One of the most interesting things about baseball to me is the way that an entire fan base, or a large part of it, will just turn on a certain player on their team, with or without an identifiable reason. The amazing thing about it is that, almost invariably, it's one of the best players on the team. The Yankees and A-Rod are the most obvious recent example. Until this year, there were factions among Twins fans that just hated Joe Mauer. Phillies fans often have that kind of relationship with Chase Utley, and certainly did with Pat Burrell. Ditto the Reds and Adam Dunn. And so on.

Red Sox fans, I've recently realized, are that way with J.D. Drew. Drew, twice a top-five-overall draft pick and a former St. Paul Saint, just finished the third year of a much derided five-year, $70 million contract he signed with Theo Epstein's Red Sox, and Theo recently raised some eyebrows when, on local sports radio station WEEI, he suggested that Drew has actually been worth more than the $42 million they've paid him.
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In particular, Dave, a Sox fan at Sox vs. Stripes (who I came across via Twitter) concluded that Theo was positively crazy for suggesting such a thing (which drew [ahem] me in to a long-ish conversation in the comments). A site called Masshole Sports gives us this painfully unfunny and misinformed piece, which complains that Drew "batted 8th in the Red Sox lineup this season!" (a grand total of nine times, and even if it rang true, doesn't that just mean you've got a pretty great lineup?) and that he made $14 million while Youkilis made only $2.5 million in 2009 (false! $6 million, and, as I describe below, misleading). When Rob Neyer wrote in defense of Drew's contract the other day, a commenter made the obligatory daily demand that he "watch the games and get away from the computer screen for once" and complained that Drew "never gets a big hit, plays with no passion and watched more called third strikes than almost anyone I've ever seen ... HE SUCKS!!!" And so on. This flared up because of Theo's comment, but it's been going on since Drew first took the field for the Sox in 2007.

And, well...it's wrong. Crazy wrong. J.D. Drew is a very, very good player. Arguably great. And, at least relative to other high-priced free agents, his $14 million a year is a bargain. However many problems the Red Sox may have at this moment, not a single one of them is J.D. Drew or his contract. In 2009, his OPS of .914 was 10th in the AL, 2nd among outfielders (short of teammate Jason Bay's by .007) and third on the team. He can play defense, too; his UZR of 9.7 was third-best among AL right fielders and 9th best among all outfielders. Putting it all together with WAR, Drew was third on the Red Sox (behind Youkilis and Pedroia), clearly the best outfielder on the team, 17th overall in the AL and 5th among AL outfielders.

So why do Sox fans hate him? I have no idea, but here are some things I've heard people say:

1. He's too soft/always injured. Well, it's true that Drew has missed a bunch of games. He's averaged 121 games a season in his career and has never made it into more than 146, topping out at 140 for the Red Sox. And, I mean, that's a real thing; it's not like a guy with a .914 OPS in 130 games has given you as much as one with a .914 OPS in 155 of them. On the other hand, though, value is value, and Drew has given the Red Sox lots and lots of value, missed games and all. WAR says that 137 games of Drew plus 14 games of some scrub are worth considerably more than 151 games of Bay (and I certainly buy it; Drew can play D and Bay can't, at all). Even in 109 games in 2008, Drew was so good (.927 OPS, +6.4 UZR) that he was still worth 4.1 wins, which, even over a full season, is approximately an All-Star-caliber player. Would Drew be a better player if he could play 155 games a year? Of course. Does the fact that he doesn't make him a bad player, or necessarily worth less than his contract? Obviously not.
   
   
2. He never gets a big hit. Now, Neyer gets a lot of crazy comments, every day, but that was one of the craziest. In Game 6 of the 2007 ALCS, with the Red Sox facing elimination, Drew hit a grand slam. In the 2008 postseason, Drew hit a go-ahead homer in the division series and, in Game 5 of the ALCS, hit a two-run homer to help erase a late seven-run deficit and later delivered the walk-off hit. Even assuming the commenter is a newly-minted Sox fan, Drew hit .280/.436/.700 with two outs and runners in scoring position in 2009. Now, I don't believe "clutch hitting" is an actual skill, but there's just no basis for making that complaint against Drew.
   
