Kevin Youkilis is no longer a member Boston Red Sox. His career is not over (although given his age, injuries, and recent performance, the end may very well be in sight), but some of what has been written about him in the wake of the trade seems to have the character of a eulogy (Youlogy? Sorry…). A good deal of that reaction is likely because Youkilis has become so closely identified with outstanding and memorable Red Sox teams, an identification that finally transcended the notoriety (or stigma) of being thought of as a “Moneyball guy.” “Youk” replaced the “Greek God of Walks.”

Yet Youkilis’ earlier, “literary” persona still remains, lurking in the background. Youkilis is not retiring, and may have a few more productive years left, so it seems premature to do a “best moments ever” post for him. However, it also seems like the end of, well, something, now that his sour mug will be housed by a different cap. In memory of the Greek God of Walks’ domain, we present his three greatest walks as a member of the Red Sox, according to Win Probability Added.

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It happened so quickly. One moment, Kevin Youkilis was sprinting to third. In the next, the Fenway faithful were demanding a curtain call, and in the next, he was a member of the White Sox. Three months ago, this scenario would have been hard to predict, let alone imagine. It has become reality thanks to the play of Will Middlebrooks, who will immediately replace Youkilis at the hot corner for the Red Sox. For weeks, Boston has done their best to try to keep both Youkilis and Middlebrooks in the lineup together, but with the team’s outfield stabilizing that became tougher to do over the past week, and a solution had to be found. No one is going to mistake the deal the team struck — eating most of Youkilis’ salary and receiving fading prospect Zach Stewart along with utility man Brent Lillibridge — as a home run, but the return wasn’t really the point. Boston already has a great team on the field (don’t look now, but Boston has the fourth-best run differential in the Majors), and this trade allows the roster to fit more naturally, with the potential to get a good pitcher being a fringe benefit.

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The traveling Greek God of Walks.

Sunday afternoon, the Boston Red Sox sent Kevin Youkilis to Chicago’s south side. Drafted, crafted and debuted as a Red Sox player, Youkilis now joins only the second team of his career.

His numbers this season have taken a precipitous decline with injuries, but as recently as 2011, Youk’ had a 127 wRC+ and 3.7 WAR while playing primarily third base. In short: For a White Sox team hurting for third base production, this trade could turn into a major fleecing for the south siders.

Let’s see how.
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On October 20, 2004, Derek Lowe had what might be the greatest pitching performance in Boston Red Sox history. It’s certainly the most underappreciated. Facing the New York Yankees in a classic Game 7, Lowe allowed one run and one hit in six innings. And he did it on just two days of rest.

The Red Sox won the game 10-3 and completed a stunning comeback from a three-games-to-none deficit against their hated rivals. They went on to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series and earned the franchise’s first title in 86 years.

Lowe talked about his historic outing when his current team, the Cleveland Indians, visited Fenway Park earlier this season.

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David Laurila: Your performance in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS is arguably the greatest in Red Sox history. Do you agree with that?

Lowe: “I don’t know. There have been a lot of games in the franchise’s history. Maybe the magnitude makes it that big. It was a perfect storm. I had competitive stuff that day and we scored a lot of runs. I had just pitched against them 48 hours earlier, so I had a fresh thought of what I wanted to do.

Our game plan was to throw a lot of breaking balls. We threw a lot of them and I was fortunate enough to have good command of my off-speed stuff that day. We figured they’d be ultra-aggressive, because it was kind of how the series had gone. They had been up 3-0 and we had clawed our way back to Game 7 in Yankee Stadium. We felt they’d be over-aggressive and maybe force the issue. Our game plan was something we were going to live and die by.”

DL: How good was your stuff that day?

Lowe: “Oh, God. I’ve had better. Read the rest of this entry »

The trade market for Kevin Youkilis is heating up. With Will Middlebrooks playing well — and both first base and designated hitter occupied — it looks like Youkilis will be the odd man out in Boston.

But while the 33-year-old has been a strong offensive performer in the past, this year he’s been awful. Youkilis has hit just .215/.301/.341 this season, and that’s going to make it difficult for the Red Sox to get anything useful in return for him. The Sox realize this, and are reportedly willing to pay some of Youkilis’ remaining contract as an enticement to get a better package for him. But with Youkilis slipping offensively, teams will be hesitant to offer anything of value for the third baseman.

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On Tuesday night in Miami, Clay Buchholz had one of his best performances in recent memory, posting his highest single-game strikeout total (nine) since April of 2010 (when he struck out 10 at home against Texas) and second-lowest single-game xFIP (2.77) in over a year (box).

