Losing is not fun, and losing on Opening Day is probably less fun than normal everyday losing, the kind the baseball season gradually inoculates you against. But a loss on that first day is extra tough because you have no context. You wait months for real baseball to come, it finally arrives, the Red Sox look to be cruising to a win, everything is as it should be, and then some relief pitcher forgets where the strike zone is and/or takes an actual poop directly on the pitching rubber, and suddenly everything we’ve waited all winter for is ruined and bad.

That’s what it feels like to lose on Opening Day. But what does it actually mean to lose on Opening Day? That’s probably a more relevant question, and I’m sure you are currently aiming that bowling ball at that new flat-screen TV in a quest for relevance and not in any way out of unbridled fury at mediocre relief pitching. So let’s try, desperately try, to shoot some logic up into this piece before you personally have to goose the local electronics store’s monthly earnings. As mentioned above, the 2004 Red Sox also lost on Opening Day, and in as gut-tearing a manner as a team can, too. They went on to do pretty well when things came down to it, so you have to figure that gut tear must have healed sometime before they came back from down three games in the ALCS to absolutely bury the Yankees. The 2007 Red Sox lost on Opening Day as well, and they didn’t just lose, they got smoked. Curt Schilling gave up five runs to the Kansas City Royals (this was before the Royals were good, which is a nice way of saying those Royals were bad), and the Red Sox offense never got out of Spring Training mode. All in all, they lost 7-1, about as ignoble a beginning to a World Series winning campaign as one can conjure up. Completing the trifecta, the 2013 Red Sox won on Opening Day. Jon Lester out-dueled C.C. Sabathia and the Sox beat the Yankees in New York, 8-2.

So, as it turns out, you can win the World Series whether you win or lose on Opening Day. But as that’s only three teams, it hardly constitutes immutable proof. So I went back through the 2000 season and looked at how every eventual World Series winning team since then did on Opening Day. The data says eventual World Series winning teams since and including the 2000 season have a 10-8 record on opening day. That’s a .555 winning percentage which works out to a 90 win pace. That’s not all that great! 90 wins is a fine season but not often a World Series winning one. But, if you limit the sample further, to the 2002 season and going forward — which you wouldn’t do unless you had a point to make — you would find that the eventual World Series winners are 8-8 on opening day. 8-8! That sure makes a point!

What does all of this tell us? Not a darn thing, probably. The Red Sox, one of the best teams in baseball over the past two decades, are about as likely to win as they are to lose on any given day of the season. Good teams win and good teams lose is the point, and almost in equal amounts, which is why there are 162 games in a baseball season and not for any other reasons, nope, not at all.

So what does it mean to win on Opening Day? It means that for a day, you get to enjoy perfection. Baseball is back, spring is here, summer is soon to follow, and the baseball season lies ahead in all it’s dignified, spectacular, and orderly beauty. What does it mean to lose on Opening Day? It’s pretty much the same, but with a whole lot more swear words and, if the Red Sox bullpen has anything to say about it, a couple fewer working televisions.

*  *  *

If you’ll permit me an indulgent paragraph, I’m leaving Baseball Prospectus after more than six years and I need to say thank you. It’s been a wild blast, one I never thought I’d get to do while reading Joe Sheehan, Steven Goldman, Nate Silver, and Christina Kahrl blow my mind on a daily basis while back in school. I’ve written more articles than I can count — 35 pages worth if you author search me. My first official piece as a BP author was about what happens when you type “poop” into the Baseball Reference search engine. After that, I wrote a weekly column, years and years worth of the Hit List (eternal thanks to the great Jay Jaffe), I’ve covered the playoffs, done Transaction Analyses, and I’ve been on board here at BP Boston since its inception. All of it has been a tremendous honor of which I’m entirely unworthy, and so I owe undying thanks to Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller for giving me the opportunity to write at the feet of those and so many other giants. Thanks also go to Ben Carsley and Brett Cowett for having me here at BP Boston. A writer is nothing if there is nobody to read their work, and so I’d be grandly remiss if I didn’t thank you, the reader. Whether you’ve been reading me for years, or whether this is my first piece of yours, thank you.

Photo by Kim Klement — USA TODAY Sports

Perhaps some quick history is in order. The first trade Dave Dombrowski made after taking over the team from Ben Cherington in August of 2015 was to acquire Kimbrel to anchor the bullpen. And that worked. But after Kimbrel? The ’15 Red Sox bullpen was a bit of a hodgepodge. To fix that, Dombrowski dealt for Carson Smith from the Mariners. Smith was coming off a fantastic season in Seattle, and was slated to be the primary setup man in Boston in 2016. He looked great, too, for 6.2 innings before he needed Tommy John surgery. Then last year, with Smith out of action, the Red Sox needed to solve that same problem again. Dombrowski again hit the trade market (because it worked so well the first time) and got Tyler Thornburg from the Brewers. Thornburg didn’t even make it as far as Smith’s 6.2 inning before needing surgery to relieve Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. That necessitated missing the entire 2017 season. Because they were without Smith and Thornburg, the Red Sox traded for Addison Reed during the season, but he became a free agent after the season ended and signed with the Twins.

Somehow Dombrowski managed to avoid dealing for another soon-to-be-hurt reliever this past offseason, which brings us to the present day. It seems we’re back where we started, but in fact, we’re not, because Smith is now healthy and throwing spring training innings. To be precise, he has nine strikeouts, two walks, and two runs allowed in six spring innings. Thornburg threw off a mound for the first time almost three weeks ago, but I can’t find any updates beyond that. Recovery from thoracic outlet syndrome is no sure thing, far less successful on average than Tommy John surgery, which has become somewhat rote in the baseball world.

It says here the Red Sox are planning on handing over the eighth inning to Smith, but there should be some caution exercised as Smith is coming off a major injury. That’s not to say he can’t handle an eighth inning reliever’s workload. There are numerous pitchers who, once they’ve returned from Tommy John, have immediately slotted back into their previous workloads. Yu Darvish and Lance Lynn come to mind, as does reliever Greg Holland. The future may be bright for Mr. Smith when it comes to health, but pitchers returning from Tommy John often don’t have full command for up to a year post-surgery. Maybe Smith will be fine, but there is at least some question about it, and Thornburg is a complete question mark given his current health (?) and the track record of players recovering from similar procedures (what’s now left of Matt Harvey springs to mind).

