After listening to Red Sox fans over the past two weeks, you’d think that the Yankees had clinched the AL East. Predictions of doomsday and disaster have been pervasive since August 10, when Eric Gagne blew his first save in a Sox uniform and the Yankees finally closed the gap to a mere 5 games. None of it matters. Unlike the British, the Yankees aren’t coming. It may appear that they are, but in this case objects in the mirror are further away, not closer, than they appear.

 

Yes, the Yankees are a league best 27-12 (.692 winning percentage) since the All-Star break, but the Sox haven’t exactly been slouches themselves at 22-16 (.578 winning percentage). Right now, the Red Sox hold a 5 game lead with 37 games to play. Even if the Yankees play at the same .692 winning percentage over the rest of the season and the Red Sox play at the same .578 winning percentage, the Red Sox will finish with 96.38 wins and the Yankees with 95.6. Round those numbers and you get a virtual tie. If you factor Seattle’s .567 winning percentage post All-Star break into the equation, they’re on pace to win 92.7 games, so both the Red Sox and Yankees would make the playoffs via finishing in a tie and winning the division and Wild Card, a la 2005.

 

But there is certainly reason to believe that the Yankees won’t hold up their end of the bargain. Since the All-Star Break, the Yankees, until recently, have played a crème-puff schedule. Even including their recent series against Cleveland, Detroit, and Los Angeles of Anaheim, the Yankees opponents’ combined winning percentage is a mere .490. If you weight the winning percentages to account for more games played against certain teams (for example, they’ve played Tampa and Kansas City 8 and 7 time respectively and Cleveland only 3, so weighting them adjusts for actual times playing a team, not just summing wins and losses and dividing), that same opponents’ winning percentage drops to .468. During the same time period, the Red Sox have played many of the same opponents, but the numbers of times they’ve played those opponents have differed. The Yankees played Kansas City seven times and Los Angeles of Anaheim once, while the Red Sox played Kansas City three times and Los Angeles of Anaheim seven. The Red Sox’ opponents’ winning percentage was .494 and .490 weighted. Over the course of a season, the difference in the number of wins between the Red Sox’ opponents and Yankees’ opponents is three wins, so in essence the Yankees have played only 1.5 games better than the Red Sox since the break, not the 4.5 games that the standings would indicate.

 

Additionally, the Yankees’ schedule moving forward is going to be harder than the Red Sox’ schedule. Both teams have 37 games left to play, including six head-to-head battles. The Yankees’ opponents’ normal winning percentage is .513 and .503 weighted. The Red Sox’ opponents’ normal winning percentage is .479 and .472 weighted. Over the course of a season, Yankee opponents would win 5 games more than Red Sox opponents. Think about that: the Yankees’ schedule is 5 games more difficult than the Sox’, as wide as the current gap between the Red Sox and Yankees. This means that in order to tie the Red Sox, the Yankees will have to play the equivalent of ten games better over the remaining 37 due to their schedule. Do you STILL think they Yankees are coming?

 

Taking the idea even further, the Yankees have scored an absurd 271 runs since the All Star Break for an average of 7.13 runs per game; wow! Looking at their schedule, it might not be a stretch to say that the Yankees, although they have a terrific offense, might be benefiting from poor pitching. Also, their pitching staff has given up 4.84 runs per game in the same time, against the same bad teams. Granted, bad teams are more often characterized by bad pitching than bad hitting (see Tampa Bay), but in general they are poor in all areas, not just pitching. This would mean that the 4.84 runs per game the Yankees have been allowing might be even higher against better teams while their runs scored might be lower. Coincidently, the Sox have been averaging 5.31 runs scored per game and 4.05 runs allowed per game since the break.

 

If it’s not already apparent that the Yankees will regress over the final 37 games, here’s another piece of information that Red Sox fans can use to silence those Yankee fans in their lives. This information will likely satisfy even those fans or writers who despise statistics and who would prefer to rely on history. Since 1996, as Yankees fans will surely boast, the Red Sox have not finished ahead of the Yankees. In that eleven year span, the Yankees have averaged a 98-64 record compared to the Red Sox’ 89-73. On August 21, the Yankees have averaged a six game lead over the Sox. By the time the season has ended, the Yankees have averaged a nine game lead over the Sox, meaning they expand their lead by an average of three games from August 21 until the end of the season. Three games hardly seems like the late-August and September swoon that the Red Sox are famous for. Even if history repeats itself, the Yankees will finish two games back.

 

Yankees fans tend to like to rely on history. When my friends and I were at Yankee Stadium in late May watching the Yankees beat the Sox to narrow the Sox’ lead to nine games Yankee fans didn’t want to hear about 2004 or the nine game hole they were in. They only wanted to fall back on the 26 rings their team had won up through 2001 and how the Red Sox hadn’t won a division title since 1995.

 

Sox fans, get ready to tell your Yankee-loving friends where to stick those rings, ‘cause unlike the British, the Yankees aren’t coming.

 

THE BOTTOM LINE: The Red Sox have the best pitching staff in the AL by far. Based on a formula I’ve developed, the Sox have a 75% chance of making the playoffs from the pitching side of the equation, highest in the AL.

The popular thought in baseball in recent years has been that offense can carry a team through the regular season, but that pitching wins in October. While the actual verity of this thought is debatable (Baseball Prospectus found that only a pitching staff’s strikeout rate, the closers’ wins added (WXRL), and the defense’s quality (FRAA or Fielding Runs added) correlate directly with postseason glory), having very good pitching certainly can hide many flaws that an otherwise good team might have.

Three stats that can summarize the quality of a team’s pitching are VORP, WXRL, and SNLVAR (all of which come from Baseball Prospectus). Allow me to explain in brief what each of these stats means. Bear with me; this will be useful in discussing the 2007 AL pennant race.

VORP (value over replacement player) measures the number of runs a team’s pitching staff (or pitchers individually) prevents beyond replacement level, or basically a staff made up of AAA pitchers. It measures the overall quality of the pitching staff. The higher the VORP, measured in runs, the better the staff. 10 runs is equal to a win, and a team with a combined offensive and defensive VORP of zero would win 48 games in a season. The highest team VORP in the Wild Card era (1995-present) was accumulated by the 1999 Boston Red Sox (361.4 VORP), who helped by one of the greatest pitching performances in baseball history turned in by Pedro Martinez (102.3 all by himself).

WXRL (expected wins added beyond replacement level) is a measure of how many wins a staff adds beyond that of a AAA staff as measured by change in win expectancy, adjusted for the quality of the opposing lineup. It’s a measure of the effectiveness of a team’s bullpen. Win expectancy is a concept that measures a team’s chances of winning a game based on a change in out, base runner situation, inning, and score. For example, based on 2006 play-by-play data, the home team batting in the bottom of the 8th inning with runners on first and second with one out trailing by 1 run had a .43 (or 43%) chance of winning the game. If the opposing pitcher records an out, so now that the home team is batting in the bottom of the 8th inning with runners on first and second with two outs trailing by 1 run, the team has only a .3 (30%) chance of winning the game. The pitcher who records the out is credited with the difference, .13 (.43-.3) between the probability of victory. He has effectively reduced the opposing team’s chance of winning the game by 13%. Outs recorded with large differences in the score or early in games have less value than those late in close games under this system. Over the course of the season, WXRL is added and subtracted until a total is reached; the higher the total is the better the team’s bullpen is. The highest total since 1995 was the 2003 LA Dodgers with 21.78, anchored by a historic season by Eric Gagne (9.23 WXRL).

