Theo returns!

To be honest

I'm not sure that I personally ever said that they had no direction. I just said that they have no 1b, ss, or cf worth mentioning. Maybe Theo can figure something out, but I don't really think it changes very much at this point. I doubt Willie Harris is any answer, either.

by jc3 on Jan 19, 2006 11:10 PM EST 0 recs

They have no CF

Youk will be the best 1B (or close to it) in the AL East. And represents a notable upgrade over Millar last year

Alex Cora is better than Renteria was last year. And Pedroia will have the job by the allstar break at the latest. And will be one of the top 10 SS in the game by the end of the year.

Not to mention upgrades at 2B, SP and a massive upgrade of the bullpen.

by cdamon on Jan 19, 2006 11:22 PM EST up 0 recs

Youk will be the best 1B (or close to it) in AL

hahahahahaha

by PooNani on Jan 19, 2006 11:42 PM EST up 0 recs

and dont forget

that alex cora will be better then renteria.

by npurcell on Jan 19, 2006 11:52 PM EST up 0 recs

You clearly didn't watch Renteria last year

This is damning Cora with faint praise at best.

I have been watching baseball seriously for 40 years now and Renteria last year was the worst defensive SS I have ever seen play.

Cora will be weaker with the bat, but will more than make up for it with the glove.

Cora will be a below average ML SS, between D and hitting.
Renteria last year was the second worst SS in MLB, better than only Guzman.

Only when Pedroia comes up will this be a strength.

by cdamon on Jan 20, 2006 9:01 AM EST up 0 recs

Youk.

He said "AL East". Which is possible.

by FI on Jan 19, 2006 11:56 PM EST up 0 recs

Is it?

Youkilis is going to put up better numbers than Overbay and Giambi? Hell, I wouldnt be surprised if Millar rebounds and Huff is moved to 1B

by PooNani on Jan 20, 2006 8:54 AM EST up 0 recs

who is clearly better? (in the AL EAST)

The AL East has starting 1B with EqA the last 2 years

Balt: Millar 295 275 (time to ride into the sunset)
Bos: Youk 275 292
NY: Phillips? 282 164 (not really meaningful in either case)
TB: Huff 297 272 (looks a lot like Millar's line?)
Tor: Overbay 293 284

So Youk put up the best EqA out of the lot of them last year, albeit in limited playing time. But his minor league numbers agree with what he has done in the majors, so I expect an EqA in the 290-300 range.

Overbay is the only reasonable shot to do that on another team. Given the relative ages, I would rather have Youk the Overbay

by cdamon on Jan 20, 2006 8:56 AM EST up 0 recs

Clarification...

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply people on this website were saying that. Actually, I was referring more to the media, and all the breathless ESPN.com articles. It's enough to make you want to rip your hair out...

"People think it must be fun to be a super genious, but they don't know how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world." - Calvin

by RVachon on Jan 19, 2006 11:37 PM EST 0 recs

youk could be

Baltimore has inherited Kevin Millar. If he can go back and post 290s average and hit 20+ HR, then hes a solid candidate. He's actually done very well over his career, but I don't think his conditioning would allow him to return to form next season.

Yankees start Giambi, who I would say is the best 1st baseman in the AL East.

Devil Rays have a light bat with Travis Lee.

Jays have Hinske and Overbay splitting time. My guess is Overbay will get mor playing time, but he had a minor sophomore slump, and will probably be on par with Millar.

Overall, I'd say Yankees have a huge edge, Toronto, Boston, and Baltimore are about equal in the power department, but Boston and Toronto will probably have superior obp from their 1st basemen.

by forage on Jan 20, 2006 12:09 AM EST 0 recs

giambi

isn't he more the DH? i'm not even sure who their 1B is supposed to be.

by wily mo on Jan 20, 2006 12:50 AM EST up 0 recs

I was under the impression

that Giambi is playing 1B this year and Bernie Williams is DHing.

by Brickhaus on Jan 20, 2006 1:01 PM EST up 0 recs

If Giambi is at 1B

then I easily concede that Youk is only the second best 1B in the league. I thought Phillips at first, Giambi at DH was more likely.

As a Sox fan, I am much happier with Williams at DH than Phillips at first.

by cdamon on Jan 20, 2006 1:05 PM EST up 0 recs

Oops

I mean second best in the division.

