example1

I'm gonna give it some time before concluding that Girardi is a great manager. I agree with you that Francona's talent has been really, really good. It has. But in a place like Boston it would be easy for a manager to overstep their bounds and try to change players who are already good, or to have a hard time with the media. Francona has at least helped himself by not actively making his players worse, which is something. The fact that he's been able to stay in Boston for this long and with that collection of world class stars around him (Ortiz, Manny, Schilling, Matsuzaka, etc.,). The place is a zoo and Terry's been a good zoo keeper.

The Sox are better at the top and they are deeper with better talent at the bottom. I basically agree with ya here. Very good analysis. The bullpen is a fickle beast indeed. Nobody expected the Sox to do what they did last year bullpen-wise. I think Okajima will last, though he won't put up the dominant numbers he did last year. He won't lose his control and he really did develop into a different pitcher with the invention of his changeup. His numbers last year were probably a combination of a really good run and the development of a devistating pitch that makes him really effective against righties. To have a left handed set-up man who can throw well to righties is a hugely beneficial thing. It means a lot less need for specialization pitching at the end of games, and allows you to do that pitching earlier in the game. Thus turning the "specialty pitching" game into a 1 inning affair, rather than 2-3 innings. It will be interesting to see how the Yankees end up addressing their bullpen. It really comes down to a question of valuation, and how they handle the CHamberlain situation will be indicative of their current thinking. Chamberlain can shorten the game if he's a reliever and could be one of the best closers in the game if they move that direction. I don't really like the Rivera contract from this year, but he's not a bad option at the end of a pen. The Yankees offense will be a juggernaught. It has been the past few years. It might not be "close" but the Sox have one of the superior offenses in baseball. They may get shut down by a wider range of pitchers over the course of the season, but in any game they will be more than adequate to compete. Not every team has players who can win a game single handedly. The Yankees do, in A-Rod and the Sox do in Ortiz. Beyond that, there are a number of good hitters. If Drew comes back to his career averages (harder league but better park) and Ellsbury puts up a .375 OBP then this offense will be fine. I agree with just about everything you said. I think Lowell is a considerably better defender than A-Rod, but A-Rod is satisfactory. Looking at the numbers it appears that Cano had a larger impact on his club defensively last year than Pedroia did. However, I simply don't believe that Cano is better defensively than Pedroia. Cano is perhaps more athletic, and definitely faster. My gut (and tons of hours of observation) tell me that Pedroia lined up better, turned more difficult throws into outs and--as indicated by his FP%, lame stat, I know but indicative of a simple chances to errors ratio. Pedroia did some amazing things defensively last year and made some enormous plays when they mattered. If I had to pick between these players to make an out for their team I'd take Pedroia every time. Of course, I think I can be easily swayed by some of Cano's really poor plays. I'd be interested if anyone else wanted to break down Pedroia vs. Cano defensively. I think people will be surprised by the fact that the Red Sox of 2008 will be an enormously improved team from last year because: --They will have essentially added 2 quality starters to the rotation in Lester and Buchholz. Both of them will be able to win on any given night and should be equal to, if not favorites against, just about any other offense + starter in the league. --Matsuzaka should be a better pitcher than he was last year. He should be able to extend some of the stretches he had last year. Frankly, I see a lot of similarities between Beckett 06 and Matsuzaka 07. They both did a lot of fairly uncharacteristic things that ended up burning them. Matsuzaka's stretches of walk-walk-walk-flair double down the line were frustrating, but could easily be fixed by getting a ground out or throwing one more strike three batters previous. That's the big improvement we saw with Beckett. It's not that he gained a new pitch or suddenly had control, it was that he would mix his pitches a little better and simply throw them all for strikes. He didn't become a strikeout artist, he just let his stuff work for him and didn't make stupid mistakes. Matsuzaka is a real pro, the guy was put on this Earth to be a pitcher and he knows that. He will ultimately justify all the hype. --Ellsbury may be the best Red Sox leadoff hitter in history when all is said and done. He could be a CF with the defensive impact of Crisp and the offensive impact of Pedroia. To add that to this lineup would really strengthen the weakest link on the team previously. Overall, I agree with both JM and the article. I think that the Sox will be a much improved team in 2008, even though their improvements may be below the surface moreso than in many offseasons.

