A Realistic View at 2017 Part III

[moonslav59]

MLBTR ranks the top FAs this winter...

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/08/2017-18-mlb-free-agent-power-rankings-5.html

 

Top 1Bmen/DH available:

 

2) JD Martinez (OF/DH)

4) Eric Hosmer (1B)

6) Justin Upton (OF/DH)

8) Lorenzo Cain (OF- move Beni to DH)

T11) Carlos Santana (1B/DH +)

 

3B (Move Devers to 1B?)

7) Mike Moustakas

 

SP (We could then trade an excess starter.)

1) Yu Darvish

3) Jake Arrieta

5) Masahiro Tanaka

?) Johnny Cueto

T11) Lance Lynn

 

RP

9) Wade Davis

10 Greg Holland

 

 

[mvp 78]

Remy isn't coming back this year. https://twitter.com/PeteAbe/status/895299103164424197

 

Damn.

[Kimmi]

He has an average Game Score of 49. He has 14 QS out of 23 GS. He has given up 26 HR's. The league leader is 28. We can always pick and choose a random 4-5 game sample and say he's been pretty good, but the reality is that's he's pitched like a back end of the rotation guy this year. He's not paid to be a back end of the rotation guy.

 

In the previous 7 starts, he still had a HR/9 of 1.70. He needs to cut that out if he wants to be successful. His FIP was also 4.63 for that stretch, so it seems like it was more out of good luck than good pitching.

 

Hey MVP, did you see my response to this post before it magically disappeared?

[Kimmi]

You left off 2004, when they became the only MLB team ever to blow a 3.889 to 0 game lead in a playoff series.

 

LOL Good one.

[mvp 78]

Hey MVP, did you see my response to this post before it magically disappeared?

 

Maybe? I don't remember, so probably not. I still feel the same way about Porcello though. If he can't get control over the long ball, he's a back end starter.

[Kimmi]

Tonight the first step. Great Sox pitching and 12 hits but spread out. Having these aligned differently should produce more runs. The trick is to know who will hit and who won't. Not an easy thing. Pedroia will get back to himself but probably needs a few games. The yankees lost tonight so the two key teams dropped another game to the Sox. All good.

 

That's the thing about baseball. Sometimes you have a lot of hits and base runners, and can only score 2 runs. Other times you might only get 2 hits but score 4 runs. It's all about the timing of the hits, which really can't be controlled. The key is still to generate base runners, which typically will then generate runs.

[Kimmi]

Remy isn't coming back this year. https://twitter.com/PeteAbe/status/895299103164424197

 

Damn.

 

This really stinks.

[SoxnCycles]

This really stinks.

 

Yes, it does.

Boggs wasn't bad last night, but Gomes and Timlin were awful.

[moonslav59]

We often hear posters speak of line-up balance or avoiding multiple "black holes". The Sox offense has taken some flack this season, but here are some interesting numbers.

 

Looking at the top 9 hitters by PAs on this team, none are below .701. Counting Nunez, none of the top 8 are below .747.

(Listed in order of 2017 PAs)

 

.803 Betts

.776 Beni

.747 Bogey

.753 Moreland

.769 HRam

.768 JBJ

.784 Pedey

>(.819 Nunez in 347 PAs- 2 teams)

.701 Vaz

.760 Young

 

Counting Nunez we have the 10 top PA players above .701, and Devers going nutty out of the gate.

 

Let's look at the other top winning teams in MLB. How "balanced" are they?

 

LA Dodgers:

7th in PAs, Logan Forsythe .683

9th, Chase Utley .750

11th, AGon .643

 

Houston Astros:

5th, Carlos Beltran .716

9th, B McCann .745

 

Washington Nationals:

5th, Matt Wietes .677

6th, Trea Turner .746

9th, Wilmer Difo .716

 

Colorado Rockies

5th, Carlos Gonzalez .642

6th, Trevor Story .716

7th, Ian Desmond .717

9th, Tony Wolters .642

 

Arizona Diamondbacks

4th, Chris Owings .741

8th, Chris Herrmann .583

9th, Gregor Blanco .727

 

Cleveland Guardians

6th, Jason Kipnis .683

7th, Yan Gomes .672

11th, Roberto Perez .524

 

Chicago Cubs

4th, Addison Russell .722

5th, Kyle Schwarber .739

7th, Ben Zobrist .677

8th, Jason Heyward .713

 

NY Yankess

3rd, Chase Headley .749

5th, Matt Holliday .748

8th, J. Ellsbury .684

10th, R Torreyes .678

11th, Chris Carter .653

12th, A Romine .579

 

Now, granted someone could do a study on how many of these teams have players over .850 or .900, and we'd look like chumps, but lets let go of the black hole talk.

