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8/30-9/1 Red Sox @ Tigers Series Thread
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Post by coke0myfavdrink on Sept 1, 2024 19:43:11 GMT -5
Well that's what happens when you pull the stopper
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Post by lostinnewjersey on Sept 2, 2024 0:32:34 GMT -5
Isn't it pointless now to dissect one game? The whole gestalt of this team, for the third year in a row, is the problem. This offseason they really need to figure out why they keep fading at crunch time. It's hard not to conclude that the manager is culpable. His job is to get them ready to play a whole season, and he's not doing that.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Sept 2, 2024 8:59:19 GMT -5
Isn't it pointless now to dissect one game? The whole gestalt of this team, for the third year in a row, is the problem. This offseason they really need to figure out why they keep fading at crunch time. It's hard not to conclude that the manager is culpable. His job is to get them ready to play a whole season, and he's not doing that. I think the previous 2 years they hated what happened at the deadline. Maybe coincidental, but the way they seemed to immediately torpedo and Alex Cora and the rest of the team's apparent mood was that of "why bother?" This year Breslow did seem to try and help, albeit didn't really give up much of anything. I think this team is just out of gas. Devers is playing through an injury, their two best starters went way over their career innings, and their IL could also be used as a phone book.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 2, 2024 9:17:12 GMT -5
Isn't it pointless now to dissect one game? The whole gestalt of this team, for the third year in a row, is the problem. This offseason they really need to figure out why they keep fading at crunch time. It's hard not to conclude that the manager is culpable. His job is to get them ready to play a whole season, and he's not doing that. I think the previous 2 years they hated what happened at the deadline. Maybe coincidental, but the way they seemed to immediately torpedo and Alex Cora and the rest of the team's apparent mood was that of "why bother?" This year Breslow did seem to try and help, albeit didn't really give up much of anything. I think this team is just out of gas. Devers is playing through an injury, their two best starters went way over their career innings, and their IL could also be used as a phone book. The pitching collapsed. The bullpen has been horrendous since the all star break. Martin and Slaten have returned but the bullpen still gives it up constantly. All of Bello, Crawford, and Houck have struggled to varying degrees. Houck was bad the second half of July and Crawford was worse. The starting pitching has been better lately. The defense continues to make killer mistakes. That really hasn't changed. I know things like fielding average gets snickered at, errors, etc, but you can't tell me that stuff hasn't plagued the Sox this year. They've given up a lot of runs they shouldn't have, and a lot of them have been the 2 out killer variety. The pitchers have also shown a propensity to give up the long ball. I can't help but wonder if after dominating the league in April and early May with their pitching, other teams have caught on to what Bailey and company were doing and have adjusted accordingly and that perhaps the Sox were to slow to adjust to their adjustments. The offense has been pretty good, but their inability to make contact has in my opinion resulted in less runs than you'd think they'd score given their athleticism and speed. I think there's too many times a runner is on 1st or 2nd with none out and they're not able to advance on an out. For the most part I think the offense did pretty well this year. It seemed to me when Hamilton was hot, the Red Sox had a lineup that was at its best, and when he predictably cooled off, the lineup didn't have the same life. In a way I think O'Neil kind of characterized their lineup in a way. He was pretty good, except, well there's a reason why he only has 50 RBIs despite 25 HRs. Again, I know, RBIs get snickered at. I get why. But scoring runs is important, and I get the sense with O'Neil that despite his really good numbers he can hinder them from scoring at times as well. Rafaela is kind of a conundrum in a way. He's good for chasing pitches he has no business chasing. The dude can hit, but because he won't accept a free pass his OBP will be too low to move up into a higher spot in the lineup. Yet, he's only 23 and does have a pretty freaking good hit tool. Given time and maturation, the hit tool should improve, but it'll only improve to the extent his plate discipline allows him to. Still, given that kind of potential and with his defensive skills, you have to give him every full chance. And with his defense, another conundrum. The numbers say he's not good as a SS. I can see the dude has enough skills that if he playes every day at SS, he'll become a good one. However he is already a better outfielder, and I hope that's where he winds up because between him and Duran there's not too many places for a fly ball hit in the field of play that won't get caught. I keep coming back to lack of depth with the pitching staff. When we look at back at 2024 we'll see that Houck emerged as a front line pitcher, Crawford and Bello as mid-rotation types, and that Slaten looked good out of the pen, but that's not enough to keep a team sustained for 6 plus months. I think the front office pretty much wanted the pitching gurus to turn their pitchers into studs by share brain power, but left them short of overall staff pitching talent. I hope they address it without burning their top prospects. They do have the money to do so, whether they get a front line starter, which they clearly need, or even a mid-rotation type, which they could use. I didn't think much of Criswell before the season started but Breslow did a good job of identifying him. I do wonder how much Cora thinks of him if he yanks him that easily because of those fearsome lefties the Tigers have in their lineup. I mean, I do wonder myself, if Criswell is a right handed Brian Johnson type, whose stuff is meh, but has a useful helpful season before regressing into a AAAA pitcher. Maybe Criswell has a different ending, but either way at this point, I'd have him in the pen next season ready to be stretched out as he has a lot of value in that long relief/spot starter role, but if the dude is dealing I hope they show him a little faith.
