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The discourse and mental state would tend to be at its lowest when results are out of line with expectations. People don't stay in "rage mode" forever.
For my own part I didn't care all that much about last night's defeat.
Go ahead, but I'm pretty sure that's not what prompted the reprimand.
I'm not sure what to make of Bard. If the Sox are going to drop out of it I think they need to give him the whole year to establish himself as a starter. His fatigue issues are the sort of thing that I think he can work through over time.
And if anything I posted either as a post or a comment crossed a line I do apologize. Certainly I keep posting here because it's a good and knowledgable group who I enjoy talking baseball with.
...except not pitching in his relief during his 10 day vacation
I think what is most despairing for me is just the overall sense that the team has sort of lost its moorings a bit. The injuries/upheavals on the roster & in management haven't helped, of course, but in the past it's always seemed there was a overall guiding philosophy in place (and perhaps that was all it was--just that it seemed this way).
I'm not sure what that philosophy is anymore. It's sort of "well, player X isn't that good; we think Y is better, so let's bring in Y." Which doesn't strike me as a particularly enlightened overall approach to roster management.
I'm probably overreacting (due to above-cited frustration/despair). But I see some wilderness years ahead of us. I've been there before, and this too shall pass, etc... but facing the wilderness after a decade of good times is like waking up New Year's Day with a rampaging hangover. I hope I'm wrong... I know some will accuse me of falling in with the damp pants crowd, but I can't help the fact that my gut reaction to the last 8 months is pretty negative.
Nah. If Mikael wanted to be more direct, he could have simply said "If you can't engage in polite conversation with fellow Therapudians, just shut your piehole."
I was one of the more outspoken preseason pessimists, but I didn't think they'd look this bad. We may have to just resign ourselves to hoping that the Yankees continue to tread water.
I'm on record as saying that i think it's completely nuts to be talking about needing to fire Valentine at this point, and I stand by that. I do want to clarify that I don't mean to say he's done a sterling job, and I'm not saying he's above criticism. Just think canning a manager this early would be a wild overreaction.
Hopefully we can refresh the rotation over the next three seasons and integrate Middlebrooks, Bradley, and Bogaerts as everyday players.
I see what you did there.
This is kinda how I feel about it. My frustration now is that they didn't commit to this for 2012, but that's an unreasonable frustration. If the team hadn't been gutted by injuries, the Sox would probably be around .500 - still disappointing, but not disastrous.
I will only get really pissed if this keeps up and there's another half-assed effort to "reload" for 2013. In its own way, a rebuilding team can be as enjoyable to watch as a contending team as long as there's a plan in evidence and the rebuilding pieces have some decent potential. The maddening thing at the moment is having paid top dollar for this absolute shower of shite.
It wouldn't have made sense to tear-and-rebuild for 2012, and it doesn't make sense to do it for 2013. When you have the prime or near-prime years of A-Gon, Pedroia, Lester, Ellsbury, and Crawford, you should be trying to win, not dis-assemble.
* Lester's slow start is really just a slow start again this time.
* Ellsbury can play a full season of games more than once every other year.
* Crawford is worth a damn.
Gonzo and Pedroia are pretty safe bets, but I'm only slightly optimistic on Lester and pessimistic on the outfielders.
Also, Lester has a 4.29 ERA after 7 starts - even if he has a 4.50 ERA after 32 he still is a piece that you want to build around in 2013. All of a sudden we throw away his track record?. I thought I might have been stingy not including Beckett on that list, jeesh.
edit: also, they will not be able to know whether Ellsbury can play a full season of games more than once every other year before they decide what to do for 2013.
I think it's possible that the starting pitching is unfixable, but I think it's more likely that the starting pitching is actually pretty good and will start pitching good, say, tonight. If that happens, this club only needs a small hit of luck to be a solid contender. I'm preparing myself for the Sox to be out of contention this year, but I don't think it's the most likely outcome.
