A Realistic View at 2021: Part II

[Nick]

According to just 2021 positional WAR rankings, here are our weakest to strongest positions:

 

Red= best of top 4 ALE teams

Blue= worst of top 4

 

15th 1B -0.6 (TOR 1, TBR 7, NYY 10)

10th RF +0,6 (TBR 1, TOR 3, NYY 7)

9th C +0.5 (TB 1, NYY 3, TOR 13)

8th LF +0.8 (TBR 2, TOR 5, NYY 13)

8th 2B +0.8 (TOR 1, NYY 5, TBR 9)

7th CF +1.4 (TBR 8, TOR 11, NYY 13)

3rd DH +1.9 (TBR 6, NYY 9, TOR 12)

3rd 3B +1.9 (TBR 4, NYY 8, TOR 11)

1st SS +3.2 (TOR 5, NYY 8, TBR 12)

 

 

With all the movements in OF, I'm thinking it's better to go to OF category for someone like Verdugo.

[moonslav59]

History shows he's a 4.5+ ERA guy. The last two starts are just him regressing to his career norms. Does Pivetta have more regression to do as well? Harder to say because he doesn't have Perez's track record. Richards' overall numbers are relatively in line with last season. Hard to project him because of his lengthy injury history. Nate is keeping his HR/FB down from career norms, but I don't know if that can continue.

 

ERod may be the only guy in the rotation due some positive regression!

 

Yes, Pivetta is the hard one to call. He's always had nasty stuff and poor control, but there were hopes he could turn it around and make himself into a better and more consistent pitcher. The jury is still out on him.

 

Perez was more of a "known," but that does not mean he can not become a better overall pitcher and stay that way for a while, but yes, he was expected to regress closer to his norm. Let's hope he can stay around 4.00 to 4.20 the rest of the way.

 

Richards was also a big unknown- mostly concerning his health, not his skillset, except to wonder if all the injuries and missed time permanently lowered his abilities. Again, another "jury still out".

 

ERod and Eovaldi were always our best bets for having a good to great 2021 season. Eovaldi's health has always been the main issues, and knock on wood, he seems to be on his way to his first full season in a long time. How good he can be is another question. ERod's COVID issue made him another wild card, and he still falls in that category.

 

Sale coming back at somewhat of a strong ability is likely our best hope to get somewhere, this fall.

[moonslav59]

With all the movements in OF, I'm thinking it's better to go to OF category for someone like Verdugo.

 

Makes sense. We are 10th in the AL in OF WAR at 1.7, No ALE team is worse.

 

Another way to look at OF is to make a list of the top 45 OF'ers in the AL (3 x 15 teams). To get to 45, I had to set the min PAs in 2021 to 140. Here is how we stand by WAR:

 

11. Verdugo 1.2 (in the bottom third of top 15)

27. Renfroe 0.6 (in the bottom third of middle 15)

We have no 3rd OF'er with 140+ PAs, but if I set the PAs to 130, Kike joins the list at #30 (+0.6).

 

That gives us 3 OF'ers in the top 30 out of 54, which is not too bad, despite not having a top 10 number 1 OF'er or top 10 number 2 OF'er.

 

Our biggest weakness, so far, has clearly been 1B.

 

Catcher, 2B and OF could all use improvement according to WAR rankings, but nothing too glaring.

 

Pitching is the highest need area, in my book. I think we give Dalbec a longer look and see about picking up a Moreland type player near the deadline, but adding pitching beyond Sale, Brasier, Houck, Seabold & Bazardo may still be our acquisition area.

 

 

 

[dgalehouse]

In Peter Abraham's column on yesterday's thrashing, he finds it very suspicious that the collapse of the rotation coincided with the announcement about the sticky stuff crackdown. Lovely.

 

Pete Abraham is a little weasel. He loves to kiss ass when he thinks it will help him look good . And he loves to take cheap shots when he thinks someone is vulnerable. A self righteous , phony baloney.

[Nick]

On Josh Taylor’s unlikely path to a late-inning role

 

http://https://www.overthemonster.com/2021/6/14/22533152/boston-red-sox-bullpen-josh-taylor-slider-whiff-rate-fastball-splits

 

Good analytics on Josh Taylor.

[Nick]

Pete Abraham is a little weasel. He loves to kiss ass when he thinks it will help him look good . And he loves to take cheap shots when he thinks someone is vulnerable. A self righteous , phony baloney.

 

Without any evidence, he accuses the ENTIRE rotation of cheating. I would never give him an interview again. Unbelievable.

[moonslav59]

On Josh Taylor’s unlikely path to a late-inning role

 

http://https://www.overthemonster.com/2021/6/14/22533152/boston-red-sox-bullpen-josh-taylor-slider-whiff-rate-fastball-splits

 

Good analytics on Josh Taylor.

