Mr Bill's Baseball Blog

One day, one team: Boston Red Sox, 4/8/2021

2021-04-08T22:11:00.000-04:00

This game marked the return of Eduardo Rodriguez to the mound, with E-Rod pitching for the Red Sox for the first time since September 29, 2019. Rodriguez was slated to pitch on opening day, though the start of his season was delayed due to a “dead arm.” 2019 was a huge let down after the 2018 World Series Champion team, with the Red Sox finishing 19 games behind the Yankees for the AL East and 12 games behind the Rays for the second wild card spot, but Rodriguez was undoubtedly a highlight for the season. He shouldered a full load, making 34 starts and throwing over 200 innings for a rotation that lost Chris Sale and Nathan Eovaldi for huge chunks of the year. Eduardo Rodriguez pitched fairly well in his return to the mound, striking out seven while walking no one in five innings. He did give up three runs, all via the long ball, leaving his overall line a bit less impressive than some of the underlying numbers. Despite the 3 runs and the shorter outing (unsurprising, given that he’s coming off the dead arm), there are some positives to be found in the box score. On a per pitch basis, Rodriguez seemed sharp on the whole, throwing 56 of his 790 pitches for strikes (71%) and inducing 10 swinging strikes (12.6%). In general, he got ahead of hitters, with 13/20 getting first pitch strikes. His line of 7 strikeouts and no walks inspires some confidence that 2019 Rodriguez is back, even if the two home runs in only five innings pitched puts a damper on things a little bit. The first inning home run to Mountcastle was a tough one to give up; ahead 0-2, Rodriguez left a fastball over the plate in the upper portion of the strike zone. Mountcastle took advantage of that mistake and lashed a line drive home run to the power alley in right field to tie the score at 2 after an early Red Sox lead. Rodriguez also gave up a home run to Severino on a first pitch middle-middle fastball that Severino sent to the right field seats. Rodriguez was sitting around his 2019 velocity, but the location certainly left something to be desired.

Rodriguez threw his last pitch with a 3-2 deficit, courtesy of the aforementioned home runs. However, by the bottom of the sixth came, that score had flipped to a 4-3 lead. The Sox turned to Rule 5 pickup Garrett Whitlock to try and hang on to the lead, and he delivered. Whitlock, who was acquired from the Yankees for a small amount of cash ($100,000, so small by major league baseball standards), but has to stay on the MLB roster for the Red Sox to keep him, has certainly looked the part of a major league pitcher, despite never throwing above AA and spending 2020 recovering from Tommy John surgery. Because of his lack of experience and injury history, the Yankees left him off of the 40 man roster ahead of the Rule 5 draft, and he was snapped up by the pitching hungry Red Sox with the 4th pick of the Rule 5 draft for $100,000. Whitlock threw well in the blowout loss to cap off the Orioles sweep , throwing 3 1/3 innings with 5 strikeouts and three hits. But coming into a close game is an entirely different matter, especially for a Rule 5 pick that is essentially stashed on the roster. Whitlock pitched exceptionally well, throwing 2 perfect innings with 3 strikeouts. Of his 20 pitches, only five were balls and he induced 5 swinging and 4 called strikes. Whitlock certainly looks the part of a major league pitcher, at 6’5” and 190 lbs and has the stuff to match (95 MPH fastball, slider, and a developing changeup), though durability will certainly be a concern. Right now, he looks like an absolute steal in the Rule 5 draft, and could potentially even slide into the rotation in the second half of the season. He allowed the Red Sox to bridge to the back end of the bullpen, and showed some killer stuff.

Following Whitlock, Matt Andriese pitched the 8th inning. Andriese has been a guy throughout his career, posting about league average stats in a variety of roles. Andriese worked around a walk and a hit in the 8th, but nothing from his box score particularly jumps out.

Matt Barnes slammed the door on the Orioles this game, even if it was not a save situation. Barnes struck out Maikel Franco and Pedro Severino (who victimized E-Rod earlier in the game) on six pitches. In fact, he was one pitch away from an immaculate inning (9 pitches, 3 strikeouts) before Freddy Galvis fouled off an 0-2 curveball. Barnes got him in the end, striking him out on a 1-2 curve. All told, Barnes threw 11 pitches, 10 for strikes, and induced 3 swinging strikes. In short, he was dominant. It wasn’t quite an immaculate inning, but striking out the side on 11 pitches is pretty damn good as well.

One game, one team: Toronto Blue Jays 4/1/2021

2021-04-05T12:00:00.000-04:00

I am trying to get back into writing a little bit about baseball. With these shorter pieces, I will focus on tidbits from box scores and highlights for one team in one specific game. Hopefully I'll be able to do some larger pieces later in the season once the semester is over.

On Opening Day, the Blue Jays eeked out a one run win over the Yankees in ten innings. They had a few close calls before pulling it out. The ace of the staff last year, Hyun-Jin Ryu was tapped for the first start, and Ryu struggled with first pitches, only getting ahead of 7 of the 21 batters he faced. Twelve swinging strikes is nice (13%), but he’ll need better control in order to maintain his success from the last couple of years. In 2020, his walk rate ticked up to 6.2%, which is about the same as his career numbers (5.5%), but well above the very successful years he had with the Dodgers (4.6% in 2018, 3.3% in 2019). While he only walked one batter this start, the

Dolis pitched the 8th inning, showing no issues stemming from the back spasms that caused him to miss a bit of time towards the end of spring training. Dolis assumed the traditional setup man role for this game, pitching the 8th with the score tied at 2. He was slated to face the 3-4-5 hitters (Hicks, Stanton, Torres) so the Blue Jays may be focusing on having him face the top hitters. Unsurprisingly, this closer situation will need monitoring, as Dolis could very well have pitched the 9th if the batting order in the late innings was just a bit different.

Jordan Romero was nearly unhittable, both because he was not throwing strikes (10/22 pitches), but also because of filthy stuff (8 swinging strikes, 36%). Last year Romero had an elite combination of high swinging strike rates (19.4%) and getting ahead of hitters (66.7% first pitch strike rate), which led him to be the top AL reliever per my modeled, based on xK and xBB rates. Only LeMahieu managed to make contact against him, with a weak groundball to third base. Granted, because of two earlier walks and a stolen base, Biggio had to make a nice throw to the plate to get the second out of the inning and prevent Tauchman’s potentially winning run from scoring, but some flashes of dominance from Romero. To end the 9th, Judge struck out on a fastball which seemed to catch him off guard, leaving the winning run at second base. Judge swung late and underneath the ball, perhaps sitting on Romano’s slider, which was his best pitch in 2020.

Merryweather was even more impressive, looking absolutely dominant to close the game out in the 10th. It only took him 11 pitches to strike out the side, and he only threw one single ball. Merryweather is an older (29) starting pitching prospect who is penciled in for the swingman role in the Blue Jays bullpen. He could emerge as an old school, multi-inning fireman. His fastball was already impressive in 2020, averaging 96.7 MPH, but in this outing it was nearly two MPH faster (98.4). Obviously a tiny sample size, but the velocity on his fastball and slider are both up about 2 MPH, while also dropping his changeup velocity. If you are in a league where middle relievers have value, he could be an excellent pickup. Since writing an initial draft of this post, Merryweather picked up another save on Sunday. He was similarly dominant, striking out 2 Yankees in a perfect inning to close out a 3-1 win. Merryweather has been nearly unhittable thus far, and could be stealing the closer job from Dolis or Romano (who pitched in the 8th on Sunday).

A star lefty, in decline

2014-05-07T15:29:00.000-04:00

Over the last three years, including thus far in the 2014 season, this highly touted ace has seen his ERA rise almost a full earned run between both 2012 and 2013, and 2013 and 2014, and is now solidly below average. He's been victimized by a decline in ground balls (53% in 2012 to 42.6 in 2014) and a lot more fly balls leaving the park (15.7% in 2014, compared to a 9.4% on his career).

Fastball velocity, 2012 - 2014

Why the big declines? Fastball velocity is the likely culprit, as his average fastball is 3.3 miles per hour slower than it was in 2012, and is lower than it was in 2013 as well. The odd part of this story is that his peripherals are actually better than his career norms - he's striking out more batters than he ever has in his career (10.17 K/9, compared to 8.20 on his career), and has the lowest walk rate of his career, a microscopic 0.92 BB/9. To top it all off, his swinging strike rate is elite (11%), and is easily the best of his career.

It might surprise you, but this lefty isn't, in fact, CC Sabathia, but rather Tampa Bay Rays ace David Price. They have experienced similar declines, though. Price experienced a big decline in fastball velocity in 2013, but it was overshadowed by his spectacular second half. Now, in 2014, he's lost even more velocity and the home runs are piling up.

Sabathia, as has been well noted in many places, has experienced a similar perplexing decline. Despite his career best strike out rate and near career best walk rates, Sabathia's ERA is a bloated 5.75. Unlike Price, CC is also inducing more groundballs than ever, but if a ball is in the air, it is leaving the park at an alarming rate (21.9%, compared to a career rate of 9.3%) and a rate that is 50% higher than the leader last year among qualified pitchers (Joe Saunders at 14.5%).

All in all, it is a rather confusing picture for both pitchers, and it really presents an interesting look at how the underlying statistics can tell us conflicting stories of player performance. At the most basic level, we can see that Sabathia and Price's ERAs have risen substantially, despite the fact that their strikeout and walk rates indicate that their ERAs should be elite. For both pitchers, their swinging strike rate and first pitch strike rates, which are excellent predictors of strikeout rate and walk rate, support these numbers. Often times, people point to a sky high home run per fly ball rate as just bad luck - it tends to normalize around 10%. However, the decline in velocity is often associated rising home run rates, so it probably isn't reasonable to expect these two pitchers to end up at 10%, when all is said and done.

Are David Price and CC Sabathia pitching better than their ERAs (4.44 and 5.75, respectively)? Probably.

Are David Price and CC Sabathia pitching as good as their peripherals (2.56 and 2.91 xFIP, based on strikeout, walk, and ground ball rates)? Probably not.

On baseball fandom, modern society, and poverty

2014-05-07T14:56:00.000-04:00

This is a rather random observation, starting with a spectacular infographic from the New York Times which mined Facebook information to map out which places root for which baseball teams.Seriously, go play around with that map. Right now.

Not to get overly dramatic, but the map of baseball fandom can really lead to some conclusions about America as a whole. Before we start wildly speculating, an important caveat for this map. The percentages are calculated based on how often baseball teams are being mentioned in a Facebook post. It does not look at overall levels of support for baseball compared to other sports or activities, so those percentages should be read as numbers specific to posts regarding baseball.

First, the west is settled by transplants, who are taking their previous allegiances with them. People living close to west coast teams at 50-60% support in their highest counties, whereas east coast teams like the Red Sox, Yankees, Braves, and Phillies are in the 70-80%. This isn't surprising; people aren't moving to Boston from California too terribly often, at least in comparison to migrants in the other direction.

The Halo Effect


Red Sox support surrounding Boston (darker=higher)

Additionally, we can see some interesting effects surrounding major cities, such as Boston. I've only shown Boston as an example, but similar patterns surround St. Louis and Philadelphia. What we can see is that the areas surrounding the city actually have higher support for the local team than the city itself. If folks from elsewhere in the country are moving to these areas (and bringing their baseball allegiance with them), they're more likely to move into the major metropolitan areas, rather than the suburbs. So what we see is a halo of higher local team support surrounding the city center.

Tigers support surrounding Detroit (darker=higher)

Not all cities follow this pattern though. Take Detroit, for example. Instead of having a lower level of support in the city center, we see a halo of lower support surrounding the city center, which has higher support than the surrounding suburbs. We can use the level of support for the local team as a proxy for the amount of people moving into the area from other parts of the country. So in Boston, if you're moving into the area, you're staying close to the city, but if you're in Detroit, you're moving into the suburbs north and west of the city. This difference shouldn't be too surprising, as Detroit is a classic example of white flight from a major metropolitan area.

Local Support and Poverty
We can see in Detroit a higher poverty level in the core city center, compared to the surrounding suburbs. This is a pattern you see in almost every city in the US, but it is particularly marked in Detroit. I think the implications are simple - if an area has a very high poverty level, new transplants to the city are less likely to move there, which in turn will maintain higher levels of support for the local team.

This pattern also holds true in western cities, such as Los Angeles. It shouldn't be too surprising that we see higher poverty rates in city centers - this is a pattern that holds true in all cities across the country, even in very high income cities like San Francisco. However, the association between poverty and home team support seems to be more marked in poorer cities overall.

If you'd like to look at poverty rates in the US, here is another nice infographic from the New York Times.

Are qualifying offers broken or are free agents miscalculating their own value?

2014-02-24T12:23:00.002-05:00

Nelson Cruz recently signed a one year, $8 million deal with the Orioles, Ubaldo Jimenez had to wait for ages to sign his 4 year, $50 million deal, and Stephen Drew and Ervin Santana remain unsigned. This has led to some claims that the qualifying offer system is broken, and the head of the players union, Tony Clark, is concerned about the system. The new system has teams extend a one year offer based on the highest salary for the top 125 players. The player can accept the one year deal, about $14 million, or decline it. If a different team signs that player, they forfeit their top draft pick, with the top 10 picks being protected. This new system has hurt some players, particularly ones who are not true stars.

