What's up with these Red Sox?

[Stanley Steamer]

6-1. Great start! All good, right?
What have we seen so far? Our starting pitching is our strength, with a remarkable run against some remarkably weak hitting lineups. It stands to both revert to the norm, and improve with addition of solid, experienced arms. The bullpen has been fairly strong, with a whiff of instability. Our offense hasn't really changed much-- too many zeros over too many innings, with just enough run production to outlast a Floridian opponent.
It's borne out statistically to date, with the staff leading the league with a 2.09 ERA, and 1.09 WHIP, but a .683 OPS and 4 HRs from the regulars.
Of course, small sample size, yet enough to chew on for a bit. The 2018 Red Sox may mostly resemble the 2017 Red Sox. It will make for stressful viewing. I long for the days when our offense seemed a certainty to score runs, even if we've never had such strength at run prevention. Thus far, this style has won two divisions, but hasn't held up in the playoffs.
Realistically, we are not one of the top 2-4 teams in baseball right now, so I guess I should be happy.
The season is long. The bats will come alive. The pitching will falter. What more can one say?
What would you say?

 

[j44thor]

Let's see what happens when they start playing MLB teams. I get you can only play who is on the schedule but the beginning schedule couldn't have been easier. That they are still going to extra innings and need late game heroics against these teams is a little concerning.

 

[Adrian's Dome]

Not even close to enough of a sample size to chew on. Since when do we put stock in a two-series stretch as anything meaningful?

Boil it down to this: Tampa and Miami aren't great teams. Great teams should beat not-great teams more often than they don't. We're 6-1. Life is good.

The pitching won't be this good all year, and the hitting won't be this bad. These things tend to normalize over the course of, you know, more than 7 games.

 

[Rasputin]

Let's see what happens when they start playing MLB teams. I get you can only play who is on the schedule but the beginning schedule couldn't have been easier. That they are still going to extra innings and need late game heroics against these teams is a little concerning.

These are MLB teams. They aren't great MLB teams, but they aren't the 62 Mets or the Cleveland Spiders either

The starting pitching has performed extremely well and gotten unsustainable production. That's going to go up but it has plenty of room to go up while still being excellent. It probably will be the strength of the team.

The offense is doing jack shit and if it doesn't improve, the team is going to end up going nowhere, but it's almost certainly going to go up as well and how much it does so will go a long way to determining if this is a good but not great team or one that can really go deep into October.

Realistically, we are not one of the top 2-4 teams in baseball right now, so I guess I should be happy.

This is probably true, but our rank would be something like 6-7 behind the Astros, Indians, Dodgers, Cubs, Nationals, and Yankees and I don't really think there's much of a distinction between them all. They're all good teams that, if healthy, could make deep October runs. Sure, some are a bit more likely than others, and the Sox and Yanks are hamstrung a bit by being the only ones in a division with another one of the top 7 teams but if you re-rank in a week and the Sox take two of three (or better) from the Yanks, the Sox will move up to at least 6.

And have you seen the schedule? Between now and the end of May the Sox play a total of 6 games against a good team (the Yanks) and three more against a team that might be good if they get lucky and stay healthy (Anaheim).

The Sox have gotten a bit lucky so far, and that's good because you need a little luck to win. The rest of the games don't know the Sox have gotten lucky so far. It's like that luck is already in the bank and if they perform as expected, the end result will be a smidge higher than we'd have suspected 7 games ago.

Meanwhile, the team is in position to get out to a lead heading into June. How cool would that be?

 

[uk_sox_fan]

That's exactly right. Complaining that the games shouldn't have been as close as they've been is laughable really. Style points don't count but wins do. And we've had 3 weeks worth of highly entertaining games packed into the first week of the year. How cool is that?

Sure the Marlins and Rays are supposed to be bad this year but we've all seen the Sox (and everyone else really) lose games to inferior teams. A win is a win is a win - take it to the bank and enjoy it!

 

[Jerry’s Curl]

The offense should get better and improve over last year with the addition of JDM, right?

The Red Sox are out hitting the Yankees so far, .240 to .219

They are ranked #1 in team defense with zero errors.

This is a very good team.

 

[Hawk68]

The David Price story is a good one, and stretches back to last year's playoffs.

He is a talented athlete. If he has really adopted the focused approach of Coach Belichick (Do Your Job) he can help this team.