 

Nice read.

 

Even someone like me, who is usually critical of those who make judgments on small sample sizes, suggested we trade or DFA Josh, earlier this season.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

AL Team Leader Boards

 

Hitting + Defense

 

WAR

15.0 HOU

12.8 CWS

11.0 TBR

10.9 TOR

9.5 BOS

9.5 OAK

9.3 MN

7.5 LAA

6.4 NYY

(BOS is 8th in wRC+ at 102.)

 

Defense

UZR/150

7.9 TBR (This is how they win.)

5.7 CWS

5.5 BOS (Find this hard to believe)

4.8 TOR (This, too)

8. NYY -1.0

 

DRS

53 TBR (Spectacular number)

35 HOU

21 BOS (Again, hard to see how)

9. TOR -1

10. NYY -4

(Off- BOS is 8th/ Def 6th: hard to believe)

 

Batting

OPS

.789 HOU

.781 TOR

.751 CWS

.748 BOS

9. NYY .703

 

Pitching

WAR

11.5 CWS

10.0 NYY

8.1 BOS

7.8 TBR

7.1 OAK

10. HOU 4.5

14. TOR 3.0

 

ERA-

76 CWS

81 TBR

85 NYY

93 TOR

8. BOS 97

5.4 BAL

(BOS is 15th in WHIP at 1.41!)

 

SPing

WAR

8.3 CWS

7.2 NYY

6.0 BOS

5.9 OAK

5.3 TBR

4.8 LAA

4.8 HOU

13. TOR 2.2

(Our starters are 8th in ERA- at 98 & 13th in WHIP at 1.41)

 

RP'ing

WAR

3.2 CWS

2.8 NYY

2.4 TBR

2.2 SEA

2.1 BOS

9. TOR 0.8

15. HOU -0.3

 

(BOS is 12th in WHIP at 1.39)

 

Good info as usual, Moon. Actually, I find the pitching WAR more surprising than the defense WAR.

[Bellhorn04]

Pete Abraham is a little weasel. He loves to kiss ass when he thinks it will help him look good . And he loves to take cheap shots when he thinks someone is vulnerable. A self righteous , phony baloney.

 

I disagree. He's not little at all.

[moonslav59]

Good info as usual, Moon. Actually, I find the pitching WAR more surprising than the defense WAR.

 

This is what I find surprising about our positive defensive rankings:

 

We are 4th in the AL in lowest hard hit ball % (30.6%), so teams do not hit the ball all that hard vs us, when they make contact.

 

However, our BAbip against is atrocious and way more than the second place team:

 

.330 BOS

.308 TEX

.304 BAL & LAA

.303 KC

.296 MN

.292 OAK (the league median)

 

We are 38 points above the AL median team!

 

Doesn't poor defense have to play a role in that, or am I missing something?

 

(Maybe what I'm missing is our last place LD% against at 22.7%).

 

 

[notin]

This is what I find surprising about our positive defensive rankings:

 

We are 4th in the AL in lowest hard hit ball % (30.6%), so teams do not hit the ball all that hard vs us, when they make contact.

 

However, our BAbip against is atrocious and way more than the second place team:

 

.330 BOS

.308 TEX

.304 BAL & LAA

.303 KC

.296 MN

.292 OAK (the league median)

 

We are 38 points above the AL median team!

 

Doesn't poor defense have to play a role in that, or am I missing something?

 

(Maybe what I'm missing is our last place LD% against at 22.7%).

 

 

 

 

Fenway does have a pretty bad effect on BABIP, as balls hit 20 feet up the monster are considered balls in play, and obviously not going to result in a fly out. But the Sox E-F does bear out that the team defense is overall not helping anyone…

[jung]

Without any evidence, he accuses the ENTIRE rotation of cheating. I would never give him an interview again. Unbelievable.

 

Well if we all remember a few Octobers ago, baseball talking heads were saying that stuff that allows pitchers better grip was actually favored by EVERYBODY...MLB hitters and everybody else because pitchers in general no longer had the control to throw inside. So its hard to draw a hard line and call what is going on with SpyderTack cheating.

 

So now the pitchers have gone too far? Is that what we are saying? Well maybe it was too far right from rationalizing a particular kind of substance being used by pitchers and allowing baseball talking heads to start telling us that everybody wanted pitchers to have better grip in the first place. Maybe MLB shouldn't have turned baseballs into rocket ships either. Now MLB has f***ed itself so far up the ass they don't know whether to s*** or fart Yankee Doodle dandy.

