A Realistic View at 2024: Part III

[notin]

On 9/14/2024 at 10:53 PM, Jasonbay44 said:

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. 

The Hamilton commentary might be referring to his play at SS, which a truly kind person would call “lackluster horse fecal matter.”

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, notin said:

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

Despite losing Turner, Dugo and Duvall, and with some posters think our offense would not improve, it did, in these areas:

2023>2024: 

11th in wRC (742 >780)

16th wRC+ (99> 106)

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, notin said:

The Hamilton commentary might be referring to his play at SS, which a truly kind person would call “lackluster horse fecal matter.”

Yes, he was very likely our best defensive 2Bman, this year, and light years better than EValdez, but he was a liability at SS, as have been nearly everyone used, when Story is hurt.

[Jasonbay44]

5 hours ago, notin said:

The Hamilton commentary might be referring to his play at SS, which a truly kind person would call “lackluster horse fecal matter.”

He wasn’t good at SS but he was very solid at 2B. He has value defensively there. 

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, Jasonbay44 said:

He wasn’t good at SS but he was very solid at 2B. He has value defensively there. 

Yes, we all agree he has more value at 2B than  SS. He may have some competition from these guys in 2025:

Story or Mayer (whoever does not play SS)

Campbell

Grissom, Romy, Sogard, Meidroth

I like DHam, and I love what his speed brings to the team. I'm not sure he wins anything more than a utility role, and with his limited fielding skills at SS, or anywhere else, he may not win the job.

If Mayer and Story are healthy, we got those two plus Campbell as the top 3 contenders. Since Romy can play SS and 1B, maybe he wins the utility job. Meidroth might be a good choice, but he is not Rule 5, this winter, so he might not even be on the 40 for opening day. (We could add him, once the season starts and someone hits the 60 day IL.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

Second base is the worst regular position on the Red Sox. They need to find a freaking big league second baseman for next year and let him play -- no more platoons, or match-ups, or conversions...

According to bb-ref Position Performances by Wins Above Replacement, Boston's second basemen have the lowest WAR on the club -- NEGATIVE 2.6 -- which surprisingly is still better in the AL than the keystone-hands in Chicago and LA.

It's not like the Red Sox don't suck at other places: -2.7 in the bullpen (ahead of only the White Sox and Jays) and -0.9 at first base (ahead of only the A's and the Yanks). BoSox catchers are barely above level, at 0.3.

Red Sox shortstops -- at 0.2 -- are somehow middle of the pack: 16th out of 30. DH is 0.1. Third base is 0.9. The starting rotation, at 3.4, trails only KC, Chi and NY.

In 2024 Boston, it was all about the outfielders -- second in baseball to the Judge-Soto pinstripers, 9.4 to 9.3.

 

[Larry Cook]

10 hours ago, notin said:

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

think of where they would be if they could even remotely hit left handed pitching? 

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Second base is the worst regular position on the Red Sox. They need to find a freaking big league second baseman for next year and let him play -- no more platoons, or match-ups, or conversions...

According to bb-ref Position Performances by Wins Above Replacement, Boston's second basemen have the lowest WAR on the club -- NEGATIVE 2.6 -- which surprisingly is still better in the AL than the keystone-hands in Chicago and LA.

It's not like the Red Sox don't suck at other places: -2.7 in the bullpen (ahead of only the White Sox and Jays) and -0.9 at first base (ahead of only the A's and the Yanks). BoSox catchers are barely above level, at 0.3.

Red Sox shortstops -- at 0.2 -- are somehow middle of the pack: 16th out of 30. DH is 0.1. Third base is 0.9. The starting rotation, at 3.4, trails only KC, Chi and NY.

In 2024 Boston, it was all about the outfielders -- second in baseball to the Judge-Soto pinstripers, 9.4 to 9.3.

 

2B has been near the bottom since 2018. Even then, we hastily signed Nunez in February and had to pick up Kinsler, mid summer just to not stink up the winning vibe.

That being said, once we settled on DHam at 2B with Romy vs some LHPs, we had a guy with a plus WAR.

I'm not saying I'm happy going into 2025 with a DHam- Romy/Grissom platoon at 2B, but I would feel better about that than what we've seen over 5 years, and I still think we see Campbell or Mayer by May.

