data visualisation – Coffee Spoons

Revisiting My 2025 Red Sox Predictions

Back in March I posted my predictions for the 2025 Boston Red Sox on my social media feeds. I chose not to post it here, because the images had no real data visualisation and the only real information graphic was my prediction of the playoffs via a bracket. I did, however, write about how the Sox may have found their second baseman of the future in Kristian Campbell.

That prediction looks not so hot. The Sox optioned/demoted Campbell to the minor leagues in June and he has not been seen in Boston since. I still think the kid has long-term potential with his bat, but his globe worries me. It never really came around as I hoped.

But what about all my other predictions for the 2025 Red Sox and baseball more broadly?

Well, since today is Day One of the Postseason, I have nothing to report other than that my prediction of a Red Sox–Phillies World Series wherein Boston wins remains possible. Though the bracket itself, not so much. And as for the awards, we still have to wait and see on those too. The rest of the graphics, which had my predictions for select players and statistics, well, those we can look at here today.

We can start with the divisional standings.

The AL East turned out pretty differently than I thought it would. Baltimore’s young prospects did not have a great year and their rotation was even worse than I thought it would be—and that was not very good, I just thought their young bats would make up the difference.

Similarly, I thought the Yankees would fail to survive some bad injuries to start the year. Unfortunately they did and they host the Red Sox this evening in the Wild Card series.

Toronto finally put it all together after years of failing to do so and Tampa Bay did the opposite, had a bad year where everything fell apart after years of finding a way to put it all together.

In the NL East, the Braves just got hurt and never recovered. But that they were worse than even the Marlins in Miami surprised me. Without Atlanta atop the division, the Phillies and Mets made sense and in that micro-ranking I was spot on.

The West Coast divisions were similarly jumbled. I really thought Texas would dominate, but injuries and poor performances crippled their year. I had thought Houston lost too many big pieces from their roster to remain competitive. And in that I was largely correct as they sputtered out in the final week. As for the Angels and Athletics, the less said about them the better.

The NL West largely went as I expected. The Dodgers did not really dominate the way I and many others expected them to, but they performed well enough to win the division. I thought Arizona, San Diego, and San Francisco would slug it out all year and they largely did, though San Francisco was a bit more disappointing than I thought. And the Rockies were just bad.

As for the two central divisions, what can I say? No notes.

Ultimately I thought Boston would be a better than they were at year’s end. Though they dealt with serious injuries all year and the kids were forced to come up and reinforce the roster a bit too soon then they too all got hurt.

So let us start with the hitters.

The big, glaring, obvious point here is that in the middle of the season, the Boston Red Sox traded away their best player, at least their best hitter, in Rafael Devers. I thought then it was a stupid move. I think now it was a stupid move. In a few years, if I were a betting man, I would bet I still think it a stupid move. Boy did they really miss his bat in this lineup, especially when Roman Anthony, one of the aforementioned kids, went down with a month and a half left to play in the season.

Triston Casas fully ruptured his patellar tendon before he even played 30 games when I and many others counted on him to be our slugging first baseman. Instead of 35 home runs, he hit only 3.

Alex Bregman was hurt for about two months and Trevor Story was ice cold for about the same. Campbell was demoted like I said and Roman Anthony’s callup was later than I thought it would be and then he got hurt. Only Duran really performed as I expected.

The team also started the year running and being aggressive on the base paths, but that stopped during the summer. David Hamilton had an awful season and through the middle months was playing in AAA, only returning to the major league club because of the injuries ripping through Boston’s roster.

As for the two rookies I thought would play. most of the year, Campbell’s triple slash fell short of my predictions. Hence his demotion. Roman Anthony’s bat exceeded my expectations, though he was hitting more grounders and ground ball singles than I would have hoped, leading to a lower slugging percentage.

Finally we have the pitching.

Good lord did things go horribly awry.

Houck was bad then blew out his elbow and had Tommy John surgery, meaning he missed 2/3 of this season and will miss all of next year.

I never wanted Buehler, but thought he would be even more serviceable than he turned out to be. He was just awful. Of the expected rotation, that left just three guys: Garrett Crochet, Brayan Bello, and Lucas Giolito.

Crochet was as advertised, a true ace. He led the American League in innings pitched and all of baseball in strikeouts. He dominated. Period. Bello started the year injured as did Giolito, so whislt Bello did eventually hit the innings I expected him to, Giolito did not. Nor did either player reach the strikeout totals I thought they would, though with Bello that may be more due to a change in approach. It seemed as if last year the Sox wanted him to be a strikeout guy. He has shown flashes of it in the past. But this year he really seemed to buy into the ground ball and weak contact guy.

