The 2010 Boston Red Sox Call All Destroyer Tells Us What He Thinks Thread

no need to ruin this thread by posting/responding to shaughnessey d00ds

i love how shaughnessey is acting like damon chose to live in uganda or something

apparently detroit is currently a post-apocalyptic wasteland

though i guess minnesota and texas are more 'mid-market' now but still

yeah, but their opening day payroll was like 55M so they're doing things the small-market way successfully. doesn't really matter to me what city they're in, just that they're getting results from a business model that would be sustainable by any of the 30 teams.

they'll probably be able to raise it up towards 100M next year though like the twins did this year

i'm amazed that shaughnessy still gets paid to write for a living. he's not just wrong on facts, he's mean-spirited. he stirs the pot, fantasizing about clubhouse rifts that don't exist. fuck dan shaughnessy forever.

what is the DEAL with beckett? it's the same pattern every time. lights out for five or six innings then total implosion.

i'm starting to wonder if his greenies wear off then.

out of shape

pitchers are too stubborn to take themselves out of the game when they're out of gas

beckett's k/bb ratio is still quite good and that's one of the better predictors of pitching success. he's gonna end up with ugly numbers for this year but he should be ok going forward imo.

well it's the manager's call and fancona has pretty obviously been trying to steal innings with the starters because middle relief has sucked so hard.

Or you could live in downtown Detroit, amid the boarded-up buildings and the proverbial skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets.

apparently detroit is currently a post-apocalyptic wasteland

― ciderpress, Thursday, August 26, 2010 12:08 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark

i love this hack writer intimating that Damon lives in a nice condo amongst razed blocks and packs of wild dogs roaming in the streets. wonder if he believes his own bluster.

I've actually been putting money lately on the 6th being the highest scoring inning, so often do either our or our opponents' pitchers give up a big inning in that frame.

Other than the first inning the sixth inning is the highest scoring inning, I believe.

first inning should be the highest scoring since its guaranteed to have the top of the order come up. unless the teams in question are mismanaged into having shitty-hitting speedsters at the top of the order.

huh. i would think middle innings would be highest scoring. you got either tiring starter they've seen a few times or bad middle reliever.

No its first inning by far.

Has anyone ever done a breakdown of runs-per-inning by each spot in the order as the leadoff hitter?

Hard to phrase that.

Runs per inning in which the number-one hitter leads off:
Runs per inning in which the number-two hitter leads off:

etc...

not sure how to do that, but the way lineups are generally constructed i'd expect the highest to be either 1 or 2, since most teams have their best hitters in 3 and 4

sportsguy33 I'm going to be 45 years old by the time Jon Lackey's contract ends. Just shoot me in the forehead.
24 minutes ago via UberTwitter

lackey almost stepped up today, but then he didn't

gross

hot stove begins now

tbh could probably send the exact same team out next year and win 95, this was just a down year, not a badly constructed team

Has anyone ever done a breakdown of runs-per-inning by each spot in the order as the leadoff hitter?

Hard to phrase that.

― Andy K, Thursday, August 26, 2010 9:14 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

There's a section in Thorn and Palmer's "The Hidden Game of Baseball" where they simulated a team's runs scored for various permutations of the batting order. IIRC, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 wasn't much better than 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1, and the optimal order was some strange random thing. Anyway, that book is 25 years old, I'm sure others have studied this since then.