Me bad.

by cdamon on Jan 20, 2006 1:05 PM EST up 0 recs

Youkilis

Giambi will be returning to his rightful role as a DH and I think Andy Phillips will be getting most of the playing time at 1B. I could be wrong, though. I think Overbay is actually a pretty good comp for Youkilis, and I would guess one of those guys will probably be the most productive 1B in the AL East.

by FI on Jan 20, 2006 1:46 AM EST up 0 recs

i'll take overbay

by the way, i just don't understand the fascination with kevin youkilis. at this point he's neither young nor good. he's turning 27 in 2 months, and here is what he has done at AAA and in the majors during the last 3 seasons:

AAA: 497 PA, .260/.382/.432
MLB: 340 PA, .265/.376/.411

at first base, i'd call that below league average. he's worse than, say, dan johnson, a similar player with better AAA and MLB stats (also 27). so why do red sox fans love youkilis so much?

by jpahk on Jan 20, 2006 2:48 AM EST up 0 recs

OBP

He puts up awesome OBPs. He was more exciting a couple years ago, in my opinion, when he was on his way to joining a top-notch offense that had good-great hitters at the middle positions(Damon, Garciaparra, Varitek, Todd Walker). In that context he'd be perfect, a superb OBP to get on base and score runs. not the prototypical offense from first-base, but plenty effective.

Now a couple years later many of their better hitters have left and there's not a ton of talent around to replace them, they really need an above-average 1B, so he's a lot less exciting. You know what you're gonna get: middling average, high OBP, below-average power. He's still an ideal #2 (even leadoff) hitter for the sabermetrically inclined, and he'd be useful in a number off offenses. I've heard mixed reports on his defense, from "statuesque" to "average at 3 positions" (3B, 2B, 1B). The defense issue is the key: he'd be a heckuva nice player to have at second. Man, if he could handle it full-time he'd be a godsend to the Cubs...

Then of course there's the Moneyball hype with the nickname. He's also got a pretty cool surname.

by delomir on Jan 20, 2006 3:24 AM EST up 0 recs

OBPs

.380 isn't awesome, it's just good. and when that's your only offensive skill, and you play a corner position, and you're not young enough to get better... well, it's hard to see what the hype is about. he's lyle overbay lite.

i read moneyball, and i liked the book, but whoever that relief pitcher was ("the claw"... i think his name was david bird?) never amounted to beans, and jeremy brown won't ever be more than a backup catcher (and quite probably never even that)... but people are still in love with youkilis. it's a mystery to me.

by jpahk on Jan 20, 2006 5:33 AM EST up 0 recs

RE:

I'll take .380 all day long.

by grandslam on Jan 20, 2006 8:21 AM EST up 0 recs

.380

What's wrong with a .380 OBP? It would put him in the top 10 in the AL . . .

If Youks puts up a .380 with any decent number of doubles and HR, he'll be an above average 1B next year. If he hits 15 HR, and makes decent contact, his SLG should be in the .450 range. I don't see anything wrong with getting a .830 OPS out of your 1Bman.

Of course he's not going to be Pujols or Derrek Lee, but as someone said, Overbay might be a good comp.

by sasquatch83 on Jan 20, 2006 8:30 AM EST up 0 recs

seriously

AL OBP, 2005 (qualifiers)

giambi .440
slappy .421
hafner .408
ortiz .397
vlad .394
jeter .389
manny .388
brian roberts! .387
michael young .385
teixeira .379

granted all except jeter also put up .500+ slgs, but judging on the pure OBP-meter i think .380 qualifies as "awesome". it's easy to sort of get carried away and think of .400 as the gold standard, especially when you're looking at minor league stats all the time - not that anyone i know does that - but not many dudes actually get there in the majors. and even less chicks.

by wily mo on Jan 20, 2006 8:30 PM EST up 0 recs

"the creature"

david beck. i googled him the other day, and it looks like he retired after the one year, in which his numbers actually weren't that bad. maybe he just had something better to do, or his hand finally did fly off. the point that not everyone who got namechecked in moneyball is automatically good is valid, but it's not like anyone ever actually seriously argued that he was going to be.

as a sox fan i have a gut feeling, unsubstantiated by any hard evidence, that youkilis plays better when he can get into a routine as a regular, which he's never really had a chance to do in the majors. i'm very interested to see what he can do when given a real shot.

by wily mo on Jan 20, 2006 8:19 PM EST up 0 recs

re: youk

As long as we're talking gut feels... my gut feeling is he gets exposed with regular playing time. I'm not as optimistic as others that his cherry-picked playing time stats will translate to full time.