Then in the bullpen and in the ninth inning Aroldis Chapman was just as dominant as Crochet was at the start. Unfortunately, Justin Slaten had some elbow issues with some kind of a bone spur and he missed significant time. Though in his limited innings he looked as dominant as I hoped. Fortunately he just came back in time for the playoffs.

All in all, a good year for the Red Sox.

As for what happens next, well this time I will leave you with my playoff predictions, though I have edited them to actually include the teams that really did make them.

Let’s go Red Sox.

Credit for the pieces is mine.

Pick Your Pizza

As many longtime readers know, I lived in Chicago for eight years. I probably had Chicago-style pizza fewer than eight times in my life. I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and for the last nine years I have lived in central Philadelphia, where pizza is very much a different thing. And in my life I have visited New York probably more times than I can count and obviously pizza is a culture of its own there.

The other day, xkcd posted about the various different regional styles of pizza.

Now I will not venture to throw my two cents in here on which pizza is the best. Rather, each has their own qualities that make them good fits for specific types of occasions.

What I will say is the mouseover state makes mention of Altoona-style pizza. As I am someone who visits the Altoona regional annually—and will be again next spring—I have indeed heard of the style. But, no, I have never tried it. Nor does it sound particularly appealing.

However, I had also heard of a Primanti Brothers sandwich of Pittsburgh fame, which includes French fries inside the actual sandwich. A few years ago when I visited Pittsburgh for the first time I did give one a go. But, and perhaps because I am not a fan of French fries, I found the sandwich disappointing.

So maybe some year I will give the Altoona-style pizza a similar go.

But right now, a slice of pizza, any other kind of pizza, sounds pretty good right about now.

Happy weekend, all.

Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

Pour One Out—For Your Liver

Last month Vox published an article about the trend in America wherein people are drinking less alcohol. They cited a Gallup poll conducted since 1939 and which reported only 54% of Americans reported partaking in America’s national tipple—except for that brief dalliance with Prohibition—making this the least-drinking society since, well, at least 1939.

Vox charted the data in the following graphic.

Overall, the graphic is good. Here the use of individual dots makes clear the years wherein Gallup conducted the survey. In some of the earlier periods it was not an annual question. The line weight is just thick enough to be distinct and the axis lines are lighter and in a light grey to create contrast.

The line uses the colour black. You really do not need colour in a line chart—or a bar chart or anything really charting only a single variable—unless it stems from your branding. Admittedly, Vox is now membership-supported and I am not a member so I only can read a few articles and am unsure if their chart brand standards now use black as their primary colour.

I can quibble with the axis label, “Drink alcoholic beverages”, because that should or could be included in the graphic header or sub-header. But putting in the graphic space is fine. And I like it next to the line instead of in a legend above the chart.

But the thing that irks me is the use of data labels at specific years. You could argue for the inclusion of the label at the current year, the 54%. You could argue for the maximum value, the 71%, but I would not.

Labels distract the reader’s eyes from the line itself and the line is the story. Calling out the 54% and maybe the 71%, fine, but the random 67%? A second random 67%? Those are unnecessary distractions that take away from the chart’s communicative value.

I have mentioned it before and I will mention it again, the use of excessive data labels plagues data visualisation these days. I need to write it up in a longer piece and someday I will. Here is a crude mockup of the graphic without the data labels.

The line’s pattern is easier to spot—fewer distractions for the eyes. The pattern is clear that since the late 1970s roughly 65% of Americans drank alcohol, with the occasional dip, including one in the late 1980s and early 1990s and a briefer one in the mid-90s. I wonder if the 1989–90 dip relates to the recession. The sudden dip in the mid-90s confounds me. But the point is these things are easier to spot without labels the sparkling distraction of the labelling.

Again, overall, the graphic is good. And these days the state of information design and data visualisation is…not great, Bob. So I do not want to critique this graphic too heavily. But a tweak or two would make it even better.

Credit for the piece goes to Dylan Scott.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Last month the Philadelphia Inquirer published an article examining the geographic distribution of Teslas and Cybertrucks and whether or not your car is liberal or conservative. The interactive graphics focused more on a sortable table, which allowed you to find your vehicle type.

