Jayhawk Bill

Those of us watching Pitch f/x can tell that the many walks Boston's surrendered tonight aren't entirely the pitchers' fault.

Were Carter up, Tito could pinch hit with Carter...:dunno: You know, Tek missed that pitch by about an inch, and it broke an inch less than the previous fastball. I idly wonder if Tek needs his vision corrected--it was as if he guessed he'd get another fastball on the same trajectory instead of hitting the actual pitch. Meh. Speculation. :dunno:

Wow. Did all but four catchers suck in 2007? :dunno:

First, yes, you're right. Two out, 2-2 count, Manny should've been going from first on contact with a reasonable lead to start with. Instead, he barely turned second on a shot down the LF line that almost reached the fence. That's why I was upset--he wasn't close to reaching third on what could've been a bases-empty double for Mike Lowell. There's nursing a hamstring and there's not trying. At times I don't know where Manny is on that spectrum.

Did I mention that Masterson is allowing LHB to hit for an OPS 358 points higher than RHB are achieving against him?

Gotta look at the split split...second half of June: .191/.224/.277 Bad? Yeah...but his BABIP was only .243 in those 12 games, whereas he's usually a bit over .300 because of his speed. Correct for BABIP and he's over .250 in the second half of June, and the rest of his season is fine. Not to worry.

Yes!!!! 1-1 on Lowell's RBI...single? Cheez, Manny...

In related news, Sidney Ponson, who punched a judge in Aruba, who had three DUI arrests in one year, and who was released by the Texas Rangers despite a 4-1 record in 9 starts and a 3.88 ERA for "disrespectful and adverse reactions to situations unbecoming of teammates" has been signed by the New York Yankees. The official voice of the New York Yankees considers multiple DUIs, brutality against unarmed individuals, and considerable further borderline behavior OK for the Yankees, blaming problems on other teams' managers. I blame the alleged incident in Houston on Cecil Cooper.

It's rare to find a doctor willing to make statement-of-fact diagnoses on the basis of second-hand Internet stories.

Nice article by Brian Linder of The TandD. Everybody click on the link so that they get their ad revenue...but here's most of the article, which is worth reading: The guy says the right things. Too many prospects don't these days. Let's hope that he has a few good moments that he can look back on in the next few weeks, almost good enough that the Yankees win a game or two.

I was thinking about that quarrel with Youk, too. You know, most folks seemed to blame Youk for being too intense when that went down, and folks pointed out that even "Manny being Manny" had had enough. Now things look a little different. In related news, the Red Sox FO continue to consider whether or not to pick up Manny's $20 million option for next season...

Mosox, welcome back!

The Tuesday game vs. the Rays should be on both NESN and ESPN. The Saturday game vs. the Yankees, of course, is the Fox primary game at 3:55 PM. The Sunday night game is exclusive to ESPN. It's the MLB media deal, not anything of NESN's choosing. They'd love to broadcast the weekend games with the Yankees.

