Jed Lowrie’s great career start

Posted by Andy on April 21, 2011

Through Wednesday's games, Jed Lowrie has a career BA of .268 and a SLG of .448.

Doesn't sound like much, does it?

But in his 620 career plate appearances, he's already accumulated 4.0 WAR.

Here are the last 20 times a shortstop to accumulate at least 4.0 WAR in no more than 620 plate appearances.

Rk	Player	Year	WAR/pos	PA	Age	Tm	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Troy Tulowitzki	2010	5.6	529	25	COL	122	470	89	148	32	3	27	95	48	78	.315	.381	.568	.949	*6
2	Yunel Escobar	2009	5.5	604	26	ATL	141	528	89	158	26	2	14	76	57	62	.299	.377	.436	.812	*6
3	Erick Aybar	2009	4.3	556	25	LAA	137	504	70	157	23	9	5	58	30	54	.312	.353	.423	.776	*6
4	Jason Bartlett	2009	5.0	567	29	TBR	137	500	90	160	29	7	14	66	54	89	.320	.389	.490	.879	*6/D
5	Cristian Guzman	2008	4.4	612	30	WSN	138	579	77	183	35	5	9	55	23	57	.316	.345	.440	.786	*6
6	Edgar Renteria	2007	4.3	543	30	ATL	124	494	87	164	30	1	12	57	46	77	.332	.390	.470	.860	*6
7	Bill Hall	2006	4.3	608	26	MIL	148	537	101	145	39	4	35	85	63	162	.270	.345	.553	.899	*65/84
8	Jhonny Peralta	2005	5.8	570	23	CLE	141	504	82	147	35	4	24	78	58	128	.292	.366	.520	.885	*6
9	Bobby Crosby	2005	4.3	371	25	OAK	84	333	66	92	25	4	9	38	35	54	.276	.346	.456	.802	*6
10	Carlos Guillen	2004	4.1	583	28	DET	136	522	97	166	37	10	20	97	52	87	.318	.379	.542	.921	*6
11	Jose Valentin	2003	4.2	569	33	CHW	144	503	79	119	26	2	28	74	54	114	.237	.313	.463	.776	*6
12	Jose Hernandez	2002	4.2	582	32	MIL	152	525	72	151	24	2	24	73	52	188	.288	.356	.478	.834	*6
13	Edgar Renteria	2002	4.2	609	25	STL	152	544	77	166	36	2	11	83	49	57	.305	.364	.439	.803	*6
14	Cristian Guzman	2001	4.0	527	23	MIN	118	493	80	149	28	14	10	51	21	78	.302	.337	.477	.814	*6
15	Nomar Garciaparra	2000	7.3	599	26	BOS	140	529	104	197	51	3	21	96	61	50	.372	.434	.599	1.033	*6/D
16	Tony Batista	1999	4.3	573	25	TOT	142	519	77	144	30	1	31	100	38	96	.277	.330	.518	.848	*6
17	Alex Rodriguez	1999	4.7	572	23	SEA	129	502	110	143	25	0	42	111	56	109	.285	.357	.586	.943	*6
18	Nomar Garciaparra	1999	6.5	595	25	BOS	135	532	103	190	42	4	27	104	51	39	.357	.418	.603	1.022	*6
19	Cal Ripken	1995	4.1	613	34	BAL	144	550	71	144	33	2	17	88	52	59	.262	.324	.422	.745	*6
20	Barry Larkin	1995	5.9	567	31	CIN	131	496	98	158	29	6	15	66	61	49	.319	.394	.492	.886	*6

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/21/2011.

Now of course these guys all did it in one season while Lowrie's performance is spread over 4 seasons.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 21st, 2011 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

17 Responses to “Jed Lowrie’s great career start”

DavidRF Says:
April 21st, 2011 at 10:23 pm
620 PA is an odd cutoff. Its well over the qualifying limit but most full-time players have a bit more... especially ones with that much WAR. A-Rod just has that one year at under 620 PA until 2008 at 3B and that was the year that he missed a month.

