And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Here is the “official” chart of April report cards. I did one internal check: all starting pitchers “deserved” a record of 394.75-391.25 which is a near as such a calculation can come to .500. All relievers score at 591/2270 which scores at C. Only the hitters doesn’t quite work, as they “deserve” a record of 355-430. But I think most fans would accept the premise that a team whose offense scored 3 or fewer runs “deserved” a loss. I credit 4 runs scored as 1/2 a win, and 5 or more as a win for the offense. What strikes me is that the reports that, for April, run scoring is up, are only partly right. What IS up is the number of high-scoring games. What is NOT up is the number of games that a team scores 4-5-6 runs, the range where you begin to expect a win.

Remember that (in theory) a C in two categories and a B in the other should result in a B overall. Not really, but that is the intent behind the metric: what would a team with THIS (offense, rotation, bullpen) do if it had an average team in all other respects. So a C+ offense, B- rotation, and C- bullpen (Yankees) yields an A overall result. Not the system’s finest hour, but not unreasonable, either. And other results are more reasonable: a C offense, F rotation and A+ bullpen (Twins) gives a C result. And if you factor in that the offensive ratings, given the math above, are a little low then the ratings work better than ever. Give every team a 1/3 grade increase (make a minus no tag, no tag into a plus, and bump a plus up a grade with a minus) and the numbers are more reasonable still.

The only adjustment to the offense ratings I can think of would be to make 4 runs scored 2/3 of a win or some such, and if the trend continues all year I will do that. But I think run scoring IS up a tick, and that warmer weather will see it come through.

Anyway, here are the results. Comments welcome, as always.

Oh, how I hate to write this post! The Red Sox won 69 games last year, and I confidently predicted that, while they would win more this year, they would not be really any good. While they admittedly made a wise trade in unloading their expensive contracts to the Dodgers, it also removed some pretty good players (Gonzalez, Beckett?) and along with the dumping of Youkilis, the Red Sox looked like some rebuilding was in order. So far this year, though, they are 16-7 and sport the best record in the sport (sorry about that) and 23 games is 1/7 of the season. This projects to t ridiculous 113-49 full season, and is therefore worthy of at least a brief glance.

They have scored 114 runs in 23 games, 4.96 per game, one of the best offenses in baseball. They have allowed 83 runs, 3.61 per game, one of the stingiest pitching/defense combos in baseball. Their Pythagorean record “deserved so to speak” is 15-8, essentially what they have actually done, so they haven’t really been lucky. Well, yes they have, but not in that way, at all.

Their offense has scored 5 or more runs in 13 of 23 games, and 4 in two more, giving them a deserved record, for offense only, of 14-9 which my report card system scores as A. Their rotation by my metric deserves a record of 13.85-9.15 which my report card system scores as an A-. And perhaps more impressive, in 23 starts their starting pitcher had a game score below 40 exactly ONCE (the 13-0 shellacking by the A’s of Aceves). Their pitching often dominates, and when it doesn’t it keeps them in the game. Their relief pitching  scores at 13/65 which grades out to a B. But of course the theory of the grades is that an A offense will produce an A record with average pitching and defense, an A rotation will produce an a result with an average offense and bullpen. So when ALL the indicators are positive, you get 16-7.

They are not without holes: Stephen Drew has been AWFUL (.119/.229/.190 wOBA .201) coming off an injury, but Iglesias has been amazing as his substitute (.450/.476/.550 wOBA .450). Of course this is unsustainable (BABIP .529) but those hits still COUNT, and he has contributed with both bat and glove. So the Sox haven’t had, on balance, a hole at shortstop, either in the field or at bat. Jackie Bradley walked 3 times on opening day, but that was the high point of a brief stay in the majors, as he returned to AAA with the impressive line of .097/.263/.129 and the OBP is inflated, as those 3 BBs were half of his total. But Nava has played nearly every game, though he doesn’t show as the “regular” yet at any position (soon left field replacing Bradley) and has a .390 wOBA.

One very interesting point about the Sox offense this year is underscored by the paragraph above: if you take the player with the most PAs at each position, you get Saltalamacchia, Napoli, Pedroia, Drew, Middlebrooks, Bradley, Ellsbury, Victorino and Gomes. The bench, defined as every player with a PA who is not a pitcher and not on the above list, is Nava, Ross, Ortiz, Ciriaco, Iglesias and Carp. The OPS+ numbers for the first nine, in order, are 105, 141, 118, 16, 67, 12, 107, 87, 69. The OPS+ for the last six, all but Nava small samples I admit, are 148, 115, 270, 100, 179, 303. Adding together the batting line of the first nine you get .245/.314/.391 which is hardly an offensive juggernaut. But if you add the bottom six you get .342/.389/.621 ! This offense has been carried by the “bench” (David Ortiz, of course, is NOT the bench, he has 0.5 fWAR in just 6 games, but started the season on the DL). This will change when 1) some of these players come down to earth and 2) Bradley, Drew and Gomes become part of the bench instead of the starters. But still.

