The Red Sox compare favorably to the 2013 team that won the World Series
Will this year's Sox end the season the same way?
The Red Sox beat the Rays 6-2 Monday, behind one of David Price’s best pitching performances of the season. The win gave the Sox a 70-54 record and put them in a tie for first place in the AL East.
The success of this season has been a major improvement over last year’s last-place finish, and brings to mind another version of the Sox: the 2013 squad, who were also coming off a last-place season and sat at 72-52 at this point of the year (a game up on David Price and the Rays).
Here’s a look at how the ’13 and ’16 teams compare through 124 games, broken down by position.
Catcher: Jarrod Saltalamacchia had played in 96 of the team’s 124 games, making him a more consistent starter than Sandy Leon (47 games). Despite the advantage in plate appearances, Salty’s production wasn’t touching Sandy’s: he was hitting .267/.335/.451 with 10 home runs and 45 RBI, while Leon has crushed a .383/.436/.638 with 9 and 27.
Second Base: Dustin Pedroia has been a constant figure for the Sox at second, but his 2016 campaign slightly improves on his 2013 numbers through 124 games: .297/.376/.408 for ’13 Pedey vs. .305/.370/.443 for the ’16 incarnation.
First Base: Mike Napoli and Hanley Ramirez put up very similar numbers: Napoli had played in 112 games to Hanleys 111, and his 15 home runs and 69 RBI aren’t far off from Hanley’s 16 and 77. The biggest difference comes in their batting average, where Hanley’s .280 outdoes Napoli’s .246.
Third Base: This one’s a no-brainer: while Travis Shaw has come back down to earth after a strong start to the year, he’s still an improvement on Will Middlebrooks, who had played in exactly half as many games (58) as Shaw has this year. Shaw’s stats look like All-Star numbers compared to Middlebrooks’ .211/.252/.399 with 9 HR and 27 RBI.
Shortstop: Another easy win for the ’16 Sox. While some Sox fans may remember Stephen Drew as hitting below the Mendoza line, he was solid through August of ’13: .251/.334/.430 with 9 HR and 46 RBI are serviceable numbers for a shortstop. Xander Boegarts, who made his debut with that 2013 team, has a sizeable leg up on Drew in every batting category.
Left Field: Left field was a position in flux in 2013 and remains one in 2016: Jonny Gomes led the way with 57 starts in left, while Brock Holt currently does with 58. Their numbers are fairly similar: Holt has the advantage in BA (.255 to .238) but Gomes’ power numbers were better. Andrew Benintendi is coming on strong, though, and could pull a Boegarts come playoff time.
Center Field: Jackie Bradley Jr. vs. Jacoby Ellsbury comes down to a question of value between hitting for average (Ellsbury was hitting .295 to JBJ’s .277) and hitting for power (JBJ has 21 homers and a .513 SLG vs. Ellsbury’s 7 and .424). Ellsbury’s 44 steals at that point are a huge bonus, but Bradley Jr.’s defense and throwing arm in particular make it a close matchup.
Right Field: Shane Victorino’s .277 average was certainly solid, but Mookie Betts is destroying the world.
Designated Hitter: Big Papi’s consistency is incredible: he was hitting .323/.404/.577 with 23 HR and 76 RBI in August of 2013. He’s hitting .322/.414/.637 with 29 HR and 97 RBI this season. Present day Papi gets the advantage for the power numbers, but ’13 Papi went on to decimate the Cardinals in October.
Starting Pitching: A lot has been made of Boston’s pitching woes this season, but the performances of the de-facto number one starters are actually similar: Jon Lester had a 10-7 record in 25 starts by this point, with a 4.31 ERA. David Price is currently 12-8 with 4.00 ERA in 27 starts. Lester would go on to post a 2.22 ERA over his final 8 starts.
John Lackey and Rick Porcello make for another apt comparison: Lackey had started 21 games, holding a 7-10 record and a 3.32 ERA. Porcello has managed an impressive 17-3 record (likely due to his nearly 7 runs of support per start), but his 3.22 ERA isn’t far off of Lackey’s mark.
Steven Wright has started 22 games and posted a 3.01 ERA, earning a trip to the All-Star game. His counterpart as the team’s ERA leader in ’13 was none other than Clay Buchholz, who had only started 12 games but been lights out with a 1.71 ERA.
The back end of the rotation is where this year’s Sox fall apart (as has been noted repeatedly): Buchholz and Eduardo Rodriguez’s 5.42 and 5.11 ERA’s respectively are disastrous, while Ryan Dempster and Felix Doubront held down the fort with 4.50 and 3.95 ERA’s.
Bullpen: Koji Uehara had only been the closer for two months, but he already had 12 saves and maintained a ridiculous 1.09 ERA. Craig Breslow, Junichi Tazawa, and Andrew Miller had been more effective than their 2016 equivalents.
There are plenty of similarities between this year’s Red Sox and the 2013 team that would go on to win it all, but overall this team looks poised to make a run: the most pronounced way that they’re worse than in ’13 is the back end of the rotation, which becomes much less important come October.
What the 2016 Red Sox lack in pitching, beards, and epic speeches compared to 2013, they make up for in power, dance moves, and Mookie Betts.
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