The offense has been horrible

JFS7 · Jun 23, 2014

here's a good take on dusty and his diminishing ops

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/81073376/dustin-pedroia-boston-red-sox-power-numbers-down#!2AVJx

BosRedSox5 · Jun 23, 2014

JFS7 said:
here's a good take on dusty and his diminishing ops

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/81073376/dustin-pedroia-boston-red-sox-power-numbers-down#!2AVJx

I feel like the author kind of glossed over Pedroia's injury history. He was very thorough about everything else and sort of offhandedly mentioned the thumb injury. I'm sure that's causing some of the power outage. I was there at Coors Field when he had his 3 HR game in 2010, he seemed unstoppable, but he's been nursing some injuries... and he's played in all but two games this season.

A workhorse like Pedroia who is an excellent defensive 2B is still going to earn every dollar of the extension he signed, even if he was an average hitter... but I'm not that worried. This team stinks and Pedroia has been forced into the #3 hole with no support. When this offense improves, he'll improve.

threecy · Jun 23, 2014

With regard to the offense in general, it's certainly not the lack of talent or potential that's hurting the Sox, but rather that few of the players are hitting as well as they may be expected.
With regard to Pedroia, it would be interesting to know how much his knee injury (the one they sent him to Boston to have checked out earlier this season) is affecting him, as well as how his thumb is holding up. Presumably the foot injury from a few years ago is no longer a factor.
I don't know how one would go about finding this out, but I think it would be interesting to see Pedroia's splits for when Ellsbury is on base. I suspect that, with Ellsbury's speed (and thus necessary approach by the pitcher/fielders) and Pedroia's advanced approach to the game, he may have been taking advantage of that to get more hits to drop in (I certainly remember seeing bloopers to right dropping into due to defensive alignment).
Also with regard to his slugging, if his batting average was at the normal .300 Pedroia level, his slugging percentage would be above league average.

Savin Hillbilly · Jun 29, 2014

At the halfway mark, the Sox are now on a pace to score 606 runs. Only the last-place 1992 Sox have scored fewer runs than that in a full season since 1945. That mark would be 247 runs below last year's, which would be easily the biggest offensive dropoff in franchise history.

Snodgrass'Muff · Jun 29, 2014

Not specific to the offense, but they are only 4 games ahead of the Rays who currently have the worst record in the majors. If the team decides they are sellers, there is a realistic possibility that they go from World Series champions to the worst record in the sport, which would be the first time that's ever happened in the 4 major North American sports leagues.

Snodgrass'Muff · Jun 29, 2014

Huh. I should have remembered that. A google search came up with nothing and a lot of discussion about the Bulls after Jordan's last title being the closest with a drop to the 3rd worst record.

Edit: I could amend that to best record and a title to worst record to eliminate the Marlins, but I'm not confident enough in my google-fu to make another declaration.

Plympton91 · Jun 29, 2014

Who are the consensus top 3 picks next year? Any franchise altering talent available?

OttoC · Jun 29, 2014

Rudy Pemberton said:
The 1997-98 Marlins say hi.

I do believe the Sox have never been the worst team in the league for a given year.

Since you seem to have refuted the Red Sox of having been a first-to-last club, I'm not quite sure how to interpret your statement that you think they have never been the worst team, but they had the worst winning percentage in the Majors in 1906, 1922, 1923, and 1932 (.279).

Doctor G · Jun 29, 2014

The team commitment to driving up pitch counts might not be universally accepted by the hitters. It does seem that the hitters are almost unanimous in blaming bad numbers on the power arms that are coming out of bullpens these days. is this approach becoming counter productive at the major league level?

SouthernBoSox · Jun 29, 2014

Doctor G said:
The team commitment to driving up pitch counts might not be universally accepted by the hitters. It does seem that the hitters are almost unanimous in blaming bad numbers on the power arms that are coming out of bullpens these days. is this approach becoming counter productive at the major league level?

It worked, literally, one year ago and for the most part of a decade.

The offense sucks because the majority of the players are having coinciding down seasons.

