Digesting Beckett's Dominance Options

[LahoudOrBillyC]

Really, I mean this kind of diminishes the accomplishment, if it does anything. Nothing like arbitrary baselines (8 K's?) to make something a 1st-in-history accomplishment. I bet Tim Kurkjian is upset he couldn't have unearthed this gem before Verducci.

Edit: This reminds me of my intriguing "Lenny Dinardo is the only player in the minors to pitch at least 100 IP, have a G/F over 2.5, and a K/9 over 7.5" line back in 2005.

I agree with Temple. There is no reason to apply arbitrary standards to try raise Beckett's game. Don Larsen pitched a perfect game in the World Series, but since he only had 7 strikeouts it doesn't compare?

Beckett was wonderful, that's all you need to know. Hopefully, his next start is Game 1 of the ALCS next Friday night in Boston. But if we need someone to close out this series on Monday, I guess he'll do.

[Tangled Up In Re...]

shutouts that the pitcher allowed no walks and no extra-base hits while...
doesn't need qualifiers.

[mabrowndog]

shutouts that the pitcher allowed no walks and no extra-base hits while...
doesn't need qualifiers.

Agreed. In fact, I'd have preferred to see Verducci list ALL of the games that met that criteria to add a better historical perspective. How many guys who threw shutouts did so without allowing walks or XBH? Is it a smattering? A handful? A dozen?

EDIT - If you want something done right, do it yourself....

Here's the list of 11 pitchers who have done it before Josh.

This post has been edited by mabrowndog: Oct 4 2007, 12:45 AM

[Eric Van]

Here's the coolest thing: the second time around the lineup he struck out five of the first eight hitters, on five different pitches: Figgins on a slider (one of only three he threw, and the only one for a strike), Cabrera on a 2-seamer, Anderson on a change, Kotchman on a 4-seamer, and Napoli on a curve. (He then got Willits on another curve for good measure).

Second coolest thing: he threw 24 of 26 2-seamers for strikes*, and all 11 of his changeups.

*or 25 of 27, if we can assume that Napoli's grounder to Lowell that led off the 3rd and was missed by both TV and Enhanced Game Day was also one.

Enhanced Game Day is so cool! (No, they don't identify the pitches, but it's easy to do that by sorting by speed and by plotting pfx_x and pfx_y, which is horizontal and vertical break after removing gravity).

[table=Beckett 2007 ALDS 1]

[singaporesoxfan]

If not for Grady Little's lack of a brain, the offensive machine that was the 2003 Red Sox would have faced Beckett in the World Series. I can't tell if that makes me feel a little better about 2003, since you could argue that Beckett was so dominant that the Marlins would've beat the Sox any way, or worse, since that would have been a great matchup to watch.

[Kitchkinet]

Another thing that's amazing is how he shut down the meat of the Angels' offense

Chone Figgins: 1-4, K
Orlando Cabrera: 0-4, K
Vladimir Guerrero: 2-4
Garrett Anderson: 0-4, 2 K
Maicer Izturis: 0-3

The first inning looked nasty with the deflection by Pedroia and the 2-3 K to end it, but Beckett shut the door from there.

Beyond the K's, Beckett scattered 12 groundouts to 7 flyouts. Coco Crisp had some superb fielding in center to back Josh up. And Tito's move to put Jacoby Ellsbury in LF in the 9th was pure genius. I don't think Manny makes that grab, and we might not have seen the shutout. Enabled Beckett to slam the door.

[OttoC]

Babe Ruth had a Game Score of 97 in Game 2 of the 1916 World Series. He threw 14 innings, giving up 1 run.

Yeah, I managed to skip right over that game when I was looking at Game Scores. That was even higher than Don Larsen's game in 1955 (94) and Bob Gibson's 17-strikeout performance against the Tigers in 1968 (93).

I think this points to a drawback in the Game Score metric when used for historical comparisons: total innings pitched is weighted too heavily, especially in today's environment. All other things being equal, 8.1 IP of no-hit ball gets the same Game Score as 9 IP of 2-hit ball.

[Todd Benzinger]

Josh's "report card"... They actually gave him an A- for something, the hardasses

[RSN Diaspora]

I know it received a passing mention early on, but I think this merits a comparison to Bruce Hurst's performance in 1986 WS Game 1. Yes, Schiraldi closed out the ninth, but it was this game that I immediately thought of when we got into the later innings last night. I'm only 30, so I'm too young to have seen Tiant's 1975 performance, but here are some comparisons (in order of Game Score):

Dominant Postseason Performances

Pitcher	Series	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	Pit-Str	GmSc
Lonborg	(1967 WS)	9	1	0	0	1	4	0	Unavail.	88
Beckett	(2007 ALDS)	9	4	0	0	0	8	0	108-83	87
Hurst	(1986 WS)	8	4	0	0	4	8	0	123-78	78
Tiant	(1975 WS)	9	5	0	0	2	3	0	100-65	78

Some particular noteworthy items:

• It's a pity I can't find Lonborg's number of strikes and pitches, because this is the category where Beckett towers over Tiant and Hurst. An unbelievable 77% of his pitches were strikes, compared with 65% and 63% for Tiant and Hurst, respectively.
• While Game Score is as imperfect a metric as any other, by that measure, Beckett was only a hair short of Lonborg's near no-hitter.
• Only Beckett kept from issuing even one walk.

[Flynn4ever]

If not for Grady Little's lack of a brain, the offensive machine that was the 2003 Red Sox would have faced Beckett in the World Series. I can't tell if that makes me feel a little better about 2003, since you could argue that Beckett was so dominant that the Marlins would've beat the Sox any way, or worse, since that would have been a great matchup to watch.