Beyond Smith and Thornburg, the Red Sox have a lot of that same smorgasbord of hard throwing somewhat erratic relievers they had back in 2016 and since. Last season it worked. Boston’s bullpen ranked fourth in baseball by FanGraphs WAR. That’s not the perfect measurement to rate relievers, but the point is clear: Boston had an effective bullpen in 2017. But! Half of that WAR came from Craig Kimbrel. The rest was split between a ton of mediocre relievers. Boston had 16 relievers throw six or more innings for them last season, and 11 threw 17 or more. That’s partially just the nature of relievers nowadays, but it’s also because the team struggled to find consistency in the late innings outside of Kimbrel.

This year promises more of the same on that front, as Matt Barnes and Joe Kelly will bring their fast fastballs and extremely walky walk rates to the eighth inning party. Barnes was a frequent and often ill-timed victim of the long ball last year. while Kelly probably should’ve been victimized more than he was. Both players could improve — they are relievers after all — but barring that, there likely needs to be some sheltering from specific matchups and bad platoon splits. Doing that limits their availability, and thus their overall value to the team. Brandon Workman merits a mention as well. He’s cut from the Matt Barnes cloth, but minus the strikeouts, which isn’t ideal for a late inning reliever.

Beyond those guys, the ‘pen is mostly just guys who seldom have the stuff or command to advance past the seventh inning. The farm system offers some intriguing arms, but they’re almost universally still starters in the low minors, which is to say bullpen help won’t be coming this season.

The Red Sox are clearly going to try to sort this thing out again over the course of the season. That’s fine. It worked out pretty well the last two seasons, and really, it’s extremely difficult to build a bad bullpen when your starting point is Craig Kimbrel. But Kimbrel can’t pitch all the time. Smith returning as the same guy the Sox thought they were getting from Seattle two years ago would be the best possible scenario, since it would fill the hole in the eighth inning without asking Dombrowski to head out on the trade market where things can get a bit expensive, not to mention dangerous. If Smith can’t be Smith though, the Red Sox will be facing the one part of their roster not ready to compete for a World Series.

Photo by Kim Klement — USA TODAY Sports

Yesterday David Price threw four shutout innings against mostly Blue Jays backups. He struck out five, walked one, and gave up one single. Good as they are, those results tell us little about how well David Price pitched yesterday or will pitch this season. They do show us that David Price is healthy right now. That’s about the best you can ever say of any pitcher in spring training, but it’s downright vital for the 2018 Red Sox as well as future iterations of the Olde Town Team. Hooray!

The astute reader will note that health represents a marked difference from last season, when Price was unable to throw a pitch during Spring Training and wasn’t able to take the mound in anger for Boston until the very end of May. That is yet another in a line of data points pointing towards the fact that Price’s time with Boston hasn’t been what was hoped when he put pen to paper following a Cy Young-caliber 2015 season split between Detroit and Toronto. Price’s 2016 season, his first in Boston, featured a quantity of innings but perhaps not quite the quality that had been hoped within those innings. Then came 2017 when Price was beset by injuries. The team won 93 games and the division anyway, despite getting just 74.2 innings from Price (with 8.2 of those coming out of the bullpen).

A good thing about Price’s 2017 was that his velocity bumped up to 2015 levels after a step downwards in 2016. Price beats you with stuff and location, so it’s not a huge deal if he’s throwing 92 instead of 95, but obviously 95 gives him a bit more room for error. Yesterday in his first action of 2018, Price was in the low 90s with his fastball but still managed eight swinging strikes in just 55 pitches. Velocity isn’t a concern at this point, just health though, sure, getting outs is better than getting knocked around. That he was on the mound and throwing the ball over the plate is the main thing though.

It’s the main thing because this year’s Red Sox, as impressive as the offense looks to be, is going to rely heavily on starting pitching. Chris Sale sits at the head of the table when it comes to the Sox rotation, but Price isn’t far away. With Drew Pomeranz and Eduardo Rodriguez, the Sox rotation has some upside as well, but both those guys aren’t known as the most durable. So a healthy Price will go a long way towards giving the Sox a step up on the Yankees if the rest of the rotation is doing their job, or just keeping them in the Wild Card hunt if not. If Price and Sale are healthy and give the Sox 400 innings, I don’t see how this team doesn’t make the playoffs.

Which brings us to: the playoffs! We’ve seen just about every type of pitching staff have success in October over the past five seasons. The Royals did it with a strong bullpen and little starting talent. The Indians did it with starting depth and a deftly deployed and hellacious back of the bullpen. The Cubs won with a more standardized pitching rotation and bullpen setup. The point seems to be less how you deploy your talent and more that you have the talent to deploy (and that the talent plays well in the moment). Right now the Red Sox have the talent, with Sale, Price, Pomeranz, and Kimbrel in the ‘pen.

The thing about the way baseball structures its playoffs is that it allows teams to deploy their best players a lot, more so than during the regular season. This is especially so for the pitching staff. Sale and Price can pitch almost every game of a five game series. They can throw more than half the games in a seven game series. That’s an advantage over almost every team in baseball.

Since the moment Price signed his seven-year contract with Boston, it seemed clear that he was going to leave after three seasons. The deal gives him an opt-out after this season, allowing him back on the free agent market at age-32 for yet another massive payday. Price’s opting out would get the Red Sox out from under the remaining four years and $127 million of his deal. The only thing that might stop Price from opting out would be a catastrophic injury of some sort. Beyond that, he’s gone.

Except no, because then came the 2017-2018 baseball off-season. Suppose Price pitches well this season, five wins or so, his best since 2015 in Detroit/Toronto. Is any team going to offer him $127 million? Yu Darvish got $127 million from the Cubs, but he was a year younger than Price, and he’ll have to play two more seasons to get it. Forget the $127 million, Jake Arrieta didn’t even get four years from the Phillies. Teams aren’t giving $30 million per season to pitchers in their early 30s anymore.

