2010 Boston Red Sox a MLE/3YR AVE Look

[RedSox]

Since I hold out little hope DMB will issue a projection disk for 2010 I've decided to take a look at the 2010 Red Sox using MLE's for my minor leaguers and up to 3 yr averages for the big leaguers. ZIPs! Yay.

Line-up

C Pablo Sandoval 1.5 yr Ave - .333/.381/.543
1B Chris Carter MLE - .258/.330/.444
2B Ian Desmond MLE - .272/.328/.373
3B Joshua Bell MLE - .235/.299/.384
SS Ivan De Jesus MLE - .273/.348/.347
LF Jordan Brown MLE - .301/.339/.460
CF Colby Rasmus 1 yr Ave - .251/.307/.407
RF Gerardo Parra 1 yr Ave - .290/.324/.404
DH Pedro Alvarez MLE - .254/.322/.444

1B/DH Jesus Guzman MLE - .276/.323/.413
1B/OF Ryan Strieby MLE - .232/.329/.395
UT Jose Vallejo MLE - .243/.262/.282

The offense isn't overwhelming yet but it should be much better than the historic ineptitude trotted out last year. A quick and dirty add up and /9 yields a .753 OPS. A number than would have been 9th in the AL this year and 16th overall. That should be good for something near the league average in runs scored - 779. I can live with that as Alvarez, Carter, Bell, and Desmond should all log good big league time in 2010.

Staff

SP David Price* 1 yr Ave - 4.59 FIP
SP Trevor Cahill 1 yr Ave - 5.33 FIP
SP Andrew Miller* 3 yr Ave - 4.47 FIP
SP Clayton Richard* 2 yr Ave - 4.41 FIP
SP Joshua Outman* 2 yr Ave - 4.09 FIP

I expect both Price and Cahill to take a step forward this year. Price because he won't be getting jerked around for service time and Cahill if he can get ahead in the count maybe he can throw some breaking stuff. He threw his fastball or change 88.7% of the time last year. Posting a 4.63 ERA as a 21 year old while throwing essentially two pitches is pretty damn good. We've hired someone to hug Miller everyday and hopefully a stint in the AFL gets his head out of his ass. Richard is Buehrle lite and should eat a lot of innings and post a better ERA than his sim while keeping the ball on the ground. Outman is a wildcard as his sim should be good, but I don't know when he'll be back.

Pen

RP David Robertson 2 yr Ave - 3.25 FIP
RP Alberto Arias 3 yr Ave - 3.86 FIP
RP Brandon League 3 yr Ave - 3.87 FIP

I didn't list Wagner... so he'll pitch next year. Robertson led the league in K/9 I believe. Arias and League both keep the ball on the ground though League did it by throwing his change 32% of the time while Arias utilized his hook 35% of the time. With Wagner it should be fine, without... well I'm probably an arm short.

Fill-ins

RP/SP E. De La Cruz MLE - 4.66 FIP
RP/SP Samuel Deduno MLE - 4.52 FIP
RP/SP Jaime Garcia* MLE - 4.80 FIP
RP/SP Clayton Mortensen MLE - 5.11 FIP
RP/SP James Simmons MLE - 4.97 FIP
RP/SP Joe Savery* MLE - 5.91 FIP
RP/SP PJ Walters MLE - 4.10 FIP
RP/SP Blake Beavan MLE - 4.54 FIP
RP/SP Chris Withrow MLE - 4.86 FIP
RP/SP Jay Jackson MLE - 5.11 FIP
RP/SP Trevor Bell MLE - 4.08 FIP
RP/SP Kyle Drabek MLE - 4.49 FIP

Six guys who could have league average or better FIPs next year. All should have starter ratings so if one's sim comes up aces he'll probably move to the rotation and Outman will move to the pen. Overall there's a lot of GB guys here and a lot of guys near MLB average for FIP so I'm hoping for something around 4.50 or 729 earned RA + 10% or 802 total RA.

The bottom line is my team is closer, but still not there yet. The pitching continues to be ahead of the hitting, but the gap is narrowing. ZIPs won't project Ackley because he hasn't played so I expect another impact bat for 2011. The Run Differential could almost be a wash, which would call for a record of 81-81 but as I'm in the beast 71-76 wins may be a more accurate prediction for today.