Rafael Devers not surprised Boston Red Sox own MLB’s best record; ‘We believe in each other as a team. It’s you guys that don’t believe in us’
Updated May 09, 2021;
Posted May 09, 2021
Red Sox s Rafael Devers, right, hugs Bobby Dalbec after Sunday s win.(AP Photo/Nick Wass)AP
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BALTIMORE Rafael Devers isn’t surprised the Boston Red Sox own MLB’s best record at 22-13.
“No, not at all,” Devers said via mental skills coach Rey Fuentes who was translating. “We believe in each other. We believe in each other as a team. It’s you guys that don’t believe in us. But in this clubhouse and this team, we believe in each other and we knew we were a good team.”
Last week, I unveiled my newest xHR/FB rate equation, v4.0. On Thursday, I dove into Std Dev of Dist FB+LD, which is one of the components of the equation and not a metric that is typically discussed because the values need to be calculated manually. Today, let’s move along to Avg Dist FB+LD, which is a much more familiar metric. It’s simply the average distance of a batter’s fly balls and line drives. Naturally, all else being equal, the higher the average, the greater the HR/FB rate.
First, let’s review the average distance in my population set by year, which includes all batter seasons since 2015 with at least 10 fly balls plus line drives.