While the qualifying offers have depressed some players value, particularly non-star players, but the new system is still leaps and bounds better than the type A and type B classification that used to exist. Type A free agents were in the top 20% of players in baseball over the last two years, ranked by the Elias Sports Bureau, and Type B free agents were players in the next 20%. If a team signed a type A free agent, they forfeited their first round draft pick, while the losing team gained the pick as well as a sandwich round pick. Signing a Type B free agent didn't cost a team anything, but the losing team gained a sandwich round pick. Part of the problem was the classification - quite simply, it was broken. Set up men ended up as Type A free agents, crippling their ability to sign a deal with a new team. Type B free agents often weren't spectacular players, and some teams would add players after the waiver trade deadline just to snag a draft pick.

The simplest explanation of the situation is that players and their agents are misevaluating their own value. In the last two years, 22 players have been extended a qualifying offer, but all have declined. If the outcome has always been in one direction, teams are either leaving draft picks on the table by not extending enough offers or players are declining when they shouldn't. In 2012, all players ended up with a deal better than a qualifying offer, although Kyle Lohse's signing was greatly delayed and Lohse, Adam LaRoche, and Michael Bourn all had to settle for an average annual value less than the QO. Things are shaping up a bit differently this year, Drew and Santana are looking at potentially low AAV deals that are short, while Cruz has clearly already left $6 million on the table by declining his QO. His deal with the Orioles doesn't even give him any protection from being left in this situation again next offseason.

However, this miscalculation doesn't address one of Law's main criticisms of this process, that once a teaqm signs one free agent, the effective cost of signing another decreases dramatically. Perhaps the solution would be to decrease the draft pool of the signing team by a certain amount, while increasing the pool for the losing team, rather than the forfeiture of a pick. Alternatively, a team could be penalized their best pick (and the draft slot money that goes with it) for the first free agent they sign, followed by the loss of their best available pick and a flat penalty to their draft pool, say $1.5 million dollars, or about the value of the last pick of the first round, including compensation picks. That would be an extra penalty of $100,000 - $700,000 compared to the value of a second round pick, with better teams paying a higher premium.

Let's see how that would work out. Using the 2013 draft pool numbers, a team with intact picks but picking at the bottom of each round would have a pool of about $4.5 million. In actuality, that is bit higher than some team's pools (the Nationals had the lowest pool at $2.7 million last year), but that was for teams who had lost their first round pick. So, the best team in baseball signs a QO free agent, forfeiting their first round pick and the approximately $1.7 million draft pool that goes with it, reducing their total pool to $2.8 million. Signing another player would cause them to lose their second round pick, but instead of losing the value of that pick ($850,000), instead they'd lose $1.5 million from the pool, leaving their draft pool at a paltry $1.3 million. Players might be amenable to this because it really hurts the amateur players who aren't in the MLB Players Association yet, rather than current players who are members. But while this would make things more fair, wouldn't it just erect another barrier to signing free agents, exactly what the MLBPA doesn't want?

So maybe the solution is simpler than that. Just get rid of any penalties for signing a free agent, whether they have a qualifying offer or not. Here is a rather long table of the top free agent deals signed in the 2010, 2011, and 2012 offseasons:

Name	Position	Signed	Age	Years	Value	AAV
Albert Pujols	1B	2011	34	10	$250,000,000	$25,000,000
Prince Fielder	1B	2011	29	9	$214,000,000	$23,777,778
Zack Greinke	SP	2012	30	6	$147,000,000	$24,500,000
Carl Crawford	LF	2010	32	7	$142,000,000	$20,285,714
Jayson Werth	RF	2010	34	7	$126,000,000	$18,000,000
Josh Hamilton	LF	2012	32	5	$123,000,000	$24,600,000
Cliff Lee	SP	2010	35	5	$120,000,000	$24,000,000
Jose Reyes	SS	2011	30	6	$106,000,000	$17,666,667
Adrian Beltre	3B	2010	34	6	$96,000,000	$16,000,000
Anibal Sanchez	SP	2012	29	5	$80,000,000	$16,000,000
C.J. Wilson	SP	2011	33	5	$77,500,000	$15,500,000
B.J. Upton	CF	2012	29	5	$75,250,000	$15,050,000
Mark Buehrle	SP	2011	34	4	$58,000,000	$14,500,000
Nick Swisher	1B	2012	33	4	$56,000,000	$14,000,000
Adam Dunn	DH	2010	34	4	$56,000,000	$14,000,000
Edwin Jackson	SP	2012	30	4	$52,000,000	$13,000,000
Derek Jeter	SS	2010	39	3	$51,000,000	$17,000,000
Jonathan Papelbon	RP	2011	33	4	$50,000,058	$12,500,015
Victor Martinez	DH	2010	35	4	$50,000,000	$12,500,000
Michael Bourn	CF	2012	31	4	$48,000,000	$12,000,000
Angel Pagan	CF	2012	32	4	$40,000,000	$10,000,000
Shane Victorino	RF	2012	33	3	$39,000,000	$13,000,000
Jimmy Rollins	SS	2011	35	3	$38,000,000	$12,666,667
Paul Konerko	1B	2010	37	3	$37,500,000	$12,500,000
Aramis Ramirez	3B	2011	35	3	$36,000,000	$12,000,000
Rafael Soriano	RP	2010	34	3	$35,000,000	$11,666,667
Michael Cuddyer	RF	2011	34	3	$31,500,000	$10,500,000
Mariano Rivera	RP	2010	44	2	$30,000,000	$15,000,000
Rafael Soriano	RP	2012	34	2	$28,000,000	$14,000,000
Heath Bell	RP	2011	36	3	$27,000,000	$9,000,000
Carlos Beltran	RF	2011	36	2	$26,000,000	$13,000,000
Josh Willingham	LF	2011	35	3	$21,000,000	$7,000,000

Of the top 10 deals listed, I would argue that six have pretty much been disasters thus far, and Greinke has underperformed in the first year since his massive contract. Looking farther down, there are still some major dissapointments, including BJ Upton, Edwin Jackson, and the oft mocked Jonathon Papelbon contract (which, to add further injury to a bad contract, unnecessarily cost the Phillies a draft pick, due to their haste). Cliff Lee has been paid about right, and really only Adrian Beltre and Anibal Sanchez could be considered a bargain at this point. Perhaps the only needed penalty for signing a top free agent is that a team has signed a top free agent. Leaving a reward system in place for the team losing the player would allow teams to still get some compensation for developing elite talents, but would eliminate the negative impact on the contracts of individual players, which is a union issue.

Ironically, by removing the draft pick penalties associated with these players, teams ought to offer them larger contracts; this in turn would drive up free agent salaries, making them even worse deals from a salary perspective. To paraphrase War Games, the only way to win the top tier free agent game is not to play.

Saving the Dempster money for a big splash?

2014-02-17T14:23:00.001-05:00

The Red Sox have many options on how to spend the windfall, but the best one that comes to mind is acquiring Cliff Lee from the Phillies at some point this season. Acquiring Lee at midseason would use up the $13.25 million freed up by the Dempster semi-retirement. Thanks to the large amount of cap room, it wouldn't preclude other acquisitions as well. It would also give the Red Sox a true ace for the next 2.5 years that Lee would be under contract.

Despite their massive payroll ($170 million, 3rd highest in baseball), the Phillies are not expected to contend - ESPN ranked them as the second worst team in baseball. From the Phillies' perspective, dealing Lee would give them a great deal of additional financial flexibility in the next few years and would get them under the luxury tax threshold. The Lee's contract is one of the only large ones the Phillies could really move. The ink is still drying on the recent extensions to Cole Hamels and Chase Utley, and the deals to Ryan Howard and Jonathon Papelbon are pretty much unmoveable - Howard's contract was ranked at the third worst in the majors last season. Lee's contract is really the team could trade while acquiring real prospects.

Additionally, the Red Sox can fit his $25 and $27.5 million salaries for 2015 and 2016 into their budget without going over the luxury tax threshold. Based on rough calculations, the Red Sox have ~$20 million in payroll room for 2014 before they'd have to pay the luxury tax. Following the 2014 season, the Red Sox have a large number of players coming off the books - David Ortiz, Jon Lester, Jake Peavy, A.J. Pierzynski, Koji Uehara, Cody Ross, Craig Breslow, and Burke Badenhop. Combined, these players will earn $66 million in 2014. On top of that, thanks to the clause in Lackey's contract, the team has an option at the major league minimum for 2015 for him, which means that his salary will decrease $14.75 million from 2014 to 2015. Even if the Red Sox resign Lester (say, at $20 million/year) and Ortiz ($15/year), that would still give them $45.75 million more room following the 2014 season than they do now. Given that they're already well under the luxury tax threshold by about $20 million, that would put them $65 million under the luxury tax for 2015. Quite simply, that's an awful lot of money to try and spend on the free agent market.

Looking ahead to the end of the 2015 season, the Red Sox have Napoli's ($16 million/year), Victorino's ($13 million/year) and Muijica's ($4.75 million/year) coming off the books for an additional $33.75 million worth of salary flexibility. Amazingly, the Red Sox only have two players under contract for 2016 - Pedroia at $13 million and Buccholz with a $13 million option. To give you an idea of how different that is from the Yankees, they have an astounding $144 million committed to the 2016 salaries of Sabathia, Teixeira, A-Rod, Tanaka, Ellsbury, McCann, and Beltran alone.

There are several reasons why I think this money would be well spent on Cliff Lee:

1. Pitchers as good as Lee simply cannot be had on short term deals. Yes, the annual average value (AAV) is still very high, but the total outlay of money would be less than a free agent deal, and what good is a little financial muscle if you can't flex it to get the best players. In terms of absolute dollars, the contract would be in the same ballpark as what Garza or Granderson got this year, despite the massive question marks surrounding their health and performance. In terms of AAV, it would be well below what the Yankees effectively spent on Tanaka ($27 million, when you include the $20 million posting fee spread out over 4 years, which assumes he'll opt out).

2. Pitchers as good as Lee simply don't hit the free agent market any longer. More and more, teams are extending their young pitchers before they become free agents. Recently, three high profile pitchers have signed both long and lucrative contracts prior to hitting the open market. All three of them were signed for much longer deals and for similar to slightly higher AAVs:

	Years	Value	AAV	Avg. WAR
Verlander	7	$180	$25.70	6.36
F. Hernandez	7	$175	$25	5.53
C. Kershaw	7	$215	$30.70	6.17

Those three players are the only three pitchers who have been better than Cliff Lee over the last three years, and Felix just barely edges out Lee by 0.1 WAR. If you use Baseball Reference's WAR calculation, Lee comes out even more favorably - #2 over the last three years and a rounding error behind Clayton Kershaw for #1 (0.03 WAR/year). Add in Tanaka's deal (7 years, $175 million, or 4 years, $108 million), and Lee at 2.5 years for $65 million looks a heck of a lot more palatable. Plus, no one really thinks Tanaka is going to be as good as Lee or any of the three pitchers listed above. Granted, Lee would be looking at a different contract than these players, given his age, but I still think that if he were a free agent right now, he'd command a 4 or 5 year deal at $25 million per year or more. Getting a short term deal means that there is just less risk- it is a heck of a lot easier to predict production over the next three years, rather than seven.

3. The Red Sox have the prospect depth to make a deal without hurting the long term outlook ofr the team. They could either send low level, high upside prospects, while taking on the entire salary, or send better prospects while getting the Phillies to eat some of Lee's contract. Trading for Lee would not be mortgaging the future in any way - in fact, the Red Sox have an impending crunch of mid-level pitching prospects. Using some of them to add an ace would be an excellent use of resources.

There are a couple of catches. First, Lee has a limited no trade clause in his deal, allowing him to block a trade to 21 teams each year. The list can change each season, but the Red Sox were on it last year. That's no surprise, given how many teams he can have on the list and how few teams would be able to take on his contract. Perhaps guaranteeing the 2016 option ($27.5 million, $12.5 million buyout) would be enough to do it. Given the massive buyout associated with the option year, that is a fairly small concession. A much more difficult concession would be agreeing to decline the option, as it would mean Lee was only under contract for 1.5 seasons while costing over $31 million per season. From Lee's perspective, hitting the free agent market a year early and with an extra $12.5 million would be very valuable, but I think that would scuttle any potential deal.

Perhaps more importantly, the Phillies appear to be a bit deluded about how valuable Lee is. Don't get me wrong, Lee is a spectacular player, but at $25 million/year, he's being paid what he's worth. According to rumors at the deadline last year, the Phillies asked for Xander Bogaerts in exchange for Lee. That's just nuts - in June, Fangraphs ranked Bogaerts as the 29th most valuable player, in terms of trade value. Since that ranking he's been called up to the bigs, held his own at shortstop and third base, and was a key contributor to a World Series champion. Lee, on the other hand, was not ranked. If Amaro Jr's price tag for Lee hasn't come down a lot, there just isn't a deal to be made. And no, Jon Heyman, I think we can safely say that the Red Sox shouldn't have traded Bogaerts for Lee at the 2013 deadline. It all worked out quite fine, thank you very much - a .296/.412/.481 line from a 20 year old shortstop in the playoffs is rather nice.

