The Greatest Lefty In Red Sox History

Without argument the greatest left handed pitcher in Red Sox history is Lefty Grove. In his career, Grove is one of the greatest pitchers of all time. He is a 300 game winner. He has the 7^th highest wins above replacement (WAR) for any pitcher all time. He is in the Hall of Fame. He even won the very first American League MVP award ever given in 1931.

Grove did most of his work with the Philadelphia Athletics before the Red Sox acquired the star pitcher in 1934 at the age of 34 in one of A’s owner Connie Mack’s notorious talent dumps (the Sox sent below average pitcher Bob Kline and below average short stop Rabbit Warstler and $125,000 cash to the A’s for Grove). His first season in Boston was a great disappointment as he appeared in only 22 games and posted an ERA of 6.50. But from 1935-1939, Grove had one of the two greatest runs of any pitcher ever from the ages of 35-39. In this span he won 67% of his games and posted an ERA 73% better than average. The only pitcher with a better ERA relative to average in that age range was Randy Johnson at 75% better than league average (the next closest was Dazzy Vance at 46% better). In this five year period, Johnson won 4 straight Cy Young awards. Had the award existed during Grove’s career, he may have matched this feat. 

My goodness, he turned off the lights!

Last night, John Lackey gave up 5 runs in 7 innings to the New York Yankees. While the Yankees’s offense is among the top 2 or 3 in baseball, this is not a good start. And yet, because of starts from earlier this season where he couldn’t even make it out of the third or fourth innings before giving up 7, 8 or 9 runs, it seems like a certain faction in Red Sox Nation thinks that 5 runs in 7 innings (or 4 in 6 like some other recent starts) is acceptable and maybe even good! They are acting like the mother of a 25 year old son who still lives in the basement and is unemployed and the mother gets excited when the fully grown man remembers to turn off his “bedroom” light.

The Future of Kevin Youkilis

This post is inspired by a post I read yesterday from the blog Boston Sports Then and Now where the writer, Eddie Nieves, questioned, “Have we seen the best of Kevin Youkilis?”

In 2006, a 27-year-old Kevin Youkilis established himself as a starter for the Boston Red Sox and over the next two years, developed power, hit for average, and played Gold Glove defense at first. Youkilis came third in MVP voting in 2008 when he enjoyed a career year batting .312 with 29 home runs, 119 runs batted in, and 91 runs scored. This was the third straight year his abilities at the plate improved. Unfortunately, that may have been his peak.  Since playing 145 games in both 2007 and 2008, his performance and his ability to stay healthy has been in decline. What if Youkilis is incapable of succeeding at third base?

The post continues on to show some not all that compelling facts about Youk’s career since that 2008 season, but the most interesting of which is a stat that I am sure will blow the minds of many many fans out there: since 2009, Youk has played 348 games; in that same time, J.D. “Nancy” Drew has played in 353. I will let that sink in for a second. The man most of Red Sox nation finds to be tough as nails has played fewer games over the last three seasons than the man most of Red Sox nation finds to be tough as snails. The guy who is supposed to be a centerpiece of this team, who bats in the middle of the order, who bleeds baseball has played in fewer games than a guy who is now a platoon player, who supposedly milks injuries and who is 3 years older. But my post isn’t an attempt to once again show how underrated J.D. Drew has been or to say that Youk has been overrated, it's actually quite the opposite (save for his defense at third, although I think people are realizing now that it is poor). I want to take a look at what the Red Sox can expect from Youk in the future based off  his recent performances and, more interestingly, his top comparable players.

Friday Fun: League Average Hitters

Today I wanted to talk about a couple concepts and then give you a bunch of examples to back them up. Fun right? Well the topic for the day is league average hitters. 

The word “average” has gotten somewhat of a negative connotation in today’s society. Usually when people say something is “average”, they preface it with a back and forth wiggle of the head, their lips purse and angle downward and as they say “average,” their eyes squint and they use a distinct inflection that really means “it’s not very good.” The problem lies in the fact that nobody strives to be average anymore. Nobody gets excited about being a C student or earning $47,000 a year. The American dream used to be getting a stable job with a good spouse, 2.3 kids, a dog and a white picket fence. Today, if you don’t run your own company by the time you reach 24, have 2 cars, a boat and a house built on a floating island you are a failure. But really, average isn’t such a bad thing. Average means you are better than 50% of the population you are being compared with, and as long as you aren't being compared to crack heads or something, it's ok to be smack dab in the middle.

This is especially true in baseball. Being an average hitter in baseball means you are approximately the 200^th best hitter in the world. And yet, people look at a hitter like J.D. Drew, who has been above average or elite every year of his career until this one, and say he sucks. In reality, a hypothetical team with perfectly average hitters and pitchers would be in playoff contention every year.

So before we get into examples of league average hitters, let’s identify how we define a league average hitter. A good catch all measure of hitting that allows us to compare hitters over different eras is OPS+. OPS+ looks at hitters' On Base Plus Slugging Percentage (OPS) compared to the league average (also with a tweak for ballpark effect so you can compare a hitter who plays in a pitcher's park like in San Diego to a hitter who plays in a hitter's park like in Colorado). The number it generates starts with a base of 100, which is exactly league average. So if a batter has an OPS of .800 one season and the league OPS that season averages to .800, they have an OPS+ of 100. If another batter has an OPS that season of .900, they are 12% better than league average so their OPS+ is 112 (100 + 12). If yet another batter has an OPS that season of .700, they are 12% worse than league average so their OPS+ is 88 (100 – 12).

Now you’ll note that I keep saying “that season”. This is because league average OPS is different every season. In 1968 when Carl Yastrzemski won the batting title with a .301 average, the league average OPS was .637. In 2001 when Alex Rodriguez hit 52 HR as a shortstop, the league average OPS was .762. Therefore, if you had a .700 OPS in 1968, you would have an OPS+ of 109 and if you had that same OPS of .700 in 2001 you would have an OPS+ of 92.

Ok. Deep breath. If everyone is still with me, let’s take a look at some players who had perfectly average careers with an OPS+ of 100 even. Using my new favorite tool, Baseball-Reference’s Play Index, I found 27 players who have a career 100 OPS+ and at least 3000 plate appearances since 1901. Here are some of the highlights:

