Jacoby Ellsbury
Will everybody please calm down about how good Boston's prized center-field prospect is? He performed well in the month or so he spent in the majors, and Covelli Crisp's postseason struggles have Red Sox fans understandably clamoring for him to take Crisp's starting spot in center field. Is he better than Crisp right now? Almost certainly. Would Boston be well served by turning to him for Game Six of the ALCS and beyond, if they're fortunate enough to experience a "beyond"? An argument could easily be made that they would be. The Ellsbury hype machine, however, is starting to get out of control; he's good, but he's not this good. Here's why:
Ellsbury was excellent in his brief stint with the Red Sox, putting up a .353/.394/.503 (batting average/on-base average/slugging average) line over 127 plate appearances, as well as stealing nine bases without getting caught even once. This level of performance, however, is hardly indicative of how he's going to play going forward; over such a relatively small number of plate appearances, every player in baseball can significantly outperform his true-talent level. Indeed, even the much-maligned Covelli Loyce himself had a stretch this year where he put up a robust .402/.454/.641 line over 132 plate appearances.
Furthermore, those of you who are teeming with excitement over what Ellsbury did while in Boston would be well served to remember that he posted a .298/.360/.380 line this year in 401 plate appearances while at Pawtucket, Boston's AAA affiliate. His combined line on the season, which includes 83 plate appearances at AA Portland, was .330/.389/.442; this is a lot closer to the level at which he can be expected to perform going forward than is his major-league line, but even these numbers overstate his ability, as only 20.8% of his plate appearances this year occurred at the major-league level.
Barring any drastic changes in his skill set, he's probably not going to be a star. He looks to be a center fielder who, best-case, will hit for a good average, draw a decent amount of walks, have decent power (the one area where he needs to improve quite a bit), have great speed, and play great defense, with his below-average arm strength being the only knock against him defensively. He has the potential to be a really valuable player, but I simply can't see him developing into one of the elite players in baseball. Grady Sizemore? David Wright? Albert Pujols? They're elite players. Ellsbury may very well develop into the type of player who can fit comfortably onto the next-best tier, but he doesn't project to have the power and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the patience necessary to be considered a star-caliber player.
