OAK 6, BOS 5: Red Sox slide continues
Not only is Daisuke Matsuzaka's arm fatigued, but Red Sox Nation is also after suffering through a 12 inning, four hour and 24 minute, 6-5 extra innings loss to Oakland.
Category: Mike Lowell
Know Thyself 2009: Boston Red Sox
The 2009 Boston Red Sox are in the final stages of preparing for what is certain to be an entertaining and exciting season. The spring is finally behind us, the roster is set and the team is moving northward to christen Citi Field with some Major League talent.
Now all the roster moves are behind us and the questions move from the "who" of the offseason as they shift to the analysis of performance and the "what" of baseball. This past week has been spent looking at the competition in the American League East, and stiff competition it is. In most cases, the Red Sox had the position by position edge over each team from the Yankees to the Orioles and it should come as no surprise, in that light, that the staff here at Fire Brand gives the Red Sox the edge to win the AL East in 2009.
Today we summarize much of what we've talked about in our "For Better or Worse" series this offseason as we go player by player through the Red Sox roster and prepare for live baseball next week.
Know Thine Enemy 2009: New York Yankees
The other half of the best rivalry in sports, The New York Yankees. The Bronx Bombers "only" ended up with 89 victories last season. And the key players they inked this past off-season, have them looking incredibly strong on paper for this upcoming 2009 season.
The philosophy about building a strong farm was basically put on hold for a year. But Brian Cashman made some nice maneuvers, and the result--whether it was intentional or not--allowed the Yankees to lose their first three picks this year. And that is better than losing a first-round pick in three consecutive seasons, of course.
Chat Transcript: Ortiz, Yankees, Buchholz and more
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| David Ortiz - Samara Pearlstein |
I talk about which minor leaguers to keep an eye on... what the Sox need to do to win this year... how important David Ortiz is to us.
Oh, I also throw out predictions such as who will finish at first... scoff at the Yankees... and talk about who the heck can be our future catcher.
Defensive Misplays and the Sox that excel at them
Defensive Runs show how good a player is at preventing runs. But there's more than that that goes into fielding. What about mistake-free plays?
You would think that preventing runs and mistake-free plays go hand in hand, but not quite.
In the Fielding Bible Vol. II in which I received today, Bill James has unveiled publicly what I feel is a revolutionary statistic: Defensive Misplays.
is it any accident they're aggressive about playing Ellsbury, acquired Kotsay, resigned Lowell and brought Bay in?
How dependent are we on Mike Lowell?
Mike Lowell is prepared to hit the field and play in a game in two weeks, he reported yesterday. Although he hasn't suffered any setbacks with his right hip, he also hasn't been running the bases yet, which could make or break his progress.
It's very possible, although no noise has been made about it, that Lowell could suffer a setback which would either a) postpone his regular season debut or (worst case) b) knock his 2009 season out entirely.
Should Lowell not be able to start on Opening Day, this means Julio Lugo would start at shortstop with Jed Lowrie manning third base. There's a problem with this, however.
Examining the Red Sox’s defense via Defensive Runs
A couple years ago, The Fielding Bible took baseball by storm with John Dewan's Plus/Minus system to evaluate fielders. This year, he's back at it with The Fielding Bible--Volume II in which he takes all the metrics created in the original volume and distills them into Defensive Runs, a statistic that can show how good a player is at preventing runs.
Mike Lowell ‘Upset’
And who can blame him?
"I think it's only human nature (to be upset) when you're given the choice (to sign) in more than one place and you end up signing in a place where you proclaim to enjoy the baseball and everything and you look forward to being there for at least three more years," said Lowell, referring to the three-year, $37.5 million deal he inked with the Red Sox after the 2007 season. "Then after one year, for there to be all this talk ... the writing was on the wall.
"I think Teixeira would have been fine, and I would have been the one traded. And that's the business of baseball," he continued. "But it's only human nature, and the natural reaction is to feel hurt, and I definitely was. But that doesn't mean I'm not prepared to play, that I'm not excited to be part of this team with the guys on the field I see day to day. But that's the totally normal reaction and that's definitely what I had.
"I think I always try to use anything I see as a negative as motivation. Every negative I think should be turned into a positive." (WEEI)
Thank you, Mike, for being willing to move forward. Other players would not be as kind.
JUNKYARD DOGS, A Season of Redemption . . . and Hope.
17 of the starting 25 Red Sox for 2009 have much to prove this season. Of this number, 15 are rebounding from injuries which plagued 2008.
Using xBABIP and IF/F to predict some Sox’s 2009 numbers
A month ago, Chris Dutton and Peter Bendix collaborated together to come up with a new statistic -- xBABIP. For batters, a .300 BABIP is not a reliable benchline (as it is for pitchers), nor is there one standard benchline across all batters. They have to be personalized, which Dutton and Bendix did.
David Ortiz looks to be in line for a monster regression to the mean... except in this case, regression is a good thing. You can expect a .300 average as a reasonable forecast next year for Big Papi.
Check out the numbers behind the reasoning for Big Papi, plus some interesting numbers on Jason Bay, Julio Lugo and others...