Masterson

So on Wednesday night, Masterson was hitting 99 on the stadium gun. This seems kind of preposterous, so I wanted to ask you all a few questions. First of all, have you ever seen him hit anything remotely close to that high before. I think before, I had seen him top out around 95. Interestingly enough, Pitch fx was calling the very fast fastballs four seamers instead of sinkers. Had Masterson just not been throwing four seamers? Was the gun just juiced?

Also, does anyone know who runs the pitch fx gun? Is it a member of the Red Sox organization, or someone from Sportsvision?

Anybody Want Closers?

I may or may not decide to sell off my 3 closers before the trade deadline. It's going to depend on what kind of offers I get for them. I'm looking mostly for offense, but also pitchers with high Ks and low WHIPs. Most importantly, I'm looking for value keepers. Let me know if you're interested.

Fuuuuuu

uuuuuuuck.

First shoe to drop: Cliff Lee. Awesome.

Weekly Update July 26th

Lots of movement this week, with Mark dropping an incredible 9 points, the largest weekly drop since I started recording, and Luke gaining 7 points, the largest gain since the week of May 2. Unsurprisingly, the standings have shuffled quite a bit, with Andrew returning to first place, Mark dropping from contention to 5th place, and Luke entering the top half of the standings. I dropped from first place primarily because of ERA. While my ERA has stayed approximately the same, Kate, Spencer, and Luke have all had strong pitching lately. Luke has done wonders with his WHIP - it has responded much quicker than I thought it would. Since June 16th it has dropped from 1.45 to 1.31. The standings are still very volatile, much more than I expected for halfway through the season.

Weekly Update		R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	W	SV	K	ERA	WHIP	IP	Total Pts	Net Pts
1	Oh Balls!!!	61	9	50	14	0.002	4	6	55	-0.02	0.02	82	58.5	0.5
2	Mr Bill's Boppers	59	19	62	8	-0	8	6	76	0.04	0.01	72.9	58	-2
3	I Ain't Got My Taco	52	13	58	11	0	6	2	66	0	-0.03	84	50	3.5
4	The Chones	60	15	67	10	0.002	6	8	83	-0.13	-0.04	85	44.5	7.5
5	Soap Box Yakkers	53	12	45	12	-0	3	7	40	0.04	-0.01	68	44	-9
6	Soo Choo Train	45	15	45	2	-0	6	0	56	-0.14	-0.02	75	42	1
7	Smell The Glove	48	12	48	7	-0	1	5	63	-0.02	0	71.2	41	-2.5
8	A-Roid's RagingRotos	39	5	27	12	0	6	4	76	-0.1	0	82	22	1

White flight

Anyone else notice that all the big trade deadline names are AL players? Holliday, Halladay, Lee, VMart, the entire rosters of the Jays, Orioles, and A's...it seems like Adrian Gonzalez is the only big NL name I've heard tossed around much. So far, our league has lost just Holliday and DeRosa, but there's potential for a lot more. And our frustratingly thin waiver wire will just get frustratingly thinner. I thought I'd re-explore the option of allowing us to add NL players who are traded to the AL.

One major theme of the complaints in the thread two down from this one was that things this year felt pretty static, that the league's leaders had already been determined, months ago. The fear with allowing us to add players from the NL was that it would be unbalancing - a huge change in one's team could be made off the waiver wire, based mostly on waiver priority. While I think this is an understandable concern, I've come to think that our rosters are deep enough that any one NL player (except maybe Pujols) couldn't really unbalance things that much...and even if they did, wouldn't that maybe be a welcome change for most of the teams in the league? Unbalancing is already a key feature of fantasy baseball, in the rather random nature of trades, injuries, and waiver wire pickups. I don't really see how opening up another avenue for player acquisition would be harmful.

As it is now, there's really no one to use a waiver wire priority on. I've sat on the number one priority all year, waiting for a top notch prospect to be called up (or are they not going on waivers?) or for someone to drop a decent player (I almost grabbed Matsuzaka, but he's not going to be helping me out any time soon). Waiver priority could be determined in a more meaningful way than draft order, and could add some strategy as we have to decide whether to spend our high priority on the Scott Posedniks of the world when we need them in May, or hold out for the Adrian Gonzalezes at the end of July. We could also trade waiver priorities. As it is now, teams with injuries or who lose players to the NL are left picking from the pitiful scraps on our waiver wire, and its a real buzzkill. I think we should reconsider the rule for next season.

