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Sox Therapy — Where Thinking Red Sox Fans Obsess about the Sox Sunday, April 02, 2023Opening Weekend OpinionsSo the first weekend of the season is in the books and I feel comfortable calling it “eventful.” I don’t remember who said it after the Opener but the Orioles and Red Sox looked very much like the fourth and fifth placed teams they are widely predicted to be. With that said some random thoughts; Good: - OK, the Boston Red Sox are going to score some runs. The offense was both impressive and relentless. Say what you want about Kiké Hernandez but he’s a hell of a hitter to have batting ninth. At full health this line up looks like it will rake. Masataka Yoshida has really done nothing but impress since he started raking for the Japanese WBC team. - Also the revamped bullpen looked strong. Put aside the mess on Thursday and take note of the guys who should be expected to pitch important innings. Kenley Jansen, John Schreiber and Chris Martin all looked solid and Tanner Houck was very good until he seemed to run out of steam in his start. For all the criticism Alex Cora seemed to be taking for going to Zack Kelly in the 4th the other day when your starters don’t go deep and it’s 7-1 in the 4th that’s who you go to. If the Sox’ season depends on Zack Kelly and Kaleb Ort the season is sunk. - The pitch timer (and take note MLB does NOT want it called a “clock” even though that’s what it is) is a resounding success in my mind. The best line I read this weekend was “I hate everything about it except that it works.” That game Thursday would have been four hours a year ago with Kluber and other pitchers struggling to throw strikes then kicking around the mound. Getting it done in 3:10 was a huge win for the fans. As was noted, it’s not giving us less baseball, it’s giving us less non-baseball. I think there are some tweaks necessary but so far so good in my opinion. - Raimel Tapia’s hair is glorious. Bad: - The starting pitching was kind of the great nightmare wasn’t it? I think there is a case to be made that the guys who will be the Sox two best starters this year (Garrett Whitlock and Brayan Bello) are not there yet but still, the Sox need more. Whatever we expect from Klubot and Chris Sale this year I think we can expect better than that. - What in god’s name was with the Orioles running wild? Sox pitchers seem completely buffaloed by how to hold runner. I’m coaching 11 year olds playing on a diamond with leads for the first time who are less confused than the Sox hurlers. - The one reliever of significance that had a tough outing was Richard Bleier. At the moment he’s the lefty option out there and he did not do the job on Sunday. Ugly: - The pregame ceremony on Thursday was…off. I don’t know how else to describe it. If you’d been living in Pauly Shore’s biodome and just showed up on March 30th with no information from the outside world about the off-season you’d have known something was off with the carmine hose. The crowd was reserved and when the second or third biggest ovation of the player introductions go to the manager it’s either a really good or really bad sign. Beyond that the honorary stuff was off. Michelle Brooks-Thompson is a marvelous, gifted singer. She has also done the anthem or GBA roughly a bajazillion times at Fenway. “Who’s the least special singer we can get” seems to have been the question. Then the first pitch; Devin McCourty, David Ortiz, Shawn Thornton, Dana Barros? I mean, the whole “bring all the teams together is nice enough but there was nothing special there. Dana Barros? I mean I loved the little dude and Shawn Thornton was a fan fave but those two guys don’t quite measure up to McCourty and Ortiz. Even Papi, I mean he’s an automatic standing ovation but it’s not like Bill Buckner coming out in 2008 is it? On top of that the desperate attempts to generate enthusiasm (e.g. “the player who will spend the next decade in Boston” while introducing Devers) felt well, desperate. Look, we know where we are with this team. Don’t sugarcoat it. - Holy crap was it cold on Thursday. I haven’t thawed out yet. - It’s not really good, bad or ugly but I’ll put it here. The elimination of the shift really was not noticeable. Small sample sizes etc…but BABIP is up a bit, .317 through action on Saturday night vs. .290 a year ago. Jose is an Absurd Sultan
Posted: April 02, 2023 at 07:18 PM | 109 comment(s)
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They play the next 6 games against bad teams, so, unless they get swept, there won't be any meaningful insights to be gathered. They play the Rays after that, and then the Angels, and end the month vs Cleveland. They will be tested, and we will see.
