Twins, Rays, White Sox and Orioles all win tonight (Mariners still playing) ... pretty much the worst possible scenario for those holding onto The Improbable Dream on a night where teams spend one of their games in hand on the Red Sox
Will the Sox make the playoffs? And how far if so?
- Thread starter Sandy Leon Trotsky
- Start date
4 games back now. Toronto's in something of a tailspin right now - SP has been pretty suspect. I think next week's series is going to be a great opportunity to make up some ground.
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Good question. No position players are on the injured list. 4 pitchers are on the 60 day and another 4 on the 15 day list. AL east is by far the most unpredictable division this year
Gain some ground on Toronto, certainly. If only there weren't five other teams involved
25 games left against Toronto, Baltimore and TB
7 games left against NY I believe
KC, CInn, Tex on the schedule
It will all depend on the head to head
7 games left against NY I believe
KC, CInn, Tex on the schedule
It will all depend on the head to head
That's gonna be a pretty heavy lift for the Red Sox. They've been utterly brutal against the AL East so far this year. 15-30 record against the AL East while 43-29 against the rest of MLB.
That said, maybe they are due for some positive regression against the east. They are certainly going to need it. Even if they go 16-15 in those 31 remaining games against the east, they would still need to obliterate the non-East opponents in those other 14 games. You'd think probably something like 12-2 or 11-3 might be able to get in. That would be 85 or 86 wins.
Thought we’d gain on the Guardians tonight but a dropped third strike on the third strikeout of the 8th led to them scoring 6. Ugh. Gotta keep winning and hope a few of the others falter somewhere.
Is this a win 3 (actually 5 of 6) to gain 1, with the same number of teams still above plan a winner?
The slow roll is underway!
The slow roll is underway!
It's the only way it can happen. When there are 6 teams in front of you for 3 spots, you're not going to back into a playoff spot by having four of them collapse. The Red Sox need to win a ton of games, many of which will be against those 6 teams.
That seems pretty irrelevant to the Red Sox at this point. They need to reach the point where they're battling for 3rd place in the AL East, then maybe they can worry about what teams in other divisions are doing. With the unbalanced schedule, at least one 2nd place team from the West or Central will be in the playoffs, which means the 4th place team in the East will be ending their season October 5th. Boston needs to get past two teams in their own division.
I’m sort of excited to watch this. I get all the reasons everyone’s been disappointed or frustrated with this team. But it’s generally been a likable group of guys and I do think that they have the horses, when healthy, to make a run (I secretly think Kiké might be the biggest one back). Is it unlikely? Of course. But they’ve played really well against the two best teams in the league (MFY and Astors) and I don’t really see anyone who looks unstoppable.
Stranger things have happened …
Stranger things have happened …
Yes, they almost definitely have to beat 2 teams in their division (currently 2 behind Orioles, 4 behind Rays & Blue Jays), but unless they beat all 3, they also have to beat 2 of Mariners (5.5 behind)/Guardians (4 behind)/Twins (3 behind)/White Sox (1.5 behind).
So basically they have to pass 4 of 7 teams. The Guardians being one of those teams would be fine.
This shaping up as a worst case scenario. The team will not be in the playoffs but just over the tax threshold.
They could waive Eovaldi and / or JD and hope they get claimed. Not sure if it’s enough to get them under?
Any team that's going to want to claim Eovaldi, and maybe JD, are going to most likely want them on the roster by the end of August so they can play in the postseason. That's less than two weeks from now. Even if they would consider it (and I don't imagine they will), it would have to be done soon. They could DFA a couple of unproductive veterans and hope they're claimed, but they'd need guys ready to take their spots. Aside from Plawecki, Hill (whose starts could go to someone like Winckowski or whoever is healthy first out of Houck/Bello/Seabold), and maybe Strahm (is Taylor ever coming back?), I'm not sure who else would meet that criteria. And I'm not sure that bunch would be enough. But if they did DFA JDM, I'm thinking someone would take him.
But they won't.
But they won't.
Stick a fork in them.
Get Casas up. Get Hernandez up. Play Duran at C every day.
Release JDM and Eovaldi.
They’re not sneaking in.
Get Casas up. Get Hernandez up. Play Duran at C every day.
Release JDM and Eovaldi.
They’re not sneaking in.
He can duck a wrench but eventually he will learn to catch a ball or else . . .
The reason why they won't make the playoffs this year is due, largely to the fact the bullpen sucks. The amount of blown saves is astounding, especially in the first half of the year.
It's the reason they didn't make the world series last year. If you could hold a lead in the eighth inning of game four, without turning to a gassed starter (debatable, maybe it always plays out the way it did), you go up 3-1.
Strahm (sure), diekman (fuck off), did nothing to solidify the kerosene can of a bullpen. What was held on to (Whitlock and maybe Houck notwithstanding), has been and will always be bunk mid 4-5 era guys.
