IBC

I haven't done one of these before, but this season was more of a rollercoaster ride than I've had in the last decade. So here goes.

Chapter One - The Preseason:

I've always tried to run my team on the razor edge of just enough depth/not enough depth. It has probably cost me a few wins over the years, but I think it has also let me have young guns in the queue and trade bait. Baseball is often about exploiting areas where competition for finite resources is less robust. When I joined the IBC almost two decades ago prospects were not as coveted as they are now. Over the years, IBC teams have gone from investing in AA prospects to where, now, DSL prospects make up a significant portion of a lot of the draft rosters in the league. Fangraphs! Over the last two or three years a couple teams have become competitive by taking on older players a lot of the league had become spooked to hold into their "decline" and building depth as a way of smoothing out the dips that come with injury and sim underperformance. There always used to be a decent middle reliever and a back-up catcher sitting around in the FA pool. It's super tight lately. I think we have a pretty strong group of GM's right now and the parity in the AL was a huge pain in my ass this year.

Anyway, the offseason really starts with our draft. I was able to gather a number of picks by trading Sandy and Woo for three draft picks. I got the player I wanted in Kurtz at the top of the draft and lucked out in that with my next three first round picks the player I wanted was still there at each pick. After/during the draft Szymborski was doing his usual best to depress excitement for the upcoming season with his 'Everyone will have a meh 50th percentile projection' 2025 ZiPS release. 2026 coming in two weeks or so! I thought there might be a chance Kurtz would get a projection as he was likely to move quickly and had a strong college track record. Well, he did. A lofty .122 ISO put him in the rarified company of other well known sluggers like Jacob Stallings, Zach Short, and Bryson Stott. In short, for a first baseman the projection was totally unplayable and honestly a bit weird as other than 15 AB in AA last year he had never ISO'd under.300 anywhere. Edit- he did ISO .299 as a freshman at Wake. Chalk it up as a huge miss for ZiPS. I had traded 40 percent of a rotation to Jake, and Rasmussen and Woodruff were starting the season on the DL. I figured I could get by until they returned with KC Hunt in the rotation. He got what was as close to a sim freak projection as you'll ever see from ZiPS. Basically, I was planning on leaning on a line-up of gifted defenders and 115+ hitters to hold down the fort until pitching reinforcements started to come back aboard. It was a solid line-up, without a 140+ guy, but also without trying to hide a 95+ guy at the bottom. Then Jared Jones got hurt at the end of the preseason. A pretty good sim and he had been shoving in Spring Training. No 2025 for him. I looked at trying to replace his 108+ with a starter in the 100-110 range, but it wasn't something where I was going to do a deal with Lindor just to replace my third starter so even more pressure on the team to score runs.

Up next - April and May: Accelerated sim schedule.

Chapter Two - April and May: The empire strikes first.

That intro would have fit better if Z's team was actually one of the teams that jumped mine to start the season. But, alas, no. Matt, Dan, and Dave did however. After the first month of the season the Sox were two games under .500, sitting in 4th place, and 8 games out. A spectacular faceplant out of the gate. The offense I had been counting on to carry the team in the early going was dead last in BA, 13th in OBP, 13th in Strikeouts, 14th in CS. Just bad. As a team .206/.286/.372. One player batting over .215. Instead, the pitching was actually quite good, 2nd in ERA and 3rd in RA. We were still on an accelerated sim schedule to try to catch-up so every day, two lost series felt like a gut punch, but also didn't really give you time to try to correctly ID the issue and address it. There was a lot of shuffling the deck chairs batting order/bench/starting going on. April grades- Offense F, Defense A, Pitching A.

The month of May flew by as we covered it in about a week of simming. The offense improved somewhat as I now had 1 player batting over .230 and one other batting over .220. The pitching and D continued to be stellar and we were only underplaying our Pythagorean by 4 games. Something in Dave's team seemed to have broken and he was on a 6 game losing streak. Now 2 games over .500, we were still 6 1/2 games out. Offense D, Pitching A-, Defense A.