 

[BaseballJones]

6-1. Great start! All good, right?
What have we seen so far? Our starting pitching is our strength, with a remarkable run against some remarkably weak hitting lineups. It stands to both revert to the norm, and improve with addition of solid, experienced arms. The bullpen has been fairly strong, with a whiff of instability. Our offense hasn't really changed much-- too many zeros over too many innings, with just enough run production to outlast a Floridian opponent.
It's borne out statistically to date, with the staff leading the league with a 2.09 ERA, and 1.09 WHIP, but a .683 OPS and 4 HRs from the regulars.
Of course, small sample size, yet enough to chew on for a bit. The 2018 Red Sox may mostly resemble the 2017 Red Sox. It will make for stressful viewing. I long for the days when our offense seemed a certainty to score runs, even if we've never had such strength at run prevention. Thus far, this style has won two divisions, but hasn't held up in the playoffs.
Realistically, we are not one of the top 2-4 teams in baseball right now, so I guess I should be happy.
The season is long. The bats will come alive. The pitching will falter. What more can one say?
What would you say?

The reason this style hasn't held up in the playoffs is because the otherwise excellent pitching has simply crapped the bed in the playoffs. If Sale and Price and Porcello are gonna suck in October this team is dead. So they're gonna need their expensive and talented starting pitching to not put them in 3-5 run holes every game. That's been the major problem the past two playoffs. It's not like they're losing playoff games 1-0 or 2-1. It's that their starting pitchers who were good in the regular season just suddenly can't get through four innings without getting lit up.

 

[santadevil]

For me, to have a chance, this team needs to beat the weaker teams consistently. They've done that so far and I hope they continue.

As crappy as the game 1 loss was, it may also be part of the fire they needed to finish games for the rest of the season

 

[DJnVa]

That they are still going to extra innings and need late game heroics against these teams is a little concerning.

Baseball is different than other sports. I don’t think you can compare it like that—“extra innings against Tampa? Yankees will kill us!”

They’re 5th in AL in run differential. They’re fine.

 

[j44thor]

Baseball is different than other sports. I don’t think you can compare it like that—“extra innings against Tampa? Yankees will kill us!”

They’re 5th in AL in run differential. They’re fine.

I don't agree at all with that premise. They are 5th in the AL in run differential precisely because they have played terrible teams that are collectively 3-11. Specifically they have serious holes in the bullpen. The bats are sluggish but there is too much history to assume they won't turn it around. The same can't be said for anyone outside of Kimbrel in the pen.

They had an entirely unsustainable record in extra innings and 1run games last year. That they are already 4-0 in 1 run games is a bit concerning. They simply can't keep that up all year.

 

[Curt S Loew]

I don't agree at all with that premise. They are 5th in the AL in run differential precisely because they have played terrible teams that are collectively 3-11. Specifically they have serious holes in the bullpen. The bats are sluggish but there is too much history to assume they won't turn it around. The same can't be said for anyone outside of Kimbrel in the pen.

They had an entirely unsustainable record in extra innings and 1run games last year. That they are already 4-0 in 1 run games is a bit concerning. They simply can't keep that up all year.

Concerning? You would rather they be 0-4?

 

[j44thor]

Concerning? You would rather they be 0-4?

Yes, obviously that was my point.

 

[Sam Ray Not]

If Barnes, Poyner and Hembree don't turn it around ... that's good, right?

Kelly & Smith: 6 innings, 8 runs
Everyone else: 63 innings. 8 runs

 

[joe dokes]

If only they were hitting better, they'd be 9-0, maybe 10.

 

[Monbonthbump]

If I may be permitted a brief college basketball reference. This reminds me of the recent furor here when the Cornhuskers 4th place Big 10 team was passed over for an NCAA bid. The committee rationale was that they had no wins over "good" teams and that wins in the early part of the season mean just as much as wins at the end of the season. The only thing I know at this point in the year is that all MLB teams will win and lose a third of their games. We are presently 6-1 and I just hope this segment of the season will eventually fall into the up-for-grabs third.

 

[Cuzittt]

While the Red Sox extra-inning record last season was fairly remarkable at 15-3... there record in one-run games was not.

They went 22-19 which is a fairly normal distribution.

As for this year... too little information to go on.

