Lance Lynn is my favorite player in baseball; I find it easier to just admit this up front and let readers view my work through that lens, instead of going through the trouble of trying to obfuscate this very obvious truth.

One of the things that drew me to the big man in the first place was his reliability. Lynn had been many things over his long and venerable big league career: A four-seam specialist, a sinkerballer, an ace, an innings eater, an underrated gem, a star, a national hero. But he’d never been bad before.

In 2023, Lynn still threw 183 2/3 innings, but he gave up about 183 2/3 home runs over that span. Not really, but the actual number — 44 — was so high I invoked the late Jose Lima when I wrote up Lynn’s signing in November. On a scale from zero to things you don’t want, it’s not what you want. Read the rest of this entry »

This time last year, baseball discussion was focused on one thing: steals. There they were, in great huge quantities for the first time in decades. With disengagements and therefore pickoff throws limited, men on base ran wild. They were successful at a huge clip, to boot. By year’s end, last season’s 3,503 stolen bases were the most in any campaign of the 21st century.

The wildest part about this statistic is that it felt like there still weren’t enough steals. Runners were successful at an 80.2% clip last year. That’s quite a bit higher than the breakeven rate of success, which bounces around the 75% mark based on game state; after all, not all steals are created equal. Russell Carleton dug into the data and noted that runners didn’t change their aggression at all until they had seen at least one pickoff throw.

Meanwhile, their success rate on the instances where the pitcher *didn’t* throw over ballooned to nearly 83%. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out where this was going. In 2024, the thinking went, runners would have more experience with the new rules, and therefore would start taking off more frequently, pickoff throw or no pickoff throw. Naturally, new rules take a while to adjust to, but this adjustment seemed pretty likely to happen.

So far, though, it hasn’t. Here are stolen base attempts per game over the last six years. I threw in some old years for scale, but really I’m only concerned with 2023 and 2024:

Read the rest of this entry »

Tyler O’Neill didn’t take long to adapt to a new team. Traded to the Red Sox in December after spending six years with the Cardinals, O’Neill claimed sole possession of a major league record by homering on Opening Day for the fifth straight season. As we approach the two-week mark of the season — yes, it’s early — he finds himself atop major leaderboards and has helped Boston get off to a 7-4 start.

On Tuesday at Fenway Park, O’Neill launched a towering solo shot over the Green Monster off Orioles ace Corbin Burnes to put the Red Sox up 1-0 in the first inning:

The Statcast-estimated distance of 413 feet made that O’Neill’s longest of this season so far. It was his sixth homer, momentarily moving him out of a tie with Mookie Betts, Marcell Ozuna, and Mike Trout, though Trout countered with his sixth later on Tuesday night. Nonetheless, O’Neill has matched Fred Lynn’s hot 1979 start for the most homers by a Red Sox player in the team’s first 11 games of a season, doing so while making just nine starts and a pinch-hitting appearance. By comparison, last season O’Neill didn’t hit his sixth home run until August 11, and finished with just nine in 72 games.

O’Neill began the season by homering off Mariners reliever Cody Bolton on Opening Day in Seattle. In doing so, he broke a tie with Yogi Berra (1955–58), Gary Carter (1977–80) and Todd Hundley (1994–97) for the most consecutive Opening Day games with a home run. (And you thought you were glad baseball was back!) He closed out the Seattle series with a homer off Bryce Miller on March 31, took the Angels’ Griffin Canning and José Soriano deep on April 5, then added a dinger against Chase Silseth on April 7.

Unfortunately for the Red Sox, O’Neill’s blast on Tuesday was their only run of the day; they lost 7-1. And oddly enough, the 28-year-old left fielder hasn’t driven in anyone else despite his six home runs, which is more a commentary on his teammates than his own failings; he’s 1-for-3 with a pair of walks with runners in scoring position. Regardless of his RBI total, he’s swinging a very hot bat overall, hitting .344/.488/.906. It’s not every day you’re miles ahead of two future Hall of Famers for the major league lead in key categories, so we’ll note that his slugging percentage is 126 points ahead of the second-ranked Trout, and his 276 wRC+ is 32 points ahead of the second-ranked Betts. Meanwhile his on-base percentage merely leads the American League.

