I think they are a better team than they have shown so far. There's talent thete, it's been a messy first week, though.
What does 2023 look like?
- Thread starter moondog80
- Start date
What's worrisome is that it's already clear how much this team's success is going to depend in large part on Whitlock and Bello being healthy and excellent. I think Kluber and Sale are going to be better than what they've shown but odds are likelier that they both end up a little above or around league average, same with Pivetta, and everyone below them on the depth chart is replacement-level at best. And barring Paxton returning in full health (which the odds on that have to be what, 25%?) or outside reinforcements, that's a locked-in 60% of the rotation. Whitlock and Bello will need to have near-ceiling outcomes for this group to be above average.
View: https://twitter.com/PeteAbe/status/1643795722318364675?s=20
This is....not a good sign.
If they get off to another bad start this year (basically, picking up from the bad season last year), with the Bruins and Celtics heading into their playoffs as high seeds, it's going to be tough for the Sox to draw both attendance and attention. And if that continues I cannot see ownership waiting around for long to see if Bloom's design bears any fruit.
Obviously it's very early. But they just got swept at home by a team that lost 100 games last year.
This is....not a good sign.
If they get off to another bad start this year (basically, picking up from the bad season last year), with the Bruins and Celtics heading into their playoffs as high seeds, it's going to be tough for the Sox to draw both attendance and attention. And if that continues I cannot see ownership waiting around for long to see if Bloom's design bears any fruit.
Obviously it's very early. But they just got swept at home by a team that lost 100 games last year.
Correct. There is a very real chance that the Sox are out of playoff contention by Memorial Day while the Bruins and Celts (hopefully) play well into the spring, and if that happens, Fenway will be half empty all summer.
Edit: they've been under 30K every game since the opener. When was the last time THAT happened?
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The concern about yesterday is that they fell into some bad habits from last year. Missing cut-off men, failing to cover third, confusion on a bunt up the first base line. Not very good fundamental baseball. This is the sign of a team that's not mentally sharp. Let's hope it was just a blip on a getaway day. Obviously, there are concerns about the rotation, but I'm not so sure the lineup is going to be as good as some others suggest. They had a strong opening series, but that Pirates series didn't give me the warm and fuzzies. Lot's more questions than answers right now, and if attendance continues to decline while the team struggles, Bloom and/or Cora may not make it to the All-Star break.
There were also less than 30,000 in attendance at the opener because of the weather. They sold a bunch of tickets, but people didn't use them. I wish I had taken a picture, but there were about 100 empty seats in grandstand 14 right behind me in the middle of the game. It's going to look a lot like the early 90s at 2023 prices in the ballpark this year.
There just isn't a lot to get excited about here for non-diehard fans. It's not a very talented team and Devers is really the only star on the team and young guys like Casas, Bello, etc. haven't really popped yet although that's the hope for 2023. There is a path for relevance with this team but the margin for error is thin. Let's hope the farm does well this year. Things won't be looking good if Mayer hits .240 in AA this year, Yorke doesn't rebound, Bleis doesn't take a material step forward, etc.
To add insult to injury Xander has hit safely in each of his first six games in a Padres uniform, going nine for twenty-two with two walks with three home runs and three doubles for a slash line of .409/.440/.955 for an OPS of 1.395. The season isn't even a week old, and it's been argued over and over that the contract the Padres gave him may not be worth it in the end, but the people making the baseball decisions are looking worse every day. For their sakes things had better straighten out and improve quickly.
Yup I’m liking my choice of giving up my season tickets in State Street Pavilion this year. My guess is I’ll be able to pick up tickets at half the price any game I want.
Ugh. I’m trying not to pay attention to Xander so this is depressing.
Unfortunately I think this is where the "logical" approach by the FO doesn't match up with the emotional approach of the fans. We loved X and wanted him to stay here. The OF (perhaps rightly) thought it wasn't a good idea to extend him so off he goes, but while that might be the "smart" move, the team on the field is made worse and another superstar is off.
