Injuries Mounting for the Red Sox

by
May 22, 2012

The injuries keep coming for the Boston Red Sox. The most recent victim is off-season acquisition Cody Ross, who is out indefinitely with a fractured bone in his foot. With Ross now on the disabled list, all three of the Red Sox projected starters in the outfield are currently injured. While the Red Sox have struggled this season, they are only 6.5 games out of first place. But the injuries will make it difficult to close the gap.

The fact that the Red Sox are only 6.5 games out is truly amazing considering all the injuries they’ve already been dealt. Carl Crawford has yet to play a single game for the team this season, and Jacoby Ellsbury lasted just seven games before injuring his shoulder. With Ross now injured, the team will have to get by with some combination of Ryan Sweeney, Daniel Nava, Marlon Byrd and Che-Hsuan Lin in the outfield.

While an injury to Ross wouldn’t typically be reason for panic, the Red Sox had high expectations for him this season. Even though Ross came in with a spotty track record, he got off to a pretty good start. With the Red Sox already experiencing injuries to other players, Ross kept the team afloat. Before his injury, Ross rated as the fourth best offensive player on the team.

His performance was somewhat surprising, considering Ross has been a useful — but never great — player throughout his career. Over the past five seasons, Ross has accumulated 11.1 WAR, putting him in the same category as Aaron Rowand, Mike Cameron and Kevin Kouzmanoff. That’s hardly the type of player who should become a premier acquisition for a club. But it was a strange off-season for the Red Sox, and Ross looked like the team’s best offensive addition this year.

Ross’ injury only complicates how we should look at the Red Sox’s off-season. Many of the players they acquired — Ross, Andrew Bailey and Mark Melancon — have disappointed this year. Bailey has yet to play a game for the team, and Melancon gave up 11 runs in 2.0 innings before being sent down to Triple-A. But while the more heralded players have failed to contribute, the team is being held together by some of their more shrewd moves this off-season.

The decision to trade away both Marco Scutaro and Jed Lowrie was met with a lot of criticism, but Mike Aviles has filled in admirably in their absence. Aviles’ 1.7 WAR leads the team this year, and while it’s highly unlikely that he’ll keep up the pace, the decision to go with Aviles has paid off early on.

The same can be said of Ryan Sweeney, who wasn’t expected to play as big a role after he was acquired. But injuries have forced Sweeney into a more prominent role, and he’s responded well. While his offensive production is unsustainable going forward, he should be able to provide solid defense in any spot while Crawford, Ellsbury, Ross and Ryan Kalish recover.

With Ross out, Sweeney and Aviles will have to step up even more. Unfortunately, neither player is capable of performing at a much higher rate. For all the grief the team has received about their less-than-stellar off-season, they’ve also made some shrewd acquisitions that have kept them within striking distance. But without a major signing this year, the team doesn’t have the depth to handle all of their injuries. But with another significant injury, the team is quickly running out of depth. Ross’ injury wouldn’t normally be viewed as such a big deal, but the Red Sox couldn’t afford to lose anyone else. Unless Crawford and Ellsbury can make miraculous recoveries, the team is going to need a lot of luck if they want to get back in the race.





 

Chris is a blogger for CBSSports.com. He has also contributed to Sports on Earth, the 2013 Hard Ball Times Baseball Annual, ESPN, FanGraphs and RotoGraphs. He tries to be funny on twitter @Chris_Cwik.

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DonChrysler
11 years ago

Only 5.5 games out of first place

0
Jonathan
11 years ago
Reply to  DonChrysler

Further caveat:

Two of the three teams in the AL East ahead of them are not expected to stay ahead of them. Considering the Rays are the only team ahead of them likely to stick it out past the ASB, they’re only 3.5 back on their strongest competition. Plus, with the new WC system, they’re only actually two back in the loss column on a playoff spot.

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Dougal
11 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Jays have the second best run differential in the AL, and trade chips absolutely spilling out of their pockets, keep your head in the sand I guess.

3
RC
11 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Run differential is pretty much meaningless 1/4 of the way into the season.

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Jonathan
11 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

@Dougal, aside from the aforementioned note with regards to how completely useless run differential is this early (There’s, for example, is by and large attributed to the fact they’re blowing out multiple teams but losing a lot of close games, they’re 7-3 in blowouts and 3-7 in one run games, that accounts for nearly half of their games to date).

Beyond that, their offense is performing to par for the Jays the last few years, but their pitching has been performing WAY over their heads. The only guy in their rotation who isn’t grossly outperforming his peripherals is Hutchison. Once their pitchers regress to mean, the team itself is likely to face a major downturn.