Holt and Napoli and basically the only ones achieving above or at their projected abilities and they haven't been with the club the entire year.

aksoxfan · Jul 1, 2014

Rudy Pemberton said:
The Red Sox now rank last in the AL in runs scored (5 less than Houston, who has played one more game). They also rank last in SLG (.366, .003 behind the Twins).

I didn't think they were hitting that well.

Smiling Joe Hesketh · Jul 1, 2014

Rudy Pemberton said:
The Red Sox now rank last in the AL in runs scored (5 less than Houston, who has played one more game). They also rank last in SLG (.366, .003 behind the Twins).

84 runs over 28 games in June, for an average of exactly 3 runs a game.

In May they averaged 4.10. 4.26 in April. Everything's trending in the wrong direction.

geoduck no quahog · Jul 1, 2014

Doctor G said:
The team commitment to driving up pitch counts might not be universally accepted by the hitters. It does seem that the hitters are almost unanimous in blaming bad numbers on the power arms that are coming out of bullpens these days. is this approach becoming counter productive at the major league level?

I can understand the pitch count thing, but some of them (like Nava) seem to be going about it wrong. Pick a zone for the first couple of pitches and if the ball doesn't go there, take it...but that zone HAS to include belt high down the middle for crying out loud. What's the point of talking a perfectly hittable pitch just because it's the first or second of the sequence?

...and pitch counts shouldn't enter at all for most relievers. They're going to pitch their inning or their batter regardless of count (most of the time). Stop wasting good hittable pitches.

Even the best of 2 strike hitters (like Pedroia) should be jumping on their pitch regardless of count.

On the other hand, Holt seems to get it as the game's first hitter. Make the pitcher throw as much as possible even if it means letting one or two good ones pass. I forgive the lead off man in the 1st inning.

soxhop411 · Jul 1, 2014

This is how bad our offense has been

Pete Abraham ‏@PeteAbe 9m
#RedSox have scored 2 or less runs in 12 of their last 17 games

JMDurron · Jul 1, 2014

Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
84 runs over 28 games in June, for an average of exactly 3 runs a game.

In May they averaged 4.10. 4.26 in April. Everything's trending in the wrong direction.

I wondered back in April if a bunch of close calls going against the team in key spots created some kind of negative feedback loop psychologically, just as last year's rallies and traumatic event created a positive vibe for the team. This is beyond what can be explained by some guys psyching themselves out and trying to hard, I think. It still just doesn't seem like a talent issue to me, which leaves me wondering about the invisible intangible crap that we can't gauge from the outside. That's infuriating to me, because there's really nothing to discuss, analyze, or hope for beyond "get your shit together, assholes!"

I stopped listening tonight, because the outcome was certain once a Cubs run scored in the 9th. The offense is so painfully inept that they make me not want to concentrate on the games anymore, and I don't like being that kind of fan. There's just nothing to really think about this group, aside from trying to gauge if they've come out of whatever their mental funk is. Sunday gave me hope, last night could have just been good pitching, but tonight proved to me again that Sunday was just a fluke, this offense is still completely horrible beyond all reason.

Super Nomario · Jul 1, 2014

JMDurron said:
I wondered back in April if a bunch of close calls going against the team in key spots created some kind of negative feedback loop psychologically, just as last year's rallies and traumatic event created a positive vibe for the team. This is beyond what can be explained by some guys psyching themselves out and trying to hard, I think. It still just doesn't seem like a talent issue to me, which leaves me wondering about the invisible intangible crap that we can't gauge from the outside. That's infuriating to me, because there's really nothing to discuss, analyze, or hope for beyond "get your shit together, assholes!"

Why doesn't it seem like a talent issue to you?

Plympton91 · Jul 1, 2014

Super Nomario said:
Why doesn't it seem like a talent issue to you?

+1

I never really considered the possibility that Steven Drew's horrific postseason last year was anything more than an ill timed slump. But all this experimenting with glasses and contacts starts to make me worry that teams knew something and that's why he was available.

If you don't count him, they've got 3 major leaguers in the lineup every night, and that becomes 4 if Nava or Gomes has a favorable platoon matchup. Everyone else should have retired or belongs in AAA right now, with the hope that Holt's magic slippers don't fall off, and Betts and Bogaerts will someday be ready, but they aren't now, and the hope that Bradley isn't the black hole he been for going on 18 months now.