The Red Sox made the famous Nick Punto trade, it gave them $250 million worth of financial flexibility while simultaneously bolstering the farm system. The prospect depth allows the Sox to make a deal without significantly damaging their future teams, while the money allows them to pay for extremely high value players on short term, high cost deals. We've seen this approach with the Victorino, Napoli, and Gomes deals last offseason - dealing for Cliff Lee would just be taking it to a whole new level. There's no doubt that spending $25 million on a single player is risky, but by keeping the years low and adding a player with a spectacular track record, that risk is as low as it is going to get for a top tier pitcher.

Dempster decision simultaneously clarifies 2014, and opens up possibilities

2014-02-16T12:35:00.000-05:00

Almost out of nowhere, Ryan Dempster has decided not to play this season. He stopped short of an official retirement, but coming off one of the worst seasons of his career and a lingering neck injury, it wouldn't be shocking if he didn't pitch again in the majors.

The move takes away the Red Sox pitching depth - prior to the decision Dempster was one of six pitchers competing for a spot in the starting rotation, with the 5th spot probably down to Dempster and Doubront. Now, the Red Sox starting 5 is set, and they still have good depth in the high minors with Brandon Workman, Allen Webster, and Rubby de la Rosa. This move probably impacts Workman more than anyone, given his success in the majors last year, both as a starter and a high leverage reliever. Now, he would be the first to step in to the rotation in case of injury or ineffectiveness (at least from Doubront), and the path to him staying a starting pitcher is much clearer. It also means he'll likely stay in the minors to start the season.

This also gives the Red Sox some substantial financial wiggle room. According to Scott Lauber, of the Boston Herald, the Red Sox had about $7 million of salary room before they'd hit the luxury cap threshold. If Ryan Dempster were placed on the restricted list, likely given his decision not to pitch this year, the Red Sox wouldn't be responsible for his $13.25 million salary, nor would it count against the luxury tax threshold. Now, the Red Sox have about $20 million to play with, allowing them to either resign Stephen Drew or give them the flexibility to make multiple major in-season acquisitions without surpassing the threshold.

Finally, best of luck to Ryan Dempster in his future endeavors. At 36 and dealing with nagging injuries, it is completely understandable that he is ready to put his family first. It is also remarkable that he is willing to give up $13 million because he doesn't think he can do an acceptable job pitching this year. He's already made almost $90 million in his career, so hopefully his family will be set for generations to come.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it

2014-02-15T19:34:00.000-05:00

Ruben Amaro Jr. recently discussed the ill-fated Ryan Howard contract. It probably wasn't the most pleasant thing to have brought up in his interview with Ken Rosenthal, but given how the deal has backfired, it is understandably a topic of conversation. Of course, this isn't exactly surprising. The deal was fairly universally panned at the time, including in one of my earliest posts, for many reasons. Howard couldn't play defense, his skill set (often called "old player skills" - lots of walks, home runs, and strikeouts) tended to decline rapidly, he was rather old for his service time as he had been blocked in Philly by Jim Thome, and perhaps worst of all, it was made almost two full seasons before Howard was going to be a free agent. Ryan Howard's most similar players through that stage of his career were Cecil Fielder and Richie Sexson, both of whom flamed out fast and hard in their early 30s, and Howard was 30 at the time of the extension. Quite simply, there was absolutely no reason to make that decision at that point.

In the interview, Amaro called Howard "the single most productive player in the game at the time", when he signed his five year, $125 million contract extension. In the previous 4 full years prior (2006 - 2009) to the April, 2010 extension, Howard ranked 13th in offensive contribution. Add in poor defense at the least demanding position on the diamond by using a stat like Wins Above Replacement, and he suffers even more, dropping all the way to 22nd. By WAR, Howard was HALF as valuable as Albert Pujols (16.1 WAR vs. 33.4 WAR for Pujols) over those four years and was also almost doubled up by teammate Chase Utley (30.5 WAR). There were two categories Howard did lead the league in, and he did rank first in RBI (in a loaded Phillies lineup) and home runs.

Wins Above Replacement is certainly not an end all, be all statistic, but it clearly has massive advantages over RBI and home runs. There is no doubt in my mind that Howard was not a top 5 player over that stretch and to say he was the most productive is ludicrous. No, I don't think anyone could have foreseen Howard tearing his Achilles, as Amaro Jr. was quick to point out, but don't forget that happened almost TWO FULL SEASONS after the extension was signed. To top it all off, Howard wasn't even particularly good before the injury, accumulating a total of 2.5 WAR in those two seasons, good for 105th out of 134 players. Amaro Jr. has either completely failed to understand the failings of evaluating players on these counting statistics, or is just presenting a sanitized version of the past, and that Achilles injury provides a great scapegoat.

To quote Mark McGwire's appearance on the Simpsons, "Do you want to know the terrifying truth, or do you want to see me sock a few dingers?" Ruben Amaro Jr. seems to fall into the "sock a few dingers" camp, both now and in 2010.

Revisiting the Red Sox' last great, MLB ready hitting prospect

2013-12-17T16:44:00.002-05:00

There has been a lot of talk about Xander Bogaerts and his upside, and rightfully so. As a 20 year old he destroyed AAA, held his own in the regular season hitting .250/.320/.364, before becoming an onbase machine in the playoffs, posting a .412 OBP to go with his .482 slugging. Coming in to this year, Baseball America ranked him as the #8 prospect in the game. His spectacular season, coupled with some graduations and disappointments, has him in the running for the #1 spot overall. It has been a little while since the Red Sox had such a highly regarded hitter ready to contribute at the major league level, and I thought it would be interesting to take a look at past top prospects.

Who it isn't
As I made this only about hitting prospects, we can leave out Clay Buchholz (#4 in 2008) and Daisuke Matsuzaka (#1 in 2007, but he doesn't really count as a prospect anyway). Jon Lester didn't even crack the top 20 at his peak (#22 in 2006). Recently departed center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury reached #13 in 2007, but failed to be a top 10 prospect. Nor is it anyone who is still in the Red Sox organization. Dustin Pedroia, perhaps the best player on the Red Sox team right now, topped out at #77 following the 2005 season. Baseball America would probably like to have that one back, but there were real concerns about Pedroia's size, ability to generate any power, and his rather unorthodox "swing as hard as I can but still make contact all the time" approach. I think those things led some folks to wonder if he could hack it against major league pitching. Thankfully, they were wrong.

Hanley Ramirez is probably the closest "obvious" name out there. He was ranked #10 by Baseball America for the upcoming 2005 season, but after scuffling in AA, I think it would be a stretch to call him a consensus major league ready player. Granted, he went on to be an instant star for the Marlins, but I don't think anyone saw that coming, maybe even the Marlins.

So who is it?
You'd be forgiven if you had forgotten about this player, as his Red Sox career lasted for 0 at bats (major or minors) from December 8, 2005 to January 27, 2006, and he hasn't really done anything to be memorable since then. Andy Marte was the #9 prospect per Baseball America following his dominant season at AAA as a 21 year old third baseman (sound familiar?). Marte's main tool was power having hit 60 home runs over the past three minor league seasons, despite being extremely young for each league and regularly moving up the system. Although he struck out a bit (21% of his at bats in his final year at AAA), he also had a good batting eye, drawing almost as many walks. A good eye and prodigious power led many to label him as the next great third baseman. Baseball America went a bit further, writing:

The best prospect in baseball and a future superstar. As a 20-year-old toiling in the mostly hitter-unfriendly Southern League, Marte hit .269/.364/.525. In only 387 at-bats, he smacked 52 extra-base hits. He's got monstrous power and a broad base of hitting skills. In his prime, expect a few seasons of Adrian Beltre, circa 2004.

Acquiring Marte
Perhaps the most amazing part of the Andy Marte story was how little it took to get him - disgruntled, underperforming shortstop Edgar Renteria plus $8 million to cover part of the remaining $29 million on his three year deal. Granted, this was before baseball revenues skyrocketed with the license to print money that is Major League Baseball Advanced Media as well as unbelievably lucrative local TV deals, but the Red Sox had turned a bit of cash and a miserable player, both on and off the field, into one of the very best prospects in baseball. The excitement reached extremely high levels almost immediately. Gammons wrote an extensive profile on Marte (which appears to have been lost to time in the Ancient Baseball Column Graveyard), but one line does stick out in my mind - In years to come, that offseason would be remembered as the year the Red Sox acquired Andy Marte, rather than Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell.

A rather brief Red Sox tenure
Well, a month and a half later Boston sent Marte to Cleveland as the centerpiece of the Coco Crisp deal. Needing a centerfielder to replace Johnny Damon, who had signed with the Yankees a month earlier, Andy Marte was on the move again. Marte opened 2006 in the minors, but was called up in July. After hitting well in the minors, he struggled in the majors, only hitting .226/.287/.421, a line that is even worse than it would be today, given the high scoring environment of the mid-2000s. This set up an unfortunate, but consistent pattern. Marte would hit extremely well in the minors, only to struggle at the major league level. For his career, he was a .218/.277/.358 hitter in the majors, a far cry from his .273/.345/.477 minor league line, and even. Despite being one of the youngest players at every stop of his minor league career, Andy Marte just failed to continue developing. After another failed stint in Cleveland, the Indians released him, and the Pirates snagged him and put him in AAA. After finally not hitting in the minors too, Andy Marte was out of American baseball for the 2012 season. In five short years he had gone from can't miss superstar to someone not worth keeping around at AAA.

A career rebirth?
Still only 30, Andy Marte is not giving up on a major league career. After a short stint in the Independent League (not affiliated with the MLB minor league system at all) where he hit .301/.367/.526, Marte was signed by the Angels as a minor league free agent. He continued to hit well for the Angels AAA team, posting a .362/.398/.574 line with 6 home runs in only 94 at bats. It remains to be seen whether Marte can build on his 2013 success and return to the majors. Red Sox regular Daniel Nava went from an Independent League all star to major leaguer, so it can be done. The Angels aren't particularly deep at third, so if the newly acquired David Freese struggles or gets hurt, Marte could get a shot there. Alternatively, he could see time at first or DH depending on where the Angels want to play Pujols. Currently, JB Schuck is listed as the primary DH so that isn't exactly a huge road block.

Update, 12/21/13: Apparently I misunderstood his contract status, as Marte just signed a non-guaranteed deal with the Diamondbacks.With Goldschmidt at first and Prado at third, Marte is pretty solidly blocked for the time being.

In general, the Andy Marte story is a reminder that even at the upper most levels of the minor leagues, there is no such thing as a "can't miss prospect". If you were going to build a prototypical slugging third baseman, he'd have looked an awful lot like Marte, and at every stop of the way, all Marte did was hit. For whatever reason, Marte couldn't translate that success to the majors. Hopefully, that won't be the case with Bogaerts, but as the hype machine gets going, don't forget that there is a risk with any prospect.

Sox sign Edward Mujica, Uehara lite?

2013-12-05T14:32:00.000-05:00

Today, December 5th 2013, the Red Sox announced a 2 year, $9.25 million contract with former Cardinal closer Edward Mujica. This comes 364 days after the Red Sox signed former Ranger reliever Koji Uehara to a one year, $4.25 million deal with a vesting option.

A quick glance at Mujica's season statistics indicate some cause for concern. First, his strikeout rate in 2013 was below average, at a rather pedestrian 6.40. For comparison, all pitchers struck out 7.57 batters per nine innings, while relievers struck out batters even more frequently (8.29 K/9). Second, Mujica's shiny ERA (2.87) masks a Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) ERA of 3.71, precisely reliever average. Third, although Mujica recorded 37 saves in 2013, he imploded in September posting an 11.05 ERA and was a non-factor in the Cardinal's World Series run, throwing only 2 innings in the entire postseason.

However, I believe this is a solid signing for the Red Sox and Mujica could return a great value for them just as Uehara has. Why?

Just like Uehara, Mujica doesn't walk anyone

Source: FanGraphs -- Edward Mujica, Koji Uehara
In 2013, Mujica walked 0.70 batters per nine innings, the very best in baseball. Even Koji Uehara, with his impeccable control, walked 1.09 batters per nine innings. Although we shouldn't expect Mujica to repeat his sub 1.00 walk rate, this isn't out of the blue. Since 1989, when modern bullpen usage really took hold, Mujica's walk rate (1.39 BB/9) is the fourth best, trailing only the aforementioned Koji Uehara as well as Bob Tewksbury and Dennis Eckersley.

Just like Uehara, Mujica's strikeout to walk ratio is elite

Source: FanGraphs -- Edward Mujica, Koji Uehara
In 2013, Mujica's strikeout to walk ratio was 9.20, second best in baseball. Again, we're in Koji Uehara territory here, as Uehara led the way with a K:BB of an astounding 11.22. Just like with his walk rates, Mujica's career numbers put him in elite company here as well. Looking at all pitchers who have thrown 100 innings since 1989, Mujica's K:BB of 5.15 is the 4th best, only trailing Uehara, Eckersley, and Sergio Romo.

As an aside, Uehara might have the most impressive careers among modern relievers
Here are Uehara's numbers for his career, including ranks among pitchers with 100 IP since 1989:
K/9: 10.45 (36th)
K %: 30.4% (12th)
BB/9: 1.20 (1st)
BB %: 3.5% (1st)
K/BB: 8.74 (1st)

Needless to say, the Red Sox are either really lucky or brilliant to have landed one of the best relievers of the modern era for a few million a year.

