Post by chaimtime on Feb 29, 2024 14:32:07 GMT -5
Believing they were better than a 78 win team was not delusional at all. 1) The projections thought they were better. 2) They signed Kenley when they still had Trevor Story as short stop. 3) Even still, they were significantly better than that for virtually the whole season until the wheels fell off in an unpredictably dramatic way in September.
Here is how ZiPS projected the AL East in February of last year:
Here is what PECOTA projected for the AL East in February of last year:
How can you possibly say it isn't delusional to think they are better than this? Expecting your team to outperform projection systems is the definition of delusional. That doesn't mean it can't happen - obviously teams can and do outperform projections - but if you are not building your team around the expected outcome you are just digging yourself into a hole. Down years need to be used to improve the future team, and the first step in doing that is knowing *when* you are going to have a down year. That is where projection systems come into play. Anytime you aren't using a down year to rebuild, you are delaying your competitive window further into the future. The 2024 team is worse off because of the steps that were taken in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
I get where you’re coming from but I think you’re a little off base on a few things.
1) Almost every team in baseball is trying to beat the projections. Whether that be through player development, strategic superiority, a well-balanced roster with enough complimentary skills to maximize matchup advantages, or anything else you can come up with, teams are trying to squeeze every ounce of talent they have. The margin between an okay team and a good one is pretty thin, as demonstrated by this years playoffs.
2) The fact that ZiPS gave them a 26% chance to make the playoffs, by far the best of any last place team, demonstrates that last year’s roster had a good chance of surprising people. And its worth mentioning that the Red Sox almost certainly have a more sophisticated internal projection system with access to much more data than ZiPS does. That’s no disrespect to what Szymborski does, it’s just the natural difference between a multi-billion dollar organization in one of the most highly educated cities in the world, with access to all sorts of proprietary data, to one guy doing his best with what’s available to him. If their internal models said they had a good chance of being good, there’s no reason to ignore that because ZiPS and PECOTA are low.
3)I don’t think it’s as simple a boom or bust equation in baseball as it is in other sports. The first overall pick in baseball is simply nowhere near as valuable as it is in other sports. In the other major sports, that pick is a guy you’re expecting to be a star player pretty much as soon as he’s drafted. In baseball, that guy is almost certainly a long way from contributing to the MLB team, and what your organization does to mold him into a pro is as important, if not more so, than his natural talent. Beyond that, players on the MLB roster who will bring in real value for the future tend to be players you want on your roster in the future. Realistically, a guy who does not provide value tomorrow will not bring much value for tomorrow back in a trade. When you’re running a $200+ million payroll, you do have to weigh the value of blowing it up for a handful of guys with a small chance of being useful MLB pieces and a very small chance of becoming impact regulars. And if the scouting department doesn’t like the potential returns, what’s the point of selling at all?
In hindsight they should’ve sold and probably shouldn’t have bothered signing Kenley, but I don’t think it was delusional at all to evaluate last year’s roster as one that could compete.