Of course, O’Neill has played just 10 games, the first nine of them against the Mariners, A’s, and Angels — all on the road — and there’s only so much we can take from that, but the number one thing is that he’s healthy, and that’s a big one, because save for his monster 2021 season and his brawny physique (“listed at 5-foot-11 and 200 pounds, of which about 198 pounds is biceps and quads,” wrote Michael Baumann), injuries have largely defined his career.

Drafted by the Mariners out of a British Columbia high school in the third round in 2013, O’Neill became a Cardinal in the Marco Gonzales trade four years later. He debuted in the majors on April 19, 2018, but spent much of that season and the next one bouncing back and forth between Triple-A and the majors, with five (!) trips to the injured list thrown in for good measure. After spending all of 2020 in the majors and on the active roster — and even winning his first Gold Glove, but hitting a miserable .173/.261/.360 — he finally got something close to a full-length season under his belt in 2021, hitting .286/.352/560 (143 wRC+) with 34 homers, 15 steals, and 5.3 WAR in just 136 games, but accompanying that with two more trips to the IL. He added a second Gold Glove that year, and finished eighth in the NL MVP voting, but since then he hasn’t come close to replicating that season, with injuries limiting him to just 168 games, 23 homers, a 98 wRC+ and 2.0 WAR across 2022–23, another two-year span that included five trips to the IL:

Thus the 28-year-old O’Neill entered this season having played more than 100 games in a major league season just once, and more than 72 just twice. Between his injuries, a crowded field of alternatives, his increasing price tag, and a spat with manager Oliver Marmol — who publicly questioned O’Neill’s effort running the bases during a heavy rain last April 4 in St. Louis, calling his effort “unacceptable” — O’Neill fell out of favor in St. Louis. On December 8, the Cardinals traded the pending free agent to the Red Sox in exchange for a pair of righty relievers, Nick Robertson and Victor Santos.

So far, the change of scenery seems to agree with him, though it’s worth noting that Tuesday’s game was his first at Fenway with the Red Sox. One game, one homer? That’s a pretty good rate!

In light of O’Neill’s long history of leg woes, it’s worth pointing out that as of now he’s hitting the ball harder than in the past two seasons. I present these stats while acknowledging that we don’t have enough data to draw strong conclusions about what’s happening yet; this is as much about his decline from 2021 as it is his torrid start:

Bear in mind that, as Baseball Prospectus’ Russell Carlton has noted, exit velocity stabilizes around 40 batted ball events, and barrel rate at 50 BBE, while groundball, fly ball, and hard-hit rates do so at 80 BBE. Within this small sample, this year’s exit velo and barrel rate at least look more like 2021 than ’22 or ’23. On a rolling basis of 25 plate appearances, both his xSLG and xwOBA show that his season-opening hot streak resembles only two or three stretches from the past two seasons, while he had a handful of such stretches in 2021:

The other thing to note about O’Neill is how much he’s tightened his approach so far. He’s a guy with a lot of swing-and-miss in his game, so much so that even as he ranked no. 61 on our Top 100 Prospects list in 2018, he had 30/40 grades (present/future) on his hit tool, and from 2018–23, he struck out 30% of the time, seventh among hitters with at least 1,500 PA in that span. Production-wise, he’s near the upper end among guys with strikeout rates in that neighborhood; of the hitters with the 30 highest strikeout rates over at least 1,000 PA within that span — everybody from 28.8% up — his 111 wRC+ ranks fourth, behind only Luke Voit (123), Giancarlo Stanton (122), and Teoscar Hernández (117).

Entering this season, O’Neill had swung at 72.5% of pitches within the strike zone, including 71% last year; so far this year, he’s cut that down to 50.8%. Similarly, his overall swing rate of 48.1% entering this year (44.9% last year) is down to 36%. His swinging strike rate of 15.4% (11.2% last year) is way down to 6.4%, and his strikeout rate, which was 25.2% last year, is at 19.5%. Mind you, none of these stats have stabilized — swing rate takes about 50 PA (he’s at 41) and strikeout rate requires roughly 60 PA — but those are at least promising trends.

We’re obviously still early enough in the season that any trend could be a mirage, a two-week heater or skid that might not merit closer scrutiny if it were located in mid-June or the dog days of August. Still, when combined with his hot streak, the health and change-of-scenery aspects of O’Neill’s situation are at least worth keeping an eye on. He’s not going to continue slugging .906, but for a team whose outfielders entered this season ranking 22nd in the majors with a combined 96 wRC+ since 2020 — i.e., the post-Betts era — this counts as a welcome development.