Things change of course, and maybe next off-season will be different and teams will open up their vaults for 32 year old pitchers again. But, if you were David Price, would you be willing to turn down the kind of money he has guaranteed to him in order to take that chance?

Unless something changes David Price is going to remain with the Red Sox through his contract. The thing is, that might not be such an awful thing. The money will be bad, but if the Sox get a good pitcher out of it, then they can deal with a bit of an overpay. The question for the Red Sox, at least right now is whether or not Price is healthy. Yesterday he was, and that’s all you can ask of a beautiful spring day.

Photo by Jasen Vinlove — USA TODAY Sports

Smart teams will trade any player if the return is right. You wouldn’t say Mookie Betts is available but if the Angels called and offered Mike Trout for Betts, you’d make that trade immediately. Swihart isn’t Trout and Swihart isn’t Betts either, so of course, listen to the offers. Swihart is 26 (has been for almost a week) and has played in just 116 games over the last two seasons due to injuries, with most of those coming in the minor leagues. He’s also out of options, meaning the team can’t send him to the minors without risking losing him for nothing to any team willing to snap him up. It seems, based on McAdam’s reporting, that there are many teams who would do just that. Swihart, then, will have to stay on the major league roster, or the Sox may as well deal him.

Depending on the return, perhaps they should. The roster is certainly set up to handle being Swihartless. Between Brock Holt and Deven Marrero, the entire infield and outfield are accounted for — not that Holt would play center or right field, but the team has three outfielders who could move around if someone was hurt, necessitating Brock Holt: Outfielder. Also, there’s Marco Hernandez, whose shoulder is still hurt but who should be back from the DL at some point. Probably. Maybe. We hope. When he does, he’s capable of playing all over the infield and hitting some as well. So what do the Red Sox need with a player like Swihart who offers more of the same?

Pardon me for getting all metaphysical and stuff on you, but maybe it’s not depth that the Red Sox should be searching for after all. The Red Sox possess perhaps the best and certainly the most versatile outfield in baseball. All three guys, Andrew Benintendi, Jackie Bradley, and Mookie Betts, can play any outfield position, thank you very much. That means as long as two of them are healthy, all the Red Sox need is a left fielder, and they have that in J.D. Martinez. The numbers tell us Martinez is an atrocious outfielder, but he’s also relatively young and athletic, and has suffered from various injuries through the previous few seasons which could and likely did negatively impact his performance in the outfield, injuries which he’s since recovered from. But even if you can’t blame it on injuries and Martinez is that bad, if he’s that bad in the smallest outfield in baseball and only very occasionally then that’s fine.

In the infield, the Sox have two first basemen in Hanley Ramirez and Mitch Moreland, Eduardo Nunez who can play second, short, or third, Xander Bogaerts who plays short but could play third if something catastrophic happened, and Rafael Devers who plays third so he can do catastrophic things to Yankee relief pitchers. Then there’s the aforementioned Marrero, Holt, and, eventually, Hernandez. But wait there’s more because when Dustin Pedroia comes back, that frees up Nunez to play all over the place as well.

Clearly the Red Sox have depth. They have depth for their depth. What I’m saying is their depth is deep. While they don’t lack in quality starters however, and they have all the deepest depth, the quality of that depth is questionable. Hernandez is out and will be out for a while with no return date yet known. Pedroia should be back in May, but maybe not, and as long as he’s out Nunez will be stapled to second base (hopefully not literally), limiting his ability to provide depth. Marrero’s hitting is the inverse of his fielding, and as his fielding is very good, that makes his hitting very bad. Holt was once the poor man’s Ben Zobrist, but that was three-to-five concussions ago. How comfortable would you be with Marrero playing 30 games at third base, or Holt playing 45 at second? Or both simultaneously? Probably not very comfortable, nor should you be because, while they’re probably super nice guys, neither is good enough to be starting.

What I’m saying is their depth is deep. While they don’t lack in quality starters however, and they have all the deepest depth, the quality of that depth is questionable.

The point is there are questions, perhaps too many questions to feel comfortable. Swihart is yet another question mark, but he’s a talented question mark, more talented than the rest of the group. Also, the Red Sox don’t have to hit on all their question marks. They only need one or two and they’ll have a very strong bench.

There’s two more reasons to hold on to Swihart, the most important of which is the utter lack of catching depth in the organization. The Sox don’t have a single catcher anywhere in their top 30 prospects and nothing playable in the upper minors. That means it’s Christian Vazquez and Sandy Leon all the way, all year long. If one of those guys gets hurt, then the replacement is likely going to be someone who doesn’t have any business playing in the majors. Swihart offers something more than replacement level behind the plate.

That brings us to the last reason to hold on to Swihart: upside. This is the main argument often cited by Swihart fans. He was a top prospect as recently as April of 2015, when Sox Prospects had him ranked above Yoan Moncada, Manuel Margot, Rafael Devers, and Michael Kopech. He’s potentially an above average hitter, not just for a catcher but for the major leagues. He offers a bit of everything: power, speed, and average. It’s an enticing package.

He’s not 22 anymore though. He might yet attain what the prospect writers hoped for him, though his spring training heroics aren’t as much the biggest sign of that as the fact that his name can be penciled into the lineup for the first time in two seasons.

The great thing for the 2018 Red Sox is he doesn’t have to be better than Moncada and Kopech this season. If he can hit a bit while playing a bit, that’s enough. He’s likely a better hitter than Holt, and definitely a better hitter than Marrero, and certainly a better hitter than Leon. If he stays healthy, shows something at the plate, then he’s probably still an upgrade over Leon long term. That’s a valuable guy, and one the organization shouldn’t be rushing to get rid of, especially for a Triple-A reliever, a C+ prospect, or whatever small return they might receive.

If the Angels call about Mike Trout, though, they probably should do that one.

Photo by Kim Klement — USA TODAY Sports

I’m going by the rotations as listed on Roster Resource, which of course may change during spring training. As for the order, I’ve organized them by their WARP projections.

