sk7326

2 one-run wins this weekend ... really there is some evidence of bad luck turning around ... but still need more.

The term "Estimate" is doing a lot of work here ... given your world view here, this would largely completely negate almost the entirely of human scientific discovery. Indeed, the Statcast data are not guesses AT ALL. They are just adding more facts to the soup - how often does the player get the barrel of the bat on the ball, what is the launch angle. Those are things being measured. As far as your question - the metrics are calculated using regression on thousands of game interactions. I mean there are 200 to 300 of them in every single game played. Now, non-pitchers and non-catchers are not participating in most of those events - but it still adds up well past the sort of sample sizes where outliers have an outsized impact. I tend to lean towards more data is better. If you really think about it, slugging percentage is a guess! It is assuming that a double is twice as valuable as a single ... this is something you can actually test, indeed that's what is going on.

In particular, a lot of the inputs teams are probably using in-house are incorporating all of that PitchFX and Statcast data that is coming in. The nice thing is that data is starting to allow the industry to DIRECTLY measure these areas (defense, contact quality) which we've intuitively understood but could only quantify indirectly.

If you look at baseball reference's definition of Replacement Player - it notes that a team of Replacement Players i.e. the sort of guy you can find on the waiver wire or in AAA ... their winning percentage would be about .294 ... about 48-114 over a full season. The Red Sox in 2024 had a combined team level of 26.8 position bWAR and 12.7 pitcher bWAR. That comes out to 87.5 wins, which is a little higher than the actual 81-81, but well in the neighborhood. In 2021 is 24.4 position, 18.9 pitching which gets you to 91.3 wins in a season where they actually went 91-70. The offensive portion of WAR is quite factual - it assigns weights based on historical analysis - to something we all know intuitively: all bases are not created equal and not all batting outcomes are equal for scoring runs. The defensive part is dicey just because measuring the most important part of defense - GETTING TO THE BALL - is not quantified by any sort of box score "factual" component. With pitching, I look at it this way. fWAR is - in general - a better forward looking indicator. What happens after a player makes contact IS very noisy. However, FIP assumes that all batted balls in play are effectively random, and that is obviously not true. The nice thing is, the batted ball data we are getting now helps there. If there is a good FIP combined with iffy line drive rates, that sounds like something which will correct in the future. bWAR is a bit better for awards, because it is speculating a bit less. Either way, if you are using WAR expecting one stat to explain everything, that is a you problem. WAR in general is good for doing historical comparisons, and for identifying candidates to be considered further for awards and whatnot. I do not know whether a player with 6.2 bWAR had a better season than someone with 5.8. But I do know both of them were terrific.

Looking at the Statcast Data so far. (outs above average) 1B: Casas/Toro combined for -3 OAA, (26th of 35 qualified) 2B: Campbell -7 OAA (48th of 48) 3b: Bregman +2 (8th of 35) SS: Story -3 (30th of 35) LF: Duran -2 (25th of 38) CF: Rafaela +9 (2nd of 37) RF: Abreau +4 (2nd of 37)

This is a fair take - I'm not even sure I disagree. Honestly, the move is to trade Duran or Rafaela (I lean Duran). And at a certain point - Abreu probably has to move ... because The Password is looking very interesting, though that might be a 2026 interesting.

Yeah - this is the rub. Personally, the move is to shop Duran ... who is one of their best trade chips period. But who knows if/when that would happen.

The simple ones are that the team's OF'ers have been mostly good and that it is a VERY left-handed lineup to begin with. I don't think those are necessarily reasons that should stop the team from promoting him - but I can see why they feel they can take their time to a degree.

I admire his commitment to the bit. But ... 1. Cora was on an expiring deal last year. If Breslow wanted to let Alex Cora go, he'd have done what a lazy person like me would have done ... nothing. 2. I understand the pull to fire Cora. The team has apparently lost 789 one run games this season. You can nitpick about managing and execution. But - it's also possible that a 6-17 record in one-run games is stupid chaotic baseball. If the team went 12-11 in those 23 games, the team is 38-29 and people are in a less agitated state. You have to acknowledge at least the possibility than they will just win more 1-run games because of math. 3. Ultimately players they depend on need to play better. Story has had a couple of good games in a row - is this a sign? (I am guessing no, but hey - I might be wrong) Campbell looks like maybe he is over his May swoon - something entirely reasonable to get from rookies. (I am guessing yes here) 4. On the bright side, Devers is having his best season - that's cool. And the new guys have all been big hits. Really, THAT has been the bummer. Crochet has been everything we wanted, and the team has not had much recordwise to show for it.

Hamilton is worth sending down I guess - but it makes more sense to just trade him for a minor league something ... a solid defensive IF is someone who could help SOMEBODY. That the Sox are playing some journeymen randos at 1B over Blaze Jordan probably tells you more about where the near term plan is for Jordan than anything. Anthony should be up here ... but there are baseball reasons for keeping him down for now. I also think he'd be up already if he was right-handed.

