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We round out our infield with El Captain, Jason Varitek. Tek’s 2007 was a solid rebound from 2006 offensively, and his .255/.367/.421 line was very good, when you consider that AL average for the position is just .254/.318/.395. His .787 OPS was good for fourth-best among all qualifying Major League catchers, ahead of Brian McCann and Kenji Johjima. He bashed 17 HR with 67 RBI, which is still very good production from your catcher spot (especially considering all that he provides for our pitching staff behind the plate). Tek had some big hits for us in the second half, though his overall performance basically tanked (.279/.367/.439 pre-ASB, .225/.366/.398 post-ASB).
Varitek will be 36 next season, and I’ve written a number of times about how much Varitek’s bat seems to have slowed down, hurting his contact numbers. But he still uses that really heavy bat, and powers the ball well when he does make contact. He had the highest strikeout rate of his career in 2007 at 28.0%, and is hitting far fewer line drives and more fly balls than he did just two years ago. He did post the highest walk rate of his career last year at 14.0%, and he’s seeing more pitches overall (4.13 pitches/PA), so what it boils down to is that Tek is swinging at fewer offerings and therefore either gets caught looking or walks more.
Age is definitely taking its toll on Varitek, though he is still great for the position. My biggest concern is finding a replacement for the guy, as the creaky Doug Mirabelli is still installed as his backup and understudy. But back to the projection. I see Varitek’s average and power taking a significant hit this season, as his strikeout rates will remain high and he will have to sit on pitches more at the plate. He is still swinging a very balanced bat from both sides of the plate, which is a good sign, and he looks healthy enough to give us another 130 games and 500 AB this year. Because I think he’ll drop another slot in the order, I’ll expect something like .240/.340/.400 with 13 HR and 50 RBI from him in 2008.
Projection comps:
Marcels: .253/.346/.422 Bill James: .253/.349/.418 ZiPS: .249/.350/.408 CHONE: .249/.346/.422
The Sox have signed a one-year contract with reliever Kyle Snyder worth something upwards of $800k for the 2008 season. Snyder was one of three arbitration-eligible players on the 25-man roster, and now both he and Javier Lopez have signed new deals with Boston.
Like I’ve said many times before, I have no problems with Snyder, and Lopez is actually better than many other LOOGY options right now. Those contracts do not really impact the Sox’ payroll, so even if they bomb, it’s not a big deal to replace them in the bullpen.
Only Kevin Youkilis remains on the list of arbitration-eligible players, with a fairly substantial gap remaining between the two sides on what Youk should be paid next season. Youkilis is asking for $3.7M, and it’s hard to criticize him, given his value to the team and the fact that Ryan Howard just turned down $7M from the Phillies. The Red Sox offer last stood at $2.5M. I would expect the front office to focus all of their attention now on Youkilis, and that they will get a deal done very soon. The final number will land somewhere in the middle on a contract, maybe just a tick above $3M.
The Red Sox are purportedly seeking a reserve first baseman to spell Kevin Youkilis, someone who could also play a little bit of corner outfield in certain situations. The word is they want a left-handed bat off the bench to complement Youk, who hits righty. This role was filled by pretty capably Eric Hinske the last two seasons, but he has now signed with the Diamondbacks, so it is one of the areas of need right now.
Perhaps the most flexible option is Brad Wilkerson, who can play first base and all three outfield spots in a pinch. While his low batting average drags down his OBP, he is pretty patient and walks often. The former NL Rookie of the Year also provides some left-handed pop, which is useful for pinch-hitting situations. Some initial rumors said that Wilkerson was seeking a multiyear deal and a starting role, but that may be changing, according to a recent report. The oft-injured Wilkerson will be 31 this year.
Shawn Green is also a free agent, and fits many of the criteria the Sox are looking for, but he would almost certainly prefer to take a deal where he would get more playing time. Also, his career numbers and experience likely would demand a bigger contract than the other guys on this list (career .283/.355/.494 line). The 35-year old Green is still too good to play a reserve role at this point in his career. Or is he?
33-year old Sean Casey is one of the leading free agent candidates, as a veteran with very good OBP numbers (.366 lifetime and .355 the past three seasons). “The Mayor” doesn’t have much power, but he does hit a good number of doubles and filled a key role on the Detroit Tigers the last year and a half. Casey has been below average at first base the past few years, but he’s not terrible there. He does not play any outfield, but that’s kind of a luxury given his other abilities.
37-year old Ryan Klesko is also left-handed and sports a high .370 career OBP (3-year OBP is .355). He has some outfield experience, but hasn’t played much left field since a major shoulder injury that shelved him for basically all of 2006.
