Perspective

uk_sox_fan

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Nov 11, 2006
1,273
London, England
Since the All-Star Break the Sox have played uninspiring ball. They salvaged a 4-4 homestand against NY and Toronto and just completed an anemic West Coast swing through Anaheim and Seattle at 2-4. They've scored 48 runs (3.10 runs/9inn) and allowed 50 (3.18 runs/9inn) and all this came on the heels of losing 4 of 5 before the break.

So they're done? they're crap? they're the worst 1st place team ever, etc. etc.? Well, no, they're not. Fangraphs' algorithms http://www.fangraphs.com/coolstandings.aspx?type=2&lg=div&date=2017-07-26 have them as them 93.6% likely to make the playoffs, 44.5% likely to play in the ALCS, 23.8% likely to make the WS and 12.9% likely to win it. That's better in all categories than they were expected to be in the pre-season, at the end of April, end of May and end of June.

Even compared to their expectations at the ASB before their 6-8 run in the past 2 weeks they've improved their odds of making the latter stages of the playoffs and of winning it all (see below table showing changes in FG's projected playoff odds from July 9 to today). In fact, only the Cubs, with their 10-2 post-ASB start, have increased their chances of playing in and winning the WS more than the Sox have in that time! Somehow the Dodgers, while still the favorites, have lowered expectations despite their own 10-2 run.

Fangraphs uses their own RoS projections of roster performance to influence their model. I doubt the addition of Eduardo Nunez has swayed the algorithm, but the health of the starting 5 and the favorable home schedule remaining certainly has.

So don't give up on this team - they've got almost a 50% chance to play in the ALCS this year for the first time since 2013. If they get there, they have a 29.0% implied chance of winning another Championship, which is 3rd highest chance of winning the LCS+WS given a team's made the LCS to the Dodgers (31.2%) and Indians (30.5%) and ahead of the Astros (28.3%) and Nationals (26.8%). The season's still alive. The bats will return and the rotation is the most solid we've had 1-5 since...you tell me! And as much as people like to talk down the value of a lights-out closer in the regular season, one common theme between the 2004, 2007 and 2013 has been a lights-out closer. The future looks bright.

perspective.jpg
 

Larry Gardner

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Sep 8, 2003
216
Nashville, TN
Thanks for posting this. I don't post much, but follow and lurk a lot.

I'm not doomsday, and feel that they still can be in the hunt and the playoffs, but it's just really, really difficult to watch this team every night. Kind of reminds me of watching Damon Buford, Darren Lewis, Donnie Sadler, Darren Bragg back in about '98 or so....but at least they had Nomah and Mo mashing back then. Just too many guys who are streaky, and then cold all at the same time.

When was the last time that "Two Bags" had a meaningful hit, or didn't strike out with men on base (and a SF yesterday doesn't get him out of it)? JBJ is either hot or cold-- nothing in between. And 10D is about the same way-- yes, he can go 5-5 with a couple of bombs, but then another 0-fer streak. Xander hurt and cold. Kept waiting for Brock Holt! to come back and he's not ready at the plate at all....y'all know that I can keep going and going here.

It just isn't any fun to watch these guys. I've had and keep DirecTV since '97 just to be able to catch NESN and the pre- and post-game interviews, and usually watch 150 or so games a year. It's tough to watch night after night, their inability to play up to their level of potential, and to continually listen to Dave O'Brien throw out stat after stat after stat.....would much rather hear about Wally.....(now Hanley has a 4-game hitting streak!! BFD!)

So Devers hopefully will be a long term solution at 3rd, and maybe we'll get an arm for the pen, but they'll still be an unexciting, and uninspiring team to watch. Thanks for letting me vent here.....
 

charlieoscar

Member
Sep 28, 2014
1,339
The Red Sox opponents (that they have played so far) have a combined .490 winning percentage (889-925) through 26 July. The two teams they have yet to play (CLE, CIN) have a combined .475 winning percentage (95-105).
 

streeter88

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Apr 2, 2006
1,807
Melbourne, Australia
Plus 34 of their remaining 59 games are at home.

