Red Sox ‘22 offense: offensively offensive

[soxhop411]

Who would have thought that going into the season it would be the Red Sox offense that has been terrible (and not the rotation or BP
How bad you ask:
Some stats after todays game
View: https://twitter.com/bostonsportsinf/status/1518322564308873219

Red Sox offense

Thru the first 16 games, have scored ≤ 4 runs a whopping 12 times

The most by a Red Sox team in 30 years

the offense has been putrid

The Red Sox have been held to four runs or fewer in each of their last seven games. They’ve gone 2-5 while scoring 2.3 runs per game in that stretch.

Overall in 2022, they rank 30th while seeing just 3.7 P/PA. They also rank 30th while chasing 32% of pitches outside the zone.

The Red Sox are averaging 3.5 runs per game, their second-lowest scoring average through 16 games this century. League context is that offense is down everywhere for multiple reasons, but … their offense is absent for huge swaths of most games. View: https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1518316219677519874

View: https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1518317255469289472

Red Sox’ first 5 PAs of the game: 4-for-5
Red Sox’ next 29 PAs: 2-for-28, BB

They lost to the Rays, 5-2.

View: https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1518316219677519874

 

[BaseballJones]

Runs scored, by game:

5, 2, 4, 1, 5, 9, 4, 4, 8, 3, 2, 1, 2, 4, 2, 2

To put them in a distribution:

1 run: 2 times
2 runs: 5 times
3 runs: 1 time
4 runs: 4 times
5 runs: 2 times
> 5 runs: 2 times

7 out of 16 games (44%) they've scored 1 or 2 runs. It really has been pathetic so far. I don't think the bats will forever stay silent but so far it's been very quiet.

 

[moondog80]

Casas and Duran in the lineup by Memorial Day?

 

[Mueller's Twin Grannies]

Kiké has had a cold start, as did X, though both have been better lately. Devers and Verdugo have been good, JBJ has surprised, and JDM has done alright when in the lineup. It's literally everybody else that's been the issue. Story got a bit of a pass because of COVID, but has been showing signs of breaking out. Vásquez has lived up to being a sub-.250 hitter with little power. Dalbec has completely regressed to pre-2021 levels of futility at the plate. Shaw is useless and would be even if he'd been awarded that HR the other night. And the rest of the bench has been meh.

Even still, that kind of success rate should be enough to score at least 5 runs a game, especially against back end of the rotation arms. The issue seems mostly to be lack of any consistency during a game. How many games have more than one player had more than one hit? How many have had hits in non-scoring situations vs. with RISP? How many have been been screwed by BABIP?

This team is probably a little better than their record to this point, but probably not much. If Bloom is serious about trying to contend this year, we should see some call-ups. If he's not, which is my suspicion, I think he's going to keep his blue chip prospects in the minors as long as possible until the rules change presents the incentive to have them make the big club next year.

I hate to say it, but I think this is a punt year for the Sox, by design. Whether assuming the lockout would last longer or just surveying the landscape and making a conservative estimate about the quality of the team put together, I think Bloom is honest about their chances this year and is also waiting to see what happens with X and Devers w/r/t extensions before deciding how much to commit to 2023 or beyond.

The question I have is how soon the team becomes true sellers and who will be available. Because they should be and it should be a lot of guys.

 

[Petagine in a Bottle]

Well, the depth guys (those who generally don’t start) are 7 for 62 with 1 xbh (Refsnyder’s double today). With JD out, one of those guys is in the lineup and an already not that deep lineup (with Enrique scuffling) is made shorter. The team doesn’t walk and doesn’t steal bases, so they are going to need homers to score, and they aren’t hitting many of those.

 

[Ganthem]

So a question for those that are more knowledgeable then I. As I have stated in other threads, it seems as if the offense last year would swing between two extremes. It was either ice cold or scorching hot and never anything in between. What has my spidey sense tingling is that it seems this offense might be heading on the same trajectory. It would not shock me a bit if they go to Toronto and score a bunch of runs and then go to the O's and score no runs. Do the stats from last year bear this narrative out? What would one even look at to figure out if what I suspect is true? If true what is the cause of this? It is not like we have a bunch of bad hitters. JDM, Bogey, Devers, Kike, etc. should lead to a pretty consistent offense, and yet it does not.

