This is the best Red Sox team...ever.

Adrian's Dome

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Personally I'm looking at 108 wins, or .667 ball. That would be a hell of an accomplishment, and in all likelihood enough for the division title. 22-19 gets us there.
If this team goes 22-19 down the stretch this board will be fucking apocalyptic.
 

tims4wins

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If this team goes 22-19 down the stretch this board will be fucking apocalyptic.
Maybe. Kind of depends how they get there. If they go 22-15 and then lose their last 4 because they treat them like glorified spring training games I am sure a few people will get worried, but that wouldn’t be much cause for concern for most of us, I would hope.
 

Reverend

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Maybe. Kind of depends how they get there. If they go 22-15 and then lose their last 4 because they treat them like glorified spring training games I am sure a few people will get worried, but that wouldn’t be much cause for concern for most of us, I would hope.
But would happen if the board was apoplectic, instead? Huh?

Have you thought about that?
 

Harry Hooper

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Maybe. Kind of depends how they get there. If they go 22-15 and then lose their last 4 because they treat them like glorified spring training games I am sure a few people will get worried, but that wouldn’t be much cause for concern for most of us, I would hope.
Yes, the nature of the journey to the final W-L numbers factors in.
 

dcmissle

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I have completely enjoyed this team and very early in the season mentioned in a couple posts how I felt this was possibly the best RS team ever. However, winning 116 games or 105 or whatever is great, but it would feel awfully hollow if it doesn't come with a World Championship. I am not a Pat fan, but I would expect that in 2007 they weren't thrilled going undefeated until losing the Super Bowl to the Giants.
Try to unpack this so you can enjoy it more.

The 2007 Pats were annihilating opponents week after week. They were aiming for perfection. In terms of the championship, most people would have taken them against the field by this point of the season. A hardened vet, who played several seasons after surviving a stroke, Tedy Bruschi, said that the stretch run brought suffocating pressure, more than he had ever experienced on a field. All this played out in the shadow of Spygate.

Let’s agree the RS are the best team now and may be when the playoffs begin. Which of the other boxes above are you checking for them?
 

Reverend

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Try to unpack this so you can enjoy it more.

The 2007 Pats were annihilating opponents week after week. They were aiming for perfection. In terms of the championship, most people would have taken them against the field by this point of the season. A hardened vet, who played several seasons after surviving a stroke, Tedy Bruschi, said that the stretch run brought suffocating pressure, more than he had ever experienced on a field. All this played out in the shadow of Spygate.

Let’s agree the RS are the best team now and may be when the playoffs begin. Which of the other boxes above are you checking for them?
I was all in on the Patriots in 2007 and that sucked, but I would be hard pressed to deny that there is not something poetic about the tragedy of their joyless pursuit of perfection falling short on bizarre happenstance; it reminds me of something I once read about Musashi Miyamoto's Book of Five Rings's only weakness being it's monomaniacalness, though, Belichick is known for being more flexible, but maybe that's the point...

This team feels like joy.
 

Valek123

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The second best team in baseball is 10 games back right now with 75 wins and a .625 win percentage. This team is incredibly fun to watch.

Sox and the Astros are both expected to have 81 wins right now yet the Sox have 86 and the Astros have 74. I haven't seen much of then this year, losing games vs good teams and blowing out bad or some other craziness at play for the Astros?
 
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m0ckduck

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I think what will stand out most in my memory is the enjoyment of watching a Red Sox team that seems to be in every single game. The Sox are currently 13-27 (.325) when trailing by three or more runs, better than the overall winning percentage of two AL teams. They've lost only 11 times all year by four or more runs, and have come back to win (off the top of my head: ) at least four times when trailing by four or more.
 
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Red(s)HawksFan

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The second best team in baseball is 10 games back right now with 75 wins and a .625 win percentage. This team is incredibly fun to watch.

Sox and the Astros are both expected to have 81 wins right now yet the Sox have 86 and the Astros have 74. I haven't seen much of then this year, losing games vs good teams and blowing out bad or some other craziness at play for the Astros?
Seems to be mostly a Jeckyl and Hyde offense and losing a lot of low scoring games because the pitching, by and large, has been excellent. They're 16-21 in 1-run games. They just lost five in a row (2 by one run), at home, in which they scored a total of 14 runs. They broke out of it last night by winning 12-1. So 26 runs scored and 26 runs allowed in 6 games...suggests a .500 winning percentage, not 1-5.

The Astros kind of hit a wall this time last year and fell back to the pack enough to be caught for best record. Then they made the trade for Verlander at the very end of August and re-gelled for September/October. Wouldn't shock me if they do it again (minus the trade for a Verlander type).
 

Hank Scorpio

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Just over 3/4ths of the way through this season... If you break down our first 120 games into equal thirds, we've gone...