Based on swinging strike rates, Mujica ought to be striking out a lot more batters
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Mujica ought to be striking out a lot more batters. Using the model I created to examine Buchholz's 2013 improvements, which predicts K/9 based on the swinging strike rate and the percent of pitches in the zone that are swung at, Mujica's K/9 was expected to be 9.00, instead of his below average 6.40. The one caveat with those modeling results is that Mujica has consistently underperformed his expected K/9 since 2010 (8.63 K/9 expected, 7.41 actual). There may be something about Mujica that lowers his strikeout rate the model doesn't adequately capture. Even with that adjustment, we could expect Mujica's K/9 to be about 8.

Mujica fits in to the Red Sox bullpen approach of limiting walks
Tazawa, who I mentioned above, profiles similarly to both Mujica and Uehara as well - very few walks, plenty of strikeouts (9.48 K/9, 1.58 BB/9, 6.00 K/BB). With the Mujica signing, the Red Sox now have three of the top five active pitchers since 1989, and top 10 in 2013, in terms of strike outs per walk. Not bad for about $10 million per year. Add in a healthy Andrew Miller, whose astronomical strikeout rate more than makes up for a mediocre walk rate, and postseason fireman Brandon Workman, and you're looking at a dominant back end of a bullpen.

What might have been
As I perused the leader boards, a couple of names jumped out at me - Mark Melancon and Casey Fien. Both had their stints in the Red Sox organization, although I'd forgive you if you didn't remember Fien's rather brief tenure. Melancon came over in exchange for Jed Lowrie prior to the 2012 season, and had one disappointing season with the Sox before being shipped to Pittsburgh in the ill-fated Hanrahan deal. In 2013, Melancon put up the second best walk rate (sandwiched between Mujica and Uehara) and third best K/BB (behind Mujica and Uehara) while pitching in high leverage innings, albeit not closing. Fien was briefly in the organization after being claimed off of waivers from the Tigers in March of 2010. It was a move I praised at the time, thanks to his excellent minor league numbers. However, after the Red Sox claimed him, they tried to sneak him through waivers. The Blue Jays claimed him, only to waive him two weeks later. Fien resigned with the Tigers for the 2010 season, but only appeared in 2 games, followed by the Astros in 2011 where he didn't make a major league appearance. Fien appears to have settled into the Minnesota bullpen, however, and had the 8th best K/BB in 2013, at the age of 29. It took awhile, but Fien has finally established himself as a back of the bullpen arm. Given that Melancon and Fien would still be under team control had the Red Sox kept them, it is fun to imagine a bullpen going in to 2014 that would have four of the top five relievers in terms of K/BB

Sox pick the middle ground at catcher, waste money

2013-12-04T10:27:00.001-05:00

I understand why some writers, such as Buster Olney, Tim Kurkijan, and Gordon Edes, and are saying that the Red Sox made a good choice in sticking with a short term solution at catcher, leaving room for their prospects to make an impact in 2015. I don't have a problem with the decision to not block Christian Vazquez and Blake Swihart, in fact I advocated it in an earlier post. However, Pierzynski is an $8.25 million lateral move from guys like Ryan Lavarnway or Dan Butler. To quote Keith Law (ESPN Insider only), "Pierzynski doesn't get on base, doesn't hit for power, and is a below-average receiver, now entering his age 37 season and looking slower than ever at the plate."

Pierzynski never walked much to begin with, but his walk rate dropped to a barely noticeable 2.1% last year. This was worst in the majors by a large margin (Alcides Escobar was 2nd worst at 3%) and was a whopping nine times worse than league leader Joey Votto (18.6%). I find it hard to believe that the players already in the Red Sox farm system would have been able to top A.J. Pierzynski's .297 OBP. Granted, they might not hit as many home runs, but the 2013 lineup thrived on depth and grinding out at bats. As for those players in the farm system, Dan Butler is considered a defensive wizard and just put up a .350 OBP in a full season at Pawtucket and Ryan Lavarnway, who has been written off by many, topped Pierzynski across the board with a .299/.329/.429 line in very limited playing time this year.

To make matters worse, the final price on Jarrod Saltalamacchia was really very reasonable, at 3 years, $21 million. No, Saltalamacchia's batting average on balls in play wouldn't stay at a completely unsustainable .372, but even if you adjust his BABIP based on his batted ball profile you end up with a solid (for a catcher) .249/.317/.417 line. Given the poor line for major league catchers, Saltalamacchia would be solidly above average in OBP and slugging.

Finally, the Red Sox could be back in this exact situation next year if the prospects don't develop at they're expected to. As a quick reminder, Ryan Lavarnway was once anointed at the next Jason Varitek. Even if the prospects do develop as expected, Saltalamacchia could easily be traded or used as a reserve. Given that he has very strong platoon splits, it makes it easier to deploy him as a part time catcher.

Would two additional years of Saltalamacchia at $12.75 million (plus the fact that he'll likely outperform Pierzynski in 2014) be worth it? To me, the clear answer is yes. For a team like the Red Sox, a $7 million starter isn't a road block for a prospect. By electing to pursue this half measure at catcher, the Red Sox have wasted money that could have improved the team at catcher or elsewhere.

The do-nothing solution at catcher

2013-11-22T12:11:00.000-05:00

If the Red Sox miss out on Brian McCann and Jarrod Saltalamacchia, the presumed solution is to go after Dioner Navarro. Despite playing only half a season, Navarro had the 2nd best season of his career (by wins above replacement) and set career highs for batting average, OBP, and slugging (.300/.365/.492). For comparison, those numbers actually top expected $100 million dollar man Brian McCann's .256/.336/.461 line across the board. Granted, no one is expecting Navarro to top McCann in 2014. Despite that, the Red Sox would do well to avoid Navarro.

Why? For starters, his career line is just .254/.313/.371, 17% below the average major league hitter. Second, he's already 30 and this is the first time in five years that he's been a significant contributor at the major league level. Finally, Navarro's skills are redundant to those of David Ross - both hit lefties much better than righties. Having two catchers who ought to be in the skinny part of a platoon doesn't really make any sense.

So if Navarro isn't the cheap solution, who is? Old friend George Kottaras. You might wonder why I'm advocating the Red Sox sign someone who the Royals decided wasn't worth keeping on the roster and is coming off a season where he hit .180 and struck out in a third of his at bats. The first reason is simple - Kottaras is going to be cheap, probably signing for between the major league minimum and $1 million. He might even be able to be signed to a minor league deal with a spring training invitation, which means the Red Sox would be able to hang on to the 40 man roster spot, for the time being. It also means the Red Sox can devote more resources to filling holes in the outfield and at first base. Kottaras would also be well positioned to contribute to the 2014 club - he hits righties better than lefties so he could split time with Ross; is a solid defender who was a bit better than Salty at catching opposing runners; and finally, all those walks and a bit of pop. Kottaras walked in 19% of his plate appearances, so his .180 batting average actually came with a respectable (for a backup catcher) slugging of .370 and a .346 OBP, which was better than Salatamacchia's. Steamer (a projection system, and one of the few that have released 2014 projections), has their 2014 offensive lines to be extremely similar, with Kottaras actually having a slight edge.

There are some worrying trends in Kottaras' underlying numbers, since Kottaras doesn't swing at anything at all and I'm not sure that is a sustainable strategy. If he qualified, he'd have the lowest swing rate on pitches out of the zone (12.9%, Votto next lowest at 20%), pitches in the zone (43.9%, Prado next lowest at 52.2%), and, unsurprisingly, swing rate overall (30.6%, Carpenter next lowest at 37.3%). There are some signs that pitchers are challenging him, as he's seeing a lot of pitches in the zone (50.5%, 2nd highest if he qualified, behind only Marco Scutaro), so so perhaps the high walk rate is a touch more sustainable than I initially though. Whoever signs him ought to check his eyesight, though, since his swing rate at pitches in the zone has dropped from 57% to 44% in the last three years.

Finally, the Red Sox have the depth in the minors to deal with catching issues both short and long term. Ryan Lavarnway and Dan Butler are in the upper minors, and both are essentially MLB ready if Kottaras falls flat on his face. If Lavarnway is going to be the major league player he was poised to become following his dominant minor league career, 2014 is likely his last chance to do it. If neither Lavarnway nor Kottaras work out, Butler is a safe, defensive oriented catcher who can chip in with a bit of pop and a few walks. Farther down the depth chart, but with more upside, Christian Vazquez spent most of 2013 in AA, could also be ready sometime in 2014 as well. Finally, Blake Swihart, a first round pick in 2011, has the potential to develop into an excellent all around catcher following his .298/. 366/.428 showing in the high A Carolina league. That line is even more impressive, as at 21 he was almost two years younger than the average player there. The Sox have loads of depth at catcher. Spending a good chunk of their free agent budget to address the position just isn't a good use of resources.

Starting Pitching Primer, or, Is John Lackey's Contract Just like the Sox?

2013-11-15T11:16:00.000-05:00

The Red Sox find themselves in an interesting position with starting pitching, heading in to 2014. Most importantly, they don't need to be involved in the starting pitching free agent market. There is a paucity of starters on the market, especially top tier arms, and every pitcher available has some real question marks around them.

Masahiro Tanaka, from the Japanese Pacific League, is coming off an incredible 24-0 season and is expected to be posted. However, importing Japanese pitchers has been a mixed bag - sometimes you get Darvish, sometimes you get Daisuke, and the cost could be well over $100 million. Ubaldo Jimenez and Ervin Santana are the next best arms available, and both were good pitchers in 2013, but both were also among the worst pitchers in baseball in 2012. Santana is looking for 5 years, $100 million, and Jimenez is likely looking in the same neighborhood. Finally, Ricky Nolasco is the final pitcher in Keith Law's top 50 free agents. Nolasco is looking for 5 years, $80 million on a track record that doesn't look substantively different from Ryan Dempster's last fall. A solid, if unspectacular track record of throwing 180-200 innings. There is some value in that, but I'm of the mind it falls a lot closer to Dempster's two year, $26.5 million deal, than Nolasco's aspirations.

Red Sox Current Rotation

That brings us to the Red Sox, who have five highly paid starters under contract: Jon Lester ($13 million), John Lackey ($15.95 million), Clay Buchholz ($7.95 million), Ryan Dempster ($13.25 million), and mid-season addition Jake Peavy ($14.5 million). This is in addition to Felix Doubront, who showed flashes of brilliance with the Sox in 2013, and would be making just over the major league minimum as a pre-arbitration player (~$525,000). Lester, Peavy, and Dempster are in the final year of their contracts, and so could be potential trade chips for teams that don't want to go long on years to free agent pitchers. Given Lester's performance down the stretch, an extension seems a lot more likely than a trade, though.

John Lackey - Worst to First
Finally, we get to John Lackey, and his rather intriguing contract. Lackey's turn around has taken his contract from one of the worst, to one of the best, much like the 2013 Red Sox. When Lackey signed as a free agent in 2009, the contract included an interesting clause - if Lackey missed a considerable amount of time due to an elbow injury, a $500,000 team option would be added for 2015. After two terrible years in Boston in 2010 and 2011, Lackey missed all of 2012 following Tommy John surgery, allowing the team option. Granted, following the extremely poor performance, and association with the "chicken and beer" incidents at the end of 2011, the general response was, "Well, that's kind of nice, but he's still John Lackey." Now, John Lackey is coming off of one of his best seasons in awhile, finally living up to the expectations when the Red Sox signed, and he is under contract for the next two years for a extremely economical $16.5 million total. Whether the Red Sox would be best served by keeping him or dealing him is unclear.

Organizational Depth
Having more than five starters is important, but when they're being paid a combined $65 million, or more than a few teams overall payroll (or the Houston Astros 2.71 times over, if you're feeling snarky), that probably isn't the best use of resources. Peavy and Dempster seem like the most likely to be traded, possible with the Red Sox eating some salary in order to get a better prospect. One reason why I think this deal makes sense is that behind the front six, the Sox have incredible depth at the starting pitching position. Pitchers who started for them in 2013 and remain viable options for spot starts or injury fill ins include Franklin Morales (you're going to give a lefty who throws mid-90s a lot of chances), Allen Webster, or knuckleballer Steven Wright. Players who pitched in the bullpen, but have a track record as starters, include Brandon Workman, whose 8 2/3 scoreless innings in the playoffs helped the Sox win the World Series, and Rubby de la Rosa, a right hander with an upper 90s fastball and the prize of the Adrian Gonzalez deal with the Dodgers. If a starter is needed later in the season, we could see former top picks Anthony Ranaudo or Matt Barnes, both of whom split time between AA and AAA last year, or even lefty Henry Owens, who won't be turning 21 until after the 2014 All Star Break, but dominated high A and AA in 2013.

Needless to say, the Red Sox have options when it comes to starting pitching. Given the question marks surrounding the available pitchers, I think it makes sense to shop a starter this offseason. This would net a prospect, while simultaneously freeing up salary that could be used to help address the loss of four starters from the offense.

