PhilSox Blog

 

Questioning Francona...Again!

Monday, April 07, 2008
I'm watching yesterdays Red Sox game on MLB.tv, which means that I'm hearing the Toronto television feed. It's the bottom on the 5th, and Beckett has just loaded the bases with two out. It seems like Francona was giving Beckett one last chance to finish the inning and put himself in line for a win if the Sox could score in the 6th. It did not work.

In comes Manny Delcarmen. The announcers (the Blue Jay announcers) mention that this seems like an odd thing to do since the next batter is Frank Thomas, Blue Jay power hitting DH, seems to have Delcarmen's number lately. He bats about .333 against MDC and had smacked a t RBI double off him earlier in the series. So, at this point, I'm saying to myself, "Why is he using Delcarmen?" That was about the only statement I had time for because the first pitch went over the Center field wall for a grand slam.

I'm a fan of Sabermetrics. I'll admit it, I'm a geek. One of the things that I like about the Red Sox is that they are a team that pays attention to stats. But now I'm looking at the third game in a row where Tito has ignored the mathematical probabilities and it has proven to be a bad thing.

We're finally going home tomorrow for the Fenway season opener. Mathematically speaking, how likely is it that the 0 - 6 Detroit Tigers will be 0 - 9 by Friday?

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755

Monday, August 06, 2007
I've been away on vacation, which is why there has not been a "Boxed Up" in awhile. My apologies.

While I was gone, Barry hit #755 to tie Aaron. Nothing much I can say on this except to show this little bit of statistical info and some images and let it speak for itself.



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What, Me Worry?

Thursday, July 19, 2007
It doesn't seem like all that long ago I was gloating a bit over a Yankers team that was 12 or so games behind the Red Sox. It's mostly because it wasn't all that long ago. As of today, MLB.com has the spread down to 7 games. ESPN is saying 6, but there seems to be some issue over a game with Baltimore that got rained out or something. Even my Yanker fan coworkers are stating 7. My questions then:

Is it time to freak out yet?

According to an article on MVN.com (which I cannot verify the validity of) it is still not time to lose sleep (although that is exactly what I did last night.) Basically, this article talks about how, so far, the Yankers are playing about .500 ball, the Sox .600. Pizza Cutter, the author of the piece, states that the odds of a team that is truely .500 playing .600 ball for half a season is something like 2.5%. Translation: This is the chance that the Sox are playing over their heads. similarly, the odds of the Yankers playing .500 ball when they are really a .600 or better team is about the same. I am not a statistical genius, so I'll have to trust Pizza Cutter when he (or she, I suppose) states that the chances of both of these things being true is something like .06%. This then means that for there to be a reversal of the first half of the year, which is pretty much what needs to happen for the Yankers to end up over the Sox, the odds are less than 1%.

There's lots of talk about the trade deadline, also, and the Sox apparent need for relievers. While One week doesn't mean everything, the last few losses for the Sox have seen pretty steady relief. All but one had relievers shutting out oppoents. This has me thinking that perhaps the issues that needs to be addressed is run production, particularly in the latter innings. When the Sox get a lead lately, the pen holds it (for the most part). When Boston is behind, the bats aren't producing rallies. Now, not only I don't think that the Sox run production is an issue that has to be addressed by trading (though they are apparently looking at Mark Teixeira), picking up the wrong reliever could possibly mess with the mojo of the part of the equation that isn't the problem.

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