A Realistic View at 2017 Part III

[moonslav59]

Well hell, Moon didn't give me all the f***ing details! It's his f***ing fault!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I clearly said "positional rankings" not "player rankings".

 

Fangraphs has Beni listed as the 10th best LF'er by WAR.

 

(Some listed may play more of another OF position.)

[Maxbialystock]

I clearly said "positional rankings" not "player rankings".

 

Fangraphs has Beni listed as the 10th best LF'er by WAR.

 

(Some listed may play more of another OF position.)

 

espn shows him 8th in MLB. Plus he's probably the youngest and is the only one who plays half his games in front of the green monster, which simultaneously limits his range factor and encourages misplays of caroms of the wall.

[moonslav59]

espn shows him 8th in MLB. Plus he's probably the youngest and is the only one who plays half his games in front of the green monster, which simultaneously limits his range factor and encourages misplays of caroms of the wall.

 

I'm a huge Beni fan, but some of his "bonehead" plays don't count as errors, so maybe it's all evened out this year.

 

Beni still has so much upside potential. It makes me giddy.

[moonslav59]

Best records

 

AL

97-58 CLE

95-59 HOU

90-64 BOS

86-68 NYY

81-74 MN

 

NL

98-56 LAD (not counting Sat night gm)

92-61 WSH

89-65 AZ (WC)

86-68 Cubs

83-71 COL

82-73 MIL

82-73 STL (Can you believe these guys?)

 

 

 

[moonslav59]

American League Pitchers with 120+ IP

 

ERA Leaders

1 Kluber 2.35

2 Sale 2.75

3 Keuchel 2.96

4 Peacock 2.98

6 Severino 3.01

8 Pomeranz 3.15

10 Verlander 3.38

11 S Gray 3.38

13 Carrasco 3.48

17 Morton 3.75

19 CC Sab 3.81

21 ERod 3.91

 

Houston has 4 under 4.00

NYY and Boston have 3.

CLE has 2.

 

How about by WAR?

 

1 Sale 8.2

2 Kluber 6.9

3 Severino 5.5

4 Carrasco 4.8

7 Verlander 4.0

10 Peacock 3.4

12 Pomeranz 3.1

13 S Gray 3.1

14 T Bauer 3.0

15 Morton 3.0

23 Keuchel 2.4

24 Montgomery 2.3

26 Tanaka 2.2

28 ERod 2.1

29 Porcello 2.0

30 Tomlin 2.0

 

Sox have 4 over 2.0 WAR.

CLE has 4.

NYY has 4.

HOU has 4.

 

16 out of the top 30 are on 4 out of the 15 AL teams.

 

Not surprising that these are the teams that are in the playoffs. (The Twins have 2.)

[moonslav59]

Pythagorean Standings

102-53 CLE

95-59 HOU

95-59 NYY

90-64 BOS

[Nick]

I clearly said "positional rankings" not "player rankings".

 

Fangraphs has Beni listed as the 10th best LF'er by WAR.

 

(Some listed may play more of another OF position.)

 

Well hell, Moon didn't give me all the f***ing details! It's his f***ing fault!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

That was in jest Moon.....

[Nick]

16 out of the top 30 are on 4 out of the 15 AL teams.

 

WAR ranking of American League pitchers....mathematically, shouldn't this always be true? Winning teams should dominate this type of rankings?

[Slasher9]

edited.

Wrong thread.

[Maxbialystock]

American League Pitchers with 120+ IP

 

ERA Leaders

1 Kluber 2.35

2 Sale 2.75

3 Keuchel 2.96

4 Peacock 2.98

6 Severino 3.01

8 Pomeranz 3.15

10 Verlander 3.38

11 S Gray 3.38

13 Carrasco 3.48

17 Morton 3.75

19 CC Sab 3.81

21 ERod 3.91

 

Houston has 4 under 4.00

NYY and Boston have 3.

CLE has 2.

 

How about by WAR?

 

1 Sale 8.2

2 Kluber 6.9

3 Severino 5.5

4 Carrasco 4.8

7 Verlander 4.0

10 Peacock 3.4

12 Pomeranz 3.1

13 S Gray 3.1

14 T Bauer 3.0

15 Morton 3.0

23 Keuchel 2.4

24 Montgomery 2.3

26 Tanaka 2.2

28 ERod 2.1

29 Porcello 2.0

30 Tomlin 2.0

 

Sox have 4 over 2.0 WAR.

CLE has 4.

NYY has 4.

HOU has 4.

 

16 out of the top 30 are on 4 out of the 15 AL teams.

