Move Ellsbury
In the wake of the Mike Cameron signing, rumors persist that the Red Sox would consider sending Clay Buchholz and Jacoby Ellsbury to San Diego in exchange for Adrian Gonzalez. I can understand Padre GM Jed Hoyer asking for Ellsbury, but I seriously doubt Theo would bite. Ellsbury is the only legitimate speed on the team and should continue to progress into a consistent lead off hitter. The only move Ellsbury should make is to left field.
According to FanGraphs.com, 36 year old Mike Cameron was the third best defensive center fielder in baseball last season, based on Zone Rating, or UZR, at 10.0. This measures the number of runs above or below average a fielder is in both range runs, outfield arm runs, double play runs, and error runs combined. Jacoby Ellsbury was last in baseball, at -18.6.
Offensively, Cameron may not be as much as a drop off from Jason Bay as the media projects. 2009 statistics:
| Plate App. | HR | BB | K | BA | OBP | SLG | |
| Jason Bay | 638 | 36 | 94 | 162 | .267 | .384 | .537 |
| Mike Cameron | 628 | 24 | 75 | 156 | .250 | .342 | .452 |
Admittedly, Cameron’s stats are from the National League, but it’s not as big a discrepancy as one would think. And Bay’s 2009 zone rating was -13.0. It looks like he’s going to disappear into the abyss that is the New York Mets.
Meanwhile, what the hell is happening to the Disney Angels? They’ve lost their ace, John Lackey, their sparkplug, Chone Figgins, and apparently will lose their aging superstar, Vlad Guerrero. They did sign Hideki Matsui, so I guess all is well. Their division rivals, the Mariners, have taken Figgins from them and added Cliff Lee to King Felix. And the Mariners led the AL in ERA last year.
Liverpool beat Wigan yesterday at Anfield, 2-1. Once again no clean sheet, after Wigan scored one minute into second half added time. Liverpool goals came from David Ngog and Fernando Torres, who came off the bench. Ngog is looking better and better every game. The team played with much more spirit and verve, unlike the seemingly indifferent play in the Arsenal game. It was a very entertaining game, pretty open, chippy, and lots of scoring chances. Torres now has 35 goals in 37 league games at Anfield. Next up is at Portsmouth on Saturday. Liverpool still sit in sixth place, 13 points behind Chelsea. By the way, Fox Soccer has “upgraded” their website, and it’s a total disaster. It was obviously done by people who have never surfed a sports website in their lives.
The US will play Honduras in January in a World Cup tune up. Fine, but they would be much better off playing teams they haven’t played before, non-CONCACAF teams.
Wisconsin basketball beat Cal Poly 90-42 last night. Not quite like in football in 2008, when Cal Poly took UW to overtime and only lost because they missed two extra points.
More Randy Moss analysis: From Merril Hoge, via Michael Vega at Boston.com:
Contrary to the opinions of [Jerry] Rice and [Chris] Carter, Merril Hoge, who like Carter is an ESPN analyst, found no fault with Moss’s effort against the Panthers after studying the game tape (emphasis added).
“I’ll say this, he didn’t take a play off, not one play did he take off,’’ Hoge said. “Just to add to that, I’d say 60 percent of the time Tom Brady didn’t look to his side, based on the coverage. He knew he was being taken out of the game.’’
About 10 years ago, Hoge participated in a 1 1/2-year study with several ESPN analysts to find if Moss was loafing in games. They went through a large body of Moss’s games with the Vikings and found video evidence of him standing around at the snap on some plays and jogging through routes. But Hoge said that was not the case against the Panthers.
“Last week was one of the best efforts I’ve seen from him, as far as not having the ball in his hands,’’ Hoge said. “He made 8-10 important blocks in the running game.
“If I thought he quit, I’d be the first to say it. This was one of his better games, away from the ball.’’
Tags: Badgers, Baseball, Liverpool, Patriots, Pro Football, Red Sox, Soccer, Wisconsin Badgers, World Cup
This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 10:41 am and is filed under Sporting Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
December 17th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Fast Friday links « kitlee says:[...] http://www.whitesuburbanpunk.com/?p=234I can understand Padre GM Jed Hoyer asking for Ellsbury, but I seriously doubt Theo would bite. Ellsbury is the only legitimate speed on the team and should continue to progress into a consistent lead off hitter. … [...]
December 17th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Quick Roundup « tanaigirl says:[...] http://www.whitesuburbanpunk.com/?p=234I can understand Padre GM Jed Hoyer asking for Ellsbury, but I seriously doubt Theo would bite. Ellsbury is the only legitimate speed on the team and should continue to progress into a consistent lead off hitter. … [...]