Of course their team ERA is 7.67.
I love those tiny sample sizes.
Hey mister negative, you just stop that right now!
Jokes aside, if this team is somewhere between average and reasonable, they should at least win 4 of the next 6 games, before being held to 4 total runs in the Rays series.
Also Chris Sale's post-game interview was awesome. Masterclass in personal accountability.
I'd put the pitchers' inability to hold runners in the first two games in the ugly category, but that's a distinction without a difference. Hopefully they can either figure out how to prevent that going forward, or how to take advantage of it when they're on offense.
This is another case of the team not looking prepared at the beginning of the season. A couple others this season: Sale and Kluber did not look ready; they had a few pitch clock violations.
I'm wondering if once the pitch clock gets under about 5, runners feel like the pitcher is so focused on getting the pitch off that they can run without fear of being picked off.
As I understand it, a family owns something that Yoshida and the Red Sox really want. The Red Sox have made offers to the family to try to obtain the item, and the family has refused. This has led some to suggest that the family is worse than Hitler.
The expectation that the family *must* give it back smacks of the old Willy Wonka movie. "It's not for sale." "Name your price." "She can't have it." Or, maybe they're just shrewd negotiators.
I understand it's convention to give the ball back . . . but in the end, it's just a baseball.
FWIW I am not one to get attached to possessions in the first place so my opinion is just that, my opinion. I read a book and then I give it away since it's highly unlikely I will re-read every book I've ever read, and keeping them all doesn't feel right. I recognize this makes me a monster in the eyes of some.
Pathetic that people are attacking the family, but also completely unsurprising. Probably the same grown-ups who sit a green lights staring at their phones and complain about Kids these Days.
yes, I'm cranky.
"Hey [Little ####], this guy is willing to pay you $[MOOLAH] for your [cool thing]."
"I'd rather keep the [cool thing]."
"Yeah, but $[MOOLAH] is a lot of money, you could buy a brand new playstation off of eBay with that kind of money."
"No, I want the [cool thing]."
<to bidder>
"Hey, sorry man, he wants to keep the [cool thing]."
\"#### you and #### the shitty kid."
"well, #### you too, buddy."
And then to see from the replay that the neither the kid nor his Dad actually caught the ball (a Pirates fan nearby caught it, and gave it to the kid)? This family sucks, TBH. Not only should the family make the deal - they should basically split it with the guy who actually caught the ball and gave it to them. Each should get, like:
- Tickets to another game
- A signed baseball from Yoshida
- Maybe some cash, or a picture with Yoshida before the next game, or whatever. Or not.
The first two things are easy, and cost the team basically nothing. The third one is sort of up to Yoshida, right? This is so dumb.
Yeah, he'd fit right in with this staff.
I'd like to take a look through your possessions and decide which ones you should part with and for what price. Especially things you've received as gifts. :)
OK maybe Duvall will come back to earth a bit. but that will be balanced out - eventually Yoshida will hit a fly ball.
In 28 PA Duvall has 0.8 WAR, already surpassing his Steamer projection of 0.6 WAR (in 438 PA). That is good and will certainly continue.
On the pitching side, there were some encouraging signs from Kluber and Sale, enough at least to be able to hope that they'll be good this year. Hopefully, Whitlock and Bello's return will make the rotation far more solid.
Agree that Sale has looked good, it doesn't seem crazy to me to expect 5-6 solid innings from him when he's out there.
The Red Sox are last in MLB in starter ERA at 8.01, they are 27th in IP, 29th in WHIP, 11th in SO (OK, this is good), last in HR, 5th in BB. I mean, what about this makes you think, "oh, they should be ok", and not "man, this rotation is going to struggle"?
1) Use Tapia more in the OF, and move to Hernandez to CF several days a week
2) Use Dalbec in the "supersub" role as a right-handed bat (eight of the next nine games are against projected left-handed starters), he'll play some SS, etc
Fans are upset that Mondesi is not ready to play, but here's the thing: For the third (or fourth, depending how you look at 2020) season in a row, Bloom is fielding a "bridge" team, trying to put a competitive product on the field with veterans on short-term contracts, while awaiting the arrival of quality players from the farm system. When everything hits, you get the 2021 ALCS team. When it is somewhere in the middle, you get the 2022 team. Worst-case outcomes? 2020. It is obviously way too early to know where 2023 will fall.