   
3. He has no passion. This is said at some point about literally every ridiculously talented player who comes along. If my right fielder is as productive as Drew, I couldn't care less how passionate he is. If it comes easy to him, it comes easy to him. Fine by me.
   
   
4. Fans' perceptions are tainted by his poor first season in 2007. This one I get, sort of. 2007 was a bad year for Drew, and his first with the Sox. He got into 140 games, but was worth just 1.3 wins by WAR, which is below average (I suppose he was likely playing hurt in a misguided attempt to "justify" the contract). FanGraphs says he was worth just $5.5 million on the free agent market. On the other hand, after the postseason heroics and two phenomenal (if injury-shortened) years in which Fangraphs says he was worth $18.6 and $20.7 million, respectively, shouldn't we expect a relatively passionate and informed fan base to have moved past all that by now? So, yeah, he had a problem in the regular season three seasons ago. He was one of your best players in the 2007 postseason, and he's been one of your best ever since. Get over it!
   
   
5. He makes too much money compared to other outfielders. This is, of course, one of the key complaints; the main thrust of the Sox vs. Stripes piece was that Drew is paid more than some other good right fielders. This necessarily overlooks a huge fundamental issue: Drew came in as a free agent, and most of the guys you're comparing him to probably didn't. Among outfielders, Andre Ethier, Nick Swisher, Michael Cuddyer, Nick Markakis, and Shin-Soo Choo have never been free agents. If you're complaining that Drew makes more money than those guys, your quarrel isn't with Theo, Drew or the contract, but with the nature of free agency generally (or just with the Sox's failure to draft and develop a superstar right fielder, in which case you should work on your expectations). The reality of the game is, if you don't develop or steal in trade a pre-free-agency superstar at every position, then sooner or later you're going to have to go out and pay somebody a lot of cash. Sometimes you get a steal in a down market, like Bobby Abreu was this year, but really, your comparables for Drew are not the guys above, but Magglio Ordonez (2.1 WAR in 2009, $16mm); Vladimir Guerrero (0.9, $14mm); Torii Hunter (3.8, $18mm); Johnny Damon (2.8, $13mm); Ichiro! (5.1, $20mm); Alfonso Soriano (-0.8, $17mm on average for FIVE MORE SEASONS); and Jose Guillen (-2.0, $12mm). Now, even granting that this was a particularly down year for big-dollar outfielders, Drew's deal starts to look a lot more reasonable.
   
   
6. He makes too much money because he's the highest-paid Red Sock. This is just plain silly, and for essentially the same reasons that #5 is flawed. Having traded away Manny and failed to land Mark Teixeira, the Sox ended up in a surprising position; with all the young and cheaply-acquired talent they have, the relatively paltry sum of $14 million they gave Drew was the most they had to pay any of their players in 2009. Youkilis and Bay were signed through their arbitration years ($6mm and $7.5mm in 2009). Pedroia too, and still in the early going ($1.5mm). All their pitchers were either young or taken off the scrap heap.
   But then again, Ortiz made $12.5 million, and wasn't worth anything close to 89% of what Drew was; he'll make the same amount in 2010, and again in 2011 if the Sox decide he's worth it (I have to assume they won't). Lowell made $12mm in 2009 and will again in 2010. Bay will be a free agent, finally; if he comes back, he'll cost Drew's $14mm or more, and be worth less, while if he doesn't come back they'll undoubtedly do their best to spend more than $14mm on someone else (Matt Holliday?). Pedroia will make considerably more with every passing year, and Youk will be making $12 million by 2011. That's just the way baseball works. That Drew has spent a single year as the highest paid player on the payroll -- just $1.5-2mm above some guys with nowhere close to his value -- is due to excellent front office management and an accident of timing, and doesn't have anything to do with the fairness or lack thereof of Drew's contract.
   

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