I think what worries me about Casas is that he's a generally outgoing dude, and yesterday he just looked utterly defeated after his last at bat. Hopefully he can break the funk soon and get back on track.
What does 2023 look like?
- Thread starter moondog80
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You're sort of pivoting this down into nothing.
Benintendi had what is increasingly looking like a career year outlier in 2018 with 4.8 WAR. So he's not your young core of 5 WAR-level talent.
They had Devers through 2024. He had his outlier year in 2019. He may achieve 5 WAR again (and came close in 2022).
They had Bogaerts through 2019, who was a FA in 2020 (whom they extended). He had an excellent 2018 and 2019.
They had Betts through 2020, who was a legitimate premier player, and who said he was going to test the FA market many times.
And none of them could pitch.
This is, frankly, retro-active fantasy talk. They weren't going to tear-down and punt after 2018, no matter how short the window was.
If the team hadn't crashed and burned in 2019, there might have been more action to go along with the Xander extension and the Sale extension. But it did - and the writing was on the wall as far as the future at that point.
Looking forward from that point, Price and Sale were making $62M a year.
It sort of depends what they do at the deadline. If they’re 1 or 2 games below .500 and in 5th place in their division, it’s gonna be interesting to see what Bloom does. Pretty sure he’d love to unload Kiké, Arroyo, Duvall and any others with some value to continue to stock the farm. But I’m not sure where they have to be for him to go into full-on sell mode.
Not really sure what we are arguing anymore, but the ‘19 Red Sox had a 26 year old SP who won 19 games and put up 5.5 WAR and was under contract for two more years. They also had a 30 year old Chris Sale, and a 29 year old Nathan Eovaldi. That’s not a terrible core. The idea that the 19 team crashed and burned may be the narrative, but they were an 87 pythag win team that underperformed by 3 wins (the 21 team was an 88 win team that went +5. Interesting how differently that similar teams are perceived). The weird 2020 season makes this all kind of hard to figure too; wonder how that team is built and performs in a real, normal season. What happened with AB and Edro since then makes it hard to tenement what they seemed like they were gonna be right before.
I think the Sox mistake was always signing David Price. Flags fly forever, I know, but I don’t think they really needed him and he wasn’t really a great fit for a lot of reasons.
Alas, on to 2023…
I think the Sox mistake was always signing David Price. Flags fly forever, I know, but I don’t think they really needed him and he wasn’t really a great fit for a lot of reasons.
Alas, on to 2023…
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The rest of the rotation in Price's first year was CY Rick Porcello, Eduardo Rodriguez, Steven Wright, Clay Buchholz (banished to the pen to make room for...), and Drew Pomeranz. Price effectively replaced Wade Miley of the "he's the ace" rotation the year before. So at the time, Price certainly fit a need. And had he not broken down in 2017, there's a chance that team makes a deep push in the post-season and maybe we're talking back to back titles. I think his body betraying him is what makes that signing look bad, not that they didn't really need him.
David Price was 46-24 in Boston despite losing much of two whole years to injuries. In the two non-injured years he went 17-9 and 16-7 with an ERA+ around 118 or so. I'd knife a hobo if we could sign a pitcher than could win 17 games his first season here.
There was zero mistake in signing Price assuming that the goal was to win and won a lot. That's exactly what happened. And the guy played a huge part in winning a WS title including winning 2 WS games.
You can argue about the money or the length of the deal but ON THE FIELD he was an excellent addition. He was here four years and really only healthy for two of them but still won more games in a Sox uniform than Sale has yet.
There was zero mistake in signing Price assuming that the goal was to win and won a lot. That's exactly what happened. And the guy played a huge part in winning a WS title including winning 2 WS games.
You can argue about the money or the length of the deal but ON THE FIELD he was an excellent addition. He was here four years and really only healthy for two of them but still won more games in a Sox uniform than Sale has yet.
I had forgotten how bad that 15 rotation was. SP certainly was a need; that Price deal was top of market but I guess at the time he was a durable, Yankee killer which is easy to forget. Personality wise, not sure he was a great match for the market and was less needed once they landed Sale
So yeah, guess I’m probably misremembering this one.
So yeah, guess I’m probably misremembering this one.
Counting down from 3 to when Jon Abbey appears to show how Price was garbage against the MFY’s
I do love doing that but am too lazy to research it currently. Price pitched great down the stretch in 2015 for TOR against NY but he was indeed horrific against NY for BOS, when he wasn’t begging out of series against them before being magically healed a few days later. I was sad when BOS traded him.
