Tony Massarotti doesn't understand anything

Following the Boston Red Sox for some time, I have seen more than my fair share of players run out of town for not living up to insane expectations day one into their Boston careers.

Julio Lugo -- a favorite punching bag of Sox fans -- is probably next. The fact he's lasted into the third year of a four-year contract is actually astounding.

Tony Massarotti, who is quickly becoming my new favorite Sox idiot writer, is doing his best to make sure Lugo doesn't make it past year 2.5.

The question, really, concerns how far the Red Sox are willing to go. How long are they willing to put Julio Lugo at shortstop? How long are they willing to try? How long before they give the keys to Nick Green or Jed Lowrie or someone else entirely?

Or what he really wants to write: Is Jose Reyes or Hanley Ramirez available?

In the interim, games are being played. And roughly one-fifth of the way through this 2009 season, the Red Sox are precisely where we left them at the end of 2008:

Unsure of themselves at the shortstop position.

Also at the end of the 2008 season: One fucking win (a 3-1 loss) away from the World Series.

In the middle stands Lugo, now in the third year of a four-year, $36 million contract. The money matters. ... What should have been a double play was, instead, a single. And instead of having nobody on with two outs, the Rays had the beginnings of what was a six-run rally.

In the moments thereafter, Lugo was booed by a Fenway Park following clearly aware that the Sox now have lost more games this season with Lugo as the starter (five) than they have with Nick Green (four).

Jesus Christ.

Those horrible, completely Lugo's fault losses were against...
CLE, TAM, TAM, CLE, TAM

And Lugo had ONE at-bat in one of those losses against Cleveland. So shove it.

Tampa is the AL champs and Sox pitching allowed nine runs against the Indians both games. Not exactly Lugo's doing. He's also gone 5-17 with two runs and two RBI (one homer) in losses he's started.

With regard to wins, Green (16) is winning by a landslide (Lugo has one). The Red Sox are choosing their words carefully with regard to Lugo’s play afield, but most anyone would be hard pressed to suggest that the Sox are a better team with Lugo on the diamond.

I don't know what Mazz uses for his stats, but I have Lugo with two "wins", May 7 and 8, where he went 4-9 with four runs scored.

And attributing wins to a SS is dumber than starting pitchers. Which is to say: dumb as shit.

Nick "The Hammer" Green has played in 24 games compared to Lugo's 9, with more than double the PAs. Now you'd think Green would be killing Lugo statistically, enough for Mazz to want to start him.

But nay, that would make sense.

Green's traditional line: 274/1/11 with a sterling .748 OPS
Lugo's: .357/1/2 with a .936 OPS

Now, unlike other Globe writers, I will admit Lugo's stats are nearly pointless because he's played so few games. But still, same homers and a much better OPS.

Nick Green is 30 years old, with five career homers and a .665 OPS. So he's actually playing over his head right now. By a lot. Green also has 16 Ks and two walks, the same amount of walks Lugo has in one third as many games.

Nick Green sucks at hitting a baseball.

But what about the Deeeeeeeeeefense?

For what it’s worth, Green hasn’t exactly been Ozzie Smith at shortstop this season, either, contributing six errors to a team total of seven from the shortstop position, tied for most in the majors. Just the same, most of Green’s errors have come on throws and he has been moving reasonably well in the field.

So much for that.

The combination of Green’s offense and defense has been an asset to the club, particularly when one considers that he entered the spring third (at least) on the depth chart at the position.

His offense sucks and his defense is bad. Anyone but Lugo I guess.

Between now and the time Lowrie returns -- if he returns -- both we and the Red Sox will have had sufficient time to evaluate their $36 million investment at shortstop. Lugo has plenty of time to change our minds. Until then, the Red Sox will continue to play games and position themselves for a potential postseason berth, hoping that Lugo does not hurt them more than he helps.

People know Lowrie put up a .739 OPS in 81 games (over 300 PA) last season? And hit two home runs, stole one base, struck out nearly twice as much as he walked (68:35) in 2008, right? The 25 doubles are nice, but Lugo was nearly as good, with way more upside.

The .685 OPS sucks, but the 12/16 steals and better K:BB ratio (51:34) make him a better option offensively. Lugo's D was pretty bad (16 errors), but does he really deserve to be replaced by a speed-less, powerless, unproven 25 year-old kid?

Economically, it makes sense. But Mazz didn't write that (other than "the money matters." Deep analysis there.), he's making this a baseball decision. Which is dumb.

Hand in hand, the Red Sox and their shortstop will walk the line together.

They could play a AAA guy (like Lowrie) and be World Series champs. They don't need Cal Ripken.

Relax.

And the Manny hate train keeps on chugging

This time, Tony Massarotti of the Boston Herald is the culprit. Channeling the spirit of Shaughnessy, Massarotti is the latest writer to run a first ballot Hall of Fame hitter out of Boston.