 

[JimD]

Yes, it's 'only' the lowly Rays and Marlins, but how many Red Sox teams have infuriated us over the years by playing hard against playoff-bound teams and then inexplicably dropping games to bad Rays, Jays and Orioles teams? They are banking wins, they are continuing to forge a team identity in those extra-inning wins, guys like X, Hanley and Price are getting off to important starts and answering questions we had about them, and Cora and the staff are getting almost a continued spring-training look at role players with the failures so far only accounting for one loss. I'm enjoying this start and not going to worry about the level of competition - the Yankees will fix that particular problem soon enough.

 

[drbretto]

If they've been winning these one-run/extra inning games consistently for a year an a half, how much longer before we consider that it's because of some factor that is actually sustainable? Like the combination of a weak offense to get them into that position, and good pitching to give them offense time to get that run in.

 

[Average Reds]

Yes, obviously that was my point.

It’s the logical converse of your statement. And it highlights the ridiculousness of being concerned that the team is doing well.

I think we all get that they are not going to win every extra inning game.

 

[Philip Jeff Frye]

I don't agree at all with that premise. They are 5th in the AL in run differential precisely because they have played terrible teams that are collectively 3-11. Specifically they have serious holes in the bullpen. The bats are sluggish but there is too much history to assume they won't turn it around. The same can't be said for anyone outside of Kimbrel in the pen.

They had an entirely unsustainable record in extra innings and 1run games last year. That they are already 4-0 in 1 run games is a bit concerning. They simply can't keep that up all year.

Didn't we spend most of last season waiting for the offense to turn it around? That's my concern (Joe Kelly aside) with what we've seen on the field thus far. Yeah, its early, its small sample size, its cold, they've gotten a couple of timely hits when its really mattered, etc.. but the mostly lifeless offense against the presumably mediocre-at-best pitching of the Rays and Marlins seems like a continuation of what we saw last year.

 

[Harry Hooper]

The reason this style hasn't held up in the playoffs is because the otherwise excellent pitching has simply crapped the bed in the playoffs. If Sale and Price and Porcello are gonna suck in October this team is dead. So they're gonna need their expensive and talented starting pitching to not put them in 3-5 run holes every game. That's been the major problem the past two playoffs. It's not like they're losing playoff games 1-0 or 2-1. It's that their starting pitchers who were good in the regular season just suddenly can't get through four innings without getting lit up.

Well said, covered like a {Valentine} wrap.

 

[Buzzkill Pauley]

This discussion is silly. The 2018 Red Sox have played less than 5% of the regular season and have a 6-1 record.

And not only that, the games have been fun to watch because they’ve been generally close-scoring affairs.

But wait — there’s also nothing that anyone on this board can do to effect actual changes, even about problems that get identified appropriately.

In science-y terms, this is not the time for analysis or theories, but merely observation.

 

[j44thor]

It’s the logical converse of your statement. And it highlights the ridiculousness of being concerned that the team is doing well.

I think we all get that they are not going to win every extra inning game.

Your missing the forest through the trees.
The Sox are essentially still in extended spring training. They have played AAAA teams to start the year. That 4 of those games have been decided by one run tells me more about the team than their record in those games.
Sure a win is a win but that doesn't make it predictive. I expect them to get better offensively. If they play like this the rest of the season they will be fortunate to get to 86 or so wins.

 

[Curt S Loew]

Your missing the forest through the trees.
The Sox are essentially still in extended spring training. They have played AAAA teams to start the year. That 4 of those games have been decided by one run tells me more about the team than their record in those games.
Sure a win is a win but that doesn't make it predictive. I expect them to get better offensively. If they play like this the rest of the season they will be fortunate to get to 86 or so wins.

Well, then you probably shouldn't have said that 4-0 had you concerned.

 

[joe dokes]

Your missing the forest through the trees.
The Sox are essentially still in extended spring training. They have played AAAA teams to start the year. That 4 of those games have been decided by one run tells me more about the team than their record in those games.
Sure a win is a win but that doesn't make it predictive. I expect them to get better offensively. If they play like this the rest of the season they will be fortunate to get to 86 or so wins.

So "play like this" only includes hitting, and not pitching?

While "the decided by one run" may "say more" than the winning, that's like saying cardboard has more nutrients than plastic. Indications of health aside, nothing right now really "says" much of anything.

