Archive for Boston Red Sox

Following a 4-2 win over the Red Sox in late July, Detroit Tigers ace Justin Verlander was asked about pitch selection. His response to a small group of reporters was as follows:

“It’s different when it’s a [close] ballgame. You don’t think about pitch count as much; it’s just about getting outs. It’s a different situation with more runs. Maybe you take a shot at throwing some more-hittable pitches to get some quick outs. But not in a one-run ballgame.”

As the media scrum broke up, I asked Verlander a point-blank question: “Do you pitch to the score?” His answer was a short and simple, “Yes.”

He’s not the only one. Jack Morris has been criticized — if not mocked — for saying that he pitched to the score. Others have certainly done the same, but how many? Is the practice prevalent, or are pitchers like Morris and Verlander the exception rather than the rule?

I decided to explore the subject. Prompted by Verlander’s answer, I asked a collection of pitchers, catchers, pitching coaches and managers if big-league pitchers do indeed pitch to the score. Here are their responses.

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Alex Avila, Chicago White Sox catcher: “For a starter, it’s probably a little bit different than it is for a reliever. Some starters can’t. They’re kind of oblivious to the score — they don’t want to know the score — and they don’t want to let up.

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“Pitchers’ duels or slugfests?” It’s a lot like asking “beer or tacos?” There’s a pretty good chance you like both. At the same time, you might have a preference. Some would rather see an 11-10 game than a 1-0 game. Others would prefer to see a pair of pitchers match zeroes into the late innings.

What about the men behind the microphones? Do they consider one more enjoyable than the other? I asked a cross section of MLB broadcasters for their preference — pitchers’ duel or slugfest — urging that they try not to stay neutral. Here is what they had to say.

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Uri Berenguer, Boston Red Sox (Spanish-language) radio: “It seems to get more exciting when it’s a slugfest, but after too many of them, it’s too much excitement. Too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing… except when it comes to pitching. My preference is the pitchers’ duel.

“I really appreciate the craft of pitching. There’s something to be said about a pitcher who really knows how to manipulate the ball and make the best hitters in the world look silly. When you have one of those guys on the mound on a given night, it’s impressive. When you have two of those guys going at it, that’s baseball.”

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There aren’t many knuckleball pitchers in baseball, but there are a lot of would-be knuckleball pitchers. Most everyone has tinkered with the butterfly. It’s common for players — particularly position players — to mix in knucklers when playing catch before games. A handful of them can really make it dance.

Who are the best among the wannabe Wakefields and Niekros? To answer the question most accurately that would require extensive polling throughout both leagues. I considered tackling the task, but ultimately decided that such an exercise was a bit too frivolous.

Querying a cross-section of players was far more practical. I talked to a dozen, most of whom have experience either throwing or catching the game’s most enigmatic and entertaining pitch. Along with asking who has the best they’ve seen, I had several of them to assess the quality of their own knuckleball.

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Alex Avila, White Sox catcher: “It would have to be Danny Worth. He’s actually pitched in a game with it. We were with the Tigers, it was a blowout game, and he came in. He’s got a great arm — he’s an infielder — and he’d always throw a knuckleball warming up, just messing around. He threw a bunch of them, and it was dancing pretty good.”

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Collin Cowgill might be the most ambidextrous person in MLB. Currently playing for Cleveland’s Triple-A affiliate, the Columbus Clippers, Cowgill explained his handedness as follows:

“I throw left-handed, hit right-handed, dribble a basketball right-handed, shoot a basketball left-handed. If I was going to dunk, I would dunk right-handed. I shoot darts left-handed. I golf right-handed. I bowl left-handed. I write and eat right-handed. I shoot pool left-handed. I kick right-footed. If I was going to punch you, I’d punch you right-handed.

The 30-year-old outfielder has done all of this naturally, for as long as he can remember. The first time he was handed a ball, he threw it left-handed. The first time he stepped in a batter’s box, it was right-handed. He tried switch-hitting at one point, but realized he was better from the right side and stuck with that.

Hand dominance at the dish is another area in which he’s different. Read the rest of this entry »

Like many of you, I grew up listening to baseball on the radio. And while I’m now at a ballpark over 100 times each season, and see many games on TV, listening to pictures being painted over the airways remains a wonderful way to follow the action. To me, baseball’s best radio play-by-play broadcasters are gems.

To coincide with the broadcaster rankings currently being released at the site, I asked a cross section of players, coaches, and managers who they enjoyed listening to growing up. I asked some broadcasters as well, for the simple reason that they chose to follow in the footsteps of the voices who helped shape their love of the game.

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Vince Cotroneo, Athletics broadcaster: “My experience was different. I saw Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek on the Game of the Week. I saw Al Michaels doing games on Monday night. I watched a little bit of the Braves on weekends when they were on TV in Orlando. But in terms of sitting in the car, or having a transistor under my bed, I didn’t have that luxury. I didn’t have Bill King or Vin Scully or Jack Buck or Harry Caray.

“My first full-time job was in 1984, in Lynchburg, Virginia, and that’s when I could hear Jon Miller doing the Orioles. When I got to the big leagues in 1991, all of a sudden I’m around Ernie Harwell and Vin Scully, and I was working with Milo (Hamilton).

“My first year, I went into the press room in Lakeland during spring training. Ernie Harwell was there with Paul Carey and he introduced himself to me. It should have been the other way around. Instead, this grand Southern gentleman was coming over to me. It was surreal. I met Vin at Vero Beach. It was the whole nine yards, where I was seeing greatness in front of me. When Vin goes to work, he paints pictures.”

