sk7326

Ellsbury 5.0 fwar, Victorino 4.7, Pedroia 4.6 ... I'll knock Victorino down slightly just because so much of his WAR is coming from defense (which is just a flimsier metric than offense at this point). Victorino's season has been absolutely stunning for anybody who saw his corpse hop around last season.

Ellsbury has been good. I like his 2013, love it - he's our best position player. A guy who plays a quality CF with his speed and power - yes 2011 is a fluke but he is no slap hitter either - is extremely valuable. But the price and age combination is very dicey. Can he play CF at an acceptable level into his mid 30s? If so, he can slide down to 75% of his production and still be a 4 win player - not a bargain but very much a plus. But the odds against that are high - just as the odds against him increasing his production enough when he is forced to a corner position.

Choo is one of the league's best OBP guys ... that is more of a lack of confidence in Nava than in Ellsbury. Choo would not be playing CF here. Bradley for Ellsbury WOULD be a downgrade, no doubt. But it is a 6 year age difference, and Bradley will be a capable starter from day 1. His glove is very good and his approach at the plate is so good that he can allow a .240 BA not to really be a problem.

I do agree that some pitchers can control BABIP - but that has to be something demonstrated over time. That Rodney's BABIP numbers tend to veer to the .280-.300 sort of range, essentially an "average" result, seems to show no evidence that he is one of those pitchers. And the walk rate thing - I'm not sure how much it has skyrocketed. His career walk rate is 11.5% (including his outlier 5.3% of last year), this year is 13.3% - above normal but not his worst year doing this.

No McCann - he is going to want years, and his body will not be able to sustain it, and I don't know whether he justifies being a DH in years 4 and 5. Drew going makes sense - convenient marriage, everyone has benefitted. Boegarts filling in is fine. At the same time, a Drew-Middlebrooks-Bogaerts SS-1B-3B rotation is not unreasonable either. Ellsbury will be hard to lose, but I get it - and Bradley will be a solid replacement. They could use another starter - who couldn't? I'd expect they'll try to extend Lester to something fair (5/75).

Well - they can answer it to a certain degree, although when you listen to ex-ballplayers on TV, there is good evidence they barely know why they were good in the first place (see Joe Morgan in particular). The win probability thing is a reasonable argument. That being said, you'd like to think an average pitcher can get 3 outs without giving up a run. And it's not speculation - Mark Melancon is not a special pitcher (we SAW that). Neither is Andrew Bailey, Brandon League, Fernando Rodney. They have all been successful at closing. It's also not a particularly specialized skill - teams switch who is in that role all the time to no great detriment. Now rotating guys in the 9th inning is dicey - it does seem like having a pitcher pitch the 9th has some value (the reason the 1996 Yankees kept Wetteland closing though his setup man was a lot better). But as far as WHO it is? There are a LOT of guys qualified - it's just whether the manager chooses him or not.

I think he has been the best reliever in the AL. But to me, for a reliever to win any Cy Young, he has to be extraordinary (and maybe Uehara qualifies - he has a case), and the field of starters has to be meh. Scherzer, Felix and Darvish have been plenty good to not warrant a reliever getting onto the podium.

I could see the Sox making an offer like that, 3 years premium value, maybe a no-trade.

He's not at all. He has had a marvelous season. But you need the right sort of year for a closer to get that consideration - and in almost all of those cases they are poor choices. Scherzer and King Felix are way way out in front of the rest of the field, with Yu probably being the best of the "everyone else" division. But Uehara's durability has been stunning, something I don't think a lot of people saw coming.

Well, to fans the 9th inning has a special significance, but on the closer evidence "innings are innings" does seem to be more truthful. After all, Melancon is closing for a pennant contender this year - while he was hide your eyes awful in Boston. Same guy, his stuff isn't special. Fernando Rodney was dreadful in Anaheim after being OK in Detroit and has closed well in Tampa. Tampa put him in after Kyle Farnsworth, who was a disaster as a close and late guy in other stops became a 9th inning specialist. The Cardinals won 2 world series sort of randomly plugging in a closer for the stretch run. There is no real magic to the 9th inning in practical terms. That said, there is evidence to me that it is a role and the bullpen benefits from having some of these jobs well defined.

