How will it all end? Predict the 2014 Red Sox.

[C4CRVT]

With 95 games in the books and 67 left to go (a .453 winning percentage), it's been a tough luck year for the Boston Red Sox.
 
"Only" 9.5 games back of the Baltimore Orioles (who are on pace to finish with about 89-90 wins), the Sox are currently in the cellar with 4 teams to climb over.  They're in a pretty big hole right now but the good news is that none of the other teams in the AL East are that good either.
 
I'm feeling a bit optimistic about this team but doing the math, it's looking like a pretty tough uphill climb to get to the top of the heap this year.
 
 
 
 
 

 

[ivanvamp]

I think they will finish between 78-84 wins, an option that isn't on your poll, so I went optimistic and selected 81-86.  They are playing better (.500 since May 25, 23-23).  I think they will be above .500 during the remainder of the season.  

 

[Snodgrass'Muff]

Expecting the rest of the AL East to either stay on their current pace or get worse is a bit too optimistic, IMO.  It's entirely possible that one or more of the Blue Jays, Orioles or Yankees increase their pace taking the uphill climb from needing to get to 89 wins (already probably out of reach) to 92 or so.  I just don't see it.  Sell redundant vets or pending free agents who don't make sense to extend (re-sign Lester if you can) and start setting up for 2015.  That means an artificial downward pressure on their record.  However, with JBJ no longer hitting like he forgot to bring his bat up to the plate, and the gut feeling that Bogaerts is breaking out of it, not to mention Mookie having a knack for figuring it out relatively quickly after a promotion and Vazquez coming out of the gate hot, I think the offense is about to start looking decent.
 
End of the day I think they finish with 73 wins, having a slightly better second half pace than we saw in the first half.  Oddly enough, while the kids turning it around at this point is a good sign for the future of the franchise, in some ways it might be better for them to wait to figure it out until the spring, as it would increase the team's draft slot.  That said, if none of them figure it out by the end of the season the chances of seeing flame outs from them go up, so I'm in no way hoping to see them struggle down the stretch.
 
Maybe they end up with a top 10 draft pick with some encouraging play down the stretch.  I'm guessing the best case scenario we can hope for is a protected pick allowing them to go after a big name free agent if they want, with Bradley, Bogaerts, Betts and Vazquez looking like they will be positive offensive contributors in 2015.
 
Edit: Apparently they are on a 73 win pace right now.  The last 5 days have thrown off my perception of the season a bit.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

38-29 the rest of the way, finishing at exactly .500.

 

[Apisith]

I saw a projection today having the Orioles and Jays finish with 84-86 wins, with us and TBR having the best record from here until the season ends. I don't know what that says about our schedule vs the leading teams' but if we could get on a run and win a few games against them, who knows? Anyway, I see us winning 81-86.

 

[JimD]

I think they have a nice little run of .575 ball in the second half and finish a game or two over .500 when the season ends.  Not enough to make the postseason but perhaps they get to play spoiler and trip up the O's in September.

 

[dynomite]

I decided to be generous and assume 87-75 would be good enough to make the playoffs for the sake of argument (the current pace of the 51-44 Mariners, currently in position for the 2nd Wild Card). As said above, the Sox are currently 43-52, with 67 games left to play.

To win these 87 games at this point the Red Sox would need to finish 44-23 (.657). It's possible... but unlikely.

To put this in perspective:
- This is a 106-win pace over a full season.
- The Oakland A's currently have the best record in baseball at a .621 pace (59-36).
- The 2013 Sox only went 39-26 (.600) in the 2nd half.
- Five teams pulled off a .657+ pace over a 67 game span last year: the Dodgers (who went an insane 53-17 from June 22nd to Sept 4th), the Pirates, the Cardinals, the A's, and the Rays.
- The last Red Sox team to play that well in the 2nd half were the 2004 Sox, who memorably went 50-26 (.658). That team also featured Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, and Manny Ramirez.

I harbor irrational hope that the kids will catch fire and storm through a mediocre AL East, but would be content if they go on a nice run, stay competitive, and finish ~.500.

 

[ookami7m]

I voted for the 77-81 range but that's assuming they don't trade Lester. If they do, it's because they're way under that pace, and will make it further under by doing so.

 

[MalzoneExpress]

I voted with my rose-colored glasses on. They play .600 ball the rest of the way and end up with 83 wins.

