SoxFanForsyth

iggy absolutely is, and Kalish would be a top 50 prospect if he was still considered a prospect

Definitely not Papelbon. Why trade 3 months of a $12mm closer? He's out. If the Sox were to get Felix, it would take Ranaudo + Iglesias + Kalish + Lavarnway, or something like that. Something that would completely deplete our entire farm system. Then, we would have to extend Felix to an outrageous contract since he's got a no trade clause that he would have to waive to come to Boston (same for NYY).

Hey Boston22407 - How are those arms right about now?

I put together a little scouting report for this series: CLE Scouting Report (4/5 - 4/7) Sox have a series coming up against Cleveland in which they will face 3 RHP in Mitch Talbot, Josh Tomlin, and Fausto Carmona. The Sox will counter with Josh Beckett, DiceK Matsuzaka, and Jon Lester. Here's a quick scouting report. Talbot - Career vs BOS: 7 IP, 6 ER, 7 BB, 7.71 ERA. Walks a ton of hitters. Career 4.26 BB/9, gets into a lot of hitters counts as he only throws around 54% first pitch strikes (to put it into perspective, DiceK throws 59% first pitch strikes). Patient hitters will destroy this guy, and last time (and only time) he faced the Sox, he put, on average, 2.5 men on base per inning, or 5 men on every 2 innings. Get to him early, he allowed 52 of his 90 total ER in 2010 in his first 45 pitches. Tomlin - Cleveland's number 5 man, also has just one appearance vs BOS, in which he threw 7 IP and allowed 4 ER (5.14 ERA). This guy has only had 12 MLB starts, so he's very fresh. Attacks the zone with 60.5% first pitch strikes and a 2.34 BB/9. Fly ball pitcher, 50.4% of the balls in play against him are in the air, 8.5% HR/FB ratio. Fastball sits at around 89-90, cutter at around 85-86, and these are the two pitches he relies heavily on (represents 80% of the pitches thrown in 2010). Early aggressiveness could pay off, first pitch you see will usually be pretty good. Carmona - Cleveland's ace. Has thrown 29.2 IP against Boston, posting a 4.25 ERA and a 4.85 BB/9 against them. Cut down on his walks significantly last year. Not a strikeout pitcher by any means, only averaging around 5 K/9. Like Tomlin, he pounded the zone last year, throwing 62% first pitch strikes. Fastball - Slider pitcher. Throws those two pitches over 86% of the time. Fastball will sit right at 93, slider at around 85. Groundball pitcher, in his career he has averaged 60% ground balls on balls put in play. Sox struggled against him the last couple of years, however with the projected line up we put out there, the team has a .300 BA against him and should do fine. It should be noted that Carmona is coming off a start in which he threw 3 IP, allowing 10 ER and scattering 11 hits. As for our pitchers going: Beckett - Even in his horrible year last year, he found a silver lining when playing against the Guardians, posting a 1.13 ERA in 8 IP. This is his first start of the year, and he looked great against Houston. Beckett doesn't struggle horribly in April, posting a 4.13 ERA, so he should be up for a strong start. He has a career 5.56 ERA vs CLE, so hopefully he can trend toward his 2010 numbers on Tuesday. Matsuzaka - I'm never sure if Jeckyl or Hyde is the good one, but whichever one is good, that's the one who shows up when DiceK plays the Guardians. Last year he threw 16 IP vs CLE, allowing 1 ER and posting a 0.56 ERA (including 8 innings of 4 hit, shut out baseball in his outing at Progressive Field). In his career, he's thrown 34.2 IP of 2.34 ERA baseball against the Guardians. After an impressive final 3 outings in Spring Training in which he posted a 1.67 ERA, we can surprisingly expect DiceK to have a solid start to the season. Lester - Surprisingly enough, Lester doesn't have the best track record against Cleveland, posting a 4.53 ERA against them, including a 6.83 ERA at Progressive. Combine that with his typical April starts, and this doesn't bode well. Last year, Lester got shelled vs CLE, throwing 11 IP to the tune of a 6.55 ERA. Some more bad news, though - you have to go all the way back to 2007 to find the last year Lester posted a sub-7.50 ERA at Progressive Field. As far as our newcomers go, here are their stats vs the projected starters Vs Talbot: Crawford: 0-3 Gonzalez: No Appearances Vs Tomlin: Crawford: No Appearances Gonzalez: No Appearances Vs Carmona: Crawford: 4-14 with a double and a triple? Gonzalez: No Appearances

Yeah. Plus in San Diego there is talent EVERYWHERE. Plus, the Padres got REALLY close to making the playoffs last year, which is basically like winning the World Series in Cleveland-standards.

