YFSF

A Desperate Situation

From Ken Rosenthal:

The Red Sox, facing a roster bind as they prepare for the returns of shortstop Jed Lowrie and third baseman Mike Lowell, are "desperately" trying to trade shortstop Julio Lugo, according to a major-league source.

Best offers so far:

• Bag of balls without the stitching
• Lump of used dirt
• David Eckstein
• Ownership of a daily newspaper of Theo Epstein's choosing.

I smell a DFA coming.

Breaking Numbers, Pt. 2

Only one more off-day left before baseball resumes in the Yankee-Red Sox Time-Space Continuum. Our second and last look at All-Star break rivalry-centric leaderboards off the beaten trail continues with a look at the pitchers. I chose more stats mostly because there are more interesting stats for pitchers than there are for hitters. At least, that's my opinion.

Breaking Numbers, Pt. 1

In the midst of this stretch of four days -- four days! -- between games that count, YFSF presents a series of rival-centric leaderboards from the first half of the season, using statistics slightly off the beaten trail. We hope this will serve as at least a slight tonic for the lack of real baseball this week.

Today: Part 1, the offense.

The Eve of Improbability

A fantastic story in today's Globe about Tim Wakefield*, who likely will appear in his first-ever All-Star Game tomorrow night.

In 1995, when Wakefield was tearing through AL hitters, such stories were common. Seemingly every newspaper covering the Sox (and that number was much larger than it is today) ran at least one full-scale story about the knuckleballer and his pitch. Wakefield went 14-1 with a 1.65 ERA in his first 17 starts that season. He allowed 139 baserunners in 131 innings. He allowed zero or one earned run 10 times. Only four times did he post a game score below 60. The crowning game was June 4, when he threw all 10 innings in a 2-1 Boston win, with the one run unearned.

Fourteen years later, Wakefield has been largely taken for granted. He's never approached such a long streak of dominance, though he's certainly had his moments. He's simply done everything the Sox have asked of him, and been one of the most consistently good starters in baseball over that time. He's getting his due in what is probably the twilight of his career, to borrow a notorious phrase. It couldn't happen to a better guy.

* with bonus quotes from the manager of our local independent-league baseball team.

Tidbits

The news for the Yankees is good all around. The Bombers are firing on all cylinders. Suddenly, the Yanks  have the strongest bullpen in baseball. Phil Hughes has been lights out since he left the rotation. What is even more remarkable is that Mariano Rivera is the best reliever in the AL this season. Isn't he supposed to be in decline? He has not, however, been the best player on the Yanks. That title goes to Derek Jeter who tops the team in VORP, WAR, and Fangraph value. The captain is putting together his best season since his MVP 2006 campaign. Indeed, one of the best things about this season has been watching Jeter's return to greatness. I have always liked him as a player, but for whatever reason (perhaps because I'm a contrarian) I was never able to call him my favorite Yankee. He has become my favorite baseball player this season. I'm getting predictable in my old age.

As great as the present has been, the future is also bright. Steve Lombardi at WasWatching notes that Jesus Montero is now the #3 prospect in all of baseball according to Baseball America's mid-season rankings. Lombardi wonders about the role this defensively challenged catcher will have with the Yanks in a couple of years. I am just psyched the Yanks have someone that talented and valuable in their system. And he's a positional player!

On the other side, the Red Sox appear to be on the brink of signing a Cuban prospect named Jose Iglesias for a substantial amount of money.He's a shortstop who is a strong fielder and has a great make-up, according to scouting reports.

When Wins Mean Nothing

From today's Worcester Telegram & Gazette:

At 42 years and 11 months old, Wakefield has had the best first half of his career. This is the earliest he has reached 11 wins. In 1998, when he finished with 17, he didn’t get his 11th until July 16. In 2007, when he also finished with 17 wins, Wakefield got No. 11 on July 22.

