I should start this year’s installment noting that I was horribly wrong about last season. So was every major projection system, most notably ZIPs, which had the Sox going 79-83. Not to be outdone, and anticipating a mid-season fire sale, I predicted one less win. Of course, the Sox dramatically over-performed and finished the season at 92-70, fantastically beating the Yankees in the postseason. Nice!
I’d point out, though, that the Sox went 50-31 in April, May, and June, as a bunch of veteran pitchers gave them much more than pretty much anyone thought possible. Garrett Richards, Martin Perez, and Nick Pivetta (more on him below) were all playing way over their career lines. Be it due to sticky stuff or good old regression, that ended, and the Sox went 42-39 the rest of the way. Less nice!
We enter the season after what I would call an underwhelming off-season. Yes, we got Trevor Story. I am trying to repress my questions about his road splits in Colorado (they are bad, real bad, as in a .750 OPS outside of Coors Field bad). His defense should be great at second base; he gives the Sox some insurance in case they are unable to resign Bogaerts this summer/next winter. But they lost Eduardo Rodriguez, their second best starter last season, and replaced him with the always injured James Paxton (who missed all of last year and won’t be ready to start the season) and Rich Hill (who really replaces Martin Perez-Hill is 43, also injury prone, and will attempt to push the boundaries of the “crafty lefty” archetype to its limits this year). And they lost Hunter Renfroe, who was probably better than you remember. They did not replace him (and, no, JBJ is not a replacement for Renfroe).
Vegas’ over/under for the Sox’s win total is 85.5. There’s part of me that looks at the rotation and wants to take the under, since so many things have to go right (especially given the strength of the division). However, I’ll take the over, but only slightly–let’s say 87 wins. That presumes that Sale gets healthy and gives you 25+ starts. That presumes Eovaldi stays healthy and gives you something close to last year’s Cy Young caliber season. And it presumes that they somehow find another quality starter along the way.
Pitching
Let’s start with what might be the biggest question mark–the rotation. First, the good news–Eovaldi is coming off a career best season, and the underlying numbers suggest there’s no reason he cannot repeat it. He’s a free agent at the end of the season, and speculation is that he likely won’t be coming back to the Sox (as I conclude below, they want to resign both Bogaerts and Devers, and that is going to take a mountain of money). In other words, Eovaldi has a lot of incentive to pitch his ass off again this year before he hits free agency.
Okay, that’s the good news. So, I’ve already indicated that I don’t think much of Paxton and Hill. Or at least, I’d rather have Rodriguez than both of those guys. Chris Sale starts the season on the injured list. Again. At least with Sale, we can point to his velocity numbers from last year and see that he was pretty close to his numbers from before his surgery. So at least there’s hope.
I have far less hope in Pivetta’s ability to repeat–let alone improve upon–last season. Also, Pivetta’s 2021 season probably wasn’t as good as you remember it. While he was electric in April, he was, well, bad for the rest of the year. Rarely do I point at ERA as reliable evidence, but in this case all the underlying numbers pretty much support it–so I offer his ERA by month as a shorthand for Pivetta’s 2021 season: 2.81, 4.82, 5.40, 4.84. 5.27, 3.60. Yes, he was good in September–but his walk, strikeout, and home run numbers tell us he just isn’t much more than an adequate #5 starter. He’ll start the season #2 in the rotation. Yikes.
Behind him, at #3, is Tanner Houck. I love Houck as a reliever, but am (honestly) uncertain about him in the rotation. Last season, the Sox did not let him go more than two times through the order (the two times he did turn it around a third time he got absolutely shelled for a 27.00 ERA, 8 outs against 8 runs allowed). One might argue that this is because he was bouncing between the rotation and the bullpen and thus they were limiting his workload, but I don’t buy it. Why? Because, even when starting, he was essentially a two-pitch pitcher. Technically he has 4 pitches, a four-seam fastball, a two-seam fastball, a slider, and a splitter. But he threw his splitter only 7% of the time last year, and it stunk (a -.68wFC on fangraphs–and, for those of you who don’t speak stat nerd, just trust me–that is terrible). He threw the two-seam a bit more often, 17% of the time, and while not terrible, it wasn’t good either. Combined with his four-seam fastball (which he threw 39% of the time), it scored as 0.85 wFC. So that 15% below league average effectiveness. Which leaves his slider, which he threw 37% of the time, and has a 1.73 career wFC. In other words, Houck is amazing when he comes in from the bullpen and uses his mediocre fastballs to set up his great slider. I’m just not convinced he can get through the order a third time with that trick. His ERA shows a dramatic jump the second time through (1.50 to 3.81), but his FIP and xFIP do not (2.04/2.66 vs. 2.09/2.95 respectively). So the Sox are banking on the advanced metrics here. This is something I’ll be tracking closely early in the season.
