Mr Bill's Baseball Blog

Prospects to Dream On

2012-02-14T11:41:00.001-05:00

The Red Sox farm system has been thinned out a great deal, with the team trading upper level prospects for established players. Adrian Gonzalez, Andrew Bailey, and Mark Melancon all figure to be significant contributors in 2012 and beyond, but those trades have left the Red Sox with very few significant prospects who could contribute in 2012.

There are, however, many high upside players who just finished seasons in A ball. The Red Sox have four players on Baseball Prospectus' Kevin Goldstein's top 101 prospects list, with SS Xander Bogaerts leading the way at 32, with Brandon Jacobs at 46, and potential Kevin Youkilis replacement Will Middlebrooks at 55. Keith Law has Bogaerts as the Sox top prospect as well, and includes catcher Blake Swihart in his top 100, but Middlebrooks and Jacobs both missed the cut. Also in the system is outfielder Bryce Brentz, who Goldstein ranked at the #6 prospect in the system, and is coming off a massive 30 homerun season, split between low-A and high-A. Finally, there is Sean Coyle, who flashed signs of promise in his full season debut at low-A as a nineteen year old, hitting .247/.362/.464. But what can we expect from them?

Baseball Prospectus' projection system, PECOTA, gives similar players at similar ages with its projections. While I've cherry picked these Red Sox prospects, their top comparable players are downright astounding.

NAME	POS	COMPARABLES	Avg. WAR	Peak WAR
Brandon Jacobs	LF	Johnny Callison, Miguel Cabrera, Boog Powell	46.4	53.8
Bryce Brentz	RF	Tony Conigliaro, Jay Bruce, Manny Ramirez	32.5	69.6
Sean Coyle	2B	Justin Upton, B.J. Upton, Adrian Beltre	30.2	56.1
Xander Bogaerts	SS	Wayne Causey, Ed Kranepool, Robin Yount	33.4	74.1

Every single one of them has a current or potential Hall of Fame hitter in their top three comparables. To top it off, many of these players are still active and adding to their career wins totals or, in the case of Conigliaro, became star major leaguer before a freak injury derailed his career. Essentially, a comparable player is picked based on the players statistics and position; Sean Coyle, for example, has both Uptons and Beltre listed because all came up as middle infielders , struck out a lot, and showed good power for a young player. Brandon Jacobs and Bryce Brentz have both shown unbelievable power for players their age, and it is interesting. This is not to say that these players will become stars, but the potential is there. In the cold month of February, nursing a Patriots loss in the Super Bowl and waiting for spring training to wash away the taste of a bitter September, that list certainly stokes the fire of baseball enthusiasm and hope.

A little foresight saves the Red Sox a bundle

2012-01-25T10:22:00.004-05:00

At the start of 2010 it looked like four massive stars at first base would be hitting the market - Adrian Gonzalez, then on the Padres, Albert Pujols from the Cardinals, Ryan Howard of the Phillies, and Prince Fielder from the Brewers. After the massive bidding war between the Red Sox and Yankees for Mark Teixeira, which led to his 8 year, $180 million contract, I'm sure the agents for all four were looking forward to their massive payout. A funny thing happened on the way to free agency, though. In April of 2010, Howard re-upped with the Phillies a full two years before hitting free agency, with a five year, $125 million deal. In December of 2010, Adrian Gonzalez was traded from the Padres to the Red Sox. Although he officially agreed to his 7 year, $154 million extension in April, of the following season, the general consensus was that the extension had been agreed upon, but was not officially completed until the following April because of luxury tax implications. Finally, both Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols made it to free agency. The Angels went hard after Pujols, signing him to his massive contract, the second largest ever signed, in early December, while Prince Fielder had to wait until just this week for bad luck for Victor Martinez, who tore his ACL, opening up a spot in the Tigers lineup at DH.

Given that all four stars were expected to hit free agency at the same time, let's take a look at the contracts they all signed, plus the contract that Mark Teixeira signed prior to the 2010 season.

Alex Speier, of WEEI, has an interesting take on this topic as well.

	Age	Years	Value	AAV	Avg. WAR
Teixeira	31	8	180	22.5	4.2
Howard	33	5	125	25	2.53
Gonzalez	29	7	154	22	6
Pujols	31	10	254	25.4	7.2
Fielder	27	9	214	23.77778	5.1

We have the players current age, the number of years on the contract they signed, the total value of the contract, the average annual value, and finally, the player's average WAR for the last three seasons. The players are presented in the order they signed their deals. To start, although the Howard contract is for the fewest years, it sure looks like a dog. This is not a surprise - as did other, more talented writers. Howard was coming off of a 4.6 win season in 2009, before he signed his extension, but even at that level of production his salary would outpace his salary. On top of that, Howard contributed two years of mediocre performances (1.4 and 1.6 wins in 2010 and 2011), before tearing his Achilles tendon in the playoffs this fall. Finally, Howard has the second highest annual value out of all five contracts, but easily has the worst performance over the last three years.

Teixeira hasn't produced much surplus value for the team, having a $22.5 million salary makes that tricky, but he has produced. Given his athleticism and build, he's more likely to hold his value than Fielder. The Yankees paid a slightly lower salary and are on the hook for fewer years than any of the other free agent first basemen.

The Fielder contract is very similar to the deal Teixeira signed before the 2010 season. His 5.1 wins per year above replacement matches up well with the 5 wins per year Teixeira posted in the three years before free agency. The difference in AAV could be tied to a modest amount of annual inflation (3%) and the extra year perhaps due to Fielder's extremely young age for a free agent. Either way, the contract is very similar to the Teixeira deal, but the massive question about Prince Fielder is how well will he age. Fielder is listed at 5'11" and 268 pounds, and reports are that the Tigers will be playing him at first base. Fielder is already a below average defender, and will only be getting worse with age. With both him and Miguel Cabrera on the roster for a long, long time, the Tigers won't be able to hide both of them in the DH spot, and when Victor Martinez returns in 2013, they may be forced to have BOTH of them play the field. This really hurts the potential value for Fielder long term.

Albert Pujols signed the second richest deal in baseball history, as a 31 year old first baseman. Pujols could never play again and still make it to the Hall of Fame, but there are some disturbing trends in his statistics. Despite being head and shoulders above any hitter from 2003 to 2010, Pujols has become nearly mortal these last couple years. From 2009, his WAR has declined from 9 to 7.5 in 2010, to a pedestrian 5.1 WAR in 2011, at least by his lofty standards. Combined with the fact that there are rumors Pujols is older than his listed age of 31 and that Angels will be paying him until his age 41 season, there is a lot of risk there. If you're going to be big money on someone, though, you could do a lot worse than Pujols. Even in his career worst season, he still posted over $20 million worth of value, and he contributes in all facets of the game, with great patience, extremely few strikeouts, an above average glove, and good base running, if not good speed, which has led to about ten stolen bases a year. As bizarre as this may sound, the Pujols deal may have the best upside. Pujols has shown be can consistently be a 9 win player, which would put his value at about $40 million per year. Granted, you expect some decline as he ages, but if he can reestablish himself at his career averages, the deal could work out in the end for the Angels.

Finally, we get to Adrian Gonzalez. His average annual value is lower than any of other first basemen. He is the second youngest player in the group and will be tied for the youngest age when the contract expires (36, tied with Prince Fielder). As measured by WAR he is the second best of hte group, and unlike Pujols, he has been remarkably consistent over the last three years, putting up WARs of 6.2, 5.2, and 6.6 the last three seasons. No, Adrian Gonzalez will never be a nine win player, but if he can consistently be a six win player, I'm sure the Red Sox will be happy. It is important to remember the cost of acquiring Gonzalez, though - Casey Kelly, Anthony Rizzo, and Reymond Fuentes, but given the savings compared to the free agent sluggers, not to mention the fact that he was signed for an economical $5.5 million in 2011, while earning nearly $30 million worth of value, it seems like a well worthwhile deal.

The Yankees are the AL East Favorites

2012-01-14T20:37:00.000-05:00

In one day the Yankees turned a very quiet offseason into one that addressed their biggest weakness, by trading for Mariners starting pitcher Michael Pineda and signing Hiroki Kuroda. While the Yankees got by last year with major contributions from Freddy Garcia, Bartolo Colon, and Ivan Nova, and at least a lot of innings from AJ Burnett, if nothing else, none of those three could really be considered a real #2 or #3 starter behind Sabathia.

There have already been many reactions to the deal, but I thought I'd weigh in. The Yankees rotation goes from Sabathia and a lot of question marks to a very solid top three with Sabathia, Kuroda, and Pineda. Those last two spots are up for grabs, with 2011 starters Nova and Garcia in the fold and Hughes trying to bounce back from an injury plagued 2011. AJ Burnett is much more palatable as a 4th or 5th starter, as well, but it wouldn't shock me to have the Yankees pay his way out of town just to get him out of town now. At only 23 and having put up a season where he struck out better than a batter per inning, good for second in the AL. On top of that, Pineda is under team control for a full five years, most of which he'll be underpaid relative to his performance. Expect Pineda's ERA to bump up though; he is switching from having half his starts in Safeco to Yankee stadium. Especially as a right hander who has a low ground ball percentage (35% in 2011), we can expect Pineda to give up a lot more home runs - the Yankee Stadium park factor for left handed home runs was 143 (normalized to 100, or 43% higher than normal) where Safeco is fairly neutral 95. The Yankees managed to add a young, cost controlled starter who has ace potential, which is nearly impossible to do. They even received an interesting prospect in the hard throwing Jose Campos. John Sickels had Campos pegged as the Mariners' #5 prospect, writing "We need to see him at higher levels and his secondary stuff needs refinement, but his upside is very high, he throws hard, and already throws strikes." It isn't common to see the team getting the established player get the lottery ticket, so that is a very nice addition for the Yankees.

The cost was substantial - the Yankees' #1 prospect Jesus Montero and their most MLB ready pitching prospect Hector Noesi. The value on the Mariners' end hinges on whether or not Montero can stick at catcher. If he can stay behind the plate, Montero's bat is truly special. There seems to be a swing back towards tolerating mediocre to poor defense behind the plate again, especially given how successful the Rangers were with Mike Napoli last year. If he ends up at DH, Montero's ceiling is probably Edgar Martinez-light. Given his swing and approach, Montero seemed like a player who could hit .300/.400/.500 forever, just as Martinez did. Hector Noesi has put up excellent minor league numbers, but he's always been a polished pitcher who doesn't have spectacular stuff. That may very well play out well in Seattle, but he doesn't have much in terms of upside and is limited to being a second division starter.

From the Mariners' perspective, they finally get the player they nearly traded for at the deadline in 2010 for Cliff Lee. Given how much Smoak has struggled to produce at the major league level (but he's in the best shape of his life!), you have to wonder where the Mariners would be with Pineda, Felix Hernandez, and Montero, but that is with the benefit of hindsight. Assuming that Montero can stick at catcher, the Mariners have a nice core of players in Montero, Ackley, and Smoak, if you still believe in his pedigree. For the Yankees, it means they get an excellent cost controlled pitcher for five full years. At first glance, it seems like the Yankees have decided to avoid the big name free agent pitchers for awhile. While CC Sabathia has worked out, any list of the worst contracts in baseball is littered with long term commitments to starting pitchers.

The Red Sox play the waiting game

2012-01-13T14:41:00.001-05:00

Right now there are three solid starters on the free agent market - Edwin Jackson, Hiroki Kuroda, and Roy Oswalt. According to ESPN's Keith Law, they are the 11th, 13th, and 22nd best free agents coming in to this offseason, and the 2nd, 4th, and 6th best starting pitching free agents, not counting Yu Darvish, who had to go through the posting system. Coming in to the offseason, Jackson was looking for $15 million per year over five years, Kuroda for $15 million for one, and Oswalt for $8 for one. Quite simply, the market has not been there for any of them, and now, according to ESPN's Buster Olney, the price for all three has dropped substantially, to the point where even Jackson maybe considering a one year deal.

All three have their issues. Jackson has bounced around between many teams, and the knock against him is that his results have never matched his stuff. Nevertheless, he's been unbelievably consistent, posting a WAR of 3.6, 3.8, and 3.8 over the last three years. Oswalt had an injury shortened 2011, thanks to some back issues. However, down the stretch Oswalt's fastball velocity and strikeout rate bounced back to his high standards and he showed better results, as Dave Cameron of Fangraphs has pointed out. If the injury is behind him, Oswalt is a potential steal. Finally, Hiroki Kuroda is not drawing a lot of attention due to his age (37 in February)and his price tag, but Kuroda too has been very effective over the last few years, with an xFIP between 3.4 and 3.6 in all three. Finally, none of the three would require draft pick compensation - Jackson and Kuroda are both type B free agents, and while Oswalt is a type A free agent, the Phillies did not offer arbitration, so they forfeited any rights to compensation.

This plays perfectly into the Red Sox hands. They desperately need one more reliable starter in order to avoid having to rely on contributions from scrap heap signings like Aaron Cook or the rumored Vincente Padilla. However, they do not have the money in the budget to make a major move. Instead, all they have to do is wait. The longer these players remain unsigned, the lower their price will drop. As Adrian Beltre showed, Boston can be the perfect spot for a one year deal to reestablish value, before moving on to a multi-year deal the following off season. If I were Ben Cherington, I'd go after the last of the three to sign, who ought to be the best value. To mean, they're all very similar pitchers. I might go with the pedigree and lower price tag of Oswalt, but any of them could be a very valuable, cost conscious addition to the 2012 rotation.

It has been a very interesting offseason. After the crazy money doled out to Albert Pujols (10 years, $250 million), CJ Wilson (5 years, $77.5 million), Jon Papelbon (4 years, $50 million), Heath Bell (3 years, $227 million), Jose Reyes (6 years, $106 million) and Mark Buerhle ( 4 years, $58 million) early in the offseason, the free agent market has cooled considerably. Prince Fielder is left out in the cold and won't come close to matching Pujols' haul, Ryan Madson had to settle for one year, $8.5 million after Boras misread the Phillies' situation and turned down 4 years, $44 million, and the three previously mentioned starters all remain unemployed. All three will be in a starting rotation come spring training, and whoever ends up with them will likely find a very nice deal.

The Red Sox offseason so far

2012-01-06T12:24:00.003-05:00

Ben Cherington had his work cut out for him this offseason, with regard to the pitching staff. Lester, Beckett, and Buchholz were locks for the rotation, but beyond that very few pitchers had a set role. With the trades for Mark Melancon and Andrew Bailey, the Red Sox pitching staff is starting to take shape. We're also getting a good idea of how Cherington will operate as a GM, with his willingness to wheel and deal, but not with the top prospects.

1. Daniel Bard will be given every opportunity to start. I am still not convinced this is the best course of action, but you don't trade for two late inning relievers if you're keeping Bard in the pen and have two gaping holes in the rotation. Given Bard's issues with repeating his delivery, which has led to some terrifying walk rates in the minors and rough patches in the majors, his complete lack of success as a starting pitcher at the professional level, and his shallow repertoire (93% of the time he throws a fastball or slider, and his third pitch, a change up, is average at best), this seems like a disaster in the making, but the Red Sox seem committed to it. Getting 200 innings out of a pitcher rather than 60 is a no brainer, assuming the performance is remotely similar, but I'm not convinced that Bard will stick in the rotation. Even if he does, it wouldn't shock me to see the Red Sox go some form of a six man rotation in June when Matsuzaka comes back from Tommy John surgery.

2. Andrew Bailey is the closer, but expect Mark Melancon to get at least five saves.
Bailey has a better pedigree, whether it is ERA, strike out rate, or walk rate, than Melancon, but he's missed time in each of the last two seasons. Also, don't expect Bailey to continue to post ERAs in the twos. Pitching in Oakland, Bailey benefited from one of the largest parks in the league, both in terms of fair and foul territory - he won't have that luxury in Fenway. Bailey's expected FIP, which normalizes the home run per fly ball rate to league average, is a rather modest 3.40 for his career.

3. My gut feeling is that whoever ends up logging the bulk of the time in right field, he's already in the system. The inclusion of Sweeney in the trade is a nice one; he can play all three outfield positions and has an above average batting eye. Scouting reports say he has natural power that hasn't translated into games, so there is some upside there. His salary of only $1.6 million (est.) this season means the Red Sox means he only needs to put up half a win before he's turning a profit for the Sox. The fact that Sweeney is a solid opposite field hitter will certainly help him in Fenway, too. That said, the Red Sox should still be on the lookout for a right handed hitting outfielder - Ellsbury, Crawford, Sweeney, and Kalish are all left handed. Andruw Jones might have been a nice addition, given his ability to mash lefties, but it sounds like he always wanted to resign with the Yankees. The nice thing is improving on last year isn't exactly the most difficult thing in the world. 2011 Red Sox right fielders hit for a whopping .233/.299/.353, which makes Sweeney's Colisseum depressed .720 OPS seem downright Ruthian.

4. Cherington is willing to trade away mid-level prospects in order to keep payroll costs under control. What is most impressive to me is that despite $26 million in contracted raises and about $13 million in expected raises through arbitration, the Red Sox have stayed salary neutral this offseason. He was able to add two closer worthy arms without trading away either of the top two prospects the Red Sox have - Will Middlebrooks and teen phenom Xander Bogaerts. None of the MLB ready players the Sox gave up will be missed - Reddick looks like a second division starter, given his lack of plate discipline; Lowrie can't hit right handers (.625 career OPS) nor stay healthy, two fairly important skills; and Kyle Weiland profiles as a back of the rotation arm at best. Miles Head and Raul Alcantara, both included in the Bailey deal, are wild cards who are far away from the majors. Head was a bad body first baseman, who the A's are going to try at third. The bat may be real (22 home runs in A ball last season), but to be a real first base prospect you need to have an elite bat. Alcantara is a very projectable teenage arm, who sits in the low 90s and touches 95, despite only having 180 pounds on his 6'3" frame. His control is spectacular for a teenage pitcher, walking only 12 in 65 innings last year, but the strikeouts aren't quite there yet (6.9 K/9). At his age, projection is usually much more important than production, but he's still an unknown quantity.

At this point, I think we're pretty much done with major moves for the Red Sox. They still need to dig up a starter or two, and maybe a few minor league invite arms for the back end of the bullpen, but the salary room just isn't there to make a big splash this year.

Why the Red Sox should not hire Bobby Valentine

2011-11-20T21:43:00.001-05:00

The man once put on a fake mustache and sunglasses to sneak back into the dugout after being ejected. Somehow, I don't think a man who thinks that is a good idea is cut out for a high stress job like the Red Sox manager.

A minor coup

2011-11-19T19:57:00.001-05:00

The player's association and the owners unofficially agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement today. Besides the fact that we can revel in the fact that baseball got it done well before the NBA managed to get their shit together, there is an interesting tidbit in the change of the compensation process for free agents.

First of all, there are now caps on draft spending and international spending on free agents using a luxury tax for teams that overspend. In some ways, this seems like a penalty to the teams that do poorly; I doubt that agents of #1 prospects like Strasburg or Harper will be lowering their demands, so on top of a substantial payday, these teams could be paying into the commissioner's luxury tax pool.

More interestingly, the Elias rankings will be no longer used, starting in the 2012 offseason. Instead, teams will get compensation picks for players who depart in free agency if the team makes a qualifying offer of $12 million. This will greatly increase the value of good, but not great, free agents who would otherwise cost a draft pick to sign.

For this season, type A free agent relievers will no longer cost a draft pick to sign. However, the rule will not be applied retroactively. That means the Phillies will forfeit their first round draft pick to the Red Sox as compensation for Jon Papelbon, but if the Red Sox sign any other free agent closers like Ryan Madson or Heath Bell. By not having to give up a draft pick, I think the Red Sox are much more likely to sign a top reliever to help compensate for the loss of Paps. According to a Hardball Times study, draft picks in the 15-30 range typically produce an extra $6.5 million worth of value. That extra $6 million of value is nice to have (although it is hardly something you can count on - sometimes you get Mike Trout, sometimes you get Andrew Brackman), and the Red Sox have the Phillies' impatience to thank for that little windfall.

The Curious Case of Francisco Cordero

2011-11-17T11:12:00.001-05:00

The Red Sox have been linked with Francisco Cordero. Cordero has been a remarkably consistent closer since his elite 2007. He's saved 34 games every single game since 2007. His ERA has bounced around in those years, ranging from 2.16-3.84, but he's always held on to his closer job. What's even more attractive is that he just posted one of the best seasons of his career in 2010, with a sparkling 2.45 ERA and 37 saves.

However, if we dig a bit deeper, things look much more bleak for Cordero. Since his spectacular 2007 when he had a K/9 of over 12, his strikeout rate has declined every single year. Despite his 2.45 ERA in 2010, his K rate was easily the lowest of his career (5.43 K/9) and was well below average for a reliever, let alone a solid closer. He did lower his walk rate to the lowest it has been since 2007 (2.83 BB/9), but the strikeout rate screams that a disaster is looming. How exactly did he manage to avoid disaster in 2010? The lowered walk rate helped a lot, but the major contributor was his strand rate of 82%, well above league average of about 75%. Looking at his expected fielding independent pitching (xFIP), Cordero has had an expected ERA of around 4.00 for the last three years.

In doing research for this, I found that Yankees reliever Tyler Clippard had an insane 95.6% of his baserunners left on base. The worst with 60+ innings pitched? Tim Wakefield at 59%. Maybe he is worth another go around, as a bounceback in luckiness in runners stranded would make his ERA a lot more palatable.

But, if we dig even deeper, there are good signs for Cordero. Despite the massive drop in his strike out rate, Cordero's swinging strike rate actually increased between 2009 and 2010. Although it is well off his career high, his 10% swinging strike rate should lead to a K/9 of about 8.5, using the quick rule of thumb of swinging strike percentage - 1.5, which is very good. If he can maintain his 2.84 BB/9 rate and his 50% ground ball rate, that would have led to a FIP of about 3.5 for 2011. That isn't anything special, but it is solid.

All told, I'm not sure Cordero is a great fit for the Red Sox, despite his improved control and increased swinging strike rate in 2011. Given his saves totals over the last four years and his ERA in 2011, he'll probably benefit from the "proven closer" reputation. But, it is interesting to see how his statistics can be used to tell very different stories, as even the "Sabremetric" statistics point in different directions. I could have written three very different posts using statistics. Remember, as Mark Twain liked to say, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

A totally made up rumor

2011-11-15T21:27:00.001-05:00

The Red Sox should sign Matt Murton. Why?

Matt Murton has decided to stay in Japan, so this question is irrelevant now. Still, Murton would have filled a valuable role for the Red Sox.

1. He is freely available. Murton is coming off an extremely nice season in Japan where he broke Ichiro's all time hits record, but didn't show a lot of power. He also hit for 200 hits in his first season in Japan, so it isn't a fluke. He can hit for a high average, draw a few walks, and hit for a little bit of pop (29 HR in 900 career at bats).

2. Murton is right handed, so he would be a nice complement to the all lefty outfield the Red Sox currently start.

3. Murton is an above average defender in the outfield, so he would likely be able to play in both right field and left field.

It isn't clear that Matt Murton would accept a bench role on a major league team when he could start (and star in Japan). It also isn't clear that a MLB offer would be more lucrative financially for him than a job in Japan would be. If neither of those things are an option, Murton could be an intriguing piece for any MLB team. Despite his failure to stick following the 2009 season, we are talking about a player with a perfectly league average OPS who plays good defense.

Taking a closer look at the Papelbon deal

2011-11-15T20:41:00.001-05:00

The details of the Papelbon deal have been released, so we can take a closer look at it. Papelbon signed a four year, $50 million deal, with a $13 million vesting option (no buyout). The option vests if Papelbon finishes 55 games in 2015 or 100 in 2014-15. I would say the option has a good chance to vest - Papelbon has topped 55 games finished in two of the last four years, and has never had a two year stretch where he failed to finish 100. The Phils aren't afraid to stick with an ineffective closer, either. In 2009 Brad Lidge went 0-8 with a mind boggling 7.21 ERA, but still managed 31 saves and 55 games finished.

The average annual value of the deal without the option is $12.5 million, which is a record for anyone who isn't Mariano Rivera. The total value of the contract is a record high for a reliever, and will pay Papelbon through his age 34 or 35 season.

For the Phillies, I understand that they want to keep their championship window open as long as possible. With Roy Halladay, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Cliff Lee under contract and probably past their peak, the time to win another title may already be fading. While Papelbon may help them win in 2012 or 2013, the deal could add to the Phillies getting old in a hurry.

Ryan Howard is just beginning a five year, $125 million deal that will take him through his age 36 season. My feelings about the Howard extension are already on file, but short version is that given his age, size, the history associated with left handed sluggers, and the fact that he's already going to miss 2012, this contract looks like a disaster before it even officially begins.

Chase Utley is under contract for an additional two years ($12.5 million per), which will take him through his age 34 season. Utley has a serious knee injury that delayed the start of the 2012 season for him and one that will most likely bother him for the rest of his career. He hasn't topped 110 games in the last two years and put up career lows in batting average, slugging percentage, isolated power, and on base percentage.

Halladay is under contract for another two years ($20 million per) through his age 36 season.

Cliff Lee is under contract until 2015, with a $27.5 million option for 2016 that will most likely be picked up if he's at all effective, given the enormous $12.5 million buyout. At that point, Lee will be 37 years old. Both pitchers have continued to be effective and may live up to their ace status, but betting on pitchers in their mid to late thirties is a good way to go broke.

All told, that is $364 million committed to five players in their 30's over the next five years.

From the Red Sox perspective, the length of the contract is probably what sunk the deal. The $12.5 million salary isn't massive, given Papelbon earned $12 million last year. But to commit four or five years to a reliever is scary, ask the now fired JP Ricciardi about how his five year commitment to BJ Ryan worked out. It will be interesting to see how the Red Sox reallocate the money. They still need starters (more on that later), bullpen help, and maybe a right fielder or a DH, although I think they'll stand pat and resign Papi and stick with Reddick.

Theo's departure, in his own words

2011-10-25T10:17:00.000-04:00

Theo wrote an Op/Ed for the Globe today, and it is definitely worth a read. He continues to be classy as he departs Boston. Perhaps the most interesting thing to me is that he had planned to leave after 2012, with Cherington taking over, even before the September collapse.

Tackling Pete Abraham's To Do List for Cherington

2011-10-23T19:47:00.000-04:00

Now that Theo has finally officially joined the Cubs, and left in style, folks are starting to write about what needs to get done in the Red Sox offseason. Because of limited financial flexibility and two massive commitments last offseason, making a splash in free agency really isn't an option.

1. Negotiate with Theo Epstein for compensation for Theo Epstein.
This one is truly bizarre. Theo will be trying to argue he isn't that valuable, while Cherington will try and upsell his former boss on his own value. In the end, it will get done, but the rumblings are that none of the Cubs three major prospects will be involved.

