Jon Lester (Boston Globe Staff Photo / Jim Davis)
Today we arrive at the American League preview that many of you are probably the most eager for: the 2011 Boston Red Sox.
Despite a series of injuries so vast many considered the team dead in the water when the news finally broke in August that Kevin Youkilis would miss the rest of the season, the 2010 Red Sox still put up a rather valiant fight. Though they ultimately finished 3rd in the AL East, their 89-73 record was the fifth-best in the American League. The team only spent one day in first place — and that was Sunday, April 4, after beating the Yankees in the season opener — but hung tough in the most treacherous division in baseball for much of the season. After a torrid June, Boston got within 1/2 a game of first place on July 3, but a subsequent four-game losing streak put the team in too deep a hole to climb out of, and the closest they would get to first was 4.5 back after beating Tampa Bay on Friday, August 27.
The Sox and Yankees, as per usual, battled each other to the death in 2010, splitting the season series 9-9 for the second year in a row (since 2003, the year in which the famed rivalry finally found both teams evenly matched, the Yankees hold the smallest of edges, 76-72). The Yankees ensured 2010 would not mimic 2009′s inglorious 0-8 start vs. Boston, making an early statement by taking two out of three at Fenway to open the season — marking the first time the Yankees won a series at Fenway Park in April since 1975. The Sox hosted the Yankees again in early May and again lost two of three, as Phil Hughes outpitched what initially appeared to be perfect-game stuff by Josh Beckett, CC Sabathia dominated in the Fox Saturday Afternoon Game of Death and A.J. Burnett threw the first of what would be many stinkers in the ESPN Sunday Night Marathon Heartbreaker.
A week later at Yankee Stadium on May 17 the Bombers staked Phil Hughes to an early 5-0 lead against Daisuke Matsuzaka only to see Hughes falter and ultimately give up five of his own, and Chan Ho Park subsequently give up three runs in the eighth that enabled the Sox to take the lead 9-7. The Yankees were ultimately bailed out by two of the Yankees’ top six WPA swings of the entire season, as Alex Rodriguez hit the game-tying two-run home run off Jonathan Papelbon in the bottom of the ninth, and three batters later Marcus Thames clubbed a two-run walkoff to secure the win. The following evening began in similar fashion, as a shaky Josh Beckett staked the Yankees to a 5-0 lead after five innings, and with Sabathia on the mound most everyone expected the game to be in the bag. The big man did his part, hurling seven innings of one-run ball, but Boston fought back against the Yankee ‘pen, singling and doubling Joba Chamberlain to death for four runs to tie the game, and touching Mariano Rivera up in the top of the ninth for two more runs to take the lead. The Yanks managed a run against Papelbon in the bottom half of the frame, but there would be no second straight walkoff win in the Bronx that night.
The Yanks and Sox didn’t square off again until the beginning of August, in a four-game set with extenuating circumstances that slightly mirrored the four-game set the two teams had played on a long weekend in the Bronx the year prior, though not overwhelmingly so, as the Sox were both further out of first and without their best player this time. Like 2009, the Yankees once again had an opportunity to put Boston decidedly in their rearview mirror with a decisive four-game sweep; however this time Boston had other ideas, and the teams wound up splitting the set, with the Yankees receiving an out-of-nowhere solid performance from Dustin Moseley in the Sunday night game while Jon Lester continued to own the Yankees in the Monday afternoon matinee (Lester carried a no-no into the fifth), despite a valiant effort from Phil Hughes.
The rivals played six of their final 10 games against each other, and as the Sox descended upon Yankee Stadium the weekend of Friday, September 24, what many had anticipated being a yawn of a series quickly built to a fever pitch in Yankeeland after the bumbling Bombers dropped the first two games. This prompted Joe Girardi to dump Dustin Moseley and start Phil Hughes, despite the fact that the team had hoped to give Hughes extra rest prior to the postseason. Hughes responded in kind, throwing what may have been his most important (though not necessarily prettiest) game of the season against a rejuvenated Daisuke Matsuzaka, who was every bit as good as Hughes was if not better. The Yankee win effectively ended any remaining hopes the Sox may have had of sneaking into the playoffs, and the season’s last three-game set between the two teams was essentially a formality, though had the Yankees bothered to come play that weekend they may have been able to grab the AL East crown from Tampa Bay.
