After that ridiculous 33-13 thrashing of the White Sox, the Red Sox are now third in AL in runs (8 behind NYY and 10 behind LAA) and 5th in run differential behind the division leaders and LAA.
Red Sox ‘22 offense: offensively offensive
- Thread starter soxhop411
- Start date
If I did the math right Verdugo now has a 692 ops over the last 5 series, which dates back to when the Sox hot streak started, before that he had a 573 ops. League average this year is 691.
Yup. The moment I decide to trash Verdugo he ends up with a great game and I end up with egg on my face. Maybe I need to start trashing Dalbec.
The improved offense is great to see, but we do have to note that after 3 games, they only crept one game closer to .500. Let's hope they run off a string of wins against the Orioles, no matter how infinitesimally it may raise their run differential.
A 10 game stretch against the Orioles, Reds, and As should be good for both their run differential and their actual wins. If they don't win at least 7 of these it'll be a disappointment.
Verdugo still has a -0.5 WAR on the year so I'd suggest continuing to trash him until he's at least at replacement level.
Dalbec seemingly has a much longer way to go even though he's "only" at -0.6 WAR.
That is a point that is often lost in discussing whether, or how much, a player is sucking this year.
And it's an absolutely HUGE point.
And for all the shit that Christian Vazquez was taken earlier in the year, he now has an OPS+ of 102 at .273/.330/.375.
Verdugo, Bradley and Enrique are all trending in the right direction to and are now all at least above an OPS+ of 70.
When the league average line is so low, it's also a lot easier to get back to league average.
Sox are now 1st in the AL in average (.255), 5th in OBP (.312) 3rd in slugging (.409), 3rd in OPS (.720).
The offense is no longer offensive. It's actually good. That's despite a 1b with an OPS+ of 43 and 3 OFs with an OPS+ of 72-77. Though, again, the 3 OF are on the up.
Verdugo has been one of the biggest xBA underperformers so far. He's hitting .232, but his xBA is .294. He has seen his LD% drop from 21.7% last year to just 15.7% this year, and his FB% is up to 35% from 28.6% last year. His 49.3% GB% is in line with 2021 (49.7%) and slightly below his career average. The contrast between his SLG (.348) and xSLG (.539) is even crazier.
https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/hitter-xba-underperformers-may-25-2022/
https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/hitter-xba-underperformers-may-25-2022/
Scouting him is the answer here, my guess is that he's still trying to uppercut everything out of the park and the weather/ball/his strength isn't enough to reward such an approach.
The low LD% is a major problem and that's where he need to focus. Enough with trying to hit everything out of the park.
The low LD% is a major problem and that's where he need to focus. Enough with trying to hit everything out of the park.
Also, it's still silly season with sample sizes.
Verdugo's first 63 PA this year: .291/.341/.491 on a .265 BAbip
Next 80 PA: .145/.163/.184 on a .164 BAbip
Last 26 PA: .375/.423/.542 on a .429 BAbip
169 PA is a super small sample size and it's a sample size that possibly includes his worst 80 PA stretch of the year. His BAbip for the year now sits at .241. If his BAbip were at his career rate of .324 going into the season, he'd be slashing .297/.331/.413.
Verdugo's first 63 PA this year: .291/.341/.491 on a .265 BAbip
Next 80 PA: .145/.163/.184 on a .164 BAbip
Last 26 PA: .375/.423/.542 on a .429 BAbip
169 PA is a super small sample size and it's a sample size that possibly includes his worst 80 PA stretch of the year. His BAbip for the year now sits at .241. If his BAbip were at his career rate of .324 going into the season, he'd be slashing .297/.331/.413.
But he's not. And it's not all bad luck. He's not hitting line drives. His hitting approach is wrong.
Moving this over here
These are some insane stats.
View: https://twitter.com/dakern74/status/1530039729260924929
These are some insane stats.
View: https://twitter.com/dakern74/status/1530046860869750784
View: https://twitter.com/dakern74/status/1530039729260924929
View: https://twitter.com/dakern74/status/1530047090667438081
Not sure how to find the answer. we know offense is down. Has Babip remained "normal" across MLB?
His teammates have certainly started to hit, to the excuse of the ball and weather is no longer valid. Which leaves approach. His BABIP being low is likely due to his continued flyouts to the warning track.
Nope. The league average BABIP is currently .286, which is down from .292 in 2020-21. It would be the lowest BABIP across the league since 1992 (.285).
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/pitch.shtml
I suppose we can say he's started to hit as well. We'll see how far it goes.
Wonderful. If this keeps up pretty soon he'll get that WAR up above 0.0!
He needs to do better. Period, end of story. If it's all bad luck I'd expect that to change soon. If it's not, and I don't think it is, he needs to change his approach. We'll see.
.826 OPS over his last 8 games. He IS doing better. But I'd agree that he needs to keep this up to be a positive contributor.
In 2013 the Red Sox main third baseman had an OPS+ of 87
In 2007 their SS's OPS+ was 65. Their CF was 83
I won't even mention Pokey in 2004.