Al Zarilla · Jul 2, 2014

soxhop411 said:
This is how bad our offense has been

Pete Abraham ‏@PeteAbe 9m
#RedSox have scored 2 or less runs in 12 of their last 17 games

Sometimes I get a better feel for a stat thing by looking at a list of the numbers. What stands out worst in that 17 game stretch is vs Cubs L 2-0 and vs Cubs L 2-1.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/schedule/_/name/bos/boston-red-sox

The Red Sox are last in the AL in runs scored right now. Perusing Baseball Ref., the last time they finished the season last in runs was in 1932. There were only 8 teams then. I don't know if I missed a worse offensive team in terms of runs scored between 1932 and now. The 1932 team went 43 - 111 and of course finished last.

Before closing that 1932 Red Sox BREF page, I decided to look back further. The Red Sox finished last in the AL in runs scored every year from 1925 through 1932. Talk about a bad time to be a Red Sox fan!

Plympton91 · Jul 2, 2014

The other thing to consider about the offense, which is anathema to the SABR paradigm of viewing each at bat as an independent random trial, is that the pressure put on the better players to compensate for the black holes is causing many of the problems. Ortiz isn't using LF as much because he's trying to hit 5 run HRs, and that causes a drop in his AVG and OBP and SLG. Pedroia was asked to lead off a good portion if the year, where he changes his approach and it's taken him a while to get back on track. Getting constantly jerked around, demoted, and benched against mediocre righties like last night has caused Nava to try to be something he's not and change his approach to hit for more power with disastrous results. Those are just speculation, but absence of statistical evidence when regressing endogenous variables on other endogenous variables is not evidence of absence

Stitch01 · Jul 2, 2014

Plympton91 said:
+1

I never really considered the possibility that Steven Drew's horrific postseason last year was anything more than an ill timed slump. But all this experimenting with glasses and contacts starts to make me worry that teams knew something and that's why he was available.

If you don't count him, they've got 3 major leaguers in the lineup every night, and that becomes 4 if Nava or Gomes has a favorable platoon matchup. Everyone else should have retired or belongs in AAA right now, with the hope that Holt's magic slippers don't fall off, and Betts and Bogaerts will someday be ready, but they aren't now, and the hope that Bradley isn't the black hole he been for going on 18 months now.

Bolded seems a bit strong based on 11 strike out free at bats from Betts and a league average season for Bogaerts.

Smiling Joe Hesketh · Jul 2, 2014

Plympton91 said:
The other thing to consider about the offense, which is anathema to the SABR paradigm of viewing each at bat as an independent random trial, is that the pressure put on the better players to compensate for the black holes is causing many of the problems. Ortiz isn't using LF as much because he's trying to hit 5 run HRs, and that causes a drop in his AVG and OBP and SLG. Pedroia was asked to lead off a good portion if the year, where he changes his approach and it's taken him a while to get back on track. Getting constantly jerked around, demoted, and benched against mediocre righties like last night has caused Nava to try to be something he's not and change his approach to hit for more power with disastrous results. Those are just speculation, but absence of statistical evidence when regressing endogenous variables on other endogenous variables is not evidence of absence

Firstly, there's nothing to the assertion of the bolded in terms of assessing current performance. Obviously just looking at the splits will show a number of the players are pressing in order to try to make something happen, which of course is exactly the wrong way to approach their ABs. For example, Pedroia is hitting 225/289/338 with RISP, as opposed to 277/346/383 overall. X is hitting 245/324/371 overall, but 129/215/171 with RISP this season. It's clear that he is struggling in such situations because he's trying to make something happen instead of letting the game come to him. Of course it's also possible he's pressing, like you assert about Nava, because he too has been jerked around by the club's quixotic quest to sign and give playing time to Stephen Drew and to move X from his treasured SS position over to 3d base, which he admitted bothered him and he went into a long slump immediately afterwards. Unsurprisingly.

No Sabr guy worth a damn would EVER deny the human element of current performance. Of course that has to be tempered when trying to project going forward; we all remember that it was predicted that Lugo would become offensively productive again in Boston because unlike in LA he wouldn't be getting moved all over the field. That never happened, of course, so things remain inexact to say the least.