All things Sox vs. Yankees for the 08 season To start, a FOX Sports article comparing the two teams: http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7593472 Actually a pretty fair article IMO. Yankees lineup is better, but the Sox have a good lineup nonetheless. The Sox meanwhile have the better pitching staff through and through, better defense by a mile and a better manager. I could have told you that. Just figured we needed a spot for stuff like this as Spring Training approaches. :dunno:

If the data is skewing Lester's fastball as too fast, how come it doesn't do the same for the rest of the Red Sox pitchers. Which of these seem wrong (remember, they are the speed at release point, not as it crosses the plate)? [table] |Papelbon | 96.01 | |Beckett | 95.74 | |Delcarman | 95.38 | |Matsuzaka | 93.95 | |Gagne | 93.24 | |Lester | 93.14 | |Snyder | 92.73 | |Timlin | 92.54 | |Tavarez | 91.1 | |Schilling | 89.81 | |Okajima | 88.94 | |Lopez | 87.09 | |Wakefield | 75.62 | [/table] How about some Yankees? I know Jacksonianmarch would be familiar with their performance, likely having seen a few with his own eyes on tv or in person: Yankees: [table] | Chamberlain | 98.22 | |Farnsworth | 96.37 | | Bruney | 94.7 | |Wang | 94.08 | |Rivera | 94.03 | |Vizcaino | 92.74 | |Hughes | 92.26 | |Clemens | 91.66 | |Pettitte | 91.25 | |Kennedy | 90.88 | |Igawa | 89.67 | |Mussina | 85.52 | |Villone | 85.4 | [/table] There is a whole lot one could do with data like this. I would be very interested to know whether this year represents a low point in terms of LHP velocity, or whether it is a normal year in that respect. I would also be interested to see if there has been any effect of PED enforcement.

There is actually a point within a sample, as I'm sure you know, where it becomes almost futile to keep measuring. If you're using a random sample (which this likely isn't, but it certainly isn't intentionally biased either, so it's close) then you don't need to measure 50% of the population to know what general traits that population shows. If that population is something as objective as a mph number, the confidence can be pretty high that you've nailed it if you have 60%.

God love you and your Family Guy avitars. I can't get mad at stewie! (it's a good thing you don't have a picture of that damn yellow-chicken who consistently attacks Peter!)

And yes, if someone threw underhand in softball, and someone threw harder than most of his/her peers, I would say "hard throwing softball pitcher". The "hard throwing" modifies that pitcher, and is not some objective statement. In this case, however, I'd be very, VERY impressed if you were able to hit Lester's fastball. As you well-know, anyone who throws 90mph throws VERY hard, unless you are comparing them to other professional baseball players. Of course, if you were comparing them to other baseball players, then you would also take "hard throwing lefty" and compare that to "baseball players who are left handed".

I'm not qualifying anything. The reason that the term "hard throwing lefty" exists is because lefties tend not to throw hard. I bet you don't believe there is a SINGLE hard throwing lefty in baseball, which makes the term--commonly used and, in my opinion, rightly so--actually have no meaning.

I said "hard throwing lefty". If I said "fast red car" or "giant moon of Jupiter" would you consider blue cars and moons of mars in your data set? Yes, apparently you would.

