Think of it as the closing ceremonies. Kind of.
Archive | Jason Bay
RSS feed for this section
Red Sox Hot Stove Round-Up #2
Hunter Golden gyrates, grooves and hip swivels his way into your hearts and minds by providing you with this week’s Red Sox Hot Stove news in a nice, neat tupperware container.
GM Meetings Rumor Recap
Hunter Golden collects all the GM Meeting rumors and puts them in a nice, bright bucket. Then eats them. Alive.
7/1: Houston’s Problem
Boston Red Sox (46-34) @ Houston Astros (29-53) Tim Wakefield (4-3, 4.54) @ Bud Norris (4-6, 3.36) 8:05 PM EDT | Minute Maid Park (Houston, TX) TV: NESN, RADIO: WEEI 850, WWZN 1510 INJURY REPORT Boston: Clay Buchholz, lower back strain (Placed on the 15-day DL on June 19, retroactive to June 17); Carl Crawford, strained [...]
Read More
Comments Off
Left, Since Manny Left
The buzz in Chicago is all about a dread-locked slugger who wears the number 99. No, Ricky Vaughn didn’t grow his hair out and learn to hit the long ball. You know him, you love him/hate him. Manny Ramirez is back in the headlines. This got me thinking. What has happened in left field since [...]
Read More
Comments Off
Jason Bay is now average defender
A little over a week ago fangraphs.com updated their UZR calculations with the first batch of 2010 data. This update included some work on arm skill as well as changes for quirky stadiums including Fenway Park. This change was done to include previous seasons and now Jason Bay made one of the largest gains as his -13.8 runs value became a 1.9 value.
John Tomase decided to use this as a chance to say UZR owes Jason Bay an apology. Let’s start with a reminder there is no chance the Red Sox are using UZR and have their own model so let’s not make any assumptions UZR had anything to do with the Red Sox failing to sign him. Even with the changes no stat is perfect and I’m sure we’ll be discussing the next Bay in the offseason. Perhaps that will be Jeremy Hermida who has improved his defense in UZR coming from Florida.
Interview at Mets Paradise
Last week I answered some questions for Scott Wallace at Mets Paradise. You can check them out today. There was some good questions about the roster and a few on front office and the farm system. Of course there was also the obligatory question about Jason Bay and why the Red Sox let him go. With the Mets looking like a .500 team this year I’m glad he didn’t ask me for more thoughts on them.
Read More
Comments Off
Ignoring conventional wisdom
Since the introduction of Sabermetrics many concepts and terms have started to enter the main stream. OBP is now a regular on the NESN broadcast and OPS is often a common term in any presentation. That has not lead to a change in much of the conventional wisdom that we have started to be seen as not true. Just watch a few minutes of the ESPN Wednesday night game and by the third time you hear Joe Morgan call for a bunt you’ll know what I’m talking about.
One common misconception to me that would make player analysis much better is the understanding of streaks and slumps. To put it quite bluntly there is no such thing as a streak or a slump. There may be peaks and valleys in any given season, but that doesn’t mean your doing anything different.
Bill James wrote about this in one of his earlier papers Understanding the Fog. He said that there was no hot or cold streaks, but simply a cluster of events that made it appear to be on or the other. The point was the placement of them was completely random.
Jason Bay the designated hitter
There has been talk that Jason Bay has come back to the Red Sox asking if they could resign him. Obviously there are a ton of problems with resigning him, but that isn’t what I wanted to discuss here today. There are a few of things to take into account in a move like that.
The first is when we discuss designated hitters we are talking about someone who has no need for defensive value so his level of “average” and “replacement” is very different. This has been articulated many times by Tom Tango, but replacement level at DH is actually average. This should make sense as you could find someone with enough of a bat to hit, but often has poor defensive skills.
This effect is why the DH has such a large positional adjustment at -17.5. This is why a league average DH is a much better hitter than the league average player. You can also see how poor a defender needs to be before they would be better at DH.
Loading ...Fire Brand of the Year
2013 FIRE BRAND = SCOTT ATCHISON
“The Fire Brand of the American League is a Red Sox player who exhibits character under pressure, an unassuming man who leaves the spotlight for other people but makes his indelible mark on the past season’s Boston Red Sox. A piece most people take for granted, but whom we would have missed dearly.”