TL;DR: The offense sucks in 325 different ways and there's no easy answers for improvement. But trying to "make something happen" to break out of it never, ever works.

JMDurron · Jul 2, 2014

Plympton91 said:
+1

I never really considered the possibility that Steven Drew's horrific postseason last year was anything more than an ill timed slump. But all this experimenting with glasses and contacts starts to make me worry that teams knew something and that's why he was available.

If you don't count him, they've got 3 major leaguers in the lineup every night, and that becomes 4 if Nava or Gomes has a favorable platoon matchup. Everyone else should have retired or belongs in AAA right now, with the hope that Holt's magic slippers don't fall off, and Betts and Bogaerts will someday be ready, but they aren't now, and the hope that Bradley isn't the black hole he been for going on 18 months now.

For the record, I can't post at work, so it's been driving me batty that I couldn't respond before now. Responding to you and Super Nomario together here, since you basically have the same question. "You" means "the people making the case that it is a talent problem" in my post, not "Plympton".

Age, injuries, and mental issues/slumps are not what I'd call talent issues.

AJ Pierzynski might be too old to cut it anymore, but he's not a shitty baseball player. He's having his worst offensive season since he was 22. Age-related collapses happen, but that's not a talent issue.

Mike Napoli is doing his job, albeit with some injury issues and a tradeoff of some SLG for some OBP. No talent issues there.

Whatever the fuck is wrong with Dustin Pedroia, it isn't a talent issue. He played with a busted wrist all of last season, and he's still significantly worse so far this season. This is the worst he has hit since his cup of coffee in 2006. His issues are injury and/or mental issues with his approach, not a talent issue.

If you want to try to argue that Xander Bogaerts represents a talent issue because he happens to be slumping right now, then I'm going to argue that you are batshit crazy. He's a stud rookie with a strong offensive track record in the minors who is having a rough time right now. There is no talent issue there.

Stephen Drew's eyes were a factor I hadn't considered, and obviously injury concerns are a recurring issue with him, but I think it's significantly more likely that he's having yet another slow ramp-up into game action, all while he's mired in the same team wide slump as everybody else. The man does not suck at playing baseball to the level reflected by his offensive stats so far. This should be beyond dispute after last April.

Brock Holt is most likely a mirage, I think most of us agree on that, but if there's a talent problem there, he's doing one hell of a job of hiding it.

Daniel Nava, over his entire career, including all of his time playing injured late in seasons, has a 286/385/428 career line against RHP. I reject the assertion that he is "just a journeyman" when we are talking about offense, because it's his lack of other tools that really make him a questionable MLB player, not his ability to hit.

Jonny Gomes is posting numbers roughly equivalent to his 2011 season, and he has his limitations, but he's not a completely shitty hitter. He might be a poor player overall due to defense/range, but he's not a complete incompetent at the plate, considering that he is only 33 (past his peak, but we're not talking about toast here age-wise) and coming off of back-to-back good offensive campaigns as a part-timer.

David Ortiz might just be too old to be "BIG PAPI!" anymore, but I'm assuming we don't see a talent issue here, right? Even his 2008-2009 baseline is an above-average hitter, but we can't tell whether his age-related decline is finally asserting itself, or he's just being dragged down by everybody else around him.

Jackie Bradley and Mookie Betts might suck at being MLB players. We don't know yet. Even if they both do (which I don't grant), where exactly is this ton of crap talent that you seem to be implying is in the lineup? Only 3 major leaguers between Holt, Pedroia, Ortiz, Napoli, Nava/Gomes, Drew, Bogaerts, and Pierzynski/Ross? I'll give you Bradley, maybe he's not up to this level of play. Holt might be a mirage, but the rest of that crew is a solid core of MLB hitters. Betts is a distinct maybe. Nava/Gomes are more limited as overall players than as hitters, and we're talking about the offense here. You're just being completely dishonest if you're calling Bogaerts "not ready" after what he's done in the minors and in the fucking postseason last year.

