Trot Nixon, Kevin Millar and Johnny Damon are gone, but the Dirt Dawgs are not dead. There is surviving and thriving breed, led by veteran dawg Jason Varitek, the gritty Kevin Youkilis and the newest member, Dustin Pedroia. The latter gained All-Star Dirt Dawg status when it was recently revealed that he played the final two months of the season with a cracked hamate bone in his left hand.
According to several media reports, the injury was discovered during an MRI and bone scan on Sept. 10. Pedroia is uncertain when the injury occurred. He had surgery last week and says that he will still be able to participate in off-season workouts and will be ready for spring training.
The hamate bone, which is the wedge-shaped bone at the base of the hand, has consistently remained a common subject in baseball news during recent years. Perhaps the injury has been common for years, and I don't recall hearing about it, or maybe hamate bone cracks and fractures are becoming more prevalent. David Ortiz, who earned Dirt Dawg notoriety himself this season while playing with a torn meniscus in a knee, had a hamate bone removed earlier in his career. Top Red Sox prospect Ryan Kalish fractured a hamate bone last July and missed the remainder of the 2007 season.
Pedroia says he was in so much pain that, at times, he had to adjust how he gripped his bat. The likely American League Rookie of the Year believes it was most painful throughout crisp October, especially when he attempted to check a swing.
Though his left hand was ailing, Pedroia's numbers were not impacted. In September, he hit .302 (32-for-106) with two home runs and eight RBI. During the post-season, his average was .283 (17-for-60) with two home runs and 10 RBI. His two-run home run and three-run double in Game Seven of the ALCS against Cleveland helped propel the Sox into the World Series. Pedroia had a key two-run double that sealed the win in Game Three of the World Series against Colorado. In the field, the second baseman made numerous dazzling plays in the last half of September and through the post-season.
Even if the man behind the numbers is Bill James, stats don't always paint an accurate picture
Overall, Dustin Pedroia hit .317 with eight home runs and 50 RBI in his rookie year. Bill James, the statistician guru who is also the Red Sox senior baseball operations adviser, publishes an annual handbook that projects the numbers of Major League players for the upcoming season. James, who collaborates with Baseball Info Solutions (a prominent stats company) to produce the handbook, forecasted Pedroia to hit .284 with 10 home runs and 72 RBI in 2007.
As James, sometimes he is close and other times he is completely wrong. Gordon Edes wrote an interesting article about James projections for 2007, and his forecast for 2008. http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2007/11/11/in_the_projection_room/
"We project, basically, that every player will continue to do in the future what he has done in the past," James writes in the 2008 Bill James Handbook. "We're pretty close to right most of the time, because most players in any season will continue to do about what they have done in the past."
James says he makes adjustments based on age, and he determines a rookie's forecasted performance based on his minor league numbers. Taking Jacoby Ellsbury's 2007 minor league and big league numbers into account, James believes that the center fielder will hit .320 with 42 stolen bases. I'm not convinced that you can determine how a player will do in 2008 based on his 2007 numbers. There are many players who are consistent - like Albert Pujols, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez - but even they can have upward and downward spikes in their numbers. In 2007, all three sluggers saw a significant decrease in home runs and RBI, though Pujols and Ramirez hit near the lifetime average, and Ortiz had a career-high .332 mark.
James projected that Mike Lowell would hit .273 with 18 home runs and 73 RBI. Instead, the veteran third baseman's numbers were .324, 21 and 120. James probably thought Lowell was done after he hit .238 with eight home runs and 58 RBI for Florida in 2005.
You can only speculate how someone will recover after a bad season. For example, Lowell was a player who produced about 25 home runs, 90 RBI and a .278 batting average every season until that dreadful 2005 season. He is a pull hitter whose bat produces frequent line drives, so it would seem that James would factor a higher batting average for the third baseman since he plays 81 games at Fenway Park and takes advantage of the Green Monster. Apparently, James think that Lowell will not duplicate his 2008 success. He projects a .282, 17 and 81 line next year.
James projected a .259 average with 17 home runs and 69 RBI for Jason Varitek in 2007. The captain's actual numbers were .255, 17 and 68, so James was on track with that forecast. He projects that Varitek will hit .253 with 17 home runs and 70 RBI in 2008. James was also accurate with Kevin Youkilis. He said the first baseman would hit .283 with 14 home runs and 77 RBI and Youkilis recorded a .288 mark with 16 home runs and 83 RBI. James thinks Youkilis will hit .290 with 15 home runs and 78 RBI in 2008.