Ripken-95 is a good full season comp. We know Ripken played every day in that shortened season and the triple-slash stats look similar.
Henry Says:
April 21st, 2011 at 10:28 pm
Omigosh, the Sox system has produced a scrappy, white, slap-hitting, wiry defensive specialist who manages to have slightly more than no apparent pop while playing half his games in Fenway!

Sorry, did that come off as jaded? I should be thankful that anyone's even willing to play SS for the Sox at this point.
Neil L. Says:
April 21st, 2011 at 10:32 pm
Nomar junior?
Neil L. Says:
April 21st, 2011 at 10:34 pm
Seriously, though, what the list can't reveal, of course, is which players maintained a 4.0 WAR over the first 620 PA of their career as opposed to within one any one season.
John Autin Says:
April 21st, 2011 at 11:05 pm
The terms of a previous settlement prohibit me from commenting on the use of the word "scrappy." 🙂
kenh Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 12:28 am
@ 2 Didn't the Red Sox develop Hanley Ramirez and then dealt him for Beckett?
Albert7 Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 7:02 am
"Here are the last 20 times a shortstop to accumulate at least 4.0 WAR"

" a shortstop to accumulate at least"??

WTF kind of grammar is that?

Not to mention the entire article is junk.
Neil L. Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 9:08 am
What, Albert, you've never made a typing mistake in your life?

The article isn't junk but I would call it a "curiousity" list. Not meant to lead to deep debate about baseball but just to catch you by surprise.

The new two-tiered search feature has made a lot of lists like this easy to generate.

I hadn't realized, until reminded, that it took Lowrie four seasons to accumulate 620 PA.
Matty Kid Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 10:49 am
No real comment on Jed, except to say let's hope he can put together a couple full seasons and enjoy his talents. Hate to see any players brought down by injury. Just wanted to say I hadn't commented here prior to today, so I think it's awesome that it saves my name and email, even on different pages. I've been on a lot of sites that still don't do this, and it shows the attention to detail that makes the site my favorite by far. Fwiw, thumbs up from me!
Simarc Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 10:58 am
I would have thought Jeter would have been on that list. Go figure...
John Autin Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 12:34 pm
"But who shall correct the correctors?"

[A hand goes up in the audience.]

There are two problems with the concluding "sentence" @7, "Not to mention the entire article is junk."

1. It's a sentence fragment. In this context, the phrase "not to mention" is a conjunction, which is a part of speech that, strictly speaking, may not begin a proper sentence. The practice is somewhat accepted in everyday speech, as long as the first half of the conjunction is clear. But what is the first half of the conjunction? It can only be the criticism implied by the rhetorical question, "WTF kind of grammar is that?" It's altogether too vague to be acceptable.

2. Even as a subordinate clause, the phrase should read, "not to mention that the entire article...."

Putting aside grammar and judging it as a piece of persuasive writing, it is merely an unsubstantiated claim.

I like a good tweak as much as the next guy (obviously). I like it better when the tweaker actually adds to the discussion, which I will try to do below.
Andy Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 12:35 pm
I will say that I am sure I overstated things when I put "great" in the title here. I was just surprised to see what Lowrie's done so far.
John Autin Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 12:55 pm
The fact that Lowrie's 620 PAs are spread over 4 seasons makes it hard to find a good comparison group through the Play Index. I'll take a couple of shots at it:

Highest combined WAR in a shortstop's first 3 seasons, max. 700 PAs:
-- 6.4, Bobby Grich, 1970-72
-- 4.2, Solly Hemus, 1949-51
-- 4.0, Kid Elberfeld, 1901

Highest combined WAR in a shortstop's first 2 seasons, max. 700 PAs:
-- 5.2, Freddie Parent, 1901
-- 4.0, Charlie Neal, 1956-57
-- 4.0, Alvin Dark, 1946-48