This is about right. And - right now he is on a 5 win pace in bWAR! His bat will always be frustrating ... but right now his OPS is up to .707 and his OBP is almost at .300. He only has to improve on this a little bit to be one of the league's better all-around center fielders given the defense and power.

If we know we are talking about first time managers (and by definition gotta start somewhere), if you hired somebody with his resume that you didn't have some weird (possibly bad faith) personal animus for - you'd barely blink.

Almost all of these points are deeply deeply hilarious. 1. The best team of my lifetime, the 1998 Yankees - won 114 games. The 2001 Mariners won 116 games. The current existing Los Angeles Dodgers, the wagon of wagons peaked at 111 games and never won more than 106. So - the 2018 Boston Red Sox winning 108 games is really really impressive. If you think the 2018 Red Sox had 120 wins in them save for some manager - I need to refer you to the Federal Wallet Inspector. 2. The idea that Cora was singularly responsible for Sale, Price and Eovaldi's injuries - injury histories that never stopped after wards - is wild when you consider that superpower could have been used for good. The idea that Cora was foisted on Dombrowski simply doesn't make sense. Cora was one of the top names of that managerial cycle, and a particularly auspicious fit for Boston given his familiarity with the market. That combined with his wide range of experience and media savvy made him a very sensible hire. For the most part, Cora has maximized the rosters he has had. It doesn't mean he is infallible. Honestly, the current problem with the Red Sox is really the ole "play better" adjustment.

I don't think the idea is to punt the season or anything like that. But it is possible - particularly with the kids playing a bit more - that it is not a fully baked cake. I can see that.

Yeah. The only thing I can think is that A) there is some specific coaching at Greenville they wanted to access or B) the statcast data is giving them indicators which we don't have.

Zanatello has a long way to go for sure. Really, players like him given Manfred and the owners contempt for minor league baseball, might just be better off going to college (warts and all) in the longer term.

and honestly, that 2021 team was closer to a .500 team than a 90ish win one in a lot of ways. This season has been frustrating because the underlying stuff has actually not been bad. The defense is a lot better than it has been, Crochet has been everything you'd want, and Bregman when he was healthy was excellent. Part of me think this is nothing that a couple of hitting hot streaks can't fix - but it also feels like waiting for a bus that might not show up.

John Farrell managed a nearly identical team in 2017 and won 93 games and went out in the first round (whatever weight you want to give the chaotic postseason). Alex Cora took that group (well that group plus JD Martinez) - won 108 games and went 11-3 against two fellow 100-win teams and the 2nd best team in the NL. 2018 was a good group on paper sans dout ... but the managerial change took it from a good team to a historically great single season wagon. In 2019 it faded away for the same reason most seasons go to pot - pitcher injuries.

Counterpoint: Corey Seager is better than any player the Red Sox have. And the most critical pitching addition Texas had was a guy the Red Sox drove to the airport.

This is genuinely nuts. 1. Cora was extremely qualified - or more to the point, about as qualified as you're going to get for a first time manager. He was a bench coach for a good team, a personnel guy in Puerto Rico - and yeah, the media stuff doesn't hurt given the media obligations here. 2. You can't REALLY sit here and say the rosters of the most recent teams were good enough to match up with the best in the league. This does not absolve Cora of some blame, but this is clearly a personnel thing. 3. Even if we wanted to buy this crazy diversity theory - it would not explain why the team rehired Cora after the suspension. 4. I guarantee you that Alex Cora is not the reason Trevor Story forgot how to hit a baseball. Seriously.

Crochet so far in the running for unluckiest pitcher in the league

It is amazing how Devers has turned it around from that epic (in a bad way) start.

Anthony will slot in at a corner - I'd rather trade Duran than Abreu but the preference is fairly weak. Campbell I look at longer term as basically a Ben Zobrist type who can play enough positions at a non-embarassing level to let the bat and plate approach shine through. Heck, I'd just move Campbell to 1B if there is a real logjam.

100%. Rafaela has been sensational in CF defensively, and again - looking at the baseball savant data, he IS largely making good contact. He is going to be streaky at the plate and taking pitches ain't his jam ... but I see no reason he can't be productive enough to stay out there.

The wild one so far has been Trevor Story. First of all, the defense has tailed off badly if you look at Statcast Outs Above Average. (-2 from +2 last year) And - this is the confounding thing - his launch angle numbers have dropped ... but a lot of the hard hit ball data, the stuff which was so concerning last year, has been really good. He seems to be running into a lot of hard outs. Normally, a .650 OPS with bad defense is unplayable (and nothing should stop them from putting in Mayer if they feel he is ready) but Story has seemed to unlucky as much as anything at the plate at least.