SoxFanForsyth

Dear God, I hope our bullpen is better this year. It really can't get much worse than it was. Now, given I knew our bullpen was horrendous last year, and getting it fixed always was our number 1 priority, but today I was looking at a stat that showed just how much our bullpen cost us. Check this out. This is nuts. Red Sox bullpen - 4.24 ERA, 23 Losses. Yankees pen - 3.47 ERA, 17 Losses. Rays pen - 3.33 ERA, 16 Losses So, our bullpen lost 6 games more than the Yanks, 7 games more than the Rays. How many games were we back on the Rays and the Yankees in 2010? 6 games back on the Yankees, 7 games back on the Rays. Unreal.

I am literally shocked to see that the debate over whether or not to attempt to acquire Reyes is still going on. Is this serious, or is this some kind of hazing technique because I'm new?? We've got a SS which scouts have compared the glovework to Ozzie Smith (maybe you've heard of him?), and people on here want to forgo that potential, and get an injury prone SS for buckets of money. That makes absolutely zero sense. We've got Lowrie and Iglesias waiting in the wings, both of which (IMO) have the potential to be starting SS in the MLB, Iglesias of which will be the future SS of the Sox, both getting paid under $1mm combined, and we want to go get Reyes. I just don't know what to say to people who support that idea. Apparently the financial side of baseball is irrelevant to some people.

Average HR Distance from 2010: A-Rod - 406.5 Teixera - 393.4 Dunn - 411.1 Cabrera - 398.7 Youkilis - 398.0 A. Gonzalez - 393.3 Votto - 401.5 Fielder - 410.5 And last but not least - Crawford - 411.6 The power is there, and if you put him in front of Gonzo, Youk, and Ortiz, the pitches will come, and so will the consistency. I'm not saying he's going to be a 40 HR guy by any means. I'm saying that speed is not his "only asset" and that he's got the strength to be a 25-30 HR guy, especially if he starts driving the ball to the opposite field.

I just came across a fairly disturbing stat for the Yankees. Yankees SP last year threw 973 IP and allowed 470 ER for an ERA of 4.35 and a record of 72-50. Take CC's 237.2 IP, 84 ER, and 21-7 record out of the equation. Take Pettitte's 129 IP, 47 ER, and 11-3 record out of the equation. And now you're left with 80% of your starts coming from Starting Pitching that posted a 5.03 ERA and went 40-40 last year. That is a massive problem, and one that needs to be addressed, but according to Cashman, they're going in with what they've got. ...And the Sox offense got better. Smells like trouble to me.

You mean August - the end of the season? Because he hit .245 in the last 2 months of the year (.245/.338/.521/.859) I don't think that's really turning it around, he still only hit .245.

See: Curtis Granderson. My dear God. If I have to hear about how Granderson is going to turn it around next year and how 2010 was a fluke again, I'm going to s*** my pants. Seriously. I will. I don't joke about that. Drew, who is a career .255 hitter vs LHP, will get better this year even if it's by accident. Hitting .208 vs LHP is ridiculous for him. He should be around .245-.250 vs LHP, not great but a huge improvement. Next year, I expect him to be around the .260+ clip, as he will be platooned with Cam vs tough lefties (i.e. Price, CC, etc). He should be at around his career numbers next year, especially since he's going to miss the tough lefties next year, which will compensate for any regression he achieved last year. I would say .280/.390/.500/.890 with 20 HR and 65 RBI's is a reasonable expectation, and pretty consistent with his 2009 numbers.

Wait. Each team only gets 1 injured season?? Well sh!t, I'm emptying my savings and putting it on the Sox to win it in 2011!! This is the kind of bet that puts your kids through college. Thanks for the no doubter!

The way I see it, I don't think Pettitte will be back, but under the assumption that he is back, I do believe he will regress. I actually think he'll regress fairly significantly and I don't think he will be able to finish the season. Pettitte said (in an article that I read a few weeks ago) that he was unsure of his ability to return to proper baseball form after the groin injury, and if he doesn't know if he will be able to achieve baseball condition, I don't think he'll be able to grind out a full season. Even if he does grind out a full season, will he be worth over 10 - 12 wins? Having said that, the Yankees really, really need Pettitte to come back. If he doesn't, their rotation becomes extremely righty-heavy, and that doesn't fair well against the lefty-heavy Sox line up, whether in the regular season or in the post season. After seeing their core players getting older (i.e. A-Rod, Posada, Jeter, Pettitte if he comes back, Mo), you have to wonder how long they can dodge the inevitable injury ridden season.

