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Maybe Ortiz, but if so, only slightly. Hinske and Mirabelli and Cora, but in very limited (albeit occasionally very significant) at-bats. Drew's about where you'd expect him to be, so are Lowell and Lugo. Youkilis has underperformed. Manny has dramatically underperformed. Varitek and Pedroia and Crisp, even if you are deeply pessimistic about all three, have underperformed. (They will not collectively have OPS's less near or under 500.)
In short, things will get better. Probably soon.
Which doesn't mean it will be a great lineup.
Uh, maybe you missed the memo, but AL East middle infielders not named BJ are not allowed to hit for power this year.
Seriously, I don't really know what I expected out of him this year but I can't imagine even his biggest detractors thought he would be sub-replacement level this late in April
Same with Youks. He'll be fine. He's hit some balls that would be homers in June.
Tek hasn't looked all that bad lately. He's just hitting it at people. I don't think he'll be as good as he used to be but he'll hit fairly well for a catcher.
Crisp I'm very pessimistic about, mainly because he doesn't seem to have an idea up there. His approach seems to always be the same-swing at any pitch that looks like a strike.
I've no idea what to expect from Pedroia, but I know one thing: it's still early.
Isn't that a pretty sound strategy?
That may be true but those guys have/had more of a resume than Pedroia.
Jeter was. I don't think A-rod has been close to sub replacement ever since he became a Yankee or probably ever. Jeter also had to hit 10 HRs in a month to get back to respectability. Dustin got that in him?
I see Manny having a very big series. I just can't imagine him not hitting .500 against the Yanks.
He should try being 'Mr. Swings at Everything." That seems to have worked out well for at least one guy.
I don't know, I haven't seen the numbers and my perception is way off because I see A-rod hit a HR in every game I watch (seriously).
Alex Gordon- .448 OPS
Chris Ianetta- .418 OPS
Troy Tulowitzki- .528 OPS
Stephen Drew- .594 OPS
Isn't that a pretty sound strategy?
I think that's a sound two-strike strategy. Ahead in the count, it's a lousy strategy, because it means hacking at pitches that you think will be called strikes, even if you can't hit them hard. If it looks like a strike that you can't do much with, you should let it go and wait for a better one, unless it'll strike you out.
And those are fair points, rlr.
If Crisp gets on track (I think Varitek has a free-pass from fans/the press), then Pedroia could start getting booed pretty quickly.
and NO team is under .700. I'm guessing the cold often soggy weather results in (among other things) fewer home
runs which means easy yet long fly balls and resultant drop in BABIP. Once the weather warms up things likely will
be back to normal.
Not unless there's already two strikes on him, otherwise he'll be swinging at too many pitches he can't make solid contact with.
Alex Gordon- .448 OPS
Chris Ianetta- .418 OPS
Troy Tulowitzki- .528 OPS
Stephen Drew- .594 OPS
Those guys are all more "toolsy" than Pedroia and some of them had some success last season. You're probably about it being too early to get really worried about the guy.
be back to normal.
No, things are normal now. Once the weather warms up, they'll be back to being crazy.
Coco swings like a little leaguer.
Varitek only swings if he thinks it will produce a double-play grounder.
Wily Mo needs to learn to hit the offspeed stuff, or at least lay off the stuff that hits the dirt in front of the plate. Pitchers have adjusted; he needs to adjust.
I think last year was an off year for Mirabelli, and he'll be back to reasonable levels of crap in 2007.
(Sorry.)
The pitching isn't going to sustain a 2.5 ERA, or whatever it is, and the hitting won't slug under .400. Manny won't bat at a sub .600 OPS, and Papelbon won't SO 58% of the batters he faces. At this point in the year, I don't particularly care what the aggregate numbers are. FWIW, even with their sucky offensive start, their team OPS+ is at 102.
Crisp never seemed liked a particularly attractive batter - he moved around when he was with the Indians, too, iirc. (I didn't see him more than 20 times, though, so I could well be wrong.) He leaned out, slapped, turned himself over, etc. But I don't think he is substantially different from when he was productive, so I don't think our observations likely mean too much. In order for him to bat .290 for the year (600 ABs), he still only has to bat .301 for his remaining 552 ABs.
More fun with numbers: if Coco his a HR in his next AB, he'll be at .294/.392/.431. Observationally, I think he has hit a decent amount of ropes -- the power is about what I'd expect.
BA/BIP: .188
LD/BIP: .194
It is just slightly rare for a player to have more line drives than hits. I am, though, impressed by all the people who aren't worried at all about Pedroia - I'm definitely worried. Don't know how y'all do it. He looks like a seven-year-old, and then he hits like a seven-year-old, and you can put that out of your mind? That takes discipline.
Youks, as of midweek, was hitting for a perfectly nice 800 OPS. Certainly not worried about him. And Manny's been crushing the ball at the outfielders all year. He's Manny.
Varitek is the one that I have trouble seeing bouncing back much. He's like the anti-Wily Mo - the ball seems to die coming off his bat. And, further, there's no backup plan. Mirabelli's not going to play regularly, and Kottaras isn't very good, and besides there's no way that Varitek gets shuffled to the bench. The Sox need to figure out the rest of the offense, because Brad Ausmus North will be eating outs for the foreseeable future, I think.
