Article: The Red Sox Beat Themselves in the Wild Card Round

[mvp 78]

10 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

What about the advanced defensive stats, how did we end up there?

Narvaez great. Rafaela great. Abreu very good. I don't know why the metrics keep giving Duran such high marks. If you just look at the metrics, you'd think he's a great LFer. If you watch him play, you wouldn't trust him with a flyball to clinch a WS win. He has said that he doesn't want the ball hit to him during the game. Hamilton is also seen as a plus plus defender, but only plays parttime. Story has taken a huge step back in his defense and is now average to below average. Breggie is about average. Wong had a better than expected season. Romy was really rough at the beginning when playing 1b, but got a little better. Casas is awful. Rafaela should have his cleats in the grass only. 

Overall, I'm not worried about Story's defense, but it would be better at 2b. I think they'd be better off with Mayer at SS and Story at 2b. Find a solid 1b that can pick it a little, unlike the schlubs they threw over there in the beginning of the year. I'd trade Duran because he is just untrustworthy out there. An OF defense of Anthony/Rafaela/Abreu is one of the best in the league. I would NEVER play Rafaela anywhere but CF. 

[mvp 78]

20 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

No, but they needed to get a bat after they traded him.

Like I said in the other thread, 2 egregious errors by Craig - that one and trading Priester for prospects.  

  

The trades could look better down the line, but they set the 2025 Sox back. Maybe the 2026 Sox too. Hard to say right now. 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

31 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

The errors hurt but I'm not really buying that they're the reason we're out. Because it's baseball and therefore you can often find multiple explanations.  We scored 6 runs in 3 games - our offense was feeble without Anthony.  And Bello's crappy start didn't help.  

And even if we did win this series, we were in pretty bad shape without Anthony and Giolito.

We were a pretty good team but we were THIN.  Losing a guy like Anthony is crushing when you're that thin.  

I'm just bitter they blew it to the Yankees. If the Sox had gone to Cleveland and got swept instead, none of us would've been surprised, but the ending would have been more positive for even making the playoffs with a ragtag MASH unit.

Where I live I've been hearing a lot of crap from Yankee fans, who delude themselves into thinking their club is better than it actually is after knocking off a shell of a contender that had owned them in the summer. How's that working out vs. Toronto...

Like I said before, Boston had bad karma coming in, from setting up the team to lose that last regular season game by pitching a minor leaguer with an 0-9 record and 7 ERA. We all know almost every team that has clinched uses the last game as a tune-up to be shared for the actual pitching staff, giving starters "bullpen" innings, and relievers 3-batter minimums to stay sharp. The alternative choice was suspicious.

Detroit deserves to lose in the playoffs, too, since they also went through the motions that last day... because both the Tigers and Sox wanted to face the weak-hitting Guardians, and nobody wanted to go the Bronx for three games vs. the Bombers. So let's go, Mariners!

[moonslav59]

57 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

What about the advanced defensive stats, how did we end up there?

Yup. Now, even MVP is using errors (fldg% is about the same.)

2023 to 2025 DRS Rankings (90 entries: 30 teams x 3 seasons)

13. BOS 2024

32. BOS 2025

71. BOS 2023

OAA

28. BOS +11 in 2025

71. BOS -18 in 2024

89. BOS -51 in 2023 (a +62 turnaround in 2 seasons.)

Fangraph's rankings:

14th 2025 Sox

70th 2024 Sox

88th 2023 Sox (a remarkable improvement from third worst to top 15 from 3 seasons, which is like top 5 per 30 teams.)

 

 

[Old Red]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

The errors hurt but I'm not really buying that they're the reason we're out. Because it's baseball and therefore you can often find multiple explanations.  We scored 6 runs in 3 games - our offense was feeble without Anthony.  And Bello's crappy start didn't help.  

And even if we did win this series, we were in pretty bad shape without Anthony and Giolito.

We were a pretty good team but we were THIN.  Losing a guy like Anthony is crushing when you're that thin.  

