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Tanyon Sturtze is still on the Yankees?

What do people feel? Would we rather lose Papelbon or Lester? I am assuming that the sox can sign Beckett for the next 4 years sometime soon, and either one of those guys would likely be the 2nd starter. Arroyo is young and many are expecting a good year out of him. He will be a "crafty veteran" within two years, but not old. I think that gives them a solid staff. That lineup would be DISGUSTING if they were able to get Tejada without giving up Manny. Deal Papelbon, keep Wells and Clement. Crisp Loretta Manny Ortiz Tejada Nixon Varitek Lowell Youkilis Schilling Beckett Wakefield Wells Clement Mmm Mmm Mmm. That would be as good as any of the last three Sox playoff teams was, likely better. I think it will be better because this should be the best pen the sox have had in a few years; seriously. Even though I highly doubt whether Foulke come back to form. When Schilling, Wakefield and Wells all retire (perhaps all after next season???) it still leaves a rotation of Beckett, Clement, Lester, Arroyo and someone, with room for a good farm pitcher (Bowden in 2-3 years?) to come up in due time. Too bad its not real.

They would have offered Ramirez what they believed he was worth and would likely have projected him very well, perhaps projecting him to have more consistency than other teams. just a guess. They didn't say steals aren't valuable. They said that overall they are only valuable if a certain percentage of them are successful. A successful stolen base is quite valuable. A caught stealing essentially reduces your OBP, gives up an out, and lowers the percent chance that a team will score in the inning. It's a cost-benefit analysis and as far as the stats tell it has to be successful something like 80% of the time for a team to get more runs than by not stealing at all or very rarely. Again, its all a probability thing. So the main things about steals are 1) it is not worth over paying for a guy who gets only 65% of his stolen bases, even if other teams love the idea and are offering him 12 million a season. If you're going to pay that much money it had better come with a player who has plenty of what is most important: OBP and SLG if he is fast and can get some stolen bases, then its a bonus. So that gets into another thing about Moneyball: it is more valuable in the regular season than in the playoffs. The playoffs are such a small sample size that the numbers don't have the chance to regress to the mean. In the playoffs when it is absolutely essential to score THIS INNING, to win THIS GAME, then you have to send Roberts. Of course it was an easy call, as he had swiped something like 40 of 44 bases that year, some great number like that.

THIS is the type of deal the sox SHOULD be looking for for Manny. Screw Abreu, Screw Tejada (though they are both FANTASTIC players). I love this proposal because I feel relatively certain that one at least two of those players will end up being very good players and they are all cheap, meaning they could be components rather than marquee guys. Get an Ervin Santana and a Chone Figgins, along with Kendrick and Wood and insist, no, DEMAND that the Angels pay all of Manny's salary. Turn around and pay top dollar for available future free agents (andruw jones? hafner? cabrera?) to build into that deep, deep team. If the red sox could get 85% of Manny's production for 40% of the current price, it would be a coup of historic proportions. Everyone was looking for a proposed deal that actually got Manny's value back, I think that overall this is one example of one. it includes so many good players and tremendous prospects. The sox would easily be in contention (probably front runners) for the AL East for like 8 straight years in a year or two. Anyway, 1) its completely unrealistic because the Angels understand the same thing and 2) the sox can compete this year with manny under contract. A nice proposal though. EDIT: for clarity's sake, and punctuation