 

While Vaz's .701 OPS could fall quickly, our other hitters, especially with Nunez & Devers playing everyday look pretty solid. Not spectacular, but pretty solid.

[OH FOY]

Now do the Pitching Staffs. Just top 4 Starters for Play-offs. Edited August 9, 2017 by OH FOY!

[Nick]

Is Nunez going to cost more than Young did in FA market?

 

Sure love to have him back as a super sub. With Pedroia, Hanley, Beni and Xander, he would almost be a full time player.

[moonslav59]

I've always been a huge believer in how much a catcher influences a pitcher's success or not. The old CERA arguments got out of hand as many used the numbers inappropriately. CERA should not be used to compare catcher across the league or from different teams and different years.

 

That being said, here are the Sox CERA numbers: (Note: some small sample sizes here due to the personal caddy nature of our catcher usage.)

CERA (IP)

Leon vs Vaz

 

2.19 (156)/ 13.50 (5.1) with Sale

[Note: 3.02 w Flowers (552), 2.51 w AJP (226), 3.53 Avila (112)]P

 

4.59(139)/ 7.11 (6.1) with Porcello

[Career: 4.09 (273) Leon, 4.55 (113 Swihart), 3.86 (100) Vaz, 4.17 Avila (578), 4.32 (296) Laird, 5.38 (82) Holaday]

 

13.50 (4)/ 3.01 (117) with Pomeranz

[Career: 3.01 (117) Vaz, 7.12 Leon (24), 3.32 (41) Holaday, 1.99 (131) Norris, 5.73 (71) Rosario]

 

4.55 (87)/ 4.55 (87), Hanigan 3.78 (50), 4.08 (71) Swihart w ERod (career only)

 

3.23 (109)/ 4.30 (163) w Price career only

[2.85 (473) Molina, 3.06 (191) Jaso, 3.61 (162) Shoppach, 3.09 (128) Navarro]

 

1.74 (21)/ 4.32 (33) w Barnes

[Career: 4.32 (60) Leon, 3.30 (60) Vaz, 4.50 (30) Swihart, 5.93 (27) Swi]

 

2.16 (25)/ 4.38 (25) w Hembree

[Career: 3.69 (46) Leon, 3.71 (51) Vaz, 1.83 (20) Hanigan, 1.20 (15) Swi]

 

1.64 (22)/ 1.35 (27) w Kimbrel

[Career: 2.38 (42) Leon, 1.62 (44) Vaz, 1.82 (158) McCann, 2.06 (48) Gattis, 2.01 (45) Norris, 0.00 (41) D Ross!!!]

 

Career Only:

Kelly

2.67 (27) Leon, 2.62 (55) Vaz, 2.81 (176) Molina, 4.83 (91) Hanigan, 4.44 (77) T Cruz, 5.10 (60) Swihart, 3.94 (32) D Ross

 

Abad

6.23 Leon (17), 2.59 (24) Vaz, 4.22 (43) Castro, 2.75 (36) Suzuki, 2.06 (35) Norris, 3.03 (30) Vogt

[moonslav59]

Now do the Pitching Staffs. Just top 4 Starters for Play-offs.

 

Sometimes you can even go with 3 starters, but today's playoff schedules have less days off than in the past.

 

If you finish a series early, you can come back with your top 3 to start the next series, which helps skew the total numbers towards your top 2-3 starts getting more starts.

 

The first round (assuming no WC playoff game is needed) goes like this:

2 games

day off

2 games

day off

1 game

day off (assuming it goes 5 games)

ALCS starts:

2 games

1 day off

3 games

1 day off

2 games

2 days off (assuming a 7 game series)

2 games

1 day off

3 games

1 day off

2 games

 

So, let's assume our starters are ranked as such:

Sale

Pomeranz

Porcello

Price-ERod

We might see this:

 

1 Sale

2 Pom

day off

3 Porc

4 ERod (or Sale -1 day rest)

day off

5 Sale (+1 rest)

day off (assuming 5 game win)

1 Pom

2 Porc

day off

3 Sale

4 ERod

5 Pom

day off

6 Porc

7 Sale

day off

day off

WS begins

1 Pom

2 Sale

day off

3 Porc (+2 rest)

4 ERod

5 Pom (or Sale -1 rest)

day off

6 Sale (+1)

7 Porc

 

Total playoff games started, assuming every series goes to the final game:

6 Sale

4 Pom

4 Porc

3 ERod or Price

 

[moonslav59]

Is Nunez going to cost more than Young did in FA market?