If the Butterfly Man in LF catches that ball in LF could game 2 been a different outcome? If Eaton scores from 3rd base could game 2 been a different outcome? That’s all I’m sayin. Yes they only Red Sox scored only 6 runs, but they still could have won game 2. You play with what you have. Rice was out in 75, and the Red Sox still could have won without him. Losing Anthony, and Gio hurt, but they still could have won without them. That’s all I saying.

[Old Red]

50 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The trades could look better down the line, but they set the 2025 Sox back. Maybe the 2026 Sox too. Hard to say right now. 

Devers could have been the difference maker especially against the Yankees.

[Bellhorn04]

7 minutes ago, Old Red said:

If the Butterfly Man in LF catches that ball in LF could game 2 been a different outcome? If Eaton scores from 3rd base could game 2 been a different outcome? That’s all I’m sayin. Yes they only Red Sox scored only 6 runs, but they still could have won game 2. You play with what you have. Rice was out in 75, and the Red Sox still could have won without him. Losing Anthony, and Gio hurt, but they still could have won without them. That’s all I saying.

I'm not criticizing what you're saying.  I get it, in close games any little physical or mental blunder can make the difference.  And when you lose those things get magnified bigly.  

[notin]

10 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I'm not criticizing what you're saying.  I get it, in close games any little physical or mental blunder can make the difference.  And when you lose those things get magnified bigly.  

The Yankees made blunders, too.  In no way should Sogard have been able to beat a good throw for Judge to 2b.   
 

The Sox disc Whats got them there after Anthony went down; they pitched.  And their pitching limited the best offense in the AL to 9 runs in 3 games…

[mvp 78]

37 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Yup. Now, even MVP is using errors (fldg% is about the same.)

I've said all season that you can't play bad baseball and expect to win in the postseason. I've talked about the issues with errors long before now. I don't think it's the only thing to go by, but you can't hand wave it away and say "well, the METRICS say they were good." 

[mvp 78]

13 minutes ago, notin said:

The Yankees made blunders, too.  In no way should Sogard have been able to beat a good throw for Judge to 2b.   
 

The Sox disc Whats got them there after Anthony went down; they pitched.  And their pitching limited the best offense in the AL to 9 runs in 3 games…

The Yankees are a terrible fundamental team. The Dodgers famously wanted to play them last WS because of it. 

[mvp 78]

26 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I'm not criticizing what you're saying.  I get it, in close games any little physical or mental blunder can make the difference.  And when you lose those things get magnified bigly.  

That's all I'm saying. If they want to make that next step from playoff team to WS winner, they need to tighten that up. Go from 30th in errors to 15th or whatever. Just don't be SO boneheaded. 

I've seen at other places people say "well, they only get errors because they are just so dang athletic and get to balls that no other players would get to." It's just not the case. Duran gets to those balls and if it doinks off of him, it's NOT called an error. He doesn't even get called for an error on 80% catch balls that just drop right next to him. What they are getting errors on are just the normal plays where they throw the ball away or just goof up so bad that the scorer needs to call it an E. Even Merloni has said on the broadcast that they barely call errors anymore, but somehow the Sox are getting them in droves. 

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

I've said all season that you can't play bad baseball and expect to win in the postseason. I've talked about the issues with errors long before now. I don't think it's the only thing to go by, but you can't hand wave it away and say "well, the METRICS say they were good." 

Do you not think our D improved?

I've said all along, we allow too many unearned runs and make too many baserunning mistakes. I'm not saying we fixed the problems, but this defense is way better than 2023 and better than 2024.

Now, we may lose Bregman, and maybe Casas will be back at 1B. We may get worse, next year, especially if we trade Abreu or Rafaela over Duran.

[moonslav59]

Just now, mvp 78 said:

That's all I'm saying. If they want to make that next step from playoff team to WS winner, they need to tighten that up. Go from 30th in errors to 15th or whatever. Just don't be SO boneheaded. 

That nailed it.

[Old Red]

11 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The Yankees are a terrible fundamental team. The Dodgers famously wanted to play them last WS because of it. 

Terrible fundamental team with a shaky BP.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

6 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

That's all I'm saying. If they want to make that next step from playoff team to WS winner, they need to tighten that up. Go from 30th in errors to 15th or whatever. Just don't be SO boneheaded. 

