Bill Simmons Gives Us the Annual "State of the Red Sox" Column

In what is now an annual tradition, Bill Simmons writes a column about Major League Base---I mean the Red Sox--- and tells us whether this MLB season is exciting or not. Whether the season is exciting or not in Bill's eyes is dependent completely on how the Red Sox are doing. Last year the baseball season was very boring, which happened to coincide with the Red Sox not being in first place in the AL East. This year, the season has magically gotten some more excitement. Since Grantland is his site and he can write what he wants, he decides to torture us all, Red Sox fans included, with a Red Sox report card for 2011.

Editor's note: Any statistics in this column are through 100 games and did not include Tuesday's win over Kansas City.

Bengoodfella's note: Any points made about how much Bill likes baseball is dependent on how the Red Sox perform the rest of the season. Any comments made by Bill Simmons which aren't accurate in the future should immediately be forgotten by the reader.

the 2-10 Red Sox limped into Fenway to host the Blue Jays. I specifically remember waking up that morning, staring at the American League standings in horror (2 and 10!!!), taking a big gulp, then researching yearly records on baseball-reference.com.

"Should I write a column soon saying how boring the season is or not? I need to know if the Red Sox are going to be a good team in the future if I am expected to continue watching baseball this season."

the Sox needed to finish 93-47 just for a wild card. That's a 100-win pace that, on the morning of April 16, seemed about as likely as Whitey Bulger being caught in Santa Monica.

Haha!! This is funny because it actually happened!

Keep in mind …

• The Red Sox haven't won 100 games since the year after World War II ended.

What a tortured franchise! "The year after World War II ended" is also known in other circles as "1946." Unfortunately it doesn't take as much space in a column and referencing World War II makes it seem longer ago than 1946 does. I can only guess that's why 1946 turned into "the year after World War II ended."

No baseball team had ever spent more than $40 million on players that needed to be kept away from cadaver-sniffing police dogs and made the playoffs that same year.

The Red Sox are the only team Bill can think of that have had players who don't outperform their contract at every position. They are so tortured and cursed! The Red Sox spend all this money on useless players, BUT IT ISN'T THEIR FAULT THESE PLAYERS SUCK!

Meanwhile at the turn of this century Bill was probably complaining about how much money the Yankees have to throw around. Now he is complaining his team throws too much money around on players who are useless. He just can't accept the idea the Red Sox are Yankees 2.0 in some people's eyes.

That means the 2011 Red Sox hadn't even played 13 games before entering "We'd be making history if we won the title" mode.

Which undoubtedly if the Red Sox go to the World Series, we will get a column from Bill about how historic the Red Sox team truly is. I am sure it will involve a bird pooping on him at some point as well. If the Red Sox don't make the World Series, then he will focus solely on the New England Patriots at this point in time and we will never again hear about the Red Sox this season. Unless he needs to make a joke about how bad they are of course.

What's less gratifying than following a woefully underachieving team with woefully overpaid players? (Cut to the Mets fans nodding wistfully.)

I don't know. Following a team that doesn't have enough payroll to compete and can't keep the good players they draft because woefully underachieving teams with woefully overpaid players keep signing their free agents? (Cut to the Brewers fans nodding angrily)

I think it would be less gratifying to know at the beginning of the season your team has no shot to keep your best players which that team smartly drafted, than it would be less gratifying to see a team that can spend a bunch of money and doesn't allocate that money with the right players. At least you know your team knows what it is doing, but doesn't generate enough revenue to keep those players. Of course, I am a fan of a team that has had their payroll stuck at $90+ million since the late 1990's, so I am not even sure what the hell my team is. You don't hear me complaining...except for that last comment of course.

As if that wasn't enough pressure, with the Bruins and Celtics poised for prolonged playoff runs and the always-competitive Patriots looming in September, the Red Sox were threatening to become the Fredo of the Boston sports family for the first time since 1985.

ALL OF OUR SUCCESS IS A BAD THING BECAUSE IT SETS SUCH A HIGH STANDARD! I'M BILL SIMMONS! WE NEED PITY FOR HOW SUCCESSFUL WE ARE!

