The Red Sox Will Make The Playoffs
If a number of things go their way that I'll discuss here sorry was that too sneaky?
Before we begin, quick reminder to subscribe to the Sox Outsider Podcast, which you can find at the podcast outlet of your choice. It’s the best Red Sox podcast out there that features me! I just recorded the 11th episode with special guest, author Larry Olmsted, in which I discussed the Red Sox, then spoke to Larry about his new book, Fans: How watching sports makes us happier, healthier, and more understanding.
I have some exciting guests lined up to preview the baseball season and talk all things Red Sox so please, check out the podcast. I think you’ll enjoy it!
On Monday I put up a post* about the projections and what they’re saying about the Red Sox. In case you missed it, the gist is that not much is expected of the Red Sox this year. The pitching staff should be better, but not actually good. The offense should be good, but not great, and there are a bunch of injury concerns and young players, both of which provide lots of uncertainty.
*I just don’t know what to call these. Are they articles? Posts? Individual newsletters? Honestly, no clue! I feel like I come up with something different every time.
Those are the baseline expectations and they are reasonable enough. But what about the upside? I touched on that a little bit in the article, but not enough. And I do think there is upside here. The Red Sox can make the playoffs in 2021. How?
There are two overarching things that probably need to go Boston’s way in order to make the playoffs. The first involves their competition. Right now the projections are saying the AL East is the most difficult division to play in. FanGraphs has the AL East with four winning teams (i.e. above a .500 winning percentage), the most of any division. Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system thinks the AL East will have three winning teams (they have Boston with 79.5 wins), tied with three other divisions. So the first thing the Red Sox need in order to make the playoffs is at least one of the winning teams in their division to falter.
Why do they need that? Because you can’t make the playoffs by finishing fourth. There are only two Wild Card teams in each league, so by definition any team that finishes fourth or lower will miss the playoffs. So one of the Yankees, Blue Jays, or Rays needs to fall off for Boston to step in. The Yankees are projected to be the second best team in baseball behind only the Dodgers by both projection systems, so let’s assume it won’t be them. That means the Jays or the Rays need to underperform in some capacity.
That could absolutely happen! FanGraphs has the Rays behind the Red Sox right now (I’m not sure I’m buying that). The Rays have a very good pitching staff, but you could see a way they might struggle to score runs. The Jays are the opposite. They have an imposing lineup but it’s not stretching reality to think they might have some troubles on the pitching and defense side of things. And sure enough BP has the Jays scoring about 100 runs more than Boston but giving up about 60 runs more as well.
So there you go. The Rays can’t score and the Jays pitching falters. Can the Red Sox take advantage? Here’s what the projections say.
This shows the projected runs scored and allowed for the Red Sox by the different projection systems (BP is Baseball Prospectus, FG is FanGraphs, CD is Clay Davenport). As you can see, the average of the systems is a team that outscores its opponents by 21 runs, a very slightly above average team. Which is to say, very likely not a playoff team.
But what if the Red Sox score runs like FanGraphs projects but their pitching and defense give up runs like Baseball Prospectus projects? That would be a team with a +84 run differential and that’s a much better team! In 2018 the Colorado Rockies won 91 games and a Wild Card with a worse run differential than that. In 2019, the Milwaukee Brewers won 89 games and a Wild Card with a worse run differential than that. Now, there are teams from both years that had better run differentials than those examples and missed the playoffs, so even that best case scenario above isn’t any kind of sure thing when it comes to getting to the post-season, but it does let us know that there are good possible outcomes here. We’re not looking at the Orioles roster and thinking, “OK, Chris Davis turns back into an All Star, and then John Means becomes Sandy Koufax, and then…” This is actually a realistic outcome.
But that’s brings us back to the first point. For the Red Sox to make the playoffs they need either the Rays or Jays to falter, but they probably also need the Yankees to be very good. It’s weird to write that but it’s true. If the Yankees are insanely good, say 105 wins or something, that will soak up wins and keep the other teams in the AL East from big win totals. Of course the Red Sox will have to face New York too, so that’s a bit of a problem, but let’s ignore that for a moment.
Keep ignoring that.
Continue ignoring that.
I’ll call you later and let you know when you can stop ignoring that. But for now, let’s move on to the Wild Card competition. Here are the non-division winning AL Teams and their projections.
These are FanGraphs projections because, quite simply, they have the rosier projection for Boston, but we’re talking about the Red Sox making the playoffs so any scenario that results in that is going to be rosy. As you can see above, the Red Sox are three games behind the second Wild Card spot and, maybe more importantly, there are exactly zero teams between them and that spot. Three games isn’t nothing, but it can be erased by luck, by unexpected rookie performance, by a surprisingly good rotation, really in any number of different ways.
I’ll get into specifics on where that luck, those unexpected rookie performances, that surprisingly good rotation can come from, but for now, know that it’s not going to take a ridiculous turn of events for this team to surprise a lot of people. In fact, it’s entirely possible for the Red Sox to make the playoffs in 2021.
Not a big fan of projections/predictions. Way too many variables to skew things, with injuries at the top of the list.
But I do feel comfortable sticking my neck out this far: The Red Sox will be the most improved team in the American League. And it likely won’t be particularly close.