 

[RIrooter09]

78 wins is my prediction.  Optimistic about next year if we can re-sign Lester.

 

[TallManinOregon]

It will be fun to watch the kids play out the string. Trade a few pieces that don't matter and for the love of Pete, re-sign Lester... There will always be a guy that has an unusually strong second half and I hope it's Bogaerts... Pedey and Papi need to stay healthy and/or get healthy and do what they do and the rest will be fine. Play at or just above .500 and finish within a handful of the race and I'm good. 2015 is fine because 2004, 2007 and 2013 have happened in my lifetime... no complaints.

 

[C4CRVT]

Looks like playing Houston last weekend (one of the two teams demonstrably worse than the Sox) may be skewing the results
 
I was talking to an acquaintance at a birthday party who said we should look at trading Pedroia. While I was humoring him, in the back of my mind I was wondering...how hot would the Sox have to get to make the playoffs? I was wondering what people here thought. Thanks Dynomite for the info.
 

 

[Bone Chips]

I'm hoping they trade Lester, Peavy and Drew, so I am prepared for about 73 wins. All the signs point toward retooling for 2016 and beyond.

 

[Stitch01]

It will be fun to watch the kids play out the string. Trade a few pieces that don't matter and for the love of Pete, re-sign Lester... There will always be a guy that has an unusually strong second half and I hope it's Bogaerts... Pedey and Papi need to stay healthy and/or get healthy and do what they do and the rest will be fine. Play at or just above .500 and finish within a handful of the race and I'm good. 2015 is fine because 2004, 2007 and 2013 have happened in my lifetime... no complaints.

 I was thinking about this last week and I think that's Bogaerts getting back on track is my primary metric for success for the rest of the year.  Performance of the rest of the kids matters, Id like to lock up Lester, obviously it would be great if they got white hot and made a semi-miraculous playoff run.  Basically though, if we come out of this year looking at Bogaerts as a future cornerstone I'll have a hard time being upset with the rest of '14 and if we come out with lots of questions about his future it will be sort of a failure.  Building around the kids gets a lot shakier if X busts.

EDIT: Guess that's just stating the obvious, but X is so important to the future of the franchise that a continued tailspin would, IMO, make it a disappointing 2nd half even if a lot of the other stuff went right.

 

[bosockboy]

85 and nab the WC.

 

[Hank Scorpio]

89 wins, and they'll eek out the AL East. 
 
The team is going to go on an absolute tear. Vazquez is going to put on a defensive clinic. Napoli, Ortiz and Pedroia are all going to get hot at the same time. Bogaerts is going to snap out of his funk and hit like we all know he is capable of. Nava is going to continue to find his 2013 form. JBJ is going to continue his progression to becoming an on-base machine. Betts is going to be a useful player for the second half. Victorino is going to come back, and do a bunch of dramatic stuff, even if he can only play once a week.
 
And the pitching will continue to be great.

 

[RedOctober3829]

78 wins and 4th place.  The offense is way too sporadic for the team to go on a long run.  They'll show flashes of putting things together, but then go right back in an offensive funk for 4-5 straight games.  There just is too much of a hole to dig out of.

 

[Rasputin]

I think I see three scenarios and the problem is that I think the Sox will make minimal moves at the deadline, but it only takes one entirely plausible decision for that to be completely wrong.
 
It depends on management's desire to sign Lester. If they are willing to sign a single player in his thirties to a large contract, it makes sense to make minimal deals because contending in 2015 becomes a relatively simple matter. If they don't, it doesn't.
 
So, my most hopeful scenario. They reach agreement with Lester over the break, Bogaerts clears his head, Drew pulls his out of his rectum, and they both start hitting, nothing else goes wrong, and the Sox win more than the lion's share of the next twelve thirteen games, convincing management that contending this year is reasonable. They trade Mujica on the basis that someone is willing to overpay for someone with the ProvenCloser(TM) tag, install RDLR in the bullpen and put Peavy on a very short leash. If this happens, it will largely be on the backs of the Toronto Blue Jays who are the opponents in seven of those thirteen games. This will probably give Baltimore a pretty large lead. We play Baltimore six times in the last nineteen games. The problem is that after we play Houston on Aug 17 we don't play any really terrible teams for the rest of the season. We end up winning 86-90 games and taking the division.
 
Scenario two, they intend to re-sign Lester, things go well in the next thirteen games but not well enough. We make minimal moves, just like above, and play well but not well enough for the rest of the season, winning 82-85 games and end up missing out on the wild card by a few games.
 
