Boston Red Sox Preview

My father was born the year after the Red Sox won their previous World Series (1918); while he’s not a fan of the team, he’s always been fascinated by the concept of a “Curse” — as an applied scientist, he found himself drawn to any/all ways that superstition manifested itself. He remarked to me after the 2003 ALCS (when the Sox lost Game 7) that he wasn’t at all sure that he’d ever see the Red Sox break through. Like most of us, he was stunned last year to watch what was the strangest combination of impossible-playoff-comeback/anti-climactic-World-Series-sweep in the history of baseball. As he said to me right after the Sox won: “If it was so easy to win the Series like that, why did it take so long?” To which I replied: who the hell knows?

Certainly none of those who expected last year’s team to win the AL East with 105+ wins — all of you who felt compelled to rewrite (read: fold/spindle/mutilate) my 2004 Red Sox preview. That didn’t happen; but sometimes you get a break anyway. Enjoy it, savor it, but don’t get used to it. Let’s briefly examine the main tenet of last year’s preview and see how well it stacked up with what actually happened

The Sox will score fewer runs, and need to have better pitching to improve their seasonal record and their chances in the post-season.

As it turned out, the downturn in actual runs scored was not as great as I suggested it would be. David Ortiz saw to that; when calibrating the offensive projection for the Sox last year, I didn’t anticipate that his second half of 2003 would effectively be the level of performance that he could continue to produce for the entire 2004 season. To quote the Roman lyric poet Catullus, who first invented the phrase: my bad. Ortiz put about 40 extra runs back into the Sox’ offense from what I’d estimated.

It does turn out, though, that the Sox’ offense declined by more than what the raw runs scored totals indicate. Fenway’s park factor was up in ’04, and when we adjust for that, the Sox were 10% better than the league in runs scored, as compared with 16% above league in ’03.

Where they made their gain was (naturally enough) in pitching. The Sox were only 2% above league average in run prevention in 2003; last year, they upped that to a very creditable 12% above league. They achieved this despite a “lesser” season (as predicted here, by the way) from the now-departed Pedro Martinez, and a second sub-par year (as predicted here) from the now-departed Derek Lowe (whose post-season return to form is one of the many ironies involved in the Sox’ “October surprise”).

Where did they make it up? First and foremost, Curt Schilling (and when the lore of the game is celebrated, Curt will have an honored place due to his two amazing, improbable post-season performances on an injured ankle, one that will keep him out of action in the early going of 2005).

Second, Keith Foulke—giving the Sox a more traditional closer function than the vaunted Boston “sabermetric brain trust” (you know who they/you are, so we’ll leave the name-dropping to the official scorer) had wanted to implement.

As an aside, it is odd that all these so-called “sabermetric” teams — the A’s and the Sox, at least — begin by ramping up offense, but end up winning by improving their pitching. The challenge for the ’05 Sox will be to not slide right back down the firepole with respect to their hurlers: we’ll go into more detail later.)

I said that the win range for the Sox last year was 90-to-100. They won 98, “should have won” 99, so the estimate was “accurate,” just not as optimistic as those who saw the offense as the second coming of the ’39 Yankees and the addition of Schilling pushing the team into the realm of truly great teams.

What the Sox brain trust did very well last year was to build their team around the idea of beating the Yankees in head-to-head competition—and especially in low-scoring games. The Red Sox played seven road games against “good teams” (ones with .500 or better WPCTs) where the two clubs scored a total of six or fewer runs; their record in those games was only 4-3, but four of these games were played in Yankee Stadium:

Date      HA  Opp  WL  RS  RA  W  L 
4/24/04    A  NYY   W   3   2  1  0 
4/25/04    A  NYY   W   2   0  1  0 
5/2/04     A  TEX   L   1   4  0  1 
6/30/04    A  NYY   L   2   4  0  1 
7/16/04    A  ANA   W   4   2  1  0 
6/20/04    A  SFG   L   0   4  0  1 
9/17/04    A  NYY   W   3   2  1  0 

This paid off with the ultimate dividend in the ALCS when the Sox tagged Mariano Rivera with back-to-back blown saves in Games 4-5 and then won another-low-scoring-game-in-Yankee-Stadium (4-2) in Game 6.

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So much for ’04. It’s great to have “the Curse” lifted, but what have you done for us lately?

