The Sin of the Shortstop: Edgar Renteria Not Performing Up To Expectations?

[Edgar Renteria is driving to Fenway Park on his first day. All of a sudden, in the passenger seat, Terry Pendleton rises from the dead.] Terry: Long time no see, bud.
Edgar: You shut the hell up, Terry. You’re retired. You were a lousy fielder and a lousy hitter on the ’97 Marlins. I’m just imagining this, so shut the hell up.
Terry: …Tells you somethin ’bout your state a’ mind don’t it?… Got you hearin’ things, got yer nerves shot. Got a new contract, got high expectations, expectations you can’t fulfill… got a Terry Pendleton future in front of ya…
Edgar: I’m fine, you shut the hell up.
Terry: Will ya look at that! You think you’re repeating your 2003 season? You think you gonna make everyone forget Nomahhh … or O-lahhhhndo?
Edgar: You shut the hell up… I’ll make it.
Terry: Not unless you keep your eyes on the ball, sugar-pie… [shouts] Watch it!
Edgar: [Edgar swerves to miss an oncoming car. Terry falls onto Edgar’s arm, leaning on him] Terry: Ahh this is great, s’just like being back in ’97 again, on the same side o’ the infield. Heheheheh…
Edgar: Shut Up!
[flings Terry off of him] Terry: Hehehe.
[Red Sox Nation follows them.] Terry: Oh, you’re screwed. It’s over.
[lights cigarette] Terry: You’re flushed.
Edgar: This time I can’t bring myself to tell him to shut up. Sure he’s a prick… Sure he’s retired… Sure I’m just imagining that he’s talking. None of that stops the bastard from being absolutely right. I don’t have a chance in hell of performing up to expectations. The only question left is whether I’m gonna show up to the park or not. Tough call. For all I know, Theo’s an honest GM, regular guy. Working stiff with a mortgage, a wife and a pile of kids. My hand moves all on its own, sliding on of my guns to my lap and thumbing back the hammer. I don’t know what to do…
Terry: You better stop, you’re making Red Sox Nation mad.
Edgar: …Whatever you say…
[slams on the brakes, smashing Terry’s head into the dashboard]
Apologies to the writers of Sin City.
What exactly was the point of that, you ask? Oh, just throwing some creativity in there. I was perusing Edgar Renteria’s former teammates, and I noticed that in his rookie year, his third-baseman (Terry Pendleton) was putting up eerily similar statistics to Renteria this year. How similar? Let us compare!

A pointless exercise because there’s nothing really to take away from these statistics as well, except it gives me an opening to talk about Edgar Renteria.
Is Edgar Renteria a bust?
You know, that’s open to interpretation. Some of you may think the answer is staring you in the face…

But it’s not, really.
Here’s what Edgar Renteria has done this year:

And here’s what three other shortstops (I hope you can see why I’ve selected these three) have done so far this year:

SALARY COMPARISONS:
Nomar Garciaparra: 1 year/$8.25M (2005), plus $2.775M/year in incentives [For us to retain him, he wanted 4 years, $60 million] David Eckstein: 3 years/$10M (2005-07)
Orlando Cabrera: 4 years/$32M (2005-08)
Edgar Renteria: 4 years/$40M (2005-08), plus $11M 2009 club option ($3M buyout)
I think we can state without equivocation (and this makes me sad to say) that the Red Sox are better off with Nomar and Orlando. Even Orlando’s dazzling fielding and great clubhouse impact (note: Renteria’s had a positive impact as well, not negative) just cannot overcome an OPS under .700.
Did we miss the boat on David Eckstein? Here are the career batting totals (and please note that while both shortstops are 30, Renteria is six months younger, which may not seem like much, but helps)

So far, I’m willing to give the nod to David Eckstein here for the contract. While Renteria is clearly the better offensive player, when you factor the money in, it’s pretty much a no-brainer. Now, for their 2004 totals.

