You said the poor divisional record was random. Answer the question please.
Right. I fully agree. Those teams were better than Boston this year. No question about it. So the solution: build a better team.
I've said:
I never said it was all random. So until you properly frame the conversation, I'm not answering anything.
You weren't answering anything anyway. You're playing semantics.
For the record (if you were indeed trying to make a point), I view pretty much everything sports related as a spectrum - and in this case the spectrum was "random crappy play vs al east" to "terrible team prep, scouting, etc vs al east." At start of the discussion I was closer to the random side of the spectrum. While you havent convinced me its all the way to the other side, I have moved closer to that side as a result of this discussion. So it hasnt been pointless on my end.
A team can have bad luck and also be bad. I'd guess if you ran this season in a simulator over and over, the team would usually end up around 74-78 wins, but their divisional record wouldn't be as terrible.
The Mariners and Indians were pretty much mediocre teams when the Sox played them, though, weren’t they? They ended up being good (in the opposite of how the Sox looked good then but ended up being bad).
You pick 2 extreme choices on the spectrum and tell him to pick one, even though neither one represents his position. Then you accuse him of being ridiculous and playing semantics because he doesn't want to pick one of your 2 extreme stances.
In 2021 the Sox were 28-29 (.491) against Tor/TB/NY.
I mean if I was hypothetically forced to pick a your side or SJH side on this particular debate, Id pick your side. As I think my previous posts indicate. So you don't need to convince me of anything. The fact that his posts caused me to ponder a bit and move myself a little along my made up spectrum doesnt change the fact that I completely agree that your bolded is really the only thing that matters...especially in a thread about 2023.
Why is the Red Sox record against the AL East somewhat random whereas their record in a smaller sample size against the other three AL playoff teams meaningful?
On the other side of the coin, the other divisions have been dogshit save for one or two teams, and (I am looking at you AL central) then when the Playoffs begin they get destroyed by whatever team they are facing...
It's not. There's an element of randomness to all this. Scheduling, injuries, getting the key hit with guys in scoring position at key moments, etc.
Yes.
I agree, unless you ran a simulator and there weren't the massive number of injuries. They weren't very good this year. We all agree on that.
No. There's some randomness to the Sox' good record against the AL West too. Maybe more, given that it's a smaller sample size.
Well, the more games, the better conclusions you can draw.
That's a good question meant for someone else, I think.
Right, just like there's no way the Sox have a 75.8% winning percentage vs the AL West.
Do you really think this Red Sox team was one of the worst teams in the history of baseball? That's what a .281 winning percentage. If you think that is true, then it can be explained by the winning percentage. I don't think that's true.
Well, I said that it wasn't explained by the talent gap. If you add injuries, as I know was mentioned but *I* didn't add them in when I said that this poor record couldn't be explained by the talent gap. Injuries are partly random and partly not. Like if a guy has a history of hamstring issues and goes on the IL with...a hamstring issue, then that's kind of predictable. A guy coming off TJ surgery getting drilled in the pitching hand by a line drive comebacker is not something that's predictable and is really pretty random.
I don't see anyone speaking in absolutes but you SJH. You insist it's not random, show us your work please. I know a little about statistics (for work) and there is, in fact, a tail on each end of the Gaussian / Normal /Bell Curve. Extreme non-average events do occur a small percentage of the time.
OPS+ of 102, ERA+ of 93.
It's a bit more nuanced than this, though. Here's the team's pitching splits by month:
Perhaps, but under 2% with inflation what it is it won’t look so bad if they resign Boegarts and extend Devers
My guess is that if either player does an extension in the next year or so, it will be of a length that takes them to age 29-30 but not much beyond. So if they signed next spring, that would be in the neighborhood of a 7-8 year deal. I imagine the minimum that buys out a year or two of free agency is probably something like 7/85 (starting in 2024).
That's similar to what the Braves extended Michael Harris for this season. He's 21 and signed an 8 year/$72 million extension with team options for 2031 and 2032. He signed that deal in August after being called up in Late May.
If Casas is a Rookie of the Year contender next year, by all means extend him.
Yeah, all I did was make a rough projection of successful pre-arb and arb years (800K, 900K, 5M, 11M, 18M), plus ~$50M for the first two years of free agency. Anything less than that and the player is more likely to just go year-to-year until free agency.
It can!
I'm pretty sure the Mariners are regretting the Evan White contract at this point. (FWIW, Casas and Bello have already had more MLB success than White, who signed his deal before making it to Seattle.)
Not necessarily.
Yeah, I really don't see the need to subdivide this into one 76-game subset or another 20-game subset. They had a thin rotation that was wracked by injuries and a dumpster fire of a bullpen. That's true regardless of exactly who they lost to and when.
Right. Could have been fewer if they’d not blown saves against Toronto or Tampa Bay. Didn’t consider double blown saves.
I think in all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, we tend to forget how close this team is to being pretty good.
Why did they even give White that deal? His minor league numbers were nothing great. It's not like it was a ton of money, but still.
Totally agree! I have been consistently wailing and gnashing... about injuries (and some depth), but mostly because this was more or less the team that made a plausible run a year ago. They aren't far off, and probably the worst thing you can say about them is that their division is full of rapidly improving young talent, so the bar keeps getting raised. Count me out of the "Chaim sucks!" and Pete-Abe "how dare they!" conversations. If they have enough health luck to actually play guys in their actual positions where they have a chance to succeed, a lot can fall into place.
