Alejandro De Aza Spotlight Edition

The Big Papi to first base debate is raging here in Boston.  Should he?  How dare he complain!  Shouldn't he?  He can say whatever he wants!  He's a crybaby!  On and on it goes.  And of course there is the Hanley Ramriz spa day experience in left field.  At the base of this is the premise that the best Red Sox lineup has Papi at first, Ramirez at DH, and one Alejandro De Aza in left field.  This is because De Aza actually tries while Hanley doesn't want to bend over (you cannot make this stuff up).  So is he worth being the third cog in the carnival wheel of the Red Sox clubhouse or just more grist for the waiver wire?



John Farrell's unprompted praise of De Aza says a lot more about the absence of motivation is the regular lineup than his own merit.  This year he's walking a touch less and getting a big boost in power (for him).  If he was on another team he would get more of a chance to run but he's on the Red Sox so his 18% Stolen Base Opportunity (SBO), while good for the station to station style of the Sox, is likely to keep his steals down.  If this was the early 2000's I'd say his impressive jump in slugging is a harbinger of more to come.  Unfortunately we're in a different world now and his home runs, even in part time duty, are an outlier.  As much as John Farrell tries desperately to use De Aza as a lesson in hard work, get ready for more Hanley in left and De Aza on the bench.

Until next time,

The SAHD

Reverse Math Strasburg Edition

I was lucky enough to catch up with an old friend last Friday who now lives just outside D.C. and is a big Washington Nationals fan.  Over burgers in Copley square he kicked off our conversation by deriding the artist formally known as the rocket firing, batter dazzling, bobbleheads for everyone pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg.  Sure enough, a quick web search picked up this piece in the Washington Post in which the writer casts off Strasburg as going down with a hangnail in favor of the shiny new toy Max Scherzer and the strength of the Nationals starting staff.  With the having lost two of three to the Yanks and Buccholz going down just when I was starting to believe again heading into the All Star break things are looking bleak in Sox Nation.  Can the Sox throw their negativity into the mixer of baseball misery with Strasburg's and come out smelling like fresh cut grass?  Lets take a closer look at Strasburg to see what all the fuss is about.  Thanks to Baseball HQ for the stats as usual.



There's our old friends Strand % and Hit % hitting ERA & WHIP again.  Digging a little deeper he's missing less bats (career low SwK), but otherwise his skills are as strong as ever.  I mean right up there with current strike out maven Chris Sale whom we just looked at a couple of posts ago.  And let's take a peek at Strasburg's injury history: September 2010 Tommy John Surgery-September 2012 the Strasburg rules that launched 1000 sports takes and eventually shut him down before the playoffs-June 2013 15 Day DL for a lat strain-May 2015 15 Day DL for neck stiffness-July 2015 15 Day DL for a strained oblique.  That's not a long history of yo-yoing on and off the DL.  That's an early career Tommy John and recovery and normal wear and tear.  Before this year he's been consistently great and he's just heading into his prime years.  Looks to me like Strasburg is a victim of outsized expectations, bad luck, and piling on.  There may also be a bit of Scherzer Juan Primo-ing Strasburg's Bobby Rayburn here. In other words, an excellent risk.  If the Washington brain trust is as disillusioned as the fan-base, and reading Matt Williams quotes in that Washington Post piece they just might be, the Sox should pounce. 

Until next time,

The SAHD