Look, I love Tim Wakefield, as we all do (or should), and it's interesting that this is the earliest date by which he's ever reached 11 victories. But this is not the best first half he's ever had, league-leading win total notwithstanding. And that's no reflection on Wakefield. He's a very good pitcher. His career ERA in the first half is 4.25, so he's actually performing worse than his average.

Here are his actual best first halves:

• 1995: 7-1, 1,61 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 10 starts, four complete games, one shutout, 59 hits in 78.1 innings.
• 2001: 6-2, 2.58 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 9 starts (plus three games finished and two saves), 8.2 K/9, 77 hits in 94.1 innings.
• 2008: 6-6, 3.60 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 97 hits in 122.1 innings.
• 2006: 7-8, 4.05 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 103 hits in 115.2 innings.
• 1998: 10-3, 4.29 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 110 hits in 123.2 innings.
• 2003: 6-4, 4.10 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 110 hits in 116.1 innings.
• 2005: 8-7, 4.05 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 116 hits in 117.2 innings.
• 2004: 5-5, 4.17 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 108 hits in 105.2 innings.
• 2009: 11-3, 4.31 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 113 hits in 108.2 innings.

Of the 13 seasons in which Wakefield was more a starter than a reliever in the first half, this is his ninth-best, i.e., one of the worst first halves of his career. Which just emphasizes how good he's been for the Red Sox.

Another reason why wins should be disregarded when considering how good a pitcher is or has been, and why sportswriters should be better than citing them as anything more than a stat we all are accustomed to following.

Oh, and in 1995, Wakefield reached 11 wins in 14 starts. Last night, Wakefield won his 11th game in start No. 17. So, in an arguably more accurate and telling sense, it's not the earliest he's reached this mark either.

The Doc Calls

Ken Rosenthal thinks the Roy Halladay sweepstakes is set to begin shortly. Guess which two teams he puts at the top of his list of suitors.

The Yankees invested a combined $243.5 million on Sabathia and A.J. Burnett last offseason, and Halladay might be better than both of them. Right-hander Phil Hughes could top the team's package, and one GM who recently examined the Yankees' system says, "There are more intriguing guys down low than I anticipated."

Among them: Catchers Jesus Montero, 19 and Austin Romine, 20.

and:

Where the Yankees sniff, the Red Sox follow. No doubt the Sox could put together a stunning package for Halladay, starting with right-hander Clay Buchholz. They then would control Halladay and right-hander Josh Beckett through 2010 and lefty Jon Lester through '14. Wow.

Then again, the Red Sox could determine that their greater need is a hitter, and Indians catcher Victor Martinez still looms as an ideal option. The Indians would want Buchholz plus other prospects, but their price for Martinez would not be as steep as the Jays' price for Halladay.

In other words, Roy Halladay will be pitching in Queens by the end of the season.

Paging Nick Johnson

Turns out the Sox might have a need for that 1B bat after all.

The Return of the Large Father

Courtesy the fine bloggers at Fangraphs, we have this little graph:
 

That's the distance of each David Ortz fly ball this season, based on GameDay data points entering yesterday's game (where Ortiz launched a 412-foot blast to dead center field). The straight line is Ortiz's 2008 average, and the wavy line is a rolling 2009 average. It shows that not only are Ortiz's home runs flying farther, so are the balls that aren't getting over the fence.

In fact, Ortiz is averaging 300 feet per fly ball this month -- an average right in line with the 291-foot average he posted in his last true Ortizian season, 2007.

As Dave Allen, who authored this study, notes:

This is a small sample, but things look qualitatively different for Ortiz since the end of May, an encouraging sign for him and the Red Sox.

Clearly, David Ortiz is back on steroids. It's the only logical answer, right?

The answer surely can't be what Dave Cameron, in a post entitled "Let's Stop Burying the Living," describes:

We haven’t figured out what numbers show that a player is truly washed up. We haven’t figured out what it looks like when that happens. We haven’t figured out how to combine scouting and statistical analysis to give us a warning before a player heads off the cliff. All we’ve figured out is how to guess wrong a lot. Young player struggle, old players struggle, middle age players struggle, and we don’t have any good way of figuring out why in most cases. Just because a player experiences a drop in performance, and is old, does not mean that age related decline is the reason for the performance. More often than not, it’s just bad luck.