The sortable list offers users option by brand and body type—not model. But whilst the newspaper claims to include 11 million vehicles in Pennsylvania, its classifications are lacking. For example, I drive a Ford Focus hatchback, but the list includes only 1400 hatchbacks, of the Toyota four-door variety in the entire Commonwealth.

More interesting to me was the geographic map of Tesla electric vehicles and Cybertrucks. The screenshot below is of the Tesla.

The choropleth maps use shades of green to indicate the share of vehicles in the particular zip code. Teslas represent relatively small shares of the market across Pennsylvania, but their limited presence is concentrated in the more affluent communities surrounding the big cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Cybertrucks are even less popular in Pennsylvania and barely register statewide.

Overall the graphics work, but I wish the data was a bit more robust. I would be curious how political my vehicle choice is. Of course choice is relative here. I purchased my car back in 2010 and I cared little for the brand. I just wanted something small to drive and park in Chicago and that could lug cargo. Of course 2010 was a less polarised time when the outrages of the day centred upon tan suits.

Credit for the piece goes to Lizzie Mulvey and Dylan Purcell.

Sudan Side by Side

Conflict—a brutal civil war—continues unabated in Sudan. In the country’s west opposition forces have laid siege to the city of el-Fasher for over a year now. And a recent BBC News article provided readers recent satellite imagery showing the devastation within the city and, most interestingly, one of the most ancient of mankind’s tactics in siege warfare: encircling the town or fortress with a wall. No one gets in. And no one gets out.

The screenshot from the article above is of a village to the west of the city and it reveals the brutality of siege warfare. Paramilitary opposition forces constructed their siege wall through the middle of the village, which the image reveals barely exists any longer.

I love images like this because sometimes complex graphics are not necessary to tell the story. The scale of obliteration is obvious to the audience. And it only requires a moment’s extra thought to realise each building was someone’s home or business.

This second screenshot is of an annotated map from the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University. Coloured lines indicate the siege wall’s size and progress. Unlike the obvious nature of the first set of side-by-side images, here the story requires annotations.

Colours indicate when the paramilitaries built the segment of wall. The village in the satellite photos can be seen on the left of the map with the green dashes appropriately cutting through the text label. There are only four colours relevant to the wall and I perhaps would have explored using a light-to-dark gradient instead of four distinct hues as a gradient implies a progression. The wall began in the north, then went to the west and worked clockwise, i.e. cyan to green to yellow to red. A gradient probably would have been clearer in that regard.

I think the drawback with that particular graphic is the legend is not in the graphic itself. Instead, the BBC had to explain it via the article’s text. The lack of an integrated graphic hurts in cases just like this when, say, a screenshot of the image is used without the accompanying text. Here is an example of how that could work.

Overall I like the graphics. And by like I mean the design of the graphics. I do not like the ongoing civil war. The paramilitary forces have made clear their intention to starve and bombard the city’s population to death. Alas, I doubt we will see anything change anytime soon.

Credit for the original pieces go to the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University and the BBC graphics team.

Credit for the edit is mine.

MLB’s Realignment

Last weekend, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred created a mild furore when he discussed the sport’s looming expansion and how it would likely prompt a geographic realignment. I am old enough I still recall baseball’s two leagues—the American and National—organised into only two divisions—East and West. In the early 1990s, baseball expanded and created a new Central Division. Afterwards, teams changed divisions, teams changed leagues, the sport expanded again to add new teams. As of today, MLB comprises 30 teams, 15 each in each league divided five teams per division. The only potential downside is whereas for decades the leagues only played amongst themselves, since the late 1990s, the odd numbers of teams have required “interleague” play on a daily basis.

But baseball wants to expand to 32 teams in a process yet to begin. Expansion requires the interested parties to pay an enormous fee, making other owners significant amounts of sweet, sweet cash. The question on everyone’s mind is where will the two expansion teams locate? And once they start play, how will the sport organise its teams?

The Athletic posted an article about this very issue earlier this week and it included two nice and simple maps showing one potential geographic realignment. This image is of author Stephen J. Nesbitt’s idea for the American League. (I care about the American League because as my regular readers by now know, I am an unapologetic fan of the Red Sox.)

As maps go, I think it works well. Personally, I prefer lighter backgrounds to darker, but a grey map is a grey map all the same. I think the colours work well and visually group the proposed divisions clearly. The white box makes clear the new division. (The map for the National League also works well.)

