It’s Sunday, so you know what time it is…from around the Red Sox Nation…

• John Tomase of the Boston Herald wrote a great piece about Baseball-Reference.com, a site created by Sean Forman and essential reading for all fans of baseball statistics.
• “track down Pokey Reese and stick him at short” - just one of the great anecdotes and observations from Chad Finn in his Sixth Sense column on “Touching all the Bases”.
• Smoltzie’s latest rehab start is a solid one…
• How can I not mention Boston College’s 25 inning classic with the University of Texas…Some amazing displays of pitching.
• Sox and Pinstripes addresses the Sox current needs and looks at possible trade targets.
• Bryan Price and Casey Kelly have been promoted to High-A Salem.

And now the rest of the story…

• In Nick Cafardo’s Sunday Baseball Notes, he details a ranking of all 30 managers in the Major Leagues, as rated by front office members, coaches, and players.
• If you haven’t checked it out yet, you’ve got to take a look at Prospectus Idol, a sabermetric writing contest being held by the folks at Baseball Prospectus…First Place - A job!
• On his blog, Paul DePodesta did something you rarely see a member of the front office do…he laid out the reasoning behind the trade of Jody Gerut for Tony Gwynn Jr.
• With the draft rapidly approaching, here’s an interesting article about the 10 worst number one picks of all time.
• Back to the BC/Texas game…Keith Law writes that the coach’s decisions to pitch Austin Wood and Mike Belfiore past the point of no return was “unconscionable” and placed the pitchers at a tremendous risk of injury.
• As usual, Peter Gammons has a comprehensive and informative blog entry over at ESPN, where he addresses the Ramirez situation, the Yankees, and the upcoming draft.

This week in Red Sox Nation…

• In the Globe, Tony Massarotti chats with Carl Yastrzemski, who can certainly relate to David Ortiz’ struggles right now.
• Bob Ryan ponders the past and future of Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka.
• Sean McAdam of the Herald compares the Sox’ current defensive situation to the Summer of ‘04, when Theo Epstein pulled the trigger and acquired Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz.
• Joe from Fire Brand of the AL presents his opinion on a hypothetical trade of David Wright to the Red Sox.
• The House that Dewey Built offers up their first term grades on the Red Sox players.  I’ll offer up a spoiler on the grade for Julio Lugo - F…The comment is not kid friendly, two words ending with You…

And around the baseball world…

• Peter Gammons takes his first look at the summer trade market…
• In his recent posts, Rob Neyer looks at Carl Pavano, Johan Santana, and cheering in the press box.  For my money, Neyer is one of the more entertaining and prolific bloggers out there.
• John Perotto of the Baseball Prospectus takes a look at the last 20 years in the history of the Pittsburgh Pirates in his latest “On the Beat” column.
• In The Biz of Baseball, Maury Brown and Mike Moore take a look at the declining attendance in Major League Baseball.
• One of the many stories about the bandbox that is the New Yankee Stadium.
• Dave Cameron presents evidence that Joe Mauer’s recent power surge is not the sign of a long term trend for the Twins catcher.

We’ve begun to realize in recent years that a team’s defense can play an incredibly significant role in it’s success.  Many organizations have shifted their philosophies, placing an increased amount of importance on crafting a team that can save runs in the field and make its pitchers look good.  We don’t have to look much further than the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays to see how important defensive efficiency can be for a team.  Similarly, this year’s Texas Ranger squad is seeing an increased amount of success due in large part to the defensive abilities of shortstop Elvis Andrus and right fielder Nelson Cruz.

Unfortunately, this year’s Red Sox team is headed in the wrong direction defensively.  Yesterday’s game was lost on a fielding misplay by shortstop Nick Green (who actually has been adequate defensively), and the overall level of play behind Sox pitchers has not even approached what it has been in the past few seasons.  With Kevin Youkilis out, and Mike Lowell clearly a step slower at third base, the Sox are currently ranked 27th in the Major Leagues in UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating) at -12.  Even more alarming is the fact that Jason Bay rates as the single worst fielder in the Major Leagues, costing the Sox 9 runs with his defense in left field. - 9 runs!

Here is where the Sox significant contributors currently sit with respect to UZR:

Clearly, the outfield is struggling defensively with the exception of Jacoby Ellsbury in centerfield.  It’s easy to overlook Bay’s struggles defensively as long as he continues to carry the offense, but we will see this poor defense continue to hurt the Sox, especially on the road where there is much more ground to cover than ther is at Fenway.  Bay will likely have to follow in the footsteps of most Sox outfielders since Yaz and learn the subtleties of playing the Monster, giving him at least some defensive value out in left field.

Around the horn we go…

• In today’s Globe, Nick Cafardo details the struggles being faced by David Ortiz, and advances some theories about what may be going on.  In his blog, Ask 14, Jim Rice also gets his two cents in on Ortiz’ struggles, feeling that he’ll have no problem coming around.
• Larry Lucchino was the commencement speaker at Bryant University on Saturday, and Bill Reynolds of the Providence Journal took the opportunity to discuss the Red Sox “Blueprint for Success” with him.
• Jim Donaldson wonders whether Terry Francona is showing too much loyalty to Big Papi…
• SawxBlog suggests that the Celtics, Bruins, and Red Sox may be Boston’s new “Big Three”.
• I think I’m always going to link to Surviving Grady…they just make me laugh…

ANd on the national baseball scene:

• A mega-column from Peter Gammons in which he details the game of probablt second pick in the draft Dustin Ackley…What more could you ask for?
• One of the fathers of the sabermetric movement - Rob Neyer, has some excellent blog posts up this week.
• Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports suggests that the Texas Rangers may be for real.
• A great article from The Hardball Times’ Craig Brown, in which he offers an in depth discussion of Ryan Zimmerman’s 30 game hitting streak.
• From the New York Daily News…David Wells absolutely bashes Roger Clemens.  Just good stuff…
• In the Wall Street Journal, Dave Cameron wonders whether the Mariners may be better off by trading Ichiro Suzuki.  Cameron also toots the horn of the Texas Rangers, detailing how they may be this year’s Tampa Bay Rays due to their defensive turnaround.

Alright, yesterday we took a look at the early season performances of the Red Sox Top 20 hitting prospects, which really weren’t up to expectations.  Today, it’s time to analyze the pitching prospects, and there’s no doubt that this group has exceeded expectations…and then some!

Let’s take a look at the statistics:

The Good: Maybe I should say The Great, but where do I even start?  I guess I would have to say that the best performance so far this season has been put in by the recently promoted reliever Daniel Bard.  Bard was virtually unhittable during his tenure at Pawtucket this season, allowing hitters to only post a ridiculous .115 batting average against him.  Even more obscene is the fact that he struck out exactly half of the batters he faced, while walking only 8.6% - total dominance!  If hitters somehow did make contact, they pounded the ball into the ground, as 59% of batted balls were hit on the ground.  All those numbers are signs of a superstar in the making, and it would seem that the only thing between Bard and a full-time closer’s job is Jonathan Papelbon.

Converted shortstop Casey Kelly has been nearly as successful as Bard, mowing down opposing hitters in the South Atlantic League as a starting pitcher in Greenville.  Kelly has allowed only 4 earned runs in 31.1 innings pitched and considering the fact that his FIP is an outstanding 2.25, the performance has not been a fluke.  His strikout to walk ratio is an outstanding 6 to 1 and it seems likely that we can already say that Kelly is ready to be challenged in High-A Salem.

Michael Bowden, Bryan Price, Junichi Tazawa and Stolmy Pimentel have all also been outstanding, and have come to their success in similar ways.  All four are dependent upon their control to be successful, although Price and Tazawa can dial up the velocity and pull a strikeout pitch out of their bag of tricks.  All have shown great command so far this season, and have also shown the ability to get groundball outs.  No red flags from any of these pitchers…

The Bad:  Kyle Weiland’s 8.57 ERA might cause you to think that he would end up in the “Ugly” writeup, but his FIP of 4.00 points to the fact that he has pitched much better than his ERA would indicate.  His walks are up and his strikeouts are down, which is a bit alarming, but he has allowed a BABIP of .405, which needless to say, means that he has run into some awful luck.  No doubt, though, that Weiland will need to improve his command as the season moves on.

Kris Johnson’s story is not a lot different from Weiland’s.  His walk and strikout rates have not changed that much from last year, but his FIP is over a run and a half better than his ERA, so things haven’t exactly gone Johnson’s way.  What you see is what you get with Johnson, as he doesn’t have overpowering stuff and will likely always settle in at an ERA in the low 4 range.

The Ugly: Umm, can’t think of anything…The Sox abundance of pitching riches continues…

Since we’re just over a month into the minor league season, I thought now would be a good time to check in on the members of our Top 20 Prospect List.  Today, I’ll start with the hitters, while tomorrow I’ll turn it over to the pitchers.

The Top 20 list is split evenly between hitters and pitchers, but the returns seen from these two groups has been far from equal.  Two of the ten hitters in the Top Ten have been unable to play more than two games due to injury (Westmoreland & Navarro), while Derrik Gibson has been working in Extended Spring Training and will likely not see game action until Lowell starts its season next month.  As for those who have been able to play, the results have been somewhat mixed.  Here are some selected statistics up to this point in the season.

The Good: We can start off the good by looking at Ryan Kalish, who has done exactly what the organization has asked of him - improve his skills as a leadoff hitter.  His walk rate is outstanding, at nearly 20%, and he has shown great plate discipline resulting in an excellent .425 on base percentage.  What more can you ask of a leadoff hitter?  Well, 8 stolen bases and an Isolated Power (ISO) of .180 as a result of his 4 homers in 101 at bats…solid.  Prior to straining his oblique, Josh Reddick was putting up solid power numbers in Portland.  Though he only drove in 7 runs, Reddick hit 6 homers in his first 17 games.  He’s still striking out too often, but that can be forgiven if he is able to maintain his power stroke.  Lastly, Argenis Diaz has put up good numbers so far this season.  He hasn’t drawn an awful lot of walks, but he has dramatically reduced his strikeout rate so far, which is a good sign in a system that is looking for the answer at shortstop.

The Bad: Michael Almanzar’s plate discipline…His strikeout to walk ratio is nearly 5:1 and is very reminiscent of last year’s performance at Lowell.  Bottom line is that those numbers need to improve if Almanzar has any hope of advancement.

The Ugly: Che-Hsuan Lin’s overall performance…Ugly might not he a strong enough word to describe Lin’s first month at the plate.  He is striking out in almost 1 out of every 4 plate appearances, while the contact he’s making isn’t all that solid either.  He has only 3 extra base hits in 85 at bats for Salem and even with his stellar glove, Lin needs to turn things around.  Lars Anderson’s last week at the plate has also been ugly, as he is only 2 for his last 27.  His walk rate is down significantly, so an added dose of patience will likely do wonders for Lars.  No doubt, he’ll break out of it in time…

Alright, let’s take a look at the goings on around the baseball world…

• Dan Shaugnessy voices the opinion of many fans around Red Sox Nation - The Dodgers and Manny had this coming to them…
• Bob Ryan suggests that Manny may actually be telling the truth and that he may not have realized exactly what he was taking.  Hmm, don’t know about that one.
• Sean McAdam of the Boston Herald is thinking that it may be time to part ways with Julio Lugo and seek alternative options at shortstop.
• Providence Journal PawSox beat writer Joe McDonald writes about the promotion of Red Sox phenom Daniel Bard.
• Curt Schilling’s response to the Manny situation.