The 36-year old Tony Clark is a switch-hitting first baseman who has only appeared in one career game in left field. He doesn’t have the defensive flexibility of some of these other players, and doesn’t fit the high-OBP profile of most Red Sox players (lifetime .339 OBP and .332 the last three years), but he would provide some very good power off of the bench. He hits lefties well, and was .254/.314/.524/.838 off of left-handed pitching last year, in an otherwise bad year. My sense is he isn’t what Theo is looking for, so the Sox will pass on him.
The Sox can afford to spend money on reserves (Hinske made $5.6M last year, with about half of that paid by Toronto), which is a nice luxury many teams don’t have. If Green can be had, I like him, but Wilkerson and Casey are not bad options, either. Internal candidates would include Brandon Moss and Chris Carter, but the Sox are not ready to commit to either of them at this point.
The Red Sox have signed two former closers to minor league deals, mainly to provide injury insurance in the bullpen. That’s one of the perks of being a World Champion and a competitive club; veterans looking for a ring before they retire are willing to take a shot with you.
Dan Kolb was an All-Star closer for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2004 with 39 saves, but has struggled ever since, in stints with Atlanta, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh. Kolb will be 33 next season, and will never regain that form again, but he is an experienced reliever who could provide depth in the bullpen.
36-year old Dan Miceli has played for a lot of teams over the years, but has proven effective, if somewhat sporadically, in a relief role. Like Kolb, he has spent most of his career in the NL, so it will be interesting to see if he sticks. Anyway, Miceli is unlikely to see Fenway Park unless there are a couple of injuries in the bullpen.
In a season when both Big Papi and Manny Ramirez struggled (relatively speaking), Mike Lowell was a godsend for the Boston Red Sox. Filling the fifth and even the cleanup spot in the order, Lowell turned in a monster season, hitting .324/.378/.501 with 60 XBH and 120 RBI. He made the All-Star team, finished fifth in MVP voting in the AL, and was voted World Series MVP with his heads up, clutch play.
In addition to his bat, Lowell provides a lot of other things: an incredibly steady glove at third base, veteran professionalism and leadership, and a unifying presence in the clubhouse (Lowell is fluent in English and Spanish). The Red Sox went into this offseason with one main priority: RE-SIGN MIKE LOWELL. And they eventually got it done, with the 34-year old Lowell passing on at least one other more lucrative offer from the Phillies.
Boston is a great place for Lowell to play out his career, because his swing is almost tailored for Fenway Park. He hit .373/.418/.575 there last season (as opposed to .276/.339/.428 on the road), taking full advantage of the Monster, and is now batting .316/.375/.512 lifetime at the Fens. You’d be hard pressed to find more extreme splits than that. Lowell is as solid as it gets at third base, and sometimes spectacular, but his limited range keeps him from being truly Gold Glove caliber. Good thing for the Sox that he mitigates that with his expert positioning.
What to expect in 2008? Unfortunately, at least some of last year’s numbers were due to luck, as Lowell sported a career-high .342 BABIP, well above his career average of .293 on balls in play. As good as his numbers looked, his ISO was actually better in 2006 than 2007 (.190 versus .177). So realistically, we can expect something that looks more like his 2006 campaign than last year’s effort. My prediction? .290/.345/.460 with 17 HR and 80 RBI.
Projection comps:
Marcels: .284/.341/.449 16HR 83RBI 532AB Bill James: .282/.349/.459 17HR 81RBI 490AB ZiPS: .272/.333/.429 15HR 64RBI 552AB CHONE: .286/.346/.455 18HR 81RBI 560AB
Should we be worried about David Ortiz? 2007 was an atypical season for both members of the Red Sox’ Dominican duo. For the first time in four seasons, Ortiz missed 40 HR and 130 RBI, posting a line of .332/.445/.621 with 35 HR and 117 RBI. He played through a lot of pain due to a torn meniscus in his knee for the second half of 2006 and all of 2007, and that combined with Manny’s down year had Red Sox Nation complaining about the offensive production. The Sox were not a bad offense by any measure, by the way, finishing 3rd in the AL in runs scored, 2nd in OBP and 3rd in team OPS+.
I can give you lots of reasons why Ortiz’s 2008 numbers will look more like 2004-2006 than his 2007 totals. Ortiz had successful surgery on that knee right after the season, and hasn’t had any problems in his rehab. Even with the bum knee, Ortiz hit an incredible .352/.458/.695 in the second half last year. Ortiz’ high average in 2007 was largely due to an improved approach at the plate against the defensive shift, as well as significant improvement against left-handed pitching (.306/.390/.462 in 2007). And he led the AL in extra base hits, pain or no pain (yes, the same league where MVP Alex Rodriguez plays). The fact is, Ortiz is still improving as a hitter. Conditioning is not an issue, as Ortiz reported to Spring Training last year in the best shape of his life, all muscled out.