His walk rates (Rodney) are right in line with his career numbers. BABIP is .300, which is around "normal". It was last year's .220 which was the outlier. He is a very ordinary pitcher - but stuff plays up a bit in the pen.

I do wonder if there is a placebo effect of having a stable 9th inning guy - it doesn't matter how good the guy actually is. Bullpen approaches where managers draw names at random (hello, Grady!) have not had much success, but approaches where managers just nominate a guy who may or may not actually be good (hello Mark Melancon, Brandon League) have seemed to be effective. It's a job that anybody can do - but it is important that SOMEBODY do the job. Maddon might just be satisfied leaving Rodney there as opposed to creating drama in the pitching staff generally.

I've always wondered - just to switch topics - why teams don't take a lesson from Weaver and break their younger guys in the bullpen ... suppose (using the Red Sox roster as a framework) Starters: Lester, Buchholz, Peavy, Doubront, Lackey (5 man rotation, we know how this works) Rotating Relievers: Britton, Ranaudo, Dempster (3 man rotation - you know you are the first guy out of the bullpen - 30-40 pitches) Setup/Closer: Tazawa, Uehara, Thornton (if you want) I wonder if something like this would be more efficient - and still be able to develop pitchers at the top level while getting better than "insert Jesse Crain like name here" or some other parade of one-inning flotsam

Maddon could put him in the 7th maybe - but he is not reliable enough to be a good setup guy, not with his shaky command. And right now you wouldn't bring him in with guys on base. Tampa has had a ton of success drawing closers out of a hat - partially because they don't seem to overvalue the 9th inning that much. Aside from getting 3 outs with bases empty - there is not a lot they trust him to do. Also, given they play in front of a much more laid back/absent fan base, he can work through his issues.

In that case, most likely it will be whomever's turn it is - with all hands on deck. Won't have a chance to set the rotation.

Yeah, Rodney.

lol, nerdball, moneyball, pick a snarky term for analytics - which I love clearly. Term of endearment.

He'll stay in the 9th because he is incapable of doing anything else.

You'd love to have your first alignment in October ... but you'd rather have four #2s over a 6 month season. That is what makes baseball a fun game - it is a true test of a team's all around ability, since the skills to make it through the marathon are almost opposite the skills needed to win short series.

Well that proves the point about the stopper - the Red Sox have generally thrown together competitive solid outings all season. I can wish they had someone in the Scherzer-King Felix-Yu level of hombre, but you can count those on one hand - the totality of our rotation has been plenty good and will not be the reason the team loses in October.

Rest vs rust has always been a fun debate, but all the arguments are made post hoc (monday morning QBing). The 07 Sox were the best team in baseball - and while the best team in baseball winning the WS is not that frequent an event, worked out then. Colorado being iced for 9 days is one thing, but you don't want them to not win games either. Nature of these things (and the 2 best teams in the league were playing in the other semifinal anyway). It was 5-innings, but also 5-innings for your #5 starter in a NL park. Basically Tito lifted him after a 2-out walk to get to Delcarmen. At that point, 92 pitches, left with a good outing and backed up by an excellent bullpen. The winning too early thing has some good recent examples behind it - but it is very hard to see it as a real hard factor. After all, in 2007 the Rockies had to wait, but in 2008 the Phillies had to wait for the Rays to survive Boston - and it did not seem to impact things too much. Looking at the examples in the last 15 years or so - it seems like when a team sweeps and a team goes the distance, there might be a rust factor - maybe. But otherwise it's pretty much a non-factor. Baseball is just a funny game too - after all, a 7 game series is barely a ripply in a regular season. In the context of baseball, it might as well be single elimination.

Walks were way down - and a .220 BABIP which was wildly out of line with the rest of his career. But yeah this year he is the guy he always was without that batted ball fortune.

Maddon and Friedman are generally pretty creative here - the tough thing they have with Rodney is that if he is not pitching the 9th, he really can't pitch at all.

2007 the slash line is even better, .332/.445/.621, a 1.067 ops in 2007, which was a 171 OPS+. So the baseline OPS+ has fluctuated quite a bit, even those two seasons.

I still am not sure why they used Mike Gonzalez to get ONE OUT in the 4th when the game had spiraled out of control. Burned an extra pitcher for no reason. For that matter, same with Scott Thornton, but at least he is coming off the DL.