Links 11-1-2011: Pedroia wins a Fielding Bible award

Congratulations to Dustin Pedroia, who finished first among all second basemen in this year’s Fielding Bible Awards (expanded results are here). Adrian Gonzalez finished in second place among all first basemen, making the right side of our infield the best in baseball. Those of you holding out for us to sign Albert Pujols, it ain’t happening. You can’t play either of those guys at DH or anywhere else.

Carl Crawford finished eighth in left field, and Jacoby Ellsbury was sixth among centerfielders.

10-6-2011: The year that was

Alright, now that the initial sting has worn off a bit, I can go back and actually try to analyze this past season with some objectivity. We’ll cover our predictions, what went right and what went wrong.

First up, we predicted that the Sox would take the division with 92 wins. While the win figure was not off by much, the Yankees took it with 97 wins (not 90), and of course the Rays edged us out in the final game of the season with 91 wins (not 83). We also had Baltimore with 79 wins and Toronto at 76. Oops.

OFFENSE

We projected Boston to be 2nd best in the AL East at 820 runs behind New York’s 830 runs. In actuality, we led all of baseball by scoring 875 runs compared to 867 for the pinstripes.

9-29-2011: RIP to the Red Sox

Last night was such a fitting end to the Red Sox’ 2011 season. With the Sox up 3-2 and the Rays trailing New York 7-0, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that, at worst, we’d be playing that one-game playoff today. But one rain delay, a Dan Johnson pinch-hit home run and a Jonathan Papelbon collapse later, it was suddenly gone. I just have no words. How do you explain a season where we were roundly picked as the best team in baseball, and we collapse like this? How do you explain THIS (image taken from FanGraphs.com):

9-7-2011: Just how good are these prospects, anyway?

The Red Sox had a lot of their top prospects succumb to injury or slump in 2011, but not all the news is bad. Once these guys get up to the Double-A and Triple-A levels, it becomes possible to project what their batting lines might be based on their component rates (how often they walk, strike out, hit home runs, etc.).

Here’s a quick look at what we might get out of these guys next year, based on their track record so far (all numbers assume starting roles for the Red Sox next season, adjusted for Fenway Park).

Josh Reddick, RF (.261/.321/.433 with 35 doubles and 18 HR in 557 AB)

Reddick finally got healthy and got the chance to open some eyes this year with his bat, his glove and energetic play. While he had a great season, most of his batting average came from an unusually high rate of singles, as shown by his high-ish .329 BABIP. His projected 7.6 BB% and 20.9 K% rates for next year suggest that he might be on the cusp of a starting role. It’s worth noting that it won’t take much to better the .232/.304/.360 the Sox got out of their right fielders this season. I fully expect the Sox to give him a shot at the job in the offseason, but they should bring in a short-term veteran for him to compete with.

8-16-2011: Sox have another successful draftee signing deadline

The Red Sox had a number of unsigned draftees the day of the signing deadline, but it was a general trend throughout baseball, as there were a rash of signings last night before midnight. The Sox signed seven more of their top picks, giving them success on nine of their top eleven selections. Only second round pick OF Williams Jerez and 8th rounder OF Senquez Golson did not sign from that group.

Theo Epstein managed to sign both first rounders and both first-round sandwich picks, who we profiled here. RHP Matt Barnes received a $1.5M bonus, while C Blake Swihart signed for $2.5M, LHP Henry Owens got $1.55M and OF Jackie Bradley got $1.1M. Pretty reasonable, since the Pirates had to shell out $13M on their top two picks. 3rd round C Jordan Weems had already signed last month, and 6th round LHP Miguel Pena signed shortly following the draft in June. Also signing with Boston yesterday were the following:

8-12-2011 Links: Pedey vs Cano, Sabathia vs Sox, Gonzalez grounded, defense, prospects report card

Dustin Pedroia is in the midst of his best season ever, and it has sparked discussions about whether he or Robinson Cano is the best second baseman in baseball. Here is Jonathan Scippa’s interesting take. As for me, give me Pedey every time.

Coming into the year, we were worried about our lefty-leaning lineup and some very tough starters in our division. So why is CC Sabathia so bad against Boston this season? David Pinto takes a look.

Mike Axisa at FanGraphs has some nice plots which show how Adrian Gonzalez has fallen into hitting a ton of grounders since about June 18, and how that has directly sapped his home run power. He could be headed for about a 27 HR season, which is lower than most people predicted, but is pretty well in line with the 30 HRs I predicted.

