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.  ...

Roster Thoughts

After a highly successful road trip the Red Sox return to finish the season at home over the next week.  Having clinched at least a playoff berth the Sox will at least have an opportunity to play in a divsion series and it is time for John Farrell and Company to start reaching conclusions about the way a DS roster would look.  Even if the Sox don’t win the division (knock on wood, turn around, spit) a Wild Card game gives them enough of a chance that I think it is worth considering.

For now ...

Step One Complete

The goal for this team remains winning the division but with their win last night and the Angels loss the Sox have officially qualified for the playoffs for the second consecutive season.  This is the first time since 2007-2009 that they have had consecutive postseason experiences so this is something to be celebrated.  Maybe not champagne but a little cold duck could do the trick.

More importantly the Sox have taken a big step toward winning the division.  I will freely admit having been ...

The 2011 Mirror

September 10, 2011

As day turned into night turned into morning I found myself thinking of that night in Tampa six years ago.  A dramatic comeback had seemingly set up an absolutely vital victory.  Instead the Sox could not close the deal and the Rays swept and we all know what came next.

On Friday the extra inning warriors did it again.  Running their record to an amazing 13-3 in extra inning games by exploding for seven runs aided by another key Tampa error to bail out the 0 for 9 Dustin ...

Grind On

It wasn’t pretty but the Sox picked up consecutive series victories by surviving a fairly harrowing afternoon tilt on Thursday to push the lead back to 3 1/2 games.  The 6-2 score is a bit flattering as this one was tight until the 7th and even in the ninth Kimbrel was less than impressive.

I will freely admit I’m in total pants pissing mode right now but this game is an example of why the logical portion of my brain (which is very very very tiny, about 1/100th of a Pedroia) is confident in ...

The Schedule Is Not In Our Favor

Not this year, silly. The 2018 Red Sox schedule is out. And it’s a mess.

So Here We Are

After 137 games despite a disappointing weekend in the Bronx the Red Sox are in pretty good shape.  With just 25 games left the Sox hold a 3 1/2 game lead in the division and have a decent if not fully comfortable lead in the division.  They weathered The Gauntlet¶ at 14-11 rather than vi’s hoped for 15-10 but a lead that was 3 games at the start is now ever so slightly better.

Now comes the opportunity to take the division home.  The Sox final 25 games feature just seven against teams over ...

Punto Change Mucho

Today is the 5th anniversary of the Punto trade.

I’m linking the old thread, which was started the night before as rumors started swirling. Nice trip down memory lane.

Just Keep Going

As we all expected the Sox bounced back from Monday’s disappointing loss by trouncing the Indians behind Doug Fister’s complete game one hitter.  In a lot of ways the last five days have been a microcosm for what has made this team successful through their first 125 games.  On Friday they won an absolute grinder that went back and forth, Saturday they lost a disappointing well pitched affair, then they bounced back Sunday behind a strong performance from Rick Porcello, lost Monday’s tough one ...

The Gauntlet

This month is the gauntlet for Boston. They need to do more than just endure it.

Turn The Page

The Sox picked up a helpful victory on Monday night behind the outstanding pitching of Doug Fister and a 4 hit day from the new third baseman whose name I am not worthy to repeat.  The four hits by [redacted for unworthiness] makes him the first 20 year old to have a four hit game for the club since Tony Conigliaro (thanks Baseball-Reference Play Index!!!).  The win also allows the Sox to keep pace with the Yankees just half a game out of first and gives them a four game lead in the Wild Card ...

What Do We Think?

So what do we think?  The first 3 1/2 months of the baseball season went pretty well for the local nine.  The usual ups and downs but a 3 game lead at the break, a favorable schedule, generally good health and it was looking good for a first ever repeat division title.

Instead things have gotten away from the Sox a bit.  A few losses in winnable games, injuries particularly to Bogaerts and now David Price have made things dicey and the Yankees are hot.  Suddenly the Sox are in a “4 teams for 3 ...

What Can We Expect?

The Red Sox have made the highly anticipated and hoped for move of calling up hot prospect Rafael Devers to try and address the issues at third base.  The good news is that Devers is almost certainly going to be an upgrade over the .228/.280/.320 line our third basemen have mustered in 2017.  According to FanGraphs his rest of season forecast is .270/.310/.436.  By way of comparison Brock Holt projects as .269/.332/.367 and the two players both are roughly the same in terms of WAR (0.0 for ...

That’ll Do I Guess

It wasn’t exactly a dominating performance but the Sox picked up a split with the third place Yankees and lead the AL East by 3 games with 70 to play.  A few thoughts on an entertaining weekend of baseball;

- One thing that struck me this weekend is how well played these games were.  This was four solid baseball games, good pitching, some great defense (more on that in a moment), clutch hitting and pitching at various moments and all close games.  When these teams ruled the AL roost in the ...

Halfway* Home

* OK, 54.938% of the way home.

The Sox reached the unofficial midway point of the season with a disappointing loss to Tampa.  The Sox seemed to take off for the Break a bit early dropping 3 out of 4 in fairly sluggish fashion and leaving Tampa tied for second just 3 1/2 games off the pace.  Despite that the Sox sit with the second best record in the AL and on pace for 91 wins.

To give that some perspective last year at the Break they were in second place, 2 games behind Baltimore, tied with ...

Minor Moves

With the draft over the Sox are in the business of shuttling their various draftees to new locales while at the same time putting some players already in the system in motion.  One thing the Sox did during the Cherington era is generally leave players at one level throughout the season.  It didn’t appear to be a hard and fast rule but there wasn’t the internal movement we often saw during the Epstein era.  Let’s just take a quick gander at a few notable moves (and one particularly notable ...

Red Sox Retire Rich Garces’ Number

He was a large man, with a larger persona and a nickname to match. When watching him work, one couldn’t help but be amazed at his accomplishments. He wasn’t appreciated enough in his time with the Twins, but after moving to the Red Sox he found his groove and won the enduring love of the Boston faithful. He was legendary.

Tonight, Boston retires his number 34. Thanks for many years of excellence, El Guapo.