Frank Francisco

Is always going on the DL on Monday or lingering along with injuries for 6-10 days before being placed on the DL. Frank is awesome when he pitches, but he drives me fucking nuts.

The League

So I was discussing a few problems with the current league set-up with a number of folks and thought it might be worthwhile to do a check-in. There are a lot of things to like but also a few nagging problems.

1) Mainly, the current keeper system induces too many "dump trades" and the trades themselves tend to be too one-sided. Because of this, there is a very binary "play for this year" vs "play for next year" which to some degree does happen in the real MLB - but in our league far too many teams will be dumpers - it also requires the teams that win to mortgage the future a bit to have a chance. Now all of this is part of normal keeper league play, but it just feels like the current set-up exacerbates this problem.

This can be solved by

a) More keepers (the more keepers you have, the less likely the dump trades are as prevalent or as entirely team-sell-off as mine with Luke was)

b) No keepers

Other league complaints would be no way to really incorporate prospects (they don't really fit into the current keeper guidelines which makes following them a bit less fun), no talent at all on the waiver wire (which exacerbates the negative impact of injuries since you can't even find anyone with playing time).

I could see an argument for switching to an annual auction draft with no keepers, adding more keepers or anywhere in between. How are other people feeling about the current league set-up?

Looking ahead Part II: The Lineup

As I mentioned before, the Red Sox will only have 3 position players under contract for the 2011 season - Youkilis, Pedroia, and JD Drew. Ellsbury will be arbitration eligible for the first time during the 2010-11 offseason, and both Lowrie and Kottaras will still be pre-arbitration players. I'm still working with the assumption that the Red Sox will resign Jason Bay for approximately $14 per year. Unlike the rotation, where there are plenty of options, there are lots of opportunities for prospects to fill these ranks. However, there are not many upper level offensive prospects in the system right now. I view Jed Lowrie as a super utility type player - able to play 2B, 3B, or SS but I don't view him as a long term solution at SS. I may be wrong - he's rarely been healthy and he may hit much better with a healthy wrist but for now I'm pencilling him in as a bench player who still would get 300 at bats scattered around the diamond. I have Kottaras at back up catcher as well. He hasn't shown much of an ability to hit MLB hitting, but I think there is still hope for him to be useful, if not a starter. After all, at $500,000 I'm not sure you'd really be better off spending $1 or $1.5 million on a better back up catcher. I'm also going to assume that the Red Sox will pick up David Ortiz' $12 option. While there isn't a buyout, it would only be a one year commitment, while any potential replacement would require a longer contract. Given those assumptions, the Red Sox lineup looks like this after the 2010 season:

Position	Name	Salary	Age
C	?
1B	Youkilis/?	12.25	32
2B	Pedroia	5.75	27
3B	?/Youkilis
SS	?
LF	Bay	14	32
CF	Ellsbury	5	27
RF	Drew	14	35
DH	Ortiz	12	35

One thing that caught my eye is that Kevin Youkilis is only 6 months younger than Jason Bay. While he hasn't been in the majors for as long, because Youkilis didn't make his MLB debut until 25 and didn't stick as a regular until his age 27 season he would have hit free agency at much later age.

Obviously these are some pretty major holes. One key question is will Youkilis still be able to play 3B effectively at the age of 32 after several years of primarily being a first baseman. If he is it gives the Red Sox many more options. One internal option is Lars Anderson; however Anderson has not impressed at AA this year and despite being rather young has "old player" skills - he has some power and a sophisticated approach, but there are starting to be questions about his upside. According to Baseball Prospectus' Kevin Goldstein, several scouts now view him as a second division starter. If Anderson doesn't develop as hoped, there will be several older, short term options from free agency, particularly at first base.

First Basemen	Age
Lance Berkman	34
Paul Konerko	34
Derrek Lee	35
Carlos Pena	32
Third Basemen
Garrett Atkins	30
Brandon Inge	33
Mike Lowell	36

I'm not going to try and predict who will be the most valuable corner infielder from a bunch of not particularly athletic players in their early to mid 30's as the drop off can be pretty steep, but there could be options for a two year contract in there. Local boy Carlos Pena is the one that catches my eye, although he may sign an extension with the Rays as well. The Sox have been linked to Prince Fielder as well as a long term solution at 1B. Prince is signed through 2010 for $9 million/year and would have one more year of arbitration after that. He might be hard to sign to an extension though, as Scott Boras lovse to test the free agent market. That said, he would only be 27 as a free agent after the 2011 season (so one year later than this preview is looking at) and would be a hell of a run producer to lock up long term.