I've seen at other places people say "well, they only get errors because they are just so dang athletic and get to balls that no other players would get to." It's just not the case. Duran gets to those balls and if it doinks off of him, it's NOT called an error. He doesn't even get called for an error on 80% catch balls that just drop right next to him. What they are getting errors on are just the normal plays where they throw the ball away or just goof up so bad that the scorer needs to call it an E. Even Merloni has said on the broadcast that they barely call errors anymore, but somehow the Sox are getting them in droves. 

I'm not afraid to say Duran sucked in the outfield this year (and as a leadoff batter, but that's for another post).

To your point about deceptive stats that don't include eyeball assessments: Tyler Milligan on WEEI -- sorta the moonslav of literal voices -- tracked misplays by Duran for the entire season. Those didn't just include dropped catches that the official scorer from the home team called hits for their favorite players, but things like weak or bad throws that missed the cutoff or to the wrong base, and bad routes where not even his speed could compensate.

Duran had 32 misplays. 

[mvp 78]

6 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Do you not think our D improved?

I've said all along, we allow too many unearned runs and make too many baserunning mistakes. I'm not saying we fixed the problems, but this defense is way better than 2023 and better than 2024.

Now, we may lose Bregman, and maybe Casas will be back at 1B. We may get worse, next year, especially if we trade Abreu or Rafaela over Duran.

At times it was ok, at times it was not good. Behind the plate, it was much better. 1b was on and off a train wreck. Story was average at best. Bregman was average. 2b felt like 1b to me. Duran was worse than last season. Rafaela was great in CF but stunk at 2b. Anthony was good. Abreu missed a lot of time which made the defense worse. 

Sure, you didn't have the bad version of Connor Wong or Enmanuel Valdez/Rafael Devers out there, but you can't convince me that Romy is an average defender no matter what the metrics say. 

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

I'm not afraid to say Duran sucked in the outfield this year (and as a leadoff batter, but that's for another post).

To your point about deceptive stats that don't include eyeball assessments: Tyler Milligan on WEEI -- sorta the moonslav of literal voices -- tracked misplays by Duran for the entire season. Those didn't just include dropped catches that the official scorer from the home team called hits for their favorite players, but things like weak or bad throws that missed the cutoff or to the wrong base, and bad routes where not even his speed could compensate.

Duran had 32 misplays. 

And Duran isn't a guy that gets a great jump on the ball. He's bad at reading the ball and needs his athleticism to catch up to the ball. He's not a good OFer. His speed in LF skews the metrics. 

The metrics are what they are. We don't have anything better right now. I've read that some people use OAA for OFers and DRS for IFers. IDK. 

2025 in LF:

DRS 11

OAA -3 (dinged by LF wall with formula)

[Old Red]

8 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

At times it was ok, at times it was not good. Behind the plate, it was much better. 1b was on and off a train wreck. Story was average at best. Bregman was average. 2b felt like 1b to me. Duran was worse than last season. Rafaela was great in CF but stunk at 2b. Anthony was good. Abreu missed a lot of time which made the defense worse. 

Sure, you didn't have the bad version of Connor Wong or Enmanuel Valdez/Rafael Devers out there, but you can't convince me that Romy is an average defender no matter what the metrics say. 

At times the D was good, but then it reared its ugly head, and looked like a Little League team in the field. 1B was not good, but they did save Bregman, and Story some throwing errors. Duran morphed back to somewhat being the Butterfly Man again, and him and RAF Man had some communication problems at times.

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, Old Red said:

At times the D was good, but then it reared its ugly head, and looked like a Little League team in the field. 1B was not good, but they did save Bregman, and Story some throwing errors. Duran morphed back to somewhat being the Butterfly Man again, and him and RAF Man had some communication problems at times.

Casas was terrible at 1b. Romy was really bad early on (was injured because of it), but became playable over time. Toro was bad IMO. Lowe was capable. If you have a bad 1b, it really brings down the IF. 

[moonslav59]

36 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

At times it was ok, at times it was not good. Behind the plate, it was much better. 1b was on and off a train wreck. Story was average at best. Bregman was average. 2b felt like 1b to me. Duran was worse than last season. Rafaela was great in CF but stunk at 2b. Anthony was good. Abreu missed a lot of time which made the defense worse. 

