The Red Sox Are Going For a Record They Shouldn’t Be Proud Of

“Defense, to me, is the key to playing baseball,” Hall of Fame outfielder Willie Mays once said.

When you think of Willie Mays, you may remember “The Catch” from the 1954 World Series, when he saved the game with a basket catch to keep the game tied 2-2. The Giants won that game 5-2 and eventually went on to win the World Series.

However, if you ask most baseball fans what they remember about Willie Mays, they remember the 660 home runs, a career .301 batting average, or the 339 stolen bases.

When it comes to defense, the Boston Red Sox are on pace to earn a record that no one wants. They are currently barreling towards becoming the worst defensive team in MLB history.

How Do We Measure Defense?

Defense is rarely considered when looking at an MVP or Rookie of the Year race. We debate players based on their number of home runs, batting average, OPS, or wRC+. Defensive highlights are exciting, but the daily grind of measuring a player’s defense often goes unnoticed.

Outs Above Average (OAA) is a defensive metric on Baseball Savant that’s defined as “the cumulative effect of all individual plays a fielder has been credited or debited with, making it a range-based metric of fielding skill that accounts for the number of plays made and the difficulty of them.”

Suppose a player has zero OAA, that would makes them an average defender in the eyes of the metric. Since 2016, Statcast tracks every defensive attempts for every player, then adds them all up to figure out a player and team’s overall defensive value.

Bobby Witt Jr. turned heads in his rookie campaign last year with the Royals when he hit 20 home runs, and stole 30 bases. Witt Jr. joined Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Mike Trout (who did it twice), and Ronald Acuña Jr. as the only players under the age of 22 to hit at least 20 home runs and steal at least 30 bases in a season. Witt edged out shortstop Jeremy Peña for fourth place in American League Rookie of the Year voting, even though Peña was the far superior defender.

Peña finished with 7 OAA that season compared to Witt , who finished with -11. Peña cumulatively made seven outs that an average shortstop wouldn’t make, according to Baseball Savant, while Witt failed to make 11 plays that an average shortstop could make. Peña finished the season with 3.4 fWAR, while Witt finished at 2.3.

Credit to the 23-year-old Witt, who has flipped the script defensively to be the current leader in Outs Above Average this season. He knew he had to improve on defense and he did just that. Defensive value is extremely important to team success, but it often flies under the radar by fans, MLB award voters, and some teams when constructing a roster.

Best and Worst Defensive Teams in MLB History

It may not come as a huge surprise, but the teams who win the World Series often are great defensively. The 2022 World Series Champion Astros finished the season with the second-most OAA. The Braves won the World Series in 2021, finishing 11th in OAA, beating the Astros, who finished second. Clearly, you need more than a great defensive team, but it’s still an incredibly important aspect of the game.

The best defensive season in the Statcast ERA was the 2017 Twins, who finished with 68 Outs Above Average, by far the best since the statistic was tracked. The Yankees beat the Twins in the playoffs that year, but credit to the Yankees, they were fourth in OAA in 2017. Brian Dozier led the team with a 126 wRC+, and Ervin Santana led the staff with a 3.84 xERA. The defense was a huge reason why the Twins even made the playoffs.

The worst defensive year was the 2017 Mets, who finished 70-92 and finished with -58 Outs Above Average. The defense wasn’t the main reason they finished far below expectations, but it certainly didn’t help. The Mets had three players with a wRC+ over 126.

That was the year Jacob deGrom threw 201 innings to a 3.17 xERA and finished 15-10. There is plenty of context to be added to that season, but it’s clear that if they were even an average defensive team, the 2017 Mets season goes a lot smoother.

The Red Sox currently sit with -51 Outs Above Average, placing them as the second-worst defensive team in the StatCast Era. The Reds rank 29th in baseball this season with -20 OAA. They are far and away the worst defensive team in the Majors and on track to be the worst since the Statcast Era began.

The Red Sox have 80 errors, six more than the 29th-ranked Giants. They have -24 DRS (Defensive Runs Saved), ranking 27th in baseball. All of this has cultivated in that lowest defensive rating in the league at -28.6, according to Fangraphs.