I’m not really sure why all four projections below think that Big Papi will slug less than .600 for the first time in five seasons. The only strikes against him are that he turns 32 this year, and that he’s coming back from a knee surgery. And we all know how Papi performs with two strikes against him. I don’t see any reason why he won’t return to the 40-45 HR level with 130 RBI once again. I’ll predict a .310/.410/.600 line to go with that.
Projection comps:
Marcels: .299/.407/.576 34HR 98RBI 502AB Bill James: .298/.408/.587 41HR 109RBI 588AB ZiPS: .297/.400/.596 44HR 138RBI 573AB CHONE: .301/.417/.595 39HR 116RBI 531AB
You’ve heard all the excuses for why he didn’t do well last season: adjusting to a new country, doesn’t speak the language, the Japanese baseball is smaller and slicker, adjusting to the Boston media is tough, getting used to five days rest instead of six, etc.
But when you put it all together, Daisuke Matsuzaka had a pretty darn good rookie season. This is a guy who was seriously being considered for Rookie of the Year honors until about mid-August. He made 32 starts for a team playing in one of the toughest divisions in baseball, led the Sox in IP, and won 15 games his first year. He posted a 1.32 WHIP, an ERA+ of 108, and had a great K/9 ratio, finishing in the AL top 10 for strikeouts, K/9, and H/9.
Some of the not-so-great parts of this season: Dice-K did walk a lot more hitters than I expected, and he was 4th in the league in hit batsmen, not a good thing to be known for. He also allowed 25 HR this year, but his ratio is not terrible, given the number of innings pitched. The good news? A lot of that badness came in clusters, meaning he lost his concentration or focus during a single inning, and it kind of snowballed. I’ve blogged a lot about that “one bad inning” he always had, and how it really made his numbers look worse than they really were.
I expect Dice-K to make a huge jump forward this season, and not just because I’m a fellow Asian. Now that he’s run the gauntlet once, he knows what to expect, how to better pace himself. He’s also had an offseason to think about what went wrong (which, admittedly, could be good or bad). The early criticisms of him being inconsistent from the stretch have been answered, as hitters only hit .220/.306/.365 off of Matsuzaka with men on base. His numbers do look bad with a man on third, but not terribly out of line with what other pitchers put up. Matsuzaka is one of those pitchers who needs to be in a groove, which you can see from hitters lines against him with 0, 1 and 2 outs in an inning:
0 out: .276/.359/.452 1 out: .243/.319/.395 2 out: .214/.295/.359
Dice-K gets progressively tougher within each inning, and I watched him work out of a lot of jams last season. If there’s a bright side to his struggles, it was that he practiced pitching under pressure a lot. That should come in handy in the upcoming season.
Put all this together, and I think Matsuzaka is in for a huge year, and may even just edge Josh Beckett as the top pitcher (statistically) in this rotation. Don’t believe me? Check out his June and July 2007 numbers to see what he is capable of: 5-5 with a 2.65 ERA in 71.1 IP, with 74 K and 29 BB. He’ll be far more comfortable than last year, and looking to impress when he pitches in Japan to start off the 2008 season. He’s also tied for 6th in my list of pitchers with dominant starts in 2007. Basically, all signs point upwards. My forecast looks like this: 210 IP, 17 wins, 205 K with maybe 70 BB and a nice ERA of 3.75.
Projection comps:
Marcels: 11-9 156IP 148K 62BB 4.33ERA Bill James: 14-8 193IP 188K 64BB 3.54ERA ZiPS: 15-10 196IP 177K 60BB 3.95ERA CHONE: - 196IP 185K 67BB 3.99ERA
Kevin Youkilis, Kyle Snyder and Javier Lopez were among the Major League players filing for salary arbitration yesterday. You consider this something of a formality, because Theo Epstein has never gone to arbitration with any Red Sox player, and I don’t expect him to start this year. He will either offer each of these players a one-year contract or non-tender them before the arbitration hearings take place.
Youkilis will of course be given a deal, and there is some buzz on whether he will be signed to a multi-year contract this offseason. I think Youkilis is a wonderful player, but you have to remember that single-year deals give the Sox the greatest flexibility; for example, with Mark Teixeira likely to become a free agent after 2008, they might want to look at signing him long-term to play first base. With Youk in just his first arbitration-eligible season, there’s no rush to sign him for big money, and Epstein would only give him a 3-4 year deal if he would give a hometown discount.
