SoxFanForsyth

I agree. It would be insane for posters to compare Iglesias to Ozzie Smith IF he has not been been compared to him by multiple talent evaluators. But the fact that he is consistently being compared to Ozzie means that it's not a crazy comparison. These are evaluators who go watch minor league players each and every day of work. They get paid to do this. For us to refute their analysis based solely on about 13 games where we see him play is ridiculous. So, since we all have jobs and can't leave and follow the Red Sox minor leaguers to every game that they play and devise a point system to derive a calculated talent level and then compare that to Ozzie Smith, we trust the evaluators who do have the point system and analysis. And it would be one thing if it was a random no name evaluator who likened Iggys play to Ozzie Smith, but it's a consistent comparison among multiple evaluators.

Ellsbury. Pedroia. Youkilis. Papelbon. Bard. Buchholz. Gonzalez. Beckett. Drafting developing and trading we're 3 things that Theo was excellent at. His drafting and trades completely outweighs his FA busts. But you fail to realize this because you're making a completely biased comment. And in terms of Iglesias, the mere fact that you believe you are talented enough to be a talent evaluator and that the evaluators are just guessing just proves your ignorance abou prospects. Nobody was trying to put him in the hall of fame, it was a comparison based on his talent level and how he projects as a player. But you always take things to the extreme. Will he be as good as Ozzie Smith? Maybe. What we do know is that his defense is elite elite, and it will make up for the lack of offense. Just like Ozzie Smith had a .573 OPS in his first four combined seasons and in those seasons, was an All Star, won 2 gold gloves, and came in 2nd in the Rookie of the Year. I know this is going to make your head spin but just try to keep up. A defensive wizard playing up the middle can affect the game just as much with his glove as he can with his bat. Making big plays not only keeps baserunners down, it keeps pitch counts down, and preserves the bullpen.

Yup. You're an expert. Do me a favor. Quit your job, go get hired by the A's as a talent evaluator, and go build the team as a talent evaluator since they are so stupid. You think I'm the one who has blind respect for these guys?? You have blind hatred for them. You have zero understanding of how to evaluate a players talent, as seen by the amount of emphasis you put on Jose Iglesias's stats in AAA as a 21 year old rather than being concerned with bat speed and attributes. He was one of the (if not the) youngest player in AAA in 2011. His numbers were low because he was playing against people who were 2-3 years older than him and that's a lot of developmental time. But I'm just talking to a wall because you're smarter than anyone else and you know better than anyone else. Screw talent and projectability. Just look at numbers. I don't care how old he was or if he was playing at a much more advanced level than most other people his age. The comparisons to Ozzie Smith were this. His defense is extremely comparable to Ozzie Smith. He's a defensive wizard at SS. There have been many, many, many talent evaluators who say that his defense is gold glove worthy as is. His bad is never going to be anything outstanding. In Ozzie's first 4 seasons in the MLB, he had a combined .573 OPS. He also had 2 seasons with a WAR over 3, and had a combined 9.1 WAR in his first 4 seasons, which is solid especially considering his offensive output (he only played 110 games in his 4th season, decreasing his value per WAR). Iglesias could very well come up and be a complete defensive wizard with no bat but still be a 3-3.5 WAR player because of his defense being so good. That's what everyone is saying. Borrow from an area of strength (offense) and disburse to an area of weakness (defense up the middle and pitching).

Wow. I mean seriously. You're easily the most pessimistic Red Sox fan I've ever seen. You blow things to the absolute extreme. Yes. I trust talent evaluators. Because they are professionals. They're not people on message board who claim to be just as good as professionals based on 13 at bats they've seen from someone in spring training. You're actually being an incredibly annoying idiot right now. But that's fine, you'll just be wrong another time. Oh wait, no, the Red Sox should blow this team up and start from scratch. Oh wait. They can't because they have to draft, and the only way to draft a team is by using talent evaluators to evaluate talent. But they aren't any good at it. Well s***. I guess the Red Sox should just bomb Fenway and destroy the team. Let's do away with baseball. No team is safe.

http://baseballinstinct.com/2011/11/30/prospect-instinct-jose-iglesias-ss-boston-red-sox/ http://www.scoutingbook.com/players/p2590 http://www.masslive.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/05/red_sox_hot_prospect_jose_igle.html Every one of those refers to Iglesias as drawing comparisons to Ozzies Smith. Oh and the whole "Talent evaluators are just guessing..just like we are. They just get paid for it."? Are you kidding me?? This is a joke, right?? Well then s***. Why don't you just go get an MLB team to pay you to make talent evaluations? Oh, wait. They're not guesses. That's probably the most ignorant comment I've ever seen you make. Seriously, and that's saying a LOT.