I am not sure there is anything I dislike worse than when Bill Simmons talks about Boston sports. He's such an arrogant asshole when he does. I used to enjoy it when he talked about anything. So all the Boston teams are good, but he turns this into a bad thing for the Red Sox because they can't keep up the high standard the other Boston teams have set.

My dislike for Simmons' writing about Boston teams doesn't necessarily coincide with Boston teams being good, it coincides more with Simmons just becoming an insufferable fan of his teams.

Can you have a $163 million black sheep?

No.

Apparently so.

No you can't. Bill just made up the idea the Red Sox are the black sheep and then uses his own opinion as proof he is right.

"Can you have an underrated wide receiver that has made multiple Pro Bowls? I think Steve Smith is underrated. Apparently so you can have an underrated receiver that has made multiple Pro Bowls."

Throw everything together and it was possible to overreact in April. If the Red Sox didn't emerge from Marathon Weekend with a little momentum, they were probably cooked.

See? So if the Red Sox quit winning then it was fine to give up on them. Because if an overpaid team that underachieves isn't exciting to follow, a fan shouldn't have to follow that team. This isn't being a fair weather fan at all. Not at all.

obliterating the memory of that 2-10 debacle by winning an astonishing 60 of their next 87 games. They pulled that off despite getting less than nothing from Mike Cameron, nothing from Dice-K (other than that one start), less than little from John Lackey, little from J.D. Drew and a little more than little from Crawford … five guys who were guaranteed more money in 2011 than the entire Pirates roster.

Is this something we are supposed to be impressed with? What’s the point of showing the Red Sox had expensive underachieving players compared to the Pirates? Is the point to show other expensive guys on the roster were performing well, so that is impressive? It is impressive, but saying “we are a good team despite the fact we have a group of expensive, underachieving players” is not impressive. This doesn’t really serve to point out how great the Red Sox run was when comparing was by comparing the underachieving players on the Red Sox roster to the Pirates payroll. It only serves to point out the economic divide between these two teams more than anything because the Red Sox have the entire Pirates payroll worth of useless players and they are still a great team.

They did it despite the Bruins reviving hockey in Boston and becoming the darlings of the Red Sox's own channel.

I am sure this was a major barrier for the Red Sox to overcome. Many teams would not have survived knowing another sports team is featured more often on television. The Red Sox are resilient though and managed to somehow wade through all of the injuries and underachieving so the other highly paid, great-performing players could carry the team. What heroes.

I am guessing, and this is just a guess, that 65% of Red Sox fans don’t like Bill Simmons because he believes he speaks for them. Actually, Bill thinks he speaks for just about everyone when he talks about pretty much anything now that I think about it.

They did it with a lot of Tim Wakefield. And I mean a LOT of Tim Wakefield. Like, more Tim Wakefield than you'd ever want at this point.

I know! I can’t believe the Red Sox got by using their sixth starter (seventh) who has been an average starter nearly his entire career. Most MLB teams have 6^th/7^th starters who are 21 years old and actually long relievers, but somehow the Red Sox got by with a veteran knuckleballer who has proven success for most his career. What a blow to overcome.

And you know what? Not only did the 2011 Red Sox survive, right now they're quietly moving up the list of "Most Fun Red Sox Teams of My Lifetime." I like watching these guys.

Translation: I like the Red Sox because they are winning games and are in first place.

This could be the most well-rounded Red Sox team since 1975 in terms of star power, breakout guys, star-crossed guys, whipping boys, washed-up guys, up-and-comers, aging vets, out-of-nowhere guys, offensive explosions and just about everything else you'd want from a 162-game season. There's been real entertainment value in every sense, good and bad.

Translation: 85% of the team is the same team as last year, but the Red Sox signed Adrian Gonzalez and are winning games so they now have more “star power” and have “entertainment value.” It’s amazing how Bill enjoys Red Sox teams that are winning, but Red Sox teams that aren’t winning as much (2010 team) doesn’t have enough entertainment value, even though much of the 2011 team has the same players on it as the 2011 team. It is also amazing how baseball isn’t declining in popularity in Bill’s mind when the Red Sox are in first place. All these coincidences!