 

As to the Red Sox Starters and really all of the Sox pitchers specifically they have been throwing to the middle of the plate lately, known as "wild in the strike zone". Now if you want to tell me that they have been throwing to the middle of the plate and depending on a SpyderTack kind of break to carry the ball to the black or off the plate inducing a swing and miss I would say they deserve what they are about to get if they simply cannot now pitch normally.

 

I can't really bring myself to believe they would be stupid enough to purposefully throw to the middle of the plate. That said, from day one of this season a few of us in the game threads have been seeing it and saying it. Right from the start of this season breaking pitches have been breaking more than I have ever seen them in my lifetime. Guys with acknowledged really good breaking stuff this year have ungodly breaking stuff. Guys with a reputation for so-so breaking stuff this year have really good breaking pitches.

 

MLB continues to f*** itself right in the ass. The start of this nonsense was expansion. In 1960 we had 16 total MLB teams. Today we have 30. There simply is not enough pitching talent to go around 30 MLB teams all with at least 3-4 levels of minor league organizations feeding them. Just is not enough pitching talent out there and as long as the action in the game all starts with the ball in the pitchers hand, not having enough quality pitching is a problem.

 

Next came this absurd stat-mania that drives everything now. It drives salaries. It drives managerial decisions. It drives GM and upper management decisions. It literally drives everything. Its to the point now where we can look at spin rate variables and go hunting for justifications for the variables. Like I said, another example of MLB f***ing itself right in the ass.

 

Next came what IMO was the greatest of these egregious lets f*** ourselves right in the ass decisions, the rocket ship baseball. The effort to turn a multidimensional game into a one dimensional power game. Worse MLB just could not be satisfied with the first iteration of this version of rocket ship baseballs, the 2016 official ball. They just had to keep going and going. the 2017 was hotter than the 2016. The 2018 was a little hotter than the 2017. The 2019 was an insane rocket ship.

 

Now we are told that MLB has done an official baseball reset. OK reset to what, the 2016 ball, the 2015 ball, the 2017, the 18 ball.....WHAT????

 

Now the entire enterprise is going to hang itself out to dry over this SpyderTack and spin rate stuff. Their asses are going to be hung right out in the breeze possibly because they went too far with grippy stuff when they NEVER should even started down that path in the first place. Worse it appears pitchers convinced themselves to just throw everything right down the middle and let the gunk induced spin rate break the ball. REALLY BOYS....REALLY!!!! Now what?

Edited June 14, 2021 by jung

[Nick]

He's Baaaaack!

As the Red Sox transaction wheel turns, the club has designated Ryan Weber for assignment and recalled Michael Chavis

 

Per Sox Prospects.

 

I wonder if he'll lead off.

 

Moon this opens up a spot on the 40 man roster. Who could be added? Indeed. Who?

Edited June 14, 2021 by Nick

[Nick]

Stephen Gonsalves was a one-time top prospect, but injuries and control issues resulted in him jumping from team to team. It’s great to see his strikeout rate back above 30%, but it’s come with only a 13.6% SwStk%, and a ton of walks. That 18.1% walk rate is absurd and likely means he won’t see the Majors anytime soon unless he improves that control....Per Fangraph

G IP W L S ERA H R ER HR BB K G/F WHIP AVG OPS

2021 Wor 6 29.1 2 1 0 3.38 18 11 11 4 23 44 0.86 1.40 0.178 0.673

 

Summation: Needs to be able to stay healthy and limit the walks. Profiles as emergency rotation depth with a back-of-the-rotation ceiling.

 

Well, maybe we need that "emergency rotation depth".

[moonslav59]

He's Baaaaack!

As the Red Sox transaction wheel turns, the club has designated Ryan Weber for assignment and recalled Michael Chavis

 

Per Sox Prospects.

 

I wonder if he'll lead off.

 

Moon this opens up a spot on the 40 man roster. Who could be added? Indeed. Who?

 

The Sox added Yacksel Rios (RHP- RP'er)- acquired from SEA for cash, recently.

[Kimmi]

In Peter Abraham's column on yesterday's thrashing, he finds it very suspicious that the collapse of the rotation coincided with the announcement about the sticky stuff crackdown. Lovely.

 

I don't have access to The Athletic, and was unable to read the article, but I think they pretty much squashed this idea.

[Hugh2]

I don't have access to The Athletic, and was unable to read the article, but I think they pretty much squashed this idea.

 

I can post a link later, but you can look up pitcher spin rates. It does not look like the drop-off in performance was related to a drop in spin rate as there has not been a drop in the spin rate for Boston pitchers.

 

All-day on WEEI they're saying this is bad news because it means they really suck. I see it as the opposite, that means everything they did before was honest too (it would seem). This gives me confidence that they're just in a bad stretch right now and I expect them to improve.

