Boston Red Sox close to adding Marlon Byrd
It’s no secret that the Chicago Cubs have been looking to trade former Texas Rangers outfielder Marlon Byrd, and they may have just found their suitor. A deal between (Nick Cafardo of The Boston Globe) the Boston Red Sox and the Cubs to send Byrd to Boston is reportedly close and “probable”.
The Red Sox have been actively looking for a new outfielder since the injury to Jacoby Ellsbury, whose shoulder injury has left the Sox with no time table of his return. Left fielder Carl Crawford is also struggling with injuries, so the Sox were becoming even more interested in adding an OF.
As far as his contract goes, Marlon Byrd is in the final year of a three-year, $15 million deal, and he will earn $6.5 million this season.
After a terrific 4.4 WAR season in 2010, Byrd was worth an exactly league-average, 2 WAR sum. He is viewed as a quality 3 WAR outfielder based on the projections, and there are many fans who don’t give him nearly enough credit. He is actually a solid defensive player who is decent on the bases, and his bat is about average for a center fielder.
However, Byrd has been awful this season through 47 plate appearances, and the right-handed CF served little purpose for the Cubs. We’ll see what the Cubs will get if the trade goes through, but I’d be surprised if they got anything more than a not-so-notable prospect in return. Could Michael Bowden be involved?
The projections are a bit too optimistic regarding Marlon Byrd, and I see him having another league-average, 2 WAR season. He’s certainly much better than Jason Repko, so the deal should end up being a quality pick-up for the Red Sox. Byrd is a capable center fielder who provides some nice value to a club.
With age, Byrd is becoming more aggressive and pitchers are starting to take note. He is chasing more pitches, but his contact rate remains unchanged despite similar whiff and strikeout rates. The aggressive approach is hurting his ability to make solid contact, which is the reason for a declining BABIP. This, of course, has led to lower batting average and OBP numbers.
More importantly, it has led to more grounders and has combined with an expected decline in age to sap out his power. While Marlon Byrd is still an average player, he will undergo a steep decline after this season- maybe sooner- and it’s a good thing for Boston that he has just one year left on the deal. Of course, the Sox would never have made the deal if he had more than a year left.
At the age of 35, time is running out for Marlon Byrd, and it’s amazing to see him still playing decent defense out there in center. He’s a quality replacement option for Boston this season, and it will be interesting to see if he starts to decline this year. It is conceivable that he will, but nobody should read anything into his dreadful start that is a product of a .091 BABIP.
Byrd is still an average player, and he’ll help the Sox. Hopefully, Boston didn’t give the Cubs anything important for him either, since he’s a 35-year-old rental. We’ll see what the Red Sox gave, and if the trade even goes through.
The problem with all this, is that Crawford and Ellsbury aren’t going to be injured forever. The main problem with the Sox is that they have been underperforming this year and good regression will take place at some point soon. The team is overreacting, and this move is a sign of this.
While Byrd is a solid player, the difference between him and Che-Hsuan Lin or another player to man CF in that time span is like one win. The Red Sox will most likely give up nothing of significance, and it isn’t a bad deal either way, but it isn’t a good deal either. I still think Byrd is a decent enough player and gets too much hate, but it isn’t exactly like the Sox needed to go out and make this move either. As long as it’s just a Bowden-Byrd swap (or something of that nature), I’ll be fine with this move for Boston.
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