40 AB, 325/417/700, 12 R, 8 RBI.
That is fun with numbers, Josh. Fun as in "let's come up with something completely off-the-wall" fun. Let's try it again using 5th grade arithmatic.
Crisp is now at .167/.212/.229 in 52 PAs. IF he hits a HR in his next AB, he'll raise his numbers to .184/.226/.306. That's a significant improvement but the numbers still suck bigtime.
Just out of curiosity, how in god's name did you come up with .294/.392/.431? Just to get his average up to .294, he'd have to get 9 hits out of his next 10 ABs.
Easy. I'm not a scout, and neither are you, so what he "looks like" makes no difference to me. That, and the fact that he's had, what, 35 or 40 PA this year, and his documented history of struggling at a new level. You only need to looks as far as Manny's numbers to realize just how meaningless the small sample of at bats we have to this point in the year are.
Also, more Hinske, less Coco would be nice too.
I'm really bad at this typing while thinking thing. You should see my briefs. (That has multiple connotations, fwiw.)
It's early and there's plenty of time to improve, but I don't think the anything close to the current level of offense will be adequate for a playoff contender in the AL East over the full season. The Red Sox are currently last in the AL East in hits, runs, HRs, total bases, RBI, batting average, slugging and OPS(by 20 points). That's a lot for a pitching staff to overcome.
Only Tampa Bay & the Yankees are significantly outhitting them, and when the friggin' Devil Rays and 2nd in the league
in runs/game I think that says all you need to know about small sample sizes.
Yawn.
The Sox acquired lefthanded pitcher Daniel Haigwood from the Rangers for Double A Portland righthander Scott Shoemaker and cash considerations. Haigwood has been assigned to the Sea Dogs; the Sox' big league roster is now filled at 40
thoughts?
Yes, but the rate stats aren't favorable, either. Boston is last in the AL East in BA & SLG, and holds just a 1 point edge on Baltimore for the 4th spot in on-base %. As I said before, it's early and there's time to improve. Just about everyone is expecting Manny to improve. However, there's room for doubt about Varitek, Crisp & Pedroia. They also had problems in 2006. To paraphrase Bivens, it'd be a lot to overcome if 3 regulars aren't within hailing distance of league average production.
Just about everyone? Is there a human being on the planet who has ever heard of baseball who thinks Manny just might carry a 590 OPS throughout the season?
As I said above, no hitter is dramatically overperforming, and about half the lineup are fairly dramatically underperforming. Even if you're pessimistic about this lineup-- and I am-- they're not hitting nearly where they're capable of right now.
As for Manny, some nice tidbits from Rosenthal (via SoSH):
"Ramirez, in his past 27 games against the Yankees, has batted .506 with 13 homers and 36 RBI in 89 at-bats, according to STATS Inc. His on-base/slugging percentage in that time: A tidy 1.616. Ramirez's .556 batting average in last year's season series was the second-highest single-season mark against the Yankees in the past 50 years (minimum 40 plate appearances). The highest? Rod Carew's .595 mark in 1975."
I don't know if Rosenthal points this out or not, but that must have been in far fewer ABs (given the advent of the unbalanced schedule).
Somehow I think Manny will come around.
He's a bit too BB happy?
Carew played in 9 games (42 PA) against the Yankees in 1975. The schedule was unbalanced back then, too, with ~18 games against each divisional opponent, and ~12 games against other teams. But Minnesota and NY were in separate divisions, and Carew didn't play in 3 of the games vs. NY.
in runs/game I think that says all you need to know about small sample sizes."
The D-rays will have a good offense this year, and I would only be somewhat surprised if it were better then the Sox, given the potential upside in that lineup.
I mean, if we're going to base stuff off of early season numbers, the Red Sox are also currently first in baseball in just about every pitching category. I don't know why the pitching numbers are less "real" than the hitting numbers. To be clear, I don't think either set of numbers is "real", but I don't see why the pitching is less representative than the hitting. The pitching will get worse, the hitting will get better.
The Red Sox' record is 9-5. Their pythagorean record is 11-3, and with Papelbon back there, they don't strike me as a team likely to systematically underperform their pythagorean record due to lots of blown saves either.
BA/BIP: .188
LD/BIP: .194
that's amazing. i was starting to get a bit concerned, but those numbers give me much more confidence.
as i've mentioned in the past, i think coco will hit fine--his swing isn't pretty, but he's gotten results in the past. however, his defense is crap ... i'd like to see some ellsbury sooner than later.
as for tek? maybe he's toast ... but dougie's going deep, so it's cool.
I wish everybody would give up the Pedroia-Eckstein comparisons. Pedroia has better career minor league numbers (40 points of OPS, although Eck's OBP was 20 points higher) and when you compare their ages at each level, Pedroia was even better. Pedroia is 23 this season. Eckstein was in High A when he was 23.
I am going to put my faith in his 1000 minor league AB's over his 125 ML ab's. I agree, he looks terrible. He waits for pitches and then when he swings he chops it to third or pops it up. Like others have said, he always struggles moving up a level.
And sure enough, 2 out of three of them chip in to win last night's game. TDIET.
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