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Are the Red Sox Cuckoo for Coco?

By Guest Columnist | July 4th, 2008

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Prior to last night’s impressive shutout victory over the Yankees, the Red Sox had lost five consecutive games, their longest skid of the season. Each of those five defeats had something in common — something other than an utter lack of clutch and miserable meltdowns from formerly reliable relievers. It took copious amounts of root beer and a post-game chat with Evan for me to realize it, but those five games were the same five games for which Coco Crisp was suspended.

The Red Sox defeated the Houston Astros last Friday, and Coco was in the lineup. They silenced the Yankees last night, and Coco was in the lineup. They lost the five games in between those two victories, and Coco was not in the lineup — or the dugout, for that matter.

Coco Crisp is batting a fairly pedestrian .270/.313/.434 this season, with five homers, 22 RBIs, and a dozen stolen bases. In all likelihood, his presence in the lineup would not have been the remedy to the Sox’s failures with runners on base the past several days. After all, Coco’s line with runners in scoring position plummets down to .222/.260/.311, and sinks even farther when there are two outs (.217/.250/.304). Yet, even though Coco’s offensive contributions are seemingly mediocre, the Sox appear to be a much better team when he’s on the field.

Need evidence? The Red Sox are a terrific 42-23 this season in the 65 games in which Coco has appeared. They are a horrific 9-14 in the 23 contests he has not partaken in, whether due to injury, suspension, or rest. And the trend is even more extreme in the month-and-change that Big Papi has been shelved. Since June 1st, the Red Sox are 17-6 when Coco appears in the game, and 0-7 otherwise. Believe it or not, the Red Sox have not won a game without Coco’s participation in more than a month.

That, inevitably, begs the question: does Coco’s impact on the Red Sox go far beyond the numbers? Or, in other words, is Coco really so important to this team that they can’t win without him?

My gut feeling on this is that it’s a complete — albeit incredibly weird — coincidence. It seems very unlikely that Coco — who is three fielding runs above average and zero batting runs above average this season, according to Baseball Prospectus — could have that significant an impact on the team. But, then again, it seems equally, if not more, unlikely that a team could go an entire month without winning a game sans one of its players, unless that player is quite important to the team.

I’m sure we can all agree that the Sox would not be 0-88 this season if Theo had shipped Coco out during the winter. But, after unexpectedly stumbling on the aforementioned numbers after I realized the apparent correlation between Coco’s suspension and the Sox’s skid, I couldn’t help but wonder if there’s something Coco contributes that we can’t see with our naked eyes.

So, I ask you, my fellow Fire Branders: is this completely coincidental, or unbelievably Coco-licious?

—Daniel Rathman

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 11:20 am and is filed under Coco Crisp, Guest Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “Are the Red Sox Cuckoo for Coco?”

Evan Brunell says:

July 4th, 2008 at 11:25 am

Here are some reasons, IMO:

* Net improvement in OF defense when Coco and Jacoby play and Manny’s a DH
* Coco’s been pretty good recently: .310/.359/.521 in June so his offense has come around
* Allows Red Sox to bat Jason Varitek lower in lineup, which might be a huge thing, and lastly
* Coincidence.
jvwalt says:

July 4th, 2008 at 11:32 am

Coincidence is #1. Defense is #2. I imagine his value as an energetic presence is #3. I’m reluctant to trade him; he has significant value as a defender and baserunner.

Funny, though, how someone with such poor RISP numbers could be seen as a positive force, while Lugo continues to be demonized. Lugo is essentially similar to Crisp in offensive contribution — less power, better OBA, speed on the basepaths. He leads Coco is annoying miscues, to be sure.

