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Roy Halladay and the MLB Winter Hotstove


Habsy

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Boy, the Phillies must really love their prospects. Just think if they'd have traded for Doc on their own. Cliff Lee, Doc Halladay, Cole Hamels, JA Happ, and Joe Blanton is a killer rotation. That's three proven #1 guys, assuming Hamels pitches better next season with a better rested arm, a top youngster, and a solid middle of the rotation guy in the 5th spot.

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this is a great time for Doc to move to the NL. Even though he will most likely be a top 5 guy for the next few years, he is leaving his prime and one would have to imagine he will have some decline in his skills. I want to make it abundantly clear that I am not saying he is in any way washed up... just that I wouldn't be surprised if he went from a 150 ERA+ guy to a 125 ERA+ guy in the next 2-3 seasons (still fantastically good, just not an absolute league dominator). In the NL he can preserve his arm with fewer IP and easier lineups. His numbers will look a hell of a lot better (possible?) when he doesn't have to run the NYY/BOS/TB gauntlet. If I were his agent, I'd do everything possible to get him into the NL without a contract extension and sell him to the highest bidder as a 1999 Pedro redux.

EDIT: considering this to be the 2010 MLB offseason thread, I'm curious how people are analyzing Boston's moves so far.

Key Losses:

1) They are apparently out of the Bay/Holiday sweepstakes,

2) they paid Texas to take the corpse of Mike Lowell

Additions:

1) Marco Scutaro - old after a contract year, but showing consistent annual improvement in plate discipline and has put up decent offensive and defensive numbers as he's aged.

2) Mike Cameron - whose fantastic defense pairs well in fenway with a left field pull tendency, a strong throwing arm, and great performance against LHH. Cameron-Ellsbury-Drew is probably the best AL OF defense.

3) Jeremy Hermida - 4th OF with some degree of outbreak potential. Career NL .344/.425/.769 is not amazing, but he will be 26 when the season starts and has yet to hit his prime.

4) John Lackey - who projects to pitch like regular season Josh Beckett and potentially allow the team to move Buccholz for an Adrian Gonzalez. If they keep Buccholz and go with Adrian Beltre, they probably have the best infield defense in the league - at the expense of offense.

5) for some reason they signed Boof Bonser

The relieving corps is probably one of the best in the league with Papelbon, Bard, Okajima, Ramirez, and Tazawa (and possibly with Wakefield as a swingman should they keep Buccholz), but relievers are notoriously hard to project.

Overall the team is unfinished and I can't decide whether they are better overall than last year. The pitching is almost certainly better with the Lackey addition and presumably with a healthy Matsuzaka as the last starter (who despite not being an MLB ace like he was hyped, is undoubtedly superior to almost any 4th or 5th starter in the league). The fielding defense is undoubtedly better with Scutaro over Green/Lowrie (the latter of whom may be a trading chip later in the year for a better bat) and Cameron miles over Bay. Anybody should be better defensively than Lowell at this point.. Beltre would (as mentioned earlier) turn the infield defense into the league's best. If they move Youkilis to 3rd base and add one of Cabrera, Dunn, or Gonzalez, the infield will be far less of an advantage (although the offense would improve drastically).

Assuming the Lowell deal gets done, we have a pretty good catching situation with VMart getting the bulk of the starts and with the slight possibility of a rested Varitek actually contributing once or twice a week. This Max Ramirez kid looks like a legit prospect, but might be more of an Ortiz replacement than a VMart replacement.

The offense is the obvious weak point of the team and could be what prevents it from really contending for a championship. Losing Bay will hurt the heart of the order, but I must commend the FO for not feeling the need to overpay for him or Holiday. Cameron is a nice bridge to either Westmoreland or next year's free agent crop. Hopefully Ortiz can maintain his second half performance from last year (and the fan in me hopes that he turns it up a notch in his contract year in the hopes of getting the Oakland Athletics or Colorado Rockies to pick him up the following season).

Spoiled sox fans are likely going to have to endure a lot of 3-2 games, but the defensive improvements leave me reasonably hopeful that those will be 3-2 Sox wins.

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Apparently we might be trading Michael Taylor to the As for Brett Wallace once this original deal goes through. I liked what I heard about Taylor so I'm not sure how I feel about this.

