where is the intensity?

Ugh. We are more than two months into the season and I don’t get a sense from this team—indeed, from this organization—that they are playing with any sort of intensity. Criminy, the reporters who cover the team don’t seem to have any sense of urgency either.

The Sox lost a tough game last night to the Yankees and the big stories in the Herald are Pauley pitched really well and Seanez didn’t give in to Giambi (apparently walking in the go-ahead run is not giving in). The Globe has similar fare ...

Weekly Minor League Thread: Natale moves up!

Natale was promoted to hi-A Wilmington today after crushing Greenville for 300ish PAs. He promptly homered in his first AB. Hopefully, this move means his glove has improved a bit.

I have for a while been planning to introduce a nickname for Natale, and now seems like a good time. He shall be known as GadzYouki. Just as Gadzuki was a smaller, less-menacing, comic relief for Godzilla, GadzYouki is to Youkilis. Youks went to Cinci, not a baseball powerhouse, while GadzYouki went to a DIVISION ...

Revving up for the draft with Philly

The draft is just around the corner on June 6, and the Red Sox hold the 27th, 28th, 40th and 44th picks. What can they expect to get in those slots? Over at SOSH, Philly has been posting draft summaries for the years of 1987-1994, in preparation for the latest revision of his draft study. Here are the links:

1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994

For my money, Philly’s work on this subject is the most fascinating around. This year, he’s even improved it by also considering the performance ...

The (not so) Great Batting Order Debate

According to the Globe, Coco will return to the lineup on Monday. And according to previous Globe articles, he will be leading off with Loretta batting 2nd and Youkilis dropping in the order.

Now, it’s pretty widely accepted in sabermetric circles that batting order means very little, but it still seems to generate a lot of debate. Maybe it’s because some decisions seem so blatantly obvious?

This seems like one of those decisions to me. I am fine with putting Coco back in the leadoff spot ...

Weekly Minor League Thread: Ellsbury’s triumphant return

With the big club making me want to throw up, I figure it’s a good time to focus on any good news I can find about the minors. Here’s a little from each level.

Pawtucket:
—Pedroia had a couple of nice games before going 0-3 today. This must mean that his spring training is over (unless he continues to suck, in which case it’s not.)
—We have a number of interesting relievers on this team: Breslow, Van Buren, and Delcarmen, and Holtz have all put up some nice numbers. Ginter got whacked tonight ...

42 Down - 120 Left: Season to date

The Sox are plugging along on pace for a 100 wins, two and a half up on the Yankees with 2 more games to play heads up this week.  The runs scored/runs allowed isn’t indicative of a 100 win team, but we will leave the Pythagorean World Series to the A’s fans. 

From the batters box we have had a couple of unexpected surprises at the corners - Youkilis and Lowell have been among the best players at their position in the AL.  Papi and Manny have been the beasts that they always are. Nixon and ...

Weekly Minor League Thread: Lester heats up

Lester has put up 3-4 good starts in a row, enough to make his line for the year quite respectable: 32.1 IP, 30 H, 4 HR, 13 BB, 34 K. That’s a really nice K rate, a decent BB rate and hit rate, and a borderline HR rate, depending on who’s park factors you believe. Whatever the case, it’s good enough that it doesn’t make you doubt him as a good prospect.

Couple of other points of interest:

—Injuries: Anybody know what happened to Ellsbury and Lowrie? Soto is out til late June, according to ...

Lineup Shakeup; J.T. Wants Out

The Sox go into interleague play at Philadelphia tomorrow and that means no DH. According to this article in the Herald (via the MetroWest Daily News), the Sox will rotate Ortiz, Youks, and Lowell among 1b and 3b over the three games, with each sitting for one game.

Not in that rotation? J.T. Snow, who has requested a trade, says the Hartford Courant.

In other news (all from the Herald article), Ortiz is recovering from a bout with the flu, and Dustan Mohr is a new dad (which explains why ...

Thank You, Dewey #24

A good friend of mine has some sort of connection to Dwight Evans through Evans’ sister Denise. And so a couple days ago out of the blue I got a signed 8 x 10 glossy of Evans and a baseball, both signed by Evans: “To Toby, Best Wishes, Dwight Evans #24”.

My friend relates: “According to Denise, he doesn’t sign much stuff anymore.  Apparently he was surprised anyone remembered him and would want it.”

I’m 39 years old and this is the first autographed anything I’ve ever had. I don’t think it’s ...

A New Man(ny)?

