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Yankees.com: Posada propels Yanks to walk-off win
(13 Comments - 7/4/2009 9:32:05 pm)

Blue Jays (42-39) @ Yankees (46-33), Saturday, July 4, 1:05pm **Game Chatter**
(330 Comments - 7/4/2009 6:44:58 pm)

Blue Jays (42-38) @ Yankees (45-33), Friday, July 3, 1:05pm **Game Chatter**
(174 Comments - 7/4/2009 11:31:05 am)

Mariners (39-38) @ Yankees (45-32), Thursday, July 2, 7:05pm **Game Chatter**
(196 Comments - 7/3/2009 12:54:58 pm)

Yankees.com: A-Rod puts Yanks’ win streak at seven
(49 Comments - 7/2/2009 7:25:01 pm)

Fangraphs.com: Another Look at HRs at the New Yankee Stadium
(23 Comments - 7/2/2009 6:52:43 pm)

Yankees.com: Yanks make it six straight, pick up Bruney
(155 Comments - 7/2/2009 2:22:32 pm)

Mariners (39-37) @ Yankees (44-32), Wednesday, July 1, 2009, 7:05pm **Game Chatter**
(152 Comments - 7/1/2009 10:00:39 pm)

Mariners (39-36) @ Yankees (43-32), Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 7:05pm **Game Chatter**
(360 Comments - 7/1/2009 12:41:00 am)

LA Times: Yankees acquire Eric Hinske from Pirates for 2 minor leaguers
(81 Comments - 6/30/2009 7:50:45 pm)


Player	Current	Projected
	1 G	162 G
	1.3 IP	216 IP
	1 G	162 G
	.3 IP	54 IP
	1 G	162 G
	1.7 IP	270 IP
	1 G	162 G
	.3 IP	54 IP
	0 G	0 G
	0 IP	0 IP
	0 G	0 G
	0 IP	0 IP
	0 G	0 G
	0 IP	0 IP

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"Larry, can you be any more of a Yankee apologist?.... Just look past your Yankee myopia and try some objectivity."
- Bernal Diaz

"Mr. Mahnken is enlightened."
- cordially, as always,
rm

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- Anonymous

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- Repoz

"you blog sucks, it reeds as it was written by the queer son of mike lupica and roids clemens. i could write a better column by letting a monkey fuk a typewriter. i dont need no 181 million dollar team to write a blog fukkk the spankeees"
- yan

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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Replacing Manny Ramirez with Jason Bay

Although it's not finalized yet, there are pretty strong rumors that Manny Ramirez is heading out of Boston in a series of trades that will end up with Jason Bay manning left field in Fenway. My first reaction was, great, Manny kills the Yankees, but realistically, if you look at the numbers, it's a fairly even swap, perhaps even a slight upgrade.

First, here's how their offense compares, using their 2008 projections, their actual 2008 YTD performance, their revised projection for the rest of the season, and their final season totals.

Ramirez,Manny	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR/650	pBRAA	pBRAR
Projection	442	75	123	26	0	23	98	71	98	5	0	1	.278	.384	.493	103	14.5	28.0
YTD	362	66	109	22	1	20	68	51	86	8	1	0	.301	.399	.533	113	18.4	29.3
Rest of Year	181	31	52	11	0	10	39	27	42	3	0	0	.286	.388	.516	108	7.6	13.1
Year End Total	543	97	161	33	1	30	107	78	128	11	1	0	.296	.395	.527	111	26.0	42.4

Bay,Jason	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR/650	pBRAA	pBRAR
Projection	565	92	150	32	2	28	89	81	149	6	9	0	.265	.363	.478	99	14.2	31.2
YTD	388	71	110	23	2	22	62	59	86	2	7	0	.284	.381	.523	110	17.5	29.2
Rest of Year	194	34	54	12	1	10	34	28	48	2	3	0	.277	.376	.508	106	7.5	13.3
Year End Total	582	105	164	35	3	32	96	87	134	4	10	0	.281	.379	.518	109	24.9	42.4

BR/650: Batting runs by linear weights (not position-adjusted or compared to average)
pBRAA: Batting runs above average, position-adjusted
pBRAR: Batting runs above replacement, position-adjusted

Given the margin of error in these numbers, it's safe to say that those are basically equivalent projections. While Manny may seem like the scarier offensive player, it's because we've gotten used to the Manny that terrorized opposing pitchers during his peak. He's not that player any more, although still quite good. But 36 year old Manny is probably not significantly better than 29 year Jason Bay offensively, especially if you factor in the likelihood of better durability for Bay.

