Assigning Blame for the Red Sox Rotation
There’s nothing real surprising about what just happened. Pitching coach Juan Nieves was fired by the Red Sox, the organization citing the under-performance by the starting rotation. Said rotation has been under the microscope since the team went through the offseason without acquiring a front-line ace, and the ERA at this point is terrible. When ERAs are terrible, and when they’re terrible in higher-pressure situations, heads roll, and they frequently belong to pitching coaches. Or, they frequently belonged to pitching coaches. Anyway.
The news has primarily drawn two responses, related to one another. One is that, well, someone had to pay for the early-season disaster. It’s called accountability. Two, Nieves is being scapegoated. It’s not his fault the Red Sox never got around to adding an ace. Ben Cherington is just getting the performance he deserved. Absolutely, it’s true that Nieves isn’t to blame for the lack of a higher-profile transaction. It’s not his fault Jon Lester’s in Chicago. But it wouldn’t be fair to put this on the front office, either. Blame gets spread around. Hell, maybe there’s no one to blame at all.
Think about what’s being implied by those who argue this is a scapegoat. The underlying assumption there is that this rotation was always going to be bad. That there’s nothing surprising about this, because the Red Sox rotation has sucked from Day One. Without question, the rotation appeared underwhelming. Without question, the rotation would be better with a Lester, or a Cole Hamels, or some other ace. But this wasn’t a certain wreck. The group seemed fine enough.
Five pitchers have started for the Red Sox. I looked at their performances over the previous three years, as starting pitchers. Then I weighted their numbers by the innings they’ve thrown in 2015. This isn’t too different from just looking at projections, but I know some people don’t like that word. Here, we’re using stats that’ve already happened. Based on the 2012 – 2014 performances by these five pitchers, the Red Sox could’ve expected a 103 ERA-, and a 101 FIP-. Vicinity of average. Not good, but not dreadful. Good enough, for the time being.
Nieves has been let go because that same rotation has actually combined for a 131 ERA-. This goes way beyond blaming Cherington for not finding a No. 1. That’s not the problem here. There have been way more runs than would’ve been reasonable to see coming.
Then there’s the funny bit. Maybe you already know. That same rotation? Those same five guys with the 131 ERA-? They also have a 99 FIP-. Right on what would’ve been expected. The point is not that the ERA can be totally dismissed. Bad things have most certainly happened. But this is a complicating factor. This introduces the element of bad luck, which might always be present, even when people don’t want to acknowledge it.
Cherington isn’t blameless — he knew the rotation wouldn’t be a strength. Luck isn’t blameless — any gap that big between ERA and FIP is unsustainable. And Nieves isn’t blameless — it seems he just didn’t have a connection with the group the Sox put together.
That’s what the Sox say, anyway, and I’m inclined to believe them, since it’s not like they wanted a guy to lose his job. If they had their druthers, everything would be peachy. They thought, here, something had to change, in order to potentially salvage the year. It’s worth considering how a pitching coach might look very different between just a few years, since it wasn’t long ago Nieves was treasured.
It’s easy enough to spot flaws with the Sox rotation. The ERA sucks! The zone rate is third-lowest in baseball. The first-pitch-strike rate is third-lowest in baseball. Pitchers haven’t been working ahead, and this isn’t a group known for its swing-and-miss stuff. In a word, the pitchers by and large haven’t been sufficiently aggressive. This is something that hasn’t gotten better.
Why might Nieves have been experiencing particular trouble? Rick Porcello is new to him. Joe Kelly is fairly new to him. Wade Miley is new to him. Justin Masterson is new to him. All these new identities, and everybody responds differently to instruction. It doesn’t make sense that a good coach would be equally good with all of his players. What works for one guy might not work at all for another. Perhaps Nieves was successful in helping get Lester back on track, but Wade Miley isn’t Jon Lester. And to this point it doesn’t look like Nieves has been good for Wade Miley. That’s too simplistic to justify a dismissal on its own, but one has to remember, when circumstances change, so might a coach’s effectiveness. A good player will be a good player anywhere. A good coach might be a good coach only in context. Some coaches might always be good. Others, not so much.
Looking at the arms, there are clear struggles. Clay Buchholz continues to be one of the most frustrating starters in baseball. Miley’s taken a step or two back. And Masterson is of particular interest. He explained a down year in 2014, with reduced velocity, by pointing to knee problems. Presumably, now, his knee is better, but his velocity is down even more, and his hittability is up. Compared to just two years ago, Masterson’s average fastball has lost four and a half ticks. It’s easily the biggest drop among starters. I don’t know how fixable he is, but Juan Nieves did nothing to fix him. It’s one data point.
So Nieves is gone, and the Sox will scramble to find a replacement. The replacement might not be any better, but this is just step one toward attempting to fix the starting rotation. Maybe they’ll benefit from a different voice. Next, perhaps, we’ll see the Sox make a promotion. Henry Owens has seemingly declined in Triple-A, with nearly as many walks as strikeouts, but Eduardo Rodriguez has been impressive. He could join the rotation within weeks. And then there’s the trade possibility. We always knew it could come to that, and arms will be available in June and July. The Red Sox will go with what they already have for now, because they’re too smart to overreact to a month, but they’ll learn more over two or three months. They’ll have a better idea who’s on track, and they’ll have a better idea who ought to be replaced. Maybe Rodriguez could take over for Masterson. Maybe Rodriguez isn’t sufficiently ready.
The Red Sox built this rotation, consciously, and they won’t abandon the plan in a matter of weeks. They can see the ERA, but they can also see the peripherals, the strikeouts and walks that suggest things aren’t as bad as they appear. By ditching Juan Nieves, the Red Sox are hoping that better communication can help those runs allowed. Or maybe time will do all necessary healing. It’s not clear that Nieves deserved all the blame. It’s not clear how much anyone deserves to be blamed for anything. But someone had to do something, right? Might as well start here. It usually starts here.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
When you make up a rotation out of the chaff that bottomed out of the Cardinals rotation and the laughably bad bucholz and eternal shittiness of Miley and Porcello i’m not sure what anyone should have expected from this joke of a rotation.