It’s probably not controversial to suggest that Buchholz has been somewhat mercurial in his brief-ish major-league career. Despite a no-hitter and a more or less successful 2010 campaign, Buchholz has a career xFIP that’s precisely league average.

Still, with a five-pitch repertoire, there’s always the sense that Buchholz has the potential to be something better than league average.

Not only did Buchholz utilize his entire repertoire on Tuesday — throwing a four-seamer, two-seamer, changeup, cutter, and curveball each at last 14 times, per Texas Leaguers’ PITCHf/x data — he actually threw his entire repertoire to Giancarlo Stanton alone, recording strikeouts in each of the pair’s three encounters.

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For the first month of the season, the Red Sox didn’t just have a bad bullpen, they had one of the worst bullpens in recent memory. Manager Bobby Valentine’s relief corps pitched to a 6.10 ERA with a 5.13 FIP in April, both easily the worst marks in the game. Boston’s pen has gone on to post a 2.31 ERA with a 2.97 FIP since the calendar flipped to May, bringing their overall season performance down to a much more respectable 3.55 ERA and 3.75 FIP.

A turn around like that can be attributed to many things, first and foremost just simple regression to the mean. A .337 BABIP and 16.4% HR/FB ratio certainly aren’t performances you’d expect an entire pitching staff sustain over a full season. It’s possible, just unlikely. Secondly, the Red Sox did what you would expect them to do and made some personnel changes. Mark Melancon (49.50 ERA/37.55 FIP (!!!)) was shipped to the minors while Justin Thomas (7.71/3.27) and Michael Bowden (3.00/6.38) were cut loose. Changing the names is the easiest way to change performance.

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Bryce Harper may have added to his legend with his game-winning hit in the Nationals’ 7-6 extra-innings victory over the Mets yesterday, but Ian Desmond’s night at the plate was more remarkable, according to Win Probability Added (WPA). Not only was Desmond’s game-tying double earlier in the final inning worth more WPA than Harper’s game-winning hit (.380 to .349), but his total WPA for the game was 1.017.

That’s right — Desmond’s contributions were worth more than one “win” according to WPA. Of course, that’s a bit of a deceptive way of saying it. WPA is measuring the shift in “probability” or “certainty” of winning given the relative score, inning, base/out state, and run environment. In a game like yesterday’s, with many ties that were broken, plus extra innings (any one of which could have been the final inning), there are even more opportunities for big WPA events. Thus, Desmond got additional big boosts from his game-tying single in the bottom of the eighth as well as his run-scoring reached on error in the bottom of the tenth.

How often do hitters end up with a single-game WPA over 1? Not often, but according to our database, it has happened 42 times in the regular season since 1974. In fact, Desmond’s big game is only the 35th highest score on the list. Each has a story, but here are three that I have picked out semi-randomly.

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On Sunday, Daniel Bard faced thirteen Blue Jays — he got four outs, walked six, hit two more, and gave up a home run for good measure. Despite that being the only hit he allowed, he gave up five runs, putting a cap on the disaster that has been his experiment as a starting pitcher. Given that he’s either walked or beaned 18 percent of the batters he’s faced this year, it’s pretty easy to say that Bard’s primary issue has been command. That’s hard to argue with — after all, on May 29, he threw a pitch that “missed the center of the strike zone by more than a full Shaquille O’Neal.”

So, it’s fairly simple to say that Daniel Bard’s lack of command has betrayed him, and his inability to throw strikes with consistency has been his primary problem. Simple, but maybe not accurate. Instead, I wonder if perhaps Bard’s insanely high walk rates aren’t actually just a symptom of the real problem.

For your visual enjoyment, here is a plot of every pitcher whose average fastball velocity this year is lower than it was last year.

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DATA!

Let us delve once again into the numbers. The season is now two months aged and we have more stories unfolding than we have enough digital ink to cover: Will the Red Sox ever find an outfielder? Is Adam Jones the new Matt Kemp? Can the White Sox really make a playoff push in a rebuilding year? And will the 2012 Pirates really go down as one of the worst offenses in modern history?

We will not truly know the answers to these questions for some time, but we can peer into the murky mirror-mirror that is the De-Lucker! and at least get a better feel for the state of everything. Much of the offensive fluctuations in the early part of the season come from strange movements in BABIP. The De-Lucker! attempts to smooth those fluctuations and give us a better guess as to who is doing well and who is not.

And Josh Hamilton, you will see, is in both categories.
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