Sure, you didn't have the bad version of Connor Wong or Enmanuel Valdez/Rafael Devers out there, but you can't convince me that Romy is an average defender no matter what the metrics say. 

All true, but I asked if it improved. Average at 3B and SS and up and down at 1B was much better than 2024.

Duran was worse. RF was worse. C and 2B were better.

Overall, we improved a lot from 2023 and a little from 2024. We still have more to go.

[mvp 78]

13 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

All true, but I asked if it improved. Average at 3B and SS and up and down at 1B was much better than 2024.

Duran was worse. RF was worse. C and 2B were better.

Overall, we improved a lot from 2023 and a little from 2024. We still have more to go.

25: 31 DRS, 11 OAA, 116 errors

24: 49 DRS, -18 OAA, 115 errors

23: -20 DRS, -51 OAA, 102 errors

Better than 23 when they had Kiké at SS, probably! Better than 24? Not so sure! Seems like it's close enough to be about the same. IDK. Maybe it's a big improvement if we just ignore DRS, but I honestly hear more people state DRS throughout the season than OAA. 

[moonslav59]

27 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

25: 31 DRS, 11 OAA, 116 errors

24: 49 DRS, -18 OAA, 115 errors

23: -20 DRS, -51 OAA, 102 errors

Better than 23 when they had Kiké at SS, probably! Better than 24? Not so sure! Seems like it's close enough to be about the same. IDK. Maybe it's a big improvement if we just ignore DRS, but I honestly hear more people state DRS throughout the season than OAA. 

The metrics do point to about even on D from 2024 to 2025, but it seemed better to me:

4 much better by observations:

3B: Bregman> Devers

SS: Story> Rafaela, DHam 

C: Narvaez, Wong> Wong, McGuire, Jansen

CF: Rafaela, Duran < Duran>Rafaela

4 Close to equal:

RF: Abreu, Anthony, Ref =Abreu, Anthony, Ref-Eaton

LF: Duran (Anthony)=>Duran, O'Neill, Ref 

1B: Toro, Romy, Lowe, Casas=>DSmith, Casas, Dalbec, Romy-Cooper

2B: KCampbell, DHam, Romy, Rafaela= EValdez, DHam, Grissom, Romy-Westbrook

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, Old Red said:

Devers could have been the difference maker especially against the Yankees.

True! Maybe with a bad throw, too.

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

True! Maybe with a bad throw, too.

2025 throwing errors: 0

DRS: 2

OAA: -1

He was better than some of the guys we had at 1b. 

[Old Red]

8 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

True! Maybe with a bad throw, too.

Kind of hard making a bad throw from the DH spot.🤔

[Old Red]

49 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

25: 31 DRS, 11 OAA, 116 errors

24: 49 DRS, -18 OAA, 115 errors

23: -20 DRS, -51 OAA, 102 errors

Better than 23 when they had Kiké at SS, probably! Better than 24? Not so sure! Seems like it's close enough to be about the same. IDK. Maybe it's a big improvement if we just ignore DRS, but I honestly hear more people state DRS throughout the season than OAA. 

I think Bregman lost some range after getting injured, and Story wore down as the season wound down.

[moonslav59]

27 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Kind of hard making a bad throw from the DH spot.🤔

The idea was to play him at 1B, if he stayed.

[Old Red]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

The idea was to play him at 1B, if he stayed.

That was Brez idea, and mostly everyone on here, but Raffy said no, and Cora made it pretty clear he wasn’t going to talk with him about it for more than 1 reason IMO.

[moonslav59]

Just now, Old Red said:

That was Brez idea, and mostly everyone on here, but Raffy said no, and Cora made it pretty clear he wasn’t going to talk with him about it for more than 1 reason IMO.

Well, he wasn't staying as the DH. Brez made that as clear as day.

[Old Red]

20 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Well, he wasn't staying as the DH. Brez made that as clear as day.

And that’s why he was traded, and that’s why we will Never know if Raffy’s bat would have made a difference especially in Yankee Stadium in the postseason.