 

[YTF]

16 games into the season, 7-9 and 3.5 out of first. No reason to push the panic button, but there are things that can not be ignored here. Offensively, 1B, the outfield and bench depth are all issues and all intermingled. IMO Dalbec needs motivation and Shaw needs to be released. The solution to both of those issues is likely in WOOstah. Ideally The Sox would probably like for his debut not to come against the Jays in Toronto, but how much longer are they willing to live with the Dalbec/Shaw tandem? OF...AFAIK, Justin Upton is still available. If they are not willing to trade for a better option at this point, perhaps he's worth a look. Not the best glove solution, but he's been playing the position his whole career while you have a utility IFer trying to learn the job on the fly and if the defense is a huge concern, that's what JBJ is here for. If Upton is an option they should move on him sooner rather than later as he's going to need sometime to get into game shape.

Pitching...If Houck is on the mound and not struggling with his pitch count let him go a little longer. You can't protect him, Whitlock and worry about piggybacking Hill. I think Braiser's gone at the end of the month, but that's only accommodating the MLB roster drops. Perhaps he gets demoted before then and someone else gets a shot to see if they can contribute in the coming week.

Fundamentals... We have guys in transition when it comes to position players, some of this is going to take time. That said, SMART base running, plate discipline and infield defensive positioning/footwork are all areas that need concentration. Story's limited time during a limited spring training is unfortunate as there is going to be a learning curve for a guy who has played 0 games at 2B in his 6 year career. That said, who's working with him? I can think of a guy who was a damn fine second baseman here for a few years and I reckon the team knows how to get a hold of him. If he's not available, I'm sure there are a number of fine defensive former MLB second basemen who might welcome a chance to tutor Story.

There's work to be done for sure and I do have faith in Bloom, but I also have concerns over how long you wait on some of these issues.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

So a question for those that are more knowledgeable then I. As I have stated in other threads, it seems as if the offense last year would swing between two extremes. It was either ice cold or scorching hot and never anything in between. What has my spidey sense tingling is that it seems this offense might be heading on the same trajectory. It would not shock me a bit if they go to Toronto and score a bunch of runs and then go to the O's and score no runs. Do the stats from last year bear this narrative out? What would one even look at to figure out if what I suspect is true? If true what is the cause of this? It is not like we have a bunch of bad hitters. JDM, Bogey, Devers, Kike, etc. should lead to a pretty consistent offense, and yet it does not.

Depends how granular you want to be with their "swings".

2021 month to month runs/game: 4.8, 5.4, 5.0, 4.7, 5.3, 5.5 Other than a blip in July that looks entirely reasonable for a team playing a bunch of cold(ish) weather games in the first month of the season.

16 games into the season is way way WAY too early to assess anything with this team. The offense is sputtering, but so is half the league. Entering today, the league average runs per game was 3.99 and the Sox were at 3.73 (Toronto, they of the vaunted offense, are at 3.93 for comparison).

Tropicana Field is always a house of horrors for the Red Sox. There's no reason to panic because of what happened this weekend.

 

[Yelling At Clouds]

For what it’s worth, the league as a whole is struggling on offense at the moment.

 

[Jason Bae]

For what it’s worth, the league as a whole is struggling on offense at the moment.

League OPS is .673 right now... woof.

Rays have a team OPS of .695, but their OPS+ is 116. Guardians have a 128 OPS+ versus a .765 OPS.

3.99 R/G would be the lowest since 1976 (when it was 3.99).

 

[YTF]

I wish I could quote the source, but I don't remember. During the past few days I believe I heard that the entire MLB has a batting average somewhere in the low to mid .230's.

 

[Jason Bae]

I wish I could quote the source, but I don't remember. During the past few days I believe I heard that the entire MLB has a batting average somewhere in the low to mid .230's.

It's .231 right now.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/bat.shtml

 

[YTF]

It's .231 right now.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/bat.shtml

Thanks for that.

 

[jon abbey]

Offense is down across MLB but the ball is traveling especially poorly at Fenway so far.

View: https://twitter.com/bbl_astrophyscs/status/1518309695584231425?s=21&t=ZCbNkWaK0rNLnJJVJK30KQ

 

[Max Power]

Offense is down across MLB but the ball is traveling especially poorly at Fenway so far.

View: https://twitter.com/bbl_astrophyscs/status/1518309695584231425?s=21&t=ZCbNkWaK0rNLnJJVJK30KQ

There were three balls I saw from my seats opening weekend that I was sure were gone and they barely made the warning track. I chalked it up to the weather, but there's clearly more going on.