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Post by soxfansince67 on Sept 2, 2024 9:36:04 GMT -5
The pitching is an easy target - the issues with the bats is masked by the number of runs scored and relatively high BA. But the stress on the pitching staff to be perfect due to so much of our line up being K prone - esp with risp - leads to inevitable breakdowns. Only the Mariners and Rockies struck out more than our team did. At least Duran added high productivity despite his team leading Ks, but O'Neill, Devers, Rafaela, Raffy and Wong were often rally killers with the Ks.
the other thing not mentioned is mental mistakes - baserunning blunders, running into outs, and poor plays that don't get recorded as errors in the field.
I think the talent is there with the starters and position players - but there is a mental/discipline/focus thing that is occasionally lacking. And this team just didn't coordinate their hot pitching with their hot hitting often enough - they were often out of sync.
Pivetta, Crawford and Houck had some really stellar starts that the team ended up losing because they didn't hit - or the pen blew it.
So - this does feel different than the last two years, despite the eventual ending being somewhat similar depending upon how they do this month.
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Post by scottysmalls on Sept 2, 2024 10:11:54 GMT -5
Criswell shouldn't be on this team, even as a 6th starter type, if the manager has so little confidence in him that he yanks him after four perfect innings and 52 pitches in favor of an elder gent who just joined the team after a layoff. Cora loves to make moves that are pre-ordained before the game. He talks about making pitching changes based on the "pocket" of the order that is coming up. Hey AC, sometimes it's Ok to take it all in and make an adjustment. Just about anything can be dangerous when taken an extreme. BB analytics are an example of that, as today's game showed. Disagree with the framing here, pulling Criswell is not a failure of analytics it is a failure to properly apply them. When a guy is playing that well you have to adjust for that and a properly built model would do so. Generic Criswell might be worse off than generic Hill in that spot (though I’m doubtful of even that), but yesterday’s Criswell wasn’t. Analytics don’t force inflexibility.
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Post by incandenza on Sept 2, 2024 11:03:10 GMT -5
Criswell shouldn't be on this team, even as a 6th starter type, if the manager has so little confidence in him that he yanks him after four perfect innings and 52 pitches in favor of an elder gent who just joined the team after a layoff. Cora loves to make moves that are pre-ordained before the game. He talks about making pitching changes based on the "pocket" of the order that is coming up. Hey AC, sometimes it's Ok to take it all in and make an adjustment. Just about anything can be dangerous when taken an extreme. BB analytics are an example of that, as today's game showed. Disagree with the framing here, pulling Criswell is not a failure of analytics it is a failure to properly apply them. When a guy is playing that well you have to adjust for that and a properly built model would do so. Generic Criswell might be worse off than generic Hill in that spot (though I’m doubtful of even that), but yesterday’s Criswell wasn’t. Analytics don’t force inflexibility. Yeah, people keep blaming "the analytics" for this decision, but I'm pretty sure playing handedness advantages predates Moneyball. Removing a starter after 4 innings is non-traditional, but Cora's rationale for doing so was pretty conventional. And there's plenty of newfangled stats that could've been used to argue for keeping Criswell in: for instance, his FIP splits against lefties; his times-through-the-order splits; aging curves and pitching on consecutive days data... all that would have argued for keeping him in the game.
ADD: Another one: not only does Criswell have reverse splits, Rich Hill has basically no splits across his whole lengthy career! 3.98 FIP vs. L and 4.11 FIP vs. R, but 4.56 xFIP vs. L and 4.09 xFIP vs. R. Worse K-BB% vs. lefties. Worse WHIP vs. lefties. Seems like Cora failed to look into the stats any more deeply than "lefty vs. lefty is good."
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asm18
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Post by asm18 on Sept 2, 2024 12:24:57 GMT -5
What I don’t get is they had Rich Hill warming ready to go in during the 4th inning, and then they decided to keep rolling with Criswell because he was dealing. So it’s not like they weren’t reading the game situation during that sequence. They couldn’t just send Criswell back out to start the 5th inning with a short leash and Hill staying loose if they were THAT worried about it? The downside is you’re mildly inconveniencing the 44 year old, but that’s about it
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