Maybe we can trade them Josh Towers for Adam Dunn...

may the Reds bashing begin.

Oh, Reds bashing started here on Da Box last week and that was BEFORE this deal!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this means Dunn at 1B and Tony Womack replacing Pena in the OF? That's quite a precipitous offensive dropoff, I'd think.

Arroyo needs to finish 26-5 to make this deal a plus for the Redlegs.

Intriguing deal.

Arroyo in my opinion is overated because of his huge platoon splits (.647/.793 OPS R/L 3 year). Simply put, a line up of left handed hitters can beat him.

Pena is a gamble. Young with huge power potential, but dubious contact skills ( and a dubious defensive rep as well), but can he make enough contact to become like this fellow?

Contact is a hard thing to learn, but I think good teams with lots of depth can afford such deals.

Check out how the BBRef comps for Pena did after age 24. I don't think that he's quite as good as his BBRef comps on average, but still, that's quite a collection of talents. Pete Incaviglia is not a bad comp.

I expect Pena to be used as Nixon's platoon partner in right, with Dustan Mohr as the late-inning defensive replacement. Coco Crisp will have lots of room to maneuver.

Given what Wildrose says about Arroyo's platoon splits, I'm quite glad to see him out of the division. We're going to be weaker against RHP anyway.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but this means Dunn at 1B and Tony Womack replacing Pena in the OF?"

The Reds could always stick Dunn in the OF and use Hatteberg at 1B.

I think the only other option is to move Freel to the OF and use Womack at 2B.

Or Menechino!

Wily Mo for a reasonably priced innings eater/league average type.

This was a steal for the Red-Sox.

Arroyo should decieve NL batters in his first season and might post very good numbers, but his K rate dropped significantly in his 2nd season in the AL and one can only assume, barring injury and/or loss of stuff, it was due to hitter's familiarity with his bizarre delivery which does not bode well for his value in coming seasons.

Wily Mo has the power to hit 35 home runs as an everyday player right now, if you're willing to live with a .300 range OBP. He too could benefit from AL pitchers not knowing the holes in his swing in the early going.

I doubt he'll ever crack the 1.000 OPS mark but Wily will be a perennial .800-.900 type player.

He is Joe Carter with more power potential.

With Wily Mo Pena, Trot Nixon and Coco Crisp, the Red Sox have amassed some of the best names in the outfield for their fans to holler out this summer.

And if the Red Sox aren't going to make the playoffs this year, they might as well have some good names for their whining and signage.

Re: Pena's name, it's actually pronounced Willie Mo. But that doesn't stop me from calling him Wile E. Mo.

As I stated in my other long post, this is a fine deal for the Red Sox. Losing some insurance and depth in the rotation is worth taking a chance on Pena. Even if he seems like he's been around forever, he's only 24. There's a lot of time for that bat to develop.

I think this trade is a win win for both clubs.

Arroyo was going to be a reliever to start the season and the Sox didn't have a 4th OF (once Stern gets sent down). He will most likely be 2nd in the Reds rotation. He's in the prime of his career right now and has a good contract. This is a perfect example of why you don't give a home town discount unless you get a no trade clause. I think the Sox gave him a little bit of a raw deal here but it has to be said Arroyo knew he could have been dealt in the right situation.

Pena has a lot of power, but his command of the strike zone is awful. I'm hoping he can follow the path of Sosa. Strike zone judgement is a skill that is hard to learn if you don't have it. Sosa was able to command the strike zone as he got older.

The Sox have started to get younger in a lot of areas while maintaing a strong club.

- On the Reds broadcast, they said Dunn is moving back to the OF with Hatteberg taking over at 1B.

Pena looks to be an outfield version of Tony Batista. Very good power, but strike out prone, doesn't walk, and can't hit for average. Pena had a 0.35 K/PA, which is awful. That's 175 K's per 500 plate appearances. He can be a 30-40 HR player though, which is an asset.