And if I might add, Price cost zero prospects at a time when most teams were opening trade talks with the names Betts and Bogaerts.
To add further, the free agent alternatives (next ten FA signings by total value of contract) were Zack Greinke, Johnny Cueto, Jordan Zimmermann, Jeff Samardzija, Wei-Yen Chen, Mike Leake, Ian Kennedy, Scott Kazmir, JA Happ, and John Lackey. Not a lot of "oh, we could have saved money and gotten him?" on that list.
Greinke's 6/$210m deal yielded 1000 innings of 125 ERA+ pitching, but I take your point.
And yet in the long run it did not matter one bit, since the Sox won the only postseason series between the two clubs when Price was here and the WS to boot thanks ti a huge series from Price, while the Yankees won bupkis.
The '19 team was substantially the same roster as the '18 team that won 108 games. I'm not sure how an increase of 180 runs allowed can be described as anything other than a crash and burn.
Appreciate YTF and RedHawks with the non-revisionist history, I do recall at the time that it seemed like the clear path forward. He didn't seem like he was about to fall off a cliff after an incredible 2015 season. And he didn't fall off a cliff (103 games for Boston, 115 ERA+). He just downshifted to something less spectacular. And he didn't like our TV guy.
I do recall thinking Johnny Cueto might be better value, and I would have been right, for about one year. But part of Price's value was tied to his AL East experience. This may have been the deal the team pointed to when they traded Mookie, but the Sale deal was a much worse idea at the time it happened.
I think half those runs were given up in that ridiculous London series.
Season really came down to the front of the rotation- Sale / Price / Porcello - who were all between 30-33- went from 525 innings at 3.39 era in 18 to 429 innings at a 4.83 era in 19.
The whole org half-assed that season from the get go, didn’t really take ST seriously, and acted as if they’d just turn it in when they needed to- and never did. So maybe they did crash and burn but it was still an insanely talented roster (as you point out, the same form the record setting championship team) and the error was probably being complacent and running back the same squad.
It was a lousy performance compared to the us and 2018, but from a run differential POV, though, the 18 and 21 squads were pretty damn similar but are viewed so differently. Something to be said for expectations going into a season, I guess!
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And there you have it, when your $60M rotation is heavily dinged, and looks to be so going into the future, the club's upside is limited. Options to fix such a situation are also limited, especially when you have a barren upper farm system. You can't just spend another $60M on FA starters who might also be dinged. One thing you could do is to trade a pending FA, staple one of those pitching contracts to them, and so clear the books. You'd probably also want to hire a GM to restock the farm, so you're not always at the mercy of the FA market. If you do it right, you might even be competitive until your new core emerges, and have an eye toward extending current players that look to be worth the long term commitment.
Fortunately, we are in a much better position today. Whitlock is already a plus pitcher, Crawford has looked good when healthy, and the sky is the limit for Bello. Now, if someone has the guts to jettison Kluber from the rotation, we could be really cooking!
This thread covers a lot of ground, but I think it's a place we are evaluating Bloom - my issue with the guy has been that I don't get his team construction at all. I don't understand why the 2021 Red Sox paid Garrett Richards 10M and Ottavino 9M while parading out IMO slop at 2B all year and a questionable 1B which he then fixed with Schwarber. I don't get giving a closer 16 a year and a middle reliever 7 a year when you're playing what they are in places in the lineup.
I think there's been too much comfort in the Bloom era to put black holes in the lineup and try to be cute with pitching like the above, like a weird cute contract for Paxton, etc... I don't blame the guy for the budget he's stuck with, and say picking Story over Xander (not 1 for 1, but the idea of it) - it's a judgement call, doesn't look great, but it's a judgement call. To use a Parcells reference, I feel like the guy picking the groceries is picking produce when there's a need for protein (or pick your food group) - I just can't see spending up on relief pitching or vulnerable pitchers when you've got weakness in your lineup like this team has had under Bloom.
I think there's been too much comfort in the Bloom era to put black holes in the lineup and try to be cute with pitching like the above, like a weird cute contract for Paxton, etc... I don't blame the guy for the budget he's stuck with, and say picking Story over Xander (not 1 for 1, but the idea of it) - it's a judgement call, doesn't look great, but it's a judgement call. To use a Parcells reference, I feel like the guy picking the groceries is picking produce when there's a need for protein (or pick your food group) - I just can't see spending up on relief pitching or vulnerable pitchers when you've got weakness in your lineup like this team has had under Bloom.
