By Thom Henninger
On Thursday, the Boston Red Sox signed Marco Scutaro to be their shortstop in 2010. It was a logical addition to the roster for the sabermetric-friendly Red Sox, who emphasize the importance of on-base percentage.
The former Jay posted a .379 OBP that ranked 17th in the American League in 2009. To demonstrate Boston’s awareness of OBP, Scutaro’s mark would have ranked fifth on the team last season, behind Kevin Youkilis (.413), Victor Martinez (.405 with Boston and .381 overall), J.D. Drew (.392) and Jason Bay (.384).
The question surrounding Scutaro is whether his ability to get on base in 2009 will become the norm. The 34-year-old veteran has a .337 lifetime OBP, and his .379 OBP last summer marked only the second time he posted an OBP higher than .333 in eight major league seasons.
As for 2009, he was one of the leaders in OBP among regulars who are now free agents. When the free-agent marketplace opened for business on Nov. 20, there were 51 with at least 300 plate appearances last season. Among this group of 51 players, Scutaro’s OBP ranked sixth.
The free agent among the group with the highest OBP was Nick Johnson at .426, the third-highest mark among all major leaguers behind MVPs Joe Mauer (.444) and Albert Pujols (.443). Getting a deal done with a team won’t come as quickly for Johnson, who has had a majority of his big league seasons sabotaged by injury. He reached 500 plate appearances for the first time since 2006 last summer, when he was an on-base machine for both the Nationals and Marlins.
Johnson, who recorded a .477 OBP in 35 games after joining Florida in a July 31 trade, reportedly has sparked interest from a number of teams. There’s a glut of first basemen available this winter, however, so Johnson, with his injury history, may not be at the top of many teams’ shopping lists.
At the core of Johnson’s success reaching base is his patience. Among those 51 free agents, he saw the most pitches per plate appearance last season, averaging 4.36 pitches per trip to the plate. He was third among all major leaguers who had at least 300 plate appearances in 2009, trailing only Jayson Werth (4.51) and Kevin Youkilis (4.41).
Johnson’s patience also worked for him when he fell behind the count. No one with at least 300 PA in 2009 could match his .375 OBP in two-strike situations.
And who was second in the majors in those situations? It was Scutaro at .366.
