SB Nation User Blog: Buzzy

How badly do the Sox need another bat for 2010?

Buzzy — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:30:00 -0000

Here on OTM there has been a recent flurry of statements concerning the Sox offense for 2010. Much of the speculation centers on the obvious fact that the Sox have made efforts to improve their run prevention ability for next year. The signings of Cameron, Scutaro and Lackey make that clear. At the same time, the Sox will lose perhaps their most potent bat from 2009, Jason Bay. In addition Mike Lowell, a decent offensive player, will also move on. Scutaro and Cameron are not spectacular offensive players. Given these facts, many have cried for the signing of, or trading for, a player or players that could provide the needed offensive upgrade. The quantitative question is, how much of an upgrade would be needed to put the Sox in the ballpark of the offense they had in 2009?

I am assuming that the Sox had a very good offense in 09. The team was 3rd in the league in runs scored, and trailed the Yankees (number 1) by a mere 43 runs. No Sox offense since 2005 scored as many runs as the team did last year. While there have been complaints that this was a mirage, a reasonable analysis (that I will not provide here) shows otherwise. One should always be suspicious of the claim that certain offenses only hit well against poor pitching. Generally speaking, teams that score a lot of runs are good offenses.

The basis of this analysis will be the statistic wRC, an estimate of how many runs a player contributed or contributes to total offense. If you go over to Fangraphs, you can check that a sum of wRC for a season is close to the total number of runs scored, which speaks to accuracy. If you prefer James' "runs created" stat, the picture I present here will be unchanged. You can find RC on baseball-reference.com. What I will do is breakdown the Sox 2009 by wRC, and compare that to the James projections for wRC for 2010. I do this to compare "apples to apples." Note also that this attempts to guess what the Sox offense will look like next year.

Here is the breakdown in terms of "runs contributed."

2009

Youkilis-111.7, VMart/Tek-(42.3/43.1), Bay-112.5, Drew-91.3, Ellsbury-97.3, Pedroia-103.9, AGonz/Lugo/Green-(20.1/14.8/27.2), lowell-65.1, Ortiz-80.9.

This totals to 810.2. Note that this is close to the team's total runs scored last year, and does not include the contributions of Kotchman, LaRoche,Baldelli, Kotsay, Lowrie, etc. We should perhaps include the estimated 10RC that Kotchman, LaRoche and Kotsay contributed at 1b. This brings the total to 820.9, without other bench play.

The James estimates are

2010

Youkilis-105.4, VMart-95.8, Cameron-76.3, Drew-93.5, Ellsbury-97.1, Pedroia-105.6, Scutaro-72.5, Ortiz-91.9. This does not include a 3b at all (or a extra 1b if Youkilis moves over). The total is 738.1. Now lets add the additional player-Kotchman is projected to be 49.8 wRC in 408 PA. Lowrie is predicted to be 58.9 wRC in 437 PA, and for fun, Beltre is predicted to be 61.7. All of these work out to be about 60 in a full season. This puts the estimate to about 800 runs even. Thus, a reasonable evaluation of the numbers places the 2010 Red Sox at a mere 10-20 runs behind the 2009 Sox, despite losing Bay who contributed more "runs" in 09 than any single player.

Where does this come from? Well, Cameron is actually decent. Scutaro and VMart are more than 10 run upgrades each. Also, Lowell was not offensively effective last year. Of course this evaluation is crude. For example the benches have been left untouched, I have not factored in adjusting players like Scutaro, Cameron and Beltre (if he were to sign with the Sox) for new parks. In fact that fact alone will move the evaluation even closer to 2009's number.

The bottom line is that the Sox offense, even without someone like Adrian Gonzalez, will be close to what it was last year with Bay and Lowell. On the other hand, a full season of Lackey, Dice-K and Buchholz combined with the improved defense (potentially at 3-4 positions, eg LF,CF,3b and ss) will save a lot of runs. I am excited for 2010 even if the Sox don't pull of any more deals.