Well all along my belief has been that they were treading water from 2020 until now, avoiding long term commitments and looking for value. This year they are starting to put guys in position for a run, although even Kenley's contract is 2 years and not a long term commitment. Devers, Story and Yoshida are the only long-range signings, and they're loading up on guys with service time everywhere else. They just can't come out and say that they are rebuilding, because people don't have the patience for it.
Doesn’t matter what they label it. People are going to tune out if they stink while not having any young upcoming stars. At least in 2015 we had Mookie to dream on. We have no one like that now.
2015 was Mookie's first full season in the bigs, we don't know what Casas and Bello will bring this season.
The FA (and trade) market is not filled with infinite variety and fungibility - also, even if you identify a player that's a good fit, they may just not want to play for Boston, or the team that controls them may just not want to trade that player to Boston. So it's not like you can just pick an ideal player off the rack.
Bloom's signings (and trades) are a mixed bag. But as to the two you brought up, the Sox got 62 credible innings out of Ottavino, many of which stabilized the bullpen after Barnes hit a wall in August, plus a very good post-season showing. They also picked up German with him, and although they didn't keep him, when acquired, he had a decent chance to be a contributor out of the pen in later years.
As to Richards, it was really a gamble on him staying healthy (which he did). He got derailed by the sticky ban on June 21, but found some effectiveness as a reliever later in the season.
As to Dalbec. . .come on man. He OPSd .959 in 92 PAs in 2020. There may have been a hue and cry to trade him in the off-season (I do not recall), but you do have to give a player like that a chance at some point. So he was the starting 1B in 2021. His backup was Santana. (And there, ya got me.) But you're generally not going to get a 1B who has an average ML stick willing to take a bench role.
FTFY. (And I'm not entirely joking - his call-up in 2014 was tremendous.)
JBJ though. . .that guy had hit his way out of the major leagues in 2014, and we for sure weren't going to be seeing much more of him. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=bradlja02&year=2014&t=b#all_month
Devers? Casas? Bello? Rafaela?
Let's keep in mind that Mookie wasn't even MOOKIE in 2014. He made a leap during that season to become the guy we were all stoked on in early 2015. Someone we're not even paying attention to right now could make a leap like that and we wouldn't know it was coming.
SoxProspects summation of Mookie in April 2014: "Plus speed. Ability to impact a game with his legs. Compact, level swing. Fluid load. Solid-average hit tool. Solid overall approach for someone his age, works counts, and isn’t overly aggressive. Plus strike zone judgment. Potential to produce high levels of contact as he continues to develop. Below-average power potential. Small-framed and lean. Solid-average-to-better arm. Fluid and smooth actions defensively. Soft hands. Former shortstop learning how to play second base as a professional. Tends to stay back on balls rather than charge. Defensive skills and instincts to transition quickly to second base. Plus defensive potential."
SoxProspects summation of Mookie in April 2015 (after he'd graduated to the bigs): "Potential role 7 player; frequent all-star, impact player. Top-of-the-order profile with potential to hit .300 with 15+ home runs and 30+ steals in his peak with plus defense in either the outfield or at second base. One of the top young players in all of baseball. Elite makeup and work ethic. Gets the most of out of what he has and never takes a play off. Franchise cornerstone type of player."
Quite a difference a year makes.
YMMV on those guys (obviously Devers is a star).
And you kind of made my point on Mookie, because I said 2015. 2014 gave us ~200 PAs to dream on, and 2015 solidified that. If Casas had 200 similar PAs last year, then I'd be dreaming on him too (although the defense is a difference). Similar if Bello had 50-70 IP in the majors last year. Etc.
So it's just a matter of timing, then? I think you're asking for a unicorn. My point is that that unicorn might just as easily appear in August as April.
For what it's worth, Bello did have 57 innings last year.
The bolded part doesn't get nearly enough consideration when dissecting the 2019 Boston Red Sox season. Championship hangovers are a real thing, and IIRC Cora limited the spring training innings for the starters that March.
Last year, Casas had about half of that (95 PAs) with a .358 OBP and a 113 OPS+. Bello had 57 IP with a 2.94 FIP. Both of them were only 22 years old. How does that not get you excited?
