Does Lowell have the range to play short? If so, how about moving Lowell there, playing Youk at third and sitting Lugo, the real weak link in the lineup. Sort of like Davey Johnson's move of Kevin Mitchell to short in 1986.

I understand the offensive gain of taking Crisp/Ellsbury out of the lineup and shifting the OF to Ramirez/Drew/Youkilis, but would you really want such an abysmal defensive trio patrolling the largest outfield in the major leagues? Coors Field is cavernous. I think the extra bases they'd give up would easily negate the offensive gain from adding in Youkilis. No WAY would I go for that.

The most famous example of sacrificing defense for offense that I can remember was replacing Ray Oyler at shortstop with Mickey Stanley-the center fielder. And it seemed to work.

Analogous now would be Lowell to short, Youkilis to third and Ortiz at first. The problem is that would probably weaken three positions defensively, although I am not sure that Lugo has been that terrific at shortstop, and I think Youkilis is a pretty good third baseman. And as Matsuzaka is a strikeout/fly ball pitcher, the harm might be limited. It would certainly seem more appealing than weakening the defense in the Coors' outfield where not only are you likely to get more opportunities but where mistakes are likely to concede more bases.

I've seen this proposed arrangement somewhere before:

Papi at 1B, Lowell at 2B, Pedroia at SS and Youk at 3B.

This one seems to make sense, in that each of these players have experience at the position that they would be playing. Lowell has played some 2B, over the past few years (not much, but some). Pedroia spent about half of him minor league career at SS. Youk can obviously handle 3B (if not as well as Lowell), and Papi can stumble around 1B. The major downside I see with this arrangment is that even though all of these guys have experience at these positions, each one of them would be playing somewhere other than there primary position. That is obviously less than ideal. However, I do think it is a better setup than proposed Youk/Lowell at SS plans, or Youk to the OF (especially RF, since I don't think he has played there as a pro).

In my mind, however, all of this is moot since the Sox are going to be a clearly superior team to the Rockies no matter what arrangement they decide to trot out there. That being the case, I think that taking out Youk and putting in Papi is the right move. If it gets to Game 5, then Youk goes back in and Papi hits the pine.

I wouldn't do anything more than taking Youk out and playing Ortiz at first base. And I would only do that if I was totally confident that Papi could move laterally and play the position adequately.

The proposed infield that Bryan mentioned is an interesting one, but it involves too many changes at one time. I don't think there is any reason to sacrifice outfield defense at Coors Field so I would not be in favor of sitting Crisp or Ellsbury.

Part and parcel to this discussion involves Lowell and his status for next year. Do you pay up or let him walk, knowing that you could move Youk to third and either find a replacement at first base or go with Ortiz for a season (or two) while awaiting Lars Anderson to develop into a major leaguer?

I don't understand how P.S. gets away with viewing Ellsbury as a "weak link" offensively. You say things about small samples sizes, and Ellsbury's has been just that...take only his playoff numbers (and he's only been playing sporadically) and you get NOTHING useful.

Ellsbury is a very compitent hitter, as shown by his minor league and major league numbers, at worse. The fact that he is Crisp's equal defensively should have made Francona's CF decision an easy one, a long time ago, and there is NO reason that Ellsbury would be benched to accomodate Drew. Drew?!? Give me a break? If the offense were necessary, putting Youkilis in RF for Drew would make the most sense (Youkilis is a superior bat, and Drew's defense has been VERY mediocre this year...there would likely be little lost defensively).

Also, talking about benching Ellsbury shows a complete lack of awareness of his contributions to the team this postseason. Pay more attention, please...

Ha - Ellsbury will be great, and is a good player now. But you have to evaluate your resources real-time. Youk is so, so much better than Ellsbury - defense and offense factored. So yeah, I advocate Youk playing ahead of him.

Sully, you missed the point...Ellsbury SHOULD play, AND so should Youkilis...BENCH DREW.

My point was validated last night anyway. Ellsbury = offensive liability = World Series MVP? Never trust a seven AB sample size ever again, guys.

As I said before...if any of you advocated for benching Ellsbury, you were improperly "evaluating your resources real-time". That's the bottom line.

You guys are supposed to be analysts! Talking about (and incorporating it into your analyses and suggestions) which hitters are hot or cold, when you SHOULD know that being hot or cold has NO (that's zero folks) predictive value whatsoever, takes much of your credibility away, IMO.

Even if you want to argue that there is SOME predictive value to very recent and small-sample performances (which there ISN'T, at least according to all available evidence and research - IOW, that argument would be vacuous), it has no business being a signinficant factor in discussing ANY optimal lineup or roster construction strategy. None. IOW, it can be used as a tie-breaker and for nothing else.

As you guys know, the research has already been done, but I challenge ANYONE to go back in history and look at any players (a large group of course in order to get a large sample size) who have been hot or cold for any period of time using any citeria you want and then look at their performance subsequent to that, again, for any time period you want, and if you find a statistically significant difference between that subsequent performance and their overall performance in that year or the last 3 years, I will award a large sum of money!

As I often say when someone makes a claim, "Put your money where your mouth is and we'll likely see how strongly you believe in your conviction!"

Hot. Cold. Small sample sizes. Et al. The point that I believe we should all be able to agree on is that you should go with the players that give you the best shot at winning. Period.

Well, of couse, that's the whole point. The players whp give you the best chance of winning MIGHT be the ones who are hot and might be the ones who are cold, and in fact, have NOTHING to do with who is hot or who is cold.

As we all know, if the media didn't make crap up all the time or say things that have no basis in reality (are not supported by "scientific" evidence), they would have nothing to talk about.

They get away with spouting so-called "expert analyis" which is not expert at all (just the opposite in most cases), because 99.9% of the listership and readership do not know the difference.

I expect better from this site, regardless of the particular author. You wouldn't publish a piece from Kruk or Steve Phillips, would you?

The Pac 10 connection just adds even more to the connections between the Indians and the Red Sox. The media kept talking about Francona, Crisp, Ramirez, Nixon, but didn't notice two pairs of co-PAC10 POYs. OK, Crowe isn't with the big club yet, but he is in the AFL, so he's not that far away.

Speaking of the Francona connection, Tito's spike year was one of the more amazing ones I remember.
.363/.414/.566
vs
.272/.343/.403
for a career.