That's what they said about Carlos Lee! He plays 81 games in front of the Crawford Boxes. And who's going to care about his defense. He's paid for his 30 HR 100 RBI bat.

If that’s the case, so what? Fenway Park cozy left field mitigates any defensive shortcomings for 81 games of the season, and even if Bay’s not a Gold Glover, he’s not a butcher, either.

And so what? I do away with any data I don't like with a wave of the hand!

If the Red Sox ultimately decide he’s not worth $80 million-$100 million, that’s fine. But just don’t say it’s because he couldn’t play defense, because that’s a copout.

What's the real reason then?

Bay sure is a metronome of production at the plate. Aside from his 2007 lost to injury he keeps churing out 135ish OPS+ seasons. And for a guy who seems to plod more than run he has a career 82.5% success rate stealing bases and hits into darn few double plays.

For all those positives I could see a Boston fan having the queasies about signing Jason to big dollars. Rationale or no one has the sense one day he wakes up and the bat doesn't join him in the cab on the way to the park.

Thrive under pressure?

I've been wondering: When did Bay become a bad defender? Mind you, I don't think he's nearly as awful as some people do, but he's not good. I remember just a few years ago he was reasonably good -- good enough to play about a fifth of a season in CF, if not terribly well. What happened? When?

Fenway Park cozy left field mitigates any defensive shortcomings for 81 games of the season

is this true?

If anything, it actually magnifies it, at least according to the metrics.

I've been wondering: When did Bay become a bad defender? Mind you, I don't think he's nearly as awful as some people do, but he's not good. I remember just a few years ago he was reasonably good -- good enough to play about a fifth of a season in CF, if not terribly well. What happened? When?

Right knee injury in 2007 that ruined his season. Had surgery in the offseason.

Offense bounced back, defense never did.

Voxter:

The 2007 injury really hurt his range.

And as a side note, the Pirates putting someone in cf is not a sign that the player could handle the position in even the remotest fashion.

I've been wondering: When did Bay become a bad defender? Mind you, I don't think he's nearly as awful as some people do, but he's not good.

I'm pretty sure Bay had knee surgery at some point, maybe circa 2007? That would do in your defense value in a hurry, he's obviously not in this area (yet) but knee problems turned Bernie Williams from "bad" to "nightmarish."

Edit: Cokes all around!

I think Bay's surgery was after the 2006 season, but it didn't heal in 2007 and he tried to play through it.

And anyone that contends that Bay has anything but an awful arm just doesn't watch him. His shoulder surgery in 2004 sapped any arm strength he ever had and it's not coming back. He's only racked up assists the past few seasons because everyone tries (usually with success) to take the extra base on him.

Bay's problems on defense seem to be more than range. He stumbles after fly balls, looking like he doesn't get good reads.

Tomase is a dope. Don't bother considering anything he has to say.

Tomase use to be pretty good, but this column is not very well conceived -- though at this stage (the terminal stage) in the newspaper game maybe that's the point.

It's pretty obvious Bay's defense factors into the overall accounting of how much money you should pay him to play left field. It's simply incorrect to suggest otherwise.

If anything, it actually magnifies it, at least according to the metrics.

I can't see this as anything but a flaw with the metrics. Red Sox LF is probably the easiest field to play in all of baseball. I suspect the Sox feel the same way as I do, as they've made no effort to put useful defenders there in years.

And thanks for the answers about Bay. This is what I get for paying no attention to . . . no, I'm sorry. I refuse to feel bad for not paying any attention to the Pirates.

Wait, his real name is Tomase? He didn't make that up after watching LA Confidential?

If this is really the case the Sox might want to think about Matsui as a cheaper, shorter term option in left field. We know he can still hit the crap out of the ball and he is very confident tha the can still play the outfield. Fenway's LF would be an easier task for him than any other.

I think the problem with playing hideki in the field is 2-fold. First, he is slower than jorge posada at this point. Second, there is the worry that playing in the field will exacerbate his injury.

If this is true, then talk of going for cameron makes a little less sense since the move with get a lot of its value from the overall of fielding upgrade.

If this is really the case the Sox might want to think about Matsui as a cheaper, shorter term option in left field. We know he can still hit the crap out of the ball and he is very confident tha the can still play the outfield.

It would be nice to add another right handed hitter to the lineup if Bay leaves, so Matsui's not really my first choice.

#12 has it right. Bay is just an all around bad outfielder. He actually runs pretty well on the bases. I didn't see much of him before his injury, so maybe he was lightning fast then, and that covered for his bad jumps. BBREF's fielding stats rate him as terrible in 2005, too, though. My guess is that the Pirates played him 30 games in centerfield that year just because he was fast. The normal assumption is that if a guy can run and is a "good guy" then he'll be a good outfielder. It's usually true, but not with Bay.

If this is true, then talk of going for cameron makes a little less sense since the move with get a lot of its value from the overall of fielding upgrade.

I've been arguing this point for a while.

I can't see this as anything but a flaw with the metrics. Red Sox LF is probably the easiest field to play in all of baseball. I suspect the Sox feel the same way as I do, as they've made no effort to put useful defenders there in years.