But through ingenuity, bad luck and sheer recklessness, we ended up with a team that triggers just about every emotion a baseball fan can have. To wit …

Really, in the mind of Bill Simmons, the Red Sox embody what every baseball team wants to be. It does not surprise me Bill believes this.

Then Bill starts to talk about how great Adrian Gonzalez is. It’s funny. Bill lives on the West Coast, so you would think he would have noticed how great Gonzalez was with the Padres and we would have heard about Gonzalez prior to this. I guess not. I am guessing this is most likely because Bill isn't really a baseball fan and only follows the Red Sox and ignores other teams. Seriously, you would think Bill would have said something about Gonzalez before this year, especially now that he is fawning over him.

and his at-bats are so technically sound that you could show them as instructional videos to young hitters (he reminds me of Kevin McHale in the low-post in that way).

Of course. Why wouldn’t Bill compare one Boston-area player in one sport to another Boston-area player in another sport? It’s the only fair comparison.

You can't call it one of the best Red Sox trades ever because we don't know if Anthony Rizzo or Casey Kelly will go Hanley Ramirez on us some day. But at the very least, the Red Sox won Year 1 of that deal — convincingly —

I know Bill Simmons knows baseball fairly well, but this comment makes it seem like he doesn’t. Did he really expect the Red Sox not to win Year 1 of the deal? Did he actually expect the Padres to win Year 1 of the deal when the Red Sox sent two prospects that weren’t completely MLB-ready? Seriously? Crowing the Red Sox won Year 1 in the Adrian Gonzalez trade is just not a very intelligent comment due to its obviousness. Who the hell expected the players the Padres got in the trade to outproduce Adrian Gonzalez this year?

and ended up with someone significantly more compelling than Mark Teixeira (a.k.a. The Guy Who Got Away).

A.K.A. One of Only Guys Who the Red Sox Couldn’t Outspend Other Teams To Sign As a Free Agent

the Red Sox didn't have a single hitter who made you say, "I'm not flipping the channel until he comes up" or "I'm not getting a beer because he's coming up next inning." You're right, you're right ... most baseball teams don't have someone like that. But when you're shelling out more money than just about anyone and charging more for tickets than just about anyone, you can't trot out a lineup for three straight years that doesn't have a single compelling hitter.

Of course, other team’s fans would find Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, or David Ortiz to be compelling, but that’s not good enough for Bill.

A mediocre season by his standards (.279/.395/.495, 14 homers so far) could end up being the single best offensive 2011 season by a third baseman thanks to A-Rod's knee surgery and Beltre's recent hammy pull.

But again, Kevin Youkilis is not a compelling player at all. Not at all. He's a boring piece of shit...or at least he was last year in the mind of Bill Simmons.

Our best defensive measure right now is UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating), which gets prorated to UZR/150 to measure someone's ratings over 150 games. Youk is on pace for -10.6 UZR/150, which ranks him 23rd out of 25 third basemen who played at least 400 innings. This is a fancy way of saying that he's not so good there. Following Beltre (17.2 UZR/150) with Youk at third was like Breaking Bad replacing Bryan Cranston with Jimmy Smits.

This is a fairly interesting point, except Bill is essentially commenting the backup third baseman, who isn’t even really a third baseman, is not a good fielder. He should just be happy Youkilis can play third base decently and is a great hitter. Most teams, even competitive ones don’t have the luxury of switching a great hitter like Youkilis to third base and essentially losing no offense. Just be happy you have a deep team, jackass.

Red Sox fans would complain about a blow job.

Exhibit A: Bill Simmons’ article last year about how boring baseball was and how the Red Sox didn’t have enough compelling characters on team. Admitting your faults is great, but it doesn’t mean you can still complain incessantly and expect some sort of sympathy from your reader.

Why lump them together when Beckett seems to be having a better year? Hold on, I'm about to dork it up on you. Advanced metrics warns us that Beckett overachieved and could regress these last two months; his BABIP is crazy-low (.220) and his FIP (3.09) is a run higher than his ERA (2.07), which is a fancy way of saying that hitters have been unlucky against him.