I said before that he elevates it to 95. Here's a completely different source: http://webusers.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob/Analysis.pdf It's from ONE game (being honest about sample size). I see a number of pitches COMFORTABLY between 90-95. That, combined with the average velocity of the 600 pitches measured above, tells me he sits probably right between, which is somewhere close to 93. Yeah, its semantics TheKilo. You know I respect you as a poster, but I can't help but wonder why you have to attack my work with one-liners when I go to such lengths to find actual data. Rather than just saying "did you watch the games last year?" you could say "thanks exmaple1 for finding all that data, here are the problems I have with it, and here is the site that I found in my own time to back up my claims". Instead I just get one liners while you sit around waiting for my next post. I DID watch the games last year (as you well know, we watched a number of them 'together' on this very board). What I saw from lester is more consistent with the data I'm finding than what you guys are saying. I saw a lefty who threw HARD FOR A LEFTY, whose fastball I would guess was between 92 and 94 consistently and which occasionally went higher. It is surprising that he threw harder than Bedard or Santana--and I wouldn't be shocked if that was wrong--but for you guys to just let the "he's basically Ted Lilly" comment go without stepping is weak, because I KNOW you watched the games and I KNOW you know Lester threw harder than Lilly does.

That's consistent with every pitcher on my list, right? You are wanting to claim that Lester is NOT a hard throwing lefty compared to other lefties. I have provided SOME proof, while stating very politely that I'm open to other data if I'm wrong. Nobody has provided any other data, so I won't "just admit it". I'll admit that they are ONE SET OF STATS.

Secondly, again, show me ANY piece of data that can show me 5 LHP who consistently threw harder. If you can't, then I stand correct to assert that Jon Lester is a hard throwing lefty (at least relative to other left handed pitchers in professional baseball, which is, as far as I know, the data pool we're talking about here). It's funny how you talk about "burden of proof" but don't actually prove anything, other than to state the obvious: that the sample is an incomplete (albeit large) one.

Prove to me he sits at 91. What is disappointing is how little knowledge people here have of the idea of "random sampling", a tool that is used everywhere with consistency to guide policy making and decision making throughout the world.

Your argument is that the harder he throws the wilder he gets. Ergo, his BEST game would likely be when he DOESN'T throw hard, right? I think that in a 6 game period, with close to 100 pitches each, one can have a pretty good idea how hard he throws. I don't think he had a game where he was lights out and threw 600 pitches. If he did that would certainly skew the data. Otherwise, I think we're looking at a fairly broad snapshot of his year. If someone measured your performance by looking at 1040 of your 2080 work hours this year, they would have a pretty good idea of the type of employee you are, right? There is a CHANCE that they would just randomly stumble upon every one of your bad days, but that isn't very likely. Chances are it will be a pretty accurate representation of the type of worker you are. ESPECIALLY if the system does its best to randomize (i.e., not measuring specifically just from Fenway, or just against lefty hitters, or just against power hitters or just in the first inning... I see no indication that there was any such specificity). That indicates to me that the 600 pitches, though an incomplete representation, were not hand picked to present Lester in a better light--likewise, the numbers for Bedard or Sabathia were not hand picked to make them look bad. If we were talking about 100 pitches it would be different. This sample size is large enough to draw conclusions from. Furthermore, I don't hear ANYONE arguing about the other players velocities, even though those are missing a large number of pitches as well. It seems like a weak argument unless you can do better with a more thorough sample.

You think Lester knew when Pitch f/x was on, and threw EXTRA hard when that was the case? Otherwise, we're approaching a pretty random sample by my estimation.

Nope, I'm telling you to do better or be quiet.

Yet another typical one-liner from a guy who critiques but can't come up with his own materal lately. I think you're a great poster here, but this is pretty weak showing about something that is objectively varifiable. So far, I've provided stats that seem to be backed up by about 60% of his pitches last year. You have shown stats that back up zero percent of his pitches. Again TheKilo, FIND YOUR OWN DAMN DATA TO BACK UP YOUR POINT IF YOU DON'T LIKE MINE!!! It really isn't that hard man. Geez. I'm not getting my data from a pro-Jon Lester site. it seems pretty objective. Perhaps the 40% of other fastballs he threw were really slow. That could totally be the case. But you haven't responded to the fact that, of the SIX HUNDRED pitches were talking about here, he threw harder than a lot of other guys. Even if it regresses to ONLY what Eric Bedard or Johan Santana throw, we're talking about a 'hard throwing lefty' unless you believe HTLs don't exist beyond one or two guys. If judging 60% of his pitches isn't a big enough sample size then do better. I don't really care that much, as you were the one trying to call me on saying he throws hard for a lefty. You don't believe it but you poke holes in my argument--about things over which I have no control--instead of doing any work yourself.