As for the Sox, Lackey, i think, was a nice signing. Certainly the deepest rotation in baseball right now, with three legit number 1 starts in Lackey, Beckett and Lester. I've never liked Dice-K but you can't deny he is an excellent number 4/5.

Not sure about Cameron. Is his defense still top notch? Might be a good move if that's the case but offense will be the weakness on that team this season, barring another move. Having said that, it's still not a bad offense. It is a far cry from when Manny and Ortiz were bashing 40+ per season, but theres some good OBP guys in that lineup and they should be able to play a solid, LA Angels-style offense.

Edited by Quebecois
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Apparently we might be trading Michael Taylor to the As for Brett Wallace once this original deal goes through. I liked what I heard about Taylor so I'm not sure how I feel about this.

As for the Sox, Lackey, i think, was a nice signing. Certainly the deepest rotation in baseball right now, with three legit number 1 starts in Lackey, Beckett and Lester. I've never liked Dice-K but you can't deny he is an excellent number 4/5.

Not sure about Cameron. Is his defense still top notch? Might be a good move if that's the case but offense will be the weakness on that team this season, barring another move. Having said that, it's still not a bad offense. It is a far cry from when Manny and Ortiz were bashing 40+ per season, but theres some good OBP guys in that lineup and they should be able to play a solid, LA Angels-style offense.

well, I can't see them sac bunting, double stealing all over the place, swinging early and often, and just generally spitting in the eye of accumulated knowledge, but ya never know. They will be a relatively fast team, but I doubt they'll be reckless.

Cameron's defense is still top notch and one has to imagine that not feeling the necessity to cover his teammates' space would help this season. I get a little leery about quantifying defense (especially measuring it directly against offense), but here's some fun reading: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/bay-vs-cameron. Basically, it says you are going to lose about 25 runs from your offense by switching from Jason Bay to Mike Cameron, but get all those runs back in defense.

Another look at the offense: last year the sox were the no.3 offense according to total runs scored (872) and were 11th in runs allowed (although they were 3rd in the AL). Now I think it is pretty safe to say that they should be a better run prevention team than they were last year. I'd argue that if they could reproduce last year's offense, they'd have to be considered a true contender. Now Lowell and Beltre are probably a wash offensively at this point their careers and while they lose (let's say) 25 runs in Bay, they do get back a lot of those runs on the season by getting a full year of VMart instead of Varitek. Scutaro had a career year last year (which we shouldn't expect again), but with a regression to halfway between his 2008 and 2009 performances would still net you a few runs above what the sox got from Lugo/Gonzalez/Lowrie/Green (not to mention the potential intangible benefit of having a consistent starter at the hardest defensive position on the field). After his horrid April and May, Ortiz actually produced OK. Now I've seen some projections that show him having a slight bounce back year(Bill James thinks he'll do ~.880 OPS), I am hoping that his contract status will at least stop him from declining further... and as always, there are internal (Reddick, Kalish, Westmoreland) and external (Dunn) options that could provide a midseason fix if necessary. All in all, I think we should still expect to produce well over 800 runs - a feat accomplished by only 7 teams last year. The sox are a good Scutaro, Pedroia rebound, and/or Ortiz rebound away from being a top 5 offense.

On losing the "big bat": Obviously teammates can affect each other's offensive stats -> pitchers lose efficacy when they have to pitch from the stretch or are worried about stolen base threats; hitters are more apt to get hittable pitches if the pitcher is worried about walking their way to a guy who can rake, but the Sox showed themselves to be quite competent at scoring runs with the lineup they had last year and I'd be hardpressed to attribute whatever intimidation factor the offense had too squarely on Bay's shoulders. Now I loved Bay (perhaps because he was Canadian?), but I think they should be able to produce adequately without him.

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well, I can't see them sac bunting, double stealing all over the place, swinging early and often, and just generally spitting in the eye of accumulated knowledge, but ya never know. They will be a relatively fast team, but I doubt they'll be reckless.

Cameron's defense is still top notch and one has to imagine that not feeling the necessity to cover his teammates' space would help this season. I get a little leery about quantifying defense (especially measuring it directly against offense), but here's some fun reading: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/bay-vs-cameron. Basically, it says you are going to lose about 25 runs from your offense by switching from Jason Bay to Mike Cameron, but get all those runs back in defense.

