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