Beckett could regress over the coming months using these fancy metrics Bill Simmons just enlightened us about. I like how Bill is explaining these calculations to us since this is the first time we have all heard of these. As I always say about Bill, he believes if it didn’t exist in his world before now then it didn’t exist in anyone else’s world before now.

For instance, I have Josh Tomlin and Zach Britton on my League of Dorks team, both of whom were doing "well" after six weeks...only their FIPs were flashing neon "WARNING! WARNING! THESE GUYS ARE ABOUT TO REGRESS!!!!!!!" signs. Which both did. Pretty abruptly, actually. I know old-school fans live in fear of fancy stats, but there's a reason we have them.

I am betting Bill will claim he had dropped these players before they regressed because he knew they would regress, but we all know he probably didn’t do this. Hindsight is Bill Simmons’ best friend.

Beckett has pitched like a true ace in 2011, which brings me to my biggest complaint about advanced metrics: They don't measure the impact of specific starts, such as Beckett's April 10 gem against the Yankees (8 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 10 K) when the Sox were reeling, or the other two Yankee starts (both wins, which was huge because last season it felt like the Yanks just had his number), or his one-hit complete game shutout in Tampa on June 15 (coming off a 4-0 loss to start the series the night before).

Bill’s biggest complaint about advanced metrics is they don’t factor in intangible positive things that Josh Beckett did. If only there was a way to measure those items that can’t be measured. Like the one time Josh Beckett had a great start and everyone in the clubhouse was really happy. That was worth two wins! WHY DOESN’T JOSH BECKETT GET TWO WINS FOR THIS?

(d), if you Google "Clay Buchholz" the first suggestion on the autofill is "Clay Buchholz wife," which reminds us that Clay Buchholz married to a former Deal or No Deal model named Lindsay Buchine Clubine, which means that there's always a chance Buchholz could struggle down the stretch and instead of thinking to himself, "How can I get better?" he might think, "Who cares? I'm gonna go home and have sex with my hot wife."

Yes, I am sure this is going to happen. This is because the rule is most baseball players marry really, really ugly women and Clay Buchholz is clearly the exception to this rule.

But if Buchholz comes off the DL and pitches like he did last season — a totally reasonable "if" — that's suddenly a monster top three in October…None of the AL Central teams can touch Lester/Beckett/Buchholz unless Detroit figures out how to start Verlander six times in a seven-game play

Over in the National League, the Giants (Lincecum/Bumgardner/Cain) and Phillies (Halladay/Lee/Hamels) could obviously match them. And then some. But neither team produces runs like Boston does, which is what makes the Red Sox so intriguing: They're leading the majors in runs (541), on-base (.354), slugging (.454), OPS (.807) and WAR (27.6); only the Rangers (526 runs, .334/.451/.785, 25.6 WAR) really approach them. off series.

Bill wants to make sure that if you were somewhat on the fence about the Red Sox, that would hate them by the time he stopped writing this and bragging about how good they are on offense and in terms of pitching. I think Bill Simmons and writers like him have done more damage to “Red Sox Nation” then the actual fans have.

the 2011 Red Sox look pretty damned good … but Buchholz could easily submarine everything. And you wonder why I added him to my "Google Update" a few weeks ago.

No. Actually I wasn’t wondering and I don’t care.

It's one of my favorite Red Sox traditions … the chubby reliever who seemed like he'd only be pitching in blowouts, then improbably turned into a decent situational reliever! Just call him White Guapo.

I’m not completely up-to-date with Red Sox history or the recent history of Red Sox players, but I think this “tradition” numbers up to 2 pitchers. Alberts and El Guapo. That’s it. But I guess since it has happened twice that means it is a “tradition.” Maybe Bill will think of a corollary for this and then write an entire column about it! We can all hope he doesn’t!

Together, they certainly weren't worth $71.1 million, much less $171.1 million. The worst part about them? They actually made me dislike myself. I always felt bad bitching about Drew because his son had health problems, and because it wasn't his fault that he lacked the everyday fire of, say, Trot Nixon.

