harmony

ZiPS and Steamer project rest-of-season wRC+ of 97 and 105 for Jackie Bradley Jr. and 75 and 75 for Blake Swihart, who has posted a wRC+ of 71 in 52 plate appearances at Pawtucket this year: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=13176&position=C I hope we can agree on which player is the better defender.

ZiPS, Steamer and FanGraphs Depth Charts project Jackie Bradley Jr. with rest-of-season WAR of 2.1, 2.4 and 2.1, respectively, after Bradley posted 4.8 fWAR last year and 0.1 fWAR to date this season: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=12984&position=OF

Beyond the Box Score examines Boston lefthander Eduardo Rodriguez: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2017/5/5/15527622/eduardo-rodriguez-red-sox-breakout-strikeouts-walks

A hot streak is unlikely to change the trade value of a 27-year-old outfielder with 1,485 plate appearances in 410 MLB games. Jackie Bradley is what he is ... and carries some value. Of course Mookie Betts or Andrew Benintendi would command a greater return in trade.

Deven Marrero has posted a .169/.178/.211/.389 line in 73 plate appearances in 19 games this year at Pawtucket (with two errors) after posting a .198/.245/.242/.487 line in 388 plate appearances in 96 games last year (with 14 errors): http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=marrer001dev

To his credit, Bill Carrigan guided the Red Sox to World Series titles in the Babe Ruth years of 1915 and 1916

Manager Bill Carrigan guided the Boston Red Sox to last-place finishes in 1927, 1928 and 1929: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BOS/ The Red Sox finished last six years running (and eight of nine straight seasons).

In 2015 the Toronto Blue Jays led the American League in scoring by 127 runs but finished fifth in runs scored last year en route to another postseason berth. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2015.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2016.shtml

Even the sabermetric skeptics on this forum might enjoy this analysis ... On this thread in January I compared the WAR projections for Andrew Benintendi and rookie Seattle outfielder Mitch Haniger: http://www.talksox.com/forum/threads/17790-The-Benintendi-Thread?p=1046045&highlight=haniger#post1046045 Through Saturday's games Benintendi had posted an OPS+ of 118 with 0.5 fWAR and 0.1 bWAR in 17 games while Haniger had posted and OPS+ of 181 with 1.1 fWAR and 1.6 bWAR in 19 games. Benintendi went 5-for-5 on Sunday with five singles while Haniger went 3-for-4 with a double and a walk. Despite the January projections that leaned toward Haniger and Haniger's superior early-season performance, FanGraphs Depth Charts, Steamer and ZiPS all give Benintendi the edge for the remainder of season: FanGraphs Depth Charts project Benintendi with 2.4 WAR in 115 games and Haniger with 1.2 WAR in 115 games. Steamer projects Benintendi with 1.8 WAR in 113 games and Haniger with 1.4 WAR in 105 games. ZiPS projects Benintendi with 1.9 WAR in 119 games and Haniger with 1.3 WAR in 110 games. http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=17901&position=OF http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=14274&position=OF The updated projections would make little sense if one isolates on traditional statistics. However, I suspect Haniger's projections were hurt by his 22.7 percent strikeout rate and his likely unsustainable BABIP of .360. Benintendi has a strikeout rate of 13 percent and a BABIP of .333 after Saturday's games. Still it should be interesting to see how each rookie develops.

I have James Paxton in fantasy as well but failed in my bid to get Mitch Haniger. My team likewise is reeling from Starling Marte's suspension. For the second April in a row my fantasy team lost a base-stealer with the club's second-highest salary to an 80-day PED suspension. Last year it was Dee Gordon.

For what it's worth, entering the game at Toronto, Chris Sale did not have the highest fWAR of any American League lefthander scheduled today for his fourth start of the season. That honor would go to Seattle southpaw James Paxton, who posted 1.0 WAR and an ERA of 0.00 in three starts covering 21 innings while Sale had a WAR of 0.9 and as ERA of 1.25 in 21.2 innings. Paxton, who is nearly five months older than Sale, will be hard-pressed to match Sale's performance when the Mariner lefthander faces the Athletics tonight in Oakland.

WAR does not end the debate but I can think of no better publicly available statistic to begin the debate.

A misunderstanding of baseball analytics.

Those are reasons why batting averages are given less and less weight in the determination of value. WAR makes a subjective determination of what objective statistics go into its calculation (even though those objective statistics are based on some subjective judgments). The baseball cards of my childhood listed runs, RBI, home runs, batting average and stolen bases. In more recent years evaluators made the subjective decision to cite on-base percentage instead of batting average. The typical WAR calculation gathers a wide variety of largely objective statistics to reach a conclusion. Like any statistic, WAR is subject to debate about how well it measures what it purports to measure.

Just as batting average is subjective statistic dependent upon an official scorer's subjective judgment.

An expert's presentation to the general public will be different from the expert's presentation to peers. The latter typically requires a precision that the former does not. The links to FanGraphs and Baseball Reference "explain a theory and its supporting evidence clearly and concisely, in plain language, to intelligent people with an interest in this area." WAR is a statistic that would be found in an introductory course, not a course in advanced statistics.

Many people with an area of expertise roll their eyes at questions from persons who lack that expertise. Each of us has limitations ... don't be ashamed.

The precise calculations are available to the public: http://www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/war/ http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml

The Red Sox traded shortstop Nomar Garciaparra in the middle of a season that culminated with a World Series title. Garciaparra, of course, was a 31-year-old posting a .321/.367/.500/.867 line at the time of the trade.

Kyle Kendrick looked good at Spring Training but the righthander had a rough debut today at Pawtucket: http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2017_04_10_syraaa_pawaaa_1&t=g_box&sid=milb

Falmouth native Steve Cishek was available in the 2015-16 offseason. Compare the 2016 lines for Cishek and Craig Kimbrel: SC 62 G, 64 IP, 2.82 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 3.0 BB/9. 10.7 K/9, 144 ERA+, 1.6 bWAR, 0.9 fWAR CK 57 G, 53 IP, 3.40 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 5.1 BB/9, 14.7 K/9, 135 ERA+, 0.9 bWAR, 1.2 fWAR Cishek signed a two-year, $10 million contract with Seattle that offseason but lost the closer role to rookie Edwin Diaz in August. Cishek opens the 2017 season on the disabled list after undergoing hip surgery.

How much trade value do Christian Vazquez, Sandy Leon and Blake Swihart have? Steamer600, which assumes 450 plate appearances for each catcher but 600 plate appearances for Swihart, projects 2017 WAR of 1.6 for Vazquez, 1.6 for Leon and 0.4 for Swihart: http://www.fangraphs.com/projections.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&type=steamer600&team=3&lg=all&players=0&sort=27,d Vazquez and Leon would rank 35th and 36th among all catchers in the Steamer600 projections (which, again, assume 450 plate appearances for each catcher regardless of the projected plate appearances): http://www.fangraphs.com/projections.aspx?pos=c&stats=bat&type=steamer600&team=0&lg=all&players=0&sort=27%2cd The FanGraphs 2017 profile of Swihart points out the red flags: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=13176&position=C

That link provides a balanced profile of Blake Swihart (about halfway down the top page).

FanGraphs Depth Charts, Steamer and ZiPS project Craig Kimbrel with 65, 65 and 60 appearances, respectively, in 2017: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=6655&position=P Only an injury and/or woeful performance would limit Kimbrel to fewer than 50 appearances this year.

I was at Roger Clemens' one-hitter on October 14, 2000: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SEA/SEA200010140.shtml