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The Red Sox September Review. Part One: Hitting.

As the season is closing, I thought it may be appropriate to give the offense a deeper look to see how things are shaping up as the Boston Red Sox are entering the playoffs.

The overall performance during the month of September has been very encouraging when you compare it to the other playoffs teams: LAA, DET and the MFY.

From those teams, the Red Sox are second to the Yanks in OPS (with a solid .803) and runs scored (142 to the MFY 147).

Who's hot:

Player

OBP

SLG

OPS

wOBA

Bay

.385

.612

.997

.417

Martinez

.433

.494

.927

.409

Drew

.421

.547

.968

.408

Ortiz

.392

.568

.960

.406

Youkilis

.396

.526

.922

.399

  • After a horrible start of the season, Big Papi is back with a line that matches his historical production.
  • Drew and Bay are finally putting their horrible August behind them and performing at some elite level.
  • Martinez has been arguably the 2nd best offensive catcher in the game and his 22.5% of line drives is extremely helping a high .385 BABIP. He seems to see the ball very well ( 1.29 BB/K): We could say that it's not out of question that he keeps producing those numbers comes October.
  • Youkilis has been steady all season long with no big variations in his offensive production although he has shown some signs of decrease lately (.702 OPS in the last 10 games), his BABIP of .200 shows that he's been extremely unlucky and you could hope that the homers that he hit last night are signs of a return to the form that made one of the elite hitters in AL those past 2 seasons.

Who's not?

Player

OBP

SLG

OPS

wOBA

Pedroia

.339

.402

.751

.338

Lowell

.301

.328

.629

.288

In Pedroia's case, the numbers have been plain awful if you consider the last 14 games (.705 OPS) you could attribute that to bad luck with an anemic .255 BABIP although he's having a healthy percentage of line drives and fly balls ( 18.5% and 40.2% respectively), to put in another words: He's hitting the ball hard...right at fielders! As he keeps seeing the ball well (2.20 BB/K), we could legitimately hope that the reigning MVP returns to form and be the spark to this offense through the playoffs (fingers crossed!)

As for Mike Lowell, a look at his batted balls distribution shows the following:

Player

LD%

GB%

FB%

IFFB%

Lowell

20.8%

41.5%

37.7%

5%

With his lack of mobility, the high GB% may explain his offensive slump ( No inf. singles, Forceouts turned into double plays...). The drop in his power numbers ( .094 ISO) is not helping neither. If he could duplicate his August numbers (which he could if you consider that his September numbers remain WAY under his season/historical line of .813 OPS and .347 wOBA) , this lineup could as scary as any other contender lineup.

Conclusion:

This offense remain one of the finest in baseball with its key contributors heating at the right time and if Pedroia decide to join them for the playoffs, I like our chances 'cause, as some of you tend to forget, we have a patient lineup capable of  drawing walks (10.3 in BB%) and take a high pitches per PA, wearing down opposing starters and getting early to the opponents Bullpens which in my book, remains the best formula in October baseball.

And for those of you who remain skeptical, I can tell them this: As Billy Beans said, playoffs remains a crapshoot!

5 recs  |  Comment 22 comments

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Nice work man!

I rec’d that too!

tRA is the real stat.

by bloodysock04 on Sep 29, 2009 12:39 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Nice job

It is really interesting how steady Papi has been since June 1, despite large monthly fluctuations in his batting average. I don’t think he has a monthly OPS below .825. Since June 1 his overall line is:

93 GS (344 AB) 27 HR 77 RBI .265 AVG/.357 OBP/.558 SLG (.915 OPS) – 1
HR ever 12.74 AB

He has continued to be the best HR hitter in the AL since June 1, hitting nearly exactly 7 a month in that time frame. I wonder what people think his next year’s line might look like-especially USG who (if I recall correctly) was not big on Papi for next year’s DH, at least at one point in August. I think it is clear that he will be the DH next year, due to his performance and contract, but I do think it is an interesting question. How does one project Papi in 2010?

by Buzzy on Sep 29, 2009 12:40 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

I see him as a .870-.920 OPS hitter. But I think his high AVG years are behind him.