 

[Looch]

On the spectrum of scoring/action in the major team sports, with basketball at the high end and soccer at the low end, baseball is steadily drifting toward soccer. Football to me has found the sweet spot while evolving toward basketball, while hockey has moved in that positive direction as well from what I understand without direct knowledge. Baseball hasn’t begun to solve its problems, and this year already seems to be even worse than last year.

 

[RIrooter09]

Fangraphs did a story on the offensive decline as well.

“Relative to the homer-happy 2019, balls have lost 12 feet of distance, and the batting average on those balls has fallen by 67 points, with the slugging percentages falling by a whopping 286 points.”

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/welcome-to-hitless-baseball/

 

[geoduck no quahog]

So they say Pitchers are typically ahead of hitters coming out of Spring.

The strike made that even worse, I’m guessing. Hitters may have lost around 100 AB’s (as did HP Umpires).

Normal amount of at bats during Spring Training (from what I can tell) is about 155. The Red Sox starters had around 55. Devers led with 68.

(Also, I’m curious if Pitchcomm has had any impact. Still early, but are there any meaningful stats comparing the use of the machine?)

 

[YTF]

So they say Pitchers are typically ahead of hitters coming out of Spring.

The strike made that even worse, I’m guessing. Hitters may have lost around 100 AB’s (as did HP Umpires).

Normal amount of at bats during Spring Training (from what I can tell) is about 155. The Red Sox starters had around 55. Devers led with 68.

(Also, I’m curious if Pitchcomm has had any impact. Still early, but are there any meaningful stats comparing the use of the machine?)

Good question. I think it's going to be difficult to get an accurate answer if were using a different ball this season.

 

[DeadlySplitter]

The Sox are last in pitches per PA and 25th in OBP, can't blame much of that on any dead ball antics.

 

[BaseballJones]

So Buxton's 469-foot bomb today was even more impressive.

 

[jon abbey]

The Sox are last in pitches per PA and 25th in OBP, can't blame much of that on any dead ball antics.

I mean, changing the ball changes literally everything, the players are well aware the balls are different so the pitches are different and the AB approaches are necessarily different. I want to say everyone is using the same balls except I read a piece today that there were two decidedly different types of balls for all of 2021, so I can't even say that. I'm not sure how you make personnel decisions under these conditions, once again I am so glad that is not my actual job and I can just sit at home and first- and second-guess.

 

[jon abbey]

This might be paywall for some, but there are good quotes in Bozo Bob Nightengale's piece today:

View: https://twitter.com/BNightengale/status/1518230406960599040

 

[jon abbey]

Also from some of the big scoring outbursts this weekend, I would not be surprised if MLB had already started to switch back to livelier balls at least at some parks.

 

[OCD SS]

Offense is down across MLB but the ball is traveling especially poorly at Fenway so far.

View: https://twitter.com/bbl_astrophyscs/status/1518309695584231425?s=21&t=ZCbNkWaK0rNLnJJVJK30KQ

There were three balls I saw from my seats opening weekend that I was sure were gone and they barely made the warning track. I chalked it up to the weather, but there's clearly more going on.

It can be hard to parse separate causes in a small sample size. Put a deadened ball into Boston's April weather and I don't think it's hard to see Fenway's park factors skewing to a bigger negative drop...

 

[scottyno]

Before today the Sox had an 80 ops+, so hard to blame it on the ball, unless there really are multiple types and the Sox happen to be getting all the bad ones.

2 starters are hitting like pitchers and before today the entire bench was 8/72

 

[Daniel_Son]

Offense is down across MLB but the ball is traveling especially poorly at Fenway so far.

View: https://twitter.com/bbl_astrophyscs/status/1518309695584231425?s=21&t=ZCbNkWaK0rNLnJJVJK30KQ

Might be completely off base here, but could it have something to do with the new Truly Terrace they built? Altered air flow or something?

 

[Harry Hooper]

Before today the Sox had an 80 ops+, so hard to blame it on the ball, unless there really are multiple types and the Sox happen to be getting all the bad ones.

2 starters are hitting like pitchers and before today the entire bench was 8/72

Based on knowledge available, Fenway is one of only a handful of parks that puts the baseballs in a humidor to deaden them.

 

[scottyno]

Based on knowledge available, Fenway is one of only a handful of parks that puts the baseballs in a humidor to deaden them.