I guess it could come to pass that the core talent all collapses, leaving the club with $150M of dead weight. But look at the team right now - they came into the season with maybe $50M of dead weight, and they still projected as contenders, and they've lost even more, and they still have a good shot at contention.
This year is the worst case scenario, not something you plan to do again next year.
I guess the short answer is bad luck and injuries, but I still don't really question the talent on the team. The talent is still there. This is still an amazing team who can do amazing things, and is capable of bringing huge amounts of joy to Red Sox fans.
I mean that group is only a core if they're healthy and productive. How confident are you that's going to be the case with all five guys?
Any core of 4-6 players is rarely going to have every single member be healthy and productive at the same time.
Lowrie 2012 OPS+: 139
Both traded away for relievers in what is looking like a lost season. Miles Head is also sporting a 1.029 OPS in High A.
I agree with the others - you have nothing at all to apologize for.
Reddick is also doing that with a .280 BABIP, while Sweeney's numbers are inflated by a .446 BABIP. Sweeney also only plays RF, while Reddick covers CF, which would be pretty nice since we're reduced to using Byrd there with Ellsbury injured.
Los Angeles Dodgers' current record: 20-11
Current NL wins leader: Lance Lynn (6)
Current AL batting average leader: Josh Hamilton (.406)
Current AL ERA leader: Drew Smyly (1.59)
Today's date: May 10th
Games left for Boston in 2012: 132
Well, dawn or an endless nuclear winter.
Come on. We all know that Lowrie will explode into a million pieces (or would have for the Red Sox) at some point during the season. If he survives until June without a trip to the DL and a prolonged period of sucking it will be the first time in his professional career.
So what? If you are already counting what the Sox lost from not having Reddick in 2014 and beyond, you can't assume that Bailey gives them 0 innings in the next few years. If you are just listing year-to-date OPS+, Sweeney has been better than the guy he was traded for.
Just wanted to second this. I'm still reasonably optimistic about Bard as a starter long term. I'd rather not give up on that for what would be at best a small net upgrade this year.
Interesting. I made the same post in another forum last night. Here I thought I was fairly pessimistic in saying they would end up under .500. I didn't know the idea had taken root in my more optimistic brethren.
If the team is going to listen to me, they can also start playing Sweeney full-time regardless of splits and be more agressive in warming up relievers.
On the other hand, yeah, the old single wild card would be almost out of reach, being 4 and 7.5 behind two teams that are likely better.
Still hate the second wild card, though.
Just checked on him the other night and found he was hitting a very nice .316 .421 .505 with 14 BB and 15 K. I'm hoping this time he will remain healthy and be a bit more aggressive at the plate. Yay yay yay!
Edit: Nava starting in LF tonight.
"Has to be better than Byrd"...really the only thing I wanted him for.
You know, the other day Jose said something about it and I outlined the reasons I hate it. And I found out I hate it...for the Sox. If the Sox are 95 wins and have to play a 96 win team, then it sucks. If the Sox are an 88 win team, (Or similar to the Sox teams of the last two years) then I would feel that team has no reason even sniffing the playoffs. BUT...if the two wild cards are say, Toronto and Baltimore? Well, that's *interesting*. And good for baseball.
I still hate it because the tension it creates is:
1)Between a division leader and a chasing (probably WC) team, and therefore not particularly palpable. "And Tampa Bay win the division and go to the playoffs, New York is the Wild Card...and ALSO goes to the playoffs!" (yes I know that was the same scenario usually under the old format)
2) Between a second WC team and the team chasing them...in general, BFD. Does anyone really care if the Houston Rockets come in 9th and the Charlotte Bobcats come in eighth?...but as I said, seeing a playoff game between teams like Toronto and Baltimore is...interesting.
I'll get used to it, but still prefer the one WC format.