The Cavs with Lebron. The Tribe with Lee, CC, and Vic. The Browns couldn't win on Ladies Night at the Deluth Putt & Hut. Cleveland had 9,000 in attendance yesterday.

Yup. You're right. There's really no reason for Spring Training. Except when you see that Beckett was hitting his spots and his balls had all kinds of movement. I guess that doesn't mean anything at all.

We'll take 2/3 at least from the Guardians, hopefully sweep. Beckett and DiceK both looked outstanding in their final ST games, so maybe we'll get a couple good starts out of them. After that, even the April version of Lester should be able to handle the Guardians. I wouldn't be surprised if we swept, but I'm expecting 2/3.

5 RHP in a row coming up. Tomlin (CLE) - Talbot (CLE) - Carmona (CLE) - Hughes (NYY) - Nova (NYY). Hopefully we can have some success against these guys.

I doubt it. Wake me up when the Guardians (or any other team, for that matter) puts together a team SLG% of .775. Actually. Wake me up when the Guardians put together a team OPS of .775. Only two teams (Sox and Yanks) finished the season with a team OPS of over .775, the Sox and the Yanks. And the Rangers come out and SLG .775?? Just crazy how hot those bats were.

Rangers BP coach posted a lower ERA this weekend than the Sox. Sox got hit harder, too.

Crawford has 5 straight RHP lined up for him after today, so he'll get back into the swing of things. That first hit is always the hardest to find, especially when you're under the microscope and on a new team. As soon as he gets that first hit and relaxes a little, I can see him going on a tear. And as far as our losses go - I'm fairly certain that teams are going to run a line of .342/.415/.767 against our pitchers all year, so we should do a little better. Yeah. Texas is slugging .767 right now. That's retarded.

Go Sox BABY!!!!!!!!! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: Any predictions for the month of April before it starts? 27 games total. I'm predicting 18-9.

Francona doesn't appear to be worried, either, as he is hitting Youk in the clean up spot. Tomorrows line up: Ellsbury Pedroia Crawford Youkilis Gonzalez Ortiz Cameron Salty Scutaro I am not a huge fan of going Gonzo - Ortiz. I see no protection offered by Ortiz to Gonzo against a LHP. I predict Gonzo gets walked 2 times tomorrow.

Pitching. And. Defense.

Hm. Ok. I like that first inning.

Fortunately the 2nd game is against Colby Lewis, a RHP, so the Sox should be able to handle him pretty well. CJ Wilson does worry me a bit, though, as he has been a Red Sox killer his entire career (1.42 career ERA vs BOS). Hopefully Lester comes out and throws like he can, but I see a low scoring game on our hands the first game. Having said that - Colby Lewis being a RHP should get roughed up by our line up, and Matt Harrison (LHP starting Sunday for TEX) has gotten roughed up by the Sox before, posting a career 8.25 ERA vs BOS. Lester has a career 2.94 ERA vs TEX, and posted a 1.69 ERA vs TEX in 2010. Lackey has a career 5.74 ERA vs TEX, but posted a 2.57 ERA vs TEX in 2010. Buchholz has a career 3.24 ERA vs TEX, and posted a 4.05 ERA vs TEX in 2010. Just a quick preview.

A sample size is used to generate expectations. I am not proclaiming any expectation for next year. All I'm doing is looking at last year differently than "Lackey had a 4.40 ERA". It's like if I took 5 tests, got 4 95's and a 60. My average would be an 88, but you could also look at it as 80% of the time I made a 95, and I had one bad test that skewed my average.

Cherry picking, to me, is taking the top 5 starts and saying "This is the kind of pitcher he is". That's not what I'm doing. I'm taking the 3 worst starts and saying "Yup. We had a 4.40 ERA pitcher in 2011, but if you look deeper, he really pitched well in 29 of those starts, in which he threw to the tune of a 3.76 ERA." I'm not taking anything away from his 4.40 ERA, or trying to justify it, I'm just saying that in any given start, Lackey has a 94% chance of going out there and posting around a 3.75 ERA based on last years numbers. And I WILL take it out on you in The Show.

All I'm saying is that I didn't mean for the article to be portrayed as cherry picking, but rather just a different way of looking at how our pitchers performed, that's all. Just trying to portray that "Ok, last year we got a s***** pitcher for 3 starts, but other than that, we had a very formidable pitcher for 29 starts". I am in no way suggesting that any of the pitchers will throw to the effectiveness mentioned in the article during the entirety of 2011, just showing how much a few bad outings can manipulate an entire season's stats.