Unsurprisingly, catcher continues to be a major long term hole in the lineup. Fortunately for the Sox, two of the best catchers in the AL will hit free agency after the 2010 season - Victor Martinez (32) and Joe Mauer, at the young age of 28. Sports writers have been talking about the bidding war between the Sox and the Yankees over Mauer already, so he wouldn't come cheaply.

Shortstop has also been a consistent weakness for the Sox ever since the departure of Nomar (and really for the last couple years he was here). Jose Iglesias could be the solution at the position, at least defensively. According to some scouts his fielding rates as an 80 on the 20-80 scale and will hit for average and has good speed, although without much power or plate discipline. He's only 19 (allegedly, ages are fickle for Latin American prospects) and I have no idea what level the Red Sox will start him at in the minor leagues, but with a strong showing he could be a defense first shortstop for the Sox quickly, much like Elvis Andrus for the Rangers this year (although Andrus has a much higher upside). There are also several appealing free agency options at shortstop:

Shortstops
J.J. Hardy	28
Cap'n Jetes	36
Jimmy Rollins	31

Cap'n Jetes won't be a Red Sox player anytime soon as he's a "true Yankee" and the Red Sox are aware that the ability to move to one's left is important for a short stop. Rollins would likely command more years and money than the Red Sox would want to pony up, but JJ Hardy is intriguing because of his age and his bat (this year not withstanding). UZR also has him as a defensive asset (12.0 R/150 games).

Finally there is the bench. This is in flux, but there are a few prospects who could sneak in here. Josh Reddick was Kevin Goldstein's #3 prospect in the Red Sox system coming into this year and he has hit well in Portland (.271/.341/.542) with 12 homeruns, despite missing May with a strained oblique. I could see him as a 4th outfielder getting regular playing time at all 3 outfield positions similar to Ellsbury's rookie year. Assuming he continues to develop he could be a natural replacement for JD Drew in right field.

Mark Wagner may challenge Kottaras for the back up catcher spot, or the Sox could use the two as a cheap catching option if they're not willing to commit tons of money to Mauer or Martinez. Although he's already 25, Wagner has hit well at AA this year (.871 OPS) and has an excellent defensive reputation. I'd be surprised if the Sox kept Kottaras through arbitration with a suitable and cheaper option available, but they won't have to make that decision until after the 2011 season.

So where does this leave the Sox overall? Their offensive payroll without a catcher, shortstop, or corner infielder is $65.4 million; combined with a $40 million pitching staff that totals $105.4 million. Their opening day payroll was $121 million and they're reportedly under budget right now, so that could leave upwards of $40 million available to fill those 3 positions or bolster the starting rotation by resigning Beckett. Joe Mauer could eat up over $20 million/year of that surplus though.

Looking to trade MI for CI

In a bit of a positional oddity, Ty Wigginton now has MI eligibility, but not 2B or SS (needs 1 more start at 2B or 5 more appearances and 3 more appearances at SS to qualify). I also have Kendrick who is back up in the majors now and is hitting reasonably well. I'm looking to improve my CI, or package a MI and a starter for an upgrade at SP. Let me know if you're interested.

ASG

Did anyone else find it a little strange that there were five Red Sox on the team (three pitchers, two hitters), and they combined for one AB and one IP? I know the rosters are huge, and lots of good pitchers aren't going to get innings, but playing Zobrist at 2B over Pedroia, even if Pedroia doesn't get an AB? Come on, Joe Maddon. You are trying to win this thing.

Looking ahead...WAY ahead Part I: Pitching

Initially I was going to put both the pitching and the lineup in one single post, but it seemed like it would be a bit long...

I was reading an article in the Globe (Tony Massarotti's best and worst of the Sox so far this year) and was struck by the number of contracts that come up after the 2010 season. Assuming the Sox don't pick up Ortiz' $12.5 million option, they would be clearing just under $50 of salary after 2010, but would be losing Ortiz, Lowell, Lugo (oh no!!!), Varitek, and most importantly, Josh Beckett. According to Cot's baseball contracts the Red Sox currently have made $43.5 worth of commitments for the 2011 season, not including arbitration eligible players. By comparison, the Yankees have already made $116 million in commitments for the 2011 season, and that is without both Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. Of course, the Red Sox only have 6 players signed for the 2011 season, they are:

	Pos'n	ML Srv	2009	2010	2011
Drew	of	10.02	14	14	14
Youkilis	1b-3b	4.093	6.25	9.375	12.25
Pedroia	2b-ss	2.041	1.75	3.75	5.75
Matsuzaka	rhp	2	8.33	8.333	10.333
Lester	lhp	2.075	1	3.75	5.75
Tazawa	rhp	0	1	1.1	1.15