Scenario three, they have no intention of signing Lester which makes assets signed for 2015 but not 2016 more valuable as trade chips than as players. They make big trades. Peavy, Mujica, Drew, Lester, Napoli, Doubront, We play well enough, all things considered, but end up a bit below .500.

 

[Rasputin]

For the Sox to win 86-90 games, they'd have to go between 43-24 and 47-20. Possible, but would be pretty fucking epic.

 
Pretty much the only way it's possible is for them to come out and win ten or more of the games before the deadline. That's really very unlikely, but would certainly qualify as epic.

 

[staz]

82 wins, tied for 2nd in the East with NYY, behind the Os.
 
Briefly within 2 games of a WC in mid-Sept., they tank the last week of the season after it's learned that Koji's UCL is torn to shreds.

 

[Rovin Romine]

I voted low.  Hard to tell without knowing the trade situation.  

 

[Cumberland Blues]

I'm smoking the same stuff as Hank Scorpio - 'cept I have us missing the postseason by an agonizingly close margin.  Against all logic - I see them making a big enough run to suck us into thinking they'll pull it off, only to come up just short.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

For the Sox to win 86-90 games, they'd have to go between 43-24 and 47-20. Possible, but would be pretty fucking epic.

 
Put it this way: They could reverse the 2011 team's September record, playing as well down the final month as that team played badly. And they would still need to win 2 out of 3 games between now and Labor Day in order for that to amount to 90 wins.
 
Or put it another way: in order to win 90 games the Sox would need to play .701 ball the rest of the way. According to Play Index, 26 teams in baseball history have done that in the second half. Only eight have done it in full 162-game seasons:
 
1970 Orioles (54-21, .720)
1977 Yankees (50-20, .714)
1993 Braves (54-19, .740)
1999 Diamondbacks (52-21, .712)
2001 Mariners (53-22, .707)
2001 Athletics (58-17, .773....holy crap)
2002 Athletics (53-21, .716....coming to a theater near you)
2009 Yankees (52-22, .703)
 
So, yeah, epic. But not unprecedented.

 

[bankshot1]

The math looks tough
The myth is more appealing
I'd love to see them go on an epic 2nd half run
 
 
maybe 84 wins
 
division can be had for 88-90

 

[Harry Hooper]

Sox play some entertaining ball after the ASG, but finish with 79 wins.

 

[cherno]

Look, this team is having a better second half than the Yanks, Jays, or Os. I think they will have a better overall record than the Yanks & Jays, and hopefully there will be enough time to catch the Os. I just hope the Rays regress after trading Price.

I'm an optimist. 88 wins.

 

[maxotaur]

I'm hoping they trade Lester, Peavy and Drew, so I am prepared for about 73 wins. All the signs point toward retooling for 2016 and beyond.

I'm hoping we trade all posters who want to trade Lester.

Or to be quite serious - exactly how do you plan to replace this man. Instead of just saying trade him will one person please provide a cogent answer as to where his quality is replaced. He is one of the VERY FEW reasons this poll isn't "is it still possible to to not finish with the worst record in the MLB".

Personally I don't want to be having this poll (will we finish above .500) at this point for the next 4 years.

Make a dammed smart statement or don't say it. If it's that you don't think we can resign him, fine - state that then.

And 77-80 wins is my estimate.

 

[maxotaur]

 
Put it this way: They could reverse the 2011 team's September record, playing as well down the final month as that team played badly. And they would still need to win 2 out of 3 games between now and Labor Day in order for that to amount to 90 wins.
 
Or put it another way: in order to win 90 games the Sox would need to play .701 ball the rest of the way. According to Play Index, 26 teams in baseball history have done that in the second half. Only eight have done it in full 162-game seasons:
 
1970 Orioles (54-21, .720)
1977 Yankees (50-20, .714)
1993 Braves (54-19, .740)
1999 Diamondbacks (52-21, .712)
2001 Mariners (53-22, .707)
2001 Athletics (58-17, .773....holy crap)
2002 Athletics (53-21, .716....coming to a theater near you)
2009 Yankees (52-22, .703)
 
So, yeah, epic. But not unprecedented.

Ok. No. Not unprecedented. But how many of those teams were terrible in the first half? My guess is that few, if any, played like clowns and suddenly played like all - time greats in the second. Baseball is an often unexplainable game but it's not magic.

