sk7326

More fun with the Fangraphs dashboard on our anemic attack: Sox are 29th in the league in Swing% at pitches outside the strike zone and 28th in swing% overall. So the team is not hacking and the batting eye is still pretty good. Sox are 5th in the league in Contact% and 2nd in Contact% on pitches in the strike zone The approach has been fine, they aren't being overwhelmed by stuff, they have not been indiscriminately hacking - yet the results have not been there. The Red Sox were middle in the pack in these areas a year ago - and struck out a lot more. The weakness of the offense has really been just batted balls finding fielders - it is rather amazing.

For a 3-5 year time horizon, the power hitter. For this year's team - the ace would make a larger marginal difference to a part of the team less likely to improve naturally.

We will win more games if we score more runs or if we prevent more opposing runs. The look at the statistics is not to generate hope - but to ask whether there is evidence from the mediocrity of the season to date that it will continue or get worse. For the most part - there isn't. Now is it possible for hitters to not be able to make solid contact anymore while still not striking out? Yes, but it doesn't make a ton of sense. The good news is that there is plenty of time to fix this and the standings have bounced our way largely.

For some reason - the lineup has had trouble squaring up pitches. The at-bats have been largely good - the patience has been good. The team has not struck out a lot - but somehow there has just been a general lack of hard contact. I think some regression is in order, it's just such a weird result so far.

You would EXPECT that those two factors ... "not making solid contact" AND "striking out" would be trending together - but for the Sox they are trending opposite. It's counterintuitive - which speaks to me as a bit of a flukish result that will get better.

Some context of the weirdness of the offensive struggles: The Sox are 29th in strikeout rate ... the 2nd best team in the majors at not striking out The Sox are 4th in walk rate ... the 4th best team in the bigs at drawing walks The Sox are 30th in BABIP at .259 ... to give you an idea of how weird it is, 29th place (Astros) is .269. The Astros are closer to 23rd place than they are to the Sox. The Sox are 25th in line drive rate - which can explain some of the poor BABIP. The Sox also lead the league in Infield PopUp Rate ... so the Sox have not been great in the "solid contact" area, but the results so far have been legitimately freakish.

Basically neutral - which is an improvement on last year

The more important question (and this is more for the scouts) is how much of the underperformance is sheer luck and how much of it is problematic. For instance, Buchholz had a .362 BABIP. He has had issues executing pitchers clearly but that does not feel entirely sustainable either. Ortiz, Betts both have subpar BABIPs - has typical non-homerun contact found fielders more frequently - or is it a bigger issue? My favorite stat so far is that the team is last in the AL in doubles - which is inconceivable for a team which plays half its games at Fenway.

We know what the bold move is - just a matter of when Castillo and the org are ready to pull the trigger.

Let's simplify this. The data so far shows they have sucked. The data says nothing about whether this team ACTUALLY SUCKS or not. A .300 hitter could have an 0 for 21 slump. That 0 for 21 says nothing about the hitter's quality (the guy is a .300 hitter after all), but clearly those 21 at-bats did not go well.

Porcello has been fine - in a way it was expected. Miley has been weirdly terrible at fenway but ok on the road. Masterson I think it has been a stuff problem clearly - which is harder to fix than the issues Buchholz has had.

If they are signing a 28 year old to a minor league deal ... I am thinking trade bait or extra guy.

Considering it's not a big league deal - probably not that much

9 million for 1 year of a starter in 2015 (in Boston particular) is basically nothing ... I always suspected he'd have to get to the bullpen just because his horrid splits are managed better there and his stuff would play up. But I am not sure his velocity plays up sufficiently now. I am sure teams worked him out - although in the offseason of a bad injury year, players can always be "on their way back". Team look at the medicals and take a guess. Clearly when the answer is a 1-year deal at 1/2 his normal market value - it means the medicals said "calculated risk". I don't mind taking a chance on him - as long as they are smart enough to pull out now that the evidence is mounting that he is done.

they saw he seemed healthy - it was a low level commitment. Clearly there is something wrong - I imagine Wright will be taking that turn next. Perhaps one of the 3 Pawtucket guys will be in on a more permanent basis.

In Kazmir's case, it is the one is Mickey Callaway who was hired for Tito's staff. They also turned around Ubaldo Jimenez (enough for him to get a handsome salary from the O's) http://wahoosonfirst.com/2014/03/12/mickey-callaway-providing-value-bargain-cleveland-Guardians/. He was their minor league pitching coordinator before the major league job. So a similar-ish path to Farrell (who came from director of player development).

That was another case of a pitching coach helping reinvent him a little bit when Cleveland got a hold of him.