You accuse me of keeping my head in the sand, yet you ignore the fact the Blue Jays have been doing the start off hot and then fade midseason act since like 2006. Their offense is great as usual, but their pitching is still a major work in progress. They’re making steady improvements year to year, but they’re still not a probably playoff contender yet.

1
everdiso
11 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

You’re failing to acknowledge that in terms of the Jays’ offense, not only were they clearly improved on paper over the past couple of years, but they’re matching recent team offensive statistics even with the 2nd worst babip in MLB at .266 – which is holding their team AVG down at .241, even while the Jays are top-5 in the AL in both BB% and ISO. As the BABIP levels off at a more reasonable level, the raise in average along with those BB and power rates will likely result in one of the better offensive teams in the league. Overall the offense has likely underperformed so far.

As for the pitching, the starters have been a pleasant surprise but the bullpen has been a large dissappointment. Romero has scuffled a bit with his command. but his era is still around where expected, and his peripherals will likely improve rather than the era rising to match it. Morrow’s peripherals are normal but for the first time ever his era is matching or bettering them. The three kids at the bottom of the rotation are extremely interesting youngsters, all with very good stuff and upside, but all with very different profiles. Alvarez’ lack of Ks is disturbing, Drabek’s high walk totals are as well. It’s even odds at this point whether the era rises to match the fip, or whether the peripherals drop to match the era – these two can both ratchet it up to 98mph on the gun, and both feature some wicked offspeed pitches as well. We’ll see how they go but they both have electric arms and are as likely to improve going forward as they are to fall back. Meanwhile, Hutchison is the youngest starter in MLB, and has been quite impressive. His ERA is actually well higher than his FIP, though I’m not so certain it will necessarily drop to match his peripherals. He doesn’t quite have the electric stuff that Alvarez and Drabek do, and he looks more hittable in general, even though he has an obvious natural feel for pitching. The starting staff is clearly the big question mark on the Jays, but with Morrow’s big step up this year to get his ERA closer to his always great peripherals, and with the bottom of the rotation filled with 3 very young high-upside arms, there’s plenty of reason to think that it might turn out all right.

The bullpen, on the other hand, is a safe bet to improve significantly, with not one of the relievers pitching above expectations and with 3-4 pitching well below expectations (Santos, Cordero, Villanueva, Janssen). Like the hitting, the bullpen is also most likely going to continue to improve over the course of the year.

For the Jays, the SP have overachieved, and the offense and RP have underachieved. Not sure if it exactly balances out but it’s probably pretty close. And while that SP has overachieved, the talent in the rotation from top to bottom is fairly impressive, if young and unproven, and may be able to balance out a regression of ERA towards FIP with an actual improvement in the peripherals themselves.

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Jonathan
11 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

@everdiso, this whole thing ignores the fact that the chief component to the Jays’ success so far has been massive overperformance on the part of their pitching. Their offense is great, but it has been for years. Guys like Bautista and Lawrie are going to improve, but likewise Encarnacion is going to regress (His SLG is over .100 points better than his career average).

Their hitting simply isn’t underperforming their peripherals as much as their pitching is overperforming theirs. Barring something extraordinary and unlikely, they will regress to a .500 pythag-ish team.

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Bill
11 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

The Orioles have Matt Wieters, so keep your head in the sand.

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Jonathan
11 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

@Bill, not sure if you’re serious, but just in case you are: one player doesn’t make a team completely 180 unless his name is Evan Longoria. And even then, you probably need Joe Maddon to do it.

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everdiso
11 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

@Jonathan

I still think you’re failing to consider that over this small a sample, it’s fairly even odds whether fip regresses to era or vice versa, and I think you’re ignoring that for the majority of the Jays pitchers, their poor peripherals this year are much more of an outlier than their primary stats are so far. You’re also ignoring that they have had some significant bad luck from their pitching staff as well – most specifically their MLB worst 14.1hr/fb%, a number that will most definitely come down signficantly – so their pitching hasn’t only received “good” luck so far.

Unsurprisingly to me at least, May has seen the Jays’ FIP regress towards their ERA, rather than their ERA regress towards their FIP – because from looking at the pitchers’ previous performances, their FIP seemed like a much bigger outlier than their ERA did.

Jays’ Pitching:

APR: 3.79era, 5.02fip, 4.08xfip (.244babip, 18.7hr/fb%)
MAY: 3.44era, 3.77fip, 4.04xfip (.268babip, 8.1hr/fb%)

Their babip has risen to a more reasonable level, while the HR/FB% has stabilized at a closer to league average level.

I would guess that the team FIP continues to come down more than the team ERA rises, though I do agree that the team ERA will rise – just not nearly as much as you might think.

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