The defensive cost of losing Drew

2013-11-15T11:13:00.002-05:00

Defensively speaking, how much would the hit be to switch from Drew and Bogaerts at shortstop and third, respectively, to Bogaerts and Middlebrooks? This is a tricky question to answer, because you're trying to project two very young, unpredictable players in Middlebrooks and Bogaerts. On top of that, Drew had a gruesome ankle injury at the end of 2010, which makes his 2011 numbers an outlier.

Bogaerts at short and third
In a comment on an earlier post, I was asked about what to make of the fact that Bogaerts was a plus defender at short and a well below average one at third. The simple answer here is not much. Bogaerts only logged 110 innings in the field and defensive stats don’t even stabilize in a single season, so his numbers overall aren’t meaningful, let along splitting them up by position. Scouts say that Bogaerts would be an about average shortstop, so the simplest thing would just be to give him a 0 for defense. At shortstop, that’s no small feat. At third, it becomes less clear. The rough estimate would be that he would be save 5 runs, per calculations by Tom Tango.

Drew's Defense, Looking Forward
For Drew, his runs saved per 150 games at short go like this for the last 4 years – 10.1, 8.4, -14.4, 6.7, with the terrible 2011 due to the aforementioned ankle injury. Drew certainly passed the eye test in 2013 and Baseball Reference pegs his defensive value at about the same (~6 runs), so I think it makes sense not to put any weight in the 2012 performance. Even excluding that year, Drew’s defensive value is on the downswing. A very, very basic regression puts his defensive value at about 5.5 runs next year and dropping 1.3 runs years thereafter. Steamer, a more sophisticated projection system, has Drew as a +6 run defender next year.

What to make of Middlebrooks?
Middlebrooks is also an unknown. He was slightly above average in 2012, but was a total mess in all aspects of his game in 2013. For his career, he has a UZR/150 of -3. Now, there were some reports that his struggles with hitting bled over into poor fielding, but we’ll stick with the numbers. Middlebrooks certainly looks the part of an above average third baseman, but he hasn't shown enough for us to label him as such.

Adding it all up
So, what does that all add up to? We can reasonably expect Drew and Bogaerts to be about 10 or 11 runs above average, defensively. Bogaerts and Middlebrooks would be slightly below average, at 3 runs below average. So for a single year, the Red Sox would probably be looking at giving up about a win and change, defensively. Of course, this doesn’t mean that resigning Drew is the way to go. The short term hit on defense would sting a bit, but long term, there are good reasons to think about letting Drew walk. Drew will be 31 on opening day, and his defense is already in decline. By the end of a four year deal, it doesn’t seem likely he’d still be a major defensive contributor. The $12 or $14 million could be well spent on finding an outfielder (Beltran? who could also be had on short years) or catcher. From the farm system perspective, the Sox are in good shape to replace him, thanks to Bogaerts, as well as other left side of the infield prospects such as third baseman Garin Cecchini who mashed at A+ and AA in 2013 and held his own in the pitching heavy Arizona Fall League (.772 OPS, 17BB:14 K). On top of that, the Red Sox would net a draft pick if Drew were to leave, thanks to him receiving a qualifying offer. All in all, it seems like a good opportunity to grab the draft pick and avoid a long term financial commitment that isn’t necessary.

Looking Ahead: Losses

2013-11-08T12:13:00.003-05:00

After winning the championship, the Red Sox have a lot of players coming off the books. These include core contributors, including the entire swath of up the middle hitters, and guys you may have forgotten will be getting a ring for 2013.

Oh yeah, you were on the team (2013 salary)
Joel Hanrahan ($7.04)

Just as with Bailey, Hanrahan came over in a trade with the Pirates, in one of the larger moves of the offseason (or so we thought at the time). Unfortunately, Hanrahan was bad, then injured. He pitched a mere seven innings ($1 million/inning!), before undergoing Tommy John Surgery. Given that he's a Proven Closer^TM, someone will probably take a flier on him on a one year deal with a team option, but we're probably looking at a return around the All Star Break next season. He won't be a great loss, doubly so given the emergence of Uehara as a closer and Uehara's affordable $4.25 million option, which vested in September, but the $7 million is always nice to have.

Non-tendered or minor league free agents (2013 salary):
Alfredo Aceves ($2.65)
Andrew Bailey ($4.1)

Ah, Alfredo Aceves. Your saga with the Red Sox (after your saga with the Yankees brought you to the Sox in the first place), has finally come to an end. Aceves wore a lot of different hats in his three years with the Sox - shockingly effective spot starter and long man in 2011, terrible closer with lots of saves in 2012, and finally a mediocre middle reliever in 2013. All throughout one thing was consistent about Aceves - a bad attitude. While he was successful in 2011, Aceves managed to avoid any of the attitude issues that led to his release by the Yankees, but he feuded with Bobby Valentine in 2012 and instantly got off on the wrong foot with new manager John Farrell in 2013. After his demotion in the summer, Aceves never made it back to Boston and elected free agency at the end of the minor league season.

Andrew Bailey is officially still on the Red Sox roster, although is very likely to be non-tendered. Bailey, the original closer trade bust, made $8 million ($4.1 in 2013) for 44 average to poor innings of relief. At times, Bailey looked like he had turned the corner in 2013, but was eventually shut down with damage to his shoulder. Recovery from shoulder injuries are dicey, so it makes sense for the Sox to walk away, rather than pay Bailey more than $4 million to be a lottery ticket, especially given the pitching depth in the upper minors.

Photos from USA Today

Key contributors (2013 salary, QO = qualifying offer)
Jacoby Ellsbury ($9, QO)
Mike Napoli ($13, QO)
Stephen Drew ($9.5, QO)
Jarrod Saltalamacchia ($4.5)

Finally, we get to the real losses. It normally can be difficult to replace up the middle players, especially in free agency, and trying to replace a catcher, shortstop, and centerfielder in the same offseason can be difficult, especially when they were the first, fourth, sixth, and seventh best hitters on the team. The small silver lining is that because three of them have been offered qualifying offers (1 year, $14 million), if another team signs Ellsbury, Napoli, or Drew, the Red Sox will get a first round (if that team picks 11-30 in the first round) or a second round (if that team picks in the top 10) pick.

Ellsbury led the team in Wins Above Replacement in 2013, thanks to solid numbers across the board in defense, hitting, and base running. In fact, Ellsbury, with his 52 steals out of 56 tries (93%), was the most valuable base runner in the league, per Fangraphs. Napoli, coming in at 4th, hit well and held his own defensively at first. Drew, despite his struggles in the playoffs, was actually a top ten shortstop in the majors last year, and might have been higher had he not missed so many games due to injury. In a similar vein, Salty was top 10 as well. Granted, you could argue that Salty and Drew being top ten players is more of an indictment of the lack of quality players at the position, but in some ways, that will drive up their price.

All told, the above players leaving mean that the Red Sox are freeing up just under $50 million of salary. With only a handful of raises via guaranteed contracts (~$6 million), and midseason addition Jake Peavy's $14.5 million contract of 2014, that leaves about $28 million in free agent spending to keep the payroll at similar levels to 2013.

Looking at it this way, it's clear that the Red Sox are going to losing two or maybe even three of the four free agent starters or will be looking at increasing payroll substantially. Ellsbury alone will likely crack $20 million per year, and Drew and Saltalamacchia are among the only options at shortstop and catcher, respectively. Come 2014, we'll almost certainly be looking at a very different starting lineup, but the money plus the farm system give the Sox the flexibility to pursue many different strategies.

Rebooting the blog to bask in the brilliance of a championship

2013-11-06T12:36:00.002-05:00

It's been an awfully long time, but I wanted to try and start writing again, in part to enjoy the current success of the Red Sox, and in part to get in the practice of writing a lot, to help with my dissertation.

I'll be looking at free agent losses, the roster as it stands for 2014, upcoming prospects, and free agents in the next week or two.

An Extremely Unusual Start

2013-05-11T12:41:00.000-04:00

On Friday night, Alex Cobb had one of the most unusual lines you'll ever see from a starting pitcher.

4 2/3 IP, 13 K, 2 BB, 5 H, 2 ER

So, Cobb got a total of 14 outs. Twelve were via the strikeout (one of the strikeouts reached first on a wild pitch). Two of the hits were home runs. That means that Cobb only had five balls in play. Of those five balls in play, two were infield singles and two were ground outs.

Looking at the underlying numbers, Cobb was just as dominant. Of Cobb's 117 pitches, 77 were strikes, for an about average total. However, aside from the two home runs, the Padres were clear completely lost at the plate. They swung at 57 pitches and swung and missed at 22 of them (38%). For comparison, 10% is a good swinging strike rate, and Yu Darvish has the highest swinging strike rate on the season (16.7%).

To top it all off, Cobb managed to strike out four batters in the third inning. Despite that, he allowed a run, as Will Venable reached on a wild pitch strike out, stole second, stole third, and then scored on a balk. Cobb then struck out Yonder Alonso to end the inning. It was only the 30th time than an AL pitcher has struck out four players in an inning and the 60th overall. Striking out four batters in an inning is one of the rarest occurrences in baseball, just behind a perfect game and the unassisted triple play.

All told, this might have been the most dominant start when a starter didn't even manage to qualify for a win.

On swinging strikes, swings in the zone (or lack thereof), and strike outs

2013-05-01T12:14:00.002-04:00

Following up on the comment on my Clay Buchholz piece, I wanted to examine how the swing percentage on pitches in the strike zone impacted strikeout rate. Thanks to Fangraphs excellent and customizable leader boards, I was able to get data for pitchers from 2006 to 2012 who threw for 100 or more innings. I did not want to go much farther back, as strikeout rates have changed considerably over the last few years, but also, swinging strike percent and swing rate on pitches in the zone are not available prior to 2005.

What are the Data I'm Using?
So, given 100 IP in a single season from 2006 to 2012, I had 986 total records from 306 different pitchers to go with. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to treat each season as independent, even though we might expect different seasons from the same pitcher to be related.

Creating the Basic Model
I used these 986 data points to create a linear model predicting strike out rate in K/9 IP using the swinging strike percentage. I originally considered adding the season to the model, as strikeout rates have steadily risen over the time period I'm looking at. While season was a significant predictor of K/9 IP when it was included in the model (more recent = more strikeouts), it didn't add much to the overall fit and only had a very minor impact on the model overall. In ecology, we often describe this as statistically significant, but not biologically significant. It often happens when you have a large sample size. Also, in general, I strongly prefer the simplest model possible, especially when adding variables marginally improves the fit. Guess I'm just a big fan of Occam's Razor. Without further ado, the relationship between swinging strike rate and strikeout rate is:
K/9 = 71.8*(Swinging Strike %) + 0.7892

The R² for this model was 0.6693, meaning that swinging strike rate explains 67% of the variability in K/9. That is a huge proportion, but it does leave room for improvement.

Examining the Residuals
A residual is the difference between the expected value from the model and the actual model. A positive residual means that the pitcher had more strike outs than our swinging strike model thought they should, while a negative residual means the opposite. In general, a lower residual means a better fit for the model, but you can also look at the residuals to see if there is anything consistent about them. In our case, we’ll look at the percent of swings on pitches in the zone. To do this, I ran another linear regression, trying to predict the residuals using the zone swing percent. This showed a significant trend, but with a much lower predictive value than the swinging strike rate (R²=0.136). When your residuals have a trend, it means that your model isn’t capturing something, but for our purposes, it is a good thing. It means that when pitchers have a lower rate of swings against pitches in the zone, they have a higher strikeout rate.

The Low Swing Pitchers
Over the entire data set, the average swing rate at pitches in the zone was 65%. Unlike some other stats, there isn’t as much variability in swing rates at pitches in the zone. The lowest average belongs to Doug Fister (55.5%, over the course of three seasons), while the highest belongs to Scott Baker (72%, over two seasons). Another way to look at the data is to examine whether or not the pitchers with the low swing rates on pitches in the zone have a high residual. In short, the answer is yes. Four pitchers averaged a zone swinging rate of 60% or lower, and had multiple seasons on record. Here are their numbers – remember, a positive residual means that a pitcher was striking out more batters than the model predicted.

Name	Seasons	Residual (K/9)	Zone Swing %
Doug Fister	3	0.873	55.5%
C.J. Wilson	3	1.678	57.5%
Jake Arrieta	3	0.992	59.2%
Mike Mussina	3	1.476	59.4%

So, we see a consistent pattern at the extreme ends. But, does swing rate on pitches in the strike zone explain most of the variability in K/9?

The Biggest Departures from the Model
To examine this, I looked at the pitchers who had: 1. The highest residuals, and 2. At least three years of data. If the biggest departures from our expected results (largest residuals), all have a lower than average swing rate on pitches within the zone, that would provide even stronger support that swing rate within the strike zone controls how . Of the 15 pitchers with the highest average residuals, only two have swing rates below 60% (Mussina and Wilson), while an additional six have zone swing rates slightly below average (60-64%), and five have zone swing rates that are about average (64%-66%). None of the pitchers with consistently high residuals have above average zone swing rates. Interestingly, many of the high residual pitchers who had average to slightly below average zone swing rates also walked a lot of batters. If you increase the number of walks you hand out, you'll also increase the number of batters you face, which in turn should lead to a higher K/9. For example, think about two different pitchers. Pitcher A strikes out 25% of the batters he faces and walks 10% (Yovanni Gallardo) and pitcher B strikes out 25% of the batters he faces and walks 6%. Pitcher B is clearly the superior pitcher, but pitcher A will likely have a higher K/9.