Let's assume that the Red Sox are able to work out an extension with Jason Bay (there aren't many other alternatives in free agency this off season) for 5 years at 14 million per. Let's also assume that Wakefield's $4 million perpetual option gets picked up in the 2009 and 2010 offseasons. Finally, we have the arbitration eligible players. The Sox have had a cheap bullpen thanks to young, cost controlled arms and cheap international signings. However, many of these players will become eligible for arbitration at the same time. I'm assuming that Saito will either have been traded or have retired by the end of the 2010 season and have estimated the salaries for the abitration eligible players (denoted by a *). Without resigning Josh Beckett, the staff would look something like this:

Rotation
Lester	5.75
Matsuzaka	10.33
Wakefield	4
Bowden	0.5
Buchholz	0.5
Total	21.08
Bullpen
Ramirez	3.5*
Delcarmen	3.5*
Okajima	3.5*
Papelbon	10*
Bard	0.5
Tazawa	1.15
Masterson	0.5
Total	22.65
Pitching total	43.73

Coming into the 2009 season the Sox had $12 million worth of payroll (just over half to Papelbon) in the bullpen and $35 million on their 6 starting pitchers. If I had to guess I'd say they're likely to keep those approximate proportions - it doesn't make sense to me to spend over $10 million on Okajima, Ramirez, and Delcarmen when younger players could fill those roles, so I'm guess at least one of them is trade bait. All 3 would be in their second year of arbitration so if traded during the 2010 offseason they would be under their new teams control for 2 full years. Going with a pitching budget of approximately $55 million there is definitely room to resign Beckett, especially if they're able to move a bullpen arm. What is incredible to me is the pitching depth the Sox have amassed. Even without Beckett the starting rotation is crowded. Plus prospects like Casey Kelly and Nick Hagadone could be ready during for cups of coffee during the 2010 season.

To top it all of it looks like there will be a ton of pitching available in the 2010 offseason. Below are the interesting starting pitchers (due to skill, age, or in the case of De La Rosa strikeout rate) who are currently slated to be free agents, including 4 or 5 potential #1 starters:

Pitcher	Age
Josh Beckett BOS	30
Joe Blanton PHI	29
Jorge De La Rosa COL	29
Roy Halladay TOR	33
Cliff Lee CLE	32
Ted Lilly CHC	34
Javier Vazquez ATL	34
Brandon Webb ARI	31

Both in the present and the future the Sox seem to be sitting pretty when it comes to pitching. There are a lot more question marks when it comes to the lineup, but that may have to wait until tomorrow.

Daily net points

It didn't take as much effort as I initially thought to put together this table, so here are the daily net points for last week. Mark gained or lost 3 or more points 5 of the 7 days last week and half of the teams had a single day where they gained or lost 3 points in a single day.

Daily net points
	7/5	7/6	7/7	7/8	7/9	7/10	7/11	7/12
A-Roid's RagingRotos	-0.5	-1	-4	-1	2	1	-1	2.5
I Ain't Got My Taco	-4	1	3.5	-0.5	0.5	2.5	-5	-0.5
Mr Bill's Boppers	-0.5	1	0	-2	0	-1	5.5	-2.5
Oh Balls!!!	1	-1.5	0	1	-0.5	0	1	1
Smell The Glove	0	-2	2.5	2	-2	-0.5	-2	0.5
Soap Box Yakkers	4	4	-3	-1	0.5	-3.5	5.5	-1
Soo Choo Train	0.5	-0.5	1	0	-0.5	2.5	-2.5	0
The Chones	-0.5	-1	0	1.5	0	-1	-1.5	0
Max Gain	4	4	3.5	2	2	2.5	5.5	2.5
Max Loss	-4	-2	-4	-2	-2	-3.5	-5	-2.5

pitch f/x

I've been playing around some with pitch f/x, mostly to look at release point and movement. I was using it to look at Dan Bard, whose breaking ball seemed particularly nasty lately. I couldn't really find any differences in the breaking ball, but I did end up learning a fair amount about pitch f/x. If anyone is interested, I wrote up a quick google doc summary of what I learned. Additionally, for a small commission (say, a beer sometime), I'd be willing to take a look at players if people are interested. Let me know if you want in on the Google Doc, or you have a player you'd like me to check out.