3/29 - 5/13: 28-12 (.700) (113 win pace)
5/14 - 6/26: 25-15 (.625) (101 win pace)
6-27 - 8/13: 32-8 (.800) (130 win pace)

During that 25-15 run, Mookie missed 15 games while on the DL, during which the Sox went 8-7. They went 17-8 (.680, 110 win pace) in the other 25 games.
 

Soxfan in Fla

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Just over 3/4ths of the way through this season... If you break down our first 120 games into equal thirds, we've gone...

3/29 - 5/13: 28-12 (.700) (113 win pace)
5/14 - 6/26: 25-15 (.625) (101 win pace)
6-27 - 8/13: 32-8 (.800) (130 win pace)

During that 25-15 run, Mookie missed 15 games while on the DL, during which the Sox went 8-7. They went 17-8 (.680, 110 win pace) in the other 25 games.
Wow. Just wow. That’s incredible.
 

Norm Siebern

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Just over 3/4ths of the way through this season... If you break down our first 120 games into equal thirds, we've gone...

3/29 - 5/13: 28-12 (.700) (113 win pace)
5/14 - 6/26: 25-15 (.625) (101 win pace)
6-27 - 8/13: 32-8 (.800) (130 win pace)

During that 25-15 run, Mookie missed 15 games while on the DL, during which the Sox went 8-7. They went 17-8 (.680, 110 win pace) in the other 25 games.
A couple of things:

First off this is excellent work by Scorpio and is the kind of thing you would expect from the media that gets paid money to cover this team to produce. That instead what we get is inanity from the likes of mouth breathers like Felger and Mazz is a condemnation of the paid “professionals,” and consequently is the reason I come to SoSH first for sports news. Kudos to Hank Scorpio.

Secondly, what he points out in his post is the evidence as to why Mookie is MVP. With due acknowledgement of the superlative season of JD Martinez, the impact of Betts on the record is borne out in Scorpio’s post.
 

Rovin Romine

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(Snip)
Secondly, what he points out in his post is the evidence as to why Mookie is MVP. With due acknowledgement of the superlative season of JD Martinez, the impact of Betts on the record is borne out in Scorpio’s post.
Mookie was out from May 27th to June 10th. That's a very, very small sample size. The Sox were beaten by ATL, HOU, CWS, and DET.

I think Mookie should be MVP, but not because of anything that blip shows.
 

LogansDad

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I think what will stand out most in my memory is the enjoyment of watching a Red Sox team that seems to be in every single game. The Sox are currently 13-27 (.325) when trailing by three or more runs, better than the overall winning percentage of two AL teams. They've lost only 11 times all year by four or more runs, and have come back to win (off the top of my head: ) at least four times when trailing by four or more.
This is a pretty awesome stat right here. Just wanted to make sure it got some love.
 

phenweigh

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Just over 3/4ths of the way through this season...
Update to my John Henry era table:
upload_2018-8-16_12-49-10.png

Note that before this year, the 2011 team had the most wins. Adding how that team finished their last 40 games would still yield 102 wins. Adding in the last 40 games of the 2004 team yields 114 wins.

Then again, maybe using this sample for projection isn't a great idea, since compared to the rest of this era, the 2018 is a real outlier. From 2002-2018 the average wins at this point was 68 wins, with a standard deviation of 5.70 wins. So being 18 wins above the average is more than 3 standard deviations from the mean, a very unlikely result.

Finally a graphical comparison of interesting years:
upload_2018-8-16_12-59-22.png
 

Attachments

Spelunker

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Update to my John Henry era table:
View attachment 22631

Note that before this year, the 2011 team had the most wins. Adding how that team finished their last 40 games would still yield 102 wins. Adding in the last 40 games of the 2004 team yields 114 wins.

Then again, maybe using this sample for projection isn't a great idea, since compared to the rest of this era, the 2018 is a real outlier. From 2002-2018 the average wins at this point was 68 wins, with a standard deviation of 5.70 wins. So being 18 wins above the average is more than 3 standard deviations from the mean, a very unlikely result.

Finally a graphical comparison of interesting years:
View attachment 22632
What's the opposite of "fading down the stretch"?

We've gone Secretariat. The Red Sox are winning like a tremendous machine.
 

azsoxpatsfan

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May 23, 2014
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Not exactly scientific, but something I thought a lot of people here might enjoy reading. The author compares the Red Sox to other historically great teams position by position.

https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/the-2018-boston-red-sox-in-history-an-ill-advised-premature-comparison/

Edit: the same author did the same thing with this years Orioles, comparing them to historically awful teams, and it's hilarious to realize just how terrible they are.

https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/the-2018-baltimore-orioles-in-history-an-ill-advised-premature-comparison/
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
I note that Tampa Bay is 61-59 -- and 24 games out. That led me to wonder, what is the furthest behind that any above-.500 team has ever finished? The answer appears to be 33.5 games (1909 Reds, 77-76, behind the 110-42 Pirates).
 

budcrew08

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I note that Tampa Bay is 61-59 -- and 24 games out. That led me to wonder, what is the furthest behind that any above-.500 team has ever finished? The answer appears to be 33.5 games (1909 Reds, 77-76, behind the 110-42 Pirates).
How about in the expansion era, post-1961? It would have to be one of those 1998 Yankees or 2001 Mariners years, I’d guess.