SNLVAR (support neutral lineup adjusted value above replacement) measures the number of wins added by a starting pitcher above a AAA pitcher after making all pitchers have the same run support and face the same quality of opponent. It measures the quality of a team’s starting pitching staff. It places all pitchers on a level playing field, and is measured in wins. The highest SNLVAR since 1995 as a team was recorded by the 1997 Atlanta Braves (33.6), anchored by future Hall of Famers Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz.

Now that the explanation is all out of the way, if I haven’t lost you yet, we can look at the data since 1995. Since 1995, teams who rank in the top five in VORP, WXRL, or SNLVAR reach the playoffs 66% of the time. Teams ranking in the top three in the same categories reach the playoffs 74% of the time. A look at the data for the top 5 spots:

Click Here for Chart

Being anywhere in the top 5 of any of these pitching categories gives a team a strong chance of making the playoffs.

How does this relate to the 2007 AL playoff race? We can make a formula that weighs a team’s pitching playoff chances by factoring in their rank in all three categories and the playoff chances in those categories. The data I’m using here is the same as above. The formula that I’m going to use is as follows:

[VORP Rank x Playoff Chance % + WXRL Rank x Playoff Chance % + SNLVAR Rank x Playoff Chance %]/3= Pitching Playoff Score

Note: There are certainly flaws in this system, such as a team ranking 20th having a better chance of making the playoffs than a team ranking 17th. This would probably be fixed using more years of data, but the general guiding principle is still worthwhile.

Ranking only the AL contenders, we get the following chart:

Click Here for Chart

The list really isn’t all that surprising. Let’s analyze each staff, focusing on the starters, setup man, and closer to see how they look going forward towards October.

Boston - Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Curt Schilling, Tim Wakefield, Jon Lester, Hideki Okajima, Jonathan Papelbon

The Sox boast the league’s best pitching staff and are statistically second only to San Diego in all of baseball. The rotation is strong, especially the front end, where they have two young aces and one aging ace with a great playoff track record. Although Okajima has never pitched this much in his career, he’s unlikely to be burned out before October due to suitable replacements in Eric Gagne, Manny Delcarmen, Mike Timlin, and potentially Clay Buchholz. Papelbon has pitched far fewer innings this year than last and is healthy; he’s been lights out for most of the season.

Minnesota – Johan Santana, #### Bonser, Carlos Silva, Scott Baker, Matt Garza, Pat Neshek/Matt Guerrier, Joe Nathan

Minnesota’s staff has been carried by Johan Santana and the back end of the bullpen, Nathan, Neshek, and Guerrier. Otherwise, they haven’t been spectacular individually, only as a unit. Not having Francisco Liraino really has hurt them this year. At 6.5 games behind, Liriano’s presence could have cut that deficit much lower, perhaps even to the point that they’d have been buyers and not sellers at the trading deadline.

Los Angeles of Anaheim – John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar, Jered Weaver, Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana, Scot Shields, Francisco Rodriguez

Lackey and Escobar have been two of the top pitchers in the league this season and offer no real reason to doubt them going forward. Weaver’s been inconsistent because of injuries, but overall has been an above average third starter. Ervin Santana, whom the Angels refused to trade in a deal for Miguel Tejada only a year ago, was so bad that he was demoted to AAA for a few starts. Saunders’ performance as a fifth starter has given the Angels no reason to worry, and Shields and K-Rod have been as good as ever. This would definitely be a scary pitching staff to face in October.

Seattle – Felix Hernandez, Jarrod Washburn, Miguel Batista, Jeff Weaver, Horatio Ramirez, George Sherrill, JJ Putz

Hernandez has shown the same flashes of greatness this season while also being inconsistent and injured. The starting staff, with the exception of Ramirez, has pitched well since the beginning of July. Sherrill has been scary to watch as a Red Sox fan, and Putz has been dominant.

Cleveland – CC Sabathia, Fausto Carmona, Paul Byrd, Jake Westbrook, Cliff Lee, Rafael Betancourt, Joe Borowski

Sabathia, Carmona, and Byrd make for a formidable front three, especially in a short playoff series. Lee has been awful this year, earning himself a demotion to the minors. While Betancourt has been outstanding (along with Rafael Perez), the rest of the bullpen is a clear weakness and could be a fatal flaw come October.

Detroit – Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman, Nate Robertson, Kenny Rogers, Andrew Miller/Chad Durbin, Fernando Rodney/Joel Zumaya, Todd Jones

Although injury riddled, Detroit has been pretty bad in the pitching department since the All Star break. Their team ERA of 5.57 is second worst in all of baseball during that span. Obviously, this is a talented staff and should turn things around. If healthy, they’d be tough to beat in a short series, as the A’s and Yankees can attest.

New York – Chien-Ming Wang, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina, Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Mariano Rivera

Let’s get this out of the way: a Chamberlain and Rivera combo at the end of games is a scary thought for Red Sox fans everywhere. Also, most of this staff is playoff tested, so their experience is a positive for them. However, 3/5 of the rotation is older than 35, and Hughes, tremendously talented, has pitched only a handful of games. Their post-All Star break ERA: 4.56, 19th in baseball. Let’s not kid ourselves: the Yankees could win with pitching if it gets hot, but are winning with offense. No team in recent memory has slugged their way to a championship.

Keep in mind that pitching is only part of the equation when evaluating a team. Plenty of teams with great pitching but poor offenses have failed to reach the postseason.

Next time, I’ll look into how the offenses rate and how the bats might determine who's playing in October and who's golfing.

Eric Gagne makes the Red Sox a much better team than they had been before the trade. The Gagne trade won’t really add too many additional wins to the team over the course of the regular season, but it will make them a very difficult team to beat come October. This was a move made with the playoffs in mind, much like the Dave Roberts deal in 2004.

Theo Epstein deserves a lot of credit for somehow managing to pull off trading Kason Gabbard (a career 5th starter), David Murphy (a career 4th outfielder), and Engel Beltre (17 years old) for one of the most coveted assets on the marker at the trading deadline. Say what you want about Theo and his free agent signings; he knows how to make trades.

