2015 Red Sox: Time to Play for Next Year

            According to Fangraphs’ playoff odds, the Boston Red Sox have 14.5% chance of making the playoffs. Through June 27, their record stands at 33-42, eight games behind the division leading Tampa Bay Rays. The Red Sox have scored 308 runs, good for 15^th in the majors and they’ve allowed 352, ranking 27^th. Their -44 run differential is third worst in the American League. I could go on, but the point is clear, the 2015 Red Sox are not a good team.

            With the trade deadline now a little more than a month away, what should the Red Sox do? They have two options: stand pat and hope that their better play in June is an indicator of things to come or follow the path laid out in 2014 and punt the 2015 season. If you think that the Red Sox should play for this season, Fangraphs’ projected standings have Boston going 47-40 over its remaining 87 games. While this may seem optimistic, especially since the projections suggest that 87 wins will be enough to grab the AL East crown, the Red Sox would still finish the season under .500, at 80-82. It is possible for the Red Sox to play above .500 baseball for the rest of the year, especially if the team can maintain its offensive improvements from June. First let’s take a look at three of the team’s youngest hitters.  

	May 2015		June 2015
	AVG/OBP/SLG	wRC+	AVG/OBP/SLG	wRC+
Mookie Betts	.259/.296/.422	93	.346/.391/.593	170
Xander Bogaerts	.275/.309/.396	91	.323/.337/.452	116
Blake Swihart	.225/.257/.268	40	.278/.328/.407	102

The BABIP gods are now shining down on Betts, who hit a measley .257 in May, but sports a .362 BABIP in June. Now let’s look at some of the veteran hitters—the ones who were supposed to anchor the lineup. 

	May 2015		June 2015
	AVG/OBP/SLG	wRC+	AVG/OBP/SLG	wRC+
David Ortiz	.214/.287/.337	61	.253/.341/.481	123
Mike Napoli	.242/.361/.516	140	.203/.277/.351	71
Pablo Sandoval	.200/.242/.311	49	.324/.333/.479	121
Hanley Ramirez	.235/.286/.337	68	.338/.377/.479	136

            So in playing with these small offensive sample sizes, we can see that the Red Sox offense improved in June. So far they’ve scored the 7^th most runs in the league, much closer in line with preseason expectations. Can they carry on this improvement throughout the rest of the year? Maybe, but manipulate the data all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that Boston is nine games below .500 with almost half the season gone. No amount of improvement can wash away all the losses that are already in the bank. If it will take 87 wins to capture the division, then the Red Sox will need to go 54-33, a .620 winning percentage. And they can’t rely solely on the offense to get them there.

            Unfortunately the Red Sox pitching has been atrocious. Take a look at the month by month splits.

	ERA (League Rank)	FIP (League Rank)	ERA- (League Rank)	FIP- (League Rank)
April	5.75 (30)	3.85 (15)	142 (30)	100 (14)
May	4.56 (23)	4.35 (22)	113 (22)	113 (23)
June	4.46 (22)	3.44 (9)	110 (18)	89 (8)

 (ERA- & FIP- are ERA and FIP scaled to league average, anything below 100 is good, above is bad, an ERA- of 142 for example indicates that the pitching staff was 42% below league average.)

The pitching staff has improved, but mostly from downright awful to barely mediocre. The porous Red Sox defense has also hurt their pitchers in terms of ERA—FIP, meanwhile, only focuses on the things pitchers can control like strikeouts, walks, and homeruns, where Boston ranks slightly better. Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval rank as the worst and 5^th worst defenders in the league according to Defensive Runs Saved (DRS). As a team, Boston ranks 19^th in the league at -5 DRS. So not only has the pitching staff not been good, the defense behind them isn’t turning balls in play into outs.

So what’s the solution here? The Red Sox should be sellers at the trade deadline and it’s time to start thinking about next season. This means two things: trading players that might be valuable to other contending teams and letting the rookies play. Let’s consider who the Red Sox might consider trading.

The Franchise Players: Bogaerts, Betts, Swihart, Eduardo Rodriguez,

            None of these players are available.