This would all be fine if the Sox won. But so far they haven't, which is just more salt in the wound. It would be fine if the Tampa approach learned by Bloom down there and seemingly approved by the Sox' FO got the same results that the Rays have been getting, but again that hasn't happened.
Obviously, it's still extremely early. But they got off to a 9-13 April start last year on their way to last place, so this year it was imperative to get off to a good start. But they're already 2-4 and in last place. And if we're all being fair about things, they're very, very lucky to even have one of those wins given the dropped by ball idiocy of the Orioles.
So, 11-17 over March/April in 2022 & '23.
Cora has seemingly had a tough time getting these teams prepared for the season.
Cora has seemingly had a tough time getting these teams prepared for the season.
The Sox are currently last in the league in Defensive Runs Saved, with the all-important up-the-middle defense looking particularly bad:
https://www.overthemonster.com/2023/4/6/23672273/the-red-sox-defense-is-a-problem-analysis
https://www.overthemonster.com/2023/4/6/23672273/the-red-sox-defense-is-a-problem-analysis
Cold, gray, weekend day games in April are never well attended. Add the uninspiring team start and the attendance doesn’t surprise me. 2022 was a Return to Fenway after a deep postseason run, so big crowds last year are to be expected
It's not just the weather though. The numbers are down from previous years:
View: https://twitter.com/michaelFhurley/status/1643980607196913667?s=20
For sure, but comparing the first six games with full months, especially when the Sox games are Baltimore and Pittsburgh teams who are NOT draws, is not a fair comparison.
having said that, I looked at early April games in 2016-2019 and they are drawing worse than those years, even on day games, so there certainly are real issues. But Hurley’s analysis is faulty and glib.
2018 and 2019 the team started with long road trips, for instance, so first games were closer to mid April and not Day games (plus that 2018 team started off pretty good, IIRC)
having said that, I looked at early April games in 2016-2019 and they are drawing worse than those years, even on day games, so there certainly are real issues. But Hurley’s analysis is faulty and glib.
2018 and 2019 the team started with long road trips, for instance, so first games were closer to mid April and not Day games (plus that 2018 team started off pretty good, IIRC)
And the corollary to the pronounced lack of scarcity of decent tickets for me is that the decision of whether to attend a game can be a fairly last minute decision based on factors like weather, match-up etc.
It would be like when in my youth, my father would decide at 1030 in the morning to go to a game with me that afternoon. No worries about sellouts and of course, the only way to get tickets was the Fenway box office. There may have been ticket resellers like Ace or sidewalk scalpers, but I was unaware of them.
And of course, for many recent years, a season ticket holder could pay for much of his season simply was selling off some mid-season games and a few playoff games at exorbitant premiums.
It would be like when in my youth, my father would decide at 1030 in the morning to go to a game with me that afternoon. No worries about sellouts and of course, the only way to get tickets was the Fenway box office. There may have been ticket resellers like Ace or sidewalk scalpers, but I was unaware of them.
And of course, for many recent years, a season ticket holder could pay for much of his season simply was selling off some mid-season games and a few playoff games at exorbitant premiums.
Attendence is markedly down and I expect it to be all year. Yesterday's crowd was announced as 24,000, but I was there and there's no way there were even 20,000 people physically in the ballpark (which was kind of nice, actually: I never had to wait in line for the bathroom and I moved into the front row during the third inning.) The Mookie trade -- and the fact that it was immediately followed by the pandemic -- drove away a lot of the casuals who were so important to Red Sox revenue from 2003-2018.
This reminds me of my youth, the 1980s. Always an opening day sellout, then pretty sparse crowds until mid/late May.
Most famously, Tuesday, April 29th, 1986. Sox beat the Mariners 3-1. Clemens sets a MLB record with 20 Ks. And the crowd was 13,414.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS198604290.shtml
The many years of constant Fenway sellout crowds created an urgency for securing tickets well in advance of the game. That urgency was caused by the strong demand. That is simply not the case again this year. It was also absent last year. Last year, you could sit in the EMC for well under face value. It is already less expensive to buy on StubHub than it is on the Sox website although the fees eat up much of the discount.