I’m still at a loss to explain how Texas only managed to get the Sox’ package and nothing better. (Note: Not only did he get Gagne, but he got probably two picks in the first two rounds of next year’s draft from the team that will sign Gagne this off-season under the CBA compensation rules. The biggest strength of the Epstein regime has to be his drafting. See Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Buchholz, Justin Masterson, et al., and he put himself in a position to make more quality choices next June.) It’s possible that Texas had to accept less from the Sox due to the money they had to pay Gagne to get him to wave his no trade clause. The overall cost in prospects and dollars could be viewed as equaling the overall cost of the Yankees giving up Joba Chamberlain or Phil Hughes, whom Texas allegedly wanted. 

The trade is even more interesting and appealing to Sox fans because it’s pretty evident that the Yankees’ needed bullpen help much more than the Sox, but actually dumped Scott Proctor rather than adding a reliever. Granted, Joba Chamberlain should be up and in the Mariano Rivera/ Jonathan Papelbon setup role within a week or so, but he’s still going to be a rookie performing in the heat of a playoff race, so a great performance isn’t guaranteed, though I wouldn’t bet against it. Detroit also had interest in Gagne; it was widely predicted that they’d acquire Gagne and essentially book their ticket to the World Series. Their interest probably faded due to the high asking price and also the impending returns of Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney.

One of my readers asked me to run Gagne through my trade machine to see how much he’d improve the Red Sox. I ran him through before yesterday’s outing, so basically using his Texas statistics. 

The Trade: Red Sox trade David Murphy, Kason Gabbard, and Engel Beltre to Texas for Eric Gagne. Curt Schilling replaces Gabbard in the rotation; Gagne replaces Kyle Snyder or Javier Lopez in the bullpen.  

In his last full season, 2004 with Los Angeles, Gagne pitched 26 times from August 1 through the end of the season. Even though he was a closer then and closers are more likely to pitch in pennant races than non-closers, the Sox, who have no obligations to Gagne after the season, will probably rely more heavily on him than Jonathan Papelbon because they have Papelbon under control for at least 3 or 4 more years. Projecting 26 appearances out of Gagne using the method that I had described in previous posts, he should have a VORP of 8 over the rest of the season. By itself, 8 VORP isn’t even a win, but remember the trickle down effect.

Gagne should be 7 run improvement over Javier Lopez or a 6 run improvement over Kyle Snyder. The improvement in the trade comes from Schilling (projected 17 VORP remaining) replacing Gabbard (projected 4.5 VORP remaining). This move would have happened anyways, but Schilling’s return allowed the Sox to deal from a position of strength and complete the trade for Gagne using Gabbard, so the two are not completely unrelated.

 By combining the additions of Gagne and Schilling with the departures of Snyder/Lopez and Gabbard, the Sox should gain about 20 VORP over the remainder of the season, or about 2 additional wins. While they might not really need the two wins to win the division, it adds a nice insurance policy.

Admittedly, the title of this post might seem misguided.

Don't the Red Sox have the second best bullpen in baseball, with an ERA of 2.89, and one of the best setup men so far in Hideki Okajima, he of the 1.14 ERA and .789 WHIP? Yes, they do. The bullpen also projects to improve down the road as young guns (hopefully) like Manny Delcarmen and Craig Hansen are added into the mix, and as Julian Tavarez is moved back into the bullpen to make room for Jon Lester. However, it is certainly valid to expect that some of the Sox' relievers will regress as the season progresses. In particular, Okajima has been ridden hard (28 G, 31.1 IP) by Terry Francona, and recently has showed some signs of fatigue. The numbers don't really speak to a decline over his last 10 appearances (10 app, 12 IP, 9 H, 4 BB, 3 ER, 7 K), but his usage overall is something to watch. Also, Mike Timlin has been hurt and ineffective all season, giving the Sox just one setup option, Okajima. Realistically, Donnelly, Pineiro, Lopez, and Snyder are appropriately slotted into middle relief. So the Red Sox biggest need thus far is to add a strikeout right-handed setup man.

While convincing you that the Sox need a setup man might be difficult, it's pretty obvious that the Yankees, although winners of 7 in a row and 10 of 12, need some bullpen help if they want to make the playoffs and have a chance to win at all. The Yankee bullpen ranks 20th in ERA at 4.21. While Mariano Rivera has returned to form of late and Scott Proctor and Brian Bruney have been serviceable (especially Bruney, who has a VORP of 12.1, good for 3rd on the team), the rest of the bullpen has generally been a disaster. Myers has been himself: good in the lefty on lefty match-ups, but ineffective over a span of batters. Farnsworth has been horrible throughout his time in New York despite his tremendous stuff. Luis Vizcaino has been terrible, making Yankees' fans hope that the other pieces acquired in the Randy Johnson trade, Ross Ohlendorf and Stephen Jackson, are pretty special.

Where am I going with all of this? In the past few seasons, it has become part of the philosophies of both the Red Sox and Yankees to not trade away prospects without getting equal value in return (Sox valued Beckett and Lowell more than Ramirez, Sanchez, et al.). At the trading deadline, acquiring the likes of Eric Gagne, Brad Lidge, Scott Linebrink, or Akinori Otsuka will be high. I really don't see the Sox trading a Jacoby Ellsbury or Michael Bowden to get one of those guys. Remember, they reportedly decided against trading such top prospects last season for Andruw Jones, Jake Peavy, and Roy Oswalt in different deals, and all three of those players are stars. The Yankees also are unlikely to use their top prospects to acquire a potential, not guaranteed, difference maker for one year (Dontrelle Willis and Rich Harden are exceptions because they are more than a half-season fix). However, neither team actually needs to use their top prospects to acquire these setup men. In fact, a couple both the Yankees and Red Sox top prospects can be used as setup men and can be potential difference makers in the playoff race and beyond.

Think back to the 1996 Yankees, or just to the 2005 Red Sox if you can't remember the 1996 Yankees. 1996 was Mariano Rivera's first full season in the majors and he was John Wetteland's apprentice as setup man. Rivera dominated the league that season, often pitching multiple dominant innings at a time, amassing a whopping 130 strikeouts in only 107.2 IP with a 2.09 ERA and a .994 WHIP. By most accounts, Rivera was amazing and one of the team's most valuable players in their World Series run. (I highly recommend Joel Sherman's Birth of a Dynasty; it's really an excellent account of that season and the Yankees' streak of dominance that began then, even as a die-hard Red Sox fan.) He finished 12th in MVP voting and 3rd in the AL Cy Young Race. 2005 was Jonathan Papelbon's debut season. While he worked as both a starter and reliever, his work out of the bullpen, especially late in the season, was nothing short of spectacular, a preview of his 2006 and 2007 season (although 2007 has been mildly disappointing compared to 2006 so far). From September through the playoffs in 2005, Papelbon pitched 17.1 innings, allowing only 12 hits, 4 walks, and 2 earned runs, while amassing 15 strikeouts. Along with Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, he was probably the main reason the Red Sox even made the playoffs that season. Because of the similar amounts of innings pitched, Papelbon is probably the model to be followed here, as his call-up came later in the season, as opposed to Rivera starting the season in New York.

Who exactly do I have in mind for these two roles?

