Red Sox Week In Review

It's time to look back at the week (and a bit more) that was in our newest feature!

Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash

Welcome to Red Sox Week In Review! This will be a regular weekly feature here at Sox Outsider, unless you all hate it, in which case tell me in the comments and I’ll stop. I’m intending to run this feature every Monday morning, but because this is the first Week In Review of the season (because I just thought of it yesterday), I’m not going to constrain things to just the last week. Let’s get up-to-date on the season so far. Beyond that, it’s pretty self-explanatory, so lets dive right in!

Right after I say hi and beg you to subscribe.

Hi! Please subscribe!

Thanks.

Note: this was written and compiled before Tuesday night’s 2-1 win over the Blue Jays, a game which will be covered in full in next week’s Week In Review. However, the Red Sox’ overall record and most of the team-based stats below have been updated.

Red Sox Record:

6-5; t-1st place with New York and Toronto

Run Differential:

+3 (47 runs scored, 44 runs allowed)

What Happened:

They lost two of three in the Bronx, won two of three in Detroit, split a four game series at home with the Twins, and beat Toronto last night.

Any Significant Injuries?

Christian Vazquez and Kevin Plawecki both were added to the Covid IL yesterday. Connor Wong was brought up from Triple-A and started yesterday’s game against Toronto at catcher. Garrett Whitlock might have tweeked his ankle covering first in the ninth inning last night. He stayed in to finish the inning, so hopefully it’s nothing.

How Things Are Look’n:

Things are looking fine.

Can you be more specific?

Sure. Let’s be more specific.

Starting Pitching In Review

By fWAR, the Red Sox starters rank 28th in the league. That seems harsh to me. They’ve not been good, but they’ve been fine. Nick Pivetta has been the weak link. He got touched up by the Yankees for four runs (including two homers) in 5.2 innings, and then gave up four runs again to Minnesota in just two innings including another homer. On the other end of the spectrum is Michael Wacha, who has been far better than expected, though some large portion of that seems to be batted ball luck. Wacha is striking out a reasonable number of hitters, around 25 percent, but he’s been walking way more than you’d like, a shade above 14 percent. So far he’s yet to give up any homers and the hits haven’t been falling in against him so the walks haven’t hurt. Given his stuff, there are going to be some hits allowed, so he's going to need to get the walks under control.

Rich Hill has looked hittable, though, like all these guys, it’s super early, only two starts. The second of those starts came immediately after his father passed away, a tough time for anyone to do anything let alone pitch a major league game. It’s definitely too early to make long term judgements on Hill.

Nathan Eovaldi has looked, to my eye, quite good. He’s given up five homers in 14.2 innings pitched which is why his numbers don’t look good, but he’s not walking anyone and he’s getting a lot of strikeouts. To me, he looks as dominant as he did last season when he ably headed up an ALCS-caliber rotation. If he stays healthy he should be fine.

Bullpen In Review

The Numbers: By fWAR, the Red Sox have the sixth best bullpen in baseball, tied with Tampa. They have the second best strikeout percentage (29.3 percent) and the 18th best walk percentage (10.6 percent).

The Good: The Red Sox have received some very good performances from the pen, most notably from Jake Diekman. Diekman has yet to give up a run in 3.1 innings and he’s struck out seven of the 15 batters he’s faced (47 percent). Command has always been the issue with Diekman though, but so far so good on that front as he’s only walked one hitter (though he’s hit two) and hasn’t given up a home run. Don’t bet your mom’s house on that continuing.

Beyond Diekman, Philips Valdez has done yeoman’s work, with eight Ks of 18 batters faced, and no runs allowed in five innings on the mound. Hansel Robles has also not given up a run in his five innings pitched though it always feels to me like he is perpetually on the edge of implosion. Maybe it’s just me.

Garrett Whitlock has been excellent. I wrote about his contract extension on Monday, so check that out. It seems clear to me that Whitlock is going to be in the bullpen as long as they don’t need him in the rotation. That might be a week, a month, or next season, but the contract extension seems to me like one they’d only give to a starter. We’ll see.

The Bad: Matt Barnes has two walks and two strikeouts in the 13 hitters he’s faced. He’s not been the utter mess he was towards the end of last season, but the strikeouts simply aren’t there. He’s not been giving up a lot of hard contact, and he’s been experimenting with a changeup to lefties, which hasn’t looked bad in the early going. so those are positives. The velocity on his fastball is down 1.5 mph, which could be due to cold weather and inconsistent usage, but it’s definitely something to monitor.

Beyond Barnes, Kutter Crawford has really struggled. I think the front office was (and is) expecting great things from Crawford out of the pen this season, and that may still happen, but so far the returns aren’t good. Six strikeouts and six walks and eight runs allowed (seven earned) in five innings. He’s going to keep getting chances because there just aren’t a lot of other long men in the pen, but he’s got to be better or they’ll have to find someone else because this can’t continue.