I understand what Larry Gardner is saying, but there is a lot to like about this year's team.
  1. The pitching staff - starters, relievers, closers (I will stay stats-less for this post, but all three groups are top 5 in MLB). How can you not be excited about Sale and Kimbrel?
  2. The outfield - as exciting a trio as there has been since the 70s with Rice, Lynn and Evans. Every day there is a highlight reel catch or assist.
  3. Devers is an exciting prospect -- really looking forward to seeing him develop further.
  4. Pedroia has a highlight play every other game, and his OPS in July is .949. Hanley also getting hot.
  5. Catchers defense - pitch framing, SB prevention.
Yes, the offense is completely frustrating and long time Red Sox fans will miss the HRs. The death march extra innings games need to stop, and production with RISP seems terrible lately. And the front office moves thus far at the trade deadline are puzzling to say the least. Yankees and Rays GM running laps around D-Dom so far.

But I don't want to give up on this team either. In first place with 59 games to go is a pretty good place to be.
 

charlieoscar

Member
Sep 28, 2014
1,339
...But I don't want to give up on this team either. In first place with 59 games to go is a pretty good place to be.
As of this morning they have a half-game lead and are in a 7-12 stretch that includes one 2-game winning streak. As great as Sale has been, 13-4, he has been balanced by Porcello, 4-13. Indeed, if it weren't for Pomeranz, 10-4, and Barnes, 5-2. they would have a losing record. However...

Average run support is uneven; Pomeranz has the best, Porcello has the worst among the five primary starters. But if you look at the high and low ends of support by individual games you start to see why some pitchers may be doing better than others, record-wide.

This show them ranked by runs support, top to bottom, along with the number of starts when each received two or fewer runs or five or more runs in support (the average runs scored so far is 4.68 rpg in both leagues). It's evident that Pomeranz has benefited from good support while Porcello has suffered from lack thereof. Sale has had a number of games with poor support but he has pitched well enough to overcome a lot of that except for the two times his team was shut out.

2- 5+ Pitcher
-----------------
3 12 Pomeranz
7 10 Sale
2 5 Rodriguez
1 4 Price
11 9 Porcello
 

InsideTheParker

persists in error
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
40,371
Pioneer Valley
I can see arguments both optimistic and pessimistic and not be able to settle on one or the other. Last night the odious Michael Kay opined that the Kimbrel blown-save, 16-inning game was the "turning point" of the Sox season, and that they had been struggling ever since. But I'm not at all sure that the history of the season bears that out. It's more a matter of what pitcher the Sox were facing. Instead of focussing on what run support they are giving any of the Sox starters, it might be more profitable to look at the records of the pitchers they faced on those occasions they couldn't score runs, but I can't manage that. If anyone has those stats at their fingertips, I'd love to look at them.
 

charlieoscar

Member
Sep 28, 2014
1,339
...it might be more profitable to look at the records of the pitchers they faced on those occasions they couldn't score runs, but I can't manage that. If anyone has those stats at their fingertips, I'd love to look at them.
Instead of looking up the records of the pitchers the Red Sox have faced since their 16-inning loss, I looked up box scores on bb-ref for the Game Scores turned in by the starters in games 92 through 103:

Opponents Red Sox
------------------------------------
Sabathia W - 66 Porcello --- 52
Tanaka L - 60 Price ------ 76
Stroman (W) - 60 Rodriguez - (48)
Happ (L) - 49 Johnson ----(45)
Sanchez L - 31 Pomeranz --- 64
Liriano (W) - 33 Fister ----- 24
Nolasco L - 21 Sale ------- 71
Ramirez W - 57 Price ------ 33
Bridwell W - 61 Porcello --- 65
Paxton W - 79 Rodriguez -- 44
Hernandez (W) - 47 Pomeranz -- (50)
Moore ---- L - 48 Sale ------- 81

(letters or numbers) = relief pitcher got the decision


From 2000 through 2010, when the home team starter's Game Score ranged from 50 to 59, the home team won 61.7% of the games. When the visiting team's starter's GSc was 50-59, they won 55% of the time. [from some work I did with Project Scoresheet Game Logs a few years back]. Of the 12 games listed above, the first 6 were home games and the reamining 6 were road games.

With a little effort someone could pull the records of opponents' starters going into each game from bb-ref.

edit: well, it was all lined up nicely until I hit the button to post it.
 

streeter88

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Apr 2, 2006
1,807
Melbourne, Australia
Time for a bump to this thread.

When I woke up this morning (I live in Australia so I wake up at around 4:30pm EST), the Red Sox were just losing their fourth in a row, despite excellent pitching - again - from Doug Fister. CRAP!!!

And then I looked to the main board for some inspiration and saw.... nothing. Not a single post. It's as if the collective SOSH family has disowned the Red Sox, ceased to care, taken the night off, something.

