A Realistic View at 2024: Part III

[moonslav59]

22 minutes ago, notin said:

Hard disagree.   Several teams doing much less offensively - scoring fewer runs, putting up lower OPS - have better records.  Why? 
 

Run prevention.  The Sox defense has been at or near the bottom all season long.  The pitching started out hot, but then cooled off drastically.  And the bullpen has shown far too often no lead is safe.  Sure, the Sox could win more games if they scored more runs, but they’re already doing so at a very good pace. They could win even more if they could play better defense or the bullpen could hold a few more 3 run leads.  Just because they have the occasional cold stretch or get shut down by an elite arm doesn’t change this.  Do people think other teams don’t do this, too?

The one chink in their offensive armor is the struggle vs LHP.  And if you look at their runs scored and OPS in those games, the source of those struggles is obvious as well…

Pointing out that our offense is doing very well is not misleading, though. We all know there is more to winning than good hitting. Perhaps, Sox fans know this more than any other city's fanbase. 

Our offense has also done poorly in situations like with RISP and with Men on Base and high leverage situations, but we both agree those types of  stats are not a sustainable thing or a skillset.

It's not misleading to point out really bad defense and a pitching staff in steep decline from the first few weeks of 2024 is the main reason we are only at .500, either.

Good hitting, average pitching and horrible D puts us at about .500. It is what it is.

[Larry Cook]

4 hours ago, Hugh2 said:

You can have identical pitching/hitting stats and go 3-7 or 7-3 over a 10 game span.  If you don’t hit when you pitch and vis versa it’s easy to lose more games than you should. To at least some extent, that’s bad luck.

what isn’t bad luck is defense.  The Sox suck on defense and it’s easily cost them at least several games this year.

I agree. We have to improve pitching and defense 

[moonslav59]

We all agree on this- a rarity on this site.

[Duran Is The Man]

41 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

I agree. We have to improve pitching and defense 

we say this every freakin' year. sadly, the morons in Henry's FO don't care to do a damn thing about it.

[Jasonbay44]

6 hours ago, Larry Cook said:

For 2025 defensively 

LF Duran - below average.

CF rafeala - above average.

RF Anthony - above average. 
4th OF - refsynder - average. 
1B devers - dumpster fire.

2B - Campbell - average 

SS - story - average 

3B - meidroth - average.

reserve - Romy - below average
reserve - Grissom - dumpster fire.

reserve - Hamilton - dumpster fire. 
catcher - wong - dumpster fire, 

catcher - gasper - below average 

A lot of This is just flat out wrong.

Duran is great defensively. Story is good defensively. Romy is at least average and Hamilton was actually very solid defensively at 2B. 

[moonslav59]

Boy, MIN is playing like crap. They sure gave other teams a shot at the dance. 

Too bad, we dropped the ball, and two teams are now between us and MIN.

Still, a sliver of hope...

78-70 MIN

76-73 DET -2.5

75-73 SEA (Tied in the 8th) -3.0 pending game

75-74 BOS -3.5

[moonslav59]

10 minutes ago, Duran Is The Man said:

we say this every freakin' year. sadly, the morons in Henry's FO don't care to do a damn thing about it.

Hard to disagree. I will say this...

Signing Story and letting Bogey walk was an effort to improve the defense.

Signing Jansen and Martin was a good strategy, 2 years back.

Signing Gio was the largest contract given to a SP'er since the Sale & Nate contracts prior to 2019. (That's not saying much, but it was a better attempt than the $5-10M/1 deals offered to new blood pitchers every winter since 2017.

I'm in no way defending JH & Co. Gio was way too little, especially in light of trading away Sale and the loss of 19 starts Paxton had in 2023.

We added Slaten, Weissert and I Campbell along with Criswell, and thought that was enough. The absurdity is overwhelming.

[Old Red]

6 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Hard to disagree. I will say this...

Signing Story and letting Bogey walk was an effort to improve the defense.

Signing Jansen and Martin was a good strategy, 2 years back.

Signing Gio was the largest contract given to a SP'er since the Sale & Nate contracts prior to 2019. (That's not saying much, but it was a better attempt than the $5-10M/1 deals offered to new blood pitchers every winter since 2017.

I'm in no way defending JH & Co. Gio was way too little, especially in light of trading away Sale and the loss of 19 starts Paxton had in 2023.