Rotations

Red Sox:

1. Chris Sale (6.1)
2. David Price (2.1)
3. Drew Pomeranz (2.1)
4. Rick Porcello (1.2)
5. Eduardo Rodriguez (1.2)

(12.7 total WARP)

versus

Yankees:

1. Luis Severino (4.1)
2. Sonny Gray (2.5)
3. Masahiro Tanaka (2.4)
4. Jordan Montgomery (1.0)
5. CC Sabathia (0.6)

(10.6 total WARP)

Not unlike the two team’s lineups, their rotations aren’t too far apart in overall talent. Perhaps the Red Sox enjoy a bit more at the top of the rotation, whereas the Yankees have more overall depth. But the end result is roughly the same, as you can see from their respective WARP totals.

Is Luis Severino as good as Chris Sale? No, probably not, but he’s not wholly far off. Sale is the best player of either group and the one who the Red Sox hope can put them over the top, both during the regular season and in the playoffs. Severino has the potential to be that guy for the Yankees. Still, the advantage is with Sale.

The thing about PECOTA and really all projection systems is its innate pessimism. It’s not really even pessimism though because players get hurt all the time and age gets everyone at some point and then there’s the guys who just have bad seasons because of who knows what. That all said, it’s not difficult to expect more than PECOTA projects from a few guys on each team, and not coincidentally the two I’d expect more from are the same guys I’d point to when discussing the most pivotal pitchers of the rotation. That would be Price for the Red Sox and Gray for the Yankees. Both have been top pitchers before, as recently as 2016. In Gray’s four seasons he’s been above 4 WARP in three of them including last season, so his 2.5 projection seems a tad short. But there it is just the same.

Price likely has a similar issue to Gray, namely injuries. Price spent a significant number of days on the DL last season, the first time he did that in his career. The result was a one-win season after averaging six wins per over the three seasons before that. Still, the Red Sox are depending on Price this season in a way that I’m not sure fans have fully grasped. If Price gives the team 75 innings of 4.50 run ball and then exits stage left, the Red Sox are going to need a lot of quality innings from Steven Wright and/or Brian Johnson. To paraphrase the words of a former Yankee manager, that’s not what you want.

But if Price is healthy, he’s Boston’s second ace, and he changes the completion of the team completely. The same thing could be said for Gray, whose reputation took a hit during an injured and ineffective 2016 season. Peak Gray probably isn’t the equal of peak Price, though it seems that Gray reaching his previous heights is the more likely possibility of the two (though as of this writing both claim to be fully healthy).

Past the top two guys, the Yankees need Tanaka’s arm to remain attached to his shoulder, possibly a difficult ask considering his previous medical history. If he’s healthy though, a caveat that should probably be applied to all pitchers, Tanaka offers what any team would look for in a third starter: namely quality and dependability. The Red Sox are more on the first of those attributes and less on the second with their third starters (yes, two) in Pomeranz and Porcello. Porcello can’t be as bad as he was last season (can he?), but he’s probably not going to win another Cy Young either. As such, sure, two wins seems perfectly adequate, even if you maybe would hope for more given his $20 million salary. Pomeranz is hitting his stride as a starter after a late start to his career, but he’s always been on the fragile side. Together they’re probably in the five-win range, which is what the Yankees will likely get out of the combination of Gray and Tanaka.

The back end of the Yankees rotation is C.C. Sabathia and Jordan Montgomery, both of who had stronger seasons in 2017 than you’d have guessed given their respective ages and, in Sabathia’s case, everything else about him. And yet here he is again. Note that PECOTA is as unimpressed with him as you are. The Red Sox back end features the aforementioned Wright and Johnson unless, and this is the key, Eduardo Rodriguez gets healthy. Say what you will about Montgomery, but the Yankees don’t have a pitcher of Rodriguez’s quality in the back half of their rotation. If Rodriguez comes back healthy with no knee troubles, he gives the Sox rotation depth few teams can match.

If there is one place where New York has a step on Boston, it’s in previous injuries. Why are they important? A wise person once said the greatest predictor of future pitcher injuries is past pitcher injuries. With that as a background, the Red Sox are at greater risk with Price, Rodriguez, and deeper down, Wright and Johnson all having missed significant time in recent seasons. Only Gray fits that description with the Yankees (though Sabathia has pitched through injuries, he’s not particularly injury prone).

Bullpens

Predicting what will happen with bullpens is the greatest of impossibilities, like jumping across the country using only trampolines, or drinking an entire bottle of Gatorade without your tongue jumping from your mouth and running screaming down the street. The Red Sox have one of the two or three best relievers in baseball in Craig Kimbrel. That’s a good start. After that, they could have a very deep pen with Carson Smith and Tyler Thornburg splitting eighth inning duties and Matt Barnes and Joe Kelly covering the sixth and seventh. Or all those guys could spontaneously explode like Spinal Tap drummers.

Like the rotations, the Red Sox have that one top guy, but the Yankees have quality and more depth in their pen. And yet, Aroldis Chapman wasn’t so hot last season, and Dellin Betances wasn’t either. Both were fine overall, and very good at times, but showed real moments of shakiness. Tommy Kahnle was less than spectacular after putting up an amazing first half in Chicago, and David Robertson was good, but not amazing either. Still, those guys have track records of (mostly) excellence, so few are likely to flame out. It could easily turn into the Craig Kimbrel And That’s It Show in Boston, whereas the Yankees have too much depth and not enough Craig Kimbrel for that to occur to them.

Where things stand now, the Red Sox have a slight advantage in the rotation, but when you factor in the bullpens, that lead dwindles. Like their offenses, and like the teams of 2003 and 2004, picking which one is truly better is likely a fool’s errand (thus these articles). We never know what will happen over the course of a baseball season, but often times we kinda know, right? Here I legitimately have no idea. Except to say this: even after 162 games it’ll probably be quite close.

Also, the Houston Astros are better than both teams.

Photo by Noah K. Murray — USA TODAY Sports

That offseason, the Red Sox famously brought in future Hall of Fame pitcher and future Hall of Fame-level asshole Curt Schilling to, as it turned out, co-front the rotation. They also brought in Mark Bellhorn, Terry Francona, and maybe even more importantly, Keith Foulke. It was a murderer’s row of talent, from the front office on down. As it turned out, it was just barely enough to get past the Yankees in a second consecutive ALCS Game Seven. That was elation so high it lifted my ankles off the floor.