• Walt Dropo won the Rookie of the Year Award (the only ROY on this list) in 1950 as a 27 year old playing first base for the Red Sox. This would be by far his best season (OPS+ of 133), but he would hover around league average for the rest of his 12 year career. Dropo is the career leader in home runs for our league average group with 152.
• Willie McGee, another former Red Sox, holds the distinction as having the longest career (17 years) of anyone on this list, but also is the only player to win an MVP award. In 1985, playing for the Whitey-ball Cardinals, McGee led the league in average, hits and triples to go along with 56 steals on the way to his only MVP award. That season he had a 147 OPS+ while leading the Cardinals to a National League pennant. McGee’s career was different than Dropo’s in that he didn’t remain close to league average throughout, instead having random peaks and valleys. He was also quite funny looking.
• Yet another former Red Sox from my childhood on the list is Carlos Baerga. Baerga was a hot hitting second baseman for the Indians in the early 90s forming an exciting double play combo with Omar Vizquel. For the first five years of his career, Baerga was an above average hitter and 3 time All Star. Then his hitting started to decline in 1996 and he was shipped off to the New York Mets for potential Hall of Famer Jeff Kent. His hitting would continue to decline and he was out of baseball after the 1999 season. He returned as a part time DH and emotional leader in ’02 with the Red Sox and  in ’03 he had a bit of a comeback with the Diamondbacks, posting a 117 OPS+. He was definitely a guy I always thought would have a better career and was one of the most charismatic players in the game during his time.
• Doug Mientkiewicz, another former Red Sox, surprisingly appears on the list. I say surprisingly, because Doug was primarily known as a defensive specialist at first by Red Sox nation. Acquired in 2004 in the Nomar Garciaparra trade, Doug would spell Kevin Millar at first in late game situations to protect the lead with his glove. He received the put out from Keith Foulke to clinch the first Red Sox title in 86 years. Doug was a pretty good hitter before he came to Boston and then had a couple average seasons at the close of his career as a part time player. He will be forever memorialized on 2004 Red Sox musical beer bottle openers.
• The best names on the list: Shanty Hogan and Bip Roberts.
• Speaking of names, on the list are Garry Maddox (he who covers 1/3 of the Earth) and Elliott Maddox, no relation. They are the only two players with the surname “Maddox” who have enough plate appearances to qualify for this list and they are both on it. No word on if “Maddox” is the most average last name in the world.
• A guy from my past on the list is Tony Bernazard. The former head of player development for the New York Mets often hung around the Brooklyn Cyclones clubhouse when I worked there and he wasn’t exactly the nicest guy. My own interactions with him pale in comparison, though, to some of the stories that surfaced towards the end of his tenure with the Mets. These include threatening to fire minor league players (you can’t do that), threatening to fight a Double A player, fighting with Francisco Rodriguez and the infamous “Bus Driver Story”. In this story, Bernazard berated a Lakewood Blue Claws clubby after Tony entered the stadium with no credentials. The clubby stopped him to see ID and asked if he was the bus driver and Bernazard lost his mind. Completely average hitter. Completely insane human being.
• Probably the biggest name on the list is Curt Flood. With a 100 OPS+, a player who hasn’t played in 40 years is probably going to be famous for something more singular like an MVP (McGee) or a cool quote (Garry Maddox). Flood is no different. He had very average seasons early in his career, but Flood recorded a strong peak from his age 29-31 seasons. At the end of the 1969 season, the Cardinals tried to trade Flood and others to the Phillies for Dick Allen and others. Not wanting to leave St. Louis for Philadelphia, Flood refused to report for the trade. After consulting with new player’s union chief Marvin Miller, he sent Bowie Kuhn, the commissioner of baseball, a letter asking to be declared a free agent. Kuhn declined the request and Flood took him to court to challenge baseball’s reserve clause. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, but Flood eventually lost as the court decided to hold up a 1922 ruling that allowed Major League Baseball the right to act as a monopoly (“Gentlemen, we have the only legal monopoly and we’re fucking it up!” Ted Turner would later say). Though Kuhn won the battle, he would later lose the war, as they say. Flood’s case resonated throughout the player’s union and just 5 years later, the reserve clause would be broken.
• Finally, Marlon Byrd, Alex Rios and Aaron Rowand make up the three active players on the list, with a fourth, Garrett Atkins, still looking for work this year. Rowand makes the list due to two break out seasons, including one in a contract year push, balancing his mostly poor production with the bat. Rios is on the list for now almost entirely due to posting a 54 OPS+ to start the year; he has been a solidly above average hitter for most of his career. Byrd was a hot prospect with the Phillies, but after 5 years of below average production he became known as a bust. Since moving to the Rangers in ’07, he has had an OPS+ over 100 every year. Atkins was similarly a top prospect with the Rockies and came out of the gate guns blazing posting an OPS+ of 135 and 136 in ’04 and ’06 respectively. Then in ’08 the wheels came off and he stopped being a useful hitter. If I ran this report a month from now, I would expect all of these hitters save for Atkins to fall off the list.

As you can see, there were some pretty good and notable hitters on this list. Being average is not the same as being a failure. As long as average hitters are properly valued (unlike with Rowand and Rios), they can be very valuable to their teams. A guy like Marlon Byrd was never able to shed the label as a bust and his value has been depressed ever since. This has allowed the Rangers and now the Cubs to squeeze some incredible value out of him. Byrd an average hitter who is being paid like a below average player because it seems like even he doesn't realize how special average can be. To all those C students out there, don't get down on yourself. Being average can be pretty OK.

David Ortiz beats Jack Sparrow to the Fountain of Youth

Big Papi is rooting for the Mavericks and so should you!!!

It was a rough 4 days for the Boston Red Sox. After digging out of a massive hole to start the season to climb all the way to the top of the AL East, the team dropped 4 straight games, including a 3 game sweep at home to the scuffling Chicago White Sox, and now find themselves 2 games behind the Yankees. Not a whole lot went right for the team in this stretch, save for the performance of the man they call Big Papi, David Ortiz.

From 2003-2008, Ortiz was the anchor of the Red Sox offense. As part of the most dangerous duo since Ruth and Gehrig, Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were a terror on opposing pitchers. In this time, Big Papi was dubbed the most clutch player in Red Sox history, helped deliver 2 World Series championships, set the Red Sox record for home runs in a season with 54, went to 5 All Star games and finished in the top 5 in MVP voting 5 times, a record number for a DH (only 7 other players have landed in the top 5 in MVP voting while primarily playing DH and only Frank Thomas and Paul Molitor have done this multiple times with 3 and 2, respectively).

Then in 2009 the wheels came off. A torn tendon sheath in his wrist in 2008 caused Ortiz to have the least productive season of his Red Sox career, missing the magical 30 HR, 100 RBI plateau for the first time since leaving the Twins. The next season he got off to an incredibly slow start, not hitting his first HR until his 36^th game and posting a triple slash line of .185/.284/.287 through the first two months. Dumb people credited this to the fact that Ramirez was traded the previous July and Ortiz missed his buddy and lineup protection. A strong June got his season back on track slightly, but it all came crashing down at the end of July when it was leaked that Ortiz was on a list of 103 players who failed an anonymous steroids test in 2003. Despite his denials, Ortiz was now branded as a former steroid user amidst the worst season of his career. This gave those same dumb people even more ammunition as to why Ortiz was done. Rather than looking at his recent wrist injury and the fact that players with his body type tend to decline in their mid-30s, “experts” claimed that since he was no longer on the juice and didn’t have his goofy buddy around to watch his back, he was forever finished.

A weak end to 2009 and another slow April in 2010 (1 HR and a .524 On Base Plus Slugging (OPS)) only stoked the flames higher. It even led Terry Francona, Big Papi’s strongest advocate, to drop Ortiz in the lineup and give him far more days off than he ever had. Then on May 1^st that year, Ortiz launched 2 HR against the Orioles and his season took a dramatic turn. From that point to the end of the year, Ortiz hit 31 HR with 98 RBI and a triple slash line of .286/.385/.558, numbers almost identical to his career averages (36 HR, 118 RBI, .282/.377/.545). The slow start depressed his numbers some, but Ortiz went from being barely an average hitter in 2009 to the best DH in baseball again. However, with the narrative of the slow starts and the typical aging curve of sluggers like Ortiz (Mo Vaughn, Albert Belle, Kent Hrbek), most people expected Ortiz to perform closer to his 2009 form in 2011.

