Coming from a Red Sox fan alot of people are going to think this is biased, however, there is logic behind my madness. There is good reason to believe that not only should Teixeira NOT get the award, but he shouldn't even be in the running for the award.

We all know that the writer's association gets this award totally bass ackwards most of the time. Joe Mauer is the clear winner of this award. He will not get it though because he plays for a bad team. I can agree with this to an extent but Mauer is having a year of the ages, possibly the best year EVER by a catcher. You could even make the argument that he is more valuable then Pujols because he plays a much harder position and is putting up almost as good of offensive numbers.

Could the Writer's Association give the award to someone else if Mauer batted .400?

Ok, so Mauer is probably out. Why not Teixeira? He is the best player on the best team. Wait......Isn't Derek Jeter on that team? Derek Jeter is hitting a line of .330/.394/.471/.865 good for a wOBA of .384. Very good numbers but are they better then Mark Teixeira? Teixeira is hitting a line of .283/.382/.553/.934 good for a wOBA of .397. It does seem that Teixeira is hitting much better then Jeter.

Then of course we have to take into consideration that Jeter plays the second hardest position on the field well above average (UZR of 5.6) and Teixeira plays average defense at the easiest position on the field (UZR of -0.8). This more then makes up for for his slight difference in hitting.

Wait........WE LOVE THE HR BALL!!!!! Oh yeah, the argument that fans love the HRs. Jeter just can't put up the same as Teixeira. Well Jeter is out then too. Well there are alot of good HR hitting 1B like Teixeira in the AL, lets look at some of them.

Kevin Youkilis has hit a line of .310/.424/.563/.987 good for a wOBA of .421. Youkilis has been a force at the plate when healthy. However, the time he missed as killed him and only has 20 HR to date because of it. Even though he has played better defense (and multiple positions) then Mark Teixeira, he will not get the respect he deserves because he only 20 HR compared to Teix's 30 HR. Besides.........Youk is a Red Sox player of course I would pick him.

Miguel Cabrera has hit a line of .334/.400/.552/.952 good for a wOBA of .406. He also has 24 HRs and plays average defense (UZR of 0.8). He also belongs to a winning ball club. He plays the same position as Teixeira and plays for a team that is leading their respective division. Did I also mention he has hit the ball better and fielded the ball better then Teixeira?

One thing that has been a constant all year has been our Bullpen. It is the best in the Majors with a 2.92 ERA. However, how good has it been? If you look at some of the side stats we are not as dominating as it may seem. We are currently 7th in FIP with 3.93. We also have the highest LOB% of any bullpen with a staggering 80.9%.

This has alot to do with our 3rd lowest HR/FB ratio of 6.9%. On the other hand we also have by far the highest IFFB% of 15.6%. This seems pretty reasonable considering we have alot of "fastball" style pitchers that will give up the homeruns once and a while but also get alot of pop ups. The "lower" FIP seems to indicate that the bullpen will start to come back down to earth (which they already seem to have).

Looking at our bullpen, there really does not seem to be a weak link. Almost every pitcher seems to be capable of being a closer on any other team. In previous years you could tell who would be coming in for what inning. (2007, Delcarmen or Lopez for the 7th, Oki for the 8th, and Paps for the 9th) This year, other than the 9th inning, I never have any idea who will be brought in to pitch. I asked the question earlier in preseason, Who should Tito put in more high pressure situations. Currently the gmLI or leverage index for when a pitcher comes into the game order has been Paps (1.70), Oki (1.60), RamRam (1.41), Masterson (1.07), Delcarmen (0.96), Saito (0.49), and Bard (0.32).

Overall, our Bullpen has been great and has given us a record better then we should have (see 3rd degree runs scored/allowed). Their results have been slightly better than they have been performing and we could see a drop during the season. On the flip side, I think Paps has lost some control and will probably get it back and Bard is only going to get better. Don't worry Red Sox Nation, the bullpen will be incredible all season long.

