At The Quarter Pole

The Sox wrapped up their longest road trip of the season a solid 6-4 including 3-3 through New York and Toronto.  With today’s games being completed the best home team in baseball so far, your Boston Red Sox, have played 10 fewer home games than their co-leaders in the division.  Currently the Sox are seven games ahead of where they were 12 months ago (21-19) and four games ahead of the same spot in 2016 (24-16).  Both of those seasons finished with 93 wins and a division flag.

That’s not ...

El Slumpo

There was a time in my life when I equated “streakiness” with “Brian Daubach.”  I never thought I would ever see a player who was a Major League hitter who could go through such extremes as the Dauber.  I loved him and when he was on the dude would carry the Sox for a week or two but when he was off I genuinely think I could have gotten him out.

Then I met Jackie Bradley Jr.

When this guy is slumping my grandmother could get him out and she’s been dead for two decades (and frankly wasn’t much ...

Enjoy This

I’m not sure what was more amazing last night; that Mookie Betts hit yet another home run or that I was not the least bit surprised by it.  The game itself was pretty crummy but Markus Lynn Betts was at it again slamming a solo home run and a bullet two run double.  He finished with the two hits, scored a run, drove in four and just generally kinda did Mookie things all night.

This is pretty special.  As sports fans we get so hung up on the big picture and what might happen when a star becomes ...

First Test Passed

The Sox hit the road for a nine game road trip on Patriots’ Day with questions about their level of competition to that point (as noted by vi).  The road trip certainly featured some challenges with an Angels team that was on a seven game winning streak and a Blue Jay team off to a good start as well.  Sure enough the Sox faced their first adversity of the season losing three in a row including being no hit.

But when all was said and done the club returns home having gone 6-3 and the good ...

Are The Angels A Real Team?

The headline seems like I’m trolling Angels fans, so let me dispel with that right away: yes, the Angels are a real team. My point with the headline was that the criticism of Boston in their 13-2 start has been that they haven’t faced a real team yet.

Lining Up The Minors

Having just spent 45 minutes trying to write something insightful about the big club and basically coming up with the Chris Farley show (“13-2 start, isn’t that awesome?”) I decided it might be worth looking at the minors instead.  The system is at its lowest ebb in several years but it remains important and there are some key areas to focus on.

1B - Sam Travis - Pawtucket (AAA) - Travis has not carried his Fort Myers power surge into the regular season though he is hitting .286 but ...

So Far So Good

After an incredibly frustrating loss on Opening Day the local nine have won five straight.  They haven’t exactly crushed their opposition and it is worth noting that they weren’t playing the ‘27 Yankees and ‘76 Reds but wins count and there has been some good and some not so good news so far.  A few thoughts;

Rotation depth concerns may be overblown - As always you can never have too much pitching, say it loud, say it proud.  Still, the Sox got strong starts from Hector Velazquez and Brian ...

Opening Day Overreaction

We can spend forever dwelling on the 8th inning but at the same time it’s one game, it’s a marathon not a…etc…etc…etc…As frustrating as this was it didn’t change my outlook on the season.  At the same time if you subscribe (as I do) to the idea that you win 54, lose 54 and it’s what you do with the other 54 that matter this was definitely one of the “other 54” if not one of the “win 54” frankly so this was a giveaway.  Anyway…

- Please give me more of this Xander Bogaerts that ...

Hope Springs Eternal (Sox Therapy Predictions)

As we head to the final non-competitive baseball weekend until November I thought it might be fun to just take a look at a few reasons why I personally feel very optimistic about 2018;

Pitching Pitching Pitching - So far in camp things have been about as smooth as possible on the pitching side.  Knock on wood etc…but the Sox are looking generally healthy in the rotation with David Price saying last week that he feels as good as he has in years at this point in camp.  Add to that generally ...

Roster Update

With just nine days until Chris Sale dominates the Tampa Bay Rays (ach, this is baseball.  He’ll probably go 4 2/3 allowing 7 hits and 6 runs) I figure we may as well update our look at the likely Opening Day roster;

IF: Mitch Moreland, Eduardo Nunez, Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, Brock Holt, Hanley Ramirez

The big issue here is that Deven Marrero who I had listed in this spot last time around drops off.  I think the strong spring and upside that Swihart has makes him the guy the Sox are ...

