge impact on his performance, didn't Drew have shoulder surgery that was expected to zap his power for most of the season? I never see this mentioned from anyone and I don't understand why not (unless I'm wrong, than that makes sense).

It also looks like Drew is having a bit of fun out there and you could really see it when he was putting up the monster numbers in June.

/rant