"I may not be a class act, but I'm an American." Ron Artest on wanting to play for the Olympic team

by natsfan2005 on Jan 21, 2006 2:53 PM EST up 0 recs

yep

Sam Horn hit 3 or 4 homers on opening day one year. Suprisingly we couldn't extrapolate that for the 486 Home run season that we all expected. What went wrong?

by pedrophile on Jan 23, 2006 2:22 AM EST up 0 recs

Youk

has put up 3 minor league seasons with an EqA over 300 (really 3 half seasons, 2 at AA and 1 at AAA).

He put up an EqA last year of 292 last year in 96 PA. Not enough to convince me one way or the other that he is different than he was in the minors (but it confirms, not disagrees with his minor league numbers). But it is certainly radically different from trying to extrapolate from 1 game.

The only really dark spot on his minor league record is AAA. He has a grand total of 406 AB stretched across 3 seasons for an unspectacular 259/376/433 line. But he got significantly better as he was there:

first 109 AB 165/295/248 OUCH!
next 145 AB 262/343/407 so-so
last 152 AB 322/459/592 wow!

Some people have downplayed the 2005 numbers as repeating the league, but he barely has a full season worth of playing time at AAA including 2005 because of time spent in Boston. If you look at those numbers as adjusting to AAA over 400 ABs in one virtual season, he looks pretty good, don't you think?

Given that he improved across his 2 partial seasons in Boston (270 EqA over 245 PA, then the 293 over 95 PA) as well, he seems to adjust well to leagues and have the abilty to maintain those gains.

by cdamon on Jan 23, 2006 10:19 AM EST up 0 recs

EQA?

Isn't EQA produced by the same website that says Howie Kendrick would be the best second basemen in MLB this year by VORP? Ahead of Kent, Utley etc... I don't rely on their minors-to-majors translations and I suggest you take them slightly less seriously.

"I may not be a class act, but I'm an American." Ron Artest on wanting to play for the Olympic team

by natsfan2005 on Jan 23, 2006 10:25 AM EST up 0 recs

they do hold

several people, dating back to James in the early 80's, have noted that minor league numbers, when properly adjusted, are about as predictive of next year's performance as are major league numbers.

None of these things are perfect. But if all the on field indicators point in the same direction, it is usually right.

It sounds like you believe scouting first and only adjust based on actual on field performance. I am exactly the opposite, trusting what players actually do more than what scouts think.

It is two different approaches and each works some of the time. We will see this year who was more accurate about Youk. I strongly expect an EqA of 290+ this year in Boston. You apparently expect somewhat less. Time will tell.

by cdamon on Jan 23, 2006 10:43 AM EST up 0 recs

Stats + Scouting

Stats + Scouting are what matters. Not one or the other.

I look at stats alot. I value strike zone control greatly. But what I am skeptical about are these blackbox metrics that intend to sum up all a players worth into one number. A player's contributions and flaws are best visible through an entire stats line. Not one magic number put together by a website that is somehow an unquestionable authority b/c they charge $39.95 to subscribers. I subscribe, so I'm not dismissing all their work. But it's not infallible. I view it as interesting - not definitive.

"I may not be a class act, but I'm an American." Ron Artest on wanting to play for the Olympic team

by natsfan2005 on Jan 23, 2006 2:14 PM EST up 0 recs

Guess/Predict

CDamon - the EQA is a prediction tool. That means it is guessing based on some historic data.

There are many uncertainties with Youkilis. His AAA numbers are one. You are guessing if it is normal progression. It could be repeating the level. It could be a hot streak in 2005. We are not sure.

I posted the Sam Horn comment as a lighthearted joke. Too many people use EQA's and other statistics to say how good a player will be. It's possible Youkilis will turn out. But there is a fair bit of risk also.

by pedrophile on Jan 23, 2006 2:39 PM EST up 0 recs

Break it up by season in AAA

His 3 years at AAA are

165/295/248 Only time he has struggled at any point, but man did he struggle
262/343/407 Was disappointed at being sent back down, but eventually settled in
322/459/592 absolutely mashed the ball

I like the trend.
He also hit significantly better in 2005 in the majors than in 2004 (278/400/405 vs 260/367/413)

As I pointed out above, his EqA last year was better than any 1B likely to be starting in the AL East.