Things just got a lot more dicey, didn’t they? And if you go look at their career (Renteria, Eckstein) you will notice that while both were slipping, Renteria had topped out at a .480 slugging percentage, down to .401 while Eckstein topped out at .388 and fell to .332. Based on the 2004 season and career totals, and not knowing what line (it’s all guessing, really, in the off-season, but you use previous statistics to base opinion on) each player would put up, Renteria starts looking a lot more palatable. There’s a reason why there was a market for Renteria and not Eckstein.
Offensively, I think we can justify the 4/40 year that Renteria got easier than we can justify bringing any one of these aforemented shortstops back to Boston. Sure, Renteria’s having a subpar season, but there’s reasons for that. I keep hearing that there’s something wrong with Renteria. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right? People keep saying Renteria has got to be hurt, that he’s not usually like this. I just spent a while looking, but I can’t find it. Anyways, someone just recently said (I think it was yesterday or a day ago) that he really does have to be hurt. Like I said, people keep saying this. I know we’re in 2005, and we need him now, but I think we should reserve judgment on Renteria for 2006 and continue to cheer him on and welcome him to Boston. Heck, he’s said that “I like how you live in Boston. It’s calm but there’s a lot of freedom. That’s how you should live life.”
Now I want to touch on the bane of Renteria’s Boston tenure so far – his fielding. So far this year, David Eckstein ranks sixth in FPCT at .982, second in RF at 5.10, and 16th in ZR at .831.
Renteria ranks 24th in FPCT (.954 – only Russ Adams is worse among qualified shortstops), 16th in RF (4.37) and 20th in ZR (.824). Yeesh. Eckstein is clearly the favorite. Now, let’s input Eckstein and Renteria’s 2004, 2005, and Career fielding totals:

As we can see, Eckstein is pretty consistent in fielding, although he is way above his head this year in terms of range factor. (For the unitiated, FPCT is his fielding percentage, RF is Range Factor which shows how good his range is – the higher the better although people with higher range usually have worse FPCT because they get to tougher balls but may make an error on them, and ZR is Zone Rating which is the percentage of balls they field in their designated zone.) Renteria, however, is so wildly off-base from his 2004 season that it isn’t even funny. That’s why all season long I have maintained he is not as bad as he looks this year. His career suggests he tilts to what he’s doing this year, but he’s still significantly better with his career, and his career fielding line suggests that this year is the exception to the rule, an abnormality, if you will. (He was pretty horrid in 1999 and 2000, but again, the exceptions.)
In other words, this is not going to last. He may finish out the year with terrible fielding, but what I think he’s going to do next year … I think he’s going show his Gold Glove form again. Renteria just seems to be the player that swings from one end of the pendulum to the other end of the pendulum every year. There is really nothing consistent about his overall game year to year, it keeps fluctuating. If I can use the example of Keith Foulke – he had a great year last year, and is having a terrible one this year. Yet no one bemoans his contract. We bemoan Renteria’s contract, but what if he turns in a 2003 season next year? Will we be bemoaning it then?
The bottom line is that Edgar Renteria was the best shortstop available on the market – and we got him. The market was 4 years and $40 million, and that’s a market your’ll see pretty much every year. Case in point is free agent to be Rafael Furcal who Rotoworld says will get five years and 40 million from the Diamondbacks. With the Cubs and Braves (plus other teams) expected to be in the bidding, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Furcal top out at an annual price of $10 million per year. Either way, Furcal has a massive payday coming his way. What we need to hope is for the slumping (.181/.220/.241 since Aug. 28) Renteria to start hitting again in time for the playoffs, and try to attain some consistency on defense. I see him make an acrobatic, great play one day and then boot a routine ground-ball the next.
Statistics through September 19th, 2005.
This article was written before the game last night. Lucky, too, or I’d be ranting and raving and foaming at the mouth. Renteria went 1 for 4, and committed an error, which led to the decisive run.
Check out Zach’s take on the game last night. Bright spot: Hansen. Ortiz. That’s pretty much it.