Fatal Flaw In The DH Plan

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I don't exactly know what to make of Thome's departure from the Sox and his subsequent signing with the Twins. On some level I dig the Sox plan, but I'm not sure they are executing it correctly.

I certainly respect the hell out of Thome, that's fore sure. He waited around for the Sox to make their decision before he made a move, even, as it became clear, he had moves ready to be made. But that's no different than before - this guy was always a class act.

I will certainly miss Thome's presence in the lineup. I didn't give it the full credit it deserved until I ran the numbers last year on how guys hit with runners in scoring position (that post can be found here). Dye and AJ pretty much regularly suck, Konerko is solid enough, but Big Jim was always a beast. Even as his average dipped these last few years, up until midway through last year, the guy consistently hit over .300 for the Sox when guys were there to be driven in. That's damn impressive.

While we as fans might not have appreciated it, I promise you that opposing pitchers did. They had to change their whole approach to account for the kind of run producer Thome was, especially if you were a right-hander (as the great majority of pitchers are, especially in the AL Central).


Having said all of that, I get what the Sox are thinking. While Thome's average with runners in scoring position remained strong through most of last year, it did ultimately dip to around .250 for the year. That's quite a drop from the .300+ he had his first three seasons on the South Side. Often with big sluggers, it's not a matter of a gradual loss of skills but an almost instant one. Had Thome started that quick slide - like All-Star mashers Giambi, McGwire, and Jim Rice, among others, had previously done?

On top of that, every season you were waiting for that back to flair up and knock Thome out for good. Even these past few years it would cost him a couple of games, sometimes even a DL stint. And at his age, who knows if some other ailment will come up - knees, feet, shoulder, elbow. Maybe it wouldn't have just been a few games or a few weeks, but a few months this time. Thome was a real risk, plain and simple.


So Thome himself wasn't perfectly attractive. And aside that, I actually do dig what the Sox are thinking with freeing up their DH slot. The fulltime DH has all but disappeared. The last two remaining - Ortiz and Hafner - are shells of their former selves and probably still around as much because of bloated contracts as their contributions. As someone who's long called for a dynamic offense, I do appreciate losing a slow, station-to-station bat and replacing it with a combination of guys who bring a more diverse skill set to the table.

But again - while I see the theory, I don't see the execution. The simple fact is that the Sox don't have the right mix of hitters to make this work.

Their utility IF - Vizquel - will get all the at-bats he needs as an occasional sub at all three spots. Plus, Vizquel's value comes in his glove, not his bat. Putting him at the DH slot is idiotic, as Vizquel could be one of the least productive offense players in the game this year.

I guess I can see the idea of using Vizquel out in the field and then giving the IFs a day in the DH slot, saving their legs and bodies but keeping their bats in the lineup. But so far I haven't heard that to be part of the Sox plans - there's been no mention of Beckham, Teahen, and Alexei, even here and there, when the DH is discussed. So in that, I don't think the Sox are properly approaching this strategy.

Their utility 1B/OF - Kotsay - is similar in that he should get plenty of at-bats spelling Quentin and Konerko. But here actually I think the Sox are executing correctly - it does sound like they plan on sitting Paulie and Carlos a good amount, but keeping them as a DH so their extremely important bats aren't out of the lineup. Without a full-time DH, these two guys are the only legit middle of the order bats the Sox have - you really can't afford many games without both playing.


So I like that aspect - getting key guys rest but not losing their bats - but wish they'd use it for their entire lineup. I'd love a rotation of Kotsay and Vizquel getting days in the field while Beckham, Teahen, Ramirez, Quentin, Paulie, and even Pierre get one day off every two weeks. Throw AJ into that mix, too - you'd love to free up his legs from the wear and tear, but not lose the solid veteran bat.

However, that still leaves a lot of DH at-bats that need to be filled, maybe even half of a season's worth.

And therein lies the flaw in the Sox plan - as it stands, those spots will be heavily filled by one Andruw Jones.

So far I haven't heard a lot of outrage over the Andruw Jones signing, so while I've posted about how terrible he is before (here), I'm gonna have to resort to BOLD in order to drive home the reality of how TERRIBLE this guy is.

Andruw Jones' averages:

2007 - .222 in 572 ABs.
2008 - .158 in 209 ABs.
2009 - .214 in 281 ABs.

And just so you don't trick yourself into believing he might be rounding back into form, check out his monthly averages last year:

April - .344
May - .245
June - .170
July - .209
August - .167
Sept - .111

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THIS IS THE GUY KENNY EXPECTS TO GET 300-400 ABS IN THE DH SLOT?!? A GUY WHO CAN'T HIT IN THE MOST HITTER FRIENDLY PARK IN BASEBALL? WHERE JOURNEYMEN BUMS REGULARLY HAVE THEIR CAREERS REVIVED (SEE MATTHEWS, GARY OR BRADLEY, MILTON OR BYRD, MARLON)?!?

OK, I'll stop now. I think I've made my point. This guy is terrible. So much so that I'd be shocked if he makes it past the middle of May. Hell, I'd give him 50-50 odds to even make it out of Spring Training. The guy is that bad. And no, I see absolutely NO chance that Ozzie somehow gets to him or that Greg Walker fixes him. Not happening - Jones has been too bad for too long to think that he'll suddenly get it.

Druw Jones is done and will join Griffey Jr. and Todd Ritchie in the very small Hall of Awful Moves Kenny Made.


So to me that's the the fatal flaw in Kenny's plan. He's one guy short. And to me, it could be any guy who can bring something to the table offensively. Obviously you think of a left-handed slugger, but I'd also settle on a speed-type. Give me another Pablo Ozuna to plug in at #2 or the back of the order. Or just a stable bat - a Mark Loretta type who can hit .300, get on base decently enough, and just be a reliable hitter deep in the order.

