ORS

His BABIP also fell back to earth after the break. He was hitting to a tune of .371 on balls in play pre-ASB, but that number fell to .295 post-ASB. The AL average last year was .298. About a month ago I decided to look at how Fenway affected his hitting performance on BABIP so I calculated his Home/Road BABIP for 2002-2005. Here's what I came up with: 2002-2005 BABIP Home: .326 Road: .296 The AL average for that period was .298. It shows that away from Fenway, Damon is about a league average player in terms of BABIP. And, when his BABIP is at league average, he's a .280/.345/.440 hitter. This is supported by his Home/Road regular splits for that period: 2002-2005 Rate Stats Home: .310/.387/.442/.829 Road: .281/.341/.440/.781 And it is supported by the .282/.343/.397 (the shoulder didn't affect his contact, put did take a little of his power) line he put up in the 2nd half when he had a league average BABIP. The evidence suggests that there is a strong possibility that this is the type of line he'll put up in NY next year. EDIT: I needed to change Damon's 2002-2005 rate stats since I mistakenly used his career Fenway/Non-Fenway splits. The changes weren't drastic.

They probably won't trade both. Schilling, while the progress reports sound good, could still have some physical problems. Beckett has yet to make 30+ starts in a season. It is completely possible that neither of these guys miss a start, but keeping one of Wells/Clement for insurance seems like the prudent move at the time. That would give them a rotation of: Beckett Schilling Wake Arroyo Wells/Clement It would also allow them to start Papelbon in the 'pen, which is how they want to start the year from what I've read. It makes a lot of sense too. He impressed in his debut last year, but he still needs to show some polish on his secondary pitches. If he starts in the 'pen it limits his exposure while seeing if his offseason work has made those pitches more effective and it also keeps his inning total down for the year. He'll make some starts because someone will need a breather, or a spring game will be rained out and they'll probably play a double-header. If he shines in those opportunities he'll probably take Bronson's spot by about the beginning of June.

I'll be damned, it's nice to hear a little "Sweet Caroline" in February. Too bad the crowd and arena MC don't know how to do like the Fens does.

Stern has to be on the big club for the first 18 days of the season, or the Sox have to give him back to Atlanta per the Rule 5 draft. It makes no sense to hold onto him this long to give him up 2.5 weeks from having full control of him, so I see them having him on the roster for the needed time. That brings up an important omission from your roster. You don't have a backup OF that can play CF, and you can't go into the season without one. This leads me to believe they won't be going with a 12-man pitching staff. I'd look for one of Clement/Wells to get dealt. I think Bard has to really screw the pooch in ST to lose the backup job to Flaherty. The contract Flats signed is contigent upon him making the roster, so if he doesn't make it, the Sox aren't out any money.

There are a couple of decent looking women on the US Women's Hockey squad, but that Russian team is sea-donkey central.

Roberts, Kent, Utley

RARP is an all inclusive offensive stat that is computed from EqA. EqA uses H, TB, BB, IBB, HBP, SB, CS, AB, TPA in its computation. By RARP, Soriano was the 4th best offensive 2B last year. By EqA he was 9th among 2B that made at least 200 outs last season. Once again, he's very overrated. EDIT: And he was 5th in OPS among qualified 2B.

I like the downhill skiing events, both traditional and free style. I know I'll have to watch the women's figure skating programming since it's about the only sport my wife cares about. Call me crazy, but I can actually watch curling.

I'm sure some of you will be watching, so I figured we ought to have a thread. It's a safe bet to assume something controversial will happen over the next two weeks since it seems every Olympic Games has at least one hot topic. It's the first day of the games and CNBC is showing Russia vs. Sweden in women's hockey, Yippee!

The most recent instances are Damon, Molina, and Youkilis (hitting in the #8 spot). Since none of those players had a continuous sample size in their respective split (Damon in NY, Molina in TOR, Youk in the #8 hole), then those splits aren't representative of their expected level of performance. I'm not trying to harp on you, but just shed a little light on one of the things you think is an indicator of future performance.

Where do I say you can't have that avatar? My comment was more of a "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" type of thing.

Considering your avatar, I tend to think that this type of judgement is well beyond your maturity level.

Exactly. Marquee players win their arby hearings. He's one of the most overrated players in the game right now IMO.

You mean his stats compiled in 61 ABs over 7 years? You do this a lot. The sample of a player's performance in a park other than their home park is very flawed. First, it is generally too small to be reliable. Second, the ABs are taken at random, meaning there is no continuity to the sample. A couple of games in Toronto that coincide with a slight slump and any player who only plays there once a year will have horrid stats in that park. If it coincides with a hot streak, they'll look like a HOF'er. The only time a park split becomes reliable is once a player has played home games there and the stats can reflect their level of performance after they have experienced the normal hot streaks and slumps that occur throughout a season.