Great research Hillbilly. But you know as well as me this is not going to happen.

 

[Boggs26]

My hope: Peavy, Drew, and some other lesser pieces are traded away (Gomes, Victorino, Napoli, Dubront also if the right deal comes along). The kids show lots of promise, and bursts of putting it all together. Overall though the team is an off-season from being ready and ends with the worst record in baseball and the #1 overall pick. 2015 is led by the killer Bs of Bogaerts, Betts, Bradley, and Brock and the Sox are the first team ever to go worst to first to worst to first again. 2015 world series lineup: Holt LF, Betts RF, Pedroia 2B, Ortiz DH, Bogaerts 3B, Napoli 1B, Vazquez C, Bradley CF, and Marrero SS. Lester, Lackey, Buch, and Workman as the playoff rotation.


In reality, I don't think the Sox will be bad enough to get the #1 pick - maybe somewhere 3-6 though - the rest of this I think is completely possible although it could be 2016 not 2015 where the youth lead the Sox on a world series run (not that I'd predict a win, but strong contention for a championship is likely in my opinion)

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

Ok. No. Not unprecedented. But how many of those teams were terrible in the first half? My guess is that few, if any, played like clowns and suddenly played like all - time greats in the second. Baseball is an often unexplainable game but it's not magic.

Great research Hillbilly. But you know as well as me this is not going to happen.

 
You're right, none of these teams was a losing team in the first half. But some of them came pretty close. The 2001 A's, for instance, played .506 ball in the first half, then .773 in the second half. That's a bigger improvement than we're asking of the Sox (.773-.506=.267 vs. .701-.453 = .248). And several of the other teams -- 77 Yankees, '93 Braves, '99 Diamondbacks -- played almost .200 better in the second half than the first. They were shuffling along in the low-to-mid .500s at the break. So it's not as if these were all teams that were dominating wire to wire and just used the second half to turn on the turbojets.
 
I mean, I don't think it's going to happen either. I'm just saying that it would not be unheard-of or bizarre. And I don't happen to agree with those who say it can't happen because the talent is lacking. This offense has been underperforming almost across the board in the first half--the only exceptions really have been Napoli and Holt. What happens if they all overperform in the second half? Could happen. Add a refurbed Buchholz and some good starts from the kids, and 47-20 is not at all out of the question. It's just highly unlikely.

 

[Bone Chips]

I'm hoping we trade all posters who want to trade Lester.
Or to be quite serious - exactly how do you plan to replace this man. Instead of just saying trade him will one person please provide a cogent answer as to where his quality is replaced. He is one of the VERY FEW reasons this poll isn't "is it still possible to to not finish with the worst record in the MLB".
Personally I don't want to be having this poll (will we finish above .500) at this point for the next 4 years.
Make a dammed smart statement or don't say it. If it's that you don't think we can resign him, fine - state that then.
And 77-80 wins is my estimate.

Read the Lester thread. I wanted Lester signed in the Spring, when it made sense. I was begging for it actually. Now, his value has increased to ridiculous proportions where it is stupid to sign him. That smart enough for you jack?

 

[Remagellan]

84 wins.  Energized by our young guns, we win the division in 1973 Mets-style, and go to the World Series and repeat behind the pitching of our re-upped ace Jon Lester.  
 
YOUTH GOTTA BELIEVE!  

 

[Rasputin]

Read the Lester thread. I wanted Lester signed in the Spring, when it made sense. I was begging for it actually. Now, his value has increased to ridiculous proportions where it is stupid to sign him. That smart enough for you jack?

It's actually pretty dumb. It assumes there was an agreement to be made in the spring and assumes any deal done now will be a stupid one when you don't know either.

 

[Bone Chips]

It's actually pretty dumb. It assumes there was an agreement to be made in the spring and assumes any deal done now will be a stupid one when you don't know either.

Yeah, other than the fact that all the evidence available suggests there was an agreement to be made in the spring, includes Gammon's tweet this morning that Lester would have accepted a deal at 6/105. But don't let the facts get in the way. After all, nobody was in the room, right?

The window to sign Lester was in the spring. His value now is though the roof and too high for my taste. So trade him while is value is maximized and there is a small likelihood that you'll resign him anyways. How is that dumb again? Please enlighten us.

