BILL JAMES' PREDICTIONS FOR RED SOX WHERE 'RIGHT ON'!

BILL JAMES

This is the time of year when we look forward to next season and to what that season will have in store for the Red Sox.

No one predicted last season better than Bill James the father of 'sabermetrics'.

His newly published 2014 'Bill James Handbook' has the mission statment right at the beginning : "We are always right,except when we are wrong.We are always on target except when we're off.We are always on time,except when we are early,or when we are late.We do the best we can."

Let's look back at 2013 and see how accurate Bill was.Then we will look at what Bill has in store for the Red Sox in 2014.

~ 9 Red Sox would Hit 10 or more Home Runs: 8 Did with Pedroia & Ellsbury with 9 each.
~ 5 Red Sox pitchers would have a ERA less than League average  of (3.99): 3 Did and Jake Peavy just fell short with 4.04 for Boston.
~ Jacoby Ellsbury would have a .781 OPS: Ellsbury's OPS was .782.   
~ David Ortiz would hit 32 HR's & have 103 RBI's: Ortiz finished with 30 HR's & 103 RBI's.
~ Mike Napoli would have a .847 OPS with 29 HR's & 75 RBI's: Napoli's actual numbers were .842 OPS with 23 HR's & 92 RBI's. 
~ Jonny Gomes would hit 16 HR's & a .778 OPS: Gomes hit 13 HR's and his OPS was .770.
~ Shane Victorino would hit 14 HR's with 29 steals: Victorino hit 15 HR's and stole 21 bases.
~ Steven Drew would hit 11 HR's: Drew hit 13. 
~ Jon Lester would win 12 games and have a 3.71 ERA: Lester's numbers 15 wins and a 3.75 ERA.
~ Dustin Pedroia would hit 17 HR's and have a .825 OPS: Pedroia's numbers were much lower - 9 HR's and a .787 OPS - There was no way to predict Pedroia would tear his thumb up in the first game of the season.

So whats in store for the Red Sox in 2014.

Bill thinks Will Middlebrooks with 32 HR's is projected to have a good year.He also projects that Jackie Bradley Jr. and Xander Bogaerts will have strong rookie seasons.
Among the others,David Ortiz is projected to hit 30 HR's with a OBP of .384 & a OPS of .914.In other words 'Big Papi' should have similar numbers to last year.
Shane Victorino also is projected to have similar numbers to the previous season,OBP .336,OPS .751 & 14 HR's.
Jonny Gomes should hit two more homers than he did last year.
And Dustin Pedroia, who should hit 5 more home runs than last year.

But for 2014,Bill James thinks the Red Sox pitching with take a turn south.

With the exception of Jake Peavy of course !

Clay Buchholz is projected at 12-9 3.46 ERA,John Lackey 11-11 3.93 ERA,Jon Lester 14-9 3.67,Felix Doubront 8-10 4.39,Ryan Dempster 9-10 4.02 and Peavy 11-7 3.31 team best ERA.

If Bill is correct it will be a different season than last year for the Red Sox.

The 'Pitching' will not be as good as last year.The 'Hitting' looks as if it will be about the same.So the Red Sox had better do something this offseason to recover the one-third of the team's RBI's which were lost to 'free agency'.

Oh,and Koji --- James thinks he will have 23 saves and a 1.80 ERA.
Similar to last year but with 3/4th of a run more on his ERA.