Had the Sox not been beset by injuries to what seemed like half the roster, they may have been able to knock either the Yankees or the Rays out in September, given how poorly those two teams played in the season’s final month, and it’s a testament to Terry Francona that he kept his depleted team in the mix down to the final week of the season. Not content to maintain the status quo and assume the team would bounce back simply by virtue of returning a fully healthy lineup in 2011, Boston’s management went out and made two of the biggest splashes in the offseason in trading for Adrian Gonzalez and signing Carl Crawford to a $142 million deal. Of course, these deals were made necessary due in part to the lineup slots vacated by offensive powerhouse free agents Adrian Beltre and Victor Martinez. Combined with the Yankees not only missing out on their primary objective in Cliff Lee but also losing rotation stalwart Andy Pettitte to retirement, the Bombers have been dumped on for much of the winter as they have attempted to patch the back end of their rotation while many have already crowned the Red Sox 2011 World Champions.
However, the coronation is probably a wee bit premature. Let’s take a look at the numbers, shall we? The below charts contain key offensive numbers for what I expect the Red Sox’s Opening Day lineup to look like, along with the players that will be in the mix for bench spots. On the pitching side of the ledger I have Boston’s projected rotation, along with the cast of seemingly thousands vying for spots in Boston’s revamped bullpen. I’m using 2010 actual numbers, along with each player’s 2011 CAIRO and PECOTA projections, due to the fact that they are both park-adjusted, enabling a more apples-to-apples comparison, and I opted for two projection systems instead of one because relying on only one really doesn’t tell you anything. One important thing to keep in mind in reviewing the CAIRO projections is that SG doesn’t factor baserunning into his wOBA calculation, which means for a speedier player like Carl Crawford, Brett Gardner or Jacoby Ellsbury you can probably add somewhere on the order of .010 to .015 points of wOBA to scale it to Fangraphs’ version. Unfortunately Baseball Prospectus doesn’t use wOBA or FIP, so in the wOBA section the column on the far right is True Average, which is basically BP’s version of wOBA but scaled to batting average instead of on-base percentage; and in the FIP section I have WHIP in the far right — WHIP obviously doesn’t correlate with FIP at all, but I wanted to at least put something in that column for the PECOTA projection. I’ve gone ahead and highlighted the team leader in yellow in each statistical category for each data set for quick reference.
I’d also like to take a moment to thank Ben Buchanan from Over the Monster for his time, expertise and graciousness in helping me ensure I covered more or less every player in contention for Boston’s 25-man roster.
And the pitching staff. The starters are in their expected rotation order, while the bullpen candidates are sorted by their CAIRO-projected FIPs.
The first thing that jumped out at me upon compiling these numbers — which took well over an hour — is that Adrian Gonzalez is going to be a beast in Fenway Park. Not that we didn’t already know that, but his CAIRO-projected .409 wOBA is the second-highest in all of baseball after Albert Pujols. Also, Kevin Youkilis‘ .396 CAIRO wOBA is the fifth-best projection in baseball. That’s some absurd production right there from your three and four hitters. For comparison’s sake, CAIRO has Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez each putting up .384 wOBAs, the eighth-best projected mark in MLB.
