Jacoby went 0 for 5 today, which leaves him at 2 for 27 over the last six games without a run scored. His K/BB ratio is 30/5 since the beginning of June. His K rate for the season is over 15%, the highest it's been at any point in his professional career. Now, I expected a fairly sizable dropoff from the end of last season (primarily due to his obscene .388 BABIP) but this is staggering. Of course, his BABIP is currently sitting at .301 (given his speed, a reasonable figure to regress to) and he still is looking awful at the dish.

For comparison's sake, everyone vilifies Coco Crisp as an awful offensive player and considers Ellsbury the superior option not only because of cost/control (valid) but because of his advantage at the plate...

Ellsbury: .266/.337/.369/.706 -- 86 OPS+
Crisp: .255/.303/.403/.706 -- 84 OPS+

Ellsbury gives you speed, Crisp gives you defense-- but to me-- as overall centerfielders this season-- it's a coinflip. They both have sucked. The question becomes-- do you still look to deal Crisp when Ortiz returns this season-- or even, do you still look to deal Crisp in the offseason?

Should Jacoby be dropped down in the order? Or even given some more time in AA to work on his plate discipline and swing mechanics. I'm beginning to wonder if this is not so much a giant slump (it's a slump no doubt) but also has a component of "regression to the mean" with it. Ellsbury is just not ready to be a top of the lineup guy yet-- I wonder if last season's "fluke" run is keeping him firmly entrenched at the top of the order...

(Not that having 6-7-8-9 be auto outs is any different from 7-8-9-1.)

I was thinking about making a thread along these lines this morning. Besides Varitek, no one has looked more lost at the plate lately than Ellsbury. I think the expectations for this kid after last October have to be weighing on him, and he simply needs to find his swing again. It might not be a bad idea to send him down for a little while, especially if he is banged up or injured. Bottom line, right now, he really shouldn't be hitting leadoff.

I have no problem batting him 9th until he's shown he can get his OBP back up over 350.

He went 7-14 as recently as the Minnesota series.

I think he's fine and a demotion to #9 might be the worst thing to do.

Why is moving him down the order a bad idea? He is getting the most plate appearances out of the entire team right now and he's not hitting.

Tito seems to stick with his guys even if its not working and keeps throwing them in situations.

We have seen this in the past with Timlin in high leverage situations, this season with not pinch hitting for guys like Varitek in crucial situations, with Pedroia through his struggles last season, etc...

This strikes me as a situation where the blame falls on Theo not Tito, Theo needs to intervene, pull rank and tell Tito to get Ellsbury out of the lead off spot for a while. Take some pressure off and get back to his game. His plate discipline and stolen bases have both fallen off the cliff...

right now he seems like the likely guy to sit when Ortiz returns.

Put me in the Coco is not the answer group. I don't care what Jacoby is doing, I don't want Coco or his sh*tty swing in the line-up. I am tired of the that weak a** sh*t. At least Jacoby takes a cut at the ball. If a change does happen, I am okay with two moves. Both include moving Jacoby down in the order once Ortiz is back. Both include moving Pedroia back to the lead-off spot. Then Youks or Drew goes to the 2 hole with the other going in the 5/6 hole. I think I prefer Youks in the two hole, but I am not certain if I would prefer Lowell or Drew in the 5 spot. At the same time, we have seen what Drew can do when he has someone behind him. So Drew, Ortiz, Ramirez would work for a 2-4 and then follow that up with Lowell, Youks, Ellsbury, Lowrie, Tek/Cash. Ellsbury in the 9 slot would not be a bad idea either - getting him on before the order rolls over could work out nicely. The only problem with that is you have to put Lowrie, Tek or Cash in the 7 hole and I don't

If any move means more playing time for Crisp, I'll ride it out with Jacoby. This comes from my opinion that this team does not have what it takes to win a World Series and I'd rather see him get a full season under his belt than attempt to win with Crisp. I know they have been playing without Ortiz and that is tough. Maybe I have been watching too many road games lately, but the pen is simply not good enough in tight situations. There is no bridge to Paps and unless Oki pulls himself together, I don't see that changing anytime soon. Delcarmen has great stuff - but his mental make-up just is not good enough. The ability is clearly there, but he is very inconsistent and that indicates a lack of mental toughness. Hansen is cut from the same mold.

