In defense of Scutaro's defense

Your newest Boston Red Sox - Marco Scutaro

So earlier today, the Red Sox announced that they signed shortstop Marco Scutaro, most recently of the Toronto Blue Jays and formerly of the Oakland Athletics and New York Mets, to a two-year, $11 million contract, with an option for the third year. While the response was mixed on Boston's chief sports radio station, WEEI, I'm generally in favor of the signing for a couple reason.

- The years and money are surprisingly low to me. If Chone Figgins is (rumored to be) getting four years and $32 million, then the Red Sox are making out like bandits if they only have to guaranteed two years to Scutaro. Yeah, he's a little bit older, but he also plays an up-the-middle position that is hard to fill.

I view Scutaro's most recent season as a bit of a fluke, and out of line with his past production. However, it's only about 20 points of batting average and 20 to 30 points of on-base, which lead to a bit of an uptick in his slugging. His numbers this year - 282 / 379 / 409 - are not ridiculously out of line with his career numbers - 265 / 337 / 384. And if he does crap the bed, the financial investment in him is small enough that it won't kill the Red Sox to dump him in a trade or flat-out release him, a la Julio Lugo.

- The comparison that was rampant on sports radio this afternoon was Scutaro vs. Alex Gonzalez. The fact that this comparison was even coming up shows that statisticians still have plenty of work to do with sample size and defense.

I don't know why, but there is a lingering assertion that Gonzalez is a better defender than Scutaro. Maybe it's because he played for the Red Sox, and made some slick plays here and there. However, his career rate (click here for a definition) at shortstop is 97, three runs below average. His only above-average years were not in Red Sox uniforms. He has committed 155 errors at shortstop in 1,206 games, an average of about one per 7.7 games.

Scutaro has a smaller sample size at short vs. Gonzalez, but bests him in these defensive categories. He has 40 errors in 415 games, an average of one per 10.4 games. His career rate at shortstop is 107, seven runs ABOVE average, and 10 runs better than Gonzalez's career. In 2009, Scutaro's rate was 108, while Gonzalez was 98 in Cincy and 93 in Boston. Gonzalez missed all of 2008 after having surgery to repair a fractured knee; this might have affected his play permanently.

Hopefully this thwarts some of the "Gonzalez is a better fielder!!!" crap floating around out there. And when it comes to offense, Scutaro is the clearly better player, since A-Gonz is so horrible. His career line at the plate is 247 / 294 / 395; his only asset is a bit of pop.

- With all of that being said, I'm not under any illusion that this "fixes" the Red Sox problem at shortstop. Scutaro finished sixth in VORP (click here for an explanation), but his total of 39.9 was clearly below the superstar levels of Hanley Ramirez (79.9) and Derek Jeter (72.8), and closer to the "average" shortstop level of Rafael Furcal (18.6), Brendan Ryan (17.7) and Ryan Theriot (17.4).

Unless he suddenly goes in the tank, Scutaro should be a good solution at shortstop for the next two years, and he'll give the Red Sox time to evaluate whether Jed Lowrie can be the answer in the future, and provides a good defensive option for third base and second base if Mike Lowell or Dustin Pedroia are out for a stretch of time.

The Scutaro photo is from this nifty blog; I used it mostly because it was a "wide" photo, which is better for displaying on these posts.