As for the rest of Boston’s lineup, CAIRO sees a bit of a SLG falloff (.478) for Crawford from 2010 (.495), while PECOTA really doesn’t like Carl, busting him down to a .435 SLG. In good news for the Sox, CAIRO more or less expects another Dustin Pedroia-esque season out of Pedroia and another David Ortiz-style season out of Big Papi. CAIRO loves J.D. Drew and sees him gaining nearly .020 points of wOBA on his 2010 mark. Neither system is all that high on the relatively untested Jarrod Saltalamacchia, while Marco Scutaro projects right around where one would expect (.333 wOBA) and Ellsbury at a fairly disappointing .319. In the initial iteration of the lineup I sent to Ben I had Jed Lowrie as the starting shortstop, given that he appears to be a pretty clearly superior option to Scutaro, but Ben informed me that Francona views Lowrie as more of a super-utility player, which leads me to believe Francona’s selection of Scutaro as the starter is one of those frustrating irrational loves of a less serviceable player that drives informed fans crazy.
On the pitching side of the ledger, we have a rotation fronted by ace lefthander Jon Lester, who has quickly established himself as one of the best pitchers in the game, although CAIRO sees both his ERA and FIP rising by about half a run (PECOTA only has an ERA jump of a quarter of a run); followed by Josh Beckett, who, like A.J. Burnett, basically can’t have anywhere near as bad a season as he did in 2010, though CAIRO only sees him improving to a 4.59 ERA (4.13 FIP), while PECOTA remains more optimistic about a significant bounceback, projecting Beckett to shave nearly two runs off his 2010 ERA with a 3.95 mark. Neither system thinks Clay Buchholz can pull a repeat of 2010, understandably so given that he had arguably the luckiest season in baseball, leading all of MLB with a -1.28 delta between his ERA and FIP. That’s not to say that Buchholz won’t still be a very good pitcher, but it’s difficult to envision him posting the second-best ERA in the AL if he doesn’t improve on his K rate (6.2 per nine) or walk rate (3.5 per nine), not to mention be aided by the third-lowest BABIP in the AL and the highest strand rate. With luck like that on one’s side, I think it’s fairly safe to say that some of those balls in play are going to find holes this year they didn’t find last year. As for John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka, CAIRO basically sees a repeat of 2010 for both pitchers, while PECOTA likes both players a good deal more, projecting lower ERAs and higher K/9 and BB/9 rates.
And finally we have the bullpen, which will almost certainly be the most significantly improved component of the 2011 Red Sox team. After finishing dead last in FIP, Theo Epstein and Co. have almost completely revamped their relief corps, adding Bobby Jenks — who many of us had hoped the Yankees would sign — Dan Wheeler, former Yankee Alfredo Aceves and Matt Albers as the players who probably have the greatest likelihood of breaking camp with the team, while also bringing Dennys Reyes, Rich Hill, Junichi Tazawa and Andrew Miller in to compete. The Sox already have two elite relief pitchers in closer Jonathan Papelbon and set-up man Daniel Bard, and adding Jenks — who CAIRO projects to have the best FIP and highest groundball rate in the entire bullpen — Wheeler (best CAIRO-projected BB/9) and a healthy Aceves (best PECOTA-projected BB/9) to the Boston ‘pen should do wonders for a unit that led the league in arson last season.
So this brings us back to the eternal question — are the Red Sox better than the Yankees in 2011, and clear favorites to win the American League pennant? For as heralded as many of Boston’s offseason moves have been, I think a lot of people forgot that, while the Yankees may have missed out on some excellent pitching targets, it’s not as if the Bombers became horrible overnight. For one, the Yankees still project to be one of, if not the best offense in baseball again. If we take a look at our handy Lineup Analysis tool and plug in the 2011 CAIRO-projected numbers for each team’s starting nine, we have a Yankee starting nine that averages 5.584 runs per game (that number rises to 5.609 with Jesus Montero), and a Red Sox starting lineup that averages a beastly 5.694 runs per game. So while the Sox have a slight advantage on offense, the two teams will likely once again be neck-and-neck in the run-scoring department.