 

The pitching may have been overperforming up until recently, but they're also not this bad.

[Kimmi]

I can post a link later, but you can look up pitcher spin rates. It does not look like the drop-off in performance was related to a drop in spin rate as there has not been a drop in the spin rate for Boston pitchers.

 

All-day on WEEI they're saying this is bad news because it means they really suck. I see it as the opposite, that means everything they did before was honest too (it would seem). This gives me confidence that they're just in a bad stretch right now and I expect them to improve.

 

The pitching may have been overperforming up until recently, but they're also not this bad.

 

Thank you. That was my understanding, that the recent poor performances are not related to a drop in spin rates. I agree with what you're saying. I think the pitchers are just going through a rough stretch, coupled with playing some tough offensive teams. They are not this bad. I am confident that they will continue to pitch well enough to keep our offense in most of the games.

[Elktonnick]

I can post a link later, but you can look up pitcher spin rates. It does not look like the drop-off in performance was related to a drop in spin rate as there has not been a drop in the spin rate for Boston pitchers.

 

All-day on WEEI they're saying this is bad news because it means they really suck. I see it as the opposite, that means everything they did before was honest too (it would seem). This gives me confidence that they're just in a bad stretch right now and I expect them to improve.

 

The pitching may have been overperforming up until recently, but they're also not this bad.

Chad Jennings wrote the only article in The Athletic yesterday that I saw. I did not see any written by Abraham on the Sox pitching woes. I do not get the Globe. Jennings article has a lot of data and graphs supporting the correlation between the decline in Sox pitching and MLB's announcement of increased scrutiny over illegal substance. Jennings writes "The spin rate data supports the assertion". Of course Jennings writes it could be a coincidence.

[Hugh2]

Yeah well I’ll believe my own eyes over Chad Jennings. The data doesn’t seem to support the narrative.

 

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/nick-pivetta-601713?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb

[Hugh2]

All the data showing a “drop” in Sox pitchers spin rates actually in some circumstances are showing an increase in other pitches.

 

Where we’ve seen drops they’ve been around 1% or less. That’s insignificant.

[Elktonnick]

All the data showing a “drop” in Sox pitchers spin rates actually in some circumstances are showing an increase in other pitches.

 

Where we’ve seen drops they’ve been around 1% or less. That’s insignificant.

 

I think there is too small a sample to make any judgement based on the data to date. I think the assertion is neither proved nor disproved by the results we have seen as of now.

[Fan_since_Boggs]

The Red Sox might be in the market for a starting first baseman at the trade deadline, and this is another reason why it would make sense to rely on Duran for CF rather than trading for a starting CF.

 

How hard can it be to find a 1b who can be reasonably productive? Let's face it, Dalbec might have too many holes in his swing and Santana and Gonzalez aren't producing.

[Hugh2]

I think there is too small a sample to make any judgement based on the data to date. I think the assertion is neither proved nor disproved by the results we have seen as of now.

 

Agreed 100%

[notin]

The Red Sox might be in the market for a starting first baseman at the trade deadline, and this is another reason why it would make sense to rely on Duran for CF rather than trading for a starting CF.

 

How hard can it be to find a 1b who can be reasonably productive? Let's face it, Dalbec might have too many holes in his swing and Santana and Gonzalez aren't producing.

 

 

Actually Wilson might be the better option than Duran right now…

[Larry Cook]

Is Chavis back? Interesting that they promoted him over fraunchy!

[moonslav59]

Is Chavis back? Interesting that they promoted him over fraunchy!

 

Our biggest weakness is 1B, especially vs RHP. Chavis plays 1B and hits RHPs, better than Dalbec.

 

When Santana's time is up, it will be Franchy's second chance.

[moonslav59]

Actually Wilson might be the better option than Duran right now…

 

Agreed.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

Wilson is a prospect to fill out a roster, platoon a little, and sit on the bench a lot. When Duran gets called up, it won't be as a pinch runner. A future full-time star, according to both the manager and chief baseball officer, Duran needs to keep playing every day -- getting his four ABs and shagging fly balls in game situations... until he's ready to do both in primetime.

[Bellhorn04]

Chad Jennings wrote the only article in The Athletic yesterday that I saw. I did not see any written by Abraham on the Sox pitching woes. I do not get the Globe. Jennings article has a lot of data and graphs supporting the correlation between the decline in Sox pitching and MLB's announcement of increased scrutiny over illegal substance. Jennings writes "The spin rate data supports the assertion". Of course Jennings writes it could be a coincidence.

 

Jennings did say "The spin rate data supports the assertion", but the assertion he was referring to was one by Martin Perez that it's not the sticky stuff.

 

The data presented by Jennings shows that there hasn't been any clear correlation with drops in spin rates.