With the massive additions of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford to the home grown core of Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury, Ortiz was expected to be a complimentary piece this year. There were also talks that he would be a platoon candidate as even with the strong overall numbers in 2010, he was only able to muster a .599 OPS against lefties. Francona also opened the year with Ortiz in a lower spot in the order (6^th) than his more usual 3^rd spot, though he’s since been moved to 5^th. However, looking to put the issues of the past 2 seasons behind him, Ortiz hit a home run in each of the first 2 games. Those would be his only two of the first month, but with 15 walks he was able to remain a productive hitter as the entire team slumped. Then May hit and so did Ortiz. From May 1 to June 1, Big Papi has hit 11 HR and .348/.390/.772 for a 1.112 OPS. His hot May has raised his OPS to .964 which places him 4^th in the AL, 2 spots ahead of his equally hot teammate Gonzalez.

So is Ortiz back? The simple answer to that question is no. The Ortiz from 2003-2008 was one of the best hitters in baseball and had very few weaknesses. That Ortiz is never coming back for a full season. With hitting depressed over the entire league and the natural decline due to age, he will just never be able to return to that level of play. In addition, as good as his May was, he topped it last May with a 1.260 OPS and then came back to his more normal performance. The better question, and the one we need to look at, is can he continue to be the player he was in the second half last year and has been so far this year, which is a really good hitter but not quite elite?

The best way to see if a hitter can sustain a certain level of performance is to look at his batted ball numbers, so let’s turn to Fangraphs for the info. The easiest stat to look at to see if a hitter is getting lucky is his batting average on balls in play (BABIP), which is a hitter’s batting average on all plate appearances that don’t end in a strike out, walk or home run. This is a good way to see if a hitter is getting a lot of lucky hits (hitting ‘em where they ain’t). League wide, hitters get hits on about 30% of balls put in play, but some hitters with different skill sets can vary from this. Career, Ortiz gets a hit on 30.1% of balls put in play. This year? 30.1% exactly. The types of hits (line drives, grounders, fly balls) he is getting are all reasonably in line with what he has done over the last 8 years so we can infer that he is not getting lucky when he makes contact.

After looking at what happens when he makes contact, it is good to take a look at a hitter’s approach. This is where we see some huge changes in Ortiz. So far this year, he has walked in 10.2% of his plate appearances, the lowest rate in his Boston career (the next lowest was 11.2% in 2004). Usually a drop in walk rate is accompanied by an increase in strike out rate because the hitter is either being thrown more strikes or they are chasing more pitches and missing, but Ortiz is striking out nearly half as often as he has in his entire career (11.4% this year against 21.6% career). So how is someone who used to walk and strikeout like a classic power hitter posting discipline numbers along the lines of high contact hitters like Pedroia? 

Basically he is chasing pitches outside the zone but he isn’t missing. This year he has increased the number of pitches he swings at outside the strike zone for the 8^th year in a row, but he is also making contact 77% of the time on these pitches (his career average is 51%). Pitchers have definitely noticed his new tendency to chase pitches as he is seeing fewer pitches in the strike zone too. The crazy thing about this is that making contact on pitches outside the zone is usually not a blueprint for success unless you are Pedroia or Vladimir Guerrero. Usually when a hitter hits something outside the zone, it leads to weak and unproductive contact. But as we saw a couple paragraphs prior, when Ortiz makes contact he is doing as well as he has always done.

So what do we make of all this? His batted ball numbers indicate that what he is doing is sustainable, but his approach says otherwise. Swinging at bad pitches and making contact is not a great way to succeed in this league. Few hitters have been able to make careers this way and I don’t think Ortiz has all of a sudden morphed into Vlad. I would expect his numbers to come back to Earth for the rest of the year if he continues to swing at so many pitches outside the zone. Hopefully there will only be a slight correction and he ends up this year with similar numbers to last year, but my gut says he will drop a little lower than last year as hitters tend to do at this age. The other thing we need to keep our eye on is his miraculous ability to all of a sudden hit lefty pitching. This year, Big Papi is hitting .286/.394/.500 against lefties, while over his career he has hit .259/.333/.466. I expect he returns to this level and his numbers overall take a tumble. For now though, enjoy watching Ortiz dip his toes in the Fountain of Youth and revel in the fact that, unlike late season resurgences in recent years, he is probably clean as a whistle.

The Reinvention of Jonathan Papelbon

Last January, when I was just a baby blogger, I wrote the following about Jonathan Papelbon:

You can mark January 20, 2010 as the day I officially plead to Theo to keep The Exploder (the nickname I came up with for Pap last year) around after 2011. The Exploder is a great reliever, and great relievers, used properly, have a lot of value. Could Bard, assuming he continues on his current path, step in and be a good closer if Pap leaves? Of course he could. He could even match some of the seasons that Pap has had. But why not keep both? Why not have a really good set up man and a great relief ace? So what if it takes a 4 year, $60M contract to keep Pap in Boston? While he may not be worth exactly $15M a year, the Sox not only have the money to afford that, but they also are in the position where every extra win (or marginal win) is worth more to them than the majority of the league...Papelbon is not quite a once in a lifetime reliever like Mariano Riviera, but he is consistently one of the top 3-5 relief aces in the league. And that is worth something. That is worth a lot. So please Theo, consider loosening the purse strings just a bit to keep the Exploder in the Fens for a few extra years.

Four years and $60 million is a lotta clams. I was definitely over stating his value coming off his 2009 season when his ERA was deceptively low with all the walks he was giving up. Following that post I wrote, Papelbon went on to have the worst season of his career. In the off season he faced questions over whether he would lose his closing job with the addition of Bobby Jenks or, worse, be traded away. So of course, this season he has completely remade himself as a pitcher (again) and has struck out 21 batters in 16 2/3 (against just 2 walks) while posting a 2.70 ERA. No big deal. What I want to take a look at here is that remaking himself business and reevaluate the prospects of Pap The Exploder sticking around after this season.

Papelbon was drafted as a starting pitcher. In 3 minor league seasons he started 48 of his 58 games pitched. He was called up in 2005 to help a pitching staff with serious injury and fatigue issues in the rotation and the bull pen. He made 3 big league starts that year with some success, but (like most good starting pitchers) he looked dominant in the bull pen. He would never start another game in professional baseball.

The following season he was even more dominant, taking over for incumbent closer Keith Foulke in the first month of the season on his way to posting a 0.92 ERA, the fourth lowest all time of any pitcher with at least 60 innings pitched (Dennis Eckersley has the record with a 0.62 ERA in 1990). In the 3 seasons that followed, he continued to post miniscule ERAs with high strikeout rates, but last year his ERA jumped up to near 4.00 and he looked like a completely different pitcher. The thing with Pap, though, is that he looks like a completely different pitcher nearly every year.

If you look at his pitch types (tried to put this graph in my post but failed miserably), which shows the percentage of the types and velocities of pitches he throws per year, you see a guy who changes his repertoire pretty much yearly. We'll explore the data and split Papelbon into his pitching phases.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice Phase

His first two full years (’06 and ’07), Pap threw a 94.3 MPH fastball about 75% of the time, an 85 MPH slider about 6% of the time and an 88 MPH split finger about 17% of the time. His fastball was dominant in those two years because he was keeping hitters honest with the slider and splitter. This combination led to the previously mentioned 0.92 ERA in ’06 and in ’07 he set his career high in strike out rate with nearly 13 strikeouts per 9 innings. These were also Curt Schilling’s final two years in Boston and if memory serves me right I believe Schilling really tried to take Pap under his wing. The splitter was one of Schilling’s best pitches and I think his influence kept Pap throwing this pitch and throwing it well.

The Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn Phase

By the end of 2007, Pap was catching on to just how dominant a pitcher he had become. His cockiness, which can be a good thing for a closer, was emerging to the point where he added a new pitch midseason: the slutter. According to Pap, this was a combination of a slider and a cutter. The year prior, he had lost a bet to Kevin Youkilis and had to shave his head into Rick Vaughn’s hair cut, but now he was actually channeling “Wild Thing” by making up his own pitches (Vaughn had the Humiliator and the Eliminator). But by the time 2008 rolled around and Schilling was no longer around, Papelbon was more focused on old number 1, his fastball. That year he increased his fastball velocity to 95.3 MPH and was throwing it 81% of the time. His slider (or possibly the slutter) and splitter velocities also increased, but he was now throwing the splitter less often at just 12% of the time. A weird thing happened this year though. While still pitching extremely effectively, Pap saw a decrease in strikeout rate, but a dramatic increase in groundball percentage to almost 50% of balls in play. With the decrease in splitters you wouldn’t expect that to happen, but most likely he was just able to keep his fastball down. Also, with less separation in velocity between the fastball and splitter, batters were probably being fooled into swings and misses less and instead making weak ground ball contact on the splitter, which when thrown with more velocity will break downward later.

The next season (’09) is when he really took on the life of Rick Vaughn from Major League 2.  He maintained the 81% fastball frequency, but the velocity dropped a bit to 94.7 MPH. The big change came in his use of the slider/slutter. After throwing this pitch 6% of the time for his career, he started throwing it over 9% of the time and now he was throwing it slower than ever at just 84 MPH. As a result of the increased usage, his splitter dropped to being thrown just 9% of the time as well, almost half of how often he threw it during his best 2 seasons. A lot of the surface results that year make it seem like he was just as dominant as ever (1.85 ERA, 38 for 41 in save chances, 10.21 K/9), but his ground ball rate hit an all time low (26%) and his walk rate hit an all time high (3.18 BB/9). He was throwing fewer pitches in the strike zone and batters caught onto this as they stopped chasing the slider and splitter out of the zone. He allowed the most baserunners of his career to that point and it lead to a lot of tense save situations (he was bailed out by a fluke rate of stranding baserunners). Like I said, the final numbers looked ok but there was a clear shift in perception of the dominance of Jonathan Papelbon.

The Bright Red Corvette Phase

After the 2009 season, a lot of people realized that Pap had a down year with all of his tense saves and his post season melt down against the Angels. Again, if I remember right, there were a lot of calls for him to rediscover his splitter (I at least remember being among that chorus). Whatever was said, Pap listened and he listened hard. Unfortunately, like a middle aged man trying to prove he is still young, Pap overcompensated. In 2010, he threw his splitter 21% of the time (up from 9%). His slider/slutter still represented 9% of his pitches, but it continued to lose velocity at just 82 MPH. With the increased use of the splitter, he began throwing his best pitch, his fastball, just 69% of the time. This combination led to all sorts of bad things. Pap’s walk rate jumped to 3.76 BB/9 because batters weren’t chasing his increased number of breaking balls. He also allowed more home runs than ever due to a heightened contact rate on pitches in the strike zone. Basically, batters were not fooled by his splitter or slider so they were waiting for a good pitch to hit in the strike zone. Pap set career highs in Hits/9, HR/9 and BB/9 leading to a career worst 3.90 ERA, 7 losses and 8 blown saves.

The Paradox Phase

I don’t know what to make of Pap this year. He is in his final year in Boston so he is clearly motivated to having a good year to get a big pay day. The traditional numbers and advanced stats are all saying that he is having a great year. His strikeouts are up, his walks and home runs are down and he is 7 for 8 in save chances. However, his pitch selection, pitch location and line drive percentage all indicate a smoke and mirrors act. On balls put in play, 26.8% are line drives, which are the types of balls that have the highest likelihood of falling in for a hit. Pap seems to be balancing this out by allowing an abnormally high amount of pop ups. His pitch selection has also been strange. He is throwing the same percentage of fastballs as last year, which I decided is too few, while decreasing his splitter to the usage rate during his dominant years. The weird thing is that he is throwing the slider/slutter 12% of the time, more than ever, and only averaging 80 MPH on the pitch, his slowest ever. He is also only throwing 44% of pitches in the strike zone, so somehow he is getting hitters to chase his breaking balls leading to the high strikeout rate. These stats lead me to believe we will see Pap come back to earth some.

So what does this all mean for Jonathan Papelbon’s future in Boston? If my prediction holds up that he will not end the season with numbers this strong, I can’t envision a world where Theo Epstein would bring him back for more than a one year deal. If, however, he can prove to be successful with this new mix of pitches, I really think it wouldn’t hurt to have him back on a 3 year deal. Relievers vary greatly in success from year to year, but besides a down year last year, Papelbon has been strong to quite strong throughout his career. As I said last year, the Red Sox can afford to spend a little extra on a luxury. Having two guys (Daniel Bard too) you can count on at the back end of the bull pen is important for a manager. As we will see this year, and more in the years to come with the rise of the Blue Jays and Orioles, every single win counts in this division so this team cannot afford to just give up a player who contributes positively to that side of the ledger. Reliever deals are risky, but this is one risk I’d be willing to make if I were Theo.

Breaking Down Walls: The RBI

Even Snoop could get 100 RBIs batting cleanup for the Phillies

A hypothetical conversation overheard in Cask N Flaggon yesterday:

“Bro, our offense SUCKS this yeeeah. Nobody’s drivin in any friggin runs!”

“Guy I know. We need to get a real sluggah into the middle of this lineup.”

“Ya dude, a real RBI guy. We should get Ryan Howid from the Phils, dude’s leading the league with 32 ribbies right now.”

“Totally bro. Nobody besides Gawnzo has more than 20 ribs right now on this friggin team. Do you think they’ll take Lestah and Pedey for him?”

RBI stands for “run batted in”. A player earns an RBI when a teammate scores a run as a result of something the player does be it a hit, fly out, ground out (but not a double play or error) or walk or hit by pitch with the bases loaded. A player even earns an RBI when he hits a home run, scoring himself.

The RBI in and of itself is a nice statistic. It’s really easy to understand (although the fact that players get double credit for a run and RBI on a home run is a little wonky) and it explains a key occurrence in a baseball game. The ultimate goal of a team is to score runs and this simple stat helps explain part of the group responsible for creating those runs.

The major issue with the RBI is its use in assigning value to a player. “An RBI guy” is a guy who accumulates a lot of RBIs, but does that mean he is actually a good hitter?

In 2008, Ryan Howard hit .251/.339/.543 for a .881 OPS earning him a second place finish in the NL MVP voting. That same year, Adrian Gonzalez hit .279/.361/.510 for a .871 OPS in a much tougher home park (Petco Park in San Diego) to hit earning him an 18th place finish in the NL MVP voting. Gonzalez was also the much better fielder (he won the Gold Glove) and getting on base is a little more valuable than hitting with power, but the Padres also finished a distant 5th while the Phillies won the NL East. But was their finish in the MVP voting solely due to their teams' drastically different finishes, or was it something else?

Also that season, Howard led the NL in RBIs with 146. Gonzalez finished with 119 RBIs.

This is not to illustrate that Howard had a poor season, in fact Gonzalez’s was only a little better with the bat. But I think the MVP vote is instructive of how much weight is given to RBIs as an indicator of value to a team. It also shows that two hitters with fairly similar seasons could have such wildly different RBI totals. A little more information about the players that season: Howard spent the year hitting cleanup behind All Stars Shane Victorino, Placido Polanco, Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley while Gonzalez spent the season hitting 3^rd or 4^th behind immortals like David Eckstein, Tadahito Iguchi, Jody Gerut and Kevin Kouzmanoff.

