After adding John Lackey and Mike Cameron the team is starting to take shape. Although most think we need to make another move it’s possible we enter 2010 as we stand now. That isn’t very likely if the Mike Lowell trade is completed, but to start I’m going to look at the roster without any third baseman.
*Here is the explanation of how I calculated the WAR values I will be using. If you want to skip this just know it’s an average of several projections. For those that are interested I used Bill James projection, Fangraphs new Fans Projection (where available) and CHONE projections. To calculate WAR for Bill James I used his batting runs above average and the CHONE defensive projection since Bill does not project defense. Fan projections already account for WAR and needed no calculation. CHONE is batting and defense above league average. To complete the calculation to WAR for Bill James and CHONE I used CHONE PA to calculate replacement level runs and positional adjustment. Unfortunately this double weights CHONE on PA and defense projections. Once I have calculated the three WAR values I sum the team totals and average them.
Better than 2009
Now that that is out of the way we should get an idea of what are good values. In 2009 the Red Sox had the third most runs scored and their batting runs above average totaled 98.8 which ranked second in the league. This includes the whole team and all season. The good news is that the projections so far are much better than that for our group of 8 (Remember no third basemen). Bill James projects a 133.8 runs above average and CHONE calls for 106.
At the same time there is reason to rejoice the changes on defense as last year we had a dismal fielding runs above average of -16.3. Obviously “above” is a relative term for that team. CHONE has them totaling 32 runs above average defensively, which would have ranked them sixth last year. That is a huge gain and as we will see later almost the same value as adding Adrian Gonzalez’s bat.
Time to move on to the heart of what all this means. In 2009 the positional total for the whole team was 27.4 WAR, which was a virtual tie with the Phillies for fourth in the league. After running all the calculations I found for the current 8 starting players the three projections give the Red Sox an expected WAR total of 29.9. Let that sink in for a minute before moving on. Without a third basemen our team is projected by all three systems to have as much value from our position players. I’m going to give some numbers later if we make roster changes, but let’s look at the pitching staff first.
I decided to just look at the starters and use the Fan Projections and CHONE for pitching. In 2009 our entire staff was worth 23.6 WAR, which included our bullpen. That was tied with the Rockies for first overall. The starters totaled about 15-16 of that and averaging our projections we see that for 2010 we’re looking at 17.8 as a solid target. This includes Clay Buchholz, which could change as well, but he is only 2.4 WAR and Wakefield is 1.6. Not a huge swing for next year.
So what does this all mean for the home town team? Once we total these we get 47.7 WAR from a solid portion of our roster. The record of a replacement level team can vary, but has been around 46-47 wins the past few years. That gives us an expected win total of 94-95 in 2010 with our current roster. There are two variables of course that we can’t account for. Variance in year to year results and injury can always change the outcomes. The important part here is that once you include our relievers and a solution for third base we should cross 50-53 WAR and that gives us a target of 100 wins. That gives us more room for injury and poor seasons and still top 95 wins again this year.
Options to Fill the Gap
We can now see how much difference it might make between Adrian Beltre and Adrian Gonzalez. Beltre is a big fan favorite in the projections as his fan projection gives him a 4.1 WAR and would be a huge value, but Bill James and CHONE are much less optimistic and see him as a 2.5 WAR level player. Either way he gets us to 50+ WAR or a 97+ potential win total.
It appears fans are starting to show a bit of a more positive bias as Gonzalez gets a 5.2 WAR from them and only a 4.2 WAR from Bill James and CHONE. This again would get us over 50 WAR even with a small drop from Buchholz to Wakefield. I hadn’t calculated for a loss of Jacoby Ellsbury, but the projections love him this year and might hurt a bit more.
This seems to be a question of how much does Gonzalez cost and where the Red Sox see Beltre finishing. If they think Gonzalez is more of the 5.2 guy then he is better, but it brings some questions as well. How will Kevin Youkilis do with a move back to third? If it costs us Ellsbury will we leave left field up to Jeremy Hermida? I can’t answer these yet, but I think we could go either way and expect a solid result.
Measuring up the Yankees
Boston fans don’t want to hear how we match up to the league, but just tell us how we can beat the Yankees. This is a bit tougher right now as the Yankees have several holes right now at DH and left field. What we can do is give this a worse case scenario and see what happens. I think the worst case based on projections is if the Yankees sign Matt Holliday and Jason Bay. They could play Holliday in left field and hope to get Bay off the field and placed at DH. The result for the position players is quite impressive at 32.1 wins above replacement. Then if they get Joba Chamberlain and Phillip Hughes in the starting rotation their starters would total 17.4 WAR.
If we go back to our first roster we had 47.7 WAR for the Red Sox with no third basemen and this loaded Yankees team is looking at 49.5 WAR. While this in no way means we should sit in our hands and be prepared for 2010 already, but the division is a close battle right now.
The biggest reason for this result is the disparity on defense since the Yankees are a projected -8 fielding runs above replacement with Bay at DH, which trails the Red Sox’s 32 runs by a long shot. The Red Sox have made this a stress of the offseason and it looks to have made a difference, but we still have plenty of time to go and changes could be made to this.
Using WAR for Prediction
WAR has limitations and should not be predicted from previous year WAR directly. These WAR calculations are based on individual stat projections. This accounts for regression and player age factors. As I stated before this has two major limitations from injury and player result variances.