I figured with how depressing this season can be at times it would be a fun exercise to put together how you think the lineup/roster should be for next year. One guideline don't put in ridiculous acquisitions (We are not getting Adrian Gonzalez). If people like this maybe we could do the bench and pitching after.

Continue reading this post »

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?

I mentioned in a previous post that Sky Kalkman has posted on "Beyond the Boxscore"

2009 WAR Projection Project

He has started a SB Nation community project for 2009 projections. For those unfamilar with WAR (Wins Above Replacement) TangoTiger has a great introduction.

Tango Tiger's WAR Calculation

The idea behind the project is we know that a completely average team made up of completely average players will win 55 games. If a player is above average the amount of wins will increase for a given team. We project hitters with wOBA and the amount of PA over the course of the season. For pitchers, it is based off of the amount of innings pitched and their FIP.

For the wOBA, IP, and FIP projections I used an average of CHONE, Marcels, and Bill James 2009 projections. All are weighted equally. The PA projections are not very accurate because alot depends on who the starter and who the back up is. I came up with the PA for all the hitters. Please let me know if you feel that the PA are not a good projection.

There is also a Fielding WAR included in the spreadsheet. For this calculation I took the average of UZR over the past 3 full years at that position. If a player has not been playing that long, I used however many years that were available. For the catchers I left at 0. Mostly because it is very hard to accurately determine a defensive metric for catchers. I think this works out well because Bard is an above average fielder and Kottraras is a below average fielder and if you average both of them together it would be 0 WAR.

For the Baserunning WAR I used Baseball Prospectus metric from the 2008 year.

2009 Projected Red Sox WAR

The projected team wOBA is .355. The 2008 team had a wOBA of .352. This looks like the projection is correct. If the Sox had a wOBA of .355 in 2008 they would have them tied for 1st in the MLB with the Rangers.

The projected team FIP is 3.98. The 2008 team had an FIP of 4.09. It appears that the the projections have the teams pitching getting better this year. This seems viable with all the pitching acquisitions during the offseason (Smoltz, Penny, Ramirez). All 3 project to have a 4.09 FIP or better. If the 2008 Sox had an FIP of 3.98 they would have been 5th in the MLB.

Overall the projections say we should win 106 games over the season.

Please respond with comments, concerns, or anything I can do to improve the projection. Enjoy

Take this with a grain of salt definetly. MLB Trade Rumors is reporting it. Some guy heard Dan Patrick say this on his radio show.

http://fromthedugout.freedomblogging.com/2008/12/15/report-red-sox-offer-teixeira-200-million/7632/

You know, now that I think about it. If I really wanted a ton of people to come to my blog, I would do this same sort of thing. Take what you want from the link.

Now that I have everybodys attention, I want to preface that I am not totally against us signing him. I just feel there are much better options for the Red Sox.

If we sign Teixeira we are going to have a serious position crunch at 1B/3B/DH. Lets face we are going to have to get rid of someone. Right now that looks like it would have to be Mike Lowell. Call me biased because I am a huge Lowell fan, but it would be one of the biggest mistakes we could make trading him away. Lately we have had a trend of signing players for discounts because they want to win and they enjoy playing in Boston. Lowell is one of those players, he signed with us for 3 years when the Phillies offered him 4 years and more money. His reasoning for staying was that he enjoyed playing in Boston.

What kind of message would we send to our players by trading away a guy who took a discount for us, who is also one of our team leaders and has done everything we have asked of him? Are players going to want to sign for discounts? Is it going to ruin the team chemistry?

Second point. We will be dropping alot of bank to get Teixeira. Yeah I know we have the money, but we could spend it on other things. We could sign some of our young players to long term contracts (Youk, Pedroia, Lester). What happens in a couple years from now when we have too much money on the books and we can't resign these stud players we have groomed so well?

Third point. What about Lars Anderson? I know he is not fully developed but, this guy looks like a future Mark Teixeira. He has a great eye at the plate, gritty, good defensively. Most likely the worst we will get out of him is another Kevin Youkilis. Mike Lowell will come of the books in two years, and Lars will be MLB ready then.

After all this is said, I would not be pissed off if we sign Teixeira because well its Mark F***ing Teixeira. I just want everyone to realize what would have to happen in order for it to happen. Is it really worth all that? Who knows who will be available in two years as well?

We have all heard the recent hoopla stating that Dustin Pedroia should be considered for MVP this year. Lets like at why

1st in runs (110) beating Ian Kinsler with 102. First in hits (191) beating Ichiro with 182. Tied for 2nd in doubles (44) just below Brian Roberts with 47. 1st in average with .333. 3rd in total bases (290) behind Josh Hamilton (295) and Aubrey Huff (303). Not to mention his near gold glove defense at 2B.

Do you guys think he deserves the AL MVP award? If not who do you think it should be?

Have the Red Sox turned the Corner to finish of the Regular Season hot and hopefully carry into the playoffs? Only time can tell but there numbers lately have been quite encouraging. You can attribute it to all sorts of things (Manny Leaving, Ortiz is Back, The Bullpen is getting better).

Bullpen: One of the greatest surprises and moment of encouragement has been the bullpen lately. Over the last 7 days of 18 innings of relief pitching we have given up 1 measly run, which wasn't even earned. Over the last 30 days of 65 innings of relief pitching we have given up 15 runs. That is an ERA of 2.08. They have honestly saved us as of late with our diminutive offense.

Bay: Since he has been a Red Sox: .423/.500/.692 Obviously these numbers won't keep this sultry pace, however, I think he has layed to bed the idea he wouldn't be able to hit with the Boston pressure.