Beyond the information design or data visualisation level, I generally like the realignment proposed here as it offers a decent compromise between those wanting a basketball-style apportionment into two conferences, one eastern and one western, and those traditionalists like myself who still value the distinction between the American and National Leagues.

The biggest issue is where will the teams be? The author assumes one team on the East Coast or at least east of the Mississippi, and one West Coast or west of the Rocky Mountains. But baseball returning to Canada and Montreal would be welcome as would an expansion team in Texas, say Austin or San Antonio. Then of course you have the issue of Oakland. And the longshots have always been expansion into Mexico.

Personally, I have long been in favour of an even larger expansion to 36 teams. For sake of argument: Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Charlotte, Nashville, and Montreal have always made sense to me. Of course six new teams in one quick go would be impractical and thus it would be a long-term goal. But three 6-team divisions would mean 18 teams per league and you could still eliminate or reduce interleague play to special occasion weekends.

Credit for the piece goes to Drew Jordan.

Truly Transcontinental

Last week two of the largest American freight railroads agreed to a merger with Union Pacific purchasing Norfolk Southern. Railroads have long played an important part in the history of the United States, from the Second Industrial Revolution to settlement and development of the West, through to the time zones in which we live and the laws on monopolies and corporations by which we live. Even in my own family history, my 3×great-grandfather was crushed between two rail cars and instantly killed whilst working for the Reading Railroad.

This merger, however, will create a truly transcontinental railroad spanning from the East Coast to the West Coast. Fortunately the New York Times covered the news and included a graphic to showcase the new network—if approved by the Administration, which…really?…do we have any doubt?—with the Union Pacific in red and Norfolk Southern in orange.

The graphic is great. It need not be overly complex. With other railroads shown in light grey for context, the graphic highlights both the expansiveness and pervasiveness of the two networks. In a normally operating world, we probably would see significant concerns from the government about monopolistic concentrations of freight—we are talking about 40% of freight traffic here being controlled by one company. But this ain’t exactly Kansas. Except, it kinda is. Regardless, I doubt this merger gets held up.

A minor note, I appreciate that this map includes the state-level administrative units for both Mexico and Canada—Cuba too, but that is less important for this article. The only concern would be, I would probably have used a thicker white stroke for the international borders, because how many readers would know on the above map where the United States ends and “not the United States” begins…

Credit for the piece goes to Karl Russell.

Just a Little Axis if You Please

In my last post, I commented upon a graphic from the Philadelphia Inquirer where a min/max axis line would have been helpful. This post is a quick follow-up of sorts, because a week ago I flagged something similar for me to perhaps mention on Coffee Spoons. So here I shall mention away.

We have another graphic from the Inquirer in an article about the Philadelphia region’s oppressive humidity this summer. The chart presents its information straightforwardly—bars representing the percentage of hours wherein the dew point sat above 70ºF. Muggy. Muggy as hell. Because I guarantee you the heat in Hell is a humid one. None of the dry dessert heat.

Overall, the graphic works well. It is interactive so you can mouse over the bar and read the precise data point. I love that far more than the increasingly prevalent let’s-label-every-data-point-on-the-chart-and-distract-the-eyeball-from-the-actual-pattern-of-what-is-going-on approach.

This summer has been the third muggiest in Philadelphia in the last three-quarters of a century. The designer highlighted 2025 at the end of the series—not necessary, but I can live with it. But what then stands out are the two muggiest years—two very tall bars. But note that there is no axis line above them. No upper bound. Nothing to help inform the user what percentage point they approach.

I do not always use a maximum or minimum axis line, but usually the outlier has to be extreme, and in that case I will add extra lines around that point to give the user the vital context of scale. Otherwise, the outlier should be just a wee bit above or below the line. I thought I would find a relevant example in my work quickly, but it took nearly 20 minutes of reviewing old work to find one such example.

Here you can see in Figure 6 the pink line barely and briefly rises above the 80% maximum. The reader can see the value just pokes above 80% but was otherwise below it during the entire span of time. And that works great.

Again, this is a small critique of the mugginess chart, but I feel an axis line significantly helps the reader see just how muggy those summers were. Spoiler: nearly 54% of the time was “oppressive”.

To play devil’s advocate, perhaps if the article were not about how this is third muggiest summer, the designer could have skipped adding an axis line at 60% or so. But, because such the author placed such emphasis on the third-most bit, the graphic really would benefit from the context of how the 45% thus far for 2025 compares to the top-two summers.

Credit for the piece goes to Stephen Stirling.