I like Snyder a lot, and think he’s a perfectly good swingman to have in the bullpen. Only problem is that we already have Julian Tavarez to fill that role, and he’s even better at it. Unless we trade Tavarez, there’s a chance the Sox let him go and let someone cheaper, like Devern Hansack, take his spot on the 40-man. These are the tough decisions you have to make as a GM.
As for Lopez, I think the Sox should probably non-tender him. He failed miserably as a LOOGY last year, allowing them to hit .293/.366/.439 off of him last season. Surprisingly, he was very effective against righties in 2007, which has not been the case over his career. The only problem here is who we get to replace him. We had Jay Marshall off of waivers from the Athletics, but then they claimed him back in subsequent roster moves. We could give Craig Breslow a shot at this job, but should he fail, we’re looking at Abe Alvarez as the next option. Hmm… We could always fill this position via trade. The remaining free agent options are not so attractive: there’s Jeremy Affeldt, but he wants a 4-5 year deal and a chance to start (now that’s optimism for you). There’s 38-year old Ron Villone and 39-year old Mike Myers. How about Trever Miller or Ray King? No? Didn’t think so. Maybe Lopez isn’t so bad after all…
At the tender age of 23, Dustin Pedroia set an all-time rookie record for batting average among second basemen. Imagine what he could have done if he had not gotten off to a .182/.308/.236 April start, or if he had not been playing with a fractured hamate bone in his hand for a good deal of September and the playoffs. The reigning AL Rookie of the Year is one tough little guy.
This is a really fun prediction to look at, because Pedey is such a grinder. You just look at him and wonder how he did all that, putting up a .317/.380/.442 line in one of the toughest rookie environments in all of baseball. As far as tools go, he’s just doggedly stubborn at the plate, and when he swings, he gives it everything his 5′ 9″, 180 lb frame can muster. Yet this is a guy who basically managed to never hit under .300 in a minor league season (missed it in a partial season at Pawtucket in 2005 at age 21), who never let people tell him what he can’t do. Pedroia takes the same can-do attitude in the field, and despite average range and just solid glovework, works to improve himself all the time. He went through stretches where he was definitely a very good second baseman last season. Just ask Clay Buchholz, who should buy him drinks for life for saving his no hitter last fall.
Pedroia struck out just 42 times last season, the second fewest for any rookie with 500 ABs since 2000 (Juan Pierre had just 29 in 617 AB as a rookie in 2001). He’s got very good contact skills, and he battles every at-bat, seeing on average 3.80 pitches every time up. He also hit an amazing .351/.410/.502 at Fenway, helping to cement him as a fan favorite early in his career. 25 of his 39 doubles were hit here, either banged off of the Monster in left or down the right-field line. Pedroia uses the whole field when he bats, and doesn’t try to do too much with pitches. This makes him almost an ideal #2 hitter; only his speed is lacking, but he’s still a smart baserunner.
He’s turning 24 this year, and will be entering his prime years soon. I can see Pedey hitting right around .300 this season, while his OBP will probably come down just a bit. I don’t think there is any more power than what we’ve seen from him already, so I’ll predict something like: .300/.370/.425 with 35 doubles, 8-12 HR and 60 RBI. If he does bat second, he’s a decent candidate to score 100 runs this year.
Projection comps:
Marcels: .303/.355/.437 9HR 48RBI 446AB Bill James: .300/.369/.436 9HR 57RBI 523AB CHONE: .299/.373/.432 8HR 58RBI 498AB
I was hoping that this would be the year, but it appears that the Sox aren’t ready to move on from Doug Mirabelli quite yet. The 37-year old catcher is said to be signing a guaranteed contract worth at least $550k plus incentives. Together with Jason Varitek, the Red Sox will feature the oldest catching tandem in the Majors.
I know there’s a real comfort factor with him catching Tim Wakefield, but COME ON! Mirabelli’s batting runs above replacement have been negative for two full years, and his OPS+ numbers have been 52 and 63 the past two seasons, meaning he is about 40-50% worse than the average big league hitter. He just doesn’t have anything to offer besides catching the knuckleball, and he had six passed balls in 2007 and 11 in 2006, BTW. Are Dusty Brown and George Kottaras really more of a wasted roster spot than Mirabelli at this point?
This catching situation is getting to be a real concern, because Tek’s contract is up after this season. There’s been talk about extending him for two more years, but how long can they stick with this duo without grooming a replacement for Varitek?
MLB Trade Rumors points out that Kenji Johjima is likely to hit the free agent market after 2008, with uber-prospect Jeff Clement rising through the ranks in Seattle, and having a Japanese-speaking catcher could potentially help Daisuke Matsuzaka.