I've actually never posted on this thread, just usually on redsox.com, maybe nesn a few times, but I actually just found this site a few days ago and I've been following the Sox for about 12 years now. I can't argue his BABIP being so high in 2010, and the more I look at his stats, the more and more volatile they become regarding BABIP (.371 in 2010, .265 in 2009, .235 in 2008, .285 in 2007, .379 in 2006). So, what I did was look at his spray chart vs LHP at Petco and put it at Fenway for the 3 available years (2008-2010), and I've attached them to the bottom. Again, I only filtered it by Pop Out, Fly Out, and Line Out, as the spray charts indicate where the defender caught the ball, so it's the best indication of where the ball landed. Having reviewed these, I noted that, judging solely by home games vs LHP converting from Petco to Fenway, he will be worth around 5-6 extra hits vs LHP (most of these will be HR over the Monster or doubles off the wall). So, I took the extra 5-6 hits and added them to his 2007 year, as this was his most normal BABIP year. Just for the record - I believe a normal BABIP should be between .280 - .320. Adding 6 hits to his 2007 campaign vs LHP would put his average at .293. Adding 5 would be .289. So, assuming he has improved slightly over the past 3 years vs LHP, and assuming his BABIP will be at a normal level, and taking into consideration the new park, I think he'll sit right at .300 vs LHP. By the way - I attached another piece that I read on Fangraphs basically transitioning his stats from 2008, 2009, and 2010 from Petco to Fenway by taking his actual stats, translating them to a Normal NL Environment, and then translating them as if he played at Fenway. Very interesting, I thought. By the way - if these attachments are too small, let me know how I can make them bigger. They're much bigger when I save them.

my deepest apologies. biggest splash of the yankee offseason and i'm just dumb enough to forget it

Don't know why it's so small. (that's what he said). Maybe someone tell me how to make it larger? (that too)

Hopefully that worked. That's Gonzo's 2010 hit chart @ Petco vs LHP placed over Fenway (or it should be anyway). It's showing his pop outs, line outs, and fly outs. It doesn't show ground outs or any actual hits. In that image, I can see 6 balls that were hit vs LHP that were outs that would easily be a hit at Fenway, 4 of which would be HR (more than likely). If those 6 hits were added to his 2010 totals, his BA vs LHP would go from .337 to .367. Again, I realize that his BABIP was high as was shown earlier, but if you take into consideration that he is playing in a new park that is much more hitter friendly, it's not at all crazy to think he can still hit .300 vs LHP in 2011.

I think the thing that Theo see's in him, which would compliment your opinion about his power development, is that he's not a Tim Raines, or a Kenny Lofton type player. Crawford has amazing speed, yes, but Tim Raines was 5'8, 160 and Kenny Lofton was 6'0, 180. Crawford is 6'2, 215. That's a big boy. Now, given, size doesn't always convert to power, but Damon was 6'2, 205. I looked up some stuff just now on HitTracker - Carl Crawfords average HR distance last year - 411.6 feet. Johnny Damon's average HR distance in 2006 (when he hit 24) - 384.4. So the power is definitely there, it's just getting the consistency. I think Crawford will become a 20-25 HR player over the next few years, especially if he's playing LF at Fenway where it's two steps back, 3 steps forward and you cover 80% of the grass.

Why?? Because he adds speed, 15-20 HR power, incredible defense, and extends our line up?? I'm sorry, maybe I'm crazy for liking a guy who has had a 12.6 WAR over the past 2 years. As far as Gonzalez goes vs LHP, I didn't notice his BABIP vs LHP was so high last year, although his career BABIP of .291 equates to a career average of .262, which I could see both improving to a BABIP of around .310 and a 2011 average of around .280, as he has an inside out swing that will be able to drive the ball to the opposite field, a short opposite field I might add. Last year, a 310 foot pop fly to LF was an out. This year, it's a double. I was looking to see if I could find a spray chart for Gonzo vs LHP because I believe he had a lot of opposite field hits vs LHP, but I could be mistaken. If that's the case, then I would assume that his average would not drop more than 40 points vs LHP going to Fenway.

