Meet the Sox

Jermaine Dye

ESSENTIALS

• Contract
  
  • 08: $9.5M; 09: $11.5M; 10: $12M mutual option ($1M buyout)
  • Full no-trade clause for 2008; limited no-trade in 2009
    
• Stats
  • Baseball-Reference.com page
  • ESPN.com current stats
  • FanGraphs
    
  • First Inning
  • PECOTA
    

2007 RECAP

Jermaine Dye had his contract year one season early.

After posting MVP-caliber numbers in 2006, he burst out of the gate resembling the guy who struggled in his first month with the Sox in 2005.  Except that it continued for 2 1/2 more months after that.  Here's how his first halves compare between the two:

	AB	H	XBH	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG
2006	280	89	41	68	.318	.397	.646
2007	266	57	26	39	.214	.271	.402

A lot of it can be attributed to leg maladies.  His knee required draining and a cortisone shot, and a nagging strain of his quadricep slowed his bat and limited his range in the field significantly.  The Sox pitching staff allowed 36 triples, good for fourth in the American League.  The three teams above them: Detroit (huge park), Oakland (huge park), and Tampa Bay (atrocious defense).

The injuries also diminished his trade value -- the best available offer was a package that centered around Wily Mo Pena.  Kenny Williams didn't go for it, and Pena was eventually traded to Washington for a player to be named later.

Thus, the Sox kept him, and Dye eventually healed up and turned his season around.  He hit .298/.368/.579 in the second half, and he looked better -- not great, but better -- in right.  The season was lost well before Dye was found, but he managed to secure his future before the end of the year, signing a two-year, $23 million deal with the Sox.

Fittingly enough, he had his best month while the Sox were having their worst.  He had a .961 OPS in August, during which the Sox went 9-20.  In a year that 18 of Dye's 28 homers were of the solo variety, I suppose it's fairly symbolic of his empty year.

GOOD SIGNS

1. His second half.  His OPS over the last three months of 2007 (.947) was better than either half of 2005, when he was a more-than-adequate corner outfielder who made Magglio Ordonez an afterthought.  It didn't feel like he was overachieving, although the team was so bad that a residual odor clung to everybody.  Even Jim Thome's 500th homer wasn't free of melancholia.

2. No change in walk/strikeout rate.  Though Jermaine's bat dragged along with his legs in the first half, he still put balls in play at the same rate.  While his walks dropped a little, I'd assume it's more because pitchers saw little reason to shy away from him in the first half.  When he resumed hitting, he started walking more.

3. His arm.  It still functions well.

BAD SIGNS

1. His legs.  Scott Podsednik showed how hard it is for leg injuries to fully heal.  That Dye has no cartilage in the outside of his right knee doesn't help matters, either.

2. His age.  Dye turns 34 next year. When looking at his top 10 comparables at age 33 on Baseball-Reference.com, two of his top three played their final season at the same age -- Raul Mondesi and Danny Tartabull.  The rest stopped producing at an above-average level around that age, and No. 10 didn't even make it to 34 (our good friend George Bell, who hung it up after the '93 season).  When factoring in his legs, it's not impossible that Dye could fall off the table, though he's a much harder worker than Mondesi and sports a better health history than Tartabull.

3. His position.  There hasn't been any word of Dye moving from right field, even though a healthy Carlos Quentin is a far better option.  This is a difficult situation to gauge, because there was talk of Dye shifting to first as soon as 2007, which means the Sox must be aware of his limitations.  At the same time, Ozzie Guillen likes to give veterans a lot of rope.  Dye's not easy to read, either, so there are a lot of factors yet to be determined.  Unless he finds younger legs while doing spring cleaning, a move to left should be worked out sooner rather than later.

2008 OUTLOOK

It'll be a good season if...

The Sox need Dye to stay healthy if they have any shot of being competitive.  They still don't have another proven bat to keep him company in the outfield, although Quentin is the closest the Sox have come in two years.  If he could match his 2007 total of 138 games played, that would be a good start.

Whether those games are in right field or left field is up to how fresh Dye's legs look.  He covers an acceptable amount of ground when he's 100 percent, but he's rarely 100 percent.  Right field has to become less of a triples factory somehow.  At least Quentin gives them a feasible option.

The possibilities are so vast regarding his offensive potential that anything between his 2005 season and 2006 season would be just peachy -- as long as the boatload of production doesn't come in one half a season.  His career OPS is .823, although that includes a fair amount of injury-marred season.  I wouldn't complain about .850 (.350 OBP, .500 SLG), though something more like .875-.900 would get me closer to "happy."

PROJECTIONS

Jermaine Dye	AB	HR	RBI	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
2007 ZiPS	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2007 BJS	513	29	77	.265	.336	.495	.831
2007 JCM	498	27	84	.265	.337	.511	.848