Report From the Fort

Well it took about 20 extra hours but I finally arrived in sunny Florida.  Unfortunately the delay meant I missed the game against the Yankees last Saturday (my mother could at least have PRETENDED to be upset that she had to use my ticket) but I did get to see the debut of J.D. Martinez on Wednesday afternoon as part of a split squad game.

The game itself was non-descript.  Starter Chandler Shepherd who is likely in the mix to be a mid-season call up did himself no favors failing to get out ...

Heading for the Fort

In five days I’ll be headed to Florida for a bit of fun in the sun.  This will include four days at Fenway South strolling around eyeballing various players.  Here are five players I’m eager to gawk at;

Blake Swihart - Swihart is off to a fast start this spring and the reports are very positive.  The key question for Swihart is not so much the bat but where the glove can play.  If he can pass as a reasonable facsimile of an MLB IF/OF I think he can win a regular job.  I think the Sox WANT ...

An Overdue Look at the Roster

Well I don’t think we had February 19th on the day this would all come together but it has and we can now get serious about the Sox Opening Day roster.  Let’s have a go;

IF: Mitch Moreland, Eduardo Nunez, Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, Brock Holt, Deven Marrero

It looks like Dustin Pedroia won’t be ready for Opening Day (though I imagine he will say otherwise).  The signing of Nunez isn’t the marquis signing of the weekend but it is a very good one.  The price is right and he is ...

For Future Considerations

Boston’s offer on the table to J.D. Martinez is $125 million for 5 years, according to “source”. (Yeah, thanks, Boston Herald.) But what are the penalties under the new CBA, and is Boston likely to incur them, if they make that deal? In short: hefty, and yes.

Bruce, Tom and The Unplanned Path

Sometimes life just has a way of working out.  In a perfect world you make your plans, you gather your rosebuds and everything falls into place exactly as planned.  Sometimes though things that look questionable turn out to be winners because as the saying goes “man plans and god laughs.”  I’ve been thinking about this a bit recently with the ongoing uncertainty surrounding J.D. Martinez and today’s comments from Scott Boras that JDM is willing to sit out spring training to wait for a deal and ...

The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Lightly Tinted Shades

For the first time in about a decade the Red Sox have a farm system that can best be described as “thin.”  Despite that the Sox are in pretty good shape as the core of the roster is relatively young and club controlled for 2-3 more seasons which is plenty of time for things to be built back up.  With that in mind I want to consider a few guys currently in the system who in my opinion could be breakout stars in 2018;

1B - Josh Ockimey - Likely Start Point*: Portland (AA) - I’ve liked Ockimey ...

Where Is The Offense…It’s Right Over Here

FanGraphs released the Red Sox’ ZiPS projections today and I think it is somewhat enlightening.  With the daily “there are no new updates on J.D. Martinez” updates I think it is worth taking a gander at how the team projects.  I used wOBA because it is a nice neat number to go with and compare year over year;

1B Mitch Moreland - 2017: .326 - 2018: .320
2B Dustin Pedroia - 2017: 331 - 2018: .321
3B Rafael Devers - 2017: .344 - 2018: .341
SS Xander Bogaerts - 2017: .321 - 2018: .335
IF Brock ...

Laugh With Me, Not At Me

With the latest news that J.D. Martinez is willing to hold out until 2025 to ensure his 15 year, $400 million contract (note: numbers may not be exact) I thought it might be a good time to give some thought to possible trade options for the Sox.  As with any exercise of this sort these are meant to be rough estimates rather than “Team X should give the Red Sox all their good players.”

Red Sox get: Jose Abreu
White Sox get: Jay Groome, Josh Ockimey, Rusney Castillo and some money

Would I if I ...

Is This Thing On?

Crickets man, that’s all there is.  I have wanted to put something down and keep the chatter going but I got absolutely nothing.  There really isn’t a lot happening throughout the baseball world and the Sox are no exception. Presumably something is going to happen relatively soon as throughout baseball teams are just a month and change away from pitchers and Molinas reporting and both players and management are going to want to get settled in.  Management is going to want decisions made and ...

A Container of Milk, A Loaf of Bread and a Dude Who Can Hit Home Runs

Dave Dombrowski heads to Orlando for the winter meetings with a bit of a shopping list.  Despite a fairly set roster (see see vi’s previous post) the Sox’ de facto GM (this title inflation around the league is annoying) has some work to do.