What is the deal with Manny this year? His line,  .305 .447 .500 is very nice, but it is extremely unlike his hitting in the past. He hasn’t seen anything close to that .195 ISO since 1997, and it is a reflection of his huge drop in both 2bs and HRs. Meanwhile, both is K and BB rates are off the charts—he’s on pace for 140+ of each. The walks may be partially a function of his spot in the lineup, but that wouldn’t explain the strikeouts.

Watching Manny, I haven’t seen much change in Manny’s ...

Weekly Minor League Thread: Blah

There isn’t much good news here. In fact, it’s going pretty horribly. Pedroia’s still not hitting, Lowrie and Ellsbury are both hurt, Lester still hasn’t done much. On a brighter note, Buchholz has come off the DL and is pitching well and Bowdein is also looking good.

Leveraging Assets

Apparently Fangraphs is now publising contstantly updated Leverage Index for hitters, pitchers, and teams. It’s great stuff and is certainly relevant to our discussion of the Red Sox bullpen. Here’s the Red Sox Team Page. The three biggies to look at here are in the pen:

Papelbon: 1.59
Timlin: 1.84
Foulke: .96

(1.00 is neutral).

That looks to me like decent deployment of the pen, when you consider that Timlin was the most trusted arm from last year and Foulke started the year with a bunch ...

Waiting for the Yankees on a Rainy Day

Well, it’s rainy here in D.C. at least.

As we await tomorrow’s series in New York, is there any dissent to the plan to skip Clement and move up Wake? I have no problem with it, myself. More and more it seems that Clement is not going to be anything more than he has been, and what he has been is a slight disappointment.

Interesting to see Trot get so much PT against lefties of late. I wonder if Tito is trying to get him more comfortable for a start tomorrow against the Unit?

Haven’t seen any ...

Bullpen Concerns

Can anyone explain to me why, with a 7-1 lead, Francona went to Keith Foulke tonight? Foulke isn’t the only overworked pitcher in the pen, but he’s the leading one. 162 g pace coming into the night: 

Foulke 84 g, 108 ip
Paps 90 g, 98 ip
Timlin 78 g, 68 ip

In the 5/3 game, Francona managed to use all three of these guys to pitch 3.1 ip. Tonight, the first guy he went to with a 7-1 lead was Foulke, which would seem to indicate that he thought the game was still in doubt. But then why go to ...

Poll: Globe’s Chris Snow is best Sox beat writer

Over at Boston Sports Media Watch, Bruce Allen has been running some polls about the Boston media. Bruce is away for a few weeks on a honeymoon—tip o’ the cap to him—but still manages to have the site updated regularly with good stuff.

Today he runs the results of his poll on which Sox beat writer is best. (link, you will have to scroll down a little.) The voters went with Chris Snow of the Globe as best. Then again, on the companion poll (which Sox beat writer is worst), the voters also went ...

Red Sox Sweep Yankees (and get Dougie back)

David Ortiz delivers a key homer in each game and Paps closed ‘em all out. Doesn’t get any better than this.

I have to say, I’m pretty surprised that people are saying that the Red Sox got some kind of steal on the Mirabelli deal. ZIPS has Mirabelli pegged for .228 .315 .386 (SD) in 06 and Bard for .260 .323 .393 (CLEV). Both guys have good defensive reputations, but Bard is seven years younger, cheaper, and under control longer.

From the Padres perspective, a straight up trade of these two ...

Around The Farm - Sox minor league thread for the week of May 1st

Jon Lester has an updated diary entry for Baseball America - he thinks the stats are deceiving and has pitched pretty good, but has been unlucky. He says his curveball is coming around, and he hates pitch counts.  ARTICLE

For the Paw Sox - Choi is hitting well, I’ve gotten mixed reports on his leather.  AAA veteran Ron Calloway has also looked good with the stick.  Petunia, isn’t hitting for any power.  Jeff Bailey has one strange line 224/340/500. Both Stern and Machado, the only prospecty ...

Youkilis is pretty so hard…

MCoA has asked that an ode to Youks be added to Sox Therapy, even though that chump struck out in the ninth today! Swing the bat, this isn’t lawyerball.

As MC noted in another thread, Youkilis seems to be doing an excellent job of tailoring his hitting style to the situation. He tends to be more likely to swing early in the count if there are runners on to be driven in. When the bases are empty, he works the count more. Despite his 2,146 Ks this year, Youk is hitting .299 .406 .414, and his ...

