The Baby and the Bath Water.

Don Orsillo's mailbag. What can I say? The man watches a lot of baseball and he probably knows this team as well as anybody. Like most people, he sometimes has interesting things to say and he sometimes has bone-headed things to say. Like today's answer about Ellsbury's defense:

"I am not a fan of this method of evaluating a player. I realize agents and some scouting departments are searching for ways to quantify a player's defense; I just don’t think it tells you enough of the story. I am guessing most baseball people agree, based on how people view your two great examples, Ellsbury and Jeter. I think a scout's eye can more accurately determine whether a player is a good defender and can cover ground. Again, this is a way to quantify an area that, with the exception of fielding percentage, has been tough to quantify. Still not a fan though."

Oh, Donny O. Fielding percentage? Really? Come out of the dark ages. How many times have you and Jerry sat there and disagreed with the official scorers call on whether something was an error or not? How then can you rely on a statistic that has errors as an integral part of it's formula?

Look, I agree with you that Ellsbury was treated unfairly by UZR this season. And I agree that you should rely on what you can see. What I've seen is Jacoby making plays much more difficult than they need to be. How many times have you called something to the effect of: "Jacoby started in and now he's headed back to leap and make the play." or "Jacoby started back and now he's headed in but he has the speed to make up for it." And that's all I'll say about that because it's all been said before.

Also, I'm not sure what it says about me but in the photo included with the mailbag, I recognized the dugout at Angels Stadium (at least, I hope it's Angels Stadium after I called Don Orsillo's opinions bone-headed) before I recognized Varitek.