2. Hire a new manager and coaching staff.
Lost in the chaos of the Theo departure is the fact that the Red Sox may have to hire an entirely new coaching staff. Curt Young lasted a single season in Boston, before returning to Oakland. Francona's two World Series titles still couldn't reach players.

3. Decide on the team options on Marco Scutaro ($6 million) and Dan Wheeler ($3 million)
Marco Scutaro was a 3 win player in 2011, according to Fangraphs. That puts his value at $12.9 million, and he put up $9.6 million worth of WAR in 2010 as well. A $6 million option seems like a no brainer to me, especially with Lowrie being injury prone and Jose Iglesias not ready for big league pitching. Dan Wheeler at $3 looks like an easy pick up too. He put up 50 innings of OK, but not spectacular relief. He's a bit over paid, based on value from either Fangraphs or Baseball Reference, but on a one year deal, it isn't a bad gamble to take. Bullpen depth was an issue, so letting go of a successful bullpen arm doesn't seem like a good idea.

4. Find someplace — San Diego, San Francisco, the moon — to send John Lackey.
No easy solution here. Sadly, sending John Lackey to space would be cheaper than paying the rest of his contract. Space tourism runs $20 million, Lackey has $45.75 million remaining. Maybe Cherington can send him to space twice.

5. Determine to what degree the team will fight to retain in-house free agents Jonathan Papelbon, David Ortiz, J.D. Drew, Erik Bedard, Tim Wakefield and Jason Varitek.
J.D. Drew is as good as gone, at least in my mind. I think the time may have come to let go of Wakefield and Varitek. With Lavarnway looking like a major leaguer, there isn't the roster spot for Varitek. Also, if the failed clubhouse culture falls on anyone, it would be the captain. Wakefield may hang on for one more season, but it wouldn't surprise me to see them move on. The hard decisions will be Papelbon and Ortiz. A lot will depend on what kind of contract it takes for them to resign. I'd top out at a 2 year deal for Ortiz and 4 years for Papelbon, but I'd try with a three year deal first. Bedard won't make a big difference one way or another.

6. Determine to what extent the medical and conditioning staff needs to be overhauled given the injuries and issues of the last two seasons.
I'm not sure the medical staff needs to be overhauled. Aside from the issues with Ellsbury's ribs in 2010, I'm not sure any issue can tied to the medical staff.

7. Decide whether to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players Alfredo Aceves, Matt Albers, Mike Aviles, Daniel Bard, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jed Lowrie, Rich Hill, Andrew Miller, Franklin Morales and Jarrod Saltalamacchia before the Dec. 12 deadline.
Most of these players are fairly easy. Aceves, Albers, Bard, Ellsbury, Lowrie, Morales, and Saltalamacchia are all clearly going to be tendered contracts. Aviles will likely still fit in with the team as a utility guy, given his ability to play all the infield positions except shortstop. Rich Hill is coming off Tommy John surgery, so he may be a non-tender candidate. Andrew Miller has probably shown enough to warrant a roster spot, but his price tag will be about $3 million, so it isn't a small commitment.

8. Mend some fences with Carl Crawford, who was shuffled around the lineup all season by Terry Francona then heard that John Henry never wanted him in the first place.
Shuffling Crawford around the lineup is understandable. Crawford wasn't producing, and Francona is trying to win baseball games. Hearing that John Henry never wanted him in the first place is just bad business. If you have over $100 million invested in something, anything, you don't bad mouth it one year into a seven year deal. Period. Especially people. Frankly, I was appalled when Henry said that. In all of the coverage of the collapse, Henry had remained ever so slightly above the melee until that point. Absolutely no good comes out of bad mouthing the Crawford signing: Henry looks like a second guesser just trying to save face and a player who is being paid like the face of a franchise gets smeared. When compared to how Theo left down (see link above), you have to wonder about the ownership's professionalism and ability to effectively run the club.

Ben Cherington, your next few weeks are outlined. You're welcome.

Dissecting the Globe Hatchet Job

2011-10-12T20:40:00.000-04:00

If you haven't read the Boston Globe's summary of the Red Sox 2011 collapse, go ahead and do it now. Now that Theo has taken the Cubs job, you can probably expect a similar piece on him in the next couple weeks. Lucchino is nothing, if not predictable. Once the dust settles I'll write something about the departures of Theo and Tito, but for now, let's dive in to the Globe article. As with any anonymous attack article, this one is filled with "weasel words". By couching their claims in qualifiers like "apparently" and "seemingly", anonymous sources, and second hand information, the writer never actually truly claims anything, instead implying it.

Accusation 1: Tito lost control of the clubhouse due to personal issues, including separation from his wife, a son and son in law serving in Afghanistan, and a prescription pill problem.
First off, none of these things are actually real evidence that Tito lost control of the clubhouse or even reasons why he did. Life is messy. Life can be really hard. And the people who play for and run the Boston Red Sox are people too. There are ups and downs, good times and bad. At no point in time did I feel like Francona wasn't doing his job the best he could. The players played extremely poorly, and their September record reflects it. Finally, I was shocked by the casual inclusion of a thinly veiled assertion that Francona has a prescription painkiller problem. Francona is a 52 year old man who shredded his knee during his playing days. If you're in chronic pain, you're going to be taking prescription painkillers. His dosage and prescriptions are between him and his physician. Quite frankly, I'm ashamed that the Globe went down this road.

After I wrote this, Buster Olney has weighed in with similar thoughts that I had. "We're still waiting for the firm link to be established between Terry Francona's use of medication and the Red Sox's performance in September, and if there is none, then it's personal information that really is nobody's business and shouldn't be in a newspaper. Because no matter how gracefully the words are couched or how much opportunity Francona is given to tell his side of the story, the overall impression a reader will take away -- from the choice to use the information on the meds -- is that there is a drug problem in play. Which is really awful."

Accusation 2: The Red Sox were not interested in putting in the effort to win a championship
The only specific evidence given comes from an event surrounding the weather rescheduling with Hurricane Irene looming. After being on the road for 14 of 17 games, a brutal stretch, even in professional baseball, the Red Sox were apparently not happy with management's plan of a Saturday doubleheader. As a gesture, $300 headphones and a party on John Henry's yacht were offered. Not going to a party on John Henry's yacht, when they're back home for a stretch for the first time in weeks is not evidence that the players weren't committed to winning. If anything, going for rest instead of a party is a GOOD sign. I've been on field crews for two weeks of long hours and physically demanding work. Towards the end of the two week stretch the project manager, who was not involved in the field work, wanted to add on more work and the result was a lot of grumbling and unhappy employees. Eventually the plan was scrapped, but I'm sure an anonymous source could have said nasty things about us after the fact. The timing of Hurricane Irene and the long road trip is not the front office's fault, but to me, they're the ones looking petty out of all this.

Accusation 3: The pitchers' disconnectedness from the rest of the team
This is one I find pretty damning. According to the Globe, starting pitchers Josh Beckett, John Lackey, Jon Lester, and occasionally Clay Buchholz would not watch games they did not start, instead they drank beer, played video games, and ate chicken and biscuits in the clubhouse. Beckett, in particular, is expected to be a leader. He's been on the team for six years, and should absolutely know better. Although baseball, more than any other sport, is a collection of individual performances, this shows a total lack of camaraderie. Sadly, player contracts are guaranteed, and managers' are not, so Tito takes the blame on this one.

Accusation 4: Wakefield's quest for 200 wins hurt the team
This one I just don't understand. How can a pitcher trying to win a game possibly hurt a team? It isn't like a hitter only trying to hit home runs or a base runner always trying to steal a base. As a starting pitcher, you can't possibly win a game while hurting your team. Granted, Wakefield struggled down the stretch, but that has happened in three of the last 4 years (6.65 ERA in September in 2008, 8.36 in 2009, 4.22 in 2010, and 5.25 in 2011). Wakefield is 45 now, and he just wears down as the season goes on. He hasn't posted a better ERA before the All Star break than after since 2003, although his splits were close in 2005, with a slight edge before the break. The simple answer is that the rash of Red Sox pitching injuries (Daisuke, Buchholz, Lester, Beckett, and Lackey all missed time) made Wakefield a nearly a full time starter, which, at this stage of his career, he obviously isn't cut out for.

Accusation 5: Lack of leadership
Leadership is impossible to quantify, but the Globe throws Adrian Gonzalez under the bus for making this statement: "We play too many night games on getaway days and get into places at 4 in the morning,’’ Gonzalez complained. “This has been my toughest season physically because of that." The Globe goes on to point out that the Red Sox only played 5 Sunday night games, showing malice or ignorance about the fact that more than just Sundays are "getaway games." Every time the Red Sox appeared on Wednesday night baseball on ESPN was one more night game on a getaway day. Granted, it would take slightly more effort to figure out how many night games they played on getaway days. The Red Sox played 13 games, a few more than the Pirates, for example, who played 9. Not a huge difference, but enough to add up over the course of a long season. I'll give the Globe a little credit, it took me at least 15 minutes and a little Excel knowledge to figure this out, so I understand if they can't be bothered. And we wonder why print media is dying. Ellsbury was also singled out as not having any friends in the clubhouse. WEEI has already straight up refuted this.

Accusation 6: Theo failed to beef up the bullpen
It is a bit of a throw away line in the article, but it really bothered me. The 2011 Red Sox bullpen put up a 3.67 ERA, 4th in the AL. The 2010 Red Sox bullpen put up a 4.24 ERA, 12th in the AL. While the big ticket reliever, Bobby Jenks, was a disaster, Theo struck gold with other relievers. Key contributors Matt Albers, Scott Atchison, Franklin Morales, and Dan Wheeler were all scrap heap signings or low budget free agent pick ups. The third most valuable arm in the bullpen, Alfredo Aceves, was also a spectacular scrap heap signing, snagged for nothing after he was non-tendered by the Yankees.

All told, the only part of the organization that wasn't butchered was the ownership. Larry Lucchino has his fingerprints all over this article and all the leaks.

As I was writing this, Milly, my puppy, voiced her displeasure with the 2011 Boston Red Sox. I guess I'm in the market for a new hat, now. After the way the 2011 season ended, it's probably the safe move, anyway.

Quick opening round playoff predictions

2011-09-30T17:07:00.003-04:00

I'll have to write about the Red Sox epic collapse when I've had a little bit more time to digest it. For now, here are my predictions:

Tampa Bay Rays over Texas Rangers in 5
I love the depth the Rays pitching staff has. I also have a gut feeling that we could be in for a K-Rod type impact from Matt Moore this post season. If you saw his start against the Yankees where he struck out 11 in 5 innings on 85 pitches, you'll understand why.

Yankees over Tigers in 5
Verlander has been spectacular this season, no doubt about it. And behind Sabathia the Yankees only have question marks. But the Yankees bats should carry this series, especially when you get to command and control guys like Doug Fister.

Brewers over Diamondbacks in 4
The Brewers are built to make a run this year, with a front three of Greinke, Marcum, and Gallardo. All three of them can have dominant starts. The Diamondbacks are a great story this year, going from worst to first, but I don't think they have the talent to compete with a very good all around Brewers team.

Phillies over Cardinals in 3
The Cards are starting Kyle Lohse as their game 1 starter and will need to go to Carpenter on short rest in game 2. Meanwhile, the Phillies roll out the three of the top 9 NL pitchers by WAR, with Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee coming in at #1 and #3, respectively. It was a hell of a comeback by the Cardinals, but the Phillies are the superior team.

Moneyball Pissing Match

2011-09-17T11:50:00.003-04:00

Well, Michael Lewis and former Baseball Prospectus writer and Blue Jays front office guy Keith Law are getting into it over Law's brutal take down of the Moneyball movie. The short version? It is boring and hilariously one sided towards portraying Billy Beane as a genius. Michael Lewis was pretty unhappy with that, and pointed out that Law was once among the worst of the worst in advocating the absolute supremacy of stats over scouting. After point out that Lewis doesn't actually address the terrible review and just makes a personal attack (ad hominem attack! A logical fallacy! Thanks Williams education!), Law goes on to essentially say that Lewis is right. He was all stats and didn't respect scouts. Of course, Lewis clearly hasn't kept up with Law's career since the Jays - he's now ESPN's #1 baseball prospect guy, running their Scouts Inc. portion of the baseball coverage. The entire interview Law did with ESPN's baseball podcast is worth reading through.

Breathing room

2011-09-17T11:30:00.004-04:00

Well, the Red Sox sure made September a lot more exciting than I expected. After proclaiming that being up 6.5 with 19 games to go was pretty much a sure thing, the Red Sox went out and were swept by the Rays, who added another win on the Sox off day on Monday, making it 3 games with only 16 games remaining. With a four game series in Fenway, and a four game lead in the wild card, professional naysayer Dan Shaughnessy even dug through his archives to recycle and old doom and gloom column.* However, with the win Friday night things the tone completely changes.

*I hope you'll forgive me for actually reading a Shaughnessy column. I was browsing the Globe's website and clicked on the title without any by line info. One paragraph in, I said to myself "Wait a second, this sounds like a Dan Shaughnessy column!"

It goes to show you how much head to head games can swing a tight playoff race between two teams. If Beckett and his balky ankle don't hold up well enough, and if the bullpen doesn't get back on track (first save since mid August!) we're looking at a two game lead with 12 games to go (and Shaughnessy has to change his pants). Instead, it is a four game lead. Again, not a sure thing, but if the Red Sox can pick up one more win this weekend (Lester v. Niemann is the appealing match up here, as David Price and Wakefield go head to head Sunday afternoon) that should wrap things up, especially given the fact that the Red Sox are playing 7 of their final 10 against the Orioles, while the Rays have 7 against the Yankees. I hope it isn't an exciting week and a half to close out the season, but even if it is, the odds are heavily tilted the Red Sox way.

Theo's first four drafts

2011-09-09T14:26:00.005-04:00

We're in a bit of an unexpected lull in the season. Rather than having a big pennant race, the Red Sox currently are 2.5 games back of the Yankees, but hold a 6.5 game lead over the Rays for the wild card, with only 19 games to go (20 for the Rays). Even if we assume the Red Sox scuffle mightily down the stretch, going 7-12, the Rays would still need to go 14-6 in their remaining games in order to tie. This would hardly be the worst collapse in major league history, look at the last few good seasons the Mets had, or what it took to get the Rockies into the playoffs, but Baseball Prospectus pegs the Red Sox playoff chances at 99.7%. So, yeah, barring a major collapse, the remaining games shouldn't be all that interesting.

Given that fact, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at Theo's draft record in his first five seasons. Anything past 2007 is hard to judge, especially with so many high school picks there, but the players drafted in 2003-2007 are pretty much established by now.

The top of the 2003 draft was headlined by guys who never really lived up to their potential. With their first rounder, sandwich pick, and two second rounders the Red Sox picked three college players - David Murphy, Matt Murton, and Abe Alvarez, along with high school outfielder Mickey Hall. All four are no longer with the Red Sox, in fact, none lasted past 2009. Matt Murton was a throw in to the 2004 Nomar Garciaparra/Orlando Cabrera trade, which of course helped the Red Sox win a title. David Murphy returned a lot less in terms of value, fetching the ironically named (at least in his stint with the Red Sox) Eric Gagne at the 2007 trade deadline. Abe Alvarez was released in May of 2008. Always a better story than a pitcher, as he was legally blind in his left eye, Alvarez never was able to get by with his mediocre stuff. The last man standing from the group, Mickey Hall, was traded for the immortal Paul Byrd in August of 2008. Much like the following draft, there is one player who saved this entire draft class, the 5th round pick of Jonathon Papelbon. Although he was drafted as a starter and the organization waffled back and forth about whether or not to shift him to the rotation, Papelbon is clearly one of the elite bullpen arms in the game right now. With free agency looming and Papelbon putting up one of the best seasons of his career, it will be an interesting off season for the Red Sox. With money tight for most teams, and the market flooded with relievers, I think the Red Sox will find a way to resign Papelbon to a fairly reasonable contract. If Papelbon does leave, it would mean that no players from the 2003 draft class are still in the Red Sox organization.

Total WAR: 25.4

Top player: Papelbon (16.7)

The 2004 draft was a bit thinner, in part due to having no first round or sandwich round pick, thanks to signing free agent reliever Keith Foulke. But they sure made their one early pick count, selecting Dustin Pedroia. The Pedroia story is probably familiar to most of you - he has no "tools" that scouts love - he's extremely small, he isn't that fast, and his swing looks pretty damn ugly; but all he does is hit. Originally a shortstop, the Red Sox made him their starting 2B coming in to the 2007 season. After struggling in a cup of coffee in 2007 (.191/.258/.303 in 89 at bats), Pedroia struggled mightily in April (.182/.308/.236), leading to many to wonder if he could hit major league pitching. Pedroia erased those concerns with a spectacular May and June, and has been a Red Sox lineup staple ever since. Cla Meredith was the only other player from the 2004 draft with significant time in the majors. After panicking over Josh Bard's inability to catch Wakefield's knuckle ball, Bard and Meredith were shipped out to San Diego in exchange for former Red Sox Doug Mirabelli in 2006. Meredith had an excellent 2006 for the Padres (1.07 ERA, 0.71 WHIP), but slowly slid toward mediocrity. He was later traded to the Orioles, who eventually released him. After undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2011, Meredith's time in the majors may very well be over.

Total WAR: 26.4

Top player: Pedroia (24.1)

The 2005 draft has received lots of publicity lately as one of the most successful in recent memory. In it, the Red Sox added three major pieces to their current roster (Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Buchholz, and Jed Lowrie), along with relief prospect Michael Bowden. This class has also been extremely injury prone - Buchholz has alternated being hurt and ineffective all season, Ellsbury had a lost 2010 sandwiched between elite seasons in 2009 and 2011, and Jed Lowrie has had too many injuries to list. The 2005 draft also includes one of the biggest misses in the Epstein era, St. John's relief pitcher Craig Hansen. Hansen was supposed to be the most polished arm in the draft, and was expected to help the mediocre Red Sox bullpen as soon as that season. Hansen struggled in his major league debut in 2005, had his mechanics repeatedly tinkered with, and never amounted to much of anything. Hansen was supposed to be the new closer, allowing Papelbon to slide to the rotation. Instead, he was worse than replacement level (-2.2 WAR). I'm not sure if it was the pick or the handling of Hansen, but either way it just didn't work out. There were not many major league contributors picked after Hansen, Colby Rasmus two picks later does stand out, though. Interestingly, most of the major leaguers after Hansen were actually picked by the Red Sox (Buchholz, Lowrie, and Bowden all went in the supplemental round).

Total WAR: 23.3

Top player: Jacoby Ellsbury (12.9)

The 2006 draft includes players who are either still establishing themselves or have moved on from the organization. With their first round pick, the Red Sox went with pure stuff, picking Daniel Bard. Despite serious control problems in college, which cropped up again in the minors (in A ball in his first season he walked an incredible 8 /9 IP in over 60 innings), the Red Sox succeeded in transforming Bard into an elite reliever, and a potential replacement for Papelbon. Bard has established himself as an old school fireman, throwing 75 innings last year and is on pace for the same total this year. The two supplemental round picks, Caleb Clay and Kris Johnson, both appear to be misses. Johnson was released in May, while Caleb Clay is struggling in AAA and may be released in the next year. Outside of the first round, the Red Sox did very well, though. In the second round, the Sox picked Justin Masterson, who was eventually a key piece in their trade with the Indians for Victor Martinez. Initially a starter, Masterson was transitioned to a relief role due to his struggles with left handed hitters. The Indians converted him back to a starter, where he put up mediocre numbers in 2009 and 2010, despite extremely good strikeout, walk, and ground ball rates. Something has clicked in 2011, as he has emerged as Cleveland's clear #1 pitcher, posting 3.01 ERA and 1.23 WHIP. The peripherals are fairly similar, with a better walk rate in 2011. Interestingly, although he's improved against lefties (.784 OPS in 2010, .700 in 2011), his absolute dominance of right handed hitters this season may be a bigger key to his success (.681 in 2010, .584 in 2011). The Red Sox have been high on Masterson even after the trade, supposedly trying to reacquire him at the 2010 trade deadline, so I think it is fair to count him as a feather in Theo's cap. Also included in this draft are current Red Sox outfielder Josh Reddick (17th round) and solid performer from 2010 Ryan Kalish (9th round), who unfortunately has had a bit of a lost season due to several injuries, the most recent being a neck injury requiring surgery.

Total WAR: 15.1

Top player: Justin Masterson (6.4)

So which draft class wins? Despite the lower total WAR, even if you exclude Hansen's -2.2, I think the 2005 class will ultimately contribute more wins to the Red Sox. But, they also had a hell of a lot more picks that draft. If you're going for quality, it is hard to go wrong with hitting on Dustin Pedroia with your single early draft pick. Don't forget that the last two drafts pre-Theo added some key contributors too. Mike Port picked Jon Lester (23.1 WAR), who would still be under his original contract had he not signed an extension, in the second round of the 2002 draft and Dan Duquette drafted Kevin Youkilis in the 8th round of the 2001 draft. Interestingly, the Red Sox also drafted catcher Jeremy Brown in the 19th round, although he did not sign. Brown was later drafted and signed by the Athletics, and both Youkilis and Brown went on to play prominent roles in Michael Lewis' book "Moneyball".

Feel free to weigh in about which draft class you think is most impressive in the comments.

Why Georgia football fans shouldn't get too worked up

2011-09-02T14:49:00.002-04:00

This isn't baseball related, but I figured I'd post it here anyway. In my neck of the woods, folks are getting awfully worked up about the upcoming Boise State/Georgia football game on Saturday. I'm not quite sure why, as the graph above will show you that expectations are probably too high.

Saltal-itek - A top ten catcher?

2011-08-31T22:22:00.004-04:00

I never thought I'd write this coming in to the season, but the Red Sox catchers have quietly contributed offensively. In March, I would have happily taken "not a complete black hole", given the poor showing by both Varitek and Saltalamacchia down the stretch. Red Sox catchers are now 6th in OPS, driven primarily by very good power. They've hit the third most home runs, are fourth in slugging, and second in isolated power (slugging percentage - batting average). The two combined still have an OBP of .311, which is very poor overall and mediocre for a catcher, but the power makes up for the poor on base skills. Given how slow both players are, maybe it is good that they're not "clogging up the bases".

Amazingly, Red Sox catchers in 2011 are actually out performing Red Sox catchers in 2010. While the overall line is a bit down, when you account for the decline in offense around the league, the 2011 combo come out ahead using Fangraph's "runs created plus" statistic (107 to 105), with 100 being league average production. Neither Saltalamacchia nor Varitek are as good as Victor Martinez, but they're having a better season than the three of them combined for in 2010.

It will be interesting to see how the Red Sox handle Jason Varitek this offseason. He is a free agent, and negotiations haven't always gone smoothly between Tek and the front office. Also, Ryan Lavarnway's impressive 2011 season forces the Red Sox hand a bit; even if he's only barely a passable catcher, you ought to see what you have in a guy who hit 31 bombs between AA and AAA in a year. That is more power than top catching prospects Matt Wieters, Carlos Santana, Buster Posey, or Jesus Montero ever showed.

Closing the books in SF

2011-08-31T15:41:00.004-04:00

San Francisco recently made two major moves. While they both might improve the team, they're actually addition by subtraction. The Giants announced today that both Aaron Rowand and Miguel Tejada have been designated for assignment. This means that they either need to trade them or release them in the next week or so. Thanks to the poor performance from both, the Giants will likely have to eat the money owed to both, including $12 million to Rowand in 2012.

While both deals were bad, the two contracts came from very different places. Aaron Rowand was the benefactor of some very good luck. He had always been, and continues to be, an excellent defensive player, but in 2007 Rowand established career highs in just about every category, hitting .309/.374/.515 for the Phillies. This wasn't completely out of the blue - Rowand had been the major piece in the White Sox/Phillies trade involving Jim Thome, and had a very good 2004. However, he followed this up with two sub par seasons and by the time he hit free agency he was entering his age 30 season. An out of nowhere season for a player entering his 30's usually means trouble is coming for whoever signs him. The Giants ponied up a 5 year, $60 million contract, hoping to minimize the offense blow of losing Barry Bonds. If Rowand could continue to hit while playing excellent center field, he could certainly help to keep the Giants afloat.

Sadly, it just wasn't meant to be. Aaron Rowand showed that the poor 2005 and 2006 were much more representative of his true talent than his impressive 2007 season, and Rowand struggled in all four of his seasons with the Giants, and according to Fangraphs, he never was an above average player on offense. Despite that fact, Aaron Rowand was an above average player for the Giants, just nowhere close to his $15 million/year price tag. Thanks to some spectacular defense in centerfield, Rowand logged positive value overall for all four years of his contract. Ultimately, Rowand isn't a bad baseball player. Based on Fangraph's calculations from his wins above replacement, Rowand was worth $21 million in his four seasons by the bay. His ability to hold his own against lefties and play all three outfield positions well makes him a great fourth outfielder. Unfortunately, the Giants were looking for a star and had a hole to fill in center field. The funny thing is, Rowand may still play a role in the playoffs this season. Several teams, including the Phillies and Red Sox, are a little thin in the outfield and could use his versatility and I imagine we'll be seeing Rowand somewhere in October, after the Giants are sitting at home.

The Miguel Tejada deal wasn't nearly as bad. It is almost impossible for a one year deal to go horrendously wrong, especially at a price tag of $6.5 million. With Tejada, the Giants again were looking to an older player to contribute, despite warning signs about what was coming. In 2010, Tejada was terrible for the Orioles, but had a bit of a bounce after being traded to the Padres, hitting for a .730 OPS. Nothing incredible, but in Petco Park, that isn't horrendous. The Giants stepped up this offseason, hoping he could building on what he had done in San Diego. Splitting time between shortstop, where he's been below average defensively for several years, and third base, where he has been a solid defender, but his bat looks even more inadequate, Tejada limped to a sub .600 OPS and was worth LESS than replacement value.

It is a shame the Giants won't get a chance to defend their title, given their spectacular pitching, but it isn't all that surprising. Amazingly, of the 71 players in the National League who qualify for the batting title (3.1 plate appearances per team's game), only one is on the Giants. To add insult to injury, that player, Aubrey Huff, has been the second worse player in the National League by WAR, being below average batting, fielding, and running the bases. It is a minor miracle that they're 6 games over .500 right now, but when you have three 4+ WAR pitchers on your roster, that goes a long way.

As a crazy aside, only the Phillies have a better top three in the game. Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, and Cliff Lee are currently 1, 3, and 4 in the NL in WAR combining for a preposterous 17.7 wins above replacement. The Giants trio, while excellent, lags well behind at 13.4 WAR.