Revenge of Pythagoras

This team has really looked very bad for a while. After all my drooling over Beckett being Clemens-esque, maybe I was jumping the gun. He has very few Ks and a ton of HR this year. That’s not boding well. Schilling also worries me quite a bit because he just doesn’t look all that dominant to me. That’s more subjective. Clement is a better pitcher than he’s shown and I’m just not worried about him… the way I am about Wake/Bard. Yuck.

In the pen, we should keep an eye on Papelbon’s workload. ...

Weekly Minor League Thread: This and that

Just a couple of notes, feel free to add anything that you’d like.

—Since starting the season on a tear, Corsaletti, Ellsbury, and especially Lowrie have come crashing back to earth. Hard. None of them have particularly good numbers right now. I’m beginning to think they won’t all be ready to start in teh Majors next year.

—The Sox signed 30-year-old Corky Miller and placed him in Pawtucket, where Kent Huckaby just went on the DL. This is good depth where the Sox really need it. Corky has ...

The Snow Question

It seems pretty clear that JT Snow was signed for two purposes. First, he’s an adequate player who adds depth at 1B, and (via Youkilis shifting over) at 3B as well. This was crucial because the Sox have very little in the way of ML-ready 1B in the minors. Second, he’s considered a good defender, and therefore makes a good defensive replacement late in games, especially important because Youks is new at the position.

What the Red Sox couldn’t have know this offseason is that both of these ...

Manny D is back

No, this is not about Manny’s defense. It’s about the other Manny, Delcarmen.

He’s up, Van Buren is down.

Manny D has 8 IP at Pawtucket, 0 R, 4 H, 2 BB, 8 K.

Sorry I’ve been hors de combat around here lately. Work, kids, trying to edit the final page proofs for my book. I’ll be back soon to try to dispel the despair that’s soon to sink in around here as Pythagoras starts to pull down the Sox. Well, whatever despair OleP can’t dispel on his own.

Jim wants us (Sox Therapy and other blogs on ...

Kevin Youkilis so far…

Here’s a piece about Youkilis’s new role as a full time player.  I have to say I’m pretty darn happy with the way he’s playing so far. He’s currently 2nd in MLB in Pitches per PA, and is hitting with power and getting on base.

I wonder the Red Sox will consider keeping him at the top of the order when Coco comes back.

Redsox.com: Notes: Papelbon staying in ‘pen

Can’t seem to make the title a link right now for some reason, so Here’s the link.

Good move. Paps is the only reliable reliever right now and he’s excellent at it. I’m not convinced he’d be a much better starter than Dinardo right now, though he might be.

As for Foulke, I don’t like that Tito is letting him finish games despite his not being the closer. The whole point of the games-finished clause in his contract is to reward him for being both healthy and effective enough to close games. ...

Sox Prospects: Dustin Pedroia

Pedroia’s back and there’s a reason to watch Pawtucket again! He went 1-5 in his return last night.

Consider this your weekly minor league thread.

Please excuse the mess

I’m working on some updates including work on an enhanced news system and the addition of forums to the site. The work should only take a few days.

Please excuse the mess.

Nixon falls down and goes boom

Nixon looked pretty goofy but then again, he didn’t convert any outs into HRs, so he’s got that going for him. Early word is that he was pulled as a precaution. Let’s hope so, because Mr. Swingsateverything is not looking to hot. Knowing Nixon’s luck and history, this is a real bummer.

Update (from NTN): Nixon out 5-7 days

So we’ll see him in September.

Boston Globe: Five articles on Sox system

Thanks to TempleUSox.

Evolution in evaluation of prospects

During the season, Sox minor league managers, all given laptops, are required to file reports after each game, which keep the home office apprised not only of how prospects are doing, but allows space for information on top players on other clubs. The Sox also rely heavily on sabermetric measures, statistics that go far beyond the usual standard batting average and earned run average. Things such as equivalency average and VORP (value ...

Red Sox claim Choi

This news comes via tfbg, who I assume read it on SOSH, where they heard it on WEEI and ESPNNEWS. Sure are a lot of 1b/3b types on this team, but Choi is an excellent addition.

Red Sox get Wily Mo

Forgive me if this is stupid and redundant. Everyone in the house is sick and I’m probably delirious. So I thought it might be okay to post a Wily Mo thread in Sox Therapy.

Who wants to create the over/under for the cash involved. I’d say it’s $5 mil, because that’s just enough to make Arroyo an excellent bargain and Wily Mo a bit pricey. For the Red Sox, Wily Mo is kind of like the giant idol that Burns gives to Homer Simpson as a reward. He’s a very valuable thing but he may end up ...