I think that book--and the philosophy behind it--is pretty revolutionary. That's not to say its the first time it has been used, but it is the first time that it has been specifically crafted to address the atmosphere of today's game financially and developmentally. A number of parts of the book are genius, particularly the description of Beane's utilization and discovery of Bill James and sabermetrics. The fact is that sabermetrics are a better way of looking at baseball than the traditional statistics. Hands down. That is not to say that scouting players is obsolete, it still has its place. That place has yet to be well defined, but it is there. The description of the undervaluation of OBP and SLG was great and describes perfectly what some teams are doing and what other teams are not (but they will be soon enough). The red sox have some tremendous players, guys who are talented beyond anything that they could have found or acquired in a Moneyball way. Manny is the perfect example, Pedro was another. Having and affording guys like that is something worth paying for. From my perspective (and the Sox may not believe this) it is sometimes worth it to overpay for a player, if that player fits exactly what you're looking for. You can pay with money or you can pay with talent. It is, therefore, very important to be both rich and to have a great farm system. Ironically, it is easier to be rich if you have a great farm system too; the Sox aren't there quite yet but I think that is Theo's vision (and I'm sure John Henry's as well). Things I didn't like: Not much. I think that defense is undervalued, but not because people don't think it is important but because it is VERY difficult to quantify. I believe that at some point in the next 10 years a statistic or measure will be found that effectively describes defensive value, perhaps in terms or runs produced or wins produced, or perhaps in a completely different way than has been done before. I understand the philosophy of "never doing hit and runs or stealing" overall. They are just generally low percentage moves over the course of a season. You got Rickey Henderson? Carl Crawford? Okay. But nobody should regret that the Sox haven't been sending Ortiz and Manny and Trot more often. It just wouldn't work. Finally, I think the main thing in moneyball philosophy that I grabbed on to was the nuance involved in building a team. There is one team that is able to spend as much money as they want and that is the Yankees. For everyone else, including the Red Sox, there is going to be a limit. With unlimited funds a team can purchase guys who are strong in many, many categories. Manny is one of those guys. So is Jeter, or A-Rod, or Sheffield. We all know who those guys are: they are guys that NO team would say no to having, all things being equal. I think the Red Sox ownership has a long term plan, and has had a long term plan since buying the team. I think it is why Theo was brought in, and why Lucchino is still there. Here it is: Henry bought the team when it was a money spending Bohemoth. Enormous contracts, enormous attempts to sign aging "name" guys who used to be good. Henry's goal was and is undoubtedly to build the most successful team possible with a "reasonable" amount of money. Reasonable for Henry is probably between 100-120 million dollars. If it can be done for less then great, Theo gets a bonus. Most people just don't buy teams for hundreds of millions of dollars and then spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, year in and year out to make them a servicable product; especially not John Henry; especially not when they just won; especially not when 80% of teams that are within games of the World Series manage to do so with less than 50% of the payroll. There IS a better way, and I think Moneyball describes (partly) a specific application of that way. Sorry for the long post.

It is hard to talk about the rivalry. It is something people just feel, and if they try to describe it they sound insane (myself included, in my most candid moments). I pretty much agree with this assessment. However, I don't think the sox success this season depends on Foulke. If he is there then I think they will be a VERY good team. If not then they will still be better in end games than they were last year. I really think Hansen could be a very effective closer, Timlin has been effective enough to be a 2nd or 3rd option on the team. This disregards the potential that Papelbon could have as a closer, though I think that Hansen may have to fail for that to be his role. And that would only be after Foulke has fallen and if Hansen does well in PAW. I would be fine with Papelbon closing, or Hansen closing. The next generation's approximation of Mariano Rivera is out there somewhere. In theory the Yankees own an edge. The sox have outscored them the past 3 seasons, and each year we were at this stage (Jan/Feb) talking about how overpowering the Yankees offense is. I imagine if the Yankees played all of their games in Fenway they would put up similar numbers, but the Sox have just scored so many runs the past few years and it revolves around guys that are still there: Manny, Papi, Varitek, Trot. Key pieces have been removed, but I think the sox came VERY CLOSE to replacing the aggrigate production offensively, and I think they made tremendous strides defensively. Damon seemed slow to me at the end of his time in Boston. Very good, but slow. Gonzalez's success will be based almostly exclusively on his defense. If he plays nearly flawless defense at SS (like Cabrera largely did when he was with BOS) or makes lots of unexpected plays, then the sox will have a much better defensive spark than they did at any point last year. They never had that last year. damon was always somewhat hurt, renteria was terrible, Manny was manny. Loretta takes pride in his 2nd baseman-ship. In the 2005 BP he was called the league's best secondbaseman. Not a great season last year, but he could easily be better than Cano. If Lowell comes back to form they will have a great lineup. I am hopeful that the Sox pitching staff will be considerably better than the Yankees. An injury to RJ or Mussina could throw everything off for them. The sox have 7 SP's (currently) and two guys who would love to get a shot at making the rotation in Papelbon and Lester. I truly believe the sox are much better prepared to deal with the contingencies that a season can throw at them, except for 4th OF, even though Dustan Mohr is pretty good. All in all it should be a pretty good season and the sox and yanks and jays should play a number of good games. I look forward to watching Yankee games on the baseball package cause now I can actually tolerate watching the Jays, whom they play like 18 times or something.