An interesting take on the Sox trades

2011-08-02T19:39:00.002-04:00

The Red Sox traded away several prospects in order to get rental starting pitcher Eric Bedard, and super utility player Mike Aviles. As Brian MacPherson, of the Projo, notes, three of the prospects included in the deal could have been lost this winter for nothing in the rule 5 draft. When a player gets enough minor league experience, if he is not on the 40 man roster, another team can draft him in the rule 5 draft, and keep them so long as they stay on the 25 man, major league roster for an entire season.

Stephen Fife, Tim Federowicz, and Chih-Hsien Chiang all could have been lost in the rule 5 draft this winter. Yamaico Navarro was already on the 40 man roster, as he's been playing with the major league team already this year. Even if the Red Sox had kept them, it might have meant letting go of reclamation projects like Andrew Miller or restricted their ability to take a flier on other rebounding veterans. Given the added flexibility Theo now has with the roster, the cost of the deadline deals drops substantially.

A very odd line

2011-07-30T23:04:00.002-04:00

Peter Bourjos had a very odd game on Saturday night. Despite starting, he did not record a single at bat, but only walked once. He also scored and drove in a run, to go along with two stolen bases.

So his line was 0/0, 1 R, 1 RBI, 2 SB.

Just how did he do it?

For starters, he didn't do it with a sacrifice fly, which is the easiest way to drive in a run without recording an at bat. Instead he did it the hard way, with a hit by pitch with the bases loaded in the 5th. His other three plate appearances included a walk, a sacrifice, and another hit by pitch. Despite not recording a hit or even an at bat, Bourjos clearly contributed to the Angels 5-1 win over Detroit. He had the best WPA for a hitter on the team, adding about a 1/4 of a win, only outdone by starting pitcher Dan Haren (0.348). Certainly an unconventional way to contribute, but hey, whatever works.

Trade deadline thoughts

2011-07-30T19:37:00.002-04:00

With Mark Reynolds and Chris Davis at the corners, the Orioles could have unbelievable power production from their corners. Of course, both could hit .220 with their 30 home runs. At least Reynolds can work the count and get on base with a free pass regularly.

In Texas, Koji Uehara instantly becomes the best pitcher in the Texas bullpen. Neftali Feliz just doesn't look like the same pitcher he was in 2010. He's striking out three fewer batters per inning, taking his K rate from elite to below average, and his walk rate has doubled. Uehara, on the other hand, has quietly put together a spectacular season so far. He's striking out more batters than 2010, and more batters per inning than Feliz did in his spectacular 2010, with absolutely elite control (1.5 BB/9). His 30% groundball rate is terrifyingly low, but when you're striking that many batters out and not allowing many free passes, you can get away with it.

The Phillies traded their top two prospects for Hunter Pence. They needed the outfield depth, but both Cosart and Singleton were in Baseball America's top 40. For a player that isn't a star, that's a lot to pay. At least he's under team control for several years. The Ibanez contract is up next year, so that will give Dominic Brown another shot at the majors in 2012, and could give the Phillies a spectacularly athletic outfield, with Victorino in center. For Houston, it was a no brainer. That team is not going anywhere soon, and to get a potential impact hitter and pitcher, you have to pull the trigger.

The Fister/Furbush trade looks like a win win. The back of the Tigers rotation has been shaky. While Fister by himself won't be a major difference maker, he should slide nicely in to the 4th or 5th spot in the rotation. Furbush could eventually become a similar pitcher, but much like the Red Sox deal with the Royals, he just wasn't ready for that role yet. The other prospects may end up tipping the deal in favor of the Mariners, though. Long term, that massive losing streak may pay dividends, allowing them to sell.

My take: Red Sox trade for Mike Aviles

2011-07-30T19:11:00.003-04:00

Red Sox trade Yamaico Navarro and Kendal Volz for Mike Aviles

The general consensus on Navarro was that he could become a Mike Aviles type. Although he can play all over the infield, he doesn't play anywhere particularly well. He does a little bit of everything with the bat though. At 23, there is still time for him to become a major leaguer, but he's looking more like a utility guy. Kendal Volz was a mediocre starting pitcher prospect for the Red Sox, become transitioning to a reliever this season. Despite being 23, he's still in A ball, but he has struck out 56 in 51 innings this season. He's a long way from the majors, but could develop into a 6th or 7th inning guy.

Mike Aviles had a breakout rookie season, hitting .325/.354/.480, but has been a disappointment since. He had a disastrous sophomore season that was cut short by a forearm break, a bounceback 2010, and another disappointing season this year, only hitting .222/.261/.395. There are a couple reasons to be hopeful, though. In 2011 he has hit for a career high in isolated power (slugging percentage - batting average), and he's striking out less than the average major leaguer. He's been unlucky on balls in play (.231), but he also doesn't have very many line drives, which are strongly correlated with BABIP. All in all, I wouldn't expect great things from Aviles, but he should be serviceable, even at shortstop. Scutaro is dinged up and Lowrie is just about to begin his rehab assignment.

The deal fills a need for the Red Sox. If they don't make this deal and Scutaro goes down we're looking at Drew Sutton at short stop on a regular basis. Navarro in particular is likely to be a major leaguer, but he doesn't look quite ready yet. Long term, the Red Sox will probably lose this deal, but for 2011 it makes them better.

Josh Reddick: A familiar story?

2011-07-04T13:09:00.003-04:00

When Reddick first got called up and started hitting well, my first thought was "Huh, wonder if he's kind of like Trot Nixon." As you can probably guess, the answer was “Yes,” otherwise this wouldn’t be a very interesting post. Nixon was a first round pick by the Red Sox in 1993 and a former top prospect (ranked as high as 13 overall by BA) whose star gradually faded (ranked 1994-1996: 13, 46, 39, but not ranked in 1997 and 1998) before breaking out in AAA at the age of 24, putting up a .310/.400/.513 line, which got him back in to the tail end of the Baseball America Prospect Rankings (99 in 1999). It is easy to see why there was skepticism about Nixon’s breakout year – his numbers the previous three years were poor to mediocre, and at 24 he was a bit old for AAA. However, Baseball America put a little bit of faith in the former top prospect by ranking him. The following year, in full time duty as the Red Sox right fielder, Nixon put up a .270/.357/.472 line, and became a lineup stalwart through 2007, although after his career year in 2003, when he was almost four wins above replacement, back injuries and old age caught up with him, as he played in fewer and fewer games per year with declining numbers.

We don’t know what kind of trajectory Reddick’s career will take, but his minor league career path has followed Nixon’s well. Josh Reddick was drafted in the 17th round of the 2006 draft out of a Georgia junior college, a solid draft that included other major leaguers such as Justin Masterson, Ryan Kalish, and Daniel Bard. Reddick signed for $140,000, which doesn’t exceed the slot threshold for all players drafted after the fifth round. After hitting well in A and high A ball to begin his minor league career, and reaching as high as #3 in the Red Sox system and 75 overall in Baseball America’s rankings, Reddick’s career stalled out in AA and AAA. Now, at 24, he put up a solid .230/.333/.508 line, which was most likely dragged down by his average on balls in play, as Andrew noted. He also began to walk more, with his “luck adjusted” line rising to .298/.390/.576. I’m not quite as bullish as Andrew – I think that Trot Nixon’s career, especially the peak value, is a lot better than median for Reddick. It is easy to forget just how good Nixon was, for his career in Boston he was a .278/.364/.464 hitter and he accumulated more than twenty wins above replacement. Nixon was never a star, but was a contributor nearly every single year in a Red Sox uniform. It will be a major coup for the Red Sox if Reddick can become an inexpensive 2-4 win player, as Trot Nixon was.

With Reddick’s defense, ability to draw a walk, and enough pop to carry a corner outfield position, I think there is a fair shot that he fills the right field vacancy everyone had pegged Ryan Kalish to fill. One thing to keep an eye on going forward is how many at bats Reddick gets against left handed pitchers. Lefties were always an issue with Nixon, and he only hit .214/.308/.322 against them for his career. Reddick only has 50 AB in AAA and 9 in the majors against lefties in 2011, so we can't really draw any conclusions about platoon splits just yet.

Josh Reddick

2011-07-02T23:52:00.000-04:00

Josh Reddick is scorching the ball for the Red Sox, hitting a whopping .450 so far this season filling Crawford’s open starting spot in left and spotting JD Drew. With the Sox designating Cameron for assignment, it is clear the front office believes in Reddick for at least this season. Over the past three seasons, Reddick has been a top prospect for the Sox, and he has all the tools to be an above average outfielder— a strong, accurate arm, good power, above average speed, and enough range to play center in an emergency, but the trouble has always been his approach. Prior to 2011, Reddick swung early and often, chasing pitches, and making quick outs on challenging pitches. At AAA in 2009 and 2010 he struck out nearly three times more than he walked, which is not a recipe for success at the big league level. Strikeouts aren’t necessarily worse than other outs, but there’s no way to get a hit if you don’t put the ball in play. Reddick slumped out of the gate in AAA in 2010, but salvaged the season with a huge second half, hitting .351/.372/.627, for a final line of .266/.301/466. Even during his hot second half, his success was in spite of his walk rate rather than because of it. During intermittent play in April, June, and September he struggled in 63 major league plate appearances, striking out 15 times while walking only once, and put up an overall line of .194/.206/.323.

Following his disappointing showing in the majors, this season can be seen as a make-or-break year for Reddick, since Ryan Kalish passed him on the organizational depth chart. Reddick took a huge step forward this season, though at first glance it might not seem that way. His line at AAA this season was a Mark Reynolds-esque 230/.330/.502, but his underlying numbers were greatly improved. Unlike an all-or-nothing slugger like Reynolds, Reddick struck out in only 16.8% of his plate appearances, and had nearly as many walks as strikeouts (33BB, 39K). His power was up as well (isolated power of .277 this season, as opposed to .200 in 2010).

The only thing that was down for Reddick was his average on balls in play, which was only .207. Batting average on balls in play is a tricky statistic, as it varies widely from hitter to hitter, and depends on what sort of balls in play the hitter is hitting. Line drives are much more likely to become hits than groundballs, which are somewhat more likely to become hits than flyballs, while pop-ups almost never become hits. There isn’t publicly available minor league batted ball data which we could use to investigate this, but there are three reasons why Reddick’s BABIP can be discounted. First of all, it’s safe to assume he was hitting the ball hard, since more than half his hits went for extra bases. Second, his career BABIP in the minor leagues was .291 over 2000 plate appearances. Finally, it takes more than 650 plate appearances for BABIP to have good predictive value (See this article currently hosted at Fangraphs for a good primer on sample size issues and when stats.) If we take Reddick’s career BABIP (which is still well below the .310 average on balls in play for the International League this season) and apply it to his 2011 AAA season, we end up with a much stronger .293/.385/571 line.

At the major league level, Reddick has been insanely hot, hitting .450/.489/.750 over 40 at bats. It’s obviously folly to project him to keep hitting this way, as he’s currently sporting a .459 average on balls in play, but the bright side is that his newly found plate discipline has remained intact following his promotion. Even normalizing his average on balls in play based on his batted ball data, Reddick’s line would be .325/.382/.600, good for second on the team in OPS. Reddick has 5 walks to only 4 strikeouts, and has shown a much more selective approach than he did in 2009 or 2010. Between his improved batting and quality defense (he currently has a ridiculous 107 runs above average if his numbers were projected out to 150 games), I believe Reddick should provide the production the Red Sox were expecting out of JD Drew this season, and could provide the Sox a solid, cost controlled corner outfielder for seasons to come. I don’t think Reddick will ever have a season quite like Drew did in 2004, and few players ever do, but I believe a career path similar to Trot Nixon seems like a good median projection.

An unexpected hole and unexpected production

2011-06-27T18:34:00.002-04:00

Alex Speier of WEEI has a nice post about the right field production (or lack thereof) of the Red Sox. He writes that the Red Sox cumulative RF line of .220/.304/.336 is the worst in each of the three categories in the AL. An OPS of .640 (which, if you're paying attention, you already know has to be the worst in the AL) is a disaster, particularly coming from a position with an offensive premium. Typically, right field is the third most productive position, behind first base and left field. This was a surprise. While JD Drew's contract has been vilified, coming in to this season he'd earned his salary, despite not putting up many home runs or driving in many runs. However, Drew's numbers have taken a massive plunge in 2011. For a season with a minimum of 200 PA, this year is Drew's worst year offensively in every single category, including his triple slash (.232/.330/.326), but also more predictive numbers like isolated power, which is a good measure of a players power, without including batting average (.095 in 2011, .214 career) and strikeouts. Since 1999 Drew has been an average offensive player in his worst years, and an elite one in his best, but he has been hopeless in 2011. A left handed hitter, Drew has never hit lefties well, and the Red Sox have started sitting him against more and more left handers. Coming in to 2011, Mike Cameron would have seemed like the perfect platoon partner for Drew and the Red Sox bench in general. A right handed hitter capable of playing anywhere in the outfield, he could spell the entirely left handed Red Sox outfield of Ellsbury, Crawford, and Drew while still putting up solid numbers. Even in his old age, Cameron had put up excellent numbers against lefties - a .980 OPS in 2008-2010, granted with almost all of 2010 lost to injury. In 60 AB so far in 2011, he's only managed a .541 OPS. Perhaps Cameron needs to play every day, perhaps the injury in 2010 fundamentally diminished his skills, or maybe father time is finally catching up with him after a long and successful career, but no matter what, the Red Sox were counting on more. Last year's fill in, Darnell McDonald, made for a great story - finally making his MLB debut after over a decade in the minors, after failing to make it as a highly touted prospect. This year, McDonald has been even more helpless than Cameron, putting up a .381 OPS against lefties and .341 OPS overall. For some perspective, five starters on the Red Sox have an on base percentage that is better than McDonald's on base plus slugging.

Despite this massive black hole at a key offensive position, the Red Sox offense is one of the very best in baseball. The stars, like Pedroia, Ortiz, Youkilis, and especially Adrian Gonzalez have all contributed, but Jarrod Saltalamacchia has quietly shifted from offensive liability to offensive contributor. For the season, Salty now has an OPS of .762, good for 6% better than the MLB average and almost exactly the same as the AL right fielder average. Considering he's playing catcher, that's a hell of an offensive weapon. Saltalamacchia finally seems to be blossoming into the offensive player scouts thought he'd become and it is nice to see the Red Sox faith in him rewarded.

If it makes you feel any better about the state of the team, just pretend that the Red Sox managed to swing a trade for frequent trade target Kurt Suzuki (.626 OPS), and have the resurgent (at least for a little while longer) Jeff "Frenchy" Francoeur (.759 OPS) manning right. OK, Frenchy in right probably doesn't make you feel any better. On the bright side, we may see Josh Reddick finally stick. He had been passed by Kalish on the prospect ladder, but an injury to Kalish and a newly patient approach in AAA gave Reddick the call when Crawford went down. No, he's not going to continue hitting .414 with an OPS over 1.000, but considering how low the bar is that he needs to clear, he could be a nice upgrade. I'll probably write more on Reddick soon, but I will mention that his 2011 minor league numbers (.230/.333/.508) undersell him, because he was extremely unlucky on balls in play (.207).

Slightly ahead of the curve

2011-06-27T12:38:00.003-04:00

The buzz is starting to build a bit about Ryan Lavarnway, who was one of the prospects I featured in "Three steps forward, two steps back" piece a few weeks ago. John Sickels of Minor League Ball has Lavarnway as his prospect of the day, and has good things to say about his defense. According to Sickels, we could see a September call up and Lavarnway could be a significant piece of the 2012 team. Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus (subscription required) has a shorter write up about Lavarnway, as well. Both Sickels and Goldstein think Lavarnway can hit at the major league level and his defense has improved. In 45 AAA at bats, Lavarnway has a nice .356/.420/.667 line.

Lackey's woes

2011-06-23T13:28:00.006-04:00

ESPN Boston had a brief blog piece about whether or not Lackey's slider is the root cause of his struggles. Although Lackey is generating fewer swings and misses with his slider, the slider has actually been his best pitch, by Fangraph's linear weights. On a per 100 pitch basis, Lackey's slider is actually the sixth best in the majors. Looking at PitchFX data, there doesn't seem to be any change in the velocity or movement of his slider, compared to the four other seasons of data available.

What does jump out is a major decrease in fastball effectiveness. For his career, including the last two disappointing seasons, Lackey's fastball is about average (0.05 runs saved per 100 fastballs). However, in 2011 in particular, it has been horrendous (-1.71 runs saved per 100 pitches). Lackey is still sitting right around 91 with his fastball, so what gives?

The horizontal movement is about the same, but there is a massive decrease in the vertical movement of his fastball, based on PitchFX data. For the five seasons (including the partial 2011 season) that PitchFX data is available, there is an extremely tight correlation between the vertical movement Lackey's fastball and its effectiveness. In fact, the variation in fastball vertical movement explains 82.6% of the variability (R^2) in his fastball effectiveness! That's a damn good fit for a handful of points. It'd be even tighter, except his fastball has been so unbelievably horrendous in 2011 it makes a linear fit difficult. Fastball vertical movement is often described as "explosiveness". Despite what an announcer says, a fastball doesn't rise, but explosive ones don't drop as much as gravity would otherwise, thanks to spin.

Interesting side note: Lackey throws curveballs 20% of the time overall. However, when he's behind in the count is seems to be his go to pitch. In 1-0, 2-0, 3-1, and 3-2 counts he throws them 30-40% of the time, perhaps some issues have to do with predictability and pitch selection.

It isn't just Lackey's fastball that seems to be losing movement. Compared to 2009, his last season with the Angels, all three of his major pitches (fastball, curveball, and slider) have lost both vertical and horizontal movement, in inches (2009 points are hollow, 2011 are filled). On the plot shown they're moving towards the origin at the point 0,0, which would be a perfectly straight pitch. Again, the velocities are unchanged, but movement is key for any pitcher's effectiveness. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem like an easy fix. If it were one pitch I might think something was off mechanically or he was tipping, but everything across the board indicates that Lackey is in decline. Granted, that's probably not a surprise given that he now holds the leagues worst ERA, but it is a very scary thought given that the Red Sox have about $56 million tied up in Lackey through the end of the 2014 season.

Dan Shaughnessy

2011-06-20T17:50:00.004-04:00

Dan Shaughnessy is a hack. Don't just trust me, trust the internet. "Dan Shaughnessy hack" provides 280,000 hits. For years his go to schtick was the "Curse of the Bambino", which he turned into a book (currently 2.5 stars on Amazon). The Red Sox would never win, because of this apparent curse. Apparently, the phrase didn't even appear in a Boston or New York newspaper until the book was actually written in 1990. More recently, he played the role of nay-sayer for the Bruins just a few months ago.

Over the last few years, Shaugnessy's national profile has risen, with some column's appearing on Sports Illustrated's website. Even after the wins, he remained very negative and critical, penning his infamous article about Theo's bridge year comment as giving up, when in reality it was that Shaughnessy just didn't understand that the roster was in transition and there would be a lot of change until 2011, when the roster would stabilize. And look! That's exactly what happened. The Red Sox in 2010 weren't undone by giving up, they were undone by injuries. And 2009 and 2010 were bridge years - we had brief tenures by players like Alex Gonzalez, Victor Martinez and Adrian Beltre, and departures by former key contributors like Mike Lowell and Manny Ramirez.

Already reviled in the Boston area, he's doing his best to go national with that as well, by writing articles like this. After peddling doom and gloom in the Boston area, Shaughnessy is doing his best to epitomize the obnoxious Boston sports fan, essentially rubbing Boston's recent success in the face of every sports fan who doesn't root for a Boston team. When the Red Sox were downtrodden, he was a faithless nay sayer, and now that Boston is on top, he's crowing from the rooftops about the dominance of Boston teams.

Lovely.

Switched futures

2011-06-17T20:08:00.003-04:00

Coming in 2007, Billy Butler was the 25th best prospect in baseball, according to Baseball America. He built on that preseason ranking with a .291/.412/.542 showing in AAA, before debuting in Kansas City and putting up a .292/.347/.447 line in Kansas City, which was exceptionally good for a 21 year old prospect. Given his struggles on defense, Baseball Prospectus predicted that "Butler should be one of the three best designated hitters in the league in two years."

Coming in to 2007, Kevin Youkilis had established himself as a useful, if brittle player in the major leagues. He had just finished his first complete season in the majors, playing a mix of third and first, and had accumulated a career .274/.379/.423 line. In 2007, at the age of 28, Youkilis had a career year, maintaining his batting eye, and adding a bit more pop. Although he was a useful player, he was hardly a star, especially given he was playing a premium offensive position and had never been a highly ranked prospect, as he put up moderate numbers in the minor leagues despite being old for the level at every stop. At the time, Baseball Prospectus wrote "He doesn't hit enough to play first base, and is an asset there only because he plays the position like a converted third baseman should, but he's locked in at the position following the Lowell re-signing. That leaves the Red Sox with a package comparable to Mark Grace or Wally Joyner at their peaks."

If you knew for certain that one of these players would hit .308/.404/.560 over the next three years and 18 wins over replacement, making him a star, while the other would hit a serviceable .300/.361/.459 and accumulate 5.5 wins over replacement, you'd pick the 21 year old prospect over the 28 year old journeyman every time, right? Well, baseball is a funny game. Youkilis developed an incredible amount of power, particularly for a player his age, while Butler's power plateaued in 2009 as a 23 year old and has been declining for a season and a half since then. Clearly Youkilis put some kind of hex on Butler, stealing his future career. Either that or someone did a hell of a job with Youkilis remaking his swing and approach to generate that kind of power.

As an aside, it makes me wonder a bit about what the future worry about Eric Hosmer, who is currently excelling with the Royals as a 21 year old, hitting an eerily similar .288/.341/.442. We'll see if Youkilis will steal his vital essence as well, to prolong Youkilis' career.

My take on realignment

2011-06-16T17:06:00.010-04:00

The idea of realignment in baseball has gotten a lot of virtual ink around the internet lately, after Buster Olney brought it up (even if Jeff Passan beat him to the punch by a year). The argument is pretty compelling - a team in the AL East could be the third best in baseball, but miss the playoffs because they're competing with the Red Sox and Yankees. On top of that, they have to play the Red Sox and Yankees 34 times over the course of a season, or just over 20% of their games. It could even be argued that by playing a rival 17 times a year, you're diluting the meaning of an individual game and weakening the rivalry. But ultimately, I think it comes down to fairness.
You want the best teams in baseball to be in the playoffs. You also want a pennant race to matter. I think the solution is simple; go back to two divisions per league. If you really want to balance things out, you'd swap an NL team to the AL, but that would raise an entire suite of questions about the DH and would create perpetual interleague play. While this wouldn't necessarily change the number of interleague games, it would simply get people a lot more worked up and make it harder to even the playing field. So you'd have two divisions in both the AL and NL, and division champions would get home field advantage for the playoffs, which is a nice incentive given the impact it has on winning percentage. The remaining two teams playoff teams would be wild cards, and work the same way the current wild card system does. By having two wild cards you drastically reduce the chances that a deserving team will miss the playoffs.

This system could easily be modified to include Bud Selig's proposal to add a fifth playoff team per division. The teams who are second and third in the wild card standings could play a play-in game or series.
Geographically, splitting the AL Central between the AL East and AL West isn't really any worse than having the Rangers in the AL West to begin with. The four AL West (Angels, Mariners, Rangers, and Athletics) would be joined by the Twins, Royals, and White Sox, while the Indians and Tigers would join the AL East. You'd split some of the traditional rivalries in the AL Central, but that is unavoidable. In the NL, the five teams in the NL West would remain the same. You'd need to keep the Cubs and Cardinals in the same division, unless you'd want to spend the rest of your life living in fear of vengeful middle America baseball fans, so the Cubs and Cardinals would be in the NL West. That leaves the Red, Pirates, and Brewers to join the east coast teams (Braves, Phillies, Mets, Nats, and Marlins). So, the divisions would look something like this (moved teams are italicized):

AL West	AL East	NL West	NL East
Angels	Red Sox	Dodgers	Phillies
Athletics	Yankees	Giants	Mets
Mariners	Blue Jays	Rockies	Braves
Rangers	Rays	D-Backs	Nationals
Twins	Orioles	Padres	Marlins
Royals	Indians	Cubs	Reds
White Sox	Tigers	Cardinals	Pirates
		Astros	Brewers

If you look at a maps of the various stadium locations (original map credit: ballparks.com), you can see that the teams are split to minimize distances between intradivision teams. On the west coast, it is unavoidable to have long distances between teams, even in a 3 division set up. With only three AL teams on the west coast, including up in Seattle, the Rangers clearly don't fit geographically, and any other team wouldn't help the issue. As a side note, I love how the entire country of Canada is reduced to a single maple leaf. I guess if the Expos were still around things would be a lot more complicated.

Three steps forward and two steps back

2011-06-15T13:11:00.003-04:00

I thought I'd check in with the farm system, taking a look at five players, three who have impressed, and two who have struggled a bit.

Three Steps Forward
Ryan Lavarnway is a catcher out of Yale who was drafted in the 6th round of 2008. Lavarnway's bat has always been ahead of his glove, especially since he was converted to catcher at Yale and was very raw coming out of the draft. Since then he's worked on his catching mechanics, but whether or not he can stay at catcher depends on whom you ask. Despite the questions about his glove, Lavarnway's bat has been remarkably consistent; in is last five stops in the minors he's posted an OPS of .907 (low A in 2009), .879 (high A in 2010), .888 (AA in 2010), and .869 (AA in 2011). He has a very nice set of skills, with solid power (.200 ISO) and a patient approach (walking in 10% of his PA). The Red Sox recently promoted him to AAA, where he took over the starting role from the recently traded Mike McKenry. Unsurprisingly, he's hit so far in AAA, going 3/9 with two doubles.

Chris Balcom-Miller came over to the Red Sox in the Manny Delcarmen trade last August. To get anything at all for Delcarmen was a minor miracle, especially since it was after the July trade deadline and Delcarmen had to clear waivers, but to get a solid prospect like Balcom-Miller is just gravy. Scouting reports before the trade had Balcom-Miller as a potential mid-rotation starter, who has good control and kept the ball on the ground. Although he was not among the Red Sox top prospects (ranked 26 by SoxProspects.com coming in to the season), and he’s done nothing but impress since then. He’s striking out batters (49 in 47 IP split between high A and AA), not walking very many (14, good for a 3:1 K:BB ratio), and generating a ton of ground balls (3.30 ground ball outs per fly ball out). That’s a spectacular recipe for a rotation work horse. There is always a risk that polished pitchers without great stuff (Balcom-Miller sits at about 90 MPH, which is pretty pedestrian for a right handed pitcher) will flame out as they reach the upper minors or majors, but so far, so good for Balcom-Miller. Other writers, such as Marc Normandin of Over the Monster, seem fairly bullish on Balcom-Miller as well, although he's failed to make the any of the traditional prospect top ten lists. Although the Red Sox rotation remains very crowded, with Lackey, Lester, Buchholz, and Beckett all under contract through 2014 is Lester’s very reasonable option is exercised, and the Red Sox have a lot of interesting arms in the minors (Doubront and Kyle Weiland and AAA, Balcom-Miller at AA, and Ranaudo and Workman in A ball), he could be very valuable to the Red Sox either as a trading chip or an injury replacement. Plus, his nickname is Baconator, what's not to love?

