not the hottest keeper question

[buddylee]

buchholz.

[Wadderboiz]

So you are questioning Raiders Ump's opinion like he is out of his mind. He said that Buchholz ERA will be closer to 4 than 3. That means he thinks that Buchholz will have a 3.51 ERA or higher. He thinks that he will be more likely to win 12-14 than 16-18. And you think that the Sox should win 99-104 games.

Lets look at some respected predictors of stats:

MARCEL-12 wins and 3.49 ERA
ZIPS-14 wins and 3.79 ERA
JAMES-13 wins and 3.54
ESPN-16 wins and 3.35
CBS-15 wins and 3.46


So only one of these 5 think that he will crack that 16 win plateau, and while three of the five believe that he will have a sub-3.50 ERA, two have him very very close.

I don't know if its being missed that 2010 was the first full season as a big league starter for Buchholz. That means in his first full season as a starter a 26 year old top prospect won 17 games for a team decimated by injuries, with a shotty bullpen, and also challenged for the ERA title. I'm just saying.

Could you possibly be looking at these predictions with some bias yourself? And to suggest that the Sox should easily win 99-104 games is kind of silly. They might have the best team in baseball, but to suggest that 99 wins is essentially a given and 104 would not be surprising is a bit much. It is reasonable to think that one MLB team per season will win 99 or more games on average. You are basically saying that you expect that Boston not only COULD, but rather SHOULD have the best record in baseball. I think that it is near impossible to expect with that much certainty that they are the best team in their own division, no less all of MLB.

You find it difficult to assume that a team that managed 89 wins last season in the toughest division in baseball, when the team's 1-3 hitters missed a combined 291 games last season and 2 of the teams top SP suffered the worst season's of their career, won't improve by at least 10 wins. They improved their offense, got healthy, and bolstered their bullpen. Even if you want to give them just an additional 5-6 wins based on these improvements, the two teams that finished ahead of them in the standings (Yankees and Rays) took steps backward from their 2010 roster, which could easily allow an improved Red Sox team to increase their win total by 4 or 5 games.

Low K/9.

Since we are sort of disregarding Buchholz's 2010 stats...in the 34 major league starts made prior to 2010 Buchholz averaged 7.7 K/9 puts him right around the top 25 with the likes of Halladay and Lee, through 90 minor league starts he averaged 10.2 K/9, so the strikeout potential is there.

Buchholz is not some run of the mill young arm, in 2008 he was the #4 overall prospect in baseball.

[HOOTIE]

Boston is better, but Buchholz is in for a regression.

A .261 babip, to a career .285. .290-.300 is the norm for pitchers.
A 79% strand rate, 72% is the norm.
A 5.6% hr/fb ratio, 10% is the norm.
He got lucky in those catergories, making his 2.33 era very misleading.
His xFIP was 4.20.

[RDD15]

Boston is better, but Buchholz is in for a regression.

A .261 babip, to a career .285. .290-.300 is the norm for pitchers.
A 79% strand rate, 72% is the norm.
A 5.6% hr/fb ratio, 10% is the norm.
He got lucky in those catergories, making his 2.33 era very misleading.
His xFIP was 4.20.

There is no room for stats, logic, probability and reason in the minds of a delusional homer that believes that best-case scenarios are to be expected, but only when they apply to the SAWKS!!!

[The Artful Dodger]

Someone change the thread title to "Not the run support debate again".

I'll agree with Rump and Hootie that Buchholz is likely to regress from last season to say a high 3-low 4 ERA. I would take McGehee as well, a decent power 3B source.