Buchholz and Lester have been amazing, and the rest of the rotation solid, except for Aceves. And even Aceves with his 8.66 ERA has two starts in the 40s and one disaster (15).In the bullpen Bailey, Tazawa and Uehara have all been lights out, the rest of the pen not quite as stellar.

Is this team for real? Well, the initial analysis still somewhat holds: Ellsbury is on pace for 7 wins, if he can stay healthy and keep it up. Victorino has a fielding-fueled 0.8 fWAR but is not really hitting, he will NOT be a 5-win player. Pedroia is like Ellsbury, if he can do this all year, and he has the talent though often not the stamina, he will be amazing, BUT. Ortiz has been phenomenal for 6 games. But Iglesias and his .529 BABIP is THIRD on the team (Ortiz .588, Carp .615) and those numbers will surely settle. Napoli is a legitimate hitter at first, and Middlebrooks will get better at third, but Gomes is a joke, and Nava is not likely anywhere near this good. So the offense is likely to come down to earth a bunch. The rotation may BE real, as Lester and Buchholz are both legitimate top-of-rotation guys, but Aceves has NEVER thrived as a starter, and Doubront is in the “young pitchers can break your heart” class – who knows what you’ll get from him? Ryan Dempster, then, is the wild card – he has been a good pitcher in the past, but is 36 and was bad (ERA+ 89) last year in Texas, with a good team, but GREAT (180) in 2011 with a bad team in a hitter’s park. So who knows?

I picked them to win 79 games, a .488 winning percentage. If I was right in their talent level, and they played that way for the rest of the season, they would win 68 games the rest of the season, which added to the 16 they have already won would put them at 84 and right in the middle of my projected pennant race. If they can play just .500 ball the balance of the year they’ll win 86 which could win the division. So, while I haven’t actually changed my mind about what kind of team they are, the hot start has indeed put them in a position to contend.

Ugh.

It would have been better, apparently, a few days ago (they had a losing streak and fell out of first place) but one of the truly surprising teams of the young 2013 is the Oakland A’s. No so much because they are winning (after all, they DID win the West in 2012, which was ALSO surprising) but because of HOW they are winning: they lead baseball in Runs SCORED, despite playing in a pitcher’s park and with a history of good pitching, marginal hitting.  So I thought I would take some time today and see how it has been done, and what is likely to happen going forward.

Catcher – John Jaso – Jaso is 29, earned 2.6 fWAR last year, and 0.3 so far this year in about 1/8 of a season, so he is basically doing just what he did last year. In fact, his production is quite a bit below his career norm (wOBA .304 instead of .342) though of course 1/3 of his career was last year. It is hardly a stretch to suggest he will actually be better the rest of the year than so far.

First Base – Brandon Moss – Moss is also 29, with about the same playing time overall as Jaso, but he only played 84 games in 2012, and was a monster in those games: his wOBA was .402, whereas his career is .323 including those 300 PAs. So his current .374 is either way high (50+ over career) or somewhat a falloff from 2012, take your pick. His fWAR to date is 0.7 which projects to over 5 – on the other hand his 2012 of 2.3 in 40% of a season ALSO projects over 5. He is a solid defender, and if healthy appears to project as a possible 4-win player. He is currently at .302/.397/.444.

Second Base – Eric Sogard – Sogard is 27, and came into the year with 68 career games of replacement value. He has had 60 PAs and his .313 wOBA plus marginal fielding has netted him 0.0 fWAR. So he is on track, and certainly not playing over his head. Most projection systems pencil him in at about 0.5 WAR for the year.

Shortstop – Jed Lowrie – He is also 29, and was acquired from Houston in the off-season along with reliever Rodriguez for three prospects. He was great for Boston in 55 games in 2010 (1.9 fWAR, .396 wOBA, average fielder), was terrible for them in 88 games in 2011 (0.1 fWAR, .298 wOBA, marginal fielder), and solid for Houston in 97 games last year (2.6 fWAR, .336 wOBA, plus fielder). So far this year his bat has been wonderful in 21 games (.434 wOBA) and his glove bad (as many fielding runs below average in 21 games as in 88 games in 2011) but earning him 0.9 fWAR to date. This projects to almost 7 for the season, so he is one of the early outliers. Still, he IS a fairly solid player, not old, and could be breaking out, though his batting is BABIP fueled (career .290, currently .414). Expect regression.