I’m not saying that Lugo is an All-Star, and he’s certainly not worth 9 mill a year, but he’s a decent #9 hitter. Which is all he needs to be.
Evan Brunell says:

July 4th, 2008 at 11:34 am

I really, really think we should consider not picking Manny’s option up, making Jacoby/Crisp the outfield, signing Tex for first and moving Youk for a dominating bullpen piece or a better SS. I’d hate to lose Youk, but that might improve the team more than anything else.
Daniel Rathman says:

July 4th, 2008 at 11:52 am

Or, alternatively, we could trade Crisp for a less dominant bullpen piece, move Youk to left-field, and sign Teix to play first. I’m not sure how Youk would feel about playing left, but that would seem to give us a better lineup. Unless Coco has some sort of magical effect on the team, that is.

That said, a one-year deal — even one that costs $20 million — for a guy who’s almost a lock to post an OPS over .850, isn’t exactly something you have on the table everyday. If Manny picks it back up sometime soon, and stays relatively potent for the rest of the year, I can’t see Theo passing on the option.
Bob says:

July 4th, 2008 at 12:49 pm

I think the option will be picked up, with today’s market it would actually be a bargain for Manny and someone like Matt Holliday or Teix will actually probably cost a lot more. Unless Manny doesn’t turn around doesn’t make sense to let him go for nothing.
jvwalt says:

July 4th, 2008 at 1:09 pm

The biggest variable in re-signing Manny is out of the Red Sox’ control: will another team offer him big money for multiple years? I doubt the Sox would match if, say, the Mets or Angels offered 3 years/45 million or some such. Manny might very well keep hitting, but he’s only going to get worse in the field — and we’ve got a DH, thank you very much.

Trading Coco or Youk depends on what other teams think of them. I imagine they see Coco as a great fourth outfielder or a decent everyday centerfielder (Mike Cameron type, sacrificing some offense for stellar defense). Youk, unless he finally has a good second half, probably doesn’t have a lot of appeal for most teams. Take the two halves together and he’s good, not great.

Both players would mainly appeal to contending teams with a hole to fill — and those teams are unlikely to offer a really good reliever in trade. They need to keep their relievers. And a team like, say, the Royals, who might be willing to move a Joakim Soria (or the A’s and Huston Street), won’t want a player in his late 20s — they’ll want prospects.

As for a “better SS” — how many of them are there? In the AL, there’s only a handful who would be much of an improvement on Lugo (look over the list of starting shortstops; it’s an unimpressive bunch). In the NL things are better — you’ve got Reyes, Rollins, Hanley Ramirez, Tulowitzki, and Furcal among others. But what are the chances of prying one of those loose in a trade? Not for Youkilis, no way.
gerry says:

July 4th, 2008 at 8:51 pm

Julio is OK at SS in the league, but he ended two innings today, one with yet another rally killing DP. I can’t think of a game when he didn’t do this. As Remy pointed out, his range to his right is good, but not to his left. He should have had that ground ball under his glove, towards second. Despite his reasonable BA, he is costing us games with bat, glove and arm. Fans are all over Jeter for making 7 errors already this year, calling for him to move to 1b. Lowrie is a better option in all areas, and won’t make 17E’s. He is not OCabrera, but he projects far better than what Julio is doing, and is cost controlled, meaning Julio’s 9M, in terms of this SS position, is irrelevant.

Manny at $45M for 3 years . . . starting 2009? Sign it in a heartbeat, and keep this 4-man OF going.

On the corners, we have two Gold Glovers who will hit .300 with high OBP, OPS, 40 - 50 HR between them. The talk continues about Youk declining “again” (again? he has only had 2 second halves). My money is on Youk finishing around .300 with 850+OPS, 20 - 25HR; and improving again next year. However, I hear no talk about Tex’s slow first half. What’s good for the goose, etc.
Eric says:

July 5th, 2008 at 9:59 am

gerry a good point on tex.. he’s typically a slow starter and by slow i mean only a .887 OPS over the last three years before the all-star break and .982 after.. .982!

if i were moving imaginary puzzle pieces i’d rather move lowell and put the greek at 3rd.

we can throw lugo in a burlap bag into the charles and let lowrie play short.