 

[Average Reds]

Your missing the forest through the trees.
The Sox are essentially still in extended spring training. They have played AAAA teams to start the year. That 4 of those games have been decided by one run tells me more about the team than their record in those games.
Sure a win is a win but that doesn't make it predictive. I expect them to get better offensively. If they play like this the rest of the season they will be fortunate to get to 86 or so wins.

Someone might be missing something here, but I assure you it is not who you think.

 

[j44thor]

So "play like this" only includes hitting, and not pitching?

While "the decided by one run" may "say more" than the winning, that's like saying cardboard has more nutrients than plastic. Indications of health aside, nothing right now really "says" much of anything.

I already stated the bullpen is my biggest concern. Pitching is tough to gauge thus far because of the level of competition.

Had they started against LAD and HOU and were 2-5 losing 4 1 run games I'd probably feel better about the team than I do now.

 

[uk_sox_fan]

I already stated the bullpen is my biggest concern. Pitching is tough to gauge thus far because of the level of competition.

Had they started against LAD and HOU and were 2-5 losing 4 1 run games I'd probably feel better about the team than I do now.

I don’t mean to pile on here, but I don’t believe this for a second. You quite honestly come across as someone who would react to that situation by expressing concern that they’re proving they can’t play with the good teams and their inability to win close games shows that Cora is a liability.

There simply isn’t enough of a difference between good teams and bad teams to justify a claim that a 2-5 record against the former is a better, more promising result than a 6-1 record against the latter. At most I would accept 4-3 as the equivalent.

 

[Adrian's Dome]

Had they started against LAD and HOU and were 2-5 losing 4 1 run games I'd probably feel better about the team than I do now.

That is easily the dumbest thing I've read on the main board in years, and that's saying something. You're literally more concerned with the schedule than the results? On what fucking planet is 2-5 better than 6-1? Are you high?

Lastly, I know you don't want to hear this, but a function of winning close games is good, consistent pitching. There's less variability in pitching than hitting. Offense-heavy but defensively weak teams tend to not be in close games often to begin with.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

Baseball is different than other sports. I don’t think you can compare it like that—“extra innings against Tampa? Yankees will kill us!”

Thank you. I really think a large chunk of the stuff I find head-scratching around here stems from people bringing a football mindset to baseball, which results in two related fallacies: (1) overestimating the significance of individual games and even individual series, and (2) overestimating the likelihood that a better team will beat a worse team in any given game (with the resulting inference that if a team loses to a lesser team, or even fails to beat a lesser team punishingly enough, then maybe it isn't as good as we think it is).

Baseball's not like that. A single game, or even a single series, has near-zero predictive or instructive value. Every year, the best teams lose many games to bad teams. The winningest team in post-expansion Red Sox history, the 1978 Sox, lost more than a third of the games they played against under-.500 teams.

 

[Sam Ray Not]

Of course, a one-run win is two runs better than a one-run loss. Being 4-0 in those games doesn't suggest you are going to go undefeated, lol, but (assuming no other context) it does suggest you are roughly 32 games better over the course of a season than a team that went 0-4 in those games.

 

[j44thor]

Of course, a one-run win is two runs better than a one-run loss. Being 4-0 in those games doesn't suggest you are going to go undefeated, lol, but (assuming no other context) it does suggest you are roughly 32 games better over the course of a season than a team that went 0-4 in those games.

Sure and their Pythag record right now is 5-2 which equates to about 97 wins. I'd fully expect them to win 95-105 games if they played TB/MIA all season long. The question is what what will their record be against the rest of the league.

 

[The Gray Eagle]

Your missing the forest through the trees.
The Sox are essentially still in extended spring training. They have played AAAA teams to start the year. That 4 of those games have been decided by one run tells me more about the team than their record in those games.
Sure a win is a win but that doesn't make it predictive. I expect them to get better offensively. If they play like this the rest of the season they will be fortunate to get to 86 or so wins.

The Red Sox play Tampa 18 total times this year, and have 13 games left against them. If your theory holds that Tampa isn't even really a major league team and the Red Sox should be expected to beat them 4 out of every 5, that means we should expect to go something like 10-3 against them in those remaining games. That plus the games already played would put the Red Sox at 16-4.

To finish with your projected 86 wins, the Red Sox would then have to go 70-72 in the other games. So you're expecting the Red Sox to have a losing record the rest of the way, except for their games against the RAAAAys.