Finally we get to my point (I know, sorry for making you read 7 paragraphs before making my point), which is RBIs are completely based on context. That season, Howard came to the plate with runners in scoring position 223 times, while Gonzalez came up in the same situation 194 times, a difference of 29 times. Howard had a 1.028 On Base Plus Slugging (OPS) in this situation. Gonzalez had an identical (not making this up) 1.028 OPS in the same situation. To refresh your memory, Howard finished the year with 146 RBIs and Gonzalez had 119. A difference of 27 RBI.

(Note: This was a total coincidence finding a comparison that worked out so perfectly. I knew Howard's RBIs make him seem better than he is so I looked for his worst season with the bat, found that he had a lot of RBIs for a great offense, finished highly in the MVP vote and had a lot of opportunities with runners in scoring position. For contrast, I knew Gonzalez was a superior hitter playing in a worse offense in a worse hitters park so I thought he'd be a great example. I had no idea they would have the same OPS with runners in scoring position and have the difference in plate appearances in this situation almost equal the difference in total RBI. As always, baseball numbers are awesome.)

The problem with the RBI and having it define a player’s ability is the question of opportunity. A player can lead off the game with a triple and then the next batter can hit a weak grounder to first base and receive credit for the RBI when the leadoff scores. Sure the leadoff guy gets credit for a run scored, but did the second hitter really do anything worth giving extra credit to or did he just come up to bat in an awesome situation?

Not to pick on Howard too much, but the current NL leader in RBIs is only 13th in OPS. How is he maintaining his moniker as a great (maybe the top) RBI guy? On average, Major League hitters come up to the plate with runners in scoring position 26% of the time this year. Howard comes up with runners in scoring position 36% of the time (for comparison, Gonzalez comes up in this situation just 30% of the time this year, above league average because he is a middle of the order hitter, but well below Howard's level). 

In case you run into the two hypothetical idiots from the beginning of this post pleading for the Sawx to get an RBI guy, just tell  them the runs will come once the whole team starts getting on base more. Gonzalez and Youkilis are doing their job, they just need the rest of the guys to get on base so Gonzo and Youk can guide them home safely. It's all about the situations we find ourselves in.

All numbers courtesy of www.Baseball-Reference.com. 

Breaking Down Walls: A Pitcher's Won-Loss Record

Former 21 Game Winner, Russ Ortiz

Part of what I would like to do on this site is to educate people on how to understand the game of baseball a little better. I would expect most of you even reading these posts know quite a bit about the game already, or can at least get through a nine inning game and know what just happened, and this is certainly not meant to belittle anyone's intelligence. What I would like to do is arm people with a better understanding of some newer ways of thinking about the game so they can both interpret what they have just watched and then discuss it with other fans. I think a good place to start is to look at some preconceived notions and statistics that have been around forever that can be slightly misleading or even flat out wrong. With some simple examples of why these concepts are outdated it will be easier to explain some newer ways of thinking. First, I would like to start with the stat with more holes in it than the plot of Ocean's 12:

Pitcher's Won-Loss Record


This one is so easy we have to look no further back than April 7 and April 8 to show exactly why this stat means nothing. Time, once again, for my favorite game, Player A vs. Player B:

Player A: 7 IP, 3 H, 3 BB, 9 SO, 0 ER


Player B: 5 IP, 7 H, 2 BB, 2 SO, 6 ER


Before I tell you who the player is and what effect each game had on their Won-Loss record, I want every one to take a minute and think about who pitched the better game...It's ok I'll wait...I'm just gonna run and grab a Snapple...Ok, time's up. Did everybody say Player A pitched the better game? Good.

Well Player A is Jon Lester, who took a No Decision in a 1-0 loss to the Indians. Player B is John Lackey who took a 9-6 Win over the Yankees.

But that's just one game. Most stats can look kind of goofy after just one game. The best pitchers always finish with really good records at the end of the year right?

Player A: 29 Starts, 176.1 IP, 146 SO, 58 BB, 2.52 SO/BB, 25 HR, 83 R, 4.19 ERA (2% better than league average)

Player B: 34 Starts, 249.2 IP, 232 SO, 70 BB, 3.31 SO/BB, 17 HR, 80 R, 2.27 ERA (74% better than league average)

I am also going to give you their run support numbers:

Player A: 6.8 Runs per game (most in the AL)

Player B: 3.1 Runs per game (second least in the AL)

Ok, you have less time to think about which pitcher was better last year because I expect you are getting the point. Player B is clearly the better pitcher.

Player A is Yankees Starter Phil Hughes from 2010. He finished with a record of 18-8. Player B is Mariners Starter Felix Hernandez. He finished with a record of 13-12. Interestingly, 3 of the top 4 in Run Support were Yankees and the bottom 4 were all Mariners. As you can tell from that statement, the Yankees had the best offense in the AL and the Mariners had an historically bad offense last year (why is it “an historically” and not “a historically”? I am not British. I use a hard “H” when I say “Historically”. The English language, man, she is weird.) Of course, the Baseball Writers Association of America actually got it right last year and awarded Hernandez with the Cy Young despite his mediocre record. I give those guys a lot of crap but they are making baby steps towards understanding what makes a good baseball player. As you can see from this comparison, pitching is at most half of what decides the outcome of the game, and when you factor in defense and modern relief pitching, starting pitching probably decides about 25% of the outcome of a game. So why do pitchers who throw the first 5 innings (or those who appear in one inning at the right time as a reliever) get credited for winning the whole game?

In case you think, as most stat heads do, that one season is not enough data to prove a point, I will do one last Player A vs. Player B using career totals.

Player A: 685 Starts, 4970 IP, 3701 SO, 1322 BB, 2.80 SO/BB, 430 HR, 2029 R, 60 Shutouts, 3.31 ERA (18% better than league average)

Player B: 527 Starts, 3824 IP, 2478 SO, 1390 BB, 1.78 SO/BB, 389 HR, 1815 R, 28 Shutouts, 3.90 ERA (5% better than league average)

Ok from this one, I hope you see that Player A is better, and not  just because of his ERA. The guy walked fewer batters in over 1,000 more innings, had a SO/BB ratio a full point higher, had 32 more shut outs and has the 5^th most strikeouts of all time. Player A is Bert Blyleven and he had a career record of 287-250. Player B is Jack Morris and he had a career record of 254-186. Now, this is another one that the BBWAA got right as Blyleven was finally elected to the Hall of Fame this year  after 12 years on the ballot and Morris is still sitting there. But it took a hell of a lot of convincing to get the guy with the 5^th most strikeouts ever, probably the most important skill a pitcher can have, into the HOF. The chief reason was the mediocre record, while the reason Morris still stands a chance to get in despite his mediocre ERA is because “he knew how to win and pitched to the score.”

Hopefully I’ve showed you that individual Won-Loss records have very little meaning. Too much happens in every game that is out of a pitcher’s control that we should not credit him with the full outcome of the game. So the next time someone says, “Bro, the Sawx should totally sign that friggin guy, he was an 18 game winnah last yee-ah!”, I suggest you ask him about his strikeout to walk ratio, his home runs allowed, his run support, or even just his ERA. All are better indicators of talent and potential for future success than the highly convoluted, meaningless Won-Loss record.