Yeah, that was pretty freaking good. His ASG performance from that year was amazing as well. Gotta love Nixon's HR in game 5 in 2003 alds.

Trot has been a great Red Sox but unless he's willing to be the 4th OF next year and sign for cheap then he's leaving. Knowing this front office they will likely try to get something for him before then. Also, I think one more big move in the offseason would surprise a lot of people and shift the conversation back to how active the Red sox have been this offseason and how they managed to field a very good team while switching LOTS of players. So, that being said, I see a lot of different proposed deals on here, some of them realistic some of them sillly. I think some teams would be interested in a combination of Nixon and Clement more than ANY combination with Wells. Look folks, Wells just isn't that hot of a commodity. Even if he pitches okay most of the time, the guy is like 43 years old and guarentees NOTHING. So I think a reasonable deal would be Clement for Milledge, and/or Nixon and a pitching prospect (Delcarmen perhaps). I would be all about dealing with the Mets right now. Clement could be good in Milwaukee too, or Philadelphia. Actually, if I was a 'B' level team (i.e., teams in competitive devisions or within sight of the playoffs, but not there yet; see: Mets, Phillies, Nats, any NL West team, Tex, Min, Sea, etc.,) I would probably covet Clement and know that I could probably get the sox to throw some $$ in to the Clement deal in exchange for a high-level prospect. Teams that want to win now would probably be happy to pick up a pitcher with a pretty good health history who can win 12+ games a year. Personally I think the sox can afford to overspend in terms of developed talent for young guys who will fit into their futures plans--similar to where the Guardians were last week. The Guardians have a good young core that are regular players and were willing to give up Crisp for the chance of a great player in Marte. I think the sox may do the same thing with Clement, though he is slightly older; or trot, who is also older. The Sox are especially deep in established SPs and backup infielders.

I'm one who believes that the Mets are going for it. I think they are willing to overspend on those pieces that they believe could make the difference for them. I could very well see them giving up Milledge for Clement, I think they are that desperate. And I don't think their desperation is unfounded; I think they ARE close. They will have a good team next year and would be better with Clement as a #3 at a semi-reasonable price/contract. The mets didn't sign Pedro, Delgado, Beltran to let a guy like Lastings Milledge stand in the way of giving them 2 seasons of high-level contention. Just my opinion, of course, but that deal doesn't seem ridiculous to me.

FWIW, Papelbon started 3 games last year: July 31st: MIN 5.1 IP, 4H, 3R, 2ER, 2HR, 5BB, 7 SO, 100 PIT, 3.38 ERA Aug 16 @DET 5.0 IP, 6H, 2R, 2ER, 0HR, 2 BB, 6 SO, 84PIT, 3.43 ERA Aug 21 @LAA 5.2 IP, 5 H, 0R, 0ER, 0HR, 3BB, 2 SO, 100 PIT 2.25 ERA. Of course he's not a sure thing. He's a 25 year old kid with half a season under his belt. Watch him though. Watch how he throws on the mound, how he walks around it. Watch how he carries himself. He isn't getting comparisons to Roger Clemens for nothing; the guy is intense and has a VERY explosive fastball that guys can't catch up to even when they know its coming. EDIT: Also, if you had your way you might set the teams up to battle like that. However, I would put Beckett up against Johnson, Schilling up against Mussina, Wakefield up against Chacon, Papelbon against Wang and Clement up against Pavano. I am confident that the sox could take 3 out of 5 of those games (pitching wise, that is). Just had to add that.

Except that you have PAVANO as your 5th starter, with two very questionable (EXTREMELY QUESTIONABLE) pitchers at 3-4. And two old guys at the top. This is a very optimistic rotation, IMHO, it should be: Randy Mussina Pavano Wang Chacon At least put the proven guys at the top. By comparison (and I think its a fair one), I always want to write: Schilling Beckett Papelbon Wakefield Clement but then I realize that the sox just won't have Papelbon as their 3rd starter to start the season. He's essentially a rookie. I think the same is true with Wang. He could be good, but I wouldn't want to have to depend on him to be a 3 when I'm paying Pavano, let me check... $9 million to pitch. At 9 million he had better be at least a 3 caliber pitcher. I think Clement is a 3 caliber pitcher; Lowe was a 3 caliber pitcher. Pavano--if healthy and effective--is a good 3 caliber pitcher. Wang, as he was last year, was not a good 3 caliber pitcher. His 47 SO in 116.1 IP is less than overpowering. He's not BAD, he's just a questionable 3.