Why do you expect a team with a losing record in all their other games to dominate Tampa so much? You clearly think Tampa is so horrific that they should lose almost every game to a Red Sox team that is under .500 against everyone else. Exactly how many games do you expect Tampa to win this year, 30? 35?

By the way, the over/under for Tampa's wins this year is at 77.

The Red Sox also have 30 games left against the tanking Marlins, White Sox, Tigers, Royals, Braves and Phillies. Are those teams all much better than Tampa? (All of them have over/unders lower than Tampa's, by the way.)
Or should we expect the (under .500 against everyone else) Red Sox to utterly demolish them too, because they suck? The Red Sox crushing those sucky teams and winning say 75% of the games against them would be 23 wins and 7 losses.

Add that to the Devil Ray games and the games already played and you get a 39-11 record against lousy teams. To do that and still finish with 86 wins, that means the Red Sox would have to go 47-75 against everyone else, a .385 winning percentage. (The worst team in baseball last year was the Tigers, who had a .395 overall winning percentage.)

The Yankees, Orioles and Blue Jays all have 15 to 19 games left against Tampa, plus lots of games against other tanking teams, (and lots of games against the Red Sox who are horrendous unless they are playing tanking teams) so they should all be piling up the wins.

How many games do you expect those teams to win? Are the Orioles and Blue Jays better than Boston, or will they be under .500 against everyone except Tampa too? If so, then you must have the Yankees winning like 130 games and winning the division by 40-something games since they play so often against bad teams.

 

[RIrooter09]

Sure and their Pythag record right now is 5-2 which equates to about 97 wins. I'd fully expect them to win 95-105 games if they played TB/MIA all season long. The question is what what will their record be against the rest of the league.

Fangraphs projects they'll have the 3rd best record and 4th best run differential in baseball.

https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings

 

[Buzzkill Pauley]

Sure and their Pythag record right now is 5-2 which equates to about 97 wins. I'd fully expect them to win 95-105 games if they played TB/MIA all season long. The question is what what will their record be against the rest of the league.

Extrapolating a full season of wins from < 5% of the season seems more than a little spurious. Especially for a game as notorious as baseball for weird things which happen to keep the “better” team from winning.

And, no data whatsoever exists on contests between the 2018 Red Sox and “the rest of the league” aside from the Rays and Fish. So that’s naught but pure ethereal vapours from which to extrapolate.

At least watch some games before cementing your own biases into the narrative.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

Fangraphs projects they'll have the 3rd best record and 4th best run differential in baseball.

https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings

And that's almost certainly more meaningful information than their actual record through 7 games, regardless of the opposition.

 

[Adrian's Dome]

Sure and their Pythag record right now is 5-2 which equates to about 97 wins. I'd fully expect them to win 95-105 games if they played TB/MIA all season long. The question is what what will their record be against the rest of the league.

No, the only question that matters is what their overall record will be. The games against TB/MIA (and all the other bad teams, as Gray Eagle pointed out) count just as much as the ones against the good teams, and the difference in them isn't nearly as dramatic as you believe (as he also pointed out.)

Also, as yet another aside, citing Pythag on a 7-game sample size is also wasting brain function. If they win tomorrow 22-0, does that change your ever-so-rosy projection? What about if they lose 22-0? Does that all of a sudden make them the worst team in the division?

Your mindset and approach on this is incorrect.

 

[BaseballJones]

If 7 games is simply too small a sample to look forward with any accuracy, then this entire thread is a waste of breath and bandwidth, and we should just enjoy the team winning. Maybe when the sample size gets big enough we can start thinking about what this team really is and make semi-accurate projections moving forward.

 

[ToeKneeArmAss]

This thread reminds me of those late-in-spring-training threads each year when we're all ornery and tired of waiting for real baseball to begin again.

And maybe that's what's going on. We all know that the Miami Marlenes and the Tampa Bay Double-A's are weak facsimiles of MLB competition and we're waiting for real baseball to begin again.

Fwiw I'm very pleased we're 6-1, love what I've seen from the starters and most of the bullpen, and don't think it tells us much about this team yet. Looking forward to some stiffer competition to see what this squad is really made of. Ymmv

 

[j44thor]

If 7 games is simply too small a sample to look forward with any accuracy, then this entire thread is a waste of breath and bandwidth, and we should just enjoy the team winning. Maybe when the sample size gets big enough we can start thinking about what this team really is and make semi-accurate projections moving forward.