Highest single-season WAR in a shortstop's first 3 seasons:
-- 6.9, Johnny Pesky (1946) and Donie Bush (1909)

Pesky's '46 season was the second of his career. After an excellent rookie year in '42 (5.4 WAR, 9th on this list), he missed 3 years in the service, then came back with the best year of his career, placing 4th in the MVP vote as the BoSox won the pennant. Pesky had several more good years, but none within 1 WAR of his rookie season, and his career tailed off quickly in his 30s. Some have argued that the service time cost Pesky a shot at the Hall of Fame; but even crediting him with an average of 6 WAR for each of the 3 missed years would leave his career WAR shy of 50, whereas the median for HOF shortstops is about 60.

Still, I'm sure Red Sox fans would be delighted if Lowrie goes on to a career similar to that of Pesky or Grich.
John Autin Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 1:09 pm
I didn't hear much about Lowrie as a prospect, but then I don't really keep tabs on other teams' prospects. I see that he was a late 1st-round draft pick, and he hit pretty well in the high minors -- .918 OPS at AA, .808 OPS at AAA, each in not quite a year's worth of action. At AAA, he had 53 XBH in just 511 PAs.

His MLB slash lines so far are much like his AAA numbers:
-- MLB, .267 / .345 / .446;
-- AAA, .268 / .350 / .458.

Lowrie reached AAA in 2007, age 23. I'm not sure why it's taken this much longer for him to get control of the SS job, but I suspect some BoSox fans could say a lot about that. Anyway, Lowrie is now 27 years old, so it wouldn't be wise to expect much improvement from this point on.
Jed Lowrie’s career start » Stathead » Blog Archive Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 4:49 pm
[...] From Andy K. & B-R: Lowrie’s career (which is basically 1 full season’s worth of playing time) compared to other good shortstops’ first full seasons. Link [...]
Jeff Says:
April 24th, 2011 at 11:06 pm
@John injuries

Lowrie has usually given us a thrill when he was healthy but the answer to your question of why it's taken him this long to lock up the starting job is injuries. He looked like the guy a couple years ago until he injured, I believe, his wrist. Then last year he came back and we were like "ohh yea we forgot about lowrie" since he only managed 76 PA in 2009. Of course last year he had mononucleosis so he didn't play a game until after the all star break and then in the 197 plate appearances he managed he did have an OPS of .907 with 9 homers and 14 doubles in what amounts to less than 1/3 of a season worth of playing time.

The problem isn't with his abilities, and I think we'd all be happy with a SS putting up Lowrie's current career numbers each season (perhaps a little higher BA). The problem is just waiting for something to break on him. No doubt he could put up post 2000 Jeter like numbers (15 HR, 75 RBI, 30 2B) for the next 10 years IF he can go a season without ending up on the DL.
Sean Says:
April 27th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Henry Says:
April 21st, 2011 at 10:28 pm .Omigosh, the Sox system has produced a scrappy, white, slap-hitting, wiry defensive specialist who manages to have slightly more than no apparent pop while playing half his games in Fenway!
Sorry, did that come off as jaded? I should be thankful that anyone's even willing to play SS for the Sox at this point.
>>>>>>>>>>>>

I don't think I follow.

Kinda tough to put the 'scrappy' label on a guy missing too many games with injury and mono.

He IS white. So kudos for noticing. But I wouldn't say he was a slap-hitter OR a defensive specialist.

I also think he has somewhat MORE than 'slightly more than no apparent pop'...

I can't predict what he'll do this year----I have no guarantee the kid can stay healthy (nobody has a guarantee, but you know what I mean)...

HOWEVER, I wouldn't be suprised to see him hit 20 HRs with 85 RBI and a .300 BA if he could stay healthy.

If we must focus on race... what about Hanley Ramirez, Edgar Renteria, Nomah, Alex Gonzalez and the kid Iglesias?

There are probably less Spike Owens in recent times than some people care to recall.

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