Hardball Times Prospects, Continued

Aaron Gleeman is continuing to post his Top 50 prospects for 2006 list. Last time, I speculated that Jon Lester and Dustin Pedroia were surely both still to come, while Anibal Sanchez may or may not be on the top 50 list.

Now we have the answers.

Anibal Sanchez is indeed on the list, coming in at #40. Gleeman touts Sanchez' outstanding K/BB ratios, but says "the reason Sanchez isn't ranked higher is that he reportedly experienced a significant drop in velocity down the stretch last season and has been dealing with shoulder tendinitis this spring." The arm troubles have kept others from ranking Sanchez higher, but if he stays healthy, I believe he'll have a terrific career.

In the same article, Gleeman ranks Dustin Pedroia at #36. Frankly, I'm surprised he's not listed higher. He's not a Huge Upside guy, but at the same time I believe he's a Can't Miss. Pedroia simply swings a terrific bat. He's not going to hit 30 homers a year, but he is going to hit over .300 and have solid OBP and SLG figures. There's a lot of value in that. There's no mention about why Dustin's not higher, but Gleeman does say that "Pedroia is only 22, but he's a league-average middle infielder whenever and wherever the Red Sox decide they need him." Meaning, today Pedroia could step into the lineup and be a league average performer at either short or second. Which, of course, makes him better than the guy playing shortstop this season. Gonzalez is only signed to a one-year contract, however, and I'll bet dollars to donuts that Pedroia is in the lineup on Opening Day of 2007.

Jon Lester shows up in the next segment, listed at #33. "While Jon Papelbon arrived in the majors first, Lester has a good shot at being Boston's best homegrown starter down the road." I thought that Lester was as good as Papelbon last season, but he's younger and there should be no rush to get him to Boston. He'll be there sometime this year, I'm guessing.

So you have five guys who played in Portland last year among the top 50 prospects in baseball. That's astounding. That's not to mention the one additional guy who is surely coming up - Craig Hansen. The Sox also briefly held Andy Marte, who should be toward the top of the list despite being traded twice in the offseason.

I don't believe that any of the 2006 Sea Dogs will appear on the list, however. How fortunate we were to have such a terrific accumulation of talent in Portland last summer. Five of these guys will be in the majors at some point this season, I would guess. Papelbon and possibly Hansen will go north with the Sox next week, and Hanley Ramirez will be with the Marlins as the season opens, while Lester and Pedroia will be in Boston in September at the latest. Earlier if injuries or performance so dictates. Only Sanchez, who may start the year in AA for Florida, is likely to have to wait a year to get to the show.

Hardball Times Top Prospect List

And while I'm at it, Aaron Gleeman at The Hardball Times is posting his top 50 prospect list, five players at a time. In the 41-45 range are two young men who played for the Sea Dogs last year, Hanley Ramirez (#44) and Jonathan Papelbon (#42).

I've noted here in the past that some of the shine came off of Ramirez last year, but I also noted that I think he's still a good prospect. Gleeman does me one better:

Ramirez still has plenty of potential. He's considered a quality defender
at shortstop and while his 2005 numbers are underwhelming they are relatively
good for such a young player at an up-the-middle position. The Eastern League as
a whole hit .259/.326/.398 in 2005, which is nearly identical to Ramirez's
.271/.335/.385 line. That may not sound like much, but a shortstop who is young
for the level of competition putting up essentially league-average numbers is
pretty good.

I don't think that Hanley will be all that great for the Marlins in 2006, but in a couple of years I think he'll be making believers out of people. Still, he's always seemed to rise to a challenge, and I think he's going to surprise some people this year.

Papelbon is a good pitcher, but he doesn't get a higher rating because he is older than most prospects. I'll be interested to see where Gleeman rates Jon Lester (much higher, without a question) and Anibal Sanchez (a little higher? not at all?) on his list. Dustin Pedroia will no doubt be ranked higher than Ramirez as well.

2005 in Review, Part II - the Pitchers

And now to the pitchers. More briefly stated, because I don’t have the detailed projections like I did for the batters. Last year I looked at Runs Saved Above Average (RSAA), which is now stated as Pitching Runs (PR). It’s the same calculation, however, and I got the numbers from the Hardball Times. Here’s how I did in this area:

Starting Pitchers:

Curt Schilling. He was terrific in 2004, and I expected an injury-related decline in 2005 to about 30 PR. Well, he declined all right, but the injury (and dropoff) were much worse than I thought. He came in at -10 PR, or about four wins worse than I predicted.

David Wells. I didn’t actually come up with a prediction for him, other than that his dropoff from Pedro Martinez’ 2004 “shouldn’t be too severe.” He came through with 2 PR, just a little better than average, compared to Pedro’s 24 in the prior year. It’s about a two-win drop, which, I suppose, isn’t “too severe”, but probably not what I really had in mind here.

Matt Clement: I thought Clement would be head and shoulders better than Derek Lowe was in 2004 (-33 PR), predicting about a five-win improvement. Clement didn’t produce like I thought (-1 PR), though he still represented a three-win gain over Lowe. Still, this was the third straight overly optimistic call on my part.

Tim Wakefield. This one’s a bit confusing. I had Wakefield down for 13 PR in 2004, despite the fact that his ERA was exactly league average, then I predicted a one-win improvement. Wake was very good last year, yet THT is showing just 6 PR. Maybe I meant -13 PR when I blogged this last season. The data is no longer available. Suffice to say that Wakefield was much better in ’05 than ’04, so I think I was pretty accurate with this prediction.

Bronson Arroyo. I predicted a 1-win improvement from the 3 PR that he posted in 2005. Instead, he came in at -7, or a 1-win decline. Rose-colored (Red Sox-colored?) glasses once again.

Overall, I predicted the rotation (with Wade Miller also in the mix) to be about five wins better in 2005 than in 2004. Based on the above, they were about three wins worse, and Miller, along with Jeremi Gonzalez and John Halama, didn’t do anything to fill in the holes.

As for the bullpen, I wrote that we can expect “more of the same” from Keith Foulke and, overall, “no real change” in performance by the bullpen. In fact, the bullpen was a disaster last year, save for a solid year from Mike Myers, a terrific late-season run by Jonathan Papelbon, and yeoman’s work from Mike Timlin. Most of the guys who were expected to be big contributors (Halama, Alan Embree, Matt Mantei) weren't even on the team at the end of the season.

It’s safe to say that I was way off base in my analysis of the pitching staff. That’ll make this year’s rosy predictions look all the more silly, I suppose.

In the end, I added up my projections and predicted that the Sox would improve by five games and finish with 103 wins in 2005. That didn’t happen, obviously, but they still won 95 games and finished tied with the Yankees for the AL East title. That was pretty good considering all that went wrong for the team.

Come back in the next couple of weeks to see what the Monkee (and the monkey, aka I) come up with predictions for the 2005 Red Sox. Hopefully I’ll learn from last year’s mistakes.

I doubt it, though.

Year-end appraisal for the Monkee

Opening day is coming quickly, and it’s time to preview the 2006 Boston Red Sox. First, however, let’s take a look back at the Monkee projection system that I used last year for the hitters, and the subjective projections that I did for the pitchers, to see if it makes sense for anybody to read my 2006 projections. Please note that I will do some performance projections regardless of their perceived merit. The stats shown are Plate Appearances (PA), Batting Avg/On-Base Percentage/Slugging Percentage, Home Runs and Runs Created.

Jason Varitek, Catcher
527 PA 282/364/473 19HR 77RC 2005 proj
539 PA 281/366/489 22HR 84RC 2005 act

Boom! Knocked the first pitch out of the park. ‘Tek had a touch more power than I predicted, but otherwise this is spot on. All this proves is how consistent the Captain has been over the last few years. For the record, I was skeptical that Varitek would live up to the projection, and he proved me wrong.

Kevin Millar, First Base
577 PA 291/367/480 20HR 87RC 2005 proj
519 PA 272/355/399 9HR 63RC 2005 act

I fouled one off, but this was a swinging strikeout. About all Millar did close to expectations was draw walks. The power dropoff was swift and extraordinary. I thought the projection was a bit optimistic, but I never thought that Millar would tank like this.

