Gonzalez + Crawford minus Beltre + VMart = 2 WAR

[DrungoHazewood]

Let's look at what you've projected:

Ellsbury (3.0) - jumping back to near career high after 2 seasons of decline/injury

Pedroia (6.0) - better than his MVP season by over 1 WAR

Youkilis (5.5) - MVP-type season, near career bests, at 32

Gonzalez (6.0) - around his 2nd-best season

Crawford (6.0) - career year by more than a win, at age 29

Ortiz (3.0) - almost no decline from 34 to 35

Drew (2.5) - no decline from 34 to 35

Salty (1.0) - more than double his previous career high

Scutaro (2.2) - no decline from 34 to 35

Lowrie (1.5) - little fallback from a .900 OPS/SSS season

Cameron (1.0)

Varitek (0.8)

Patterson (0.0)

Pitchers: 25.2

Lester (6.0) - career high

Beckett (3.5) - improvement of four(!) wins over 2010

Buchholz (4.0) - fairly reasonable

Lackey (4.0) - more than double 2010

Matsuzaka (2.5) - best season in three years

Wakefield (1.1)

Atchison (0.0)

Bowden (0.4)

Doubront (0.5)

Bard (1.7)

Papelbon (1.5) - more than a win above '10

Total = 63.7 fWAR = 107-108 wins

And that's without adding bullpen help or upgrading their bench...

So, you've basically projected most of the Red Sox roster to hit their 75th-90th percentile projections. If they do that, sure, 107 wins is possible. But there's an 80%+ chance they'll be 10 or more wins off that.

If only karma really did pay back last year's bad luck immediately this year...

[Can_of_corn]

I'd almost move JD Drew to Left and put Crawford in Right if I were them. That would take advantage of Crawford's range.

Crawford doesn't have the arm for right.

[JTrea81]

Let's look at what you've projected:

So, you've basically projected most of the Red Sox roster to hit their 75th-90th percentile projections. If they do that, sure, 107 wins is possible. But there's an 80%+ chance they'll be 10 or more wins off that.

If only karma really did pay back last year's bad luck immediately this year...

Keep in mind this is fWAR not Baseball-reference's WAR values.

Lackey did reach 4.0 fWAR last season in a down year for him and Pedroia was over 3.0 fWAR only playing 75 games of the season so 6.0 isn't a stretch by any means.

[Crazysilver03]

Keep in mind this is fWAR not Baseball-reference's WAR values.

Lackey did reach 4.0 fWAR last season in a down year for him and Pedroia was over 3.0 fWAR only playing 75 games of the season so 6.0 isn't a stretch by any means.

What is the point of fWAR vs. regular WAR.

And why is it you switched over to fWAR now?

[JTrea81]

What is the point of fWAR vs. regular WAR.

And why is it you switched over to fWAR now?

There are two kinds of WAR out there. fWAR is what Fangraphs uses, while rWAR is Baseball-reference's version.

[Crazysilver03]

There are two kinds of WAR out there. fWAR is what Fangraphs uses, while rWAR is Baseball-reference's version.

Knew of the two kinds. Never knew that is how they were referenced in short hand.

[Frobby]

But we are talking about an 89 win team that played a huge chunk of the season without their 1-3 hitters. I would assume BOS would have pushed for 95-98 wins with those three healthier.

Losing Beltre/VMart the question for BOS is what they do to replace that production. They went out and got two players that are younger and more likely to maintain that production into the future. They don't need for AGon/CC to be a big upgrade. They just need them to come close to what Beltre and VMart produced last year.

Maybe we are talking past each other, because I do not disagree with anything you say here.

[Arthur_Bryant]

There is a huge difference between WAR, for Crawford, on fangraphs and baseballreference. Fangraphs has had Crawford as 5.7 and 6.9 the last two years. BBR has him at 4.4 and 4.8. BBR doesn't like his defense as well as FG. Does anyone know what the Fielding Bible says about it.

Crawford was #2 this year behind Gardner, a close #2 to Byrnes in 2007, and a clear #1 in 06, 08, and 09. Basically CC would be their top LFer for the past five years.

[Stotle]

Maybe we are talking past each other, because I do not disagree with anything you say here.

