Go away Julio!
Posted on August 6, 2008
Filed Under 2008 Season, Injury Watch |
I’ll admit that I was sort of excited when the Red Sox signed Julio Lugo. His defense was sub-par but he was a .275 hitter with a .340 OBP that was capable of hitting 7 or 8 HR every season. Not only that but it seemed like the revolving shortstop door in Boston would finally be closed, at least for a few years.
Unfortunately I was wrong in everything I assumed about Lugo. His defense is worse than sub-par despite the fact that he makes some amazing plays (every amazing play he makes seems to be when he doesn’t think about it, when he thinks about what he has to do he ends up throwing it into the stands.) His offensive numbers have, for the most part, been disgusting. He managed a disappointing .294 OBP last season and has only hit 1 HR so far this year.
I won’t say that I was happy when Julio Lugo got hurt but I was a little bit excited to see Jed Lowrie get the chance he deserved. Lowrie took the opportunity and ran with it; he is hitting .289 (.342 OBP, .423 SLG) and only has 2 less RBI than Lugo despite having about 160 less at-bats. In addition to his offensive numbers, he has played solid defense (0 errors in 58 chances at short) and shown better range than most people thought he had.
Is Lugo’s time up? It should be, but he is still being paid 8 mil a year to play. It wouldn’t be a good business decision to put him and his salary on the bench; however, it wouldn’t be a good baseball decision to have him in the starting lineup. We’ll have to see what happens..
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Oh yeah, there is also the old baseball unwritten rule that states a player can’t lose his starting job due to an injury. I personally think it’s kind of dumb (although I wouldn’t think that if I was the player) but I’m willing to bet it’s something that Tito believes in so I’m almost 100% sure that Lugo will at least be given a chance to fight for the starting position.
Tito just did an interview saying that he gives veterans time and you have to make sure that they’re putting the right guy in the lineup. It was basically a long winded way of saying “Lugo will probably start.”
At least thats how I understood it.
[...] I wrote an article about how poorly Julio Lugo has performed and how good Jed Lowrie looks playing shortstop. I [...]
[...] said it before, and I’ll say it again: it wouldn’t be a good business decision to put Lugo and his salary [...]