That two-year period where the Red Sox went from so close to winning to losing to so close to losing to winning represents certainly the most intense rivalry between two teams I’ve ever experienced or endured in my lifetime. And now, dear reader, 200 words into this, here is my point. The rivalry is back, my dudes! . It’s back! The Red Sox and the Yankees are the two best teams in the division, two of the three best in the AL and probably two of the best five or six in baseball. This season, this 2018, is going to be another huge brawl of a season. They got Severino, we got Sale. They got Judge, we got Betts. They got Stanton, we got JD. So I thought it might be instructive to look and see how these two teams stack up against each other, a tale-of-the-tape, if you will, or even if you won’t.

Let’s start here. PECOTA. The PECOTA projections are here and they are spectacular. Though maybe not if you’re the Red Sox. I’ve already detailed how the Sox individual projections maybe aren’t as positive as we’d wish they were, but in the end and as we all know, games are won on the field not inside spreadsheets. Which is good, because PECOTA has the Yankees finishing seven games up on the Sox after winning 96 games. By any measure, 89 wins for the Red Sox would be an unsuccessful season, but that’s where things stand as of now. FanGraphs does their own full season projections as well, and theirs are slightly more favorable to Boston (which makes them worth mentioning). They have the Sox at 93 wins, a game behind New York’s 94. Better, but not what we’re looking for.

So let’s go deeper. Let’s go position-by-position and see who has the advantage. I’ll give you the names and their projected WARP in parentheses.

Catcher

Gary Sanchez (4.4) vs. Christian Vazquez (1.7)

This is one of the Yankees’ biggest advantages. Sanchez is, bizarrely as it is to say, perhaps as good a hitter as Judge. Vazquez is a fantastic defensive catcher, but at this point in his career, that’s mostly all he is.

Picks

PECOTA: Yankees

Matt: Yankees

First Base

Greg Bird (1.5) vs. Moreland/Ramirez (combined 0.4)

We don’t really know what Greg Bird is as a player yet, but he was as highly touted as Judge was prior to the 2017 season, so there’s some nightmare fuel for Red Sox fans. He missed most of last season with an injury and didn’t hit well upon return, but he’s young and talented so much more is expected of him this season. Moreland is Moreland, and it’s still unclear to me why the Red Sox felt it necessary with a glut of talent available on the market, to give him a two year contract. Best case he and Hanley combine to form the two sides of a successful platoon, so that could happen. Or Hanley could remember that he’s actually a great hitter.

Picks

PECOTA: Yankees

Matt: Push

Second Base

Gleyber Torres (0.1) vs. Dustin Pedroia (1.3)

Torres is yet another great Yankee prospect, but for now we don’t know what he is at the major league level. Pedroia is an aging middle infielder coming off of surgery. So who knows on either of these guys.

Picks

PECOTA: Red Sox

Matt: Red Sox

Shortstop

Didi Gregorius (1.7) vs. Xander Bogaerts (1.4)

Ever since he’s put on the pinstripes, Gregorius has continued to get better. Over a similar timeframe Bogaerts’ numbers are going in the opposite direction. I’m still a Xander Believer though, more so than Gregorius who hacks at everything and seems like exactly the kind of hitter the juiced ball turns into something he isn’t.

Picks

PECOTA: Yankees

Matt: Red Sox

Third Base

Brandon Drury (0.4) vs. Rafael Devers (1.8)

Drury is Gregorius with a more boring name. He’s got some pop but he doesn’t take walks and he’s not much beyond average defensively. That’s a fine profile for a team with Sanchez, Judge, and Stanton, but it doesn’t move the needle much either way. Devers might be the second best hitter on the Red Sox. He’s that good.

Picks

PECOTA: Red Sox

Matt: Red Sox

Outfield

Left Field: Giancarlo Stanton (3.9) vs. Andrew Benintendi (2.1)

Center Field: Aaron Hicks (1.2) vs. Jackie Bradley (1.0)

Right Field: Aaron Judge (4.0) vs. Mookie Betts (5.2)

We’re doing outfield together because this is getting long. The funny thing to me is that the Red Sox are a team built on the strength of their outfielders. Their best hitter and maybe their second best hitter are both outfielders. Their best fielders are outfielders. This is an outfield-heavy team. And yet, up against the Yankees, the strength of this Boston team falls back. The Yankees won’t be able to keep up with Boston defensively but they won’t be bad there, and what ground they lose there will more than be made up for with their bats. Good lord, those bats. The “ifs” here are health. The Red Sox players haven’t shown any predilection for missing games to injury, but Stanton and Hicks both have missed significant time over their careers.

Picks

PECOTA: Yankees

Matt: Yankees

Designated Hitter

Brett Gardner (1.8) vs. JD Martinez (2.9)

I don’t actually know who is going to DH for New York, so I picked the best Yankee projection not included in the above sections and put him here. That’s Gardner. But no leftover Yankee is going to hold a candle to J.D. Martinez in the hitting department.

Picks

PECOTA: Red Sox

Matt: Red Sox

I was going to do the pitching staffs as well, but this has already gone on too long. We’ll leave that for next time. For now, the results. Counting the outfield as three separate positions, PECOTA has Yankees 6, Red Sox 3. I have Red Sox 4, Yankees 4 with 1 push.

Any way you slice this, and I’m sure Yankee fans would disagree with my analysis, it’s close. That we know. PECOTA shows that. FanGraphs shows that. Our eyes show that. It’s going to be another fun season. Buckle the heck up.

The

Red

Sox

have

signed

a

free

agennnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

n

n

n

n

n

[crawls out of well]

How about that! That’s not even a question, it’s a damn statement. How about that! I mean who even cares who they signed at this point. The name of the guy isn’t even important. Okay, fine, I should tell you who it is. It’s Eduardo Nunez. The Red Sox signed Eduardo Nunez to a one-year contract with a team option for a second season.

[marching band walks through]

[deeply breathes oxygen]

[marching band walks through again]

Oh god… oh god… it’s so… so good.