We added Slaten, Weissert and I Campbell along with Criswell, and thought that was enough. The absurdity is overwhelming.

I don’t think signing Story was any effort to improve the D, but just a CHEAPER option than resigning Bogey. You’ve said more than once, and I agreed with you that Signing Story was just to appease the fans, because they were getting restless with so little activity was being done to improve the team. Was signing Yoshida an effort to improve the D?

[Old Red]

5 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Boy, MIN is playing like crap. They sure gave other teams a shot at the dance. 

Too bad, we dropped the ball, and two teams are now between us and MIN.

Still, a sliver of hope...

78-70 MIN

76-73 DET -2.5

75-73 SEA (Tied in the 8th) -3.0 pending game

75-74 BOS -3.5

3.5 games behind May sound better, but it’s 4 games back in the L column.

 

[Bellhorn04]

Minnesota has to go play 4 in Cleveland before we meet up.  Detroit plays 3 in KC and then goes to Baltimore.

So the slim chances are still there. 

"Every game is huge now!" - Cap'n Obvious 

[notin]

10 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Hard to disagree. I will say this...

Signing Story and letting Bogey walk was an effort to improve the defense.

Signing Jansen and Martin was a good strategy, 2 years back.

Signing Gio was the largest contract given to a SP'er since the Sale & Nate contracts prior to 2019. (That's not saying much, but it was a better attempt than the $5-10M/1 deals offered to new blood pitchers every winter since 2017.

I'm in no way defending JH & Co. Gio was way too little, especially in light of trading away Sale and the loss of 19 starts Paxton had in 2023.

We added Slaten, Weissert and I Campbell along with Criswell, and thought that was enough. The absurdity is overwhelming.

Trading Renfroe for Bradley was about defense…

[notin]

4 hours ago, Old Red said:

I don’t think signing Story was any effort to improve the D, but just a CHEAPER option than resigning Bogey. You’ve said more than once, and I agreed with you that Signing Story was just to appease the fans, because they were getting restless with so little activity was being done to improve the team. Was signing Yoshida an effort to improve the D?

Story was to appease the fans?  All that deal showed was the Sox occasional willingness to spend.  Of course if that was their only goal, a six year deal was an odd place.

Ive heard many critics of the Story deal say Bogaerts would have signed for the same money/years.  If so, it wasn’t cheaper.

There are lots of theories about why Story was signed.  That he was a top target has never been one of them, and the fact that they waited so long to move on him supports that he wasn’t…

[Bellhorn04]

13 minutes ago, notin said:

Story was to appease the fans?  All that deal showed was the Sox occasional willingness to spend.  Of course if that was their only goal, a six year deal was an odd place.

Ive heard many critics of the Story deal say Bogaerts would have signed for the same money/years.  If so, it wasn’t cheaper.

There are lots of theories about why Story was signed.  That he was a top target has never been one of them, and the fact that they waited so long to move on him supports that he wasn’t…

In retrospect it's pretty hard not to conclude that Story was signed to replace Bogaerts.

[notin]

7 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

In retrospect it's pretty hard not to conclude that Story was signed to replace Bogaerts.

I can agree with that, but that would be a far cry from “appeasing the fans.”

It also explains the lackluster offer to Bogaerts.  Essentially saying “we can offer you this, but we really don’t need you.”

[Randy Red Sox]

21 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

But if you see most pitchers who are ranked between 60 and 90 as back-end starters, then the argument is over semantics not the true skill level of what a #3 SP'er is in reality, in MLB today.

The fact is, there just aren't that many really good SP'ers, but that does not mean a SP'er ranked somewhere around 60-90 is not a big improvement over a true "back-end" SP'er who may be ranked 91-150 or 110-160.

Take a look at a top 150 SP'er list based on w hatever your stat or metric of choice is and look at those who fall between 60-90 vs those below and significantly below. IMO, the difference is stark. (Of course, I'd rather package Abreu with others and get a 1-2 slot pitcher, but I still think Abreu is good enough to get several pitchers ranked 60-90, or at worst 40-100 and not only ones ranked 100-150.