Cody Ross also played at San Francisco for the past 2 seasons. That's a huge reason as to why his OPS decreased. The NL West isn't exactly a hitter friendly ballpark. To say that his OPS will jump by 15-20 points and be around .750-760 is extremely reasonable, and to say that with consistent playing time and in a bandbox ballpark division he could hit to a .780 OPS? I don't see that as homerish at all.

Don't forget, we added a guy in Shoppach who has had tremendous success against LHP. Shoppach (career) vs LHP: .273 Avg, .909 OPS. That's a big addition considering Salty hit .209/.262/.341 vs LHP last season.

What was this teams strength last season? Offense. What was this teams weakness last season? Starting Pitching. What positions are absolutely vital to a successful starting pitching rotation? Up the middle (specifically 2B and SS). So why the hell wouldn't we try to make our team better by taking away from something we have an abundance of to make an impact on an area that we have a weakness? You know how Ozzie Smith did in his rookie campaign? .623 OPS. Know what his WAR was? 3.1. Defense up the middle is incredibly important, and that will help out our SP tremendously.

Oh my God. I'm so sick of all of this negative talk about SS and RF. First off, Scutaro played 113 games last year. That's it. 113 games. Our SS as a whole last year had a .730 OPS. Pardon me, but I find it hard to believe that our SS offered anyone any protection last year. Second off, Reddick had a burst of offense for 18 games, where he hit .404/.455/.638. After that game, he hit .251/.296/.415 for the remaining 69 games he played. Cody Ross has a career .780 OPS, and he's going to be helped out a lot from playing at Fenway since he's a pull hitter. RF was an absolute upgrade over last year. Last year, our RF as a whole OPS'd .650. That's it. That's like having Jose Iglesias out in RF, yet we cite RF as being a place that we didn't upgrade. Makes zero sense. Cody Ross will be able to provide enough protection so that pitchers won't want to be pitching to him with anyone on base, and thus enough protection that they will almost certainly pitch to Ortiz. All of this negativity is unbelievable. Really, it is.

Couple things: 1st off, the Red Sox SS last year hit .279, but more importantly, OPS'ed .730. Aviles can easily replicate that OPS himself next season. But regardless of that, what you want to look at is the combined OPS of RF and SS from last season. RF OPS: .650 SS OPS: .730 The thing is - Cody Ross is going to OPS around ,760-.780 next season. He is capable of OPS'ing around .800-.805 if he has a solid season. With consistent playing time in a hitters park like Fenway, he's also good for 18-22 HR. So that's a substantial increase from the RF we had last year (.650 OPS, 14 HR, 58 RBI). With that 110-130 point increase in OPS, we could have Iglesias come up, OPS around .600-.610, play gold glove caliber defense, and this team wouldn't miss a step in terms of offensive production from last year, but would see a huge boost in defense up the middle, which is the most important place to have solid defense.

Scratch that - the 15th is for the Monster seats.

Haha I know. Well you may just have to buy a ticket off of Stubhub. That's brutal, though. I can't imagine the frustration. How did you know you were selected to buy those tickets? I thought they were doing the drawing on the 15th.

Yeah man, definitely. Being an accountant = tons of hours from January - April. After that, it settles down a lot though. Working about 65 hours/week right now, but in the summers it comes down to around 40. I'll be much more active later on. By the way, let me know when you book your trip. We will have to get together for some pre-game grub.

