Put this all together, and it is easy to see how 2017 appears like it will be the culmination of the Astros’ tear-down and rebuild, along with the fulfillment of Sports Illustrated’s 2014 prediction of them winning the World Series. Beating the Astros seems daunting. Given the Red Sox’s underdog status, it is worth considering how their style of play, namely aggressive baserunning, putting the ball in play, and strong defense particularly in the outfield, matches up against these daunting Astros.

Aggressive Baserunning

The Red Sox ran wild on the basepaths this year. A few weeks ago I expressed my concerns with their approach to baserunning, and not much has changed since. They attempted 137 stolen bases this year, seventh most in baseball. They took an extra base 43 percent of the time, tied for the third highest rate in baseball. They advanced on fly balls, passed balls and wild pitches 175 times, which was tied for the fourth most in baseball. Trying to take an extra base is of course a worthy effort, but there are costs, which is where my concerns entered the frame. Red Sox batters’ aggression on the bases resulted in 118 baserunning outs (81 Outs on the Bases [OOB], 31 caught stealing, six pickoffs). That total was the third-highest in baseball this year. By now I am sure you get the point: they tried to push bags and made a lot of outs doing so, ultimately leading to below average results (-3.5 BRR). The Astros were similarly aggressive on the bases, but I will leave that for now, and instead focus on how Houston fared in limiting opponents base running efforts.

The most obvious place to start is with the Astros’ control of the base stealing game. By the simplest measure, stolen base percentage, the Astros were miserable at holding runners. Their 88 SB%-allowed (116 attempts) was the worst in baseball and six percentage points ahead of the second worst White Sox. BP’s advanced catching metrics include Swipe Rate Above Average (SRAA), which attempts to account for things like pitchers’ times to the plate and quality of baserunners. By SRAA, among catchers with at least 2,000 pitches received, Evan Gattis and Brian McCann (Houston’s two primary catchers) were third and fifth worst. With this in mind, Red Sox runners should feel comfortable trying to steal a base, and this goes especially for late game pinch runners like Rajai Davis.

Stealing bases, while the most salient part of a team’s baserunning, is only one part. Advancing extra bases on balls to the outfield is another critical part. An example of just how important tagging up on a flyball can be happened in Game 7 of last year’s World Series. As noted, the Red Sox have been aggressive in trying to take extra bases, but against the Astros they should take greater caution. The Astros feature outfielders with strong arms. By both Fangraph’s ARM measure and Baseball Reference’s Total Zone Outfield Arm Runs Above Average, the Astros outfielders have the best group of arms among the teams remaining. George Springer, Josh Reddick, Derek Fisher, and Marwin Gonzalez each rated above average. I know Brian Butterfield wants the team to move away from being a station-to-station team, but giving up outs is not an ideal way to do so. I am interested in seeing if the Red Sox tone things down a bit in this series.

Making Contact

The Red Sox finished the season among the league leaders in Contact percentage, trailing only Houston and Cleveland for top spot. Much has been made about the Red Sox’s inability to hit home runs, or their general lack of power. Instead they were a group that strung hits and walks together to score runs and had strong plate appearances against the power pitchers of the league. The good news is that most of the Astros’ rotation includes pitchers who would be classified as power pitchers, at least by Baseball-Reference’s split definition. These are the types of pitchers against whom the Red Sox have fared well, relative to the rest of the league. In accordance with the power pitcher label, Astros hurlers tend to strike a lot of guys out – they finished third in baseball in strikeout rate – but as you know the Red Sox do not strike out very often. Something is going to give here.

We know that when the Red Sox put the ball in play it tends to stay in the yard. Putting the ball in play means the Houston defense will be tested and they were not exactly a strong group on defense:

Note: UZR is not available for catchers and I was not sure about how to combine Gonzalez’s infielding (generally bad) and outfielding (generally good) numbers.

The differences across metrics are difficult to reconcile, and because these numbers are based on a single season of data we are dealing with wide confidence intervals, but you can see this group lacked something on the defensive side of the game. Ideally the Red Sox’s put-it-in-play approach can take advantage of this.

Defense

While we lauded Red Sox batter’s ability to avoid strikeouts, the Astros were even better; two full percentage points better. They hit home runs, hit for power, and they run. Simply put, the Astros’ offense is excellent. This means the Red Sox’s defense will need to be on point. There were times this season when the Red Sox struggled defensively and it lead to frustrating games. However, in the end they finished as a top three defensive group by DRS and UZR. Here is a table for Red Sox’s defenders similar to the one I gave above for the Astros:

Mookie’s numbers are just silly. BP sees Jackie Bradley’s defense as below average, which is surprising, but otherwise things are in line with what I expected and you can see this was a strong defensive group. They can go and get it, which should help tamp down the Astros lineup that puts the ball in play, and give Red Sox pitchers confidence that they can attack within the strike zone.