Mark Bellhorn, Second Base
497 PA 254/368/429 14HR 65RC 2005 proj
640 PA 254/368/429 18HR 83RC 2005 projection with playing time adjustment
335 PA 216/328/360 7HR 34RC 2005 act

Like typical Mark Bellhorn, this was a strikeout looking. Way, way off base on everything but the walk rate. Bellhorn was a disaster last year before he mercifully got hurt and gave way to Tony Graffanino. My only saving grace here was that I thought predicting Bellhorn’s performance, given the ups and downs of his career, would be a challenge.

Bill Mueller, Third Base
500 PA 297/374/475 13HR 77RC 2005 proj
590 PA 295/369/430 10HR 82RC 2005 act

Mueller stayed healthy and beat the playing time projection, and the power projection was silly, but everything else was spot on. In my analysis, I wrote, “the slugging percentage … is extremely unlikely to be repeated. I think Mueller will bat in the 290s, but his OBP and SLG will probably be closer to what he put up last season – maybe even a little lower when it comes to the power numbers.” His ’04 numbers were 283/363/446. This is at the very least a solid single, and you could argue that I should stretch it into a double.

Edgar Renteria, Shortstop
642 PA 305/354/435 11HR 91RC 2005 proj
692 PA 276/335/385 8HR 80 RC 2005 act

Renteria fell well short in batting average, and the power number were worse than expected (actual IsoD of 109 vs. projected of 130). I wrote at the time, “Worst case scenario is that he puts up the numbers that Boston’s three shortstops accumulated last season, though I would be shocked if his OBP were anywhere near as low as .309.” Well, that was correct, except his power fell well short. I put the ball in play, but failed to reach base.

Manny Ramirez, Left Field
638 PA 321/416/609 39HR 136RC 2005 proj
650 PA 292/388/594 45HR 125RC 2005 act
Manny fell short in BA, but after adjusting for this all the other numbers were in line. Only Manny could put up these numbers and have them be somewhat disappointing. Well, Manny and Pujols, I suppose. We’ll give the Monkee a base hit for this one.

Johnny Damon, Center Field
698 PA 290/362/466 16HR 100RC 2005 proj
688 PA 316/366/439 10HR 101RC 2005 act

Batting average up, power down, overall production about what the Monkee predicted. Damon was slapping at the ball more last year, resulting in more singles and less power. He also walked less than normal. Still a terrific year. Another base hit for the Monkee.

Trot Nixon, Right Field
375 PA 291/372/527 17HR 64RC 2005 proj
500 PA 291/372/527 23HR 85RC 2005 proj with playing time adjustment
470 PA 275/357/446 13HR 65RC 2005 act

I adjusted the projection to mitigate Trot’s 2004 injury, and that turned out to be a good call. Yet another player who fell short in batting average and power numbers. I’m not sure why this is, but so far Damon is the only guy to exceed the BA projection, and Varitek the only one to exceed the SLG expectations. Another out.

Jay Payton, Right Field
200 PA 287/340/451 6HR 27 RC 2005 proj
144 PA 263/312/429 5HR 18 RC 2005 act

Payton was traded midway through the year, and was on pace to exceed the playing time projections. His batting average fell short, but the other numbers (isolated from BA) were right in line. But it’s another out.

The Monkee is 4-9 with a double and a home run, and now Big Papi steps to the plate.

David Ortiz, Designated hitter
573 PA 292/370/582 33 HR 108 RC 2005 proj
713 PA 300/397/604 47 HR 146 RC 2005 act

Ortiz’ playing time projection was short because he only had one season as a full-timer in the three-year mix. Papi had a tremendous season, better than the projection expected, and better than I predicted. (I called for about a “two-win decline” from 2004. In fact, Papi was more than a win better based on his 12-run increase in runs created.)

Overall, the Monkee projections were somewhat optimistic for last year. Varitek was spot on. Mueller, Damon, and Manny were reasonably in line with the projections (after my subjective adjustment for Mueller). Papi did better than the Monkee thought that he would. Renteria, Nixon and Payton fell short, primarily due to batting average. Millar and Bellhorn came up way short of expectations. Could be better, but could be worse, and a continuing refrain in my analysis of the projections last season was how optimistic I thought that they were.

I’m going to do the projections again this year (because crunching numbers is fun!), but this exercise seems to indicate that there is some value in the process as well.