Kimmi

I agree with you about the hitting. If he's healthy, he is a beast offensively. We'll have to keep our fingers crossed that he can be serviceable defensively. Who knows, maybe working next to Pedroia will have some positive effect. If it comes down to it and he needs to be benched, Shaw should be able to hold his own at 1B.

The pitch selection argument is not bogus. It's a fact. Look at the data. It is no secret that Porcello altered his selection and sequencing.

It's a combination of both, as well as some bad luck, but UN? is right that it was mostly pitch selection. When he came back from the DL, his pitch selection was more along the lines of how he pitched in 2013 and 2014. That was the biggest reason for his improvement. Four things contributed to his improvement after the DL: 1. More sinkers and change ups, less 4 seamers 2. Improved change up movement, which goes along with #3 3. Pitching down in the zone 4. Luck Here's a good analysis of his pitching before the DL versus his pitching after: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2015/10/9/9485911/rick-porcello-and-staying-optimistic

Ninety-two wins is probably a little on the optimistic side, but not outrageous. Hanley and Pablo were so bad last year that if they can just play at replacement level, which is not unrealistic, that's an addition 4 wins over last season. Also, our BP was really bad as well. The addition of Kimbrel and Smith is a significant improvement.

That's true. We really have to hope that he won't be a huge liability defensively. That said, if he is that bad defensively, I think the Sox need to bench him, maybe let him DH now and then, despite his contract. I think his offense will return. I have serious doubts about his ability to play 1B.

I thought this was a very good analysis by Cameron. It shows that the 92 win projection for the Sox really isn't overly optimistic or unrealistic. A lot is going to hinge on Hanley's ability to play first base though.

The contract is not a good one, but the signing is defensible. The 5 WAR drop off in the first year of his contract was in no way obvious or predictable. It was not even a realistic or reasonable expectation.

Correct.

Many people were concerned about the contract and thought it was a bad signing. I didn't like the contract either. I am not arguing that, nor am I arguing that there weren't warning signs. I also realize that Pablo's production has declined for 3 years, and that he won't age as well as a player who isn't as large as he is. It was very reasonable to expect that he would continue to decline, and very it was very reasonable to expect that the contract would turn bad. A reasonable expectation would have been a decline of about 1/2 WAR, maybe a little more. Nobody expected him to be as bad as he was last year, not even close to that. Nobody. Not even Rosenthal. And I bet that he's not nearly as bad this season, meaning last year was more of a fluke than anything else.

Chris Davis is apparently headed back to the Orioles. Seven year deal.

If you get to meet Varitek, tell him that Kimmi said that he is THE man. Let us know how it goes.

Well if you're looking for a single published article with all of their results, there isn't one, as far as I know. However, since all of their projections are published, you should be able to look for yourself on a year by year basis. As I've stated before, because of the randomnesss of the game, it's impossible for any system or for any human to have sustained accuracy better than a certain degree. You can't take the projections as gospel, but that doesn't mean that they're useless either. Here's a good synopsis of projections (many systems, not just Fangraphs) from 2005 to 2014: A graph: FanGraphs The first takeaway: there's enough there to show the projections aren't random. On average, teams projected to be bad have been bad, and teams projected to be good have been good. For example, consider the teams projected to win at least 95 games. They've averaged 96 projected wins, and they've averaged 95 actual wins. Now consider the teams projected to win no more than 70 games. They've averaged 68 projected wins, and they've averaged 68 actual wins. Projections mean something. There's both signal and noise. The noise, though, would be the second takeaway. We observe a linear relationship, but with a lot of points bouncing around. People have found this before, but just to re-state it, for the current record: one standard deviation of the difference between actual wins and projected wins is found here to be 8.7. That's a 17-win window, around a central projection, where a team could end up anywhere and it wouldn't even be the slightest bit strange. I know a 162-game season can feel interminable, but it's really not that long, mathematically. There's room for a lot of unpredictability.

Dave Cameron did an excellent analysis of Fangraphs' projection of 92 wins for the Sox. None of the players' projections are really out of line or overly optimistic, except for the defensive projection for Hanley. Our greatest projected gain is coming in our BP, which was really terrible last year. It's a great read: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/investigating-steamers-optimism-for-the-red-sox/ I love this guy.

Sabermetric folk don't go all unhinged. I believe that's an oxymoron.

^^This. It was a bad contract because it was for 5 years. Sandoval should have been worth it in at least the first two years of the deal. Every analysis I've read of the signing rates this as risky because of what Sandoval would likely be in years 4 or 5 of the contract. There were really no concerns with how he would produce at the front end.

IMO, it's really no revelation. It's no secret that most players and managers have no clue about advanced metrics and couldn't care less about them.

Pedroia is very old school. I wonder if he's offended by that "label". His old school nature is what makes him so great, IMO. That said, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

It would be nice if they listed what times each player would be there so you could sign up for that time slot. Good luck in getting to meet one of the players that you're hoping to. Clemens was my first baseball crush. Unfortunately, I now think he's a snake.

Most systems are projecting less of a spread in wins between the best teams and the worst teams in recent years.

These guys admit their shortcomings and mistakes all the time. They aren't trying to hide anything. They are also constantly tweaking their systems to make them better. They also acknowledge that no matter how good their system is, it will never be able to account for randomness, and it will never be able to replace what can best be described as "gut feelings" when it comes to individual players.

No one is saying that projections should be taken as gospel. There is so much randomness in baseball that a team finishing within a 16 game interval around its projection can be considered "normal". It is impossible, not unlikely, but impossible for any projection system or human to make such predictions with a great deal of accuracy over a long and large enough sample. That said, projections are not nothing and they are not random either.

I agree that speed and good baserunning are an important part of the game. I am probably not as high on actual stolen bases as you are. I'm not saying that they are not important, just that they are overrated.

On the topic of Varitek, Baseball Prospectus unveiled its new catcher defense stats yesterday. These stats confirm what most of us already know, that Varitek was among the best in blocking pitches and pitch framing. Despite his below average arm, "With his CSAA stats so great, it’s not surprising that Varitek also has the 13th-most overall catcher defense added overall in the history of the game, with a total of 80.5 runs added over his career. That’s a huge amount compared to most catchers, and every drop of that value went to the Sox over his 14-year career." This is something that doesn't get the attention of traditional HOF voters.

Having a fast runner on first base is an overall net advantage to the offense because of the success rate of steals, the ability to avoid the double play, and the greater likelihood of the runner going first to third or scoring from first. Take away the actual baserunning advantage, and there is really not much advantage to the offense from 'disruption' that there wouldn't be from a normal runner on first. Except for more balks.

Personally, I'd love to meet either Varitek or Pedro. I'd pass on Clemens.