Outside of the Red Sox Nation…

• Troy O’ Leary is shopping a baseball reality show - an American Idol of sorts for aspiring baseball players.
• Baseball Prospectus’ Eric Sidman details the rise of the LOOGYs (Left handed One Out GuYs).
• ESPN’s Buster Olney’s latest blog entry discusses how fans should not be surprised that the Arizona Diamondbacks hired 34 year old AJ Hinch as their new manager.
• Washington Post writer Chico Harlan gets the scoop from National GM Mike Rizzo, who says, “If the draft was today he’d (Stephen Strasburg) be our guy.”  Strasburg fired his first no-hitter and struck out 17 batters against Air Force on Friday night.
• The baseball Analyst’s Sky Andrecheck very persuasively agrues that Zach Grienke’s 38 consecutive scoreless innings streak was comparable to Don Drysdale’s 58 inning streak in 1968.
• Bill Madden of the NY Daily News wrote an open letter to George Steinbrenner asking him to “Fix” Yankee Stadium.
• FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal details the financial ramifications of Manny’s suspension on the LA Dodgers.
• If you haven’t checked out Padres Exexutive Vice President Paul DePodesta’s blog “It Might Be Dangerous”, it’s really a good read and often details the thought process that front offices use when making personnel decisions.

So yesterday we took a look at the all-time greatest position players ranked by WAR, and today we’ll take a look at the pitchers.  Here are the Top 20 all time pitchers according to Sean Smith’s study on historical WAR:

All Time WAR (1955-2008)

I don’t think that the top two pitchers are all that big of a surprise, but boy does entry number three ever knock your socks off!  Obviously, WAR is not a rate statistic, so longevity is extremely important and Phil Niekro is a testament to that.  During his 23rd season in the Majors, Niekro was still logging over 200 innings and positing a positive WAR while pitching for the Cleveland Indians.  318 wins is admittedly nothing to sneeze at…

Interestingly enough, the single greatest season posted by one of these pitchers was for a team that only won 59 games.  The 1972 Philadelphia Phillies went 59-97, and Steve Carlton won 27 of those games by logging 346.1 innings and posting a 1.97 ERA.  His WAR for the season was an amazing 12.2 games, a figure only approached by the elite in history such as Bob Gibson and Roger Clemens.

Looking at Red Sox history since 1955, we can see that prior to the mid 80s, there were very few standout hurlers that regularly took the hill at Fenway for the home team.  Only Luis Tiant cracks the Top 200 all time. Rick Wise and Dick Drago made the list, but they spent less than half of their career for the Sox, so I didn’t include them in our list.  Admittedly Curt Schilling didn’t either, but I’m willing to make a special dispensation for him…Here’s the list of Sox related pitchers:

Red Sox Pitchers All Time WAR (1955-2008)

Not surprisingly, the Sox of the mid to late 80s grab 4 of the 10 spots on this list - good to see Bigfoot Bob Stanley squeeze his way onto the list.  It definitely wouldn’t be surprising to see Josh Beckett skyrocket up the rankings over the course of the next decade, while it will be interesting to see what young pitcher will be the first to break this list…

You can take a look at the WAR for every pitcher since 1955 by checking out Sean Smith’s database, which can be found here.

Sean Smith, author of Baseball Projection, recently finished up a massive research project in which he compiled the WAR (Wins Above Replacement) values for every single player in the Major Leagues since 1955.  He released the findings on his website and provided a Top 300 list for easy reference.  Here are the Top 25 hitters based on Smith’s numbers, and remember that WAR takes into account hitting, baserunning, defense, position, and league strength  You can refresh your memory on how WAR is calculated here:

All Time WAR (1955-2008)

Definitely some interesting stuff here…In all honesty, I’m not sure that I would have expected to see Joe Morgan or Carl Yastrzemski as high up the list as they are.  Morgan was aided greatly by his outstanding baserunning and basestealing skills, while Yaz played some outstanding defense while roaming left field in Fenway.  One thing to note is that all eligible players in the Top 25 are in the Hall of Fame (not counting Rose of course).  So, does that mean Chipper Jones is a no brainer?  Hmm, his numbers are outstanding, and he’s been pretty solid in the post season as well…food for thought.