When Ortiz gets back, I would have Coco and Jacoby split time like they did at the start of the year...the rest will be beneficial to Ellsbury, who's played pretty much every day since Ortiz went on the DL.

For the lineup, how does this look?

Pedroia
Drew
Manny
Papi
Lowell
Youk
Tek
Lowrie/Cora
Crisp/Ellsbury

I've heard that Manny doesn't like batting anywhere but cleanup though...Drew has been great in front of Manny, but Papi still deserves to be getting good ABs. Plus it gives a good R/L/R/L/R effect in the top five, and does the whole rolling over the lineup with a leadoff-type at 9. If Crisp or Ellsbury start to get hits, I might slide them in front of Tek so we don't have the most stranded runners in the history of MLB.

Crisp and Ellsbury have similar OPS+ this season but I'll take Ellsbury with the 30+ point lead in OBP over Crisp any day. We're talking about making outs here and Ellsbury is making less even though Crisp has a higher slugging %. He could definitely use some rest but I still want Ellsbury out there when Ortiz gets back. He's the future CF and I want him getting as much time as possible with the proper rest of course.

While it has been concluded by statistical analysis (I forget which site did it, was it BP?) that lineup construction has very little impact on run scoring over the course of an entire season, I think it can have an impact on player preference/pressure/confidence, so I would be ok with moving Ellsbury down in the order once Ortiz returns. Since Ortiz's return forces a lineup shuffle anyway, the order won't be being changed just to get Ellsbury out of the top spot, which might impact his confidence. This team does have an obvious problem with a leadoff man who simply can't get on base with any great frequency, but there is another problem that could be corrected via lineup shuffling as well - the most consistently high-performance hitter on the team, so far this season, should not be batting 6th. If we assume that Ortiz-Manny 3-4 is a given (which I do, as Francona has not shown any inclination to change that setup since 2005), then I'd like to see the following lineup starting on Friday:

Pedroia
Youkilis
Ortiz
Manny
Drew
Lowell
Ellsbury
Lowrie
Varitek

I know this is unlikely, mostly because I doubt Francona will ever bat Varitek 9th, so in a real world setup it's probably safe to flip Lowrie and Varitek. Ellsbury hitting 7th with either Varitek or Lowrie 8th would give Francona some hit-and-run opportunities to play with.

I have to agree with this lineup - Eric Van (SoSH and RS) convinced me of the value of Youks in the #2 hole, and Pedroia (The Destroia) has enough OBP to warrant letting him stay atop the lineup.

What's wrong with riding the hot hand?

I have to agree with having Jacoby in the lineup - Coco is a great defender, but hasn't done anything at the plate since he abandoned the upright stance that worked so well at the end of last season.

This may or may not be related to the rest of his struggles, but I didn't understand why he didn't appear to be running yesterday when he was on w/2 outs and Pedroia up. Late innings of a tight game, I'd think we'd actually use his speed to get him into scoring position.

FWIW here is what I would do:

Pedroia
Lowrie
Drew
Manny (DH)
Youk
Lowell
Crisp (CF)
Varitek
Ellsbury (LF)

What I think Terry will do:

Pedroia
Youk
Drew
Manny
Lowell
Crisp
Varitek
Lowrie
Ellsbury

I like Lowrie at 2 instead of Youk because I think Lowrie would make a good table setter and that Youk needs to be in a big RBI spot in the lineup. I am probably overrating Lowrie, but I would at least try him at 2 before moving him to 7 or 8.

Once Papi gets back, he DHs, Manny to LF, Ellsbury to CF and Crisp to the bench. Crisp will get increased play time if Ellsbury continues to struggle.

Bottom line is we need Papi back at 100% and we need Ellsbury to start hitting, otherwise we will look more often like a Mario Mendoza all-star team instead of the pennant contenders we ought to be.

Bob G

His lack of power and style of play reminds me a LOT of Jeremy Reed. I don't see him getting that much better.




Crisp actually has quite a bit of speed too. As far as centerfielders he's as good of a defender as anyone. Given that Manny will go back to the field when Ortiz comes back, he should at the very least start against left handed pitching.