Over Ross/McDonald...not Byrd. groan
and according to Roto both Shoppach and Sweeney are playing RF. I can only assume Sweeney will catch the ball and let Shoppach try and gun runners down at the plate. Which will be difficult with no catcher.
Thanks for the heads up mate - lots of great stuff was covered above and I agree with most of it. I'm really looking to forward to following the team this year as they work their way hopefully out of this horrible stretch.
I know I can behave better in chatter, I was upset when I read the other day reading some comments, and I never get upset here - I've been losing the plot a bit here lately and for that wholeheartedly apologize.
Watching the games I have been quite calm in person (surprisingly) , and resigned to the fact that they just don't have the muscle to win the East. I want this team to be more fun to root for, but it is really freaking hard at stages - hopefully the starters can pull them out of this - time is running out.
What's moderately interesting from a theoretical perspective is that it's hard to imagine this season progressing dramatically differently with Theo and Tito at the helm, and this is looking very much like the season that would have gotten both of them sacked.
I would like to be reassured on something related to this (and I don't mean this snarkily). In my mind, a team with an almost $200 million payroll doesn't do a lot of the things the Red Sox have done over the past few months. They don't sign Nick Punto to a 2 year deal, they don't go into the season planning on platooning two 4th outfielders in right, they probably don't make the Lowrie-Melancon trade, and they definitely don't make the Scutaro trade. I also happen to think they don't make a 31 year old utility infielder their starting shortstop, but I admit I might be unduly negative on Aviles.
I guess what I'm suggesting is that I'm not wildly optimistic that they know how to fix this.
This is my feeling too. There is plenty of blame to go around but so far I've been underwhelmed by the Ben Cherington era. Maybe that should be the Lucchino/Cherington era but the end result is the same.
How can you put these sentences back-to-back? Saint Scutaro was little more than 34-year old utility infielder when they got him.
I'm not sure Scutaro was ever a utility infielder, but I do know for sure he was coming off an excellent season in Toronto. I'm also not intending to "saint" him- my understanding is that they were down on his defense, so I get why they felt like he was fungible- merely to point out that it was clearly a salary dump that amounted to very little.
WELL ####### USE HIM IN A 17-INNING GAME THAT THE OTHER TEAM IS TRYING TO HAND YOU AND HE WON'T BE RUSTY!!
At this point it seems like they improved at SS, added to their pitching depth, and saved a few million along the way. Isn't this the type of move we want them to make?
The thing that strikes me about this off-season is how passive the Sox were with respect to the starting rotation. You've just come off a season where the rotation was catastrophic and the plan is;
hope that Bard can make the conversion
hope that Doubront is ready
hope that Buchholz is healthy
with Plan B being "Aaron Cook and a rehabbing Daisuke Matusuzaka."
John Lackey certainly looks like our version of Mike Hampton, I'll give you that.
In fairness to the Sox, planning a season's rotation almost always involves these hopes and uncertainties (and aren't you glad that 'hoping a 57-year old Wakefield can give you 150 serviceable innings' wasn't on that list again?).
I think the Sox' problem has been translating talent into pitching success moreso than lack off-season moves.
This club had some problems that could have been solved or mitigated with more money, but that's on ownership, not the GM.
Part of being in a role like GM of an MLB team is to "manage upward." Some of that money could have come out of other moves not being made and yes, perhaps some from ownership, but a good GM has to get sign off from ownership on stuff all the time. If we believe Lucchino when he says there is money to be spent then I think they could have gotten there.
Which moves don't get made? You could cut some payroll by getting a cheaper platoon mate for Reddick than Cody Ross, but then that guy is playing everyday in LF and costing us ballgames, and you're still not anywhere close to producing the money to pay Kuroda / Jackson.
Criticizing the GM for not increasing payroll by about ten million dollars really doesn't make sense to me, at all. And I don't believe Lucchino when he says anything. I think that if we want to talk about what Theo would have done, we should imagine him under the same constraints, not as someone with special business powers that create payroll out of proactive upward managementness.
