Throwing some numbers out

Bill James takes aim at Sox pitchers in annual projections

He’s the ace. Chris Sale, that is. The Red Sox are long removed from the days of the “He’s the ace” t-shirts, the ones worn by Wade Miley, Clay Buchholz, Justin Masterson, Rick Porcello and Joe Kelly back in spring training of 2015, the last time Ben Cherington assembled a starting rotation.

Not only do the Red Sox now have an elite starter in Sale, paired with an elite reliever in Craig Kimbrel, they’ve also got a projectable rotation that is six pitchers deep and a relief corps that, while it could use some additions, is full of players with multiple years of major league experience.

Sure, there are some questions in the rotation, and some of them are health-related. The Red Sox can take a pretty good guess as to what kind of numbers their guys are going to put up. They can also look to Bill James, the team’s senior advisor in baseball operations and a notable stat guru, to map out projections for the 2018 season.

In his book, James notes that baseball research has gone away from leaning on wins, losses and ERA as the “be-all and end-all for a pitcher.” Instead, researchers now rely more upon details such as strikeouts, walks and extra-base hits allowed.

“This change makes projections more realistic,” he writes.

We will include those anyway, since James does. Here’s how the annual Bill James Handbook, released last month, says Red Sox pitchers will perform next year: