Eraserheads with a smile with lyrics

Eraserheads with a smile with lyrics

Thanks to a nagging injury to his ribs sustained in a collision with Adrian Beltre during the season s early goings that resulted in a substantial amount of time on the disabled list, Jacoby Ellsbury has gone from Fenway favorite to the subject of near-universally negative discussion. Whether pertaining to questions surrounding his toughness and defensive abilities, altercations involving the organization s medical personnel, or the subsequent trade rumors, there s no denying the contrast in public opinion of Ellsbury now from where it was less than a year ago. In s 2009 This Year in Baseball Awards decided entirely by fan voting the Defensive Player of the Year was, ironically enough, Jacoby Ellsbury. From : Defensive Player of the Year Jacoby Ellsbury, Red Sox: Ellsbury has built his reputation as a base stealer, but his Gibby victory shows that fans have come to recognize his outstanding defensive ability as well. Boston s pitching staff certainly enjoyed having the sure-handed speedster in center, as Ellsbury committed just two errors all season for a robust. 994 fielding percentage. Thanks to his airtight glove work and highlight-reel ability, Ellsbury earned 6 percent of the vote, easily outdistancing the 3 percent garnered by Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins. Since then, however, the emergence of new-age statistics made famous by the Society for American Baseball Research SABR have forced fans to reconsider their stance in regards to Ellsbury s defensive prowess or lack thereof. Comprehensive combinations of both mathematical and statistical analysis assigning ratings to players based on a seemingly endless list of elements and situations, Sabermetrics have dethroned traditional barometers of success such as batting average, earned run average, and most notably in Ellsbury s case, fielding percentage. One in particular, UZR ultimate zone rating, which is, to some extent, considered an accurate depiction of a fielder s true value, implies that Ellsbury was actually the worst full-time center fielder in all of baseball in 200 In other words, Jacoby s defensive prowess that garnered league-wide recognition on was actually a matter of defensive liability, according to SABR. Whether you re an advocate of Sabermetrics or not is beside the point; the fact of the matter is that statistics like UZR were relevant well before Ellsbury s Defensive Player of the Year Award in 200 Again, s TYIB Awards are entirely subject to fan voting, so if fans were impressed enough with Ellsbury in 2009 to ignore such eraserheads with a smile with lyrics and reward him for his glove work, why now has it become trendy to dispel his defensive worth? Defensive skill isn t the only topic that Jacoby has had to, well, defend in the media. Ellsbury s toughness has been called into question following the collision with Adrian Beltre s knee on April 11 that led to five broken ribs and a season spent on the disabled list. The questioning of Ellsbury s toughness is puzzling, to say the least. Prior to this season, the only other time that I can remember Jacoby being hurt was during June of 2008, his rookie year. No, he didn t pull a muscle in his back while sneezing Sammy Sosa, miss games due to sleeping awkwardly Drew or severely injure his forearm playing Guitar Hero Joel Zumaya ; instead, Ellsbury selflessly strained his wrist making a miraculous full-extension diving catch in a game against the Tampa Bay Rays. Puzzling may not be sufficiently descriptive, actually at least not in Terry Francona s mind. Amidst constant questioning of Ellsbury s health and determination to return to the team from reporters and local radio show hosts, Terry decided to take offense in Jacoby s defense. Have you ever had reason to believe that Jacoby Ellsbury was a soft player? No. And I think for anyone to ever say that is very disrespectful. He continued by indirectly addressing the conflicting prognosis surrounding Ellsbury s ribs; My eraserheads with a smile with lyrics tell me the kid was probably a little more sore than he was letting on, probably for obvious reasons. He wanted to play. He was catching eraserheads with a smile with lyrics from a lot of you all of you tough guys. Francona, referencing Ellsbury s ill-fated decision to attempt a premature return from the disabled list in late May, justifiably placed a portion of the blame on the media s berating of the young outfielder for applying a cautious approach to his rehabbing. That cautious approach, in retrospect, was warranted. Upon his return in May, Ellsbury would play just three games before revisiting the disabled list. I didn t do this myself. I didn t tweak something and sit out. I got hurt going all-out, one-hundred percent for a ball, Ellsbury explained. I tried to come back when I knew I wasn t one-hundred percent. That s all I can say. Everybody knows how I play. Everyone knows I want to be out there. You can t control everybody and what they think. While team physicians initially proclaimed the injury to be nothing more than bruising, reportedly even refusing requests for an MRI, it was only after Ellsbury s return to the disabled list that the team s medical staff acknowledged the fifth broken rib suffered by Jacoby even then taking the stance that it was sustained during yet another diving catch in a May 23 game, part of his short-lived return to the lineup, and not as a result of his initial collision with Beltre. Ellsbury, of course, refuted the claim, leading to an all-too-public altercation with the team s medical staff and further scrutiny directed at Jacoby.