Goodbye to Ellsbury

I have to say it.  Jacoby Ellsbury, I'm going to miss you. I'll watch you play 19 times next year. I'll watch you take a lead off first, then race for second knowing there's a very small chance you will be caught. Sometimes, a wild throw will put you at third. More often than not, your team will score at least one run in the inning. The only difference will be that you'll be wearing pinstripes.

 

I knew Ellsbury would leave,  but seeing him in New York is a cruel blow. I don't blame him for taking a ridiculous 7-year contract worth $153 million- 99.9 per cent of ballplayers would have done the same thing. All through his career in Boston,he intimated that he would go after the money, no matter how much he liked playing here. But I still feel sort of the way I did when Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens ended up in Yankee Stadium. Though the circumstances were different, it still hurts.

 

I am well aware of Ellsbury's shortcomings- his lack of power (despite one magical year), his proneness to injury, his weak arm. But he provided something no Sox player had in my memory- using baserunning as a true weapon. No Soxer could do that- not Tommy Harper, not Johnny Damon. I don't think I'm overrating Ellsbury when I write that he could finish his career in the company of Rickey Henderson and Lou Brock, at least in the steals column.

 

There are many possibilities for replacing Ellsbury in center- Jackie Bradley Jr, Matt Kemp, Shin Soo-Choo (though his price may be too high), even Shane Victorino with a free-agent signing to replace him in right. But no one will take his place as a baserunner. At last look, there were no real running threats in the farm system.

 

I hope the productive years Ellsbury had will teach the Sox a lesson- stolen bases are almost important in Fenway as in other parks. We saw how a station-to-station club like the Tigers faltered in the postseason.