Don't, Don't, Don't Believe The Hype

Daiskue Matsuzaka is going to win 18 games? LL Cool J is going back to Cali? To quote Uncle L, future of the funk: "I don't think so." I heard about this poll listed over on the Red Sox official team site. It asks the question: How many games will Daisuke Matsuzaka win this season? You could select from: 20 or more, 18-19, 16-17, 14-15, 13 or fewer. After 15617 votes, the results are:
20+ = 4193 votes (27%)
18-19 = 3824 votes (24%)
16-17 = 5089 votes (33%)
14-15 = 1806 votes (12%)
13- = 705 votes (5%)
Wow. That's a lot of faith in a guy that's never thrown a pitch in MLB. More than half of the voters think he's winning at least 18 games. That's astonishing. But as we've seen in the past with polls, Red Sox fans shoot for the moon and often don't see eye-to-eye with the rest of the baseball world. Case in point. ESPN ran a poll in November asking people to vote for who they thought was the AL MVP. I know what you're saying, "But J-Boog, I didn't see that poll. How would I know what the results were?" Fear not my friends, I'm your hook-up. I'd be happy to recap it for you, so you don't have to read the blog I wrote back then. But if you want to, click here.
After 200,000 votes were cast, these were the results:
Derek Jeter 39%
Joe Mauer 12%
Justin Morneau 16%
David Ortiz 24%
Johan Santana 9%
That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone as we all know who the real MVP was. But the interesting part of the poll was the results by state/region. David Ortiz was the top-vote getter in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, or the area more commonly referred to as New England. This is what I wrote back then:
Now Ortiz wasn't the only one to win the states in his "home area." Justin Morneau was far and away winning in Minnesota. He was also leading in the Dakotas, and in Iowa, all of which border Minnesota. Jeter winning in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. No surprises there. Another thing that didn't surprise me, but may surprise some, is that Derek Jeter was the leading vote-getter in every other state. Based on that, I think it's safe to assume that the majority of baseball fans see Jeter as the MVP, not just we Yankee fans. I'm interested to hear Sox fans explain that one, as they appear to be the ones that disagree. Well to be fair, so do Twins fans.
It was evident then, as it's evident now, that Sox fans see things entirely different than the rest of the world. I'd be interested to see this poll administered somewhere other than on the Red Sox team site, so I could further illustrate my point. Somebody get on that. And if it's already out there, let me know.
I did find a poll listed on ESPN that lends some credence to my point. 9 questions were asked about the Matsuzaka signing. 83,542 votes were cast. Here's some results:
73% of voters felt the $51.1 million posting fee was too much. I agree.
52.9% of voters felt Matsuzaka would do worse than his career average ERA against MLB hitters, only 8.1% thought he'd do better
37.9% of the voters thought the Sox would win the wild card, 14.8% thought they'd win the AL East, and 20.4% thought they'd miss the playoffs
Matsuzaka was thought to be the team's 3rd best starter behind Papelbon and Schilling
That do me doesn't make him sound like people think he's going to be an 18 game winner. He's not even thought of as the team's best starter. 92% of people think his ERA will be worse here than in Japan. And 51% of voters think he'll win 18+ games? Come on Sox fans! You're smarter than that. Right? No? Well at least the majority of you maybe? The peanut gallery is shaking their heads. Tough crowd. It's obvious that Sox fans have bought into the hype. The expectations are high. My question is, what is going to happen if he only wins 15 games? Boston is a tough place to play and it's not being made any easier for him to succeed with all of the media coverage and expectations people have for him. In my opinion, he's being set up to fail.
And for those wondering, I voted for 14-15 as I think he has 14 wins in him. 15 tops.
It's a long fly ball to deep center field. It's outta here.
J-Boog