 

[Rasputin]

Yeah, other than the fact that all the evidence available suggests there was an agreement to be made in the spring, includes Gammon's tweet this morning that Lester would have accepted a deal at 6/105. But don't let the facts get in the way. After all, nobody was in the room, right?

The window to sign Lester was in the spring. His value now is though the roof and too high for my taste. So trade him while is value is maximized and there is a small likelihood that you'll resign him anyways. How is that dumb again? Please enlighten us.

 
And if the Sox weren't willing to go six years and a hundred million? Your assertion that a deal was do be done doesn't make it true.
 
It's entirely possible, maybe even probable, that the Sox put into a place a policy of not paying big bucks contracts to guys on the wrong side of thirty. It's entirely possible that in spring, they didn't think Lester was a guy to make an exception for. It's entirely probable that Lester had a different view of what he was worth to the point where there was no overlap. And it's entirely likely that they decided to back burner things amicably so management could see what Lester did in the first 95 games with Lester confident he'd perform well. And it's entirely possible that Lester's performance so far this year has forced management to change their opinion on whether to make Lester an exception to the rule.
 
I mean, fuck, people, the fact that no agreement has been reached yet does not mean anyone fucked up. It does not mean there's animosity between the parties. It does not mean anything other than that they haven't reached an agreement. 

 

[Bone Chips]

In answer to your first question, if the Sox weren't willing to go 6/105 for Lester back in the Spring then they made a colossal blunder. The only possible argument you could construct otherwise is if they plan on selling the team. You want to know my honest opinion? The Sox got too enamored with their own success and got greedy. The old phrase - pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.

There were a few of us in here that raised the alarm bells back in the Spring, asking the question if the Sox had a "strategy", if the pendulum had shifted too much in the other direction with regard to signing top tier free agents... Less than 5 minutes after Lester threw the one hitter I posted that the price was going to go through the roof if they waited any longer and that they needed to lock this guy ASAP. My ideas weren't exactly embraced back then, the consensus being that long term contracts to pitchers over 30 never work out. So here were are on 7/15, and I'm now being called dumb for not wanting the Sox to sign him for a ridiculous contract like 6/150. It's like the twilight zone.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

In answer to your first question, if the Sox weren't willing to go 6/105 for Lester back in the Spring then they made a colossal blunder.

 
We don't know they were unwilling to do that then, and we also don't know that they were ever presented with the opportunity to agree to such a deal.
 
Which is Ras's overall point here.  We don't know enough about any aspect of these negotiations to draw any conclusions whatsoever.  We can't assign blame or give credit until Lester signs a deal with someone whether it is tomorrow or 5-6 months from now.

 

[Rasputin]

In answer to your first question, if the Sox weren't willing to go 6/105 for Lester back in the Spring then they made a colossal blunder. The only possible argument you could construct otherwise is if they plan on selling the team. 

 
Do you realize that you just said it was impossible for Lester to be anything other than awesome this year?
 
I ask because that's a pretty dumb thing to say.
 

There were a few of us in here that raised the alarm bells back in the Spring, asking the question if the Sox had a "strategy", if the pendulum had shifted too much in the other direction with regard to signing top tier free agents... Less than 5 minutes after Lester threw the one hitter I posted that the price was going to go through the roof if they waited any longer and that they needed to lock this guy ASAP. My ideas weren't exactly embraced back then, the consensus being that long term contracts to pitchers over 30 never work out. So here were are on 7/15, and I'm now being called dumb for not wanting the Sox to sign him for a ridiculous contract like 6/150. It's like the twilight zone. 
 

 
Oh my goodness gracious!
 
Nobody gives a fuck what you posted when. And if you don't even understand why someone is calling you dumb, doesn't that pretty much prove the point?
 
You refuse to acknowledge that there was any chance that signing Lester to a six year, hundred million dollar deal in spring training could have turned out anything but well.
 
You refuse to acknowledge that there is any chance that signing Lester to a six year, hundred and fifty dollar deal now could turn out to to be anything but bad.
 
Both positions are absurd. There is always a chance things will go poorly. There is always a chance things will go well. There are even times when it's perfectly reasonable to accept the chance that things go belly up as the price to be paid for the chance that things go really well.

 

[Bone Chips]

So I'll boil down your ridiculous argument into one sentence.... You feel that. 6/105 offer for Lester only made sense if they had the foresight he would have an awesome year. Got it.

And you're calling other people dumb?

 

[dynomite]

  There just is too much of a hole to dig out of.