That wasn't added this year though, fenway was hitter friendly even after they added the humidor before 2020

 

[jon abbey]

Based on knowledge available, Fenway is one of only a handful of parks that puts the baseballs in a humidor to deaden them.

All ballparks do this as of this year.

 

[Harry Hooper]

All ballparks do this as of this year.

Ah, thanks. Interesting to learn that given early-season offense stats in MLB.

 

[sean1562]

Trevor Story has not had a great start to the season but most of the other big time FAs are also having rough starts.

Story: .234/.294/.298/.592
Correa: .192/.288/.288/.577
Seager: .241/.286/.310/.596
Semien: .183/.250/.250/.500
Bryant: .278/.328/.352/.680
Marte: .254/.319/.381/.700
Baez: .261/.292/.435/.727
Schwarber: .169/.246/.407/.653

Freeman and Castellanos are crushing the ball but the players above are not going to end the season with those stat lines. Hernandez and Story will get better, Vazquez is bad but not .470 OPS bad.

A slightly bigger problem is that our team ERA is 19th in MLB and our FIP is 24th. Pivetta will pitch better but I am not sure how much better we can expect Wacha, Houck, Whitlock, and Eovaldi to get.

 

[soxhop411]

View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1518995038826549248

In the last 7 days, the Red Sox have played 7 games and hit 1 home run. 246 PA, .206/.249/.276, .525 OPS. That's mind-boggling.

One home run for the Sox in the past 7 days.

 

[Daniel_Son]

Sox are seeing just 3.7 pitches per at-bat and chase bad pitches outside the zone 32% of the time - dead last in the majors in both categories.

Source

 

[streeter88]

Can somebody help me with how to pronounce the hitting coach's name? Trying to "develop deep regard", in the words of an early mentor... but it's tough thus far. If the Red Sox hitting philosophy is that bad that it only took 6 batters for the Jays to work out how to successfully neuter it, gonna be a long season.

 

[grimshaw]

Looking under the hood and keeping in mind that we have reached the point where barrel% begins to stabilize at 40-50 balls in play.

-Devers leads the team with the most barrels, and his hard hit% is at a career high so far. You be you, Raffy.

-Bogaerts is hitting the ball as hard as ever, but with a .471 BABIP. That's not going to hold up, but it is always high (.335 career) since he's tough to defend.

-JDM isn't making quality contact. His hard hit % is the lowest on the team and far below his worst season and his BABIP is .343. All that said, he is still at a wRC+ of 129, so is among the least to blame for run production. The underlying numbers are a bit troubling though.

-JBJ has barreled one ball. JBJ is JBJ. He's tough to put in the lineup with an already struggling offense, but the Sox seem to have punted RF for the time being, and the rest of the offense hasn't picked up the slack. His "platoon" mate Arroyo doesn't have anything concerning across the board, nor does he really have enough PA's to glean much. The hits just haven't fallen in. I'd chalk it up to infrequent play and learning a new position.

-Story just needs the at bats IMO. Missing some games while already having a shortened spring training hasn't helped.

-Enrique is heating up after a miserable start. He has one fewer barrel than Devers. Keeping in mind though, that his current level of wRC+ (74) is closer to 2019-2020 (wRC+ 85) than last season, his improvement may not be dramatically better.

Really though, I believe the biggest factor is the quality of pitching they have faced. Aside from the Tigers, every other team they have played is over .500. They need them some O's quickly.

 

[Heating up in the bullpen]

On Sunday 4/17 the Red Sox beat the Twins 8-1 on the strength of 5 scoreless innings from Wacha and a 2-run 6th and 6-run 8th. Their record was 5-4.
Since then they've gone 2-7. In those games they've scored in three different innings once (all single runs in an 8-3 loss on P-Day), in two different innings three times, and in only one inning five times. They've have seven 1-run innings, six 2-run innings, and one more than 2-run inning (the 4-run 8th last night). They haven't scored in back to back innings in any of those games. They've scored 5 runs in a game once (last night's loss), 4 runs once (a 4-3 win), 3 runs once (the 8-3 Patriot's Day loss), 2 runs five times (four losses, one 2-1 win), and 1 run once. A total of 23 runs in 9 games, or 2.56 per game.
I don't know if there's a meaning to these distributions beyond this team is scuffling offensively as a group and individually (for the most part), having a hard time putting rallies together, having a hard time getting a big hit when runners are on, and not hitting many homers to create instant offense.
The no back-to-back scoring innings for a 9-game stretch seems significant. They're not getting starters on the ropes and then taking advantage of the softer parts of bullpens. I guess the previous paragraph explains that.
They will (knock on wood) hit better. I hope sooner than later.