The Untradeables (players with long term contracts or no-trade clauses): Dustin Pedroia, Ramirez, Ortiz, Sandoval, Napoli, Victorino, Wade Miley, Rick Porcello, Justin Masterson, Allen Craig, Rusney Castillo

It may be nice to pretend that Napoli or Victorino have some value, but Napoli is a 1B who can’t hit right now and Victorino is a perennially injured right fielder making 13 million dollars. So they’re out and so is anyone who is owed significant long term money.

Available (excluding fringe 40 man roster players like Daniel Nava): Clay Buchholz, Brock Holt, Jackie Bradley Jr., Junichi Tazawa, Koji Uehera

            Buccholz has two more years on his contract that are both team options. He might be enticing to a team in need of a mid-rotation starter. Injury concerns, however, may scare team away. Holt is a super utility player who the Red Sox seem to love, but he might be available for the right deal. Bradley Jr. could help a defensively challenged team in center field. Tazawa and Uehera are the most likely candidates as they might draw interest from teams in need of late inning bullpen help. Unlike 2014, when Jon Lester, John Lackey, and Andrew Miller were all potential free agents, the Red Sox don’t have any obvious trade targets that might net a significant return.

            If there’s little chance of the Red Sox contending this season, then there’s little point in continuing to play players like Victorino, Allen Craig, Alejandro De Aza (remember when the Red Sox had too many outfielders? Wasn’t that fun?) or pitchers like Justin Masterson or the recently demoted Joe Kelly. Boston has plenty of options sitting on the bench in the majors or in AAA who may be part of the next contending Red Sox team. What should Boston’s lineup look like for the rest of the season? Glad you asked.  

Lineup

CF Betts (L)

2B Holt (L)*

SS Bogaerts (R)

DH Ortiz (L)

1B Ramirez (R)

3B Sandoval (S)

RF Castillo (R)

LF Bradley (L)

C Swihart (S)

*Until Pedoria returns from the DL.

            The biggest changes include moving Napoli out of the lineup entirely and sliding Hanley Ramirez to first base where he could do the least damage possible. Yes, it’s a second position change for Ramirez, but his left field defense is untenable. Allow Bradley and Castillo to play in the majors everyday and see what they can do. Neither has anything left to prove in the minors and since the Red Sox aren’t contending, what’s the downside? At least a Bradley-Betts-Castillo outfield would be much better defensively.

            Buchholz, Porcello, Miley, and Rodriguez are locks for the rotation, either because of performance or salary. In the fifth spot promote Brian Johnson from Pawtucket and see what he can do. The Justin Masterson experiment was a nice idea in trying to rehab a once good starter, but it didn’t work out—time to move on. Let’s stop pretending that Joe Kelly is just one adjustment away from becoming a viable starter, he’s not. His fastball-sinker combo would work much better in the pen. Even knuckleballer Steven Wright would be a better choice at this point than Masterson or Kelly.

            Some of these solutions may seem radical, but the worst has already happened for the Red Sox, so what do they have left to lose? 

Red Sox and Pitch Framing

            Thanks to a 7 run 8^th inning, the Red Sox came back and beat the Oakland A’s today, 7-4. They improved to 27-31, only 5.5 games back from the division leading New York Yankees. In my last Red Sox blog post, I detailed the struggles of the pitching staff, offense, and defense. Over the past few weeks, the pitching staff has started to right itself. Steven Wright has replaced Justin Masterson in the starting rotation and thrown 23 innings of 3.91 ERA and allowing a .222/.250/.404 slash line (AVG/OBP/SLG). In two starts, Eduardo Rodriguez has struck out 14 batters while only walking 4. Clay Buchholz (until today), Wade Miley, and even Joe Kelly had turned in good starts recently. When I talked about the struggles of the Red Sox pitching staff, I forgot to include something very important, something that sabermetricians had been unable to measure until only very recently: pitch framing.

            Over the past few years, the sabremetric community has come to realize the importance of pitch framing—the ability of catchers to “frame” borderline pitches so they appear to be strikes. The more strikes the better. Within baseball circles, the idea that some catchers were better at getting strike calls was well-known, but the sabermetric community had yet to find a way to analyze it. Thanks to the development of PITCHf/x technology, in 2011, Mike Fast, an analyst at Baseball Prospectus (and who now works for the Houston Astros), found a way to measure catcher’s pitch framing abilities. Fast found the difference between the best and worst framing catchers was significant. From 2007-2011, Jose Molina added 73 runs to his team through his framing ability (the equivalent of about 7 wins). Ryan Doumit, on the other hand, cost his team 66 runs (or about 6 and a half losses).

