Sports Q: Who was the better Red Sox center fielder, Johnny Damon or Jacoby Ellsbury?
Debate the answer with Chad Finn and other Boston sports fans at The Sports Q.
Welcome to Boston.com’s Sports Q, our daily conversation, initiated by you and moderated by Chad Finn, about a compelling topic in Boston sports. Here’s how it works: You submit questions to Chad through Twitter, Facebook, and email. He’ll pick one each weekday to answer, then we’ll take the discussion to the comments. Chad will stop by several times per day to navigate. But you drive the conversation. Who was the better Red Sox center fielder, Johnny Damon or Jacoby Ellsbury?
Loyal reader Robert M. suggested a Johnny Damon/Jackie Bradley Jr. duel for our ongoing, informal Who Was Better? series here at the Sports Q, but I already had this duel of noodle-armed, high-quality leadoff hitters queued up for the day. Besides, I think Damon would crush JBJ. This one might be a little closer. The tale of the tape:
Damon (2002-2005): .295/.362/.441, .803 OPS, 108 adjusted OPS, 730 hits, 56 homers, helped change Sox culture when he signed as a free agent before the 2002 season, hit (indisputably) the biggest home run in franchise history, two All-Star selections, finished in the top 16 of MVP voting twice, star of 2004 champs, once had a throw cut off by his left fielder, left to sign four-year, $52 million deal with Yankees after 2005 season.
Ellsbury (2007-2013): .297/.350/.439, .789 OPS, 108 adjusted OPS, 865 hits, 65 homers, one All-Star appearance, one Gold Glove, one Silver Slugger award, one crazy outlier of a 2011 season (32 homers, 105 RBIs, second to Justin Verlander in the AL MVP voting), excelled in postseason for 2007 and 2013 World Series champions, once won a free taco for everyone in America, once got trucked by Adrian Beltre and lived to tell about it, signed a seven-year, $153 million contract with Yankees after the 2013 season.
Wow, I hadn’t realized how close Damon and Ellsbury were in average/on-base/slugging, let alone that they both had a 108 adjusted OPS for the Sox, meaning that they were 8 percent above average. Ellbury had a longer run with the Sox, and he bookended championships during his time here, batting .325 across the two World Series. That ’11 season was crazy, too. It belongs on Mookie Betts’s baseball-reference page, not his.
Still, I’m going with Damon. He was essential to the Red Sox team that exorcised all ghosts and pulled off the greatest postseason comeback in baseball history against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. His grand slam in Game 7 of that series – the first of his two home runs that night – changed the narrative of Red Sox history. He was also a little more consistent than Ellsbury, and he was far more likely to play through an injury – it’s pretty clear in retrospect that Damon shouldn’t have played in the ’03 ALCS after a brutal collision with Damian Jackson in the previous round. He also was more team-focused than Ellsbury, who wasn’t a bad guy by any means, but sometimes came across as something Scott Boras created in a lab.
Ellsbury was a heck of a ballplayer, and he showed up in big moments. But Damon was darned good in his own right, and Red Sox history would be much different without him. He showed up in the biggest moment. My pick is Johnny Damon, king of The Idiots, conqueror of the Bronx.
But what does everyone else think? Who was the better Red Sox center fielder, Johnny Damon or Jacoby Ellsbury? I’ll hear you in the comments or in the poll below.
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