If the offense was normal pretty good starting and relief pitching would put us in a position to see if we get anything worth being happy about from Sale and Paxton or to see if we should be buyers. If we are still 7-8 games back in mid June do we sell on Bogey, Martines, Vazquez, Barnes if we cn find a taker and any pitcher not named Houck and Whitlock?
Red Sox ‘22 offense: offensively offensive
- Thread starter soxhop411
- Start date
I think Cordero gets at least 100 PAs between 1B and, mostly, RF — otherwise the Sox wouldn’t have given him a raise and tendered him a mL contract with a “poison-pill” of a non-trivial salary so he wouldn’t be claimed.
The hope was JBJ might have a nice year, but he’s got no future here. Cordero, with 2+ years of control, still might. He’d have a ways to climb to prove himself as a regular but similar to Dalbec, the upside seems worth it.
I think if Cordero flops again then a Duran-Kiké-Verdugo outfield could be what we see. The team would desperately need some clarity on who they could count on next year before considering whether to re-sign Kiké and potentially acquire another outfielder.
Duran is not my kind of player. I don’t see why the Red Sox should staff a non-slugger in left, let alone a so-so defensive one. I’m not wild about speed-first guys and I’m not sure Duran’s power plays in our deep RF porch. I would be psyched to be proven wrong.
[Edit:] FWIW, Verdugo has “gotten comfortable in left field and, according to Cora, prefers to stay there,” reported by Chad Jennings in The Athletic in late March.
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I continue to be confused what the realistic expectations are here. If we're all being honest, I don't think anyone foresaw the run that last season's team made in being 2 games from the World Series. They played mostly over their head once the playoffs started. Fact.
Bloom inherited the financial mess and gutted farm system from Dombrowski and that takes time to resolve and to build the team that he envisions in the coming years. As it stands now, it's possible that they get a Wild Card spot - no way they are leaping the likes of the MFY and the Jays.
I find it completely laughable at the idea that Casas and Duran (who I am not high on at all) would be the saviors given the situation now. Especially, Casas. Continue to develop and call him up if they think he's ready.
Bloom inherited the financial mess and gutted farm system from Dombrowski and that takes time to resolve and to build the team that he envisions in the coming years. As it stands now, it's possible that they get a Wild Card spot - no way they are leaping the likes of the MFY and the Jays.
I find it completely laughable at the idea that Casas and Duran (who I am not high on at all) would be the saviors given the situation now. Especially, Casas. Continue to develop and call him up if they think he's ready.
I'm for keeping JBJ as a defensive replacement on the bench. We forget that he is a world class defender.
You don’t have a room for a LH defensive replacement OF on a three or four man bench, not when two of the starting OF are LH. it’s not really a useful role.
Unrelated, but I’m sort of confused by the argument that Bloom has built a great farm system…yet the suggestion of calling up any of the top prospects who are closest to ready (Duran or Casas) is swatted down with a “nah, not ready” or “he won’t be a good major league player”.
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FWIW, If the team thought that they were ready wouldn't they be here? No reason to hold back service time now.
What is Duran’s role here, then? If Verdugo has told Cora he prefers to stay in left and Duran’s arm won’t cut it long-term in right, then Duran is essentially auditioning in Worcester this year for next year’s center field job. He has to be a better alternative than trying to keep a guy worth 4.9 bWAR last year who’s beloved by the manager and fanbase. Or he’s traded, or Verdugo is.
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If they truly thought Duran was ready, they wouldn't be giving up on anything. JBJ would assume the role that he was brought in here to play.
The Sox’ first or second best prospect is in low-A right now. He’s 19. If they were to call him up to the majors right now and be failed, what would that tell us about the quality of the farm system? The Sox best pitching prospect is in Portland right now and 22 years old. If were called up tomorrow and got shelled for the rest of the season, what would that tell us about the quality of the Sox system? If Casas were called up tomorrow and struggled for three months, which many of us feel is possible, what would that tell us about the quality of the Sox system? Part of the reason that the Sox are considered a top-15 or so system and not a top-10 system is the proximity of their best prospects to being able to contribute quickly at the major league level. You are seeing a contradiction that doesn’t actually exist.