All told, it seems like the Red Sox’s style of aggressive baserunning, hitting for contact, and playing strong defense line up well against this Astros team. That is not a startling revelation, as for the most part those things line-up well against any team and that is why the Red Sox won their division. Nevertheless, I understand how the Red Sox come into the series as the underdog. The Astros are an excellent baseball team. But the Red Sox are at least a really good one, and the differences between these teams are not that large in a best-of-five series. Especially when the Red Sox can send Chris Sale to the mound for two of the five games (if necessary). On his own, Sale is as important as any other factor on this Red Sox team this postseason. Getting a solid outing from him tonight and taking Game 1 is critical for the Red Sox’s chances of winning the series. I will certainly be watching the aspects of the Red Sox’s style I outlined above, but mostly I’m just excited for the series to be underway.

Photo by Bob DeChiara – USA TODAY Sports

As good a place to start as any is the Red Sox Batting Power/Finesse split from Baseball Reference (through Sunday’s game):

Power pitchers are defined as those in the top third of the league in strikeouts plus walks, while Finesse pitchers are in the bottom third. As you can see, the Red Sox have been better against Finesse pitchers than against Power pitchers by 94 points of OPS. That on its own is not all that interesting, as almost everybody knocks around the Finesse pitchers and takes their licks against the Power guys. The interesting part is that the Red Sox’s 94-point difference is smaller than the league average of 115 points, ranking them 11^th in baseball. What’s more is the last column, which shows that the Red Sox have been only 2 percent better than the rest of the league against Finesse pitchers but 8 percent better than the rest of the league against Power pitchers.

Let’s see what that looks like at the player level. Here is how Red Sox players have fared on this split (70 season plate appearances minimum):

As I said, it is typical for players to beat up on Finesse pitchers and have difficulty against the Power guys, but four of the everyday Red Sox players (five if Pablo Sandoval is counted) have done more damage against the Power guys, and Mookie Betts’, while not better against Power pitchers, has an OPS difference that is better than league average. And even Xander Bogaerts, who has fared considerably worse against Power pitchers, has a solid OPS against them. Interestingly, Benintendi, Pedroia, Betts, and Bogaerts have the four lowest strikeout rates among the players in the table. Their contact-making ways are providing some immunity against the hard-throwing strikeout machines.

Much of the ground in the high-contact-offense v. high-velocity-strikeout-pitching was covered a few years ago when the Kansas City Royals made their back-to-back World Series appearances (winning once) with an offense that was relentless in its ability to string hits together. Trying to explain the Royals success, Ben Lindbergh, with the help of Mitchel Lichtman, found that from 2010-2015 contact hitters did fare better against power pitchers than did non-contact-focused batters. For 2017, at the team level, this relation is present but not strong. For example, the Red Sox lead the way in not striking out, but their 108 sOPS+ mark against Power pitchers, while good, only ranks 12^th in baseball, and is a far-cry from the power-pitching-destruction-units of the Dodgers, Astros and Nationals (128, 127, 120 sOPS+, respectively). All told, the correlation between team strikeout rate and OPS difference for the Power/Finesse split was small (r = 0.15), and only slightly better when related with their sOPS+ against Power pitchers (r = -0.26). Being able to avoid striking out helps combat power pitchers’ attacks, but there is clearly more to the story.

After the Royals’ World Series win in 2015, the discussion of how they had changed baseball forever with their blueprint for roster construction was rampant, but in the end it was mostly just a hyperbolic reaction to something that was remarkable in the moment. The Royals have continued to strikeout less than most, and they have actually performed better against Power pitchers than Finesse pitchers in 2017; their problem is that they have not really hit any type of pitcher very well since those magical postseason runs. Alas, the sweeping revolution of contact-focused lineups has not happened – at least is hasn’t yet – but these 2017 Red Sox certainly do bear a resemblance to those championship Royals’ offenses: they make contact and string hits together to score runs. Their ability to stay away from the strikeout, which comes from their continued success hitting with two strikes, makes them a tough offense for Power and Finesse pitchers alike. Ideally, the Red Sox get the postseason glory of those Royals teams, but carry the success beyond two seasons.

Photo by Mike DiNovo – USA TODAY Sports