New Year's Resolutions for the Boston Red Sox in 2015
Welcome to 2015, comrades. Just as all of us are setting goals to better ourselves in the new year, the Boston Red Sox organization should be no different. Not all resolutions are new, as some of our goals include staying the course with past accomplishments. For example, if you quit smoking in 2014, then striving to continue to stay away from cigarettes this year is a fine thing to aim for.
With that in mind, here are four New Year's resolutions the Red Sox should attempt to maintain through 2015.
Don't Be Overly Attached to the Farm System
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Last year the Red Sox were seen to have a barrage of upcoming prospects who made opposing teams salivate. On the heels of a World Series title, general manager Ben Cherington decided to stand pat and wasn't aggressive in the trade market.
It's understandable for a GM to not actively shop young talent and instead plan more for the future given the added leash a world championship provides. The problem is when you overvalue those prospects and miss out on the opportunity to cash them in at peak value.
It's easy to point to Jackie Bradley Jr. or Will Middlebrooks as top-shelf youngsters who failed to meet the hype. But they aren't the only Red Sox products to flop recently.
Ahead of the 2013 season, right-handed pitcher Matt Barnes rose in Baseball America's ranks from No. 8 in Boston's farm system to No. 3. At that point, the then-22-year-old could have fetched a pretty nice return. The Red Sox held tight, and Barnes went on to have a disappointing 2013 season pitching primarily in Double-A (4.13 ERA).
After dropping to their ninth-ranked prospect, Barnes had a similarly unimpressive 2014 in Triple-A (3.95 ERA), where his strikeout rate also plummeted to 7.26 Ks per nine innings. Now he's back ranked No. 8 heading into 2015 but two years older and with notable blemishes to his name. The Red Sox didn't sell high when they had the chance, and now Barnes is a mere throw-in for any trade.
Allen Webster flopped so spectacularly against MLB hitters (6.25 ERA) that the former fourth-ranked prospect ahead of 2013 and 2014 had to be paired with Rubby De La Rosa just to pry Wade Miley from the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The list of misevaluations goes on, from 2010 first-round pick Bryce Brentz to Ryan Lavarnway to Brandon Workman. Projecting future success of prospects isn't a science; it's closer to a weatherman guessing the forecast.
And that's why I was surprised to see the comments section of my "Christmas Wish List" article filled with people who didn't want Boston to trade touted catcher Blake Swihart. I'm not in favor of just giving away the soon-to-be 23-year-old, but in a deal for an ace it's a no-brainer.
While Swihart has had minor league success, Bleacher Report's MLB Prospects Lead Writer Mike Rosenbaum notes the "inherent high risk" of young backstops—not to mention that the Red Sox already have defensive guru Christian Vazquez, who is someone legendary catcher Ivan Rodriguez thinks will become a surefire .300 hitter, as he told the Boston Herald (h/t NESN).
Rosenbaum also gave Henry Owens the same mid-rotation projection that many scouts have tied to the lefty. He isn't considered the next Clayton Kershaw but more along the lines of another Wade Miley.
Swihart and Owens are the cream of the crop of current Red Sox minor leaguers, but neither has the ability or ceiling of a Bryce Harper or Stephen Strasburg that makes him untouchable. I'd rather keep Owens, coming from a viewpoint that you can never have enough pitching and Boston's current staff is still riddled with question marks. However, I would deal either one if it resulted in Johnny Cueto or Cole Hamels. Take the proven entity over the uncertainty of how a non-superstar prospect will develop.
Boston's only untradable players under 26 years old are Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts. The Red Sox can't hoard any decent farm system piece with upside and be expected to produce the ace fans are clamoring for. So I say fire away, Ben Cherington, and acquire the top-of-the-rotation starter this team needs to contend.
Keep Working Opposing Pitchers
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To say the Red Sox offense was disappointing in 2014 is an understatement. Some drop-off was expected after Jacoby Ellsbury's departure, but I don't think anyone saw them falling to 11th in the American League in runs scored or 13th in batting average.
Boston was aggressive in its attempt to improve said offense for 2015, though I still maintain it overpaid for both Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval. But one thing the Red Sox shouldn't do is become more aggressive at the plate itself.
Despite how meager the offensive production was a season ago, the Red Sox continued to work opposing pitchers. Fangraphs charted them as tied for the lowest swing percentage in the majors (44 percent), and they continued to make consistent contact by posting the sixth-best swing-and-miss rate in baseball.
The club collectively only swung at 29.2 percent of pitches outside the strike zone in 2014 (fourth-best in MLB), and its patient approach didn't allow pitchers to get ahead of it (fifth-lowest first-pitch strike percentage at 59.7 percent).
Those advanced statistics look eerily similar to the numbers Boston hitters posted in 2013 when they were the best offense in baseball and won the World Series. The change needed was to upgrade the lineup, not alter the mindset of how to attack at the dish.
We're going to take advantage of Fangraphs' active roster statistics to better project where Boston stands after numerous lineup changes this offseason. When you alter the parameters to include only current MLB hitters the Red Sox employ heading into 2015, their swing-and-miss percentage (SwStr%) in 2014 drops to 7.7 percent. That would have been tied for the second-best mark among MLB teams.
Boston's overall contact percentage (Contact%) and its contact percentage on pitches in the strike zone (Z-Contact%) also spiked when looking at active roster stats. The Red Sox jumped from 10th to second in Contact% and from 14th to fourth in Z-Contact%. Adding notorious bad-ball hitter Sandoval surely helped boost both marks.