Your definition of “eternal shittiness” is a bit liberal.
I agree. Certainly no ace, but a lot of potentially good arms there.
the Red Sox could’ve expected a 103 ERA-, and a 101 FIP-
From Miley, and the average of Kelly (108) and Porcello (94) I guess.
Clay and Masterson are about average over the longterm, but they’re either a 115 or an 85, in any given season.
If they expected a 103 ERA- and a 101 FIP- then they are the ones that should lose their job. The important thing about projections is not the point estimate but the shape of the distribution of expected outcomes. It is probably safe to say that most of the expected outcomes for this Redsox rotation were bad, and what you are seeing is not at all unexpected.
So would you rather have had them make their rotation a little better, and not sign Hanley or Panda? Obviously they just valued hitting over pitching this winter. If they had gone after a big ace and not signed a big bat, we’d be having this same discussion about their offense.
Well, considering how bad Ramirez has been in LF – apparently noticeably worse than the other Ramirez that once wore a glove while standing in front of the green monster – maybe they shouldn’t have signed both guys and instead just picked one or the other to play 3B. And then, yes, signed a pitcher.
The problem is, Hanley and Panda have basically been the 2 best bats in the lineup.
Hanley being one of the bed bats means little when it’s totally negated by his defense, his WAR so far is 0 (yes defense is volatile).
In retrospect, at least so far, yes it was a mistake to sign two guys when you only had the position for one and just assuming he could play LF, and that’s squarely on the people who constructed the roster.
Yeah, I’d 100% have signed Hanley and not Panda, were I the Sox.
Signing both Hanley and Sandoval never seemed like a good idea, since they should be playing the same position. So, letting Hanley play third and investing Sandoval’s money in pitching probably would have been better.
That said, this was a terrible hitting and pitching team last year. Maybe the Redsox should have been a bit more realistic about how close they were to being competitive.
“eternal shittiness”
exhibit A: Rockies.
When Nieves was fired, Buchholz ranked 9th worst among 109 qualifying SP in ERA-, and 9th best in xFIP-.
Could the Sox catcher(s) be playing a role in the underperformance as well? I don’t watch enough of their games to really conjecture much here, but it seems to me they’ve been running out a pretty unsettled and underwhelming bunch of backstops, and when you see staff-wide underperformance from a pitching staff the questions of game-calling and pitch-framing do suggest themselves.
Also a problem. Big deal to lose Vazquez.
Hanigan is a very well-regarded receiver, and Swihart is supposed to be average-ish.
I think it’s just that Porcello is the only one on the staff whom anything should have been expected from.
Good point, but Hanigan’s really good and they were still really bad when pitching to him.
Building a pitching staff around a rookie catcher who couldn’t even hit in AAA, just because he put up similar small sample pitch framing numbers as, say, David Ross, is probably not the smartest idea.
Who said anything about building the staff around him?
never change, everdiso
This makes some sense to me. According to Peavy, when asked why he was so much better with the Giants than Boston earlier, he noted both Posey’s and Susac’s catching as key to his improvement. And thus the underlying message is that the Boston backstops were not really that good.
Hanigan, Leon, Swihart are the catchers this season, a whole different catching crew from last season. AJP was the main catcher last season, and while he got some accolades for his catching when he was an All-Star in some advanced catcher analysis back then, recent studies have not been as glowing, in fact, back regarding his recent performances. Perhaps this is an outgrowth from one of his pitchers on the Giants his one year there calling him a “cancer”.
Given the wholesale turnover, that would suggest the new group of catchers would be better. And Hanigan is a defensive specialist, but unfortunately for the BoSox, on the DL. Leon has been good defensively, but in SSS, so perhaps not yet proven yet (don’t know about minors or rep). Swiwart has been good in extreme SSS. So it appears that the team acknowledge a defensive issue and addressed it with the guys they have now.
I’d say a major factor is that Porcello is the only one of those five names that anyone could reasonably expect to be an above average pitcher; not necessarily a good pitcher, but an above average one.
Joe Kelly: Never had an FIP- under 100 over a full season.
Wade Miley: Big rookie year, but impressively, metronomically average over the past two seasons.
Clay Buccholz: Injury prone, and erratic.
Justin Masterson: Straight up Jekyll and Hyde.
Further, Miley and Kelly, have to transition to 9 hitter lineups in a division full of itty-bitty ballparks.
So Nieves is being blamed Buccholz and Masterson coming up tails (which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone), and a below average pitcher (Kelly) and an average one (Miley) having their initial AL growing pains.
It seems like he got a really, really raw deal.
Can’t hold the players accountable without also doing so with respect to the manager/coaches. Not effectively accountable, anyway. When the best a coach/manager can say is “hey, it’s not really my fault!”, yeah, he’s then a candidate to hit the street.
Or just give him another month to get Miley and Kelly back to being a 4 and a 5 starter, respectively (Porcello isn’t looking too much different than normal).
It looks like we got bad Buchholz and bad Masterson this season, and there’s nothing you can do about that, but it’s not a reason to fire the pitching coach.
It would be worth waiting and seeing what happens with Buchholz given his peripherals and very slight uptick in velo this year (mostly just curious that it didn’t declined given his injury history and age). Masterson is toast though.
Has Buchholz ever actually bounced back from a start like this, though? He always seems to just spiral if things don’t go his way from jump (and if they do go his way from jump, he’s amazing until he gets hurt).
He did bounce back from a horrifying start in 2012, carrying an 8+ ERA with more walks than strikeouts through his first 7 starts and then a 3.5 ERA through to the end of the season (150 IP). I believe the story goes that because his changeup had been so awful through his first 7 starts, he had to learn the splitter from Beckett before a start at the Trop, and that pitch eventually brought back his feel for the changeup.
