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Re: Crawford to sign with Red Sox

PostPosted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 4:20 pm
by bignick33
EagleNYC {l Wrote}:And the Curt Shilling line was joke, right Nick?


It was a joke to illustrate a point. My point is that it's silly to attempt to draw conclusions from performances in which a pitcher is injured. To a degree, you refuted it in your subsequent post.

Even removing Beckett's first half, it looks to me to be an aberration (although 2006 was bad, he still won 16 games...and, further, he bounced back with a dominant 2007). AJ Burnett has been much more up and down over the course of his career. There's a reason Beckett has a .600 winning percentage for his career and Burnett barely hovers over .500. I don't expect Beckett to be in 2007 form, but I do expect him to fall back to his mean. His mean has without question been historically better than Burnett's mean. I'll grant you that I do expect Burnett to be better in 2011 than he was in 2010, as does Joe Girardi: http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/ ... -1.2528415.

As you may have noticed, I'm a Sox fan, but I don't believe I'm wearing Sox glasses.

Re: Crawford to sign with Red Sox

PostPosted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 5:19 pm
by EagleNYC
bignick33 {l Wrote}:
EagleNYC {l Wrote}:And the Curt Shilling line was joke, right Nick?


It was a joke to illustrate a point. My point is that it's silly to attempt to draw conclusions from performances in which a pitcher is injured. To a degree, you refuted it in your subsequent post.

Even removing Beckett's first half, it looks to me to be an aberration (although 2006 was bad, he still won 16 games...and, further, he bounced back with a dominant 2007). AJ Burnett has been much more up and down over the course of his career. There's a reason Beckett has a .600 winning percentage for his career and Burnett barely hovers over .500. I don't expect Beckett to be in 2007 form, but I do expect him to fall back to his mean. His mean has without question been historically better than Burnett's mean. I'll grant you that I do expect Burnett to be better in 2011 than he was in 2010, as does Joe Girardi: http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/ ... -1.2528415.

As you may have noticed, I'm a Sox fan, but I don't believe I'm wearing Sox glasses.


I take no quarrel with your conclusion. Beckett has a track record as a top 5 starter, and even at the height of Burnett's success ('08), he was the second best pitcher on his team (albeit arguably the best pitcher in baseball, Doc himself), and only arguably top 10 in the AL. My point of comparison was only to illustrate how ugly his season was, given the accepted wisdom that Burnett is a total bust who had an unforgivably bad year. No one is saying he'll certainly progress back towards his career figures, and rightfully so.

I would not be shocked if Beckett pitched like a number #2 this year. But I don't think the odds favor it. Throwing out the steroids era, pitchers historically tend to decline as they age. Given the wear and tear on Beckett's arm, and how young he was when he broke in, I think it is more likely than not that his best years are behind him. It is a question of degree, and you and I can only sift through the data and guess. That's why the play the games.

Re: Crawford to sign with Red Sox

PostPosted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 4:40 pm
by bcsoxfan12
Oh no what about JD Drew and Cameron too? *I hate JD Drew