Pedro weighs in on Ortiz:
http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/this-just-in/213437151/pedro-omf-im-trying-get-ortiz-back
Bogaerts: We miss Papi
- Thread starter E5 Yaz
- Start date
I don't know, Pedro. They (the kids and the Red Sox) were lucky to have Papi as long as they did, including his final sensational season. Let's not go blaming him for leaving a season too early.
He was pretty much stating the obvious so I dont mind XB spelling it out.
The team has several good hitters but not guys who are typical middle of the order guys. Not a single hitter that terrifies you as a HR threat (I know Betts hit over 30 last year but that was mainly a combination of Fenway and Orioles pitching, he is more of a 20 HR guy and there are plenty of them -on other teams anyways).
Hanley is a good hitter but you wonder if that shoulder is affecting his power. Moreland had a nice doubles streak but that wasnt sustainable and Fenway wont help him much with HR) . JBJ is so inconsistent. Nothing from 3B where many teams expect power. This division alone we have Machado, Donaldson, Longoria, and Headley is having a good season although not much of a power hitter.
With the Orioles you see Machado, Davis and Trumbo , Yankees have or will have Judge, Sanchez and Bird (despite his slow start). That part of the order makes you hold your breath in a close game(or in the Yankees case potentially will.)
Fact is they will have trouble scoring against good RHPers w/o a power hitting LHBer. We saw that in the post season (Papi was basically MIA so that was a prelude) . Its hard to string enough singles and doubles against them with such a RH heavy lineup that does not hit many HR. They score plenty against LHPers (the splits don't yet bear this out) and mediocre RHPers. The offense is not as bad as it has looked. However, its probably not leading the league in offense like they did last year (some of thats regression, not just Papi).
Maybe some of this is reactionary, but as baseball fans thats par for the course.
I also wonder about the clubhouse. Papi I am sure was a guy who could lighten up the mood when guys are struggling. Pedroia strikes me as someone who could increase tensions when things are tough ( that only works when guys are getting complacent). Together they probably made an effective leadership team. Pedey alone might not be enough.
Nobody is indispensable but I wouldnt mind if Papi grabbed a bat and headed to Boston. Promise him a stake in the team in return for a modest salary.
The team has several good hitters but not guys who are typical middle of the order guys. Not a single hitter that terrifies you as a HR threat (I know Betts hit over 30 last year but that was mainly a combination of Fenway and Orioles pitching, he is more of a 20 HR guy and there are plenty of them -on other teams anyways).
Hanley is a good hitter but you wonder if that shoulder is affecting his power. Moreland had a nice doubles streak but that wasnt sustainable and Fenway wont help him much with HR) . JBJ is so inconsistent. Nothing from 3B where many teams expect power. This division alone we have Machado, Donaldson, Longoria, and Headley is having a good season although not much of a power hitter.
With the Orioles you see Machado, Davis and Trumbo , Yankees have or will have Judge, Sanchez and Bird (despite his slow start). That part of the order makes you hold your breath in a close game(or in the Yankees case potentially will.)
Fact is they will have trouble scoring against good RHPers w/o a power hitting LHBer. We saw that in the post season (Papi was basically MIA so that was a prelude) . Its hard to string enough singles and doubles against them with such a RH heavy lineup that does not hit many HR. They score plenty against LHPers (the splits don't yet bear this out) and mediocre RHPers. The offense is not as bad as it has looked. However, its probably not leading the league in offense like they did last year (some of thats regression, not just Papi).
Maybe some of this is reactionary, but as baseball fans thats par for the course.
I also wonder about the clubhouse. Papi I am sure was a guy who could lighten up the mood when guys are struggling. Pedroia strikes me as someone who could increase tensions when things are tough ( that only works when guys are getting complacent). Together they probably made an effective leadership team. Pedey alone might not be enough.
Nobody is indispensable but I wouldnt mind if Papi grabbed a bat and headed to Boston. Promise him a stake in the team in return for a modest salary.
How does that account for the fact that the man is in pain every time he puts one foot in front of another?
We were privileged to see him in our hometown team's uniform for as long as we did.
Adiós, Papi. Vaya con Dios.
A little surprised with any assumption that a team can't be constructed to win big (over a 162 game season) with pitching and defense and not rely on the homerun. We can all think of examples where power-heavy teams never made it through, including several Red Sox teams. Recent Baltimore and Yankee teams also come to mind. Baltimore (253 HR's), St. Louis, Seattle and Toronto hit the most homeruns last year. Cleveland was League Average with 187. The Cubs had 199.
Meanwhile, the Indians were 5th in MLB average and 2nd in ERA+. Cubs starters gave up the fewest runs/9...Cleveland - the 7th least. Toronto, NYY and Seattle all had good starters - but homeruns couldn't save them.
The Red Sox will eventually have a Cleveland-esque rotation. They have a closer at (the very) least as good as Miller. Their bullpen is good and will only get better if/when Thornburg and (eventually) Smith ever come back. They probably have the best defensive outfield in baseball, the best right side infield, one of the best defensive catcher platoons and a serviceable shortstop. The team hits (and will hit) for average. They've got speed in all 3 outfielders and on the bench. They don't have too many base cloggers (as opposed to, say, the Orioles).
22 games into the season is too early to draw conclusions, no matter what Bogaerts thinks. The weather will warm, the team will get stronger and the competition will revert. It's not like their hitting has put them into a deep hole (2 games above .500). The Red Sox will hit...just knock 50 or so homeruns off their season total.