Name	Seasons	Residual (K/9)	Zone Swing %
Yovani Gallardo	4	2.065	62.0%
C.J. Wilson	3	1.678	57.5%
Erik Bedard	3	1.623	64.2%
Mike Mussina	3	1.476	59.4%
David Price	4	1.343	64.8%
Ubaldo Jimenez	4	1.272	63.7%
Tim Lincecum	5	1.258	63.4%
Zack Greinke	5	1.179	64.7%
Jonathan Sanchez	4	1.176	62.3%
Clayton Kershaw	5	1.169	63.4%
Oliver Perez	3	1.154	64.7%
Tommy Hanson	3	1.148	63.0%
Josh Beckett	6	1.134	64.9%
Daniel Cabrera	3	1.119	64.8%
Jon Lester	4	1.112	65.7%

So What Does This All Mean?
I think there are several conclusions we can draw here. First, a lower swing rate at pitches in the strike zone does consistently lead to a higher K/9. Second, if a pitcher has a high swing rate at pitches in the zone, they probably won't outperform their predicted K/9 based on swinging strike rate. This makes sense; lots of swings will lead to more balls in play, which in turn will lead to fewer strikeouts. Third, there are other factors that aren't captured by just looking at swinging strike rate and zone swing rate. Most of the pitchers with the highest residuals in the model did not have extremely low zone swing rates. This may be attributable to "stuff" in general, so perhaps delving into PitchFX data would lead to a clearer picture there.

What has improved with Clay Buchholz?

2013-04-29T13:47:00.002-04:00

Clay Buchholz has been the Red Sox best pitcher, and even edges out Dustin Pedroia as the Red Sox best player overall. He currently has a spectacular 1.19 ERA, and even more surprisingly, is striking out more than a batter per inning. While the ERA obviously won’t stay below 1.50, I thought it was worth a closer look to try and figure out where his strikeouts are coming from.

What Hasn’t Changed?
Before we get into the details too much, it is important to round up the usual suspects. Buchholz is not throwing a new pitch; he is still using the fastball, cutter, change up, and curveball that he has since introducing the cutter in 2011. Nor has he changed his approach. Buchholz still throws his four seam fastball about half the time and his cutter about 20% of the time, followed by his curveball and changeup with about equal frequency. Since Buchholz was hampered by injuries to start 2012, you might expect an increase in velocity, now that he is healthy, but we also don’t see a surge in velocity for Buchholz. In fact, Buchholz’s fastball is about one mile per hour slower than 2012. Buchholz’s control isn’t better either – he is still walking about the same number of batters (3.11/9 IP) and he is throwing the same number of first pitch strikes, too. Finally, and most perplexingly, we don’t see a change in his swinging strike rate.

Swinging Strikes and Strikeouts
The big surge in strikeouts without an increase in swinging strikes is very odd. Swinging strikes and strikeout rates are tightly linked (R2 = 0.65 in 2012 for qualified pitchers), and swinging strike rate usually stabilizes before strikeout rate. Without an increase in swinging strikes, we should probably expect to see a big drop in Buchholz’s strikeout rate over the rest of the season. Needless to say, that would mean that he wouldn’t be the ace we’ve seen in the first month. Based on a linear regression from last season’s stats (it is still a bit early to be using 2013 stats), we should expect Buchholz to have a K/9 of 6.67, instead of 9.32. That strikeout rate would mean his expected ERA (xFIP) would be about 4.00 – hardly an ace, and maybe not even a #2.

A Silver Lining
There is one metric that Buchholz has improved significantly in – batters are swinging much less often at pitches in the zone this year (58%, compared to 65% in 2012). Currently, a 58% swing rate at pitches in the zone is the 10th best in the majors, and would have led the league last year. If batters aren’t swinging at pitches in the zone, that could mean two different things: 1. Batters are getting fooled by Buchholz’s pitchers, or 2. Buchholz is working the corners effectively, so although the pitches are in the zone, they are not good ones to hit. Looking at Buchholz’s heat maps showing where he is throwing pitches, nothing immediately jumps out at me to indicate that Buchholz is working corners better than previous years, however it is rather hard to compare the 2013 season to previous years because of the big difference in number of pitches thrown.

Trickier Pitches?
If Buchholz is fooling batters, we might be able to see some improvement in the movement of his pitches. Thanks to PitchFX data, we have an amazing treasure trove of data. There is not a significant change in the amount of movement for Buchholz’s changeup or curveball, but he has added an inch of movement on his fastball and cutter (this combines both horizontal and vertical movement). Most of the movement for the cutter has been horizontal movement, which is not surprising as cutters often have more run when thrown slightly slower, and Buchholz is throwing his cutter two and a half miles per hour slower than last year. However, of the two pitches, only the four seam fastball has shown improvement. A big part of that improvement has been in the swing rate within the zone, as hitters have offered at fastballs in the zone 7% less often in 2013. The biggest improvement in that category is with the curveball; hitters have gone from swinging at curveballs in the zone 42% of the time, to an incredibly low 22% of the time. Although the overall movement of the curveball hasn’t changed, how it is moving has. Over his career, Buchholz has gone from having a fairly traditional 12-6 curveball (one that drops pretty much straight down, from 12 o’clock to 6 o’clock, if you were looking at a clock face) to one that has a lot more horizontal movement; at this point, he’s almost throwing a slurve (combination of a slider and a curveball), with over 10” of horizontal movement. Traditionally, most scouts prefer a 12-6 curveball, and a slurve often has a bad reputation, however, this pitch is working for Buchholz.

Looking Ahead
Whether or not the slurve remains effective, particularly in getting called strikes, will be key for Buchholz’s continued success. I think a lot of that will depend on whether or not hitters adjust to the new, more horizontal movement of the pitch. If he can continue to fool hitters, he may be able to maintain an elevated strikeout rate, without having a typically high swinging strike rate. A regression to model strikeout rate using swinging strikeout rate and zone swing percentage indicated that a lower swing rate at pitches in the zone leads to a higher strikeout rate overall, and greatly improves the fit of the model (R2 = 0.83, compared to 0.65 with just swinging strike rate). According to that model, Buchholz’s K/9 IP would be about 7.50, leading to a much more palatable predicted ERA of about 3.50. Now that looks more like a #2 starter.

Koji Uehara in a Nutshell

2013-04-29T11:30:00.001-04:00

This week was fairly representative of Uehara on the whole. He appeared in 4 games, throwing 4 innings. He showed excellent control, walking no one in those four innings, while striking out four batters. Unfortunately, Uehara gave up a couple of home runs - a shot to Billy Butler that tied the game in the 8th and a home run to Chris Young that cut the Sox lead against Oakland to one.

That is pretty much what you can expect from Uehara. Lots and lots of strikeouts (10.13/9 in 2013, 10.75 in 2012), almost no walks (a microscopic 0.84/9 in 2013, 0.75/9 in 2012), and lots of fly balls (59% in 2013, 51% in 2012). Sometimes, those fly balls are going to leave the yard, often times in bunches. Thankfully, they'll usually be solo home runs. The home run Uehara gave up to Butler was a crusher, leading to a Sox loss in extra innings, but on the whole Uehara is going to be an excellent contributor to the bullpen. The one thing we can't count on, though, is health. Uehara only threw 36 innings last year, and typically needs to have a day off between appearances. But while he is healthy, the Sox should enjoy the ride.

Breaking Down Webster's Debut

2013-04-22T13:20:00.001-04:00

Thanks to the double header and the Lackey injury, the Red Sox called on Allen Webster. Webster was one of the two main prospects in the Adrian Gonzalez deal, and wasn't expected to pitch at the major league level outside of a September call up.

Good : The control. Coming in to this season, Webster had issues with walking too many batters (4.2/9 IP in AAA last year). The Red Sox believed this was in part due to where he pitched on the rubber, and shifted him to always throwing from the extreme first base side. So far, that appears to have worked. Webster walked three in 10 innings in AAA, and only walked one in five innings against the Royals, continuing his improved control from spring training (1 BB in 11 IP). At one point David Ross stuck out his right leg as Webster was getting set to pitch. The Royals announcers thought that it was a trick to confuse the batter, indicating that the pitch was coming inside when it really was going outside, but I'm not so sure. Perhaps Ross was simply reminding Webster to stick with his spot on the rubber. The release points from PitchFX indicate that he did a very good job having a consistent release point, both horizontally and vertically.

Bad: The command.The difference between command and control is a bit tricky, but to sum it up as briefly as possible, good control means you're not walking guys, good command means that you're putting the ball where you want it to go. Webster left several pitches either in the middle of the plate or waist high that led to two home runs and a double. He also got away with several other pitches. Thanks to his stuff, he may be able to get away with the occasional fat pitch, but major league hitters can handle a waist high fastball on the outer half, even if it is going 97. Webster only allowed two home runs in 130 innings in AAA last year, but allowed the same number in one start.

Good: The stuff. Webster had all three pitches working for him at points during the game. His sinking fastball was sitting mid-90s, and touched 97. He got several swings and misses from his strongly breaking slider and got at least one batter looking on a nasty front door change up. All told, Webster had five Ks to only one walk, had 14 swinging strikes (17%, an elite number, albeit in a single game), and on top of that he was generating lots of ground balls (7 GB outs to 5 FB outs).

Bad: The stamina. This is a bit of a nitpicky criticism, but Webster clearly is not quite ready to be a major league starter and take the ball every five days. The Red Sox were understandably cautious with him in this game, only allowing him to throw 84 pitches, but Webster was appearing to tire towards the end of his start. Although his fastball velocity did not drop significantly in the later innings, he didn't seem able to reach back to get to 96 or above in the fifth and sixth innings. Part of this is likely due to it being early in the season, as the Red Sox have taken to slowly building up minor leaguers arm strength, but Webster has had issues with stamina and efficiency in the past. In 2012 he only averaged 4.5 innings per appearance (24 starts, plus three relief appearances), but even if you toss out the three relief appearances that average is still only 5.4 innings per appearance. This is something that will hopefully improve over time.

All told, it was a great debut for Webster, and one that was probably five months earlier than the most optimistic projections indicated. It is still early, but so far the returns from the Adrian Gonzalez deal look promising. It wouldn't be shocking to see Webster be a contributor down the stretch, especially given the lack of other options should an injury befall a Red Sox starter.

An elaborate hypothetical: Revisiting the two Adrian Gonzalez trades

2013-04-09T14:40:00.000-04:00

The Adrian Gonzalez era in Boston was a tumultuous, abbreviated affair, lasting only 628 calendar days and only 386 regular season days. Sadly, those regular season days were the only games Gonzalez played, as the Sox missed the playoffs in brutal fashion in 2011 and clearly were headed nowhere in 2012. Following that disastrous finish to 2011 and several months in to the ugly 2012 season, the Red Sox managed to unload Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, and Carl Crawford on to the Dodgers, while acquiring two elite arms in Rubby de la Rosa and Allen Webster, along with two fringe-MLB players in Jerry Sands and Ivan De Jesus, both of whom are now in the Pirates system. In under two years, Gonzalez had gone from savior to scapegoat, impending free agent to owner of one of the richest contracts in baseball, from Theo Epstein as his general manager to newcomer Ben Cherington, and from the west coast to the east coast and back again. Now that the smoke has cleared a bit from the terrible 2012 that precipitated the events, I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at both Gonzalez trades, as well as the contracts that were key to getting the deal done from the Red Sox's perspective, and see how the Adrian Gonzalez era affected the team.

The Original Deal
The original trade for Adrian Gonzalez with the Padres was an on again, off again affair. The Red Sox and the Padres had a deal in place, but the Red Sox wanted a negotiating window in order to secure an extension, as Gonzalez was set to become a free agent following the 2011 season. The Red Sox and Gonzalez were unable to reach an agreement during this initial negotiating window, and the trade seemingly had fallen apart. However, eventually the Red Sox and Gonzalez reached a deal, and the trade was officially completed on December 6, 2010. The Red Sox and Gonzalez eventually agreed to a 7 year, $154 million extension, but postponed announcing it until after Opening Day due to MLB luxury tax implications. It was the 9th richest deal in baseball history at the time. The Red Sox had finally found their impact bat to replace Manny Ramirez. Despite playing in a cavernous stadium and surrounded by a weak lineup, Gonzalez put up spectacular numbers, averaging 34 home runs and 105 RBI with a .900 OPS. On the road, he was putting up video game numbers; he hit almost two thirds of his home runs on the road, and his OPS was over .100 higher. Put him in Fenway Park, and he would be peppering balls off or over the Green Monster.

The cost for Gonzalez was high, but not astronomical. The Red Sox sent three of their top 10 prospects to the Padres - polished righty Casey Kelly, who had good stuff and an excellent feel for pitching, but who struggled in AA after being aggressively promoted; breakout first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who was coming off a 25 home run season split between A+ and AA; and toolsy outfielder Reymond Fuentes, whose youth and athleticism made up for his lack of production in the minors to that point. With an aging core, a lack of depth in the upper levels of the minor leagues, and David Ortiz coming off a mediocre season and one season removed from his terrible 2009, the Red Sox were clearly in win-now mode and were going to make a run at getting back to the World Series for the first time since 2007.