This isn't an offense that's lacking talent, this is an offense that has a grand total of one guy playing over his head (Holt), 1 good bat playing as expected (Napoli), 2 stars having significant letdowns (Pedroia and Ortiz), and a bunch of solid MLB hitters (Nava, Gomes, Drew, Bogaerts, and I'd argue AJP as a catcher has been a solid hitter in his career, even if his approach infuriates me) all playing like complete shit at the same time. 3 Major Leaguers? So, Nava's a complete mirage despite multiple seasons of PAs mashing RHP, Gomes is toast at 33, both catchers are toast, Bogaerts is, what, just a minor leaguer posing? Drew is toast at 31? Even if you grant 1-2 of these things, it's completely implausible to me that all of these things are true at the same fucking time.

I fucking hate talking about the intangibles, but which is more likely here? That this is a shitty roster that is playing to its talent level, or that there is something in these guys' heads that is making them hit like complete incompetents. These guys did not all simultaneously age out of the league and fail to mature and get books out on them throughout the league together. This team was never going to be the 2003 Red Sox offense reborn, and I think we knew they were unlikely to be as timely as the 2013 squad was, either, but this is completely fucking inexplicable. Depth issues? Sure. Decent guys being stretched beyond roles they can handle? Ok. The bottom line is that this team is running a MLB-quality (not Top 3 or anything, but mid-range) lineup out there every day, and they are hitting like little leaguers for no apparent reason.

RedOctober3829 · Jul 2, 2014

It's rather impressive to go from 2nd and 3rd with 0 out to 0 runs and 3 outs in the span of 3 pitches.

Super Nomario · Jul 3, 2014

JMDurron said:
Age, injuries, and mental issues/slumps are not what I'd call talent issues.

Jackie Bradley and Mookie Betts might suck at being MLB players. We don't know yet. Even if they both do (which I don't grant), where exactly is this ton of crap talent that you seem to be implying is in the lineup? Only 3 major leaguers between Holt, Pedroia, Ortiz, Napoli, Nava/Gomes, Drew, Bogaerts, and Pierzynski/Ross? I'll give you Bradley, maybe he's not up to this level of play. Holt might be a mirage, but the rest of that crew is a solid core of MLB hitters. Betts is a distinct maybe. Nava/Gomes are more limited as overall players than as hitters, and we're talking about the offense here. You're just being completely dishonest if you're calling Bogaerts "not ready" after what he's done in the minors and in the fucking postseason last year.

I can see your point that "talent" isn't the issue when defined as innate baseball ability. But age - on both ends - is absolutely a major factor in the performance so far. The Red Sox don't have 28-year-old Pierzynski and Ortiz - they have the 38-year-old versions of those players. They don't have the player Bogaerts will be at age 26 - they have a 21-year-old rookie. This team has shockingly little talent around the typical peak ages of 26-27 - really only Brock Holt as far as offensive contributors go. The players over 30 are playing worse than they did last year, and the rookies are struggling - that's not weird, that's normal. The struggles are worse than I expected, but I'm not surprised they're a significantly worse offensive club than in 2013.

If you don't think talent is a major issue - are you comfortable re-signing everybody (or comparable players) and running basically the same lineup out there for 2015 season? I'm definitely not.

Rasputin · Jul 3, 2014

Super Nomario said:
If you don't think talent is a major issue - are you comfortable re-signing everybody (or comparable players) and running basically the same lineup out there for 2015 season? I'm definitely not.

I would rather have a left fielder who doesn't need to be platooned and a catcher who has a passing knowledge of how to not swing at every single pitch he sees, but yeah, I'm ok with seeing mostly this roster back.

Bring someone in to play left. Have Bradley in center and Betts in right with Holt and Victorino on the bench.

Middlebrooks at third, Bogaerts at short, Pedroia at second, Napoli at first, Papi at DH with some mediocre veteran catcher.

You count on Bogaerts, Bradley, and Betts to hit well because that's what their minor league track record says they'll do.

I rather suspect that Bogaerts, Bradley, and Betts will all have pretty good second halves.

Super Nomario · Jul 3, 2014

Rasputin said:
I would rather have a left fielder who doesn't need to be platooned and a catcher who has a passing knowledge of how to not swing at every single pitch he sees, but yeah, I'm ok with seeing mostly this roster back.

