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Shocked was about the only way to describe myself when I came across this passage in Adam Kilgore’s article in today’s Boston Globe. Kilgore, along with Amalie Benjamin, cover the Red Sox daily beat for the Globe. This was one of the few times this season a story written for the newspaper caught my attention… though both contribute to the Globe’s Red Sox blog that is a must-read.

Here’s what Kilgore wrote today:

The Sox are fourth worst in baseball and second worst in the AL in runs prevented, according to the Ultimate Zone Ratings on fangraphs.com, a website devoted to baseball statistics. The UZR considers range, errors, and arm strength, denoting a value, in runs, to each. By the formula, the Sox have prevented 17 runs below average. For comparison, the league-leading Tigers are plus-33.2.

Statistics show what any close follower would expect – the left side of the Sox’ infield has been a liability and the main reason for the poor rankings. Shortstops have combined for a -7.0 UZR, and Julio Lugo by himself is -5.3; only Yuniesky Betancourt of the Mariners is worse among AL shortstops. Nick Green has made nine errors, tied for the most among major league shortstops.

At third base, Mike Lowell has prevented 6.2 runs below average; only Michael Young of the Rangers is worse in the AL. Lowell has been uniformly average in all fielding aspects save one: range. He remains a slick fielder, but offseason hip surgery shaved a step or two off the ground he covers.

It’s nice to see someone take a new angle and step outside the anti-sabermetric media box for once. I applaud you Kilgore and will be cursing WEEI this afternoon as the Big Show mocks your “stupid, brain-hurting numbers”, or whatever they decide to call them.

Just a quick morning update… goes by all players that have played the position and have a UZR rating for that position on fangraphs.com. When I update in the future I’ll list each UZR per position and team overall. Sample size warning!

Left side of the field, awful.

Brett Gardner is good.

Very good defensive team.

Infield defense is crazy good, Vernon Wells is miserable.

What in the hell is up with Adam Jones and Nick Markakis?

The Red Sox draft formula is nothing if not consistent. A signable high school position player with major upside but needs years to develop, a big time college arm in the bullpen who will probably start in the minors, and then take the kids that no one else can afford to sign.

28. Reymond Fuentes, HS, CF

“He became one of the kids we were really hoping would be there for us with our pick,” said scouting director Jason Mcleod. “Speed is going to be part of his game — he’s a plus-plus runner, sprinting champion on the island. We really think he has an opportunity to be a leadoff-type player who can give us good defense in centerfield and hopefully disrupt on the bases as well.”

77. Alex Wilson, NCAA, P

“He brings a power fastball-power curveball combination, he’s a real bulldog competitor on the mound. We really like the repertoire that he brings,” McLeod said.

107. David Renfroe, HS, SS/3B/P

At the moment, Epstein said, “His highest upside is as a position player. A potential impact bat. But certainly, there’s a lot to like as a pitcher as well.”

Of course the media will talk about Fuentes and Wilson the most, but those are the formula guys, and as Scott Boras says, the talent isn’t where you draft a kid, it’s who gets the most money… and David Renfroe is going to end up getting a truck load.

Todays’s expectations include a handful of singability kids and solid college players, while Thursday will be organizational fillers and some long-shot signability players.

Quote source: Providence Journal

Like some of the best baseball stats websites, I can visit MinorLeagueSplits.com and play around with their tools for an hour and not even realize it.

Tonight, while check out Clay Buchholz’s numbers I looked at his MLE’s, or Major League Equivalencies. Basically it takes his stats, adjusts for luck and the park and level he is pitching at in the minors, and spits out what his numbers could/should resemble if he was pitching for an average Major League Baseball team.

3.75 Fielding Independent Pitching ERA, 0.86 WHIP… not bad MLE’s for a guy currently being blocked by Brad Penny, and soon John Smoltz.

Interested, I decided to look at the rest of the Sox top starting pitching prospects that have been starting all season at one level or another. Below is the table, sorted by MLE FIP.

You have to be flat out ridiculous to pitch in the low levels of the minors and have a very good translation, and ridiculous is probably the best way to describe Casey Kelly’s 48.1 IP in Class-A and first 11.2 IP in Class-A Advanced.

Michael Bowden’s name has been brought up a lot this year around the Red Sox related interweb, mostly while talking about our amazing pitching depth and his 2.47 ERA for Triple-A Pawtucket. However, his pedestrian strikeout rate, coupled with his almost shocking walk rate and extreme fly ball tendency heeds caution. Hopefully he is “working on specific things” that have led to these developments and his numbers will correct over the course of the season.

Lars Anderson is heating up with his third straight 2-hit game for Double-A Portland today…

His monthly totals:

After Jacoby Ellsbury hurt his shoulder making a fantastic diving catch in the 5th inning, Terry Francona must have told Rocco Baldelli that he was going to take over an outfield spot and to figure out with the right fielder Mark Kotsay who was going to play where.

In the dugout Kotsay and Baldelli were show holding a two-out-of-three rock-paper-scissors matchup, apparently won by Baldelli since when he entered the game he went to right and Kotsay moved over to center.

The not-so-good Red Sox defense, folks.

6.0 IP | 0 H | 0 R | 0 BB |6 K

In a game that started after 11:00 PM because of a rain delay before the first game of a doubleheader, Casey Kelly faced 18 batters and retired them all before being removed by the Salem Red Sox manager.

Salem loaded the bases in the Top of the 7th, but then stuck out in three straight at-bats to keep the game tied at 0 and thus not giving Kelly the chance to pitch in the bottom of the 7th for a perfect game [minor league doubleheaders are 7 inning games].

It was Kelly’s second start after his promotion to the Carolina League after a dominating run through the South Atlantic League.

Only a handful of fans were in the stands for the game played on the road in Frederick, Maryland.

Kelly pitched like a machine. Fastballs were located on the paint, never over the heart of the plate, and his slider was devastating. His changeup and curve were also featured. The two hardest hit balls off of him were flyouts easily caught.

Earlier in the night Red Sox prospect Stephen Fife pitched five perfect innings for the Greenville Drive, striking out 7.

xERA has been a staple pitching statistic for a long time as another option to FIP and DIPS ERA estimation. Did you know the person behind xERA also developed a way to find a hitters xERA? Using Dwight Gill’s formulas, I have calculated the xERA’s of the Red Sox hitters.

Much more information about xERA can be found on xera-baseball.com.

After working out the formulas for expected earned runs created and innings batted, we are able to calculate how many expected earned runs a batter would score if he alone had all 27 outs to work with.

– League average xERA is about 4.60

– Youkilis is 4th in baseball behind Joe Mauer (13.25!!), Albert Pujols (10.52) and Manny Ramirez (9.53)

– Ortiz is 312th in baseball

– Delmon Young’s xERA is 0.96, I don’t even know what to say about how horrible that is.

Numbers are based on Pure Quality Starts, which ranks starts on a 0-5 scale based on innings, hits allowed, strikeouts, strikeouts to walks, and home runs allowed.

Scores of 0-1 are a Disaster, 2-3 are Neutral, and 4-5 are Dominant.

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Notes:

- Wakefield’s first four starts were his only Dominant starts of the year

- Penny had two Dominant and four Neutral starts in May

- Beckett started the year with three Dominant starts, then had two Disasters, and is now working on a five game Dominant streak

- Zack Greinke has ten Dominant and one Neutral on the year. His Neutral start was 5 IP (no point), 6 H (no point), 0 ER, 9 K, 2 BB.