a700hitter

How does one build a team based on run differential? Would someone characterize Dustin Pedroia as a good run differential guy? I know their are metrics for this stuff, but let's remember that run differential is an indicator of how good or bad a team is. The metrics that measure these indicators estimate the indicators. I'd prefer to build my team with good pitchers first and then good hitters, and I don't apologize for my opinion that those advanced metrics are largely a waste of time.

They are different types of players. Reddick has the livelier bat, but Kalish can steal 30+ bases in a season.

If the question were "should the Red Sox be buyers or sellers", I would answer that they should be sellers. They need to move on from Beckett and Lester. They should bring in some talent and free up some money. However, this thread asks which "will" the Sox be, not "should". I think they will be neither to any significant extent. Cherries doesn't have the budget to add significant talent and IMO, he doesn't have the guts to be a significant buyer or seller. I expect little activity and lots of excuses.

I build with pitching, so no, I don't agree. Both are factors obviously, but pitching is more important. The A's offense is dead last in the league and Texas has top 5 pitching to go along with it's #1 hitting. After the A's the next five best teams in pitching are the Angels, Yankees, Rays, Rangers and White Sox. Except for the Rays who are 1/2 game behind the Orioles for the second wild card, the other 4 teams would be play off teams if the season ended today. The top 6 offenses are the Rangers, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Yankees, White Sox and Tigers. Only 3 of those teams would be playoff teams if the season ended tomorrow. The top 6 teams in pitching combine for a record of 287-227. The top 6 hitting teams combine for a record of 281-233. Yes, run differential is the best indicator next to wins as to who will be in the playoffs, but that's just a duh. IMO, Pitching is more important to being a good team than hitting.

I assume that the A grade is for awful.

The Phillies, Twins, Braves, Rays and A's have gotten to the playoffs many times in the last decade or so. The reason for that has been their pitching. Maybe they haven't won a lot of championships, but that is because they have run into opponents with good pitching in the playoffs. The teams with top pitching do make the post season more consistently than teams without good pitching. Pitching is the name of the game. To say that run differential is all that matters might be correct, but IMO the more important component of that statistic is the runs allowed portion. The pitching is more important IMO. Saying that run differential is the most important statistic is not far from saying that the most important statistic for a team is wins. Of course wins are the most important and of course run differential is the best indicator of the teams that will have the most wins, but neither indicates what is the most important component of those statistics. IMO, it is pitching, and there isn't a metric that can prove otherwise.

I am sure that he legitimately had a cold or flu. That's not what i am questioning.

At Saturday night's game he couldn't throw a strike. He looked intimidated and scared. He is a nobody and he doesn't belong on any teams roster except as the last option out of the pen. I could live with him in that role but not in a role with any real pressure or responsibility. You are entitle to your opinion. I think he stinks.

Small sample size, basically accumulated during garbage innings. They stink.

I agree with you, and I appreciate the effort you made in presenting the data, but those who are blinded by their fandom cannot be convinced otherwise by any set of stats. You and I use those stats to confirm what we already know just from watching. My answer to the prove it to me with statistical data crowd is just to sit back and watch the season unfold. The events will bear us out. I doubt there was any statistical measure that would have predicted last years September collapse. In fact the statistical data probably uniformly would have shown there was no chance of the Sox completing such a collapse. Some of us saw the signs as early as September 1st that the team was about to spiral down the drain. Everything had to break wrong for the Sox, but all the elements were in place to fail miserably. In my mind, they needed to get lucky a couple of times to not collapse, and that luck never came their way. Stats would never have led anyone to believe that they would have collapsed. Because the collapse flew in the face of all the statistical data, people were lulled into the belief that the collapse was a statistical aberration. It was not. There were fundamental flaws in that team that were never addressed, and the result has been 2012.

Madson signed a 1 year contract for $6 million with an option and a $2.5 million buyout, so we wouldn't be too much further up the creek. We are paying Bailey $4 million and we aren't going to get much use out of him either. They are projecting August or September for his return. Mortensen stinks. He tops out at 87 with his fastball. Melancon stinks too. These are viable garbage time arms -- nothing more. They are last guy out of the pen caliber right before you have to use a position player. I'm aware of the anomaly of of Melancon's good half season and his dominating AAA career, but he is generally a bust. Also, he didn't come for free, so this is not in line with the Tampa model. He came at the cost of a cheap infielder with a good stick who could start for most teams when healthy.

He's not a horse face.

He doesn't get all of the blame, but he gets partial blame. Just because a deal looks good at the time doesn't mean that he is not accountable when it turns out to be bad. That's just not the way it works. He made the deals and they blew up. He's accountable. It doesn't matter how good the deals looked when they were made. The opposing GM's are patting themselves on the back and rightly so. They got the better of those deals. Other than the Cody Ross acquisition, he has done almost nothing right. I said it over and over before the season started that starting the season with two rookies in the rotation was a recipe for failure. You can go with one guy and there should be a decent contingency plan, but two is just ensuring failure. We have done alright with Doubs, but Bard was a total failure and embarrassment and they ruined him. With the way our top 3 has pitched we are very luck that Doubs has performed. If he had bombed along with Bard like Hughes and Kennedy had bombed for the Yanks in 2008, we'd be buried in last place far behind Toronto.

This is true. Time and again Cherington and bobby V repeated that they were happy with their pitching going into the season. That had me completely baffled, because it was obviously tin and deficient. I think that was just a cover story for consumption by the press. Did they think the fans were so stupid as to buy such an obviously false story? It is instances like this that cause me to never trust any statements from the FO or stories based on FO sources. They are manipulating the story to their advantage-- many times with little semblance of truth or accuracy.

Padilla should just call Tex a horse-faced *******. That should end the matter. Tex would have no comeback to that, because that fact is not even debatable.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that any time the division is out of reach that the Sox should give up. At least, I am not suggesting that. However, I believe that this team is so poorly constructed that it doesn't have what it takes to go deep into the offseason. Therefore, I would be reluctant to be a buyer at the trading deadline. Getting back Ellsbury, Pedroia and Crawford (I'll believe it when I see it) will be great, but they don't pitch. Until our top 3 pitchers start pitching like a top 3, I don't think we can compete with the top teams. I am dubious that Lester and beckett will turn things around. If our pitching was solid and we had a couple of aces, I would be all for being buyers and going for the wild card. I have been criticized for a win now mentality, so supporting the team being in sell mode is against my usual preference and philosophy. I just don't see much hope for this team in the post season. We'd likely be out in 1 game or quickly in the ALDS round. If Lester and Beckett come out of the ASB dealing like top of the rotation guys, that would go a long way towards changing my opinion.

Yes, he makes a lot of money to perform. He should have an ounce of pride.

That's pretty good. I wouldn't have expected that you would find anything like that.