Bring on the Beantown Boys

For my longtime readers, you know that despite living in both Chicago and now Philadelphia, I am and have been since way back in 1999, a Boston Red Sox fan. And this week, the Carmine Hose make their biennial visit down I-95 to South Philadelphia.

And I will be there in person to watch.

This is the second series after the All-Star break and as much as I wish it were otherwise, the Red Sox are just not as good as the Phillies. The team my hometown supports is just better than the one for whom I root. The Sox are 54-47 with a .535 winning percentage and the Phillies are 56-43 with a .566 winning percentage. The Phillies have the better rotation, by far. And the Red Sox’ two best pitchers just threw out in Chicago whereas the Phillies’ best toe the rubber over the next three nights.

But…the Boston baseball bats are a bit better and the Bank is a bandbox. Consequently I do not want to say the Phillies sweep the Sox, but my prediction is it will be tough for the Sox.

How does this connect to information design and data visualisation? Last week as the “second half” began, my local rag, the Philadelphia Inquirer, published an article examining the Phillies’ season to date and their road up ahead. It included a couple of graphics I wanted to share, because I found them a nice addition to the type of article usually devoid of such visual pieces.

The first piece looked at the Phillies’ performance relative to recent teams.

You can see the 2025 club is out performing the 2022 and 2023 editions of the team. I have a few critiques, but overall I enjoyed the graphic. I think the heavier stroke and the colour change for 2025 works…but are both necessary? Or at least to the extent the designer chose? And which line is which year?

The chart is too visually busy with too many bits and bobs clamouring for attention. The heaviness of the blue stroke works because the chart needs the loudness. But move the year labels to a consistent location—which, once established helps the user find similar information—and remove the data label annotations—the precise number of games over .500 should be clear through the axis labelling. If I make a couple quick edits in Photoshop to the image, you end up with something like this.

Again, an overall good graphic, but one with just a few tweaks to quiet the overall piece allows the user to more clearly identify the visual pattern—that the Phillies are good and better than two of their three most recent iterations.

The second piece was even better. It looked at the Phillies’ forthcoming opponents, which at the time of publication first included the Los Angeles Angels before the Sox. (For what it may be worth, the Angels won two of three.)

A different graphic, the same critique: overall good, but visually cluttered. Here I revisit the chart, but move some elements around to clear the chart’s visual space of clutter to emphasise the visual pattern in the chart.

I left the annotated point about the Phillies’ winning percentage, because I do think annotations work. But when a chart is full of annotations, the annotations become the story, not the graphic. And if that is the story, then a table or factettes become a better visual solution to the problem.

I will add I do not love how low the line for the opponents falls below the chart’s minimum axis. I probably would have extended the chart to something like .750 and .250, but it is far from the worst sin I see these days. (I keep thinking of writing something about the decline of the quality of data visualisation and information design in recent years, but that feels more akin to a polemical essay than a short blog post.)

Big takeaway, I like seeing my baseball articles with nice data visualisation. It heralds back to a couple of years ago when outlets routinely published such pieces. Baseball especially benefits from data visualisation because the game generates massive amounts of data both within each game and the collective 162-game season.

Good on the Inquirer for this article. I do not usually read the Sports section, because I am not a Philadelphia sports fan, but maybe I will read a bit more of the Phillies coverage if they include visual content like this.

Credit for the original pieces goes to Chris A. Williams. The edits are mine.

2025 Red Sox Draft Breakdown

Monday and Tuesday, Major League Baseball conducted its amateur player draft, wherein teams select American university and high school players. They have two weeks to sign them and assign them. (Though many will not actually play this year.)

Two years ago the Red Sox installed Craig Breslow as their new chief baseball organisation. He has cut a number of front office personnel and reorganised the Red Sox front office, leading to a number of departures. Crucially for this context, a number of the scouts who identified key Red Sox players like Roman Anthony were either let go or left. The team then focused on analysts and models.

My questions have thus been focused on how this might change the Red Sox’ approach to the draft. A running joke in Sox circles has been how every year the Red Sox draft a high school shortstop from California. But this year, the Red Sox’ first pick was Kyson Witherspoon, a starting pitcher from Oklahoma.

The graphic above shows how Witherspoon was ranked by the media who covers this niche area of baseball: a consensus top-10 pick. And yet the Sox selected Witherspoon at no. 15 overall. This has been another trend of the Sox over the last several years, where other teams select lower-ranked players and leave higher-ranked players available to the Sox and other mid-round selectors. Similarly, fourth-round pick Anthony Eyanson, ranked roughly 40–65, remained on the board and so the Sox took him at no. 87.