Update: For those who think that Won-Loss records are simple, here is the Official MLB rules for determining the pitcher of record:


10.17 Winning And Losing Pitcher
(a) The official scorer shall credit as the winning pitcher that pitcher whose team assumes a lead while such pitcher is in the game, or during the inning on offense in which such pitcher is removed from the game, and does not relinquish such lead, unless
(1) such pitcher is a starting pitcher and Rule 10.17(b) applies; or
(2) Rule 10.17(c) applies.
Rule 10.17(a) Comment: Whenever the score is tied, the game becomes a new contest insofar as the winning pitcher is concerned. Once the opposing team assumes the lead, all pitchers who have pitched up to that point and have been replaced are excluded from being credited with the victory. If the pitcher against whose pitching the opposing team gained the lead continues to pitch until his team regains the lead, which it holds to the finish of the game, that pitcher shall be the winning pitcher.
(b) If the pitcher whose team assumes a lead while such pitcher is in the game, or during the inning on offense in which such pitcher is removed from the game, and does not relinquish such lead, is a starting pitcher who has not completed
(1) five innings of a game that lasts six or more innings on defense, or
(2) four innings of a game that lasts five innings on defense, then the official scorer shall credit as the winning pitcher the relief pitcher, if there is only one relief pitcher, or the relief pitcher who, in the official scorer’s judgment was the most effective, if there is more than one relief pitcher.
Rule 10.17(b) Comment: It is the intent of Rule 10.17(b) that a relief pitcher pitch at least one complete inning or pitch when a crucial out is made, within the context of the game (including the score), in order to be credited as the winning pitcher. If the first relief pitcher pitches effectively, the official scorer should not presumptively credit that pitcher with the win, because the rule requires that the win be credited to the pitcher who was the most effective, and a subsequent relief pitcher may have been most effective. The official scorer, in determining which relief pitcher was the most effective, should consider the number of runs, earned runs and base runners given up by each relief pitcher and the context of the game at the time of each relief pitcher’s appearance. If two or more relief pitchers were similarly effective, the official scorer should give the presumption to the earlier pitcher as the winning pitcher.
(c) The official scorer shall not credit as the winning pitcher a relief pitcher who is ineffective in a brief appearance, when at least one succeeding relief pitcher pitches effectively in helping his team maintain its lead. In such a case, the official scorer shall credit as the winning pitcher the succeeding relief pitcher who was most effective, in the judgment of the official scorer.
Rule 10.17(c) Comment: The official scorer generally should, but is not required to, consider the appearance of a relief pitcher to be ineffective and brief if such relief pitcher pitches less than one inning and allows two or more earned runs to score (even if such runs are charged to a previous pitcher). Rule 10.17(b) Comment provides guidance on choosing the winning pitcher from among several succeeding relief pitchers.
(d) A losing pitcher is a pitcher who is responsible for the run that gives the winning team a lead that the winning team does not relinquish.
Rule 10.17(d) Comment: Whenever the score is tied, the game becomes a new contest insofar as the losing pitcher is concerned.
(e) A league may designate a non-championship game (for example, the Major League All-Star Game) for which Rules 10.17(a)(1) and 10.17(b) do not apply. In such games, the official scorer shall credit as the winning pitcher that pitcher whose team assumes a lead while such pitcher is in the game, or during the inning on offense in which such pitcher is removed from the game, and does not relinquish such lead, unless such pitcher is knocked out after the winning team has attained a commanding lead and the official scorer concludes that a subsequent pitcher is entitled to credit as the winning pitcher.

My lefty brethren versus my favorite team

Before the season, the only problem the Red Sox were expected to face (talk about hindsight being 20/20) was the fact that their ideal lineup was lefty heavy. What this really means is that 4 of the 5 lefties expected to be in the everyday lineup (Jacoby Ellsbury actually hits lefties better than righties for some reason) have pretty large platoon splits over their careers. Through the first 17 games of the season, the Red Sox have faced a whopping 9 lefty starters including some of the leauge’s best in CC Sabathia, David Price, C.J. Wilson and Brett Anderson and 5 of their last 6 matchups. The Red Sox sit at 6-11 so all the people who said the team was too lefty heavy have been vindicated right?

Not so fast. According to Baseball-Reference, against left-handed starters this year the Red Sox are batting .241/.335/.400 while against right-handed starters they are hitting .236/.326/.363. If they are so lefty heavy in the lineup, how is this possible?

Well, there are 3 great reasons. While our righties have a .832 OPS against left-handed pitching so far, we owe it all to Dustin Pedroia (.969 OPS against lefties), Kevin Youkilis (1.232), and Jed Lowrie (1.400) hitting lefties like Albert Pujols on steroids. I do not expect Youk and Lowrie to keep this up all year, but I also expect some of our right handed depth to improve as the season goes on. Mike Cameron, Marco Scutaro and Darnell McDonald should all be able to serve as viable platoon partners to our all left outfield and our lefty DH. If Francona were so inclined, he could easily fill out a lineup card with only Adrian Gonzalez and one of the lefty outfielders (preferably the reverse platoon split Ellsbury) to face some of the tougher lefties in the middle of the season.

The real problem with the Red Sox offense this year has been the ineffectiveness of our lefty mashers against right handed pitching. Another reason why people said the Sox were so lefty heavy this year is because our lefty hitters are all very famous for their really good hitting. Well that group has a .718 OPS against righties so far. In other words, they are hitting like a bunch of Marco Scutaros. The main culprits have been Carl “Dead Horse” Crawford (.342 OPS against righties; that’s OPS, not OBP), J.D. Drew (sporting a weird opposite platoon split with a .671 OPS against righties and a .978 OPS against lefties), and David Ortiz (same weird opposite platoon split with .724 OPS against righties and 1.027 against lefties). I don’t expect Drew and Ortiz to all of a sudden be completely different players and have lefties stop fooling them on sliders and forcing them to roll over grounders on outside fastballs, but I do expect them to get back to destroying right-handers. “Dead Horse” Crawford, as you can see by his new nick name, has been discussed at length. There is just no way he is this bad, I promise.

The lefties will start crushing the right-handers soon enough and this offense can go back to being the behemoth it was expected to be. What we now see is that despite opposing managers seemingly throwing every able bodied left-hander at this team, the Red Sox are in good position to handle it given the right line up construction. With right-handed bats Pedroia, Youkilis and Lowrie, the team has the type of top of the order balance necessary to face pitchers of all handedness.

Just Dropped In (To See What Condition Carl Crawford's Condition Was In)

Disclaimer: This is a numbers heavy post, but the numbers are all easy to understand as simple percentages and will be accompanied by explanations. All numbers come from Fangraph's Player Pages

Today we are going to take a look at what is wrong with Carl Crawford so far this year using batted ball and plate discipline data, and not my honorary psych degree from the School of Bullshit. Batted ball data looks at the types of hits a player is getting by percentage, i.e. percentage of ground balls, fly balls, pop ups, etc. Plate discipline data shows the locations of pitches that a player swings at and takes. This data is good for analyzing performance irregularities because over a player’s career, the numbers stay fairly constant absent a change in approach due to a new team, manager, coach, ball park or rapid aging. Usually a guy who hits a lot of fly balls and doesn’t swing at pitches outside the zone will retain those tendencies until he hits his deep decline phase.

The reason I want to look at Crawford’s batted ball and plate discipline data is twofold. The first is obviously his lack of elite production through 11 games. At $20 million a season, nobody expects this player to produce a .152/.204/.174 over the course of the full season so what is causing this slump now? The second is that after watching the series against the Yankees, specifically the Beckett gem, I got the distinct feeling that there is absolutely nothing wrong with Crawford right now because all the balls he was putting in play were exactly like the balls he usually puts in play in the games I have seen him in the past. Now, anyone who knows anything about the law (bird, maritime or other) knows that eye witness accounts can be very shoddy. So to back up my observations I want to take a deep dive into the data.