How would the Norfolk Tides do if they played in the majors? That might sound like an odd question, but it’s one that I’ve been asked four times in the last week. It even came up on Reddit. What’s driving this curiosity isn’t a sudden surge in rabid Tides fandom, but rather the heavy concentration of offensive talent the Orioles have in Norfolk, which until today, included one of the favorites for AL Rookie of the Year, Jackson Holliday. And since I’m one of a handful people with the exact tools of nerdery to answer this query, I couldn’t let it go unanswered. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t really have strong opinions about the AL Central this year, either aesthetically or competitively. I picked the Tigers to win the division because I like their young pitchers, I had to pick someone, and I didn’t want to just choose the same 12 teams that made the playoffs last year. But if the Twins or Guardians, or even the Royals finished first, I wouldn’t be unduly surprised.

Mostly, I want to go the entire season without having to watch Byron Buxton leave the field on a gurney, for much the same reason I’d like to visit the Grand Canyon before I die. I’ve never actually seen it, but I’ve heard it’s wonderful. Apart from that, I’ve got an open mind.

Even so, the first two weeks of the season have brought some remarkable results. Stephen Vogt now has a better winning percentage than any manager in MLB history (minimum 10 games), as the Guardians jumped out to an 8-3 start. The Tigers and Royals are right behind, and Kansas City has had one of the best rotations in the league so far.

These three teams have one thing in common, other than their division: They’ve all played the White Sox. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Cincinnati Reds. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

Finally, after what felt like the longest less than two weeks of our lives, the moment has arrived: The Baltimore Orioles are calling up shortstop Jackson Holliday, the top prospect in baseball. He will make his MLB debut with the Orioles as soon as Wednesday, sliding in at second base because Baltimore already has Gunnar Henderson, another former no. 1 overall prospect, at shortstop.

The 20-year-old Holliday exceeded even the rosiest of expectations in spring training, hitting .311/.354/.600 with two home runs in 48 plate appearances. But he didn’t make the Opening Day roster despite all that, with general manager Mike Elias citing Holliday’s performance against lefties in the minors and his need to further acclimate to the keystone as reasons to delay his big league career. But, with Holliday off to a bonkers start at Triple-A (.333/.482/.605 with a 189 wRC+) and the Orioles, at 6-4, in need of a jolt, now was the right time to bring him up.

Like both Adley Rutschman and Henderson before him, Holliday is great at everything but perhaps not truly elite at anything. No, he doesn’t have the raw power or speed of Wyatt Langford, the American League’s other tantalizing rookie, but Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin grade Holliday as a future five-tool star with plenty of development still ahead of him.

Ben Clemens wrote that it would be the wrong decision for Baltimore to keep Holliday down past the Super Two deadline (typically 30 or so days into the season), not only because it would be a bad-faith gesture to Holliday, but also because it would be a terrible baseball move. With the Orioles’ offense looking more good than great in the early going, they’re making the right choice to call him up now: Holliday is simply better than the players he’s replacing; Jorge Mateo is best used as a super-utility man and Ramón Urías has struggled to start the season. Moreover, the O’s had little service-time incentive to keep him stashed in the minors; if he wins the AL Rookie of the Year award, they will be rewarded with an additional draft pick and Holliday will receive a full year of service, no matter how long he’s on the big league roster. Assuming he’s ready for the majors, the Orioles stand to benefit more from having him on the roster for as long as possible.

So now, and apologies for what you’re about to read… What a bright time, it’s the right time to call up Holliday.

Blake Snell Will Be Fine

From a results standpoint, Blake Snell’s Giants debut was not a good one. Facing the Nationals at home on Monday, he allowed three runs on three hits and two walks while striking out five, and it took him 72 pitches to get through three innings. But with his late signing, lack of a true spring training, and relatively quick ramp-up, San Francisco should consider the start a muted success. Sure, the Giants lost 8-1, but Snell got through the outing without injury — something that is hardly a guarantee for any pitcher, especially so far this season — and he should be built up for about 90 or so pitches his next time around. Overall, that’s encouraging.

Besides, it wasn’t all bad when you take a look under the hood. Snell’s stuff didn’t look too far off from the arsenal that won him his second Cy Young award last year. As you’d expect, his average velocity for all four of his pitches was down, but none alarmingly so: His fastball dipped just 0.1 mph, while his slider had the biggest velocity drop, at 1.1 mph. As a result, his spin rates also decreased, but again, this shouldn’t be concerning.

