Red Sox sign Grady Sizemore!

It came out last night that the Red Sox have signed outfielder Grady Sizemore to a one year, $750,000 contract. When I found out, my reaction was to run around my apartment all giddy-like. You can ask my wife, I really did that.

This is a great signing, and I'm not just biased because Sizemore is one of my favorite players of all time. First off, Sizemore is not going to be the player he was from 2006 to 2008. Injuries aside, nobody is. Still, that player from 2006 to 2008 was pretty amazing. According to Fangraphs*, the best players in the game for that three year stretch by WAR, and then their WAR from 2011 to 2013: 

Player	2006-08	20011-13
Pujols, Albert	24.7	8.7
Utley, Chase	22.5	10.8
Sizemore, Grady	21.1	0.1
Wright, David	20.0	15.1
Beltran, Carlos	20.0	9.7
Rodriguez, Alex	19.5	6.5
Jones, Chipper*	18.3	4.6
Reyes, Jose	17.1	12.1
Holliday, Matt	16.8	14.0
Ramirez, Hanley	16.8	8.9

*Note: I usually prefer Baseball Reference's WAR calculator, but they are pretty close for offense and FanGraphs makes it much easier to sort by multiple years.

*Note 2: Chipper Jones retired following the 2012 season

Anyhow, everyone dropped off. The smallest dropoff was Holliday, who a) is riding a long peak into a possible Hall of Fame career, and b) B-Ref's calcluation is MUCH less impressed with over the past three years. The group includes two definite Hall of Famers (Jones and Pujols), one more who should be a definite Hall of Famer but the voters can't be counted on to not be morons (Utley), a borderline player I'd vote yes on today (Beltran), and a player who would've been a sure thing, except for three years of disaster (Rodriguez). For the other five, Wright, Reyes, Holliday and Ramirez can both play themselves in, leaving Sizemore. Basically, if he'd stayed healthy he'd be a borderline Hall of Famer already. And he's still only 31!

Ok, so he didn't stay healthy. At all. In the last five years he's played 210 games, and in the last two he's played zero. And when he did play, he wasn't nearly what he used to be, hitting .234/.314/.413.

So what's the point, you ask? Well, the Red Sox have some outfield depth, but it isn't necessarily quality depth. And Sizemore's 2009-2011 line, while nothing amazing, looks better in context. The average AL right fielder hit .263/.323/.418 in 2013, and the average left fielder hit .256/.318/.406. Sizemore isn't a center fielder anymore, and the Red Sox shouldn't fool themselves into thinking he is. But as a very-low cost backup with some upside, Sizemore is exactly what the Red Sox need. 

Storytime

Top 10 of 2013

2014 is here, so here's a look back on the top ten posts of 2013.

10. Overcoming political differences: Everyone hates Justin Bieber: 5/10
Public Policy Polling researched different artists and did crosstabs with political parties. The results were unsurprising and I wrote two paragraphs on it.

9. The future is here: public and private transportation options bringing people back to the city: 7/5
This was one of my favorite posts of the year, and a topic that I hope to be discussing more in the future.

8. John Lackey, Cole Hamels latest examples that pitcher wins are dumb: 8/28
The last edition in a long series of rants against the inherent foolishness in using the "win" statistic as a basis for evaluating pitchers.

7. Examining the Morse - Jaso - Cole deal: 1/18
The gist of this post was that the addition of Morse to the Mariners didn't make much sense in context. Morse ended up playing so poorly that it ended up being a bad deal for them in almost any context.

6. Trevor Bauer's endearingly awful rapping and its context: 2/14
Happy Valentine's Day? There were a lot of points I tried to make in this point, but Bauer didn't do much for his status as a cultural flashpoint by underachieving at Triple-A.

5. Koji Uehara is better than Jonathan Papelbon: 6/28
My most prescient post of the season, and probably of my entire life. It's amazing how unquestionably obvious the name of this post seems only six months after I wrote it. Some people actually thought that Jonathan Papelbon should be a target for the Red Sox in in July because Uehara didn't have the closer's mentality. What a crock.

4. How to fire a terrible umpire?: 5/10
I still don't know, but Angel Hernandez still stinks and still has a job.

3. Los Angeles Architecture and Design Museum: Astutely ironic, or just terrible? 6/23
My California friends just paid a visit this past week, and we had a good laugh over this place. I can't stress enough that this was the worst exhibit, either as art or as history, that I'd ever paid money for.

2. 10/4/13 playoff marathon liveblog!: 10/4
My annual marathon liveblog was once again a blast. And people loved it! Or at least clicked on it.

1. Red Sox assign new uniform numbers! 1/3
The 2014 edition should arrive shortly! What number will Xander Bogaerts get? Stay tuned to find out.