Archive for Josh Beckett

The beauty behind the philosophy of advanced analysis is that it seeks to eliminate as much variance as possible. As simple of a thought as this may be, it is one that still eludes the majority of the baseball world, and most of society in a variety of other areas. Our metrics here at Fangraphs do seek to base value on much more that raw numbers. We can not only adjust for league, but also park and era, among other variables.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a limit to this. As much as we know Dan Haren gets unlucky for pitching at Chase Field (or the opposite for Dante Bichette at Coors), or that pitchers in the late 60s were helped by a higher mound (or the opposite thanks to steroids in the late 90s), we still haven’t found a way to, somewhat literally, level the playing field in terms of whom a pitcher or hitter faces. Here’s an example:

Tim Lincecum: 6.4%
Bronson Arroyo: 7.4%
Jonathan Sanchez: 5.3%
Wade LeBlanc: 6.0%
Mike Leake: 8.2%

Those are the HR/FB rates of the pitchers in baseball who have faced the worst opponents in baseball sorted by OPS. Here are some more:

Josh Beckett: 13.0%
Joel Pineiro: 10.9%
Jeremy Guthrie: 8.6%
David Huff: 10.1%
Mitch Talbot: 7.8%
Ben Sheets: 12.0%

Those are the starting pitchers who have faced the best hitters based on OPS this year. I didn’t run a full study, but I would think that the correlation between HR/FB and the OPS of opposing batters is decently high. This is logical and intuitive: better hitters in baseball have better HR/FB rates, so if you face more of them you’re likely to feel the effects (and vice versa). When you see a pitcher have a bunch of years of giving up HR/FB rates either above or below average, you may want to believe it is more of a “skill” than a “trend.” But said pitcher may have just been facing competition the whole time that would dictate the results, and with a little bit of luck added in, it looks like a trend.

But what does it mean? It means we shouldn’t just think of things like HR/FB and BABIP as a pitcher getting “lucky” or “unlucky” based on the quality of the balls in play, but also by the quality of the opponents. Tim Lincecum‘s opponents have an OPS of .675 this year. For reference, that’s about 2009 Randy Winn, who had a wOBA of .302. Josh Beckett’s opponents have an OPS of .767 this year. That’s roughly 2010 Chipper Jones, who has a .349 wOBA.

Luckily, that’s as big of a difference as you’ll generally find. However, sorting out even the most minor differences has some significant value. I don’t have a panacea, but it’s something we should keep in the back of our minds when analyzing players. It often goes overlooked.

One of my biggest baseball pet peeves is when current pitching barometers (W-L and ERA) are, on their own, used to make extreme analytical claims. I have no problem if ERA is used as one of many metrics in an analysis, or if W-L is somehow adjusted to take several outside factors into account, but on their own, they do not really tell us much. With that in mind, let’s play a little game. Below are some numbers from 2007 and some from 2008, from the same pitcher:

Year    K/9     BB/9     K/BB      WHIP
2007    8.70    1.79     4.85      1.14
2008    8.74    1.81     4.83      1.23

They look pretty identical, right? Yes, the WHIP is slightly higher, but still a very good 1.23. Additionally, the strikeout and walk rates are not only fantastic, but essentially the same. This pitcher’s record last year was 20-7, and he posted a 3.27 ERA. This year, he is 11-9 with a 4.34 ERA. Using just those barometers, he is doing much worse this year. Couple it with the strikeout, walk, and baserunner numbers above, and you should see that the W-L and ERA may be a little fishy in their evaluation.

If you haven’t already guessed, I’m talking about Adam Eaton Josh Beckett of the Red Sox.

Now, there are other numbers we need to consider, since the barometers and more advanced numbers I posted do not show everything, but my overall point is that Beckett has not been nearly as bad as his W-L and ERA would make many Red Sox fans think. His numbers are worse this year, but not by much. Why are they worse?

Well, last year he surrendered 0.76 HR/9, had a .316 BABIP, and stranded 75.2% of the runners that reached base. This year, he has a 1.02 HR/9, a .330 BABIP, and a 69.4% strand rate. Put together, he has allowed more baserunners, has been worse at preventing them from scoring, and has allowed more balls to leave the park. Since his BB and K numbers are the same, the rise in HR/9 has resulted in an FIP increase from 3.08 to 3.32. So, yes, he has been worse this year than last, but a lot of it has to do with the higher BABIP. On top of that, a 3.32 FIP is rather great, and signals that his controllable skills are still darn good.

Interesting to note, his xFIP, which normalizes the home run component of FIP, says he is actually pitching better this year. Last year, his xFIP was 3.56, while it comes in at 3.35 this year. As his numbers stand right now, this would be the first year of Beckett’s career in which he surrendered more hits than innings pitched, largely due to the increase in BABIP. His velocity and movement look pretty similar this and last year as well, meaning some problems could stem from either poor location, or quite simply, bad luck.

His WPA and WPA/LI do not appear to be on pace to match last year’s numbers, but his controllable skills and performance have not been bad to the point that Sox fans should question if he has lost something. This could just be something similar to Jake Peavy’s 2006 season.

Yesterday I wrote about how C.C. Sabathia has not necessarily turned his season around recently but rather had worse numbers than his performance level would indicate; this was primarily due to two poor starts quite early in the season. As I went to post the article I caught a glimpse of the leaderboards on the main page here and spotted Josh Beckett amongst those with the fastest heaters. It soon dawned on me I had absolutely no idea what Beckett was doing this year; how he had performed; how the numbers looked; or even his finger-blister ratio.

Checking out his statistics I soon realized he is also suffering from Unjust Barometer Syndrome; not that a 4.22 ERA is terrible or a 6-4 W-L merits demotion but remove those barometers and Beckett is doing pretty much exactly the same thing as a year ago.

2007: 6.69 IP/G, 3.08 FIP, 1.14 WHIP, .316 BABIP, .250 BAA, 4.85 K/BB
2008: 6.58 IP/G, 3.33 FIP, 1.13 WHIP, .311 BABIP, .249 BAA, 5.53 K/BB

So, literally, if you strip away W-L and ERA, the similarities amongst these statistics should be similar enough to the point that any added commentary would come off as redundant.

His K/9 has gone from 8.70 to 9.46; his BB/9 has dropped from 1.79 to 1.71; and his HR/9 has risen from 0.76 to 1.25. Put together, this has led to the increase in FIP. His rates of balls in play have shifted in quite the odd fashion as well. His career LD/GB/FB is 18.8/44.2/37.0. Last year they came in at 15.8/47.3/36.9; this year they are currently 21.9/37.9/40.2. Beckett is getting significantly less grounders than a year ago, and many more line drives/flyballs. His HR/FB has, in turn, risen from 8.0% to 12.5%.

His LOB has dropped, too, from 75.2% to 70.1%. Since he is allowing essentially the same amount of baserunners (look at his WHIP, BAA, and BABIP posted above) it seems that his higher-than-it-should-be ERA is a direct result of the change in BIP rates, which give more of an opportunity for balls to leave the yard—which they have as evidenced by his HR/9 increase. All told, Beckett’s numbers should not worry Red Sox fans at all; they weren’t too bad even with the barometers but, when we dig deep it becomes clear he is just as good as last year.