All in all, I’m not sold on this rotation. The bullpen seems okay? I love Whitlock, and it looks like he will thankfully stay in the pen for now. We have to hope that Barnes looks like the All-Star version of himself from the first half of last season (2.61 ERA) and not the cooked dude who finished the year (6.48!!! ERA). They’ve got another handful of guys that don’t excite me (this is not the Rays pen), but should be decent. The bullpen immediately improves if they can move Houck out of the rotation. It also improves tremendously if minor leaguer Jay Groome, who returned from injury and pitched well in A+ and AA last year, gets called up.
Position Players
The strength of the team is obviously the offense. Even with some of the questions I have below, they will feature Bogaerts and Devers, and both should be spectacular. Devers is now probably one of the top 25 best hitters in the game (he ranked 27th in wRC+ [which counts baserunning] and 20th in wOBA [which doesn’t] last season). Bogaerts is just an incredibly consistent hitter who balances discipline, contact, power, and baserunning. Those guys are surrounded by quality hitters in Martinez, Verdugo, Hernandez, and Story (I’m guessing Story is about an .800 OPS guy this year). That is a truly impressive top of the order, with a nice righty/lefty balance.
And then there’s Bobby “WTF is up with those splits” Dalbec. Woo boy. Let’s look at Dalbec’s first half vs. second half slash lines:
First half: .219/.264 /.409
Second half: .269/.344/.611
If you are like me, then you might look at that second half improvement and assume it was just luck. Like some BABIP nonsense. Nope. His BABIP spiked a bit in August (.378), but was almost identical across the two halves of the season (.312 vs .323). What did change? His walk rate and strikeout rate (which I noted was likely to be a problem in last year’s preview). First half: 4.7% BB rate and 36.8% K rate. Second half: 8.2 and 31.3%. Look, 31.3% is still bad, but coupled with the walk rate it tells a story of a guy who stopped swinging at terrible pitches outside the zone. What backs up this story? His isolated power numbers, which increased from .190 in the first half to .343 in the second half. Again, for those who aren’t stat nerds, a .343 ISO is fucking bonkers. Ted Williams’ career ISO is .289. Devers career ISO is .230. Now, I don’t think there’s any chance that Dalbec keeps that up. But he doesn’t have to. He could be 1/2 that good make solid contributions to this lineup. He’s my most intriguing player this year–especially because he has been hammering the ball in spring training.
The rest of the line up is a bit dicey. They lost Renfroe, who was a great right-handed, middle of the order bat last season. They replace him with–obstensibly–Jackie Bradley, a former favorite who looked absolutely done last year at the plate. I expected the Sox to sign an everyday left fielder (Conforto is still out there, though hurt). That would move Bradley into a bench role, which is probably a better fit for a team that hopes to contend. Jarren Duran could probably use more plate appearances at AAA, though he might make the club as a platoon player.
I love Christian Vasquez as a catcher and hope he has a bounce back year offensively, though he doesn’t need one to be a contributor to this team. His defense and leadership is valuable enough.
Rookies
In terms of rookies, I’ve already mentioned Groome. He’s their most likely impact pitcher. But 22 year old first baseman Tristan Casas is the organization’s top prospect right now. His minor league numbers (career .275/.380/.480) remind me of Joey Votto–great discipline and contact numbers with the potential for power. How much of that power actually comes awaits to be seen. I thought he was a lock to start at first base by June 1st, but Dalbec (at first) and Martinez (at DH) kind of block him. They could always take the defensive hit, move Martinez back to left field, and replace JBJ’s lineup spot with Casas.
Contract Extensions?
Okay, last point: Bogaerts and Devers’ futures. Bogaerts has an opt-out at the end of the year. He has already indicated he will *not* entertain moving to second base. His defense at shortstop is quite bad. But he is the face of the franchise, from all accounts a great person, and still only 29 years old. I’m anticipating a 5/150 contract extension similar to what Jose Altuve got from the Astros. Maybe they have to go 6/175 with a player option in there somewhere.
Devers is a different story. This year will be, unbelievably, only be his age 25 season. It certainly feels he’s been with the team longer than that! But he debuted at age 20. He’s got one year of arbitration left and then will enter free agency. His defense at third base is atrociously bad and I have no idea whether he would entertain a move to first base. However, as I indicated above, he is at worst the 25th best hitter in baseball and, if you offered him a ten year deal this season, you’d be buying his age 26-35 seasons. Those are going to cost you. Nolan Arrenado got 9/275 million. Manny Machado got 10/300. Devers is younger than those guys, but also not near their level on defense. I’ll project a slightly front-loaded 10/310, with a player opt out after year 5. But the Red Sox refused to offer Mookie Betts this kind of deal (topping out at 10/200). Will they be willing to offer it to Devers?
Okay, so this might be my longest season preview ever so I’m just going to stop writing now. Thanks to the four people who made it this far. Go Sox!