Is there a team that isn't relying on its starting rotation staying healthy? All of the guys you named are healthy. Paxton is healthy. TJ surgery is something that heals. If you want to worry about some future new injury, OK, that's on you.
Is this what people think about when buying Sox tickets? I have mixed feelings about their long term projection? I thought the point of going to games is that it's fun to be there, and at this point they're not eliminated. I guess if I read enough Pete Abe stories I might just want to write off everything and just sit at home being mad about stuff, but as someone who had season tickets for a few years, I can tell you exactly how little fun those freezing April night games are to be at. That seems like at least part of the explanation here.
In general I am beyond sick of what Sox fans think on some broad level and prefer to talk about what the team itself actually looks like in 2023 here, but I guess that's part of the setting at least.
What does "out of contention by Memorial Day" look like? Tampa made the playoffs with 86 wins, 8 over .500. You think they could be 10-40?
Asking a guy to turn over the entire organization's talent is the design they brought Bloom in for, and it's not ripe yet. Why do people keep thinking that the people who fired Dombrowski for being all-in-now and hired Bloom to reverse all of that will then fire Bloom for not being Dombrowski?
So by Memorial Day, without any rainouts that get re-scheduled after Memorial Day, they'll have played 53 games. They won't be 10-40 or whatever, but would 20-33 surprise you?
The point is, if they are clearly not a playoff team by the time the Bruins and Celtics finish their seasons, they're going to have a really hard time drawing attention (and fans) all summer.
My point isn't that the rotation needs to stay healthy, because you're right, all teams need that. It's more that the already present starters are league-average pitchers at best, and so the hopes of the rotation being good rely entirely on Whitlock and Bello being healthy and good. If they're not, well, this team is gonna give up a ton of runs.
Also, Paxton is healthy? He's literally rehabbing a hamstring strain. For the life of me I can't understand why anyone on this board has any expectations for Paxton given that he's 34, hasn't thrown a pitch in almost two years and gets hurt every time he tries. If he comes back and helps, great (and believe me, I want that to happen and am heavily rooting for the guy), but the odds of that happening based on the last three years of results aren't good.
I'd be shocked, yeah. I picked 84 wins and the last WC spot and I'm sticking with it. The team isn't perfect but that series against the Pirates is going to be the outlier.... good gawd this board has turned into a bunch of Fan Equivalents of Karens. Farens?
But he doesn't get hurt every time he tries. He doesn't. He was healthy for three straight seasons, then his elbow went. Last year he was at the end of his rehab when he strained whatever it was, which is not unusual for it to go in fits and starts. Now his arm is fine along with all of the related parts, and has been all winter. He tweaked a hamstring and now he's back to "always injured"? That hasn't been his history. Blowing out his elbow has, and it's pretty rare for that to recur in a short time, if ever.
Those three years he was healthy, when he was 28-30, he still only pitched 136, 160, and 150 innings. He’s put up -0.4 WAR in his age 31-33 seasons. Maybe he will bounce back and be good this year, but is that expected?
Define healthy? If by healthy, you mean a guy who doesnt have a serious injury and miss half the season, sure, but Paxton has gotten hurt pretty much every year. Even prior to the TJS, he was a count on a missing a month type guy (career high in starts is 29).
Regardless of whether or not Paxton can stay healthy for long, they do seem to be about to have a numbers issue. Crawford is the obvious first cut, but with Whitlock, Bello, and Paxton all close, there are more moves that have to be made.
Again... those are his blown elbow years. His elbow is no longer blown. Back when it was intact even if he only pitched 150 innings we are talking about ERA+ of 140, 108, 116. FIP of 2.61-3.86. He was very good. He was a Yankee, don't people remember watching him?
He missed 2 weeks total in 2018 and 3 in 2019, so no. What standard are we holding him to if 28 and 29 starts isn't enough? I admit, he won't likely be a league-leading workhorse. I'm just saying, he's healthy and healthy Paxton has been quite good.
I don't see how you can call him healthy until he actually makes a major league start, and follows that up with another start 5 days later.