Anthony Ranaudo fell into the Red Sox' lap last year, thanks to a sub par season at LSU. Since then, he's been excellent. Ranaudo started the year in A ball, where he was dominant, striking out 50 in 46 innings, with more than three strikeouts for every walk. Since being promoted to AA he's succeeded as well, with a 2.55 ERA, but with far less impressive peripheral numbers (12 K, 6 BB in 18 IP). Eighteen innings is nowhere close to enough to make a real judgement on a player, but it is nice to see him pitch well after the Red Sox made them their most expensive draft pick last year. Given his experience and polish as a former SEC ace, Ranaudo could move quickly through the system if he continues to pitch well. Getting to AA this season, and maybe even a spot start in September, after the rosters expand, is not out of the question.

Two Steps Back
Drake Britton had an excellent season in 2010, especially given that he was coming off Tommy John surgery. The left handed starting pitcher struck out better than a batter per inning, and limited walks enough to maintain a 3:1 K:BB ratio. His success earned him a spot in Baseball America's top 100 prospects and put him in the Red Sox top 4. Unfortunately, in 2011, Britton seems to have taken a big step back. He appears to have lost all control (31 BB in 47 IP) and has a big decline in his strikeout rate (9.27 in 2010 at A, 6.27 at high A in 2011). This led to a very ugly 7.42 ERA and a 1-6 record. Britton is still very young, so there is time to fix whatever has led to the loss of control, but the current numbers are very worrisome.

Oscar Tejada also made big steps forward in 2010, which led to him being ranked the 9th best prospect in the Red Sox system, by Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus. Initially signed out of the Dominican Republic as a sixteen year-old shortstop, after three seasons of shaky defense he was converted to a second baseman in 2010. He responded with an excellent all around offensive season for a 20 year old middle infielder (.307/.344/.455 with 11 home runs and 17 steals), which was easily the best of his minor league career. However, thus far in 2011 his numbers have had more in common with his pre-2010 numbers, putting up an uninspiring .232/.297/.311 line in AA. If those numbers hold for the season, Tejada could fall back off the prospect radar, as the 2010 season will look more like a fluke than a development and his glove remains shaky, even at second base.

Predictions for the rest of the season

2011-06-13T13:57:00.003-04:00

After a couple of very hectic weeks of travelling, I get to catch up on baseball a bit. First off, the Red Sox are amazing. This nine game winning streak comes with some rather historic production offensively, especially for being on the road. They're now first in average, on base percentage, and runs, and second in slugging. They're the easy choice to win the AL East and finish with the best record in baseball.

The darlings of the early going, the Indians and the Royals, both have struggled since the early season. The Indians pitching is starting to catch up with them, and the struggles of key offensive players like Carlos Santana and Shin Soo Choo have hurt chances. They're 4-14 since May 24th, and have watched a massive lead in the AL Central vanish to a Tigers squad that is 10-7 over that same span. It is hard to blow a 6.5 game lead that quickly, but the Indians have managed it. Sliding in Jason Kipnis at second base to replace the veteran Orlando Cabrera would help the offense, and Lonnie Chisenhall may eventually be called on to replace Jack Hannahan at third, but the pitching is a different story. Without many other options for their rotation in the minors, I think the Indians will continue to struggle and may quickly fade from playoff contention.

The Royals appear to have given their fans hope a year too early. Now 6.5 games behind the Tigers and Indians and 8 games under .500, their playoff hopes are pretty slim. Unlike the Indians, the Royals have an incredible farm system that will start to be showcased this summer. The top two hitters, first baseman Eric Hosmer and third baseman Mike Moustakas are both with the major league club, as is pitching prospect Danny Duffy. Left handed starters Mike Montgomery and John Lamb have both struggled a bit in the minors, but came into the season extremely highly rated by Baseball America. We could see them in July or August for some major league experience. If these arms develop as scouts expect, the Royals could be a force to be reckoned with in 2012. For now, their rotation is a mess.

The standings in the AL west were extremely tight, before slumps by the Angels (2-8 in their last ten) and Oakland (1-9, 1-12 over their last 13). Texas currently has a slim lead over Seattle, but looking at the runs scored/runs allowed numbers show that Texas (+35) ought to easily pull away from Seattle (-3).

The Yankees have been hitting well, almost as well as the Red Sox 330 runs, second best in baseball), but the wheels seem to be coming off their pitching. They've had great success so far this year, allowing very few runs (255, second best in the AL, only behind a park aided Seattle at 244), but the injuries are starting to pile up. Either they'll have to make a trade or turn to some replacement level players. I think that down the stretch the Yankees pitching will fade, but the lineup ought to carry them to the AL wild card. The lack of a strong competitor certainly factors in to that - I have little faith in the Yankees pitching, especially with Hughes and Colon on the shelf, but apart from the division leaders, the only teams that have scored more runs than their opponents are Toronto (+1) and Tampa Bay (+12). Both of those numbers are dwarfed by the Yankees league leading run differential (+75).

As far as awards, that's a bit more of a crap shoot, but I'll take a stab at it.

AL MVP: Jose Bautista. Coming into the season I had concerns about Jose Bautista's ability to repeat his spectacular 2010 season. Well, he's beating it. Pitchers have started to give him the Bonds Treatment, pitching around him rather than trying to get him out. To his credit, he's not swinging at anything out of the zone, leading to a sky high OBP of .489, 50 points better than Miguel Cabrera at #2. And he's leading the league in slugging (.709), 80 points better than David Ortiz. If votes end up following convention and voting for a player on a winning team (or get enamored with EBI totals), the obvious choice is Adrian Gonzalez, who is showing no ill effects of shoulder surgery or switching from the NL to the AL.

AL Cy Young: Jon Lester. He looks like he's through his early season slump after a rough May, and Lester is currently second in the league in strikeouts per nine innings. Couple his historic second half performance, a strong team behind him, and the fact that he's already 9-2 indicate that he's well on his way.

AL Rookie of the Year: Michael Pineda. This was a tough choice between Michael Pineda and Eric Hosmer, . I think we have probably already seen the best of Pineda's season, but he's been an ace, and is near the top in all the important pitching categories. He and Felix Hernandez are the big reason that Seattle is respectable this year. Hosmer has a very bright future ahead of him, especially given that he won't turn 22 until after the season is over, but I think because he's so young the power numbers that voters look for won't show up this season. If he continues to hit home runs at his current pace, he'll end up with about 17 on the season. Given his ability to hit for average, work the count, and his age that's a massive success, but it isn't all that impressive for a first baseman.

Sole Possession

2011-05-28T14:40:00.002-04:00

The Red Sox now have sole possession of first place. For a team that started 0-6, and at one point was 2-10, that's remarkable. Since that 2-10 start, the Red Sox have rattled off a 27-12 run, including a seven game winning streak, a five game winning streak, and an ongoing four game winning streak. They've been getting contributions from all over, including the injury replacements in the rotation. Both Wakefield and Aceves are a combined 3-0 in the rotation, a huge improvement from the struggles of Daisuke and Lackey. In their 24 2/3 IP as starters, the two have only allowed 5 earned runs, good for a 1.82 ERA. If they both keep it up the Red Sox could have a tough decision on their hands, once Lackey is ready to come off the DL.

Lately, the bats have been contributing just as much. In their finale of the Cleveland series and the opener of the Detroit series, the Red Sox won 14-1 and 14-2. This was the first time in the history of the team that they had won consecutive road games by 12 or more runs. In their last three games, they've done a spectacular job knocking out the opposing starting pitcher. Mitch Talbot, Max Scherzer, and Rick Porcello combined for 8 IP, while allowing an incredible 21 earned runs. All three had pitched well so far in 2011, with Scherzer and Porcello both sporting ERAs right around four. After their starts, both Tigers starters had ERAs right around four.

Hell, in their their 4-2 win over the Indians earlier this week, Jason Varitek even managed to throw out two consecutive base runners. Over the last three full seasons Varitek has caught 17% of the runner attempting to steal on him. Assuming that number is representative of his true talent going forward, that puts catching two consecutive base runners at just under 3%. When the 3% likelihood things are coming up, you know things are going well.

Red Sox notes

2011-05-23T17:43:00.001-04:00

Although he didn’t end up pitching for the Red Sox, as he was sent down in the flurry of moves surrounding the activation of Dan Wheeler and the trade for Franklin Morales, I noticed that Michael Bowden appears to have turned a corner as a reliever. He was the low upside starter who seemed destined for trade bait, but as a reliever his strikeout rate it up (10.6/9, up from 6.8/9 for his career in AAA) and his walk rate is down (2.3/9, down from 2.9/9 for his career in AAA). Those numbers indicate he could be a viable MLB reliever for the Sox, especially given how weak the bullpen has been so far this season. Since they have other pitchers who don’t have options remaining, the Red Sox will likely only turn to him if guys like Albers or Atchison don’t get the job done.

It’s nice to see Wakefield pitch well, since he’s going to be in the rotation for a bit. It’s doubly nice to see him handle the NL well, backing up my post from last year. Wakefield wasn’t striking a ton of batters out (3 K in 6 2/3 IP), but he managed not to walk anyone and got more ground balls than fly balls. For a guy who has a career ground ball percentage of 40%, that’s a nice little start.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia seems to finally be capitalizing on the promise that led him to be ranked as high as the 18th overall prospect by Baseball America and be the centerpiece in the trade that sent Mark Teixeira to Atlanta. It is a small sample size, but in his last ten games Salty has hit for a .323/.382/.677 line, with three home runs and two doubles. His hits have come at key times, including driving in the only run in the Red Sox 1-0 win over the Tigers on May 18th. The strikeouts (8 in the 31 at bats over his last ten games), mean that his batting average will come down, but even if he's hitting .250/.320/.425, Saltalamacchia will be a big step up from the catching in the first month and a half. Despite the hot bat, the Red Sox are being fairly conservative with him – his 10 game run has actually been spread over 16 Red Sox games and includes one where he was a late inning replacement and did not bat. If he does continue to hit the Red Sox will have very little choice but to give him the lion’s share of playing time behind the plate, especially with Varitek struggling with a .526 OPS, which is 52% worse than the league average.

Harmon Killebrew

2011-05-23T17:10:00.003-04:00

Harmon Killebrew passed away this week, after a long battle with esophageal cancer. Many writers have already weighed in on his career and life, but for whatever reason he’s always stuck out in my mind. It's funny to say that for a player I've never seen play (not even a highlight) and has absolutely to affiliation with any team I root for. I think it was a baseball card that was found in a giant shoe box of my dad’s old cards. I don’t think it was valuable, most of his cards were mid-1960’s Topps and a mint Killebrew is only a few bucks on EBay, but all that black ink on the back was exciting. And I’m not sure if I could come up with a better name for a slugging third baseman. Harmon Killebrew. He just sounded like he destroyed baseballs. Even after the steroid era, Killebrew is still 11th overall in home runs and he can thank steroid testing for keeping him there. Manny Ramirez was only 18 behind him, and if not for his 50 game suspension a couple years ago and his second suspension this year, Killebrew would almost certainly be bumped to 12th by now.

In many ways, Killebrew was one of the first modern sluggers. He struck out a lot for the era (20%, with a single season career high of 25%), which led to a fairly low career batting average of .256. But he also took an awful lot of walks, leading to his very solid OBP of .376. When you consider the fact that he played most of his career in the era of the 15” tall mound, when top pitchers such as Bob Gibson put up ERAs in the 1’s (1.12 for Gibson in 1968), Killebrew’s offensive production, particularly his .509 slugging percentage, is that much more impressive.

(photo credit: cthoyes)

More random thoughts

2011-05-16T23:32:00.003-04:00

So this is how a winning team plays. After finally making it to .500 by sweeping the Yankees in New York in a rather impressive series, the Red Sox looked like they were going to blow the game, falling behind the hapless O's by six runs. But the Red Sox struck back for five in the fifth, one in the sixth, before getting two in the ninth off an Adrian Gonzalez walk-off double that just missed being a home run.

Jose Bautista continues to be an incredible hitter. He may very well be the best hitter in baseball right now. In a well publicized stat, he's hit 70 home runs since the start of last year (54 last year, 16 so far this year). Number two? Albert Pujols at 49. His current line is .368/.520/.868, good for an incredible 1.388 OPS, good for a .230 point lead. What is also incredible is that despite his power, he's only driven in 27 RBI. Given his 16 home runs, he's only driven in 11 team mates. That's only 40% of his RBIs are teammates, 10% lower than any other hitter in baseball.

The Indians/Royals 19-1 blowout was ugly, and was over after the Indians put up 10 runs in the fourth off of Vin Mazzaro. I thought I'd take a look at how fluid the Pythagorean winning percentages are at this point of the season, and how a single blowout can change the expected winning percentage dramatically. Pythagorean winning percentage is pretty easy to calculate, and was developed by Bill James to estimate what a team's winning percentage should be. It is runs scored squared, divided by the sum of runs scored squared and runs allowed squared. Coming in to the game, the Pythagorean winning percentages looked like this, with the Indians ahead, but the Royals still projected as an above .500 team:

Pre Blowout	Scored	Allowed	Pythgorean	Season Wins
Cleveland	181	140	0.626	101
KC	187	174	0.536	87

After, it is a different story. The Indians, now the proud owners of the best run differential in baseball, which goes nicely with their best actual record in baseball, are now a 108 win team, based on the runs they've scored and allowed. The Royals were not quite so fortunate, dropping from a projected 87 win team, to a below .500 79 win team. That isn't to say that last night should really change anyone's opinion about the Royals by 8 games over the course of the season, but more of an illustration about how the tools we use can be sensitive to extreme results.

Post Blowout	Scored	Allowed	Pythgorean	Season Wins
Cleveland	200	141	0.668	108
KC	188	193	0.487	79

Some random thoughts

2011-05-08T21:49:00.002-04:00

Justin Masterson, the former Red Sox prospect who was a key part of the Victor Martinez deal, looks like he's turned the corner in Cleveland. In a very nice start last week, he allowed nine hits over seven innings. Eight of these hits were singles, and five of those were infield hits. Effectively, it was like facing an entire lineup of Derek Jeters! Overall, Masterson has put up a 2.11 ERA in 47 innings, while posting solid strikeout and walk rates. While he has been a bit lucky with the home runs (2.8% HR/FB, where the major league average is about 10%), he finally is becoming the pitcher he thought the Red Sox thought he could become.

Ben Zobrist is having a bounceback year in Tampa Bay, and got a lot of press for having a monster double header against the Twins a week and a half ago, when he hit two home runs and drove in ten runs. Since that game, Zobrist has continued to hit very well, going 12/35 (.343 average). In an interesting little twist, in those nine games since the double header, Zobrist has not driven in a single run, despite scoring ten himself. The run binge has balanced out his stat line, putting him at 25 RBI and 28 R for the season, good for fifth and first in the AL, respectively. After falling to 2-8, the Rays are now tied atop the AL East with the Yankees at 20-14. For a team that lost an incredible number of free agents in the offseason and was missing Longoria for almost all of this season, that's awfully impressive.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox are still struggling with uneven play. They managed to make it to 14-15 by beating an incredible run of starting pitchers - Felix Hernandez, Dan Haren, and Jeff Weaver. Of course, after that they dropped their next three games. Winning their last two has pulled them back to two games below .500, but they're only four games behind the Yankees and Tampa Bay. It is still early, but it is not going to be early for too terribly much longer...

Gaming the System

2011-04-26T00:06:00.003-04:00

As many of you are aware, when a high quality free agent signs with a new team, their old team gets draft picks as compensation. For the top tier players (Type A), the new team actually gives up their first round pick and the old team receives a sandwich round pick, between the first and second rounds. Since winning the World Series in 2004, perhaps no team has done more with their compensatory picks than the Red Sox.

Over the last six years, many high profile free agents have left town, often on less than good terms. After the spectacular 2004 World Series victory, three key contributors, Orlando Cabrera, Pedro Martinez, and Derek Lowe all signed with new teams. After 2005 another two important players, Johnny Damon and Bill Mueller, signed with new teams. In return for losing these five players, the Red Sox were awarded a total of nine draft picks, including some very familiar names: Jacoby Ellsbury, Craig Hansen, Clay Buchholz, Jed Lowrie, Michael Bowden, and Johnathon Egan in 2005 and Daniel Bard, Kris Johnson, and Caleb Clay in 2006. While Johnson, Clay, and Egan are essentially organizational depth at this point, all the other players have either contributed at the major league level, or were traded away in major deals.

For example, Craig Hansen, who was a compensation pick for losing Derek Lowe, was part of the trade package for Jason Bay. After a year and a half in Boston, Bay signed with the New York Mets, netting the Red Sox another two draft picks, which they used to pick 2010 draftees Bryce Brentz and Brandon Workman.

It is far too early to gauge the impact of the 2010 draftees, the top four of which were drafted with compensation picks, but those picks certainly gave the Red Sox the depth on the farm system to trade away Kelly, Rizzo, et al. for Adrian Gonzalez this winter. Ranaudo, in particular, looks like the steal of the draft. The Red Sox will have at least one more year to exploit the free agent compensation system - after losing Adrian Beltre to the Rangers and Victor Martinez to the Tigers, they'll have four picks in the first forty (19, 26, 36, 40). These extra picks, combined with a willingness to go over slot for top talent, mean that the Sox have a chance for another impact draft, like 2005. The 2005 included key contributors to the 2007 championship, perhaps the 2010 and 2011 drafts will provide a similar foundation. This strategy may soon be obsolete, the Major League Baseball collective bargaining agreement is set to expire this offseason and draft pick compensation is one of the potential changes. Sometimes players who are classified as Type A free agents by the Elias Sports Bureau's formulas, but aren't considered top players by general managers, end up in what Buster Olney dubbed "compensation-pick purgatory", where they're definitely good player, but not good enough to be worth sacrificing a first round draft pick for.

Down on the Farm

2011-04-21T15:18:00.004-04:00

We're a few weeks in to the minor league season, so I thought I'd check in on how some of the Red Sox top prospects are doing.

Kolbrin Vitek was the Red Sox first round pick in 2010 (20th overall). Because he signed right away, Vitek was able to get 286 at bats split between low A and high A in 2010, putting up a combined .274/.364/.418 with 4 home runs and 17 stolen bases. Vitek is building on a solid debut with a .300/.404/.450 line. That line is particularly impressive given that he started the season by going 2/23. Coming in to the draft, Vitek's bat wasn't in question, but where he would play uncertain. The Red Sox have been playing him at third base, but the jury is still out whether or not he'll be able to stick there.

Anthony Ranaudo was a supplemental round pick for the Red Sox. As I've written before, Ranaudo came in to the college season as a candidate for the #2 pick behind Bryce Harper, before falling due to a poor season. While he didn't sign in time to play any minor league games, the Red Sox were able to see him dominate the Cape Cod League, presumably tipping the scales in favor of signing him for $2.5 million. So far this season, Ranaudo has rewarded the major investment in him, striking out 15 in 15 innings in A ball, while only giving up one run. Given his polish as a college ace, Ranaudo could move up to AA relatively quickly.

Jose Iglesias has been touted as the guy who will close the revolving door at shortstop for the Red Sox. Jed Lowrie is doing his best to establish himself there, but many are predicting Iglesias as the shortstop by midseason of 2012. Iglesias' glove has been described as the best many scouts have seen, and so far his hitting has been a pleasant surprise, hitting .295/.339/.379 as a 20 year old in A and AA. Iglesias has struggled so far this year (.257/.316/.257) in AAA, but it is a very aggressive assignment. Because the bat isn't ready I don't think we'll see him in the majors this season, except for maybe a cup of coffee in September. Iglesias is just 21 years old, so there isn't a need to rush him to the majors, especially with emergence of Lowrie and the steady, if unspectacular, production of Scutaro.

A couple of old friends are doing well in San Diego. Anthony Rizzo, one of the key parts of the Adrian Gonzalez trade, is dominating in AAA, hitting .436/.483/.764. Rizzo is showing his power spike in AA last year, 25 home runs, more than doubling hit previous high, was not a fluke by hitting four home runs in his first 60 at bats. Rizzo could be a huge contributor in San Diego very soon. It's always disappointing to see a prospect breakout after being traded away, but you don't get bats like Adrian Gonzalez cheaply. Casey Kelly, the top prospect in the Adrian Gonzalez deal, has also been solid in three AAA starts. Although he has a 3.31 and 1.04 WHIP through his first 16 innings, the strikeout rate has not been particularly impressive. Kelly has always been touted as a pitcher with an advanced approach, but sooner or later he'll need to strikeout more batters if he is going to become the #2 pitcher that many scouts project him to become.

Things like this make me miss Coco

2011-04-17T21:32:00.002-04:00

Sure, he was a disappointment in his time with the Red Sox, but he sure does know how to kick it old school. Adding the fro to go with the 1970's inspired mustard yellow Oakland A's alternate uniforms is an awfully nice touch.

Bright spots

2011-04-17T12:42:00.002-04:00

It has been a rough start to the season. Ever since the 0-6 start, Sox fans have been repeatedly bludgeoned with "No team with a record of X-Y has ever made the playoffs." It's been an ugly, ugly start, but there are some things to be legitimately hopeful about.

First, Josh Beckett has looked spectacular. His start against the Yankees on Sunday night, with the team desperate for a win, was incredible. His game score was 88, well above the previous high for his career. His K/9 is the highest of his career, albeit in a small sample size, and the new cutter appears to be finally working for him after being blamed for his gaudy home run totals in 2010. Since Beckett is locked up for another four years, a return to form is a great sign for 2011 and the overall performance of the Red Sox down the road, too.

Dustin Pedroia appears to be showing no ill effects from breaking his foot last summer. Considering the fact that he still has screws in his foot, which will be removed this offseason, that is pretty impressive. Pedroia currently has a line of .320/.421/.540, and did the bulk of the damage on the season against the Yankees. He had three hits in each of the three games of the series, going 9/15, with three doubles and a home run. When the team desperately needed to win, he put them on his back. Last year only two players (Hanley Ramirez and Robinson Cano) had three consecutive games with three hits.

In case you're wondering, the record holder for consecutive three hit games is George Brett, who had six consecutive three hit games in May of 1976, while going 18 of 26. I think Rod Carew, who is tied for second at five, had a more impressive run. In early June of 1975 Rod Carew went 15 for 18 with six walks and three strikeouts. During the streak he was up 24 times, and hit more home runs (4), than he made outs (3). Despite a triple slash line of .833/.875/.1.556 from Carew, the Twins managed to go 0-5. All of this information is from the Baseball Reference blog, found here.

Finally, Papelbon seems to have returned to form. I always felt the reports of his death were greatly exaggerated this offseason. Coming in to the season his K rate was above 10 K/9 IP for three consecutive years. The pitcher everyone expected to replace him, Daniel Bard, actually struck out fewer batters and walked more in 2010, but because Papelbon was a bit unlucky, stranding only 66% of the baserunners he allowed, while Bard stranded 86% (MLB average = 75%), Bard's ERA was nearly two full runs lower.

There are some definite concerns (Lackey, Matsuzaka) and some under-performers who should turn it around (Gonzalez, Crawford, Youkilis) that have led to the 3-10 record, but there are also some reasons to be hopeful.

Reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic

2011-04-14T12:27:00.002-04:00

OK, maybe it isn't quite that bad, but the Red Sox have decided to use their unexpected off day thanks to the postponement of the Red Sox Rays game on Wednesday, and have reshuffled their rotation. John Lackey, who was scheduled to pitch on Wednesday, was bumped back to Tuesday, Daisuke was pushed back from Saturday to Sunday, and Jon Lester will pitch on Saturday on four days rest. Both Daisuke and Lackey have struggled mightily, posting WHIPs that would be good ERAs (2.71 and 2.42, respectively) and K:BB ratios right around 1. Giving them time off is definitely a good idea, but I'm not sure one start is going to make a difference. Given Daisuke's ineffectiveness over the last year and a half, you have to wonder if this is his last shot to stay in the Red Sox rotation. Both Alfredo Aceves and Tim Wakefield have pitched relatively well, have started in the past, and were stretched out as starters to begin the season. Aceves, in particular, has been sharp, with 5 strikeouts in 5 2/3 IP and no walks. If I had to pick the guy I expect to be 5th starter in a month, I'd put my money on Aceves. Daisuke could probably be traded, potentially to the NL, but the Sox would probably have to eat about $15 million of the $20.67 owed over the next two years. Shuffling the starting pitchers around isn't going to make a huge difference - the hitters need to start hitting with runners on, and the pitchers need to cut down on the walks and home runs.

A lack of understanding of probabilities

2011-04-08T15:14:00.003-04:00

Tom Verducci wrote a recent article for SI.com primarily about why Red Sox fans should be worried (the three word summary: old, expensive pitchers). He also went on to discuss the amazing success of home teams this year (55-35 record, good for a .611 winning percentage), and how it would be the biggest home field advantage ever! Unlike in other games, where home field advantage is a result of crowd noise, the structure of a baseball game will always favor a home team, even if the teams are identical.

That might be a project for another time...

Over the last ten years the home team has been good for a .545 wining percentage. Using that as the "true" winning percentage, I ran a simulation of 1,000 sets of 90 games. In 113 of them, the home teams won 55 games or more, clearly demonstrating that the hot start for home teams is well within the boundaries of random variation. Just think, we were equally likely to ending up with an article discussing the death of home field advantage, as home teams won 43 or fewer of the 90 games (0.478 winning percentage! Worst ever!) 120 times out of the 1,000 simulations.

Verducci does get it half right - acknowledging that he thinks it is a random development - but then manages to undermine that statement by then attributing the winning percentage to "cycles in the game". If I can show that you're wrong in a couple commercial breaks between innings, your idea probably shouldn't be a major feature of your article.

How to extend a losing streak

2011-04-06T22:09:00.002-04:00

1. Bring in your only lefty in the bullpen to start a clean inning against the bottom of your opponents lineup.

2. Watch as that lefty hits the next two batters and walks a third on four pitches. To add insult to injury, that batter was actually trying to sacrifice. The bases are now loaded with no outs.

3. Despite the fact that your opponent has a lefty up and a switch hitter on deck, bring in Dan Wheeler, leaving high strikeout guys like Bard and Jenks on the bench. Oh, and Dan Wheeler gets killed by lefties, allowing 11 HR in 11 IP over the last 3 years against them.

4. Miraculously, this move doesn't bite you in the ass. Instead of capitalizing on a potential double play line drive, drop it. Tag third, throw to the catcher, and watch as the catcher, the major league veteran of nearly twenty years oft praised for his baseball IQ, lets the runner cross home without tagging him out.