What do you define as effort? They had Manny there for 7.5 years, and replaced him with the best bat they could on (essentially) short notice. Even during 2007 they'd pull Manny and slide Ellsbury over to play LF with Coco in CF, which was pretty good defensively...

A couple probles I see with Matsui as Red Sox LF are that he'd have to play at least 40-50 games away from Fenway, and that just because he's confident he can play the field doesn't mean he can. I'd love to have the Shemp of 5 years ago, though.

I can't see this as anything but a flaw with the metrics. Red Sox LF is probably the easiest field to play in all of baseball. I suspect the Sox feel the same way as I do, as they've made no effort to put useful defenders there in years.

I'm under the impression from threads here that the metrics do seem to have a problem with left field at Fenway. Like, while Manny is not a good defender, he's not as bad as most of the metrics make him out to be.

I'm under the impression from threads here that the metrics do seem to have a problem with left field at Fenway. Like, while Manny is not a good defender, he's not as bad as most of the metrics make him out to be.

I think that's largely been corrected. It definitely used to be true, when people were rating Manny as a -40 defender.

For example, UZR (Fangraphs) has Bay as a -13 in 2009 w/the Sox, which is entirely consistent with his -18 in 2008 (-10 w/Pitt and -8 w/Bos) and his -11.5 in 2007. He was also -6 in 2004 and 2005. 2006 seems to be the outlier at +3.

All evidence points to Bay always being a below average who has become increasingly poor due to age and knee injuries/surgeries. Makes sense to me.

All evidence points to Bay always being a below average who has become increasingly poor due to age and knee injuries/surgeries. Makes sense to me.

He gets bad jumps and plays everything timidly. He takes especially bad angles on balls in the corner. He actually has decent speed still, even if the knee injuries have slowed him down. He still runs well on the bases, taking an above average number of extra bases last year.

What do you define as effort? They had Manny there for 7.5 years, and replaced him with the best bat they could on (essentially) short notice. Even during 2007 they'd pull Manny and slide Ellsbury over to play LF with Coco in CF, which was pretty good defensively...

That's not really that much of an effort. Crisp was acquired before it was known whether Ellsbury would pan out, and Ellsbury happened to arrive before Crisp was shipped out of town. I think any team would be remiss not to align its defense as effectively as possible late in a close game. But there was no willful arrangement of resources or particular design in that alignment, except in that Crisp was kept around in case Ellsbury couldn't hack it in the majors.

If the Red Sox valued defense in LF, they could have done something about it at any time in the last decade or whatever it's been. Clearly, they don't very much.

If the Red Sox valued defense in LF, they could have done something about it at any time in the last decade or whatever it's been. Clearly, they don't very much.

I don't think that's quite right. The Red Sox are trying to optimize their overall performance, within the constraints of the players they already have under contract, or can get at appropriate cost. The first year they had Manny, he mostly DH'ed, with O'Leary, Nixon and Everett playing most of the games in the outfield. In 2002 Manny DH'ed a lot, too. He DH'ed much less after that, when Ortiz established himself as someone who belonged in the lineup, and then established that he belonged in there even against left-handed pitching. Then, when Manny went out of town, they needed to get the best overall leftfielder they could find on short notice to replace him. Bay was really the only option, although apparently, they tried quite hard to get Matt Kemp. I think the Red Sox do value defense quite a bit - it's just that for most of the past decade, they've had two guys who were special talents as hitters and terrible fielders, and one of them had to play a position.

I think the Red Sox value defense just fine. I do not, however, think that there's any evidence that LF is any kind of priority for them, your attempts to read their collective mind notwithstanding. If they have a better fielder than Bay or Ramirez, they play him in the field. But they have never made any effort to acquire one explicitly for that purpose, as I think a team would do if they were hugely bothered with the whole notion. Regardless of who was under contract -- it's not as if those contracts were magically signed without the team's consent or anything. And I don't think a good faith effort to sign Matt Kemp over Jason Bay is particular evidence to the contrary, either. Matt Kemp is better and younger than Jason Bay. It's not a real hard calculus.

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Regardless of who was under contract -- it's not as if those contracts were magically signed without the team's consent or anything.

The current management team inherited Manny. Which makes him magical, I guess.

But they have never made any effort to acquire one explicitly for that purpose, as I think a team would do if they were hugely bothered with the whole notion.

Assuming the Sox were hugely bothered by Manny's defense - who would they try and get to replace him? What great-fielding outfielder could the Sox get that would bring more overall value than Manny? Or Bay in 2007?

I don't like a bad defender in left because it magnifies the tendency of recent Sox teams to play .500 ball on the road. You can build a team with your park in mind-to a point. I suspect the Red Sox have reached that point and that they need to figure out ways to make this team better when away from Fenway. I don't see why a good mobile defender couldn't help you out there even when playing in front of the Monster-if he's playing a fairly typical distance in front of the wall as compared to other fielders in front of other walls, he should be able to get to plenty of balls. The ones which hit high off the thing are irrelevant to his D, just as are ones which are homers in other leftfields.

Here in Dodgers land, I heard the Red Sox were going both for Kemp and Ethier for Manny. That they settled for Andy LaRoche is a bit interesting.