Some random bullpen Tidbits. Highest K/9 Oki (9.72). Lowest BB/9 RamRam (2.97). Best FIP Bard (3.00). Worst FIP RamRam (4.43). Look for RamRam to crash, he is not pitching well enough for his 1.89 ERA.

With Smoltz ready to join the Red Sox this week, there is a serious log jam in our Starting pitching. I agree that this is a good problem to have, but I still think it's a problem. Many writers are saying the Red Sox do not need to trade a pitcher away, quoting the past seasons (such as the Bronson Arroyo Trade) as reasons not to trade away pitching. I disagree. This year is much different then past years. Currently we have 8 or 9 players who could be starting pitchers for the Red Sox. All of them would most likely perform at an above average performance.

This just isn't fair to the 3 or 4 pitchers that will not get to start because of it. Those 3 or 4 would be starters on any other MLB team and top of the rotation guys on some teams. Theo currently says he is not looking to trade Brad Penny because he enjoys having a surplus. I think this is a just a way to bring more demand for him. It will make the Sox seem not as eager to trade away a player.

I think right now there are many teams in limbo of whether or not to buy or sell. Once these teams determine their status, the demand for Penny will be even more. More and More teams will need starting pitching. Especially this year, there is not much on the market for starting pitching. Theo knows that Penny is pitching well and will keep raising his stock, maybe even to the level of Type B for free agency.

I think someone will be traded by the deadline. It just seems to stupid not to get something in return.

Yeah you heard me correctly. The Boston Red Sox are now 2nd to last in the Majors in UZR/150, second only to the Nationals. This can't keep going on if we expect to be contenders this year. As a team we have already lost -20.3 runs due to just defense. Defense is where a team gains confidence. A pitcher will pitch better knowing that he has the defense behind him to make the close plays. A hitter will relax more at the plate when he knows that they can hold a team to the amount of runs they have.

A lot of the talk lately has been what bat the BoSox should go and get. We should really be looking for a glove instead. Our offense has been good, if not great. We are 7th in the majors in run scored and 4th in wOBA. We need to focus more on improving our defense. I know that having a back-up SS all year long has not helped and a back-up 1B for part of the season has hurt alot too. However there are alot of other weak links in our defense.

Our 3 best fielders, in terms of UZR, are you guessed it: Pedroia, Drew, and Youkilis with 2.7, 1.7 and 1.7 respectively. Surprisingly our 4th best fielder was Bailey at 1B with 0.9.

Our 3 worst fielders, in terms of UZR, are the left side of our field: Bay, Lugo, and Lowell with -8.5, -5.3, and -5.2. Can you guess who our 4th worst fielder is? Still on the left side, Nick Green with -3.2.

Jason Bay has been the worst so far but he also played more games then the others. With UZR/150 Bay is only slightly worse then Lowell at  -13 and -12.7 respectively. Lugo and Green have been much worse in respect to UZR/150 the Bay or Lowell. Lugo and Green have posted -33.6 and -16.6 respectively

We really need Lowrie to come back quickly, if only for his defense. If Ortiz does not start hitting HR every 3 games by the end of the month, I think we need to make room in the DH position for either Lowell and/or Bay. With those two platooning at DH we can easily give alot of playing time for Baldelli in LF, Nick Green at 3B, or Kotsay at 1B. There is also room to sign a dependable defensive player at SS, 3B or OF. Either way, we need to make defensive adjustments in the near future or the playoff bound Red Sox ship will be sinking rather quickly.

There has been alot of talk about trading one of our prospects for a hitter. We have been debating which hitter to get, but we haven't really discussed what pitcher we should get rid of. Please keep in mind that some prospects are worth more then others Buch>>Bard. I did not put Penny on this list because any player we get for him would not help our hitting this year. We would end up getting a lower tier prospect and isn't really worth talking about.