1. D’oh! D’oh! D’oh! - Yup, we need Homers (see what I did there?  Top notch stuff at Sox Therapy).  The market may have gotten a bit more challenging with the Yankees acquisition of Stanton.  I think the Yanks were only interested because Stanton ...

Options Are Few

Boston has two 25-man roster spots open, but several more than two to fill.

End of an Era

OK, up front let me give the disclosure that this is a fairly personal post.  After 17 seasons my father and I have made the decision to give up our season tickets.  The short version is that at the respective stages of our lives (him retired, me trying to get there) and the challenges that have come with StubHub and Red Sox Replay have just made the finances tougher to work.

We had talked about it a lot the last few weeks and while I am OK with the decision I have to confess to a sense of ...

Questioning the Winter

With the AL East champs season having come to a disappointing end in the ALDS they are now looking forward to 2018.  The Sox are a young and talented team and the future should be bright.  However, with the emergence of the Yankee youth the division should be more of a challenge next year. I remain optimistic but there are plenty of questions to be addressed this winter and I thought I would lay them out here.

1. Who is going to run this nine?

Reports are coming out Thursday afternoon that ...

In Praise of John

As you almost certainly know by now the Red Sox have parted ways with John Farrell after five seasons as Red Sox managers.  The Sox reached tremendous highs with Farrell at the helm and also some fairly substantial lows.  I think it is fair to say that the general opinion of Farrell is mixed.  I have been a fairly vocal supporter of Farrell and while I recognize some of his shortcomings I think the ledger tilts to the positive rather than the negative on his tenure with the Sox.  As we bid him ...

UnZiPSing the Hitters

OK, let’s start with the important thing here.  I don’t know about the title of this piece.  Should I have just done “Unzipping” or maybe “Unzipsing” without trying to follow Dan’s ZiPS formatting style?  I don’t know, I feel like this post is already up against it.  Anyway, let’s get on with it.

The 2017 came to an end on Monday with a 5-4 defeat at the hands of the Houston Astros.  In a way the 2017 Red Sox had something for everyone.  Do you want to be positive?  Hey, we got some of that.  ...

Random Thoughts A Few Hours Out

With game one just about five hours away as I start whacking my keyboard I figured I’d throw together a few random thoughts heading into what is sure to be a challenging series;

Chris Sale, First Time Out - 0, 2, 1, 0, 3, 2, 4, 2, 4, 6, 3, 0, 0, 7…those are the runs allowed by Sale facing his opponents for the first time this year.  Obviously that is skewed heavily towards the early part of the year but the idea that a great pitcher might keep an opponent in knots is not that outrageous.  ...

Lining Up The Minors

A combination of time and a farm system that is not nearly as interesting as it has been in recent years has kept me from talking much about the minors this year.  With the regular season over I thought I’d take a quick gander at the system with a look at a few interesting players;

1B - Josh Ockimey - Salem/Portland - The 21 year old (22 in two weeks) had a strong season with 43 extra base hits.  He also maintained gains in plate discipline that he showed in Greenville last year.  Ockimey has ...

ALDS by CFBPS on PEDs

The ALDS begins Thursday for the Red Sox. After a season of renoobulation and a secret workout that makes Tom Brady look like Tom Arnold, the Crazy Fan-Boy Projection System is in the best shape of its life. What better test of its fitness than to have it project the ALDS? Let’s see what it says.

Win, Dance, REPEAT

For the first time in club history the Sox have notched consecutive division titles.  It was not easy but they got it wrapped up in game 161 in style with Craig Kimbrel sealing the deal for Drew Pomeranz and Co.  These are the kinds of years that remind me how tough winning a division title is.  The Sox went into the season as solid favorites; the Jays were going to regress, the Rays weren’t that good, the Orioles didn’t have the pitching and the Yankees were a year away.  The Sox then went out ...

Panic on the Streets of Boston, Panic on the Streets of Arlington

So much for the idea of a relaxing week of baseball.  A division title that looked wrapped up 60 hours ago suddenly looks, or at least feels, dicey at best.  So how much should the Sox fans be panicking?

The case against panic;

- The lead is still three games and despite two ugly games the Sox have been excellent for awhile now.  At 15-8 the Sox have been playing great baseball in September and you can push that back to the trade deadline where they have the second best record in the AL.  ...