Third Base – Josh Donaldson – Originally a catcher, and 27 years old, Donaldson entered 2013 with only 89 ML games, 330 PAs, about a half-season’s worth. He shows as an above-average defender at third, with a .341 wOBA which scores at 0.7 fWAR. This is a much better pace than 2012 (1.5 in 300 PAs) and projects him as a 5-war player as well. I’ll believe it when I see it – there is nothing I can really see to make me expect this, though in 2012 he did tear up AAA pitching, when not sucking for Oakland

Left Field - Yoenis Cespedes - It was a shock when Oakland won the bidding war for him: $36M for four years. He is also 27 (do you detect a pattern?). His bat (.368 wOBA) was great in 2012, but his fielding was poor, and his 2.9 fWAR would have been 4.0 with an average glove. He has actually been much worse this year (wOBA .316) while playing only 11 of 21 games. At 0.3 fWAR the A’s expect (and will probably get) more production from him than he has shown so far.

Center Field – Coco Crisp – Here is the true outlier. Crisp is the old man (at 33 the only non-pitcher on the roster over 30) and he is a “proven” talent – career .325 wOBA. When younger he was a plus fielder, but he has been rated below average for 3 years now in center: good but not great range, a weak arm, and occasionally curious routes. But his BAT has been off-the-charts in 2013: .319/.424/.667 as opposed to established (1150 games) norms of .274/.331/.411. So compared to a career ISO of .137 (which of course includes this year) he currently sports a .348 and a wOBA of .458. He has earned 1.3 fWAR. He has actually been more solid than I realized for Oakland the past three seasons, earning 7.7 fWAR over that span, 2.6 per year. But of course he projects to NINE this year. If you assume he will return to where he has been, he will likely earn perhaps 3 or 3.5 this season, given what he has already done. Back to earth with a crash.

Right Field – Josh Reddick – Josh is the baby of the batting order at 26, and had his breakout season last year, as he earned 4.9 fWAR by posting a decent (.325) wOBA while playing a stellar (+19 runs) right field. So far this year he has played only at replacement level with a .245 wOBA and average fielding.

Designated Hitter – Seth Smith – Well, sort of. Smith has played only 9 games at DH, but at 30 years old and only one season in his career over 1.4 fWAR (2009). He can hit (career wOBA .355) so DH is a good spot for him, but 0.6 fWAR to date (projected to 4+) seems high.

Utility OF - Chris Young – Young is 29, and has 77 PAs (more than Cespedes, Smith or Reddick) though he splits between the 3 OF positions so he doesn’t “qualify” at any of them. But he is hardly an offensive force: career wOBA of .328, this year only .256. fWAR 0.0.

So I don’t get it. This team has scored 119 runs in 21 games, an average of 6.67 per game. But of their 10 most used hitters, you would classify them as five hot (Crisp, Lowrie, Donaldson, Smith, Moss) twoOK (Cespedes, Jaso) and three cold (Young, Reddick, Sogard). Which suggests a good offense, but hardly a great one. Their team wOBA of .342 is outstanding, but the margin is not as much over the competition as the runs scored would suggest.

To some degree, I suppose, they have been lucky – the basic runs created formula (I’m too lazy to apply the more advanced forms) suggests they should have scored 106 runs (still 5/G) instead of 119, which would bring them back to the pack. Part of the deal is that they have had a lot of games in which they scored a LOT of runs: 13 once, 11 twice, 9 twice, 8 thrice, 7 once. The reality of an offense is that it is not linear – a single is not always worth the same fraction of a run. When the hits “bunch” more runs are scored than the run elements allow for. So, by bunching their hits in these blowouts, the A’s score more than you would expect.

Anyway, they have scored a lot of runs. My offense evaluation tool, though, suggests that their offense has earned only a 13-9 record, as it gives no extra credit for those extra runs. And in fact, the A’s have not won a game all year in which they ALLOWED more than 5 runs, so none of the blowouts needed all those runs: no 11-10 wins so far. That is a LITTLE misleading, though, as they are 3-0 when allowing 5 runs (!) which IS a tribute to their offense.

Perhaps the real answer lies here: Oakland is 13-8 so far this young season – that breaks down to 6-0 against Houston and 7-8 against the major league teams.