EDIT: This post came out snarky. I snark at business speak. I can't help it. I am even powerless to edit it out.
And fair enough in general. I remain confident that Theo would have handled this off-season better than Cherington did. I'm not going to sit and figure out every move that was/was not made and what he would have done differently but it felt like the Sox made an awful lot of $1-$2 million moves that could have been bundled in a way that ended up better. It generally seemed like the Sox were more focused on fixing the 5th and 6th most important things than the major problem (starting pitching). What was the rush to sign Punto and Shoppach in December for example?
Theo wasn't perfect as a GM but he was very good in my opinion (cue karl). Someone (Textbook Editor I think) noted in one of the discussions yesterday that during Theo's era the Sox always felt like they had a plan and this year has felt more "seat of the pants." That's how I feel.
In fairness to Cherington some of that is circumstance based. The Crawford situation hurt. Buchholz is a disaster and frankly so is Lester. The Sox are getting horrible performances out of people who should be better.
The problem with this club is that they settled for 91 wins this offseason. They've never done that before. Because of the dead weight that Theo saddled the club with over the last couple years, the only way to get the projection up to 95 wins was adding $20M or more in payroll. People are mistaking a budgetary decision to lower the team's ambitions for a "lack of a plan."
One of the hallmarks of the Terry Francona era (September, 2011 excluded) seemed to me to be that the team bounced back after rough patches. To pretend September didn't happen is beyond stupid of course but I can't help but feel that given the opportunity they would have figured this out. Perhaps its irrational, but it's all I got right now.
The problem is that from the very beginning, they weren't as good as they'd been. When I lay the blame for the lack of quality on the club as projected, the vast majority goes to Theo for the bad contracts and Henry from not opening up the wallet. I don't see any obvious solution for the GM, given the budgetary constraints.
If something's wrong with the club beyond their projections, it looks like it's mostly because the frontline starting pitching sucks. Those are the holdovers from the previous regime, and if I'm going to blame someone for that, Bob McClure is the guy in my sights.
And I should say, I still think this club will bounce back. The problem is that given the early struggles and given the relative lack of projected quality, a "bounce back" will take them toward 85 wins, not toward 92.
I find myself rooting for only a couple players on the roster and the uniform in general, the grand majority are impossible to like. Its basically turning my Red Sox experience into: "is Middlebrooks up yet?"
I suspect I'm not alone.
In the epitaph for last year's team you wrote:
And now
7-9 wins worse? I think you either overestimated last year's talent, or underestimated this year's, or both.
This is coming up a lot. Just thinking it out (my own opinions);
Loves - Pedroia, Ortiz, Doubront, Saltalamacchia
Like Plus - Gonzalez, Aviles, Youkilis, McDonald, Hill, Atchison, Mortensen, Tazawa
Like Regular - Ross, Ellsbury, Beckett, Crawford, Bard
Indifferent - Sweeney, Byrd, Shoppach, Morales, Albers
Don't like too much - Lester, Buchholz, Padilla
Conflicted - Aceves
I'm sure he's a fine human being but (looks up his stats)...
...
...I'm not sure what to say about a run enviroment in which .236/.273/.486 is a 101 OPS+
He led the league in PB in only 101 games last year. Yes, he caught the knuckler, but still. He's got 3 errors (which certainly "count" as catchers)..I don't know how many flubs. His CS% is 11 points below league average. He's got 10 wild pitchs and is on track to break the 40 something from last year
I think my bottom ranks would be labeled "Don't like as a player".."GTFO my team". I think Lackey would be the only GTFO player. Beckett's been there when he would headhunt in frustration for his inadequency.
The 2011 team was a 95-win team because of a concentration of unexpectedly good performance from guys like Ellsbury, Pedroia, Ortiz, Beckett, and the rest. The issue for the 2012 Red Sox is that regression to the mean ate a big chunk out of the club's projection, and they didn't have the money or the ######' A trade that could make up the difference and get the club's projection back over the 90-93 win mark.