How am I not surprised? Of course you don't. No Yankee fan does.

Everyone has always known Ellsbury can't hit for power. His OBP will rise, and that's basically all he's missing right now.

Players with that little of power don't usually draw enough walks (because pitchers usually tend to challenge them) to have an above average on base percentage and hit .262.

And yet, the Sox have pretty steadily averaged 5 runs scored per game throughout the season. I assumed that the offensive stats would have dipped recently, given the 3-2-3-2 runs scored in the last four games, but even accounting for that cold streak the team has averaged exactly 5 R/G this month. Of course, hanging 18 on Minnesota and 12 on Baltimore in a three day stretch distorts that a little, but the point still stands that this is NOT an impotent offense. It's just one that hasn't hit well in Anaheim, a team which is (let's see here) third in the AL in RA/G. No shame in that.

So...rather than overreact to the last four games of stale offense, I'd prefer to see the front office tune the few obvious areas that could be improved. If Lowrie's tryout at SS is a bust, that's the most obvious place to improve. Ellsbury looks to be suffering a bit as the league adjusts to his hitting approach, but Crisp isn't an improvement and Moss isn't either. The bullpen, like EVERY MLB bullpen, is an arm or two short. Maybe Marte could be had for a redundant pitching prospect.

So as to not make this a total hijack, I think dropping Ellsbury to 9th temporarily is a fine way to help him recover his stroke, and little else needs to be done. This team, barring more injuries, will be in contention in September.

Yeah lets not overreact...Ellsbury's in a bad slump, sure, but I'm just not sure what else is out there that's really going to fix the problem.

I think a better idea would be to adjust the lineup when Ortiz comes back, move Ellsbury down to the 9th spot, and see if he gets it going a little.

Maybe i'm on my own here but I dont think he'll hit .262 for the rest of his career. He's in a bad slump, hitting .212 over the last month. Before that he was at something like .290. I'll be willing to bet he is hitting over .280 with an OBP over .350 by the end of the season.

---

Also, I don't get what moving him down in the lineup will do. So if he hits ninth and goes on a tear for a couple weeks, then you move him back up? After he has gone on his run?

If you want to put him 9th and have Pedroia and Youk at the top of the lineup then fine, but keep it that way.

I meant to add a sentence to the end that stated: "It's his batting average more than anything that needs to rise" His isolated rates are just fine.


EDIT: Furthermore, he's struggled since June:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bspli...1&year=2008

Yeah.. that's why I said he has been in a slump for the last month. This is July.

He was hitting as high as .289/.373/.413 on June 15th.

I'm in favor of going back to a lineup similar to one from last year's PS.

Dustin
Youks
Papi
Manny
Lowell
Drew
Lowrie
Tek
Ellsbury

I'll note, though, that it wasn't that long ago that everyone was wondering what was wrong with Pedroia. Now he's a mini-Ted Williams (crude mouth and all ). My point is that players go through slumps and Ellsbury could at some point get hot like he was back in April. If that happens, he's a tremendous weapon in the leadoff spot.

Cano has been terrible all year, does that mean he's a .675 OPS hitter now? Cano has a longer track record but given Ellsbury's minor league numbers and his stats last year there's no reason to think he won't put up better numbers in the long run.

IMO it's more a matter of pitcher have found where to pitch Jacoby and are exploiting it. From the little bit I've seen this year, pitchers are going low and inside more often, which was an area he has always had trouble with. Now he has to adapt.

Here is his zone chart

Is this sarcasm or cherry picking at it's finest?

Julio Lugo reached base at nearly a .500 clip during that series. It's unfortunate that he got injured, since he was "fine" too...

My thinking exactly. If Jacoby is going to make it in the Bigs, he needs to adjust to the adjustment made by opposing pitchers. I'd like to think he will, and it seems clear that he has the talent to do so, but he won't start hitting again until he learns to cover the weaknesses his first 100 or so games in the Show have exposed.

No problem dropping him to 9th in the order while he figures it out. Even if/when he does, and assuming Pede and Youk continue to hit, let him stay in the 9 hole. Sure he gets a few fewer plate appearances, but as long as the lineup is clicking, who cares?

