JD Drew is entering the penultimate year of the five-year, $70 million deal he signed with the Red Sox prior to the 2007 season.
While many members of Red Sox Nation believe that he hasn’t been worth the money, others (myself included) have been converted—at least to the point where we do not consider it to have been an outright mistake.
It is undeniable that he hasn’t put up the kind of sexy numbers you would normally equate with a $14 million players, but he has been very consistent (averaging 429 AB, with a .276 BA, 18 HR, 65 RBI, and 82 R per year).
Additionally, his OPS during ‘08 and ‘09 were .927 and .914…his mark last year ranked second among AL outfielders, behind only Jason Bay.
The other half of the game happens in the field, and that is where he has been a revelation…last year, his UZR/150 was an outstanding 15.7.
One of the major concerns about Drew when he signed with Boston was his health, and while he has averaged only 140 games played in two of his three years with the Red Sox, only 2008 (109 games) was truly problematic in terms of being able to take the field consistently.
Evan Brunell, over at Firebrand of the American League, recently opined that expectations for Drew have always been too high—that his talent is more in line with those of a complementary player as opposed to a true star. After watching JD for three years, it’s hard to argue with his perspective.
What does it all mean? According to fangraphs.com, in spite of all his "ticks," Drew has “earned” $45.4 million (with a 10.3 WAR) in his three seasons in Boston while being paid $42 million. So while the club hasn’t seen a significant return on investment, it certainly hasn’t lost any money thus far.
What kind of numbers should we expect him to put up in 2010? As I’ve mentioned previously in this series, I am not a devotee of the most widely-used projection systems: CHONE, Bill James and PECOTA.
They all have problems. CHONE projections tend to be strong for hitters but weak for pitchers. The PECOTA system has the opposite problem—it is strong for pitchers, but weak for hitters. And while Bill James is well-known and an employee of the Red Sox, his annual projections are consistently overly-optimistic.
I prefer the work done by Ron Shandler (who is the godfather of "fanalytics") and Mike Podhorzer (the new kid on the block).
Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster is must-reading for any baseball fan, especially if he/she is a fantasy baseball aficionado. Shandler and his minions do great work. They can be found at BaseballHeadquarters.com .
Podhorzer’s predictions at fantasypros911.com went 42-0 when compared head-to-head with other projection systems last year. Seriously, folks, if you don’t know about fantasypros911.com , it’s time that you take a look. Great stuff!
So what do these two systems project for Drew for the upcoming season?
Shandler: .274, 22 HR, 69 RBI, 85 R
Podhorzer: .284, 22 HR, 70 RBI, 85 R
Since the premise of this article is that he has been pretty consistent during his tenure in Boston, it would be hard to argue he will have a markedly different season in 2010. I look for him to do pretty much what he has done during the last three years.
SOX1FAN projection: .270, 20 HR, 67 RBI, 80 R
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