Youkilis will be great at 1st. Especially as he gets used to it. Many teams (cough.. the yankees) play guys at 1B who really should be DH's (for what its worth, Giambi does have a MONSTER bat). In any case, Youkilis played 3rd before and played it very well. He many numerous plays that I thought were very difficult and he made them with ease. Millar missed a lot of pretty bad balls, I don't think we'll see the same from Youkilis.

That is EXACTLY what I'm thinking too ACL. I mean, the defense on the infield should be very solid, especially when Snow is playing. The sox have proven players at all 9 positions, and even though most of the 04 team is gone, every starter except for Loretta and Crisp has won a WS before. For a massive restructuring and a supposed "rebuilding" year, that's not bad. Especially at ONE YEAR.

Exactly. One year is such a flexible position for a decent player.

http://redsox.bostonherald.com/redSox/view.bg?articleid=123739 A one year deal!! Hell yeah. One year and everything is fine. Multiple years and I would have been concerned. $3 million for one year. Good signing. The team is nearly complete ha ha ha!

' Yeah, manny and papi are as good as it gets. I doubt that Clemens will be anywhere near boston next year; however, I can still see why ESPN analysts would be enamored with the idea, hype and even the potential reality of the idea. The sox could offer almost as much money as anyone, and it would be a great story. I just don't see Roger trying to do that though.

I just don't see them blocking Pedroia any more at this point. If they could eventually establish a Pedroia/Loretta duo up the middle they would do it. His projections for this year are crazy and the guy is just waiting to become a sox star. I don't see signing a questionable Gonzo to an extended deal when you could sign a less-questionable Loretta to a long term deal and have an above average 2B for awhile to go with your above average SS. If you can get him for 1-2 years at a reasonable price then do, giving Pedroia time to comfortably develop into a middle infield option. Otherwise, he is probably worth more to another team than to the sox for the price he will be asking.

Kind of off topic, but I just wanted to thank you for creating this thread. For a yankee fan you do a lot of good around here and are a valuable member of the community. Thanks. (that's not to say that most yankee fans aren't valuable members of communities, but that you've been a great poster and contributer since I joined). :clap:

One thing I left out, then I'll stop posting: W-L Schilling 6-7 (with 6 Saves ) That's gotta be a PECOTA flaw Beckett 12-8 (33.1 VORP) Papelbon 6-6 (8.4) Arroyo 12-11 23.6 Wakefield 12-12 20.1 Clement 12-9 29.5 Wells 7-9 11.7 Lester's numbers: 7-9; 27 G; 135.7 IP, 103 K, 64 BB, 11 STF, 1.52 WHIP, 5.17 ERA (5.08 PERA), VORP: 5.4. Comparables: Kurt Ainsworth, Noah Lowry, Ryan Ketchner So PECOTA is not really predicting anything unexpected from any of our pitchers. Any of the potential optimism from the offensive numbers is quickly rubbed away by looking at the pitching projections. That being said, I feel a lot more confident about the pitching staff than BP does. I expect Schilling to throw a lot more than 99.7 innings this year, and I don't expect him to get a single save (in the regular season). Anyway, I just found some of those interesting. They expect another pretty goos season from Clement, so that's cool I guess.

Yeah, the guy seems like he's a throwback player. He reminds me of the type of player that I always hear about in the 40's, hard nosed, willing to break bones to win, scrappy, great tools. Another in the Lenny Dykstra mould perhaps. I'm very excited to watch him over the next few years. The projections for him are phenomonal. If he comes out and hits .300 with a high 300 OBP and 450+ SLG he'll be as good a second baseman/SS as there is. He's a dirtdog through and through. I think there is something to the dirtdog notion; in that the Sox certainly seem to be keeping their dogs and letting other types go. Having a player like marte would have sent the Sox in a completely different direction than a player like Pedroia. They are both valuable and likely will be great players, but its the difference between an Edgar Renteria type and a Millar type. I think Beckett fits that discription well; I think Papelbon seems to; Hansen cetainly does; Crisp likely does--he's hard nosed; I think Ellsbury has those very qualities. I imagine that type of player will continue to define the players the sox go after and who they have for the next 10 years or so.