Additionally, Snell got 11 misses on 25 swings (44%), and 33% of his pitches resulted in either a called strike or a whiff; both rates were higher than his marks from last year. The quality of contact against him was anemic as well, with the seven balls in play averaging an exit velocity of just 80 mph. This is who Snell is: an elite contact suppressor and whiff-inducer who will more often than not run into high pitch counts because he avoids the middle of the plate.

As recently as a month ago, I was lamenting the state of the Giants rotation, but things are looking up now. Snell joins Logan Webb to give them a formidable frontline duo, one that is as strong as any other in baseball. Meanwhile, their decision to convert offseason acquisition Jordan Hicks into a starter has gone better than anyone could’ve expected, and they also have top prospect Kyle Harrison. And let’s not forget that San Francisco’s staff has more reinforcements on the way. Alex Cobb was initially on track to return from offseason hip surgery ahead of schedule, perhaps as soon as sometime this month, before he suffered a mild flexor strain; the setback will keep him out until early May. Lefty Robbie Ray, the 2021 AL Cy Young winner, could make at least a handful of late-season starts once he’s back from Tommy John surgery; and Tristan Beck and Sean Hjelle could be factors as well.

To be clear, this team still has flaws — its offense has been one of the worst in the National League and its relievers collectively were below replacement level entering Tuesday — but Snell and the starting staff will be just fine.

The Free-Swinging Giancarlo Stanton

I’m confident in saying Snell is the same player he was at last season’s peak, but I have no idea how to evaluate Giancarlo Stanton, the most enigmatic player in baseball. He is still hitting the crap out of the ball despite overhauling his conditioning in the offseason and coming to camp noticeably slimmer, and his surface-level numbers so far are good: .250/.268/.550 with three home runs and a 134 wRC+.

But as the OBP foreshadows, Stanton’s plate discipline has eroded, and I’m just not sure he can make this work. He’s chasing 45.7% of the pitches he sees outside the zone, which is the worst rate of his career by 15 points. His contact rate is also down, and his overall swing percentage is above 50% for the first time in his career. Stanton has always been streaky, but usually his plate discipline is indicative of where his results will be.

The concern here is that this solid start is nothing more than luck, that Stanton is flailing but essentially running into a few homers with guesswork. If that’s the case, it might be wise for pitchers to stop throwing him anything near the zone to see if he’ll keep chasing. In the meantime, it’s too soon to know what to make of Stanton.

The 40-Year-Old Legend

I really thought it might be curtains on Jesse Chavez’s career when he got rocked in his first spring training outing, and I really, really thought it was when the White Sox released him last month. After all, if he couldn’t crack the bullpen that sure looked like it was going to be the worst in baseball, whose would he join?

Well, of course, I discounted both the Braves connection and his apparent comfort pitching in Atlanta. Soon after being released, Chavez signed a minor league deal, and later had his contract selected to give him a spot on the Opening Day roster. And as he’s done whenever he’s worn an Atlanta uniform, he’s piling up outs.

The 40-year-old has allowed just one run in 6.1 innings across three appearances, helping to save the rest of the bullpen in each outing. Indeed, he’s still kicking in what’s set to be his last season, all while pitching with guile and a funky arm action (and wearing sunglasses no matter the lighting or time of day). Each outing brings him closer to retirement, but I’m convinced Chavez’s vibes will live forever.

Well, That Didn’t Last Long

Some quick finality on the Julio Teheran signing, which I wrote about on Friday: He was DFA’d after just one start, in which his former Braves squad trounced him for four runs on just eight outs, with six hits and a couple of walks to boot.

We’ve since learned that his $2.5 million contract is not, in fact, for the full $2.5 million, but that it’s rather a split contract that pays him at that rate in the majors but only $150,000 in the minors. Still, the MLB split makes it implausible that anyone claims him, and it also makes it a near-guarantee that he accepts an outright assignment to Triple-A, since he’d be forfeiting his right to earn that hefty rate if he’s needed back in the bigs again.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about White Sox manager Pedro Grifol’s anti-eclipse eyewash, the shrinking moon, an eyebrow-raising quote by Blake Snell, the latest signature Elly De La Cruz game, the hot starts of Mike Trout, Anthony Volpe, and Tyler O’Neill, how this season’s converted relievers (including Garrett Crochet and Jordan Hicks) are faring, and more, then (38:57) discuss and debate the latest rash of pitcher injuries, the pitch clock as a culprit or a scapegoat, and possible solutions to the injury problem, plus (1:27:32) an 1892 complaint about position-player pitchers and a few follow-ups.