Bill felt bad about bitching that J.D. Drew wasn’t fiery enough and because Drew’s son had health problems. He doesn’t feel bad about bitching about J.D. Drew when he hit around .264/.370/.456 with a 115 OPS+ in his career with the Red Sox. A lot of other teams would love that production in right field, but it’s never good enough for Bill.

Bill should feel bad about bitching that he gets that kind of production from his right fielder. It makes him sound like the spoiled fan of a large market team.

If there's a silver lining, maybe Theo learned from the Drew/Dice/Renteria signings that certain personalities can't work in Boston regardless of what the numbers say; that's just one of the reasons they pursued Gonzalez so heavily, not just because advanced numbers said he would be a splendid fit for Fenway, but because his personality was such a good fit. A lesson learned, right?

I am not Adrian Gonzalez’s pen pal or anything like that, but I am pretty sure he is a player who doesn’t search out the limelight, just like these three guys (of course Dice-K didn’t speak English so that didn’t help), but I guess Gonzalez is a nice guy so that’s why he fit in? I don’t know. I do feel like one of the big questions about Gonzalez going to a larger market was how his personality would fit. Maybe I just dreamed that.

but Theo did ignore one of the most valuable rules in professional sports, namely, "Never spend big money on a free agent if there's a good chance the fans from his old team will be giggling in disbelief as soon as they hear about the contract."

Bill is talking about John Lackey here. Theo probably ignored this rule because Bill Simmons just made up the rule and Theo Epstein is a smart man, not a guy who makes up arbitrary rules on the fly.

but I'd rather take my chances over renting yet another eight-figure hitter (or even making a minor move for someone like Jeff Francoeur). At what point do we just become what we despise (the Yankees)? Are we already there?

Yes. You are there. You are at the point where the stereotypical fan and the people who write for a living about your sports team have overwhelmed what the real fans are like in real life, until the general public is forced to just believe all Red Sox fans are obnoxious, fair weather fans who believe everything the Red Sox have ever done was done for the first time at that moment by the Red Sox. Bill Simmons you are there. The point where the bad fans (I will include Bill Simmons on this one) tell us everything the Red Sox are doing and expect us to care, even though we don't personally like the Red Sox. This column is a great example of this. Bill Simmons is there. He's at the point where he complains about shit his team does that he has no right to complain about and sounds very whiny, while at the same time talking about how great the team is. He's there.

Sorry, I actually like having a random came-out-of-nowhere guy on the team who contributes in big moments and makes you say, "Wow, I never saw that coming!" Isn't that what baseball is all about?

Well that and scoring runs, while preventing runs, in order to win baseball games. But the contrived storylines are great too! It helps keep casual fans like Bill Simmons interested in the sport when he no longer seems interested in the actual game, but the stories around the game.

Then Bill Simmons pines for Orlando Cabrera and calls the Red Sox shortstop position "The Curse of OC." Nevermind the fact Marco Scutaro has outperformed Cabrera in nearly every single year since 2004, when the Red Sox let Cabrera go. Don't pay attention to fact Cabrera is hitting .243/.273/.319 this year and wasn't much better last year. Facts just confuse the issue of this "curse."

Here's my question: Why do so many assume Papi is "back on the juice?" He's looked the same physically for 10 freaking years. He was implicated once — ONCE — for testing positive in some supposedly secret drug test that leaked in 2003, only to this day, nobody knows what he tested positive for (it could have been a then-legal supplement for all we know).

I am not sure anyone believes Ortiz is back on the juice or anything like that. Still, can you imagine Bill defending any non-Red Sox this way?

Would he write a defense full of things like "we don't know exactly what he took, but it could have been legal, we don't know. So really he wasn't implicated at all because we don't know what he tested positive for. Besides, Ortiz says he's innocent, which makes him different from everyone else who says they are innocent" if Ortiz didn't play for the Red Sox? Of course not. At least Bill realizes it...but admitting it only serves to undermine his point, as long as we are thinking logically about this of course. Which Bill never encourages his readers to do or they would be able to call him on some of his previous bullshit also.

Really, that's the best thing about baseball … the little nuances.