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 wasn't much better than 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

Maybe this wasn't clear ... they took a team's everyday players and instead of batting them 1-through-9, they batted 9-through-1, and they simulated the # of RS when they batted in that order for the entire season.

i think if you do all the math & simulations out the optimal order isn't much different than the traditional batting order. the only weird thing i remember reading about it is that it's slightly more optimal to have your best two hitters at 2 and 4 instead of 3 and 4

Yeah, obv this depends on what type of hitters you have and how balanced the lineup is and all that. The case study in their book was probably really simplistic.

i just noticed beltre is the only decent 3B free agent this offseason...not a fan of the idea of paying for 3-4 more years of him when he's not likely to hit this well ever again, but i dunno who else they're gonna find to play there

in fact, this year's free agent class is pretty weak overall. the only guys who are worth multi-year deals are crawford, lee, beltre, werth. almost everyone else is either bad, well into their 30s, an injury risk, or a relief pitcher

There's a site that will run the order calculations for you by inputting OBP and SLG (obv imperfect)

IIRC, it usually comes down to:
best leadoff man 1st
best overall hitter second
another high OBP/low GIDP guy 3rd
best overall slugger 4th

worst hitter bats eighth

Manny Delcarmen traded to the Rockies for some dude

this dude

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/B/Chris-Balcom-Miller.shtml

Balcom-Miller, 21, has a 3.31 ERA, 9.7 K/9, and 1.6 BB/9 with three home runs allowed in 108.6 innings for the Rockies' Low A affiliate. Heading into the season Baseball America ranked him 16th among Rockies prospects, saying he "has the ceiling of a solid middle-of-the-rotation starter."

fine pickup for a reliever imo

The Rockies are really going for it now.

A lot more Rockies fans are distraught at this deal than pleased. Manny could be a decent reclamation project for the pitching staff which has repeatedly proved itself with players like Jorge De La Rosa, Jason Hammel, Matt Belisle among others. However, CB-M was playing well and projected solidly, and only the relative depth of pitching prospects on our affiliates softens the blow. Personally, from what little I know, I think it's a shrewd pick-up by Boston and a good reading of the Rockies farm.

I read that he only throws in the upper 80s/mid 90s. Hes also a little bit old for A-ball. If I were a Rockies fan I wouldnt get bent out of shape. Still feel like the WC is going to be either Phillies or SF.

by mid 90s I mean low 90s.

yay manny d. is off our hands!

MDC occasionally looked really dominant with that changeup, if someone can fix him to be like that all the time then you've probably got a good closer

Yeah he certainly wasn't the worst of the bullpen by a long shot.

no, but he's been getting worse for two years now. maybe he's a change of scenery guy but i don't think he was going to find himself in boston.

is it patriots or bruins time yet?

maybe we'll finally get to see lars anderson now that he's a bust and they don't need to preserve his service time

IIRC, it usually comes down to:
best leadoff man 1st
best overall hitter second
another high OBP/low GIDP guy 3rd
best overall slugger 4th

worst hitter bats eighth

― a cross between lily allen and fetal alcohol syndrome (milo z), Monday, August 30, 2010 6:46 PM (2 days ago)

there's a thread on this!

1st: speed (lefty or switch), high obp
2nd: lefty, high obp
3rd: best hitter (OPS/VORP) on team
4th: best slugger on team

That's why Francoeur hit 4th for the Mets last night.

actually the weirdest thing that comes out of the lineup analysis stuff is that the #3 spot in the lineup is actually the 5th most important spot after 2,4,1,5, and is best suited for low average sluggers e.g. david ortiz, jim thome, etc. the reason is that they come up with 2 outs and no men on base a bit more often than the other slots, so a home run slightly increases in value from that slot while a non-HR hit slightly decreases in value.

it's extremely marginal though and if you have your best hitter in the 3-hole you're probably losing no more than a run or 2 per season

a lot of teams still get the all-important 1&2 hitters all wrong which is a much bigger inefficiency than anything you'll get out of more detailed lineup optimization

LOL at Papelbon opening the floodgates by watching Quentin take (an uncovered) second base on a bloop to shallow center.

Then the bottom fell out. Carlos Quentin doubled to no-man’s land in shallow center, where the infielders and rookie outfielder Ryan Kalish converged but nobody could get to the ball. Quentin raced into second where nobody was covering — and Rios scored. Papelbon should have been at second.

“Yeah, I think he would have been safe regardless,’’ Papelbon said.

Quentin took second because nobody was there, dipshit.