As someone who follows the Sox system, they need quality pitching prospects as they have very few of proven track records in the minors. Witherspoon and Eyanson provide them that, at least the quality, the track records have yet to develop. Marcus Phillips, seemingly, presents more of a lottery ticket. His ranking spread so far, from 13 to 98, it is clear there is no consensus on the type of talent the Sox took in him.

Godbout is a middle-infielder with a good hit tool, but light on the power. Clearly the Sox believe they can work with him to develop the power in the next few years. But all in all, three pitchers in the first four rounds.

Now, the additional context for the non-baseball fans amongst you who are still reading is this. Baseball’s draft does not work in the same way as those of, say the NFL or the NBA. One, the draft is much deeper at 20 rounds. (In my lifetime it used to be as deep as 50.) Two, teams (usually) do not draft for need. I.e., unlike the NFL where a team , say the Patriots, who needs a wide receiver might draft a wide receiver with their first pick, a team like the Red Sox who need, say, a catcher will not draft a catcher. A key reason why, it takes years for an MLB draftee to reach the majors if he does so at all. Whereas an NFL draftee likely plays for the Patriots the following year. In short, there is often a lag between the draft and the debut—unless you are the Los Angeles Angels. Thus you address your current positional needs via free agency or trades, not the draft. (Unless you are the Angels.) For the purposes of the draft, you therefore draft the “best player available” (BPA).

Some systems, however, are just better at doing different things. Some teams do a better job of developing pitchers, others of developing hitters. Some of developing certain traits of pitching or hitting. Some teams are just bad at it overall. The Sox have, of late, been very good at developing position players/hitters. They have been pretty not-so-great at developing pitching. Hence, when Breslow said he could improve their pitching pipeline, the Sox jumped at the chance to hire him. (It also helps everyone else they interviewed said no, and a number of candidates declined to even be interviewed.)

In part, the failure to develop pitching could be a failure to identify the correct player traits or characteristics. It could be the wrong methods and strategies, improper techniques and technologies. But, if we look at the recent history of Red Sox drafts, it could be, in part, also a consistent lack of drafting pitching. After all, the 26-man MLB team roster comprises 14 pitchers and 12 position players. (Technically it is a limit of 14 pitchers, but teams seem to generally max out their pitcher limit.)

You can see in my graphic above, since the late 2000s, the Red Sox, with few exceptions, ever drafted more than 50% pitchers. This period of time coincides with the ascendance of the vaunted Sox position player development factory and the decline of the homegrown starter. (Again, the obligatory reminder correlation is not causation.)

Nevertheless, in the last few years, we have seen the drafting of pitchers spike. In the first two years of the new Breslow regime, pitchers represent more than 70% of the amateur draft. (There is also the international signing period where players from around the world can be signed within limits. This is how the Sox have drafted very talented players like Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts. I omitted this talent acquisition channel from the graphics.)

Consequently, when a team states its strategy is to draft the BPA, but over 70% of all players selected are pitchers, I wonder how one defines “best”. Are the Red Sox weighing pitching more heavily than hitting? Is this an attempt to address a long-standing asymmetry in talent? In the models teams like the Red Sox use, are pitchers worth, say, 1.5× more than hitters? I doubt we will ever know the answer, though the team maintains they draft the best player available.

Ultimately, it may matter very little for the Red Sox in the near-term. The sport’s best prospect, Roman Anthony, is just starting to man the outfield for the Sox. A consensus top-10 prospect, Marcelo Mayer, has also just debuted. A top-25 prospect, Kristian Campbell, debuted on Opening Day. Two second-year players round out the outfield in Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu. A rookie catcher is behind the plate. The Sox may not need serious high-end positional player talent in the next 3–5 years. (Though it certainly helps when trying to trade for other pieces.)

But a two-year lull in drafting high-end positional player talent, on top of the previous two years’ first-round draft picks, catcher Kyle Teal and outfielder Braden Montgomery, being traded for ace Garrett Crochet, means the Sox may well have a several-year gap in positional player matriculation to the majors. That might matter.

Baseball, unlike the NFL and the NBA, is a marathon, however. So perhaps this is all a tempest in a teapot. Let us check back in five years’ time and we can see whether this new draft strategy, if it is indeed a strategy, has cost the Red Sox anything.

Credit for the pieces is mine.