Here are the Top 11 position players who are strongly associated with the Red Sox:

Red Sox All Time WAR (1955-2008)

Jim Rice - 133rd???  Admittedly, there were a few non all-star calabre seasons sprinkled into Rice’s career, and his defense was adequate at best, but 133rd does seem a tad low no matter how you slice it.  Seeing John Valentin on the list reminds us what a solid contributor he was, especially offensively, in an era just prior to the offensive explosion at shortstop.  He really was near the top of the heap offensively at the shortstop position during the late 90s.  The list also makes you hearken back to the good ole days of the late 70s - Rice, Lynn, and Evans in the same outfield - doesn’t happen often…Again, to check out the complete WAR database, visit Sean’s site.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at the pitchers.

Alright, let’s pick up where we left off and dig futher into prospect analysis and the second factor that determines a top notch hitter in the minor leagues…

2) Power

The tricky thing about analyzing minor league hitters is the fact that power is an aspect of the game that often develops at a slower rate than many other skills.  Hitters who are known as gap hitters with no power in the minor leagues often turn into solid power hitters as their body develops and they continue to add strength.  Case in point is Jeff Bagwell, and we all know his story.  A contact hitter in Double-A with only six career minor league home runs under his belt, Bagwell flourished a year later, winning the Rookie of the Year and hitting 449 homers in the Major Leagues.

So, with that caveat in mind, we need to look at measures other than home runs when measuring power potential in prospects.  Of course, if a player is putting up monster home run numbers then take them for what they are, but I’ll often look at doubles in addition to home runs, generally as a percentage of total hits.  So, when a player’s home run rate (HR%) is low, check out the doubles rate (2B%) to see where that’s at.  For simplicity’s sake, you can always just use all extra base hits (XB%).  Ideally, you would like to see somewhere in the neighborhood of 35% of a player’s hits be of the extra base variety, but these are really just guidelines and those numbers will vary widely.  An alternative statistic, and one used often on the Major League level is Isolated Power (ISO), which is very simply slugging percentage minus batting average.  It’s a quick reference guideline of a player’s ability to hit for power, but once again, it penalizes those players who have not yet developed their power stroke.  .200 is a solid minor league mark and generally signifies a player with a good bit of power potential, but don’t forget - beware the ballpark!

Pitching

As I’ve mentioned many times in my tutorials, there are three true outcomes of an at bat over which pitchers have some semblance of control: strikeouts, walks, and home runs.  Balls put in play all have results that, over time, will be consistent, i.e a set percentage of fly balls will be turned into outs.  So, to make a long story short, minor league pitchers must be able to control the three true outcomes to advance.  Here’s a look at the three and how we can identify successful minor league pitchers.

1) Strikeouts

This one’s pretty simple, and is far and away the most important.  Minor league pitching prospects must be able to strikeout hitters and strikout a lot of hitters.  The rationale is quite simple - if they can’t strikeout unskilled hitters at lower levels, there’s no way they will be able to compete against the best hitters in the world.   They certainly would need something else up their sleeve to be successful without at least something of a go to pitch when they needed to get a strikeout.

The measurement of this ability is very simple - its the percentage of hitters that a pitcher strikes out or simply K Rate (K%).  Ideally, we would like to see a pitcher with a K% above the 25% mark.  This corresponds to about one strikeout per inning, which is really a low threshold for top minor league prospects, especially at the lower levels.  Elite prospects, take for example Clay Buchholz, would often be significantly higher.  K Rates of 28.5%, 37.7%, 34.9%, and 33.5% were not uncommon for Buchholz prior to his arrival in Pawtucket where he faced much more seasoned hitters.

2) Walks

Secondly, top notch prospects must have a good bit of command over their pitches, or at least the ones they use on a regular basis.  While not everyone can throw gas like a Daniel Bard or a Josh Beckett, all successful pitchers can throw strikes.  It’s something they can work on and it’s something they must figure out.  The measurement is also clean and simple - Walk Rate (BB%), the percentage of hitters that a pitcher walks.  A magic number is a little harder to pinpoint than it is for K%, but a decent rule of thumb is that prospects shouldn’t rise too much above 8%.  Michael Bowden has been the model of consistency in the Sox organization, posting a career BB% of around 6.5%.

