Red Sox Reality Check

Welcome to the 2013 Boston Red Sox , a Tom Werner production. "Every pleasure is yours to experience."  After all, the bad karma of Bobby Valentine has evaporated, and a kinder, gentler Prodigal Son, John Farrell returns to steer the ship. Red Sox Nation lives as a dystopian society, where older fans, reminded of "25 players, 25 cabs" are to be eliminated in favor of 'pink hats' and any corporate memory of the embarrassment of late in 2011 and all of 2012 removed. In honor of principal owner John Henry, trend-following commodities guru, maybe we should go with "this time it's different."  If only Johnny Gomes could be a pitcher, then we could wax poetic about the second coming of Ricky Vaughn.  Future disgruntled centerfielder Jacoby Ellsbury is hardly to be heard, as media grooms us for (not 1984, but 2014) Jackie Bradley, Jr.  And no doubt Shane Victorino has all the style and soul of the Kia hamsters. Juan Nieves has already been dri...

The Red Sox rely on reversion to the mean coming into the 2013 season. That is, having more players achieve closer to their 'normal' performance.  The "Moneyball" approach looks to translate historical performance in key metrics, to oversimplify, OPS for offense and K/BB for pitching, into effective play. Traditionalists argue that Moneyball overlooks what others would call baseball instinct. Sabermetricians could reply that your "lying eyes" see what they want. I lack the inclination to review the entire team by plate appearances, but we can go through a couple, especially the "strength up the middle" dynamic. Among AL catchers with at least 300 plate appearances, Jarrod Saltalamacchia was eighth in OPS (.742) and tenth in WAR (1.2). The good news, if that matters, is that he was better than Jesus Montero. In centerfield, Jacoby Ellsbury has been a model of inconsistency. Injury-plagued, the Sox 'golden boy' has had an AL MVP runneru...