There was hope that Paxton doesn't Twister, Sale stays off the clearance rack and guys like Wacha, Hill and Crawford (add Winckowski) would lengthen the relief when rotation help arrives.
That didn't happen. No revisionist history. The 2021 bullpen alone kept them from going farther. It's the same this year. Even worse.
It's the reason they didn't make the world series last year. If you could hold a lead in the eighth inning of game four, without turning to a gassed starter (debatable, maybe it always plays out the way it did), you go up 3-1.
Strahm (sure), diekman (fuck off), did nothing to solidify the kerosene can of a bullpen. What was held on to (Whitlock and maybe Houck notwithstanding), has been and will always be bunk mid 4-5 era guys.
There was hope that Paxton doesn't Twister, Sale stays off the clearance rack and guys like Wacha, Hill and Crawford (add Winckowski) would lengthen the relief when rotation help arrives.
That didn't happen. No revisionist history. The 2021 bullpen alone kept them from going farther. It's the same this year. Even worse.
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Their best reliever last season gave up the lead in the 8th. Also not really sure how you left out one of the best relievers in baseball this year, or Sawamura who doesn't appear at all to be a "mid 4-5 era guy". Or how Houck is a maybe when he's been fantastic since they put him in the pen full time.
And the bullpen as a whole was actaully pretty decent until July when they got way overworked because the starters gave them nothing. Pretty sure up to that point they were roughly league average, and the starters were near the top of the league. Blown saves are a pretty awful metric to judge a bullpen, especially when so many of them early in the year came because the offense never added on to a lead, meaning any game with a lead had 3 or 4 blown save chances.
The team with the most blown saves this season is Tampa Bay (28). They're up by five in that category over the Red Sox, who are one ahead of a bunch of teams including the Braves and Twins (two more playoff contending teams). Suffice to say, it's not a great stat to cite as evidence of the team's biggest problem. Leads change hands in baseball. 2-1 games become 3-2 games in the sixth inning. If the team comes back to win 5-3, who cares about that "blown save" in the sixth? If they don't come back and lose 3-2, is that on the pitcher from the sixth inning or the offense that couldn't muster more than two runs?
The entire team just played terribly the first month.
Mostly the offense couldn’t hit outside JDM, Devers and X.
Bullpen couldn’t hold 3-2 games for 4-5 innings every day.
Starters were pitching 4-5 innings.
Defense was pretty sloppy.
Base running was comical.
Put them in a giant hole then when they finally started to claw up out of it and had a chance injuries across the team and a cooked JDM took them back down
Mostly the offense couldn’t hit outside JDM, Devers and X.
Bullpen couldn’t hold 3-2 games for 4-5 innings every day.
Starters were pitching 4-5 innings.
Defense was pretty sloppy.
Base running was comical.
Put them in a giant hole then when they finally started to claw up out of it and had a chance injuries across the team and a cooked JDM took them back down
When you have offensive weaknesses in your lineup (RF, 1B, CF) and the guys you are depending upon to make up for that are mediocre (18 homers combined from JD & Xander), that's tough to overcome.
Defensive outfield is for the most part a joke.
By the way, they are on pace for 150 homers. 123 in 2014, prior to that you have to go back to 1993 for such a low number (strike and covid excluded). Both of those teams finished last.
Defensive outfield is for the most part a joke.
By the way, they are on pace for 150 homers. 123 in 2014, prior to that you have to go back to 1993 for such a low number (strike and covid excluded). Both of those teams finished last.
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After playing in 85 games, with 292 At bats, this is your conclusion? Do you think the Sox should release him? Certainly if your analysis is correct, no team would trade for him.
Sawamura is the king of "how does he have that low an era". Mostly, he's a terrible hi-lev guy with an awful inherited runner rate. Probably isn't great to cite him.
Schreiber. Sure, he's been great. He also didn't break camp with the club, when Robles did. He's a great diamond in the rough. Bully for Bloom. Whitlock and Houck are keepers, just how good? Ehh. People may vary on their mileage for both. Do you feel great about this pen? It's not controversial to say this collection of whatever is awful. A guy or two doesn't negate the collective.
Blown saves may be imperfect as a stat, but it does show an inability to hold on to something. You want to build out the criticism to the pitching on the whole, not just relievers? That the bullpen was taxed too much at points? I'm game (make the blame about the entire team even, Bloom's construction of the entire roster fucking sucks).