Edit: maybe I’m not doing this right, but in 2001 when Seattle went 116-46, the White Sox were 83-79, which is 33 games behind. But different divisions too (West vs Central)
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2001-standings.shtml
 

SirPsychoSquints

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I note that Tampa Bay is 61-59 -- and 24 games out. That led me to wonder, what is the furthest behind that any above-.500 team has ever finished? The answer appears to be 33.5 games (1909 Reds, 77-76, behind the 110-42 Pirates).
Yeah - every team that was more games above .500 than the 1909 Pirates didn't have a trailing team close enough to .500 to best that figure.
 

joe dokes

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In modern-ish times, Ted's '69 Senators finished 86-76 23 games back of the 109 win O's.
 

Sam Ray Not

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Update to my John Henry era table:
View attachment 22631

Note that before this year, the 2011 team had the most wins. Adding how that team finished their last 40 games would still yield 102 wins. Adding in the last 40 games of the 2004 team yields 114 wins.

Then again, maybe using this sample for projection isn't a great idea, since compared to the rest of this era, the 2018 is a real outlier. From 2002-2018 the average wins at this point was 68 wins, with a standard deviation of 5.70 wins. So being 18 wins above the average is more than 3 standard deviations from the mean, a very unlikely result.

Finally a graphical comparison of interesting years:
View attachment 22632
You're gonna need a bigger chart.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....

phenweigh

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I note that Tampa Bay is 61-59 -- and 24 games out. That led me to wonder, what is the furthest behind that any above-.500 team has ever finished? The answer appears to be 33.5 games (1909 Reds, 77-76, behind the 110-42 Pirates).
I had a similar thought ... since divisional play started, how many games behind has a second place team with the second best overall record finished? (Have their been any?)
 

SirPsychoSquints

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I had a similar thought ... since divisional play started, how many games behind has a second place team with the second best overall record finished? (Have their been any?)
The MFY in 1997 were 2 back.
The marlins in 1997 were 9 back.
The Sox in 1998 were 22 back.
Oakland in 2001 was 14 back.
The cardinals and astros in 2001 were tied.
The Sox in 2004 were 3 back.
The Rockies in 2007 were 1 back and won a game 163 to finish a half game back.
The MFY in 2010 were 1 game back.
The pirates in 2015 were 2 games back.
The MFY are currently 10.5 back.

So 9 times (before this year) in 23 years of three division play.
 

Average Reds

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The Sox in 1998 were 22 back.
I read your post and this line jumped out at me and I immediately thought "Well, he just doesn't get the concept, because there's no way that a team finishing 22 games back was the second best record in the league." Then I checked the final standings for 1998 ...

It would please me if this year's team could wipe that memory from my consciousness once again.
 

tims4wins

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I read your post and this line jumped out at me and I immediately thought "Well, he just doesn't get the concept, because there's no way that a team finishing 22 games back was the second best record in the league." Then I checked the final standings for 1998 ...

It would please me if this year's team could wipe that memory from my consciousness once again.
I had the same thought. Wow.
 

nighthob

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I read your post and this line jumped out at me and I immediately thought "Well, he just doesn't get the concept, because there's no way that a team finishing 22 games back was the second best record in the league." Then I checked the final standings for 1998 ...

It would please me if this year's team could wipe that memory from my consciousness once again.
But won’t you feel so much better when the current winning percentages hold and the MFYs win 100 games and still finish 14 games back?
 

Adrian's Dome

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The MFY in 1997 were 2 back.
The marlins in 1997 were 9 back.
The Sox in 1998 were 22 back.
Oakland in 2001 was 14 back.
The cardinals and astros in 2001 were tied.
The Sox in 2004 were 3 back.
The Rockies in 2007 were 1 back and won a game 163 to finish a half game back.
The MFY in 2010 were 1 game back.
The pirates in 2015 were 2 games back.
The MFY are currently 10.5 back.

So 9 times (before this year) in 23 years of three division play.
I know off the top of my head 2004 isn't true, because the Cards won 105 that year.
 

Devizier

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1st in Red Sox history for ERA- (80)
2nd in Red Sox history for ISO (.194)
2nd in Red Sox history for K/BB (3.16)
3rd in Red Sox history for wSB (7.8)
4th in Red Sox history for FIP- (88)
6th in Red Sox history for WRC+ (114)
7th in Red Sox history for WPA (8.96 and counting).