 

Not surprising that these are the teams that are in the playoffs. (The Twins have 2.)

 

Great stuff. I too look at those ERA and WAR rankings of individual pitchers and agree those numbers are meaningful.

 

Quite another story on the hitting side, where the Sox have just one guy, Betts, in the top 40 of AL hitters as measured by OPS or WAR (not OWAR). Thanks to his fielding prowess, he is 5th in the AL in WAR, but only 36th in OPS.

 

A year ago we had 6 of the top 40 AL hitters in individual OPS: Ortiz, Betts, HanRam, JBJ, Pedey, and Bogie. This precipitous drop must be because JF does not know how to do lineups.

[veryoldtimer]

As usual, I'm confused.

"Everybody" says that wins are not a good measure of a pitcher.

So how come WINS above replacement has any relevance?

[Bellhorn04]

As usual, I'm confused.

"Everybody" says that wins are not a good measure of a pitcher.

So how come WINS above replacement has any relevance?

 

Because Wins Above Replacement is a whole different concept. It tries to measure actual performance eliminating luck factors.

 

It's actually Runs Above Replacement, converted to Wins to make it a little easier to compare players.

[S5Dewey]

As usual, I'm confused.

"Everybody" says that wins are not a good measure of a pitcher.

So how come WINS above replacement has any relevance?

 

You're new here. You'll soon learn that you're not allowed to question WAR.

 

WAR is the shiny toy that everyone believes in, in spite of the fact that two sites calculate WAR, get different results, and both sites say that their calculation is only an approximation. I believe it's the only stat we have where one has to qualify the statistic by defining which WAR they're using.

 

You'll get used to it. Trust me.

[moonslav59]

Great stuff. I too look at those ERA and WAR rankings of individual pitchers and agree those numbers are meaningful.

 

Quite another story on the hitting side, where the Sox have just one guy, Betts, in the top 40 of AL hitters as measured by OPS or WAR (not OWAR). Thanks to his fielding prowess, he is 5th in the AL in WAR, but only 36th in OPS.

 

A year ago we had 6 of the top 40 AL hitters in individual OPS: Ortiz, Betts, HanRam, JBJ, Pedey, and Bogie. This precipitous drop must be because JF does not know how to do lineups.

 

We obviously rely on our pitching and defense, but what is concerning is that the other top 3 teams in our league appear to have just as many top starting pitchers as we do. All of the top 4 teams have 4 starters in the top 20. Our pen might be better than others, but Cleveland has a strong and deep pen.

 

Our lack of hitting could certainly be our downfall.

[moonslav59]

Updated Sox OPS

 

.797 Betts

.787 Beni

.766 Pedey

.755 Vazquez

.754 Moreland

.747 HRam

.743 JBJ

.731 Bogey

(Only .066 separates all or batters with 325+ PAs)

 

Under 300 PAs (with Sox only)

.885 Nunez

.871 Devers

.699 Young

.639 Leon

.617 Marrero

.521 Holt

 

 

[moonslav59]

Our Sox pitchers did a pretty good job vs the Reds. It's easy to say, "It's only the Reds," but the Reds have some very good hitters this year:

 

1.023 Votto

.940 Cozart

.893 Gennett

.849 Suarez

.803 Schebler

.773 Duvall

 

They may be in a distant last place, but they have 5 guys with better OPS than our top PAs players, and we beat them 3 straight in their own park!

 

(15-8 in total runs)

Edited September 24, 2017 by moonslav59

[moonslav59]

Looks like we will end up placing 10th in runs scored. Not bad, when you consider we place 21st in OPS+ at 93. (League avg. 97)

[moonslav59]

We'll probably end up placing 3rd in runs allowed, despite allowing 57 unearned runs- almost as much as the two teams ahead of us combined!

 

CLE 35

 

LAD 34

 

Weird, since we are among the leaders in defense.

[Bellhorn04]

We'll probably end up placing 3rd in runs allowed, despite allowing 57 unearned runs- almost as much as the two teams ahead of us combined!

 

CLE 35

 

LAD 34

 

Weird, since we are among the leaders in defense.

 

Not necessarily weird, since unearned runs are only based on errors, which are now recognized as only one component of defense.

[moonslav59]

Not necessarily weird, since unearned runs are only based on errors, which are now recognized as only one component of defense.

 

It still seems weird that a top 3 defense by UZR/150 and DRS would allow almost double the unearned runs of the two teams ahead of them in runs allowed.

 

One would normally expect a top defensive team to have a limited amount of unearned runs allowed.