Starting with the batted ball, there aren’t a lot of numbers that show cause for concern. He is hitting fewer line drives and ground balls than he has for his career, but is hitting more than he did last year when he had his best season with the bat. He is hitting more fly balls than his career, but again, less than last year when he had his career year. It is also important to note that his infield pop ups are down slightly so he is not producing a lot of bad at bats. The glaring number is 0.0% Home Run per Fly Ball percentage, compared to his 8% career mark. I am pretty positive we are not going to go the whole season without Crawford hitting a homer so this does not bother me.

If we want to find some meaning in the batted ball numbers we should look towards last year where there appears to be a clear change in approach. As I said before, last year started a trend that appears to be continuing this year where Crawford is hitting fewer liners and ground balls and hitting more fly balls to the outfield. Since this approach was clearly successful for him last year, I won’t be too concerned about it, but I will ask why he changed from a line drive/ground ball hitter to more of a neutral hitter. I have two guesses. The first is that he was in a contract year and this year is trying to prove himself in Boston. He could have felt that the best way to get a big contract and make good on it is with home runs so he started trying to get some lift on his balls. This strategy is well and good but his Home Run per Fly Ball percentage (HR/FB %) was 10.6% in 2010 and 10.3% in 2009 when he had his lowest fly ball rate since his second season so trying to hit home runs did not prove successful. The second guess is that he is recognizing an erosion in his speed so he is looking to add more extra base power and give up some ground ball infield singles. Again, this doesn’t line up with the stats as his stolen base percentage last year was 82% (very good) and the percentage of ground balls that turned into infield hits was exactly the same in 2010 and 2009 (10.6%). So not knowing what is going on in Crawford’s head, I am not really sure why his batted balls have shifted and until we get more information this year, maybe we just have to consider 2010 an aberration, but I will be paying attention this year to see if Crawford is trying to go from a speedy singles and doubles hitter to a  still speedy power hitter.

Since the batted ball data does not seem to bore anything out, we can now look at his plate discipline numbers. Starting with the basics, Crawford is striking out 17.4% of the time, which is a little higher than his career but not out of line with his recent years (’07-’10: 19.2%, 13.5%, 16.3%, 17.3%). The number that jumps out is his percentage of walks, which sits at 4.1%. Last year this would have ranked 5^th worst in baseball. As it is, Crawford has not walked a whole lot over his career, but at least in the last three years he has leapt into the realm of respectability hovering around 7%. So why is he all of a sudden taking walks like he is a member of the Kansas City Royals (for those that don’t know, they don’t walk ever)?

When looking at his plate discipline, there are two groups of numbers that jump out at me: his Swing Percentage (the percentage of pitches he swings at, which can be broken down to balls in the strike zone and balls outside the strike zone) and his Contact Percentage (the percentage of contact that he makes when he swings the bat). This year his overall Swing % is lower than it has ever been. Reasonably we could expect this to lead to either a spike in backward Ks or walks, but neither is the case and in fact the opposite is true with walks. Then we look at his Swing % on balls outside the zone (O-Swing %) to see if he is chasing more pitches leading to fewer walks, but we see that he is right in line with recent seasons when he had respectable walk rates. Finally we look at his Swing % on balls in the zone (Z-Swing %) and notice a career low rate. Now we start to get a picture forming. By swinging at so few pitches in the zone, Crawford is taking a lot more strikes than he is used to, putting him in pitchers counts more often.

Next, we look at his contact rates. The number that sticks out somewhat alarmingly is his contact rate on balls he swings at outside the zone (O-Contact %) is WAY higher than his career rate (75% this year vs. 65% career). What this means is that even though he isn’t chasing many more pitches out of the zone, when he does swing at those balls he is making a lot more contact. You would think more contact would equal more hits, but in this case, contact on balls outside the zone typically leads to bad contact. A lot of times these balls are harmlessly fouled off, but if the ball goes into play you usually don’t see good results unless you are Adrian Beltre or Vlad Guerrero.

Based on all the evidence we have, it appears that Carl Crawford is trying to fit into his new surroundings with an altered approach at the plate and, more long term, is trying to become a middle of the order hitter. This year he is definitely trying to take more pitches to fit the Red Sox philosophy, but he is finding himself down in the count too quickly. This is causing him to shorten his stroke to make contact on balls he otherwise shouldn’t be swinging at and are leading to just missed fly balls right at the outfielders. Crawford would do well to protect the strike zone better by being his usual aggressive self and jumping on good pitches to hit like he has in the past rather than worrying about working a 7 pitch at bat. We do not need Crawford to be the prototypical high on-base lead off guy, we just need him to be his usual dynamic self and I expect given time we will see exactly that.

6. Adrian Beltre, 3B

Baseball Prospectus' 2010 Projection:

Age	PA	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	WARP
31	499	58	27	1	17	62	34	79	9	3	.274	.328	.446	1.5

Baseball Prospectus' Take:

"Beltre is an excellent defender and in most seasons an acceptable hitter, but he's not smart enough to wear a cup. The world found out more than it wanted to know about Beltre's privates when a bad-hop grounder, with almost Darwinian precesion, scored a bull's-eye on August 12th...Pitchers preyed on his weakened [shoulder], challenging him, and his walk rate nearly went the way of his testicles...Safeco Field has a strong prejudice against right-handed hitters...[Beltre hit] .276/.326/.485 with a home run every 24 at-bats on the road...Beltre will never again finish second on an MVP ballot, but he's young enough to recapture some of his old luster playing in Fenway."

X-Mark's Take:

I've already professed my love here and here (but of course MLB has taken the video of his defensive highlights down so you'll just have to wait until the season starts to see his brilliance; I will save my rant against MLB's video rules for another day), so at the risk of coming off as a stalker I will keep this brief and professional.

We already know his defense is going to be sublime. The huge question is what will he bring to the offense?

This is the first true hacker the Sox have had in a prominent role in quite some time. Beltre does not work the count and does not take a whole lot of walks. His OBP is batting average driven. It would be nice to think and hope that the Sox organizational philosophy will rub off on him a bit and he can bump his walks up over 50 this year, but this guy has been in the league since he was 19 (!) and pretty much what you see is what you get. The room for upside lies in his transition from Safeco Field, one of the toughest parks for right-handed batters, to Fenway, one of the most inviting.

If Beltre can learn to pepper balls off the wall this year he could turn in a really good offensive season. However, if we look at his splits last year, this may be unlikely to happen. According to Fangraphs, Beltre only hit 22% of his fly balls to left field in 2009. If he repeats this trend this year then that inviting Monster will go to waste. However if we think about this a little more and look at another number things start to look better.

First, we can infer that Beltre knew how hard it was to hit with power at Safeco having played there for 5 seasons. Knowing this, he could have begun to tailor his swing for the ball park, focusing on lofting balls to the opposite field.

Second, we can also look to his Home Run per Fly Ball percentage and see that Beltre hit 16% of his flyballs to LF for home runs.

If we put these together we can reasonably think that Beltre knows when to turn on a ball based on what he can do with it. If he brings this knowledge and ability to Fenway, he may be more prone to taking the ball to left and with his past ability to hit for power he could seriously exceed his 17 homer projection, assuming his shoulder (and testicles) is healed.

There are a lot of "ifs", "coulds" and "assumings" with my new man crush. But the man was brought here to own the left side of the infield and that is a fairly sure thing if there ever was one. So, anything he can provide us on offense we really have to view as creamy, thick, delicious gravy. Shit, so much for being professional.

