Maxbialystock

He looks great out there tonight! A few of us--but not me--wanted him to go back to Worcester to "learn how to pitch," and they were just wrong. moonslav provided the stats to show us why. Tonight the problem is the lineup, who can't score runs.

2015-2020, JBJ's average OPS was .770. He was better than Rafaela. But Cora needs Rafaela because he's the best SS on the team--and I frankly don't care that he's probably the best centerfielder because Duran is doing just fine out there and anyone can play left field at the Fens.

Lineup is really let Bello down tonight. Just awful. But especially here in the 7th when the first two betters hit singles, followed by a horrible pop-up bunt by Gonzalez and of course still another K by Rafaela.

By "their" I assume you mean the Dodgers and not the Sox.

I assumed Mookie had an agent, but I guess you're right that he didn't and therefore would have been fine with an extension for peanuts. 😉 I do like your points about the LA opportunities.

Yacht World is a tad less rosy these days. A Yacht and/or a personal jet are pretty much the ultimate in ridiculously wealthy consumption. I can honestly say I yearn for neither, but I'm guessing JH does simply because he is reportedly a billionaire--and that's what most of them have. I have two theories about JH. One is the one everyone on talksox believes, that he's transformed himself into a skinflint, a cheapskate, possibly as a result of the 2019 collapse of the Sox when they had the biggest payroll in MLB and DD was telling John Henry he needed a lot more money to keep Mookie from the Dodgers and to replace Price and Sale as starters while continuing to pay their huge salaries. The other theory is that, despite his net worth of maybe $4B or $5B, John Henry might have cash flow issues. Simply stated, I have no idea how profitable the Sox and the other sports franchises JH owns are, month to month and year to year. 2020, for example, could not possibly have been profitable. And since then MLB has gone to a lot of trouble to streamline the game to make it more attractive to fans. Huge changes in extra inning games with the ghost baserunner on 2b from the 10th inning on. DH in the NL. Pitch clocks that are enforced, ditto rules on how much lounging outside the batter's box a hitter is allowed to do. Some say those pitch clocks have affected the durability of starting pitchers because they have less recovery time between pitches. Meanwhile, back in Boston the Sox are now in their 5th straight season, beginning with zero attendance in 2020, of lower attendance. From 2003 through 2019, average Sox attendance was somewhere around 36K or 37 K. In 2020, 0 attendance. In 2021, 21K, In 2022-2024, about 32.5K. I think a case can be made that the Sox attendance has stayed around 32K in part because of the departure of Mookie Betts. Seriously. In 2018 the Phillies average attendance was 27, 318, and the next year, 2019, it jumped to 33, 671, event though in both seasons, 2018 and 2019 the Phillies won-lost records were right around 81-81 with no hope of the postseason. What changed was that the Phillies signed Bryce Harper after the 2018 season. This year, 2024, with good seasons last year and the year before, plus Trea Turner at SS and Kyle Schwarber at DH, the Phillies attendance is an insane 41,497, 3d highest in MLB. On the other hand, the Dodgers got no bump when they added Mookie. In 2019 their attendance was 49,065. This year it's 48,270--but still by far the highest in MLB. Yankees are 2d with 41,826. Back to John Henry. He is not a novice at owning baseball teams because he was the Marlins owner before he owned the Sox and a minor league club owner before he owned the Marlins. First he made a fortune in commodities, and now has done the same with sports franchises. He bought the Sox for $660M, and now they are worth $4B or $5B, but that doesn't mean he can't have a cash crunch.

I saw that too. The defense was ranked like 27th in 2004--but the others, as you say were pretty good. I'm not against good defense, nor are the Sox. But almost invariably a good glove also has to be able to hit to stick with the Sox. JBJ is a great example. Tremendous arm and equally terrific routes to the ball in CF, he replaced Ellsbury on day 1 of the 2014 season, and after about a month or so went back to Pawtucket. That went on until August--that is, back and forth between Boston and Pawtucket--when JBJ's hitting seemed to come around. He finished that season with an OPS of just .531. But in 2015 it was .832, in 2016 .835, in 2017 .726, 2018 .717, and 2019 .738. His overall WAR's, 2014-2019, were .6, 2.2, 5.3, 2.8, 2.1, and 2.0. In the short 2020 season his OPS was .814 and his overall WAR was an impressive 1.9. His lifetime OPS is .684, but I'm pretty sure his 2015-2020 OPS with the Sox was about .770.

I left something out. The LA Dodgers also have the highest attendance in MLB and a much bigger fan base than the Sox. They are in fact far more profitable and can therefore afford to spend more than the Sox. A bidding war with the Dodgers for Mookie Betts would have been unwinnable.