Perhaps you missed all of the discussion of one Seiya Suzuki. The Sox were said to be one of the last teams "to be in on" him, 3 1/2 months after bringing JBJ here.
Verdugo, Story, and Hernandez will all start hitting. Dalbec will get hot for his 6 to 8 week stretch. Sale and Paxton will pitch in the second half. The Sox will win one of the three wild cards.
They were apparently “in” on a lot of guys (Suzuki, Schwarber, Soler, Etc). Had they landed Suzuki, I can’t imagine what role JBJ would have played? Defensive replacement for who? And he’s like the worst PH in the history of baseball (seriously, he’s 4 for 62 in his career when used as a substitute).
Nevertheless, they didn’t land any of those guys, Jackie’s the starter…and 4th OF is in Worcester (and I almost said Pawtucket).
If Suzuki's on the team? DR for Verdugo? Maybe Kike' and he moves to second in favor of Arroyo. Pinch hitting and defensive replacement are two different things, no?
It’s May 2nd, the Sox have played only 7 games at Fenway Park of 23 games. This flips with 18 home games in May, granted against some tough teams, but it should show us more what they are like as an offense.
As you note, a big part of the problem is that the OF is very unbalanced in terms of handedness. You want to bench Bradley who do you bring up— Duran? LH. Cordero? LH. Fitzy? LH. It’s an issue unless they are going to run out Arroyo or Martinez semi-regularly in the OF.
We are three weeks into the season.
3 weeks.
I would not vent much frustration at Bloom, unless he is somehow responsible for the hitters' poor approach so far, eg my transmitting a "be aggressive early in the count" edict via Cora, which seems highly unlikely. Perhaps he should have done whatever it took to get Suzuki (which appears to have been Plan A for RF), but we don't know exactly what transpired behind the scenes. As for keeping Refroe...as a hitter, he is especially vulnerable to good RHP, and as a fielder, he certainly has the athleticism for RF in Fenway, but takes a lot of poor routes and often exercises poor judgement in using his plus throwing arm.
As others have expressed, I am primarily concerned by the team-wide poor plate discipline, swinging at too many pitcher's pitches with <2 strikes, and too often outside the zone. Perhaps this is a deficit of coaching, and may very well reflect poorly on Cora (which seems strange...recall he was bribing Devers to draw walks a couple years ago) and the hitting coaches. There is more cause for scrutiny, and for demands of accountability, here than with Bloom.
Casas should stay at AAA until more evidence accumulates that he is ready to assume the full time 1B job in Boston. Maybe in a month or two. Calling him up now, with the implicit pressure that he is here to jumpstart the offense, seems reckless, in terms of the potential danger to his development. In the meantime, giving Cordero another chance, in a platoon role, seems perfectly reasonable. He is too old for us to worry about stunting his development by restricting him to a platoon; we need to find out if he has any value at all.
Duran appears to be reinventing himself as a hitter yet again, after his personal launch angle revolution utterly failed to translate at the major league level last year (perhaps there should have been clues in his large AAA home/road splits, as was pointed out earlier). He needs some time to work that out. If he demonstrates a consistent capacity to get on base over the next month or two, and JBJ just can't get it going at all, then yes, it would make sense to put him in LF and move Verdugo to RF.
Dalbec, assuming he does not wash out completely, may be an asset as a lefty-masher who backs up the LHH starters at 1B (and 3B, though that is less necessary). I'm not sure that is enough to justify a roster spot in these days of long bullpens and short benches. If he can play LF and RF too (where we also have LHH starters), then it would be worth keeping him around, again assuming he regains his previously demonstrated ability to hit LHP reliably.
3 weeks.
I would not vent much frustration at Bloom, unless he is somehow responsible for the hitters' poor approach so far, eg my transmitting a "be aggressive early in the count" edict via Cora, which seems highly unlikely. Perhaps he should have done whatever it took to get Suzuki (which appears to have been Plan A for RF), but we don't know exactly what transpired behind the scenes. As for keeping Refroe...as a hitter, he is especially vulnerable to good RHP, and as a fielder, he certainly has the athleticism for RF in Fenway, but takes a lot of poor routes and often exercises poor judgement in using his plus throwing arm.
