Major League Baseball starts in earnest today. As longtime readers of this blog are aware, I am a diehard Red Sox fan. They are playing in what everyone acknowledges to be the toughest division in baseball, with three teams -- the Sox, Rays and Yankees -- fully capable of winning a World Series this year.
What will be odd, this time around, is that during this offseason the Red Sox did something really, really astonishing -- they followed a lot of the unsolicited recommendations I made 3 1/2 months ago (just to be clear, I'm arguing coincidence and not causation here).
Still, this raises an existential question as a fan -- what happens if your team does almost exactly what you recommend they do, but they don't win? Who can you blame then?
[Um, what if they do win?--ed. I'm a Red Sox fan. Times have changed, but I can still go to the dark place.]
Both the Hardball Times and Baseball Prospectus like these movies, so I'm hardly alone here. When comparing the Red Sox to the Yankees and Rays, what strikes me about the Sox is the (on paper) relative strength of their bullpen, bench, and farm system. Over a 162 game season, that has to count for something.
Of course, no matter what Moneyball says, you don't play games on paper. Play ball!!
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