Wake on the DL

Buzzy — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:01:55 -0000

Buchholz will start Wednesday and take Wakefield's spot. This according to the Globe. Wake's injury is described as a lower back strain. Since fanposts need to be 75 words long-here is the link:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/

and now some extra words: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Verducci Redux

Buzzy — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:46:07 -0000

There has been much discussion in recent years concerning the "Verducci Effect" which states (more or less) that pitchers of age 24 or less who increase their innings pitched by 35 or more are subject to injury/diminished performance in the next year. The annectdotal evidence for this seems strong. On the other hand, there have been no real studies to quantify if the "effect" is large or if it even exists. Since Jon Lester had essentially the largest innings increase of all eligible pitchers last year, I was quite interested to follow his and other potential Verducci victims during the year. Especially since Lester's early struggles were often linked in the press to the abuse he took over last year's long season.

Since this more or less marks the midway point of the season, I thought it might be interesting to look at this year's group of potential pitchers suffering from the Verducci effect. I will look at the seven pitchers identified in Peter Bendix's Beyond the Boxscore article:

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/1/5/709161/verducci-effect-update-7-r

These pitchers are

a)Jon Lester

f)Tim Lincecum

In looking at this group, we will compare their FIPs this and last year, so as not to bias (or at least limit bias of) outcomes based on possible random variation/defensive issues and the like.

a)Lester: Jon Lester has shown no signs of the Verducci effect. Lester's FIP is a remarkably low 3.22 (among the best in the AL) and his K rates are up substantially. Despite the lingering effects of residual bad luck (his BAPIP is still a high .342), Lester has lowered his ERA to 3.87. He is among the handful of best starters in the AL at this stage.

b)Hamels: Cole Hamels has struggled a bit with injury. While his ERA is significantly higher than last year (4.87 vs 3.09) his FIP is remarkably similar (3.90 vs 3.72). Hamels' FIP and BAPIP (.348 in 2009 vs .270 in 2008) suggest that his bloated ERA is largely beyond his control.

c)Billingsley: Chad Billingsley is almost the identical pitcher this year compared to last both in traditional metrics (ERA 3.38 vs 3.14) and FIP (3.56 vs 3.35).

d)Danks: John Danks has seen a slightly diminished numbers (FIP of 3.93 vs. 3.44) but he has still pitched decently. His FIP difference represents the largest negative amount of the group.

e)Pelfrey: By FIP Mike Pelfrey is essentially the same pitcher this year as last.

f)Lincecum: No problems here. Tim Lincecum is the most dominant pitcher in baseball, and sports a FIP a full 0.61 points lower than in his Cy Young winning year.

g)Jurrjens: Jair Jurrjens' FIP is basically the same this year as last.

Amazingly, the annectdotal evidence *against* the Verducci effect are even stronger this (half) year than the 2008 evidence in favor of the effect. All of these guys have been good this year, and none have serious health issues. Hamels seems to have suffered the most, but the aggregate FIP of the pitchers listed above is actually lower this year than it was last year. While statements like "Still, the results are convincing, and Verducci writes of similar results from past seasons as well" (from Bendix's article) seem sensible, the evidence so far this year strongly suggests that the correlation is overblown. Either way, perhaps it is time that a serious (as opposed to superficial) look into this putative effect is performed.

Well, so much for the morale issue: Ortiz benched

Buzzy — Sat, 16 May 2009 00:51:28 -0000

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4170755

Rocco will DH for now. After Papi's comments after yesterday, I can only assume this was a mutually agreed upon decision. Unfortunately, this would be a good set of starting pitchers to face to turn things around. Let's hope a break can clear up whatever issues he has. If not, it may be a shorter period for Ortiz before he is done for good than I had assumed.

What is wrong with Josh Beckett?