Pena kills LHP, so he should be a good platoon mate with Trot Nixon. Whether that was worth giving up Bronson Arroyo is another question.

His downside is Tony Batista. He was only 23 last year, and there's a pretty good chance he'll develop a better eye as he gets older. Sosa and Jose Guillen are pretty good comparisons. Of course, he could also take the Alfonso Soriano path, and be reasonably productive despite his lack of plate discipline. Or he could completely flame out.

Either way, the Red Sox win this trade, hands down. The biggest loser is Arroyo, who after taking a "hometown discount" against the advice of his agent, gets traded to one of the worst pitchers parks in all of baseball.

If Pete Incaviglia is a good comparison for Pena, then would you expect the same offensive production from Pena as say, Tony Batista — who, by the way, hit his third home run of the spring today. Go Tony the Fat Tiger!

Damn, someone beat me to the Batista comparison already.

"His downside is Tony Batista. He was only 23 last year, and there's a pretty good chance he'll develop a better eye as he gets older."

Batista
Age 24: .273/.318/.519, 0.35 bb/k
Age 25: .277/.330/.518, 0.40 bb/k
Age 26: .263/.307/.519, 0.29 bb/k
Age 27: .238/.280/.435, 0.28 bb/k
Age 28: .244/.309/.457, 0.47 bb/k

Batista, at one year old, was pretty much as good as Pena is now. There's very little difference, outside of the fact that Batista (at the time) was a short-stop and had much better plate discipline. Batista didn't improve in patience or approach as he got older.

Could Pena be better than Batista? Sure. But he hasn't demonstrated anything that would give the slightest glimmer of hope that he could be even an adequate OBP player. That's like Jays fans saying Rios can hit 30 home runs someday. It could happen, but it's all hopeful speculation at this point, with no real evidence to suggest it will happen anytime soon, if ever.

Gronk couldn't put out the Reds fire today in the bottom of the ninth.

How long before we get to see the big Leftie hose 'em down in the ninth?

April 4th - two weeks from tomorrow!

Cincinatti isn't a great hitters park. It's a good HR park, but overall scoring is just about neutral, as the park factors at BTF point out:

Team	R	H	2B	HR	BB	SO
Cin	1.02	1.00	1.04	1.16	0.96	1.02

He could very well be a Tony Batista. However, there is one huge difference.

When you have an OBP ~ 330 and slug ~ 500+, you are a pretty darn good asset to have on your team. You slug mid 450s and have an OBP around 290? You turn into a liability.

Right now Pena isn't even close to the liability version of Batista.

To me this is the Red Sox just being a very dishonorable organization. I'm sure no Red Sox fan would agree, but how is this any different then Jonny Damon signing with the Yankees? (Just substitute money with a player.)

The Red Sox are not as backloaded in starting pitching as they first seem. 1) Curt Schilling, he pitched horrible last year, and we all hope he continues the 6 ERA trend this year. 2) David Wells: he's like 43 and on a team last year without a potent offense as the Sox, his record would have been 7-15, not 15-7, 3) Josh Beckett: those blisters could be warming up soon, hopefully, though he could breakout :( 4) Tim Wakefield has a big ERA and has no special catcher for him this year 5) Clement and Papelbon seem to have no problems as the previous three guys who could mess up.

It seems like a win-win for both teams. Reds get a number 2 starter for cheap, which is great, though he'll feel betrayed by a very heartless move by the Sox. The Red Sox, however, do they really need to improve their power/offence in depth? I guess if its at no loss of pitching, then its a good deal for them. But if their starting rotation takes the way of the Titanic, then they'll be sorry.

I hope this opens up a trade for Manny Ramirez out of Boston, because then Boston doesn't have Manny Ramirez anymore. But it seems like the only two possibilities would be New York Mets (but would he really be happy here anyway, the media is probably almost as bad, maybe not for the Mets), or the Angels....