Ellsbury: Still too early to tell but over the last 7 days .353/.353/.529 He still needs to get back to taking Walks but still encouraging.

You can name the recent success on a variety of things, but will it last?

I have been hearing alot of people under estimating Tek's contribution behind the plate. Are you guys kidding me????? Did you watch any of the 2006 season?? Did you miss when Tek had to get surgery and only played 103 games during the year?

In 2006 we had a 63-41 record before he got injured and ended with a 86-76 record. We didn't end up making the playoffs because of it. If you don't believe me yet, lets crunch some numbers.

In the 104 games before Varitek was on the DL the team ERA was 4.65. In the remaining 58 games the team ERA was 5.88. That is a difference of approximately 1.23 earned runs per game. Lets say there would be a similar change if it were to happen this year (even though I think it would be worse considering the age of our pitching staff).

Lets look at Tek's offensive contribution. Varitek currently has 19 RC over 94 games. Lets say we managed to get Joe Mauer's offensive contribution out of whoever replaced Tek (which won't happen). Joe Mauer has 51 RC over 91 games. For those keeping track that is .202 runs per game for Tek and .56 runs per game from Mauer.

As of right now, our team played 94 games has scored 478 runs and allowed 354 runs. Lets say for ease of calculation our team stays at this consistency for the rest of the year. Now if we do what everyone is suggesting we do and get rid of Tek for a replacement. Let's see how the rest of the year would pan out?

There are 68 games left in the season. With Varitek we would score 346 runs and allow 256 runs. With Joe Mauer we would score 370 runs and allow 340 runs. If we use the Pythagorean expectation theorem invented by Bill James. Our Win% with Tek would be .646 and our Win% with Mauer would be .542.

Projected to an end of year record of…..

Tek 99-63

Mauer 92-70

I don't directly consider myself a Sabermatician, I don't really have the time to put in the effort to do heavy analysis. I do, however, believe in most of the concepts generated from sabermaticians. This includes the famous Bill James.

In one of Bill James Baseball Abstracts (I don't remember which volume) he does statistical data on what offensive metrics are a good determination of how many runs a team will score. He comes up with the conclusion that the two stats that are most correlated to run production are On Base Percentage and Slugging. This study is still highly believed to this day from most or all sabermaticians. Lets look at the Red Sox team numbers.

In 2008 the Red Sox are 2nd in OBP (.354) just behind the Cubs (.362). Also sitting in 4th are the Rangers (.348). 

In 2008 the Red Sox are 2nd in SLG (.450) just behind the Rangers (.455). Also sitting in 3rd are the Cubs (.447).

It is quite easy to see that the Cubs, Rangers and Sox are the top 3 teams in Runs scored, which they are. The part that confuses me is the Rangers and Cubs have scored 435 and 430, respectively. The Sox have scored 406, almost 30 runs behind the Rangers. We have even played more games (81) then the Rangers (79). We are only 2 runs ahead of the Phillies who are ranked 5th and 10th respectively in SLG and OBP.

What can attribute for this clear discreption in a study that is as close to fact as facts come in statistics? Is there such thing as bad luck for almost half a season? Is our lineup not set up correctly? What are your opinions on why we are not getting the runs we deserve?

With the worst losing streak of the season putting us behind the Rays in the standings, made me curious why we are struggling as of late. I am kind of a stat guy so I like to look at stats to help guide me.

My first instinct was that our bats had finally cooled off compared to our early amazing slug fest. This doesn't seem to be the problem. In the past 7 days we have the second highest batting average (.311) and OBP (.390) behind the Cubs. We are also still 7th in the majors with runs scored.

Well clearly my next thought was, it must be our pitching. It has stunk all year, it must be extra horrid as of late. Our team ERA has actually gotten better over the past 7 days from 4.61 to 4.57. Still horrible, but why are we losing now because of it? If our pitching as marginally gotten better why would we lose more?

Parts of me says it is because of the really, REALLY long stretch of games we have had with no time off  (28 games in 30 days). So tonight I am going to have a drink (its my way of praying) to the day off an hope we can rest up.

Anyone have thoughts on the recent losing streak?

Some extra tidbits of stats I thought were interesting.

1.We have the 3rd worst bullpen in the majors, just ahead of the rangers and mariners.

2. We also have the 3rd worst pitching with RISP in the majors, just ahead of the Padres and Rangers

3. Manny Ramirez hasn't had a homer or RBI and only 1 walk in the past 7 days (maybe longer).

4. J.D. Drew has cooled off ALOT.  In the past 7 days, he is batting and slugging .190. All 4 hits have been singles. He is still drawing walks (6) which makes me think he might not be getting a pitch to hit, but he has recently been hitting in the 3 spot so I don't know.

I get a general vibe from everyone that Jon Lester is going to be an average to above average pitcher. I firmly believe that he has the intangibles that bring an ace pitcher.

What are peoples prediction for this season and the future out of Jon Lester?

I can see him putting up 160 inn. and 10 wins this season. I also think in a couple of years he will be a 17 game winner. He has been compared to Andy Pettitte and Mark Mulder both were/are top notch pitchers. Mostly people have problems with his control of late. I think this has alot to do with a couple things.

He had to take time off for cancer and then next year he is pitching in the majors. You are bound to forget some of the movements. He just needed to knock some rust off. It also doesn't help that he has so many pitches. Last time I knew he had 5 pitches, 2 seam, 4 seam, change up, curve, and cutter. He has always had great control in the minors why would that change in the majors.

I think once he gets some more innings in the big show he will get back to his old self which was dominate. All though he could just fade away like many pitchers in similar positions.

What do you guys/gals think?