No, apologies. I understand what you are saying and wasn't meaning this to be a counter to your post. More an addendum. Maybe it's true that Crawford/Gonzalez won't be a huge upgrade in production from 2010 Beltre/Martinez. Unfortunately, that doesn't have much substantive effect on anything. Almost every team every year enters the off-season with holes to fill. BOS lost a bunch of production from 2010, even if that production was unlikely to be reproduced by those players in 2011. BOS filled those two holes with younger players that outproduced Beltre/Martinez in 2010 and also happen to provide better odds to produce at the rate for 2011 and beyond.

I assumed your post was intended to start a convo of some sort -- but it seems like you really only meant it to be an isolated observation. Didn't mean to misconstrue, sorry.

[DrungoHazewood]

Keep in mind this is fWAR not Baseball-reference's WAR values.

Lackey did reach 4.0 fWAR last season in a down year for him and Pedroia was over 3.0 fWAR only playing 75 games of the season so 6.0 isn't a stretch by any means.

That's fine, but it's also extremely optimistic. You're using Fangraph's WAR values, and then extrapolating out based on you eyeballing the numbers.

Do you really think that Ortiz, Scutaro, and JD Drew will only decline by a fraction of a win, as a group, from age 34 to 35? Historically 34-year-olds lose 20-30% of their playing time the next season, and when they do play they lose 5% of their per at bat value. Once again, you're being very optimistic.

There were only nine players in the entire Majors worth 6+ wins in 2010. No single team had more than one such player. You have the 2011 Red Sox with four by themselves, plus another at 5.5.

As for Pedroia, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of probability. If he's having a career year in half a year it's far more likely that he regresses to his career averages than it is he continues to play better than ever before. When Ty Wigginton had a near-MVP type two months early in 2010 that didn't mean he was likely to put up a 7 WAR season, it was likely he would regress to the mean.

[Frobby]

There were only nine players in the entire Majors worth 6+ wins in 2010. No single team had more than one such player. You have the 2011 Red Sox with four by themselves, plus another at 5.5.

I think this is really all you need to say. If the Red Sox actually met JTrea's projections, there wouldn't be one damned thing we could do about it. But they won't.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Can I ask a question? When did "WAR" become the be-all/end-all predictor for performance in the upcoming season?

I feel like every single thread that deals with projections cites "WAR" or some variation as its primary source for information.

[bird watcher]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121006172.html

Man, that is a pretty damning article!

I sure hope he is right!:smile11:

[DrungoHazewood]

Can I ask a question? When did "WAR" become the be-all/end-all predictor for performance in the upcoming season?

I feel like every single thread that deals with projections cites "WAR" or some variation as its primary source for information.

Since the beginning of Bill James time (say, 1977) the holy grail of sabermetrics was always a single number that totalled up a player's contributions and expressed it as wins. It's really only been in the past few years we've had the confidence in the various metrics to be able to put them all on the same scale and combine them into one Grand Unified Theory of baseball.

Of course that one, simple number still has all of the assumptions and flaws of the underlying metrics. It still has the uncertainty in things like UZR and FIP built in, and that often goes unstated.

And WAR doesn't predict anything. It totals up contributions already made. From that you can use comparable players, or aging curves, or whatever to make some observations about what might happen.

But it is very nice to be able to say a guy is worth about 3 wins, rather than going through a three-page explanation about how his .300/.380./.415 line in Coors Field with average defense at third base is worth X runs, which works out to so many wins.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Since the beginning of Bill James time (say, 1977) the holy grail of sabermetrics was always a single number that totalled up a player's contributions and expressed it as wins. It's really only been in the past few years we've had the confidence in the various metrics to be able to put them all on the same scale and combine them into one Grand Unified Theory of baseball.

Of course that one, simple number still has all of the assumptions and flaws of the underlying metrics. It still has the uncertainty in things like UZR and FIP built in, and that often goes unstated.

And WAR doesn't predict anything. It totals up contributions already made. From that you can use comparable players, or aging curves, or whatever to make some observations about what might happen.

But it is very nice to be able to say a guy is worth about 3 wins, rather than going through a three-page explanation about how his .300/.380./.415 line in Coors Field with average defense at third base is worth X runs, which works out to so many wins.

Thank you.