An Awful Lot Went Right for the Red Sox This Year

[mweb]

I could be wrong, but I think both of these guys were known to be out prior to ST.

Lester had the cancer treatment. He actually got back earlier than planned from what I've read.

Clement with the arm issues. He had shoulder surgery on September, 27 2006.

Your not wrong, that's why I said if we're counting guys that they knew would be out before the year, like Benson. I don't think that should really count, but if Benson counts, they should count imo.

[square634]

Good post

My opinions

Lester was supposed to be ready last year but the cancer set him back. Buckholz and Ellsbury had relatively minor contributions to the team this year. Drew was a minor upgrade in right field at best over last year (Nixon and Wily Mo). Lugo replaced Gonzalez (and production fell actually). I agree about Dice K, Okajima and Pedroia. These were big additions.

I would say they had 3 big additions this year so, yes, they were deeper than last year. So, is your premise that the injuries they couldn't overcome last year, they would have overcome this year due to the added depth? How about if their injuries mirrored the Orioles injuries this year?

BTW, to MWeb, Ortiz had a higher OPS this year than he did last year by about 30 points.

Yes, basically that's it. I think that guys like Ellsbury and Buckholz, who stepped up at the end of the year, could have replaced the production from injuries had they been ready last year.

[mweb]

Good post

My opinions

Lester was supposed to be ready last year but the cancer set him back. Buckholz and Ellsbury had relatively minor contributions to the team this year. Drew was a minor upgrade in right field at best over last year (Nixon and Wily Mo). Lugo replaced Gonzalez (and production fell actually). I agree about Dice K, Okajima and Pedroia. These were big additions.

I would say they had 3 big additions this year so, yes, they were deeper than last year. So, is your premise that the injuries they couldn't overcome last year, they would have overcome this year due to the added depth? How about if their injuries mirrored the Orioles injuries this year?

BTW, to MWeb, Ortiz had a higher OPS this year than he did last year by about 30 points.

And it probably would have even been higher if he wasn't hampered by injuries.

[mweb]

Agree, which isn't good enough, but would still leave the organization, fans, and this board in a very, very different mood/outlook.

The single biggest disappointment from this year IMHO is that Loewen and Penn did not pitch so we could determine how to project them forward. Same with Olson missing 4 or 5 starts though not to the same degree. If we had managed the following

Still "find" Guthrie

Bedard pitch the same

Cabrera pitch the same

Loewen stays healthy and puts up 180 IP with the progression some of us thought we saw coming

Penn stay healthy and actually show he could pitch at this level

with nothing else different, I believe we would all have a pretty positive outlook on the future of this team. We'd be disappointed with Cabrera, but still be excited about our foundation of young pitching. The injuries and bad performances by youngsters when called up robbed us of that optimism.

Yes, but it wouldn't be the right outlook. Obviously, you can't count on having your original starting 5 pitching all year, so needing to add 10-15 wins or so to a team that was very fortunate in terms of injuries, has a lot of players on the wrong side of their prime is not very realistic.

[oriole_way]

I love how guys use the rolling eyes thing whenever they don't have much to say, but want to act like a jerk. Notice the 86 last year? Does that number seem to stick out much compared to the rest? I wonder what happened last year to drop them down about 10 wins? Could it be injuries? Nah, couldn't be.

BTW, the Orioles were hurt a bit more by injuries more this year than the Sox last year, but lets add 10 wins to the Orioles record this year just for simplicity sake. Suddenly, the board isn't committing suicide anymore if we go 79-83. We're not where we want to be, but we're improving.

Yes, the Red Sox won only 86 games last season. But they won between 93 and 98 games each of the other 5 seasons over the past 6 years. So the question becomes whether the Red Sox were exceedingly fortunate 5 out of 6 years or exceedingly unfortunate 1 year (2006)? I would say that sample size would illustrate to most reasonable people that 2006 was the aberration and that 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007 are more the norm.

To say that the Red Sox were "fortunate" this year to me implies that they were somewhat lucky, rather than deserving of their record; that winning 96 games this year was maybe the result of a perfect storm if you will. Sure, any successful team needs some amount of good fortune. But that could be said about almost every playoff participant every year, in which case, why say it about any team. Then when you see that the team has been similarly successful over 5 of the past 6 seasons, that statement seems even more preposterous.

So my point is that the Red Sox were probably more "unfortunate" last year than they were "fortunate" this year.

I also find your jerk comment a bit hypocritically pious. Many people use the sarcastic emoticon, including yourself.