Bring someone in to play left. Have Bradley in center and Betts in right with Holt and Victorino on the bench.

Middlebrooks at third, Bogaerts at short, Pedroia at second, Napoli at first, Papi at DH with some mediocre veteran catcher.

You count on Bogaerts, Bradley, and Betts to hit well because that's what their minor league track record says they'll do.

I rather suspect that Bogaerts, Bradley, and Betts will all have pretty good second halves.

I think you're being overly optimistic with respect to some of the young guys. I do believe (in Jamesian fashion) that minor league stats, properly adjusted, are as predictive as major league stats. But a) that "properly adjusted" can be a sonuvabitch, and b) we shouldn't overestimate our ability to predict period based on what are fairly small samples. Despite the depths of his current struggles I'm not worried about Bogaerts even in the nearish term; I expect some additional struggles this year but suspect he'll be better in the second half than in the first and better in 2015 than in 2014. With respect to Bradley, his minor league track record is good (not great), but he now has more AB at the major league level than he had at any level of the minors. There's a decent chance he is just a terrible hitter. His rest-of-season projections are .235/.315/.330 (ZIPS) and .240/.318/.366 (Steamer). As for Betts, he has done everything you could ask a prospect to do this year, but we're still talking about a guy with less than 400 PAs above A-ball. Middlebrooks' inconsistency is well-documented. If you're going to pencil in all four of these guys, the LF you bring in needs to be a middle of the order guy and/or you need pretty good fallback options if/when Middlebrooks gets hurt/slumps again, Bradley continues to not hit, Betts has some adjustment periods, and the over-30 guys peopling the rest of the lineup decline further or are injured.

JMDurron · Jul 3, 2014

Super Nomario said:
I can see your point that "talent" isn't the issue when defined as innate baseball ability. But age - on both ends - is absolutely a major factor in the performance so far. The Red Sox don't have 28-year-old Pierzynski and Ortiz - they have the 38-year-old versions of those players. They don't have the player Bogaerts will be at age 26 - they have a 21-year-old rookie. This team has shockingly little talent around the typical peak ages of 26-27 - really only Brock Holt as far as offensive contributors go. The players over 30 are playing worse than they did last year, and the rookies are struggling - that's not weird, that's normal. The struggles are worse than I expected, but I'm not surprised they're a significantly worse offensive club than in 2013.

If you don't think talent is a major issue - are you comfortable re-signing everybody (or comparable players) and running basically the same lineup out there for 2015 season? I'm definitely not.

So, there's two different ways to look at this - total roster construction, or what the main focus of my original statement was, the innate hitting ability as indicated by career track records. I'll do the latter first.

First, I'd say that I'm not sure it's normal for every 30+ player to regress AND every rookie to struggle simultaneously. There's normally an ebb and flow to the individual player variance throughout the course of a season. That isn't happening this season, basically everybody not named Napoli and Holt is sucking simultaneously. I don't think that's normal, and that's part of my suspicion that something unrelated to talent, age, or even health is going on here.

Back to the question of innate hitting ability. I don't think talent is the major issue behind why this offense has been so insanely horrible, but it doesn't necessarily follow that I wouldn't be interested in any upgrades. I think that having the exact same talent quality of hitters, 99 times out of 100, would bring significantly better offensive results than we have seen so far this year. This roster's offensive performance is an outlier to the low side, beyond what can be explained by the talent, in my mind. Would I upgrade one of CF/RF and 3B (Bogaerts being a SS in my mind) to try to be a top offense again? Absolutely. Does that mean I think that the current offensive ability at CF/RF and 3B is what's bringing this team to 1932 levels of ineptitude? Absolutely not.

