Monday Pythagorean 7/10/06

The All Star break arrives, and not a moment too soon for the Red Sox. Today would have been a tough day for the team to take the field following the 19 inning grinder in Chicago yesterday. All in all, a productive weekend, though it could have been much better (and much shorter!) had Papelbon retired Jermaine Dye in the 9th inning. The trip to Tampa was ... less productive.

But the break finds the Red Sox 3 up on the Yankees, 5 ahead of Toronto (6 in the loss column).

• We had a long discussion before the season started about how good this team was or wasn't. There were people (I'll name no names - you know who you are) that felt this had the potential to be an 80-85 win team unless everything went right. To quote myself, "I don't assume that everything will be perfect and they'll win 95. I assume that some things will go better than expected, some will go worse, and they'll win 95-100. It's a very talented group.". Right now, the Red Sox are on a pace to win 100 games despite:
  
  
  
  • Foulke hurt
  
  
  • Seanez/Tavarez ineffective
  
  
  • Wells/Clement/DiNardo all hurt
  
  
  • Crisp injured for 6 weeks, bad for another 6



• I've seen a lot of criticism of Francona, mostly from the people who always feel the need to criticize Francona, for the fact that Boston didn't appeal Jermaine Dye's failure to re-touch 3rd in the 11th inning of Sunday's game. I think it's hogwash. I still don't understand why Dye was there, and it doesn't surprise me in the least that, with all of the people on the field and all of the movement taking place there, no one realized that he'd performed the unbelievably stupid act of actually rounding 3rd there. I don't remember ever seeing a baserunner do that on a fly ball like that before, and still don't understand what he was doing.



• The Red Sox, for the week, were 5th in runs/game and 7th in runs allowed/game. Because of yesterday's 19 innings, that's a little misleading. It makes the offense look better, and the pitching look worse, than they should. They played the equivalent of more than 2 entire games yesterday.



• Coming out of the break, the Red Sox, who are currently 27-10 at home, will get 44 of their last 76 games in Fenway, with only 32 left on the road. New York has 38 left at home and on the road. The Blue Jays have got 35 at home and 39 on the road. From a home/road split point of view, significant advantage Boston...



• Fun with the Baseball Musings Day By Day Database: Since the 2005 All Star game, David Ortiz leads Major League Baseball with 57 HR. Manny Ramirez is tied with Ryan Howard for 4th, with Giambi and Pujols in between. Of players with 400+ plate appearances, Manny's 5th in OBP at .428. And he's 2nd in SLG at .631, behind Pujols. Because Ortiz has had a half dozen really dramatic hits, I think people are forgetting how good a hitter Manny Ramirez is. The list of players that you could make a strong case for performing better over the past year than Manny Ramirez has two names on it, Albert Pujols and Travis Hafner. That's it.



• Josh Beckett (18, T-3rd) and Curt Schilling (17, T-9th) are both in the top 10 in wins since last year's All Star Game. They each have a 4.17 ERA, tied for 41st. Red Sox outfielders can expect to continue to have sore necks, as Wakefield (36, T-2nd), Beckett (35, 4th) and Schilling (28, T-18th) are all high on the list of HR allowed since the last All Star break ended.



• How has the game changed in just the last 20 years? In 1986, there were 14 pitchers with double-digit complete games. There were 37 with 6 or more. Since last year's All Star break, Dontrelle Willis and Aaron Harang lead the Majors. They're tied with ... 5. Tim Wakefield is tied with 3 other pitchers for 2nd, with 4.

AL Pythagorean Projection Report - 7/10/2006

						ProjectedActual
	R/G	(rank)	RA/G	(rank)	Pythagorean	(rank)	W	L	W	L	Luck
Detroit	5.17	(6)	3.73	(1)	0.645	(1)	57	31	59	29	2
Chicago	5.91	(1)	4.72	(4)	0.602	(2)	53	35	57	31	4
New York	5.57	(4)	4.72	(5)	0.575	(3)	49	37	50	36	1
Boston	5.65	(2)	4.8	(8)	0.574	(4)	49	37	53	33	4
Cleveland	5.61	(3)	5.09	(11)	0.544	(5)	47	40	40	47	-7
Toronto	5.36	(5)	4.91	(10)	0.54	(6)	48	40	49	39	1
Minnesota	4.91	(8)	4.6	(3)	0.529	(7)	45	41	47	39	2
Texas	5.09	(7)	4.85	(9)	0.522	(8)	46	42	45	43	-1
Seattle	4.79	(10)	4.73	(7)	0.505	(9)	45	44	43	46	-2
Los Angeles	4.63	(11)	4.73	(6)	0.49	(10)	43	45	43	45	0
Oakland	4.32	(13)	4.48	(2)	0.483	(11)	43	45	45	43	2
Baltimore	4.84	(9)	5.57	(13)	0.437	(12)	39	51	41	49	2
Tampa Bay	4.3	(14)	5.13	(12)	0.42	(13)	37	52	39	50	2
Kansas City	4.55	(12)	6.07	(14)	0.371	(14)	32	55	31	56	-1

Top 5 projections (using current winning %)

Detroit	109	53
Chicago	105	57
Boston	100	62
New York	94	68
Toronto	90	72

Top 5 projections (starting with today's record, using Pythagorean winning %)

Detroit	107	55
Chicago	102	60
Boston	97	65
New York	94	68
Toronto	89	73

Standings for the week

						ProjectedActual
	R/G	(rank)	RA/G	(rank)	Pythagorean	(rank)	W	L	W	L	Luck
Texas	5.17	(6)	2.83	(2)	0.75	(2)	5	1	4	2	-1
Detroit	4	(11)	2.67	(1)	0.677	(3)	4	2	3	3	-1
Cleveland	6.86	(1)	5.14	(7)	0.629	(4)	4	3	3	4	-1
Kansas City	6.43	(2)	4.86	(6)	0.625	(5)	4	3	4	3	0
Boston	5.86	(5)	5.14	(7)	0.559	(6)	4	3	3	4	-1
Chicago	6.14	(3)	5.57	(11)	0.545	(7)	4	3	4	3	0
Tampa Bay	4.14	(10)	4.43	(4)	0.47	(8)	3	4	4	3	1
New York	5	(7)	5.43	(10)	0.462	(9)	3	4	4	3	1
Oakland	3.43	(13)	4.57	(5)	0.371	(10)	3	4	3	4	0
Toronto	4.29	(8)	6.29	(13)	0.332	(11)	2	5	3	4	1
Minnesota	3.5	(12)	5.33	(9)	0.316	(12)	2	4	2	4	0
Baltimore	4.29	(8)	6.57	(14)	0.314	(13)	2	5	3	4	1
Seattle	2	(14)	5.83	(12)	0.124	(14)	1	5	1	5	0