2026 MLB post-Red Sox postseason thread

[JoeBrady]

39 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

All the MLB analysts are saying the reason the Dodgers haven't won a game in the NLCS yet is because they haven't hit a home run.

Could that have anything to do with Milwaukee having the #2 ERA in baseball last year?  Too many fans assume that the problem with a lack of playoff production is with the team hitting, not the opposition's pitching.

Did the Yankees lose because they can't hit, or because Rasmussen & Peralta are good pitchers?

[drewski6]

3 hours ago, Old Red said:

I know you guys are all hung up on OPS as the be all end all, but I like to break things down you know like homers for example. Flintstone 45, Alonso 43, and lagging way behind is the Con Man at 27. How about RBI? Alonso 113, Flintstone 97, and lagging way behind is the Con Man at 81. How about total bases? Alonso 314, Flintstone 292, and lagging behind is the Con Man at 224. That doesn’t add up to me that the Con Man did about as well as Alonso, or Flintstone despite what the OPS says. Con Man did lead them in HBP though with 24, which helped his OBP, which helped his OPS, so which batting stat is it that makes you think Con Man did about as well as Alonso, or Flintstone?🤔

Contreras is getting hammered a little too heavily here for my tastes.  Its not his fault that we didnt also get Bregman and Alonso, and yes on team 28th in power, there was room for all 3.  But I do agree that OPS and OBPee are trending down and cumulative stats are trending up.  Like I keep saying, Im focused on sheer quantity of extra base hits.  Chasing OBPee just ends innings with runners on first and third.  We literally saw this last year.

[JoeBrady]

19 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Instead of regular season stats, why not focus on their trade deadline acquisitions who won each of the first two LCS games:

Griffin started and gave CL 4 solid IP, Adell and Lowe drove in 2 runs apiece in Gm 1;

Peralta threw 6 shutout innings and Hicks drove in 2 to win Gm 2 for TB.

Some luck is involved, but Brez could've had half of those guys for the haul he swapped to keep an injured Rutschman out of pinstripes.

I don't disagree that both CL and TB are well-run teams.  And FWIW, I wanted to trade for Adell

[JoeBrady]

8 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

But I do agree that OPS and OBPee are trending down and cumulative stats are trending up.  Like I keep saying, Im focused on sheer quantity of extra base hits.

After the success of Mil, CL, and TB, OBP will go back to being king.

And RS had more XBH than Mil, Cl, or TB. 

[JoeBrady]

14 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Contreras is getting hammered a little too heavily here for my tastes.

There is a decent chance he was still injured for the playoffs.  And our 1/2 hitters went 1-14 with -0- walks.  We need to have guys on base in front of him.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

22 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Could that have anything to do with Milwaukee having the #2 ERA in baseball last year?  Too many fans assume that the problem with a lack of playoff production is with the team hitting, not the opposition's pitching.

Did the Yankees lose because they can't hit, or because Rasmussen & Peralta are good pitchers?

This is the perfect post to reflect back to Boston's complete ineptitude vs. playoff pitching the past two postseasons...

That, and drewski's post about On Base % -- what good is it, if your offense has the lowest batting average in the big leagues with runners in scoring position every year (maybe the past two just seem like a decade here in Dead Sox Nation).

[JoeBrady]

6 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

This is the perfect post to reflect back to Boston's complete ineptitude vs. playoff pitching the past two postseasons...

That, and drewski's post about On Base % -- what good is it, if your offense has the lowest batting average in the big leagues with runners in scoring position every year (maybe the past two just seem like a decade here in Dead Sox Nation).

But to get back to my original point, Is Mil ahead 2-0 because the Dodgers have a poor hitting team, or because Milwaukee has a good pitching team.  And are CL and TB in the ALCS because they have good hitting teams, or good pitching teams?

[drewski6]

I just think that things like "good pitching beats good hitting" and "obp is king" is just a complete substitution of thoughtfulness with folklore cliches, and I have no desire to converse with people who think that way.

All I will say, is you heard it from Breslows mouth. We were solid on OBB, and K metrics.  We were elite defensively. We were elite pitching.  Yet, we fell right on our faces, again.  And its not fair to blame injuries.  Anthony is not a high slug guy. The team contains too many defense first , plate passives.  And thats why we were at the back of the line in things like "how many walks + hits do you need to manufacture one run"

Theres plenty to analyze and converse.  But some jus want to show up and read their tired bullet points.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, drewski6 said:

No, everyone knew entering the year we didnt have enough thud.  Nor did we have any elite players on teh offensive side of the ball.  Nothing unforeseen happened, other than we ended up using most of the crazy pitching depth that Breslow acquired in lieu of fixing the offense.  But the pitching help doesnt help you if you cant score runs. 