 

I realize errors are subjective, and it seems like we've made our share of mistakes not ruled as errors, but it's still surprising to me, that it seems like once we make an error, it bites us in the behind.

[Emp9]

It still seems weird that a top 3 defense by UZR/150 and DRS would allow almost double the unearned runs of the two teams ahead of them in runs allowed.

 

One would normally expect a top defensive team to have a limited amount of unearned runs allowed.

 

I realize errors are subjective, and it seems like we've made our share of mistakes not ruled as errors, but it's still surprising to me, that it seems like once we make an error, it bites us in the behind.

 

Probably because the 2nd most of our errors have come from the position you'd typically want the least amount of errors to come from.

[Bellhorn04]

It still seems weird that a top 3 defense by UZR/150 and DRS would allow almost double the unearned runs of the two teams ahead of them in runs allowed.

 

One would normally expect a top defensive team to have a limited amount of unearned runs allowed.

 

I realize errors are subjective, and it seems like we've made our share of mistakes not ruled as errors, but it's still surprising to me, that it seems like once we make an error, it bites us in the behind.

 

We may be a top 3 defense, but we've allowed the 5th most errors.

[moonslav59]

We may be a top 3 defense, but we've allowed the 5th most errors.

 

How many were boneheadedness?

 

How many were just plain physical mistakes or misjudging a play while still focused?

[Bellhorn04]

How many were boneheadedness?

 

How many were just plain physical mistakes or misjudging a play while still focused?

 

Can't seem to find that data.

 

Most of our bonehead plays this year have been on the basepaths.

 

I'm just trying to address your question about the unearned runs.

 

Generally speaking unearned runs will have a pretty high correlation to errors, but there will be some randomness. Most errors lead to no unearned runs. But one error can lead to 5 unearned runs.

[moonslav59]

Some of the excessive unearned runs is probably just bad luck (or timing), and I'm sure our defense has saved many an earned run, so I'm not complaining.

 

Hopefully, Devers and Bogey can step up their defensive games next year and we can maybe be the top defensive team in MLB.

[moonslav59]

Top AL Contenders' Top Starters by ERA- (120+ IP)

 

CLE

51 Kluber

76 Carrasco

96 Bauer

111 Tomlin

 

BOS

61 Sale

75 Pom

86 ERod

100 Porcello

 

HOU

70 Kuechel

70 Peacock

76 Verlander

86 Morton

 

NYY

68 Severino

76 Gray

87 CC Sab

93 Montgomery

102 Garcia

 

[oldtimer]

Some of the excessive unearned runs is probably just bad luck (or timing), and I'm sure our defense has saved many an earned run, so I'm not complaining.

 

Hopefully, Devers and Bogey can step up their defensive games next year and we can maybe be the top defensive team in MLB.

 

Devers is likely to improve his defense and he needs to do that. His hitting is already a plus on the team. I don't expect Bogey to improve much as he has enough years of play now to define who he is defensively. His hitting really fell off a cliff this year in the second half but looks now like he is coming back a little at season's end.

 

My hope is that we get a hitting coach who can do a better job with our team next year. Maybe Bogey and JBJ would respond to a different approach.

[moonslav59]

Devers is likely to improve his defense and he needs to do that. His hitting is already a plus on the team. I don't expect Bogey to improve much as he has enough years of play now to define who he is defensively. His hitting really fell off a cliff this year in the second half but looks now like he is coming back a little at season's end.

 

My hope is that we get a hitting coach who can do a better job with our team next year. Maybe Bogey and JBJ would respond to a different approach.

 

I'm hopeful with Devers' D, but we'll see.

 

If we have to use Nunez at 2B next year, our D gets even worse.

[moonslav59]

Imagine signing Duda and Nunez, and Pedey needs to DH.

 

How about this IF defense?

 

Duda, Nunez, Devers, Bogey

 

Yuck!

[oldtimer]

Imagine signing Duda and Nunez, and Pedey needs to DH.

 

How about this IF defense?

 

Duda, Nunez, Devers, Bogey

 

Yuck!

 

What about Cosart instead of Nunez? Similar players but Cosart has a better defense. Both have about the same $ valuation. I do believe Devers will improve. He has the tools but needs to have his head more in the game. Bogey is who he is. Not a great defender but acceptable. I would think his hitting can be brought around. I am not stuck on Duda. Maybe DD will find a better overall player.

 

Personally, I am coming to believe that one of our best fielders is just too much of a project in the batters box. Maybe it is time to see what kind of replacement we can get in Center Field.