But if people are upset that Adam Duvall's wrist is injured, well...the reason he was available late in the winter, and willing to sign a one-deal deal for only $7m guaranteed, is because he injured the same wrist last summer, is a power-dependent player, and was questionable entering 2023.
Mondesi was available because he is always injured, and Kansas City basically gave up on him. Turner was willing to sign a (basically) one-year deal because he was in decline, and is 38 years old. Kluber signed a one-year deal because nobody would give him a two-year deal and the promise of a rotation spot. And so forth.
I am obviously disappointed that Duvall is injured, potentially for a long time. He had an awesome first week of the season. But in terms of the franchise, Duvall has nothing to do with whether or not the team is going anywhere over the next five years. I am much more invested in Devers, Casas, Bello, Whitlock, Houck, and Yoshida than Duvall, who at best is a trade piece this July, because those other guys are the ones who will determine if we're competitive in the 2020s.
That's what is increasingly frustrating about being a Red Sox fan: We are now at a place where fans are like, "What are we going to do without Duvall's bat?!" The answer is, "Win 78 games instead of 80?" And, because we all know it has nothing to do with 2024 and beyond, we fans are uninvested in most of the players. It's one thing when players you come to like are unexpectedly traded after the season; it's another thing when the organization basically tells you up front that these are a bunch of rentals while we wait for players in Salem and Greenville to pan out.
Yeah, I just can't see this working, but I am willing to wait and see if this "punt defense, get the best 9 bats you have in the lineup" approach works before saying it's insane. Lots of things that a 1950s or 1960s fan would have thought insane now happen on an everyday basis in baseball.
I mean, in some ways, aren't the Padres doing a high-end version of this? Granted, the 9 bats at their disposal are way, way better than the Red Sox' 9 bats, but they are moving pieces around in a way that seems at least in the same ballpark. (The Phillies sort of did this last year too, once Harper went out.)
Again, I like the team I'm supporting to field baseballs in a non-laughingstock way, but it's not 100% clear to me that completely punting defense for offense wouldn't work at all, and in fact might be a reasonable way to approach a season, especially if a given team (like the Red Sox this season) don't have viable glove+bat players at every position.
Do I think Dalbec is the second coming of Brock Holt? I do not. But if he's 65% of Holt's prime years value, is that worth something on a team with no other options? Eh, maybe.
But hey--over .500!
I think people are just upset because the guy who was raking got hurt. It's not like anyone was saying he was going to keep doing this. (Do not look upthread please.)
This ends tonight!!
Go Sox!!
Edit to add: I don't believe in jinxes either, Darren!
This ends tonight!!
Go Sox!!
Edit to add: I don't believe in jinxes either, Darren!
Tonight they play a team that hasn't played against a good team yet this season.
--Winckowski is looking good: 9 IP, 5 H, 1 BB, 8 K, 1.00 ERA
--After a shaky first start, Pivetta looked great yesterday against a tough lineup.
--In the pen: Kelly, Martin, and Schreiber have all done well. One shaky outing for Jansen but he should be fine.
--Everyone's favorite player, Bobby D, is back!
Injury-prone players gonna injury!
Kimbrel 394 (now 395)
Jansen 391 (now 393)
Mariano 336
The problem for these guys is, of course, that Mariano kept going until age 43. And despite missing almost his entire age 42 season, put up another 316 saves! They now face the same huge challenge that K-Rod (430 through age 34), Smith (355), Hoffman (352), and Papelbon (349) couldn't overcome: stay healthy enough, stay effective, and stay in the closer's job for another decade or so just to have a shot.
I wouldn't say that this record is as unbreakable as 511 wins, but in today's game, it's got to be on the next tier of unbreakableness.