Cross-threaded and preserved for posterity in its entirety. David Ortiz is 32 years old. He's listed at 230 pounds; we've all seen him, and we know that 300 pounds is closer to the truth. He had serious knee trouble affecting his swing in April: 300 pound guys have knee trouble, trust me. He overcame that issue in May, and he damaged a tendon in the process. We're talking about an injured slow-moving slugger who's lost his swing. That's not good. Let's look at Big Papi's ten closest comparable players through age 31 (source Baseball Reference), and see when they had their "dropoff seasons" Carlos Delgado 35 Mo Vaughn 31 Lance Berkman N/A (currently 32) Fred McGriff 33 Jason Giambi 33 Richie Sexson 32 Jeff Bagwell 37 Willie McCovey 33 Kent Hrbek 32 Paul Konerko 32 Excepting Lance Berkman, who at 32 hasn't yet declined, let's look at a cumulative distribution on those ages of decline: 31: 11% 32: 44% 33: 78% 34: 78% 35: 89% 36: 89% 37: 100% David Ortiz is 32. He a slow-moving slugger. Slow-moving sluggers decline while young. Most of his most comparable players dropped off significantly at either age 32 or age 33. Even before sustaining a very serious injury, David Ortiz was only hitting .252/.354/.486 this season. If he comes back at all, he'll be coming back mid-season without the benefit of recent regular play. But you're suggesting that he'll hit .325/.409/.617 when he returns. I'm suggesting he'll continue near .252/.354/.486 IF he returns. Which is more likely? There's a chart on David Ortiz's PECOTA Card called the "blood spatter diagram." Let's check it out: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pecota/images/ortizda01_004.png The batting line for May was an Equivalent Average (EqA) of about .350. His batting line for the season thus far is an EqA of .279. The red splotches in the chart above show how well Big Papi's several dozen most-comparable players did in their age 32 seasons. Right now, if Ortiz didn't play again in 2008, his performance would be at (246, .279), right near the upper-left corner of that quadrilateral formed by four guys who collapsed at age 32. If Big Papi does come back, though, 500 PA is probably all that he'll get. The range of performance of comparable players to Big Papi who got roughly 500 PA at age 32 is an EqA of .280 to .340, weighted to the low side. What you're suggesting, an EqA of .350 or so, is rare for perfectly healthy players similar to Big Papi at his age. The median for healthy players looks to be about .320. That's lower than the .350+ EqA Big Papi posted last year, but that's normal: players decline with age. But the median for injured players like Big Papi is even lower. Expecting him to come back and to hit as he did in May is unrealistic. There's room for more optimism than I offer; there's almost no chance that he'll be as good as you predict, though. Which brings me back to that Chris Carter thing. Chris Carter is having a good year, but not such a great year that we should chalk it up to luck. He hasn't regressed; in fact, he's getting a little bit better at age 25. Right now he's roughly at a .270 EqA if one converted his AAA stats to their MLEs. That's good, not great: it's roughly a Jacoby Ellsbury or Dustin Pedroia value level. Although Chris Carter is a very different player on the field than either of those two, his overall value at the plate might be about the same. It's MUCH better than Brandon Moss, though, who's posting an EqA below .230. Putting Chris Carter into the lineup as a DH--in particular, as a platoon DH vs. RHP--gives Boston its best chance to win games and gives Chris Carter and the FO a chance to maximize Carter's potential trade value. Let's not pine and wax nostalgic about Big Papi's past greatness--let's get Carter some time in The Show to develop his skills and to show what he can do.

...and displayed. Last five years: 2003: Hell, Yes 2004: No 2005: Hell, Yes 2006: GM/injury failure, IMO 2007: No In 2003 it was Grady Little displaying how a manager could screw up, but in 2005 it was Terry Francona who led the Red Sox, defending World Champions, to a humiliating ALCS three-game defeat. But back to the issue with Okajima...Okajima had a 6.23 ERA the last two months of 2007, after MLB figured him out. He started OK in 2008, but he then blew three consecutive saves starting April 22. He's posted a 4.00 ERA since then; worse, he's allowed a .798 OPS. His June ERA is 10.38. (All stats not counting today.) Better options than Okajima? Right now, possibly any other pitcher in the bullpen...and Okajima still LEADS the team in the criticality of his moments of use, measured by Leverage Index.

Entering today's game, Hideki Okajima had allowed opposing batters to hit .343/.390/.493 in 77 high-leverage (over 1.50 LEV) plate appearances in 2008. For contrast, Jonathan Papelbon has allowed opposing hitters a batting line of only .216/.259/.314 in such situations. Entering today's game the Boston pitcher who had been used in, on average, the highest leverage situations in 2008 was not Jonathan Papelbon. It was Hideki Okajima. FWIW, Terry Francona's D3 will be down around -3.8 tomorrow. This is one big reason why.