The Pen

[notin]

Not to mention, counting Doubront in for the “best season of his career” is stat padding. The guy topped 79 IP twice in his career, and one of those years was 2013. So it was the best of two? Real big outlier there.

 

And Ellsbury’s 4.6 fWAR was hardly a freakishly good season. When with Boston, he had one season under 3.5 fWAR when he played at least 75 games.

 

Now his 9.4 fWAR in 2010 was a serious outlier.

 

Victorino had a rough 2012, but from 2008 through 2011, he was averaging over 4.0 fWAR per season. His season in 2013 was right in line. This may have been more a matter of getting a good player at the right time than anything else...

Edited January 19, 2019 by notin

[moonslav59]

Not to mention, counting Doubront in for the “best season of his career” is stat padding. The guy topped 79 IP twice in his career, and one of those years was 2013. So it was the best of two? Real big outlier there.

 

And Ellsbury’s 4.6 fWAR was hardly a freakishly good season. When with Boston, he had one season under 3.5 fWAR when he played at least 75 games.

 

Now his 9.4 fWAR in 2010 was a serious outlier.

 

Victorino had a rough 2012, but from 2008 through 2011, he was averaging over 4.0 fWAR per season. His season in 2013 was right in line. This may have been more a matter of getting a good player at the right time than anything else...

 

When we got Vic, I remember a lot of us not liking the 3 years, but hoping we'd get 1, maybe 2, good years out of him.

 

Napoli had a lot of good years, his 2013 was padded by a freakishly good defensive metric.

 

Uehara is legit, but even he had some more great years.

 

Salty, Drew and Nava helped, but really? I'm not buying it and never did.

 

To me, the most freaky year was 2017 with all the down years at once.

[notin]

When we got Vic, I remember a lot of us not liking the 3 years, but hoping we'd get 1, maybe 2, good years out of him.

 

Napoli had a lot of good years, his 2013 was padded by a freakishly good defensive metric.

 

Uehara is legit, but even he had some more great years.

 

Salty, Drew and Nava helped, but really? I'm not buying it and never did.

 

To me, the most freaky year was 2017 with all the down years at once.

 

 

I’m willing to bet I can find at least eleven players on the 2018 Yankees who had one of their three best seasons of their career. So should we also conclude their 100 win season was a flukish overachievement?

[jacksonianmarch]

The majority of the 2013 Red Sox have retired.

[Bellhorn04]

What's a little funny about your position, jacks, is that you keep making such a big deal out of us losing Kelly.

 

Kelly did not have a great season last year by any measure.

 

In conventional metrics he had a 4.39 ERA and a 1.36 WHIP.

 

In advanced he had a 0.7 fWAR.

 

We've had one significant loss in Kimbrel, and that's it.

[notin]

The majority of the 2013 Red Sox have retired.

 

You don't think the majority of the 2018 Yankees will be retired by 2024?

[jacksonianmarch]

They very well may be, but their career arcs haven’t been written yet.

[Jack Flap]

No one expected Uehara to be as brilliant as he was in 2013, but he had pitched like a stud before that and the main knock when we signed him was the question of whether he could stay healthy.

 

Salty had his best year, but only by 1.1 bWAR up from 2012, when he hit 25 home runs with a .742 OPS.

 

I would characterize Nava and Carp as the only real stunners who were never able to come close to their 2013 performances either before or after.

 

A lot of fans pooh-poohed the signings of Victorino, Napoli, Drew, Gomes, etc. and then, after the season, tried to pretend they were right all along by rewriting the seasons those guys had as "career years"...when, in reality, they were solid players with established track records who performed on the higher end of what might reasonably have been expected from them.

 

The idea that the 2013 championship only came about through dumb, blind luck, through an unforseeable confluence of career years and lucky breaks, is one that irritates me to no end. Not only is it factually false (notice how quickly we went from "everyone had career years" to maybe three guys did - our third string closer, catcher, and platoon left fielder), but it ignores how much adversity that club actually had to navigate, from the injuries to Hanrahan, Bailey, and Buchholz, to Middlebrooks completely flopping relative to expectations. It was not a team that ended up being built for long-term success (something that could fairly be said of the 2004 Red Sox also, and may soon be said about the 2018 version once its major pieces start dispersing), but that doesn't mean what happened that year isn't valid or should be discounted.

[Bellhorn04]

Luck is usually part of winning a championship.

 

But winning 4 in 15 years in the modern baseball era, that ain't luck, baby.

[notin]

Luck is usually part of winning a championship.

 

But winning 4 in 15 years in the modern baseball era, that ain't luck, baby.

 

 

Well, when the Red Sox won, it’s luck. When the Yankees win, it’s dominance.

 

And when the Yankees don’t win, it’s bad umpiring...

[sk7326]

No one expected Uehara to be as brilliant as he was in 2013, but he had pitched like a stud before that and the main knock when we signed him was the question of whether he could stay healthy.