Evaluating the Original Deal
We now have over two years of perspective to look back on the original Gonzalez deal, and it seems to grade out favorably for the Red Sox. Despite the team's struggles at the end of 2011 and in 2012, Gonzalez was a good player overall, even factoring in his subpar 2012. Casey Kelly had to undergo Tommy John surgery this spring, and won't pitch until next spring training at the earliest. While he remains likely to be a major league pitcher, he does not have the stuff to be a frontline pitcher. Reymond Fuentes is no longer much of a prospect after continuing to struggle to translate his tools to production; Fuentes was not ranked by Baseball America, Fangraphs, or Baseball Prospectus when reviewing the Padres' minor league systems. The prize of the deal appears to be Anthony Rizzo, who will be starting as a major league first basemen; unfortunately for the Padres, he'll be doing it for the Theo Epstein run Chicago Cubs. Following a disappointing showing for the Padres at the major league level in 2011, Rizzo was traded to the Cubs for pitching prospect Andrew Cashner, in a rare prospect for prospect deal. Then San Diego GM Jed Hoyer, who had since become the GM for the Cubs, admitted to rushing Rizzo, but a bit more time in the minors seems to have paid off for Rizzo. Rizzo hit 15 home runs for the Cubs in half a season of playing time in 2012, and now is their starting first baseman. Sadly for the Padres, Cashner is now a reliever, and after all was said and done, they have very, very little to show from trading away their best player since Tony Gwynn.

The Out of Nowhere Signing
Days after the Gonzalez deal was completed, the Red Sox made another massive move, signing left fielder Carl Crawford to a seven year, $142 million deal. It was a totally unexpected move, but was well received by analysts and the fanbase alike, and the Red Sox were anointed the favorites in the AL East, and even the AL as a whole.

Opportunities Missed
The cost of the Gonzalez trade and spending $20 million per year on Carl Crawford was that third baseman Adrian Beltre, who led the team in WAR in 2010, was no longer part of the plan for the future. Beltre had signed a one year "pillow contract" in order to reestablish his value, and it worked like a charm. He signed a five year, $96 million deal with the Texas Rangers. Despite being in his 30s, Beltre has continued to produce at an elite level both with his glove and his bat, averaging just under six wins above replacement in his two seasons in Texas, and eaisly outproducing both Gonzalez and Carl Crawford. Beltre was also a great clubhouse presence, so long as you didn't touch his head.

The Former Hero
The 2007 postseason cemented Josh Beckett's reputation as a clutch postseason performer. He was spectacular in his four starts, allowing only four earned runs in 30 innings, while striking out 35. His 2008 and 2009 seasons were not as strong, but he maintained an elite WHIP throughout. Unfortunately, everything fell apart in an injury abbreviated 2010. With free agency looming following the season, the Red Sox signed him to a four year, $68 million extension. In 2011, Beckett seemed to return to form with a 2.93 ERA, but his 2012 would be something else entirely.

The Summer of Discontent
I won't get into the details of the 2012 season too much, but it is important to recognize just how horribly things went. They opened 0-3, then 1-5. Bobby Valentine called out Kevin Youkilis, who was a major clubhouse figure and one of the hardest workers on the team, for not working hard enough. It took them six tries when they were at .500 to get a winning record, before finally going to 25-24 on May 29. At the end of June they were 41-36, only to lose seven of the next nine games to limp into the All Star Break at 43-43. Will Middlebrooks, one of the few bright spots to the season broke his wrist August 11, to cap off a 3-8 slide. Carl Crawford underwent Tommy John surgery on his elbow on August 23rd, finishing the worst season of his career and one that had been plagued by injury issues. Josh Beckett put up a 5.23 ERA in 21 starts, while refusing to apologize or acknowledge his role in the infamous and likely overblowBut the real coup de grace was on August 23rd, when the Red Sox lost to the Angels in extra innings despite leading 6-0 after two innings, and 9-8 in the 6th, and 11-9 entering the 9th, thanks in large part to malcontent and bullpen arsonist Alfredo Aceves giving up five runs in an inning plus. By the next day, the Red Sox would be headed in a completely different direction.

Blowing It All Up
News of the deal first started to break on August 24th, when Adrian Gonzalez was held out of the lineup for the series opener against the Royals. Supposedly a massive deal was in place with the Dodgers, sending Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett to Los Angeles. Deals this big are rare in August, as players have to clear waivers in order to be traded. If a team places a player on waivers and another team claims them, the original team can just let the player go, along with his contract, to the claiming team. If no one claims them, then they cannot be traded until the season is over. With about $140 million worth of guaranteed salary left of their deals, Carl Crawford, who was facing a year long recovery from elbow surgery, and Josh Beckett, with his ERA north of 5.00, cleared waivers easily, unfortunately, thanks to the contracts associated with them, they were less than worthless on the trade market. Adrian Gonzalez, on the other hand, was claimed by the Dodgers. Despite Gonzalez having the worst season of his career and with almost $150 million remaining on his new extension, there wasn't really any expectation that he would be traded. Teams place players on waivers all the time, in part just to gauge potential interest in them. Gonzalez was claimed by the Dodgers, meaning that no team in the American League put in a claim and that no team with a worse record than the Dodgers in the National League put in a claim either. This was a minor miracle, especially given that teams will often put in claims on players just to block potential deals. Perhaps no one thought the Red Sox could really trade Gonzalez. Perhaps no other teams wanted to take the risk that they'd be stuck with such a large contract. Either way, everything fell into place for Ben Cherington and the Red Sox.

The Boston Herald first broke the story (now behind a paywall), and other media outlets quickly followed suit in reporting that the Red Sox were able to dump the bad contracts of Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett, at the expense of Adrian Gonzalez. Not only that, but the Red Sox were receiving real prospects in return, primarily in the form of starting pitching prospects Allen Webster and Rubby de la Rosa. The Red Sox also sent cash to the Dodgers; normally $11 million is a lot to be included in a trade, but when you're shedding $285 million worth of salaries in the process, $11 million is a drop in the bucket.

Somehow the Red Sox cleared two contracts that were considered to be worthless.

Somehow, the Red Sox ended up sending less than half as much cash in their trade which cleared $285 million worth of salary than the Angels needed to send this spring ($28.1 million) to cover the remaining $42 million on Vernon Wells' deal.

And, most importantly, somehow the Red Sox acquired two starting pitching prospects who were in the upper minors and have front of the rotation upside.

God Bless Ned Colletti and the new Dodgers ownership.

In one move, Ben Cherington completely remade the franchise and set on the rocky road to rebuilding a successful team. Gone were the oversized free agents of the twilight of the Theo Epstein era. Gone was the playoff MVP of the last World Series team.

The Pieces Coming Back
In many ways, the players sent to the Red Sox are ancillary parts of the evaluation of the deal. They do, however, have the ability to turn the deal from a good one to an absolute fleecing. As I mentioned above, both Webster and de la Rosa have top of the rotation stuff. Both sit in the mid to upper 90s, with Rubby complementing his fastball with a devastating slider and Webster adding a slider to his heavy sinking fastball. As with just about any pitching prospect, there are major question marks surrounding them. Rubby de la Rosa is coming off of Tommy John surgery, and many scouts believe that both will end up in the bullpen, because of their slight builds and health issues. Only time will tell how they develop and what their roles will be, but as they are already in the upper minors, appearances this season or next are not out of the question.

Summing It All Up
In the end, it really comes down to this simple question: Would you trade the 2010 versions of Anthony Rizzo, Casey Kelly, and Reymond Fuentes for the 2012 versions of Allen Webster and Rubby de la Rosa? I think the answer is yes, but it is hard to say knowing that Rizzo will develop into a starter at first, but Kelly is facing Tommy John surgery. What if I threw in $250 million worth of financial flexibility? Not much of a question anymore, is it? Of course, to make it all work you need $250 million in bad contracts to begin with. For what it is worth, the architect of the $250 million worth of bad contracts agrees.

Home grown talent

2013-04-04T10:47:00.004-04:00

When Theo Epstein took over the General Manager position before the 2003 season, he said he was going to turn the Red Sox into a "$100 million player development machine", meaning that they would develop their own players, so that they wouldn't have to go out and overspend on free agents. Now, more than ever, that philosophy is critical to success, given the rates at which teams are resigning their own players. Even small to mid market teams, such as the Reds, Mariners, and White Sox are resigning star players to often extremely long deals to prevent them from reaching free agency. The kings of this strategy are the Tampa Bay Rays, who have Evan Longoria under contract through 2023 (no, that isn't a typo) thanks to two different six year extensions, the first of which paid him only $17.5 million for six years (total, not annually), plus three club options totaling $30 million for the 2014, 2015, and 2016 seasons. On top of that they have super utility player Ben Zobrist signed through 2015 for very reasonable salaries and burgeoning ace Matt Moore signed through 2019, if all his options are picked up.

So what does that mean for the Red Sox and other big market teams? Quite simply, if you don't develop from within you'll be forced to spend more money to get less production on the free agent market. Given the importance of developing from within, I thought I'd take a look at the Red Sox history in developing talent and where they are headed from here.

As you can see from the chart, the 2013 opening day lineup had more home grown players than any other year since 2003, when Epstein took over. A few minor notes about the chart - both Nixon and Nomar were still on the roster in 2004, however they did not start opening day. Nomar was limited to under 40 games before being traded and Nixon played 48 games, thanks to a variety of injuries. Because both were starters, but hurt, I've included them in the 2004 total. Also, I am counting Varitek as home grown, despite originally coming up through the Mariners' system, as he was a AA prospect when he was acquired and was not particularly highly rated at the time of his trade.

Now granted, Iglesias and Bradley were only in the lineup due to injuries to Stephen Drew and David Ortiz, respectively, but the new wave of talent may finally be arriving in Boston. Also, you might note that most of the bars stick around for six or seven years, which is how long it takes to accrue enough service time to become a free agent. For example, you can see the core of the 2007 - 2012 teams were Youkilis, Pedroia, and Ellsbury, but that the Red Sox are starting to see some of those players depart. Dustin Pedroia, who was in his seventh opening day lineup in 2013, isn't going anywhere, thanks to a contract extension through 2014 with a team option for 2015, but Youkilis was traded away before becoming a free agent and Ellsbury will likely either be traded or allowed to walk following this season.

With the departure of Youkilis and the imminent departure of Ellsbury, getting this new influx of talent is critical. The Red Sox have already anointed Middlebrooks as Youkilis' successor, thanks to a great few months last season, and Bradley turned heads in spring training with his .500 OBP, which he's managed to keep up for the first two games of the regular season as well. Xander Bogaerts may force his way into the discussion, after dominating high A and AA as a 19 year old, but at the moment his two most likely positions, shortstop and third base, already have young, cost controlled players manning them, in Middlebrooks and Iglesias. Outfielder Bryce Brentz reached AAA last and struggled mightily, but a good season and he could be in consideration for an outfield job next year, should Ellsbury depart. Beyond Brentz and Bogaerts, the upper levels of the minors do not have any prospects who could make a difference in Boston over the next two years.

On the other side of the ball, things are not nearly as interesting. The Red Sox have really only used three starting pitchers they developed in the last decade - Derek Lowe, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, and recently, Felix Doubront. Lowe was a staple on the Red Sox, albeit in a wide variety of roles from 1998 to 2004, when he was allowed to depart as a free agent following the World Series win. Since Lester's dramatic return from non-Hogkins lymphoma, which saw him go from being diagnosed with the disease to clinching the Red Sox sweep of the Rockies in the World Series in his very first post season start. Lester's 2012 was one of the worst in the major leagues, you can do a lot of damage with 200 innings with an ERA approaching 5.00, but he retains the skills to be a potential ace. Buchholz has been up and down with the Red Sox as well, with a 2011 cut short by injuries and a horrendous start to the 2012 season that marred his final line, but hopefully with the return of former pitching coach John Farrell both Buchholz and Lester can return to form. Doubront remains a rather raw, unfinished product; he has great stuff and can strike out a lot of batters, but neither the approach nor the results are there yet. If the Red Sox hasn't been so destroyed by injuries last year, he likely would have returned to AAA. However, with the lack of depth and Doubront being able to hold his own last year, he has another crack at the rotation for 2013.

While the major league home grown pitchers haven't been as interesting as the hitters, the reverse is true for the upper levels of the minors. Thanks to the Red Sox convincing the Dodgers to take on a quarter of a billion dollars in guaranteed contracts in exchange for the Dodgers' top two pitching prospects, the upper levels of the minor leagues are jammed with potential impact arms. Matt Barnes, a 2011 draftee, and Rubby de la Rosa and Allen Webster, the aforementioned Dodgers' prospects, all could be ready to contribute to the majors in the next year. Two college pitchers, Brian Johnson, a low ceiling, high floor lefty out of Florida, and Brandon Workman, a big righty with a great fastball and not much else, could also be contributing in the next few years, whether it is in the back end of the rotation or the bullpen.

The Worst Team of the Century

2013-03-24T19:28:00.002-04:00

Note: After putting this list together, Fangraphs and Baseball Reference both changed their replacement level calculations, so that they now match. Of course, this also means that these numbers no longer match what is available on either website.While the exact WAR values have changed, these players are still the worst at their positions since the year 2000.