There's good reason for their optimism though. A rotation of Halladay, Burnett, Chacin, Lilly, and Towers is nothing to sneeze at. They under performed their Pythagorean Record by 8 wins last year (80-82 actual, 88-74 by runs scored and runs allowed), and that generally happens with the BP is weak. Say what you want about Ryan, but he has struck out more than 12 per 9 the last two years and is a very effective reliever, so I doubt they will miss their expected wins by that much again. And, with the additions of Glaus, Overbay, and Molina they should score more often than last year. They'll be tough in 2006.

The Yankees and Chacon avoided arbitration today. Yahoo.com

I find the line of though that Boston/NY media attention is too strong for some people to be a little overrated. What tends to happen is that if someone comes to one of these markets and struggles, they are shipped off by the end of the season. Then, when they bounce back with a new team, everyone says "they just couldn't handle the pressure". Their struggle is usually due to either injury, age related decline, or just an off year. There are very few players that go to either of these teams and play bad for more than 2 consecutive years, get moved elsewhere, and then find continued success; this is the scenario that must happen, IMO, in order to attribute pressure as the source of their struggles.

I looked it up and your timeline is a bit off. Loretta hurt his thumb in ST of 2001, had surgery, and returned to the team to find he'd lost his starting SS job 2 months later. They moved him to 2B, and in 102 games he hit .280-ish and slugged .350-ish. However, he got hurt again (fractured left leg - partially torn MCL when taken out by a sliding Juan Uribe) at the end of the season and had to rehab in the 2001/2002 offseason. This affected his start in the 2002 season (.267/.350/.359/.709 in 86 games) which promted a trade to Houston at the deadline. In 21 games for Houston he went .424/.481/.576/1.057. Then he signed with SD in the offseason and went .314/.372/.441/.814 in 2003 and .335/.391/.495/.886 in 2004. After his 2nd strain of the thumb ligament in 2005, he hit .280-ish and slugged .350-ish for 105 games to end the season. Only this time, he didn't suffer a fractured leg and torn MCL to end the season. This means he has had the entire offseason to hone his skills. I do not find the 102 and 105 games where he put up similar numbers post-thumb inury to be coincidental. The more I research this and think about it, the more it looks like SD cut bait too early and the Sox took advantage of their impatience. It is very likely that he is a monster for the Sox next year.

For both of these players, if you believe that Chacon struggled on the road while in Colorado because how his pitches flew in his home park got into his head, then isn't it possible that Lowell's bad luck and Loretta's struggle post injury got into their heads as well? Lowell's teammates have been quoted as saying the the guy is fiercely competitive and pretty hard on himself, they also said that his struggles last year got into his head by mid-season. Loretta said something to the same effect about his return post injury. These guys still have the skills to play at a very high level, and they've had all offseason to refine them.

I think you are little pessimistic with Loretta and Lowell. Loretta has injured the same ligament in his left thumb before. He did it hook sliding in 2001, and after his recovery he had the best two seasons of his career in 2003 and 2004. He hurt it diving into first last year. Both times he injured the ligament it was due to a collision, so this is no nagging injury. Suggesting his power is gone for good just isn't supported by the facts due to the fact that he recovered from the very same injury and slugged .495 while playing half his games in a huge park like PETCO. Lowell did drop .036 points off his career BA. He also dropped .032 points off his career BABIP. PrOPS has him hitting .261 last year based on batted ball types. Both of those things suggest to me that he suffered from a stretch of some pretty rotten luck last year. Given his pull stroke, the fact that his contact numbers actually were better than his career average (6.74 AB/K career, 8.62 AB/K in 2005), and a move to Fenway, and I think Mikey will be alright next year. Certainly better than .245.

I dozed on ordering tickets, so by the time I hit up the website the D.R. vs. Venezuela game on Tues. March 7th was sold out. I ended up getting tickets to Friday's D.R. vs. Australia matchup. I doubt the game is competitive, but there will be some beer drinkers in that crowd if the Aussie's travel to see their boys play, so it should be a hoot.

He's far from a Embree a la 2004 type, but I think he was a good pickup by the Yanks. He's been around the league, but he's nowhere near as bad as the Sox lefty pickup, Mike "I'm easier to score on than a Thai hooker" Remlinger. EDIT: Hell, half this board wanted him last year when the 'pen was in flames.

WARP is a BaseballProspectus stat. Go to their home page, and enter any player in the search window at the top of the page, then click on their DT card (those are free). You have to subscribe to look at PECOTA, which is a projection system.

1-3 WARP: Meh, who cares 4-5 WARP: Pretty good contributor, averagish 6-9 WARP: Good to very good 10+ WARP: Outstanding Todd Helton averaged 10.85 WARP over the last 6 years, while the Rockies have averaged 73 wins.

Absolutely, it all depends on how high their level of play was during the 50 games they played. Just imagine 50 games of ARod at 3B vs. 160 games of Felix Escalona.