Speed (7 steals), defense, 126 OPS+, showed some pop (18 XBH in 189 ABs)
It's not a matter of timing, it's a matter of producing / showing real potential. I said if Bello had a comparable 50-70 innings. He didn't. He had a 90 ERA+ and a 1.779 WHIP. He K'd less than a batter an inning and only had a 2:1 K:BB. And Casas hit .197.
I'm glad you aren't a baseball executive.
Bello had one of the most unlucky 50 innings you will ever see a pitcher have. It was in a different stratosphere of bad luck. It started to regress and the results followed towards the end of the year. If you don't think he showed real potential then - flat out - you know nothing about the sport of baseball. I think more likely you are just trying to be contrarian.
I'm really not trying to be contrarian. In the days of record strikeouts, he was at less than 1 per inning. I'm hopeful that he becomes great, but I'm not confident in it.
I want to be excited about the Red Sox. Truly. They haven't made it easy to be.
I hear ya. There isn't a player on this team that someone hasn't found at least one metric that "proves" they're better than they appear.
At some point pitchers need to get people out, and batter need to get hits.
Trade Bello and Houck for Paxton or Pivetta as starters and you've got something. Give up Bello, Crawford, Whitlock and Houck and you've got nothing. Something to ponder.
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Setting the bar unrealistically high on this one for a guy who was yanked from the minors before he was ready to hit the pros. Heck, that's expecting a bit much from most any rookie.
Couple of more minor reasons for guarded optimism:
The Sox this year have played the third toughest schedule in baseball thus far (not counting today's game) with a strength of schedule of .565. The only teams who have had it harder so far are Milwaukee and San Diego. The next closest division rival is the Yankees at .498.
The Sox are currently 7th on ESPN's Relative Power Index, which considers team's winning percentage, opponents' winning percentage, and opponents' opponents' winning percentage. While not a perfect metric, RPI does do a decent job of highlighting team performance in the context of strength of schedule. The Rays are 2nd, Yankees 9th, Jays 14th and Orioles 17th. This also doesn't count today's game.
The only losing team the Red Sox have played so far is the Tigers, who are 3rd in the central. Getting swept by the Pirates sure felt bad, but they are currently 12-7
The Sox this year have played the third toughest schedule in baseball thus far (not counting today's game) with a strength of schedule of .565. The only teams who have had it harder so far are Milwaukee and San Diego. The next closest division rival is the Yankees at .498.
The Sox are currently 7th on ESPN's Relative Power Index, which considers team's winning percentage, opponents' winning percentage, and opponents' opponents' winning percentage. While not a perfect metric, RPI does do a decent job of highlighting team performance in the context of strength of schedule. The Rays are 2nd, Yankees 9th, Jays 14th and Orioles 17th. This also doesn't count today's game.
The only losing team the Red Sox have played so far is the Tigers, who are 3rd in the central. Getting swept by the Pirates sure felt bad, but they are currently 12-7
That's not exactly a fair statement. The Pirates may or may not be a playoff team, but their record tells you that they're playing good baseball right now. But, yeah, I agree that trying to judge a team based on a "power index" is a fool's errand, because games aren't played on paper. That's my broader critique of analytics. I believe FIP is a poor indicator of anything, because it doesn't take into account important things, like barrel percentage and BA against with runners in scoring position. It's just some untestable hypothetical measure. You'll never know if it accurately measures how many runs per game a pitcher would give up if no balls were put in play, because that's never going to happen.
FWIW, I didn’t mention or say anything pertaining to the teams played and how is it not a fair statement when you describe the exercise as a fool's errand?
Bello, Whitlock, Crawford and Houck are all under control for another 5 years. That’s the biggest positive right now. Bloom’s pitcher development program is working, even if all 5 don’t meet their potential. Guys like Walter, Mata and now Drohan are also close to the majors.
I'll add, they have played six series so far. They were swept in two and won the other four. The Rays sweep is probably their offensive floor, facing the best pitching with (hopefully) the worst version of their lineup in terms of guys missing and/or just ice cold. The Pirates series felt weird. Obviously the winning series are equally SSS, but the players and Cora speak frequently in terms of winning series as a way to confirm that they are competing. Well, they are competing.
I stated that using a power index is a fool's errand, but judging teams based on their record is a valid point. Specifically, I mentioned that the Pirates' record "tells you that they're playing good baseball right now."