5. Now facing that switch hitter, leave that reliever in who gets killed by anyone batting left handed at all. Try not to hurt your neck as you turn to watch the ball fly out of the park.

A lot of mistakes here, but the one that worries me the most is Francona's misuse of Wheeler. There is just no way that Wheeler should face a left handed hitter in a close game. The reason Wheeler has been an effective pitcher over the last few years is that Joe Maddon has done a spectacular job picking the right match-ups and protecting him from left handed hitters. And to leave Bard and Jenks on the bench, the two guys who had the best shot at getting the Red Sox out of that jam with a strikeout or two, is unforgivable.

Snider taking it to the next level

2011-04-06T11:07:00.005-04:00

Travis Snider has been up in the big leagues for parts of three seasons. Last year was his first as a full time starter, and he gave us flashes of his potential with a strong May that was cut short by injury and a spectacular September, when he hit .300 with 6 home runs. To date this season he's hitting .250/.357/.333. While the power isn't there, the walks are nice. I'm predicting massive, massive things from Snider this year, partly because he's gone from the picture to the left, to this:

Now that is one hell of a skeezy mustache. I'm pretty sure the creepy mustache is what made Carl Pavano useful last season. If a mustache can lead Pavano to a 3.75 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP, who knows what it can do for Snider.

Some thoughts from opening weekend

2011-04-03T22:06:00.002-04:00

Thoughts on the AL:

Either the Royals are better than billed, or the Angels are a good bit worse. Alex Gordon hooked a game winning home run by a foot or two on Opening Day, Chris Getz’ RBI single capped a two run 8th to put the Royals ahead for good on Friday, Kila Kai’aihue hit a walkoff on Saturday to break a 1-1 tie, and Matt Treanor hit a three run home run win it in the 12th inning Sunday afternoon. In all of these games, the bullpen pitched well, particularly Tim Collins and Joakim Soria, who combined for 7 scoreless innings in the series.

A-Rod and Mark Teixeira are having a great start to bounceback seasons. A-Rod went 3/5 in his first two games, with all of his hits going for extra bases (2 2B, 1 HR) and has reached base in 6 of his 8 plate appearances. Teixeira has hit three run home runs in back to back games, leading to a pair of victories. Last season it took Teixeira until April 18th to get his 6th RBI and until April 22nd to get his second home run. He also added a solo home run in the Yankees loss to the Tigers on Sunday. Both A-Rod and Teixeira were either ineffective or injured for most of the early part of the season last year. With a strong April from Teixeira and being another year removed from hip surgery for A-Rod, the Yankees offense could be even better this year. They may need it, particularly if Hughes doesn't find his lost effectiveness or velocity.

As for the Red Sox, it was certainly an ugly weekend, but there are some bright spots. Ellsbury seems like he’s finally fully healthy. At the plate he’s looked solid – working the count well, hitting for a bit of power, and stealing a base in the opener. He also made a diving attempt on a line drive to the warning track on Saturday. While he didn’t come up with the ball, it is great to see him go full bore for a ball and not have to worry about his rib injury.

David Ortiz is also off to a hot start, having already hit two home runs, including one off of lefty reliever Darren Oliver. It took until May 1st for Ortiz to hit his second home run of 2010.

Adrian Gonzalez has looked at home in a Red Sox uniform, displaying a great approach and hitting the ball to all fields. He’s 5/13 so far, and even chipped in with a stolen base. I wouldn’t count on too many more, this was Gonzalez’ second career stolen base and fourth career attempt.

Saltalamacchia is really big. At 6’4” he dwarfs most other catchers and is border line “too big” for the position, at least according to conventional wisdom. In the last couple of years Joe Mauer and Matt Wieters, who are both 6’5” have been able to handle the wear and tear of the position while playing good defense, so that label may fade away, much as it did at shortstop after the success of Cal Ripken.

Papelbon looked ok in the eighth inning on Sunday. He struck out the side, but also allowed a couple hits and an intentional BB. All three strikeouts occurred after the bases were loaded, so it was nice to see Papelbon bear down and get the tough outs without giving up any more runs.

Pitching was the weak spot in all three games. The strong finish and impressive spring for John Lackey doesn’t seem to have carried over to the regular season. Lackey was destroyed by the Rangers, giving up 9 runs, not getting out of the fourth. Lackey gave up three doubles, two triples, and two home runs, the second of which was a grand slam by Adrian Beltre, and ended Lackey’s night. To add insult to injury, all six runs in the 4th were scored with two outs. There wasn't a single cheap hit in the bunch, with line drive after line drive either finding the gaps or the outfield seats.

Lackey wasn't alone, in that regard though. The Red Sox pitchers are having trouble keeping the ball in the park. They gave up three HR in the first game, four in the second, and four in the third. That puts them on pace for a less than impressive 594 for the season, after giving up 152 all of last season. Obviously that pace is completely unsustainable, but it is a worrisome trend. Thanks to this barrage, Nelson Cruz and Ian Kinsler became the first teammates to both hit homeruns in three consecutive games and Kinsler became the first player to hit lead off home runs in the first two games of the season.

It was an ugly way to open the season, with the Red Sox getting swept in a 3 game series for the first time since 1996. Hopefully they’ll turn things around soon; after a three game series in Cleveland the Red Sox have back to back series against the Yankees and Rays.

Final Roster is In

2011-03-28T12:08:00.004-04:00

The Red Sox have finalized their roster for opening day, according to Gordon Edes at ESPNBoston. There aren't any big surprises, as the Red Sox have gone with maintaining depth. For the final two bullpen spots, Dennys Reyes (L) and Matt Albers (R) won out. Both pitched very well in spring training and were out of options. In order to keep Alfredo Aceves or Hideki Okajima, the Red Sox would have had to expose Albers or Reyes to waivers. Aceves pitched fairly well, and will be stretched out as a starter in AAA to provide some much needed starting pitching depth. With Felix Doubront hitting the DL with an elbow injury, Aceves is the Red Sox first option should one of their front five go down. Papelbon, Bard, Jenks, Wakefield, and Wheeler round out the rest of the bullpen.

Thanks to Jed Lowrie's flexibility, the Red Sox are only carrying one back up infielder. That should ensure that he's able to get semi-regular at bats to start the season. It also lets the Red Sox keep both Mike Cameron and Darnell McDonald as back up outfielders. I'd expect Cameron to get fairly regular AB against lefties, spelling Drew and Ellsbury, while McDonald is more of a typical backup getting only a handful of at bats in blow outs. Having two guys who can man centerfield on the bench is a nice situation to have. Ryan Kalish and Josh Reddick, McDonald's only real competition for the final outfield spot, were both sent down to minor league camp a few days ago. As with the relievers, because Kalish and Reddick have options remaining, the Red Sox are able to hang on to more assets than if they exposed McDonald to waivers. Perhaps more importantly, this will ensure that both Reddick and Kalish get regular at bats so they can continue to improve.

What makes a prospect successful?

2011-03-19T23:22:00.004-04:00

My brother Andrew and I were recently having a discussion about prospects, and whether or not left handed hitting prospects struggled more than right handed hitters. Mike Moustakas' difficulties against left handed hitters worried Andrew, and even managed to conjure up the ghost of Alex Gordon. His thinking was that right handed hitters have to learn how to hit right handed pitchers, otherwise they wouldn't succeed, even in the minors. Left handed hitters, on the other hand, couldget by without learning to hit left handed pitching. There is also fewer quality left handed pitching in the minors, particularly when it comes to velocity, and when suddenly exposed to major league lefties, a left handed prospect could struggle.

I established my prospect pool using Baseball America's top 25 rankings from 1995-2005. I only went up to 2005 to ensure that any top 25 prospects had a chance to become established major league players. Because our original discussion focused on top prospects like Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas, I only selected the top 25. Once pitchers were excluded and the list was pared down to account for players appearing in multiple years, I was left with a total of 109 batters - 59 righties, 37 lefties, and 13 switch hitters.

To measure their success in the majors, I went with Wins Above Replacement (WAR), which is readily available from Fangraphs. Although these values include defense, I didn't want to exclude defense entirely, as a prospect may have made the list based on their defensive value. If, for example, right handed hitters have more of their value in defense because all shortstops are right handed, this difference could incorrectly be attributed to some difference in the hitting of prospects. I looked at WAR three different ways - the average annual WAR for their career, the WAR for their best year, and the total WAR accumulated for their career. I considered a major league career to have started the first season the player had at least 100 at bats, to reduce the impact of "cups of coffee", particularly on average WAR. Here are the average values.

Handedness		WAR
	Count	Average	Peak	Total
Left	37	1.75	4.13	15.98
Right	59	1.59	3.59	17.48
Switch	13	3.20	5.22	28.82

As you can see, there is not much of a difference between left handed and right handed prospects. Interestingly, top prospects who are switch hitters seem to have a much higher rate of success than either right handed or left handed batters. To see if extreme examples influence the averages, we need to look at the breakdown of successful players. I categorized players by average WAR for their career, and defined anyone with an average WAR of less than zero as a washout, between zero and one as a scrub, one to three as a starter, and anyone who average WAR of greater than 3 as a star. Some examples, Nomar Garciaparra and Miguel Tejada are just on the star side of the starter/star threshold, thanks to some poor decline years for both. Players who easily end up in the star category should be familiar to any baseball fan – Carlos Beltran, Alex Rodriguez, and David Wright. Starters include players like Johnny Damon, Darren Erstad, Carlos Pena, and BJ Upton. Scrubs are players like Jay Payton, Jeff Francouer, Wilson Betemit, and Todd Walker - although they've started and succeeded for a couple years in their career, for the most part they are bench players. Washouts either never made it, like Drew Henson, or were terrible in the big leagues, like Andy Marte.

	Washout	Scrub	Starter	Star
Avg. WAR	<0	0-1.5	1.5-3	3+
Left	14%	41%	27%	19%
Right	25%	34%	22%	19%
Switch	0%	23%	23%	54%

Again, we see no major differences between left handers and right handers, but top prospect switch hitters have an incredible track record. The sample size is very small (n=13), but top tier prospects that are switch hitters have an incredible track record.

Of course, I would be completely remiss if I didn't actually run any statistics to see if these perceived differences were borne out. After all, I'd definitely dock my students a few points for saying, "See! They're different!" without any statistical support.

Warning! Stats ahead!
An analysis of variance (ANOVA) is the quick and easy way to tell if the handedness of a batter impacts any of the WAR measurements we used. Handedness was not a significant predictor for either total WAR or peak WAR (p=0.16 and 0.14 respectively, where a difference is significant if p is less than 0.05). Once we know that there is a significant effect of handedness on average WAR, we can use a Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference Test, which shows that switch hitters in Baseball America's top 25 prospects have significantly better results than left handed or right handed hitters, but there is no difference between left handed and right handed hitters.
End of Stats

Now that you've made it through the statistics (or skimmed, don't worry, there won't be a quiz at the end), we can take a look at the pretty pictures instead!

A quick refresher on box plots: the line in the middle of the box is the median for the group. The top and bottom of the box are the 75th and 25th percentile, respectively (also called the first and third quartile) and the lines represent the range of the remaining data. Outliers are shown as small circles, but there is only one - Alex Rodriguez and his average of 6.75 wins above replacement. I like to imagine that little circle looking down on everyone else while being fed popcorn, just like at the Super Bowl!

So what exactly does this all mean for prospects? Are switch hitting prospects more likely to succeed? It is one possible explanation, but it certainly isn't proven with this analysis. One alternative explanation is that for a switch hitter to be listed in Baseball America's top 25, they have to be pretty damn good. Switch hitters often first start switch hitting in high school or later, so the non-dominant side can lag behind in development. Perhaps if a switch hitter is playing well enough to make Baseball America's top 25, they're already a fairly polished player.

Either way, a switch hitter on the top prospect list seems to have a great shot at becoming an impact player. In the last two years there have only been three switch hitters in the top 25 – Carlos Santana, Justin Smoak, and Aaron Hicks. I'm sure this article is a small consolation to the Mariners and their fans after the Cliff Lee trade, when they ended up with the switch hitter Justin Smoak (BA's #13 prospect for 2010 season) who struggled mightily in Seattle instead of right handed Jesus Montero (#4 in 2010, #3 in 2011).

Let me know if you have any other questions that might be answerable using this database. A comparison study using pitchers would be an interesting follow up, as would expanding the prospect pool to the top 50 or beyond.

The 2011 Red Sox Pitching Staff

2011-03-07T17:48:00.004-05:00

So, yeah, the time frame for getting my weighted mean pitching projections was a little bit off - a few days, a couple months, no big difference. Fortunately, there weren't a ton of baseball stories in the meantime and it gave my gingerbread Fenway plenty of time at the top.

Just as with the hitting statistics, I’m using a 5-4-3 weighted mean for the IP, ERA, FIP, and xFIP and am not using any kind of park effects. Depending on which stat you would like to believe (ERA, FIP, xFIP) and whether or not you’d like to believe my rather basic projection system in the first place, the Red Sox pitchers should allow between 637 and 665 runs. That would place them between 5th and 8th in the AL. None of these numbers are defense adjusted. While it would be difficult to make defensive projections with Youkilis moving to 3B for the first time in several years, Ellsbury moving back to center field from left, and Carl Crawford moving to left, but with questions about how he’ll maintain his defensive value in Fenway thanks to the Green Monster, I feel comfortable saying that the defense should be above average.

Another quick note, there are replacement level innings in the mix as well. Games where you lose on the road (and therefore don’t pitch in the bottom of the 9th) and extra innings games about come out in the wash, so I used the nice round number of 1450 innings pitched. Based on who I expected to pitch (and an additional reliever to account for the impressive bullpen depth the Red Sox have accumulated), the innings totaled up to 1344. This left 106 innings of replacement level pitching, split evenly between starting and relief pitching. The replacement level ERA was based on a study by Fangraphs (AL reliever: 4.40, AL starter: 5.63), but may be a bit high if the depressed 2010 offensive levels represent a new run scoring environment as it was written a few years ago.

Without further ado, here are your Red Sox pitchers:

		IP	ERA	FIP	xFIP
SP 1	Lester	207	3.29	3.27	3.44
SP 2	Beckett	167.33	4.51	3.82	3.53
SP 3	Buchholz	122	3.49	4.07	4.18
SP 4	Lackey	189	4.08	3.96	4.10
SP 5	Matsuzaka	125.33	4.26	4.21	4.74
Swing	Wakefield	146.67	4.74	4.64	5.16
Closer	Papelbon	68	2.82	2.97	3.47
SU	Bard	63	2.53	3.37	3.47
RH	Jenks	55	3.7	3.43	3.31
RH	Atchison	60	4.29	4.38	4.01
LH	Okajima	60	3.56	4.19	4.55
RH	Albers	25	4.66	4.2	4.65
RH	Wheeler	55.67	3.26	4.35	4.18
Fill	Replacement	106	5.15	5.15	5.15

A few thoughts on the projections...

1. The exact identity of the left handed pitcher (or pitchers) in the bullpen isn’t a huge deal. Because they’re throwing 50-60 innings and have very similar ERAs, FIPs, and xFIPS swapping out Okajima for other pitchers doesn’t make a big difference in the overall number. The amount of variation surrounding expectations for a relievers performance is easily dwarfed by any kind of variability between pitchers in the back end of the bullpen.

2. Perhaps the biggest impact will be the depth of the bullpen arms available in AAA. Thanks to Andrew Miller’s interesting contract, which causes his option for next year to vest if he is picked up on waivers, the Red Sox can safely stash him in AAA despite the fact that he no longer has options remaining. This was possible because Miller wants to stay with the Red Sox and believe they give him the best shot at becoming a Major League caliber pitcher again.

3. Hopefully the starters can throw more than 800 innings. The weighted means penalize Buchholz for not being an established pitcher until 2010, but with an innings total of 179 last year, Buccholz should have a limit of around 200 or 210 innings, if he has one at all. Beckett and Matsuzaka are hardly sure things, but having a swing man like Wakefield who can throw 150 innings if needed is massive. However, Wakefield is getting older and can’t be relied upon quite as often as he used to. Perhaps with an eye towards a post-Wakefield ERA, the Red Sox snagged Alfredo Aceves off of waivers. While his stuff isn’t spectacular, Aceves has succeeded in both the bullpen and as a starter and could provide a nice insurance policy on Wakefield’s back. As an added bonus, the Yankees let him go and are now basically having to hold open tryouts for their 4th and 5th starting spots.

4. Overall, FIP and xFIP don’t seem to differ substantially from ERA projections, although they do for specific players. Buchholz is probably the most interesting of the bunch; he posted an ERA of 2.33, despite having underlying peripherals that indicate an ERA much closer to 4 (3.62 FIP, 4.20 xFIP). According to scouts, the stuff is still there, but in order to continue to post an ace level ERA, he’ll need to start striking out more batters. Jon Lester made a similar leap between the 2008 season where he was seemingly pitching over his head (3.32 ERA, 4.08 xFIP, 6.5 K/9) to his 2009 breakout (3.41 ERA, 3.13 xFIP, 9.96 K/9). It seems a bit odd talking about a breakout year when a player’s ERA gets worse, but if you saw Lester in 2008 and 2009 or 2010, the improvement is obvious. These types of breakthroughs don’t happen all that often and it would be a huge credit to the Red Sox coaches if they managed to convert two “lucky” pitchers into top tier starters in 5 years.

Happy Holidays

2011-01-07T23:33:00.004-05:00

I should have a post about the new Red Sox pitching staff up in the next couple days. In the mean time, you'll have to make do with a photo of my holiday project, a gingerbread Fenway Park. And yes, that is a gummi Dave Roberts stealing second base.

No Russel Martin after all...

2010-12-17T15:07:00.003-05:00

I've updated the lineup in my original post using Varitek's 3 year weighted means and Saltalamacchia's career numbers. Both decrease the runs scored by the Sox, 25 using Varitek's 3 year weighted means, but only 8 with Saltalamachhia's career numbers. Check out the original post for more information.

Getting to know the latest additions to the Sox bullpen

2010-12-17T14:10:00.002-05:00

With the signing of Bobby Jenks and Matt Albers over the last couple of days, the Red Sox bullpen now has at least enough bodies to start the season. Jenks is the much bigger name of the two, and he came with a much bigger price tag ($12 million over two years). Theo has to be happy that he avoided a third year, which has been given to many of the free agent relievers this offseason, such as Joaquin Benoit, Scott Downs, Matt Guerrier, and Jesse Crain. In a recent article, Dave Cameron pointed out that multi-year contracts for relievers just don't work, unless you happen to be signing Mariano Rivera.

At first glance, Jenks looks like a pitcher in decline. Between 2008 and 2010 his ERA has steadily risen from 2.63 to 3.71 to 4.44, and in the end of 2010 he lost the White Sox closer job due to injuries and inefficiency. However, if you look at his underlying numbers, 2010 was one of Jenks' best seasons of his career. Jenks has always had an electric fastball that flirted with triple digits in the early part of his career, but that did not always translate into strikeouts. His strikeouts per nine innings in 2008 was a career low 5.55; he was able to maintain h is good ERA thanks to a low walk rate (2.48/9 IP) and some good luck in the form of a high strand rate and a very low percentage of fly balls that left the yard. Since 2008 his strikeout rate has risen, despite increasing ERAs. In 2009 Jenks was victimized by a high proportion of fly balls that left the park (17%). On average, 10% of fly balls become home runs, and this is considered to be a skill that is outside a pitcher's ability to control (the number of fly balls allowed, on the other hand, is not). In 2010 Jenks posted one of the highest strikeout rates in the major leagues (10.42/9 IP), kept his walks in check (3.08/9 IP), and had a very high groundball percentage. Despite the spectacular strikeout and groundball rates, Jenks had his worst year since becoming the White Sox closer. Quite simply, it doesn't add up. Look for Jenks to have a great bounce back season, and give the Red Sox a trio of power arms that rivals the best top three on any other team. Because Jenks was non-tendered by the White Sox, he also won't cost the Red Sox any additional draft picks, which are needed to restock the farm system following the Adrian Gonzalez trade. As an added bonus, the Red Sox now can comfortably let Papelbon walk as a free agent following the 2011 season. Daniel Bard is still the closer in waiting, but if for some reason he doesn't prove ready the Red Sox have a proven closer as a fall back option.

Matt Albers is a lot less exciting. He's reliable, having pitched more than 67 innings in both 2009 and 2010, and can be stretched out into a long relief role, as shown by his 110 innings pitched for Houston in 2007 and the fact that he led the AL in relief appearances longer than one inning last year. He's also mediocre – he doesn't strike a lot of batters out (5-6 per 9 IP), he walks more than he should (4-5 BB/9), and should be good for an ERA around 4.50. He does keep the ball on the ground, keeping his home run rates low. While he won't be in the mix for the high leverage innings, he should be a good innings eater, which could be key given the injury potential in both the bullpen and the starting rotation. Replacement level pitchers are terrible; it varies from year to year, but often times they have an ERA of 5 or greater. Albers value isn't related to how well he'll pitch, but rather that you can count on him to be better than replacement level. Based on Fangraph's Wins Above Replacement statistic (WAR), the Red Sox had almost -2 wins from individuals with negative WAR. Even if Albers can pitch some of those innings at replacement level, he'll be an asset.

There is definitely room for another bullpen signing, particularly another lefty if the Red Sox was to keep Doubront in AAA as a starter. Right now Doubront is the only left handed pitcher I've projected to be in their bullpen, as both Albers and Jenks are right handed. Alternatively, if Rich Hill and Andrew Miller pitch well in spring training, either of them could snag a spot in the bullpen. As both are left handers, this would allow the Red Sox to send Doubront back to AAA for more seasoning as a starter. Both Hill and Miller are former starters who are trying to remake their career as relief pitchers, so they're hardly a sure thing. One final option might be to simply go with all the righties. As Tony Massarotti points out, both Jenks and Bard had excellent years against left handed batters in 2010, despite being right handed.

Re-envisioning the 2011 Red Sox Lineup

2010-12-10T14:48:00.008-05:00

Remember that post I wrote a month ago about the 2011 lineup? If you haven't read it already, you can probably ignore most of what was written after two absolutely massive moves in the last two weeks. If you didn't understand what Theo meant when he said 2010 was a "bridge year", now it has to be clear. After several years of many players moving in and out of roster spots, the core of the Red Sox team is locked up for a very long period of time. Jacoby Ellsbury and Kevin Youkilis are under contract through 2013, Pedroia through 2015, Crawford through 2017, and if the Adrian Gonzalez extension goes through he'll be under contract until after the 2018 season. On the pitching side, Buchholz, Beckett, and Lackey are under team control through 2014, as is Lester, although the Red Sox have an affordable option for the 2015 season. If you're a Red Sox fan who is a hot stove junkie, be ready to get disappointed over the next few years. The team is going to be very similar for a very long period of time.

Left field was a disaster for the Red Sox last year. While Daniel Nava, Darnell McDonald, and Ryan Kalish all did a lot more than the team expected, the offensive bar is set very high for left field. The Red Sox left fielders ranked 28th in batting average, 28th in OBP, and 18th in slugging. Carl Crawford is an obvious improvement offensively, and according to all the advanced metrics his defense is off the charts. Also, catcher was a weak point for the team last year. Current reports indicate that Russell Martin is close to signing with the team. While he is not the All Star he was in 2008 (thanks Joe Torre! Who knew that 449 games in 3 years would harm a young catcher?), Martin still posts an excellent OBP for a catcher (.347 last season, .360 for his career). For a lineup as deep as the 2011 Red Sox, a catcher who can work the count would be a nice addition.

But what does that mean for the 2011 season? With the additions of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, just what does the Red Sox lineup look like now? Quite simply, it looks pretty damn good.

		Average	OBP	Slugging	OPS+	UZR/150
C	Russell Martin	0.257	0.358	0.347	92	N/A
1B	Adrian Gonzalez	0.286	0.390	0.524	152	1.4
2B	Dustin Pedroia	0.300	0.371	0.478	120	9.6
3B	Kevin Youkilis	0.308	0.406	0.560	150	6.9*
SS	Marco Scutaro	0.275	0.350	0.387	96	-3.5*
LF	Carl Crawford	0.298	0.349	0.457	117	20.6
CF	Jacoby Ellsbury**	0.292	0.347	0.406	93	4.8
RF	JD Drew	0.269	0.375	0.492	124	6.4
DH	David Ortiz	0.258	0.357	0.501	122	N/A

*Kevin Youkilis' UZR/150 is his career at 3B, not a weighted mean. Marco Scutaro's UZR is his career at SS, as a very strong 2008 in a small sample size skewed his 2008-2010 weighted mean.

** Jacoby Ellsbury's statistics are a weighted mean from 2008 and 2009 (5, 4), and his defense is for all outfield positions.

Looking at the weighted averages (5, 4, 3) using 2008-2010 stats for the projected Red Sox lineup you can see how there are no weak spots in the lineup. This is a simple model, and I haven't adjusted numbers for park factors, aging, or similar corrections. While Ellsbury, Scutaro, and Martin have low slugging percentages, no expected starter has an OBP lower than .347. Just how good is this lineup? Baseball Musing's lineup analysis tool predicts that the ideal lineup would score 5.893 runs per game, or 954 for the entire season. While that doesn't quite challenge the 1931 Yankees' record of 1,067, it would have topped the 2010 Yankees' league leading total by almost 100 runs. The lineup tool only looks at OBP and slugging, so the speed of Ellsbury and Crawford doesn't contribute anything. It also typically ends up with some odd lineup results - the "ideal" lineup has Youkilis and Adrian Gonzalez hitting 1/2, followed by Marco Scutaro. Pedrioa and Crawford, who are likely to hit 1/2 according to Buster Olney.

Update December 14, 2010:
Looks like the reports of signing Russel Martin were premature. I suppose it serves me right for actually believing a baseball rumor before the ink is dry on a contract. Re-running the lineup analysis tool with Jason Varitek's weighted means (.259 OBP, .305 slugging) drops the runs scored per game from 5.893 to 5.718, or from 954 to 926. This is a substantial drop, about 3 wins using the rule of thumb of 10 runs are worth a win over the course of a season, although there is reason to believe that Saltalamacchia should beat those numbers. Using Saltalamacchia's career numbers (.315 OBP, .386 slugging) softens the offensive blow substantially, with the Red Sox projected to score 5.851 runs per game, a difference of only 6 runs over an entire season and would still have easily topped the AL in runs scored last year.

Not only would this lineup score a lot of runs, there are no major weaknesses defensively as well. Using a weighted mean of UZR/150 (available from Fangraphs, it is the number of runs the fielder would save (positive) or cost (negative) compared to an average fielder over 150 plays, which is about a season's worth of playing time) Marco Scutaro is the only fielder below average.