Everyone doesn't have to be above average or reach their potential for the team to be successful
Of course not. A 26 year old outfielder theoretically in his prime who was the centerpiece of a trade of an MVP level player, however, does need to reach or exceed his potential for the team to achieve anything.
He's not expected to be a role player like he's Austin Davis or something. He's expected to be a starting outfielder and provide a major amount of contributions to this team, and he's come nowhere close to achieving that this year.
We are well past the looking glass here. Verdugo is not pulling his expected weight. The reasons for that are unclear and up for discussion, but he needs to figure this out. He's supposed to be a solid foundation piece. Instead he's been an anchor in every part of the game.
If Verdugo doesn’t meet or exceed his expectations, the team can’t succeed? Come on, that’s absurd.
Your 26 year old starting LFer takes the season off and people think they'll be fine? That's what's absurd.
He had 4 hits last night and he's still got a -0.5 WAR this year. That's how bad he's been. Of course they can't succeed unless he gets this shit figured out.
He had 4 hits last night and he's still got a -0.5 WAR this year. That's how bad he's been. Of course they can't succeed unless he gets this shit figured out.
I didn’t say they will be fine, I said they could be fine. Verdugo’s individual performance isn’t likely to be the determining factor over whether the Sox have a good or bad season.
I am with Smiling Joe. I hope his performance yesterday is a sign of things to come, but we are almost to June. It is not like the Sox don't have options here. If he doesn't continue to improve, they need to send Dalbec down and call up either Duran or Casas (however you spell his name). Verdugo can then be the backup outfielder who does not play against lefties.
Unfortunately, he gets most of his value from batting average so he's a slave to BAbip. This is even more true this year where he is sporting a career low K% and BB%. I'm sure it's not 100% bad luck. Some of it is probably mental. But with better luck, that goes away. I also have no clue what causes the huge difference in LD% from FG to BBref, but BBref has Verdugo's LD% at 20.7%. That is still low, the 2 previous years were 26.8% and 24.5%.
I'm not a huge Verdugo fan but I'm not going to address the situation 169 PA into the season. He's on a 3 game hitting streak and has had 3 hits in 2 of the last 5 games. Hopefully, the trend continues and his BAbip starts to climb back to career norms. Like you said though, we'll see. Or we won't. Maybe he's already made those changes.
Then again, I'd be on board with replacing Dalbec and he's only at 126 PA for the year. He doesn't have Verdugo's track record though.
Huh? You are going to bench Verdugo against LH….but let Bradley or Duran start against them? Verdugo hasn’t been getting the results but his EV and Hard hit % are above his career norms, and his strikeout rates are below. He will be fine.
I will believe he will be fine when his numbers indicate that he is fine. He had a great game yesterday and that was wonderful. He is still at a negative 0.5 War. So yeah I would rather have Duran work on getting at bats vs lefties then Verdugo who we know sucks vs lefties.
While this is true, it's a bit misleading without context. Those clubs were offensive powerhouses that carried weaker offensive players (often those who held down key defensive positions and so had positive value overall: Cabrera, Pokey, Crisp, Lugo, yes, even Middlebrooks, though marginally.)
Right now, the 2022 club is 3rd best in the AL by runs. If they keep that up, they can likely carry a weak bat, maybe two.
But 4 or 5 semi-regulars? That would require epic seasons from some key players.
This is interesting. Verdugo would probably have twice as many homers if he played for just about anyone else in the league.
Whatever's happening is more about external factors than any skill erosion on his part (though he's been really bad at hitting sliders this year). I think the dude should concentrate on hitting line drives, but he'll be fine. But this sort of thing is exactly the source of my bias against the Sox staffing left-handed hitters with middling power in traditional power positions like the outfield corners. (Prime JBJ was the exception in the last decade or so because besides being an elite CF, he used the Monster better than just about anyone.)
RAW OPS numbers, but's the best I could find.
C: 17th (.611)
1b: 30th (.493)
2b: 5th (.741)
SS: 3rd (.820)
3b: 3rd (.966)
LF: 19th (.658)
CF: 21st (.620)
RF: 25th (.558)
DH: 2nd (.951)
PH: 12th (.686)
That's roughly a
49 OPS+ for 1b
62 OPS+ for RF
77 OPS+ for CF
74 OPS+ for C
Everyone doesn't need to be above average or even average. A team can usually carry a catcher and another dead bat. It would be hard to carry 4 positions averaging a 65.5 OPS amongst them all season. That's 44% of your lineup. Luckily, the 3 OF and Vazquez have been trending up. I think your post doesn't make the point you intended it to. The 2022 Redsox currently have 4 players worse than their 2013 3b and they have 4 players combined hitting about as well as their 2007 SS.
What are the options? I get Enrique and JBJ offer defense, but they are also on the wrong side of 30 whereas Verdugo just turned 26. Calling up Duran is an option but 2 of Verdugo/JBJ/Enrique are going to have to continue to hit at close to an average level.
