A Look at Roy Oswalt

Pretty much everyone including your intrepid correspondent is predicting that the Sox are preparing a major push to acquire RHP Roy Oswalt. It seems that the general consensus is that this would be a wise acquisition benefitting the Sox but is that the case?Let’s look at the positives and negatives that Roy Oswalt would bring to the Boston Red Sox;PositivesOswalt is simply put a very good pitcher. In over 2,100 career innings he has an ERA+ of 133. To put that into perspective among pitchers with 2,000 or more innings by age 33 Oswalt is 17th all time, just behind Whitey Ford and ahead of Jim Palmer in that category. Everyone ahead of him on the list is or will be in the Hall of Fame.Oswalt is a strike thrower whose walk rate has consistently hovered around his career mark of 5.6% throughout his career. There is nothing especially notable about his ground ball/fly ball splits other than the fact that he doesn’t really have a meaningful split. That percentage has tilted a bit ...