Projecting the Red Sox
Yeah, I was thinking about the Red Sox and Carl Crawford. The contracts may be a slight overpay, but Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez add so much to the Red Sox that it’s tough not to get very excited about their chances this year. Adrian Gonzalez is a premier hitter with great opposite-field power, and he’s going to play with the Green Monster 310 feet away from him. Crawford may not have home run power, but he can lace hits to the gaps and his speed can turn them into doubles and triples. And even though the Monster offsets the value of his defense somewhat, he is consistently worth 10-15 runs per season in the field, which goes a long way toward making him worth his contract.
I’m quite excited about the possibilities for this team. Since I couldn’t think about anything other than baseball all day, I decided to run some back-of-the-envelope projections for the team. The pitching staff is still somewhat in flux, though I expect them to pick up a reliever or two (Scott Downs is looking likely now that they are already losing their first round pick). It has the talent to be better than average, but given the new pitching coach and thus far no major bullpen upgrades, let’s project it as league average. Last year this was around 716 runs per team. The Red Sox were slightly below average at 744 runs allowed. So for ease in calculation, since we’re estimating and I want to be conservative, let’s project them to allow 720.
Offensively, I took the Bill James projections, which are available on Fangraphs, and input them to BaseballMusings lineup run generator, which is a very neat tool. As James’s projections are known to be optimistic, I adjusted them mostly downward, except for a few cases as explained below.
Leadoff: Jacoby Ellsbury, center field.
Jacoby had a tough year last year, and many question what he’ll be able to do next year. But for now the Red Sox still have Mike Cameron, who is great against lefties and also one of the best center fielders of my lifetime when not in pain from a kidney stone. Bill James projects Ellsbury to have an OBP of .355 and a SLG of .409. Since Cameron would probably play any center field innings that Ellsbury isn’t in the lineup, I’m comfortable with these projections, but in the interest of being conservative, let’s adjust them down to .350/.400.
2nd: Dustin Pedroia, second base.
Pedroia was having a very solid year before going down with a broken foot. He had a .367 OBP and a career high .493 SLG when injured. James projects him to hit .372/.462, which seems fair, but given that he may miss ten games (likely replaced by Lowrie or Scutaro) and maybe is off his game because of the injury, we’ll drop it down to .360/.450.
3rd: Carl Crawford, left field.
Crawford is an excellent hitter, but he’s not exactly built for Fenway. There’s also question about whether his last two years (during which he increased his walk rate and slugged .473) represents his true hitting level, or if a little less power than that should be expected. James projects him at .350/.453, which seems pessimistic to me, but I’ll use it.
Cleanup: Adrian Gonzalez, first base.
Here’s where I took some liberty in adapting Bill James’s projections. James projects Adrian Gonzalez to hit for a .378/.512 line, which seems very pessimistic to me. I think it’s possible that that projection is assuming he’d remain in San Diego, in which case it makes sense to adjust it upward. Using the wisdom of crowds, the 40 fangraphs users who have voted thus far project him at a .400/.595 line, which seems maybe a bit too optimistic. But given that he’s hit about that well away from Petco Park in his last three years, and Fenway seems like a park built for him, maybe it’s not too crazy. We’ll take the middle ground, but the high end: .390/.580.
Fifth: Kevin Youkilis, third base.
Youkilis has been one of the most underrated hitters in the majors for the last few years. His fierce playing style can cause him to miss time, but on a per-at-bat basis here’s how he ranks in the majors since 2008 (minimum 1200 PA):
OBP: 5th
SLG: 3rd
wOBA: 2nd, to Pujols
It’s not hard to make the case that Youkilis is the second-best hitter in the majors, per at-bat. Not only does he have amazing patience, but he has surprising power. While Fenway has helped him a lot, he would be a solid hitter in any park and as the Red Sox #5 guy, you know this is an exceptional lineup.
James projects him for a .398/.507 line. That slugging looks low to me, but I can foresee the scenario in which Youk misses 20 or so games very easily, and those at-bats would probably be taken by Jed Lowrie. While I love Lowrie’s bat, he’s not quite at Youk’s level, especially in the plate discipline department. So let’s call this position an aggregate .385/.520.
6th: David Ortiz (and platoon partner?), designated hitter.
In the same time frame that Youkilis is the second-best hitter in baseball, Ortiz has had some well-publicized struggles. But he still has a .498 slugging percentage during that time, good for 32nd in the majors (just behind Jason Bay). His wOBA makes him 52nd in MLB during that time. This isn’t great, but it would look better if he played less often against lefties, against whom he only managed a .275 OBP and .324 SLG in 2010. This is a continuing trend, and I expect Terry Francona (and Ortiz) to realize this and sit Ortiz more often than not against LHP. Against LHP, the likely DH would be Mike Cameron, who has a career .866 OPS against lefties, or if Russell Martin or another catcher is acquired, Jason Varitek could even DH against lefties.
James projects Ortiz for a .366/.509 line, and given his likely solid platoon partners, let’s call it a .365/.505 aggregate from the DH slot this year.
7th: JD Drew, Right Field.
2011 is the last year of JD Drew’s contract, and he had a rough 2010. After adjusting to the American League and posting a .399/.521 line for an OPS of .920 from 2008-09, he could only manage .341/.452 last year (.793 OPS) and has hinted at retiring after this year. But James projects him for somewhat of a rebound year and a .370/.460 line, so we’ll go with that. Though Drew likes to miss time, his backups are likely to be Ellsbury, Ryan Kalish, or Cameron, who won’t do much worse. So we’ll go with a .360/.455 projection from right field.
8th: Marco Scutaro/Jed Lowrie, shortstop.
As I wrote in my offseason preview, I think Lowrie will be the starting shortstop sooner or later (I’d guess around May), while Scutaro will become a super-sub at third, second, and short. James projects Lowrie at .361/.467, and while I think he could very easily improve on that mark, let’s not get too hasty. We’ll do .360/.460.
9th: Jarrod Saltalamacchia/Jason Varitek/Russell Martin, catcher.
As I noted in my last post, just Saltalamcchia and Varitek could make for a solid catching tandem, given their complimentary platoon splits and Varitek’s experience. Given the rumors about how the Red Sox weren’t happy with Victor Martinez’s dedication to the pitching staff, I think they’ll mostly be looking for defense from this spot, but Saltalamacchia’s youth gives me hope that this can be more than an offensive black hole. James likes Salty for a .323/.422 line, and gives Varitek a .324/.386 mark. Let’s call it .325/.400.
Plugging all this into the lineup analysis tool, we get a projection of: 5.722 runs per game.
Holy crap. That works out to 927 runs for the whole season, which would be 109 more runs than last year. Is that possible? Considering that they added two all-star hitters (though, yes, one replaced an all-star) and will get three other all-stars back after missing them for half to all the year (including the man who has been the best hitter not named Pujols for the last three years), then, yes. Not to mention that the lineup model assumes the team has average speed, and the Red Sox have the two best base-stealers in the league.
Still, let’s be conservative. Say on a team level this lineup estimator is optimistic, and maybe the Red Sox have some bad luck with runners in scoring position or something. So say they only score 910 runs.
With an average number of runs allowed discussed above, that projects (via the pythagorean expectation, using 1.83 as an exponent) to a 98-64 record.
Given how conservative I was in all my estimates and the ability of the pitching staff to improve upon my projection (especially with the likely bullpen help they will add and the improved defense), I’m very excited about the 2011 Red Sox.
*Photo courtesy of Albert Yau via Creative Commons License