Well, Theo and his band of tinkerers have been working fitfully over the off-season. They let Martinez and Lowe hit the road, and brought in Matt Clement, Wade Miller, John Halama, and David Wells to take their place. They spent most of their salary money on re-signing catcher Jason Varitek and snagging Edgar Renteria, the shortstop for the team they demolished in the surrealistically anti-climactic World Series. They decided that Jay Payton was their new idea of the perfect fourth outfielder. They’ve tinkered with their bullpen a bit, adding Matt Mantei and drop-kicking Byung-Hyun Kim to the mile-high hellhole of Denver.

All of this stuff may be based on some intricate analysis, but it looks rather pedestrian and downright mainstream (I’ve thrown down the gauntlet now, haven’t I, kiddies?). With respect to the starting pitchers, the Sox are simply substituting quantity for quality, and gambling that Miller’s arm will recover sufficiently this year to help them. Wells has been looking as though he’s pitching on fumes this spring, and the Sox will have to wait until close to summer to (possibly) have their optimum rotation.

The Renteria signing certainly isn’t part of the “buy low, cash out” strategy that is so frequently bandied about by the ex-post facto cognoscenti. Edgar is a solid player, but $10 million a year is Yankee-type money. The Sox won with Orlando Cabrera, which would appear to have been a reasonable (and cheaper) option.

Re-signing Varitek is one of those sentimental things that World Series winners tend to do. Jason has certainly been more than serviceable (and, more to the point, more than what even the most optimistic Sox fan expected him to be when he was first acquired.)

The Sox are not a young team, again going against the grain of neo-sabe ideology. They have only two home-grown players (Trot Nixon and the “Greek God of $$ball”, Kevin Youkilis). They are a strange amalgamation of Dan Duquette (less and less present in the team makeup), Bill James (“the sum of my spare parts is greater than the [w]hole in my right rear tire”), and mainstream big-market spending (Schilling, Foulke, Renteria, Varitek). They will need constant overhauling for the next 3-4 years because their farm system isn’t producing very much, and that will move them more toward the third player acquisition method due to the fact that they have the $$ to spend and will need to do so in order to keep abreast with the even-deeper pockets in New York.

For this year, the offense is still solid, but it’s going to continue to suffer some seepage, which will be more noticeable in ’05 than it turned out to be last season. We’re looking at maybe 6-8% above league this year—not a drastic downturn, just the usual effects of aging and what our more advanced pundits like to refer to as “regression to the mean.”

The starting pitching looks pretty dicey, what with Schilling and Miller sidelined, and the Wells/Halama tandem looking more than a bit rickety. (These really were odd signings: both lefties have lifetime ERAs in Fenway approaching 5.00.) The big push for the team early in ’05 is going to be to get the most it can from Tim Wakefield, Bronson Arroyo and Matt Clement, because this is what will keep them afloat until they can get at least one top-level starter into the rotation.

The bullpen should be the lifeline for this year’s team, with more depth on hand to set up Foulke, and even a shot at a multiple-closer scenario if Mantei is able to stay healthy. The left-right balance looks very good, now that Mike Myers has been brought back; this should allow Terry Francona to do a very creditable imitation of neo-sabe dartboard target Tony LaRussa. It may well be that the relievers keep the Sox in the race by gluing things together early in the year; if they don’t, it’s going to make things a lot more difficult in the homestretch.

Figure that the pitching will come in around 5-7% above league average. Using the semi-informal formula runs scored above league times runs allowed above league times 81, that brings the Sox into the 90-95 win range this year, an assessment that I’m sure will bring out the “do-over” contingent to another lengthy harangue from the various flavors of the faithful.

Perhaps it will be mitigated, however, by the collective memory of that Blessed Occurrence last fall, a once-in-a-millennium miracle that makes virgin birth look like merely the next step in stem-cell research. My dad, who is now as old as the Curse was when it was at last broken, has slowed down a good bit since last October, but he’s still sentient enough to know that he’ll never, ever see anything like that again and neither will the rest of us, no matter how many other lives we get to live.