Hitting In Review

The Numbers: Red Sox hitters are batting .237/.290/.395; wRC+ of 93, seven percent below league average

Rankings: 22nd by both fWAR and wRC+

The Good: The Red Sox best hitter has been Alex Verdugo. Verdugo is hitting .333/.400/.667, which is a David Ortiz-in-his-prime slash line. Even better, or maybe not better, but encouragingly, Verdugo is walking (12.5 percent) more than he’s striking out (7.5 percent), which is showing a level of strike zone control we’ve never seen from him before. Perhaps lost in his power dip last season was the increase in his walk rate and the decrease in his strikeout rate. Verdugo is, like Rafael Devers, just 25 years old, so there is still time to hope for some developmental improvement. I don’t think he’s a .600 slugging type of dude, but early returns are exciting about the level of hitter he could be.

The other guy of note is 2022 AL MVP Rafael Devers. Devers has his strikeouts way down as well (13 percent) but he’s not walking at all (just 2 percent on the season). That won’t ever work outside of small samples, but in this small sample it’s fine, as Devers is hitting .349/.364/.558 with two homers and three doubles. There have been a few other hits that could’ve left ballparks, but didn’t for various reasons. Ultimately things will stabilize for Devers. He’s always been a slower starter who heats up as the weather does, so this counts as a very good start for him.

The Bad: Christian Arroyo (wRC+ of -16), Bobby Dalbec (56 wRC+), Enrique Hernandez (71 wRC+), and Trevor Story (63 wRC+).

There are reasons to be worried about each of the first three. Arroyo has played his way off multiple teams by not hitting before. Dalbec comes with serious bat-to-ball questions, and Hernandez, wonderful as he is, was a league average bat (three percent below to be specific) in seven MLB seasons before last year’s semi-breakout.

The one not to be worried about is Story. He barely had a spring training as he signed late, then had to miss even a part of the small portion that was left as his wife gave birth to their first child. He’s just going to require some time to get going, but there’s no reason to expect him to be anything but his typically above average self at the plate once that adjustment happens. And until it happens, he’s contributing above average defense at second base. So that’s something at least.

Anything Stand Out Fielding-wise?

Speaking of fielding, yes, actually. The guy who I’ve noticed most is Devers. He’s yet to make an error. His range has been, to my eye, quite good, as he’s gotten to a number of balls I didn’t think he’d be able to reach, including one where he made a running catch on a ball over his shoulder in center field (!). More to the point with Devers, his throws have been strong and accurate, with only one coming to mind where the first baseman had to make any kind of scoop on.

Story has also looked good in the field, including making a diving catch to his left, and ranging far to his right to field a ball in front of Xander Bogaerts.

Overall Best Week

Verdugo. I’m not expecting this to continue, at least not at this level, but it’s a great start to the season from a player who was maybe left out when talking about the core of this team during the off-season. A continued hot start could begin to change that.

Overall Worst Week

Maybe it is and maybe it’s not Bobby Dalbec, but let’s talk about Bobby Dalbec. Dalbec is currently the starting first baseman, and he’s showed some skills during his time in the minors and during the second half of last season. He’s not a guy you just toss after a tough week, or even a tough month. But he’s on the verge of getting Wally Pipp’d. Pipp, in case you’re not familiar, was the Yankees starting first baseman in 1925. As the story goes, Pipp had a headache and was given the day off. His replacement was a young guy named Lou Gehrig who would go on to play the next 2,130 straight games for the Yankees. Pipp is still waiting for his next chance to start.

So while Dalbec is hitting .167 with a 56 wRC+, first baseman Triston Casas, the top prospect in the Red Sox farm system according to Sox Prospects, is hitting .282/.420/.564 in Triple-A. The Red Sox aren’t likely to make a switch on less than two weeks worth of data, but this isn’t really less than two weeks worth of data. If Dalbec continues to struggle through April and into May and Casas continues to rake in Worcester, don’t be surprised if a change gets made. And if a change gets made, it’s not likely to be unmade. Just ask Wally Pipp.

Current Frontrunner for 2022 AL MVP

Rafael Devers

Overall Comments

They say you can’t win the pennant in April but you can lose it. The 2018 Red Sox went 19-6 in April that year so they kinda did win at least the AL East at that point, but generally that’s a true statement. It’s a long season after all and stuff happens. So with that in mind, yeah, everything is pretty much fine. No AL East team has run away with anything, certainly not yet, so there’s lots of time to get things going.

Further, nothing in the construction of the team seems like a fatal flaw, at least so far. Pre-season expectations that they should be competent-to-good at just about every facet of the game still seem eminently reasonable. By that same token, nothing has been amazing either. The pitching staff is still a work in progress, and I expect there will be a good amount of roster turnover there during the season, although that hasn’t happened yet. The back end of the rotation will likely undergo some transition and the roster fluctuation in a major league bullpen during a season is not unlike waves washing new shells up onto a beach while pulling others back into the sea.

But generally speaking you can see the potential here. This is a team that should be able to pitch and field around league average, give or take, and though they haven’t yet, they should really hit. No, they haven’t done so yet, but there’s every reason to believe they can and will.

Upcoming Schedule

Two more in Boston against the Toronto Blue Jays, followed by a weekend series in Tampa against the Rays.

Thanks for reading

Thanks for reading