What makes it difficult to project a possible is that when you look at all the names, you see pitchers who are at a different age, contract cost and or on teams that either don't need a RF'er or who also need pitching more than a RF'er. I get that point, and realize that most teams need better pitching more than better batting. That limits the trade pool, but in terms of something like fWAR, Abreu's WAR is higher than most on any 60-90 list you come up with. Also, many (not me) think everyday players have more value than 1 in 5 game players.

The other thing about making a list of the top 150 SP'ers from say 2023 to 2024, it overvalues older pitchers on the downswing, pitchers who are now battling injuries and undervalues younger pitchers on the upswing. The list does not count years of control remaining or contract cost, nor team trade needs, but here is a list based on fWAR from 2023-2024. I had to set the IP level to 150 IP total for 2 seasons to get the sample size to 150, which is pretty telling in a major way, but here it is, if you want to look.

Try to get a good idea of what the skill level is for pitchers in the 25-65 range vs those in the 85-155 range. If you still think Abreu is more likely to only get back an 85-155 pitcher vs a 55-95 one, then we are in disagreement. If you don't then the debate is really about what we think a #3 SP'er is. (open the link, if you wish.)

Here are some of the more well-known pitchers by slotting with my methodology: (It's not meant to say we should or can trade one for one.)
 

#3: Berrios, Pivetta, Stroman, Taillon, Schmidt, Bello, ERod, Fedde, Jake Irvin, Lorenzen

#4: Blackburn, T Walker, L Lynn, Paxton, Quantrill

#5: Maeda, Stripling, Martin Perez, Carrasco, Kopech

Do you really think Abreu could bring back just a Martin Perez type SP'er and not a Pivetta-Lorenzen type? (I chose those names, because we know how good they are.)

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&type=8&month=0&ind=0&startdate=&enddate=&season1=2023&season=2024&qual=150&pagenum=1&pageitems=200

 

 

 

 

forget about the argument as to what type of SP Abreu could fetch. Yeah maybe he could fetch a guy around the calibre of Pivetta but do you really consider Pivetta a #3 type SP cause I don't. This team needs a true ace like when we traded for Pedro or Beckett. We could also try and get an established ace SP who is a bit older like Schilling. Abreu is NOT going to be the centrepiece for a trade like that.  This is the type of move the Sox need to make to get out of this .500 plateau they have been at for several years now. The problem is teams don't seem to be trading young aces as much as they once did. The SP you have brought up -we have brought in several of those guys the past several years and very few have worked out.

PS--  i could actually see Bello becoming our best SP. 

[Bellhorn04]

12 minutes ago, notin said:

I can agree with that, but that would be a far cry from “appeasing the fans.”

It also explains the lackluster offer to Bogaerts.  Essentially saying “we can offer you this, but we really don’t need you.”

And then they did the same thing as they did with Lester, coming in with their "real offer" when it was way too late.  It's not totally off the wall to suggest those late offers were just for show, as odd as that would seem to be.

[Randy Red Sox]

34 minutes ago, notin said:

Story was to appease the fans?  All that deal showed was the Sox occasional willingness to spend.  Of course if that was their only goal, a six year deal was an odd place.

Ive heard many critics of the Story deal say Bogaerts would have signed for the same money/years.  If so, it wasn’t cheaper.

There are lots of theories about why Story was signed.  That he was a top target has never been one of them, and the fact that they waited so long to move on him supports that he wasn’t…

there is no doubt that Story was signed to replace XB. I am guessing that XB had told the FO what he was looking for and that it was higher than what Story. Feel free to believe otherwise.

[Bellhorn04]

3 minutes ago, Randy Red Sox said:

there is no doubt that Story was signed to replace XB. I am guessing that XB had told the FO what he was looking for and that it was higher than what Story. Feel free to believe otherwise.

The story I read, which included quotes from Bogaerts, was that he hadn't made any asks, but was just expecting a good fair negotiation on an extension, and he was floored by their lowball offer.  Those weren't his exact words but it was clearly implied.   

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, Randy Red Sox said:

forget about the argument as to what type of SP Abreu could fetch. Yeah maybe he could fetch a guy around the calibre of Pivetta but do you really consider Pivetta a #3 type SP cause I don't. This team needs a true ace like when we traded for Pedro or Beckett. We could also try and get an established ace SP who is a bit older like Schilling. Abreu is NOT going to be the centrepiece for a trade like that.  This is the type of move the Sox need to make to get out of this .500 plateau they have been at for several years now. The problem is teams don't seem to be trading young aces as much as they once did. The SP you have brought up -we have brought in several of those guys the past several years and very few have worked out.