Dalbec is another matter. Casas is currently injured so they can't call him up and he's not exactly destroying AAA pitching anyway (.248/.359/.457). I'd like to see Ryan Fitzgerald called up. He's played every position but 1b and is already 27. No worry about rushing him. It would just require adding him to the 40. He's slashing .303/.365/.600 with 11bb/47k in 173 PA. That's a ton of power, and it's not Worcester. (.313/.365/.672 in 74 Road PA).
edit: every position but C, not 1b.
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Good stuff. And yeah, I know there are 4 subpar hitters in the lineup. I think there were 6 2 weeks ago (or was it 7)? Just trying to point out what you said better: You can win it all with 1 or 2 subpar bats in the lineup. Verdugo doesn't make up for it with his glove like Reese or Crisp did, but that doesn't make it a fatal flaw
There's another WooSox player hitting better than Fitzgerald, and wouldn't add to our LHH outfielder redundancy.
Fitzgerald - .303/.360/.600, 6.4 BB%, 27.2 K%, .297 ISO, .370 BABIP, 150 wRC+ in 173 PA
Refsnyder - .299/.425/.505, 14.9 BB%, 20.1 K%, .206 ISO, .359 BABIP, 153 wRC+ in 134 PA
Fitzgerald is obviously better and more versatile defensively, but right now Arroyo handles that. To me, Refsnyder (still) more capably fills out the JBJ/Franchy platoon, especially if we send Bob down.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/team_compare.cgi
If people are curious. There's a pull down menu in the upper right corner where you can change from WAR to OPS or whatever.
Refsnyder isn’t on the 40-man either, though. Seems like you could move Darwinzon to the 60 day to make room; but they will have some difficult decisions to make once and if they need to activate Taylor, Sale, and Paxton.
If his hitting approach is off though, then wouldn't you expect to see some sort of change when comparing him to previous years (when he was a more effective hitter)? Is his swing really all that different? I've tried to compare clips of his from 2021 vs. 2022 and his swing looks pretty similar. Here is a 2021 vs. 2022 at-bat. (I used MLB Film room to make two clips, both of swings on a cutter in). I agree that a swing designed to hit fly balls may not be optimal given the deadened ball, but I don't see any significant changes in the way his swing looks. And given how finicky swings are, I don't know if I want him trying a mechanical overhaul after a bad month, especially one that could just as easily be fueled by bad BABIP luck. I know you've said that scouting is what is needed to explain his issues, since the underlying stats (such as xwOBA) aren't matching it up so...is there something that has changed in his swing? Otherwise I guess this is coming down to "how much do you want a hitter to tinker with his swing?"
Fangraphs gets their batted ball data from Baseball Info Solutions, so it’s not public info how they determine line drive vs. fly ball etc. They do say, however, that the lines are somewhat arbitrary and imprecise. It seems like Verdugo has had several hits that are on the border of line drive and fly ball, and FG says fly ball while Bref says line drive, although I can’t find anywhere where Bref says where they get their batted ball data
So are you theorizing that a descriptive stat will trend more positive as he starts to produce more positive results?
Verdugo has been an average hitter for 2 weeks now, no one has really noticed because his 97 wrc+ over that 2 weeks span puts him NINTH out of the Sox 10 "regulars", ahead of only Dalbec. He's been hitting fine and appears to be trending upward, it just looks bad because everyone else is hitting even better. Of course his war is still negative because he started so bad, but unless you think that's his true talent then it's pretty meaningless to going forward.
2 more hits for Verdugo tonight. At this rate he might be replacement level in a week!
Seriously it’s good to see him get untracked. Line drives instead of uppercuts are the way to go.
Seriously it’s good to see him get untracked. Line drives instead of uppercuts are the way to go.
Remarkably, this team is now 2nd in the AL in runs, 1st in BA, 2nd in SLG, 3rd in OBP, and 2nd in OPS. They’re also now way behind their pythagorean record (27-21) so yeah…April sucked.
Okay, but isn't that all factored into the xBA, xSLG, xWOBA type numbers?
Balls hit at those trajectories *and velocities* are expected to produce those outcomes, in order to provide a more nuanced prediction than simple BABIP. So if he's garnering those xWOBA numbers, doesn't that suggest that he *is* strong enough to take that approach?
We're still only talking about a sample of 150ish balls in play.
To be fair, this may be a terrible time to replace Dalbec. He's on a 4 game hitting streak with 2 homeruns.
I'd give Dalbec time to regain some of his value, shortly before trading him to help reload the farm at the youngest levels.
He's still learning to play 1st, but IMO he's doing better. The Sox are better off with him in RF than Arroyo. His bat is keeping him in the lineup and Dalbec has taken notice. Yep, he seems to have become a thing. A good thing, at least for the time being. Let's hope that 2022 is the year that Franchy Cordero permanently sheds the AAAA label.
Now at a .264 BAbip.
Last 17 games: .333/.378/.449 on a .371 BAbip. 74 PA, 4bb/7k.
Season: .250/.290/.360, OPS+ of 83 and climbing.