I doubt very much that this directly leads to a trade of Manny. Trot Nixon has shown a considerable weakness against left handed pitching in his career and that is one of Pena's biggest strengths. Also, Nixon is a free agent after this year while Pena is under the Sox control until 2008. If anything, this trade opens up the possibility of Nixon being traded.

I think people underestimate just how much Pena's big league performance means relative to his age. Many players are establishing themselves at AA while he is showing significant power at the major league level. Projecting future performance, his last two years are much more meaningful than somebody else's gaudy numbers put up at AA or AAA.

It looks like Alfonso Soriano is much more unhappy about playing the outfield than the Nationals thought he would be.

Now I can see why they wanted Wily Mo Pena so much.

Soriano refusing to play and being placed on the restricted list is probably the best thing that the Nationals could have hoped for. I assume a player does not get paid while on the restricted list. The Nationals can stash him away and wait for a team to get desperate in season and give in to what the Nationals want.

On the other hand, knowing Bowden's M.O., he probably isn't asking for anyone good anyway.

Perhaps Bowden can fetch Pena and Clement for Soriano.

Almost certainly Freel will go to LF. What this does is kill for good any idea of getting Kearns.

Good deal for the Sox, although Pena doesn't get me all that excited. I've never been a fan of high-SLG, low-OBP guys--especially ones who are poor fielders. But he still has time to develop and could prove useful as trade bait (a la Marte).

The quote of the day comes from Reed Johnson, regarding Aaron Hill getting hit by a few pitches lately:

I mean, he came out of the game. What's up with that? There's a certain way to do things. Suck it up. Take the pain. Anyone can get hit. It's staying in there that's the challenge to the whole thing. I'll have to have a word with him.

Sounds like Reed is fired up about competing with a fellow baseball magnet.

Anybody know the team record for attracting baseball in the batter's box? And how far off the Jays were last year?

Anybody know the team record for attracting baseball in the batter's box? And how far off the Jays were last year?

Actually, Hillenbrand set a record last year with his 22. Johnson had the previous record (20, 2003) and is tied for sixth all-time as a Jay.

This whole Soriano mess encapsulates Bowden's incompetence. I could not have conceived of such a series of poorly-designed moves and it boggles my mind that a major league GM did this.

I'm not taking the side of Soriano in his refusal to play left. I'd be very mad if Hinske had refused to learn first base last year. However, this was a horrible trade at the time it was made and is growing progressively worse.

I'm still wondering what makes Bowden more qualified to be a big league GM than, say, my dog. Perhaps his philosophy is to make as many moves as possible, and hope that some of them turn out OK due to the law of averages...

FWIW, I'm a believer in Pena. I'll take his current level of production (especially given his age), and if his discipline develops, then you're looking at Sammy-lite. If any organization can instill in Pena the value of controlling the strike zone, it's Boston.

Instead of team record, I meant the record for overall team totals. As in: 'how did the 2005 Jays rank in the art of nonavoidance?'

The 2005 Jays with 89 were one off the 2003 mark of 90. That may or may not be the record, I'm not sure, but 90 seems high. Certainly the highest for Toronto since 1999.

The 96 Jays got hit with 92 pitches. Charlie O'Brian led the way with 17, Sprague got hit 12 times, Olerud 10, Delgado 9.

Top 5 HBP seasons:

1996 - 92
2003 - 90
2005 - 89
1998 - 87
1999 - 76

The 1996 Jays, with Charlie O'brien leading the way at 17, managed to get hit 92 times. Others who did 'well' were Sprague, Olerud, Delgado and Green.

I can't find a listing of the all-time record for any team, so I don't know if this is close to a modern record or not. Above 90 seems like a lot. When Ron Hunt was hit 50 times in Montreal (1971), the team only had 78. Now I am curious; does anyone have a good way to find out the team record for this?