As others have expressed, I am primarily concerned by the team-wide poor plate discipline, swinging at too many pitcher's pitches with <2 strikes, and too often outside the zone. Perhaps this is a deficit of coaching, and may very well reflect poorly on Cora (which seems strange...recall he was bribing Devers to draw walks a couple years ago) and the hitting coaches. There is more cause for scrutiny, and for demands of accountability, here than with Bloom.
Casas should stay at AAA until more evidence accumulates that he is ready to assume the full time 1B job in Boston. Maybe in a month or two. Calling him up now, with the implicit pressure that he is here to jumpstart the offense, seems reckless, in terms of the potential danger to his development. In the meantime, giving Cordero another chance, in a platoon role, seems perfectly reasonable. He is too old for us to worry about stunting his development by restricting him to a platoon; we need to find out if he has any value at all.
Duran appears to be reinventing himself as a hitter yet again, after his personal launch angle revolution utterly failed to translate at the major league level last year (perhaps there should have been clues in his large AAA home/road splits, as was pointed out earlier). He needs some time to work that out. If he demonstrates a consistent capacity to get on base over the next month or two, and JBJ just can't get it going at all, then yes, it would make sense to put him in LF and move Verdugo to RF.
Dalbec, assuming he does not wash out completely, may be an asset as a lefty-masher who backs up the LHH starters at 1B (and 3B, though that is less necessary). I'm not sure that is enough to justify a roster spot in these days of long bullpens and short benches. If he can play LF and RF too (where we also have LHH starters), then it would be worth keeping him around, again assuming he regains his previously demonstrated ability to hit LHP reliably.
Others have commented already, but the strength of the farm comes mostly from the lower levels outside of Casas and Duran. We will probably see both by July, if not June. I'd guess we see Duran sooner than Casas. They've been aggressive with Casas from the start. He basically skipped over A+ (7 PA in 2019) and was placed in AA despite the missed year of covid and no real A+ exposure. He was also jerked around for the first half of 2021 for the Olympics. Despite all that, he improved pretty much across the board. His batting eye has come a long way, too. He most likely will have his struggle period, but I think he'll fair far better than Duran did in his first 100ish PA (adjusting for luck, anyway). Casas is almost universally considered a top 20 prospect. While prospects fail, hitters in the top 20 have pretty high success rates. I think Casas has a chance to be the next face of the organization depending on what happens with X/Devers.
Duran was pretty high on mid season lists last year (mid season lists never look like end of season lists, mid season lists include lots of heliium) but was in the 80 range on most end of season lists in 2021 and beginning of season lists for 2022. Those prospects have far lower success rates. I think I'm also the only one who flat out said he'd suck out loud. From reading the posts, it looks like there are a few others that aren't high on him but it's because they think he's "positionless" (no arm for RF, bad in CF) or they have personal biases (parapharsing but one poster said they hate/dislike speed first players). I've been paying close attention to him for awhile and remember saying "If he ever added power to his game." Of course, I say that about a lot of prospects (Pedro Castellanos is my current "add power" guy). Surprisingly, Duran actually did add some power to his game. Unfortunately, the rest of his offensive game suffered because of it.
He's also had a different approach at the plate each of the last 3 seasons. His first 2 years, he used his speed to beat out everything and would have excessively high BAbips. That worked until he moved up to AA where the defense is considerably better. Wanting to add power, he went to his dad (a body builder) to add some strength and altered his approach at the plate. That worked for the first few months but then it did not. There's also some chatter that Worchester played a large part in his HR totals but some of his HRs were no brainers. Maybe the wind really carries. He was pretty dreadful from July to the end of the year.
May: .278/.366/.625 in 82 PA, 10bb/21k, 4 doubles, 7 HRs.