While these two measurements are important on their own, they become an even better indicator when put together.  For a pitcher who has outstanding control and also has the ability to strike out hitters, quite simply, the sky is the limit.  Pitchers who don’t have a high strikeout rate can’t afford to put runners on base via the walk, while those with impeccable control have a little more leeway with regards to allowing balls to be put in play.  But, I can’t stress enough - minor league pitchers with control and the ability to strikeout hitters have a much better chance of succeeding in the major leagues than do their counterparts who lack one skill or the other.  We look for a ratio (K/BB) of at least 3 to 1, while elite pitchers will often blow that number away.  For example, Josh Beckett’s minor league K/BB ratio was 6:1

3) Home Runs

The third outcome that pitchers can control is the home run ball.  How can they do this?  It’s simple, throw ground balls.  On average, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% of all fly balls (in a neutral park) end up carrying over the fence and there’s nothing a pitcher can do about it.  So, the only way to avaoid home runs is to throw ground balls.  Of course this is not as significant if you have impeccable control and can strikeout hitters, but if you only do one of the two, the groundball can be your best friend.  For a minor league pitcher without dominant stuff, a groundball rate (GB%) higher than 50% is ideal.  Justin Masterson has been outstanding in this respect, mixing solid control with the ability to force hitters to pound balls into the ground.  His ground ball rate is in excess of 60% and has served him well in his full time transition to Major League pitcher.

So, hopefully I’ve given you a sense of the insights that can be found in the minor league statistics.  I’ll soon begin to take a look at the Red Sox current crop of prospects and utilize this framework to analyze the potential that these players have as future Major Leaguers.

Now that we’ve got a month of the season under our belt, we can really start taking a look at the performances of some players down on the farm.  So, as the season rolls along, I’ll be writing regular farm system updates, letting you know how the Sox top prospects are faring, and whether there are any untapped diamonds within the system.  First, however, I think it’s important for me to explain exactly what I’m looking for when I evaluate a minor league prospect.  This post may run over a few days, I guess it just depends how long winded I get.

Context

Before I look at any of the statistics, I always try to gain an understanding of the context in which a ballplayer competes.  The two most important contextual factors are probably a player’s age, and the home ballpark in which he plays.  These two factors can have a great deal of influence on numbers, and can skew statistics dramatically if you don’t realize what you’re looking at.

First and foremost, we need to know the age of a player in comparison to the league in which they are playing.  For example, a 23-year old posting monster numbers in Low-A ball should not be looked at the same as a 19-year old who puts up a comparable season.  Teams will often look to challenge young players by placing them in a level with players who are older that they are, while many older players are simply seen as organizational “fillers” who can put up good numbers and fill out a team’s roster.  A good example of this from the Red Sox system is third baseman Michael Almanzar, who played in the Gulf Coast League and the South Atlantic League at the ripe old age of 17.  Not surprisingly, Almanzar struggled a bit in Low-A, but he was competing against players three years younger than him, and it’s clear that the Sox think highly of him if they were willing to run the risk of pushing him to a league he wasn’t quite ready for.

Now we also know that not all parks and leagues are not created equal.  I’m sure that hitters headed out to play in Salem, VA this year are extremely disappointed that the Red Sox decided to change High-A affiliates this season, leaving the jet streams of Lancaster and the California League behind in exchange for the “roomier” ballparks of the Carolina League.  Of course, pitchers are ecstatic, as they are sure to see their ERAs drop dramatically as a result of pitching in Salem.

We can tell whether a ballpark benefits pitchers or hitters by looking at the Minor League Park Multipliers, which were developed by analyzing data from every minor league game over the last three years.  Here’s a look at the ballparks in the Red Sox system and the multipliers for each possible outcome:

These numbers are quite easy to interpret.  Taking Lowell as an example, a player who calls LeLacheur Park home will hit 92% as many home runs as he would in a neutral ballpark, while he would hit 101% as many singles and doubles in that ballpark.  The Red Sox organization is home to a wide variety of ballparks, with Greenville and Pawtucket being power hitter friendly, while Salem and Lowell are enemies of the power hitter.  Portland is the Switzerland of the Sox organization, generally acting as a neutral park.  So, it’s very important to take these park multipliers into consideration when looking at a player’s statline.