His ability to manipulate the baseball has always been freakish, and I believe that’s really the only thing keeping him going as he’s never really displayed the durability or consistency you need to be successful
Huh, good to know. I’ve lived in Boston for a while, and Buccholz has always seemed to let his first few starts dictate his season, but I guess that isn’t always the case.
Maybe the new pitching coach can teach him a cutter! Haha
Agree that it’s a raw deal for Nieves, but that kind of comes with the territory for all managers/coaches. You don’t get to pick the players, so you’re often credited for successes that may or may not be yours, and ultimately when things go really bad you’re going to get the boot – even when it’s just in the name of making a change for its own sake.
If I give you 4 new starters. 2 are relatively new to the league. One guy hasn’t been an engima of promise and then one guys with potential but is more a 3 war kind of guy, I’d say the front office has to expect growing pains. Another problem is the assumption that Ramirez wouldn’t suck at D (he does) while adapting to a new position. Betts would take to centerfield in no time which is true but has struggled offensively which is reasonable given he still has to adjust to the majors all around. Napoli, Craig and Victorino continue to struggle. Given their injuries not crazy to think their floor was dropping. My point is not that the front office didn’t get talent. They did the problem is they threw this team together as a kind of jigsaw puzzle that needs time to fit. This team will be much better and stable given time but given that Boston wants to win now I don’t know how much time they have and given how tough the East is they can’t fall too far behind.
Yeah, especially since the Yankees look like they might not suck this year (although A-Rod has been cooling off…and it’s just a matter of time until Tex gets injured)!
I wouldn’t say that Betts has struggled offensively.
103 wRC+ with a .236 BABIP and good K and BB rates as a 22 year-old rookie is pretty damn good.
Thats true but I expected him to be better I guess I just like the kid too much. Some of it is random variation but this is a kid looking to adjust and improve in a league still new to him. I’m just saying he’s dealing with a lot and expecting a lot of production on both sides of the ball is a lot to ask for a kid transitioning to a tough position. He’s done everything asked. He’s got great D. But thats still the low side for what he was projected.
How about a couple of blow-outs that unfortunately came two weeks apart. 4/12 gave up 14 to Yankees. 4/26 gave up 18 to Orioles. That’s probably 23 runs above average (4.5 rpg = avg?) spread over 28 games. How much did the small sample size exaggerate the problem?
Did the rotation give up all those runs, though? I doubt it. Usually in those games the starter is gone pretty quick.
“But this wasn’t a certain wreck. The group seemed fine enough.”
Did they really? Their purported #1 Porcello had his first year of even average ERA last year, and still finished the year in the bullpen. Buchholz and Masterson were awful last year, and kinda looked broken. Miley was a below average NL pitcher. Kelly was a swingman with some success as a reliever but not much as an SP.
2014
Porcello 115era+
Kelly 91era+
Miley 87era+
Buchholz 72era+
Masterson 64era+
I know era is unpopular here but that is a whole lot of faith placed in immediate positive regression towards the peripherals – and hoping against possibility of real and lasting issues or any negative regression at all – to be able to call that “fine enough”, imo.
There were years before 2014. And those years matter.
Yes, but the most recent season carries more weight. But, that’s beside the point. Other seasons haven’t all been sunshine and roses for this crew either.
of course they do.
but that doesn’t mean that building a team out of players coming off crap years and hoping for positive regression is a sound strategy.
much of the time they were bad for good real reasons, not just random fluctuations.
you can’t be surprised when players that were bad last year are bad again this year. you just can’t.
in fact, in general i’d count more on positive outliers coming back down to career norms rather than negative outliers doing the same. Porcello this year, for example, has stats that look quite similar to his track record prior to his career year last year, including the era not matching the fip. negative outliers are often based on legit reasons – like masterson’s loss of velo – which you can’t expect to bounce back.
You may be a strident anti-Carmines ideologue, but you couldn’t be more spot-on this time.
Why does Ben Cherington get a pass? The Sawx have finished last three times since FDR’s 2nd inauguration, and two of those are under Cherington. And it looks like he may be headed for yet another….
guilty on all counts!
I’ve been waiting so long for a Jeff Hanley Ramirez GIF article. This was the perfect opportunity. My day is ruined.
How much of this is related to bad defence? Did the Hanley LF experiment indirectly cost Nieves his job?
That’s also a front office issue. Hanley’s best position was expected to be 3B, but they signed Pablo too, and assumed Hanley could transition effectively. That hasn’t happened, has hurt the staff, and other positions have been mediocre on defence too.
Yeah, the Hanley signing in and of itself was a pretty poor idea. In conjunction with Sandoval, man, just a terrible move.
I don’t have a problem with the Hanley signing. Plug him in at 3B, and let him do his thing.
The Sandoval signing was hilarious, though.
As a baseball fan, it doesn’t feel right that Sandoval didn’t stay in SF. For the Red Sox to be the ones who did it, after getting Hanley, still blows my mind.
As a Yankees fan, it’s always nice to see the Red Sox Steinbrenner all over their team.
LOL.
As a Red Sox fan, I’m trying to figure out who will be this generation’s Andy Hawkins and Mel Hall. Just to brace myself for their impending big contracts from Boston.
They took a gamble that Hanley could play LF for a year. He’ll be at 1B in 2016, and then at DH for three years. And he’ll be a monster at the plate.
Had they had him play 3B this year, they would have been trusting an OF spot to Victorino / Nava / Craig / Bradley, and hoping that Cecchini could inherit 3B in a year, or looking to fill the position again next winter.
Hanley hasn’t played the monster that well but you can’t put an entire staffs problems on one fielder. He has one error on the season.
The issue isn’t that he’s making errors. It’s that he doesn’t know how to play the outfield.
He’s played exclusively on the left side of the infield for the past 27 years of his life. He doesn’t know how to get a good jump, or how to read the ball off the bat, and it’s ridiculous and unfair of the Sox to expect him to.