No, I don't expect a long career out of him, but he should be an adequate to good 1B for the next 3-4 years. Overall career value will be similar to Overbay, except he is moving into his peak years and Overbay is coming out of them.

by cdamon on Jan 20, 2006 9:10 AM EST up 0 recs

Why wouldn't he mash AAA

it was his third time through AAA and he was 26 years old. Granted, he never spent a full season there, but you get my point. I just think using last season's AAA numbers is not an indicator that he can be the best 1B in the AL East next season.

Overall, even if Youk is not the best, it's not like anyone is going to be much better, but I suspect that his slugging is not what you want from a 1B.

by count sutton on Jan 21, 2006 8:34 AM EST up 0 recs

I agree about repeating levels

Among full-time AAA players (from MiLB web site) this year, the ones who exceeded Youk's approximate RC/g (based on rate stats, raw numbers only - no ballpark adjustments) were:

Joe Dillon,
Todd Linden,
Kevin Orie, and
Rick Short.

Admittedly, being better than all but 4 full-time AAA players is nice, but I think this suggests at the statistical boost a player gets from repeating at that level. As an example, Cal Pickering simply annihilated AAA pitching in 2004. Personally, I think many of these guys could hold down MLB jobs, given a chance. But predicting stardom seems a bit dicey.

New math: Let's take two fractions with different denominators and add them together. Yeah, that will work. Let's call it OPS. Brilliant!

by BobbyMac on Jan 23, 2006 1:41 PM EST up 0 recs

Cubs?

Well, if you haven't noticed, the Cubs have on their very own roster a guy who was a former 8th overall pick, with a career stat line of .290/.348/.441 (about 5.8 RC/G), and he has two advantages over Youkilis, as far as fitting into the top of the Cubs order: 1) he runs faster and 2) he's left-handed.

I concur that the Cubs need people to clutter the bases, even if they're not overly fast. But going after Brian Giles with all the resources of the Tribune company would have made a lot more sense to me (even if they had to overpay) than adding another righty bat. Walker is very likely to hit RHP as hard as Youkilis this season, and with Lee and Ramirez around, the Cubs should be able to hold their own against the lefties.

by BobbyMac on Jan 20, 2006 5:19 AM EST 0 recs

Theo Returns!!!

<yawn>

"Second guessers are guys that could have never gotten it right the first time." - Tommy Lasorda (for guys that have no other defense for their actions.)

by slurve on Jan 20, 2006 7:30 AM EST 0 recs

The Great Theo

Theo The Great. Excellent news. No Yawn here. The guy is a winner.

by grandslam on Jan 20, 2006 8:19 AM EST 0 recs

Sure

But he has a lot of work to do. He has to fill three major holes, and it might take until the july trading deadline to do it. Will they be too far behind at that point? Will his moves fail? Much remains to be seen, but it should be interesting.

by JFP on Jan 20, 2006 9:40 AM EST 0 recs

Only 1 hole!

yes they need a CF. Badly.

They are as good or better at both SS and 1B than they were last year. When they had the 3rd best record in baseball. They also fixed the bullpen during the offseason and added SP depth.

They also currently have 8 league average or better SP. That gives them valuable chips to trade for a CF.

1B is in reasonable shape for the next few years, while SS remains a weakness.

But only until Pedroia comes up.

by cdamon on Jan 20, 2006 10:27 AM EST up 0 recs

Okay okay okay

There is a reason that Alex Cora has been a career backup, and why Youkalele has been back and forth between AAA and the Majors the last three years. Theo's back and your career backups are going to have breakout years, and you will win the world series again.

by JFP on Jan 20, 2006 11:24 AM EST 0 recs

Just match their career numbers

is all I am expecting.

As I said above, Cora is a weak spot. But he is better than Renteria was last year, when they won 95 games.

The reason that Youk went back and forth was so he could get playing time, staying prepared for when he would get a fulltime job, which the team knew was coming this year. And he is better than Millar was last year. He was better last year and should have been playing over Millar, but that's another story.

This has nothing to do with Theo getting back. The Sox have 1 significant need: a CF. They could also use a backup corner OF, preferably right handed. And a left handed reliever.

But they don't need a SS (Cora is no better than adequate, but Pedroia is in the waiting) or 1B.

by cdamon on Jan 20, 2006 12:47 PM EST up 0 recs

Great

Now all Theo needs to do is trade for Bernie Williams, and your lineup will be set.

by JFP on Jan 20, 2006 1:51 PM EST up 0 recs

Cora is better than Edgar?

