The Red Sox are doing a remarkable job as a team of stealing bases this season. Most teams that play the percentages steal rarely and only where there is a high probability of avoiding an out. The Red Sox took that to another level, turning the steal into a high percentage play they execute frequently. They swiped 111 bags with just 19 caught stealings, an 85% success rate. Note that 19 is the lowest number of times caught in the AL. Boston is tied with Detroit in that category, and Detroit only attempted 51 steals. To the Tiger’s credit, they know they can’t run, and don’t try too often.
The Red Sox offense is about as good as it gets. They lead the league in runs scored, OBP and slugging percentage. I suppose if they hit for a higher batting average, and more of their extra base hits were home runs instead of doubles, they’d be a little closer to perfection, overall, they excel at every aspect of the game.
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I have a horrible, horrible feeling they’re going to be the team that looks great going into the post season… and then go completely cold and lose in the first round.
The SB achievment is primarily due to Ellsbury stealing 52 of 56, and a few SB which piggybacked on him leading a double steal.
Red Sox have also given up a MLB leading SB, at a 78% success rate.
For such a potent offense, they have been shut out 11 times and held to 3 or less runs in 54 games, about 10% less than league average. They have scored 8 or more runs 32 times, which is about 50% more than league average, suggesting they don’t much better than most teams against good pitching but go to town against bad pitching.
Consistency of players and teams is one of the last frontiers for sabermetrics, and I think its pretty undervalued. Cumulative stats only tell you so much.
The strength of the Red Sox offense is their balance 1-9. No easy outs there that wear down starters and get to the other teams middle relief early. I think a strong lineup helps individual hitters so they outperform their career averages, and of course, the park helps as well, especially for certain players like Pedroia who is pretty much just a league average hitter away from Fenway.
Fenway helps a little, but only a little. The Red Sox have scored ~.8% more runs/game at home than on the road, and allowed ~1% more. It’s a very slightly better than neutral run-scoring environment, as it has been most years, but only slightly better. Yankee Stadium, on the other hand, which we are wont to think of as a pitchers’ park, has inflated run scoring by nearly 10% in 2013.