He has been worse than bad, he has been unserious in the field. A real embarrassment. No effort. Apparently that attention finally got to him so when he had a chance to run into a wall that wasn’t the Monster, he took it, and the 7 day DL. They need his bat though. Maybe Manny Ramirez can teach him to play the field.
Are you sure that he’s not actually Manny Ramirez? Crushing the ball at the plate, being a one man circus in left field. We’ll just have to keep our eyes open, if he goes inside the monster to take a leak, we know it’s Manny.
If Hanley keeps crushing the ball, he’ll be worth it despite the lousy D, just like Manny was.
Of course Manny was pretty damn durable during his time in Boston (silly crap aside). Hanley needs to be healthy for at least 140-145 starts a year to complete the Manny parallel.
This seems like a weak explanation. Setting aside errors for a moment, how many outs can Hanley have actually cost this team in 28 games? 10? 15? I know that the timing of those can hurt you, but really, we’re only talking about a game or two he’s cost the team in the field, while mashing at the plate. The effect of one defensive liability, even a gigantic hole like Hanley’s been, is minimal at best at this point in the season.
By UZR he’s been worth -7.6 in 193 innings. For comparison sake Michael Morse last year in LF was worth -25 over 579 innings. He’s been Morse like in LF, he’s really been that bad.
What isn’t mentioned here is that the Red Sox have a laughably bad defense. They rank in the bottom 10 teams in almost every metric so far. A bad defense will almost always make a bad rotation’s ERA even worse than it should be. So while their is randomness associated with the difference between FIP- and ERA- (really the stats that should be used here since park factors), some of it is in fact not random at all.
Oddly, one would think that they would have better defense. They hired Tom Tippett to be their defensive saber-guru, and he’s been around for years, from what I understand, unlike Voros McCracken, whom they hired and fired within a year. I loved his stats analysis when he was running Diamond Mind, wish he was still writing publicly.
You are right; Tom is really a sharp guy (and Diamond Mind, despite its age and old programming language, is still the best sim on the market). But, don’t forget, Bill James is also on the staff.
Voros was hired in October 2002, and his contract was allowed to lapse unrenewed at the end of June 2005. That may have been mutual.
For a brief period the Sox had simultaneously in their employ as consultants the inventor of DIPS and the first two guys to show that Voros’ initial claims about it had been too strong (me and Tom). Yet they never had us talk to one another! It was a strange way of doing things; they wanted independent opinions on everything (including one from Bill James, of course), but they sacrificed collaborative creation in the process.
When the economy tanked the ownership asked Baseball Ops to hire one consultant full-time for 2009 and lay off the rest, and they deservedly tapped Tom. They were very nice to me, though.
what’s interesting maybe here is that the three big negative defensive surprises this year – Hanley, Panda, Pedroia – all had significant weight gain this offseason.
Hanley and Pedroia obviously (cough) spent a ton of time in the gym (cough), while panda spent even more time in Drive-thru lanes.
I wonder if that has had any impact on their range and quickness in the field.
Clearly this is Bill James’ fault.
I was thinking yesterday why don’t they fire Farrell. I mean yes the pitching staff is what it is…a bunch of mediocre pitchers, but really this entire team with a few exceptions has under performed…Ortiz looks like he’s about to start the decline towards retirement…Pedroia is horrible with runners in scoring position. Napoli ditto, Victorino (see Ortiz), Craig and Nava are horrible. Why not DFA Nava bring up Castillo and Bradley. I don’t know what to do with Craig he’s getting paid a chunk of money. This team is lifeless! Is that what the fans want? Boring and snoring team. Get somebody to light a fire under these underwhelming players.
To be fair to Ben and Farrell…Bradley sucks too.
Bradley appears to have rebuilt his swing. He is making better contact in the minors than he was in 2013. Remains to be seen whether than translates to the majors, of course.
How many times has he rebuilt his swing at this point, though?
It’s approaching Bubba Starling levels, but JBJ’s 25 and from a major college program, rather than a 22 year old who was a star QB in HS.
Sure, there’s no expectation at this point that Bradley will hit. Still would rather see him try to figure it out than suffer through Nava and Craig.
DFA Nava and you have 29 teams scrambling over one another to pick him up.
Agree. If the Marlins (of all teams) can eat Salty’s remaining contract, the Sox are better off DFAing Craig and keeping Nava.
“So Nieves is gone, and the Sox will scramble to find a replacement. The replacement might not be any better, but this is just step one toward attempting to fix the starting rotation. Maybe they’ll benefit from a different voice. ”
In whatever business you’re in, if you can somebody without having a real good idea of a suitable replacement, you don’t benefit, unless the person you’re replacing is below “replacement level” in their field. I believe Nieves is a decent pitching coach, definitely at least above replacement level.
Change for change’s sake seldom works out.
It’s probably going to be Farrell for a while.
D’oh! to the D’oh! power.
Both Hamels and Lester are off to slow starts.
I wonder how much of the problem with guys like Buchholz is the revolving door of Catchers the last 2 years? He really seems to miss Salty. Was looking good with Vazquez but now he is out. Clay is really picky about his C, if he does not work well with him he over thinks on the mound. Red Sox should have picked up Salty .
The new guys were mainly reclamation projects (except Miley). Kelly is about what he was last year. Masterson is simply cooked, and Miley is just having a difficult league adjustment. AL East is much more difficult for pitchers than pitching in the NL or AL Central (for Detroit) so both Miley and Porcello should expect worse numbers.
I guess next we should expect Chilli Davis is to be fired as the offense is not clicking either. If the team does not start winning by July then we can expect Farrell to be gone too, and after the season Ben goes if they finish in last again. Anything but spend more money or give up prospects who won’t amount to a hill of beans if the Red Sox track record continues, to get the ace everyone on the planet knew they needed.
I wouldn’t sign a catcher for a pitcher…Randy Johnson might have forced that but it was a wasted spot four 5-6 days a week…and Bucholtz is no Randy Johnson.
Plus the fact that Salty is about the worse framer since Pudge or Posada, add in that he never could bat like Pudge or Posada and it reminds me of the last chapter of the book “What’s the Use”.