Until now, Manny Ramirez had the talent to offset the attitude. But the simple truth today is that he is overplaying his hand.

I was under the impression that the term "overplaying his hand" meant giving away too much information. But here, it's used instead of the phrase "living off his reputation" or something like that. It's also not really true.

Entering this weekend’s series with the New York Yankees, despite having played as many games as any Sox player but Dustin Pedroia, Ramirez did not lead the team in runs scored, walks or, most importantly, RBI.

RBIs are dumb. That would be like if I measured your writing performance by ABI (articles batted in). You get an ABI if your article is published after one by Steve Buckley or Jeff Horrigan. Your pay is based on the amount of ABIs you get and when you do bad, Manny Ramirez will write an article about trading you.

Sound good?

Manny is also second on the team in walks (50 to 59, behind the now loved JD Drew), third in runs and second in RBI. What a piece of trash. I think Massorotti read this recently.

He did not rank in the top 20 in the major leagues in homers (19, 23rd), RBI (62, 24th) or slugging percentage (.530, 27th), all of which supports an interesting paradox.

Wow. He doesn't rank (by a super slim margin) in a random number you picked? And since you love team ranks, he's tied for first on the team in homers and third on the team in slugging - which I am surprised you know about, it being a nerd stat and all.

As a player, Ramirez is aging.

A wild fact approaches!

It means Ramirez’ skills are deteriorating and his attitude is as rotten as ever, and it means the Red Sox don’t need to find a Hall of Fame-caliber player to replace him anymore because Ramirez no longer is a Hall of Fame-caliber player.

This argument is idiotic. Did the Giants look for a HOF-caliber player to replace Bonds? Did Greg Maddux command a HOF-type player in return for his services? 99 percent of the time, when HOF bound players are past their prime, it would be completely foolish to expect a "Hall of Fame-caliber" player in return.

Hey Cardinals, how about Manny for Pujols straight up? They're both Hall of Fame bound. Huh? Huh?

Truth be told, none of that is news. What is news is this: MARz [this is the HILARIOUS acronym Massorotti gave to Manny. Get it? It's almost Mars! The red planet?! Aliens are from there!!] isn’t one of the truly elite hitters in the game anymore.

This is probably true. But no one with a brain thinks he's "truly elite" anymore. But he makes a sick L/R combo with Ortiz and I'd rather "overpay" him than Carlos Delgado or Gary Sheffield.

Take away the first 19 games of this season

No. Those games happened during the season.

(after that feel-good, deeply philosophical spring) and MARz entered yesterday batting .290 with 13 home runs and 42 RBI in his past 76 games, the equivalent of about a half-season.

~.300/26-30/85-100 sucks!

During that same period of time, he had been outproduced by such luminaries as Adam LaRoche, Hunter Pence, James Loney, Cody Ross, David DeJesus, Bengie Molina, Jorge Cantu and even David Murphy.

Now I don't know what measures Massorotti used to define "outperforming" (I am going to assume "running out ground outs" and "sac bunts" were high on the list) but I am going to use OPS, OPS+ and WARP3.

I am going to include those 19 games - mainly because I am not a dick and those games still count in the stat books.

Manny: .922/140/7.5
Pence: .735/92/4.3
LaRoche: .814/114/5.1
Loney: .823/112/5.3
Ross: .810/112/5.6
DeJesus: .819/116/5.9
Molina: .734/92/5.3
Cantu: .832/120/6.8
Murphy: .780/107/5.2

So yeah, he has like 100 points of OPS (which I think even Massarotti can understand is good), is actually fairly an above average MLB player (which is a 100 OPS+) - unlike nearly every one of these players - and is almost two wins more valuable than all but Cantu.

Proof is fun!

The obvious issue now is that Ramirez no longer is a historic run producer, though clearly, nobody has told him. He continues to act as if he invented the RBI.

I like to picture Manny sitting in his mansion on an old leather chair, wearing a smoking jacket, partaking in a particularly fine brandy and looking over his BABIP and LD%, laughing as people still hold RBI on a pedestal.

Again: RBIs are stupid, they are nearly 100 percent teammate/position in the line up reliant. Stop it. Please.

The decision doesn’t look like much of a decision at all.

And here’s the astonishing thing:

It might have as much to do with baseball as anything else.

I have no problem with the Red Sox cutting ties with Manny. If they can get an Adam Dunn or a Jason Bay or a Matt Holliday, I would be thrilled (although, at least in the case of Holliday, they will cost just as much).

But this will not be a baseball decision. This will be the front office caving to a suffocating amount of media pressure and witch hunting.

"He may have pushed an old man! Get him!"

"He fumbled around in the outfield once! Burn him alive!"

"He doesn't run out ground outs every once and a while! Heretic!"

The dude is one of 15 outfielders in MLB with a .900 OPS. With Ortiz back, his numbers will go up.

Step the fuck off.