Where does Jed Lowrie fit in?
After a strong finish to the season, many folks are pushing for Jed Lowrie to be given the starting shortstop job, pushing Marco Scutaro to a super utility role. I agree with this, as Scutaro is a free agent after the 2011 season and in an admittedly small sample size, Lowrie was the best hitting shortstop in the AL. I've put Scutaro in my lineup for a couple of reasons, one of which is based on practicality. The front office has made it clear that they're going to start the season with Lowrie as the super utility player. Also, putting Lowrie in the lineup would make the runs per game calculation a bit tricky; due to his age and injuries Lowrie hasn't accumulated enough MLB at bats to make a good prediction using my admittedly basic model.

What about Ryan Kalish and Josh Reddick?
For 2011, both Kalish and Reddick appear to be blocked. As I wrote in my original post about the 2011 lineup, the Red Sox feel that Kalish could use more time in AAA, despite his strong showing last September. If a major injury occurs to an outfielder, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Red Sox turn to Kalish again. In 2011, the path to the big leagues is clear for at least one of them. JD Drew's contract expires after the 2011 season, and Kalish's great athleticism and arm strength seems like a great fit with the spacious right field in Fenway. The future isn't as clear for Reddick. He is organizational depth for the time being, but may end up as part of a trade package, as the younger Kalish has passed him in front office's mind. His line at AAA (.266/.301/.466) isn't particularly impressive, but the potential is definitely there, as shown by his post All Star Break numbers (.363/.385/.643). Reddick didn't impress in the Dominican Winter League either, although he showed a good approach at the plate (10 BB in 76 PA, much higher than his AAA walk rate). Next year is a make or break year for Reddick with the Red Sox; another mediocre showing in AAA could lead to him getting traded for some in season help.

Right of first refusal?

2010-12-03T11:03:00.003-05:00

Based on comments in a recent Boston Globe article, it sounds as if Adrian Beltre is essentially giving the Red Sox the opportunity to match the offer he has on the table from Oakland. Beltre is apparently even willing to leave a bit of money on the table, saying "If everything was close to the same, I would go back to Boston". Granted, Beltre's agent is Scott Boras so this could all be a ruse designed to get better offers from west coast teams, but based on the quotes it sounds like Beltre genuinely wants to come back to Boston.

I've always felt that resigning Beltre was more important than resigning Victor Martinez, mostly because of Beltre's exceptional defense and Martinez's poor defense and a looming positional change. The big question was whether or not Beltre would want to remain on the east coast, as he had played every prior season with either the Dodgers or the Mariners and his family remained in the Los Angeles area after he signed with the Red Sox. The Oakland offer (5 years, $64 million according to ESPN's Jayson Stark) remains on the table. Beltre has said the years are more important than the dollars, so if the Red Sox could sign Beltre for 5 years and $60 million, I'd be ecstatic. I ought to be, considering I felt that he would end up somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 years and $60 million coming into the off season. Right now the Red Sox are offering 4 years, $54 million - a slightly higher salary than Oakland, but a year less.

To top it all off, if the A's are the team to sign Beltre, they'd only have to give up their second round pick, as their first round pick is protected.

Red Sox 2011 Options: 3 no brainers and a mild suprise

2010-11-04T15:28:00.006-04:00

The Red Sox announced that they'll pick up David Ortiz' $12.5 million option for next season, as well as the option for Scott Atchison. The decision on Ortiz sounds like it was made awhile ago. It probably is an overpay, but it gives the team the team an enormous amount of flexibility next offseason, if they want to pursue a DH type such as Prince Fielder. They declined the options for Bill Hall ($9.25 million, $500,000 buyout) and Felipe Lopez. While Hall had a solid season as a super sub last year, playing every position but catcher and first base, the $9.25 million option was never really in play. It will be interesting to see if Hall can get a starting job somewhere, or if he'll decide that getting semi-regular PT all over the diamond is the way to go. Declining Lopez' option isn't a surprise either; the Red Sox picked him in late September, most likely hoping to get a compensatory draft pick out of him.

The one potential surprise in here is the Red Sox picking up Scott Atchison's option. The key thing to remember here is that the Red Sox are not necessarily expecting Atchison to be a huge contributor, but instead a solid option in the back of the bullpen. Atchison has a average strikeout rate (6.2 K/9), an average walk rate (2.85 BB/9), which unsurprisingly led to an average ERA on the season (4.50, ERA+=97, where 100 is league average). For $40,000 over the major league minimum, average is actually pretty good.

Replacing John Farrell

2010-10-24T11:42:00.004-04:00

Although it isn't completely official yet, Red Sox owner John Henry makes it clear that current pitching coach John Farrell is heading north to Toronto to manage the Blue Jays. This is a pretty big loss, in my opinion. Despite the struggles of the rotation this year, Farrell is one of the best regarded pitching coaches in baseball and has done an excellent job developing talent in Boston (Lester, Buchholz, Papelbon, Bard) as well as in Cleveland, where he was the director of player development from 2001 to 2006, when stars like Victor Martinez, CC Sabathia, and Cliff Lee came up. His name had been mentioned for many other job openings in the past, but I guess the Toronto job was too good to pass up.

I'm not sure exactly how this will affect the Red Sox, quantifying the impact of coaches is a very tricky proposition, but I know that losing someone of Farrell's caliber isn't going to help. It'll be interesting to see if they look to someone outside of the organization. According to Peter Gammons, the Sox recognize this as a big hole and "very worried" about losing Farrell.

Congratulations Bengie Molina, World Series Champion!

2010-10-24T11:30:00.004-04:00

The slowest of the Molina brothers, and that is saying something, is now the proud owner of a 2010 World Series ring. Just how is that possible? Bengie was traded from the Giants to the Rangers at the deadline, so since he's played on both teams, he'd receive a ring should either one win. Of course, I'm sure he'll be pulling for the Rangers, since that's the team he actually plays for at this point, but I thought it was funny that Bengie already as that coveted World Series ring locked up.

A few thoughts on the post season

2010-10-18T21:05:00.004-04:00

I've managed to watch parts of all the ALCS games so far. Thanks to the fact I've been sick, most of them end past my bedtime (current favored diagnosis: mono!), so I can't claim to have watched every pitch, but I thought I'd weigh in with a few thoughts.

I know they're both left handed and occasionally throw a cutter, but anyone who calls CJ Wilson a mini Cliff Lee is insane. CJ Wilson led the AL in walks this year, with 93. Cliff Lee walked 0.76 batters per nine innings this season, meaning it would have taken Cliff Lee over 1,100 innings or about 5 seasons of pitching, to walk 93 batters.

This isn't the most advanced baseball analysis, but why does Ron Washington have left handed pitchers face Marcus Thames? In limited playing time this year Thames did not have an appreciable split, but over his career he's been mediocre against righties (.236/.296/.480 - note the very weak OBP) while he's hit lefties well (.264/.333/.505). Playing the splits is old school baseball, and there is no reason Washington should be ignorant about that. I know that one of those appearances was as a pinch hitter, but it doesn't take Nostradamus to predict that bringing side arming lefty is going to cause the opposing manager to turn to his lefty mashing bench bat.

The Rangers bullpen really shit the bed in game 1 after I went to bed. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed they managed to blow a 5 run lead going into the 8th. Just how bad was it? At one point the Rangers had a win expectancy of 86.5%. It was hardly historic though. If you need a little cheering up, look back to game 5 of the 2008 ALCS. With the Red Sox trailing 7-0 and the Rays threatening to pile on with two runners on and none out in the 7th inning, the Red Sox had a win expectancy 0.07%. For those unfamiliar with the statistic, it means that based on historical games, teams in that situation game back to win the 7 times in 10,000.

It is now my bedtime, so I can't comment on anything that happened after the 6th inning of Game 3, but Cliff Lee is pretty damn impressive. Coming in to the 6th he had given up a questionable walk to Teixeira and a broken bat single to Posada. As amazing as Cliff Lee's regular season was, his numbers are even more impressive in the post season. He struck out 28 before walking a single batter and currently has a 31:1 K:BB ratio in only 22 innings. The one knock against him tonight is that he's already thrown 96 pitches in 6 IP, so he'll probably only go 7 IP tonight, but that's a minor quibble.

Guesstimating the 2011 Red Sox Pitching Staff

2010-10-14T15:08:00.004-04:00

Looking for something more up to date on the Red Sox pitching staff? Try here for a more recent version, complete with projections.

Now that my throat is starting not to look like something out of a George C. Romero movie, I can finally make that follow up post to my lineup post from last week. As I mentioned in that post, the Red Sox pitching rotation is pretty much full at this point. Barring a trade or a release, the Red Sox have a rotation of Lester, Buchholz, Beckett, Lackey, and Matsusaka through the end of the 2012 season. Unlike the cheap, homegrown talent in the lineup, this is a pretty damn expensive rotation, weighing in at just under $50 million in 2011 and just over $50 million in 2012.

Having five committed starters for the next two years also doesn't leave room for rising prospects Anthony Ranaudo, Casey Kelly, or Brandon Workman to get their feet wet or find part time work for potential starters like Felix Doubront and Michael Bowden.

For the short term, I think the answer is easy - go with the five guys you're spending the big bucks on, at least for 2011. You have to bank on Lackey and Beckett to bounce back, Lester and Buchholz were the two best pitchers on the staff last year, and Dasiuke is maddening, but seems to show just enough to keep you tantalized. Plus, getting an average of 6 IP a start and a 4.69 ERA isn't horrendous out of a fifth starter. As for the fringier prospects like Doubront and Bowden, the roster set up of the Red Sox seems to dictate their usage. They're loaded with starters, and the back end of the bullpen is a disaster, so sliding them in as relievers might make the most sense. Right now, the only definite slots in the bullpen are Jon Papelbon, Daniel Bard, Hideki Okajima, and Tim Wakefield as a swing man. That leaves two open spots, preferably one lefty and one righty, to be filled. To me, Bowden, a righty, and Doubront, a lefty who pitched extensively in the pen down the stretch fit those roles perfectly.

So sticking with arms on the team, I think the pitching staff should shape up something like this:

SP	Jon Lester
SP	Clay Buchholz
SP	Josh Beckett
SP	John Lackey
SP	Daisuke Matsuzaka
Swing	Tim Wakefield
CL	Jon Papelbon
SU	Daniel Bard
LH	Hideki Okajima
LH	Felix Doubront
RH	Michael Bowden

Looking outside the organization, Theo has made some noise already about going out and signing a reliever or two to shore up the team. Someone like Scott Downs would be a nice addition, but only if the Red Sox sign another Type A free agent like Carl Crawford or Jayson Werth. Quite simply, a reliever isn't worth tossing away a first round pick. Bowden also is a pretty big question mark, even in the bullpen. He took a step back in 2010, but some teams are supposedly still high on him as a starter, so it wouldn't be shocking to see him dealt for other prospects, creating another job opening in the bullpen.

Best. Website. Ever.

2010-10-07T21:43:00.004-04:00

For those of you who don't know, Adrian Beltre really doesn't like to get his head touched. Of course, his teammates decided to touch his head all the time. Some kind soul on the internet has collected all those occurrences and has created a gallery of animated gifs. The best five minutes you'll spend all day.

Hat tip to Pete Abraham for linking to it from the Globe's Extra Bases Blog.

Nifty little move

2010-10-05T10:58:00.003-04:00

The Red Sox signed Felipe Lopez a week or so before the season ended. While he didn't make a difference in the way the season ended, although the home run against the Yankees was nice, he could pay some solid dividends down the road. You see, despite having been released by the Cardinals, Lopez is still projected to be a Type B free agent. If:

1. The Red Sox offer him arbitration and

2. Lopez signs a major league deal with another team,

then the Red Sox will snag a sandwich round pick, between the first and second rounds, in the draft. This year Anthony Ranaudo, a preseason top 10 prospect, fell to them in that spot, so the payoff for dropping a few thousand on Lopez could be huge. Of course, considering he's been run out of town by several different teams, the hard part could be getting another team to sign him to a major league deal.

Guesstimating the 2011 Red Sox Lineup

2010-10-04T16:13:00.010-04:00

This was written just after the Red Sox regular season ended. Here is an updated version of this post now that Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez are on the team.

Going into the 2010 offseason, the Red Sox are in an interesting position. On the one hand, they have an incredible amount of money coming off the books this year, with over $55 million thanks to the expiring contracts of David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, Adrian Beltre, Victor Martinez, Jason Varitek, and everyone's favorite player, Julio Lugo. The Red Sox may be looking to pare down their payroll, however. The total salary for the 2010 team was $168 million, $45 million more than the 2009 team and $25 million more than the highest team salary with Theo as a GM. The Red Sox are also opening up massive holes in their lineup. Adrian Beltre, Victor Martinez, and David Ortiz were the first, third, and fifth most valuable offensive players by WAR on the team. Thanks to the excellent seasons Beltre and Martinez had, they won't be coming back for their 2010 salaries of $10 million and $7.7 million. Based on WAR from Fangraphs, and their valuation of a win at $4 million, below are values for the departing players.

Off books post 2010
	Salary	WAR	Value
Beltre	10	7.1	28.4
Martinez	7.7	4	16
Ortiz	13	3.2	12.7
Varitek	3	0.7	2.7
Lowell	12.5	-0.3	-1.2
Lugo	9.25	N/A	N/A

In case you didn't notice, all of those guys play offense. The Red Sox rotation is full right now, but that is a discussion for another day. So right now, with just the players under contract, how does the 2011 team shape up? Here is how I see it:

C	?
1B	Youkilis
2B	Pedroia
3B	?
SS	Lowrie
LF	Cameron
RF	Drew
CF	Ellsbury
DH	Ortiz

INF	Scutaro
OF	Reddick
C	Saltalamacchia
INF/OF	Patterson
INF	?

The lineup is very much up in the air. Theo suggested that Saltalamacchia might be in the mix for the starting catcher job, but I've left him at backup instead. Of course, we're talking about an injury prone catcher who had trouble throwing the ball back to the pitcher last year. Now, to preemptively answer some questions...

Why is Scutaro a $5.5 million utility guy?

The simply answer is that Jed Lowrie was just that good in the second half, drawing lots of walks and showing good power (.287/.381/.526). Incredibly, based on Lowrie's VORPr (a per at bat version of Baseball Prospectus' Value Over Replacement Player statistic), Lowrie was the best offensive shortstop in the AL, not that he had much competition. I'm not a sentimental sort, but considering all he's been through he deserves a shot at a full time job. The front office remains very high on him and at 26 now is the time to see if he can stick as a starter. Also, Scutaro has an extensive injury history and his shoulder wore out this year, preventing him from playing much shortstop after the All Star Break. Given Scutaro's history of playing all around the infield, he's perfectly suited to being a super utility infielder makes more sense. However, given the injuries all around the infield for the Red Sox this year, I think it makes sense to try and hold on to Scutaro rather than trade him.

Why isn't Ryan Kalish on the team? He was the Red Sox' best outfielder in September!

I think that he is almost ready, but it makes sense to give him some more time in AAA and wait for an opening in the outfield. He should be playing every day, and that wouldn't happen in the majors right now. An injury or a really hot start to the season in Pawtucket could change that, though. A poor August dragged his overall numbers down, but he hit .263/.325/.474 in September, while playing some great defense and generally showing why scouts are incredibly high on him. He's only 22 and wasn't expected to see any significant time in the outfield this year. If there is a silver lining to the outfield injury cascade, it is we got to see a glimmer of Ryan Kalish's potential a year early.

Why is Julio Lugo's WAR N/A for 2010? Everyone knows he contributed to wins simply by not being there.

I think I'm going to miss having Lugo as a punching bag, although it is pretty low hanging fruit.

So what do the Red Sox need to do for 2011?

Just like last season, they're looking at importing a lot of hitters. The bidding will be pretty fierce on Jayson Werth, Carl Crawford, and Adrian Beltre, but I'm hoping that with $40 million in expiring contracts, not counting Ortiz' option, that the Red Sox can make a run at an outfielder and resign Beltre. I think Carl Crawford would be a perfect fit with the goals of the front office to be younger, more athletic, and play good defense. Just like Beltre at third base, Crawford's glove in left field is consistently head and shoulders above all other defenders. As a left handed line drive hitter he should be able to pepper the Green Monster with double after double. MLB Trade Rumors recently asked readers to “crowd source” Crawford's free agent contract, and the end result was a relatively reasonable 5 year, $70 million deal ($17 Average Annual Value). Considering Crawford's age, I might guess that he gets a 6 or 7 year deal, though. A similar exercise with Adrian Beltre estimated a 4 year, $52 million deal ($14 AAV). Those two contracts would add $31 million a year in salary, but would land two of the top free agents on the market and two of the very best defenders in all of baseball. I think that if there is an inefficiency in the free agent market today, it is with defense. The Cameron signing didn't work out due to injury, but it doesn't disprove the underlying theory. Signing Crawford and Beltre would require letting Martinez walk. It hurts to say it, but if you're going to bet on a player into his 30s, you're probably better off not banking on the catcher.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the Red Sox have a lot of expiring contracts following the 2011 season as well. The recent two year deals by Cameron and Scutaro will be ending, freeing up $13.25 million, JD Drew's mistakenly maligned 5 year, $70 million contract also be ending, and Papelbon will be a free agent and will presumably be taking his services, complaints, and his $10+ million salary elsewhere. That gives the Red Sox the flexibility to go after free agents now or wait until next offseason when some of the biggest sluggers in baseball including Prince Fielder, Albert Pujols, and Adrian Gonzalez hit free agency.

The End

2010-10-04T15:40:00.004-04:00

"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."
~A. Bartlett Giamatti (1938-1989), Former Commissioner of Major League Baseball

Don't Forget to Celebrate this Weekend!

2010-10-01T14:41:00.004-04:00

That's right, there will be cause for celebration on Sunday. No, the Red Sox won't make the playoffs, but we get to celebrate Julio Lugo Day! On Sunday, the ridiculously ill conceived 4 year, $36 million contract to Julio Lugo will expire. I have to tip my hat to Cot's Baseball Contracts on this one - I had long forgotten that Lugo was still on the books. Of course, it is easy to forget considering the fact that Lugo (and enough money to cover all of his future salary) was unceremoniously shipped out of town for Chris Duncan last summer. Duncan lasted less than a month in AAA before being waived on August 22.

But how exactly does one celebrate Julio Lugo Day? I have an idea. Go out and buy yourself and nice bottle of wine, say around $36. Drink about half of it, despite the fact that it sucks, then dump it down that drain or give it away to some other poor sucker. Now that is a celebration truly befitting Lugo. Be sure to celebrate though, the next time we get to have a similar celebration might be early October of 2014, when we get to celebrate John Lackey day. That will be a much nicer bottle of wine ($83) that we get to decide sucks!

David Ortiz' Complaints

2010-09-24T15:47:00.002-04:00

David Ortiz seems to want to have his cake and eat it too. I'm not sure if these quotes are creating a shit storm on sports talk radio up in Boston (it wouldn't surprise me, since it normally doesn't take much), but they did rub me the wrong way.

1. When asked if he'd take a pay cut to stay in Boston, Ortiz indicated that he wouldn't, saying “I don’t feel like going anywhere else but if I have to, I have no choice.” He also said that he'd already taken a pay cut five years ago, when he signed his 4 year, $52 million extension.

2. According to Rob Bradford at WEEI, Ortiz doesn't want a one year deal, because he wouldn't be "comfortable".

First off, Ortiz didn't take a pay cut in 2005. According to the irreplaceable Cot's Baseball Contracts, his salaries since joining the Red Sox before the 2003 season have been $1.25 million and $4.6 million. After the 2004 World Series victory, Ortiz agreed to a two year extension worth $5.25 million in 2005 and $6.5 million in 2006. An option year was included, but the Sox again extended him, this time for 4 years and $52 million ($12.5 million per, plus $6 million in signing bonuses) through the 2010 season. So it is a little hard to stomach him saying that he took a pay cut to stay. Sure, that first extension was a bit below market value, but the second was near the top of the pay range for full time DHs. As a point of comparison, Hafner signed a four year, $57 million extension during the 2007 season, despite the fact he was still under contract for another year and a half. Since that deal the market for full time DHs has plummeted. Adam Dunn, who is essentially a DH at this point, signed for 2 years, $20 million before the 2008 season. Hideki Matsui and Vlad Guerrero had to settle for one year, $6 million on the open market, despite the fact that Matsui was coming off of a 28 home run, 90 RBI season.

Second, I don't know how the Red Sox could possibly go with a two year deal without a pay cut. It would be an insane over pay to go with a two year, $25 million deal, considering the fact they could just take one year at $12.5 million. I know he's the face of the franchise, but left handed sluggers can go from a stud to the proverbial glue factory in a year. I've written about it with the Howard deal, along with lots of other folks who are an awful lot smarter than I am. As a side note, I love the concept of a baby albatross. Two years for $20 seems reasonable to me - Ortiz gets his $12.5 million option picked up, with $7.5 million for 2012. That $7.5 million would be about market value for an older designated hitter. In his bounce back 2010, Ortiz has been worth $11.5 million, although he was only worth $13 million in 2008 and 2009 combined. When a player's production matches his salary one year out of three I just don't know how you can possibly go ahead and sign them up for another three years at that same salary. I think the Red Sox are smart enough to realize this; I hope David Ortiz is too.

Mariners DHs

2010-09-17T16:08:00.002-04:00

For the season, Mariners' designated hitters are hitting a robust .190/.267/.384. That batting average is worse than thirteen pitchers in the NL with a minimum of 40 at bats. The OBP is worse than nine different NL pitchers. But the Mariners' designated hitters really do shine in the slugging department, as only two NL pitchers top their .384 number. Both of these two pitchers beat the Mariners designated hitters across the board, and pretty handily too. So just who should the Mariners go out and add as their 2011 designated hitter, since they obviously felt that Jesus Montero wasn't up to the task...

Dan Haren (.364/.375/.527) and Yovanni Gallardo (.268/.339/.554). Haren has been lucky on balls in play (BABIP of .422), as have many of the pitchers who are outperforming the hapless Mariners DHs, but I believe that Yovanni Gallardo is a better hitter than the Seattle DH composite. His BABIP is not particularly high, and his career numbers in 181 (.221/.260/.429) at bats top the dreadful stat line compiled in Seattle. Maybe the Mariners should argue for the elimination of the designated hitter in the future. It certainly doesn't seem to have helped their offense at all this year.

Looking ahead: Offseason Contract Decisions

2010-09-15T13:54:00.006-04:00

The Red Sox came into this season with a whopping $161 million worth of salaries. Combined with shared expenses and other costs, this puts them well above the luxury tax threshold. Fortunately, they do have a lot of money coming off the books this season, however, many of these players are at key positions and have been the Red Sox best performers.

Mike Lowell is the only name that is sure to go. At $12.5 million this year, Lowell obviously didn't earn his salary. However, I would guess that the Red Sox knew this was a risk signing an older third baseman to a three year deal. Lowell has already announced that he will retire, a\s he doesn't enjoy being a part time player. Lowell was a key contributor in the 2007 championship, perhaps even more important than Josh Beckett was that year. Congratulations, Mike, for a nice career and for knowing when to call it quits.

The other key decisions are for David Ortiz, Victor Martinez, and Adrian Beltre. The Red Sox hold a team option for Ortiz in 2011 at $12.5 million, just under his salary of $13 million this year. In April, it seemed inconceivable that Ortiz' option would get picked up, but since his April struggles he's been one of the most consistent offensive players on the tea, with an .897 OPS, his highest since 2007 and is the second best OPS by an AL DH, behind Baltimore's Luke Scott. The nice thing about Ortiz' option is it is only a one year commitment. While a similar offensive player such as Adam Dunn might be available for approximately the same amount of money annually, it would probably take a 3 year commitment to sign any of the DH types hitting the free agent market this year. According to several sources, the Red Sox have decided to pick up Ortiz' 2011 option. However, Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated had discussions with other executives who speculated that the Red Sox might try and work out a two year, $20 million extension with Ortiz instead. That wouldn't shock me, although I'm not sure if Ortiz would be willing to sign a two year deal. Going with a big, left handed slugger in his 30s is a risky proposition, as I showed following Ryan Howard's big extension, so I don't think the Red Sox would consider going to three years.

As an aside, the decline of the DH really has been remarkable. Six teams have DHs hitting .250 or below, including the Mariners' incredible line of .190/.266/.342. This is for a position whose only job is hitting and the Mariners managed to put players in the lineup whose contribution was 26 runs BELOW replacement level. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, replacement level is essentially how well you'd expect freely available talent, such as minor league free agents, to hit. Of course, the Mariners are not alone - the Tigers, Royals, Rays, White Sox, Angels, and Blue Jays also had their DHs produce at replacement level or worse.

The next big decision for the Red Sox is for Victor Martinez. Martinez currently has the second best OPS for a catcher in the AL and has been a big contributor on offense. Playing a premium defensive position, Martinez still is able to put up an .800 OPS and provides a lot of lineup protection against left handed pitchers (1.159 OPS vs lefties). Martinez expressed interest in signing an extension coming into this season, but also recently turned down the Red Sox two year offer. Reports say that the Sox are a little hesitant to go to a three or four year deal as they're unsure how long Martinez can stay behind the plate. Interestingly, Mike Napoli, the player who the Red Sox claimed on waivers this summer but were unable to work out a deal for, would serve a similar role. He's a switch hitting, offense first catcher who also mashes lefties. Because of his defensive struggles, Napoli seems to have lost favor with manager Mike Scioscia and could be trade bait over the winter. Napoli would be under team control for 2011 and 2012, but would be fairly expensive as he's entering his third arbitration year, as he was a super 2* player. Martinez could be looking at a three year, $40-45 million dollar deal, potentially eating up a lot of the money freed up by Lowell's expiring contract.

Adrian Beltre is also a free agent this winter, and also has been one of the most important position players for the Red Sox. According to FanGraphs's valuations, Beltre has been worth an incredible 6.9 wins for $27.7 million worth of value. He has played his usual excellent defense, saving more than 10 runs over the average third baseman for the third year in a row and the fourth time in five years. His bat has also woken up, after moving away from cavernous Safeco field for the more friendly confines of Fenway, upping his OPS from .750 in his four years as a Mariner to .935, the ninth best OPS in all of baseball. That isn't to say that Beltre will repeat his 7 win season, but he certainly looks like a star player again. While he'll never have a great batting eye, his hand eye coordination is preposterous. I've seen him hit at least two different homeruns, essentially from one knee. Scott Boras looks like a genius now for getting Beltre to sign for a one year, $10 million deal now. An awful lot of teams, particularly in the AL West, have big holes at third base and could be willing to spend lots of money to fill them.