 

Salty had his best year, but only by 1.1 bWAR up from 2012, when he hit 25 home runs with a .742 OPS.

 

I would characterize Nava and Carp as the only real stunners who were never able to come close to their 2013 performances either before or after.

 

A lot of fans pooh-poohed the signings of Victorino, Napoli, Drew, Gomes, etc. and then, after the season, tried to pretend they were right all along by rewriting the seasons those guys had as "career years"...when, in reality, they were solid players with established track records who performed on the higher end of what might reasonably have been expected from them.

 

The idea that the 2013 championship only came about through dumb, blind luck, through an unforseeable confluence of career years and lucky breaks, is one that irritates me to no end. Not only is it factually false (notice how quickly we went from "everyone had career years" to maybe three guys did - our third string closer, catcher, and platoon left fielder), but it ignores how much adversity that club actually had to navigate, from the injuries to Hanrahan, Bailey, and Buchholz, to Middlebrooks completely flopping relative to expectations. It was not a team that ended up being built for long-term success (something that could fairly be said of the 2004 Red Sox also, and may soon be said about the 2018 version once its major pieces start dispersing), but that doesn't mean what happened that year isn't valid or should be discounted.

 

That team cannot be discounted. After all, it was the wire-to-wire best team in the league, and never faced an elimination game. In LF there was a high quality jobshare - which is inherently wobbly (like our 1B jobshare last year). The same goes with C.

 

Really the 2013 season was just largely a matter of guys being healthy. There was some luck (there always is), but a lot of the 2012 problem was simply injuries.

[notin]

 

Really the 2013 season was just largely a matter of guys being healthy. There was some luck (there always is), but a lot of the 2012 problem was simply injuries.

 

 

The 2012 team was basically the 2011 team that dominated MLB from April through August but then suddenly just quit in September. They never really got going in 2012, some due to injuries, some due to the ineptitude of Bobby Valentine, but that Cherington had a fire sale trade in August was a strong indicator that management felt they needed a quick rebuild.

 

That it resulted in an immediate championship involved the normal amount of luck, but also some excellent work by Cherington*, who rarely gets any credit for anything.

 

 

*All praise of Cherington is in no way an indictment of Dombrowski...

[dgalehouse]

I think the analytics minded fans will probably disagree , but I think the 2013 Red Sox were a unique group. There was the marathon bombing , the Boston Strong movement and the city coming together behind the ball club. The were highly motivated, driven and determined to bring home a championship. Truly a team on a mission. Plus, they had talent . But not enough talent to sustain that success with making some key additions. Regrettably, that off season was unproductive, to say the least . And here we are today .

[Bellhorn04]

I think the analytics minded fans will probably disagree , but I think the 2013 Red Sox were a unique group. There was the marathon bombing , the Boston Strong movement and the city coming together behind the ball club. The were highly motivated, driven and determined to bring home a championship. Truly a team on a mission. Plus, they had talent . But not enough talent to sustain that success with making some key additions. Regrettably, that off season was unproductive, to say the least . And here we are today .

 

There's always going to be some up and downs.

 

The bottom line is, since Henry bought the team we have the most rings of any team.

[dgalehouse]

There's always going to be some up and downs.

 

The bottom line is, since Henry bought the team we have the most rings of any team.

 

Very true . But how about one more ? At least one .

[sk7326]

Not to mention, counting Doubront in for the “best season of his career” is stat padding. The guy topped 79 IP twice in his career, and one of those years was 2013. So it was the best of two? Real big outlier there.

 

And Ellsbury’s 4.6 fWAR was hardly a freakishly good season. When with Boston, he had one season under 3.5 fWAR when he played at least 75 games.

 

Now his 9.4 fWAR in 2010 was a serious outlier.

 

Victorino had a rough 2012, but from 2008 through 2011, he was averaging over 4.0 fWAR per season. His season in 2013 was right in line. This may have been more a matter of getting a good player at the right time than anything else...

 

with Victorino there were a couple of things which worked

 

1. He was no longer a good CF, but still good enough to be an excellent RF. A lot of his WAR was defensively based

2. His shoulder caused him to not switch-hit, which meant he was not hitting from his weaker side.

 

Victorino was magnificent - the odds the deal would deliver 3 good years was very low, but it delivered one great one which paid for the other two.

 

Ellsbury quietly had a terrific season - perhaps his best all around season (he hit better in 2011). The Red Sox bet correctly that at his age and with his injury history - there was no value in extending him. But Ellsbury was arguably the best CF not named Mike Trout in the league that season.

[Bellhorn04]

The real miracle in 2013 was the starting rotation. In 2012 the starters put up the worst collective ERA in franchise history. And the only addition was Dempster.

[Bellhorn04]

I really hope the bullpen guys don't make up a bunch of 'Who's the closer?' t-shirts.