PS--  i could actually see Bello becoming our best SP. 

Bello might be considered a number 3, too.

I agree, we need an ace most of all, but we could also use another Bello or Pivetta or a "3 type SP'er."

[dgalehouse]

I'd like to see more of Guerrero. He looks like he has better stuff than most of the ham and eggers in the Sox bullpen.

[mvp 78]

31 minutes ago, dgalehouse said:

I'd like to see more of Guerrero. He looks like he has better stuff than most of the ham and eggers in the Sox bullpen.

He does have good stuff. His issue is control. He ended his season strong in WOO and it has carried over.

[moonslav59]

We sure need some pen arms for 2025.

[Nick]

9 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

In retrospect it's pretty hard not to conclude that Story was signed to replace Bogaerts.

Exactly. Contracts overlapped one year to assure that we had a replacement already in place.

But again we failed because not only the injury but Story's lack of plate discipline compared to Xander's excellent strike zone control. And his contract was no chump change.

If we just wanted a defensive shortstop, those are dime a dozen. Again the issue with Sox organization is allocation of money. We don't spend the money wisely. I'm pretty sure someone is pointing that out to JH.

Story and Yoshida money could have gone to someone else.

 

[Duran Is The Man]

8 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

The story I read, which included quotes from Bogaerts, was that he hadn't made any asks, but was just expecting a good fair negotiation on an extension, and he was floored by their lowball offer.  Those weren't his exact words but it was clearly implied.   

the Red Sox FO lowballed Xman? what??? say it ain't so. LOLOL these same idiots then go out and pay Yoshi waaaaaayyyyy more than he's worth and give a stupid contract to Gio. my 12 year old nephew could run the Sox FO better than these clowns.

[moonslav59]

8 minutes ago, Nick said:

Exactly. Contracts overlapped one year to assure that we had a replacement already in place.

But again we failed because not only the injury but Story's lack of plate discipline compared to Xander's excellent strike zone control. And his contract was no chump change.

If we just wanted a defensive shortstop, those are dime a dozen. Again the issue with Sox organization is allocation of money. We don't spend the money wisely. I'm pretty sure someone is pointing that out to JH.

Story and Yoshida money could have gone to someone else.

 

I don't think the viewed Story as just a "dime-a-dozen defensive SS."

From 2018-2021, Story had the 24th best fWAR at 14.9. (Bogey was at 16.3.) His .880 OPS was also 24th, while Bogey was 15th at .894.

People like to point to his COL Home advantage, and he did have one, but Bogey had a home advantage, too.

Road OPS 2018-2021:

4. Betts .903

5. JD M .890

10. Devers .849

12. Bogey .838

32. Stor y .761 (was not bad, at all.)

The injury, and the fact that we knew about it, was the worst part of the signing. Had he been healthy and hit ,750 on teh road and .790 at Fenway, the signing would not have been bad, and that might have been close to the expected floor for his O.

[Nick]

6 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I don't think the viewed Story as just a "dime-a-dozen defensive SS."

From 2018-2021, Story had the 24th best fWAR at 14.9. (Bogey was at 16.3.) His .880 OPS was also 24th, while Bogey was 15th at .894.

People like to point to his COL Home advantage, and he did have one, but Bogey had a home advantage, too.

Road OPS 2018-2021:

4. Betts .903

5. JD M .890

10. Devers .849

12. Bogey .838

32. Stor y .761 (was not bad, at all.)

The injury, and the fact that we knew about it, was the worst part of the signing. Had he been healthy and hit ,750 on teh road and .790 at Fenway, the signing would not have been bad, and that might have been close to the expected floor for his O.

I did not imply Story was a dime a dozen defensive shortstop.

 

My point was he did not deliver the offensive numbers that one would expect from a $20M+ player.

We would have been better off to get a defensive shortstop and a starting pitcher than Story.

[moonslav59]

6 hours ago, Nick said:

I did not imply Story was a dime a dozen defensive shortstop.

 

My point was he did not deliver the offensive numbers that one would expect from a $20M+ player.