I don't think the Red Sox will be able to keep all three of these players without extending their budget. Their salary coming into this year was an already record $168 million, $25 million than there previous high. I believe that Theo Epstein and the Red Sox were trying to "bridge the gap" to the new prospects by signing older, more expensive players to shorter term deals. I don't think the Red Sox want to be in a position where they're over the luxury tax threshold in 2011 as well, as the penalties increase with successive years over the threshold. Despite getting Lowell off the books, shedding salary will be very difficult without letting one of these three players go, as players such as Josh Beckett, Kevin Youkilis, and Daisuke Matsuzaka will all be receiving raises of $1 million or more and Papelbon will be going into arbitration for the third and final time.

Keeping Ortiz seems like a fait accompli at this point, but if I had to pick between Martinez and Beltre, I would go with Beltre. I think the two will end up with similar contracts this offseason, and Beltre has the upside to be a super star. It seems weird that a 7 win player in New York or Boston gets overlooked, but Beltre's combination of defense and hitting doesn't get enough credit. Beltre ought to be a legitimate MVP candidate and his WAR (wins above replacement) trails only Josh Hamilton in the AL.

Meet your Red Sox September call ups

2010-09-06T23:53:00.003-04:00

Once the calendar hits September 1, the major league rosters expand from 25 to 40 men. It is a quirk in the rules originally designed to allow for teams to get a look at players for the future. However, it is undeniable that some players, particularly relief pitchers, can have a huge impact on pennant races. For a great example of this, take a look at K-Rod's run in September and the playoffs during the Angels World Series title year. Sadly, the Red Sox call ups won't likely be having any pennant impacts this year, but it is a good time to get to know some of the prospects.

Because of the injury stacks in center field, we've actually already seen most of the upper level outfield talent the Red Sox have at one point or another. Kalish is up and is nearly an everyday player, the stories of McDonald and Nava have been well covered, and we also had a brief look at Reddick earlier in the season. With a call up yesterday, Reddick is back up for the remainder of the season and figures to split time in the outfield. In the game tonight Reddick didn't start, but subbed in for Drew in RF.

The other big call up is Lars Anderson, the former top prospect. Coming into this season there were several question marks about Anderson, but he answered them with a big start in AA

and held his own in AAA Pawtucket this summer as well, posting a .262/.340/.428 line over 400 at bats. Allow me to pat myself on the back for nailing his September call up, although it probably has a lot more to do with Youkilis' injury than Anderson's numbers. Anderson started at first base against the Rays tonight, going 0-4 with two strikeouts.

The other minor league player getting his first shot is Robert Coello, who like Anderson made his major league debut tonight. Unfortunately things didn't go well for Coello either, as he was tagged for 3 hits, two walks, and three earned runs over just one third of an inning of relief. Coello is a recent conversion to pitching, having failed to stick as a catcher in the Reds organization. Because of that, he's still very raw and has a tendency to walk a lot of batters. Originally a starter, Coello was converted to relief towards the end of the minor league season and had great success in the role. Hopefully the Red Sox will be able to get a good look at him and see if he'll be able to stick at middle relief.

A completely made up trade rumor

2010-09-06T13:58:00.002-04:00

According to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, Colby Rasmus is really unhappy with Tony LaRussa, going so far as requesting a trade. LaRussa has given away a good deal of Rasmus' playing time to the recent AAA call up Jon Jay (no, not that John Jay) because of Jon Jay's "savy", essentially referring to Rasmus' struggles with strikeouts this year (32.7% of his PA, 3rd worst in MLB behind two of the biggest all or nothing hitters in baseball - Mark Reynolds and Adam Dunn).

Despite the massive spike in strikeouts (up from 20% last year), there really is an awful lot to love about Rasmus this year. His jump in strikeouts has also been accompanied by an increase in walks, from 6.9% of his PA to 11.5%, allowing for a respectable OBP of .349, despite an average of only .264. Perhaps most importantly, Rasmus seems to be trading strikeouts for some very impressive power (.230 isolated power, which is slugging percentage minus batting average, and a .495 slugging percentage), especially for an up the middle player. Out of all full time center fielders, only Vernon Wells has a higher isolated power and no other full time center fielder had a higher OPS. To top it all off, Rasmus has played slightly above average fielder according to both the ultimate zone rating (UZR) as well as John Dewan's plus/minus system.

Personally, I think LaRussa is nuts for antagonizing the third best hitter on his team, especially considering that the Cardinals have an emerging star who is putting up these impressive numbers at 24 and would be under team control for another 4 seasons. But, Tony LaRussa works in strange ways. You can't argue with his track record, but I still think he's kind of nuts. This is a man who wears sunglasses during all games so his eyes don't give away anything about the signals he's giving baserunners.

Again, this is a completely unfounded rumor, but you have to wonder if the Red Sox and Cardinals would consider swapping "problem" outfielders, sending Ellsbury to St. Louis in exchange for Rasmus. The Sox front office has shown they have no problem with strikeouts if you're producing runs, and LaRussa has always valued, perhaps over valued, speed guys. The big impediment to any deal might be service time and age. Ellsbury, though hardly old, turns 27 on September 11 and is three full years older than Rasmus. As such, he doesn't really have a ton of growth left in his game - I doubt he's to be able to markedly improve on his 2009 numbers, particularly in the power department.

Rasmus, on the other hand, is only 23 and has tantalizing power for a center fielder. If he can learn to get the strikeouts down to similar numbers to his rookie season without giving up the power stroke he could be a superstar. Of course, he may need to cut down on his strikeouts in order to maintain some of his gains this year - Rasmus' overall numbers are buoyed by a .331 average on balls in play. Based on some off the cuff estimates and some guesses (25% K rate, 10% BB rate, similar 2B, HR, 3B/PA rates as this season) I ended up with a .261/.335/.474 projection. While an .800 OPS is very good for a center fielder, it falls well short of superstar level.

The other complicating factor is money. Next season, I believe that Rasmus will still be a prearbitration player, making only about $400,000 (poor guy), while Ellsbury will be arbitration eligible for the first time. Ellsbury's "lost" season will certainly depress his value, but with all the negatives stacked towards Ellsbury (age, cost, length of team control, injury history) in the end the Red Sox and Cardinals might not match up. If you're Theo Epstein I think you have to give the Cardinals GM a call about Rasmus in the offseason.

A few links that caught my eye

2010-09-03T11:53:00.003-04:00

Manny Delcarmen was lit up in his first appearance with the Rockies, resulting in what R.J. Anderson declared was "the most exciting inning of the night".

The Red Sox Beacon has a nice article on Felix Doubront in the bullpen. Given the Red Sox depth at starting pitcher and the weakness in the 'pen, I agree with their assessment that Felix could be in the bullpen to stay.

Baseball Prospectus has an interview with new top prospect Anthony Ranaudo.

And perhaps best of all, Joe Posnanski, who gets my vote for the best sports writer out there right now, has an article about Jeter's future defense, offense, and pay than fills me with glee.

Bye bye Manny

2010-08-31T16:23:00.005-04:00

But it is a different one this time. The Red Sox traded away Manny Delcarmen to the Colorado Rockies today in exchange for starting pitching prospect Chris Balcom-Miller. Delcarmen's fall from grace has been a precipitous one; in the 2007 and 2008 offseasons many writers and fans speculated that he could be traded, netting the Sox a starter elsewhere and putting Delcarmen into a closer role with his new team. Looking at his numbers, you can understand the excitement. Delcarmen posted a 2.05 ERA in 2007 and a 3.27 ERA in 2008, striking out more than 8 batters per nine innings and walking under 3.5. Since 2008, however, everything has gone down hill. Taking a look at the graphs of his various pitching rates. clearly shows a pitcher in decline. Delcarmen started striking out fewer hitters, walking more, and allowing more home runs. The walk rate, in particular is troubling, as it has climbed from about average (3.5 BB/9) to absolutely horrendous (5.73 BB/9), seventh worst in the AL among pitchers with 40 or more innings pitched. Really, the only thing keeping Delcarmen from being much worse than his 4.70 ERA was his .220 batting average on balls in play, instead of the average .300.

While it is a bit depressing to see the Red Sox "sell low" on a player, Delcarmen was getting worse while simultaneously getting more expensive as he was going to enter arbitration for the second time this offseason. Chris Balcom-Miller seems like a solid return for Delcarmen. Before the trade a Rockies blog had a small write up on him. I haven't been able to find a description of his stuff, which is key in projecting a pitching prospect, but he's posted very good numbers in the hitter friendly Pioneer League. His strikeout and walk numbers are very good (117 K and only 20 BB in 109 IP), but it is important to keep in mind that strikeout numbers typically drop and walk numbers typically rise as a pitcher moves up in the minors. According to one scouting report, Balcom-Miller has the upside to be a mid-rotation starter.

The other benefit is that I think this move will make the 2010 Red Sox a better team, even if their playoff hopes are pretty much dead. I figure Robert Manuel, recently named as the PawSox MVP will snag Delcarmen's roster spot. It seems that every single time I write about the 'pen, I have marvelous things to say about Manuel, but he really does deserve a shot. In 64 IP at AAA he put up a 1.68 ERA and a 0.92 WHIP. He'll have some competition for innings once the rosters expand, but the Red Sox need to get a look at him and see if he's a viable major league reliever.

As I was writing this the Red Sox called up Manuel to replace Delcarmen. Now let's see how he does.

Is this the end?

2010-08-21T15:14:00.002-04:00

Right now the Red Sox are 5.5 games behind the Rays for the wild card and 6.5 games behind the Yankees, with only 39 games to play. After a 16-2 drubbing from the Blue Jays last night, things certainly look pretty grim. And in case you had forgotten, Youkilis and Ellsbury are out for the year, and Pedroia is out for at least another two weeks.

Despite the injuries, the Sox have played fairly well this season, as their 69-54 record would put them within striking distance in any other division in the majors, and would even lead the AL West. However, when you're in the same division as the Yankees and Rays there really isn't any margin for error. Without a doubt the starting pitching has been a huge disappointment for the team this year. Although the starters' 4.21 ERA is more than half a run better than last year's numbers, the Red Sox rank in the AL and MLB as a whole is nearly identical. I suppose it really is the year of the pitcher. Of course, that half a run of ERA was given back by the bullpen, who have only been the 9th best in the AL this year, a far cry from last year's #2 ranking. That is a huge disappointment considering the Red Sox decision to go with pitching and defense this offseason.

Despite the insanity and inanity surrounding the decision to go with defense this offseason (the decision to go with pitching, which has apparently blown up in the Red Sox face, was not subjected to nearly the same amount of babbling on talk radio) the defense has actually been substantially better this year, despite having to play role players across the diamond. Pedroia, Drew, and Beltre are all among the leaders in UZR at their respective positions and the Red Sox moved up to 8th in baseball in park adjusted defensive efficiency, 10 spots better than last year's team, according to Baseball Prospectus' numbers.

It is still a bit early to do a post mortem on the season, as the season isn't all dead yet, just mostly dead. I wouldn't count on Miracle Max though, I hear he's a Yankee fan.

2010 Draft Breakdown

2010-08-20T11:41:00.002-04:00

With the signing deadline come and gone, we can now take a firmer look at the Red Sox draft. The top two picks, college hitters Kolbrin Vitek and Bryce Brentz. Both are currently in Low A; Bretz is struggling, hitting only .174 while striking out in 25% of his at bats, while Vitek is holding his own with a .793 OPS. It is far too early to draw any major conclusions about either player, however.

The big question marks in the Red Sox draft were the following two picks, college starters Brandon Workman and Anthony Ranaudo. As I wrote in my initial write up of the draft,and has been written about in many other places as well, Ranaudo was a highly rated prospect coming into the college season who struggled in his junior year. In order to raise his draft stock, Ranaudo decided to pitch in the Cape Cop league to prove he was healthy. He certainly did. Ranaudo was probably the most dominant starter in the league this summer, throwing 30 innings without allowing a single run, while striking out 31 and walking 8. It took right up until the deadline, but the Red Sox were able to get Ranaudo to sign for a $2.55 million bonus, the largest of their draft class.

Brandon Workman, a starter out of Texas, was also considered a relatively tough sign. Coming into the draft he was expected to go in the bottom half of the first round, but fell about 30 picks to the top of the second round at 57th overall. As with Ranaudo, Workman and the Red Sox were able to work out a deadline deal, with Workman signing for an $800,000 bonus, which is about the slot for a player selected slightly higher.

All told, the Red Sox managed to sign 14 of their top 15 draft picks, only failing to sign high school righty Tyler Barnette. It is always hard to analyze a draft right after it happens, but the talent the Red Sox ended up with in this year's draft seems awfully impressive. They ended up with four picks in Baseball America's top 30 rankings and managed to sign them all. To top it all off, the top 4 are all college players, who can replenish a farm system that is currently a bit depleted at the upper levels.

Non-baseball content?

2010-08-20T11:40:00.000-04:00

I was thinking of putting some links to photos and some write ups of my trip to Africa here. Would folks be interested in that?

Hiatus

2010-08-03T22:09:00.003-04:00

I'm afraid that there's going to be another big posting drought, as I won't have much time to work on blog entries while I'm in South Africa for the next two weeks. Don't give up on the Red Sox just yet; the last time Andrew and I were out of the country was late June through mid August of 2004 and the Sox managed .700 ball without us.

Minor dealings

2010-07-31T21:57:00.002-04:00

In the end, the Red Sox only made two small moves at the trade deadline. This wasn't all that surprising, given how little press had been devoted to legitimate trade rumors involving the team. Neither of the trades will help the team in 2010, and while they're not exactly waiving the white flag, it is hard to view them as serious contenders at this point, especially given the Yankees' additions. Of course, a nice run with a healthy lineup could change that.

In a straight 1-1 trade with the Giants, the Sox traded away Ramon Ramirez and picked up AA relief prospect Daniel Turpen. Turpen currently has a 4.04 ERA in AA, although he did pitch extremely well in 2009 across multiple levels. Not exactly a stud prospect, but Turpin was in San Francisco's top 40 entering the season. Ramon Ramirez wasn't able to reproduce the success he had with the Red Sox in 2009 when he posted a 2.84 ERA in nearly 70 innings. Along with Manny Delcarmen, who was also on the trading block but not moved, Ramirez contributed to a mediocre middle relief core, which had been a strength last year. Of course, if you actually look at the underlying numbers, the main difference between the 2009 version of Ramon Ramirez and the 2010 version is luck. In 2009 he was lucky, in 2010 wasn't. His strikeout rate, walk rate, and groundball rate all were similar in the two years.

In another trade, the Red Sox sent starting pitcher Roman Mendez, first base prospect Chris McGuiness, a player to be named later, and cash to the Rangers for perpetual prospect Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Since being a top 25 prospect in the Braves system and being the headliner for their Mark Teixeira deal, Saltalamacchia has struggled with injuries, ineffectiveness, and even a bit of Steve Blass disease in AAA this spring. The deal obviously depends on who the player to be named later is and how much cash is involved, but it doesn't appear like they gave up too much in this deal. Mendez has the ceiling to be a major league pitcher, but has struggled this year in the Sally League. McGuiness, who was also in the Sally League, was putting up very nice numbers in A ball this year (.298/.416/.504), but that is to be expected for a 22 year old polished college hitter. He was also fairly well blocked in the Red Sox farm system, with Anthony Rizzo at AA despite being a year younger and Lars Anderson at AAA, despite only being six months older. It isn't a bad price to pay for someone who could be your catcher of the future, but Saltalamacchia is hardly a sure thing. On the bright side, at least the Red Sox didn't trade Jon Lester to the Braves for Saltalamacchia, way back when.

Instead of addressing depth issues through trades, it looks like the Red Sox will try and use their farm system instead. Top outfield prospect Ryan Kalish was called up this afternoon, taking Jeremy Hermida's spot on the roster, and started in left field, going 2/4 with a run and a RBI. Starting pitching prospects Michael Bowden and Felix Doubront, a lefty, have been transitioned to the bullpen for the remainder of the season and will likely get some big league appearances. With the roster spot that was opened up by the Ramon Ramirez deal, the Sox called up left handed reliever Dustin Richardson. Finally, although the regular trade deadline has passed, the Sox may be able to add useful players through the waiver process, which is awfully complicated. The general gist of it is that if a player is expensive, the Red Sox may be able to snag him.

If I were Dayton Moore...

2010-07-29T19:29:00.005-04:00

The Royals are in their usual position of spinning off pieces at this trade deadline. Since they rarely have very good players, the deals they make are typically fairly small and address a need here or there. They've already traded away Alberto Callaspo to the Angels for Sean O'Sullivan and Will Smith, two nearly major league ready starting pitchers. Although neither are anything special, considering how bad the back of the Royals' rotation is, it isn't a bad deal. They also traded Scott Podsednik, a useful fantasy player, but a disaster if he's your starting left fielder, to the Dodgers for a couple of very minor prospects. Neither are expected to be major contributors at the major league level, but the key here is the Royals now have playing time opening up for their young and young-ish players stuck in the minors.

Right now, priority #1 has to be to trade Jose Guillen. Yes, he's owed $4.5 million on his disastrous 3 year, $36 million contract. No, he can't play defense. Yes, he's had repeated run ins with management and other players due to a bad attitude and lack of effort. But he can hit pretty well, and there are some teams out there (the Giants immediately come to mind) that have some pretty putrid outfielders of their own. I would call up Brian Sabean, especially now that some of his other targets have already been moved, and offer to eat the salary. Jose Guillen is a sunk cost. No matter what the Royals do, they're not going to be able to recoup that money - it is gone whether they trade him or not. Considering that they've already budgeted that money and the fact that ponying up the $4.5 million ought to net them a much nicer prospect, Moore just needs to suck it up and get whatever he can for Guillen. A solid, if unsexy, relief pitching prospect would be a nice find; the Royals' bullpen has very little depth beyond Soria and Robinson Tejeda. I'd try something similar with Rick Ankiel, although since he's coming off an injury and was not effective when he was healthy, it could be a very limited market.

With the two trades, my proposed trade for Guillen, and DeJesus' injury, the Royals would all of a sudden have loads of playing time. For the time being they've been playing Wilson Betemit at 3B. Betemit is a nice stop gap and a solid utility player, but come September, they ought to take a a look at Mike Moustakas at third base. Moustakas destroyed the ball at AA this year, and while he's currently struggling at AAA, he clearly is the third basemen of the future for them.

With Guillen gone, the Royals would need a full time DH. Thankfully, they have Kila Ka'aihue rotting in AAA. Despite years of terrible production at DH, the Royals have let Ka'aihue rot in AAA without ever giving him a chance with regular playing time. He put up a 1.000 OPS in AAA in 2008 at the age of 24, which earned him a call up, but he had a chance as a full time player. The following offseason, the Royals traded Leo Nunez for Mike Jacobs. Nunez has closer the last two years for the Marlins. Mike Jacobs put up a .297 OBP for the Royals in 2009 and was then non-tendered. Whoops. Ka'aihue slumped a bit in 2009, but has been unbelievably good at AAA again this year. According to Minor League Splits, his minor league equivalent OBP is .370, only the now injured David DeJesus and Billy Butler have higher OBPs.

Finally, the Royals need to play Alex Gordon and Mitch Maier full time from here on out. Maier is the only true center fielder under contract for next year, so they need to see if he can put up acceptable numbers or if they need to look elsewhere. Finally, Alex Gordon, the next George Brett, is now a left fielder. According to scouting reports, his defense has been solid. After missing most of last year with a hip injury and getting demoted this year, the Royals need to give him one last shot with regular playing time to see if they can salvage something out of this fallen top prospect. Despite his horrendous .573 OPS (which actually beats out fellow fallen 3B prospect Brandon Wood's .411 quite handily), there are reasons to hope. Gordon hit .315/.442/.557 in the minors, so if he can finally translate that minor league success to the majors, the Royals could have at least a league average left fielder on their hands.

Despite years of futility, there is some hope for the Royals. Beyond the players I've mentioned, they also have Eric Hosmer (1B) who is excelling as a 20 year old in AA and Mike Montgomery, an excellent 20 year-old left handed starting pitcher who also was promoted to AA this year. Some have gone so far as to say that the Royals have the best farm system in baseball. Making the little right moves, such as giving some older minor leaguers a shot, could help surround these up and coming young players with a nice supporting cast.

Insanity

2010-07-28T12:54:00.002-04:00

Scott Downs is a nice trading chip for the Blue Jays to have. In a year where a lot of teams are struggling with bullpen issues, Downs is clearly the best reliever on the market. Plus, as a lefty, he can fit into any number of roles in a bullpen, from 8th inning set up guy to the guy you turn to against tough left handed hitters. To top it all off, just like Billy Wagner last year, Downs is set to be a type A free agent, so if a team offers arbitration, they could net a first round draft pick and a sandwich round draft pick.

All of that does make him valuable, but these reports are just insane. According to George King of the NY Post and Jon Heyman of SI, the Jays asked the Yankees for Jesus Montero or Joba Chamberlain for Downs and asked the Red Sox for Casey Kelly or Jose Iglesias. I guess it doesn't hurt to ask, but hopefully Alex Anthopoulos knows that the days of trading a couple prospects for a reliever rental are long gone.

Yet another reason why Yankee Stadium (new or old) is terrible

2010-07-26T15:35:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately - I've been busy trying to close out my field season before a big trip to South Africa. For a quick, relatively content free post, enjoy yet another reason why Fenway Park is better than Yankee Stadium, courtesy of ESPN's rundown of vendor health code violations.

Fenway Park
Boston Red Sox
Vendors with critical violations: 4%

Inspection report excerpt: Inspectors found raw steak that had warmed to almost 60 degrees, which was above safe temperatures.

Yankee Stadium
New York Yankees
Vendors with critical violations: 48%

Inspection report excerpt: Five hot dogs registered 91 degrees in a hot-holding unit when they were supposed to be no cooler than 140. Inspectors also had a vendor dump a bottle of Chivas Regal whiskey containing dead fruit flies.

Are the dead fruit flies good luck like the worm in the tequila? (OK, it is really in mescal, if you're being picky about it)

Prospect Check Up: Michael Bowden

2010-07-06T21:17:00.006-04:00

The Red Sox recently announced that Michael Bowden, one of their more advanced pitching prospects, would be shifting from the rotation in Pawtucket to the bullpen. Coming in to the season, Bowden was among the best prospects in the Red Sox system, #8 according to Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus (subscription required), but outside of the top 10 according to Baseball America, perhaps due to his lack of upside. Given the fact that Felix Doubront has gotten a couple of spot starts over the last couple of weeks, it appears that he has leap frogged Bowden in the eyes of the front office. Bowden was ranked as high as he was due to safety; according to scouts, his ceiling is a mid to back end of the rotation starter, which makes it very hard for Bowden to crack the deep Red Sox pitching rotation. But he is one of the very few advanced prospects the Red Sox have, and coming into the season he looked like a useful depth player, but more valuable as a trading chip.

However, with the shift to the bullpen the Red Sox appear to be looking for ways that Bowden can contribute to the team this season. Bowden's numbers at AAA are excellent, both for this year (3.77 ERA, 1.1WHIP) and his career as a whole (3.39 ERA, 1.16 WHIP). However, Bowden's strikeout rate is pretty mediocre, sitting right around 6.3 K/9 for 2010 and his career in AAA. Knowing that strike out rates typically drop as pitchers move up levels, particularly when moving up to the majors, it is easy to see why the Red Sox don't view Bowden as a sure fire starter.

However, based on a study by Sean Smith (creator of the CHONE projections), switching from a start to a reliever typically increases strikeouts by about 15%. Considering how weak the bullpen has been this year, thanks to injuries and underperformers including expected 7th and 8th inning guys such as Delcarmen and Okajima, Bowden could play a major role down the stretch. That said, don't mistake him for Daniel Bard last season; Bowden doesn't have anywhere close to the strikeout rate or the upside, even out of the pen.

Delcarmen to DL, Sox call up Manuel

2010-07-02T19:23:00.002-04:00

Another day, another injury. After getting lit up for a couple of games, Manny Delcarmen admitted that he's been experiencing forearm soreness. While it is too bad that he didn't come forward with his injury right away, this is actually a step in the right direction for Delcarmen, who hid an injury during his horrid second half of 2009.

To take his place, the Red Sox have called up Robert Manuel. When the Sox acquired him in December, I did a detailed write up about him. I have a lot of faith in his minor league numbers and I think he could really contribute as a 6th or 7th inning guy. Manuel has continued his success in the minors this year (1.54 ERA, 0.95 WHIP). Manuel doesn't have dominating stuff, but does have excellent control and strikes out enough batters to have spectacular K:BB numbers.

Troubles at C

2010-07-02T00:12:00.004-04:00

Reports now have Tek on the DL with a broken foot, and he could be out 4-6 weeks. With V-Mart also on the DL and the Sox top two catching prosepcts on the DL as well, as Bill mentioned, that leaves them without a starting catcher. The Sox have traded for old friend Kevin Cash, though his production at plate horrendous. He's a career 0.188/0.250/0.291 hitter, though at least ZIPs projects him to hit 0.211/0.282/0.338. Their backup for the time being appears to be Gustavo Molina, who, before the Cash trade, was the only healthy catcher (out of five!) on the 40 man roster. Molina, a 28 year old right handed batter, was hitting 0.239/0.292/0.413 in Pawtucket this year.

Obviously, neither Cash nor Molina are going to hit much, but what impact will this have on the team offensively? Based on ZIPs projected rest of season stats, the dropoff from Victor Martinez to either Cash or Molina (their projected lines are very similar) looks to be about 4 runs over the 12 games Martinez will be on the DL, assuming he comes back after the minimum. Using the quick conversion of 10 runs to a win, the injuries to Martinez and Varitek look to cost the Sox about four tenths of a win. It's a number that is a lot lower than I expected, but it is assuming that Victor can come back after a minimum stay on the DL, and it isn't factoring in the other injuries at 2B, SP, and OF. All in all, those are starting to add up, especially in a tight AL East race. At this point I'd be happy if the Sox can just hold it together and play .500 ball until the All Star Break.

Meet the Red Sox new starting second baseman?

2010-06-28T18:17:00.002-04:00

The Red Sox traded for Eric Patterson, the younger brother of current Oriole Corey Patterson, in a minor deal last week. In return for Patterson, the Red Sox sent Oakland Fabian Williamson, a minor league relief pitcher that the Red Sox had received in exchange for David Aardsma. Hopefully Patterson can match the success that Aardsma has had since that deal.

Eric Patterson was drafted by the Cubs in the 8th round of the 2004 draft by the Cubs, after his junior year at Georgia Tech. Patterson moved relatively quickly through the Cubs system after being drafted, reaching AA in his first full minor league season and AAA in his second. After a full season in AAA at age 24 when he posted an 817 OPS, Patterson had a cup of coffee with the Cubs. Although he had come up through the system as a second baseman, Patterson was used as an outfielder in his 7 game stint with the Cubs.