Phillip Hughes should be the man for the Yankees. There really should be no debating Hughes' potential dominance out of the bullpen. Even in his brief, injury shortened stint as a starter, Hughes showed his ability to dominate major league hitters. If instead of stretching out his pitches over an entire game, he'd be able to spend them at will over a one or two inning outing two to four times per week. His already good 'stuff' would improve to great (or 'great' to 'amazing') and he could be dominant. Hughes averaged about .10 strikeouts per inning pitched more than Papelbon in the minors (approx. 1.05 to .95), and as a reliever, his strikeout rate can be expected to increase by about 16%, according to Baseball Prospectus' conversion factors. There are only two questions about Hughes: His health and whether he should be a starter or a reliever. In the long term, Hughes is definitely more valuable as a starter to the Yankees; many in baseball project him as a future number one starter. However, by the time he returns from his severe ankle sprain, it will take him a lot less time to come back an contribute in a meaningful way to the bullpen than to the rotation. Also, given the choice between Tyler Clippard (or whoever is the 5th starter at that point) pitching out of the bullpen or Phillip Hughes pitching out of the bullpen, Hughes can dominate where as Clippard will likely be nothing more than a middle reliever at best. Think of it this way: would you rather have Kyle Sndyer starting every fifth day with Papelbon circa 2005 in the bullpen or Papelbon 2005 starting every fifth day and Snyder available out of the bullpen? I'd choose the combo of Papelbon in the bullpen with Snyder starting. Also, if the Yankees make the playoffs, Hughes will inevitably be bumped to the bullpen because he is the only potential starter who would be able to make the transition easily. Wang, Pettite, Mussina, and Clemens are all obviously best suited to start. Hughes, if healthy, should be viewed as a potential difference maker out of the bullpen in the American League.

Clay Buchholz is the man for the Red Sox. While Jon Lester is probably the Sox' top prospect, he isn't really a strikeout pitcher. In fact, I believe that that's the reason that Lester still in the minors, not that Tavarez is pitching so well, because the combination of Lester/Tavarez is better than the current combination of Tavarez/Pineiro (who will be likely be cut when Lester returns unless there is an injury). Lester's strikeout rate in the minors this year is only 6.3 per 9 innings pitched, compared to 6.63 per 9 innings pitched in the majors last year. That 6.3 will probably drop significantly when Lester starts facing major league hitters, unless he changes his approach. (Sidenote: His strikeout rate will probably soar once he's able to throw his cutter, which the team prohibited during his rehab starts.) Buchholz has struck out 11.65 batters per 9 innings (86 K's in 63.1 IP) in Portland (AA), while posting a 1.56 ERA with an opponents' average of .177 and only 14 walks in 63.1 IP. Obviously Buchholz's strikeout rate will fall as he progresses to AAA and then the majors. However, a telling sign of his talent is that when he faced Clemens in one of Clemens' rehab starts, scouts all came away from the outing proclaiming that if they had to pick a pitcher to start a game five days from them, Buchholz would be their guy, hands down. Also, Buchholz has been said to have ice-water in his veins and has been breaking Josh Beckett's strikeout records in Portland (which was a Florida AA team when Beckett was in their system). While Hansen and Delcarmen (both are pitching better of late in Pawtucket) are certainly also potential candidates to fill the role of setup man, they have already failed to do so in the majors, so barring a major progression in their skills over the rest of the season in Pawtucket, they might not be ideal for the situation. Given the stats, scouting reports, and history, Clay Buchholz may be worth a look as a potential flame-throwing righty with a great fastball and curveball and good slider and changeup who can strike guys out.

 It's still only June, and the Red Sox are still 9.5 games ahead of the Yankees in the standings, but down the road and into October, keep an eye on Clay Buchholz and Phillip Hughes. Both could make huge differences for their teams.

(NOTE: The Sox ended their losing streak as I wrote this entry. Congrats to Schilling on his near-no hitter. I’m a little sad for him; maybe if Lugo doesn’t make the error, he doesn’t have to face Stewart and ends the game with Kendall. Still, a brilliant performance.)

 

The Sox have lost four games in a row and six out of their last seven. In that time, the Yankees have reduced the gap between the two teams from 14.5 games to 10.5. The more pessimistic members of Red Sox Nation are worrying about a June swoon, and Yankees fans are encouraged by their team’s winning 5 of 7, including 2 of 3 from the Sox, as well as the looming debut of Roger Clemens, allegedly on Saturday versus the Pirates. At this point, the question seems to be hanging in the air: Can the Yankees catch the Red Sox and win their 10th consecutive AL East title? I’m not going to question whether or not they can make the playoffs: they are a mere 6.5 games behind Wild Card-leading Detroit.

 

In short, the answer is no, and there are a few reasons. One is that the Red Sox aren’t a team that is likely to lose 6 of 7 games more than once or twice per season, and if you actually look at the games they’ve lost, the only ones they didn’t have a good chance to win are Matsuzaka’s loss to Cleveland last Wednesday and Wakefield’s loss to the Yankees last Friday. The other losses include a Jonathan Papelbon mistake to A-Rod following an amazing, if not lucky, catch by Bobby Abreu on Dustin Pedroia’s bid for a bases clearing double, a frustrated extra inning loss after a 9th inning comeback in a game started by Danny Haren, and back to back double play plagued games in games featuring less than impressive starts by Lenny DiNardo and Joe Kennedy. I’m not going to say that the Red Sox have been unlucky, because luck seems to balance itself out over the course of a season, but grounding into 3 or more double plays in 4 of 6 games isn’t symptomatic of an offensive problem, but of chance, or in this case, misfortune. Otherwise, the pitching has been solid since Sunday and the offense has produced a good amount of base runners. Eventually, the runs will come.

 

 Secondly, the Yankees main problem, now that the offense has woken from its season long slumber, is pitching. Chien Ming Wang is a very good major league pitcher, so long as his defense is good behind him because he doesn’t strikeout anyone (3.45 K’s/9 over his major league career). Andy Pettite has been great this season, but age and durability are questions as he moves forward. Mike Mussina has been throwing slop all year, as his fastball has disappeared and he rarely hits 90 MPH. Tyler Clippard has been great so far, but will that really continue? Baseball Prospectus projected him to have an ERA of 5.09 this year, far beyond his 3.60 so far. Chances are he’ll level off.

 

Which bring us to Clemens. Look. Clemens is one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history, but he isn’t going to be one of the best pitchers in baseball in the American League East. Last year in the NL Central, Clemens averaged just over 6 innings per start. In his last year in the AL East, 2003, he had a 3.91 ERA. With aging and his readjustment to the AL East, the Yankees shouldn’t realistically expect any better than a consistent 6 IP, 2 or 3 ER from Clemens. While that should keep the Yankees in many games, their bullpen is horrible, and might be unable to hold a lead for 3 innings. Brian Bruney has been great, and Mariano Rivera is Mariano Rivera, but otherwise, the bullpen has been overworked and has underperformed, partly as a result of being overworked.

