Warm Stove:
Curses, Not Foiled Again?

Dave Paisley

Well, it is time for those annual prognostications. Everybody’s doing it, the hot stoves are well, heating up, and even as we speak, the early bird teams are starting to stretch the worms. Well, maybe only in arbitration hearings.

But, as hope springs eternal in every baseball heart at this time of year and yes, even in Tampa Bay, it surely never springs as perennially optimistic as it does in Boston. Except maybe the north side of Chicago. For several years now, I believe I’ve been predicting that the Red Sox will break through and thoroughly trounce those uppity Noo Yawkers, and for several years now I’ve been wrong. It seems like there’s always something that goes wrong for Boston, even when other things are going just right.

Look at last year. Not only was Pedro Martinez going great guns early, but Derek Lowe was in a groove, as was John Burkett (who will forever have a place in my heart for suggesting the players boycott the All-Star game.). Shea Hillenbrand was doing a phenomenal high wire act of producing while still sucking and Johnny Damon was everything they hoped for, within reason. But an injury to Manny Ramirez at a critical juncture and an inability to make the most of their run differential proved critical as they stumbled down the stretch.

The Red Sox had almost the same run differential as the Yankees and both teams should have won (according to the simple Pythagorean projection) 101 games. Yet the Yankees won 103, the Red Sox a measly 93. A swing of five games is within normal expectations, so the Red Sox really worked hard at losing last year. But maybe 2003 will be a different story.

This year, same as last year and the year before that, I’ve based my predictions on projected starting lineups and what those players did last year. I presume that any fluctuations in performance from career averages will tend to balance out over a team roster. With eight or nine position players, fluke years will wash out when they get lumped together. So without further ado, here’s a look at my projection for the American League East:

Team	OPS	ERA	Runs Scored	Runs Allowed	Wins
Red Sox	.812	3.47	913	620	111
Yankees	.799	3.97	888	702	100
Blue Jays	.762	4.57	813	762	82
Orioles	.695	4.40	679	772	71
Devil Rays	.696	5.08	681	884	60

And there you have it—the Red Sox winning the East handily. How can they be that good? Well, the offense is starting to look pretty spectacular, and the pitching has always been excellent. With an offense anchored by Manny Ramirez and Nomar Garciaparra, the additions of Todd Walker, Jeremy Giambi and David Ortiz basically fill all the gaps the Red Sox had been carrying for years. Now the Jose Offerman as first baseman experiment is finally dead, the Sox have got some real hitters in there. The lowest rated hitter left in the lineup is now Jason Varitek, with his perfectly respectable .729 OPS. I don’t expect Derek Lowe and Tim Wakefield to repeat last year’s performances, but the pitching will still be excellent. It just makes you wonder what really bad thing can happen to the Sox this year to screw it up.

The Yankees are still a very good team and will finish with the second best record in the league at 100 wins. The offense is almost as good as the Sox, but the pitching will be off quite a bit. An aging David Wells and Roger Clemens have already begun to slip, and Jeff Weaver is a question mark at the end of the rotation. Still, they would win the wild card with those numbers.

The Blue Jays are improved, almost all of it in the pitching department, but they still aren’t much better than a .500 team. After Ray Halladay and a possibly decent Cory Lidle, there isn’t too much left but hope. A change of scenery will no doubt help Tanyon Sturtze, but will it be enough?

The Orioles are punchless team with halfway decent pitching, while the Devil Rays are a punchless team without any pitching. Do we really need to say any more than that?

about the author

Got any tips for Boston avoiding the curse this year? Send them to Dave Paisley along with your beverage preference at drdjp@strikethree.com.