2006 Monkee review

It’s the season of good cheer, and what better thing to do than an exercise that will surely require some charity from the audience. That exercise is called Evaluating the Monkee. Prior to the season, I do performance predictions for the Boston Red Sox based on a simple spreadsheet that I developed (though the methodology was derived from many other basic systems that I have seen). The Monkee proved to be a bit optimistic in 2005, and I suspect that we’ll see that to be the case again this year.

Catcher: Jason Varitek (age 34)
534 PA 284/370/491 21 HR 84 Runs Created 2006 Monkee Prediction
416 PA 238/325/400 12 HR 47 RC Actual

Last year the Monkee nailed Varitek almost to a T. This year was different. For one thing, ‘Tek got injured and missed a fair amount of time. For another thing, he just wasn’t all that good before his injury. The lone bright spot – Isolated Discipline of .087 vs. the Monkee prediction of .086. OK, so he walked like he was supposed to. BA and power were way down, however.

First Base: Kevin Youkilis (27)
550 PA 265/378/409 12 HR 69 RC Monkee
680 PA 279/381/429 13 HR 92 RC Actual

Youkilis was in the lineup quite a bit more than I expected him to be. He outpaced the Monkee prediction by just a bit, which I predicted based on his age. His walk rate was down but his BA was up, which accounted for the increase in slugging percentage. Overall, Youk was pretty much what we expected him to be in 2006.

Second Base: Mark Loretta (34)
584 PA 311/374/430 9 HR 83 RC Monkee
703 PA 285/345/361 5 HR 77 RC Actual

That’s not good predicting, nor good hitting right there. Despite getting 120 more PAs than the Monkee expected, Loretta actually created fewer runs than anticipated. He fell short in every area, particularly the power numbers. Loretta’s 2003 and 2004 seasons were clear aberrations for power given the context of his career, and they held a big sway in the 2006 prediction. I expected Loretta to be a clear upgrade in the lineup, but he barely outhit Mark Bellhorn’s 688 OPS from 2005, and Bellhorn combined with Tony Graffanino for a 727 OPS that season. Loretta simply no longer has that power, and the Monkee missed his OPS by just under 100 points.

Third Base: Mike Lowell (32)
589 PA 265/337/447 19 HR 80 RC Monkee
631 PA 284/339/475 20 HR 92 RC Actual

Mike Lowell also exceeded his projected playing time, which in this case was a good thing. Lowell’s BA and SLG were better than expected, though his OBP suffered a bit from a lack of drawing walks. Call this one a win for the Monkee.

Shortstop: Alex Gonzalez (29)
540 PA 250/297/404 14 HR 59 RC Monkee
429 PA 255/299/397 9 HR 45 RC Actual

The Monkee was pretty spot on with Gonzalez. It didn’t expect much and didn’t get it. Gonzo got injured and missed his playing time prediction, which didn’t help because Alex Cora also had a sub-700 OPS.

Left Field: Manny Ramirez (34)
660 PA 305/399/599 43 HR 133 RC Monkee
558 PA 321/439/619 35 HR 124 RC Actual

Manny being Manny. Other than the time he missed to injury, Manny had his best season with the bat since 2002, when he also missed time due to injuries. If he’s OK being in Boston, he will continue to hit.

Center Field: Coco Crisp (26)
688 PA 293/391/438 15 HR 94 RC SeaBlog Monkee
688 PA 293/332/438 15 HR 94 RC Corrected Monkee
452 PA 264/317/385 8 HR 50 RC Actual

Ah, if strikeouts were only walks. The Monkee got into some bad bananas, resulting in the swapping of BB with K in the original calculations last spring. The corrected Monkee shows a more realistic outlook for Coco’s OBP for the 2006 season. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make up for the fact that Coco fell well short of expectations when he was on the field. He injured his wrist early in the season, causing him to miss a bunch of time, and the wrist may have impacted his overall numbers. Center field was a big problem for the 2006 Red Sox.

Right Field: Trot Nixon (32)
475 PA 290/371/493 17 HR 74 RC Monkee
453 PA 268/373/394 8 HR 55 RC actual

Right field was another big problem for the Sox. Nixon managed to stay on the field about as much as I predicted (I adjusted the Monkee up from 388 PA), however he was completely devoid of power. His 8 HR were less than half expected of him, and his slugging percentage was bested by the anemic Alex Gonzalez.

Right Field: Wily Mo Pena (24)
250 PA 252/306/489 15 HR 34 RC Monkee
304 PA 301/349/489 11 HR 47 RC Actual

Wily Mo was expected to spend most of his time platooning with Nixon in RF, but he wound up playing a lot of time in CF when Coco got hurt and LF when Manny was out. Pena got his batting average and OBP up to career highs, but sacrificed some power to do so. Overall, however, his production was better than expected.

DH: David Ortiz (30)
656 PA 298/387/602 42 HR 131 RC Monkee
686 PA 287/413/636 54 HR 146 RC Actual

I expected a bit of a decline from Papi, but he actually took another step forward in 2006, hitting for more power and more discipline. Hard to improve on a monster prediction, but Ortiz managed to do so.

Out of 10 guys projected, the Monkee was actually pretty close on five of them (Youk, Lowell, Gonzo, Manny and Ortiz). While most of those guys were actually better than the Monkee predicted, none of them did so by a wide margin. On the other hand, of the five guys that the Monkee missed (Varitek, Loretta, Crisp, Nixon, Pena), only Wily Mo exceeded expectations, while the other five fell way short, particularly in their power numbers. Some of that was unexpected losses in playing time, but mostly it was due to poor hitting in general. In the end, a team that I picked to score 900 runs fell 80 short of that mark.

I’m not sure how I might tweak the Monkee for next year. It’s missed on power quite a bit over the first two years that I have used it. Some of that may be due to the age of the players in question (‘Tek, Nixon and Loretta are al in their mid-30). But I also suspect that the sample size is too small to come to any real conclusion on the use of the Monkee as a prediction tool. So, since it’s easier to do so, I’ll probably just leave it alone.