So here’s the thing. As I write this on Thursday night, I don’t know how much Nunez is getting paid. But, really, honestly, who gives a crap? It could be $4 million or it could be $12 million and it really doesn’t matter to anyone who isn’t Eduardo Nunez, his agent, his family, his heirs, their cats, or anyone in the Red Sox ownership group. After that, doesn’t matter. The difference between those two semi-randomly chosen numbers is a lot of actual money were we talking about real people, but this is baseball and these are baseball teams. The only difference to the Red Sox would be if it impacted their ability to bring in other talent, and the only way that would happen would be if the team was committed to not spending above the luxury tax threshold. But they’re not! Money schmoney! Whatevs! They’ll sign J.D. Martinez and, heck, Jake Arrieta too.*

*Which honestly they should do because why the heck not?

So it doesn’t matter what they’re paying him, and they have, according to reports, a second-year team option, so if things go well this year they can bring him back for 2019. If not, they don’t have to. That’s the good kind of option if you’re the team and/or you’re a Red Sox fan (maybe less so if you’re a player).

So far, so good for the Sox! They did a thing! But let’s talk about how Nunez fits on to the roster. His most obvious place is at second base while Dustin Pedroia convalesces from knee surgery. The Sox’s star second baseman could return early in the season, but this is major surgery he’s working his way back from, so you never know. It’s entirely possible it takes longer, and longer could mean months, and baseball season is long, but it’s not that long, ya know? A Sox team minus a legit starting second baseman could be dead and buried by the time Pedroia’s knee is up to the rigors of the sport. So Nunez will likely be first in line there.

Beyond second, there’s also third base, both literally and in this specific case, where the Red Sox will be starting 21-year-old Rafael Devers. Devers is a fantastic talent and much is expected of him, but at his age and experience level, you never know. Which is a nice way of saying he could be bad. If that happens, or if the kid hits the skids for a few weeks, it’s nice to have a competent replacement easily available in Nunez to give him a breather. Beyond holding down the fort for Pedroia and as Devers insurance, it’s always good to have someone who can step in and play if other areas of need should open up. Which, given this is baseball, seems likely.

So Nunez fits in pretty well on the roster as long as he’s willing to deal with the insecurity of not having a daily job in the lineup. And since he’s re-signed with Boston we can reasonably assume that he’s fine with that.

What can we expect from Eduardo in 2018? That’s a bit tougher to answer given the way his 2017 ended, that being getting carried off the field after hurting his knee in the ALDS against Houston. Now seems a good time to state that his signing this contract with Boston depends on him passing a physical, which, based on his injury, is no sure thing. But, for the purposes of this piece, lets assume that he’s healthy and passes his physical. In that case, Nunez was a three-win player each of the past two seasons. Thats quite a gem to have on the bench. That said, his 2017 was helped along by a Manny Ramirez-like slash line of .321/.353/.539 in 173 PAs with Boston. His .751 OPS in San Francisco before the trade is much closer to his career OPS of .735. That’s probably more in line with what should be expected of him. Eduardo Nunez is a nice player, defensively versatile and with some pop, but he’s probably not a .533 slugging percentage type of dude.

You might say, well “Matt” — if that is your real name — what if perhaps Fenway Park just fits with Nunez’s skillset better? What if he’s just a good fit at home in Boston, “Matt?” True, that could be it, but you’d have to explain why, if that’s the case, Nunez hit better on the road than he did in Boston during his brief time with the Sox. It’s possible that Nunez turned over a new leaf after coming to Boston, in a similar manner to J.D. Martinez when he got to Detroit or Jose Bautista when he got to Toronto. It’s possible. If so the Red Sox will have a tremendous deal on their hands whether they’re paying him $4 million a year or $12 million. But the likelihood is Nunez just got extremely hot. It was fun while it lasted, lots of fun in fact, but he’s probably going to fall back toward his career norms. And that’s totally fine. That’s great, even. That’s just dandy. Nunez is going to help to fill the hole left by Pedroia’s absence, and he’ll be there should anyone else fail or fall. That’s insurance. That’s depth. That’s the way a good team makes it through a long, grueling slog of a baseball season.

Eduardo Nunez makes the Red Sox better at whatever price. That’s something worth waiting for.

Photo by Ken Blaze — USA TODAY Sports

You may recall that in my article last week I looked at three primary factors/indicators that bode well for a Red Sox offensive bounce back. The first was age. The Red Sox lineup is mostly young and aging towards their peak seasons or already in their peak seasons. That means improvement is in the offing, very generally speaking. The second was 2018 projections. We will return to this. The third was under/over performance last season. I took the members of the 2018 Sox lineup, looked at what they did last year, and then compared that to what they were projected to do in 2017. This was an attempt to look at how the 2017 team hit compared to what a reasonable expectation would have been at the time. I found that, unsurprisingly, the team under-performed what was expected of them almost across the board.

Two of those three items — the players’ age and their under-performance relative to expectations last season — were true at the time and will remain so after this article. Now to the second item, the 2018 projections. Here’s what I wrote last week about what FanGraphs’ projections said about the Red Sox lineup:

Going by those same rough estimates, of the Red Sox starting nine, FanGraphs projects seven of the Red Sox to improve, five of which significantly. Only Pedroia and Mitch Moreland are projected to improve only slightly from their 2017 performances. Rafael Devers is projected to perform just as he did last season, only to play a full season’s worth of games, which would be a large upgrade over what the Red Sox have been getting from third basemen over the past half decade or more. Only Christian Vazquez is projected to put up a worse performance.

So that’s what FanGraphs has to say. PECOTA, however, sings a very different tune. Of the Red Sox starting nine, which at the moment includes Hanley Ramirez, only two are projected to improve on last year’s WARP total. Those two are Andrew Benintendi (projected to go from 1.8 WARP to 2.5) and the aforementioned Ramirez, who is projected to go from -0.1 WARP to 1.5. Other than that Rafael Devers and Christian Vazquez are both projected at about what they did last season (within 0.1 WARP either way). For Devers that’s problematic because he’s projected for most of a full season in 2018 where as last year he came up in late July. This means he’s projected for less value per plate appearance despite, well, everything about him. For Vazquez, it’s the same story, but in his case it makes more sense. His offense last season had the whiff of unsustainability about it, so should he come back to earth a bit, and thus he would need more playing time to achieve the same value.