Audio intro: Alex Ferrin, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: The Shirey Brothers, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Grifol quote
Link to Sox Machine on Grifol
Link to Ben on the 2017 eclipse
Link to tweet about eclipse coincidence
Link to story on shrinking moon
Link to story on end of eclipses
Link to more on moon shrinking
Link to Nick Gordon comment
Link to Adler on eyewash
Link to Snell quote
Link to zone rate stats
Link to Elly homers
Link to Elly fun fact 1
Link to Elly fun fact 2
Link to article on Volpe swing
Link to Sox pitch usage story
Link to Sox Run Prevention Unit
Link to FG post on Sox pitching
Link to FG post on Rafaela
Link to FG post on Hicks
Link to Ben on pitcher injuries
Link to MLBTR top stories screenshot
Link to MLBPA statement
Link to MLB statement
Link to Cole comments
Link to Verlander comments
Link to Taillon/Wood comments
Link to Scherzer comments
Link to Passan on pitcher injuries
Link to Sawchik tweet
Link to Dan S. on the clock
Link to BP on the clock
Link to story on Bieber’s offseason
Link to cricket bowling rules
Link to cricket and TJS
Link to EW on speed limits
Link to mound height study
Link to Ben on pitcher roster limits
Link to Rich Hill surgeries
Link to 1892 article
Link to Bookforum Oyler review
Link to Imanaga presser
Link to The Athletic on Imanaga
Link to Imanaga song
Link to Kelenic comment
Link to Ontario cursive story
Link to ballpark meetup forms
Link to meetup organizer form

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A month after signing starting pitcher Brayan Bello to a six-year extension, the Boston Red Sox are at it again, this time extending rookie center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela on an eight-year deal worth $50 million. If Rafaela sticks in the majors long enough this season to earn a year of service time, this extension will prolong his free agent eligibility for two years; either way, he’ll be paid a guaranteed salary through the 2031 season.

How you feel about Rafaela comes down to just what you think about his defense. Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin rated Rafaela as the only prospect on THE BOARD last year with a 70 present value for defense and the only one with a future value of 80. They were hardly alone in their praise for his glove, either, as other outlets such as Baseball Prospectus and MLB Pipeline also gave complimentary reviews to his leathercraft.

While prospect writers have occasionally missed on the eventual defensive performance of prospects – Gregory Polanco comes to mind – Rafaela certainly hasn’t shown anything in his limited time in the majors that refutes these views. Measuring minor league defense, as opposed to viewing it, is fraught with obvious peril, but the defensive estimates that ZiPS uses for minor leaguers also love his glove. ZiPS uses a Total Zone-esque measure from Gameday hit locations, similar to Sean Smith’s methodology from nearly 15 years ago. Yes, we’d prefer to have something like OAA or DRS or even UZR for minor leaguers publicly available, but we don’t, so we have to generally be more conservative about conclusions drawn from the data. But for what it’s worth, these estimates, which I call zDEF, had Rafaela as an elite defensive center fielder in the minors in 2023.

Incidentally, zDEF had Rafaela at +3 as a shortstop total for his minor league career, so if the circumstances warranted it, it wouldn’t necessarily be the craziest thing to see him follow in the footsteps of another former Red Sox prospect, Mookie Betts, and move back to shortstop at some point, though that certainly is not why Boston signed Rafaela long term.

Let’s run the eight-year ZiPS for Rafaela.

All told, ZiPS would happily offer him an eight-year, $67 million — $17 million more than what the Red Sox gave him.

One thing to take into consideration: So long as Rafaela’s glove is excellent, he doesn’t need to take a big offensive step forward to be worth his contract. ZiPS has Rafaela hitting for a skosh more power, enough to get his OPS+ and wRC+ into the 100 range during his peak years, but not sufficient to make him a superstar. As a result, his projections keep him in the solidly above-average territory – he’ll likely have an All-Star appearance or two during an up year – but comfortably below star status. These offensive numbers make him slightly better offensively than the inevitable comp given for him, Jackie Bradley Jr., who put up a 93 OPS+ over parts of eight seasons in Boston and was a few runs better defensively than Rafaela’s projections. Suffice it to say, if ZiPS’s natural conservatism with minor league defensive numbers ends up lowballing Rafaela, he’d be a steal at this price and put up WAR numbers in the range of Kevin Kiermaier’s best years.