Of course you need to score some runs to win, but you know as much as anyone that many teams have won with worse offensive teams than the 2026 Red Sox. That's not an argument against needing more offense: you and I and many others agree on it now and felt we needed more last winter and spring.

We put all our eggs in the Bregman basket, which I thought was a mistake, but he did have a great 2026 season. When we failed to overpay for Breggie, we fell back on Durbin and Suarez. those two did help the team, but the hole on offense remained.

The summer additions of Mead & Rutschman was a valiant attempt at fixing that issue, and on paper those two should have given us more than just Bregman would have. The Mead injury and not-so-good AR production plus no real return of Anthony was the final straw.

I think we need to add a star/elite bat this winter, but with the pitching and defense we have, I can understand fans thinking Mead, Rutschman, a healthy Anthony and maybe some turnarounds by some of the returning vets who declined last year can and should be enough.

Yes, Mead's half season of greatness leaves questions. Yes, AR's last 2-3 years have not been great, although he still represents a major upgrade from Narvaez/Wong. Yes, we have no idea which Anthony we will get in 2027, or if he even plays. Yes, we worry the long improvement trend by Rafaela may finally end. Yes, the long-awaited bust out season from Abreu has never materialized, and we have to think it may never happen. Yes, Contreras turns 36. Yes, depending on Story, Yoshida and Duran is foolish. Yes, a rookie SS may not work out well. Yes, yes, yes, but there is a lot to be optimistic about with just general, average health in 2027. The 4-5 returning pitchers- all healthy at the end of 2026 could help improve an already very good staff or be used to trade for better offense- like the Mead & AR trades were meant to do.

It's not unrealistic to project growth from 24-27 year olds, peak or career years from 27-30 year olds and decent seasons from 30-33 year olds. If we get just that, we could see a significant improvement in the offense. Full seasons from Mead, AR and Anthony could easily be the same as adding someone like Alonso or Schwarber. Yes, the key word is "could." I fully realize it could all go south, again. I had high hopes for our younger players improving in 2026, and most did not. The worst part was how many declined by 100-150 points in OPS. That's the same difference as a .710 Durbin vs an .860 Bregman. (Bregman actually hit .820.)

If we do nothing or very little to upgrade the offense, I'll be pissed, but I'll still have some pretty high hopes. I'll be praying for good health, mostly. Maybe another summer trade, but one that works.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

And RS had more XBH than Mil, Cl, or TB. 

That's gonna leave a mark.

[drewski6]

14 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Of course you need to score some runs to win, but you know as much as anyone that many teams have won with worse offensive teams than the 2026 Red Sox. That's not an argument against needing more offense: you and I and many others agree on it now and felt we needed more last winter and spring.

We put all our eggs in the Bregman basket, which I thought was a mistake, but he did have a great 2026 season. When we failed to overpay for Breggie, we fell back on Durbin and Suarez. those two did help the team, but the hole on offense remained.

The summer additions of Mead & Rutschman was a valiant attempt at fixing that issue, and on paper those two should have given us more than just Bregman would have. The Mead injury and not-so-good AR production plus no real return of Anthony was the final straw.

I think we need to add a star/elite bat this winter, but with the pitching and defense we have, I can understand fans thinking Mead, Rutschman, a healthy Anthony and maybe some turnarounds by some of the returning vets who declined last year can and should be enough.

Yes, Mead's half season of greatness leaves questions. Yes, AR's last 2-3 years have not been great, although he still represents a major upgrade from Narvaez/Wong. Yes, we have no idea which Anthony we will get in 2027, or if he even plays. Yes, we worry the long improvement trend by Rafaela may finally end. Yes, the long-awaited bust out season from Abreu has never materialized, and we have to think it may never happen. Yes, Contreras turns 36. Yes, depending on Story, Yoshida and Duran is foolish. Yes, a rookie SS may not work out well. Yes, yes, yes, but there is a lot to be optimistic about with just general, average health in 2027. The 4-5 returning pitchers- all healthy at the end of 2026 could help improve an already very good staff or be used to trade for better offense- like the Mead & AR trades were meant to do.

It's not unrealistic to project growth from 24-27 year olds, peak or career years from 27-30 year olds and decent seasons from 30-33 year olds. If we get just that, we could see a significant improvement in the offense. Full seasons from Mead, AR and Anthony could easily be the same as adding someone like Alonso or Schwarber. Yes, the key word is "could." I fully realize it could all go south, again. I had high hopes for our younger players improving in 2026, and most did not. The worst part was how many declined by 100-150 points in OPS. That's the same difference as a .710 Durbin vs an .860 Bregman. (Bregman actually hit .820.)