Ross
Sweeney
Aviles
Shoppach
Bard
Doubront
Morales
Padilla
Albers
Atchison
Mortenson
Tazawa
Hill
In their roles, all those guys have at least as good as you'd expect, and usually a fair amount better. The bullpen is not a problem. Sweeney, Ross, and Aviles have been asked to do more than they probably should...the back end of the rotation hasn't been stellar, but what did you expect? They've been fine, for what they are at this point in their development.
The two real problems are:
1) The gap between 2011 Ellsbury and 2012 Byrd is so stark that it is a game-changer.
2) Beckett/Lester/Buchholz have been lousy, taken as a trio. When they go out to pitch, I have little more confidence that they will shut down a team than I do in Doubront or Bard.
Too many Red Sox fans think they're getting "Cy Young award vote recipient" Beckett/Lester/Buchholz, and the difference between that and the present is cavernous.
Thats the rub. Outside of a 1 1/2 month stretch in the middle of last year where they played to their potential, we're going on 8 months of collossal underacieving of some pretty talented ball players. Theres no bad luck in play...theres no injury excuse....the sample size is big enough. They are very likely to play better going forward, but its not going to be enough. They are what they are at this point.
Huh? How many games do you think they would have won, injury time considered, if Ellsbury et al. had played expectedly good instead? That seems like the relevant number to compare to the 2012 expectation. Otherwise I'm not sure what an "X-win" team means for a team that didn't actually win X games.
I think this is rose-colored post facto nonsense. Personally. We made a lot of jokes around here about Smile and I think you're remembering hope/faith rather than events. Not to say Theo was any kind of bad GM - I loved having him helming my favorite ballclub - but I don't think he exhibited any more of a cohesive overall plan in his offseasons than we saw this year - and this year the FO was hamstrung by his having just left AND by the evident necessity of reducing payroll for the first time since Theo took over.
Beckett had asked the front office for a new caddy.
My fantasy 'upside guys', Reddick, Lowrie (cooled off this week), LaHair are playing out of their minds. And I got Capuano 'streaming' a few weeks back.
The 'slumping AGon' has bounced back nicely this week. I didn't see tonights game, did RSN flip out when AGon got picked off first?
BTW , I think (stating the obvious) that Clay really doesn't good - he didn't even look like striking someone out tonight
Buchholz kept the ball down more than in previous starts, is the most positive thing you could say about his effort. Seemed to have better fastball location most of the night too.
94 pythag wins.
Yeah, he's just a fun guy to root for. Not particularly good but someone I'm really pulling for to succeed. Last off-season I spent the majority of the time hammering him, thought he'd be awful and so far he's been better than I expected and it just seems fun when he does something well. Plus, he seems to becoming a "go-to guy" after games no matter how the team does. It probably doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things but a guy who stands up after a tough loss is admirable.
But I will go to my grave screaming that right now, Daniel Nava is a better player than Marlon Byrd, and if Nava gets sent down before Byrd gets cut, I will quit this team for two weeks.
That, my friends, all by itself, pretty much explains why we are where we are even with the rest of the problems. Yeah, their numbers would look better if they had a proper OF behind them, but if those three are collectively performing even 10% worse than their projections we're probably ~18-14 and having very different conversations right now.
And my point being: are we really going to blame Cherington or Valentine for our "big 3" underperforming this badly?
If (a) the Red Sox were winning games at a rate commensurate with their runs scored and runs allowed, and (b) the Red Sox front three starting pitchers were at their projected level of performance, the Red Sox would be 18-14 right now.
The Sox have underperformed Pyth by two games, their RA/RS put them at about 15-17. Lester, Beckett, and Buchholz have underperformed projections by about 35 runs, and if you subtract 35 runs from the team's RA total, they would project to an 18-14 record.
