2011: 132 games, .279 BA, .355 OBP, .491 SLG, 17 HR, 61 RBI
2012 projection: 149 games, .277 BA, .344 OBP, .441 SLG, 17 HR, 64 RBI
2012: 154 games, .255 BA, .321 OBP, .383 SLG, 11 HR, 55 RBI
2013 projection: 155 games. .269 BA, .338 OBP, .418 SLG, 14 HR, 59 RBI
I'm not sure I'm quite as excited as David Ortiz is about the Shane Victorino signing. Papi absolutely gushed about Victorino on the Boston.com Extra Bases blog:
“That’s my boy,” he said. “I’m very happy that he’s going to come in and join us. He’s going to be a guy people are going to love in Boston. People are going to love him. He goes at it hard. He’s got a lot of adrenalin going on. I love that. It gets me going.”When David Ortiz is that excited about a player, I'm on board. Personally, I'm shamefully tuned out of National League affairs (with a few exceptions), and because Victorino has played exclusively for the Phillies and the Dodgers in his career, I haven't really been that cognizant of his output.
That said, the fact that he can comfortably play all three outfield positions is huge. In his career, Victorino has played 1002 games over nine seasons, 762 games in center field, 148 games in right field (where he will play the bulk of his games for Boston), and 111 games in left field. The importance of this flexibility cannot be overstated, especially since our current center fielder is in his last year under contract, and is a Scott Boras client.
On the offensive side, Victorino is a solid switch-hitting batter. Fenway Park is about 20 feet shallower down the left and right field lines than Dodger Stadium, the home for which Bill James and his team made their power projections, so it's possible that we see better power numbers than the Handbook projected.
Overall, I think it's super important that Victorino seems genuinely excited to be coming to Boston - if you don't believe me, just check out his Twitter page:
Yeah, I think he'll fit right in.
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