Kimmi

The point of my post was not to debate whether the team, as a whole, is toward the top or bottom in batted ball velocity, but to dispute some claims about Papi's bat speed being a lot slower and about Hanley hitting a lot of weak ground balls. Both of those hitters are toward the top in batted ball velocity, Papi currently at #23 and Hanley at #35. The team overall may very well be toward the bottom. Interestingly, Pedroia and Bogaerts are the two lowest Sox players, at 172 and 225, respectively.

The Sox are winning this game. You heard it hear first. Go team!

Aww, I think you're being too hard on yourself. You are not a cancer. Annoying yes, but not a cancer. For all of you who were or are nerds, I think that a degree of nerdiness is a very endearing quality. As I've said before, there's nothing wrong with being a nerd.

Thunder, keep your head up buddy. I've told you before that you seem like you have a good head on your shoulders. I have been very impressed by things you have posted on this site. You are more intelligent. mature, and level headed than many adults I know. Keep in mind that people who tease or bully others usually do so in order to cover up or to compensate for their own shortcomings. This reflects flaws in their character, not in yours.

I never said that the pitching was great, just that if the offense were doing its job, we would likely be in first place. I fault the offense for our poor record more than I fault the pitching.

I don't think RBIs are meaningless. It just isn't a very good stat in and of itself. Pitcher's Wins, OTOH - meaningless.

I don't think anyone is arguing that.

We have played some light hitting teams since May 13, and 2 1/2 weeks is nothing to bank a season on, I agree. While I hope that they will, I don't really expect them to maintain a 3.5 ERA. However, I don't think they're as bad as their overall ERA of 5 either.

Exhibit A: See my post regarding the Texas Rangers.

The difference is, RBIs are a counting stat. Most hitting with RISP stats are rate stats. If you want to compute RBIs as a rate out of opportunities, it would have more meaning.

All you have to do is remind Fred of the year that Julio Lugo had more RBIs that Pedroia. That certainly must mean that Lugo was the better hitter.

Three World Series Championships?

Our pitching has improved though. In May, our team ERA is 4.12, and since May 13, after Masterson's last implosion, our team ERA is 3.53. They are pitching well enough that we should be winning games with the offense that we're supposed to have. Here is an excellent illustration: In the month of May, one of the teams with a worse ERA than the Sox is the Rangers, with an ERA of 4.23. In May, the Rangers were 19-11. The Sox were 10-19 with roughly the same ERA. How can that be, you ask? The Rangers scored 158 runs (5.3 runs/game) while the Sox scored a miserable 82 runs (2.8 runs/game) As I have said many times, if the offense were doing what we expected them to do, we would likely be in first place, despite the pitching staff not pitching that well.

I'm not sure where you're getting 30/50 games that the team has allowed 5+ runs. By my count, the team has allowed 5+ runs in 23/51 games. Not great, but not as bad as what you posted. And of those 23 games, they gave up exactly 5 in 7 of them. Remember, we never expected our pitching staff to be lights out. We expected that our offense would be able to win a lot of 6-5 or 8-7 games.

I really wish we had a way to know how much of a difference the Vazquez/Hanigan duo would have made. A big part of the philosophy behind assembling the staff was the "improvement" that Vazquez could provide with his defense.

But of course I do! Actually Fangraphs does. It's called DRS, or Defensive Runs Saved. It measures how many runs a player has saved or cost his team above or below average. Hanley's DRS is -11. We all knew there would be a learning curve for Hanley switching to left field. We just hoped that he would be able to adjust quicker and better than he has.

The computer projections are not made with rose-colored glasses though. They are about as objective as you can get, and they take into account normal rates of decline based on recent years' performances, age, body type, and position. I agree, declines by Napoli and Ortiz are not shocking. Declines to the extent that they have had are. And the fact that almost the entire offense has underperformed to the extent that they have is shocking. You expect some underperformances. Maybe even a couple that are really bad. You don't expect the level of underperformance that we've seen. Last year's offense underperformed. So part of the improvement this year was supposed to come from those underperformances regressing. I was not a fan of the Panda signing, but even so, his unspectular OPS of .739 is a significant improvement over the .656 that we got from our 3B last season. Perhaps none of the hitter's numbers should be shocking, taken in a vacuum. But like I said, the fact that they are all so disappointing is shocking.

New month, new team. The turn around begins tonight. As I said yesterday, prepare to be amazed! Go Sox!!!

Fred, I think you still have a few days left on your self-appointed month long furlough. And oh, while you were gone, we appointed MVP the Dean of Talksox.

Two weeks is all the team needs.

I agree with you completely that Hanley does not pass the eye test. His defense has been terrible. That said, I like the Hanley signing. Let's hope that he can improve defensively at least to the point where he's not a liability, until the time the Sox can put him at DH. Ortiz is not going anyway in the near future, unless he gets injured.

I would not be surprised if Ben loses his job if this season continues as it is going now. I just don't think he's at fault here. This is on the players. I felt the same way last year.

You are wrong. This streak is an anomaly. (Personally, I like enigma.) You will soon be having fun watching the Sox compete for wins again!

Posts like this are the reason why you, sir, are the king.

I would have to disagree. On paper, this is a roster good enough to win the division. IMO, Ben gets a pass because he cannot control what happens on the field. He can't help it that the players are underperforming so such a large extent.