While I have no ill will towards Salty, and hope he lands on his feet…it’s really nice that the trolls trying to “gotcha” me for having said that McCann would be worth $8m more a year than Saltalamacchia (in like December 2013) have shut up and gone home.
They would only have to pay him the minimum and he replaces their back up C, a late pick up when Vazquez got hurt. There is no risk at all. He can also play 1B a bit, and given Napolis struggles (he looks out of shape)…..
Too late though, and maybe Salty was looking for a better chance at starting full time
Miley pitched in the NL West, not the NL Central. Which probably proves your point even better.
There’s nothing real surprising about what just happened.
Well, it probably should be surprising to most of the Fangraphs staff who incessantly cautioned the pre-season doomsayers that this rotation was better than they were predicting.
Headline: Turns Out the Red Sox Rotation Was EXACTLY What You Thought.
And Fangraghs let them off the hook!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWmQbk5h86w
While companies, particularly sports teams, like to fire someone in charge (a coach or manager or GM) for effect when things are not going well, sometimes the firing is just a culmination of other things that were bothering the powers that be leading up to the firing.
What would be interesting, for an outsider like me who don’t follow the Red Sox, is a discussion about what people thought about Nieves in recent seasons, of his job performance. For example, Righetti has been lauded for a long time for his work as the Giants pitching coach, and so it would have been very surprising if the Giants had fired him, say, when the pitching wasn’t doing so well early on, during the 8 game losing streak, as they racked up a near 5 ERA and gave up 4 or more runs in 6 of those 8 games, 6 or more runs in 4 of those 8.
Plus, if you look at the starter’s stats, they might have a high 5.54 ERA overall, but collective FIP of only 3.95, suggesting that a lot of bad luck involved for their pitchers, they have been pitching well, but not getting the standard results so far. The average ERA in the AL so far this season is 4.36 with a FIP of 4.10, so the Boston rotation has actually outpitched the AL per FIP. And given Boston predilection for sabermetrics, one would think that they are aware of this.
So perhaps they just had enough, as they underperformed in two of past three seasons, 2012 and 2014, relative to FIP.
Not that it might change the starter outcomes necessarily, but I think the Royals, Yankees have shown some evidence that putting some emphasis on building a superior bullpen even at the risk of having a little too much depth. Conversely, that has proven to be the achilles heel of some other talented squads such as the Nats and Dodgers. It would seem more likely that targeting 2-3 high quality pen arms would cost much less in terms of prospects and dollars, although the value has definitely inflated. The injury risk and contracts for starters both are both higher, and certainly make the ‘cost’ even more steep. Really no issue with not signing Lester, but it’s hard to understand the decision making process behind Miley and Masterson.
Interesting comment. I think the problem with building around bullpens is that while starters are a more expensive commodity, bullpen arms are a more volatile one. Closers turn into lemons, random journeymen turn in career years, etc. Whereas starting pitchers and position players follow more predictable aging curves.
Anyway, I think that the Red Sox rotation is bad, but that blaming it on the lack of a staff ace is imposing a preconceived and lazy agenda on the dialogue. If they had a full rotation of pitchers who were performing like 3rd starters, they would be fine. Far better off than if they had a staff ace and a bunch of 5th starters.
Their problem right now is NOT that they don’t have an ace. Its that their rotation as a whole has been legitimately terrible. And exactly how it needs to get better as a whole is a matter of style points.
I think there’s definitely value, and it’s been established in the postseason especially when starters go shorter into games, of a deep bullpen perhaps increasing the chances of winning close games, but it’s just so finicky. I mean, one of the Royals’ best reliever is a failed starter who was basically just a lottery ticket reliever and low and behold, it worked perfectly. It’s hard to know, to predict, and to work consistently with the small sample sizes.
I can agree with the “what” of your hypothesis – building superior bullpens can be a competitive advantage and aid in the performance of your starters – but you lost me with the “how.” Paying for an expensive bullpen or targeting a small number of quality arms is actually a recipe for disaster. Last year’s Dodgers are exhibit A for that when they spent boatloads on “proven closers” like Wilson, League, and Perez.
What Friedman seemed to learn in Tampa Bay and has now brought to Los Angeles is that you should do the exact opposite – find a TON of interesting, young, cheap arms that project well without worrying about if they’re “proven” – and play the odds that while some of them will bust (because reliever performance from year to year is often volatile), at least a couple of them will turn out to be very good. He’s done just that with Yimi Garcia, Pedro Baez, and Adam Liberatore. Mix in a couple underappreciated veterans who had good peripherals – Peralta, Hatcher, Nicasio – and you have yourself an strong bullpen on the cheap.
This isn’t to say that high priced relievers can’t be good – Andrew Miller is, so far, showing that’s not true – but it seems to be the exception rather than the type of thing you’d want to hang your hat on.
I am inclined to think that Cherington and company are just poor evaluators and strategists. As many have said Porcello, Miley, and Masterson probably had more downside than upside (and avg pitchers if you had to call them anything). Those aren’t attractive arms, especially for a big market club. And then to sign Miley and Porcello long term? And Porcello to an expensive contract (when that money would almost certainly be better spent on an arm from next years’ pitcher FA class)? As of now, the Red Sox are going to be stuck with Buchholz, Kelly, Miley, and Porcello in their rotation next year. That is four out of five spots. That is one spot available to call ups and new arms through free agency. Sure they could send one of the four to the pen but that would be an extremely expensive reliever. Cherington has just been really good at making a mess.
Don’t lump Porcello in with the rest. He had established himself as a strong No. 4, and it really looked like he had taken the step forward to becoming the true No. 3 (which is from from being worth 5/82.5, but that’s neither here nor there) that everyone thought he could be.
I think the problem stems from the very top. John Henry made his fortune as an investment banker, where you are continuously exploiting advantages in non-human commodities. So he probably has little patience for any deviation in what he sees as a slam-dunk super high return on his investment.
