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1. Diapers McGee Posted: April 06, 2011 at 02:00 PM (#3787601)Boy this is fun. I was calm thru the first 3. Last night I found myself yelling at the pixels on my TV.
Just a check on BBRef finds that the Sox had a .235/.307/.381 line in their losses last year. If the Sox were hitting .280/.350/.440 and 0-4 there would be more reason for concern.
They'd probably come out even worse if you projected runs based on component stats.
Anyhoo as a rival fan, I have been suckered into watching the Yankees suck in April so many times only to come back and punish the field come September I am not falling for it again. The Bosox roster is chock full of awesome and I will quietly relish each loss without ceremony as I know the bounce back is coming and will come hard.
(The 1906 Cubs never lost four in a row, only three, but of course, they didn't win a title either.)
EDIT: Linky. Looks like they lost three in a row in the neighborhood of ten times, but never lost as many as four in a row. This is a factoid I learned from the LA Dodgers '88 WS Commemorative VHS my family had when I was a kid.
We aren't anywhere near that point (Bill James called it signature significance). Frankly all the whinging I'm seeing here and elsewhere isn't worth it (yet, if there ever is a yet).
Fred Wilpon's like, "Our telegram costs have been through the roof! Cut somebody else!"
Maximal loss-streak distribution for a .600 (97 win) team:
1 0%
2 0.1%
3 7.1%
4 28.7%
5 30.9%
6 18.4%
7 8.5%
8 3.8%
9 1.4%
10 0.8%
11 0.3%
Honestly, I think the response around here's been pretty measured, all things considered. I mean, baseball is a game meant to provoke emotional responses, and I think it's not ridiculous that a team that we were all pretty excited about crapping the bed in the first week makes us feel bad. Nobody seems to think the season's over or anything, though.
The team lost Victor Martinez and Adrian Beltre (who played exceptionally well last year), and added Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford. The pitching staff is basically the same, Jenks being the biggest addition. Why did this set of transactions make them the prohibitive favorite among smart fans? (I get that the news media loves the big-money AG/CC signings, but quantitatively, are they that much better than the production we got in 2010 from the two guys who left?)
Figure Gonzalez and Beltre cancel each other out, Crawford is likely better than Martinez was last year. You anticipate full years from the right side of the infield. Chalk up some of the rotation struggles from last year to bad luck. Lowrie is healthy for a full year. Cameron and Ellsbury are back and should be better than the guys who played OF last year. The Yanks didn't get better (although maybe Russell Martin was a bigger signing than believed originally, we will see), Rays got worse by losing Crawford. I think that's most of the big reasons. Also, the projection systems had the Sox as a clear favorite this year.
Also, all of the publicly available projection systems had them as the (theoretical, of course) best team.
Edit: Carbonated beverage to CP.
Also, the projection systems had the Sox as a clear favorite this year.
But, they were favored over the Yankees by ~2 Gs.
They should have been favorites, but "prohibitive favorites" was always an over-reach.
Thanks, wet blanket.
The two new stars are younger than the old ones which left, which means they'll hold their peak value longer. Beltre has had two career years-the first one had him crater in the following seasons-I see no reason to think that he's suddenly discovered a new performance level in his mid-30's. VMart can't even catch anymore (well, neither can Salty apparently).
This.
Maybe I missed some early action on it, but in my mind the Yankee fan was not trolling, which would justify that response.
With that said, the way the Sox are playing has all of us surly. It's not going to take much to set us off.
So what you're saying is the Red Sox are now heading down the wrong side of the bell curve.
Who the #### you callin surly?
Me. Not you of course, you are a ray of sunshine on an otherwise cloudy day.
So my company has a wonderful HD TV in our lounge. When I saw the schedule I was really looking forward to spending my lunch hour today watching the first couple of innings of the game. I'm still going to watch today but I may kill someone. My problem is I work with non-sports fans. That is fine by itself but there are two guys who know just enough to be obnoxious. Most of the folks just ignore it but while I'm watching the game these two guys are going to be asking questions about what is wrong with the Sox and if they will turn it around and generally be unintentionally snarky. Nice guys but there is a non-zero chance that I'll get fired for slapping one of them at some point.
Close the fist. It will feel better.
Or put another way....when security is escorting you to your car, you'll sure as hell wished you did.
I say if they were playing my fantasy team* they'd be 5-0.
*For whom I somehow managed to combine the worst of the Sox and the Rays,... and Adrian Beltre.
Reliever with zero control + huge defensive blunder + home run to crappy hitter
I went from "hey, bad start, #### happens, this is a good team" to \"####, I don't think I want to watch this stupid team play their stupid game tomorrow" in the course of about 15 minutes.
At least we are certain of one thing: Terry Francona is a great manager who pushes his teams to overachieve!
Well, today's takes the cake.
Today's game was the worst so far.
I'm simply tired of being in a lousy mood.
When MCoA starts getting emotional, you know its time to panic.
they showed one replay and didn't bother to inquire into it too much. the ump was adamant that he was out.
None of the batters are hitting at all. That's his best lineup he's using and not a single guy save for Gonzalez is hitting.
At least they found a new way to lose today. Comical in its ineptitude.
When will he be on the hot seat? I'd say they'd have to miss the playoffs this year and be pretty bad the first half of next year.
Lollygaggers!
If you want to argue the team is "listless" or "choking" or some such thing like that and blame that on him I'll disagree but I guess that would make some sense.