The scary part of the projections comes when you look at the meat of the lineup. Mookie Betts is projected to drop a half win. Xander Bogaerts is projected to drop a win. Jackie Bradley is projected to drop 0.2 WARP but he was at 1.2 last season — a number I don’t agree with considering his defense. Mitch Moreland is projected to be worth 0.0 WARP. So that’s your 2018 Red Sox lineup. Only one guy over 2.5 WARP, and just two over 2.0.

This is probably a good time to point out a few things. Firstly, PECOTA doesn’t know Moreland and Xander played through injuries that very much impacted their performance. It only knows their performance, but presumably, with some health, there’s more performance in there for both those guys. It’s a similar story for Jackie Bradley’s knee injury at the start of the season.

Furthermore, these are only projections and conservative projections at that. To pull from another somewhat notable team, Aaron Judge is projected to drop three wins from last season’s total, and Giancarlo Stanton is projected to drop 4.5. So, you know, things could be worse.

On the whole, these will probably be solid projections, but no set of preseason projections is going to be wholly 100 percent correct. The Red Sox offense could be vastly improved over last season’s output, and if I had to guess, that would be where I would go. I still think last season was a dip in what was and is an overall good offensive team. I think more players are closer to their peak-age seasons, and with some more health, a more modern hitting approach implemented by the new hitting coach, and a bit more luck, the team should be better and far more productive in 2018.

That all said, PECOTA’s projections offer a different viewpoint, and indeed, a greater argument for signing someone like J.D. Martinez. Replacing or augmenting Ramirez’s production by adding Martinez could go a long way if indeed the offense falters in the way PECOTA is saying it will.

Then again…

Given the sheer number of free agents out there, all projections, depth charts, and fantasy predictions are kind of moot, aren't they? Either 100-plus guys' careers are over or they're going to sign and kick over all the dominoes. (Pardon my nihilistic mood.)

— Steven Goldman (@GoStevenGoldman) February 8, 2018

Photo by Bob DeChiara — USA TODAY Sports

Let’s look at a few easy ways to make educated guesses.

Age

We know one of the biggest indicators of player quality is age. Hitters tend to improve before age 27, peak at that point or close to it, and decline after. The good news for the Red Sox is they feature a number of players who are not yet 27. Xander Bogaerts (25), Rafael Devers (21), Mookie Betts (25), and Andrew Benintendi (23) are all starters who figure to improve simply based on what we know about aging curves. That’s almost half of the Red Sox lineup. Further, Jackie Bradley (28) and Christian Vazquez (27) are in their peak seasons. This is good!

Beyond, Mitch Moreland (32), Dustin Pedroia (34), and Hanley Ramirez (34) are all likely to decline in the overall skills department. Thing is, Moreland wasn’t all that spectacular last season so much more than a very gentle decline from him would make him close to unplayable. The same goes for Hanley, though he has bounced up and down in terms of quality throughout his career. What’s more, should Martinez come to Boston, both Moreland’s and Hanley’s roles would be somewhat diminished.

Pedroia is the wild card here, though his age alone indicates we shouldn’t be expecting much more than league average production.

Even so, age gives us an overall positive picture of how the 2018 Red Sox offense could look. Betts, Bogaerts, Devers, Benintendi, and perhaps Bradley could all improve, and I think that’s actually relatively likely to happen just based on how their 2017 seasons went as well. That should be more than enough to offset what little production Boston receives from Pedroia, Moreland, and Ramirez.

2018 Projections

PECOTA hasn’t been released yet and I don’t have a copy of the new BP 2018 Annual (which you should definitely buy right this instant) nearby, so regretfully, even though this is BP, we’re going to take a look at FanGraphs. The truth of the matter is, though we like PECOTA around these parts, at this point most projection systems are going to give you roughly the same thing, and that’s all I’m interested in for this exercise: rough estimates.

Going by those same rough estimates, of the Red Sox starting nine, FanGraphs projects seven of the Red Sox to improve, five of which significantly. Only Pedroia and Mitch Moreland are projected to improve only slightly from their 2017 performances. Rafael Devers is projected to perform just as he did last season, only to play a full season’s worth of games, which would be a large upgrade over what the Red Sox have been getting from third basemen over the past half decade or more. Only Christian Vazquez is projected to put up a worse performance.

That roughly matches my expectations for these individual players and it comes close to matching our guesses based simply on player age, which is a factor in the projections as well so there’s admittedly a bit of double counting going on here.

Over/Under Performance

Lastly we can look at how players did last season relative to our expectations. A good proxy for that is the 2017 PECOTA, so let’s look and see how the 2017 Red Sox, our baseline for 2018, did compared to how we expected them to do. I compared the members of the starting lineup’s projected TAv’s to their actual TAv’s. Betts, Benintendi, Hanley, and Bogaerts all came in well below their TAv projections, with Betts and Hanley at their 15th and 10th percentile PECOTA projections for TAv. That’s pretty rough. Bradley and Pedroia were right about where PECOTA pegged them, well, Bradley was a bit worse, but roughly in the vicinity. Only Moreland and Devers beat their projections. Moreland was in the 60th percentile and Devers was in the 95th, which you’d probably expect given he wasn’t supposed to make even a Triple-A roster let alone start for multiple months in the majors.

So this is the part of the article where we try to put some of this information together. Looking at all this, it seems safe to assume a good chunk of the Red Sox starting lineup should be expected, for a variety of reasons, to put up better seasons than they did in 2017. In fact, it’s not just a numerical chunk of the lineup, but the very best players in it, like Betts, Bogaerts, Benintendi, and Bradley. Devers is a bit of a wild card given his youth, as are Ramirez and Moreland for their ages, and Pedroia for his age and injury history. It’s not hard to see Ramirez turning things around, Pedroia getting healthy and hitting better if not returning to his late-aught MVP form. Similarly, this could be the end of the line for these guys. Sometimes baseball doesn’t let you down gently. Sometimes it smashes you into the concrete. But the smart guess is that both Ramirez and Pedroia have something approximating league average hitting left in them.