And Cherington seems to be far more pliable to the whims of Henry and Lucchino than Epstein ever was, which may explain why the Red Sox have gone through a Marlins-style binge-and-purge of large contracts in just the last few years. So when Henry says go ahead and spend, you get crap like signing Castillo to that huge contract when they should have tried to salvage something of JBJ’s value, and then adding Hanley and Sandoval to what was already a logjam of offensive players.
Top that off with the Porcello contract, which reeks of a “let’s show we got something for Lester (via Cespedes)” move. I’m afraid this club is on the brink of becoming the late 80’s/early 90’s version of the Steinbrenner Yankees.
Kelly wouldn’t be expensive as he enters his first year of arb next year and at this point doesn’t look to make much. And as a Cardinal fan I always thought his stuff would play up in he pen.
Red Sox are not stuck with Buchholz.
its really all right there in front of us – look at every single move the red sox made this season, and truly ask yourself which were straight up no argument good moves. I don’t think you can name one. They all seemed risky, expensive, and had little upside.
they had one move that i thought was good at first – Cespedes for Porcello – but they even managed to ruin that with the crazy extension.
the only way the praise of the red sox’ offseason makes sense is when you realize its a simple matter of analytical media not being brave enough to question a team who spends so much on analytics. Every questionable move is given the benefit of the doubt because of an assumption that the team must have secret data that justifies the moves.
which is unfortunate, because fangraphs built its reputation on giving us the knowledge to identify a bad move when we see one….but if they’re just going to defer to every team with a big analytics budget now, then there’s not much point.
It’ll all turn out fine, I’m sure. As Dave Cameron said 100 times during offseason chats, when explaining impatiently to all of us idiots why the BoSox would be the A.L.’s best team in 2015: “They’ll just add a starter or two in July if they need them.”
See? Nothing to fret about.
I saw Owens pitch against the Railriders in Scranton two weeks ago. Stuff looked real good but he couldn’t find the strike zone at all. He would not be helpful as a major league starting pitcher right now.
Pretty sure it’s just BABIP because there’s no way in hell that the Red Sox would make a mistake.
More like PorceLOL
When the starters command to both sides of the plate they are fine. Which is not often. When they do not command a very large percentage of pitches are so far out of the zone that they serve no purpose except to burn pitch counts, and the hitters are constantly playing with house money.
Masterson never has command. He looks like a guy missing a few nuts and bolts in his delivery. You never know where the ball is going. Then you see a guy like Harang shut out the Sox with nothing, but he didn’t miss an edge all day, had a plan and knew how to use it.
I watched Hanigan begging Porcello to throw a sinker at the knees all day and when he finally threw two in a row to end and inning Hanigan almost kissed him heading into the dugout.
So yeah, they needed a shake up there at the least.
Napoli has been amazingly bad. Craig has been as bad but that is not amazing. At some point they are going to have to consider putting Hanley at first. He only suspected it before, but now he knows he hates the OF. Anybody who has played a mediocre SS or 3B can learn to play a good 1B. And he ought to have new incentive. You remove a saboteur from left field and get a hitter at 1B. Throw Bradly’s spaghetti against the wall one more time.
And keep thirteen pitchers.
What’s crazy about the Hanley experiment was that the Red Sox brass was grumbling just a couple years ago about the difficulties of trying to contend when you have too many young players trying to get acclimated to the majors – yet here they are, trying to get a guy to play LF for the first time, and also to contend with the nuances of the Wall on top of that. More poor planning by Boston.
I agree that Hanley should ultimately go to 1B, or at least to 3B with Sandoval shifting to 1B. But for this year I’m certain they’re going to ride it out with Napoli at 1B, giving him a lot more patience than they did with Nieves.
TZ, I don’t understand the first paragraph of your comment at all. Seems like learning new positions and learning how to hit major league pitching are very different learning curves, requiring different coaching approaches, etc. How are these symptomatic of the same problem of “poor planning”?
The Sox were super young and had trouble hitting, so they went out and signed two veterans who are still right around their peak age. That sounds like a sensible thing to do, and it was a reasonable gamble to make in terms of defensive rearrangement.
Early results have not been positive. But this is a team that’s actually pretty close to being first in its division (4.5 games out). There are 12 teams who are further behind that that, including every team in the AL West not named the Astros.
The sky is definitely not falling, especially given the fragility of the competition.
CW, my whole point in the first paragraph was that the Red Sox were taking chances with a learning curve at all, given their stance on the young hitters’ struggles. I love Ramirez’s bat (and Sandoval’s too), but the poor planning I’m referring to is the dilemma of what to do if the Ramirez experiment fails. It’s one thing to have a young player not cut it and send him back down to the minors (like JBJ), but what the heck do you do if Hanley doesn’t work out in LF? They’re paying good money for his bat, and they really can use his bat, but they already have a DH and don’t have another position to move him to unless Napoli completely bombs out.
And though moving from SS/3B to LF seems like a reasonable gamble, it’s still a gamble. Especially when LF at Fenway has its own challenges.
I definitely don’t think the sky is falling. As I said in a different post, the ’96 Yankees won with a combination of excellent hitting, mediocre pitching, and lousy defense. No reason to count the Red Sox out.
super young?
the sox have one of the oldest rosters in baseball. older than the yankees, even.
tz, you forgot “and Rivera-to-Wetteland ending every game after 6.2 innings.”
what’s bizarre to me is that everyone praised the sox passing on ellsbury – a great defender at a key position – and then praised the sox one year later for giving that same money and term to a player the same age but with zero defensive value in hanley.
Any move Cherington or Beane make will always be met enthusiastically by the fangraphs writers. Its been proven time and time again.
that same money and term
Hanley: 4 years 88M
Ellsbury: 7 years 153M
easy vesting option for hanley.
Hanley: $21.4m until age 35
Jacoby: $21.1m until age 36
everdiso, the Red Sox starting lineup is about 2 years younger in average age as compared to the Yankees this year. And this is after replacing 2014 Middlebrooks and JBJ with Sandoval and Ramirez. This info is easily accessible on baseball-reference.com.