Hitting

There are a number of qualities that a young hitter must have in order to be suceessful in the Major Leagues.  Usually, we can get an awful good undertanding of those qualities by looking at their minor league performance.  I’ll break it down into two primary areas…

1) Plate Discipline/Ability to Make Contact

Plain and simple, a quality hitter must have the ability to wait for his pitch and be able to make solid contact when it finally arrives.  Luckily, we have some readily available statistics to help us gain an understanding of players ability to excel in these areas.  The primary statistics I like to look at are strikeout rate (K%), walk rate (BB%) and strikeout to walk ratio (K/BB), that last which really can be the best stat if you want a quick and dirty measurement of a player’s plate discipline.

There are some ranges in which we would like to see a top prospect’s numbers fall in each area.  For strikeout rates, obviously the lower the better, but once a strikeout rate approaches 20% in the minor leagues - look out - what will happen when that player faces Major League pitching?  With regards to strikeout to walk ratio, a solid prospect should fall somewhere between 1 to 1 and 2 to 1 depending on the type of hitter they are.  Obviously, a big time power prospect will be given more leeway and can safely approach 2 to 1, but a potential leadoff hitter would really like to see his ratio get near 1 to 1.  Ryan Kalish, a potential future leadoff hitter currently playing in Salem is posting a K/BB ratio below one, which is exactly what the big club is looking for out of him.  On the other side of the coin, Michael Almanzar’s short stint in Greenville was a disater from the K/BB point of view, and he has done nothing to show improvement this year, posting a ratio above 4 to 1 this season.  He’ll need to improve on those numbers if he is going to advance up the organizational ladder.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at hitting for power as well as pitching…

Plenty of good tidbits this week, and as usual we’ll start with the Sox…

• In today’s Boston Globe, Nick Cafardo wrote a nice feature on Red Sox super sub Nick Green, while Mazz looks at a very questionable strategic move by Rays skipper Joe Maddon.
• Sean McAdam of the Boston Herald discusses the Red Sox struggles in Tropicana Field the past few years.
• Current Red Sox Chief Operating Officer Mike Dee is leaving the club to become CEO of the Miami Dolphins.
• Jim Donaldson of the Providence Journal feels as though the Red Sox have their fair share of problems.
• Red over at Surviving Grady is taking Jerry Remy’s illness worse than most…and we join him in sending our best wishes for a speedy recovery to the RemDawg.
• The folks over at FanGraphs took a look at the past few Red Sox drafts and analyze their needs for the 2009 draft, which is right around the corner.
• Jeff over at Sox and Pinstripes writes that the Red Sox should drop David Ortiz from the three hole, instead batting him in the seventh spot in the lineup.

From around the Major Leagues…

• Buster Olney has been churning out the blog entries over at ESPN and the entries are full of great information.  Today, he discusses (with some help from Tony Gwynn) whether or not consensus first pick Stephen Strasburg will be ready for the Majors upon his signing (which will be the hard part).
• In Peter Gammons’ latest blog entry, he takes a look at teams that made it a point to improve their defensive efficency during the offseason.
• Jon Hayman of SI.com takes a twirl around the Major Leagues, with a focus on the newest round of A-Rod allegations.
• John Perrotto of Baseball Prospectus looks at the vast amount of quality free agents sitting things out on the sidelines this season, and where they could possibly end up.
• How about this “MannyWood” campaign…brilliant, but how could we be surprised about anything involving the one and only Manny?  The amazing thing - he didn’t have a clue about the marketing campaign.
• FoxSports Ken Rosenthal takes a look at the wide open NL East race between the Mets and Phillies.
• Baseball Analysts’ Sky Andrecheck penned a great article entitled “How Not to Price Your Tickets - A Look at the New Yankee Stadium”.
• Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter is now managing the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League.  He’s started his own blog.

And I can’t help but stray off the topic just a little bit.  I’m going to assume many of you have had your attention rapt by the amazing Celtics/Bulls series…As usual, you have to catch up with Bill Simmons’ thoughts on the series.  Needless to say, he has many…