However, starting pitching is where the two teams’ fortunes primarily diverge. The Yankees, as everyone knows, have CC Sabathia; followed by Phil Hughes, who the team hopes can improve upon his solid first full season in the rotation; A.J. Burnett, who has no choice but to be better than he was in 2011, although how much better is anyone’s guess; and two question marks in the #4 and #5 slots. Boston’s current rotation is a clear upgrade over what the Yankees have penciled in at the moment. As far as the bullpen goes, for as strong as the Red Sox’s moves were — and let’s not kid ourselves, their bullpen is going to be significantly better in 2011 — the Yankees took an already-elite relief unit and signed one of the top closers in the game to pitch the eighth inning, so if the Yankees have any one advantage over Boston right now, it likely lies in the ‘pen. Although the two teams are certainly very closely matched in this department as well.
I asked Ben from Over the Monster about his thoughts on the Sox heading into the 2011 season, and here’s what he had to say:
“Although Theo Epstein has tried to lower expectations some, it’s pretty hard not to be excited after the offseason they’ve had. While the 100-win mark that’s being thrown around a lot may be high, so long as the rotation don’t all perform at their worst, and we don’t have the same ridiculous injury problems as last year, the Red Sox should be counted amongst the World Series favorites.”
Patrick Sullivan of Red Sox Beacon was also kind enough to chime in with his two cents:
“This is as good a roster as Theo Epstein has assembled, but as Red Sox fans learned last year, there are any number of things that can derail even the best laid plans. Specifically for the Red Sox, while they may have fewer question marks than just about any other team, they are still there. The trio of John Lackey, Josh Beckett and Daisuke Matsuzaka didn’t exactly sparkle in 2010, and they’re all a year older. The bullpen tinkering looks promising but we all know about the unpredictability of relief pitching, and Carl Crawford is a nagging hamstring away from being a $20M mediocrity. The Red Sox look great, but nothing is a given in the AL East.”
I think those are both fair assessments. Provided the team the front office has assembled can stay healthy, the Red Sox definitely seem like the surest bet on paper to get to the World Series. However, the Rays aren’t going anywhere, the Orioles have significantly upgraded their offense, the Blue Jays will likely remain a thorn in everyone’s sides, and for whatever the Yankees’ rotation woes might be, they’ve certainly headed into battle with worse, and you’d be a fool to expect the AL East — featuring some of the best young starting pitching on the planet – to be anything but perhaps the fiercest dogfight the division has ever seen.
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35 Responses to A look at the 2011 Boston Red Sox
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TIQ IQ
the yankees lineup is still clearly better. the red sox have a good lineup 1 -6 but 6-9 is alot of question marks. the only spots in their lineup where they are better is crawford in left and ortiz at dh. adrian gonzales as good as he is is still in a new league with new pitchers to learn and adjust to so lets calm down on him.
Ridiculous. Go back and look at the numbers again. Youk is more productive than ARod at this point in thier careers and AGon projects higher than Texiera. Cairo also projects Drew higher than Swisher which makes it 5-4 Sox. And that’s before you factor in the Elsbury to Gardner comparisons (I’ll believe Gardner is better than Elsbury when I see it), the fact that Jeter has to prove he hasn’t entered a serious decline phase AND that Pedroia might project slightly lower than Cano but he’s not exactly a liability.
As I said in my previous post, you’re really splitting hairs between the two offensive units but it’s just as easy to argue the Sox have an advantage as it is to argue the Yanks are the superior unit.
Bill James actually projects Mark to have a better year than Gonzalez and if you look at their past 4 years it’s really wouldn’t be a big surprise if he did, I do believe he is going to be slow at least to start learning new pitchers and even getting use to the pressure of playing for Boston and no just San Diego.
I think both will have a 5+ WAR at the end of the year so it really isn’t that big a difference either way I was just pointing out that not every projection has Gonzalez better.
in all seriousness though lets call the lineup’s the 2 best in the sport. the yankees have a better bullpen on paper and the sox have a better rotation. 1-3 in the rotation are even with cc, aj, and phil, vs lester, bucholtz, and beckett. the difference lies in the 4 and 5 spots for now but when the yanks add another starter of quality these teams will be nearly identical. and who knows maybe nova or another young starter really steps up and solidifies a spot.i also have a gut feeling aj is gonna pitch well this year. aj is huge!
Stunna, I don’t think you can call the top three pitchers even.