Yes I agree. I'm going to stop looking for any useful data within the 7 games played and just sing kumbaya like the masses. Sorry BBjones, not a direct shot at you just the tenor of the thread.

Let's bump this in a couple months and see where things are at.

 

[tims4wins]

Yes I agree. I'm going to stop looking for any useful data within the 7 games played and just sing kumbaya like the masses. Sorry BBjones, not a direct shot at you just the tenor of the thread.

Let's bump this in a couple months and see where things are at.

What's tough about baseball in a town like Boston is that we have this awesome place called SoSH where we want to talk about the Sox every single day, and that leads to the so-called "football mentality". We're all eager to project what the last game means in the long run, so it's a tough balance between having stuff to talk about every day but also looking at the long range. FWIW we did have a very similar thread on the Yankees last year that was bumped from time to time.

 

[BaseballJones]

Through 7 games....

Offense Ranks (AL only)
- Runs: 9th (24)
- HR: 12th (4)
- AVG: 8th (.240)
- OBP: 7th (.315)
- SLG: 10th (.368)
- OPS: 10th (.683)

Pitching Ranks (AL only)
- ERA: 1st (2.09)
- BAA: 3rd (.198)
- OPS: 2nd (.560)
- WHIP: 1st (1.09)
- K/9: 7th (9.13)

So if they were to keep hitting like this, they're likely to lose a lot of games. But if they keep pitching like this, they're likely to win a ton of games. I think their hitting will improve and their pitching obviously will get significantly worse. Crazy predictions, I know.

 

[mauidano]

SSS, but still it's about winning games and the team is 6-1. Sooooooo there's that.

 

[joe dokes]

Yes I agree. I'm going to stop looking for any useful data within the 7 games played and just sing kumbaya like the masses. Sorry BBjones, not a direct shot at you just the tenor of the thread.

You can sing Kumbaya, or "O Death,' but you *should* stop looking for useful data at least until the happenings in a single game can no longer dramatically impact a player or team's season numbers.

 

[tonyarmasjr]

Yes I agree. I'm going to stop looking for any useful data within the 7 games played and just sing kumbaya like the masses. Sorry BBjones, not a direct shot at you just the tenor of the thread.

Let's bump this in a couple months and see where things are at.

Who's singing kumbaya? There is very little useful data in a week's sample of games - especially the first week of the season. I think the tenor of the thread is that any conclusion drawn at this point in the season does not have sufficient data to support it. Therefore, yes, this thread is premature if you're trying to use data from the games played to predict future performance.

But did you guys see the opt outs in Blackmon's contract? What a steal for the Rockies!

 

[chawson]

Cora's doing great, everyone looks to be having fun.

I think one thing we can see from here is that the bullpen is vulnerable to LHH. It's early, but Carson Smith's fastball/sinker isn't quite showing the drop it did in 2015. If he has trouble getting lefties out, he's miscast as a setup man.

Poyner's pretty neat so far and it'd be great if we could make it through the year without anyone figuring out his smoke-and-mirrors act, but that's hard to count on. Joe Kelly's fine, but he's better against RHH. There is no Thornburg.

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

SSS, but still it's about winning games and the team is 6-1. Sooooooo there's that.

I forget. Do the wins early in the season count as much as the wins late in the season?

 

[joe dokes]

I forget. Do the wins early in the season count as much as the wins late in the season?

Depends on who they beat.

 

[The Gray Eagle]

Yes I agree. I'm going to stop looking for any useful data within the 7 games played and just sing kumbaya like the masses. Sorry BBjones, not a direct shot at you just the tenor of the thread.

Let's bump this in a couple months and see where things are at.

You seem to think people are disagreeing with you because we think the Red Sox are definitely going to finish first and don't want to hear anything different. That's not it at all. People are disagreeing with you because your assumptions are wrong.

You're vastly overrating the impact of opponent strength, underestimating how often bad teams beat good ones, and exaggerating how bad Tampa probably will be. And your suggestion that the Red Sox would be lucky to win 86 games if they keep playing like this doesn't add up at all.

The Red Sox could finish in last place this year, and that wouldn't prove you right, because your underlying assumptions are pretty ridiculous.