2005 ZiPS Projections

Name          ERA   W   L   G  GS     INN    H   ER   BB    K  HR 
Schilling    3.26  19   6  32  31   218.0  201   79   36  203  24 
Foulke       3.42   6   2  70   0    79.0   71   30   17   72   8 
Arroyo       3.83  11   6  31  26   169.0  167   72   43  132  17 
Neal         3.95   4   3  63   0    73.0   70   32   26   58   5 
Embree*      3.98   4   2  68   0    52.0   48   23   16   48   6 
Mantei       4.05   4   3  39   0    40.0   36   18   14   42   5 
Wells*       4.17  13   9  31  31   203.0  230   94   28   98  24 
Dinardo*     4.32   6   4  26  15   100.0  106   48   31   62  10 
Miller       4.33  12   9  27  27   156.0  154   75   65  122  14 
Timlin       4.33   6   4  74   0    81.0   85   39   15   53  12 
Cressend     4.36   5   3  39   2    66.0   71   32   22   39   6 
Clement      4.38  13  11  31  31   187.0  183   91   76  160  20 
Myers*       4.39   2   3  70   0    41.0   40   20   21   29   3 
Papelbon     4.57  11   8  24  24   124.0  112   63   69  123  13 
Kershner*    4.60   4   6  55   5    88.0   93   45   30   65  11 
Stephens     4.66   9   7  28  26   164.0  175   85   42  117  27 
Malaska*     4.70   7   5  41  13   111.0  117   58   40   72  14 
Wakefield    4.80  10   9  36  28   182.0  191   97   69  127  25 
Halama*      4.86   5   6  34  13   111.0  127   60   31   54  15 
Alvarez*     4.87  11   9  27  27   135.0  146   73   43   92  21 
Gonzalez     5.06   7   7  34  21   137.0  148   77   55   89  18 
Manzanillo   5.27   2   3  33   0    41.0   45   24   15   29   8 
Cassidy      5.52   3   4  46   6    75.0   76   46   44   57  11 
Martinez     5.56   6   7  39  11   102.0  104   63   65   77  13 
Narveson*    5.67   8  12  26  26   146.0  158   92   76   90  21 
Lester*      5.81   6   8  22  20    93.0   92   60   68   67  10 
Tomori       6.17   2   4  35   0    35.0   42   24    9   27  10 
Wilson       6.31   6  11  30  20   134.0  174   94   25   62  37 
Bausher      6.32   5  11  26  19   111.0  125   78   53  103  29 
Zink         6.55   6  10  26  23   136.0  150   99  114   68  14 

Name         P    AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   H 2B 3B HR   R RBI  BB   K SB CS 
Ramirez      lf  .311  .409  .589 147 547 170 38  0 38 101 115  87 107  2  3 
Ortiz*       1b  .298  .380  .588 142 527 157 44  2 35  83 112  69 111  0  0 
Renteria     ss  .324  .382  .467 156 598 194 47  1 12  94  85  53  63 22 11 
Damon*       cf  .290  .367  .443 151 628 182 36  6 16 113  78  76  71 20  9 
Millar       1b  .288  .369  .469 145 507 146 35  0 19  71  77  56  92  1  2 
Bellhorn#    2b  .267  .381  .450 136 469 125 32  3 16  77  66  84 151  6  3 
Nixon*       rf  .282  .371  .505 121 412 116 26  3 20  65  70  58  83  2  2 
Varitek#     c   .274  .361  .452 137 460 126 29  1 17  60  69  56 112  6  3 
Payton       cf  .288  .345  .442 139 507 146 25  4 15  69  66  41  59  4  2 
Mueller#     3b  .289  .369  .454 122 432 125 31  2 12  68  59  53  60  1  3 
Petagine*    1b  .282  .397  .450 115 362 102 19  0 14  64  62  65  80  1  1 
Hummel       3b  .273  .337  .396 133 472 129 29  1  9  62  55  42  84  4  3 
Youkilis     3b  .266  .367  .390 120 410 109 24  0  9  71  49  63  69  2  2 
Pond*        lf  .283  .347  .432 110 410 116 32  1  9  56  53  37  84  1  2 
Machado      2b  .271  .334  .335 136 490 133 14  4  3  58  37  43  68 24 11 
Shoppach     c   .240  .314  .429 109 387  93 25  0 16  56  57  39 125  0  0 
Vazquez*     ss  .279  .362  .359 108 373 104 18  3  2  48  46  46  68  7  4 
Stern*       lf  .279  .327  .385 102 384 107 20  3  5  62  42  25  63 22 15 
Figueroa#    2b  .265  .315  .344 115 407 108 21  1  3  50  38  27  29  5  6 
McMillon*    lf  .286  .361  .488  82 213  61 16  0  9  24  30  24  44  1  1 
McCarty      1b  .244  .323  .407  96 275  67 16  1  9  42  38  30  66  2  1 
Ramirez#     ss  .255  .295  .329 103 365  93 11  2  4  56  30  18  71 23 11 
Wooten       dh  .254  .318  .371  91 256  65 18  0  4  31  31  22  40  1  1 
Berg         lf  .259  .307  .358  77 232  60 12  1  3  28  29  14  46  0  2 
Mirabelli    c   .255  .330  .459  59 157  40 11  0  7  22  25  16  40  0  0