This was the apex of Patterson’s value as a prospect, as he was ranked 6th in the Cubs minor league system. After a strong showing in AAA (870 OPS), but a poor one in the majors, Patterson was shipping to Oakland. Just as with the Cubs, Patterson hit well with the A’s AAA affiliate in Sacramento, but was terrible when called up to the big leagues. This pattern repeated itself in 2009, and after spending most of 2010 as a bench player for the A’s, Patterson was designated for assignment to make room for Coco Crisp, who was coming off the disabled list.

Despite his struggles at the major league level, there is a lot to like about Patterson’s tools. For starters, unlike his hacktastic brother, he has an excellent eye. One scout quoted in the 2010 Baseball Prospectus Annual said that he was half the athlete Corey Patterson was, but twice the ball player. Also, Patterson has elite speed and is an excellent base runner. He stole 43 bases in 49 tries in AAA in 2009, and has yet to get caught in 22 major league stolen base attempts. In one aspect he is similar to his brother – contact. Unfortunately, neither Patterson can make consistent contact with the ball, as Eric Patterson’s career strikeout rate of 28.4% of his major league at bats shows. However, he did post 15-20% strikeout rates throughout his minor league career, so there is some hope for improvement.

Perhaps the biggest hope for improvement is that no one has given him a shot at full playing time. Granted, his performance hasn’t warranted full PT, but his minor league numbers indicate that he could be a viable major league second baseman. Pedroia’s 6-week DL stint may give Patterson the regular time at second to establish himself. Even if Theo and Tito decide to platoon Patterson and the right handed hitting Bill Hall (although I don't think either of them view Hall as a real 2B), Patterson will get the fat part of the platoon. If he does adjust to big league pitching, Patterson could be a valuable utility player for the Red Sox for the remainder of the season and beyond, thanks to his ability to play multiple positions and his base running ability. Also, because Patterson only accumulated 0.144 worth of major league service time coming into the season, he will be cost controlled for at least another two years. Overall, I think this is a great gamble by the front office. Patterson certainly isn’t going to Wally Pip Pedroia, but he has the potential to fill a gaping hole for the team now, and be useful down the road.

Walking Wounded

2010-06-28T10:51:00.006-04:00

It has been a tough week for the Sox. A tragic gasoline fight accident amongst bullpen members left one game dead and another wounded in Colorado. Then, in a three game series against the Giants in San Francisco the Sox lost Pedroia for six weeks with a broken foot, Buchholz for a couple starts with a strained hamstring, and Victor Martinez for at least a few days with a broken thumb. These are just the latest in a rather long string of injuries for the team.

Update: So the Red Sox are going to place Victor Martinez on the DL after all. Hopefully he'll miss close to the minimum. With Mark Wagner and Dusty Brown, the two AAA catchers, on the minor league DL, it isn't clear who the back up will be. You wonder if the Red Sox will revisit Ianetta with the Rockies, although they've avoided making impulsive moves in the past.

The Sox "ace", Josh Beckett has missed about half his starts due to back and oblique injuries. When he was healthy enough to start, Beckett posted a gaudy ERA well over 7. If all goes right, Beckett would return in late July.

The expensive Japanese import, Daisuke Matsuzaka, has also missed about half of his starts for the team, mostly due to a sore fore arm. He has been solid, if unspectacular, in the nine starts he has been able to make, although it may be due to a bit of luck when it comes to keeping balls in the park (4.50 ERA vs a 5.13 xFIP, which is normalized for home run rate).

Even Clay Buchholz hasn't been spared. Trying to break up a double play in San Francisco on Saturday, Buchholz came up lame. Initially diagnosed with a hyper extended knee, Buchholz was later diagnosed with a minor hamstring tear. That sounds a lot scarier than it is; technically speaking, any strain is a tear. Buchholz is slated to be skipped in the rotation once, then return. The Red Sox have some flexibility here because they have two off days over the next week.

The guy who was supposed to lead the offense, Jacoby Ellsbury, has played all of NINE games all season, thanks to broken ribs courtesy of Adrian Beltre. Ellsbury was off the DL for a bit, before new fractures were discovered after he was unable to play effectively. Ellsbury is supposed to return sometime after the All Star Break, although very little information has been released since he went out to Athlete's Performance Institute in Arizone for rest and rehabilitation.

The player whose defense pushed Ellsbury from center field to left field, Mike Cameron, has battled an abdominal injury. At first, it was diagnosed as appendicitis, then kidney stones, but it turns out Cameron had kidney stones AND a tear in his abdominal wall. Ouch. This injury often requires surgery, but through rest and rehab, Cameron was able to come back after a month on the DL. However, for two weeks he wasn't able to play in consecutive games and is still bothered by pain from the injury.

Jeremy Hermida, the outfield depth for the Red Sox and one of the most talented 4th outfielders in the game, was another victim of a collision with Beltre. He was thankfully able to avoid breaking his ribs, instead just bruising them. Hermida has been out since June 9th and is looking at an early July return.

And finally we get to Pedroia, who Buster Olney argues is one of the most irreplaceable players in the game. The Sox are extremely weak at 2B in the farm system and off the bench, and even some of the players in the minors who might be able to fill in are hurt, such as Jose Iglesias, who broke his finger a week ago and Tug Hullet, who had been signed to be their back up infielder, has been horrendous in AAA. The Sox did snag Eric Patterson in a trade with the A's, although he's only slightly more of a real 2B than Bill Hall is. Patterson's minor league numbers are outstanding (.309/.363/.487 over 1300 AAA at bats), but he's struggled in his major league career (.224/.301/.340). We'll see if he can pull a Nava.

Yet somehow, despite all of this, the Red Sox are leading the wild card and only a game back of the Yankees. To start the season, if you had told me Beckett was going to miss half his starts and Ellsbury would have only played nine games by July 1, I would have taken 5 games back of the wild card in a heartbeat. I am not really sure how they've managed to do it, but they're just winning games.

Remembering the importance of small sample size

2010-06-26T23:50:00.005-04:00

When doing any sort of statistical analysis, it can be really, really easy to fall prey to drawing conclusions based on a small sample, particularly when it fits with the overall story you are trying to tell about a player. Our minds try to create a pattern out of everything, even if it's more than likely (statistically speaking) just noise. Baseball statistics are no different, and in my curiosity I began looking in to it, figuring baseball statisticians that were both smarter and harder working than me had already figured it out. Lo and behold, I was right. Many statistics very quickly (swing rate for batters stabilizes within 50 PAs), while others, such as isolated power for a hitter or a pitchers walk rate, take most of a season. Here is a summary for when statistics for batters and pitchers stabilize, and for the more adventurous, the full, more detailed article is available as well, which goes in to the methods used to calculate these numbers. So, whether you are looking at a players stats trying to figure out if they'd be a good trade target in fantasy baseball, or trying to figure out why David Ortiz gets off to a slow start every April, keep these numbers in mind before drawing any conclusions.

Piling On: Some thoughts on Stephen Strasburg

2010-06-22T21:57:00.003-04:00

Unless you live in a hole, you’re probably aware that Stephen Strasburg is a pretty good baseball player. In his three starts, he’s gone 2-0, with a hard luck no decision on Friday night. A lot has been made of Strasburg’s strike out totals, and rightly so. Strasburg struck out more batters in his first three starts than any other pitcher in MLB history. Currently, Strasburg’s strike outs per nine innings pitcher (K/9) sits at a preposterous 14.9. For some perspective, Tim Lincecum had a K/9 of 10.42, the highest for any pitcher who qualified for the ERA title. Looking at relievers, Jonathon Broxton led the way, with a K/9 of 13.50. In fact, Strasburg’s strike out rate is nearly identical to Eric Gagné’s MLB record of 14.98. Of course, Strasburg’s numbers are “au naturel”, unlike Gagné’s performance enhancing drug tainted numbers.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Strasburg has been his efficiency so far. In this era, pitch counts are heavily scrutinized from both ends – too few pitches and the old timers start to rant about back in their day pitchers would routinely throw 130, too many and you start to have people complain about a manager running a young arm into the ground. And that does happen; just look at the damage Dusty Baker did to Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, both of whom had similar amounts of hype surrounding them as Strasburg. In order to protect their investment, the Nationals have played it safe and kept Strasburg on a relatively tight pitch count. In his three starts, he’s yet to top 95 pitches. That makes his strikeout totals even more impressive. You see, keeping a pitch count low and striking out a ton of batters simply don’t go hand in hand. From a common sense standpoint, you can induce a weak grounder with one pitch, but a strikeout takes at least three.

So far in his admittedly brief major league career, Strasburg is averaging 14.2 pitches per inning. That puts him in elite company, with some of the most efficient starting pitchers from 2009 – Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter. But just how exactly does he do it? Swinging strikes, and lots of them. Batters are currently only making contact with 35% of his pitches out of the zone, compared to the MLB average of 66%. Unsurprisingly, Strasburg is leading the league in swinging strike percentage (15.8%, well ahead of second place Tim Lincecum). Not only that, but Strasburg is also top 3 in the league in generating swings on pitches out of the zone. Most guys that generate swings on pitches outside of the zone are command/control guys, who, if you’re feeling mean, could be labeled junk balers – Carl Pavano, for example. The intersection of guys who get batters to swing at a lot of pitches outside of the zone and guys who get lots of swings and misses when a pitch out of the zone is pretty much just Strasburg.

There are a couple of caveats, despite his amazing start. First, Strasburg hasn’t faced the strongest competition so far. The White Sox, Indians, and Pittsburgh are all in the bottom third of the league in terms of offense against right-handed pitchers, and the White Sox were without the benefit of a DH. Also, Strasburg doesn’t throw very many pitches in the zone. To a certain extent, this may be because he doesn’t have to, as evidenced by his ability to generate swings outside of the zone and because of his stuff, but the league may catch up to him a bit. Finally, we are talking three starts so far, but man, have they been impressive.

Update: Strasburg pitches on national television for the first time tonight, Monday, June 28, facing the Braves on ESPN 2. Sadly, Braves uber-prospect Jason Heyward will miss the game with a sore thumb. For those of you like me, who haven't had a chance to see him yet, this is a great opportunity.

Getting to know Felix Doubront

2010-06-18T00:24:00.002-04:00

It looks like Felix Doubront will be called up for one or two startsto fill in for Daisuke Matsuzaka, so I thought folks might be interesting in learning a little more about him. Doubront is a tall and skinny 22 year old right hander, and was signed as an international free agent at age 16 out of Venezuela, and has spent six years in the Sox system. He throws a fastball in the low 90s , a plus changeup, and an inconsistent curveball. The changeup is his probably his best pitch, and as such he’s had a reverse platoon split in the minors. Baseball America rated him as the 18th prospect in the system. Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus didn’t rank him in the top 15, and described him as “just kind of a generic solid lefty for me. [He’s] not a bad prospect, but not special.”

That said, this season Doubront has succeeded at both AA and AAA, and seems to have taken a step forward, cutting down on his walks and improving his strikeout to walk ratio. His overall numbers are solid- 6-1 with an ERA of 2.11 while striking out nearly a batter an inning and walking 3.3/9. Doubront is a groundball pitcher, and has yet to give up a homerun this season. Normal caveats about small sample sizes apply, since it has only been 60 innings in the minors, but if this improvement in limiting homeruns and keeping the ball on the ground is for real, the Sox could have a solid, inexpensive backend starter or swingman. Even if he’s not ready for the majors now, Doubront could still develop into a major league starter, given his young age.

Andrew’s wild ass guess stat line for Doubront’s start against the Dodgers:
5 1/3 IP, 3 Ks, 2 BBs, 6 hits, 3 runs

For further reading about Felix Doubront, or for his minor league stats, check out these links.

Red Sox 2010 Draft Signings

2010-06-14T13:55:00.002-04:00

So far the only major picks to sign are Kolbrin Vitek (20th overall), who signed at the "slot" suggested bonus by MLB of $1.4 million and Bryce Brentz, who also signed at slot ($877,000). Workman, who was Baseball America's 16th overall player in the draft, and Anthony Ranaudo may be very difficult to sign. Ranaudo is represented by Scott Boras and is reportedly looking for top 10 bonus money, due to Ranaudo's status as the consensus #1 college pitcher and #2 prospect overall coming into this season. If either player signs over slot, then the Red Sox cannot officially sign them until the August 14th deadline. The rule is Bud Selig's clumsy attempt to rein in bonuses, despite the clear benefit for teams to go over slot; essentially, the thinking is that players cannot use deals signed by other prospects as leverage.

A closer look at a late round pick

2010-06-11T22:40:00.002-04:00

Alex McCree, a senior from Georgia, was just drafted by the Dodgers in the 17th round. He is a former student of mine, so I took a closer look at his numbers and potential, and found some interesting things. To start, McCree is a very tall (6'6") left hander, with a plus fastball. Working as a short reliever this season, McCree struck out an incredible 38 batters in 22 1/3 innings while only 18 hits. Unfortunately, he also walked 32 and hit 6. Thanks to those numbers, an incredible 64% of the batters faced didn't put the ball in play.

Given how long a left handed reliever can have, plus how project-able McCree is, it seems like a good use of a 17th round pick by the Dodgers. The Dodgers clearly like his potential, as he was also a late round pick last year, as well, but instead he opted to return for his senior season. The key from here on out is going to be control; hopefully McCree will be able to return to his sophomore year form, when he posted a much more manageable 2.94/9 innings.

An interesting intersection of ecology and baseball

2010-06-10T22:53:00.005-04:00

So just what exactly do the lake sturgeon, chironomid larvae, and the 2007 Red Sox world championship have to do with one another? More than you probably realize. The lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens, center) was once one of the most abundant fish species in the Great Lakes. However, thanks to demand for its meat and eggs and human development, the lake sturgeon is now uncommon. Despite their massive size (the largest individuals can be >6' and 200+lbs), sturgeon eat lots and lots of small organisms, like midge fly larvae in the upper left. Most of the large fish (salmon and lake trout mostly) that were introduced in the Great Lakes are piscivorous, meaning they eat other fish. If you're still here, stick with me. We'll get to baseball eventually, I swear.

Once the lake sturgeon population declined, the chironomid worm population exploded, thanks to the lack of predators. Not only were there no longer lake sturgeon to eat them, but the salmon introduced into the lake ate many of the smaller fish that normally would have eaten the chironomids too. The ecological term for this kind of interaction is a trophic cascade - basically, the change at the top of a food web can work its way down the food web. So what do lots and lots of chironomid larvae have to do with baseball? Perhaps you remember the common name for one species of chironomid - Canadian soldiers.

After the Indians dispatched the Yankees, the Sox were able to overcome a 3-1 deficit to advance to the World Series. And that, of course, led to the above right photo.

Red Sox 2010 Draft, Day 1

2010-06-08T12:21:00.006-04:00

The first round as well as the sandwich round of the MLB draft finished was yesterday. The Sox selected at 20, 36, and 39. Picks 20 and 39 are from the Atlanta Braves signing Billy Wagner, while pick 39 is for the Mets signing Jason Bay. Because the Mets finished in the bottom half of the league, their first round pick was protected. Instead, the Red Sox will receive the Mets 2nd round pick, which is 57th overall. The Red Sox also lost their first round pick to the Blue Jays to compensate the Jays for the signing of Marco Scutaro.

Unlike last year, when the Red Sox selected Puerto Rican high schooler Reymond Fuentes with their only first or sandwich round selection, the Red Sox went with three college players this year: 3B Kolbrin Vitek at 20, OF Bryce Bretz at 36, and SP Anthony Ranaudo at 39.

Vitek was originally a second baseman in college, however very few teams believed he could stay there in the big leagues. Because of his excellent speed, many teams thought he would end up as a center fielder, although according to Pete Abraham at the Globe, the Red Sox seem to have him pegged as a third baseman.

Both Bryce Brentz and Anthony Ranaudo are juniors who had disappointing seasons after strong sophomore years. The Red Sox have tried to use this strategy in the past, drafting current Indians prospect Matt Laporta in the 14th round in 2005. It is a much bigger commitment to use a sandwich round pick, however, so the Red Sox must be hopeful they can sign both players. Ranaudo is a huge (6'7") right hander who can hit 95 MPH at times, but typically in the low to mid 90's. According to the scouting report from ESPN, he also has a deceptive delivery. Ranaudo missed some time early this season with a minor elbow injury, and ended up posting some fairly ugly numbers in 11 starts and 4 relief appearances - a 7.32 ERA and a 1.68 WHIP. However, the Red Sox are banking on his upside here, as he was exceptional in 2009, with a 3.04 ERA and 159 strike outs in 124 innings.

As an aside, the list of players the Red Sox have drafted, but failed to sign is pretty amazing. They include this year's 12th pick, catcher Yasmani Grandal, who dropped because of signability concerns, current Pirates top prospect Pedro Alvarez, the aforementioned Matt Laporta, and finally, Mark Teixeira. For those who enjoy learning missed opportunities like these, Fangraphs has been running a series on "The Ones that Got Away", the best players who were drafted, but not signed.

Bryce Brentz was hobbled by a stress fracture in his ankle during most of the season. He only missed a handful of games, but his junior season was considered a disappointment. While a .348/.444/.636 with 18 home runs is nothing to sneeze at, it is a let down following a .465/.541/.930 sophomore year. Another thing to keep in mind is that the level of competition is highly variable in college baseball, so numbers from the Sun Belt conference aren't equivalent to numbers from the SEC. Despite the weaker competition, ESPN's Scouts Inc wrote that he could end up second best college hitter in the draft, behind uber-prospect Bryce Harper.

Overall, the Sox seem to have done pretty well with the draft. Of course, it is impossible to really determine how good a draft is until you get four or five years down the line, but they scooped up some players who were viewed as potential top ten guys coming into this season. Keith Law listed the Red Sox among his "winners" of day 1 of the draft, and Epstein seems pretty pleased with it too, saying "We felt the draft broke our way."

Update: As I was writing this, the Red Sox picked another college pitcher, Texas SP Brandon Workman. Jason Churchill, of ProspectInsider.com writes that the Sox have received "absurd value" so far. Also, he noted that because all four draftees have been college players, they could make an impact soon.

The Advantages of Being Unique

2010-06-02T00:13:00.003-04:00

Tim Wakefield is just about as unique as you can get in terms of a career path. He's been waived by the Pirates in his 20's, posted solid seasons starting and in the bullpen for the Sox, including one extraordinarily nerve wracking stretch as closer, and made his first All Star Game in his 40's. Throughout most of his career, Wakefield has been one of the only knuckleballers in the league. In the first half, you did have Steve Sparks in Detroit, and in the 2000's you had the occasional R.A. Dickey sighting, but hasn't been another established knuckleballer, particularly in the National League. At this point, Wakefield has been in the league long enough that most players in the AL have faced him a few times and at least have an idea of what they're getting into. However, because Wakefield was the only knuckleballer National Leaguers were facing, before this year with Dickey's resurgence and the rough start that Charlie Haeger has had in LA, I wondered - did National Leaguers fare worse against Wakefield because of the rarity of his pitch selection?

To start out, I limited the search to 2005 to 2009. I didn't include this year because I wanted to avoid confirmation bias by including Wakefield's marvelous start against the Phillies. Over that stretch, Wakefield made 138 starts - 119 against the AL and 19 against the NL. Against AL opponents, Wakefield was slightly worse than the average AL starter in every single category.

	Wakefield	Avg AL Starter
K/9	5.62	6.16
BB/9	3.13	3.00
K:BB	1.80	2.05
HR/9	1.23	1.12

Except, of course, in ERA and WHIP. Wakefield's ERA for 2005 to 2009 was slightly better than the AL average starter (4.61), as was his WHIP. The reason for Wakefield's success is quite simple, while most pitchers give up a batting average on balls in play (BABIP) of about .300 and have very little control over that number, knuckleballers give up a lower BABIP, presumably due to weaker contact. Unsurprisingly, Wakefield's BABIP for this five year stretch was .258, compared to .307 in the AL for the same time frame. Those extra few outs make a difference, allowing Wake to succeed despite unimpressive underlying numbers. Now that we understand how Wakefield succeeds, how does he do against the NL? The answer? He does awfully well. For comparison's sake, I've left Wakefield's AL numbers in the table.

	Wakefield vs AL	Wakefield vs NL	Avg NL Starter
ERA	4.54	3.66	4.46
WHIP	1.31	1.17	1.39

In 19 starts against the NL, Wakefield was transformed from a league average pitcher to a great #2. It is always nice to see your observations borne out by the data, but why did Wakefield do so much better against NL opponents? Were they just making weaker contact, resulting in an even lower BABIP? Striking out more often?

	Wakefield vs AL	Wakefield vs NL	Avg NL Starter
K/9	5.62	5.61	6.47
BB/9	3.13	2.54	3.19
K:BB	1.80	2.21	2.03
HR/9	1.23	0.82	1.09
BABIP	0.259	0.251	0.303

As you can see from above, the answer is neither. Both his K rate and BABIP are essentially the same, instead, National League batters are walking less often against Wakefield and hitting fewer homeruns. Some of this might be attributable to facing the pitcher or small sample sizes (a pitcher can definitely get lucky home run wise in half a season's worth of starts), but I would guess it is a change in approach. NL players who are unfamiliar with the knuckleball may be more aggressive, causing a decrease in walk rates. Looking at pitch per plate appearance data would be one way to nail this down, but unfortunately that isn't readily available to me.

Others have done some really cool work on the knuckleball using PitchFX data, such as this article by John Walsh at Hardball Times from a few years ago.

And the Jays do it again!

2010-05-26T01:23:00.002-04:00

Less than a week after scoring six runs on six solo home runs against Dan Haren and the Diamondbacks' bullpen, the Blue Jays scored three runs off of four hits against Ervin Santana. Three of these hits were, you guessed it, solo home runs. To go with their nine home runs in those two games, the Blue Jays also struck out nineteen times, while walking once. To reverse an old baseball saying, you can't hit a solo home run if someone is clogging up the bases!

Is Ortiz' Resurgence Sustainable?

2010-05-24T00:24:00.004-04:00

David Ortiz has had a spectacular May so far (.351/.397/.754 with 7 HR), pushing back the questions of whether or not the Red Sox would have to cut him. In order to answer whether or not this start was sustainable, I dug into the underlying numbers a bit more. I should probably start with a fairly standard caveat about small sample sizes, particularly with the monthly data. I believe that some of these differences are striking enough to be "real", rather than an artifact due to sample size.

Looking at Ortiz' dismal April and excellent March, there were a few major changes that jumped out to me. To begin with, he cut down on his ground ball percentage from 45.7% to 20%. Ground ball rates are a nice way to look at batted ball data; unlike differentiating between a fly ball and a line drive, there is no qualitative decision when it comes to ground balls. 45% was slightly below average to begin with, but 20% would have been the lowest in the majors in 2009. Cutting down on ground balls is very advantageous for Ortiz for two reasons: first, he is incredibly slow. Last year, Baseball Prospectus "valued" his base -2.4 runs. Second, because Ortiz typically pulls the ball on the ground, the shift kills the effectiveness of ground balls. Unsurprisingly, Ortiz' batting average on ground balls is .125 this season, compared to a league wide average of .250. By eliminating ground balls, Ortiz is getting rid of nearly automatic outs. Keeping his ground ball percentage low would go a long way to maintain his resurgence; while Ortiz has never had a month with so few ground balls, Carlos Pena did only hit a grounder in 29% of his at bats last year, so it isn't unheard of.

The other aspect that Ortiz has improved in May is he is hitting for more power. After having only 7.1% of his fly balls leave the park in March and April, Ortiz currently has a home run per fly ball rate of 30% for May. While this isn't a career high, no one topped 26% in 2009 (Mark Reynolds) and you have to go back to his heyday in the mid-2000's to see any month with similar power production. At this point in his career, I think we can safely say those days are behind us. However, if Ortiz can continue to replace ground balls with fly balls, a regression in the effectiveness of the fly balls may be offset by simply hitting more fly balls. As far as the good news goes, if Ortiz continues to hit 30% ground balls, he should still approach 25 or 30 home runs. If that ground ball rate climbs back up to 40% or 50%, his average and slugging are going to plummet.

As a fun side note, Emilio Bonifacio had the fewest home runs per fly ball in 2009 (1.1%), with one . This home run was hit on opening day, when he also went 4/5 and stole 3 bases. Needless to say, it was all downhill from there.

I'm afraid that the paragraphs above constitute the good news; beyond the successful changes, there are some very scary trends. As a hitter ages, they typically have increased walk and strikeout rates. The general thinking behind this is that as bat speed slows, a hitter becomes more selective. At first glance, David Ortiz seems to confirm this. He's seen 4.57 pitches per plate appearance this year, versus a career high of4.19 coming into this season and his strikeout rates are up to 34.5%, versus a career high of 24.8% last year. Although his strikeout rate for May is lower than in March and April (37% vs 31%, although with only 63 PA in each month, we're looking at a difference of a couple strike outs), it is still higher than any single month during the 2009 season. While Ortiz has seen his strikeout rate increase, his walk rate has actually decreased both in 2010 as a whole, and during his productive May relative to April. Currently, his walk rate for 2010 is the lowest since 2002, his last year with the Twins, perhaps due to a career high in swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. Although the pitches per plate appearance are up, it does not appear to be due to any kind of improved plate discipline.

While Ortiz has been marvelous this May, I believe the underlying numbers are cause for concern. While the change in his batted ball profile make him more likely to be a valuable member of the Red Sox, I believe that his poor plate discipline will eventually catch up with him. Perhaps due to his poor start in 2009 and 2010, more pitchers have been willing to challenge him, allowing for his aggressive approach to pay off. I'm afraid that once the league recognizes the fact that he still has a substantial amount of power, we'll be back to seeing bail out swings on sliders down and away. Hopefully I'm wrong, but if Ortiz becomes unproductive again, things could get very ugly between Ortiz, the team, and the media. In fact, even though he's hitting now, Ortiz is already lashing out at the media, particularly Buster Olney, who questioned Ortiz' ability to get around on an inside fastball.

Prospect Check Up: Anthony Rizzo called up to AA

2010-05-22T15:43:00.002-04:00

I missed this news when it happened a week or so ago, but Anthony Rizzo was called up to AA recently, taking starting 1B spot recently vacated by Lars Anderson's promotion to AAA. Rizzo's final line at high A Salem was .248/.333/.479. The average is a bit lower than you'd like to see, although the questions surrounding him coming into this season were about his power potential. Rizzo is off to a nice start in AA, with nearly as many walks as strikeouts, and a couple of home runs in 34 at bats.

Since I can't talk about one without talking about the other, Lars Anderson is also doing fairly well at AAA, after destroying AA for a month. So far Anderson is hitting .250/.375/.476 with a couple of home runs. I'd say the most impressive thing about his play so far in AAA is his approach - while his strikeout totals have been high, he's showing a very nice batting eye. The strikeouts are something to keep an eye on though - he's striking out in 30% of his plate appearances so far in AAA and even when he was hitting extraordinarily well in AA.