Another look at the offense: last year the sox were the no.3 offense according to total runs scored (872) and were 11th in runs allowed (although they were 3rd in the AL). Now I think it is pretty safe to say that they should be a better run prevention team than they were last year. I'd argue that if they could reproduce last year's offense, they'd have to be considered a true contender. Now Lowell and Beltre are probably a wash offensively at this point their careers and while they lose (let's say) 25 runs in Bay, they do get back a lot of those runs on the season by getting a full year of VMart instead of Varitek. Scutaro had a career year last year (which we shouldn't expect again), but with a regression to halfway between his 2008 and 2009 performances would still net you a few runs above what the sox got from Lugo/Gonzalez/Lowrie/Green (not to mention the potential intangible benefit of having a consistent starter at the hardest defensive position on the field). After his horrid April and May, Ortiz actually produced OK. Now I've seen some projections that show him having a slight bounce back year(Bill James thinks he'll do ~.880 OPS), I am hoping that his contract status will at least stop him from declining further... and as always, there are internal (Reddick, Kalish, Westmoreland) and external (Dunn) options that could provide a midseason fix if necessary. All in all, I think we should still expect to produce well over 800 runs - a feat accomplished by only 7 teams last year. The sox are a good Scutaro, Pedroia rebound, and/or Ortiz rebound away from being a top 5 offense.

On losing the "big bat": Obviously teammates can affect each other's offensive stats -> pitchers lose efficacy when they have to pitch from the stretch or are worried about stolen base threats; hitters are more apt to get hittable pitches if the pitcher is worried about walking their way to a guy who can rake, but the Sox showed themselves to be quite competent at scoring runs with the lineup they had last year and I'd be hardpressed to attribute whatever intimidation factor the offense had too squarely on Bay's shoulders. Now I loved Bay (perhaps because he was Canadian?), but I think they should be able to produce adequately without him.

The Angels weren't an ideal comparison because of the factors that you mentioned. I really just meant a team with good fundamentals, that can steal a few bases, make smart decisions on the base paths, go from 1st to 3rd etc. It isn't the same offense as what they had in the 03-07 era but that doesn't mean it can't be productive. As you mentioned, they get a full season from Vtek, an upgrade with Scutaro (though he won't be near what he was last year).

That Cameron tidbit is interesting. I find it hard to believe his defense can make THAT much of a difference, but interesting nonetheless.

Still might be a hair behind the Yankees (remains to be seen what they will do this offseason), but I think the Sox will be better than last year.

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The Angels weren't an ideal comparison because of the factors that you mentioned. I really just meant a team with good fundamentals, that can steal a few bases, make smart decisions on the base paths, go from 1st to 3rd etc. It isn't the same offense as what they had in the 03-07 era but that doesn't mean it can't be productive. As you mentioned, they get a full season from Vtek, an upgrade with Scutaro (though he won't be near what he was last year).

That Cameron tidbit is interesting. I find it hard to believe his defense can make THAT much of a difference, but interesting nonetheless.

Still might be a hair behind the Yankees (remains to be seen what they will do this offseason), but I think the Sox will be better than last year.

didn't mean to be so tough on your Angels' comp - I'm just really not a fan of that team.

My problem with quantifying defense is not its relative importance (winning 3-2 is as good as winning 4-3), but rather my confidence in the accuracy of defensive measurements. That being said - as far as comparing Bay and Cameron's defense, try looking at it this way:

There are 162 games a year. Do you think Bay's defense costs you a run every 16 games - once every two and a half weeks? I can conjure up plenty of memories of him being completely unable to throw home ahead of a guy trying to tag up - even in Fenways tiny LF. Now imagine Cameron's above average glove/arm. Can you see him making an extra great diving catch or cannon throw out off the wall once every 2.5 weeks? If you can, then you've just convinced yourself that Bay is -10 and Cameron is +10. Last year the offensive difference between Bay and Cameron (in about 90 extra plate appearances for Bay) was about an extra walk every 1.5 weeks and an extra homerun every 2+ weeks. If we can believe (and we should) that this makes Bay a significantly more valuable offensive player, then I think it is reasonable to believe the converse of Cameron's defensive value.

BTW - the fanboy in me should note that Miller Park is somewhat less hitter friendly than Fenway and has a bigger LF.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

HAHAHAHAHA Matsui hit a foul ball right in his new boss Mercedes windshield !!! Priceless.

Edited by JoeLassister
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