I'd say the 1998 Yankees had quite a bit more than 87 victories..

GAH! I meant 2008.

It's way too early to write off the Red Sox. Thirteen games is hardly a long enough time to establish a season-long base of expectations. The Pirates are now over .500. Does that mean they are a playoff contender?

I'll bet just about every team that makes the postseason goes through a similar stinko stretch or has a five or six-game losing streak somewhere. Didn't last season's 59-103 Nationals have an eight-game winning streak? It's way too early for Red Sox fans to contemplate suicide.

The 1998 Yankees started the season 1-4. I'm sure that there was, at the least, some hand-wringing in the local papers.

Also, the 2008 Yankees won 89 games, not 87. I will dismiss this article because of that.

You make a good point that the terrible play that produced the Sox's 4-9 start does not logically constitute an indictment of their roster construction. However, nor does their poor play in any way refute the charge their roster construction is flawed.

In theory, good baseball is comprised of three things: good hitting, good pitching, and good defense. But hitting is worth approximately as much as good pitching and defense COMBINED, since these are both components of run prevention. It's hard for me to see how Boston is going to win out over NY and TB, among others, with a lineup that is noticeably lacking more than 2-3 significant offensive threats. Their starting pitching can be very good, but it's not likely to be so good as to obviate the need to score 5-6 runs a night in order to win 95+ games. (Besides, starting pitching per se is probably somewhat overrated. Bullpens account for something like 35% of all innings pitched. I don't see where Boston's supposed pitching dominance really extends to the relief corps.)

Speaking as someone who tends not to pay much attention to baseball until late May, what exactly is the difference between going 4-13 in April and going 4-13 in late June? Don't even good teams normally go through a few slumps like this during the season? The only difference with the April games is probably that, coming in relatively bad weather and right after spring training, they are probably more unrepresentative of how the rest of the season turns out than in other peiods.

"the greatest truth when it comes to sports front office management: that projecting human performance, inherently, is subject to all sorts of pitfalls."

Yes and no. Like Red Sox manager Francona recently said himself, these are human players, not chess pieces. I can name a dozen bullet points regarding the human element that show either Epstein's amateurism or a locker-by-locker implosion in the clubhouse.

I need you to define "significant offensive threats", BD, before I respond.

I don't want to pour a lot of time into trying to define SOT statistically. I would generally put Youkilis, Pedroia, and Martinez into the category of SOT. Probably Drew also now that I think about it, although his value is mitigated by concerns over playing time. I would not put Ortiz, Scutaro, Beltre, Cameron, or Ellsbury into the SOT group.

By way of comparison to the Yankees, I consider Youkilis to be on par with Teixeira and Pedroia on par with Cano. The RS don't have a player that corresponds offensively to ARod, and their other SOTs (VMart and Drew) are no match for the group of Yankees that includes Granderson, Jeter, Posada, Johnson, and Swisher.

I don't disagree. I think you shortchange Ellsbury (70 SB's at a ridic success clip adds A LOT of value) but other than that, no need to split hairs.

I thought the Yanks were a bit better than Boston this year - say 2 or 3 wins - because their offense was better than Boston's by a larger margin than Boston's pitching/defense was better than New York's.

An excellent piece of work. Sentences 2 through 4 of this article ought to be laser-engraved on 30 stainless-steel plaques with one sent to every GM in the game.

Fair enough, but it's not exactly a given he'll repeat 70 steals in 82 attempts.

The irony is that the starting pitching has been abysmal. It's the one area before the season started where you thought you'd get some consistency and reliability. Overall the BB rate conceded coupled with whatever is affecting Lester has been painful to watch.
Unfortunately I do agree with your conclusion. I reckon the squad will end up posting around 90 wins...unfortunately it'll be 3-4 wins short of where they really need to be.

You are prefectly correct, of course. But I think it's safe to say that those who read this kind of website dismissed those writers already, and those who listen to those writers wouldn't read this website.

Point taken, Dan.

But we see enough incoming links from mainstream sites and hear enough direct feedback from mainstream writers that I still think it's worthwhile to go after faulty conventional wisdom from time to time.

Sully, I agree, but at the same time it's like bringing a machine gun to practice shooting fish in a barrell.

Last year the Yankees opened 15-17 and were 6.5 back of the Sox. As late as June 23 they were still five back, just six games over .500.

They played .707 ball over the last 92 games of the year.

2007 was worse - they were 21-29, and buried in the press. They finished with 94 wins, which is a .651 clip over the last 112 games of the year, and made the Wild Card.

The 2005 team was nine back on May 6 after Mo Rivera blew a game in Oakland... they were 11-19. Then they played out the year at 84-48.

Really, Boston Media? You want to flip out about this? Heck, just imagine if they were 9-4, but still not in first! Would the storyline then be, "Well, everything's working but they're still not good enough, ALL IS LOST!"

The 2009 Yankees were 15-17 with Alex Rodriguez having played a grand total of 3 games. Is a player of A-Rod's caliber going to join the Red Sox?

The 2005 Yankees needed ridiculous contributions from Aaron Small and Shawn Chacon (17-3 record with a 140 OPS+!!!), as well as rookie call-ups Robinson Cano and Chien-Ming Wang. In other words, they were lucky as hell.

This season is far from over and certain players on the Red Sox are almost guaranteed to improve over their production so far. However, I don't think it's crazy for mediots to question whether David Ortiz will get better, how much of a problem the throwing of V-Mart and Varitek is, or the offensive contributions of Beltre and Cameron. However, worrying about the standings at this point is ridiculous.