I don’t think Kimbrel or Jansen are far enough ahead of Rivera’s pace to break his record, given the inconsistency and injuries they have already experienced, but if they push through to 500 saves fairly quickly without any setbacks, I might have to rethink that.
Jansen has been more consistent, held onto the closer's role, and stayed fairly healthy. He's still a longshot. He has a pretty good shot at ending up 3rd by passing Smith (478) for number three, though.
He's proved to be very useful stealing crop reports before they're made public.
Bogaerts: .333/.426/.667, 0.8 WAR
Franchy: .286/.348/.762, 0.4 WAR
Hosmer: .310/.394/.379, 0.4 WAR
JDM: .267/.314/.511, 0.1 WAR
Strahm: 10 IP, 2.01 FIP, 0.4 WAR
Eovaldi: 10.2 IP, 2.00 FIP, 0.4 WAR
Wacha: 12 IP, 3.49 FIP, 0.3 WAR
Dalbec starting at shortstop. Among shortstops, Dalbec is to fielding what Mark Belanger was to hitting.
On the bright side, the Celtics are now facing Atlanta in round one, rather than Miami, thanks to last night's play-in tournament result. And the Bruins have already broken the record for most wins and points in a season.
In all seriousness, I (like pretty much everybody) has a finite among of time a week to be able to watch sports. For the next few months, if the Bruins and Celtics are doing what both are favored to be doing in the playoffs, it is going to be very difficult to get much of anybody in New England locked in on the Red Sox. That gives the Red Sox until mid-June to get it together and make a compelling case to fans that we should get invested in the team for the remainder of the season.
Dalbec with an error in the 1st inning. Shocking.
Hey now, noted batsman Wong's defense is carrying him to 0.0 WAR. It's something at least.
- Chris Sale was awful for the second time in three starts
- Bobby Dalbec, 0-for-4 with an error
- Zach Kelly appeared to blow out his arm throwing a pitch
- Sox fall seven games out of first place...after 12 games.
Devers hit a three-run jack. Thank goodness we kept him. I just wish we had thrown a bag of money a few years ago at Bogaerts. It is remarkable how poorly Bloom has developed (or not developed) a Plan B when Bogaerts left. Why we would pay a closer $32m over two years while not getting a legitimate middle infielder escapes me. It's like getting leather seats for your 1990 Honda Civic.
But if they don't get a SS for '24 or '25, and go with Story there....that would be awful.
You think they can get much for $6M or so for the prorated portion + $16M for next year? That's an expensive gamble.
I mean, he essentially has no value except for a like-for-like salary dump, and they owe him $27.5 this season and next season, so they wouldn't just outright release him, but if he is getting knocked around as a starter on an every-5th-day basis, something will have to give at some point.
Starting to think playing kids and bottoming out would have been the better play than signing a bunch of 1-year deal guys. Jansen's not terrible, but given the likely circumstances this season, Bloom is like the Joker setting $32 million on fire in the middle of Fenway. It's nuts.
Only reason I can think as to why the "fail for 1-2 years" approach hasn't been taken is that Henry & Co. must have some market data that says that their revenue would crater if they did that for 1-2 years, and maybe after 2020 they really can't afford to have revenue tank. But honestly, if they were just up front about the plan, I think fans would generally come around on it. Sure, many wouldn't be happy, but at least A PLAN would be in place, whereas now they look like a drowning person flailing around in the ocean.
I don't know if the Red Sox have that much more motivation to focus on the short-term compared to teams who play in publicly-funded statdia and get the same money from their cable channels whether they are good or not and have different local demographics - and there's a big argument to be made that, given how up-and-down their fortunes have been during the Henry era, they may not be particularly good at it - but I don't think you can look at how they operate without taking that into consideration. As fans who pay close attention to the team over the long term, it doesn't always make sense from that viewpoint, but we're weird outliers compared to all the folks who might go to a game or two every year or switch to NESN rather than Netflix depending on how likely a good result is.
And here I was having a nice civil conversation with you about the save record. Scram.
Ha ha, you were wrong about the defense!
