And yet lack of hitting is practically the only problem that the Red Sox didn’t have this year.
They scored more runs per game in 2010 than any team not named the New York Yankees. The Sox were one of only two teams in the whole of Major League Baseball to average more than 5 runs per game. The scored more runs than Tampa, more than Texas.
They were second in home runs, third in walks, third in OBP, second in SLG, and first in OPS.
Now, they did suffer the misfortune of being in exactly the same division as the #1 scoring team and the #3 scoring team, but it seems just bizarre to me to argue that the biggest problem faced by this team is 2010 was lack of hitting.
Well, it’s certainly true that run prevention was a big problem for Boston. If we put aside the excellent seasons by Lester and Buchholz, the Red Sox starters were pretty damn awful. In the 98 games that were not started by Lester and Buchholz, the Red Sox starters managed an ERA of 4.99. If Lackey, Beckett, Matsuzaka, and Wakefield had enjoyed even career-average (not exceptional; just average) years, and if Papelbon had lived up to expectations, the Sox would have allowed a good half a run less per qame, and that could easily have been the difference between making the playoffs and not. That’s where the biggest difference between the Sox and the Rays and Yankees was this year, not hitting.
Now, we’re talking about the front office here, so the next question has to be: do you think that the front office was incompetent in predicting that they could win with run prevention at the beginning of the season? I certainly don’t. I don’t know about you, but when i looked at that Red Sox rotation and bullpen back in March, there’s no way i predicted that they would give up so many runs.
Oh wait, i do know about you. Here’s what you had to say back before the season started:
December, 2009
February, 2010
So, you were saying in the off-season that their pitching looked good, and that they were going to win a lot of 4-2 games. This suggests that you agreed with the Red Sox front office that run prevention would, indeed, be an important factor in Boston’s 2010 campaign.
Also, despite your 20/20 hindsight in arguing that this team was never going to make the playoffs, here’s what you had to say in the prediction thread:
Category 4 is the AL Wild Card, and Category 9 is the AL Pennant.