The sky may indeed be falling for the Red Sox, and I am bracing for it a whole bunch of Fire Farrell and etc posts, but since this very short losing streak began, some truly bad things have happened in the world.
  1. It seems like the entire southern half of Texas is underwater from Hurricane Harvey. And Donald Trump is going there tomorrow to "help".
  2. Barcelona is still reeling from the most recent van attack. (reaching a bit on the timeline I know...)
  3. Kim Jong Un fired some more missiles, and demonstrated anew that bad things truly could truly happen if he wanted them to (never a good thing).
  4. There is open warfare in the US government, even within the Republican party. (The President vs. everyone else).
  5. Oh and more famine in Africa, viruses in Brazil, Alaska's permafrost is melting, etc. Not trying to be flippant about some very real, very scary crises going on the in the rest of the world.
In the sports world, there is a fair bit of bad news as well:
  1. The big trade (Irving for Thomas and others) seems to be about to unravel due to Thomas' health, which the Celtics insist they were upfront about.
  2. Julian Edelman is out for the season with torn ACL - from a stupid preseason game!! And apparently that is the tip of the iceberg for the NFL. Almost every contender has lost a key piece with the possible exception of the Steelers.
  3. And the Red Sox have lost 4 straight, looking absolutely dismal at the plate, and mostly completely failing to get anyone out from the Orioles, while Cleveland and MFY have smashed two weaker foes (KC and Seattle).
Despite all of these awful things happening, the Sox are still in first place, now by 2.5 games. And they are about to play Toronto for 3 games while the MFY play Cleveland. So, if the Sox can handle the last placed team in the AL East, the other two will beat each other up.

Maybe feel free to add more bad things that have happened, so we can get it all out of our system, and go back to cheering for what is still a pretty good team in first place in its division with only 32 games left. GO SOX!
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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SoSH Member
Mar 11, 2007
6,348
My house isn't underwater. Trees haven't fallen on the roof. Xander is heating up steadily and there's signs of life from Betts.
Get us the AL East and I'm still happy to go toe to toe with anyone- home field advantage or not
 

Redkluzu

tortures mice
SoSH Member
Dec 10, 2007
2,651
Bostonish...see Wiki for "ish"
Time for a bump to this thread.

When I woke up this morning (I live in Australia so I wake up at around 4:30pm EST), the Red Sox were just losing their fourth in a row, despite excellent pitching - again - from Doug Fister. CRAP!!!

And then I looked to the main board for some inspiration and saw.... nothing. Not a single post. It's as if the collective SOSH family has disowned the Red Sox, ceased to care, taken the night off, something.

The sky may indeed be falling for the Red Sox, and I am bracing for it a whole bunch of Fire Farrell and etc posts, but since this very short losing streak began, some truly bad things have happened in the world.
  1. It seems like the entire southern half of Texas is underwater from Hurricane Harvey. And Donald Trump is going there tomorrow to "help".
  2. Barcelona is still reeling from the most recent van attack. (reaching a bit on the timeline I know...)
  3. Kim Jong Un fired some more missiles, and demonstrated anew that bad things truly could truly happen if he wanted them to (never a good thing).
  4. There is open warfare in the US government, even within the Republican party. (The President vs. everyone else).
  5. Oh and more famine in Africa, viruses in Brazil, Alaska's permafrost is melting, etc. Not trying to be flippant about some very real, very scary crises going on the in the rest of the world.
In the sports world, there is a fair bit of bad news as well:
  1. The big trade (Irving for Thomas and others) seems to be about to unravel due to Thomas' health, which the Celtics insist they were upfront about.
  2. Julian Edelman is out for the season with torn ACL - from a stupid preseason game!! And apparently that is the tip of the iceberg for the NFL. Almost every contender has lost a key piece with the possible exception of the Steelers.
  3. And the Red Sox have lost 4 straight, looking absolutely dismal at the plate, and mostly completely failing to get anyone out from the Orioles, while Cleveland and MFY have smashed two weaker foes (KC and Seattle).
Despite all of these awful things happening, the Sox are still in first place, now by 2.5 games. And they are about to play Toronto for 3 games while the MFY play Cleveland. So, if the Sox can handle the last placed team in the AL East, the other two will beat each other up.

Maybe feel free to add more bad things that have happened, so we can get it all out of our system, and go back to cheering for what is still a pretty good team in first place in its division with only 32 games left. GO SOX!
I love every single thing you said, specially the point about, hey we're still in first place. Thank you for the reality check. My husband's family is in Houston and while I was bemoaning the loss today, some were dealing with 1 1/2 feet of water in their apartment.

