This week, it’s a flawed defensive alignment that’s in the waiting room at City Hall.
This one, perhaps more than any other Mayor’s Office I’ve written so far, hurts me to type. It hurts so badly because just four short weeks ago, Ceddanne Rafaela (the centerfielder) was on a run so incredible it was genuinely hard to fathom. In 21 games from June 20th to July 13th, Ceddanne batted .346/.370/.782 for an OPS of 1.152. In those 21 games, Rafaela smacked 8 home runs, 10 doubles, and swiped 3 bags. All of this while playing platinum-glove caliber defense in center field. Of course, these gaudy offensive numbers weren’t exactly sustainable, but it did feel like we were witnessing the ascension of a perennial All-Star. Everything great, right? Wrong.
On July 23rd, five games into the second half of the season, Red Sox infielder (and primary second basemen at the time) Marcelo Mayer suffered a wrist injury and hit the injured list. In desperate need of a second basemen (and also partly to facilitate the recent return of designated hitter Masataka Yoshida), it was decided by Red Sox higher-ups that it would be best if Rafaela would shift to second.
In his twelve games as the team’s primary second baseman, Rafaela has been a negative on both sides of the field. On defense, Ceddanne has totaled -1 defensive runs saved and is maintaining -2 outs above average. While not good, those numbers are serviceable enough for the position the Red Sox have found themselves in. What is not serviceable, however, has been the other side of Ceddy’s game. Since making the switch to the infield, Rafaela is hitting a paltry .197 with a .512 OPS. He has also basically stopped hitting for power, with only three doubles and a home run in that time.
Now, of course — and this is obvious to anyone who has watched the last two years of Red Sox baseball — Rafaela is an extremely streaky hitter. But, it is very hard not to notice the juxtaposition of his stats as a second baseman versus a center fielder. I’m also ignoring perhaps the most offensive part of the entire “Ceddanne Rafaela: Second Basemen Experience” is that HE ISN’T PLAYING CENTER FIELD!!!!!!!!!! It is genuinely difficult to overstate how special Rafaela is at his natural position. It is completely game-changing. He is second to only the Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong in both defensive runs saved and outs above average (with 16 in both categories). All the while playing just just FIVE complete games in his natural position of center field in the last three weeks!
The Red Sox defensive alignment is terribly imperfect, I’m not saying it isn’t. They have five and a half outfielders, three and a half infielders, some of them only play against lefties, and some play multiple positions. The thing that is so frustrating, though, is that “Ceddanne Rafaela = Centerfielder” should be one aspect of it the lineup that is locked in. For some reason, the organization has decided that moving a top-five defender in the sport off his natural position to facilitate several other poor defenders is the solution to their problems. Is any of this even really Ceddanne Rafaela’s fault? Not really! Nevertheless,
Ceddanne Rafaela the second baseman, Mayor Wu will see you now.