Unless those 400 pitches are all horribly slow I would think the 600+ pitches would be an adquate sample size. Don't you think you're grasping here? The point is that, for a left handed pitcher, Lester throws hard. I listed a few that I could think of who may throw harder, and according to that site, they do not. Even if they DID throw harder, we're talking about only the top 10-15 left handed pitchers in the league in terms of velocity. If being firmly within the top 7% of hard throwers doesn't make you belong to that class then I think your standards are too high. Find another site. I'm sure there is one that has pitch speeds. Presntly I don't have the time for that search, but would like to see the results.

So he's averaging 93.14 with just strikes? So, for a lefty, he throws his strikes harder than just about everyone else. It was your argument that his hardest pitches were balls, which would raise that average even more, no?

Name some "hard throwing lefties" instead of just challenging my claim TheKilo. I provided you with my source, and if you lost it, here it is again: http://baseball.bornbybits.com/plots/players.html Here are left handed pitchers who led in strikeouts last year, with their K-Rank in parentheses: CC Sabathia: 94.26 (4) Oliver Perez: 92.97 (7) Scott Kazmir: 92.9 (1) Johan Santana: 92.75 (2) Eric Bedard: 92.37 (3) Cole Hamels: 91.86 (6) Rich Hill: 91.14 (5) Ted Lilly: 89.54 (7) Remember: Lester: 93.14 So, instead of me wasting any more of my time to point out that not many left handed starters can average more than 93.14 at release point (only Sabathia, that I saw out of the top strike out pitchers) why don't you actually do some research yourself? I provided you the site I'm using. There's a list there. You're obviously bright enough to figure out which pitchers are left handed. Go through your list, see which of those pitchers threw harder than 93.14 on average with thier FB and then come back to me with your comment about "hard throwers". Until you do that, I'm just answering questions that you could answer yourself. OR, you could find another site that has a different velocity listed for Lester and go from there. Frankly, I don't care and would appreciate the added resources to use. Until then, though, I'm going with what I found. Namely, that there is only one left handed starter in the top 10 in K's (which I'm using as a marker for 'good') who throws harder consistently than Lester does. So, what does "Hard throwing lefty" mean to you TheKilo? If not "in the top 3 in all of baseball among left handed starters in pitch velocity" what does it mean?

I'd say a lefty who can put it up to 93-94 mph and who sits between 90-95 is a hard throwing lefty. He's not Scott Kazmir or Randy Johnson, but he's not throwing cream puffs either. He is definitely able to generate swings-and-misses with his FB.