 

In my mind, the most important player for the Yankees is Phillip Hughes, who is currently injured and isn’t expected back until sometime in late-July or early August. I’ll expound on my reasoning in my next post. Basically, I’ll explain how I think that Hughes and be like Papelbon was for the Sox in late 2005, a huge asset for the Yankees.

As the Red Sox head into New York tonight to face the Yankees for the second straight weekend, the teams appear to be headed in opposite directions. Coming in, the Sox are 14-7, winners of 10 of 13, and have the best record in all of baseball. The Yankees are 8-12, in last place in the AL East, 5.5 games back, and have lost six in a row. There are many reasons not to declare the Red Sox AL East Champions, the best being that it’s April 27, and nothing can possibly be decided right now. (That being said, the last time the Sox lead the Yankees by this much, this early in the season was 1995, according to The Boston Globe, the last year the Red Sox won the AL East.) The Yankees have been beat up badly, similarly to how the Red Sox were when the Yankees swept five games over four days late last August. Johnny Damon has been hurting, as have Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada; all three missed games over the past week with injuries. Hideki Matsui just returned from the DL, as did Chien-Ming Wang, who made his first start on Tuesday in a loss to Tampa. Mike Mussina and Carl Pavano are both still on the DL; Mussina is expected to return soon, although reports are that his fastball is still topping out at 85 mph during his rehab. In the mean time, the Yankees have been forced to call up top prospect Phillip Hughes already, after planning on leaving him in the minors until at least June. In my mind, Hughes isn’t ready yet, and while he’ll likely be a successful big-league pitcher, he is going to struggle in the early going in New York and may have some ugly moments. As of today (4/27), the Yankees rotation includes Wang, Andy Pettitte, Jeff Karstens, Chase Wright, and Phillip Hughes. Kei Igawa has already been banished to the bullpen, he of the 5 year, $20 million contract.The Yankees situation is really not that bad. It is still very early in the season, and an 8-12 record, while disappointing, isn’t horrible. Should the Red Sox sweep them this weekend, there could be problems for the Yankees, given how well the Red Sox have pitched so far.

 

The biggest problem for the Yankees is an exhausted bullpen, one that really hasn’t had a chance to recover, and might not recover at all this season. Yankee starters have thrown just 98.3 innings this season, an average of under 5 innings per start. The bullpen has been taxed for 81.7 innings, second in the league only to Florida, an average of about 4 innings per game. Having a bullpen, typically filled with marginal relievers other than the closer, throw about 45% of the innings is a recipe for disaster. As a whole, the Yankees staff has a miserable 1.27:1 strike out to walk ratio. Also, let’s not forget that the Yankees bullpen has no saves and has blown 8 over the first 20 games. Rivera will no doubt come around, but will the rest of the bullpen be able to bridge the gap to the 9th inning? By contrast, the Red Sox starter have thrown 132.7 innings (6.3 per game), leaving relievers to throw just 52.3 (2.5 per game). Their strikeout to walk ratio is 2.7:1, third in the league. They have 8 saves and no blown saves. Their success, especially in the bullpen, has been a product of Hideki Okajima, Jonathan Papelbon, and the starters going deep into games to keep the workload light. That’s about as much as the Sox can ask from their staff.

 

The two teams are really complete opposites when it comes to the pitching staff. The Red Sox are healthy, have had solid performances from virtually everyone, and have lots of minor league depth, including Jon Lester, Manny Delcarmen, Javier Lopez, Craig Hansen, Kason Gabbard, and Devern Hansack. The Yankees are battered and bruised, and, as far as I know (and I admittedly don’t know the Yankees system as well as the Sox), have Humberto Sanchez (top prospect acquired for Sheffield) and not much else in the minors ready to contribute in a positive way. (Please correct me if I’m wrong here. Also, I know that many of the Sox pitchers listed, specifically Lopez, Gabbard, and Hansack are probably no better than Chase Wright, Jeff Karstens, or Darrell Rasner, but they are options that the Red Sox haven’t needed to use yet, other than Lopez briefly.)

 

Joe Torre seems to have a knack for burning out bullpens. Pitchers fall out of favor with him for not throwing strikes and for being inconsistent. He then falls in love with those who he deems reliable and proceeds to run them into the ground, like he did with Tom Gordon and Paul Quantril in 2004. By the time the playoffs came around, they were burnt out and useless, and the Red Sox pounded them. This season, Scott Proctor has already thrown 12 innings over 13 appearances. Projected over the course of the season, Proctor will throw 97 innings, a total usually reserved for a swingman, not a setup man, but less than the 102.3 innings he threw last year. If Torre uses him that much, I guarantee that in September he’s lost a significant amount of effectiveness. The same goes for Luis Vizcaino, Mike Myers, and Brian Bruney, all of whom are on Proctor-like paces.

 

Looking at the broad picture and ahead through the rest of the season, which staff would you rather have?

 

New York: Wang, Pettitte, Mussina, Clemens, Hughes, Myers, Proctor, Rivera

Boston: Schilling, Beckett, Matsuzaka, Wakefield, Lester, Okajima, Timlin, Papelbon

 

Mixing the two staffs together, taking the best of both, at this point in their career, this is who I’d take:

 

Best Staff: Schilling, Beckett, Matsuzaka, Clemens, Lester, Okajima, Proctor, Rivera/Papelbon

 

Feel free to disagree, but I think the Sox staff dominates the Yankees staff. Pettitte and Mussina are clearly on the downside of their careers and have been injury prone over the past few seasons, which is why I give the edge to Beckett (my favorite besides Pedro) who is off to a terrific start, and Matsuzaka (admittedly shaky at times), whose upside at this point beats Mussina’s.

 

The question is this: is the difference between the Red Sox and Yankees pitching staff greater than the difference between the Yankees offense and the Red Sox offense? That’s the question that will reveal who’s going to win the AL East.

 

On April 27, my money’s on the Sox.

Standing with my brother in our now-usual spots against the guardrail behind Fenway’s Section 22, just to the third base side of home plate, on Friday night, I cringed as Terry Francona walked to the mound after Brendan Donnelley had worked himself into a jam in the top of the 8th. The Angels had runners on first and third, one out, and Vladimir Guerrero coming to the plate. Jonathan Papelbon had been warming in the bullpen, and apparently Francona was going to use him to get five outs for the second time in a week, less than a month after the team had insisted that his shoulder was better suited to start. For an early April game, this certainly seemed like a bad, bad move.

I was initially hesitant to praise the Red Sox for converting Jonathan Papelbon back to closer after planning all winter to use him as a starter. My reasoning, as I had written before, was the way the team planned to use him. Initially, Papelbon was only going to pitch the 9th inning, which would limit his effectiveness. Francona repeatedly said that he had to be careful about how he was going to use Papelbon, that he could only go one innings and would have to rest for a certain amount of time depending on the stress level of the outing. Making Papelbon a 9th inning closer would greatly diminish his value. Well, the Red Sox have completely strayed from their plan, and it’s a great thing.