Well, according to Jack Curry of YES Network, Cashman said Pettitte is still leaning toward retiring.

Pettitte still leaning toward retiring according to Brian Cashman. Tweet by Jack Curry of the YES Network. If the Yanks don't get Pettitte, and they have to face the lefty-heavy Sox lineup with 80% right handed starters, look out. Could get ugly, fast.

Yeah it's definitely an interesting concept of kind of reinventing/restarting the line up in the 5th hole, I'm just more of a fan of getting our run scorers all opportunities to get on base before our 3 big boppers. Imagine having the bases juiced with Gonzo/Youk/Ortiz coming up. Oh. My. God. :thumbsup:

I can definitely see that happening. Only question I have - will he be as effective as he was last year? I saw somewhere that he said he is unsure how well he will be able to get over the groin injury. Last year, once he returned from his injury, he started 5 games and went 1-2 with a 4.61 ERA (including the post season). Just wonder how much more he's got in the tank, and if 17mm is worth it for a guy who has a good chance of being injured for 1/2 of the season or more.

Something to think about - Next year (2011 offseason), we've got Ortiz and Drew coming off the books. Both left handed hitters, but Kalish is the favorite to replace Drew as he's cheap and very talented. After another year at AAA, I am going to assume he'll progress even more and I'll say he'll be our 2012 RF. So that still leaves 3 lefties in our outfield. Does this mean, more or less, that Ortiz is gone next year? Given, at 12.5mm for a DH, he's not going to get paid the same, but don't you think Theo is going to want to go with a right handed bat with versatility to play a position? I would assume we would go with an OF/DH player, as that would allow the most versatility for giving Crawford, Ellsbury, and Kalish all days off via DH'ing, and still provide a strong bat. So looking at the potential FA class, Bautista is the only RH bat that sticks out in my head, and I'm very tentative to look at him because he had, what I consider, a fluke year. There's also Beltran, Cody Ross, David DeJesus, and really, that's about it. I'm very curious as to how Theo approaches next offseason with the DH position. He's got a great chance to turn our Lefty Heavy lineup into a very balanced line up with versatility, but other than trades, I don't see many names I get too excited about. Again - that's way way way in the future, just thought I would mention it.

Fifth would be a bad option for him. You're putting him behind Youk and Gonzo. Youk will get pitched around to get to Crawford, especially because Youk is slow and won't go 1st to 3rd on a single, which means if Crawford gets on base, it will be Crawford on 1st, Youk on 2nd. Well no longer is Crawford taking any attention off the pitcher because Youk is prohibiting him from stealing a base because he's too slow to go 1st to 3rd on a single. You're taking way too much away from Youk and Crawford by hitting him 5th.

For both Crawford and Gonzalez, I took their most recent stats. I take those because those are generally a better indication of how they will perform than career stats when players are entering their prime. It's not comparable to using 2004 stats, because these are the most recent, I'm not cherry picking stats. It's actually almost more dishonest to use career stats because you're using stats from when Crawford was 20 years old and learning how to play in the MLB. Taking stats from the most recent healthy season is a very clear, honest indicator of future performance, barring future injury obviously. Cherry picking the best years would be a dishonest way to look at stats, however Gonzo has been steadily improving his stats vs LHP, as is indicated by his lines from 2007-2010, so while he may not hit .340 next year, it's not outrageous to believe that he will be over .300 vs LHP. As far as limiting Crawford's steal opportunities, I don't see how hitting him in the 3 hole would decrease his opportunities by a significant enough amount to justify moving him to the 2 hole instead. Not to mention the fact that having Crawford on base in front of Gonzo, Youk, or Ortiz would take focus off the hitter and put it on Crawford (at least a portion of it), and would have the pitcher leaking more pitches across the middle of the plate for our power hitters. That's one of the intangible assets that Crawford has, and our big boppers should take advantage of this.