But, but...Ryan Sweeney!
Trading for the Oakland A's closer is so ten years ago.
OK, but if we're going to decide what our expectations should be -- or, more particularly, how disappointed we should be -- for 2 teams, we need to use the same method.
If the 2012 club is judged against an "86-88 win" baseline based on regressed projections, then the 2012 club should be judged against regressed projection, not against the 94-win pythag that includes unexpectedly good performances. Or if the 2011 Sox are regarded as a true-talent 95-win roster, injuries included, the 2012 roster needs be judged against a higher standard than 86-88.
Its largely the same roster, they shouldn't be that much worse. The projected losses so far are 8 weeks of Ellsbury; Papelbon who pitched 64 innings last year; Youk will probably end up missing more time than in 2011, but he only played 120 games last year. Crawford is contributing 0 wins on the DL instead of 0 wins on the field. Lackey on the DL is an upgrade. Meanwhile they upgraded in right and in the back of the rotation. They might get some innings out of Bailey. If they were a 95 win roster last year, then 86-88 wins this year should be a substantial disappointment.
Then I don't think you've really got a disagreement with MCoA. I read him as saying that expectations for 2012 were too high because 2011 saw a "concentration of unexpectedly good performance from guys like Ellsbury, Pedroia, Ortiz, Beckett, and the rest."
Hence the
"either overestimated last year's talent, or underestimated this year's"
in my original post.
I could see a consistent argument for either "the 2011 team played over its head for most of the year, and its 94 pythag was unexpectedly good, so we should temper our expectations for 2012" or "the 2011 team was a true-talent 94 win team, and our expectations should be nearly as high this year". What I don't buy is conflating the two, simulaneously saying "last year: 94-win talent that underacheived, massively disappointing; this year: 86 wins wouldn't be disappointing".
Maybe this short summary will help, as I'm not entirely clear on what you think is inconsistent about what I've said.
2011 Red Sox: Projected to win 95-97 games preseason. Individual players performed even better than that, was a 99-win team by component runs. Horribly disappointing that a team so good, with such good individual performances, collapsed in the clutch and couldn't turn their hits and walks and homers into wins.
2012 Red Sox: added very little talent in the offseason, and with regression to the mean, projected to win 90-92 wins. Injuries hit the team very hard in March and April, and the losses of Crawford, Ellsbury, and Bailey cut several wins off that projection. On top of the injuries, the team has played very poorly, mostly due to mass underperformance in the starting rotation, which means that a club with 86-88 win quality only projects to win maybe 83 games if they play up to their projections over the rest of the year. This is also disappointing on many levels.
From the piece;
And of course we fans were our usual horrible stuff to the players that left the club;
In other news, Tito is reported to have left his in his office, and now he can't find it.
Now, I was under the impression that you thought the 2011 team was a true talent 95-win team, injuries included. As in, given a roster that talented, and foreseeing precisely as much injury time as they had, you would expect -- as a mean expectation, which should incorporate regression -- them to win 95 games. That's how I interpret "With injuries, this [2011 Sox] was something like a 95-win team". Correct me if I'm misunderstanding.
If that's right, then I don't see how one can get to that 86-88 number. Your regressed, injuries-included number for 2012 is 7-9 wins worse than the regressed, injuries-included 2011 number. The difference can't be "regression", since the 95 number is* already regressed. You either need that the 2012 injuries, current and expected, are that much worse than 2011, or that the roster changes involved that much loss of talent, or some combination thereof. I don't think that adds up to 7-9.
(*If it's not then that's where we disagree -- I think it should be, if "95-win talent" is to have a sensible meaning. A team shouldn't have "95-win talent" if you wouldn't expect its players to typically play at that level upon repeated trials.)
Not that I want to dwell on the 2011 team. Rather, I think you're cutting the 2012 team too much slack, and the 2011 team is a useful reference point since their rosters are similar.
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