Okay, I'm confused. Can someone please explain to me the logic that is used when asserting that Alex Cora is better than Edgar Renteria?

Renteria: .288/.345/.399, 49.1 WARP3 (in 4177 outs).
=> Career FRAR 228, RAA2 at SS is -53 Cora: .244/.310/.349, 14.8 WARP3 (in 1733 outs) => Career FRAR 116, RAA2 at SS is -11

When I look at the numbers, I see that Cora has been a good defensive 2b, an average defensive SS, and who is almost hopeless at the plate. Meanwhile, Renteria is a significantly above-average offensive shortstop (Alan Trammel's career line is .285/.352/.415 in comparison), who's also an average defensive SS.

by BobbyMac on Jan 20, 2006 10:19 PM EST up 0 recs

look at RAA

and to adjust for playing time, consider it per out made (which is helpful to Renteria)

According to BP, Renteria was -20 RAA (+2 BRAA -22 FRAA) using 466 outs.
Cora was -4 RAA (-9 BRAA +5 FRAA) using 201 outs.

If you multiply Cora's number by 2.3 to adjust for playing time, he was 9 runs below average. Renteria was 20 runs below average.

As I said earlier, calling Cora better than Renteria is damning with faint praise. If the Sox did not have an elite prospect about ready to come up, I would want them to trade for a SS. But Cora in the short term IS an upgrade over Renteria (by about 11 runs over a season)

What you missed is that Renteria is no where near a league average defensive SS. His defense has been falling for several years now and has reached the point of being atrocious.

I also consider a career 238 EqA below average, not hopeless. By EqA Cora is about as close to league average as Youk, just from the opposite direction. So if people want to call Cora hopeless, they have to consider Youk a star.

by cdamon on Jan 20, 2006 11:06 PM EST up 0 recs

thanks for the clarification...

I understand better where this Cora>Renteria comes from now. I thought about what you wrote, and would ask you to consider this also...

I prefer to look at a complete "body of work", and I think that by isolating on Renteria 2005 above, you're really selling him short... many other players have difficulty the first year after changing leagues.
I didn't say anything about Youkilis. That said, I have two comments on the Youk/Cora comparison...

A. I'm not sure that saying a player being X points of EqA above average (in KY's case, +.019) is equivalent ot being Y points below average (in AC's case, -0.22). Distribution around the "average" isn't binomial. For every point BELOW average, there become more and more options to replace the player in question (these guys don't get to play in MLB, neccessarily, but they are there). Maybe I'm making this too confusing, but said another way is that it's much easier to upgrade a position from "Replacement" level to "Average" than it is to upgrade from "Average" to (difference between Avg and Rep)+Average.
B. Replacement level at the positions Youkilis is capable of manning is much higher than Rep for Cora's positions. I don't think you can just compare to league average EqA for the delta.

Cora for his career at SS is -11 RAA2 in 308.2 AdjG (costs the team a run at SS every 28 games). Renteria is -53 in 1378.9 (costs his team a run every 26 games). That doesn't seem like much of a difference.
When I look at Renteria's defensive numbers, I don't see this clear trend you're indicating. What I do see is a very bad season in 2005, which nobody can deny. He made a bunch of errors, and by all accounts didn't seem very confident in the field. But if "most recent performance" is all that matters, why did Boston acquire a guy who was "hitting" .205/.250/.288 in Cleveland? Players have slumps and streaks.

We'll see what Renteria does in Atlanta, I guess. I doubt he'll return to the form that made him the 2nd-highest VORP SS in baseball (2003), or even the form that made him the 5th-highest VORP SS in baseball (2002), but I suspect that he'll be a helpful offensive player who's good but not great at SS (average MLB SS is pretty darned good). Of course, if Bobby Cox bats him 2nd against RHP, he'll be a problem there as he was in Boston. I'm banking on Bobby figuring that one out by at least the ASG though.

I actually like Alex Cora a lot... very good defender at key positions, takes a walk sometimes, bats lefty. I guess I just don't weigh the season immediately past as highly as most other people when evaluating talent.

by BobbyMac on Jan 21, 2006 12:04 AM EST up 0 recs

thanks for the reply

its nice to hear a response that is well reasoned.

