The 2012 Red Sox: Proof that Pitching Wins Games

Every team goes through their ups and downs with their pitching staff, it’s going to happen, there’s no getting around it. There are always going to be teams who look great on paper, and are really only one hamstring injury from missing the playoffs. Let’s talk instead about the Boston Red Sox. To start this discussion with nothing but full disclosure, I am a Yankees fan, and I do have my biases. I do however try my best to respect other teams and their players. I play fantasy baseball, I have drafted Red Sox players, I will draft them again, they have helped me do very well before, and their front office for recent years deserves a lot of credit for putting together a very solid 1-9. Theo Epstein, the new GM of the Chicago Cubs, and former GM in Boston has not left the team with a strong starting rotation, and their bullpen isn’t exactly looking stellar yet either.

I would normally relish in this fact, that the Red Sox are underperforming as though they were starting last year’s John Lackey 3 nights/week, but there’s no sense in being another New York fan who rips on their Massachusetts counterparts whenever possible, there are enough of them out there, I really don’t need to contribute. Instead I’d like to look at what kind of pitching staff the Sox have this season, what worries me about it as an analyst, and what worries me about it as a Yankees fan.

What worries the baseball analyst in me:

Josh Beckett - He’s given up 5 home runs in 2 starts so far and only has 4 strikeouts over 12.2 innings. This isn’t the Beckett that the Red Sox signed, I wouldn’t expect the numbers to stay this bad, but he has had trouble with home runs in the past, and if he continues to pitch like this he’ll be a sore spot in the rotation that has already seen 2 rough years from the ace in 06 and 2010.

Daniel Bard & Felix Doubront - Not because either of them is a bad pitcher, but because neither is an established starter, both being converted to the starting rotation from relief roles. Bard has the stuff to be a very good back of the rotation guy, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to dominance as a starter. Doubront is more of an unknown, having made appearances with Boston over the last 2 years putting up less than impressive numbers in those stints with the big league club largely in his WHIP and walk rates being far too high to sustain any success.

Clay Bucholz - After 1 & ½ stellar years, Bucholz might be coming back down to earth, or he might be dealing with some bad luck, and 2 rough starts early. It’s far and away too early to tell, and his strikeout rate suggests his command isn’t gone.

Mark Melancon - He hasn’t actually done anything “wrong” but I question the judgement to hold him out of the closing role while the Sox wait for Andrew Bailey to return. His ERA is unsightly at the moment, but it’s far too early to look at a reliever’s stats with any credibility.

Alfredo Aceves - He is not a closer, yet he’s closing games. He had an incredible year last year but that doesn’t make him a closer. He is a very effective spot starter and middle/late innings reliever, but if the Red Sox have the faith in him to close, why not use him in the rotation rather than Doubront?

Vincente Padilla - He made 9 appearances last year as a reliever with the Dodgers but hasn’t really been an effective member of a team for a full season since his ‘03 season with the Phillies. I can’t see this being a good full season situation for Boston.

What Worries the Yankees fan in me:

Jon Lester - He’s a great lefty starter, and a great story after his battle with cancer, but more importantly, he’s just dominant. Lester has started off the year strong, and looks to keep building on an already very solid career. I look for Lester to continue his dominant ways, and is maybe the only real “sure thing” in the Red Sox starting rotation this year.

Clay Bucholz - I can’t really believe this start will stick, and yes I realize he’s in both lists. He’s young, he’s strong, and has the potential to really dominate as a starting pitcher. Just because I am comfortable with how his season has started with a 3 game set against the Yankees coming up doesn’t mean I look for this type of performance to continue.

The mid-season trade deadline - Really the only other thing that the Red Sox have going for them in terms of pitching, at the moment is that there will be teams out of contention at mid-season who will be happy to cough up a rental or a solid starter for prospects and/or expendable position players, and a big market team with such high aspirations for their season will not go quietly. If the Red Sox can hold to being a .500 team around the middle of the year, they’re going to make moves, and they’ll get better. With Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka both on the DL for the time being, fans were talking about addition by subtraction, but the Red Sox might really be looking forward to Dice-K’s (potentially June)  return if the rotation doesn’t start to take shape sooner.

With a lineup as potent as Boston’s, regardless of the loss of Jacoby Ellsbury, the Red Sox will compete this year despite their early pitching woes. I have no real doubt about that; the biggest question is if they’ll be busy vying for the new 5th wildcard, or if they will be battling to be the AL East champions this season.

Bobby Valentine Is An Idiot, Part I

What I hope will be a great tradition here at ABR, I'm starting a new segment called "Bobby Valentine Is An Idiot."  This is where Foment or I take something that Bobby V either says or does and present it as evidence that he is, in fact, an idiot.

Today's example: calling out Kevin Youkilis

Specifically for not being "as physically or emotionally into the game."

First, lets assume that by "the game" he means "baseball".  I know he's an idiot, but surely he isn't thinking that Youk is going out there trying and emotionally playing table tennis or something stupid like that, or physically going out there in a hockey mask or something.

