Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Yay Baseball
Good news for the blog. I’ve been back in the United States and unemployed long enough that I’ve been able to get back into the Red Sox! Thus, I can get back into the writing mode by spewing out thoughts onto paper about the world champions. Tonight, I’ve decided that the Red Sox will win the World Series this year. If they don’t, by some fluke, don’t worry my friends. It will only be a temporary hiccup, such as the Pats in ’02, before we return to our championship heights.
Yes it’s a good time to be a Boston sports fan…how long have I been saying that now?
Ok enough gloating. Time for a serious analysis of this year’s strengths and weakness.
After some more gloating. I mean seriously. In the last 18 months we’ve had two Super Bowl Champions and a World Series winner. Who does that? No one that’s who. Except Pittsburgh.
STRENGTH:
-Big money hitters. The hitting stars, Damon, Ortiz, and Ramirez, are performing at or above expectation, and insure consistent run production. Damon, in a contract year, is pricing himself out of market for the Red Sox, which disappoints me greatly. Damon is an irreplaceable part of this offense, and a great goofy baseball character. Plus, he inspired me to grow my hair out! Manny, after a slow start, will end up with MVP numbers. Ortiz has maintained his consistent dominance, although he has slumped lately. More importantly, I suckered Stu into trading me both these players.
WEAKNESS:
-Defense. The 05 Red Sox are not as good as the previous year’s team, which excelled at all three facets of the game: pitching, hitting, and defense. The current edition ranks near the bottom of Baseball Prospectus’ Defensive Efficiency ratings, which measures the rate at which teams convert balls in play into outs. The Red Sox are also poor at throwing runners out and playing error free baseball.
STRENGTH:
-Supporting players who get on base. Mueller and Varitek specifically, have high OBPs that wear down opposing pitchers and get runs out of the bottom half of the lineup. Renteria and Millar, despite there power outages relative to year’s past, also at least get on base at acceptable rates. Nixon has produced when healthy. All this has led to the Sox leading the AL in runs for the third straight year
WEAKNESS: The Bullpen. I’ve attempted to come up with a funny line about how much our bullpen sucks, but am unable to come up with anything that isn’t horribly mean. Schilling has stabilized the closer situation. Timlin is great at starting innings and terriblt at allowing inherited runners to score, deflating his ERA. Everyone else has been pretty much crap. I am a big fan of Manny Delcarmen, who throws gas, has hair similar to mine, and is from Hyde Park. Francona doesn’t trust young players, and similar to Mr. Weebles, would rather have a veteran suck than let a young player suck and hopefully develop. So we bring in Mike Remlinger. And he gives up four base runners without getting an out. And I want to implae myself with a chopstick.
WEAKNESS: Starting rotation. Well it hasn’t been that weak. Mediocre? Our four main starters ERA are between 4.13 and 4.53, with our supposed ace, Clement, having the worst of the bunch. Basically, we have four number three starters and a reclamation project: Wade Miller, who hasn’t panned out and is headed back to the DL. Which begs the question, with Keith Foulke’s return imminent, do we move Schilling back to the rotation? Much of this depends on Foulke’s effectiveness, he has sucked all year long. If his knee was what was causing his dip in velocity and he can get people out again, he should recapture his high leverage relief role. Schilling as a starter is an unknown quantity. His velocity is returning slowly, and he is striking people out. A four man playoff rotation of Wake, Clement, Arroyo, and Wells will probably not get it done. I think Schilling needs to be worked back into the rotation by mid-September.
WEAKNESS: Manager. I will never trust a Red Sox manager. Ever.
Yes it’s a good time to be a Boston sports fan…how long have I been saying that now?
Ok enough gloating. Time for a serious analysis of this year’s strengths and weakness.
After some more gloating. I mean seriously. In the last 18 months we’ve had two Super Bowl Champions and a World Series winner. Who does that? No one that’s who. Except Pittsburgh.
STRENGTH:
-Big money hitters. The hitting stars, Damon, Ortiz, and Ramirez, are performing at or above expectation, and insure consistent run production. Damon, in a contract year, is pricing himself out of market for the Red Sox, which disappoints me greatly. Damon is an irreplaceable part of this offense, and a great goofy baseball character. Plus, he inspired me to grow my hair out! Manny, after a slow start, will end up with MVP numbers. Ortiz has maintained his consistent dominance, although he has slumped lately. More importantly, I suckered Stu into trading me both these players.
WEAKNESS:
-Defense. The 05 Red Sox are not as good as the previous year’s team, which excelled at all three facets of the game: pitching, hitting, and defense. The current edition ranks near the bottom of Baseball Prospectus’ Defensive Efficiency ratings, which measures the rate at which teams convert balls in play into outs. The Red Sox are also poor at throwing runners out and playing error free baseball.
STRENGTH:
-Supporting players who get on base. Mueller and Varitek specifically, have high OBPs that wear down opposing pitchers and get runs out of the bottom half of the lineup. Renteria and Millar, despite there power outages relative to year’s past, also at least get on base at acceptable rates. Nixon has produced when healthy. All this has led to the Sox leading the AL in runs for the third straight year
WEAKNESS: The Bullpen. I’ve attempted to come up with a funny line about how much our bullpen sucks, but am unable to come up with anything that isn’t horribly mean. Schilling has stabilized the closer situation. Timlin is great at starting innings and terriblt at allowing inherited runners to score, deflating his ERA. Everyone else has been pretty much crap. I am a big fan of Manny Delcarmen, who throws gas, has hair similar to mine, and is from Hyde Park. Francona doesn’t trust young players, and similar to Mr. Weebles, would rather have a veteran suck than let a young player suck and hopefully develop. So we bring in Mike Remlinger. And he gives up four base runners without getting an out. And I want to implae myself with a chopstick.
WEAKNESS: Starting rotation. Well it hasn’t been that weak. Mediocre? Our four main starters ERA are between 4.13 and 4.53, with our supposed ace, Clement, having the worst of the bunch. Basically, we have four number three starters and a reclamation project: Wade Miller, who hasn’t panned out and is headed back to the DL. Which begs the question, with Keith Foulke’s return imminent, do we move Schilling back to the rotation? Much of this depends on Foulke’s effectiveness, he has sucked all year long. If his knee was what was causing his dip in velocity and he can get people out again, he should recapture his high leverage relief role. Schilling as a starter is an unknown quantity. His velocity is returning slowly, and he is striking people out. A four man playoff rotation of Wake, Clement, Arroyo, and Wells will probably not get it done. I think Schilling needs to be worked back into the rotation by mid-September.
WEAKNESS: Manager. I will never trust a Red Sox manager. Ever.
# posted by Marmaniac @ 10:53 AM 