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The Boston Red Sox played the first game of a series versus the Houston Astros last night, and they scored 11 runs, eight of which came against Houston starter Dallas Keuchel. The day before that, they played the Oakland A’s, and they scored 13 runs. The two days prior to that — also against the A’s — they scored 13 and 14 runs, respectively, with one of those games coming against Oakland starter Sonny Gray. In the span of four days, Boston torched last year’s Cy Young Award-winner and the third place runner-up for a combined 15 earned runs. Pitching in the major leagues tends to be a matter of razor-thin margins, and that margin is made even more razor-thin in the pitcher-unfriendly confines of Fenway Park; regardless of that fact, the Red Sox offense is currently in the equivalent of a brightly-colored baseball fever dream, going berserk on anything and everything in its path.

We’ve seen a couple articles about this offense in the past few days. The sheer number of offensive categories they currently lead in baseball is wildly impressive. We’re going to dig a little deeper today, however, and get a little historical perspective before trying to pin down the processes this offense has taken to cause such an incredible run of form.

First, let’s take a look at where this offense would rank if it finished the season with this type of production. Let’s compare the 2016 Red Sox to every team since the start of the live ball era (1920) by wRC+. wRC+ is adjusted for parks and leagues, so it allows us to easily compare offenses from different years to one another. Take a look at the top 10 teams of all time by wRC+ — with each point above 100 representing a percentage point above league average:

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A quick check of the pitching leaderboards for qualified starters reveals an unsettling fact for the Red Sox: David Price has the second-worst ERA in baseball. Cue the alarm bells! The Sox paid for an ace, and instead, they’ve gotten the exact opposite of an ace — as far as outcomes are concerned, at least. Seven starts into the season, some element of worry has to be merited, right? The answer is yes, of course, because an ERA of almost seven for a No. 1 starter after over a month of games has to be worrying. Price has been terrible, and if you’re worrying about him or would like to, that’s probably merited. The reason why we’re here is to look into whether his performance thus far is grounds to for worry in the future, as well: though Price can’t get any of his clunkers back from the past seven starts, we can certainly look into whether those clunkers might presage future clunkers.

First, let’s start with the bad news, because it’s always better to end with good news. The bad news has been right there in front of us in every single one of Price’s starts this season, flashed up on a board in the stadium or on our TV screens during every pitch: his velocity is down. Way down. Lowest it’s ever been. That’s worrisome not only because velocity loss leads to a smaller margin of error, but also because velocity loss is the most visible indicator of injury. The drop captured in the red box in the chart below — depicting Price’s velocity by month from 2011 to 2016 — ought usually to inspire some concern (chart courtesy of Brooks Baseball):

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In my January 31 column, I noted that Rick Porcello has one of the highest four-seam spin rates in the game. Given his increased usage over the past two years, I theorized that he began throwing the pitch more often for that very reason.

It turns out I was wrong.

“When I started using my four-seam more in Detroit (in 2014), it was just a different fastball to give them a different look,” Porcello said in Fort Myers. “I didn’t know anything about spin rate until I was told about it last year.”

Regardless of the reason, the pitch wasn’t a panacea. A plethora of mis-located fours helped contribute to a tumultuous 2015. In his first season with the Red Sox, Porcello allowed 196 hits in 172 innings, and his ERA was an unsightly 4.92.

His signature pitch was equally to blame.

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As a FanGraphs reader, you’re probably familiar with Brian Bannister. The former big-league right-hander — and current director of pitching analysis and development for the Boston Red Sox — has been featured here numerous times. Bannister has previously expounded on back-up sliders, spin rate, spin axis and more. Today, the subject is changeups.

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Bannister on changeups: “The term changeup is actually somewhat deceiving. It’s traditionally been taught to be a pitch that is simply slower than your fastball. If you look at the pitchers who have the best changeups, and who have had the most success at the big-league level — the Felix Hernandezes and Zack Greinkes of the world — one, they’re hard, and two, they have a lot of movement. Pitchers who simply try to take speed off the changeup ultimtely fail with the pitch. That helps make the name a contradiction.

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Other clubs: Braves, Diamondbacks, Orioles.

The 2015 season was a disappointment from a standings perspective for Red Sox fans, no doubt. The near future should be a consolation, however, with their young talent proving capable of making an impact going into this spring. The new graduates were backed up by positive developments on the farm, as a number of guys took steps forward to fill in behind them. New general manager Dave Dombrowski has a lot with which he can work as the club looks to be back in the hunt for a division title.

The organization has four prospects who are pretty widely accepted as its top talents, though opinions differ greatly on the ranking order. Separate Red Sox officials all had one of Yoan Moncada, Rafael Devers and Andrew Benintendi as top dog, each player having separate questions that potentially limit their ceilings (though they’re all pretty high regardless). Moncada has legitimate defensive concerns while Devers’ power is more projection than reliable skill for now. Anderson Espinoza has a case for being on top of the list as well with his exceptional talent standing out at such a young age. In the end, I decided on Benintendi, though I could get behind any of the other three being the preferred choice.

The trade for Craig Kimbrel took four prospects off the list, which you can read about when the Padres list comes out (Margot would have been #3, Allen likely just off the top 10, Guerra towards the back end of the 45+ group). The rest of the system still has a good mix of upside and safety with enviable pitching and middle infield prospect quality. As a fair warning, I have a higher opinion of Mauricio Dubon and Trey Ball than may be commonly accepted, while Sam Travis gets more love after a strong regular season and fall performance than I’m willing to give just yet.

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