As Sox Therapy points out, the Red Sox defense has gone from very good to great this season, and it’s been a huge reason for our success in June and July.

Wondering how our top prospects are doing on the farm? John Sickels has a summary for you. (SPOILER: It ain’t pretty.)

8-10-2011: Bedard, Aviles and Fields

I’ve been away on vacation, so I just found out a few days ago about the deadline deals that were made. I was very pleased to see that we landed a starter with potential as well as a right-handed hitter off the bench.

SP Erik Bedard and OF Josh Fields for C Tim Federowicz, SP Stephen Fife, RP Juan Rodriguez, and Chih-Hsien Chiang

As I mentioned before, I thought the rotation was the area we needed to improve the most. It would have been ideal to land a quality pitcher without recurrent health issues, but those guys are simply not available unless you trade the farm for them. I was glad to see that we didn’t send any real top-tier talent anywhere in this deal. Other than that, Bedard is almost the ideal acquisition – an established (but not too old) AL pitcher who’s pitched extensively in the AL East, and he is a middle rotation guy who is capable of being much better than that at times. His contract is expiring, so the Sox have the option of re-signing him or possibly getting draft picks when he leaves. The only other thing he lacks besides health is playoff experience.

Josh Fields’ primary function is basically right-handed pop off the bench. He is also a warm body you can stick in the outfield corners. He provides some depth in case something happens to Darnell McDonald.

7-23-2011: Sometimes the best deals ARE the ones not made…

ESPN’s Justin Havens makes the case that Mark Teixeira’s contract may not be panning out quite the way Brian Cashman planned when he signed the slugger long-term. His power remains the same (which, given his HR-friendly home park, is no surprise), but his batting average and defense have declined dramatically in his time as a Yankee. Looks like another fat cat getting comfortable after signing a huge contact.

Two points from this:

1. It was probably a blessing in disguise that the Yankees swooped in and signed Big Tex away from us at the last minute.
2. Adrian Gonzalez is not the kind of guy to let that happen to him.

6-24-2011: Gonzalez, Ortiz and inter-league play

I’m not sure what all the uproar is about. Adrian Gonzalez is the better hitter. He’s the better fielder by far at first base. Ergo, David Ortiz should grab some pine and be ready to pinch hit. Okay, nine games is a long time, and maybe you want to give Papi a start or two in there, but nothing more than that.

As for Gonzalez out in right field (or left)? The man is a $150M investment and a Gold-Glove first baseman. I understand that he’s willing to do whatever helps the team, and he’s not totally inexperienced out there, but he’s not used to running full-tilt to snag flies, or catching balls against the wall or rushing a throw to the plate. Why put him in an unfamiliar situation where he might hurt himself and be out for much longer than a game with Big Papi at first?

6-2-2011: May wrapup, a great month

The month of May was a good one for the Sox, a really good one. They began the month at just 11-15 on the year, scraping the bottom of the division. The offense was barely average, and the pitching was decent but inconsistent. What a difference a month makes. Now Boston sits at 30-26 on the year, and is in second place, just two games back of the Yankees, despite the recent three-game sweep at the hands of the ChiSox. What have been the keys to this turnaround?

Offense

The Red Sox offense was the most potent in the American League in May, and not by a little. Putting up 126 runs in 29 games (5.38 runs/game) is very impressive by 2011 offensive standards, where league average is just 4.30 runs/game. Just a year ago, the average was 4.45 runs/game, and the year before that, it was 4.82 runs/game. So you probably have to kind of mentally add a quarter to a half run per game onto that figure if you want to compare with previous years.

Month	R/G	Avg	OBP	SLG	BABIP	wOBA	BB%	K%
April	4.11	0.243	0.331	0.380	0.283	0.319	10.9	21.1
May	5.38	0.287	0.349	0.472	0.317	0.361	7.9	18.4

As a team, the Red Sox put up a .287/.349/.472 slash line and a .361 wOBA (second was the Yankees at .340) and were about 26 percent better than the average AL offense. Looking at the walk and strikeout rates, it looks like the Sox as a team got more aggressive, and it’s been paying off. also, the power is back on. They hit the most doubles with 61 and tied with New York for first with 39 HRs this month. Even the running game got started (along with Carl Crawford), as the Sox swiped 28 bases in May. Some of this extra production comes from that high .317 BABIP in May. With league average at .286 on the year, that’s going to fall back to earth a bit. Still, this offense has moved up to fourth on the year and has the potential to keep pushing up the ranks.