Andrew

Weekly Update July 12

Monster week for Mark, who gained 4 points and has vaulted into contention. Since the last update Mark went from 46.5 to 54.5, then dropped back down to 47.5 before rebounding to 53 to close out the week. For me, a spectacular Saturday (19 IP, 2 W, 19 K, 3.32 ERA, 1.11 WHIP) saved what would have otherwise been a pretty terrible week of pitching and gave me 5.5 points in the process. While my ERA and WHIP took a substantial hit I didn't lose points in either category and I gained 3 points in strikeouts. The standings could easily continue to bounce around for awhile with tight clusters of players in several categories.

Weekly Update		R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	W	SV	K	ERA	WHIP	IP	Total Pts	Net Pts
1	Mr Bill's Boppers	58	8	43	13	0.003	5	3	58	0.08	0.02	57.2	60	3
1	Oh Balls!!!	44	14	47	13	0	5	6	42	-0.03	0	38.1	58	1
3	Soap Box Yakkers	40	11	29	4	-0	3	4	62	0.13	0	79.1	53	4.5
4	I Ain't Got My Taco	36	9	38	6	0.002	1	2	38	-0.03	0	48	46.5	0
5	Smell The Glove	39	10	41	4	0.002	3	4	34	0.16	0.02	39.9	43.5	-2
6	Soo Choo Train	43	6	33	2	0.001	4	0	39	-0.09	-0.01	48.1	41	0.5
7	The Chones	37	9	35	6	-0.002	4	4	35	0.03	-0.01	46.8	37	-2.5
8	A-Roid's RagingRotos	34	9	44	3	0.001	1	0	39	0.05	0.01	43.8	21	-4.5

Betancourt traded to the Royals!

Yuniesky Betancourt has been traded to the Royals! My favorite analysis of the whole trade comes from an article on fangraphs, that opens with the line "The Royals desperately needed a shortstop." And closes with the line "The Royals still desperately need a shortstop." It sounds like the Royals got hosed, as seen by this description of Yuniesky-- "Betancourt doesn’t hit for power, walk, take coaching well, field, or keep himself in shape." I think he'll fit in nicely with the Royals. Oh Balls!!!! represent!

Weekly Update July 5

A big week offensively for Mark and me, and Andrew is tied for first place for the first time since May 5th thanks to Caleb passing him in RBI.

Weekly Update		R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	W	SV	K	ERA	WHIP	IP	Total Pts	Net Pts
1	Mr Bill's Boppers	40	10	44	5	-0	4	5	33	-0.06	-0.01	44	57	2
1	Oh Balls!!!	21	8	20	5	-0	3	4	35	0.06	-0.01	47	57	-1
3	I Ain't Got My Taco	29	4	33	5	-0	1	1	39	0.1	0	54.2	48.5	-1.5
4	Soap Box Yakkers	39	13	41	8	0.001	2	2	35	0.02	0.01	41	46.5	-2
5	Smell The Glove	36	9	36	5	-0.001	3	6	41	0.08	0.01	45	45.5	0
6	Soo Choo Train	35	9	35	6	0.001	3	0	32	0.11	0.01	36.8	40.5	0
7	The Chones	38	10	28	6	0.003	2	6	41	-0.05	-0.02	48.1	39.5	1.5
8	A-Roid's RagingRotos	34	14	36	4	0.004	2	1	37	-0.07	-0.01	45	25.5	1

Reliever Wins

On my big run of wins I've seemed to get lots of wins from my relievers. To see if that really was the case I went back to the team logs and took a look at everyone's wins from my relief pitchers so I was curious to see how my relief stats compared to those of other teams.
Overall, I have the most wins from relief pitchers (11) and also have the highest percentage of wins from relief pitchers (28%). Kate also has >20% of her wins from relievers (7 of 29). If we only looked at wins from starters, I would drop from 2nd in wins to 5th. Needless to say, I've been awfully lucky with wins, although ending up with someone like Slowey who has 10 wins despite a 4.86 ERA is also a bit lucky.

	Team	W	W Points	Starer W	Reliever W	Starter Pts	Difference
1	The Chones	44	8	39	5	8	0
2	Mr Bill's Boppers	39	7	28	11	4	-3
3	Smell The Glove	38	5.5	33	5	6	0.5
3	I Ain't Got My Taco	38	5.5	33	5	6	0.5
5	Oh Balls!!!	34	4	30	4	5	1
6	A-Roid's RagingRotos	30	3	27	3	3	0
7	Soap Box Yakkers	29	1.5	25	4	2	0.5
8	Soo Choo Train	29	1.5	22	7	1	-0.5