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.
goombas=batters?
Actually, in many SNES Mario games (ex. yoshi’s island), there are shy guys that have batters masks and baseball bats. They try to hit your eggs back at you.
Don’t know if the author knew that but…
That’s the only SNES game where Shy Guys do that…
but yeah. The Baseball Boys.
Damn, I thought I remembered them from other games. But yep, looked it up and you’re correct 🙂
Something that continues to amuse is that they didn’t include the Baseball Boys in the freakin’ Mario Baseball spin-offs.
Not that I, an adult, would have extensive knowledge on both games. Such an absurd accusation
I’d be willing to bet that after Bard’s 19th inning pitched last year, he threw no more pitches per batter than Strasburg has this year. I’ll also be willing to bet that after batters better acquaint themselves with Strasburg’s offerings, he will also be throwing more pitches per batter next year. just sayin…
I think they will always be niche business that only appeal to spontaneous deal hunters
That was my first thought. My second, however, was that FG simply must be writing about something here. I chose curtain number 2: More Strasburg stuff.
No mention of his slider that makes my knees buckle just watching him? darn
Yeah, at the start of the year when he faced A-Rod and made his knees buckle with it was comical, a lot of lateral movement, almost frisbee-like at time.
When he was facing Manny Friday night with two on and two out in the 9th, he got ahead of him 1-2 and I said, OK, now drop the slider on the inside corner. Varitek had an even better idea: they wasted a slider outside which Manny predictably didn’t chase, and then – with Manny now absolutely looking fastball — they dropped another slider on the inside corner for a game-ending strike three. It was beautiful.
“When one compares Bard’s numbers accumulated this season to those in 2009, the decrease in walks allowed is perhaps most noticeable.”
BABIP = .206 this year, last year .321 (perhaps this was not that noticeable?)
No mention of luck in all of this? I find that a bit odd on a site like this.
It seems like the “luck” factor is applied only when it fits an author’s point of view.
Or is Bard’s .206 BABIP sustainable?
Did you look at the types of balls in play?
IFF 19.4% up from 14.0%. Sometimes the ump calls batters out even when the fielders don’t catch these. LD 11.2% down from 19.2%.
Basically Bard exchanged a bunch of line drives for ground balls and infield fly balls. He’s still on the lucky side but that .206 BABIP isn’t as lucky as it would seem. Batters are not making good contact.
I do find it odd that quality of contact is now suddenly being argued after what seemed like 100’s of posts in the Jiminez article saying that BABIP was largely pitcher independent.
Realistically you expect what? A sub .250 BABIP? sub .270?
What does “not as lucky as it seems” mean… even if his baseline was 250 (which seems like a reach), it is still very lucky
He has 7 IFFB this year… SEVEN! This “jump” from 14% to 19% is a change of what maybe 1 IFFB extra?
BTW… 2009 GB% – 45%, 2010 -48.3%… on a 100 balls in play this is an ‘extra’ ~3 groundballs.
Yeahhh, these are mighty small sample sizes to be making confident statements about batters’ contact quality. But yes, a .206 BABIP is rather unsustainable. It’s his lowest BABIP since he posted a .199 mark in a whopping 16 IP in AAA last year.
His career mark, though, is .272. And while that’s almost all in the minors, I think it’s still safe to say that .206 is pretty low. It seems somewhat unlikely that his BABIP would permanently drop 70 points after moving into the Majors.
Heck, Mariano Rivera’s career BABIP is .273, and his entire career is built on forcing batters to make poor contact. If Bard is really this good, he’s got quite the career ahead of him.
As for his batted ball stats this year, 36 innings just isn’t much to go on. We’re talking single digit differences in raw numbers. But if you want to cast that light on them, you might notice that his FB% is up, too. And, since his HR/FB rate has stayed basically the same, that means his HR total is up a bit from last year.
A couple fewer line drives, a few more fly balls, a bit more home runs, all in 36 innings–hardly enough to make many conclusions.
That’s an awful lot of snark over 3 singles, isn’t it?
Huh?
.321 vs .206 on ~100 balls in play is a bit more than 3 singles… it’d be 10-12 (in 36 innings, kind of important)
When the author is making a big deal of a 5% increase in 1st pitch strikes, while ignoring a much larger drop in BABIP… snark is needed.
BABIP is useful, until it doesn’t fit….
Excellent Mario reference sir, well played.
One should also note on Bard that, while not used a ton (23.1% of his pitches), his slider looks to be an effective pitch along w/ his heat.
So let’s tale of the tape Bard and Papelbon:
Dan Bard:
25 years old in a few days
Cheap
9.33 K/9 in 2010
2.95 BB/9 in 2010
Average Fastball: 98 MPH
Potentially two plus pitches
Jon Papelbon:
29, 30 in November
Pricey
7.67 K/9 in 2010
3.68 BB/9 in 2010
Average Fastball: 94.5 MPH
One plus pitch (Fastball)
Yeah, hence while a lot of Bostonians appreciate the work Papelbon did in 2007, for example, most won’t exactly be depressed when he moves on.
Sure, because the luxury of carrying two electric relievers is a hassle. Paps hasn’t lost a millimeter on his fastball and he’s working on his split again; I’d prefer he stay and find his moxie again. Which he will, either here or there.
Call me crazy, but I’d rather not pay a guy $9 million dollars a year to maybe find his mojo over the 60 or so innings he pitches over a season.
Joel Pineiro is making 8 mil in 2010.
But that’s the going rate (actually, less than the going rate). It’s going to be paid to either Paps, Bard in 3 years, or someone else who is brought in because Bard couldn’t handle the spot.
My point is this: There are less than a handful of elite closers in MLB, and I think we both know from past failures how truly valuable they are. Paps is still one of those guys even though he’s getting by more on luck nowadays. But he hasn’t lost his fastball and he always wants the ball. There’s no real reason he cannot revert to what he once was, and if he can, or once he does, having both him and Bard is far better than having just one of them, regardless of his pricetag.
Maybe he should be starting?
HELL and NO
Minor leagues as a starter (albeit for only one season, but it was all low-minors): 7.08 ERA, 0.60 K/BB, 2.053 WHIP
Minor leagues as a reliever (mostly high-minors): 1.44 ERA, 3.89 K/BB, 0.886 WHIP.
He was so much better as a reliever while in the minors, that it is not a thing. He should never sniff the starting rotation, for his own sake.