Athleticism on the Sox

Fellow Fire Brand writer Mike Edelman penned an article on his personal Red Sox website about the Red Sox changing the way they play baseball a bit. As Edelman says: “Last year, Red Sox stolen base attempts went up from 57 in 2005 to 74 in 2006. Red Sox sacrifice attempts went up from 21 in 2005 to 33 in 2006 and the runners Francona set in motion went up from 79 in 2005 to 95 in 2006. Both of those former numbers were highs for the Red Sox for as far back as I can trace.”
Interesting.
A closer examination of the 2006 lineup in terms of sacrifice hits and flies (not attempts) and stolen bases shows the following (players with at least 100 AB on the Red Sox last year):

Just as a note, Coco Crisp posted the highest stolen base totals of his career he has ever posted, and he did this in only 413 AB! If he had gotten the 594 AB he received last year as an Indian, he would have gotten a projected 32 SB.The Red Sox got rid of Mark Loretta (2 SH, 5 SF, 4 SB), Alex Gonzalez (7 SH, 7 SF, 1 SB), Trot Nixon (0 SH, 5 SF, 0 SB) and Gabe Kapler (0 SH, 0 SF, 1 SB). Who did the Red Sox bring in?

To me, it’s obvious that the dynamics of the Red Sox are changing for a reason this off-season. In recent years, the Red Sox have been known as slow, plodding hitters who take walks and hit home runs. That’s still the gist of it, but here’s the season totals from 2003 through 2006 that show a small shift in thinking:

Here we see three specific things.
First and foremost: The batting average dropped. Why? Because of the Johnny Damon to Coco Crisp switch and Jason Varitek dropping off a cliff. The power also took a nosedive, because Trot Nixon failed to post a slugging percentage over .400.
The other interesting thing is the stolen bases. Johnny Damon stole 30 bases in 2003, and that took a nosedive in 2004 and Jason Varitek padded the statistics with 10 swipes. Another nosedive occured again in 2005 when the Sox were truly station to station and Damon led the Sox with 18 SB and a solid one caught stealing. (For the record, he went 25/10 this past year, lending further credence to the fact that the Red Sox are geniuses when it comes to knowing when to steal bases or not. It comes as no accident, I think, that the last time his CS was higher than eight was when he was with Oakland in 2002.)
Speed was looked at a bit more closely last year, and Coco Crisp led the way, seconded by Alex Cora and Willie Harris at six apiece, but Crisp was really the only burner. It was clear the Red Sox need to expand their one-dimensional team to at least two-dimensional. It has long been known to statisticians that the best way to score runs is to get on base (walks) and hit home-runs, or at the very least, extra base hits. Speed has gone by the wayside, and it shouldn’t. Take it from a former baseball player at the high-school level. I pitched, I played second base, I played right field, and I stole bases.
Back on April 28th, when Fire Brand was debating the merits of Kevin Youkilis or Coco Crisp leading off, I referenced Charles Euchner’s The Last Nine Innings, in which this quote was found:

Texas A&M