But I'm curious if Kenny shares my thinking. As I've mentioned before, last year the free agent market was so down that two proven bigtime middle of the order bats (Abreu and Dunn) were forced to take short term, under market value deals just to have somewhere to play. Supposedly Kenny even kicked the tires on Abreu, but was handcuffed because no one would take Dye or Thome's contract before last season.

Is it possible that Kenny is leaving himself open to add that Abreu/Dunn type this year? Maybe not even someone that good, but someone else who should be getting regular big league at-bats? Two guys I was looking at - Randy Winn and Tejada - just signed for dirt cheap with the Yanks and Orioles, respectively. But others are still out there, like:

Felipe Lopez - he's all over the map offensively, but certainly could be a real asset. He's shown speed (stole 44 bases in 06) and power (hit 23 jacks in 05) and average (batted .310 last year). Most likely all of those were flukes, but he can definitely run a bit, flash a bit of power, and hit for average. He's not an OBA machine, but he's also not a free-swinger. He can play all three IF spots (though he's more suited for the middle) and even has played some LF.

Because Lopez is still out there, his salary demands can't be much. For a million or two, he would give you a nice dynamic presence for the top or bottom of the lineup, while also filling in nicely around the diamond.

Carlos Delgado - similar to Thome in that he's in his late 30s and is a hell of a power-hitting lefty with something left in the tank. However, the advantage Delgado provides is that he can actually be counted on to play some 1B. That would definitely allow Ozzie to get him more ABs than he was talking about with Thome, and just might make Delgado a decent fit on the Southside.

Delgado is coming off of a hip surgery, but it's similar to what ARod and Chase Utley came back from last year with very good seasons. While he looked washed up in 2007, he bounced back with a monster 2008 (38 HR, 115 RBI) and was off to a good start last year (.298, 4 HR, 23 RBI in 94 AB) before he had to shut it down.

This guy has been as consistent of a slugger as anyone in baseball. Delgado's just 27 HRs away from 500, so he's highly motivated to stay healthy and produce. He's also not gonna cost much (there's barely any market out there) and probably will be on a one-year deal, driven to earn himself one last big paycheck.

I can see Delgado appreciating the chance to get around 400 ABs in a lineup as good as the Sox and playing at a home field as friendly as The Cell. And one key point to remember - this was a guy Kenny has tried to acquire before. If we've learned anything about Kenny, it's that he loves to bring in guys he's gone after in the past (both Alomars, Everett, Griffey, Druw Jones, Freddy Garcia, Colon). That makes Delgado a quietly semi-likely possibility.

Johnny Damon - Much like my excitement about Pierre, I'd go nuts if the Sox added Damon. Now let me qualify that by saying I fully understand he's not a perfect fit. An outfield with Damon and Pierre in it would be as soft-armed as any in the history of the game, not to mention requiring one to play center, where both are below average. Even with Damon playing more DH than not, the plan would still require him to get into the field a good amount, and that would definitely hurt our pitchers.

Still, Damon is out there, with little to no options left, but bringing exactly the kind of bat the Sox could use. He's only been starting 120-130 games the past three years, so he's basically already at the type of at-bat load the Sox are offering. In the second half of his career, Damon's averaged around 20 HRs and 25 steals, hitting near .290 with a .365 OBA, while scoring over 100 runs and driving in about 70 from the top of the order.

Look at those numbers again. Really, go back and think about those. Now at 36 he's not a blazing speedster anymore, but on an Ozzie team more focused on being dynamic, he could easily still steal 20-30 (he did steal 29 as recently as 2008). In the Cell, he's still good for 20 HRs. He's also become a nice OBA guy who handled the transition from leadoff to #2 very well for the Yanks last year. And on top of that, he's been a good post-season performer, hitting .279 with 9 HRs and 13 steals in 55 playoff games.

Again, he's not an ideal fit, in that getting him OF at-bats would mean either sitting Pierre (your leadoff hitter and a guy who expects to play 162 games) or a rag-armed OF with a sub-par centerfielder. But while I'm a HUGE proponent of defense and feel it's vastly underrated in its effect on your pitching staff, I also believe that the trade-offs here would be worth it.

Damon's 400+ ABs in the #2 slot would produce exactly the kind of numbers we'd dream of behind Pierre and in front of Quentin, Paulie, and the rest. It'd also free up Beckham to develop himself as a hitter, rather than worry about doing the little things required of a #2 in that type of lineup. I can't imagine it'd cost more than $5M, maybe with a few incentives atop. You'd also be buying serious OF depth in case of the very real possibility that Rios is dead or Quentin breaks down yet again.


Personally, I don't care which direction the Sox go in with their rotating DH plan - I just want it to be a direction that is the exact opposite way of Andruw Jones. He's a fat, overpaid bum who's always dogged it, but now no longer has the natural talents to make up for it. And he's a prime candidate to be found out as a juicer given his precipitous offensive decline.

I'm not sure why the Sox signed him in the first place except that once again, Kenny was blind to how terrible a guy was because of how he loved the past version of him. But they can make up for that huge blunder (why was he given guaranteed money when a minor league deal was the best he was gonna get?) by going out and finding someone to better fill that part-time DH role.

Lopez, Delgado, and Damon each bring something different, none are perfect fits, but all would make the Sox offense significantly better while giving the team some very necessary depth in light of the question marks that surround so many of their players. Given how no current free agents can be expecting full time spots right and will come for cheap and shortterm, I'm gonna be pretty upset if the Sox don't bring one of them, or someone similar, into the mix before Opening Day.

Do that, and the Sox will have nailed their DH-strategy and made this team look damn good for 2010. Sit tight, and you're starting the year a man short, with any injury or early struggles something you'll be hard-pressed to overcome.

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