June: .287/.388/.598 in 103 PA, 11bb/21k, 3 doubles, 8 HRs
July: .174/.237/.304 in 76 PA, 5bb/26k, 2 doubles, 2 triples, 1 HR
August: .236/.276/.347 in 76 PA, 4bb/25k, 3 doubles, 1 triple, 1 HR
September: .211/.286/.342 in 42 PA, 3bb/8k, 2 doubles, 1 HR
October: .308/.438/.462 in 16 PA, 1bb/5k, 1 triple.
212 PA, 112 were in the Majors. He was struggling prior to his call up (.200/.294/.300 3bb/10k in 34 PA before call up) and continued to struggle after being sent down for the rest of the year (.218/.328/.364 in 64 PA).
This year, he's trying to drive the ball to take advantage of his speed. For the first time this season, he hit the ball with some authority over the weekend. In the early going, he's slashing .360/.458/.560 with a .472 BAbip in 59 PA. While I'd like to see how he does with a normal BABip, he's at 342 PA in AAA and has 112 in the Majors. I'm not sure he has much more to prove at the AAA level, even if I'm not a buyer. I guess him going with a new approach is enough reason to stay in AAA.
I don't think he'll be a good player, but I'm not a scout and I could easily be wrong. It's just one opinion and it's not the gospel. Plus, things change. Maybe his new approach will lead to more power and/or walks. He had 23bb in 352 AA PA, he's at 39bb in 342 PA at AAA currently. With his speed, on base skills would be even more beneficial than usual.
All the other impact prospects are at least a year or two away. Non surprise division, anyway. I wouldn't be totally shocked if someone like Brandon Walter was in our bullpen by the end of the year, but I'm not expecting it.
TL
R; The farm system is really good. If things go moderately well in player development, we'll be seeing it pay off in a big way from 2023-2025. If it has one weakness, it's a lack of MR arms. Considering that's probably the most common commodity in the minors, it shouldn't be too hard to fix. The Sox also hold out longer than most teams in converting SP to MR. Or did. Maybe it changes under Chaim but it hasn't yet. Nick Yorke just turned 20, Mayer is 19. An ETA of 2024 for them is semi optimistic. Bello is 23 in May, should end the year in AAA and we may see him pitch in Boston sometime in 2023. Bleis and Gonzales are forever away. Bryan Mata, Jay Groome, Chris Murphy, Brandon Walter are all possibly 2023. Help is on the way.
Though after Duran and Casas, there really isn't any hitting on the way until 2024 with the exception of maybe David Hamilton. or Jeter Downs, who I've mostly written off. Maybe unfairly as he's been hitting for a ton of power of late. Strikes out way too much but walks a lot too.
Is Verdugo good enough to cater to his preferences? The further he slides down the defensive spectrum, the less his bat plays.
I honestly don't understand the "he doesn't hit well enough to play ___________" argument (that's not specific to you). If he's one of the best 9 bats on the team, he's going to play wherever he fits in. FWIW, I don't think he's demanded to play anywhere. I'm guessing this talk of where he prefers to play stems from a question that was asked rather than a statement that was made. I'm also guessing that most players that are used to play multiple positions have one that they prefer over the others.
Full quote: “When the DH spot is otherwise occupied, Cora plans to use Martinez in the outfield, and often in right field because Alex Verdugo has gotten comfortable in left and, according to Cora, prefers to stay there.” - The Athletic
It’s not that simple. Left fielders leaguewide put up a .317 wOBA last year. Rightfielders hit for a .325 wOBA. Unlike most teams, the Sox need for a quality defensive outfielder is greater in right than it is left, so left field is down the defensive spectrum.
I wouldn’t be against a Verdugo trade, but I’d have thought it would have happened by now, before his arb years. But in general I don’t think it’s unreasonable for outfielders to want to want to stick to one spot.
Sorry if this has been referred to many times and I've missed it, but oops:
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2022/05/ex-red-sox-sluggers-kyle-schwarber-hunter-renfroe-and-michael-chavis-have-15-combined-home-runs-2-more-than-boston-as-a-team.html
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2022/05/ex-red-sox-sluggers-kyle-schwarber-hunter-renfroe-and-michael-chavis-have-15-combined-home-runs-2-more-than-boston-as-a-team.html
Serious question- I’m having a difficult time even trying to phrase this correctly- but since we know that there’s been “dead balls” that were fabricated this season but that that those balls are only the product of one manufacturer, would it be possible that a random distribution would end up with certain ballparks getting a higher percentage of “dead balls” by that manufacturer while other parks ended up with lower?