 

Sure love to have him back as a super sub. With Pedroia, Hanley, Beni and Xander, he would almost be a full time player.

 

Two years ago, Young was signed to $6.5M x 2 to be our 4th Of'er and platoon DH/OF vs LHPs.

 

My guess is Nunez, who should start FT next year (maybe at various positions) will get more than $13M/2.

 

I'd love to have Nunez back, but we may spend too much on a big bat 1Bman this winter, and I'm not sure how much Henry is willing to go over the tax limit. The tax will be low next year, so maybe 2018 will be the year we go way over. It might be hard to sign impact players to one year deals, and once we get to 2019 and beyond, the budget and tax are much more tricky.

[harmony]

Baseball Prospectus columnist Matthew Kory maintains his optimism regarding the Red Sox:

 

http://boston.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/08/08/an-optimists-view/

 

Kory lives in my town.

[moonslav59]

Baseball Prospectus columnist Matthew Kory maintains his optimism regarding the Red Sox:

 

http://boston.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/08/08/an-optimists-view/

 

Kory lives in my town.

 

I'm very optimistic about our chances this year, despite the Dodgers looking indestructible this year. I'm glad they are in the NL.

[moonslav59]

Sometimes you can even go with 3 starters, but today's playoff schedules have less days off than in the past.

 

If you finish a series early, you can come back with your top 3 to start the next series, which helps skew the total numbers towards your top 2-3 starts getting more starts.

 

The first round (assuming no WC playoff game is needed) goes like this:

2 games

day off

2 games

day off

1 game

day off (assuming it goes 5 games)

ALCS starts:

2 games

1 day off

3 games

1 day off

2 games

2 days off (assuming a 7 game series)

2 games

1 day off

3 games

1 day off

2 games

 

So, let's assume our starters are ranked as such:

Sale

Pomeranz

Porcello

Price-ERod

We might see this:

 

1 Sale

2 Pom

day off

3 Porc

4 ERod (or Sale -1 day rest)

day off

5 Sale (+1 rest)

day off (assuming 5 game win)

1 Pom

2 Porc

day off

3 Sale

4 ERod

5 Pom

day off

6 Porc

7 Sale

day off

day off

WS begins

1 Pom

2 Sale

day off

3 Porc (+2 rest)

4 ERod

5 Pom (or Sale -1 rest)

day off

6 Sale (+1)

7 Porc

 

Total playoff games started, assuming every series goes to the final game:

6 Sale

4 Pom

4 Porc

3 ERod or Price

 

 

Looking at how we could see Sale get the maximum amount of playoff starts without pitching on short rest, except for the WS going 7 games, here's what I came up with:

 

The Div Series goes 3 games: Sale, Pom, off, Porc, 4 days off

The Champ Series goes 5 games: Sale, Pom, off, Porc, Erod, Sale, 5 days off

The WS goes 7 games: Sale, Pom, off, Porc, Sale (short rest), ERod, off, Pom (+1), Sale (short rest)

Total games started:

6 Sale

4 Pom

3 Porc

2 ERod

[sk7326]

I'm very optimistic about our chances this year, despite the Dodgers looking indestructible this year. I'm glad they are in the NL.

 

It's baseball - no reason not to be optimistic. Even the worst team in the league pulled off an 11-8 stretch during the season. Get in the tournament, see what happens.

[harmony]

It's baseball - no reason not to be optimistic. Even the worst team in the league pulled off an 11-8 stretch during the season. Get in the tournament, see what happens.

The best American League records since May 28:

 

Houston - 37-25

Seattle - 37-27

Cleveland - 36-27

Boston - 37-28

Kansas City - 36-28

 

It's hard to count any of those teams out ... yet.

[Maxbialystock]

I'm very optimistic about our chances this year, despite the Dodgers looking indestructible this year. I'm glad they are in the NL.

 

With 49 games to go and a 4 game lead, I'm only optimistic about and certainly not sure we will win the AL East.

