Do you have a question you'd like the new Over The Monster Writer and the new Red Sox Beat Writer to answer? Confused about something dealing with the Red Sox or Baseball in general? Then ask him here in this post. You may ask as many questions as you'd like, whether they be personal or baseball related, and I will answer. I will give you 24 hours to ask your questions, and then I will answer them. That means you have until tomorrow at 4:00 PM to post your questions.

Post away!

Believe it or not, there are FAs who were apparently less desirable than Joel Pineiro.  Some of whom are still on the market.  Some of them might be a longshot, but I thought, hmm, Joel Pineiro is probably a longshot, at least earlier in the week I did.

So what's left?  Who's left?  And can any of them help the Sox, hopefully on mL-NRI contracts, unlike say this contract, for example.

"Pitchers", so to speak.

Dustin Hermanson

Am I the first person in the offseason, blogging, non-blogging, or otherwise to think of him?  We're running an open contest to be the closer(all entries must be received by the second week of February), why not someone who has actually been a full-time closer before?  I initially was concerned about the fact that Hermanson is considered a type A FA, but the White Sox didn't offer him arbitration anyway.

Chances he signs with us: 65%

Dan Kolb

Just re-read everything I said about Hermanson.  Kolb has closing experience, and should come pretty cheaply.  I think Hermanson is a surer bet to be a decent arm out of the bullpen either way.

Chances he signs with us: 40%

Kent Mercker

I honestly think that if Okajima had not been signed, Mercker might have been signed by the Sox already.  He's type B, so we wouldn't be giving the Reds the delicious hero sandwich pick with mustard they would receive.  However, Romero's signing might fill our LHRP reclamation project quota.  Mercker's been a pretty successful reliever the last few seasons, though he did have elbow reconstructive surgery towards the end of last season.

Chances he signs with us: 25%

Willie Eyre

I'm not serious about this one, trust me.  I do think it's important to check his stats last season, and realize that even in Minnesota's excellent bullpen last year, this absolute scrub finished 20 games.  ...automatically vesting options...yikes.  If Pineiro stinks, I'm sure that they'll watch his GF totals closely, but still.

Chances he signs with us: -12,000%

Continue reading this post »

Happy New Year, OTM readers/commenters/lurkers.  Hope everyone was safe for the holiday.

Someone that hasn't been mentioned yet(possibly because our best hope for him is that he turns into a semi-reliable 6th inning reliever or long man) is Runelvys Hernandez.  It's a depth signing, something to neither congratulate nor berate Theo about.  Low-risk/high-reward and all that.  He hasn't had any consistent success since AA.  A 95 MPH fastball and what was at least once upon a time a good curve.  Hoping he'll be Delcarmen-lite?

Anyway, after that exciting bit of "news" let me re-iterate the Happy New Year message, and let's all hope 2007 can make us forget some of the low points of 2006.

Happy New Year to all of our readers.  Hope you all are safe and having a happy (and surely sober) holiday.  

Hopefully this will signal a new year of success for our Sox.

Clicky.

For the record, most of us probably already knew about Alberto Castillo and maybe Joe "Not Joltin Crap" McEwing.

Travis Hughes may have a shot at a bullpen slot.  The aforementioned Castillo could wrest the backup catcher job from Mirabelli.  McEwing = Organizational depth and scrappylicious.  

Jeff Bailey and Luis Jimenez are re-signings, so to speak.  Ed Rogers is a prolific hitter (.207 lifetime BA folks!).  Kerry Robinson has been given his walking papers by such organizations as the Kansas City Royals and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  Aside from position, I'm not sure the differences between he and Scales are worth noting.

All with NRIs.  Like I said, Hughes and Castillo are the only ones not absolutely ticketed for Pawtucket.

Clicky.

For the record, most of us probably already knew about Alberto Castillo and maybe Joe "Not Joltin Crap" McEwing.

Travis Hughes may have a shot at a bullpen slot.  The aforementioned Castillo could wrest the backup catcher job from Mirabelli.  McEwing = Organizational depth and scrappylicious.  