As an offensive player, Rafaela remains a work in progress. In nine games this season entering Tuesday, he’s hitting .233/.286/.400 with two triples and an 85 wRC+. He’s actually gotten better at making contact, going from a 69% contact rate at Triple-A last year to 73% in the majors so far. Admittedly, this improvement has come in a small sample — he’s made just 124 big league plate appearances combined between his 2023 late-season debut (72.1% contact in 89 PA) and this year (76.3% in his 35 PA) — but it is still encouraging.

That said, he remains far too aggressive at the plate, especially when you consider his specific profile as a hitter. Unlike his teammate Rafael Devers, who also swings at a pretty high rate of pitches out of the zone, Rafaela doesn’t hit the ball particularly hard; Devers has power to spare, so even though he doesn’t make as much hard contact on pitches out of the zone — his average exit velocity drops to 85.5 mph, down from 94.9 mph on in-zone pitches — he can still do damage. Rafaela doesn’t have that luxury. Instead, he is a speedster (ranking 28th in sprint speed this season among 202 qualified players) who plays his home games at Fenway Park, one of baseball’s best parks for batting average. He should be incentivized to have a more contact-oriented game than most other batters. His contact skills appear to be improving, but he won’t get the most out of his game if he keeps chasing pitches that’s he unlikely to hit.

The Betts trade and the departure of Xander Bogaerts are still, rightfully, pain points for Boston fans. But since then, the Red Sox seem to be making a better effort to retain the players they develop, first with the Devers extension in January 2023 and now with Bello and Rafaela. Ultimately, winning is the only thing that will make things better in Boston. Keeping Rafaela in town should be an important step toward that.

It’s been a hot start to the 2024 season for the Boston Red Sox. They started the season with a 10-game road trip to the West Coast and arrived home Monday at 7-3 after a four-game split in Seattle, a three-game sweep in what will likely be their final trip to play the A’s in Oakland, and a 2-1 series win over the Angels. While Boston hasn’t exactly met the highest of competition yet — this week’s home-opening series with Baltimore should be a serious test — the Sox entered Tuesday with the second-best run differential in the majors, at +26. Aside from the Trevor Story’s injury, which as Jon Becker explained yesterday is going to test Boston’s uninspiring middle infield depth, it’s been an encouraging first two weeks for Alex Cora’s club.

Somewhat unexpectedly, pitching has been the story of Boston’s early success, after the Red Sox redesigned their pitching infrastructure over the offseason. In this regard, two of the most important additions to the club are not current players but former big league pitchers: Craig Breslow, who replaced Chaim Bloom as the team’s chief baseball officer, and Andrew Bailey, the new pitching coach. After pitching as a reliever for 12 years in the majors, including parts of five seasons with the Red Sox, Breslow spent five years in the Cubs’ front office working to overhaul their pitching program. One of Breslow’s first moves was to hire Bailey, his former Red Sox teammate. Bailey, a two-time All-Star and the 2009 American League Rookie of the Year, came over from the Giants, where he held the same role and helped to develop the likes of Logan Webb, Kevin Gausman, and Carlos Rodón into some of baseball’s top pitchers recent years. Boston also hired Justin Willard to a role it titled “director of pitching.”

Entering Tuesday, Red Sox pitchers lead the majors with a 1.49 ERA, a 2.92 FIP, a 3.08 xFIP, 10.49 strikeouts per nine, and 2.4 WAR. Two times through the rotation, Tanner Houck hasn’t allowed a run, and Nick Pivetta, Kutter Crawford, and Garrett Whitlock have allowed one earned run each. The bullpen has supported this rotation capably, too — in 37.1 innings, Boston relievers rank second in baseball with 0.8 WAR, third with a 1.45 ERA and 3.40 xFIP, and fourth with a 3.18 FIP. All of this from a staff that features mostly the same members from a group that struggled last season. It’s too early to know for sure if 2024 will be any different, but this is an auspicious start. Read the rest of this entry »