            In recent years, major league teams have placed a higher emphasis on pitch framing. The Pittsburgh Pirates, as outlined in Travis Sawchik’s excellent new book, Big Data Baseball, identified in 2012 pitch framing as an undervalued skill in the free agent market. As result, they managed to sign Russell Martin, who ranked second behind Molina in framing runs from 2007-2011, to a two year, 17 million dollar deal. Martin was worth 13 framing runs in 2013. In 2012, Pirates catchers Rod Barajas and Michael McKenry combined for -14.9. That’s a swing of almost three wins. It turns out that this once largely hidden skill could have a big impact on a team’s win-loss record.

            So how have the Red Sox catchers done so far in pitch framing this season? Not so good. Below are the pitch framing numbers from Baseball Prospectus for the three players who have caught for the Red Sox this season.

	Framing Chances	Extra Strikes	Framing Runs	Framing Runs per 7000 chances[1]
Ryan Hanigan	1104	-3	-0.4	-2.8
Blake Swihart	1578	-5	-0.8	-3.5
Sandy Leon	1055	-16	-1.1	-3.1

Hanigan, who suffered a broken right hand and has not caught since May 1, is the best Red Sox catcher at pitch framing. This year he ranks a woeful 50^th in framing runs. Throughout his career, however, Hanigan has been one of the better pitch framers in the league. From 2008-2014, Hanigan has been worth 75 framing runs (or about seven and a half wins). The Red Sox expected to pair Hanigan with incumbent starter Christian Vazquez who finished ninth in the majors last season with 14.1 framing runs and got 94 extra strikes for the Red Sox pitching staff. Vazquez, however, tore his ulnar collateral ligament during spring training and required Tommy John surgery. He won’t play again until the 2016 season.

            Instead of having two catchers with good track records at pitch framing, the Red Sox have had to rely on rookie Blake Swihart, who was expected to spend most of the season at AAA, refining his bat and pitch calling abilities, and Sandy Leon, acquired after being designated for assignment by the Nationals towards the end of spring training. In limited opportunities, Leon has not demonstrated any particular pitch framing skill. In 986 framing chances in 2014, Leon earned zero extra strikes. This season he has cost Red Sox pitchers 16 strikes and it’s only June.

So as the Red Sox continue to struggle to win games, it seems they won’t be getting any help from their catchers getting those borderline strike calls for the pitching staff. 

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[1] 7000 is the approximate number of pitches thrown per season, so Framing Runs per 7000 estimates a catcher’s framing runs if he caught the entire season. 

Mad Max:Fury Road

            Mad Max is one of those franchise/reboots that manages to surprise its audience. Marvel has cornered the market on competent franchise filmmaking. DC is attempting to follow in Marvel’s footsteps, but by positioning itself as the “serious” comic book movie series—as if all-powerful alien and a billionaire vigilante are somehow too highbrow for humor. As studios invest more and more into serialized filmmaking, the movies themselves become a means to end, rather than an end in themselves. MacGuffins populate the Marvel movies, each one a precisely planned piece of a plot puzzle. In the recent Avengers movie, the mention of the Infinity Stones, presaging Marvel’s Phase Three is more eye rolling than enticing. Tell this story, not the next four (Avengers: Infinity War due out in 2018!). Mad Max: Fury Road, a reboot of the Mel Gibson/George Miller franchise, offers unrelenting entertainment and spectacle. Apart from a brief introduction and interlude, the film is a non-stop chase sequence, brilliantly shot and choreographed.  Unlike many other franchise movies, Miller’s visuals show the audience the story, rather than relying on its characters to tell it.

            Miller has presented a gorgeous and colorful post-apocalyptic landscape. Dystopian and post-apocalyptic film fare generally feature muted landscapes and color palettes, immersing the audience in a dark and dreary future. Instead the sun glitters off the desert and convoys of death cars. Relying primarily on practical effects, Miller swings soldiers atop long poles, in and out of the camera’s view, as they rein fire from above. Cars flip over, explode, and barrel relentlessly forward. There’s even a guy playing a gigantic guitar that shoots out flames. Another vehicle carries a squad of drummers, driving home the sense of unrelenting action. In one sequence, a storm envelops the chasing cars. Blinding sands give way to dark blue lightning in a stunning array of color. The film cuts quickly through the action, but never in the incoherent way that characterizes Michael Bay’s recent filmography. There are a few moments of glaringly obvious CGI, but nothing on the scale of other recent blockbusters (I’m looking at you Peter Jackson). Miller uses the desert oasis that bookends the film to visually demonstrate how power works in this future: gigantic wheels and machines bring water from the earth, providing hope for a desperate populace and power to the man who controls it.