Go Sox indeed.
 

BornToRun

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Jun 4, 2011
17,340
It's been exactly one month since this thread was posted, and the Sox went 17-10 during this time. Not bad at all.
And we're in first place with a multi game lead heading towards the final month of the season. Losing streaks happen and, despite this most recent one, the Sox are still in good shape.
 

reggiecleveland

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Mar 5, 2004
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Saskatoon Canada
I am skeptical. I am not sure it was reasonable to expect Devers and Nunez to carry to offense the rest of the year. The rest of the team are mostly just average offensive players all year.
 

MikeM

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May 27, 2010
3,051
Florida
I am skeptical. I am not sure it was reasonable to expect Devers and Nunez to carry to offense the rest of the year. The rest of the team are mostly just average offensive players all year.
Agreed, and reinforced by the fact that on the other hand it is completely reasonable at this point to project Nunez as having a decent chance to end the year leading this squad in full season OPS. Eduardo Nunez. A true testament to how much our dream big on the kids dynasty star has fallen since last year imo.

Plus I've been one of Hanley's strongest supporters here from day 1, but it's getting really hard for even me to look at his entire body of work post-2010 and convince myself that last year was anything more then an aging player's swan song season. Without that turn around the offense just isn't realistically good enough (imo) to reasonably expect anything more then another short playoff run. Even with Chris Sale taking the mound for us in one or more of those games.
 

dcmissle

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Aug 4, 2005
28,269
I love every single thing you said, specially the point about, hey we're still in first place. Thank you for the reality check. My husband's family is in Houston and while I was bemoaning the loss today, some were dealing with 1 1/2 feet of water in their apartment.

Go Sox indeed.
Everything he said is true. The rub is that sports are supposed to be a haven in which you feel better, not worse.

Maturity kicks in with the inevitable response -- nothing is promised to any of us; take the good with the bad.

But the last 4 days really have been a kick in the ass.
 

streeter88

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Apr 2, 2006
1,807
Melbourne, Australia
Everything he said is true. The rub is that sports are supposed to be a haven in which you feel better, not worse.

Maturity kicks in with the inevitable response -- nothing is promised to any of us; take the good with the bad.

But the last 4 days really have been a kick in the ass.
I may live to regret this, but even despite the kick in the ass of the past four days - which I agree absolutely sucked, especially coming at the hands of the shitty Showalters - I still feel better than I did at the end of July. And even though I really miss Big Papi, there are lots of players to like on this team, and there is I hope enough positive trending and resilience to get them going again.

Go Pom, Go Sale, Go Pork. Crush Em Craig. Go Nuney, Raffy, Two Bags, Hanley, Sandy, Vaz, Mookie, Young, Rajai, and Beni; and can the hitters please get an effing RISP hit....
 

Sampo Gida

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Aug 7, 2010
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The team got a boost from Nunez (now playing hurt) , Devers and Vazquez. You knew they would regress and so they have. Now we are back to basically the core that has been ao inconistentbon offense all year. Our run producer (hanley ) has 49 RBI in 460 PA. Completely unacceptable. Young has been awful all year. Moreland has been better but not really what you want offensively at 1B/DH.

The need for a power bat never went away . Nunez, Vazquez and Devers made us forget that reality for a couple of weeks, but the need is clearly back. Jays may let us forget for a few games but the Yankee series will probably drive it home again.

The team has half its payroll sunk into 4 players (hanley, pablo, porcello, price) and they have combined for 2.6 fWAR. Thats a big obstacle to overcome.
 

soxeast

New Member
Aug 12, 2017
206
I think the Home Run hitter is overrated. If they can get Pedroia and JBJ back, and have Price maybe pitch from the bullpen the Sox can play well enough. You have to be lucky to win and advance. Inevitably there is one series a team needs luck or super-human performances. I won't let that ruin my season though I won't lie, I want Farrell gone. I can't lose here. If he wins then my team wins too.

But as far as the home run hitter, imo the only reason why it's talked about is that guys like XB, Betts and Hanley have under-performed significantly at the plate. It's not that the SOx need a power hitter, as much as they need some of these three to hit better. And JBJ can't go into a huge funk. Though if you'd have told me that this year JBJ and Betts hitting would be near identical, I'd have called you crazy. If these guys could just perform more to the capabilites - even slightly less - the sox would be good enough to be very dangerous.

Potentially the Sox have two shutdown starters. And ERod and Pomz are wildcards with abilites and a string defense to support.