[sk7326]

The real miracle in 2013 was the starting rotation. In 2012 the starters put up the worst collective ERA in franchise history. And the only addition was Dempster.

 

You got a return to form from Lester and Buchholz - and Lackey. And Peavy being added midseason - though he was more useful in the regular season

[moonslav59]

The real miracle in 2013 was the starting rotation. In 2012 the starters put up the worst collective ERA in franchise history. And the only addition was Dempster.

 

2012 was more freaky than 2013.

[Bellhorn04]

2012 was more freaky than 2013.

 

What were the projections for the 2013 team?

[moonslav59]

What were the projections for the 2013 team?

 

My point was that the numbers of most players in 2013 vs their career norms was not as far off as the 2012 numbers were below norms.

 

We were probably not projected to do very well based on the lows of 2012 and much people use just the most recent short sample sizes to project future production.

 

[Larry Cook]

Could desperate Dave have a trade target in mind for the pen? Because he does not seem interested in signing any free agents.

[harmony]

Could desperate Dave have a trade target in mind for the pen? Because he does not seem interested in signing any free agents.

The search goes on:

 

[Kimmi]

When we got Vic, I remember a lot of us not liking the 3 years, but hoping we'd get 1, maybe 2, good years out of him.

 

Napoli had a lot of good years, his 2013 was padded by a freakishly good defensive metric.

 

Uehara is legit, but even he had some more great years.

 

Salty, Drew and Nava helped, but really? I'm not buying it and never did.

 

To me, the most freaky year was 2017 with all the down years at once.

 

Personally, I loved the signings from that off season. My types of signings.

 

Also, I think the freaky years are 2014 and 2015, not 2013. 2017 was similarly freaky.

[Kimmi]

What's a little funny about your position, jacks, is that you keep making such a big deal out of us losing Kelly.

 

Kelly did not have a great season last year by any measure.

 

In conventional metrics he had a 4.39 ERA and a 1.36 WHIP.

 

In advanced he had a 0.7 fWAR.

 

We've had one significant loss in Kimbrel, and that's it.

 

And yet, I would not even classify the loss of Kimbrel as being that significant.

[Kimmi]

No one expected Uehara to be as brilliant as he was in 2013, but he had pitched like a stud before that and the main knock when we signed him was the question of whether he could stay healthy.

 

Salty had his best year, but only by 1.1 bWAR up from 2012, when he hit 25 home runs with a .742 OPS.

 

I would characterize Nava and Carp as the only real stunners who were never able to come close to their 2013 performances either before or after.

 

A lot of fans pooh-poohed the signings of Victorino, Napoli, Drew, Gomes, etc. and then, after the season, tried to pretend they were right all along by rewriting the seasons those guys had as "career years"...when, in reality, they were solid players with established track records who performed on the higher end of what might reasonably have been expected from them.

 

The idea that the 2013 championship only came about through dumb, blind luck, through an unforseeable confluence of career years and lucky breaks, is one that irritates me to no end. Not only is it factually false (notice how quickly we went from "everyone had career years" to maybe three guys did - our third string closer, catcher, and platoon left fielder), but it ignores how much adversity that club actually had to navigate, from the injuries to Hanrahan, Bailey, and Buchholz, to Middlebrooks completely flopping relative to expectations. It was not a team that ended up being built for long-term success (something that could fairly be said of the 2004 Red Sox also, and may soon be said about the 2018 version once its major pieces start dispersing), but that doesn't mean what happened that year isn't valid or should be discounted.

 

Thank you for this post Jack. Well said.

[Kimmi]

Well, when the Red Sox won, it’s luck. When the Yankees win, it’s dominance.

 

And when the Yankees don’t win, it’s bad umpiring...

 

LOL That pretty much sums it up!

[Kimmi]

The 2012 team was basically the 2011 team that dominated MLB from April through August but then suddenly just quit in September. They never really got going in 2012, some due to injuries, some due to the ineptitude of Bobby Valentine, but that Cherington had a fire sale trade in August was a strong indicator that management felt they needed a quick rebuild.

 

That it resulted in an immediate championship involved the normal amount of luck, but also some excellent work by Cherington*, who rarely gets any credit for anything.

 

 

*All praise of Cherington is in no way an indictment of Dombrowski...

 

Bobby Valentine is to be blamed for 2012, and almost never will I blame a game, much less an entire season on a manager. The blame is due to his off field management, not his in game tactics.

 

Also, Ben is awesome.

[Kimmi]

I think the analytics minded fans will probably disagree , but I think the 2013 Red Sox were a unique group. There was the marathon bombing , the Boston Strong movement and the city coming together behind the ball club. The were highly motivated, driven and determined to bring home a championship. Truly a team on a mission. Plus, they had talent . But not enough talent to sustain that success with making some key additions. Regrettably, that off season was unproductive, to say the least . And here we are today .

 

I am very analytically minded, but I do very much believe that the marathon bombing was a unifying factor that helped propel the team to a championship.