Despite being armed with a multitude of computer-generated numbers, I think that James is no more equipped to predict what a player will do next season than any ardent baseball enthusiast who has a firm understanding of the game. It seems that James takes the easy route on many of his forecasts - Varitek is a prime example, as is his projections of .298, 41 and 130 for Ortiz in 2008 and .301, 33 and 113 for Ramirez. Any person who closely follows baseball will tell you that a healthy Ortiz will regain his power numbers next year, and that Manny will be more like vintage Manny after a 2007 season that saw his stats dip.
James relies on Baseball Info Solutions to produce the pitching projections. They forecast 14-8 seasons for Josh Beckett and Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2008. They believe that Beckett will post a 3.50 ERA and Matsuzaka a 3.54 mark. Curt Schilling (11-7, 3.54 ERA), Tim Wakefield (11-9, 4.03 ERA and Jon Lester (10-10) are the other projections included in Edes' article.
I disagree with all five pitching projections. Beckett will win a minimum of 18 games, even if the Sox use a six-man rotation. Ditto for Matsuzaka, who could have won 20 games this season with more run support in certain games, even though he was not as sharp as he will be next year. If Schilling remains healthy, 10-12 wins is reasonable, but I believe his ERA will be closer to 4. I concur that Wakefield's win total will be in the 10-12 range as well, but I think his ERA will be closer to 4.50-4.75. As for Lester, he will be stronger in 2008, and he now has more experience. I think he should be the one with the 14-8, 3.54 ERA projection.
Regarding James' projections, I think Youkilis will hit 20-25 home runs, and not 15. He showed a more potent power stroke in the post-season. While Lowell will likely not hit .324 again. another .300 mark is reasonable, as is 20 home runs and 100 RBI - if he remains in Boston. Lowell will hit No. 5 in the lineup. Ellsbury and Pedroia will be the tablesetters, and Ortiz and Ramirez frequently draw walks, so the RBI opportunities will be there. I agree with James' forecasts for Ellsbury, Varitek, Ramirez and Ortiz. I encourage you to read Edes' article about James by clicking on the link above. What is your opinion about his projections?
Celtics look like the real deal
The Boston Celtics are the NBA's only remaining unbeaten team at 5-0, and they keep passing crucial early-season tests.
First, they lambasted a solid Washington Wizards squad in the opening game, handling all of the Big Three hype. Then the Celtics won a tight contest in their first road game of the year, when Ray Allen drained a last-second three-pointer to edge Toronto, 98-95. On Saturday, the first time this year they played on consecutive nights, the Celtics decisively beat New Jersey, 112-101, on the road.
There are greater tests in the future. How will the Big Three respond when they face games on consecutive nights in February and March? The Celtics are winning even though James Posey, Brian Scalabrine and Scot Pollard are missing games due to injuries. All three are key reserves, so can Boston continue to win on nights when veteran role players are unavailable and second-year forward Leon Powe, rookie forward Glen Davis and rookie point guard Gabe Pruitt see significant playing time? Will Eddie House be effective enough to serve as the backup point guard for the entire season?
Those questions are yet to be answered. Without question, the Celtics will need a healthy bench so Garnett, Allen and Pierce do not get worn down as the season progresses. Point guard Rajon Rondo (a second-year player) and Kendrick Perkins (a fifth-year player who would be in his rookie season if he had attended college and not entered the NBA out of high school) have rarely started, and now they are in the lineup with Garnett, Allen and Pierce. They have played well so far, but how will they respond in the second half?
I think that the Celtics bench will be an unexpected source of strength, just as the Red Sox bullpen was in 2007. Critics and Yankees fans said the Sox bullpen would be weak, but they were proven wrong. The same will happen to naysayers of the Celtics bench.
Fans are flashing "82-0" signs at T.D. Bank North Garden (which should be called Boston Garden). The Celtics will lose a game eventually, but over the course of the season, they will not lose many. A 60-win season is possible, and a 55-win season is probable. At least for the next few seasons, the days of Boston in the draft lottery are a distant memory.
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