My previous post on Jose Iglesias, where I discovered that Neifi Perez had the worst year out of any player in the last 20 years has inspired me to put together the worst lineup possible, going back to 2000. For all positions, I used a minimum of 400 plate appearances, but this only affected a couple of the players. Generally speaking, if you're at the most negative extreme of production, you needed a lot of at bats to do it.

Catcher - Michael Barrett, Expos, 2001, -0.8 WAR
Catcher actually does fairly well compared to the other positions, perhaps because few catchers get to 400 plate appearances if they are terrible and the fact that most teams carry two or three that they use in a regular rotation. In 2001, 24 year old Michael Barrett put up a .250/.289/.367 line for the now defunct Montreal Expos. While this was only slightly worse than the positional average, he also gave back 13 runs on defense. Despite posting a -1.7 and -0.8 WAR in consecutive years, Barrett continued to develop and became a solid catcher for the Cubs, averaging 2.8 WAR for the Cubs in 2004-2006. Unfortunately, Barrett suffered a concussion in 2007 with the Padres, followed by another one and broken facial bones on a foul tip in 2008. These, and a shoulder injury, effectively ended his career as a major leaguer.

1B - Aubrey Huff, Orioles and Tigers, 2009, -1.8 WAR
Coming in to 2009, Aubrey Huff was arguably one of the more underrated hitters in baseball. Toiling away on poor Baltimore and Tampa Bay teams, Huff had two four win seasons and another 3.3 win season. Fresh off a 32 home run, 4.0 WAR season in 2008, Huff fell apart. In the year 2009 the ERA of the pitcher was about to dawn, but first basemen were still real first basemen, corner outfielders were still real corner outfielders, and small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were still real small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. Huff's strikeout and walk rates stayed the same, but his BABIP dropped 50 points and his isolated power dropped 100 points. Not a winning combination. Huff managed to bounce back in 2010, putting up the best season of his career and was the best hitter on the World Champion the Giants. Huff turned his career year into one last lucrative contract, resigning with the Giants for two years and $22 million, but was a below replacement player in both 2011 and 2012.

2B - Mike Lansing, Rockies and Red Sox, 2000, -1.5 WAR
Our first Red Sox player on the list. In 1997, Lansing was a 4 win player, but followed up that season with a 0.4 WAR season in 1998 and an injury plagued 0.0 WAR season in 1999. Unfortunately, things got worse in 2000 with more playing time. Lansing struggled with the Rockies and was traded to the Red Sox and put up a combined .240/.292/.365 line in a highly charged offensive era. Lansing was an average defender, but his terrible batting line led to his terrible overall performance. For whatever reason, the Red Sox kept him on in 2001, giving him 382 plate appearances and allowing him to put up another negative WAR season. Lansing attempted a comeback with the Indians in 2002, but it was derailed by a back injury in the minors.

3B - Pedro Feliz, Astros and Cardinals, 2010, -1.9 WAR
Feliz was a solid second division starter throughout most of his career for the Giants and the Phillies, before signing a one year, $4 million deal with the Houston Astros. A common recipe for appearing on this list, Feliz has a good glove and not much of a bat. In 2010, Feliz' defense got markedly worse, being below average for the first time in his career, while also putting up his worst hitting season. His typically low walk rate dropped to an abysmal 3%, while he was also unlucky on balls in play, with only a .228 BABIP. After hitting for a .554 OPS for the Astros in the first half of the season, he was traded for cash, a low level prospect, and the right not to have to pay him any more to the Cardinals. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, he managed a .482 OPS in 120 at bats. Feliz signed a minor league deal with the Royals in 2011, but didn't make it out of spring training.

SS - Neifi Perez, Royals, 2002, -2.9 WAR
Neifi Perez is the proud owner of the worst overall WAR of the last 20 years. Perez never had an above average season with the bat, but solid defense and playing a middle infield position was enough for him to post seasons where he was above replacement. Unfortunately, that all went to hell in 2002, his first full season with the Royals following a midseason trade in which the Royals shipped out Jermaine Dye. Perez had his worst full season with the bat, having career lows in average, OBP, slugging, isolated power, and was an astounding 61% worse than average and coupled it with a glove that was -13 runs. Perez was hurt by a low average on balls in play, but he really wasn't helping himself, either. Perez managed to play for five more years and managed to recover in 2003 to put up a 1.1 WAR for the Giants.

RF - Brennan Boesch, Tigers, 2012, -1.3 WAR
Brennan Boesch appeared to be on the verge of a breakout coming in to 2012. In part time play he put up 16 home runs and contributed 1.7 WAR for the Tigers, and was expected to be the Tigers starting right fielder. Full time play did not work out well for Boesch, as he stumbled badly putting up a .240/.286/.372 line. His walk rate dropped, his strikeout rate rose, and his power dropped. To top it all off, Boesch was worth -12 runs in the field. Boesch will have a chance to rebound in a more friendly environment in new Yankee Stadium. As a left handed pull hitter (10 of his 12 home runs were hit to right field), Boesch should benefit from the short porch in right, much like Ichiro did in his half a season in New York.

CF - Bernie Williams, Yankees, 2005, -2.2 WAR
Following the 2006 season I remember the Yankees not resigning Bernie Williams, and I wondered how that happened. He was Bernie Williams! Their best center fielder since Mickey Mantle. Well, now that I know the numbers a bit better, it makes a lot more sense, Bernie Williams just wasn't Bernie Williams any longer. From 1995 to 2002 Bernie Williams was the best and most consistent center fielder in baseball, averaging 5.1 WAR per season, and only once dropping below 4.9 WAR (4.2 in 1996). By the tail end of that stretch his glove didn't really play in center any longer, but his well above average bat still did. In 2003 and 2004 Williams put up slightly above average hitting numbers, but was barely above replacement thanks to his poor defense. In 2005, it all fell apart, though. His play in center field cost the Yankees 29.3 runs, and hit offensive line was below average too. He hit .249/.321/.367 when the league average hitter was hitting .264/.330/.419. Williams "bounced back" in 2006 to a -1.2 WAR, but most of that was through fielding that was bad, instead of historically bad. After the Yankees showed no interest in resigning Williams, he retired from baseball at the age of 38.

LF - Raul Ibanez, Phillies, 2011, -1.3 WAR
In December 2008 the Phillies signed Raul Ibanez to a three year, $30 million contract that was universally derided by analysts. After all, Ibanez was about to turn 37 and had been an ok, but not great outfielder for the Mariners. Ibanez responded to the deal by putting up the best season of his career, setting career highs in home runs (34) and slugging percentage. Unfortunately for the Phillies and Ibanez, multi-year deals are not evaluated on their first year alone. Ibanez returned to his more normal production in in 2010, and fell of a cliff in 2011, in part thanks to a massive decline in his walk rate, and terrible fielding, as measured by UZR. It was awfully bad timing for Ibanez, who was hitting the free agent market again. He landed as a bench bat on the Yankees and made good use of platoon splits, the short porch in right field, and avoiding wearing a glove as much as humanly possible to bounce back to a 1.1 WAR season. Ibanez is now a Mariner, after signing a one year, $2.75 deal, but will likely find Safeco Field much less forgiving.

DH - Adam Dunn, White Sox, 2011, -3.0 WAR
From 2004 to 2010 Adam Dunn was as consistent a power source you could possibly imagine. In fact, he hit exactly 40 home runs from 2005 to 2008, then followed that up with consecutive years with 38 home runs. He was a three true outcomes player - lots of walks, strike outs, and home runs. When the White Sox signed him to a four year, $56 million deal they thought they were getting that consistent power and shifting him to first base and designated hitter from the outfield would minimize remove most unfortunate side effects of him playing the field (-128 runs of fielding "value" for his career). Unfortunately for the White Sox, Dunn went from a three true outcome player to a two true outcome player. His strikeout rate skyrocketed to a career high 35.7% , his isolated power (slugging minus batting average) dropped from an elite .276 to .118. Dunn fell just short of qualifying for the batting title in 2011, but his .118 ISO would have ranked 121st, out of 145 qualifiers and behind such power hitters as Coco Crisp, Yunel Escobar, and Erik Aybar. Despite his spectuacularly bad season, Dunn bounced back in 2012, hitting 41 home runs. The power was nice, but his average was still .204. Despite the return to form home run wise, Dunn's strikeout rate lingered in the mid-30s. If that rate climbs at all, Dunn could return to being a non-factor offensively, even if he hits 40 home runs.

All told, this team provides a combined -15 WAR. Since we'd expect a replacement level team to have a .320 win percentage, or 52 wins over the course of a season (per Baseball Reference), this team would expect to win 37 games, good for a 22.8% win percentage. While this team would be worse than the 1962 Mets, the worst team in the modern era, they would escape the ignominy of being the worst team ever as the 1899 Cleveland Spiders won an astounding 13% of their games (20-134).

Just how badly would Jose Iglesias have to hit in order to be below average?

2013-03-21T12:00:00.000-04:00

With Stephen Drew slow to return from a concussion and without a clear time table, as if often the case with concussions, just ask Justin Morneau, the Red Sox are considering Jose Iglesias at short to begin the season. It all depends on his contribution with the other aspects of his game, so let's see if we can get some rough estimates there. A quick reminder - I'll be discussing value in terms of runs here, but at the end we'll discuss it in terms of wins. The quick and dirty conversion from runs to wins, whether they're runs saved defensively or runs scored offensively, is one win equals 10 runs.

Everyone considers Iglesias the best defender in the minors, and the advanced metrics for his career put him at saving an astounding 41 runs over the course of a full season. Granted, these metrics take much longer than one month to stabilize and this would have put Iglesias as twice as good a defender as anyone else in baseball, but the advanced metrics support the assertion that Iglesias is an elite defender. Last year the best defenders saved just over 20 runs, and since 1950 40 different shortstops have had seasons where they saved 20 or more runs, led by Mark Belanger's 1975 when he saved 33 runs. Given Iglesias' defensive pedigree and universal defensive acclaim, I think 20 runs over the course of a full season is reasonable, and this could be a fairly conservative estimate.

Iglesias is fairly fast, but does not have blazing speed. He seems to have good base running instincts, but does not run very often (12 SB, 3 CS in 400 PA in AAA last year, 75% success rate for his career in the minors). As far as comparables, Rafael Furcal (the current version, not the 46 steal version from 2005) who stole 12 bases and was caught 4 times seems like a good fit. In 2012, Furcal was worth 2.5 runs on the bases. This value includes other aspects of base running, such as advancing on hits, but for simplicity's sake, we'll pick our comparable using stolen base numbers.

Finally, we get to the last numbers on the positive side of the ledger. First of all, Fangraphs defines "replacement level" as -20 runs per 600 plate appearances, so we get to add 20 runs to Iglesias' total. Also, shortstop is an extremely thin position. It has been said over and over again, but the golden age of shortstops is long past us. The average shortstop hit .256/.310/.375 in 2012, so the bar is rather low for Iglesias. That level of league wide production puts the positional adjustment at 7 runs. This means that just by playing shortstop, Iglesias get a bonus of 7 runs over a position like third base, where hitters were about league average, or even more for a position like first base or a corner outfield spot where hitters are penalized for their position, given the expectation that they hit above league average just to be average for their position. So, just for playing shortstop in the majors, Iglesias gets +27 runs to his overall numbers.

So up to this point, we have Jose Iglesias being a 50 run, or five win player, in 2012 if he can just manage to have no negative value as a hitter. For example, Alcides Escobar's 2012 batting line of .293/.331/.390 was worth exactly zero point zero runs. Unfortunately, Iglesias is extremely unlikely to match that kind of production, having hit only .266/.318/.306 in AAA last year. But, in order to have positive value for the Red Sox, he'd only need to be better than -50 runs. According to Fangraph's calculations, Drew Stubbs (-20) was the worst hitter in the league last year. Negative thirty runs is awfully hard to come by, but a nice comparable might be Cezar Izturis' 2010*. Given 500 plate appearances, Izturis hit an incredible .230/.277/.268. Those numbers actually match Igelsias' AAA numbers nicely, adjusting them to the better competition in the majors (.229/.272/.263). Iglesias does have youth on his side, though. He is only 23 and has plenty of room to grow, and this spring training he has six extra base hits in 46 at bats, compared to 11 in 353 at bats in AAA last year.

* The worst batting line of the last 20 years comes courtesy of the Royals, who rolled out Neifi Perez's .236/.260/.303 line for almost 600 plate appearances, good for a mind boggling -42 runs. Sadly, his fielding wasn't doing him any favors either, at -13 runs. This all led to Perez putting up the worst season in the last 20 years at 2.9 wins BELOW replacement and negative eight million dollars worth of performance , and after he was the centerpiece the Royals received after trading away Jermaine Dye to get him. Somehow the Royals managed to foist him and his $4 million salary off on the Giants, where he rebounded to a 1.1 win season, thanks in large part to a return to form defensively.

Overall, this analysis backs up the general assertions that if the Red Sox put Iglesias in the lineup right now, he'd be a two win player. Whether or not that will stunt his development as a hitter or if his failings on offense will affect his focus on defense is an entirely different set of questions. Concussions are tricky injuries and Drew's may linger over the course of the season; if that does happen, the Red Sox may be in the tricky position of balancing using the best shortstop they have on the roster at the expense allowing that player to continue to develop in the minor leagues.