Jeff Bailey and Luis Jimenez are re-signings, so to speak.  Ed Rogers is a prolific hitter (.207 lifetime BA folks!).  Kerry Robinson has been given his walking papers by such organizations as the Kansas City Royals and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  Aside from position, I'm not sure the differences between he and Scales are worth noting.

All with NRIs.  Like I said, Hughes and Castillo are the only ones not absolutely ticketed for Pawtucket.

Josh Beckett v. Jered Weaver

already 2-0 angels..

[sorry for the poor-looking open thread. i'm not used to doing this :)]

I recently put up an entry as a review essentially of the MVP voting and David Ortiz vs. Alex Rodriguez.

One interesting way to apply win shares is look at their proportionate distribution amongst a team.

For example.

David Ortiz earns 31 win shares. The Red Sox as a team, collect 285. Hence, Ortiz was worth 11% of the wins, roughly a 10 game swing. That's pretty hefty.

Here's how the percentages break down (Player and Win Share Percentage) amongst the most productive players on each team in both leagues:

AL

BAL (Mora)      12.6%
BOS (Ramirez)   11.9%
CHA (Konerko)    8.0%
CLE (Hafner)     9.7%
DET (Inge)       8.0%
KC  (Brown)     11.9%
LAA (Guererro)   9.5%
MIN (Santana)    9.2%
NYA (Rodriguez) 13.0%
OAK (Ellis)      8.0%
SEA (Sexson)    13.0%
TB  (Lugo)      11.9%
TEX (Teixeira)  13.5%
TOR (Wells)      8.6%

Based on this list, Mark Teixeira should be the AL MVP. The voters thought he belonged 7th. Sexson, who is tied for 2nd in this list, was 15th overall in the voting. Obviously in this format, it helps when you're a good player on a bad team. Then again, that makes you valuable. The opposite must be true in real life, seeing how Mariano Rivera beat out Sexson in the voting with a WSP of less than 6%. In 2003, A-rod won the MVP with an WSP of 15%. Last year, Guerrero took it home with 10.5%.

Now, the National League.

ARI (Glaus)     10.0%
ATL (Furcal)    10.0%
CHN (Lee)       15.6%
CIN (Dunn)      12.8%
COL (Helton)    12.9%
FLA (Delgado)   12.4%
HOU (Ensberg)   10.9%
LAD (Kent)      14.1%
MIL (Clark)      9.9%
NYM (Wright)    11.2%
PHI (Abreu)     10.6%
PIT (Bay)       16.9%
SD  (Giles)     14.2%
SF  (Alou)       8.9%
STL (Pujols)    12.7%
WAS (Wilkerson)  9.5%

What's interesting is the higher overall percentages in the national league. In a league where pitching is supposedly a more important, the hitters in the NL are generally doing more to win games for their clubs than the hitters in the AL. Go figure.

Based on our NL list here, Jason Bay is your MVP. The voters decided he should be 12th. Even Jimmy Rollins (8.7%) placed higher. Pujols, this years MVP, finishes 7th.

Another anomoly in the stats is the appearance of only one pitcher, Minnesota's Santana. I suspect this is mostly because no one else on the team did enough to earn the most win shares rather than his pure performance. Pitchers in general are probably undervalued by win shares, but that's a problem to tackle later.

Then again, its a pitcher that holds the mark for most win shares in a season; Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn in 1884. Radbourn earned 89 win shares, a 35.3%. Pretty safe to say that in those days, the pitcher was ALWAYS the MVP. His numbers for the 1884 Grays are just ridiculous. I'd say he would've been voted in just for his 73 COMPLETE GAMES that SEASON.

The greatest season by a position player is a 59 by Honus Wagner in 1908 (20.06%). Babe Ruth in 1923 is second at 55 (18.7%); Bonds' 2001 season is third (20.0%). Both Bonds and Ruth won the MVP in their respective seasons.

Once again, Not that I buy into this theory of ranking wholesale, I simply desire to learn more about the voting habits of the writers. We can thereby conclude that they did NOT use this method of analysis.