Most PAs at 2B since 2018 (OPS/DRS):

544 Arroyo .739/13

412 Holt .763/1

396 Story .737/6

375 Nunez .615/-15

341 Vadlez .656/-11

304 Kike .901/0

254 Chavis .711/2

141 Kinsler .598/0

131 Marco H .584/-1

123 DHam .556/8

119 Marwin .511/0

100 Reyes .627/-6

91 Arauz .468/

89 Peraza .553/-3

88 Urias .743/-2

83 Grissom .398/1

55 Romy .694/-1

51 Iggy .914/0

44 Y Sanchez .322/0

40 Sogard .550/-1

39 Westbrook .434/0

36 Lin .294/0

29 Owings .322/0

26 Pedey .361/-1

24 Turner .708/0

23 Downs .581/-1

(17 Chang, 16 Lopez, 15 Phillips, 15 Rafaela, 12 Wong, 11 Gasper, 7 Motter, 7 Munoz, 6 Vaz, 3 Betts & Short, 2 Bobby Dee & 1 Swihart & Devers)

40 second basemen in 7 years!

.667 Team OPS

-11 DRS, -20 OAA and -0.4 UZR/150

Of course, we don't need stats to remind us how bad it has been.

I do think we should be okay for 2025, as whoever does not play SS can win the 2ZB job or platoon:

Mayer/Campbell/Meidroth

DHam/Grissom/Romy

Utility: DHam/Grissom/Meidroth/Romy/Sogard/ EValdez

 

[moonslav59]

Did I hear Hendriks just got a cortisone shot in his elbow?

[Bellhorn04]

9 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Did I hear Hendriks just got a cortisone shot in his elbow?

moon, would it be piling on to suggest the $10 million they recouped of Sale's salary went to Hendriks? 

[Bellhorn04]

Did some analysis of the Red Sox 2024 run production, motivated by the idea that our offense hasn't been as good as some of the numbers suggest.

Through 150 games we've scored 710 runs, or 4.73 per game.

I have this theory that in general the goal in MLB is to score 5 or more runs in a game and give up 4 or less.  That's based on the average runs per game in MLB usually coming in at around 4.5 per team.  Now, what about extra inning games?  I think we have to exclude extra inning runs because with the ghost runner, extra innings are a total crapshoot and run scoring is being inflated a bit.

If we eliminate extra inning runs, the 2024 Red Sox have averaged 4.54 runs scored and 4.46 runs allowed per game.

They have scored 5 runs or more 63 times, and allowed 4 runs or less 83 times.  Wow!  That seems to indicate our run prevention has actually done the job a lot more than our run production.

Here's a breakdown of runs scored in regulation innings for the 150 games:

10 or more-9 times

9-8

8-9

7-13

6-12

5-12

4-22

3-16

2-20

1-23

0-6

    

[moonslav59]

17 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

moon, would it be piling on to suggest the $10 million they recouped of Sale's salary went to Hendriks? 

Not at all. I've been saying most assume it was spent on Gio, or allowed us to afford him. That may be true, but we also cut $10M from the budget, so one could say it went all to JH & Co, or one could say it went to affording Henriks and O'Neill.

The fact is, Brez had precious little to work with and blew all but the $6.8M paid to O'Neill and Criswell.

JH & Co. take the most blame, but Brez is not blameless.

The team is doing as expected, so to me, Cora gets little blame or credit.

[Bellhorn04]

So we saved $10 million by trading a 35 year old pitcher, presumably because of his tendency to get injured, and we gave it to a 35 year old pitcher who is already injured.

It was fellow poster Duran is the Man who really brought this paradox to my attention...

[Randy Red Sox]

On 9/15/2024 at 4:20 PM, moonslav59 said:

We sure need some pen arms for 2025.

preistner who we got in the Yorke trade has a 5.67 era in AAA while Yorke was called up by the Pirates today.  just saying....

[moonslav59]

29 minutes ago, Randy Red Sox said:

preistner who we got in the Yorke trade has a 5.67 era in AAA while Yorke was called up by the Pirates today.  just saying....

Saying what? 

Yorke was likely never going to even get a look with BOS. He had 4-5 guys ahead of him and was Rule 5 in December.

I hope he does well with PIT, but I think we simply have to keep making deals like this, knowing some won't work out.

It is one way to try and fix the unbalanced nature of our farm system between non pitchers and pitchers.

This year, we drafted more pitchers and more of them highly. We added D Reyes through IFA.