Also, don’t underestimate the difference made by that age-36 Ellsbury year at $21M. This is the Beltran/Teixeira/Rodriguez/Sabathia model which does hurt a team’s ability to remain competitive, early-season success notwithstanding.
the healthy 25 man rosters entering the year were almost identical in age. yanks may have bben younger.
and maybe that one extra year is a huge difference, but even that is balanced by the fact that he was a year younger in the first year.
Easy vesting option? You’re such a bad liar. It’s embarrassing.
The option vests with 1050 PA through the final two years. Hanley hasn’t pulled that off even once in his last five seasons, all during his twenties.
Moreoever, guaranteed money is the only honest comparison. Not that you’re at all interested in those. It’s hilarious how full of shit you are.
Bradley is an excellent defensive CF, he just can’t hit. Napoli hasn’t hit so far this year but he is a very good defensive 1B. Pedroia has been his usual excellent fielding self at 2B and Victorino has been terrific defensively in RF just like he was in the past.
The problem is that basically every other player on the team has been somewhere between below-average and stunningly awful on defense this year. I imagine the big surprises have been that Sandoval has declined even further to below-average – 1B or DH is definitely in his immediate future – and Bogaerts has been terrible.
But should anyone be surprised by Panda’s continued decline? He was pretty much exactly average defensively from 2012-2014, and the only thing that’s changed is that he’s gotten older and has less incentive to stay in shape.
I would think a lot of the problem is that the Red Sox combined a bunch of mediocre pitchers with some pretty bad defensive players.
I mean Sandoval, despite what SF fans used to say, is at best an average defensive 3B. He’s certainly no Headley, Donaldson or Machado. …would you believe I just realized that 4 of the best 3Bs in baseball are all in the AL East? What an odd bit of clustering.
Anyway, Bogaerts has been a surprisingly poor defensive shortstop, Craig has been terrible at 1B and in RF.
And then we get to Hanley, who hasn’t been merely bad; according to people who watch him play every day he has been unquantifiably bad. Bad to the extent of clearly not knowing how to play the outfield.
Put all that together and you have a team that is running out mediocre fielding at 3B and CF, alternating below average fielding at RF or 1B, getting poor fielding at SS and downright awful defense at LF.
Couple that with 5 mediocre pitchers and the results we’ve seen so far are not that surprising.
They’re mostly pitch to contact guys and the defense isn’t strong. Shitty defense + a lot of games in the AL East parks = team ERA is getting jacked up.
They’re 6th in the MLB in HR/9, 6th in the MLB in FB%, they’re running out Hanley Ramirez, Allen Craig, and Daniel Nava as regular OFs… They’re playing people that are slow and have bad arms where the majority of the balls are being hit… and they’ve been in parks that boost fly ball production.
Doesn’t help that they never seem to have a lead… and the bullpen has sucked too.
And to add… now that we have the Pull%s… Red Sox pitching is 4th in pull%… 1.4 STD DEV above the mean… which are all going to terrible OFs and taking advantage of Fenway more than usual.
Is Bogaerts a decent defensive SS? I know the numbers aren’t great, but haven’t really seen him play and don’t know his minor league defensive reputation.
Assuming he can hold down the position, why not look into trading him in a package based around someone like Syndergaard? As an added bonus, Ramirez will look like a gold glover when he shifts from LF to SS.
There was always a lot of talk about how Boegarts would need to move to 3rd at some point. Too bad its now occupied by the marshmallow marsupial, so he’ll be stuck over there at SS with his mediocre defense for a while.
Have you watched a game this season? Bogaerts isn’t going to wow anyone with his defense, but he has worked hard and has played very well so far this season. He has been much better making throws when ranging to his left, and he hasn’t botched any easy plays so far.
Also, Bogaerts is still too young to give up on any part of his game. He has shown more patience and an improved SO rate this season, and should hopefully continue improving. Furthermore, it is reasonable to believe that he should hit for at least a little more power as the weather gets warmer.
As for trading Bogaerts…. that is a joke. The Red Sox are not dumb enough to trade a potentially budding star for another SP prospect. No prospect is a guarantee, and Syndergaard is just that: a prospect.
Betts, Swihart and Bogaerts are untouchable. Everyone else in the farm is likely available however (except for Moncada).
The shine is off Boegarts and ‘budding star’ is very unlikely in his outcome at this point. Swihart is another overhyped prospect who profiles as average at best. Betts should be the only untouchable on this whole team.
Untouchable? Wow. He had more trade value two years ago when he was an elite prospect.
Yes, Syndergaard is ‘just’ a prospect right now. But would you rather have him if he had about 1 1/4 subpar Major League seasons under his belt?
You say “No prospect is a guarantee”, yet you seem to give Bogaerts the benefit of the doubt without giving that benefit to other prospects.
Under ordinary circumstances, I’d say no to Syndergaard for Bogaerts because I’d be afraid of selling low on a possible stud SS, and pitching prospects scare me.
However, because of the logjam of position players and the mess of a pitching staff in Boston, I’d lean towards saying yes if the Mets were to make this offer (which I don’t see them doing at all). And it doesn’t hurt that Syndergaard seems to be a potential King Felix type workhorse stud – both his numbers and his stuff/size/mechanics look great.
LOL at anyone that still thinks Boegarts might be a ‘stud SS’
LOL at anyone writing off a 22 year old. Did you know that the consensus number 1 prospect entering the 2015 season was 23 years old and had never faced a big league pitcher.
yeah,Bogaerts is definitely too young to give up on
that being said his swjng is starting to remind me of Snider – a formerly powerful swing morphed into a weird slappy hope for contact swing.
I believe in Bogaerts, and I’m a Yankees fan.
Anyone saying that he’s no longer untouchable needs to remember that he was doing great until he got moved off of SS last year. Better than Mookie did at the end of the season, even.