So the Red Sox get rid of a clubhouse issue and don't figure to lose much offensively because of it, although it's possible there will be an adjustment period for Bay that suppresses his value somewhat.

Then there's the defensive side of the equation.

YEAR	LG	Tm	POS	Player Name	Age	GP	Inn	PM	CH	ZR	Diff	RS	RS/162
2005	NL	Pit	LF	Jason Bay	26	146	1186	261	304	.859	-2	-2	-2
2006	NL	Pit	LF	Jason Bay	27	157	1373	308	367	.839	-8	-7	-7
2007	NL	Pit	LF	Jason Bay	28	142	1237	264	319	.828	-13	-11	-12
2008	NL	Pit	LF	Jason Bay	29	104	912	171	212	.807	-12	-10	-16
Total						549	4708	1004	1202	.835	-35	-30	-9
Proj						130	1129	235	284	.828	-11	-9	-12
YEAR	LG	Tm	POS	Player Name	Age	GP	Inn	PM	CH	ZR	Diff	RS	RS/162
2005	AL	Bos	LF	Manny Ramirez	33	149	1225	237	326	.727	-43	-36	-43
2006	AL	Bos	LF	Manny Ramirez	34	123	1031	172	248	.694	-39	-32	-45
2007	AL	Bos	LF	Manny Ramirez	35	120	995	179	251	.713	-37	-31	-45
2008	AL	Bos	LF	Manny Ramirez	36	65	528	94	127	.740	-14	-11	-31
Total						457	3779	682	952	.716	-133	-110	-42
Proj						102	838	149	208	.717	-29	-24	-39
YEAR*	LG	Tm	POS	Player Name	Age	GP	Inn	PM	CH	ZR	Diff	RS	RS/162
2005	AL	Bos	LF	Manny Ramirez	33	149	1225	237	326	.727	-13	-10	-12
2006	AL	Bos	LF	Manny Ramirez	34	123	1031	172	248	.694	-18	-14	-20
2007	AL	Bos	LF	Manny Ramirez	35	120	995	179	251	.713	-14	-11	-16
2008	AL	Bos	LF	Manny Ramirez	36	65	528	94	127	.740	-3	-2	-7
Total						457	3779	682	952	.716	-48	-38	-15
Proj						102	838	149	208	.717	-10	-8	-13

GP: Games played
Inn: Defensive innings at position
PM: Plays made
CH: Fieldable chances as defined in zone rating
ZR: Zone Rating (PM/CH)
Diff: Plays made by an average defender subtraced from individual plays made
RS: Runs saved compared to average (Diff times run value for a play not made)
RS/162: RS pro-rated to 1440 defensive innings

You'll notice two sets of numbers for Manny here. The first set is his un-adjusted numbers for zone rating. However, there's a flaw with how zone rating is scored in Fenway which makes those numbers useless. Balls off the wall are considered fieldable for some bizarre reason. So what I did last year and what I'm doing this year is trying to figure out the rough impact of that. What I've found is Fenway zone rating is about .150 - .200 lower than everywhere else, so I re-calculate plays made for Boston LF by an average of Fenway's ZR and the league average ZR. On a full-season basis that's about a 15-20 run increase.

Anyhoo. Bay's not a very good defensive player, probably around the level of Hideki Matsui or so. Manny seems to be similar, maybe a few runs worse. So really, defense is a wash as well over one-third of a season.

The moral of the post? Don't ~~celepBRAte~~ celebrate too much if Boston swaps Manny for Bay. It may feel like it, because we all remember Manny from his prime, but it doesn't make Boston any worse of a team on paper, and it could be beneficial in the clubhouse, whether that's really of much significance or not. Basically, the Red Sox would be getting a younger, cheaper version of the 2008 Manny Ramirez.

--Posted at 10:39 pm by SG / 29 Comments | - (211)

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