Your original point was that, " IMOH, this is all pretty useless 20 games into a 162 game season." Maybe "all" was hyperbolic, but the original poster first stated that, "The Sox this year have played the third toughest schedule in baseball thus far (not counting today's game) with a strength of schedule of .565. The only teams who have had it harder so far are Milwaukee and San Diego. The next closest division rival is the Yankees at .498." Later on he said, "The only losing team the Red Sox have played so far is the Tigers, who are 3rd in the central. Getting swept by the Pirates sure felt bad, but they are currently 12-7."
This is the part of the original point with which I agree, and I do believe that it's not fair to ignore strength of schedule when evaluating team performance.
What I referred to as a fool's task is trying to rank teams according to some convoluted formula. Doing so yield a false degree of precision that one should simply ignore (or at least take with a ton of salt).
I'm not sure this is retro-active fantasy talk. Betts is a generational talent and his FA was looming. Sale was coming off an injured season and had one year left on his contract. I didn't like the extension at the time, and I think many folks were with me. Passing on extending Sale in anticipation of saving dough to do everything you can to extend Betts would have been a reasonable and obvious potential choice even during the 18-19 off season. Indeed, Betts may still have left, but the team strained the possibility of keeping him by extending an injured pitcher rounding 30.
At this point of the season it's akin to accessing the toughest schedule played to date when you're 2 games into a 16 game NFL schedule. Can you do it? Sure. Does it mean anything with nearly 90% of the schedule remaining, not really.
Sure, insofar as any analysis is useless 20 games into a season I agree with you. All we have to deal with now are small sample sizes, but that's not stopping plenty of people from coming to conclusions about how the rest of the year is going to go. I don't think it's super meaningful, but I don't think it's completely useless either. Hence why I couched it as a "minor reason for guarded optimism." If even that is too strong a take then I think we should really all just take a break for a few months and stick to gamesthreading and news posts.
"Relative Power Index" is a pretty dumb name, but I think it's arguably a better indicator than actual won-loss record at this point in the season. Over the course of a year, the difference in strength of schedule between teams largely evens out. The weakest strength of schedule is maybe somewhere in the .480 range while the strongest is maybe in the .520 range. Most teams are within .1 of .500. I suspect that will be even more true with the less imbalanced schedule. However, at this point in the season there is a LOT more variance in strength of schedule. The Padres opponents' thus far have played .591 ball, whereas the Guardians have played .423. The Guardians are 10 and 9 but the Padres are 9 and 11. Personally, I'd put a lot more weight on the Padres' RPI of .557 than the Guardian's 10-9 record. Even if I knew nothing about the two teams' rosters I'd put my money on the Padres outperforming the Guardians over the course of the season based on this information. Of course it's better to have more information, but RPI is a pretty good way of rolling a team's winning percentage and strength of schedule into one stat.
As to your larger criticism of analytics, I can't say that I agree at all and I think you are fundamentally misrepresenting how a stat like FIP should be used.
Statistics are useful if they are predictive, and they aren't necessarily only going to predict exactly what they are measuring. The relevant question isn't whether we can predict how a pitcher will do absent of balls in play, but rather if FIP is more predictive of overall pitcher performance than whatever other stat.
Every stat is flawed. Some stats are more flawed than others. Back in the day we looked at BA and counting stats for hitters and W/L and maybe ERA for pitchers. Then we moved on to OPS and things like K/9, etc. Now we've got wRC, wOBA, FIP, SIERA, WAR etc. along with statcast stats like the barrel % you cite, xwOBA and xwOBACON. The question that matters is whether a given stat is better at predicting than another. No stat is going to be a crystal ball, especially not with a small sample size.
For example, you cite BA against with RISP. Would I rather have that stat than nothing? Yes. Would I rather have xwOBA against with RISP? Also yes. Of course these need to be taken with a grain of salt as it's going to take a pitcher a LOT longer to get a meaningful sample size for either of those stats than something that can be measured every plate appearance like FIP.
At the end of the day, even a poor indicator is better than a pooerer (or no) indicator. If you put a gun to my head and asked me to pick a pitcher with an ERA of 2 and a FIP of 10 vs a pitcher with a FIP of 2 and an ERA of 10 with no other information, I'd pick the second guy.
Good analytics is going to take into account as much data as possible. Maybe the Sox analytics teams look at FIP, maybe they don't. One thing that I'm confident in though is that whatever they are doing is more advanced than what most if not all folks on this board are doing. Will they be right all the time? No. But I'd trust sophisticated analytics over some random guy's gut any day.