 

Once in the playoffs, I agree the Sox pitching staff is as good as any or better in the AL. The Dodgers staff is clearly better, but our pitching could well get us to the WS with just some hitting (and scoring of course). The Sox 2013 postseason is instructive on this point.

 

Chris Sale is the 8th wonder of the world, but he is not invincible. More to the point, you want him pitching on short rest when the available evidence says he gets better with an extra day of rest.

 

Nevertheless, I applaud your optimism and your use of stats, which is why this is a great thread.

[Maxbialystock]

About Sale. My high point last night wasn't the 13 K's or the 8 innings of shutout ball. It was leaping to snare that high hopper to get an out. This guy comes to play and to win. I doubt that Pedro, Roger, or Cy would make that play. Sale is a complete player.

[mvp 78]

About Sale. My high point last night wasn't the 13 K's or the 8 innings of shutout ball. It was leaping to snare that high hopper to get an out. This guy comes to play and to win. I doubt that Pedro, Roger, or Cy would make that play. Sale is a complete player.

 

That play was great. Him yelling in the dugout that "this is war" was really great too.

 

thunder, do you still think he's a clubhouse cancer?!?!?!?!?

[moonslav59]

About Sale. My high point last night wasn't the 13 K's or the 8 innings of shutout ball. It was leaping to snare that high hopper to get an out. This guy comes to play and to win. I doubt that Pedro, Roger, or Cy would make that play. Sale is a complete player.

 

Pedro was a pretty good fielder and was a true "gamer", but he was too short to make that play.

 

ESPN said that ball was 11.8 ft high.

[mvp 78]

Pedro was a pretty good fielder and was a true "gamer", but he was too short to make that play.

 

ESPN said that ball was 11.8 ft high.

 

No f'n way. Sorry, Spud.

[Maxbialystock]

Pedro was a pretty good fielder and was a true "gamer", but he was too short to make that play.

 

ESPN said that ball was 11.8 ft high.

 

I'm sure you're right and I admit I was cheating (knowing Sale is 6'6").

[moonslav59]

Chris Sale is the 8th wonder of the world, but he is not invincible. More to the point, you want him pitching on short rest when the available evidence says he gets better with an extra day of rest.

 

When you get to the playoffs and reach certain critical points, sometimes you have to look at more than just Sale's numbers on certain day's rest. You have to look at possibilities of us being eliminated with Sale never pitching again and is Sale on 3 or 4 days rest better than Porcello, ERod or Price on 4 or 5 days rest, and do we really need this game right now.

 

By the way, here are Sale's numbers with various days rest:

 

4 days rest (69 GS)

32-24 3.05/1.066 WHIP

 

5 days rest (77 GS)

40-19 3.23/1.019

 

Sale actually does better with 4 vs 5 days off.

 

Note: 6+ days off (24 GS)

12-7 1.88/ 0.978

 

 

 

[moonslav59]

No f'n way. Sorry, Spud.

 

The glove must add 4-6 inches, but I doubt that ball was 11.8 ft.

[Spudboy]

Yes, it does.

Boggs wasn't bad last night, but Gomes and Timlin were awful.

 

Hmm. I don't think that any of them were great. But they are not exactly seasoned ( trained and experienced ) pros at color announcing,

 

I think each one did a decent job. They all brought their considerable knowledge of the game each night.

 

I kind of like the variety of voices, styles, and opinions of each.

 

None of them made it difficult to enjoy the game as for an example, the Sunday Night ESPN twats.

 

I think Gomes has the best potential to be very good.

 

These are just my opinions and everyone has their own spin.

[Spudboy]

Speaking of such things, Lenny DeNardo has been very, very good with his in-studio analysis.

 

He is smart, knowledgeable, articulate, and is not a DB.

[S5Dewey]

Well, welll... the ball may well have been ~11'9" off the field. Since the mound is 10.5" inches high the ball was 10'4" off the field.

 

Sale is 6'6" and his arms probably extend at least 18" above the top of his head so that gets him to 8' to the top of his fingers. Add 4-6" for the glove and he only has to be able to get ~1 1/2 feet into the air to spear that ball.

 

Assuming Sale is a good athlete (a fair assumption) and comparing what he did to what a basketball player has to do to dunk a basketball it's not unreasonable to think that he could jump high enough to dunk a basketball - or catch a ball that's almost 12' off the field or 10'6" off the mound.