This is the problem, in a nutshell. The Red Sox could be the best team in baseball in the 2nd half and STlLL not make the playoffs. (Frustrating to think it could be a different story if they could have eeked out just a few more of those 1-run games.)

Also, I found an old Verducci article that claims only two sub-.500 teams at the ASB made the playoffs in the Wild Card era:
- 1997 Astros (43-45) (Note: This record left them 1 game back for 1st place behind the 43-43 Pirates. So.)
- 2003 Twins (44-49)

 

[Rasputin]

So I'll boil down your ridiculous argument into one sentence.... You feel that. 6/105 offer for Lester only made sense if they had the foresight he would have an awesome year. Got it.

And you're calling other people dumb?

 
I wasn't, really, I was calling what you said dumb, but you seem intent on saying dumb things so I may be forced to accept that it's not just that you said something dumb because everyone says dumb things, but that you actually are a butt reaming moron.
 
I'll refrain from coming to any conclusions for now and just point out that the conclusion you draw up above is incorrect. At no point in this discussion have I said what I feel about 6/105 for Lester in the spring because I don't have any feelings about it. 
 
You said there was a deal to be made in spring training. You want it to sound like it was incredibly stupid for the Sox not to sign Lester to that contract which ignores the fact that in 2012 and 2013 he had as many months with an ERA over 7 as he did with an ERA below 3 and that he had an ERA below 3.5 four times in twelve months (sticking March in with April, and October in with September.) 
 
Are you really suggesting that not signing that guy to a six year, hundred million dollar contract is a colossal blunder? Because it isn't. Not by any strech of anything resembling a reasonable imagination. A lot of guys with a recent history like that are going to crash and burn.
 
Not signing Lester to 6/105 in that situation is not a colossal blunder, and you can only think it is if you either assume, or have knowledge that his performance in 2014 would be much better than 2013. You're the one making that assumption and it isn't a reasonable one to make.
 
Fast forward a little, even to today and we have three more months of ERA below four, two more with an ERA below 3.5, and oh yeah, the one month he has with an ERA below 3 is also a month with an ERA below 2 and so far in July, an ERA below 1.
 
In short, it's entirely reasonable that 2014 to date or in it's entirety has or will convince management that Lester's good years aren't going to be a little bit above average the way 2013 was in its entirety, but well above average as he was from 2008 though 2011 and has been so far in 2014.
 
You're acting like the dollars are all important and his performance is irrelevant which is an absurd position to take when there is a decent chance that management is quite happy to pay an extra forty or fifty million for the higher level of confidence they have in his future performance based on the time that has elapsed (he's a year closer to the start of the contract) and the fact that his recent performance has been so much better than 2012.
 
Even if it costs them an extra fifty million, that's just a bit more than eight million a year which isn't all that big a deal for a team that regularly has a payroll twenty times that amount and has not one or two but several players who aren't going to be free agents until very late in the contract or later.
 
I mean, fuck, you act like changing your mind based on new data is a colossal blunder and that's just pure nonsense. It's an absurd position to take and rather than digging in, you should just say you spoke before you thought it through.
 
Edit--also, if you want to continue this, let's move over to the Lester thread, shall we?

 

[Rasputin]

This is the problem, in a nutshell. The Red Sox could be the best team in baseball in the 2nd half and STlLL not make the playoffs. (Frustrating to think it could be a different story if they could have eeked out just a few more of those 1-run games.)

Also, I found an old Verducci article that claims only two sub-.500 teams at the ASB made the playoffs in the Wild Card era:
- 1997 Astros (43-45) (Note: This record left them 1 game back for 1st place behind the 43-43 Pirates. So.)
- 2003 Twins (44-49)

 
This is very much true which is combined with the fact that the "second half" is only 67 games. 
 
If this team is to do anything, it really needs an outlier, Morgan Magic level winning streak and it needs it before the deadline that's two weeks away.

 

[The Gray Eagle]

 
Put it this way: They could reverse the 2011 team's September record, playing as well down the final month as that team played badly. And they would still need to win 2 out of 3 games between now and Labor Day in order for that to amount to 90 wins.
 