You can argue that CC and Lester are about even, although Lester was half a run better in xFIP.
But let’s match the two young guys Buchholz and Hughes. Buch is clearly further along, even granting that his 2.33 ERA benefited from a lot of luck. His FIP, xFIP, etc. were all better — particularly in the second half of the season when Hughes sort of lost it. And every projection puts Buch ahead. You just can’t call these guys even at this point in their careers.
Then Beckett vs. Burnett. Both had horrible seasons, but Beckett’s xFIP was more than half a run better than AJ (in fact, Beckett’s xFIP last year was much closer to Sabathia’s than Burnett was to Beckett!). . Every projection for ERA has Beckett better than Burnett.
You simply can’t support that these three match up evenly, at least based on stats and projections.
I agree that the Yanks lineup is a bit stronger, and their bullpen more solid. It should be a fun season.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. The Yankees might have a slight edge in offensive production and a slight edge in the bullpen (though I’m not entirely willing to concede either), but you’re really splitting hairs between the two best offenses in the league and, arguably, the two deepest pens. Conversely, the Sox have a HUGE advantage in starting pitching. At this level, with two heavy weights slugging it out, that big of a deficit is going to be almost impossible for the Yankees to overcome.
If Burnett has a 2009 like year again I really don’t see how the starting pitching advantage is HUGE so long as the Yankees add at least a middle of the rotation arm during the season and we all know they will add at least that. I give the Red Sox the starting pitching advantage no doubt about it but we do have to play the games and it’s not exactly like Buchholz, Beckett, Lackey and Dice K don’t have some question marks around them (although I expect a nice year out of both Beckett and especially Lackey) but at time Dice K doesn’t look any better than Nova (not getting out of the 6th inning) and there was a pretty big difference in Buchholz’s peripheral numbers and his ERA.
I’m not a huge Phil Hughes fan as far as thinking he is a number 1 type of pitcher but when you look at the numbers Clay walked more batters per 9 and K’d less per 9 than Hughes did.
Hughes- 176.1 IP, 7.45 K/9, 2.96 BB/9
Buchholz- 173.2 IP, 6.22 K/9, 3.47 BB/9
Peripherals numbers like this don’t mean everything and in fact I understand they mean very little in terms of who is and can be the better pitcher when you have to consider all the other aspects of pitching but I don’t see Clay as a finished product at all yet so I think it is fair to compare the two.
Agree that, apart from CC and Lester, there are questions about every other starter on both teams. You are right that Buchholz is not a finished product, but I think he is maybe a year ahead of Hughes.
In terms of expected performance on paper in 2011, the two teams are really very close on offense, and also bullpen, although I would give the Yanks a small edge in both. The Sox have the edge with starters, although even that could go either way.
That said, I think the Sox roster is much better constructed, because their core players are considerably younger.
I just can’t see Adrian Gonzalez being as good as some believe. He will have issues with learning a new league imo both the pitchers and hitting on the road in stadiums he’s hardly played in.
I don’t think new stadiums are an issue for a hitter! And I think the learning curve applies to pitchers as well as hitters.
Well technically the first time a batter and pitcher face each other the pitcher always has the advantage.
the nl west may be a joke when it comes to final standings, however there are some really good pitchers out there that pitch in really big ballparks (colorado excepted.)
i am sure that you are aware of this graphic:
http://firebrandal.com/2010/12/08/adrian-gonzalez-doubles-up-in-boston/
Which shows last years balls in play superimposed over Fenway. It is staggering.
The thing about Adrian that people don’t really seem to bring up is that as the sole offensive threat in San Diego’s lineup, he was intentionally walked 75 times in the past three years. For comparison’s sake, David Ortiz leads the Red Sox in that span with 31, and Youkilis is second with 16.
In the extreme scenario, say Adrian never got IBBed in the last three years. Applying his .285 batting average (since 2008) to those PAs gives him 21 more hits, but his OBP would drop from .387 to .360. Projections going from a baseline of .387 are going to overshoot, potentially by a lot, even factoring in leaving Petco.