I have a theory that when you get three or more good teams in a division, often the sim will accelerate the ascension of the youngest team. Both Matt and Dan have younger overall teams than I do. Matts had a good year in 2024, and I think the strong start he got off to encouraged him to be quite aggressive in acquiring talent to bolster his strong 1-2 punch of Skubal and Sanchez. Nothing was coming up Milhouse. We were a third of the way through the season and I had begun to believe that we were going to be stuck in a 30th percentile sim offensively for the whole season. I had engaged with someone who was thinking about blowing it up in early June RL. Strangely as I was penning an offer one night, I had this weird feeling of dread that someone in my division was working a deal to get a significant haul that would make the rest of the season much more difficult. In short, I panicked and sent out an offer that, now would have included both the AL ROY (Kurtz), top 1-2 NL ROY (Baldwin), Jones, and another rookie who put up 2.7 WAR. It got rejected. I think it may have saved me from having to blow up this team within a couple years. Now I have replaced 22 percent of my line-up with guys who could be there for a decade.

Up next - Chapter Three - How are we at the All-Star break already?

Chapter 3 - Vacation:

June was a month of stagnation. Matt Chapman, the player who had hit over .220 in April and .230 in May got hurt and without his offense and EX D at third base the Sox just kind of stopped. No longer sinking, but not able to make up any ground in the standings. Tampa had indeed managed to land and All-star offensive player and likely Hall of Famer, but also a lefty closer who should give my mostly left handed line-up fits. The hitting warmed up a bit and we now had 6 players batting over .220. Two games over .500 and 5 1/2 back with half the season gone. Not where I had hoped we would be when the season began. Offense C-, Pitching B, Defense B

Toward the end of June Pat G pulled up in his windowless van and asked if I would help him find his puppy. Not really, but if you have questions about the trajectory of a prospect, if Pat is asking about them, they're usually trending up. Anyway, I think Pat was also disappointed in how his team had performed up to that point. His team had more 'Name' players than mine and he was offering to swap a bunch of current sims for future sims. Eventually he was still able to make his team younger and win the division. Roman Anthony was a great get. Every AB I see him take is tremendous. He's going to be a star in this league for a long time.

This was the ride or die moment for the Sox. Either stick with what I had or add guys and try to fix the mix. That's the trap with having a 110+ team with good D. How much better is your team if you bring in a 120+ with average D and then have to play another guy who is 99+?

Up Next - Chapter 4 - The back 9:

RedSox wrote: ↑Tue Oct 28, 2025 1:51 pm Chapter 3 - Vacation:

June was a month of stagnation. Matt Chapman, the player who had hit over .220 in April and .230 in May got hurt and without his offense and EX D at third base the Sox just kind of stopped. No longer sinking, but not able to make up any ground in the standings. Tampa had indeed managed to land and All-star offensive player and likely Hall of Famer, but also a lefty closer who should give my mostly left handed line-up fits. The hitting warmed up a bit and we now had 6 players batting over .220. Two games over .500 and 5 1/2 back with half the season gone. Not where I had hoped we would be when the season began. Offense C-, Pitching B, Defense B

Toward the end of June Pat G pulled up in his windowless van and asked if I would help him find his puppy. Not really, but if you have questions about the trajectory of a prospect, if Pat is asking about them, they're usually trending up. Anyway, I think Pat was also disappointed in how his team had performed up to that point. His team had more 'Name' players than mine and he was offering to swap a bunch of current sims for future sims. Eventually he was still able to make his team younger and win the division. Roman Anthony was a great get. Every AB I see him take is tremendous. He's going to be a star in this league for a long time.

This was the ride or die moment for the Sox. Either stick with what I had or add guys and try to fix the mix. That's the trap with having a 110+ team with good D. How much better is your team if you bring in a 120+ with average D and then have to play another guy who is 99+?

Up Next - Chapter 4 - The back 9:

Honored to be a part of the writeup in such a flattering way

Chapter 4 - Cookies are for closers:

After we got back from vacation in July, the Sox had finally started to hit, well maybe not so much hit at first, but walk. Lots and lots of walks. Up to 2nd in the league in walks and with Yoshida back we had 4 guys batting over .230. Still .229 as a team though. Through the end of July: Offense C-, Pitching B+, Defense B+

August continued the same direction. Two guys now batting over .250 and now we led the AL in walks. Finally, we were able to overtake Baltimore in the standings but Tampa would continue to add players right up to the deadline and we were still 5 games out on the 29th of August despite being 15 games over .500.

September - I thought we were going to get Matt, but he held us off. The Sox did make the playoff though as the 6th and final seed. Final team batting line - .237/.323/.403, led the league in walks, 4th in HR, 8th in scoring. Second best in fielding percentage and errors with 73. Top in ERA at 3.43, and RA at 598. Top in vs. batter .222/.298/.355. Overall grades for the regular season: Offense C, Fielding A, Pitching A.

