Say No To Todd Frazier

Over the weekend, reports surfaced that the Red Sox have scouts watching Chicago White Sox games, which sucks for them because as rough as watching the Red Sox has been, the White Sox are even more unwatchable. It remains unclear if the Red Sox’s scouting presence is part of the normal scouting process that all teams do of all other teams, especially in advance of an upcoming series, or if it is more earnest, trade-development-based scouting. I suspect it is primarily the former, but even if that is correct, it does not rule out there being a touch of the latter. Regardless, the obvious White Sox players of interest are Jose Quintana and Todd Frazier. Having one of these two on the Red Sox would be excellent, the other not so much. Unfortunately acquiring Quintana will require giving up another prospect haul, the likes of which will be difficult to stomach, and really bottom-out the Red Sox system. Frazier does not come with the same cost, but that does not mean he is the answer for the Red Sox at third base.

The White Sox acquired Frazier from the Cincinnati Reds before last season. At the time Frazier was coming off back-to-back 4+ WARP seasons, which was largely a function of his ability to frequently hit baseballs over the fence. Since landing with the Pale Hose, things have not gone as well:

The power has still (mostly) been there, but that is about it. He does not get on-base at an acceptable rate, strikes out a lot (24.1 K%) and his work with the glove, while better so far in 2017, was well below average last season (and for his career). This season has been standout ugly: .195/.289/.350 (.246 TAv). Frazier is on the wrong-side of 30, so his skills are most likely in decline. At this point, he really only provides the one skill (power), so once it goes, all of his value will too. It is tempting to explain away his 2017 numbers with his .217 batting average on balls in play (BABIP), but Frazier has tended to run a lower than typical BABIP (.275 for his career) and his current batted ball profile supports, at least to some extent, the really low mark. According to measures from StatCast, it seems like his power is already going, as Frazier is hitting the ball with less authority this year: his 2017 average exit velocity of 86.9 mph is down almost 2 mph from last year, which was down 0.5 mph from the year before that. Couple that with his lower average launch angle, and lower rate of barreling-up the ball and you have a decent explanation for his lack of production this season, and a reasonable case for projecting a lower home run total for him this year. Simply put, he is making more soft contact.

With all that said, it is still early, and you could hypothesize that his rough 2017 numbers are mostly a function of hitting in the cold air of Chicago in April and May, but at this time last year he was hitting .228/.319/.494 with 13 HRs, and his average exit velocity (87.9 mph) and launch angle (20.8) were not far off his end of season numbers. Taken together, the data suggest he is not the player he was a couple of years ago.

Maybe with all that I, or rather Todd Frazier’s recent performance, have convinced you that he is not going to come in and be the savior the Red Sox need at third base. As has been noted on this very website, the Red Sox have been a mess at third base for too long. To remind you how bad it has been lately, here are the numbers that all Red Sox third basemen not named Travis Shaw have posted the last two years:

Not great, fellas. With Pablo Sandoval working his way back from a knee injury, Brock Holt dealing with the frightening aftermath of a concussion, Marco Hernandez done for the year due to a shoulder injury, and the Josh Rutledge/Deven Marrero duo doing their level best, it is hard to see better production than Frazier could offer coming. Unless, of course, they promote top-prospect Rafael Devers.

Devers can flat-out hit. This year at Double-A Portland, he has posted a .320 TAv in 144 plate appearances. The Red Sox have stated they want to give Devers more time to develop, and that is a perfectly reasonable approach to hold. I am generally in favour of not rushing players to the big leagues, since not all 20/21-year olds can blast through the minor leagues to be productive at the major league level like Andrew Benintendi, Xander Bogaerts, and Mookie Betts. Alternatively, keeping Devers in Portland for another few weeks is a service time issue, and the Red Sox want to hold off on promoting him as long as they can in order to limit when he can be eligible for salary arbitration (and eventually free agency). The fuzzy date of the Super Two deadline, which is directly relevant for dictating how much service time a player will accumulate, should pass in two to three weeks. If Devers is still raking for the Sea Dogs by then, Sandoval and Holt are still not ready to play, and the Rutledge/Marrero stopgap has gone as expected, then it would not totally surprise me to see Devers in a Red Sox uniform.

Promoting Devers would be aggressive for sure, but the expected difference between him and Frazier is perhaps smaller than you think. Here are their median PECOTA projections (rest-of-season for Frazier; preseason forecast for Devers):

With this in mind, why give up any talent and/or take on any salary to get Frazier – I assume the White Sox will eat most of the remaining money Frazier is owed – when you have similar expected production in-house? Certainly, there is risk either way. Maybe Devers isn’t ready. Maybe Frazier’s 30+ home run days are behind him. For me, the critical issue is that taking on one of those risks does not involve relinquishing any more talent from an already depleted minor league system. Devers is possibly the future at third base. Give him a chance to show what he can do. What’s more is that if Devers were to be called up at the start of July and turns into a pumpkin over the course of two weeks, the Red Sox will still have time to explore a trade for a third baseman before the non-waiver trade deadline. Or who knows, maybe by then Sandoval and/or Holt could be ready to get back on the field everyday for the stretch run.

You don’t have to go too far back in history to find a Red Sox team that succeeded with ugliness at the hot corner. In 2013, the Red Sox won the division and the World Series while giving most of the playing time at third base to Will Middlebrooks, Jose Iglesias, Brock Holt, Pedro Ciriaco, and Brandon Snyder before some 20-year old kid named Xander Bogaerts came up and took over. This is obviously a cherry-picked example, but it is one that the team can and should follow. Todd Frazier does not make this team much better in the short term (relative to in-house options), but will affect the long term and/or the possibility of other acquisitions due to his cost. Give Devers a chance, and forget about Frazier.

Photo by Kirby Lee – USA TODAY Sports