Leaving Petco will make him a better hitter, but he isn’t going to suddenly turn into Albert Pujols. Plus, he still has hit .258/.347/.440/.787 against lefties since 2008 (and he hit them well in 2009)
I’m not sure that analysis holds up in any meaningful way. IBB happen when the opposing manager decides that the hitter is likely to create more runs by hitting than if he were walked. The stronger Sox lineup will make that decision less likely than it has been with the Padres.
So Gonzo will have more opportunities to do damage (HR, double, single) than in the past. In other words, he should have a greater impact on creating runs, not less. That may in fact result in a slightly lower OBP, but a higher slugging average. But that isn’t an argument against his performance — the bottom line is that it will produce more runs over the course of a season, not less.
He will probably also have fewer non-intentional walks. While this, in isolation, will lower his OBP, you can’t look at it in isolation. He will have better pitches to hit, which should result in a higher batting average, more homers, etc.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by moshetya, JK. JK said: A look at the 2011 Boston Red Sox http://bit.ly/exoEUt [...]
Nice to see someone Red Sox fans on the board who want to simply have a conversation, welcome aboard fellows and have a great season.. Although not as a great as ours ;)
the yankees top 3 and the sox top 3 are as even as it gets. i dont give a rats ass about fip xfip and all that garbage. beckett is injury prone and trending down the last 2 years and bucholtz isn’t anything close to a 2.33 era pitcher. lackey and daisuke are the advantage for the sox and like i said when the yanks aquire a new starter it will all be even. jd drew is a walking injury compared to swish who is only getting better. youk is not better than arod gimme a break! and ellsbury has been in witness protection the last year. lol every single player on the yanks lineup got hurt last year except jeter and cano, many had down seasons and the yanks still outperformed every team in mlb by a wide margin. yankees offense=special oh yeah they will have there best bulllpen since 96′ mark my words.
I won’t try to counter all the emotion, but I don’t think you have looked at the numbers for Youk versus A-Rod. Here’s the last three years OPS for each.
A-Rod: .965 .934 .847
Youk: .959 .961 .975
Youk has out-hit A-Rod these three years, and the trend couldn’t be more clear. A-Rod going down every year as he should at age 35; Youk is 31 and keeps getting better.
i dont care about ops guy im talkin about raw production. in fact ill bet the deed to my house that arod has an absolute monster year this year outproducing every 3rd baseman in the game. you nerds and all your different stats ops, war, all that crap gets tired and annoying. all i know is when each season is over and assuming arod’s healthy he will be a 30+ 120rbi+ hitter.
Well reasoned argument.
You need to account for park if you’re going to compare Youkilis and Rodriguez, and looking at just the triple slash numbers ignores Rodriguez’s edge in baserunning.
If you put them in a neutral park in the 2010 AL run environment, here are their revised triple slash stats over the last three years, using Baseball Reference’s neutralized batting tool.
Youkilis: .309/.406/.561
Rodriguez: .289/.381/.541
Baserunning and playing time with those lines comes out to Youkilis being worth about 298 runs and Rodriguez being worth about 295 runs.
They’ve basically performed the same over the last three years.
And the fact that Youkilis is now 31 means he should also start declining. He may be better than Rodriguez right now, but he’s not that much better, and we’ll need to see how his defense measures up at 3B.
You also need to account for the park factor when comparing the 2011 Red Sox to the 2011 Yankees. Fenway boosts scoring more than DNYS, so the Red Sox hitters will look better in comparison and the pitchers will look worse.
Hi SG.
I looked up neutralized batting in Baseball reference.com and got very different figures for 2010 (based on 716 runs)
Youk: .320/.427/.585 OPS: 1.012
A-Rod: .274/.346/.516 OPS: .862
Are you using some other source?
I agree that A-Rod is a better baserunner. But Youk has always been a fine fielder in either position, including one Gold Glove; I don’t think A-Rod will have an advantage over him there. I’m not down on A-Rod — one of the best hitters in history. Just don’t buy the comments that stunna made!