It's extremely frustrating to be a fan in this situation. You'd like to have something to latch on to, but there's no way of identifying who or what might be to blame - if there is anything or anyone to blame beyond the fickle nature of human events - and at least on an emotional level, it's getting harder and harder to watch the games with any remaining optimism.
I think you can go back to Tuesday, Crawford's overthrow of the cutoff man. In Texas they just got beat. Hey, good team, home park, it happens. Not only did they get beat in Cleveland, they played poorly.
In my mind a big part of the manager's job is to put the players in a position where they are able to play their game free of distraction and be at their best. In modern baseball, particularly in places like Boston and New York where the attention is so ridiculously over the top that takes on added importance. It is a big reason I have always liked Francona, I think he keeps the team on a pretty even keel and keeps the distractions (and anyone who has managed Millar, Manny, Ortiz, Pedroia, Pedro has distractions) from interfering with their game. These last three games, frankly, it's the first time in years I can remember thinking to myself "wow, they look out of sorts."
I still don't think it's fair to suggest Tito belongs on any kind of "hot seat" but there are questions to be asked.
If the players are not properly focused on the games, whether because they're too tense and or they're not prepared for the rigors of the season, and they're making mistakes because of it, that's on the manager. When you have significant mental errors in consecutive games, you can start to build a case that these aren't random events but part of a pattern. It can never be a particularly strong case, but it can be the beginning of one.
As I said in #61, I have no freaking clue if this is the case or not. I don't think it's knowable at all for us as fans. I would bet against the Sox being underprepared or overconcerned, I'd bet they just happen to be sucking because human events are complicated, but I don't know. I probably never will know, regardless of how soon the Sox find a way out this tailspin. This is the frustration.
Notice what a one-way street this is. Nobody objected to Francona getting credit for "keeping the team" in it last year even though a) it was the players' performance that kept them in it and b) nobody could actually articulate what Francona did to make them better. But in times when the team has clearly underperformed (such as early 2010 and 2011), it's unfair to even mention the possibility that Francona is the problem. Dan asks when Francona might be on the hot seat and is shouted down that he isn't and never should be! I mention the asymmetry of who gets credit when the team is going bad vs. when it's going good, and get the incredibly tired 'Tito is a better manager than you' (45) and get asked what I would blame Francona for. MC lifts a phrase from the mealy-mouth centrist Dem handbook--"There is the beginning of a case to be made..." and gets accused of an untenable leap of logic.
I think MC does a nice job summarizing why it is difficult to judge a manager's interpersonal abilities. It's a good case for treating the subject as something that us fans can never really know. But it's completely unfair to only do that half the time.
I asked it of course but I think it's a reasonable question. If we want to put this on Tito, then by all means, tell me why. If the best you can come up with is "they were bad last April and they are bad again now" I'm not buying.
For what it's worth the argument in favor of Tito is built on a few factors;
1. The success of the team. At worst he hasn't screwed them up, at best he has led them to levels of success not seen in nearly a century.
2. Ability to bounce back from adversity. Not only the 3-0 deficit, not on the 4-9 start last year and God willing this disgrace but in general it seems that the Sox have rallied when they looked like they might be in danger of sinking like a stone. Now admittedly this gives him credit for the recovery and not the blame for the struggle but it's a matter of perception on my part. I don't see anything that would proactively cause most of these failings so when the Sox were 4-9 last year I didn't see any reason to blame him. I felt his even-keeled approach allowed the team to let its talent come through.
I will concede that there is a reasonable argument to be made that this is to one sided but I have reasons for feeling the way I do.
3. Interpersonal relationships. Acknowledging that we don't know a damned thing about what goes on each day in that clubhouse, the fact that a team that is under crazy scrutiny really on a year round basis and has featured some real outsized personalities has seemed to be fairly cohesive for the most part suggests to me he is keeping things in line. Again, I acknowledge that I have no clue, maybe Varitek's the guy doing the police work, maybe it's the clubhouse boy, but the simplest answer is the guy nominally in charge.
.186/.271/.295
to
.181/.269/.275 (includes today)
Unfreakinbelieveable.
I am indeed not freakin believing this.
I think that dropping this game to the Indians will result in a far bigger massacre this weekend than a win would have.
Oh and nine. That's right. Oh and nine. Right now, I'm please as punch if I wake up Monday AM and they're f*cking 1-8. Seriously. I'm that down.
Your mind powers will not work on me, boy.
.55 x .45 x .45 x .55 x .55 x .55 = .01853
1 0%
2 0.1%
3 7.1%
4 28.7%
5 30.9%
6 18.4%
7 8.5%
8 3.8%
9 1.4%
10 0.8%
11 0.3%
Where does this come from? Does this assume a consistent pitcher? Or is this historical?
No, it is just calculated from winning percentage*, you could get fancy and distinguish home and away games. But it really is of limited utility, looking at the streaks doesn't give any insight over W-L and RS-RA.
Sox fans can be happy that they aren't an outlier, so far at least.
*) or really in this case simulated by running 10000 seasons. There is a closed form, a double exponential distribution, see for example Analytic Combinatorics p 308, but it takes a hell of a lot less thinking to just let the computer do some number crunching.
10 runners left on base.
The Sox are now Mike Gallego (.239/.320/.328). Gone are the Kevin Cash Red Sox!
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