Offerman - 2B
Valentin - 3B
Garciaparra - SS
Stanley - DH
Buford - CF
Merloni - 1B
Gubanich - C
Sadler - LF
Lewis - RF
Jefferson - PH
Portugal - P (CG)
With Bello back today and Paxton expected to follow soon (stop laughing), there's going to be a rotation crunch:
Sale
Kluber
Pivetta
Whitlock
Bello
Paxton
Houck
The consensus seems to be that they'll send Pivetta and Houck to the pen, which has some merit I guess. But Pivetta's been the rock of the rotation the past 2 years and seems like the best bet to give you 150+ IP. Sucks for him and I get why he's mad.
Maybe he'll hit like expected and turn into a valuable player?
As of Patriots Day, Wong's WAR is the 4th-highest among position players, at 0.3 WAR. He's slightly below zero offensively, but already worth half a WAR defensively.
The funny thing is, Reese McGuire is the 5th-highest offensively on the team thus far, but has a negative defensive WAR.
Wong hits righty, and McGuire hits lefty, so you could see a platoon where McGuire gets more of the PAs. I still think that no matter how good an arm your catcher has, you can't afford to have a complete zero offensively at the position, especially if you're getting nothing out of your 2B or SS, either. You're just giving up three innings a game offensively. And there is evidence that McGuire is better at throwing out runners than his dreadful early 2023 stats (his 2019-2022 stats are above average in this regard).
But if Wong actually is this good at controlling the run game, then that is actually worth a fair amount of offensive output. It'll be measured both in the CS%, but also if it leads to a greatly reduced number of attempts, as opponents see the risk as too high to try often.
I'm pretty down on this 2023 team, but one position where I've always thought Bloom's done a pretty good job this off-season was catcher. I like McGuire, and Wong may be better defensively than I thought (I still think he can't hit), and both are cheap for the next few years. They got two pretty interesting bats for Vazquez, who was probably not going to be around by the time the team gets good again, anyway.
Who expects he'll hit?
Anyway, 10% of the way into the season, I'm really worried about the lack of depth and the way Chris Sale seems to have a great big fork sticking out of his back. The injuries to Duvall and Story, who were both already Plan B, leave me feeling like the teams going to have a bunch of runs where they just can't get it together.
When they're good I want to believe they're better than I thought they'd be. But then I realize sweeping the Angels and Tigers doesn't really mean they're "Good", it just means they aren't THAT bad.
And when they play badly, I tend to find myself thinking "would a good team look this bad? unlikely . . ."
Although the Tampa Bay sweep was a worst-case outcome in some ways . . . on the other hand, at least they were in most of those games until the end. It didn't feel like a "we're hopeless" sweep, it felt like a "this team is close to being good!".
Which is probably the feeling I'll carry through the season. "This team is close to being good!". Which feels OK in isolation, but in reality means they are not actually Good.
ZIPS .258 .304 .435
Steamer .244 .293 .413
That's what I mean by 'hit as expected.'
--Starting pitching has been very bad. Soooo bad. There's at least hope that this will improve as Sale rounds into shape and we get Whitlock/Bello/Paxton back.
--Bullpen: Pretty good. Looks promising going forward.
--Offense: Decent. I'd expect to remain about this good as some folks rebound a bit, offsetting the loss of Duvall's early dominance.
--Defense: Looked pretty bad and doesn't appear that it will get much better without some luck/changes in personnel.
ZIPS should be renamed "DARTS".
The most success that unproven Red Sox players have had come from Houck and Whitlock. All the others have to prove they belong in the majors.
Nido: 313 PA, .600, 0.9 WAR
Caratini: 314 PA, .642, 1.2 WAR
Trevino: 353 PA, .671, 3.7 WAR
Ruiz: 433 PA, .673 1.7 WAR
You're saying that the unproven players have to prove themselves?
I still don't get what the Red Sox are trying to do. The AL East as a whole has a .637 Win%. In 80 aggregate games, so that's no longer a small sample size (although obviously it's not going to sustain for a whole season).
Being "OK" is completely uninteresting this season and was foreseeably uninteresting!
I'm saying that those in the Rose Colored Glasses Brigade are too quick to anoint rookies as MLB talent.
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