I didn't think that there was, but according to baseball-almanac the all-time AL record is Toronto's 92. The all-time NL record belongs to the Baltimore Orioles, who were hit 160 times in 1898 (oddly enough, baseball-almanac cites the record as 148. Baseball-reference says 160.) Hughie Jennings was hit 48 times and Dan McGann was hit 39 times. More recently, the 97 Astros were hit 100 times, with Biggio, Bagwell, and Derek "Operation Shutdown" Bell combining for 62 HBPs.

I thought Biggio was ready to be crowned undisputed champ of leaning in to a pitch, but Ron Hunt was either extraordinarily courageuos or disliked.

And he's available, it appears, if you would like to learn the easiest way to get on base.

I know of this list for individual league leaders, but I guess nothing's been compiled for team totals by year in all the statistical archives online? 6-4-3, I suppose you pulled the data you found from baseball-almanac was subscription-required?

Speaking of HBPs, today is Aaron Hill's birthday. While here at da Box, we appreciate the talent of taking a pitch in the shin, we do like it better when the pitch is taken downtown. Happy Birthday, Aaron.

Will Carroll had interesting comments yesterday about Burnett's injury.

The baseball almanac HBP record is here: http://baseball-almanac.com/rb_hbp3.shtml

Hunt was a decent HBP player, but he's no Hughie Jennings. In 1896, he was hit 51 times. In 1898, he was hit 46 times (while batting .401). In 1999, he was hit 46 times again. In those seasons, he had 143 HBPs and 142 walks. After that, he probably rethought his approach, because his next best season was 20.

Yesterday's BP newsletter had the bottom 5 AL second baseman, by projected VORP. In last, below Jose Lopez, Ron Belliard, Adam Kennedy, and Mark Grudzielanak was the birthday boy, Aaron Hill (11.3). Yikes. Anyone know why PECOTA is so down on him?

Somewhere Ian Kinsler is smiling...

Yesterday's BP newsletter had the bottom 5 AL second baseman, by projected VORP. In last, below Jose Lopez, Ron Belliard, Adam Kennedy, and Mark Grudzielanak was the birthday boy, Aaron Hill (11.3). Yikes. Anyone know why PECOTA is so down on him?

Funny, I attempted an answer to that good question in an e-mail yesterday. Here's what I came up with:

"VORP is in part a counting stat, as it increases with usage. Perhaps the projection assumes that Hill will get less than full-time work. Whatever the reason, I think that it's totally off the wall.

Hill's minor league career is consistent with above average plate discipline for a second baseman, and at least average ability to hit for average and power for a second baseman. That's the pessimistic view of it."

There was nothing in his major league performance last year to detract from this perspective.

It doesn't predict much growth. Hill's BP equivalents for 2005 were 276/352/397. His weighted mean forcast is 267/337/400. The 11.6 runs is 534 plate appearances. The odd thing is his 2004 line in NH has equivalents fo 267/346/387 and was good for a VORP of 21.4 in 564 plate appearances.

The only thing I can take from that is that replacement level at second base is moving higher at a pretty quickly.

I guess it's the comps. Buddy Bell, Brent Abernathy, Chris Gomez and Edgardo Alphonso all declined between age 23 and 24.

I'm sure glad they actually have to play the games still. Projections might be fun but I don't pay much attention to them I'm afraid.

I'm still hoping to find the stats that measure how well the projecting stats do.

For anyone with intimate knowledge of the many sources of projected win totals: How accurate was that source in past years? If I knew where to find a source for 2005 projections, I could see for myself how good they are.

The study Leigh pointed to suggested that Las Vegas has done better than any of the sims. Notwithstanding that, there were a significant number of pretty clear errors in the Las Vegas lines last year (and the Roster consensus did a good job in finding most of them).

My own view is that the Las Vegas lines from this year cited in the over/under thread are more accurate than last year's. I didn't see any where I was quite confident the number was off by more than 5, and there were two of those last year (the Yankees too high at 102 and the Jays too low at 69).