But I DID write that article.

Wow. Ok. All I'm doing in this article is looking at the season a bit differently, kind of outside of the box. Rather than looking at it as "Lackey gave us 215 IP of 4.40 ERA baseball", I am looking at it as "Lackey gave us 201 IP of 3.75 ERA baseball over 29 starts, but that also came with 14 IP of 13.50 ERA baseball over 3 starts". I thought it was an interesting way to look at it, that's it. I didn't know it was going to get critiqued like a thesis.

The only thing I disagree with is your point about Buchholz. Maybe we have different expectations for him and that's why you consider him a question mark and I don't. Either way, the guy had a 10.2 K/9 throughout the minors, and, as stated above, other than those 3 games where he didn't have good control, his BB/9 was around 3.02 for the remaining games last season. I think that any regression that Buchholz has in terms of ERA due to LOB%, BABIP, etc. will be met with an increase in K/9 and a decrease in BB/9. I don't think it will completely negate the difference between his FIP and ERA, but I do think it will lessen the gap, and I expect Buch to sit around a 3.30 ERA this year with a K/9 around the 7.2-7.3 range, BB/9 in the 3.1 range.

Hey guys Here's a quick little read I wrote this morning. A little bit encouraging in terms of starting pitching. Red Sox Pitching - Behind the Numbers Well guys. I have decided to do a little digging in my free time, just to see exactly how good of a pitching staff we have this year. What I've found is really, really intriguing. I went through the game logs for each pitcher, and took out their 3 worst games. Most of the time, these were games in which the pitcher allowed a very high amount of ER in a very low amount of innings. I then recalculated the pitcher's ERA to see exactly what kind of a pitcher we are getting for the majority of their IP. Here's what I found. Lester - Jon had 3 really bad outings, in which he threw a combined 12 IP and allowed a combined 24 Earned Runs (18.00 ERA). But out of his entire year (208 IP), that only represents 6%. So how, then, does Jon throw for the remaining 94% of his season? Here's how. 196 IP, 2.34 ERA, 9.83 K/9, 3.31 BB/9. Pretty much elite, outstanding, you name it. Lackey - 3 really bat outings, Lackey threw 14 IP allowing 21 ER (13.50 ERA). This accounted for 6.5% of his total year, so for the other 93.5%, Lackey did the following: 201 IP, 3.76 ERA, 6.49 K/9, 2.78 BB/9. Very formidable, especially in the AL East. Buchholz. How can Buch's 2.33 ERA get any better? Well, lets just take a look. Buchholz had 3 outings in which he allowed 15 ER in 10 IP, posting a 13.50 ERA. This accounted for 6% of his total starts, so for the other 94% of his starts, Buchholz posted the following. 163.2 IP, 1.65 ERA, 6.38 K/9, 3.02 BB/9. Yeah. Buchholz posted a 1.65 ERA in 94% of the games he pitched. Unreal. Beckett. Oh boy. Not much could go right for Beckett last year, he had a terrible, terrible injury ridden year. But we'll take a look. In Beckett's 3 worst outings, he threw 13 IP and allowed 24 ER (16.62 ERA). This accounted for 10% of his starts. So for the remaining 90%, it wasn't SO bad. 114.2 IP, 4.55 ERA, 7.77 K/9, 2.90 BB/9. That's much, much more manageable than his horrific 5.76 ERA. It's comforting to know that he can at least pitch like an average pitcher 90% of the time even in his worst season. DiceK. Worst 3 outings - 14 IP, 21 ER (again, 13.50 ERA, strange that this number keeps coming up). This represents 9% of his total starts, so lets see how DiceK did in 91% of his starts. 139.2 IP, 3.80 ERA, 7.86 K/9, 4.12 BB/9. From a number 5 starter, I'll take that all day, every day. So to recap, here's what we got from our SP last year, which was considered a let down. Lester - 94%: 2.34 ERA, 9.83 K/9, 3.31 BB/9 Lackey - 93.5%: 3.76 ERA, 6.49 K/9, 2.78 BB/9 Buchholz - 94%: 1.65 ERA, 6.38 K/9, 3.02 BB/9 Beckett - 90%: 4.55 ERA, 7.77 K/9, 2.90 BB/9 DiceK - 91%: 3.80 ERA, 7.86 K/9, 4.12 BB/9 That, my friends, is encouraging.