He’s the only player the Sox have that I would consider untouchable, honestly. I love Mookie beyond all rationality, but I’d move him in the right deal.
A possible stud SS like Bogaerts, though? Absolutely not.
I loved how Cameron and the rest of the Sawxgraphs stooges were pumping up this garbage heap of starters all winter. One of my favorite things to do each day is to see how many runs the Red Sox gave up the day before. I’m rarely disappointed.
Unlike your parents
I would say that, given his diminished velocity, Masterson is probably the person I am most worried about in the Sox’s rotation. That being said, I am also skeptical that Buchholz will ever capture his form from his early years or from 2013. As far as Kelly, Miley, and Porcello go, I think they are young enough that more time is needed to properly decide their fates. Both Miley and Porcello have a solid track record as it is.
The one thing that is not considered in this article is the bullpen. It has been underwhelming to this point, and now Mujica was DFA’d. I think this is a step in the right direction, but I also feel that it is time to give the youngsters in our farm system a shot. Henry Owens is clearly not ready, but Matt Barnes has done well in relief in spring training and in his one appearance in 2015. This may be a small sample size, but he does have the necessary velocity and SO stuff to become a solid bullpen arm. If Masterson doesn’t turn it around in his next couple of starts, then I think a rotation spot needs to be given to either Brian Johnson or Eduardo Rodriguez. Both have excelled in the minors and could add a boost to the pitching staff. I would lean towards placing Brian Johnson in the rotation, as he is probably a safer option. This would make Rodriguez available as a potentially dominant lefty out of the bullpen.
Obviously there are numerous ways that Cherington can go about fixing the Red Sox pitching issues. But barring any trade, I feel that setting up some of our higher level young arms in MLB roles would be a step in the right direction.
Buchholz recaptured his form plus some in his first start. He could have, and should have, thrown 100% fastballs, because movement and location were that good. Colon would have done. His curve and change were equally good, and never a mistake, so he couldn’t bear not to use them also.
At bottom, whatever is wrong with Buchholz is above his neck, and that just can’t be fixed.
Can’t wait for Sox starters (and Buchholz specifically) to have their BABIPs regress to normal, bring their ERAs down closer to 4, and then the dumb media will go on and on fellating whichever guy takes over pitching coach duties despite pretty much nothing changing.
Since posting my comment, the Sox starters have actually had worse xFIPs, but dropped their ERAs. I’m sure it was all the work of changing the pitching coach.
Kelley is young and has a lot of potential, I thought he’d be league average.
Miley has been average, and is moving from NL West-AL East, he was never going to be better than a 4.
Masterson was a wild card, but i personally didnt see him improving, and thought hed be a 4
Porcello was either going to put it together and be a 2, or continue his middle of the order ways. He’s a 3.
Bucholz, is an enigma, I thought he’d be better and be a #2.
I thought this would be a set with a #2,3,4,4,5. So far its looked like alot of 4’s and a 5. Never believed the “group of 3’s” strategy was going to work. Should’ve gotten shields…
The issue with Kelly is that he doesn’t have a real breaking ball. GREAT fastball, but non-Bartolo Colon pitchers need another pitch to succeed in the rotation.
He’s a 4, but he could be a stud reliever.
Miley’s a 4. Like, a textbook 4.
Masterson has “4” overall numbers, but he either pitches like a 3 or a 5 in any given year. They got “5 Masterson.”
Buchholz is similar, but is either a 2 or a 5 in any given year. You can’t expect him to be a two. It looks like they got “5 Buchholz” as well.
Porcello is Porcello, but I’d say he’s a strong 4 with the potential to be a 3, rather than a 3 with the potential to be a 2. A 2 starter is really, really good. Like, Andy Pettitte/Hiroki Kuroda good. It’s the next tier down from the Top 10 guys in the game.
It makes me happy that the Red Sox are doing terrible.
Clay B is a mystery to me. He has the stuff to be a solid No 2. Have always thought that certain personalities and mental makeup were combustible in markets like NY and Boston. For a pitcher w his level of experience he has been incredibly inconsistent. He seems to lack the “it” factor. Even in the world of MLB he is a notorious wimp. He is the Ace of the DL league. He goes there and stays. Not bad when you are getting millions to do nothing. Aside from his various physical ailments he is a mental basket case. He needs a sports psychologist. The it factor cannot be acquired but can be improved. Tiger Woods is a poster child for the loss of it. Before he wrecked his marriage IMHO that he possessed the highest it I have ever seen. Then the messy public breakup, humiliation and injuries. He still has the talent but clearly is not the invincible mental giant who refused to lose esp Mano et Mano.
The Sox have tried to work w Clay and his market value has plummeted. They will get little in a trade. That said he needs a change of scenery to a lower pressure market. The starting pitching was a poorly conceived configurations. Extending Miley – a disaster. Giving Porcello borderline elite pitcher money outrageous. What has Porcello done in his career to warrant this contract? Very little. What is Ben C seeing that I am not?
The Mets are loaded. They wont give you an Ace but they might trade a good pitcher if you have something they need in return. Right now the only position they could conceivably fill is SS. Maybe a good lower level prospect or two for Gee?
Gee is decent, but the Red Sox already have many Gee-type pitchers in their rotation.
Yeah, they don’t need a Wade Miley-lite.
Now what happens when everyone starts to realize that the red sox hitters were even more overrated than their pitchers?
Wondering that one myself!
The offense is pretty average. The pitching is average/poor. That adds up to a below-.500 record.
I don’t understand why these players like Craig, Hanley, Kelly, and Masterson are playing exactly like they played on other teams before they came to Boston. They should have been so thrilled to get out of flyover country that they transcended their previous talent levels and went on to perform like the All-Stars we deserve to watch and cheer. I say get rid of them except Hanley; maybe Kelly and Craig can be put in a package to KC for Ventura and Finnegan and their catcher now that we need to replace Hannigan.
That trade would be flat-out robbery.
Seriously…what on earth is he on?