When you get all those 50th percentile projections at the start of the year, you know your team will run 40% sometimes and 65% sometimes, but given enough games played you expect to finish in the 45-55% band at the end of season. Therein lies the art to the game. Knowing how far to ride the guy on a heater and not waiting too long for a guy stinking the joint up to come around. To bastardize something Parcells said, after results are in - you are what the stats say you are. The 2025 Sox were a good fielding, good pitching, middling hitting team.

Next up: Playoffs?

Chapter 5 - House money:

Wild Card Series - We open the playoffs against Pat G. I have no idea how the series is going to go because what I see in the other dugout doesn't look anything like what was there two months ago. Sean Murphy hurt his hip at the end of the season so the Sox are relying on off days to try to ride their only catcher, the rookie Baldwin through the postseason.

The first game was pure attrition. Twelve innings that the Sox end up winning 6-4. I think the difference may have been KC Hunt coming in to work 4 scoreless innings while the Guardians used 7 relief pitchers to get through the game.

Game 2 - Rasmussen was nails. Pitchers duel. Sox had 2 HR and the boxscore looks like one of those games where the gametime was a crisp 2:35. Series Sox 2-0.

LDS - I don't know why MLB doesn't reseed, so here we are in the Yankees Spring Training home. Matt has two lefty SP that should eat my team for lunch. One of the weird things that happened when the Sox finally started hitting was they were very good against LH starters over the last two months.

Game 1 - This was another pitchers duel where Mason Miller came in and paved the last two innings flat. 2 innings 6K. Sox win on 2HR and both teams with double digit LOB.

Game 2 - Both starters get roughed up. TB hits 4 HR. Sox commit their 3rd error in 4 games(remember that). For some reason Schwarber tries to steal a base.

Game 3 - This was kind of a weird game as they played through rain in the third into the 4th inning and then there was an 85 minute rain delay and both starters came back out. Game hinged on an error by Machado in the eighth that loaded the bases and led to a grand slam from Chapman. This was a tough loss in a game where both teams didn't have many chances. 1 inning 3K for Miller.

Game 4 - Sox win a low scoring game 2-1 where Tampa hits a HR and a 3B and the sim decides to close out a 1 run game with 1.2 innings from the Sox long reliver. Another error for the Sox. Five in the first 6 games. Series 3-1 Sox.

ALCS - Texas was the big dog in the AL this year. Ohtani is a nightmare, but the line-up is short without Bichette and Alvarez.

Game 1 - Sox lose 6-2 as it turns out to be hard to turn 5 walks into runs if you don't hit. Another error from the Sox.

Game 2 - Sox hit 3 HR and 4 doubles. Cruise in this one 11-4. Texas is able to preserve the bullpen with 3.1 innings from Severino. Sox commit 2 more errors.

Game 3 - Rangers return the favor and blow out the Sox 10-2. Sox commit 3 more errors and decide to use their closer for 1.1 innings in a 10-2 game.

Game 4 - Tough loss for the Sox as they hit 2HR and 2 2B, get 6 walks, leave 11 men on base and lose 6-4. 3 more errors for the Sox.

It was at this point that I realized I was probably screwed if I was in a multiple deviation fielding slump. Over the course of 162 games my team had committed 73 errors or .45 per game. For the 10 games of playoff baseball so far we had 14 errors already with 9 through the first 4 games of the ALCS. 5 times the regular season rate in this series so far.

Game 5 - All hands on deck game for the Sox as they put up 3 runs on 4 doubles and a HR to win 3-1. Castillo goes 8 and Miller pitches for the third game in a row. First game with no errors.

Game 6 - Red Sox win a game they have no business winning. 4 hits/8 walks, essentially a team cycle with a single, double, triple, and HR. Oh, and 3 more errors for the Sox. I had no idea Lance McCullers was 31.

Game 7 - Sox lose 6-2. Rangers hit 3 HR, Sox hit 2. One more error for the Sox to finish the series with 13. Sox leave 7 on base. Series 4-3 Rangers.

I asked one of the many Ai chat bots what the record for errors in a series that went at least 6 games was and it returned that the White Sox had 9 errors in the 1917 World Series, so maybe the 2025 Red Sox just set a IBC series record?

Hard fought season that felt like nothing ever went quite right. I wish Woodruff hadn't gone on the DL right at the end of the season. Statwise I should mention Tampa had a game against the Sox this year where they struck out 19, and I think there was another where they had 17. Someone trade me some RH power.

This was a fun thread to read. It did stand out to me while simming how slow of a start you got off to, so kudos to making it all the way to the end of the ALCS.