            The film’s plot is straightforward and the dialogue sparse. Characters rarely speak more than a few words and almost never call each other by name. Charlize Theron plays Imperator Furiosa, a soldier in service of Immortan Joe, the deluded and tyrannical leader of a colony of survivors in a post-apocalyptic Australia. Joe yields power through his control of natural resources and has built himself a cult of personality that would make Stalin jealous. His people view him as a God, giver of water and life. The women of his world, Furiosa and a group of five of his wives, see through the façade. They compose and execute an escape plan. As Furiosa escapes with the wives in tow, another of Joe’s soldiers, played by Nicholas Hoult, uses the recently captured Max (Tom Hardy) and his blood to fuel the pursuit. Hardy and Theron are the standouts in the film. With so little dialogue, Miller relies on the ability of this pair of actors to bring their characters to life through their physical performances. Theron’s face conveys her character’s determination and deep psychological scars. Hardy similarly demonstrates Max’s psychological break following his inability to save his family. What follows is a story of escape and redemption told through furious and unremitting action.

            Mad Max presents fully realized female characters without having to justify them. Their power is ingrained and assumed in this world. Immortan Joe treats his women as property, the film doesn’t. They are Joe’s victims and they’re not going to take it anymore. Miller’s vision doesn’t have room for passive women who need the guidance or leadership of a man. As the film reaches its climax, the final confrontation involves Max, Furiosa, and a gang of women against Joe’s army. There are no speeches reminding the women of their power. They don’t need them. They don’t need to prove themselves to anyone. Miller makes this point by showing the audience these women’s power. Furiosa demonstrates her skills by destroying her enemies. She and Max trade blows and the wheel of their war machine without outshining each other. The other women have their moments as well. highlighted by the female motorcycle gang that helps bring the film to a close. Instead of simply making an argument for female empowerment, Miller clearly demonstrates it through the actions of his characters.

            Through its stunning visual effects and effective lead performances, Miller grabs hold of the viewer and never lets go. He revels in the spectacle of the film and the audience is all the better for it. 

The 2015 Red Sox So Far

            The 2015 Red Sox are not a good baseball team. In some areas they are perfectly mediocre and in others they have been downright awful. At this point, the Red Sox have played 32 out 162 games or nearly 20% of their season. So let’s look at where the Red Sox season has gone wrong so far. 

Win-Loss Record	Runs Scored	Runs Allowed	Run Differential	Pythagorean Win-Loss Record
15-17	140 (12th)	165 (2nd)	-25 (26th)	13-19

            Not good. Not good at all, especially for a team with playoff aspirations. In 2014, the Red Sox under general manager Ben Cherington aggressively sold off assets in order to restock the club for this season. So far that strategy has not paid off. Now let’s turn our attention to the offense, pitching, and defense and see where the Red Sox have played badly and where they might improve.

OFFENSE

	Batting Average	On-base Percentage	Slugging	wRC+	BABIP
Red Sox	.234 (25th)	.319 (15th)	.373 (24th)	92 (20th)	.259 (30th)
League	.251	.316	.395	96	.295

            The only area where the Red Sox rank above the league average is on-base percentage thanks to a combination of high walk rates and a low BABIP. Red Sox batters are walking in ten percent of their plate appearances, good for second in the league. Unfortunately the team’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP)  ranks dead last in the majors. BABIP is at least partially dependent on luck, suggesting that the Red Sox offense may improve due to more balls falling into play and away from the gloves of opposing fielders. Mookie Betts might be the best example of this bad BABIP luck. Currently Betts is hitting .248/.322/.442 good for a 109 wRC+ (9% above league average). But he only has a .252 BAPIP, well below his career average. Betts has walked at 9.5% rate and only struck out in 12.9% of his plate appearances. These underlying numbers suggest that Betts is unlucky rather than struggling in his adjustment to the majors. Dustin Pedroia, meanwhile, has rediscovered his power stroke after several years of battling wrist injuries. He sports an isolated power of .163, the last time Pedroia had an ISO in .160 range was 2012 when he hit fifteen homeruns.  