Admitting here that my entire premise may be completely incorrect.
Admitting here that my entire premise may be completely incorrect.
My understanding is that all MLB balls are produced at the Rawlings plant in Costa Rica. The balls were not all the same, at least last year.
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/four-questions-mlb-needs-to-answer-after-report-reveals-league-used-two-different-baseballs-in-2021/amp/
Hmm. I dislike this.
It's one thing if baseball wants to tinker with things in a "universal" way inside the game, but clubs should have some notice of it ahead of time so they can adapt or compensate.
It's another to have two different baseballs in play, without knowing whether they are randomly distributed throughout the league. IMO, it just injects uncertainty and controversy.
Remember that there are 6 post-season spots in the AL now. Being 7-8 games out of first place is pretty meaningless if you're in the playoff hunt.
Missing out on Suzuki really hurt their 2022 plan. Don't think they intended to play JBJ every day.
Agree with most of this. I think Dalbec is destined to be a part-time player. Cordero's taking ABs from him now, but I suspect Casas is up to stay some time in the next 6 weeks.
Anecdotally, I’m trying to remember a quieter bad start to a Red Sox career for a new free-agent signee than Story’s. No homers, sub-.300 OBP and SLG. I see that he got booed today, but I haven’t heard much criticism of him before that. I’m not necessarily calling this a bad thing, mind you, and I think he’ll be fine in the long run. Also, I don’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of Sox fandom here. But I don’t remember, like, JD Drew being afforded such patience.
We're a different fanbase, due to the 4 titles.
Also, Drew actually had a decent April in 2007: .278 / .376 / .392. Horrible May (.171 / .315 / .237). But then from June on, .293 / .387 / .476.
The "problem" with JD Drew was that the fanbase expected a monster offensive player and spectacular defensive player, when the reality is that he was just a good, consistence, disciplined hitter, who played really solid defense in RF, partly due to his positioning and first step. He never "looked" spectacular because he made difficult plays seem more routine. And he walked a lot, which even in 2007 people didn't appreciate enough. "Too passive".
On May 5 2011, Carl Crawford was at .197 .242 .274
Panda was at .299 on this date in '15.
Edgar Renteria was at .239
Yeah, Story is historically bad so far.
Panda was at .299 on this date in '15.
Edgar Renteria was at .239
Yeah, Story is historically bad so far.
This is very subjective, but IIRC, Edgar Renteria was given a "settling in" pass for a good while before he became quasi-toxic. Part of that was the WS high that got carried over into 2005. No comeback was impossible.
OTOH, if you told me he was shanked out of the gate, it wouldn't surprise me.
Moving from the game thread.
for the season as a whole (not including today) it’s 3.41
which is better than only
Bal
CHW
CIN
Det
KC
Red Sox latest offensive rankings:
.251 BA (5th)
.306 OBP (18th)
.404 SLG (7th)
.311 wOBA (15th)
102 wRC+ (15th)
190 runs scored (10th)
21.1% K% (9th)
7.0% BB% (29th)
10 stolen bases (28th; 13th in BsR though)
Quite the contrast from a few weeks ago. Sox are hitting .277/.340/.475 in the month of May, but they're hitting .299/.356/.547 over the last 12 games.
.251 BA (5th)
.306 OBP (18th)
.404 SLG (7th)
.311 wOBA (15th)
102 wRC+ (15th)
190 runs scored (10th)
21.1% K% (9th)
7.0% BB% (29th)
10 stolen bases (28th; 13th in BsR though)
Quite the contrast from a few weeks ago. Sox are hitting .277/.340/.475 in the month of May, but they're hitting .299/.356/.547 over the last 12 games.
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Two weeks of hitting like an all star as a team sure does change the mood around here!