5. David Ortiz, DH (for now)

Baseball Prospectus' 2010 Projection:

Age	PA	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	WARP
34	561	75	30	1	25	89	80	107	2	1	.259	.368	.479	2.1

Baseball Prospectus' Take:

"Ortiz went from zero to hero last year...[hitting] .264/.356/.548 with 27 dingers in 419 PAs [after June 1]...Ortiz has largely stopped hitting lefties and hit just .223/.323/.415 on the road over the past two seasons."

X-Mark's Take:

This is where the Sox lineup takes a scary turn. If Ortiz does what he did in the last 4 months of the season last year then they should have a very solid number 5 hitter. But if his season resembles what he did overall last season with smaller peaks and valleys then this offense really could be in trouble.

But I think there is a clear solution that is really being overlooked here: a good old fashioned righty-lefty platoon that would make Earl Weaver brim with joy. That's right, I'm talking about my celebrity look alike (doppleganger? is that what it is Facebook?) Mike Lowell.

Realistically, the Sox will trade Lowell for 10 cents on the dollar AND absorb anywhere from 75%-90% of his 2010 salary, but why does this have to happen? Is this 36 year old man so fragile that he cannot get over being almost traded this winter? Can he really not get over being relegated to platoon DH and back-up first and third baseman? Mike, if you get truly down about either of these developments I suggest curling up in a big pile of your $12 million you are set to receive this year, stick your thumb in your mouth, grab your ear, and really think about what you are so upset about. If you stick around, face mostly left-handed pitching, minimize your short-comings in the field, and maximize this roster, you may have a shot at another ring and potentially another contract because teams will see all of your virtues this year and few of your weaknesses.

Last year, Ortiz hit righties to the tune of .250/.346/.488, which we could expect to see some improvement on this year if he is getting more rest and only focusing on righties. Last year, Lowell MASHED lefties at a .301/.363/.503 clip. Looks like a pretty damn good platoon to me.

There is some downside to this plan. First of all, Lowell has seemed to indicate he is not willing to play organizational soldier regardless of how much he is being paid. Second, this completely locks any other player out of getting significant ABs at DH this year, which is a spot I'm sure Theo and Tito would occasionally like to slide V-Mart into to save his body. Third, this would mean carrying 14 hitters and 11 pitchers, and even though this makes a TON of sense, it is just not done anymore by big league clubs.

This is all just wishful thinking. Most likely Ortiz is it for us at DH this year (although the team could still form a nifty platoon with V-Mart playing DH against lefties and Tek catching because he still actually hits lefties decently) and Lowell is still ticketed out of town (of late Minnesota has popped up as a possible destination, hopefully for this guy who I had a chance to scout a little this summer in my brief run as a sports agent apprentice).

What this all means is that a lot of the Red Sox offense really hinges on what Big Papi does this year. I was pretty optimistic about the offense a couple weeks ago, but now that I have started these player profiles I have to admit my sunny disposition is waning. We still look to have a pitching and defense monster on our hands, but I fear us dropping more to the middle of the pack or worse offensively than I previously thought. Of course a trade for either this guy or this guy or even my old buddy would cure a lot of ills.

4. Kevin Youkilis, 1B and sometimes 3B

Baseball Prospectus' 2010 Projection:

Age	PA	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	WARP
31	594	82	35	2	22	86	67	107	4	3	.283	.379	.488	2.9

Baseball Prospectus' Take:

"He's an ugly, sweaty, man-beast with a pale, bald pate and a fondness for overgrown facial hair, he's got one of the game's most irritating batting stances, and he's a grade-A red-ass who takes particular exception to being pitched inside while standing on top of homeplate (most recently trying to Oddjob Rick Porcello with his batting helmet following an HBP). He's also one of the game's most valuable players."

X-Mark's Take:

Those nerds at BP sure are funny, good writers huh? I couldn't paraphrase that evaluation and leave out any of those awesome words. But obviously the takeaway is the simple, closing sentence, that our ugly friend is "one of the game's most valuable players."

With his ability to play two positions very well, take pitches and draw walks, fantastic defense at first and above average defense at third, and his surprisingly solid power spike over the past couple years, Yoooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuk has been in the conversation for top 5 position players in the AL the past 2 seasons (along with Mauer, Jeter, Cabrera, A-Rod, Longoria, Pedroia, and Shin-Soo Choo). His name is fun to scream at the pahk. His style is fun for Sox fans to root for. His ugly mug resembles that of Murph or Sully down at the docks in Gloucester. He battles every day with Ryan Braun and Ian Kinsler for title of best active Jewish ballplayer (check out this video for Denis Leary's take on Youk's heritage). For better or worse he is our best player and face of the franchise.

So why is BP's projection system, PECOTA, so down on him?

First a clarification: A 2.9 WARP is comfortably above average and may even discount his defense a bit, meaning he's a bit better than this. So saying they are down may seem weird, but his WARP from '08 was 5.8 and from '09 was 5.5 so a 1.6-1.9 win tumble is really significant.

Well the answer most likely lies in his batted ball data. This is a compilation of percentages found at Fangraphs.com that show how often Youk walks, strikes out, homers, hits balls in the air, hits line drives, hits grounders, hits pop outs, and, most importantly for this discussion, hits fly balls out of the ball park.

If you click on the link and scroll down a bit, you will notice that all of these rates remain fairly constant within a percentage or two. But when you look at HR/FB (percentage of fly balls that are home runs), you see a huge spike in '08 to 14.9% that spiked again in '09 to 16.5%.

If this were 2002 you could easily explain this away with steroids. But it's not, so unfortunately (fortunately?) we have to dig a little deeper. Luckily, if you have spent (wasted?) as much time as I have over the years compiling the best baseball websites on The Net, you wouldn't have to dig that deep. The site is called Hit Tracker and it measures everything you would ever want to know about home runs including speed off the bat, altitudinal impact, and "Just Enough" (defined by Hit Tracker as " the ball cleared the fence by less than 10 vertical feet, OR that it landed less than one fence height past the fence. These are the ones that barely made it over the fence") home runs. You may be able to see where I'm going with this: In '09 Youkilis finished second in the AL with 13 "Just Enoughs"; in '08 he finished fourth with 11; in '07 he finished fourteenth with 9 (out of only 16 total HR).

Now, a deep breath. If we take these numbers at face value we are lead to believe that in a year or two Youk is destined for Warning Track Power (or as I like to call it "Kevin Millar Power"). And this may be what BP's system is seeing in his unexpected power spike.

But if you look at the rest of the "Just Enough" leader board you will find it littered with Red Sox. Does this mean the entire team only has Kevin Millar Power? Hell no. What it means is that the Red Sox play in a very very unique park and as great a site and technology as Hit Tracker is, it clearly has trouble evaluating the effect of the Monster.

Look at the first definition for a just enough home run: "the ball cleared the fence by less than 10 vertical feet." Well the Green Monster is 37' high meaning a ball has to be 47' in the air at the point of clearing the wall. Even at that short distance, this is really hard to do.

I think that it is really hard to change who you are as a baseball player, especially at 29 years old, as Youkilis seems to have done. Usually you can explain these supposed changes away as luck and random fluctuations, which you can do with these "Just Enough" homers. But I think you can slightly tweak the path of a swing, which I bet is what happened with Youk here allowing him to better take advantage of his home surroundings. So until I see a drop in power, I am going to expect Youk to continue to knock on the door of 30 homers for the next couple of years further cementing his place in the upper echelon of ballplayers.