Click here for the new rankings, or the link at the top of the page.

A couple of notes:

• Several players fell out of the top 25: pitcher Michael Bowden, catcher Dan Butler, and catcher Luis Exposito.
• Josh Reddick is on the list, however,  he recently passed the rookie threshold and is no longer a “prospect” by definition.  He’ll be off the list when I re-rank these again.

Box Score

The Ageless Wonder once again turned in a stunning performance, allowing only 5 base runners over the course of 8 strong innings.  Unlike most Tim Wakefield starts of late, he was treated with plenty of run support against Milwaukee, as 8 of their 14 hits were for extra bases.

Top 5 Heroes:

Note the abnormally low WPAs (the entire team added up to around 50%).  You’ll see this when the game gets out of hand early, as it did yesterday afternoon.  Once the bottom of the first inning had ended as the score was 6-0, the probability of the Red Sox winning was over 90%.  Everything else that occurred in the game, such as Pedroia’s 6th inning HR, wouldn’t have much of an impact on win probability.

This is one of the strengths of WPA, as a metric.  It distinguishes the important plays from the ones that occur in garbage time.

Buzz Kill:

Clay Buchholz (back) and Carl Crawford (hamstring) are both on the disabled list, and both hope to return during the series in their home state, at Houston.  I talked about Buchholz, but the Crawford situation is just as troubling, if not more.  Speed is, of course, a big part of Crawford’s game.  If hamstring problems become chronic for him as he ages,   the Red Sox will be stuck with a very expensive, very mediocre outfielder.

Quote of the Day:

“It had good movement on it. Some of them went in to right-handers, some of them went in to left-handers. It did what good knuckleballs do. It was frustrating.”

- Milwaukee 1B Prince Fielder, on the knuckleball

By the way, if you’re wondering whether or not Wakefield ever faced Prince’s dad, Cecil Fielder…he did.  30 times.  Like father, like son; Cecil hit .111/.200/.148 against Wakefield.

Prospect Watch:

• SS A – The short-season Lowell Spinners started their 2011 campaign over the weekend, and there are a couple of interesting players up in the Cradle of the Industrial Revolution.  The one that stands out, however, is third baseman Garin Cecchini, who is regarded as one of the best hitting prospects in the system.  In his debut on Friday, he went 2 for 4 with a double and a SB.
• R – The Gulf Coast League Red Sox begin play today.  This is where you’ll see a few of the high school draftees and the prospects who graduated from the Dominican Summer League.  Two names jump of the page right now: shortstop Jose Vinicio and outfielder Kendrick Perkins.

He’s a quick, athletic left-handed hitting outfielder.  The Sox have gravitated towards this type of player several times in recent drafts, and it’s worked out fairly well for them.

On that note…good night.  More during Day Two tomorrow afternoon.

Aside from a decent fastball, Henry Owens also throws an array of breaking balls that could prove difficult to hit for the big left-handed hitters in professional ball.
As with the others, more later.

He’s very quick and athletic for a catcher, and some actually believe that he would be better suited at 2B or 3B.  The Sox will likely try their hardest to develop him behind the plate, where he would have the most value.

More on him later.

This is one of those years that you will want to pay close attention, as the Red Sox have 4 picks in the first 40, and their rivals down in St. Petersburg have 10 picks (!) in the first 60.

We’ll provide coverage of the Red Sox draft picks in real-time, or close to it, depending on my work schedule.

As far as a preview goes, there are quite a bit of interesting prospects but the one that stands out to me is a high school outfielder from Texas by the name Josh Bell.  Bell is committed to attend the University of Texas and has reportedly made statements suggesting he will be very difficult to sign, but the Red Sox are known to pursue this type of prospect and have the financial resources to make just about any high school kid break their academic commitments.

Much to my chagrin, the first day of the draft is now held at night; it will be televised tonight at 6pm on the MLB Network.  It’s a practice that began last year, and I still haven’t warmed to the idea.  For decades, professional baseball has slowly been migrating from a daytime sport to a nighttime one.  The new MLB Draft is just the latest example of that.  I should probably just stop my bitching and accept it.  So, I will.

Heck in here tonight for draft coverage and commentary.

Box Score

I’d imagine that most fans here passed out after an arduous Bruins playoff victory.  If that’s the case, they’ll wake up to the news that the Red Sox also won in overtime.

Josh Beckett was outstanding again, giving up only 3 hits over 8 innings of work.  However, he received a no-decision, as the Sox squandered several scoring opportunities against rookie Tyler Chatwood.  Luckily, the bullpen came up big with 3 scoreless innings, and the Sox managed to score a couple of runs in the 11th.

Kevin Youkilis was removed from the game after hitting a foul ball off of his foot, but fortunately, x-rays were negative.  He’s probably day-to-day at this point, but I’ll update this if anything changes.

Top 5 Heroes (Fangraphs WPA)

WPA is an interesting stat to use when determining how “big” or “clutch” a player came up over a period of time.  However, one of my problems with the metric is manifested in last night’s numbers posted above.  Intuitively, you’d think that Josh Beckett’s contribution (8 excellent innings) was more crucial to the win than Dan Bard’s (a scoreless 9th inning).  Much of WPA is determined by situational environments outside of the player’s control.  Sometimes, to earn a good WPA, you just have to be in the right place at the right time.  It should never be used to figure out how good a player really was.  It can, however, be used to determine how good a player was when it counted.

Buzz Kill:

I do admire Jason Varitek’s accomplishments over the course of his career in Boston, but right now he looks like someone who should no longer be playing professional baseball.  Yes, I probably wrote that same exact line two years ago, but at that time my statement was 50% hyperbole.  The hyperbole in my words are now gone.  After going 0 for 3 with 3 strikeouts and a walk last night, the Captain is now hitting .043/.185/.043.  It’s a small sample (26 plate appearances), but it’s not like you can really rely on Saltalamacchia to give him a rest when he’s hitting like this.

Luckily, Varitek has some sort of magic catcher’s mitt that can transform pitchers like Josh Beckett from perpetually injured underachievers to a front-line aces.  In that sense, he might be worth keeping around.  Speaking of which…

Quote of the Day:

“Oh, I’m freaking locked in. … Fortunately I can help us win in other ways right now.”

- Jason Varitek, on his slump

Prospect Watch

• AAA – Bad news from Pawtucket as Ryan Kalish, considered by many to be the heir apparent to J.D. Drew in right field, hurt his arm while making a diving play.  It could be minor, but it could also be very bad; remember, Kalish missed most of the 2007 season after breaking his wrist.  In better news, Lars Anderson had three hits and is now hitting .320 with a .462 OBP.
• AA – Catcher Tim Federowicz, known primarily for his defense, is hitting .341/.375/.523 after going 2 for 4 last night.  Given the issues in Boston, he is absolutely someone to keep an eye on.
• High A – Kolbrin Vitek went 3 for 4 with a double, now hitting .341/.431/.500.  No, I’m not just copying and pasting this from yesterday’s recap.  He’s Lowrie-esque right now.
• Low A – Brandon Jacobs went 2 for 3 with a double, and is hitting .353/.452/.686.

Box Score

Well, it took eight tries, but the Red Sox finally have their first road victory in 2011.  Ironically, they accomplished this by hitting reasonably well against left-handed pitchers, despite 12 strikeouts.

Top 5 Heroes (Fangraphs WPA):

Yes, it’s very suprising that Jed Lowrie isn’t atop this list.  You know you’ve set the bar very high when people start substituting your name for “Chuck Norris” in the Bill Brasky jokes.  While Jed did have a good game, Dan Bard’s 6th inning performance was absolutely key.  Hats off to Terry Francona by bucking conventional wisdom and inserting his “8th inning guy” into a 6th inning jam.  That’s exactly the type of situation where you want to use your best reliever (or second best reliever, depending on how you view Bard in relation to Papelbon).

Buzz Kill:

Red Sox catchers (Varitek and Saltalamacchia, combined) are now hitting .143/.176/.161.  It’s like having a pitcher hitting in our lineup.  If the Red Sox had lost this game, all you would be hearing about are Varitek’s double play and the five guys he left on base.  Naturally, Dan Shaughnessy has this topic covered.  What, did you expect him to focus on something positive?

Quote of the Day:

“Maybe you can call me the stopper” – Dan Bard

Prospect Watch

• AAA – Former top prospect Andrew Miller continues to pitch well, allowing 1 run and 4 hits over 6 strong innings.  He now has a 1.32 ERA after three starts.
• High A -  Kolbrin Vitek is on fire, going 3 for 4 for the second consecutive night.  He’s 8 for his last 13, including 3 walks.

Box Score

Boston finds themselves in the highly unexpected position of being 0 and 7 on the road, as Oakland’s man-child lefty once again dominated the Red Sox lineup, yielding 4 hits and striking out 8 over 8 scoreless innnings.  While John Lackey pitched very well against his old nemeses, he can thank his teammates’ offensive impotence for his second loss of the season.

One thing I should note as I go on: I’ve decided to scrap “Victory Shares / Pie of Shame / etc.” since Fangraphs.com and BaseballReference.com both have the tools and the capacity to track this sort of thing much better than I ever can.  I think it would be best for everyone involved to just summarize the key players here by listing their daily WPA (Win Probability Added).  FG and BBref both have their own unique calculations for this metric, and while I like BBref’s version a bit better (they use park factors in their analysis), on most days I’ll be using the Fangraphs version only because they typically publish their numbers earlier in the morning.  In any case, I’ll always let you know which version I’m using.

Top 5 Goats (Fangraphs WPA):

The Ellsbury WPA is very questionable, since the official MLB box score (the one I’m linked to up top) list the “Ellsbury CS” as a batter interference on Cameron.  It appears that the umpires weren’t exactly sure what had happened themselves.  The replays do show that Ellsbury was in fact safe, so if it actually is an interference call on Cameron, his name would jump to the top of the Goat list with a whopping -21.4% WPA.

Silver Lining:

John Lackey is the obvious bright spot here, throwing 6 quick, clean innings against a relatively tough opponent.  According to PitchFX, the main difference between last night and his previous start (the 4/8 bombardment from the Yankees where he actually got the “win”) was that he relied much less on his curveball.  Only 17 thrown out of 93 pitches last night, compared to 38 thrown in 93 pitches against New York.

Quote of the Day:

“I just work here” – John Lackey, on the staff’s decision to pull him after 6 innings.

Prospect Watch

• AAA – Not a prospect, but Matt Albers threw 2 scoreless innings of relief in his rehab outing.  He’s heading to Anaheim to join the team on Thursday, which means that Alfredo Aceves is most likely on his way back to Pawtucket.
• High A -  One of last year’s 1st round picks, Kolbrin Vitek, went 3 for 4 with 2 doubles and a triple, while pitcher Chris Hernandez gave up 1 unearned run over 5 innings.
• Low A – Anthony Ranaudo, the organization’s top pitching prospect, continues to toy with Sally League opponents.  He gave up 3 hits and one run while striking out 6 in 6 innings.

I’ll be updating the list and shuffling the rankings periodically based on new information as it comes in (sparingly in the pre-season, and more regularly once the minor league season begins).

Over the next few weeks, I plan on adding several more pages to that gray bar, including MLB Power Rankings among other things.