Or put it another way: in order to win 90 games the Sox would need to play .701 ball the rest of the way. According to Play Index, 26 teams in baseball history have done that in the second half. Only eight have done it in full 162-game seasons:
 
1970 Orioles (54-21, .720)
1977 Yankees (50-20, .714)
1993 Braves (54-19, .740)
1999 Diamondbacks (52-21, .712)
2001 Mariners (53-22, .707)
2001 Athletics (58-17, .773....holy crap)
2002 Athletics (53-21, .716....coming to a theater near you)
2009 Yankees (52-22, .703)
 
So, yeah, epic. But not unprecedented.

 
Another problem: all but one of those teams had at least 73 games left after the all-star break. Some had 75. (77 Yankees had 70.) The Sox have already played 95 games this year, leaving only 67 to go. That is a huge difference.
 
I really hope this team can get hot and get back into the race. We're not winning the World Series this year and even making the playoffs is a tremendously huge longshot. But maybe we could get within 4 games or so of first place at some point if we got hot and the division continued to suck. That would make some of the remaining games meaningful, as long as we stayed in that range. That is what I am hoping for at this point, meaningful games. 
 
It would be horrible if this team played 0 meaningful games after May.100 games of garbage time is just awful, especially for defending champs with a big payroll. If we could recover from the first rotten 90 games of this season to actually play meaningful games in August or even September, that would be a nice present. 
 
The last chance for us to realistically make a move toward meaningful games was that last homestand-- 10 games against the last place Cubs, our division rival Orioles and the mediocre White Sox, all at Fenway. The team didn't even show up for the first 7 games though. If we had taken two of 3 from the lowly Cubs and then 2 of 3 from Baltimore, we'd be 6.5 games out of first right now, even with the godawful loss in Houston. But it didn't happen. We just dug the hole even deeper, before waking up against the White Sox.
 
Meaningful games still could happen, but it's going to take a lot of winning, right away. That's my goal, along with finishing ahead of the Yankees. Any season you finish ahead of the Yankees can't be that bad (well it could still be really bad, but finishing behind them always makes everything worse.) We're 4.5 behind them now, and they just lost Tanaka for a long time, so both of those goals are still possible, though not likely.

 

[Rasputin]

Meaningful games still could happen, but it's going to take a lot of winning, right away. That's my goal, along with finishing ahead of the Yankees. Any season you finish ahead of the Yankees can't be that bad (well it could still be really bad, but finishing behind them always makes everything worse.) We're 4.5 behind them now, and they just lost Tanaka for a long time, so both of those goals are still possible, though not likely.

 
If we get the winning streak we need, a lot of it is going to come at the expense of the Blue Jays. Combined with the Tanaka injury, it's likely that would mean we would soon be in second place with a pretty big lead for the Orioles.
 
That's when it becomes relevant that six of the last nineteen games are against the Orioles.
 
Which is to say, if we get the win streak we need, we're going to have a whole bunch of meaningful games.

 

[Rovin Romine]

 
Do you realize that you just said it was impossible for Lester to be anything other than awesome this year?
 

 
I don't know if it's a data point in the Endless Lester Debate or not, but Lester did go a full season and then pitched another 30+ innings in the post season. I'm sure the Sox try to track stress on their pitchers.  If Lester experienced any kind of soreness or discomfort known only to the Sox, or was bumping up against any kind of high usage benchmarks, it's very rational to make a conservative or lowball initial offer, then to see if he continues to pitch well.  

 

[maxotaur]

Read the Lester thread. I wanted Lester signed in the Spring, when it made sense. I was begging for it actually. Now, his value has increased to ridiculous proportions where it is stupid to sign him. That smart enough for you jack?

No. Not really. He is arguably the most difficult to replace player on the Sox. Aces don't grow on trees. You are hardly the sole person to give that opinion. Thus my frustration - I've yet to hear any single one of them state where we get anyone close to replacing him.

I know it was Bastille Day - but "off with their heads" requires heads to replace them with.

So again - you trade our ace. Who do we get similar value back from?

 

[Plympton91]

This is the problem, in a nutshell. The Red Sox could be the best team in baseball in the 2nd half and STlLL not make the playoffs. (Frustrating to think it could be a different story if they could have eeked out just a few more of those 1-run games.)

Also, I found an old Verducci article that claims only two sub-.500 teams at the ASB made the playoffs in the Wild Card era:
- 1997 Astros (43-45) (Note: This record left them 1 game back for 1st place behind the 43-43 Pirates. So.)
- 2003 Twins (44-49)

Their record in 1 run games is 17-20, which isn't that far off from the .500 you'd pretty much expect; the problem is that their offense is so awful that they've played 37 1-run games despite having an above average pitching staff.