Who would you like to see RS? I'll provide a few below: code:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Player POS BA OBP SLG HR EqA VORP FRAR Jason Varitek C 0.271 0.361 0.477 27 0.284 38.8 -2 Kevin Youkilis 1B 0.258 0.368 0.421 18 0.274 21.9 3 Mark Loretta 2B 0.294 0.355 0.415 10 0.266 28.5 1 Alex Cora SS 0.261 0.307 0.368 9 0.232 6.3 1 Dustin Pedroia SS 0.299 0.365 0.458 14 0.281 39.6 3 Mike Lowell 3B 0.271 0.332 0.457 22 0.267 21.9 3 Manny Ramirez LF 0.296 0.386 0.571 40 0.314 51.1 -11 Coco Crisp CF 0.295 0.347 0.445 15 0.276 27.1 2 Trot Nixon RF 0.284 0.369 0.482 24 0.288 28.8 0 David Ortiz DH 0.292 0.384 0.578 40 0.314 57.1 0 Pitcher POS IP ERA K/9 BB/9 HR/9 Curt Schilling SP 99.7 4.17 7.31 1.99 1.08 Josh Beckett SP 184.3 3.87 7.47 2.73 0.93 David Wells SP 151.7 4.79 4.33 1.19 1.13 Matt Clement SP 190.3 4.11 6.76 3.17 0.89 Tim Wakefield SP 203.7 4.65 5.83 2.92 1.15 Jon Papelbon SP 101.3 4.91 6.59 3.21 1.34 Keith Foulke RP 51.3 4.29 6.88 2.65 1.41 Craig Hansen RP 43.7 4.09 6.77 2.06 1.03 Bronson Arroyo RP 201.3 4.47 5.42 2.19 1.12 David Riske RP 54.3 3.57 6.81 2.82 1.16 Rudy Seanez RP 55.3 3.96 9.11 3.91 1.14 Julian Tavarez RP 64.3 4.33 5.32 2.66 0.84 Mike Timlin RP 65.3 3.98 6.48 1.93 0.96 EDIT: I borrowed this nicely formatted chart from a poster on another site. They're from the PECOTA system though. I'm just too lazy to try to format the Excel sheet myself. If there is anyone or a stat you would like then let me know. EDIT: The above numbers were prorated to 650 AB's by the other poster.

So those projections are assuming he would get those numbers at the MLB level and that he will likely get the listed amount of playing time with the big club? That's pretty cool. Those numbers look like clear rookie of the year numbers to me. Especially that VORP, as I believe they project him to have the 5th highest VORP on the sox, just ahead of Varitek. Maybe I'm over interpreting or over optimistic.

Alright, thanks. I'll poke around and see what I can find on that front.

No, I get that stuff ORS. Thanks though. I can figure out what the stats mean without much difficulty, but I was wondering if anyone could tell or knew whether they were assuming these numbesr as projections for MLB, or whether they are MLB averages based on projected AAA stats. Generally, I wonder how projection systems work in that sense.

So, baseballprospectus.com has released its PECOTA projections for all MLB players. due to copywrite concerns and the fact that it's a subscription site I'm not too anxious to post a link. Also, its in excel format (as far as I can tell). One thing I will post though is Dustin Pedroia's projection. His 2005 projection was VERY high, due to his lack of major league experience and his very good numbers in the minors for a short period of time. That being said, can anyone interpret these numbers for me? I understand what most of the numbers mean, and can find links for those I don't understand, but I'm wondering if the numbers projected are MLB level numbers. It does say MLB under League, which seems to imply MLB playing time but I'm not sure. In any case, I'll try to post the numbers to the best of my ability below: PA R 2B HR RBI BB AVG OBP SLG EQOBP VORP Defense 551 75 36 12 68 47 .299 .365 .458 .370 33.6 (2B)+3 Comparables: Gary Sheffield, Ron Hunt, Marcus Giles Are they talking about him playing for the Sox? That wouldn't seem right, as this is a relatively MONSTER projection for a 22 yr old secondbaseman/SS. can anyone help with this?