Red Sox Diaries

Even before Jed Lowrie broke his left wrist, Boston had a shaky shortstop situation. After all, this is only Lowrie's first full season in the majors--or it was supposed to be, anyway--and he wasn't particularly impressive down the stretch last year, hitting .211 after September 1.

The backup options weren't too promising either: Nick Green is a mediocre utility infielder who has bounced around for a few years and has hit higher than .240 once in his career, and Julio Lugo...well, that 4-year, $36-million contract was not one of Theo Epstein's finer moments. In two years with the Red Sox, Lugo recorded OPS+ statistics of 65 and 78. (Then again, that wasn't such a big surprise--the guy had only been an above-average hitter during one of his seven seasons.) He's currently on the Disabled List and rehabbing in Triple-A Pawtucket. Frankly, I wouldn't mind if he stayed down there.

The shortstop has always been considered one of the most important players on the field--the operative phrase being "on the field." In previous eras, the primary requirements for starting at short were being able to play solid defense and steal a base on occasion. But now, in our current age of offensive explosion, shortstops are no longer allowed to be a liability at the plate. Some of the best hitters in the game over the last 15 years have played short--Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez (before his Yankees days) and Nomar Garciaparra to name a few. None of them have ever been known as particularly good fielders, but with runs being scored left and right, the tradeoff defensively isn't as big of a concern as it used to be.

When the news broke about Lowrie needing surgery and being out until the All-Star break, my initial reaction was that Epstein needed to go trade for somebody to man the 6-hole in the meantime. Plus, there is still no guarantee that Lowrie is effective at the plate after coming back. He wasn't hitting that well in the first place, and look at how much trouble David Ortiz had with his lingering wrist injury last season. The Sox are supposed to contend for a World Series title with Nick Green at short? Yeah, right.

But it's actually not as ridiculous as it sounds. Since the Yankees stopped winning championships way back in 2000, check out the list of title-winning shortstops: Tony Womack, David Eckstein, Alex Gonzalez, Orlando Cabrera, Juan Uribe, Eckstein again, Julio Lugo (!!) and, most recently, Jimmy Rollins. The average OPS+ of that group in the year their teams won the World Series? 84.

Only two of those shortstops were even league-average hitters--Rollins in 2008 (103 OPS+, not his finest offensive season) and Eckstein in 2002 (101). Womack and Lugo were more than 30 percent below average--though, to be fair, Lugo did lead all of baseball in number of crotch grabs and cup readjustments.

My point is not that less offense is preferable and teams have a better chance with guys like Uribe at shortstop instead of Hanley Ramirez, but they can get away without having a great hitter--or even an average one--at that spot. Maybe they had it right back in the '50s and '60s after all.

--Danny Daly (ddaly06)