 

[mikeford]

On the topic of barrels...

View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1519297925930758145


This seems completely impossible to stay this way

 

[AB in DC]

Sox are 30th in batters' BB% so you can't just blame it on batted ball luck.

 

[Mueller's Twin Grannies]

I've seen a few calls to sign Justin Upton. They could, sure, but so could 28 other clubs who haven't. Maybe he's just done and the word got around. There are plenty of 4th and 5th OF types out there if they just need a warm body. I'd rather they acquire someone who can help out once a week or so.

 

[YTF]

I've seen a few calls to sign Justin Upton. They could, sure, but so could 28 other clubs who haven't. Maybe he's just done and the word got around. There are plenty of 4th and 5th OF types out there if they just need a warm body. I'd rather they acquire someone who can help out once a week or so.

Anybody currently out there could have been signed by 28 other clubs who haven't. Unfortunately it's a "You don't know until you know sort of thing.."

 

[Niastri]

Sox are 30th in batters' BB% so you can't just blame it on batted ball luck.

Right, but they are .200 batting average and .700 slugging behind average on their barrels. Insanely bad luck on barreled balls so far. When that normalizes, it will be a big benefit all by itself.

Everything else wrong with the offense, well...

 

[Mueller's Twin Grannies]

Upton has barely been a .200 hitter the last couple of seasons. I think he just can't hit ML pitching anymore.

 

[Dustin the Wind]

Upton has barely been a .200 hitter the last couple of seasons. I think he just can't hit ML pitching anymore.

It seems also that he is best used as a DH at this point in his career, rating negatively on most metrics. And moving Verdugo to Right Field and having Upton in left field changes our outfield defense significantly

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/justin-upton-457708?stats=statcast-r-fielding-mlb

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/justin-upton/5222/stats#fielding

 

[RoDaddy]

-JBJ has barreled one ball. JBJ is JBJ. He's tough to put in the lineup with an already struggling offense

I would think they're close to giving Duran another shot, especially with his hot start for the Woosox this season. Maybe another month there to see if he can keep it up

 

[AB in DC]

I would think they're close to giving Duran another shot, especially with his hot start for the Woosox this season. Maybe another month there to see if he can keep it up

Frankly the JBJ trade never made any sense to me, unless they just wanted to keep the seat warm until Duran was ready. JBJ's defense is wasted in RF anywhere except Fenway, and he still can't hit (though he's no worse than anyone else on the team so far).

 

[Daniel_Son]

Frankly the JBJ trade never made any sense to me, unless they just wanted to keep the seat warm until Duran was ready. JBJ's defense is wasted in RF anywhere except Fenway, and he still can't hit (though he's no worse than anyone else on the team so far).

David Hamilton - .321/.413/.547/.960 through ~50 AA at-bats
Alex Binelas - .288/.424/.673/1.097 through ~50 A+ at-bats

vs.

Hunter Renfroe - .228/.274/.404/.678 so far in 2022

Bloom made the right call. JBJ wasn't the target of that trade.

 

[Petagine in a Bottle]

Ok, but if JBJ wasn’t the target of the trade, why didn’t the team get someone to at least platoon with him? Or just dump him and sign someone else to play RF? There’s no evidence that they didn’t value JBJ and only did the deal for prospects.

 

[BaseballJones]

Ok, but if JBJ wasn’t the target of the trade, why didn’t the team get someone to at least platoon with him? Or just dump him and sign someone else to play RF? There’s no evidence that they didn’t value JBJ and only did the deal for prospects.

That's a different (but good) question. The deal was for the prospects. I'm sure they figured JBJ would provide quality defense (true) and that he'd at least hit better than he did last year.

 

[Sandy Leon Trotsky]

Ok, but if JBJ wasn’t the target of the trade, why didn’t the team get someone to at least platoon with him? Or just dump him and sign someone else to play RF? There’s no evidence that they didn’t value JBJ and only did the deal for prospects.

I think the Sox made a serious attempt to get Suzuki as their RF but were, like a lot of us, pretty floored when the Cubs dumped a sizable sum there to win his services. JBJ I think was intended to be the late innings defensive replacement.