Interesting point, but no matter how you slice it I think the 2007 vintage is less 'hitable.' I think we wore out the MFY's and he caught them napping, but our offense that year was more of a juggernaut.
One thing I will say is that I haven't felt as secure with a one run lead after the first inning since Pedro in the '99-2000 range. After Youks' homer and the mowing down of the Angels in the 2nd I almost gave the outcome no thought.

[86spike]

Agreed. In fact, I'd have preferred to see Verducci list ALL of the games that met that criteria to add a better historical perspective. How many guys who threw shutouts did so without allowing walks or XBH? Is it a smattering? A handful? A dozen?

EDIT - If you want something done right, do it yourself....

Here's the list of 11 pitchers who have done it before Josh.

check out that list... the last guy to throw a complete game shutout in the postseason with no BBs and no XBHs did it in 1987.

20 frickin years ago!

[JimD]

Josh's "report card"... They actually gave him an A- for something, the hardasses

Yes, for 'Overall Effectiveness'.

I'm guessing the Angels thought he was plenty effective.

[Rudy Pemberton]

Pretty amazing performance and one of those games that is just a joy to watch. Sox get an early lead, and the pitcher is in such complete control that it was never really in doubt, at all. That's pretty rare, especially in a playoff game. The 3 career playoff shutout stat is just amazing; this guy certainly dials it up when it matters the most. It's funny to think of how frustrating he was last year and where he is at this year, I imagine we'll see the same kind of thing with Dice-K as well. He's just really learned how to control and manage a game. Watching the game yesterday, the offense, and the crowd and I kind of came to the realization that we may take how good this team is for granted at some times.

[riveraulwick]

Thanks for posting that pitch chart Eric. Very interesting stuff.

I remember thinking as I was watching the game that Beckett used his change in perfect situations but I had no idea that all 11 change ups he threw resulted in either strikes or outs. Pretty amazing, especially when you consider how things turned out last year for him. Josh has made some great adjustments to the league this year.

[Eric Van]

Department of all the more impressive . . . with that strike percentage, he must have had an ump with a generous strike zone, eh?

No. According to the tremendous Enhanced Game Day data,

Number of gift calls from the ump: 1. First pitch to Kotchman in the 2nd was actually an inch outside. Which is within the acceptable margin of error in most analyses of umpire performance.

Number of strikes the ump missed: 4 or 5, all of them high strikes:

-- First pitch of the game
-- Ball 1 to Willits in the 3rd, two-seamer
-- Ball 3 to Izturis in the 5th (had him struck out on a slider on the high inside corner)
-- Ball 1 to Cabrera in the 7th? Curve just high as it broke the front plane of the zone, probably broke down into it
-- Next pitch to him, 4-seamer at top of zone, would have been called strike 3 if he'd gotten these 2 calls

Admittedly, most umps don't call these pitches strikes . . . but they ought to.

[Eric Van]

Question about the second part: not a great view for me from the bleachers, how many two-seamers do we think Beckett was throwing? I know he got a couple of Ks on lefties via the inside cutter, but there were a bunch of pitches that righties were chasing down and in that I couldn't tell if they were two-seamers with hair or hard changeups. Just wondering.

I've added data on pitch breaks to the summary of the pitch chart. You can see that his change breaks less in (on a RHB) than his 2-seamer, but more down.

[DeltaForce]

check out that list... the last guy to throw a complete game shutout in the postseason with no BBs and no XBHs did it in 1987.

20 frickin years ago!

According to that list, Jason Schmidt did it to Florida in the 2003 ALDS.

Opposing pitcher: Josh Beckett.

[Eric Van]

Josh's "report card"... They actually gave him an A- for something, the hardasses

Man, if I'd had that teacher, I would have raised holy hell.

Overall Effectiveness: 2 A+, A-, B+ = A, not A-

And Offspeed Effectiveness and Efficiency are both midway between A and A+.

In fact, if you use their weights as stated and use a grade-point system, their scorecard actually adds to an A+ (a fraction closer to it than it is to A).

Kind of embarrassing that a historically great performance just rates an A, doubly so when it's because some bozo put together a bogus spreadsheet for calculating the score (my guess is that they average the rounded figures for each category, which is bogus if a guy is being arbitrarily rounded down in several categories).

[LoweSox]

If not for Grady Little's lack of a brain, the offensive machine that was the 2003 Red Sox would have faced Beckett in the World Series. I can't tell if that makes me feel a little better about 2003, since you could argue that Beckett was so dominant that the Marlins would've beat the Sox any way, or worse, since that would have been a great matchup to watch.

-singaporesoxfan (I can't get the quoting feature to work.)

I thought Florida was going to beat anyone after Beckett got done steamrolling Chicago. Seeing that performance last night, though, I had this unsettling thought that, had Beckett been a Red Sox killer rather than a Yankee killer, he might not have come to Boston at all. Boston missed him in that series at Fenway in '03, and so never got the sour taste of what he's capable of.

[alannathan]

BrkIn is average break in inches in on a RHB, BrkDn is average break down, both measured relative to the 4-seamer (how much "hop" Beckett's 4-seamer has compared to the average MLB 4-seamer, which would be a better standard, I don't know.) BrkDn excludes the effect of gravity; slower pitchers drop further than faster pitchers, which adds to the deception of the change.

Note that the pitch that's referred to as Beckett's slider is by any objective view a cutter.

I agree with Eric. Given that the vertical break and the speed is comparable to that of the 4-seam fastball, I agree that this is a cutter and not a slider. A slider usually is thrown a bit slower and with more vertical drop than a fastball.