Did you use a neutral park for both players, and are you looking at 2008-2010?
I used neutral for both players for 2010. thought that was what you meant.
My point was that Youk has trended up for three years and A Rod down for three years and they are no longer comparable offensive players.
Yeah, sorry, neutral park but last three years.
FWIW, trends aren’t predictive. You weigh more recent data more heavily, but if a player’s wOBA went from .350 to .360 to .370 in the past three seasons, the next wOBA should not project to be .380, it should project to be something like .363.
Likewise a player who went from .370 to .360 to .350 shouldn’t project to have a wOBA of .340, he should be around .357.
Aging brings that down, but it brings that down for both. If a player is 30 or older, the smart bet is he is not as good as he was through 29.
Also checked out park factors. Those things move around a lot year to year. In 2009, Fenway was better for hitters; in 2010, Yankee was better for hitters (per ESPN). In general I think they are both hitters’ parks — not sure there is a big difference…
[...] tool gives us a starting nine projected to average 5.438 runs per game. This is a tad lower than the 5.584 runs per game the Lineup Analysis spit out when using the Yankees’ 2011 CAIRO projec…, but it’s still a robust number any way you slice it. If you sub Montero in for Martin you [...]
[...] 2011 projections for teams around the AL East (links to prior articles: Blue Jays, Orioles, Rays, Red Sox). Now it’s time to get acclimated with the rest of the American League. There’s no time like [...]
“which leads me to believe Francona’s selection of Scutaro as the starter is one of those frustrating irrational loves of a less serviceable player that drives informed fans crazy”
seriously? you’re a douche
Thanks for the insightful and intelligent comment. Perhaps instead of name-calling you’d care to explain why you feel differently. From where I stand Lowrie seems like a vastly superior option to Scutaro in almost every facet of the game, but I’m happy to be shown otherwise.
It’s not about your view, it’s about that one sentence being loaded with a nauseating plethora of arrogance. Apparently you consider yourself ‘informed’; to set up that kind of differentiation is not only disgustingly elitist but also ridiculous, stupid, and shows that you take yourself entirely too seriously. Safe to say that you’d never fall into anyone’s ‘would love to have a beer with that guy’ category.
I think you might be reading a bit too much into the comment, although I’ll concede that perhaps I could have phrased it somewhat differently.
I don’t know how it is with Sox fans, but surely there have been times when Francona has frustratingly stuck with a veteran player despite the fact that the numbers might dictate otherwise. For the Yankees, this was one of Joe Torre’s greatest flaws as a manager.
As someone who obsessively pours over the numbers, watches each every game my favorite team plays and writes about baseball 365 days a year, I think I’ve earned the right to call myself informed, but obviously at the end of the day I’m still a fan with an opinion, albeit one who bases his arguments on what the numbers say — I’m sure there are plenty of things that Scutaro brings to the table that I am unaware of, and that Francona has intimate knowledge of.
I definitely didn’t mean that comment to come off as elitist or arrogant — I’m not interested in turning people off or trying to portray myself as being holier-than-though, and I apologize that it sounded that way. The goal of our site is to provide measured, reasoned analysis that ideally instigates healthy, intelligent chatter in the commenting section. However, there’s little point in blogging about baseball if you’re not going to offer your opinion after analyzing and assessing the data, and even less of a point if you don’t stand by your convictions.
As for your last sentence, if you are a fellow numbers guy, then I can assure you we’d get along great over a beer; but if not then we probably wouldn’t have too much to talk about.
Larry, don’t apologize! Your comment was neither elitist nor arrogant. It makes perfect sense. As someone who considers himself an informed fan, couldn’t agree more. And I’d pick you for a beer over Yurra any day.
You know who I always find appealing as a potential bar buddy? Someone who calls someone else a douche on the internet behind an incredibly clever username. Those guys tend to be a blast.
I’d love to have a drink with Yura Doosh. Sounds like fun.
signed,
Ima Cocke