I had written about the concept of leverage before. Some outs, particularly those late in the game with runners on base, are more valuable than others. Basically, some outs increase or decrease a team’s chances of winning by a greater margin. The best way for a team to use their closer, who is in theory the best pitcher in the bullpen, is to put him in the game in the situations with high leverage; it doesn’t matter if that situation is in the 7th, 8th, 9th, or 10th inning. Teams should use their closers when it counts, not to record a one-two-three 9th inning when the team is winning by 3 just to get a save.

It might be easier to understand if you think about it from an economics point of view. Think about a situation where you have a limited resource and have to choose when to use it. Let’s say that you are only allowed to buy one cup of coffee a day (or for that matter one energy-boosting supplement) and you have to choose when to buy it. You have two choices: do you want to stop in the morning before work or after work at dinner time? For most people, the answer is to stop in the morning because that’s when the coffee is most important to them because it’s most effective. The marginal benefit of the coffee in the morning exceeds the marginal benefit of the coffee at night. The logical choice is coffee in the morning.

Let’s put the situation back into the context of using Papelbon. Most fans, given the choice, would say to save Papelbon for the 9th inning because he’s the closer. They’d be making the baseball equivalent of coffee at night instead of in the morning. Take this situation for example: next Friday, April 20th, the Yankees load the bases with no outs in the 8th inning as the Red Sox cling to a 4-2 lead. Jeter, Rodriguez, and Giambi (or basically pick your Yankees) are due up. Francona can either use Papelbon or Mike Timlin, but Papelbon can only pitch one inning, so he’s not going to get the save if they use him in the 8th. The decision comes down to going against traditional baseball theory or facing a bad situation with less than your best pitcher. The way the Red Sox should use Papelbon is in the 8th in this hypothetical situation.

So far this year, the Sox have been outstanding in their usage with Papelbon. It was great drama, especially being there, having “Wild Thing” blaring over the PA system as Papelbon jogged in from the bullpen to face Vlad the Impaler with a lot on the line. The crowd was electric. Papelbon proceeded to blow Guerrero away on four fastballs, topping out at 97, and then inducing Garret Anderson to line to left field, ending the inning. The Sox went on to blow the game open in the bottom of the 8th, but Mike Timlin had begun to warm up before the Sox came to bat in the 8th. Despite throwing only 6 pitches and Francona’s statements to the contrary, Papelbon may have been done, which is good considering the early stage of the season.

Papelbon’s save in Texas on Easter Sunday was called by a few scouts the greatest save they’d seen in 20 years, according to Red Sox radio announcer Dave O’Brien. Statistically, Papelbon came into the game while the Rangers had a 43% chance of winning, with the Red Sox leading by 1 in the bottom of the 8th, and runners on first and second and one out, with Michael Young and Mark Teixiera due up. He blew away Young, popped up Teixiera, and went through Sammy Sosa, Hank Blalock, and Brad Wilkerson in the 9th. He reduced Texas’ chances of victory from 43% to 0%, so is credited with .43 WXRL. That’s a pretty incredible feat. Curt Schilling had pitched 7 innings of 1 run baseball, but it was Papelbon who got credit for 43% of the victory in only 1.2 IP. So far this season, despite making only 3 appearances, Papelbon leads the league in WXRL/IP, at .21 per inning. It means he’s been the best-used reliever in baseball on a rate basis, even though Todd Jones has a higher WXRL and more saves.

The Sox should continue to use Papelbon in this way. It would go a long way towards gaining an advantage over the teams who refuse to use their closers in the most important situations. Much to the chagrin of fantasy baseball owners, it would be best for the Red Sox if Papelbon doesn’t lead the league in saves, but leads the league in WXRL. He could be the first of a new era of baseball reliever, the stopper, instead of the now traditional closer. That being said, the Sox probably won’t use Papelbon exclusively in high leverage situations, but there’s always wishful thinking.

There's not too much positive to be said about Friday and Saturday's losses to Texas other than that Tim Wakefield and the bullpen were strong on Friday. Saturday's game was a debacle, as Tavarez struggled and the bullpen imploded for the first time of the season. In addition, Francona burned through the entire pen except for Papelbon, although the decision wasn't as bad as it could have been given Francona's knowledge that Schilling was starting tonight and was eager to make ammends for his Opening Day performance. The offense was abysmal both Friday and Saturday, failing to work counts, swing at first pitches, chasing balls, and being very un-Red Sox-like in general. The Sox deserved to lose both games and they did.

Sunday night's game was a very good win for the team and leaves them at 3-3 coming back to Fenway to open the season. While 4-2 would have been nice coming home, 3-3 is acceptable, especially given the weather they've played in so far (although this week doesn't promise to be much better). Schilling was excellent in his second outting, making all the worrying about his first start seem like a waste of time. His velocity was up and his command was good, although it didn't seem like he threw many changeups, and the one he definitely did got hit for a home run by Frank Catalanato. It was nice to see Schilling dominate the way he's expected to as ace of the pitching staff.

 The offense still struggled mightly with the exception of David Ortiz, who broke out with two home runs and all three RBIs. Otherwise, they've struggled to piece together hits and runs with any consistancy. Already, Alex Cora started for Dustin Pedroia, whose swing has been long and wild so far; I suspect that it was just Francona wanting to get Cora some at-bats, not a benching of Pedroia. Manny Ramirez hit the ball well tonight, so it looks like he'll be breaking out any day now. Also, Varitek's been going to the opposite field a lot, and while it might not be working right now on the road, those balls being caught in left field are going to be doubles at Fenway. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the offense really pick it up as soon as they get to Fenway.

 This will be the subject of another post, hopefully tomorrow, so check back, but Francona deserves a lot of credit for the way he handled Papelbon tonight. It was absolutely necessary that he pitch in the 8th inning, as it was the most important situation of the game. ESPN's Joe Morgan said that Francona told him that sometimes he'll use Papelbon in the 8th and someone else in the 9th if necessary to get the win. I really like Francona's thinking here, and I'll write more on it later.

 

Overall, a decent season opening road trip, and although 4-2 would be better, 3-3 is acceptable as the team tries to find their stride.





 

The 2007 season is just minutes away, and I cannot wait. It’s been a long five and a half months since Adam Wainwright recorded the final out of the World Series against the Tigers on a swinging strikeout. That’s coming from someone living in Boston, which might as well be the baseball center of the universe, since there really is no off-season. It’s been fun to speculate about trades, signings, roles, and prospects, but I’ve had enough NESN Red Sox Walk-off Replays and I’m ready for the real thing.

I guess it’s time to discuss the Red Sox and what I think of the team overall. I’ve already written in-depth about the closer situation, second base, shortstop, and right field, but I’ll go position by position briefly. 