Last winter, Brez added Slaten, Fitts, Sandlin and Judice. (Weissert, I Campbell and a few others were not prospects, but have just a year or two in the bigs.)

I'm applauding the effort, knowing full well, some of these deals will not work out.

[notin]

1 hour ago, Randy Red Sox said:

preistner who we got in the Yorke trade has a 5.67 era in AAA while Yorke was called up by the Pirates today.  just saying....

So?  Priester made the Pirates at one point, too.

And didn’t you call Yorke the Sox worst first round draft pick ever?  A statement that brought a huge sigh of relief to Jason Place, by the way…

[mvp 78]

2 hours ago, Randy Red Sox said:

preistner who we got in the Yorke trade has a 5.67 era in AAA while Yorke was called up by the Pirates today.  just saying....

I'd rather have Mayer, Campbell and Anthony than Yorke. Just saying...

[mvp 78]

Red Sox need young pitching. Complaining about them swapping their own prospects for like kinds prospects in other organizations to attain said pitching is silly IMO. 

[notin]

4 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

I'd rather have Mayer, Campbell and Anthony than Yorke. Just saying...

And Teel.  Don’t forget Teel.  He wouldn’t forget you…

[moonslav59]

1 minute ago, mvp 78 said:

Red Sox need young pitching. Complaining about them swapping their own prospects for like kinds prospects in other organizations to attain said pitching is silly IMO. 

I'm hoping we make 2-3 more like that one, over the winter.

Our farm is unbalanced. We can wait for years to right the unbalance via drafts and IFA, but this helps speed up the process.

 

[notin]

5 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Red Sox need young pitching. Complaining about them swapping their own prospects for like kinds prospects in other organizations to attain said pitching is silly IMO. 

Especially after you spent 4 months complaining about the prospect they traded away.

 

I get the idea of using this forum to express frustration.   But there is a point where one can zip right past catharsis straight into perpetual whining…

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, notin said:

And Teel.  Don’t forget Teel.  He wouldn’t forget you…

Yorke has a chance to play the positions that Mayer, Campbell and Anthony do, but I didn't see a reason to mention Teel as he can't play there.

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I'm hoping we make 2-3 more like that one, over the winter.

Our farm is unbalanced. We can wait for years to right the unbalance via drafts and IFA, but this helps speed up the process.

 

With how often pitchers get injured, they need a ton of those deals. Hard agree. 

[notin]

1 minute ago, mvp 78 said:

Yorke has a chance to play the positions that Mayer, Campbell and Anthony do, but I didn't see a reason to mention Teel as he can't play there.

I was wondering if you were going that way, but I didn’t see much overlap with Anthony…

[moonslav59]

I might even put Meidroth ahead of Yorke on a few positional depth charts.

At 2B, one could argue all these guys would be above him on the depth chart:

Mayer or Story, Campbell, DHam, Grissom, Meidroth and maybe even Romy and Sogard for 2025, anyway.

By 2026, maybe Arias and others could have passed Yorke.

There is a good chance that even if Yorke does well with PIT, he won't do better than 2-3 players we kept over him.

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, notin said:

I was wondering if you were going that way, but I didn’t see much overlap with Anthony…

Anthony is most likely going to play corner OF in BOS. Yorke was starting to play corner OF in WOO. 

[notin]

The Cora article thread devolved into whether or not Cole hit Devers on purpose.

 

i can’t answer that (obviously) but it sent me to Cole’s B-R page, where I noticed the controversial IBB Cole issued to Devers was Cole’s first intentional walk since 2017, when he was a Pirate.  That was back in the first year of the new rule for not actually throwing 4 pitches to walk a hitter…

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

6 minutes ago, notin said:

The Cora article thread devolved into whether or not Cole hit Devers on purpose.

 

i can’t answer that (obviously) but it sent me to Cole’s B-R page, where I noticed the controversial IBB Cole issued to Devers was Cole’s first intentional walk since 2017, when he was a Pirate.  That was back in the first year of the new rule for not actually throwing 4 pitches to walk a hitter…

Gerrit Cole is flaccid -- and that's how Yankee fans have viewed him since he choked in the Wild Card Game at Fenway Park in 2021.

That's the year a 10-year old neighbor burned his Cole t-shirt, the one his NY diehard dad bought him (and also stoked the fire in their backyard barbecue).

[moonslav59]

Yoshi for Cole!

[Duran Is The Man]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

Yoshi for Cole!

Yoshi for Mike Trout. why not?