We would have been better off to get a defensive shortstop and a starting pitcher than Story.

He hasn't really had an extended time to find a groove, but I agree with your point.

His D has been great, but for too short a time, and it messed up our plans at other positions by trying to cover SS without just going cheap. (BTW, we did try Sogard a tiny bit in '24 and Chang for 33 games in '23.) The year Story played the most, we still had Bogey, so Story played 2B.

He's passed the time to earn his keep, but he can still earn his 2025 and 2026 salaries, and to me, that would greatly improve our team in many areas.

RHB: check

SS Defense: check

Improved 2B Defense: check (no more DHam & Romy at SS but more at 2B over EValdez/Reyes.)

Improved OF Defense: check (Rafaela in CF more often and Duran in LF more often.)

A team should never have so much riding on one player, and a big part of why we have come up short, the last 3 years, is because of Story missing so much time, and hitting .650, when he does play.

[Bellhorn04]

On 9/14/2024 at 7:59 PM, moonslav59 said:

Pointing out that our offense is doing very well is not misleading, though. We all know there is more to winning than good hitting. Perhaps, Sox fans know this more than any other city's fanbase. 

Our offense has also done poorly in situations like with RISP and with Men on Base and high leverage situations, but we both agree those types of  stats are not a sustainable thing or a skillset.

It's not misleading to point out really bad defense and a pitching staff in steep decline from the first few weeks of 2024 is the main reason we are only at .500, either.

Good hitting, average pitching and horrible D puts us at about .500. It is what it is.

Our offense has not been as good as the OPS might suggest.  Runs scored are the most important number IMHO.  And we always have to adjust for the Fenway Factor.  If you go by adjusted runs scored I think we're just a little better than average.  

Does the fact that hitting with RISP is non-sustainable even matter when we're talking about almost a full season?  It's not like we're assured it's going to turn around next year.  

 

[moonslav59]

39 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Our offense has not been as good as the OPS might suggest.  Runs scored are the most important number IMHO.  And we always have to adjust for the Fenway Factor.  If you go by adjusted runs scored I think we're just a little better than average.  

Does the fact that hitting with RISP is non-sustainable even matter when we're talking about almost a full season?  It's not like we're assured it's going to turn around next year.  

 

Very true. We could do worse, next year w RISP.

I'm not so sure the Fewway advantage on offense is a great as some might think it is.

The Sox are ranked 3rd in AWAY OPS (.755) and 1oth in HOME OPS (.747.)

The pitching shows the opposite. The xFIP is nearly identical (4.02 H and 4.00 H,) but ERA shows that Fenway matters: 4.30 ERA at HOME (23rd) and 3.96 AWAY (10th.)

RUNS Allowed: 379 Home/ 327 Away

RUNS Scored: 341 Home/ 355 Away

Total: 720 Home/ 692 Away

To me, it's not just the OPS numbers: it's how many good hitters we have, despite many having issues vs LHPs.

The Yanks lead MLB in OPS by 8 points and are 3rd in runs scored. Looking at how unbalanced their line-up is, that surprises me more than how few runs we have scored with our OPS. The Yanks have 11 batters with 220+ PAs.

Judge (1.147) and Soto (.981) carry the whole team, by themselves.

Stanton (.770 in 423 PAs) and Wells (.760 in 374) are pretty good.

The rest suck:

I guess .697 by Torres is the new low-end "average hitter)

.668 Cabrera

.664 Volpe (3rd in PAs on Yanks)

.657 Dugo (4th in PAs)

.656 Trevino

.617 Rizzo

.527 LeMahieu

Had we hit better with RISP, we'd have jumped a few teams in runs scored:

822 AZ

747 NYY

742 LAD

727 BAL

726 MIL

725 PHI

716 SDP

710 BOS (We are 17 runs scored away from 4th best. NYY are 22 runs away from 7th.)

 

[notin]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Our offense has not been as good as the OPS might suggest.  Runs scored are the most important number IMHO.  And we always have to adjust for the Fenway Factor.  If you go by adjusted runs scored I think we're just a little better than average.  

Does the fact that hitting with RISP is non-sustainable even matter when we're talking about almost a full season?  It's not like we're assured it's going to turn around next year.  

 

Sox are  4th in MLB in wRC and 11th in wRC+.   So they are above average but there is room to improve…