The 2020 season and postseason were hugely affected by the covid epidemic, which demonstrably helped the Dodgers, whose 2020 WS win is the only one since 1988, 36 years ago. When Mookie went to the Dodgers in 2019, it was because the Sox already had the biggest payroll in MLB, which would have increased by at least $50M in order to outbid the Dodgers for Betts as well as to find and pay good starters to replace Price and Sale while at the same time continuing to pay both of their hefty salaries.

A lot of moaning and groaning, to say nothing of a sense of entitlement, on this thread. With perhaps the exception of giving away Babe Ruth, a truly great pitcher who turned out to be maybe the greatest hitter in MLB history, the Sox preference for offense over defense is also how they finally ended the 86 year drought and won the WS in 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 (the best Sox team in history). In 2004 they led MLB in runs scored, in 2007 they were 3d, in 2013 first again, and first again in 2018. Good hitting wins games, even titles. Gotta have good pitching too, but defense is a distant third. These days, as I will remind all of you relentlessly, one half of every MLB roster is composed of pitchers, whose only job is defense. I personally think pitching in MLB is extremely hard to do and so agree with the notion of 13 pitchers even though only one pitcher can be on that mound at a time. In any case, pitching is far and away the most important part of a team's defense. All of the scoring, on the other hand, depends on the 13 lineup players, who also play defense. Fortunately, the average MLB player can be counted on not to commit an error roughly 97% of the time. Not so at the plate, where he can expect to get a hit maybe 27% of the time and something else--an out, a walk, an HBP, a hit ball leading to an error--83% of the time. Because of the above numbers, the Sox have always preferred "good hit, adequate field" over "inadequate hit, good field" at every position. Thus during the John Henry era, the one with the four WS wins, the longest serving SS has been Xander Bogaerts. Thus is Devers, a subpar thirdbaseman, the guy with the big contract. I would be remiss if I didn't also note the Sox have had some excellent defensive players--Pedey, JBJ, JD Drew, Ellsbury almost, Alex Gonzalez and Jose Iglesias at SS, and a bunch of others. Even this season I think both Duran and Rafaela are standouts on a team that, granted, is dead last in MLB in fielding percentage. It therefore infuriates me read about how important the freaking defense is when in fact the only reason why the Sox are above .500 is that those same lineup players have the Sox ranked 6th in MLB in runs scored. The pitching, measured by team ERA, is ranked 21st.

That was a hard hit ball that Casas didn't catch, and I agree it was an error, which the scorer called.

It's also unfair to document errors/nonerrors that lead to losses and ignore the same by opposing teams who do in fact commit errors that now and then contribute to losses.

My point is it's unfair to document errors--or even "nonerrors"--that contribute to losses and ignore good plays that contribute to wins.

Somebody cited a bunch of stats to prove Wong stinks behind the plate. I hate that that stuff because I'm afraid he might be right. And I don't like Jansen at all--and he's probably good at the stuff Wong isn't good at. Of course, I honestly don't care who's behind the plate as long as he is contributing to a win. Tonight is sort of a bullpen game, and the Sox are leading 6-2 and Jansen, behind the plate, is hitless. Fine with me.

You better get your stuff together, and I mean now. We need some wins. The fact that you actually started somewhere in the twilight zone may be why the sox are up 6-2 now.

9 more outs for the win.

Agree, and I'm sure moonslav would too. That said, Rafaela has made some nice infield plays, and of course tonight he made that great throw--as SS--home to nail a Jays runner. Hamilton doesn't make that throw. And the play originator, Duran, made a nice play on the double off the wall and throwing it right to Rafaela. Also, In the first month of the season Casas had a horrible DWAR in just a handful of games. Since he's returned, he's looked terrific, especially on throws to 1b. Hamilton and Gonzalez have been OK/decent at 2b and in fact have also made some good plays. That said, moonslav's right that the infield has not been good on double plays, which are a godsend for every pitcher. Rafaela is probably as much at fault as anyone else, and I blame that on the fact that he keeps bouncing back and forth between CF and SS. Some of the better double plays are an art form and require lots and lots of practice. Great defense is the poetry of baseball. Sox are up 6-1!!!!!! rbi's by Duran, Hamilton Casas, Abreu, and 2 by Yoshida. Speaking of whom, I am literally the only contributor on talksox who defended playing Yoshida--and gave 5 reasons why. However, I didn't do it because I was smart, but only because it was logical. One of the reasons I gave was the Cora was sending out there to hit. Gotta trust Cora. Too bad moonslav missed that, Rafaela had to go in the hole to start that double play. Heckuva play.

