Previewing The Rotation

Pitching Wins Championships! We always had a crappy defense, usually a crappy pitching staff and generally always had a decent to deep offense. A few years back we upgraded our defense at mid season, but it still wasn't great like last years was. We had the usual deadly offense and we had something unaccustomed to Sox fans, a deep pitching staff. In the end we ended up as World Champions for the first time in 86 years and what do they do... rebuild around a defense.

That ship has sailed and the defense has been downgraded to build back up the offense. The 2007 defense wont be as good as last season, but it wont be as bad as some we have seen at Fenway, were looking at a middle-of-the-pack defense this season. We will have a much improved offense perhaps even better then 2003-04. And the major improvement will be the pitching staff.

Not much has changed in the rotation this year, one big name was added in Daisuke Matsuzaka. Another is coming off a transition year from the NL to the AL while another is in an always productive contract year.

Meet your 2007 Boston Red Sox starting pitchers:

Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Wakefield, Julian Tavarez and Jon Lester. Also sitting around in the bullpen and the minors waiting to step in if needed are Kyle Snyder, Devern Hansack, Kason Gabbard, David Pauley and Joel Piniero and waiting at home Roger Clemens.

The rotation just 10 days ago looked even deadlier with Jonathan Papelbon in it, but he has since been sent back to the closer role.

So how will the starters do this season? Well Bill James and PECOTA have some mixed results.

First Bill James projections are;

Curt Schilling: 12-8 with a 3.50 era and 5.9 k/bb ratio.
Josh Beckett: 13-10 with a 3.68 era and 2.55 k/bb ratio.
*Daisuke Matsuzaka: 15-10 with a 3.55 era
Tim Wakefield: 8-8 with a 4.14 era and 1.96 k/bb ratio.
Jon Lester: 4-5 with a 1.80 k/bb ratio.
^Julian Tavarez: 4.56 era with a 1.39 k/bb ratio.

* Matsuzaka signed after the James Handbook was released and his predictions are an average of many predictions courtesy of YF vs SF.

^ Tavarez was slated as a reliever when the handbook was released and wasn't projected with a W-L record.

PECOTA projections are;

Schilling: 13-9 with a 4.02 era and 4.24 k/bb ratio.
Beckett: 11-10 with a 4.47 era and 2.27 k/bb ratio.
Matsuzaka: 12-9 with a 4.01 era and 3.18 k/bb ratio.
Wakefield: 9-9 with a 4.77 era and 1.69 k/bb ratio.
Lester: 6-7 with a 5.20 era and 1.64 k/bb ratio.
Tavarez: 5.05 era and 1.72 k/bb ratio.

And finally my possibly over kill predictions, but that's better then these ridiculous projections above.

Schilling: 16-9 with a 3.65 era
Beckett: 21-7 with a 3.25 era
Matsuzaka: 17-8 with a 2.45 era
Wakefield: 13-9 with a 4.45 era
Lester: 10-5 with a 4.50 era
Tavarez: 7-9 with a 4.89 era