Meanwhile, the Indians were 5th in MLB average and 2nd in ERA+. Cubs starters gave up the fewest runs/9...Cleveland - the 7th least. Toronto, NYY and Seattle all had good starters - but homeruns couldn't save them.
The Red Sox will eventually have a Cleveland-esque rotation. They have a closer at (the very) least as good as Miller. Their bullpen is good and will only get better if/when Thornburg and (eventually) Smith ever come back. They probably have the best defensive outfield in baseball, the best right side infield, one of the best defensive catcher platoons and a serviceable shortstop. The team hits (and will hit) for average. They've got speed in all 3 outfielders and on the bench. They don't have too many base cloggers (as opposed to, say, the Orioles).
22 games into the season is too early to draw conclusions, no matter what Bogaerts thinks. The weather will warm, the team will get stronger and the competition will revert. It's not like their hitting has put them into a deep hole (2 games above .500). The Red Sox will hit...just knock 50 or so homeruns off their season total.
Agree. So's Mookie. But it feels different, at least to me. Maybe it's just the recency of the Pedroia/Machado thing - there are players I like on the Sox, but overall, I'm not as delighted as I was eight months ago.
Probably part of that is me, spoiled by lots of a good thing. But hey, I miss Papi regardless!
This. I'd take a 2011-type season in a heartbeat, because if Chris Sale is healthy there is no way that another September collapse happens.
I realize you can't just completely change who you are as a team, but I was hoping we'd see a little more aggressiveness and late game situational play this year. We're not stealing bases well or often, just 10 for 16. Last March/April we were 21-2 and averaged nearly 18 attempts per month, with Papi in the line-up. We're not even at that pace. I expected X to steal more (he attempted more last year when he was not batting ahead of Ortiz). I thought AB would be given the green light more. Again, not to go bonkers, and not just run into outs, but push the edge a bit more, rather than wait for the Ortiz 2-run HR that isn't coming. I thought with an increased emphasis on pitching/D/run prevention would come a slight corresponding increase in playing for one run in the later innings. Not enough to join the National League, but just a shift in emphasis. So far, that doesn't seem to be the case.
But let's give the offense in general more than one flu-infested month to get its bearings. If we're saying the same things on June 1, then yes, we're going to have some real problems. I expect Pedey and X to more than double their monthly XBH production in May!
But let's give the offense in general more than one flu-infested month to get its bearings. If we're saying the same things on June 1, then yes, we're going to have some real problems. I expect Pedey and X to more than double their monthly XBH production in May!
Could the lower number of attempted stolen bases compared to last season be reflective of the competition? You wouldn't run as often against good throwing catchers and/or pitchers who are quick to the plate. It could be that the draw of a one-month sample had the Sox running up against teams that are tougher to run against this year.
I don't know how much of this our team specifically, and how much it is just changes in baseball. Steals are generally down since their peak in the late 80s (though historically, they were even lower in the past), and my guess would be that stats have a lot to do with it. Just looking at the last 4 years (so 120 team seasons), there is no positive correlation between SBs and Runs (r = -.06), nor attempted steals and runs (r = -.10). I think that the reality is that we remember moments like Dave Roberts in the playoffs, but that over the course of a season you are going to end up killing as many rallies as you are scoring extra runs, and that most of the time it's simply a non-factor.
To extend this notion, let's take a look at the run expectancy tables and grab a common example. With a man on first and 1 out, you have an expected value of .489 runs, if you attempt the steal, you have two basic outcomes (ignoring the catcher throwing the ball into center, for now):
man on second, 1 out: .644 expected runs
no one on, two out: .095 expected runs
So a successful steal increased your expected runs by .155, but a caught stealing drops it by -.394
If you assume a 70% success rate, then you have risk of (.3 * -.394) + (.7 * .155) = -.009
At the league average of a 72% success rate, you end up about breaking even, adding .001 runs to your expectancy. Maybe the catcher throws it away, but maybe your guy sprains his thumb diving into second. It is entirely possible that teams, in an age of rising HR rates and SOs (raising the risk of the double play), just no longer see stealing bases as a viable strategy for scoring more runs in the aggregate, so they aren't trying. Based on average success rates and total number of attempts, we are talking about a handful of extra runs for the entire league based on SBs in the current environment.
I wasn't sure if this deserved its own thread(or if I could think of a clever enough title) but this new fangraphs article discusses some things I have been thinking about Bogaerts recently.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/xander-bogaerts-is-a-very-weird-good-player/
Frequently we talk about locking up our young core long term, but what exactly do we have with Bogaerts? I remember, as a prospect, he was destroying minor league pitching and looked like he was going to be a fringy SS but with power to make up for it. Do we think he will ever be that kind of player? Or is he the average fielding, high BA player we have seen the last few years?
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/xander-bogaerts-is-a-very-weird-good-player/
Frequently we talk about locking up our young core long term, but what exactly do we have with Bogaerts? I remember, as a prospect, he was destroying minor league pitching and looked like he was going to be a fringy SS but with power to make up for it. Do we think he will ever be that kind of player? Or is he the average fielding, high BA player we have seen the last few years?
You people are ludacrisp. He hit 20 dingers last year after starting off somewhat slap-happy, and his "good results from a bad process" ignores that Boegarts has an ability to aim his contact that's vanishingly rare even at the MLB level. Those soft singles over 2B with RISP ain't accidents. Also, it's been a frickin month.
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