What about the Colorado Rockies in 2007? They won 20 straight to finish the season; they must've been close to or under 500 at some point.

I really hope this team can get hot and get back into the race. We're not winning the World Series this year and even making the playoffs is a tremendously huge longshot. But maybe we could get within 4 games or so of first place at some point if we got hot and the division continued to suck. That would make some of the remaining games meaningful, as long as we stayed in that range. That is what I am hoping for at this point, meaningful games.

Well, they're not going to win the post-season tournament championship unless they actually make the post-season, but with Lester, Lackey, and a rejuvenated Buchholz I'd have to give them at least a puncher's chance at winning the championship if they can get to the tournament.

No. Not really. He is arguably the most difficult to replace player on the Sox. Aces don't grow on trees. You are hardly the sole person to give that opinion. Thus my frustration - I've yet to hear any single one of them state where we get anyone close to replacing him.

I know it was Bastille Day - but "off with their heads" requires heads to replace them with.

So again - you trade our ace. Who do we get similar value back from?

Yeah, put me down as another one of the stupid people who will be absolutely pissed if it is confirmed that the Red Sox passed up the chance to sign Lester for 6/$105 in the spring. Absent some propriety information about his physical health that only they are in possession of, that is as big a no-brainer as the Pedroia deal was. If the only reason they turned that down was because of their discomfort with long-term contracts to pitchers, they better damn well hope they continue to have a greater than average hit rate on draft picks turning into prospects and prospects turning into all-stars.

 

[dynomite]

Their record in 1 run games is 17-20, which isn't that far off from the .500 you'd pretty much expect; the problem is that their offense is so awful that they've played 37 1-run games despite having an above average pitching staff.

What about the Colorado Rockies in 2007? They won 20 straight to finish the season; they must've been close to or under 500 at some point.

Yeah, the 1-run games aren't the real story, but they feel like low hanging fruit because you can play "what if" with a few ABs.

As for the '07 Rockies, they actually went into the ASB exactly .500 at 44-44. To illustrate the difficulty of the task the Red Sox face: despite winning 13 of their final 14 regular season* games, those '07 Rockies only played at a .608 pace post-ASB, well short of what the '14 Sox will need to do to make the playoffs.

* I am not considering the Rockies' one-game playoff against San Diego a regular season game.

 

[smastroyin]

There are two super huge variables which could affect how things go forward.  I'm not breaking a lot of new ground here.  The first, obviously, are what deadline deals they make.  If they decide to deal Lester and that also means a fire sale of Gomes, Drew, and others just to clear the roster and reset, then I don't think they are really capable of even playing .500 ball.
 
I chose the 81-86 option to be optimistic but it is optimistic.  I could also see them playing worse the rest of the year than they have thus far and not be surprised, though that is more my own malaise at their long slump than it is an honest assessment of their talent.

 

[jscola85]

If the Sox kept on their current pace, they'd likely win another 30 games, so 73 total.  Assuming the team stays mostly intact from here out, there's a few catalysts that could improve the team in the second half of the year:
 
Return of Shane Victorino - +3 wins - our non-Holt RFs have been worth about 0 wins this year.  If Victorino can come back and play 60+ games at the level he did last year, that would be a drastic improvement
 
Bounce-back of Clay Buchholz - +2 wins - if Buchholz's last start is an indication of a return to form, another 13 starts of #2 starter-caliber pitching would be a substantial improvement of what he has done YTD
 
League-average hitting from JBJ - +1 wins - if JBJ's recent improvement at the plate is sustainable (and he retains his GG-caliber defense), that's likely a net improvement of 1-2 wins.  He's -10 runs with the bat YTD so going to zero is about 1 win right there
 
Bounce-back of Stephen Drew - +2 wins - Drew was worth 3.4 wins per Fangraphs last year in 124 games.  If he can return to that form for the last 70 games of 2014, that would be 1.9 wins
 
Improved output at 3B - +2 wins - Bogaerts has been roughly replacement level.  If he bounces back or Holt takes over for him there full time, you could see a 2 win improvement there
 
That's about all I can even optimistically hope for, short of a trade for help in somewhere like left field.  That would improve our win total from 30 to 40, which takes us to 83 wins instead of 73.  To find another 6-7 wins on top of that would require remarkable luck in 1-run games, a total breakout from someone like Bogaerts, or making a really good trade.