            Offensively the Red Sox have especially struggled in right field and at first base. Red Sox rightfielders, mostly Shane Victorino, Allen Craig, and Daniel Nava, have combined to produce .186/.288/.251, good for a 54 wRC+ (46% below league average production). Meanwhile Red Sox first basemen (primarily Mike Napoli) have a .163/.287/.298 line with 3 home runs. Their wRC+ of 66 is only 34% below league average. Because of the relative ease of playing first base and outfield, those positions require good hitters. If the Red Sox hope to improve their offense, they’ll need better production from these positions and soon.

PITCHING

	ERA	FIP	K/9	BB/9	BABIP
Red Sox	4.91 (29th)	4.29 (22st)	7.65 (15th)	3.43 (25th)	.309 (25th)
League Average	3.95	3.95	7.61	3.04	.292

            The Red Sox pitching staff has struck out opposing hitters at about league rate, but they have one of the worst walk rates in the league. Shockingly the top two Sox starters, Clay Buchholz and Rick Porcello have not been bad. Buchholz sports a horrifying 5.73 ERA, but that figure is misleading. His FIP is a much more respectable 3.09. FIP, in case you forgot, focuses on walks, strikeouts, and homeruns—things the pitcher can control. And in those areas Buchholz is excelling. He’s striking out 10.27 batters per nine innings. The reason for his high ERA? It’s our old friend BABIP again: .393. Porcello has a 4.50 ERA, but a FIP of 4.08. He’s strikeout rate of 7.77 is well above his career rate of 5.88. The most likely culprit for the ERA-FIP disparity? A spike in the number of home runs allowed: 12.5% of his flyballs have left the park.

            Joe Kelly and Justin Masterson, however, should be in danger of losing their spots in the rotation. Kelly has simply been unable to control his pitches. In his last start, Kelly walked seven hitters in five and two-thirds innings. Masterson’s command has similarly evaporated as he features a 4.91 BB/9. He has also seen his fastball velocity dip from 93.1 mph in 2013 to 87.8 in 2015. Without the ability to overpower hitters or develop movement in his fastball, Masterson’s starts have become more like batting practice for opposing lineups. Just wait for the 88 mph fastball and enjoy.  

DEFENSE 

            The Red Sox have excelled defensively in recent years, but have struggled this season.  From 2012-2014, the Red Sox were the third best defensive team in baseball according to UZR (ultimate zone rating). This season they rank 25^th with a UZR of -10 (meaning that the defense has cost the team 10 runs, equivalent to one win). According to Defensive Efficiency (the percentage of balls put into play that the defense turns into outs) the Red Sox also rank 25^th, at 69.1%. So what’s changed? The up the middle defense has been fine, with Mookie Betts ranking as Boston’s best defender at 3.2 UZR. New additions Pablo Sandoval, -2.8 UZR, and Hanley Ramirez, -6.6 UZR, have struggled to adjust to Fenway. Ramirez’s UZR/150—a measure that averages defense out over 150 games—is a horrifying -53.4. At his current pace, Ramirez will have cost the Red Sox five wins because of his terrible defense. UZR is probably overstating Ramirez’s struggles—defense metrics are still quite finicky—but just watch him wander around in left and try not to get nostalgic for his Ramirez predecessor: Manny.  

Mike Napoli currently has a UZR of -2.5. If Napoli’s slide continues, the Red Sox might consider sliding Sandoval over to first, putting Hanley at third, and moving Jackie Bradley Jr. or Rusney Castillo to left field? Hanley has played 860.1 innings at third in his career in 2012. He had a UZR of -3.6,  a lot better than his current left field defense. With David Oritz occupying the designated hitter spot, such a radical defensive shift might be the only way to improve the lineup and the defense at the same time.

While the Red Sox season has been a disappointment, the development of Mookie Betts, the top of the rotation, and some luck offer hope for improvement. But if the back end of the rotation continues to struggle, the defense continues to decline, and the Red Sox don’t find some power in the lineup, it will be another long summer at Fenway.