He seems prone to swing at low inside pitches that would be balls. He "corkscrews" himself a lot on those swings and looks really bad when missing. He looks like Papi used to look on those pitches before "figuring it out". If he could just lay off that pitch a bit better, I think he'll end up on base more...until he can figger it out!

i have noticed him taking those low inside pitches for called strikes (rookies don't get those too often) and falling behind early in counts, which makes him have to shorten his swing further and be more aggressive which has two main downsides; loss of power and having to hit pitches he would not normally swing at. To be fair, he has looked lost at the plate on some appearances abut has also hit the ball hard only to line out...

Cano actually has had major league success, and had a lower BABIP and his LD and GB rates were in tune with the rest of his career norms, so one could easily infer that he was hitting into bad luck...so I'm not quite sure the comparison works, since Ellsbury's current BABIP is a reasonable .297, so while he may be hitting into a bit of bad luck, it is nothing completely unusual, nor should it account for his 86 OPS+ As far as minor league numbers go, should Seattle fans have ignored Jeremy Reed's performance in the majors? Should Yankee fans still hold out hope for Gardner or Ian Kennedy because of their good minor league numbers? As to his stats last year, if he manages to maintain a .388 BABIP he will be an absolute monster. He should put up better numbers in the long run, but I'm not sure if he'll ever be the all star that he was billed as.I'd actually move Ellsbury above Varitek, there is no way that I'd give more plate appearances to Jason Varitek than I would Jacoby Ellsbury. Also, why is Drew batting 6th? Shouldn't you give your better hitters more plate appearances? I know that the difference in lineups as they correlate to runs being scored is small, but I'd go something like:PedroiaDrewOrtizRamirezYoukilisLowellLowrieEllsburyVaritek/Cash

I don't know enough about either to answer that, but it seems to me that a comparison of either player to Ellsbury is flawed. Gardner has simply never been as good as Ellsbury and has been a disaster in his limited time in the majors. Kennedy, from what I've always heard, has been regarded as close to a "finished product," unlike most players his age (including Ellsbury).

fwiw, my take on Ellsbury is basically what others have said -- if he continues to adapt and progress, he'll be fine. If not, this is what we've got. One thing I've concluded is that he doesn't seem to use his speed enough. Last night was a departure from that, with two bunt attempts. I wonder if he might have some nagging injuries, but that's based on casual observation.

I wasn't saying that either player was as good or better than Ellsbury was referring to using a player's minor league numbers to say "he'll be fine" to an extent it's a good idea, but not when there are some problems that scouts noticed about a player (e.g. not a dominant fastball, not a lot of power, etc.), perhaps they may have a point.




I'd say maybe a .350/.410 guy, but with good defense in CF and stellar baserunning, that isn't a bad player...although not the player he was billed to be (though, that's like 80% of recent prospects who have came up).



When I noticed that his GB% was down, normally it is a good thing, but for a guy with plus plus speed and not a lot of power, ground balls are most likely the way to go. He's easily fast enough to lead the league in infield hits, and if he does that and takes his walks, he'll be a very valuable commodity pre-free agency

Maybe I wasn't clear, but I wasn't discussing whether either payer is as good or better than Ellsbury, either -- I was saying why the two you mentioned aren't good comparisons in discussing minor-league performance. I agree with your general point, just not the examples you used.

What frustrates me with Ellsbury (and I see it in other young Sox players too), is his chasing bad pitches, in any count. Pedroia does it but gets the bat on the ball. Ellsbury just seems to swing at horrible pitches, then he lets ones over the plate go right by. Not sure if it's him not making adjustments or opposing teams building a book on him, but he's had some terrible at bats of late. Moving him down maybe takes some pressure off and he can be more selective. He has to do something to get on base though as his value is on the basepaths and of course defensively. If he can't get on base, they need to come up with a different answer for CF.

I'm sure we can all see something different Ellsbury is doing wrong right now. To me, it's that he looks to be not "grounded" and therefore seems to be all arms with his swing. Pedroia is the opposite, getting everything he has into his swing. I've been thinking that Pedroia ought to be given an added job of tutoring the other young hitters. ****yeah, do it my way! Who knows what Dave Magadan does.

Agreed, Ells just looks very tentative at the plate. I'm hoping Coco isn't giving him pointers!