The way I'd look at the Nieves thing is - I remember the arguments when Farrell hired him. There were those who wondered why they did not hire a sexy name, one of those guys like Leo Mazzone whom we've heard of. But this was not the case of a manager without a ton of pitching coaching experience outsourcing that job. It was a guy with a pitching background hiring a guy to mold into a MiniMe - or something like that. If there is a reason for the firing (all speculation bien sur) - it's probably after 3 seasons Farrell just never got that mind meld he was targeting.

To extend the Patriots analogy further - the hope was the lineup could essentially provide what Brady and Gronk do - some measure of insulation around the less certain parts of the team. And THAT has been where the problem is.

Some pitching coaches clearly add value. Don Cooper with the White Sox is one obvious example - who has been able to work with guys with odd deliveries and has taught the cutter to pitchers and changed their outlook. (perhaps a reason Nieves was a good candidate to begin with) Nieves would be hard to blame for the pitchers woes - but it also does not seem like he has provided consistent value-add to guys coming at the major league level. Yeah, there is clear PR with this move, but hard to be too worked up in either direction. One thing that makes sense though is, as Farrell's area of expertise, I have to assume he is looking at pitching coaches who match his philosophy or can be taught it. And if the pitching coach is not doing some magic, he can fill the gaps in. Or at least you'd hope so.

Not exactly - I think what the Sox did with Lester is comparable to the Patriots defensive moves this offseason. Once Revis left, instead of trying for a low rent version of that defense, the Patriots just decided to do something different and bolster the front seven in order to try to help the weakness along. Once you let an ace leave, and figure that there is no real substitute (or at least one you want) then you try to figure out how to close the hole. The Sox choices have been to improve the offense and the rotation depth. The latter has not paid off - but it should definitely be better than the current results. Personally, upgrading the top of the rotation makes sense - and I think they see the need, but are just waiting for the opportunity.

I think it was partially providing a fall guy - one of those cases where the Sawx as a NESN television program trumped the baseball thing. But it is hard to get worked up one way or the other - you'd like to think Farrell has command over what he wants from his pitching staff. (including assistant coaches)

1. I would have re-signed Lester - not because I expected him to be a 5-win pitcher, but because I didn't have to worry about him. And I have more faith in his decline being a bunny slope more than a double black diamond. 2. The only other starter who would have moved the needle is Scherzer - but age an issue there too and I am not sure his stuff would have aged as well as Lester's - just my own thoughts. Shields is a fly ball pitcher who has pitched in great pitching environments his whole career - aside from durability (which is important) he was not worth stretching out on. 3. Cole Hamels and Yovani Gallardo were the only two proven starters on the trade market in the offseason. Making a run at Gallardo made sense - but he is not worth "Tier 1" prospects. Hamels has been the subject of many gigabytes of board discussion - no need to add more. Other guys interest me too, like Johnny Cueto - but the Reds had a genuinely decent chance of being, well, decent. It is hard to sell your fans on a fire sale when the team is actually not terrible. Mat Latos interested me too - but from early evidence, I was wrong there. 4. I think the guys the Sox dealt for were largely solid choices - innings eaters young enough to dream more of, and with a good defense, perhaps some reachable upside. Note, my goal was not to replicate the 71 Orioles or the late 90s Atlanta Braves. It was to deliver a rotation which could do its job enough to keep the team around while the teams around them figure out if they are buyers or sellers.

I did not love every second of it, but largely yes ... 1. There is little evidence that the pitchers acquired were going to be 2014 Kershaw. There is even less evidence that they were going to be terrible. 2. There were only a couple of pitchers in the FA class who were going to move the needle and one of them was a guy we let go. (I did not love this) 3. The failures in 2014 were offensive - not exclusively of course but if you sliced the blame pie, the largest slice by far was for the lineup - they proactively addressed this. (and to be fair, those actions have largely been good so far) 4. The trade market was not going to open up in the offseason - nobody is bleeding money, and because of the 2nd wild card spot - almost every team can/has to sell postseason possibility to its fans and benefactors. The trade the Sox want was going to have to wait - the key is to be around long enough to do so. Frankly coming into this season the expectation (not hope) was that the rotation could consistently spit out starts like Buchholz had yesterday. Not amazing, not horrendous - but don't screw up the offense's work and hand it over to the bullpen. The problem has been the former has not been good enough to withstand crappy starts nor good enough to carry "okay" ones. That has to change - and given some of the BABIPs, that is a strong bet. And, as shaky as this stretch has been ... the larger thesis of "hanging in" still holds.

You mean like sign the top free agent pitcher on the market and upgrade the defense on paper like in 2010?