Boston fans were spoiled in 2013 because we hardly remember times when the Red Sox looked bad, so we’ve been taken aback at how they’ve played this April. But let’s take a look at the Yankees to get an objective sense of where the Red Sox stand.
New York sits atop what, right now, is a very weird AL East. They have a .600 winning percentage but, like every other team in the division, they have a negative run differential – they’re pitching and fielding has allowed more runs than their hitting has been able to score.
You don’t need to be a math geek to figure out that the Yankees can’t continue playing .600 baseball if their pitching and fielding doesn’t improve. But if you want to be a math geek about it, we’ll dive into the dark arts of Sabermetics.
Personally, I prefer to use hard statistics instead of measurements derived from algorithms with linear weights and what-not which may or may not show the bias of those calculating the measurement, but the Pythagorean expectation for the Yankees is interesting because it suggests that the Yankees are overachieving to an alarming degree.
According to Pythagorean expectation, the Yankees should have a .467 winning percentage and they’re playing like a 75 or 76 win team. Maybe you agree with that assessment or maybe you think it’s junk, so take that for what you will. But it is difficult to believe that the Yankees will continue to play .600 baseball.
How does this reflect on the rest of the AL East? It shows that everything is still up for grabs, which isn’t out of the norm for any sports league at the beginning of its season.
The Red Sox are not (yet) a .500 team, and at times it doesn’t look like they’ve come close to playing like even a .500 baseball club. But they’ve also faced harder tests than the Yankees so far this season. Outside of the division the Red Sox have played against the Brewers, Rangers, and White Sox; all of whom are .500 or above (the Brewers have a .720 winning percentage). Contrast that with the Yankees lackluster opponents: the Astros, Cubs, and Angels.
Regardless of how the Red Sox have looked in April (which hasn’t been great) or how they’ve had to face tougher opponents, they are only two games below .500 right now. With Shane Victorino and Will Middlebrooks out for most of the month, and Clay Buchholz looking like he was a breath away from winding up on the DL until this weekend, that’s not too shabby.
The Red Sox fielding a healthy lineup looks especially appealing when you consider five other things: Derek Jeter is 40, Alfonso Soriano is 38, Carlos Beltran is 37, Jacoby Ellsbury is 30 and has a sorry past with the DL; and Brian McCann is 30.
How long will the Yankees go this season without suffering an injury to a key player in their lineup? I hate to sound like a homer, but that’s a reasonable question.
Beyond the Red Sox and Yankees, Baltimore looks good but Chris Davis just went on the DL, Toronto isn’t impressing anyone with those sub-.200 hitters on the bottom of their lineup, and Tampa Bay is having trouble winning without Matt Moore. If Tampa Bay is pretty much out of the race by the end of May, I suspect they’ll shop David Price around for a prospect. By August, the AL East may be a three team race between Boston, Baltimore, and New York.
Despite what the Red Sox have been through and how they’ve played thus far, the team hasn’t dug itself into a huge hole to climb out of. So if you think the Red Sox took a crap in April, just consider it to be fertilizer for their flowering this summer.
