Boston Red Sox: Just how good is this team?

The Boston Red Sox offense looks elite.

Alex Speier made an interesting observation last night as the 9-0 win against the Los Angeles Angels was wrapping up.

The Astros offense in 2017 was incredibly dynamic, leading the majors in R, OBP, SLG and having the lowest K% and swinging strike rate. And to top it off, they finished a healthy 8th in stolen bases. They made significant contact, took walks, hit for power and could keep doing damage after they got on base.

As a comparison, the 2018 Red Sox slash of .287/.358/.485 leads the majors in all three categories, as well as runs (108), wOBA (.367) and wRC+ (130). They have the fourth lowest swinging strike rate at 9.2%, and the lowest strikeout rate at 16.6%. And similar to the Astros of 2017, they rank 11th in SB so far. That’s a far cry from the team that finished 26th in SLG and 11th in OBP last year.

Of course, the strikeout rate was very low last season, ranking 4th best at 19.3%, and the swinging strike rate of 9.0% was 3rd, so where does the difference come from?

Alex Cora made some changes.

Jeff Sullivan digs into that here. Alex Cora has been preaching selective aggression, meaning jumping at pitches you can drive even if it’s early in the count. Historically, the Red Sox have been a very patient team willing to take strikes early in the count. In fact, Xander Bogaerts and Mookie Betts ranked 1st and 4th for lowest in the zone swing rate in 2017.

Benintendi ranked 39th, Jackie Bradley Jr. ranked 82nd and Hanley Ramirez at 95th. That’s five hitters in the top 100, with two of the players least willing to swing at strikes in all of baseball.

This season? J.D. Martinez ranks third for highest in the zone swing percentage at 83.3%. Hanley is tied for 37th, Devers is 53rd, Benintendi at 107th increasing his rate by more than 2%. Mookie jumped from 53.8% to 58.3%, Bogaerts from 53% to 66.2% which is a massive shift. JBJ has gone up to 72.2%, an increase of 4.3% and a career high. Even Devers is swinging at 3.9% more pitches in the zone.

Only Betts and Benintendi remain in the top 100 for lowest in the zone swing rates, and Benintendi is at 84th on that list. There has been a seismic shift in approach, indicating that the jump in rate stats isn’t random noise. From the Sullivan piece linked above:

“Martinez loves to swing aggressively at pitches in the zone. Martinez’s early-count Z-Swing% this year ranks fourth-highest in baseball. But even he has gotten more selectively aggressive. So have Andrew Benintendi, Mookie Betts, Rafael Devers, and Christian Vazquez. There’s less working of the count taking place. Less taking of strikes, for patience’s sake. It would be hard for any Red Sox fan to complain.”

What’s the downside?

So what reasons do we have to worry? Well, the team’s BABIP is 2nd in the majors at .319 while the league average is generally around .300. The median BABIP so far is .2935. However, high line drive rates and hard contact will usually lead to higher BABIPs. The Red Sox have the 5th highest line drive rate and the 3rd lowest soft contact rate.

They are hitting the ball hard, and they are doing it at productive launch angles. They may not be a pure talent .319 BABIP team, but if they keep this up, you can expect their season BABIP to be above .300.

This offense may not lead the league in runs scored at the end of the year, but the Red Sox appear to have addressed their flaws from last season. Their offense will be plenty dangerous enough to be a serious playoff threat come October.