If we do nothing or very little to upgrade the offense, I'll be pissed, but I'll still have some pretty high hopes. I'll be praying for good health, mostly. Maybe another summer trade, but one that works.

You need more than internal growth to go from 28th in extra base hits to first, though.

[drewski6]

13 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

That's gonna leave a mark.

In the playoffs?

[mvp 78]

2 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

Are we back to good pitching stops good hitting?

Now that they are back to playing at Dodger Stadium, LAD will start hitting bombs again. 

[drewski6]

Just now, mvp 78 said:

Now that they are back to playing at Dodger Stadium, LAD will start hitting bombs again. 

And even if they dont, and catch cold at the wrong time....And get knocked out....Then thats even more sad cuz it means this year was wide open and there for the taking.  But we got swept by a team that got swept in a year where we could have made a push....if we werent so busy excuse making over why we dont hit and instead went out and got hitters. Sad.

Weird world where the phrase hit or get hitters is controversial.  But what do I know, I thought the new spider man movie was going to be about the sting song.

[mvp 78]

2 hours ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Instead of regular season stats, why not focus on their trade deadline acquisitions who won each of the first two LCS games:

Griffin started and gave CL 4 solid IP, Adell and Lowe drove in 2 runs apiece in Gm 1;

Peralta threw 6 shutout innings and Hicks drove in 2 to win Gm 2 for TB.

Some luck is involved, but Brez could've had half of those guys for the haul he swapped to keep an injured Rutschman out of pinstripes.

Starters are allowed to only go 4 IP now? 

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

After the success of Mil, CL, and TB, OBP will go back to being king.

And RS had more XBH than Mil, Cl, or TB. 

All CLE had to do was win a 5 game series against an 84 win team to get these accolades? Ok!

[drewski6]

3 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

All CLE had to do was win a 5 game series against an 84 win team to get these accolades? Ok!

And they did it by swinging at balls out of the zone and depositing them over the fence, something JBrady hates.

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

But to get back to my original point, Is Mil ahead 2-0 because the Dodgers have a poor hitting team, or because Milwaukee has a good pitching team.  

Because LAD's best hitter is seriously injured and trying to play through it for some dumb reason. Also, a 2 game sample size is ridiculous to make a sweeping generalization about anything.

[drewski6]

1 minute ago, mvp 78 said:

Because LAD's best hitter is seriously injured and trying to play through it for some dumb reason. Also, a 2 game sample size is ridiculous to make a sweeping generalization about anything.

But but but good pitching beats good hitting is a mindless cliche....And everyone knows that the baseball team that has memorized the most mindless cliches is going to win.

[mvp 78]

Why didn't high OBP win MIL anything in '24 or '25??? Why would one season change the narrative on anything TBH?

[mvp 78]

Why didn't the KC Royals become a dynasty after 2015?!?!?

[drewski6]

12 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Why didn't high OBP win MIL anything in '24 or '25??? Why would one season change the narrative on anything TBH?

Because some are not interested in an actual exchange of ideas, some just want to backdoor proof that we've done everything perfectly but have had bad luck

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

21 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Starters are allowed to only go 4 IP now? 

4.1, then bring in a reliever who struggled the past entire month instead of trusting your proven veteran starter...

... though after seeing Cleveland's bullpen disintegrate Red Sox bats the final week, I said no one will want to play the Guards in the postseason (they don't have a key set-up man pitching on a broken leg).

[drewski6]

12 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Why didn't the KC Royals become a dynasty after 2015?!?!?

Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?

[moonslav59]

56 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

I just think that things like "good pitching beats good hitting" and "obp is king" is just a complete substitution of thoughtfulness with folklore cliches, and I have no desire to converse with people who think that way.

All I will say, is you heard it from Breslows mouth. We were solid on OBB, and K metrics.  We were elite defensively. We were elite pitching.  Yet, we fell right on our faces, again.  And its not fair to blame injuries.  Anthony is not a high slug guy. The team contains too many defense first , plate passives.  And thats why we were at the back of the line in things like "how many walks + hits do you need to manufacture one run"

Theres plenty to analyze and converse.  But some jus want to show up and read their tired bullet points.

I think one  could argue our first rings were greatly influenced by the shift in philosophy to pitching, improved OBP and working counts to force the earlier arrival of RP'ers.