Just trying to respect the thread :thumbsup: Seriously though - for everyone (ahem, pumpsie) who thinks this team didn't get better this offseason, take a look at some of these stats. 1. Lackey + Bedard + Weiland + Wakefield + Miller combined last season to throw 420 IP to a combined 6.20 ERA. That's the bottom 2 in our rotation throwing to a 6.20 ERA. Even if Bard throws to a 4.00 ERA, which is higher than anyone predicts, that shaves 2.20 runs off of last years #4 starters ERA. And if the #5, whoever it may be, can throw to a 5.00 ERA, which is still very high, that's still an improvement of 1.20 points. That's good for at least 4-5 more wins over the course of the season when considering the runs allowed by them as well as how much it will save our bullpen from having to throw 5 IP in 40% of the games. 2. The Red Sox RF hit .230 with a .650 OPS last year. If Cody Ross can hit to the back of his baseball card (.780 OPS, which is very reasonable considering he's a pull hitter playing at Fenway), that 130 points will make up for most (if not all) of the decreased production we get from our SS. Any regression from Ortiz and Ellsbury will also be met with Crawford and Youkilis, who will almost certainly have rebound years. So, essentially we will see the same offense as last season in terms of production, and the #4 slot will see, at worst, around a 2.20 ERA improvement, and the #5 spot will see, at worst, a 1.20 ERA improvement. It's hard not to see a 94-96 win team out of this. There are way, way, way too many people who are getting pissed off about our #4 and #5 starters, and are not realizing just how bad our #4 and #5 starters were last season. (This was not toward you, a700)

This is a good thread. Well done, RSFFL. Nice title, makes it easier to make bold predictions. Here are mine. 1. Crawford hits over .300 with 14 HR, missing the majority of April. He hits 2nd the entire season, finds his comfort zone, swipes 40 bags, and scores 95 runs. 2. Ellsbury hits 26 HR, steals 42 bags, and OPS's over .920. 3. Pedroia hits 25 HR and has a higher OPS than Cano. 4. Iglesias is the opening day SS. Sox hide his bat in the lineup. He puts up a line of .218/.276/.330, but plays gold glove caliber defense, and gets the SP out of multiple jams in big situations. 5. Youkilis is the #6 hitter, hits .275 and only hits 18 HR. He plays 125 games, but most of his missed games come early in the season. Aviles plays 3rd base while he's injured. Middlebrooks takes a big step in AAA, and the Red Sox do not exercise Youk's option for 2013. 6. Gonzo gets his power back after his shoulder and neck heal. He hits 38 HR, and has a line of .313/.402/.568. 7. Salty has another season like last season. He strikes out around 28% of the time, but has good pop. hitting 15 HR and hitting .240. Shoppach takes almost all starts against LHP, and hits .248/.315/.515 with 14 HR. 8. Cody Ross has a very solid year, and is the starting RF all season. He hits .260/.325/.490 and has 19 HR. 9. Ortiz has a season consistent with his 3 year average. He hits .270/.370/.510 with 28 HR and 95 RBI. 10. Bard becomes a very good SP in the first half, winning 10 games and throwing to a 2.80 ERA. He starts to tail off in the 2nd half, and ends up with 15 wins and a 3.40 ERA. DiceK takes some spot starts from him during August and September to save some bullets for the PS. 11. Lester wins the Cy Young and throws to a 3.12 ERA, winning 20 games. 12. Beckett regresses and pitches to a 3.70 ERA, winning 13 games. 13. Buchholz throws over 200 IP, and takes over the #2 spot from Beckett. He has a 3.28 ERA, 17 wins. 14. Padilla and Aaron Cook split the #5, throwing a combined 220 IP to a 4.64 ERA. They combine for 11 wins. 15. Bailey is better than Papelbon was in 2011. 16. Melancon gets hit hard early but settles in, and ends up with a 3.6 ERA. 17. Aceves becomes the set up guy in the bullpen, and continues to dominate. He and Bailey have sub-3.00 ERA's, but the remaining portion of the bullpen blow 13 games this year. The bullpen ends up with a 19-17 record and a 3.82 ERA. 18. The Red Sox rotation ends up posting a 3.92 ERA 19. The Red Sox end the season going 95-67. The edge out the AL East by 1 game. 20. Jackso reads this post and calls me a homer because there are too many pro-Red Sox predictions.