I gotta go 'cause I'm probably definitely gonna nod out again.

by Drugs Delaney on Sep 29, 2009 1:41 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

my feeling

is that might be a bit high, but I think 850 is reasonable. Hope you are right. One thing I really hope for is that he can improve his plate discipline. His O-swing rate is funky this year and he is walking less because of it. Usually older players are less prone to do that, and it may have been a function of him pressing from early in the season, however in 2008 it was tending this way too. If he can get his BB rate back to close to what it was I think your estimates are reasonable.

by Buzzy on Sep 29, 2009 2:03 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

O-swings

Here’s how the Sox hitters look in terms of plate discipline (best to worst):

Drew – 15.3 %
Kottaras – 16.9 %
VMart – 18.3 %
Youk – 18.8 %
Lowrie – 18.9 %
Bay – 20.6 %
Ortiz – 22.1 %
Pedroia – 22.9 %
Ellsbury – 24.2 %
Kotchman – 24.5 %
Reddick – 25.0 %
Varitek – 25.8 %
Lowell – 26.6 %
Baldelli – 28.5 %
Gonzalez – 35.4 %
Green – 38.0 %

Here’s Papi’s month-to-month O-swings:

April – 29.8 %
May – 20.6 %
June – 17.7 %
July – 23.7 %
August – 20.9 %
September – 19.4 %

In July, Ortiz’s worst month of plate discipline since April, he had a .353 wOBA with an ISO of .292 (best ISO on the team that month).

I gotta go 'cause I'm probably definitely gonna nod out again.

by Drugs Delaney on Sep 29, 2009 3:02 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

good stuff

in an ideal world you would like him to be 19% or so, so I guess from June 1 on he is close. I don’t worry about the ISO, except for the fact that it is down across the board for him, but we can’t expect super-Papi anymore (if you want to look at a crazy number, look at Papi’s 2006 season ISO).

by Buzzy on Sep 29, 2009 3:49 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Rec'd

I gotta go 'cause I'm probably definitely gonna nod out again.

by Drugs Delaney on Sep 29, 2009 1:40 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Yay, front paged!

I hope the pitching part could be informative!

"That was a lot of fun… You just keep pounding balls into the gap. The one thing you don’t want to do is hit a home run. That’s a rally-killer." Jeff Francoeur

by radiohix on Sep 29, 2009 3:53 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

WOW

When Youk is your 5th best hitter when hitting .922 OPS, I would say our bats are doing well.

I think the injury and the lack of consistent playing time are messing up Lowell. I would love to give him a streak of 3 or 4 games to get back going again.

by drabidea on Sep 29, 2009 4:07 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Not sure

when he can play since he had the injection. I agree it would be good for him to play, say, the last 3 games.

by Buzzy on Sep 29, 2009 4:59 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Did it ever occur to the author that

without good pitching, most of this post is irrelevant! Maybe part II will clarify, but if the last 5 games don’t tell you something, you are comatose!

by NG on Sep 29, 2009 9:27 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Read the comment like 3 above yours, NG.

Hix clearly is planning to do a pitching part.

if the last 5 games don’t tell you something, you are comatose!

If you are choosing to evaluate the team based on 5 games vs. the 155 or so we have played so far this season, I’m not sure anyone’s going to be able to convince you other wise.

by bs.uf15bosox9bears23 on Sep 29, 2009 10:32 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

the problem

with stupid people is that they are too stupid to know that they are stupid.

by Buzzy on Sep 30, 2009 8:37 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Good stuff.

I’ve been away from technology (and almost all sports info) for the last month and this series is pretty damn perfectly timed for me.

So did we make the playoffs?

"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw

by BTLove on Sep 30, 2009 2:01 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Welcome back.

Indeed, in classical back-in fashion!

by Buzzy on Sep 30, 2009 2:04 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Welcome back, BT

I gotta go 'cause I'm probably definitely gonna nod out again.

by Drugs Delaney on Sep 30, 2009 3:10 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Thank you.

I’m ready to watch some baseball again.

"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw

by BTLove on Sep 30, 2009 6:30 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Yes.

But you didn’t win Hix’s award for Smartest Poster.

by bs.uf15bosox9bears23 on Sep 30, 2009 6:01 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Big Papi's bat

is going to be important to our offense, hopefully he can keep it up.

by t.williams9 on Oct 2, 2009 12:55 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

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