It would be disappointing if, after an hour of writing my post, you came on and said "I agree, you're right!" So I'm glad you still disagree. I just don't see how stupid contracts by other teams is a good measure for what the Sox are trying to do here. I'd like to see how players who went through the analysis that Santana's potential likely will tend to do over a 7 year period during those ages--chances are that few teams have been as rigorous with thier acquisitons as the Sox are, and that the sample size of tremendous pitchers being picked up by a sabermetrically driven club are too low for any type of analysis like the one above. The current Red Sox would never have signed a number of guys on these lists to deals that the players ultimately got. If those are deals that so dramatically differ from what the Sox are likely to do, then I don't think we're looking at a valid statistical grouping. The players I listed were players whom the Sox may have gone aggressively after. They were more dominant than some of the others that you listed. I know why you selected that group, and I appreciate the effort to look at the problem in a unique way. Ultimately--as you'll see at the bottom--I agree with you wholeheartedly. However, I don't agree that we should use stats from free agents in a market before sabermetric analysis was an important part of running a ballclub. Again, This Red Sox FO would not take a chance on a lot of those guys. Apparently they think they could take a chance on Santana for a different reason. Perhaps it is health, perhaps it is past performance, but I highly doubt that Theo is evaluating Santana's future by looking at players who are comparables--NOT due to talent levels necessarily (though some of the ones I listed were similar talent-wise)--but who are comparable because some stupid team was willing to pay them a boatload of money to do their job. Barry Zito made a boatload of money last year, and might be on your list eventually, but that is not at all an indication that he would make the Red Sox list of top 10 pitchers in baseball, or even top 10 Free Agent eligable pitchers in baseball. Uhhh, yeah. You and I spend much too much time on this board! I know how long it takes to prove your point, but I appreciate the effort. If you wanted to do a set of players who became FAs at the age of 29 and who signed those huge deals I would be interested. I'm just not going to do it myself. The closest I came was providing the WARP for players during their 29-35 seasons... that's all i got in me. Any good baseball fan would ask: who the HELL is Teddy Higuera? I hear ya, you didn't cherry pick. I don't suspect you ever do Jayhawk Bill. I don't either. I look for statistical patterns that I think are there (say, the similar minor league numbers between Pedroia and Ellsbury) and then look to see if they are. Of course he'll have flaws. But he is not a soft-tossing lefty with an injury history. He's a guy who makes a lot of hitters swing and miss (thus reducing his need for defense) and who does not walk many to hurt himself. My guess is that, if health is equal, a pitcher who makes batters swing and miss, and does not give out free bases, is likely to continue that type of useful production over time than a player who has a lower than average BABIP or a pitcher who walks a lot but gets more double plays, or a pitcher who doesn't strike guys out but gets groundballs instead. Pedro and Schilling, for instance, are no longer strikeout artists. They have 'regressed' to just being guys who don't walk many, who throw effective strikes and don't leave too many in bad places. That's a different kind of regression than going from being an effective Tom Glavine to a Tom Glavine who can't make it out of the 4th inning. Perhaps Glavine is a bad example, but you get my drift. Did I pick guys who were only dominant in their 30s? Pedro, Maddux, RJ, Smoltz etc., were all very good in their 20s. In general I agree that "past performance does not determine future earnings" but I have to wonder how valid that is in this case. It seems like you're saying that "all 29 year old pitchers have the same chance of success in future years regardless of past success". I'm not a betting man, but I'm more willing to put my non-existant money on a guy who has HOF comparables and 2 Cy Youngs to his name and is healthy than a 29 year old Sidney Ponson, who has a history of sucking. The past success part--if measured correctly--can be more a measure of STUFF than of luck. Santana's success in the past was due to good stuff, and stuff--if he is healthy--has a shelf-life that is somewhat predictable. Even you acknowledge that when you talk about decending WARPs over the next few years. How can you say, on one hand, that we can't use the past to evaluate (or at least guess at) what the future may look like, but then talk about decending WARPs based on a fairly well-established trend of probabilities that a pitcher's stuff and health will slowly deteriorate over time? That's definiltely a risk that any team who signs him will have to run. I don't see how that judgment is made. If he comes out next year and has a 9 WARP then all of those other numbers are adjusted. The numbers deteriorate because pitchers tend to get injured as they get older. The Red Sox have been very careful to not overwork their pitchers, and the Twins have been careful with Santana. This is a completely new variable that needs to be taken into account. I don't think it is excessive. If I were saying he'll get 12 WARP that would be excessive. To say that I think he could average a 5 WARP over the life of his 7 year contract, starting with higher numbers and moving toward lower ones is not at all out of the question IMO. As you would say, YMMV. It's funny how we'll disagree passionately for a few pages, only to ultimately arrive at the same conclusion. For me, the biggest loss in this deal is probably the package that they will need to give up for him to get the OPPORTUNITY to overpay him. I would shoot for 17m a year for 5 years, with an automatic kicker for a 6th and 7th year based on production toward the end of that 5 years. Pitching, overall, is too risky. I have no trouble envisioning Santana being a very effective pitcher throughout the rest of his career, I just have trouble seeing it as being markedly better than, say, Josh Beckett or Daisuke Matsuzaka, who are both similar ages and who both cost a whole lot less (combined they equal about what we're talking about for Santana).