Add that to a stronger front of the lineup featuring everyone with a surnamed starting with B, and you’ve got a potentially strong lineup. So, do the Red Sox need J.D. Martinez to improve their offense in 2018? I suspect they don’t. I suspect it will get better simply by running the same team out there again. But in a league where the Astros are World Champs and the Yankees are maybe even better than that, it’s hard not to say, well, heck, get J.D. Martinez anyway. Can’t hurt.

Photo by David Kohl — USA TODAY Sports

But this isn’t a simple case of passing the buck. The 2018-19 off-season promises perhaps the biggest free agent class ever. It’s such a promising offseason that I can remember hearing about it three or four years ago, which, when you think about it, is ridiculous. Still, there’s a reason for the extreme foresight. In case you’re unaware of the specifics of this class, here is a list of players who will hit the open market after this upcoming season.

• Josh Donaldson
• Charlie Blackmon
• Drew Pomeranz
• Elvis Andrus
• Brian Dozier
• Andrew Miller
• Craig Kimbrel
• A.J. Pollock
• Daniel Murphy
• Marwin Gonzalez
• Gio Gonzalez
• Andrew McCutchen
• Nelson Cruz
• Zach Britton
• Cody Allen
• Adam Jones

Pretty nuts, right? And here’s the part about it that is crazy, bizarro, extreme, Vince-McMahon-rebooting-the-XFL-level nuts: that’s not really the list. Sure, all those guys are going to be free agents after the 2018 season, but I didn’t include three guys of particular note. I’m talking about Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, and Clayton Kershaw. Those three guys are the reason people have been talking about this free agent class for half a decade.

Those are some huge names, some huge players. The thing is, in the case of the first two, both will be 26 years old in 2019 — the first year of their new contracts. Not since Alex Rodriguez signed with the Texas Rangers as a 25-year-old-to be in 2001 have we seen a player with this level of talent enter the market at such a young age. This free agent class has two of those guys. Oh, and also the best pitcher since Pedro Martinez in Kershaw. It’s truly a stacked class, and teams have been planning for it since fans became aware of it, or maybe even before that.

We’re 400 words into this thing and I haven’t yet brought up the Boston Red Sox which is odd since this is a Boston Red Sox website. Like every other team, the Red Sox are aware of this class of players. Like every other team, the Red Sox would love to have many of those players. The luxury tax is preventing that from happening. The total salary expenditure that teams must be below is $197 million. After that, penalties aplenty are levied, which increase each season teams that are over. The Red Sox kept below the luxury tax threshold last season, meaning if they go over this season the penalties aren’t too steep.

Like every other team, the Red Sox would love to have many of those players. The luxury tax is preventing that from happening.

With arbitration raises though last season’s payroll has gone up even though the roster is basically the same, putting the Red Sox over the threshold in 2018. Signing Bryce Harper or Clayton Kershaw would certainly put the Sox over again in 2019 and, considering they’d likely have to put a huge AAV towards doing so, it would contribute to putting them over again in 2020 as well. Should the Red Sox go far over they could lose their first round draft pick in addition to paying a ton of extra money as a tax for spending so much (seriously, players union, WTF?).

The effect of this on the Red Sox is to incentivize them to spend below the tax threshold. The Red Sox already have $92 million locked up in player salaries for the 2019 season, and that’s for just four guys in David Price, Dustin Pedroia, Rick Porcello, and Mitch Moreland. (They’re paying $18.45 million to a fifth in Pablo Sandoval but he’s no longer on the team.) Things get tighter if the Red Sox do shell out another $100+ million deal for J.D. Martinez or another free agent this offseason. That would likely put the Sox over the tax threshold for a second consecutive season, even without signing Harper or another big name from next off-season’s free agent class.

Now, the Red Sox could say, “Screw it, we’re going to put the best team on the field regardless of the luxury tax limit.” But that seems unlikely. The team has spent liberally over the years since John Henry bought them back in 2002, and there’s little reason to expect that not to continue, but asking the team to pay millions for the privilege of paying millions years into the future seems unlikely.

The problem as it stands now is that the team doesn’t have minor league talent that can step in for veterans on expiring contracts, meaning if everything else stays as is, free agents will have to replace free agents. For example, Rick Porcello’s deal is up after the 2019 season which sounds great. Hooray! The Red Sox will have $21 million to use. Except what do you think the going rate for a decent starting pitcher will be in two seasons? I’m guessing it’s going to be a lot, maybe something around $21 million a year. And the Red Sox will also have to replace (or re-sign) Chris Sale and they’ll have already replaced (or re-signed) Drew Pomeranz the season before, likely requiring more money. Boston’s dollars aren’t endless is the point, and guys on cheap deals can’t all be replaced at the top of the market.

One way out for the Red Sox is if David Price opts out of his contract after the 2018 season. If he does, the Red Sox are off the hook for the remaining four years, $127 million. That money could be spent directly on a Kershaw or, probably more likely, Sale.

While the Red Sox could make a run at Kershaw, and damn the luxury tax, the other two generational talents are less likely to sign in Boston. Both Harper and Machado play positions the Red Sox already have covered for the significant future. Machado plays third base where the Red Sox are hoping Rafael Devers will be for the next six seasons. Sure Boston could move him to first or deal him and try to add Machado, but doing that is a significant step towards the luxury tax threshold. Harper seems the more realistic of the two at least in terms of fit, as one of Jackie Bradley or Andrew Benintendi could be moved to make room. And that would be fine. Harper is that good. But the thing is the Red Sox don’t have to do that. They don’t have a hole at third or a hole in the outfield corners, which means they’d be both replacing a good player and doing so by adding one of the biggest contracts in baseball history. Considering their place against the cap (we’re just going to call it what it is, a soft salary cap), doing that seems unlikely.

You never rule it out though. This is the Red Sox. This is Dave Dombrowski. These are great, great players. You never rule it out. But right now, where the Red Sox are, with David Price’s deal on the books until it isn’t, and $18.5 million due to Pablo Sandoval this coming season and the one after it, the arbitration raises coming due, and the lot, it doesn’t seem like the right time for the Red Sox to make a huge addition. All of which means they may just sit out the greatest free agent market of all time.

Or, you know, not.