Another thing. I vehemently disagree with playing Rafaela in CF this season for the simple reason that he is our best SS--most range and best arm--and Duran is excellent in CF and in fact has the highest DWAR on the Sox. Moving Rafaela to CF puts Duran in LF, where all that range is wasted, especially at Fenway. Red Sox history is filled with leftfielders who were excellent hitters and below average fielders--the most prominent of whom was Ted Williams. In this game O'Neill, who has the worst DWAR of all the Sox outfielders, is in left field. He just ran in and made a nice catch. Not a great catch, but a nice one, and that's all the is usually needed in LF.

We've already seen two terrific plays to get Jays runners trying to score. When moonslav recites all those non-errors that cost runs--like failing to get a double play--he should also include the good plays, but of course he doesn't. This score, 3-1, Sox, would be tied but for those two superb plays. The first was Duran to Rafaela to home and the second was Abreu, after a long run to catch a fly near the RF line, to home. Both plays at home were close.

Defense is vastly over-rated. As I told moonslav, lousy defenders with negative DWAR's have fielding percentages above 95%. And right now not not a single Sox hitter has .300 (30%) batting average. "Good field, no hit" is a reliable description of players stuck in the minors.

Name the 15-20 games "that a bad defensive play or two led to the deciding amount of runs to score against us." I've looked and can't find them. And please do not claim that 90% fielding percentage and 30% hitting percentage are not drastically different. 90% fielding percentage is actually low because good fielding percentages are closer to 97%, 98%, or even 99%. Rafaela leads the Sox in errors and his is 97%. Devers has a negative DWAR and his is 96%. Duran's is 98%. Meanwhile, it turns out that 30% is actually high because no one on the Sox is hitting 30% (.300). Duran, Devers, Yoshida, and Ref are all at 29% (.290). Here are the batting averages of the ten Sox with 82 or more games this season: Duran .293, Rafaela .260, Devers .292, Abreu .267, Wong .283, Hamilton .254, O'Neill .262, Smith .237, Refsnyder .289.

About the defense. Yes, it's horrible this year--the very worst in MLB in terms of errors and unearned runs--and what moonslav calls runs caused by non-errors which were, however, bad plays. That said, however, almost every MLB roster breaks down into 13 pitchers and 13 lineup players. The pitchers contribute exactly nothing to the offense. Moreover, only one of them is on the mound at a time. So, if you want a good defense, it makes sense to develop good pitching. And, funny thing about defense which is consistently ignored on talksox and by moonslav himself, is that the worst fielders have fielding percentages above 90 %. On the other hand, those same fielders rarely can get a hit 30% of the time they come to bat--and, at the same time those fielders are the only players on the team who can get hits, sac flies, etc and score runs. Hitting is so important these days there are a zillion stats related to how well and how often that round bat hits a round ball squarely. FWIW I love great defense. It's the real poetry of baseball. I hated it when the Sox dumped Jose Iglesias in the 2013 season to pick up another starter, Peavy. But that actually paved the way for Xander Bogaerts--solid hitter, so-so defensive SS--to become the Sox starting SS for 9 freaking seasons.

A fair point. However, what makes the budget really dire this year is the Sox paying Sale $17M as the ace for the Braves and signing Giolito for $19M/year while he recovers from elbow surgery. Breslow made those deals, presumably with the support of the head shed. And let's not forget that the Sox budget/payroll (now $189M for 2024), is larger than Arizona's $175M--that's the team the NESN announcers raved about last weekend--the Twins $130M, KC's $119M, Cleveland's $107M, and Baltimore's $108M. John Henry, the presumptive cheapskate villain in this sad little tale is also the Sox owner who kept the payroll in the top three in MLB for close to 20 years, during which the Sox won 4 freaking WS titles when, with three rounds of playoffs (ALDS, ALCS, and WS), it was especially hard to win the World Series. He even went out and hired the biggest freespender CBO in MLB, David Dombrowski, who put together the best Sox team ever for the 2018 season--108 wins in the regular season, then beating the Yankees 3-1 in the ALDS, the Astros 4-1 in the ALCS, and the Dodgers 4-1 in the WS. However, that 2018 greatest ever Sox team became the also-ran 2019 Sox despite still having the biggest payroll in MLB. On top of that, DD needed a whole bunch more cash, over and above the biggest payroll in MLB, to outbid the Dodgers for Mookie Betts and find a couple more starters to replace Price and Sale--while still paying their big salaries. Don't get me wrong, I agree completely that the Sox need to spend more, especially on pitchers. But wouldn't it be nice if those additional funds were spent intelligently?

moonslav does do that. In fact, I did not know about the girl. I didn't like Clemens for breaking the rules, but this is much worse. He is slime.