It's a terrible pen. Bloom did horribly to improve a glaring hole from last year. That's my point. Last night, it was hilarious to go from, "we got it to 10-9, we need a shutdown inning" to the game being over in 15 minutes. Season in a microcosm, to me
Ehh, the bullpen clearly contributed, but there are more issues. We also had uneven seasons from basically all of our middle of the order bats. Devers has been great until the last two weeks; Bogaerts was amazing for two months but has basically disappeared; Story was the best hitter in baseball for about two weeks, but was otherwise mediocre at the plate, and then got injured (no fault of his); Kiké was terrible and then hurt; JD Martinez has completely collapsed; Verdugo was snakebit for the first two months; Dalbec started terribly and continued mediocre. And so on.
You are of course correct that the pen has been pretty bad, but part of blowing a ton of saves is playing in a ton of close games. Our combination of generally respectable starting pitching and a furtive offense with a penchant for disappearing for weeks at a stretch means we've asked an unreasonable amount from them.
This is where you, me and everyone is right. The team diverse in how bad they are. A different set of eyes will prioritize a different flaw (the are plentiful).
After all, this is a last place team. Usually they are versatile in their futility.
Not that it means much, but Houck leads the team with 8 saves. This looks like it may be only the 2nd full season since saves became an official stat in 69 that the Sox will fail to have a pitcher with double digit saves (‘72 when Bill Lee and Bobby Bolin led the team with 5 apiece).
"A guy or 2" when they have 3 guys who have all been really really good? And then a couple guys that have been mediocre and then a couple guys that have been bad or worse.
Not sure who ever said anything about feeling great about this years pen, but I feel perfectly fine about a bullpen that includes Houck closing and Whitlock and Schreiber as the primary set up men. The pen was fine through a large chunk of the season, and they never even had all 3 of those guys available in the pen together until just recently, and then Houck got hurt. Add in Barnes with those 3 next season, if they keep both Houck and Whitlock in the pen, and I feel great about starting a bullpen with those 4.
Defense is important in CF, and his instincts are as bad as any I've ever seen.
Who knows, maybe he can improve as a hitter and play left.
It's a roughly average pen. By FIP, the pen is ranked 14th of 30 teams. By SIERA it's 17th. By ERA it's 26th. By home runs allowed per 9 innings it’s 9th. By blown saves, it's 27th, which is a very clickbaity way of saying that the team is designed with an above-average number of starters who go around 5 innings (Hill, Whitlock, Wacha, Crawford, Winckowski, Houck), which as a technical rule attributes more middle-inning lead changes to the pen.
Departing 2021 Red Sox relievers (Andriese, Brennan, Brewer, Brice, Espinal, Gonsalves, Ottavino, Peacock, Pérez [relief only], Richards [relief only], Rios, Robles, E. Rodriguez [one inning], Weber, Workman):
242.2 IP, 5.01 ERA, 4.41 FIP, 9.12 K/9, 4.45 BB/9, 1.08 HR/9, 0.9 fWAR, 111 ERA-, 104 FIP-
Incoming 2022 Red Sox relievers* (Danish, Davis, Diekman, Familia, Robles, Schreiber, Strahm):
225.2 IP, 3.99 ERA, 3.89 FIP, 10.01 K/9, 3.87 BB/9, 1.00 HR/9, 1.1 fWAR, 101 ERA-, 100 FIP-
*through 8/19
If you count Houck for both years, whose move to the pen could reasonably be described as a decision to improve the pen, it's like this:
2021: 253 IP, 4.91 ERA, 4.32 FIP, 9.25 K/9, 4.48 BB/9, 1.03 HR/9, 1.3 fWAR, 108 ERA-, 102 FIP-
2022: 259.1 IP, 3.89 ERA, 3.83 FIP, 9.79 K/9, 3.75 BB/9, 0.94 HR/9, 1.3 fWAR, 95 ERA-, 97 FIP-
It's tricky to know how count guys like Davis and Robles, who were midseason improvements that stayed with the team, so YMMV with them. But in terms of replacing outgoing reliever innings, the incoming 2022 arms Bloom brought in from outside the organization were an improvement over what we got in 2021.
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Maybe? It's way way too early to determine that.
Barring a trade Sale and Pivetta have guaranteed spots. Paxton has a guaranteed spot if they take the option. Eovaldi or Wacha could be brought back. After them Crawford Winck Bello and maybe Seabold will all vie for spots.
Thanks for doing the legwork on this issue. It's interesting to see the isolated departures and acquisitions compared (acknowledging the half year issues.)
When assessing the 2022 pen overall, one also has to consider that Taylor was supposed to be a part of the bullpen, so some of the weaker extant pitchers (e.g., Valdez/Darwinzon) might have been displaced if he had been healthy.
It's not so much that the bullpen lacks ability, or talent. . .but that there was a failure re: the strategy for best utilizing that talent in context (e.g., especially early on with flirting with a the twice through the lineup approach, while the bats were dead.)
Sincere question: did I miss the news that Houck's injury is season ending?
They haven't said that, though they also haven't said when or if they expect him back, that they shut him down for a week and he'll be reevaluated next week is kind of ominous.