Ort would be next, no? They have to keep Bleier up. Winckowski is setting into the pen. I don't think they can move out any position players.
Throwing 94 in a rehab start (which would have been in Worcester except for weather) yesterday seems to indicate that he's healthy. Being scheduled for another start Sunday also supports that. Before he tweaked his hammy Cora had been talking a lot about how good he looks compared to last year.
Yes, let's see him make that start Saturday and then we can start to consider the possibility that he might be healthy.
Agreed, but there is the awkwardness of all of them being treated as starters, not just from a 'they all want to start' standpoint but also optimal value to the team. Bello is the most likely to end up back in AAA, and Whitlock is the most likely to end up back in the bullpen, but given the way that the season has gone so far, it's not clear that Pivetta/Sale/Kluber are actually much better than the three returning pitchers. Tough decisions coming up either way, it will be interesting to see who goes and who changes roles.
Yep. The best you can say is that they've seen this coming for three months so the team probably knows what it will do. They just haven't told us (and there may be contingencies).
There's no way that the Red Sox have two starters better than Whitlock or Bello unless they make a trade. Those guys need to be in the rotation, both if this team wants to compete and if the FO wants to know what it has in them.
ETA: I don't think you're arguing against Bello and Whitlock being starters, more just saying that their development as starters is paramount in the short- and long-term.
I think there are a couple other contributing factors to consider as well. I think that coming out of the pandemic there are a lot of people who have been reassessing their want or need to be in crowded environments and with the current state of the economy people are reassessing their abilities to take on the expense of going to the ballpark vs watching the game through a medium that they already pay for.
This week, Pivetta, Kluber, and Sale have combined to pitch 15 innings and allowed 5 earned runs with 6 walks and 15 Ks.
There have been some ugly moments and they haven't gone deep in games yet, but it's early April.
Let's see what happens next week. Might be better, might be worse, but let's see what they look like after a few weeks before we pass judgment on them. They have done fine this time through the rotation.
If any of the returning pitchers does better than a 3.33 ERA with 1 K per inning, they will be doing great.
I actually have more optimism about the pitching than the offense. The offense is relying on Devers and a bunch of unproven, pretty old and/or injury-prone guys.
There are a number of arms they can throw out there if say, Kluber is bad who might have a shot to be decent, and they're going to roll through arms in the pen like every team. I don't think they have a lot of options if Duvall or Kiké are out for extended periods, Casas doesn't break through or Yoshida isn't actually any good, all of which seem like they could happen.
There are a number of arms they can throw out there if say, Kluber is bad who might have a shot to be decent, and they're going to roll through arms in the pen like every team. I don't think they have a lot of options if Duvall or Kiké are out for extended periods, Casas doesn't break through or Yoshida isn't actually any good, all of which seem like they could happen.
I hope you are right but I'm going the other way, as I think pitching is more important and harder to fix if its not in system today...though if pressed I'm not sure if thats a defensible position analytically.
In any case, even in the midst of last years doody-season they were still near the top in run production...as they were in recent prior years with different lineup compositions.
Team Bloom seems to have oddly shown the ability to put runs on the board, but not prevent them...kinda not what I thought he was bringing from Tampa.
Big home/road splits in run scoring:
2021: 470 runs scored at home, 359 on the road
2022: 392 runs scored at home, 343 on the road
By contrast, NY was 419/388 in 2022 and 353/358 in 2021.
You are free to feel however you want to feel. But the lack of star power on this team likely has a negative impact on interest and ticket sales. That's really what I was getting at. The baseball purists (i.e., SoSH, for the most part) will have no problem finding entertainment at a Sox game no matter how bad they are. But it's a lot to ask for a casual fan to pay really high ticket prices to watch a shit team with no star power outside of Devers. Hopefully, the 2023 team can surprise and build some nice momentum. We've obviously seen recent examples of teams make runs beyond what was expected.
The Angels -- with Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout -- has their worst non-COVID attendance season since 2002 last year.
The Sox will draw more or less in accordance with their record.