Well, that and the actual game of baseball. I forgot, Bill doesn't like the sport, he likes the soap opera crap around the sport. He likes seeing how players react to each other and the contrived storylines. It's like one big reality television show to him, just connected to sports.

The Luxury Car (Carl Crawford)
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the first and only total panic move of the Theo/Henry/Lucchino/Werner era!

A quick recap: Last season was tedious enough that they factored everything in — how scalpers were begging fans to buy tickets at half-price down the stretch, how the potential loomed for a legitimate attendance drop, how the Patriots were seemingly headed for a Super Bowl, how the Celtics and Bruins were poised for playoff runs — and said to themselves, "Holy shit! We might turn into Fredo!!! We need to do something!"

See everyone, the Red Sox didn't sign Crawford because they are the Yankees 2.0. They signed Crawford because they just wanted to stay relevant in Boston. It's not the Red Sox fault the other teams in Boston are so great. The Red Sox didn't even want to sign a big name free agent, since they haven't done that recently, unless you want to count Daisuke Matsuzaka, Adrian Beltre, Adrian Gonzalez (they did trade for him, so I guess that shouldn't count), John Lackey or their failed attempt to get Mark Teixeira two winters ago. The Red Sox are just a large market team spending money to stay relevant (cue one tear drop in sympathy). If they didn't have so many good teams in New England, they would have signed Marcus Thames instead of Crawford. But this just isn't the Red Sox fate. They are cursed to be in a super-successful state with super-successful major sports (hockey is only a major sport when the Bruins are winning) teams.

That's what Bill wants you to believe because he doesn't want the Red Sox to be seen by some as the Yankees 2.0.

He's already broken the record for "Most angry e-mails my buddy Hench has sent about a Red Sox batter in one season" and we haven't even hit August yet.

I'll sum it up very quickly for you.

When the Yankees sign a big name free agent and he fails, it is funny because the fans and the team are just desperate for the best player available.

When the Red Sox sign a big name free agent and he fails, it is sad to Bill because the fans deserve better and the team just wanted to stay relevant in their city (cue another tear), so the fans are victims of this.

I've always said, if you think some people hate Red Sox fans (which the media is 50% responsible for in my mind), just wait until the Cubs have a good team. It will be much worse.

Crawford's gaudy contract could (and probably will) end up costing the Red Sox a homegrown star who bounced back from a traumatic 2010 season —

Here goes the "fans as a victim, so feel sympathy for us" thing again. If the Red Sox want to keep Ellsbury, I guarantee they will be able to do so. When is money going to be a problem for a team like the Red Sox who have their own network, sold out games, and tons of revenue? Please, don't give me the whole "we can't afford Ellsbury" shit. I'll believe he leaves as a free agent when I see it.

It's impossible not to think about this every single day as you watch both of them play baseball on the same team. Yet another reason why the 2011 Red Sox have been so fascinating to follow.

More like riveting...especially, actually "only," if you are a Red Sox fan. Thanks for updating us on the season Bill.

Last thought: The 2004 Red Sox won because of their depth and fearlessness, and because Ortiz caught fire at the perfect time. The 2007 Red Sox won because of their pitching, and because of a historically great 1-2 punch (Manny and Papi). If the 2011 Red Sox prevail in October, it will because they're so top-heavy: They have two elite starters, two elite relievers and a top five that's basically a sabermetric wet dream.

Once again, if you haven't gotten the point Bill is trying to make yet...the Red Sox are a really, really good team.

Ellsbury, Pedroia, Gonzalez, Youkilis and Ortiz get on base 40 percent of the time, with a potent blend of power and speed, and if Crawford gets going and Varitamacchia keeps hitting, now you're talking about a modern-day Big Red Machine.

Thanks again Bill! You are part of the reason people hate the stereotypical Red Sox fan! I hope you don't feel bad many people dislike an entire fan base because obnoxious casual fans like you trump the team. I would like to apologize to Red Sox fans. I know you all aren't like Bill. He gives you a bad name.

(And to think, we worried they wouldn't survive Marathon Monday.)

Whose "we?" You got a squirrel in your pocket?