Boston’s Bard

Daniel Bard is universally accepted as the most likely pitcher to replace Jonathan Papelbon as the Red Sox’ closer. So it’s quite a revelation when Bard, not Papelbon, leads the league in shutdowns (with 21). Those two actually combine to be the duo with the most shutdowns in baseball, barely topping the unlikely challengers in Cincinnati in the form of Arthur Rhodes and Francisco Cordero. Let’s focus on Bard, though.

The 25-year-old sends more fireballs to batters than Mario by using his upper-90s fastball more than three-fourths of the time. Both pitch classification specialists (Baseball Info Solutions, which is found on the player’s main page, and the Pitchfx tab within) have Bard throwing a change-up that sits right around 90 miles per hour. For a ridiculous comparison, consider this: Stephen Strasburg is basically matching Bard in velocity, both on fastballs and change-ups, but doing so while, in three appearances, throwing half the pitches Bard has in 35 outings.

When one compares Bard’s numbers accumulated this season to those in 2009, the decrease in walks allowed is perhaps most noticeable. It’s not because he’s throwing more pitches in the zone, though, or getting more swinging strikes. It just appears that his distribution of balls has altered, particularly on first pitches. Last year, Bard started up in the count 56% of the time; this year, he’s just shy of 61%. That’s not a radical shift, but when combined with more batters putting the ball in play earlier in counts (he’s shaved 0.2 pitches per plate appearance) the pair form a nice segue into lower walk rates.

Despite the reduction in free passes, Bard’s FIP has increased ever slightly; and yet, he’s still been the better half of the Red Sox’s end-game partnership this season cumulatively and when it matters most.