Let’s stop pretending that we can identify players who have “just lost it” overnight. Too often, they find it again the next morning.

Debating Matsuzaka

Daisuke Matsuzaka is on the disabled list, a victim -- to hear the Sox tell it -- of the World Baseball Classic and the inadequate timing that provided for him to get ready for the season.

That leads Bob Ryan to write in this morning's Globe:

May we agree on one thing?

Daisuke Matsuzaka was not worth $102 million.There's a lot of financial craziness out there in modern professional sport, but we have not yet reached the point where a third or fourth (and in this case, fifth) starter is worth a total investment of $102 million for six years.

There's really not going to be any kind of debate about this, is there?

Well, for one thing, Bob, Matsuzaka isn't dead, so using the past tense on a pitcher with two three years left on his contract (plus the remainder of this season) seems a little unusual.

For another, Matsuzaka to this point has been worth $30 million, according to Fangraphs -- 60 percent of the amount the Red Sox are actually paying him in a contract not yet halfway to completion.

Because I understand, Bob, that there is a lot of the financial craziness out there in modern professional sport, and some of that craziness includes the complexity of Matsuzaka's contract. Since you're paid well by the Globe to analyze said professional sports, I would hope you can understand such complexities: The Red Sox are paying Matsuzaka $51 million, not $102 million. The chances are good that Daisuke will easily end up being worth more than that by the end of his deal.

Now, yes, they did pay the infamous $51.111111111 million posting fee, and to some extent that was a reflection of how much the Red Sox valued Matsuzaka. But it was also a reflection of how much the Red Sox valued obtaining the most famous Japanese pitcher ever, how much the Red Sox valued making inroads into a heavily populated baseball-crazy market theretofore dominated by their fiercest rivals, and how much the Red Sox valued spending money that wouldn't count toward the luxury tax.

No one is going to miss a starter with an ERA of 8.23 and a WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) of 2.20. No one is going to miss someone against whom opponents are batting .378 with an OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) of 1.091. No one is going to miss someone who routinely gives up four- or five-run leads.

True, but the Red Sox will miss -- and have missed so far -- a starter who entered this season with an ERA of 3.72 and a WHIP of 1.32. A lot of people have missed someone against whom opponents batted .222 with an OPS of .679. A lot of people have missed someone who finished fourth in last year's Cy Young voting.

I understand Matsuzaka can be frustrating -- both to watch on the mound and listen to after a poor performance. Ryan later in his piece seems to indicate why he apparently doesn't like Daisuke: He's a "nibbler."

What we’ve seen at his best is a guy who throws in the low 90s and who has decent auxiliary stuff. We have seen that, in common with pitchers in his basic category, he needs to hit spots to be effective. He has got to locate that fastball on the corners. If he can do that, everything else has a chance to work.

In other words, he’s like a hundred other guys.

Really, Bob? Because his results in 2007 and 2008 were like eight other guys -- one of only nine starters in the American League to post an ERA+ over 120 and pitch at least 350 innings in that span. Names like Halladay, Beckett, Kazmir, Sabathia, Lackey. For that matter, let's look at it this way: Only 23 AL starters even managed 350 innings in those two seasons. Only 19 posted an ERA+ over 100. Matsuzaka was sixth.

Later, Ryan contradicts his own opening statement.

Understand that over half the $102 million John Henry paid to obtain Dice-K’s services was a posting fee to his old club. So the just under $9 million he gets in actual salary might be something approximating market value for a pitcher of Dice-K’s caliber.

But that’s not the way he was billed.

Matsuzaka has been worth about $15 million per season so far. In 2007/08 he was one of the 10 best starters in the league. Perhaps Ryan's expectations were a tad high. Because the Red Sox are a much better team with a healthy Daisuke Matsuzaka -- who so far has been easily worth more to this ballclub than what they are paying him.