As to Renteria's decline, I look at his last 5 years of rate2

107 92 100 94 85

You can look at this as random, but I see a steady decline line with a blip between 02/03 (the 92/100 pair). A best fit line is a definite and reasonably sharp slope. Prior to last year, it was hard to say for sure the direction, but I think 05 was fairly definitive. This was not a league adjustment. This was a complete failure of his physical body to move to his left. Consistently, even on slow hit balls, he could not move more than about a step to his left and still come up with the ball.

Reasonable point about +/- from 260 for EqA. After I wrote that, I was trying to think about what I believed about it. There is certainly a larger population of players capable of putting up a EqA of 260-X than of putting up an EqA of 260+X. I expect, but do not know for sure, that a lineup with one 260 player replaced with a 260+X player will gain roughly the same number of runs that replacing the same 260 player with a 260-X player will lose. So in an absolute term, the tradeoff is even.

However, at some point X becomes so large that the 260-X player drops to or below replacement level and has essentially no value. In this case, 7 of the 29 SS with 375 PA last year have career EqA comparable to or worse than Cora (from 219 to 243), so this level of batting is clearly acceptable, at least marginally, from a SS.

The by far the most comparable player to Cora is Alex Gonzalez (the Fla one). They have identical 238 career EqA. Gonzalez has a career rate2 of 93, whereas Cora has a career rate2 at SS of 96.

As you say, we will see about Renteria in Atlanta. Having watched him almost every game in 05, I agree he lost confidence at the end of the season. He deserved many mor errors than he was charged, but I think the local scorer took pity on him. But he also looked like someone whose body would no longer respond in a way that allowed him to play SS. I never heard that he was fighting any kind of nagging injury. I think his body has just failed him at a younger age than is normally expected.

Thanks again for your great response. Posts like that are why I enjoy this site.

by cdamon on Jan 21, 2006 9:02 PM EST up 0 recs

actually

after the season there were a few murmurs that he'd been playing with nagging back trouble all year. whether or not it's true of course i don't know. but you might not hear anything about it due to the propensity for strapping masculine ballplayers to not want to "make excuses". even when the exuses, you know, make a lot of sense, and could even be said to constitute "reasons".

by wily mo on Jan 21, 2006 10:40 PM EST up 0 recs

"there's a reason"

ok, i'll bite, what is it? is it that the sox already had bill mueller, kevin millar and david ortiz playing full-time?

by wily mo on Jan 20, 2006 8:22 PM EST up 0 recs

Easy way to explain Theo's Return...

It's just Theo being Theo....

by The Rocc on Jan 20, 2006 1:47 PM EST 0 recs

lineups

trying to compare Youkilis to the one hole on the Yankees lineup is silly.

As I see it the 3 & 4 hole is even. And the Yankees are better in the other 7 spots.

Yankees Boston
------- --------
Damon Loretta
Jeter Youkilis
A-Rod Ortiz
Sheff Manny
Matsui Varitek
Giambi Nixon
Posada Lowell
Cano Cora
Bernie Stern

by pedrophile on Jan 20, 2006 6:47 PM EST 0 recs

Matchups

Has anyone ever learned anything from these position-by-position matchups? I guess it makes sense in football when players really do interact with one another, but for baseball I think these comparisons cloud real analysis of rosters.

So we know the Yankees match up better in 6 of 9 lineup spots (I say 6, not 7, for now because Bernie and Stern probably won't start many games). This tells us almost nothing.

First, you can always juggle things to tell another story. For example, you could match up Nixon or Varitek with Posada if you wanted to tell a more favorable story for the Sox.

Second, even if we know one team 'wins' in more matchups than the other, we don't know if that actaully means they will score more runs or how many more runs they would score. And that seems like the important thing.

by FI on Jan 21, 2006 12:07 AM EST up 0 recs

Yes

regardless of the lineup matchups, the Sox tend to score 800+ runs per year, and will probably do so again this year. The Yanks will also score 800-900 runs this year. The key difference between the teams will be A) luck, and B) pitching. Whoever lets up fewer runs between these two high-powered offenses will probably get more wins.

by mroak89 on Jan 21, 2006 11:37 AM EST up 0 recs

800+ or 900+?

The Sox have posted 961, 949, and 910 runs the past three seasons. I'm thinking that if the Sox don't score very nearly 900 runs, they won't have to worry about playing postseason games.

New math: Let's take two fractions with different denominators and add them together. Yeah, that will work. Let's call it OPS. Brilliant!

by BobbyMac on Jan 23, 2006 1:46 PM EST 0 recs