Catcher: Jason Varitek … The Sox really need a much better season offensively out of Varitek than he gave them last year. The problem is that Varitek is at the age that normal players begin to decline, often steeply; catchers have even shorter shelf lives than others, so Varitek could truly be in decline. His 2.8 VORP was abysmal last year, and is projected at a better, but not great, 16.8 this year. They can take that 16.8 VORP with his excellent defense and leadership, but Mirabelli is a good backup (but wasn’t last year). Ideally, George Kottaras will progress to the point that he’s ready in September to back up Varitek. 

First base: Kevin Youkilis … Youkilis gave the Sox a very productive season in 2006, and they’d certainly like to see the Youkilis of last April-August than the beat up and worn down Youkilis of September. While he’ll never be the prototypical slugging first basemen, his high OBP balances his slightly below average SLG to keep his OPS in the .800s. He should be solid in the second spot of the lineup.

Second base: Dustin Pedroia … The big question is will he hit enough? I think he will. See my previous post for more.

Shortstop: Julio Lugo … Lugo’s definitely an upgrade, as I wrote in my last post. See that for more. 

Third base: Mike Lowell … Lowell’s interesting in that is 2006 was in line with the rest of his career, given the assumption that he’ll decline as he ages. It seems that 2005 was an aberration, and the Sox need a 2006-type performance out of Lowell to ensure that the lineup is deep enough. His projected VORP of 10.4 isn’t going to be enough, as it’s basically a one win drop off from last season. The Sox need more than just his glove.

Left field: Manny Ramirez … He’s healthy, he’s happy, and he’s Manny. He’ll be one of the best players in baseball, and he’ll continue on his path towards the Hall of Fame. He might even be better with JD Drew hitting behind him. 

Center field: Coco Crisp … This is a spot where the Sox need and expect much improvement. Crisp was hurt last season early on and it affected his performance negatively. His projected 21.6 VORP would be a win and a half improvement over 2006 and seems reachable. Still, questions linger, especially about his attitude this spring. If he’s a malcontent and doesn’t produce, look for him to be dealt, as the Sox have people who can fill in temporarily in center, such as Wily Mo Pena, JD Drew, David Murphy, and the center fielder of the future, Jacoby Ellsbury. Wily Mo Pena would provide a lot more offense than Crisp, and Crisp’s defense, despite his occasional highlight-reel catchers, isn’t great, as he takes bad routes to balls and has a horrible arm. Pena’s offensive improvement, if Crisp struggles, would be greater than the drop-off in defense. It’s too early to write off Crisp though, as his career path until this past season was similar to Johnny Damon’s, with slightly less power. That’s probably the subject of another post.

Right field: JD Drew … See my other post about Drew. They need him to be healthy, but do have depth if he isn’t. 

Designated Hitter: David Ortiz … He’ll be great, but not as good as last year; it’s probably impossible. Watch for signs of breakdown. He’s getting older and he’s a big guy, so he could become injury prone. He should be in the top five in the AL MVP race.

Starting Rotation: Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Wakefield, Julian Tavarez … I want to keep it brief (I'll probably go in-depth soon), but this rotation has a chance to be special if things fall right. Schilling needs to be healthy, Beckett needs to be less stubborn, Matsuzaka needs to prove he can pitch in the AL East, Wakefield needs to be Wakefield, and Tavarez (and Kyle Snyder), need to keep Jon Lester or Roger Clemens’ seat warm until June. Look for Beckett to be the ace of the staff come October if he relies on his curve, changeup and two-seamer more, although realistically, it could still be Schilling or Matsuzaka as well. (NOTE: Beckett is my favorite pitcher behind Pedro Martinez, so anything I write about him could be a little biased. Matsuzaka could approach that duo this season if he comes as advertised, which he appears to be.)

Bullpen: Kyle Snyder, Hideki Okajima, Javier Lopez, JC Romero, Brendan Donnelly, Joel Pineiro, Mike Timlin (DL), Jonathan Papelbon … The bullpen is loaded with veteran question marks, but should be solid. They have three lefties to start the season in Okajima, Lopez, and Romero, but Lopez will be demoted when Timlin returns. Donnelley and Pineiro will set up Papelbon until Timlin returns, and Snyder should provide an Arroyo-like performance as swingman. I’m disappointed that Delcarmen got sent down, but he’ll be back shortly, probably by May; he’s got too much talent to sit and dominate AAA. Hansen should improve to the point that he’s useful by July, and 2006 draftee Bryce Cox is also on the horizon. In September, it’s not unrealistic (OK, it’s a little bit of a stretch) to think that bullpen’s most important pieces will be Papelbon, Delcarmen, Hansen, Okajima, and Cox. I think they’ll be alright as the season progresses, and that the bullpen could gel like it did in the 2003 postseason, when it was dominant. 

Bench: Alex Cora, Doug Mirabelli, Eric Hinske, Wily Mo Pena … Ideally, they’d want a faster 4th outfielder, but they’ll settle for Pena’s awesome bat. Cora and Mirabelli are near the tops of their respective roles in all of baseball, and Hinske gives them a nice left-handed compliment to Pena, as well as the ability to play all four corner positions. The bench is solid.

Overall, I see about 94 wins for the Sox, which should be good for a playoff spot. I don’t see any potential wild card threats in the AL West, and the AL Central is so deep that it might be hard for two teams to play playoff-caliber baseball. If the Sox get in the playoffs, they certainly have the pitching and experience to succeed. To me, the most important questions are those of age, health, and Francona’s use (or misuse) of Papelbon. If things fall right for the Sox, and the rotation makes almost all of its starts like in 2004, there could very well be another parade in late October.

 

Predictions:

AL East: Boston

AL West: Anaheim

AL Central: Cleveland

AL Wild Card: New York

ALDS: Boston over Cleveland, New York over Anaheim

ALCS: Boston over New York

 

NL East: New York

NL Central: Chicago

NL West: Los Angeles

NL Wild Card: Arizona

NLDS: Arizona over New York, Los Angeles over Chicago

NLCS: Los Angeles over Arizona

 

World Series: Boston over Los Angeles … Beckett, Matsuzaka, Schilling, and Papelbon run the Sox through the playoffs a la Schilling, Pedro, Lowe, and Foulke circa 2004, with Ramirez, Ortiz, and Drew providing the offense.

 

My favorite players to watch heading into 2007:

Pedro Martinez
Josh Beckett
Manny Ramirez
Daisuke Matsuzaka
Jonathan Papelbon
Alfonso Soriano
Miguel Cabrera
Mariano Rivera
Nomar Garciaparra
Derek Lowe
Alex Cora

It’s heavily populated with Red Sox or former Red Sox, but I do appreciate all good players.

 

Leave comments, thoughts, lists of favorite players, etc.

The more that we learn about Papelbon moving back to the bullpen, the less the decision looks like a good one, at least based on what the Red Sox and Papelbon are both saying about his usage. Both sides insist that Papelbon will be used mainly for one inning, the 9th, in situations where the Red Sox are leading. While it's great that the team is concerned about Papelbon's health from both the player's and the team's standpoint, the way Francona, at least publicly, plans to use Papelbon might be a problem.

