Ranking the winners, losers of the Trade Deadline
The future is fine. It’s bright. We should be optimistic. We get it.
But it would be a huge mistake to understand what the here and now represents. And, like it or not, Chaim Bloom's view of such things seems to be a bit different than those who are at the ready when it comes to investing in the 2023 season. That was evident with the use of that one word - “underdogs” - in his post-Trade Deadline press conference.
“We really like what we’re building, you’ve seen it,” he said. “Like I said, it’s not something that we’re asking people to close their eyes and dream on — you’re seeing it more and more each night on the field, the core we’re building, what we’re building towards. … Understanding that we’re underdogs this year, right now, [with] where we are in the playoff odds, we just tried to stay true to that.”
Asked to elaborate on the “underdogs” analysis, Bloom continued, “Well, just look at the odds. We know what the odds are. We don’t have a playoff spot right now. We’re not sitting in a playoff spot. I think there probably is as much belief in that clubhouse as I’ve seen in this clubhouse in a long time since we were going through the playoffs in 2021. We’ve got a lot of very positive things going there. … We know we got work to do. It’s going to be all in front of us.
"We’re going to have to play well and we’re going to get there if we get there by just doing the things that got us to this point by keeping one foot in front of the other, not worrying about distractions, just worrying about what we need to do and continuing to lean on that core and build that core and see where it all takes us."
It was just one word, but it also offered insight into how Bloom truly views the Sox' present situation. His team is good, but not good enough to truly invest in. He is hopeful for 2023, but is more hopeful for 2024 and 2025.
While nobody is asking Bloom to take his eyes off the organization's "North Star" of building a sustainable winner, it is alright to pause and take a look around the rest of the universe. That's seemingly what Bloom and Co. didn't want to do Tuesday.
And while the Red Sox can certainly become the next great underdog story (sort of) and actually play into October - with the pessimism of three straight losses not-so-shockingly being pushed aside by a solid, 6-4 win over Seattle - it will be hard to shake how the Sox uncomfortably viewed their lot in life on Aug. 1, 2023.
Here are the facts:
- The "underdog" comment came from Fangraphs odds of the Red Sox making the playoffs and even winning the World Series. The problem with that is in a 162-game season these sort of things can flip in a hurry, as we witnessed over the last week. Heck, on July 17 the Red Sox' odds of making the postseason stood at 36 percent with the Cubs sitting at six percent. Today? The Sox are at 30.5 (two points up from the day before), with the Cubs sitting at 28.4. The point is that these sort of things should never be referenced in any shape or form, particularly when explaining away a Trade Deadline approach.
- The real reality when it comes to how we should be defining this team chances is right in front of us, which is what the Red Sox should have been looking at. They are now currently ONE game back in the loss column behind a team (Toronto) which they have taken to the woodshed already this season. And, to top things off, there are no teams they have to leapfrog to reach the Blue Jays. By Sunday, the Red Sox could very easily be ahead of a team NOBODY is classifying as "underdogs", one which decided they were going to continue to play for the present by filling in their gaps with a late-inning reliever (Jordan Hicks) and middle infielder (Paul DeJong).
- For anyone who then wants to play the strength-of-schedule game and point to the fact that the Red Sox' upcoming opponents have the highest winning percentage (.508) of any team in the American League (the Angels are tied), that argument is easily rebuffed as well. The Red Sox are eight games over.500 against teams with a winning record. The Yankees, Blue Jays, Astros, Rangers and Angels? They all have losing marks against such opponents.
- Executives love leaning on run-differential when trying to define clubs, which was a big reason Cubs President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer continued to believe in his club, pointing to the notion that it was the only one in the National League Central with a positive run-differential. Well, the Red Sox sit at plus-46, which happens to be five runs better than the favorites (Blue Jays) and nine runs superior than the team the third Wild Card team would be playing in the first round of the postseason (Minnesota).
- The resistance to sell the farm when it came to viewing the Red Sox as anything but a gritty-gutty long shot was a bit tougher to stomach when looking at a lot of these teams we are referencing. Almost every other team in a similar position as the Red Sox did something. Even Seattle was active in another way as a seller, the kind of way some would suggest Bloom should have explored deeper if he truly believed in the "underdog" identification. The Yankees' playoff odds sit at 18.1 percent, yet they went out and got the kind of reliever (Keynan Middleton) that truly can add something to a winning equation. (As a quick aside: Can you imagine Brian Cashman dropping the "underdog" line in New York? Yikes.). The Cubs - who sit 3 1/2 games out of a Wild Card - went out and got one of the best bats on the market (Jeimer Candelario). Even the Padres got pieces (Rich Hill, Ji-Man Choi, Scott Barlow, Garrett Cooper) despite residing five games out of a postseason spot.
- We talked about the importance of "reading the room" when it came to the Red Sox' clubhouse after the Trade Deadline, having struggled through a pair of 12-16 Augusts the past two seasons. Well, clearly this was another case of the players not being thrilled by the strategy. There was a lot of "It's not my job ..." when asked about the approach. And the figurative note of encouragement that would have come with getting an arm to support a thinned-out and uncertain pitching staff came in the form of a cursive missive (the Urias addition) that nobody really wanted to read.
The point is there is a reality to how we can view this Red Sox team. Yes, they are flawed. No, there aren't any guarantees that returning players or a notable trade deadline acquisition will or would be difference-makers. But it is OK to pause and understand what we're dealing with here. It's called an unexpected opportunity, and those certainly don't come around every year.
"That's a motivation to me," said Kenley Jansen of the underdog. "If you want to put us as an underdog or you put that we’re not going to make the playoffs, to me, stuff like that always fueled me. I want it to fuel all these other guys in here and be hungry about it and prove anyone wrong."