We never won a ring with just one ace: Tiant, Clemens & Pedro. We won, when we added Schilling. We won with Schilling, only after we added Beckett. We couldn't win with just Lester, so we added Lackey. We almost won with just Price until we added Sale.

I'll go to my grave believing it's much harder to win rings with big offense and not-so-good pitching. I lived those type of teams from 1972 to 2003. That's not to say winning with a crappy offense is easy: it isn't, but I'm glad we have a top 3 pitching staff in MLB and will be seeing Crochet, Houck, Crawford, Oviedo and some pen arms returning.

We did improve the offense on paper, but the game is played on the field, and we scored less runs than the year before. That is a clear and present danger. I hate to cry injury, when we just lost to a Judgeless Yankee team. It wasn't just the injuries that caused a cliff dive by our offense.

Can we lay some blame on the actual players for once? We saw some massive declines and some by player pre-prime or in prime. You may blame the GM for not seeing that coming and for not trading away these guys right before their dives, but nobody wants to trade a player after a good year just because we have a gut feeling a decline is coming. Take the Duran example. He showed serious decline in 2025, but when some of us suggested we trade him, we got our head blasted off with claims that a team in great need of offense should not tarde away a top 3 offensive player. That is one example I was actually for doing, but in nor way did I foresee these declines:

Romy was 7th in PAs in 2025 and dropped 254 OPS points and was hurt for much of the year.

Narvaez dropped 191 points beforr being traded away.

Anthony dropped 124 points and missed time both seasons.

Mayer dropped 80 points and got hurt, too.

Abreu dropped just 13 points

These guys are all pre-prime and should have improved.

Story was just past prime, but he should not have been expected to drop 120 points. (He missed time, too, which might have been helpful.)

Only one regular improved: Rafaela (+56.) Yoshida improved by 50, but missed half the season, again. Wong got better on offense, but is the back-up catcher,

If you think this is Brez's fault, fine. I disagree, but can understand the rational.  Despite my disagreement, I feel it's easier to look at this area to lay blame on Brez than his trades and signings. 

We all look at the subtractions of a half year of Devers and 2/3 of a season by Bregman and see that adding Contreras & Durbin fell woefully short. Point well taken. I agreed, at the time. I was critical of Brez, too.

I do think the additions of Mead and AR should have made up for that winter omission. I also think that when you look at the player subtracted from the 2025 team, you can't just look at Breggie and Raffy and to a lesser extent Refsnyder. We also lost...

284 PAs from Toro .659

263 PAs from KC at .664

(These two combined had more PAs than Bregman in 2025.)

194 DHam .590

Breggie+ Raffy had 829 PAs total.

Toro+KC+DHam had 741 PAs.

The offense had several issues beyond starting the season short a big bopper:

1. Too many declines by pre-prime & prime players.

2. Injuries to Anthony, Mead and others.

3. A September collapse that bled into October.

4. The bench did very well, and many were playing during that 32-5 stretch, but when you have tor ely on back-up to the back-ups, you are doomed to fail.

 

[drewski6]

7 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I think one  could argue our first rings were greatly influenced by the shift in philosophy to pitching, improved OBP and working counts to force the earlier arrival of RP'ers.

We never won a ring with just one ace: Tiant, Clemens & Pedro. We won, when we added Schilling. We won with Schilling, only after we added Beckett. We couldn't win with just Lester, so we added Lackey. We almost won with just Price until we added Sale.

I'll go to my grave believing it's much harder to win rings with big offense and not-so-good pitching. I lived those type of teams from 1972 to 2003. That's not to say winning with a crappy offense is easy: it isn't, but I'm glad we have a top 3 pitching staff in MLB and will be seeing Crochet, Houck, Crawford, Oviedo and some pen arms returning.

We did improve the offense on paper, but the game is played on the field, and we scored less runs than the year before. That is a clear and present danger. I hate to cry injury, when we just lost to a Judgeless Yankee team. It wasn't just the injuries that caused a cliff dive by our offense.

Can we lay some blame on the actual players for once? We saw some massive declines and some by player pre-prime or in prime. You may blame the GM for not seeing that coming and for not trading away these guys right before their dives, but nobody wants to trade a player after a good year just because we have a gut feeling a decline is coming. Take the Duran example. He showed serious decline in 2025, but when some of us suggested we trade him, we got our head blasted off with claims that a team in great need of offense should not tarde away a top 3 offensive player. That is one example I was actually for doing, but in nor way did I foresee these declines:

Romy was 7th in PAs in 2025 and dropped 254 OPS points and was hurt for much of the year.

Narvaez dropped 191 points beforr being traded away.