Second, this is coming after a slow start to the season (2-20, 0 BB, 1 2B), but after a very good 3 game set against the Rays (4-10, 3 BB), where he missed the 4th game.  So really, it seems unwarranted from a statistical standpoint, even with the usual small sample size caveat.

Third, again like in the CC Sabathia article below, his BABIP strikes me as an abnormality.  Career, he's a 328 BABIP hitter, right now its at 261, which will probably come up as soon as he gets healthy.

Fourth, he's been having groin problems, so calling him out to the media by saying that he isn't "physically...into the game." is like kicking him when he's down.  He can't walk up to the batter's box and magically be healed.  Plus, he's a bit older so he'll take a little longer to heal.

Fifth, and most importantly, Kevin Youkilis has been a big player on the Red Sox for years.  His career OBP in 8-ish seasons for the Sox is 390 (in 919 games), and his OPS+ career is 127.  That's second on the team since he became a regular in 2006, not counting Gonzalez's numbers in Petco.  He's played any position that has been asked of him, and played them well (dWAR career of 4.7 playing a lot of games at multiple positions seems pretty good to me).  This is just a bad move by Valentine, and he's been managing them for about a week.  I hope it comes back to bite him in his seat.

In closing, I now have a new favorite non-Cardinal player in Dustin Pedroia for calling out Bobby V's BS with this little quip about how it could be used to motivate Youk (whose only motivation is to get healthy right now):

"[M]aybe that works in Japan."

I salute you DP.  Feel free to come here and blog with us sometime.  Even though Foment's a Yankee fan, he's a pretty nice guy.

The Bullpen: Where the 6th Starter Goes to Keep His Job

There are two spots on a team where pitchers can make money: Starting, and Closing. The middle innings (say 6th through 8th on any given day) are reserved for the guys who’ve been in the minors too long, or are trying to become closers, or are up to help save the guys already in the ‘pen after a few 12 inning games. Something that’s becoming pretty prevalent is the attempt to convert young closers/set-up men into starters.

The reasons for this are numerous. If you can be dominant for one or two innings with 2 pitches, think how great you’ll be if you develop that third pitch you didn’t really need in AAA? Most one or two inning relievers rely on a standard set of pitches, the four-seam fastball and a slider, or maybe a four-seam fastball and a splitter, or in rare cases a four-seam fastball, and a cut fastball. Few late inning relievers use a big curveball or a changeup. These are the pitches that they’re ultimately being asked to perfect so that they can join the rotation, and rake in the cash.

The Yankees have tried to convert Joba Chamberlain back into a starter after an incredible run as a set-up man for Mariano Rivera, The Red Sox are currently hoping against hope that Daniel Bard will solve some of the woes associated with their rotation, and Neftali Feliz is filling the same role for the Rangers. It’s not that these teams don’t think that the pitchers should be in the bullpen, it’s the ever present “what if” factor. What if I’m squandering a future ace as my set-up man? What if my closer could turn into a No. 3 in my rotation? What if we mix and match relievers to fill in the 8th this year?

The two biggest things that weigh on managers and GMs making these decisions are simple: There’s no long term repercussions to trying, and there are, at any time 20+ pitchers who can fill the 7th or 8th inning for any given team between their farm system, waiver claims, various free agents, and even more available for the cost of an infielder at AAA who’s likely to only see much time as a defensive replacement. With so little to lose, and so much to gain, it’s no wonder teams have decided to use the best of their bullpens to try to make up the worst of their rotations. The players are happy because if it pans out, they could be in line for a pretty substantial raise, and if not they’ll slot right back in at the back end of the bullpen, no harm no foul. The teams are happy because they know that persistence will eventually find them gold despite really just digging around in their own junk drawer.

There’s a very real notion that the closer is one of the most important pitchers on any given team, and that to a certain degree is true, however saying that you need a top flight closer simply is not. Many teams will have a “closer by committee” throughout a large portion of the season, whether due to their closer developing an injury, or their closer at the onset of the season being generally ineffective. The Toronto Blue Jays last year finished 81-81, an even .500 record, with Frank Francisco sporting a 3.55 ERA, despite that unsightly (by closer’s standards) ERA, Francisco only blew 4 saves during the course of the season. He would have likely lost favor with the team much faster had he been given the opportunity to close more games, but he received only 21 save opportunities. Along with Francisco, Toronto “utilized” Jon Rauch as their closer. Rauch racked up 16 save opportunities, while converting 11 of them with a hefty 4.85 ERA. Despite this, the team still finished with an even record, in what is generally accepted as the toughest division in baseball, their record would have been good enough for 2nd place in the AL Central, and given an easier schedule in the Central division, would likely have been much better. Toronto’s woes last season were as much about who they were playing against as they were about who they sent out to play the game.

The closer is a luxury many teams don’t want to do without, but a luxury none the less.