Buzzy — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:05:47 -0000

We have all witnessed Beckett's less than stellar performances this year. After a great start against the Rays, he has had difficulties ranging from decent starts (as in last nights game) to horrible ones. The traditional statline is clearly bad. Beckett has a 6.42 ERA in 40+ innings and a whip of 1.77. While the season is young, it is useful to look inside these numbers and see if we can learn anything about Beckett's struggles.

1)Beckett's walks are way up. In 2007 Beckett walked 40 in 200 innings, In 2008 he walked 34 in 174. He has already walked 20 in merely 40 innings to date. Before 2007, Beckett hovered around a 8.5 BB%. In 2007 and 2008 he cut that nearly in half below 5%. This year, he is at a career high 10.47%.

2)There is nothing wrong with Beckett's arm. Beckett's average fastball velocity is right in line with the last two seasons. His K numbers have been good as well with more than 1K per inning.

3)He has been unlucky. As we have all witnessed, Beckett "appears" to have been undone by weakly hit balls. For example last night an infield single and a bloop hit the other way contributed to 2 of the Rays' 3 runs. It seems like this has happened a lot. A check of Beckett's BAPIP supports this. Beckett currently has a BAPIP of 381, compared to a career average close to 300. On the other hand, his LD% is significantly up, at a high 25% (previous season high of 19.2% last year). This suggests that part of the BAPIP issue is luck, but part is not. On the other hand, it is known that these two are empirically correlated (usually quoted as LD%+0.12=BAPIP). We see that Josh's BAPIP is exceeding his "empirical" BAPIP a tad. Overall this is bound to come down.

4)His HR allowed, are, so far, not his problem. HR/BIA (5.33%) is below the good years of 2007, 2008, and not close to his awful 2006 of 10.75%.

So, from this we can say that control has been the biggest issue. The rest seems beyond Beckett's ability to control. What is different? Well, for one thing, his pitch selection is significantly different from his 2 previous years. Just check out the numbers here:

http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfx.aspx?playerid=510&position=P

Beckett is throwing a far lower percentage of fastballs, and a far higher % of curveballs. Clearly this seems to indicate either a plan that the Sox have, or the possibility that Beckett is not happy with his ability to command his fastball, which has seemed to be the case in several games this year. In conclusion, the numbers show that Beckett's biggest problem has been location and command related, and is not related to HRs allowed or velocity. He has been likely unlucky, but if you are repeatedly catching too much of the plate your BAPIP will be higher. It is obvious, but if Beckett can start to command the fasball, he can throw more of them, and we should see the return of "good" Josh Beckett. Otherwise, this could be a very disappointing season from our ace.

Do the Sox Target Yankee Hitters?

Buzzy — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:11:50 -0000

During the first Sox-Yankee series there was a lot of press about Joba throwing at Youkilis. Over at Pinstripealley, Ortiz' quote warning Joba not to headhunt was derided and many posters complained about how the Sox target Yankee hitters with no retaliation. I tried to bring some rationality to the discussion but was shouted down (including arguments made with the use of some faulty statistics). Given the obvious targeting of Bay last night, I thought it would be a good time to look at this carefully.

Lets take the years 2004-now for three reasons. First, this is the period of great angst for Yankee fans. Second, this is a long stretch. Third, before this time nearly all players involved are no longer with these two teams.

From 2004 till now, Yankee batters have been hit 60 times by the Sox. Sox batters have been hit 53 times by Yankee pitching. The greatest offender for the Sox is Wakefield, who has hit 8 in that span. Thus, the Yankees have actually hit more batters than the Sox have in this span with balls traveling faster than 60 MPH. Of course this does not take into account the obvious cases of Joba throwing at Youkilis, since 3 missed and one was a foul ball, but clearly there is no targeting going on.

Do the Sox hit the Yankees more than other teams do? No, not really. For example, Toronto has not played the Yankees yet, but in the span 2004-2008 Jays pitchers hit 49 Yankee players. While all of this might be clear and obvious to us, I hope some Yankee fans read this and come to their senses about this strange conspiracy theory.