Anthony dropped 124 points and missed time both seasons.

Mayer dropped 80 points and got hurt, too.

Abreu dropped just 13 points

These guys are all pre-prime and should have improved.

Story was just past prime, but he should not have been expected to drop 120 points. (He missed time, too, which might have been helpful.)

Only one regular improved: Rafaela (+56.) Yoshida improved by 50, but missed half the season, again. Wong got better on offense, but is the back-up catcher,

If you think this is Brez's fault, fine. I disagree, but can understand the rational.  Despite my disagreement, I feel it's easier to look at this area to lay blame on Brez than his trades and signings. 

We all look at the subtractions of a half year of Devers and 2/3 of a season by Bregman and see that adding Contreras & Durbin fell woefully short. Point well taken. I agreed, at the time. I was critical of Brez, too.

I do think the additions of Mead and AR should have made up for that winter omission. I also think that when you look at the player subtracted from the 2025 team, you can't just look at Breggie and Raffy and to a lesser extent Refsnyder. We also lost...

284 PAs from Toro .659

263 PAs from KC at .664

(These two combined had more PAs than Bregman in 2025.)

194 DHam .590

Breggie+ Raffy had 829 PAs total.

Toro+KC+DHam had 741 PAs.

The offense had several issues beyond starting the season short a big bopper:

1. Too many declines by pre-prime & prime players.

2. Injuries to Anthony, Mead and others.

3. A September collapse that bled into October.

4. The bench did very well, and many were playing during that 32-5 stretch, but when you have tor ely on back-up to the back-ups, you are doomed to fail.

 

Last three years, its all been flipped on its head.  The reason why OBP went from hugely important to a recipe for leaving runners on base is for real reason. Not just changes in whats "in".  Next man up isnt a strong philosophy right now.

[mvp 78]

12 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

These guys are all pre-prime and should have improved.

That's not how it works. 

[moonslav59]

40 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

You need more than internal growth to go from 28th in extra base hits to first, though.

We don't need to be first, but point well taken.

Story's collapse and injury were foreseeable, but to me the others were not.

The Contreras add, counting more PAs than what Bregman or Devers had in 2025 made up for losing one of them. Together, Bregman and Devers had just 834 PAs, so in a sense, we only lost 1.3 stud batters, and Willson made up for close to a full season. We need Anthony to play more and take up the slack. He played less than 2025 and did worse.

The Mead and AR additions should have made up for that other .3 batter lost, but they did not, and in reality, we need to improve on 2025 not just stay even.

It may sound like I'm disagreeing with you a lot, but I'm not by as much as it might seem. We needed more batting. Our attempts to fix it worked with Willson, but not with Durbin, Mead, AR, Monasterio and IKF.

We seem to agree on needing a major bat addition for 2027.

[drewski6]

4 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

We don't need to be first, but point well taken.

Story's collapse and injury were foreseeable, but to me the others were not.

The Contreras add, counting more PAs than what Bregman or Devers had in 2025 made up for losing one of them. Together, Bregman and Devers had just 834 PAs, so in a sense, we only lost 1.3 stud batters, and Willson made up for close to a full season. We need Anthony to play more and take up the slack. He played less than 2025 and did worse.

The Mead and AR additions should have made up for that other .3 batter lost, but they did not, and in reality, we need to improve on 2025 not just stay even.

It may sound like I'm disagreeing with you a lot, but I'm not by as much as it might seem. We needed more batting. Our attempts to fix it worked with Willson, but not with Durbin, Mead, AR, Monasterio and IKF.

We seem to agree on needing a major bat addition for 2027.

We need to strive to be first, not be first.  Everything else is complacency.

[moonslav59]

7 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Last three years, its all been flipped on its head.  The reason why OBP went from hugely important to a recipe for leaving runners on base is for real reason. Not just changes in whats "in".  Next man up isnt a strong philosophy right now.

Yes, we failed to change with the times. One major change came about with the emphasis on having strong and deep pens. Working counts to get to the pen earlier no longer made much of a difference.

OBP is still one of the best correlations with run scoring. SLG is too, but it's not like OBP should be thrown in the dumpster. One reason we sucked on offense is that nobody was on base for our middle order batters. Sure, the lack of power and XBHs was a major reason for low run totals, but this is also a MAJOR reason we sucked.

.307 OBP from 1 slot

.303 OB from 2 slot (the modern most important slot)

(.325 from the 3 slot is also lower than needed.)

Granted, a .431 SLG from the 3 slot, .428 from the 4 slot and .421 from the 5 slot is horrible, but a bunch more solo homers wasn't going to jump our rankings either.