It may draw the ire of some fans when they see those first-pitch fastballs piked right down the middle or because it slows down the game, but over the past decade the Red Sox have shown that working pitchers works. You don't turn away from a successful organizational philosophy after a single unsuccessful season.
Adding Sandoval and Ramirez, getting a full season of Mookie Betts and hopefully a healthy Dustin Pedroia should return Boston to the upper echelon of MLB offenses. So buckle up for more four-hour games in 2015.
Attack on the Basepaths More
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Growing up in the age of advanced statistics I'm naturally anti-small ball. I'm all for working a walk, going first to third on a single or tagging up to score on a sacrifice fly.
However, elements of the strategy go too far. Bunting is the single-worst part of small ball, and thankfully the legendary Bill James appears to have convinced the sabermetrically savvy Red Sox of that. Boston has almost refused to bunt over the past two seasons, ranking 28th in sacrifice hits in 2014 and 27th in 2013.
John Farrell does have somewhat of a reputation as a manager who likes to hit and run. As a gambling man, I can see the allure of baseball's blackjack. There are situations in the NL where I'm more open to that aggressiveness (i.e. No. 8 hitter batting with the pitcher on deck), but with a stacked lineup in the AL it seems like an unworthy risk.
Even if it's something MLB's preeminent manager Joe Maddon voices support of, per Stuart Miller of The New York Times, prematurely planning that move forces the runner to go even if he doesn't have a great jump or a good read on the pitcher. It also can make a hitter chase an obviously bad pitch just to protect the runner.
Having said that, I am in favor of the Red Sox taking advantage of their speed more in a traditional base-stealing sense. Boston ranked 25th in steals last season, swiping just 63 bags after amassing 123 stolen bases in 2013. That was another area where the loss of Jacoby Ellsbury reared its head, but Boston has a chance to return to respectability in that department in 2015.
Mookie Betts has stolen 99 bases at an 84.6 percent success rate during his four professional seasons across MLB and MiLB. Scouts rated Rusney Castillo's speed as his best trait, and the 27-year-old managed three steals in his 10-game stint with the Red Sox last year.
Shane Victorino stole a career-high 39 bags as recently as 2012. While that's an unrealistic expectation for Victorino this coming season, it's reasonable to assume he can return to being a 20-steals guy now that he's over the back and leg issues that plagued him in 2014.
Throw in Dustin Pedroia recapturing his 20 steals potential after a subpar six stolen-base campaign from a year ago, and the Red Sox appear primed to worry pitchers more on the basepaths. So even though the AL East has the best compilation of backstops who throw out runners (Russell Martin, Brian McCann, Matt Wieters and Rene Rivera), John Farrell shouldn't be afraid to give the green light.
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Make It 2 Years in a Row Without a Smear Campaign
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We all know how New Year's resolutions work. You start out strong going to the gym, resisting the urge to smoke, eating healthier, etc. And then by February it fades, and you revert to who you are. And that's why I was shocked to see the Red Sox go a full calendar year without succumbing to their nastiest habit: smear campaigns.
Some would argue the aftermath of A.J. Pierzynski's departure, as reported by WEEI's Rob Bradford, would qualify. But that seems like legitimate issues with a guy who has a track record of being a difficult personality. It's a far cry from the garbage put out there about Terry Francona after the Red Sox split with the two-time World Series manager.
Just as we're all tempted to quit our cleanse and return to our vices, the Red Sox were teased by their proverbial bottle when Jon Lester spurned them for the $155 million blowing his way from the Chicago Cubs.
The Boston brass easily could have given in and leaked info to make the lovable, homegrown cancer activist and survivor look like a greedy guy. It also could have pointed to the left-handed pitcher reverting from his January stance that he'd "absolutely" give the Red Sox a hometown discount, per ESPN Boston's Gordon Edes:
"I understand that to stay here, you're not going to get a free-agent deal. You're not going to do it. You can't. It's not possible. You're bidding against one team. I understand you're going to take a discount to stay...But just like they want it to be fair for them, I want it to be fair for me and my family.
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Many would agree that the $135 million deal Lester ended up turning down from Boston was fair. Disgruntled fans will point to the "lowball" $70 million offer last spring. But is $17.5 million annually for a pitcher entering his 30s who at the time had a career 3.76 ERA really an insult?
It wasn't the greatest deal, and the fact that it was only four years in length was an issue. But that's how negotiations work. One side starts out somewhere, the other side counters with an unrealistic number on the opposite end of the spectrum and then both work to meet in the middle.
The Red Sox tried to spark up contract talks again during the season, but Larry Lucchino revealed to WEEI's Jerry Spar in July that Lester was adamant he still didn't want to negotiate until after the season. The Red Sox could have vilified him for that, saying that Lester got too bent out of shape after an initial offer and then refused to work with the team to keep himself in Beantown.
They could have leaked ridiculous concerns about the possibility of his body breaking down sooner because of his past chemotherapy treatments. The option presented itself to have "new information" surface that painted Lester as a bigger problem in the old "fried chicken and beer" saga.
Yet Boston management resisted. It let Lester leave town the way he should have: as a beloved fan favorite and two-time world champion. Here's hoping it takes the high road again on any departures in 2015.
Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.
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