For a fair few of us, that picture of a defeated Jonathan Papelbon walking off the field as Orioles begin to celebrate behind him is the defining image of the 2011 season. The last devastating blow in a September full of them, Robert Andino's game-winning hit left us all like Pap: stunned, confused, and searching for the exits. And as always happens when something unpleasant occurs, we started searching for reasons why. Why did a team which had been thumping opponents left and right throughout the height of the summer suddenly look overmatched once the calendar flipped into September?

The reasons on the field were pretty simple. Kevin Youkilis was hurt, denying the Sox a big bat and leaving Mike Aviles to play out of position at third. Daniel Bard wore down from overuse, a reflection of prior bullpen attrition. Josh Beckett and Jon Lester, while not terrible, weren't the rotation anchors we all expected them to be at that point. Clay Buchholz was out of commission, which forced the Sox to put too much weight on John Lackey's shredded elbow. Said elbow responded by delivering 5 starts at a 9.13 ERA. (I didn't have to B-Ref that, by the way, the number has burned itself into my brain.)

A big bat out of the lineup, a worn-out bullpen, and a battered, ineffective starting rotation. Easy explanation, right? But not, apparently, a satisfying one. This is where it got ugly. A few weeks after the Red Sox were eliminated, we all woke up to find a tell-all insider piece on the front page of the Boston Globe. Beer and fried chicken over video game marathons. A manager distracted by personal issues and apparently popping painkillers. Clearly, it was failure of will that doomed the Sox, a sort of cosmic punishment for their moral shortcomings. And now we're seeing the same treatment applied to the Patriots.

And all I can think is, why? Why do we do that? I mean, not really "we," the writers on this blog tend to stick to the on-the-field stuff and leave the moral questions to the Shaughnessys of the world. But part of the reason we leave it alone is that there are plenty of Shaughnessys out there willing to write up the cosmic significance/moral turpitude angle. And that intrigues me.

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We all know Crawford was bad offensively last year, even the pessimists such as myself expected more than the 83 wRC+ he posted last year. I am going to very briefly try to explain why he was so bad last year, and a rather vague expectation for the future.

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So that was quite the week, eh? The Red Sox didn't sign anyone. No one played any baseball games. There was a football game of notable unpleasantness. I got nothing, folks. It's the second week in February, and it's sunny and 50 in Boston. I'm not even sure where I live anymore.

This is a raw time of year for those in the writing-about-baseballing business. No games to report on. No free agents left, except for Roy Oswalt, who's still holed up in his volcano lair. Even so, I think we managed to put together a pretty solid week of Red Sox coverage and analysis here at Over the Monster.

To the recapping!

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I'll start up a Pedroia vs Cano debate and try to say something about some of the arguments usually made.

1. Cano has better offense

Simply not true. In his career, Pedroia has a 124 wRC+, Cano has 119. wRC+ should favor Cano more than most stats because a single is better than a walk in it, yet Cano still does worse. Using the way I use to figure out true talent, Pedroia's true talent wRC+ is 125, Cano's is 122.

2. Defensive stats rate Cano's range as not good, but he makes amazing plays

Fans can be decieved by amazing plays example: Derek Jeter, because a bette fielder would've gotten to the ball without having to make amazing plays. But the argument that Cano does make great plays does have some merit, as we can see He has .272 Out of zone plays per 9 innings for his career, Pedroia has made .252, but Cano just dosen't make the easy plays, he only makes 81% of the plays where the ball is in his zone, Pedroia makes 83.7%. That's a huge difference and as a result Pedroia is better at UZR, DRS, and TZL

3. Cano won a gold glove, below average fielders don't win gold gloves

Well Derek Jeter won 5 gold gloves and he was one of the worst shortstops of the generation, a little better than Yuni Betancourt. Matt Kemp won one last year.

4. Pedroia doesn't have even splits

you can't throw away half the equation, and park factors are much better than splits, wRC+ is park adjusted and Pedroia comes out on top.

5. Cano has had better seasons than Pedroia

Pedroia's best seasons have 8 WAR and 6.8 WAR, Cano's have had 6.5 WAR and 5.6 WAR.

6. Cano has more RBIs than Pedroia

I could go on and on and on about how stupid RBIs are, but according to baseball reference's baserunners scored%, Cano scores 16% of the runners on base, Pedroia scores 15%. Pedroia has a 106 wRC+ with men in scoring position and a 115 wRC+ with men on base. Cano has a 92 wRC+ with men in scoring position and a 101 wRC+ with men on base.

So that's about it, I would vote for Pedroia because his career WAR/650 PAs is 5.21, and Cano's is 3.6.

If you come with an argument for Cano, don't use any of the above arguments, if you think there's something wrong with one of the above arguments, post your criticism and why Cano is better, but don't use the same one most people use that I showed was wrong.

I'm going to repost this on pinstripe alley to see a different response.

It's been another relatively slow February day in the baseball world aside from an arbitration case that apparently was not, but there's still a few things going on in Red Sox Nation.

First, for the TMZ angle, we've got Kevin Youkilis, who's apparently engaged to one Julie Brady. Good for him! But the story goes from barely a bullet point to a minor media frenzy when you realize that this Brady is related to the other Brady, being Tom Brady's sister. Good on Youk for keeping it within the Boston, uh, family. Now can anyone dig up a connection between Kelli Pedroia and Paul Pierce?

***

Alright, now that that's over with, onto things actually baseball related, like the presence of quite a few players at Boston's new spring training facility down in Florida.

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I've said it before, and it seems Bill James agrees.

He wrote this article yesterday for Grantland: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7555836/an-open-letter-mlb-hall-fame-dwight-evans-rightful-place-cooperstown

Anyone who hasn't yet, read it, please do.

James loses focus every now and then, and ends up defending almost everyone he discusses, but he does a good statistical analysis of Evans' career.

I have always believed Evans deserves the Hall nod, and it's exceptionally insulting he isn't yet in now that Jim Rice is. This may be a can of worms for Red Sox fans, but in my opinion Evans was worth more over his career to the Sox than Rice.

Dwight Evans is one of the most underrated players in the modern era of baseball, and more than that he is a Hall of Fame-caliber player.