The third part of our projection series is our outfield. The criteria to be projected for each player is .wOBA, PA, Fielding, and Baserunning.

wOBA, created by Tom Tango, is a version of linear weights that has been weighted to fit an OBP scale. The weights have been properly adjusted by season and for the minor leagues by season and by league. For the 2009 projection I used the linear average of Bill James, CHONE, and Marcel.

For fielding I used Ultimate Zone Rating from fangraphs. UZR is the number of runs above or below average a fielder is in both range runs and error runs combined. For the projection I took each player's last 3 full years at the postion and took the linear average of all 3. If a player does not have 3 full years.I took what data was available at the postion. I then normalized the data for 182 games.

For baserunning, which includes both SB/CS info and non-SB/CS info. I used Baseballprospectus stats from last year. I am assuming they will run the same next year.

Please note that I put Balldelli and Kotsay in RF because it is in the middle of difficulty. Not as hard as CF but harder to play then LF.

Please respond with feedback. Thank You

This post is in reply to a previous post on relief pitching. We are trying to determine the leverage index for the relief pitching. We know that the Papelbon will be the closer. We also know that we have alot of great relief pitching that could all be potential setup men. Tito will have his time to pick and choose when and where to use each pitcher.

We need your help to determine the how Tito will use the pitchers most effectively.

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Part 2 of our community projection project is Relief Pitching. Again the Innings pitched are the average of Bill James, CHONE, and Marcel's 2009 projections. The ERA is the same average of Bill James, CHONE and Marcel's 2009 projection of each pitchers FIP. The innings for each pitcher was modified in slight amounts so the total of all pitchers was 505.

Another number on the graph is the Leverage Index. Many of you who visit Fangraphs site for the win probability charts or read Tom Tango's articles already know what LI is.

Leverage Index is a measure of how important a particular situation is in a baseball game depending on the inning, score, outs, and number of players on base. LI was created by Tom Tango. These LI's can also be modified for our project. Closer's are set at 1.8 and setup men are set at 1.3. The average of all our relief pitchers need to be 1, this means many of the pitchers are well below 1.

I am pretty sure most, if not all of you, would put Papelbon as our closer. However, I know there will be debate in who our setup man, our 8th inning guy, or Mop up guy will be. I would love to get feedback from everyone on who you feel WILL be (not what you think SHOULD be) Terry Francona's pitcher of choice. You should do this by putting the relief pitchers in order of "go to" guy. The best way to think of it is, if Papelbon is not able to close the game in a close game, who would Tito have pitch? As an example, I put my list in a comment below.

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Next Post: Outfield

Most of you saw my earlier post on the community project on Beyond the Boxscore. I have made some changes to my spreadsheet due to the feedback I received. This time instead of posting the whole spreadsheet I am going to do it in segments.

Today's section is starting pitchers. The projection will be of each pitchers innings pitched and their ERAs. The ERA's listed are the average of Bill James, CHONE, and Marcel's projection of each pitcher's FIP. The innings listed are based off of the same average of Bill James, CHONE, and Marcel's projection. I did have to make some modifications to some of the pitchers innings pitched. This was so the total of all the pitchers is 940.

Please respond with what you think each pitcher's innings pitched and ERA will be next year. Please also let me know also if any of the numbers listed seem ridiculous.

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*Note that John Smoltz innings pitched have been split between Starting (64) and Relief (30). I left the ERA for starting and relief at the same (3.73). Let me know if these do not seem reasonable.

Next Post: Relief Pitchers

With less then 27 days until Catchers and Pitchers report for spring training, the tension is brewing. What will the FO do with our catching situation. Will Kottraras and Bard be enough? Do we need to resign Tek? Do we need to trade for a rookie stud? With recent articles coming fromTony Massarotti and Schilling it makes you question what the Sox should do going forward.

Will Kottraras and Bard be enough? Do we need to resign Tek? Do we need to trade for a rookie stud?