As is, managers misuse their closers, usually saving them for the 9th inning, even if there is a point in the game in the 7th or 8th inning where using the best relief pitcher would be more beneficial towards winning the game. Win Expectancy gives credit to pitchers based on the importance of the outs that they record in a game. Based on play by play data, the exact change in a team's odds of winning a given game can be calculated given score, home/away, outs, and runners on base. Win expectancy (or WXRL, which adjusts for replacement level) gives a pitcher credit equal to the change in the odd's of his team's victory. You can find the exact numbers on Baseball Prospectus' website. Using that stat, one can see that each out is not equal in value; some have higher marginal value than others. Studies have been done that have shown that a lot of times, outs with the highest marginal value come in the 6th, 7th, and 8th innings, not just the 9th. The optimal way to allocate resources, in this case the closer, would be to use him in the situations with the highest leverage, or change in the odds of victory.

Last season, Francona used Papelbon in many of those situations, and it was reflected in his WXRL of 6.605, second in the league behind Francisco Rodriguez of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Another of last year's phenom reliever, Detroit's setup man Joel Zumaya, posted a higher WXRL than that of the team's closer, Todd Jones; while fans clamored for Zumaya to be named the team's closer, Jim Leyland was actually efficently allocating his resources. By pitching almost exclusively the 9th inning, Papelbon's value to the team diminishes significantly.

BP's updated PECOTA on Papelbon puts his VORP at a mere 19.6, meaning they project that'd he'll add about 2 wins to the team's total over the course of the season. As a starter, his last projected VORP was 30.1, or approximately 3 wins over the course of the season. Going by those projections, moving Papelbon to the pen will cost the team a win, without factoring in the trickle down effect. (NOTE: In my last post, I thought the trickle down effect would help the Sox, but BP's projections have Tavarez worse as a starter, and Lester and Snyder's gains don't offset Tavarez's loss. The again, BP's offensive projections are 70%+ accurate, while their pitching projections are less than 50% accurate.) At a VORP of 19.6, Papelbon's closest comparisons to last season are Aaron Heilman (Mets setup), Scott Linebrink (Padre setup), and Chad Qualls (Astros setup/closer). While the VORP looks low for Papelbon, the projected 60 IP looks accurate based on the Sox' comments on his usage.

Look: The bottom line is that Papelbon is unlikely to reach his extraordinary VORP from last year of 38.6 (approx. 4 wins). Hopefully he'll be in the Joe Nathan range of 30-35 VORP (3-3.5 wins) and his value as a closer will be equal to that as a starter. Then again, maybe Roger Clemens and is projected 28.3 VORP will be in a Sox uniform in June, and replace what Papelbon was slotted to do as a starter, making this whole Papelbon-as-starter-or-closer debate meaningless.

Hey, it's obviously all specualtion that this point, so it's useless, but fun.

ESPN’s Erin Andrews is reporting during the Red Sox-Phillies broadcast that the Red Sox have made the decision to move Jonathan Papelbon back to the closer’s role after spending much of the off-season and the entire spring insisting that he’d open the season as the number four starter in the Red Sox rotation. They’ll make the announcement after the game. According the Andrews, Papelbon really wants to close because he feels that he can help the team more as the closer than as fourth starter. Andrews also mentioned the possibility that there will be restrictions placed on Papelbon’s workload, such as rest between appearances, et cetera.

Personally, I feel like Papelbon has been in a no-win situation this spring. He was so dominant last season as a closer that some fans expected him to step in and be a Cy Young caliber starter. At the same time, he was dominant as a closer, but it is unrealistic to expect the same level of dominance this season. Even with restrictions placed on his workload, Papelbon’s presence at the end of games gives Terry Francona and the rest of the team comfort that a lead in the 8th or 9th inning will turn into a win upwards of 90% of the time. Opposing players had expressed relief that Papelbon wasn’t going to close anymore because of his sheer dominance. Simply put, Papelbon makes the Red Sox more balanced as a pitching staff. However, let’s look at the stats to see how they play out in this debate. Opinions are great, but having numbers to back them up helps give the opinions validity.

Here are how the numbers add up, as sorted by Value Over Replacement Player (VORP). VORP, briefly, is a measure of how many runs an offensive player adds above the worst possible regular major league player at his position and how many runs a pitcher prevents for the same. A VORP of 10 is approximately equal to 1 win added to a team’s win total. A team VORP of 0 would win 48 games over the course of a season, so a team VORP of 520 would win 90 games. All statistics here are courtesy of Baseball Prospectus.

Red Sox Starters 1-5 and Closer, 2006

NAME VORP

Starter-1 Curt Schilling 48.6
Starter-2 Josh Beckett 19.9
Starter-3 Tim Wakefield 15.2
Starter-4 Julian Tavarez 12.4
Starter-5 Jon Lester 12.3
Closer Jonathan Papelbon 38.6
Total VORP: 147

Basically, the top 5 starters by games started and the closer, added 14.7 wins to the 2006 Red Sox. That is definitely a low number.

Red Sox Starters 1-5 and Pineiro as Closer, 2007 (as projected by Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system)

Name VORP

Starter-1 Curt Schilling 38
Starter-2 Daisuke Matsuzaka 42.2
Starter-3 Josh Beckett 27.2
Starter-4 Jonathan Papelbon 28.7
Starter-5 Tim Wakefield 17.2
Closer Joel Pineiro 9.1
Total VORP: 162.4

With Pineiro projected as the closer, the top 5 starters by games started and the closer should add 16.24 wins to the 2007 Red Sox, which is a marginal increase of less than 2 wins.

Red Sox Starters 1-5 and Papelbon as Closer, 2007 (as projected by Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system)

Name VORP
Starter-1 Curt Schilling 38
Starter-2 Daisuke Matsuzaka 42.2
Starter-3 Josh Beckett 27.2
Starter-4 Snyder/Lester 12
Starter-5 Tim Wakefield 17.2
Closer Jonathan Papelbon 34
Total VORP: 170.6

This model assumes that Kyle Snyder and Jon Lester will fill the fourth spot vacated by Papelbon’s return to the closer’s role. Papelbon’s VORP is equivalent to Joe Nathan’s VORP last year, which would represent a slight regression by Papelbon, but a more realistic expectation than repeating his performance of last season. Papelbon’s return to the closer’s role would add a projected .82 wins to the team’s total. While the marginal difference of .82 wins may be minimal, one cannot underestimate the benefits of having a reliable closer. Papelbon as closer could allow others, such as Pineiro, to slide into roles better suited for them, such as set-up or middle relief, and will eventually knock the weakest member of the pitching staff to Pawtucket. Also, it likely will allow the Sox to keep Kyle Snyder, who is out of minor league options, rather than trading him or releasing him.

With a more extensive look at the trickle down effect, moving Papelbon to closer might add closer to 2 wins to the team, which could be significant given their Baseball Prospectus projected win total of 93. The difference between 93 and 95 wins could easily be the difference between making the playoffs and watching them.