From a roster construction standpoint, factoring in what I'd call talent/ability, age, injury risk, and defensive ability, obviously I'd not be comfortable with using entirely the same roster next season. Catcher age alone would make that borderline insanity, as would the OF depth. I'd rather get my expected LF output from 1 well-rounded player who can play defense than Nava/Gomes, and I'd want at least one MLB-starting quality CF or RF to supplement Bradley, Betts, and Victorino. Middlebrooks is officially in my Ryan Kalish memorial "hurt and useless for too long, goodbye" mental bucket, so I'd want depth at the left side of the IF to allow for Holt turning back into a pumpkin, and because Bogaerts needs a shot at SS. I wouldn't want to pay for Drew again, but maybe that's the only left-side depth option that makes sense...again. Of course, then we have the Bogaerts issue again, and so on.

Ultimately, I can't answer your roster construction version of the question without a better understanding of what the heck is going on inside the heads of these hitters right now. Talent wise, sure I'd bring the equivalents of this entire team back together and expect to be competitive. But, since I think there's something unrelated to the raw talent causing the problem, and that whatever that is could be specific to the roster construction, I can't tell you how I'd change the roster to compete next season without knowing how to get rid of whatever brain tumor is causing this horrible offense. I'd probably fire everyone involved with coaching the hitters if I couldn't figure out anything else (it's not like they were hitting before the primary hitting coach had a medical issue), because coaching is one of the non-talent possibilities that is causing this team to have the worst offense in the American League. If it's the team throwing a psychological fit over Lester's lack of an extension, then I'd burn the roster to the ground and try to find equivalent talents who have slightly more mental fortitude. I just can't answer that part very well.

theapportioner · Jul 5, 2014

Ordinarily, I'd expect a team in this situation to make some coaching changes by now, given the massive underperformance by the offense. I wonder if the hitting coach would've been sacked at this point, had he not had the serious medical issue he had earlier this season. I'm not advocating canning him, but to me there's a sense of a lack of accountability to a situation that should really be considered unacceptable by fans and franchise.

Darnell's Son · Jul 5, 2014

You can't really make a sick absentee coach accountable for the epic failure of the offense lately. Maybe you could find a new interim hitting coach, but that's about it.

jsinger121 · Jul 7, 2014

If you are not going to play Betts everyday then send him back to Pawtucket. Otherwise put him in left field, move holt to third, Xander to short and nail drew to the bench permanently.

SouthernBoSox · Jul 7, 2014

jsinger121 said:
If you are not going to play Betts everyday then send him back to Pawtucket. Otherwise put him in left field, move holt to third, Xander to short and nail drew to the bench permanently.

I think we are just a couple games away from the latter happening.

The Drew signing may be the worst move of the year in hindsight, especially if you buy into it adding to Xander's problems.

soxhop411 · Jul 7, 2014

Red Sox Stats ‏@redsoxstats 1h
Here is some of the garbage the Sox offense has given us since the winning streak ended June 2. #AcesEverywhere pic.twitter.com/KQgbcEWIBm

That's a depressing chart

AB in DC · Jul 7, 2014

I'm still trying to understand how a guy putting up a .136/.167/.247 is not only an every day starter, but is batting sixth in the lineup.

Plympton91 · Jul 7, 2014

SouthernBoSox said:
I think we are just a couple games away from the latter happening.

The Drew signing may be the worst move of the year in hindsight, especially if you buy into it adding to Xander's problems.

Benching Drew at this point is biting off your nose to spite your face. The only way to make that signing pay off is having him get hot for 3 weeks and turning him into a prospect. Once the waiver deadline passes and we get into September, I agree. At that point he becomes useless to the Red Sox, but until then, they need to give him every opportunity to start hitting.

If he doesn't start hitting and that means they lose a few more games, that's fine too. They should be going the Boston Celtics tank the season mode at this point, and trying to get the highest draft pick possible. Shut down anyone who's nursing an injury and get them healthy. It just doesn't matter anymore.

Plympton91 · Jul 7, 2014

"The Red Sox offense is absolutely pathetic." -- Dennis Eckersley on NESN postgame just now.

MuzzyField · Jul 7, 2014

The Drew signing/return was presented as a 'no brainier' it was just money... No risk. The best return on investment on that $10-million dollar money dump is to get WMB healthy for his final audition at 3B, slide X back to short and DFA Drew and get him out of the way. The Red Sox have enough problems to solve... Drew doesn't need to be one of them. Scott Boras can take it from here. Drew is owed nothing, he was a placeholder, suited up for 124-games and won a ring. If we had 2 X's last World Series Drew would have been on the bench with his invisible bat relegated to late inning defensive replacement, he was only still getting at bats because WMB's sucked more and we only had one X to play.

dcmissle · Jul 7, 2014

Has it ever been this bad this long in the memory of anyone here?

