Apparently there’s
a ball
game on television tonight.
If the shellackings
meted out to BC and Northeastern last night are any indication — and, of
course, they aren’t — it’s gonna be a helluva a season.
The defense
of the Mayor’s
Cup begins in earnest. Dice-K shall lead us.
(It is,
incidentally, the first time the Red Sox have ever played on February 29.)
As we look
ahead to another exciting (explosive? extraordinary?) season, I figured it
would be worthwhile to share some interesting insights from the new Bill
James Goldmine 2008, an excellent 317-page paperback teaser for the vast
treasure trove of esoteric stats and learned essays available — for a piddling $3/month
subscription fee — at the bearded one’s new Internet venture (launched with John
Dewan), Bill James Online.
The site is
meant to seek solutions to “every question I could find about baseball to which
I did not know the answer.” (Yes, I too was surprised to learn that James isn’t
actually omniscient.)
Examples James
offers: How many runs for a given player were driven in on homers? Or on
doubles? Or singles? How many times did one particular player drive in another
particular player?
The online
site offers “thousands of profiles” for players active and retired. The book
breaks things down by team, and James has some interesting things to say about
the ’07 Sox.
We know
they led the majors with the fewest runs allowed, and most walks drawn.
But did you
know that...
“The Red
Sox are the only playoff team with double-digit Win
Shares at each of the nine positions.”
“When David
Ortiz led off for the Red Sox last year, the Red Sox scored .78 runs per
inning.”
“Opposing
hitters have been remarkably consistent (and remarkably poor) against Josh
Beckett, hitting no higher than .246 and no worse than .232 in any season of
Beckett’s six-year career.”
“Hideki
Okajima’s favorite pitches were his fastball, his changeup and his curveball,
in that order. But when in a lefty-lefty match-up, he relied more on the
curveball (25% of the time) than the changeup (19%). Against righties, the
curveball was fairly rare (only 12% of his pitches).”
James also
offers intriguing takes on the early season struggles of JD Drew and Julio
Lugo. (Ideally, they’ll each be starting ’08 like they ended ’07, of course.)
The former
“was perceived as having a bad season because he was expected to drive in runs
and did poorly in that area, which overshadowed the fact that he was having an
extremely good year in terms of scoring runs.” The latter “was expected to get
on base, steal bases, and score runs., and he had a poor year in those areas,
which overshadowed the fact that he had a remarkably good year in terms of
driving in runs.”
James being
James, he adds this tidbit of arcana: “Lugo was
not driving in Drew...Lugo
drove in Drew only five times.”
Health, of
course, is key to keeping things going. Remarkably, James notes that “the Red
Sox opening-day starters accounted for 84% of their regular season starting
lineups. No other team had more than 77%. The major league average is 70%.”
Let’s do
that again. (And have all the pitchers make all their starts, too, just like in
’04.)
In other
news, the Maple Street Press Red Sox
Annual is an excellent Sox-specific way to gear up for the coming season.
Written (in conjunction with Sons of Sam Horn) by a cadre of knowledgeable
fans, the book covers the team in all its facets.
* Chad Finn looks ahead to
the potential strengths of the 2008 team.
* Seth Mnookin offers an update of
sorts to his Feeding
the Monster, examining the flush new fortunes of Red Sox Nation.
* Vince Gennaro
sizes up the economic of building (fingers crossed) a Red Sox dynasty.
* Pete Palmer crunches the
numbers to explain why the team doesn’t need a LOOGY
in the ‘pen.
* David Laurila
interviews John Farrell and Mike Hazen.
* Bill
Nowlin offers a fresh look at Ted Williams’s years as a Marine.
And much
more...
Things are
looking good. We’ve got some pretty decent players to watch this year. Lester
and Buchholz will be exciting, of course. Pedroia and Ellsbury, too.
And, while Manny may be the only sure-thing first-ballot Hall-of-Famer on the
team, James’s Gold Mine assess the
Cooperstown chances of some of the better players in the majors.
Schilling?
60% shot of induction at present, 65% eventually. (Doubtful he’ll do much more
to pad his resume now, of course.)
Ortiz? 10%
present, 51% eventual.
Beckett? 0%
present, 33% eventual.
Papelbon?
0% present, 7% eventual.
Varitek? 1%
present, 3% eventual.
Lowell? 0% present, 2% eventual.
Wakefield? 0% present, 2% eventual.
(Manny, for
comparison’s sake, is rated 50% present, 80% eventual.)
All of
which is to say that we’ve got a pretty good ball club.
As is noted
in the new Baseball Prospectus:
Everywhere
you look, the Red Sox are finding small edges, putting new practices in place,
and investing in their organization. Analysts were excited when Theo Epstein
was hired as GM because they saw him as someone who understood the value of
statistics in evaluating players and running a team, but Epstein brings more
than just that to the table. Along with John Henry, himself open to new ideas,
Epstein has applied thought to all areas of running a baseball team with an eye
toward improving what can be improved and spending money where it will help,
all with one goal in mind: winning championships. A bit more than four years
since taking the job, he's won two. More than that, though, he's built the
model organization in baseball and arguably sports. No franchise combines
on-field success, off-field processes, and profitability the way the Boston Red
Sox do. This is what the start of a dynasty looks like.
Play ball.