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.

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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

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.