I recall nothing like this over any 90 game stretch during which the games actually mattered.

Plympton91 · Jul 7, 2014

dcmissle said:
Has it ever been this bad this long in the memory of anyone here?

I recall nothing like this over any 90 game stretch during which the games actually mattered.

The early 1990s were pretty brutal; but, I don't remember it quite this bad.

MuzzyField · Jul 8, 2014

In the past, bad times usually revolved around pitching issues and the team could still rake, particularly at home.

Mighty Joe Young · Jul 8, 2014

dcmissle said:
Has it ever been this bad this long in the memory of anyone here?
I recall nothing like this over any 90 game stretch during which the games actually mattered.

Well .. I go back to 67 .. and absolutely nothing compares .. as mentioned, some of the early 90s teams were not exactly offensive juggernauts .. But compared to this bunch .. Getting one hit by the likes of Steve Carroll .. Yikes .. This is the absolute nadir .. How could they be this god awful ?

dcmissle · Jul 8, 2014

Well welcome to the 1967 Chicago White Sox, but with a record not nearly as good.

This is my sense too. A sliver of anemic years, but not this bad, dwarfed by the 20 years that have followed and by 25 years that preceded them.

In other words, we've seen nothing quite like this since Yaz was a singles hitter 50 years ago.

Al Zarilla · Jul 8, 2014

Post upthread: Sox haven't finished last in the AL in runs scored since 1932. Right now we're last or tied for last with Houston. Muzzy said the problem with the worst Sox teams has been more to do with pitching. I agree with that. This is most likely the worst sox offense since the early 30's.

HriniakPosterChild · Jul 8, 2014

They remind me of My 20xx Seattle Mariners, where xx > 01. But they aren't playing half their games in Safeco, so they're probably even more offensively inept.

Rasputin · Jul 8, 2014

dcmissle said:
Has it ever been this bad this long in the memory of anyone here?

I recall nothing like this over any 90 game stretch during which the games actually mattered.

No. The stretch from 1991 to 1994 was pretty miserable overall, but none of the individual sessions was as bad as this.

geoduck no quahog · Jul 8, 2014

Is there a way to find out if the whole "work the pitch count" thing has come back to bite them in the ass? This is what they teach right through the minors.

I'm really tired of seeing first pitch meatballs go sailing by and hitters always working down in the count...like the league wouldn't figure that out.

Then of course, there's AJP. But fuck him anyway.

And Ortiz needs to learn how to bunt or hit ground balls the other way. I'm fed up with seeing him come up late in a game, down by multiple runs, and not taking 1st base with anything hit down the 3rd base line.

End of rant.

Smiling Joe Hesketh · Jul 8, 2014

Plympton91 said:
The early 1990s were pretty brutal; but, I don't remember it quite this bad.

1992 stands out as particularly horrible. Brunansky led the team in OPS+ with 118 and with 15 HRs. No other regular had an OPS+ over 100, only one other player had more than 10 HRs (Vaughn with 13). 599 runs scored for the whole year.

So yeah, that year was as bad or worse than this one offensively.

Stitch01 · Jul 8, 2014

1992 was what jumped to mind for me as well. At least this team has Pedroia, Ortiz, and Napoli as real major league hitters and Brock Holt doing Brock Holt things. That team had Bob Zupcic to get excited about

Still excruciating when being down 2-0 basically means flip the channel

Savin Hillbilly · Jul 8, 2014

Rasputin said:
No. The stretch from 1991 to 1994 was pretty miserable overall, but none of the individual sessions was as bad as this.

Actually, the 1992 team was worse, at least than the Sox have been so far (we still have time to eclipse them).

We have so far scored 3.75 runs per game in a 4.27-RPG league; that's 12.2% below league average.

The '92 team scored 3.70 RPG in a 4.32-RPG league, 14.4% below average.

The offense has been horrible

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