2018 Red Sox Against MLB Top 25 Starting Pitchers

[ponch73]

This past week, Red Sox batters had their work cut out for them stepping in against two Twins pitchers ranked in the MLB top 25 (based on fWAR). I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how the Sox had performed thus far against comparably-effective pitchers over the course of this season.

To date, the Sox have played 17 games against 11 different MLB top 25 pitchers based on fWAR: 3 each against the Yankees' Severino (ranked 7th) and the Rays' Snell (ranked 22nd); 2 each against the Twins' Berrios (ranked 17th) and the Twins' Gibson (ranked 23rd); and 1 each against the Nationals' Scherzer (ranked 4th), the Astros' Verlander (ranked 5th), the Astros' Cole (ranked 9th), the Angels' Skaggs (ranked 12th), the Mariners' Paxton (ranked 14th), the Mariners' Gonzales (ranked 18th), and the Astros' Morton (ranked 19th).

On a weighted average basis, the Sox have faced a 3.1 fWAR pitcher across those 17 games. Interestingly enough, 12 of the 17 games have been on the road.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=sta&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2018&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0

In those 17 games, the Sox have gone 9-8. They have scored a total of 80 runs in 150 innings (an average of 4.7 runs per game and 0.53 runs per inning) and given up 59 runs in 147 innings (an average of 3.5 runs per game and 0.40 runs per inning). Furthermore, only 4 of those 17 games were started by Sale (he went 2-1 in 4 outings). Porcello started 6 games, Price 3 games, Pomeranz 2 games, and B. Johnson and Eovaldi 1 game apiece.

Against the vaunted opposing starters listed above, the Sox have scored 47 runs in 98.7 innings (an average of 2.8 runs per outing and 0.48 runs per inning). Those opposing starters have gone 5-7, averaged 5.8 IP per start, a 4.29 ERA and a 1.34 WHIP with 9.9 SO/9, 2.8 BB/9, 8.7 H/9 and a mere 0.8 HR/9. The Sox offense has been held scoreless by only 3 of the 17 opposing starters (Snell, Snell and Severino).

Sox batters have slashed .309 / .376 / .685 against the fWAR top 25 starters. In 17 games and 98.7 innings, they've managed to scratch out 95 hits (only 30 extra base hits -- 9 HR's, 19 doubles and 2 triples), 31 walks and 6 HBP. Interestingly enough, they've forced the opposing starters to throw over 17 pitches per inning (4 pitches per batter faced). They've also gone 8 for 8 in stolen base attempts.

We've seen over the course of the season that the Sox offense is ferocious when it's not chasing sliders out of the strike zone. Against the MLB's top pitchers, the ferocity has been substantially tempered. Nevertheless, Sox batters have grinded out at bats to support their own capable starting pitching on the way to above average win/loss results.

Hopefully, this approach bodes well down the road later this season.

 

[InstaFace]

How does this record or performance stats compare to that of other top offenses against the same caliber of pitchers?

How is this predictive of, say, playoff success? Or even just continued regular season success?

Also, why make the cutoff done via fWAR, rather than, say, FIP? Why an accumulation stat?

 

[dbn]

Thanks for compiling those numbers, @ponch73. Interesting start of a topic.

 

[uncannymanny]

This is an awesome start to a thread. Thanks for compiling!

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

Also, why make the cutoff done via fWAR, rather than, say, FIP? Why an accumulation stat?

I'm not ponch73, but I would guess the answer is to weed out small sample anomalies. The 25 starting pitchers with the lowest FIP, regardless of IP, include Tommy Milone, Daniel Hudson, and Roenis Elias, among others. I don't think any team's performance against those guys would tell us much. You could get around that by using FIP with a a minimum-IP cutoff, but fWAR does much the same thing more conveniently.

 

[InstaFace]

That's fair enough, but also has its own drawbacks, i.e. missing top pitchers who were out with injuries for part of the year but are nevertheless the most effective at getting outs. People like Kenta Maeda, Walker Buehler, Ross Stripling, and some guy named Clayton Kershaw. Come to think of it, pretty much the entire Dodgers rotation. But plenty of others too.

Neither approach is perfect at getting the denominator we want here, which is "faced the best X pitchers in MLB".

But either way, the more important part of my post was the first two questions. What are we supposed to conclude from this? What does this tell us that isn't obvious? What context can be added so that the conclusions we draw are meaningful? I feel like ponch did 80% of the work here but was left wishing for that remaining bit.

 

[DJnVa]

That's fair enough, but also has its own drawbacks, i.e. missing top pitchers who were out with injuries for part of the year but are nevertheless the most effective at getting outs. People like Kenta Maeda, Walker Buehler, Ross Stripling, and some guy named Clayton Kershaw. Come to think of it, pretty much the entire Dodgers rotation. But plenty of others too.

I guarantee the Sox numbers won't change if we include the entire Dodgers rotation.

 

[ponch73]

I'm not ponch73, but I would guess the answer is to weed out small sample anomalies. The 25 starting pitchers with the lowest FIP, regardless of IP, include Tommy Milone, Daniel Hudson, and Roenis Elias, among others. I don't think any team's performance against those guys would tell us much. You could get around that by using FIP with a a minimum-IP cutoff, but fWAR does much the same thing more conveniently.

Savin Hillbilly is right on. In my mind, what characterizes the top 25 MLB starting pitchers in 2018 is a combination of performance and volume. The top 25 pitchers ranked by fWAR seemed to pass the smell test since it produced guys like Sale, Scherzer, Verlander, deGrom, Kluber, Severino.

There might be another statistic superior to fWAR that produces a worthy list of the 2018 top 25 MLB starters. I think we can all agree that FIP is probably not that statistic. In any case, most of the top 25 MLB starters as ranked by fWAR are the right guys. We could probably argue about the last 5 or so.

 

[InstaFace]

I guarantee the Sox numbers won't change if we include the entire Dodgers rotation.

My point about the means by which to choose the right pitchers had more to do with the benchmarking relative to other teams. The one certainly isn't necessary if you're not doing the other, so yeah, I could have been more clear.

Consider the choice-of-statistic question withdrawn. The more interesting question is the other bit: how does the Sox' performance cited here compare to that of other teams, and what conclusions are we to draw from it?

 

[ponch73]

TBut either way, the more important part of my post was the first two questions. What are we supposed to conclude from this? What does this tell us that isn't obvious? What context can be added so that the conclusions we draw are meaningful? I feel like ponch did 80% of the work here but was left wishing for that remaining bit.

Since I only did 80% of the work, feel free to pitch in and do some legwork to move the conversation forward to address some of your own questions.

The point of this exercise was to look at the Sox' absolute performance against top MLB starters this year. I think the key takeaway is that the Sox batters have struggled (understandably), but have grinded enough to support their own formidable starting pitching. That's how they managed to go 9-8 in these specific games, and 7-6 in games not started by Sale (who is ranked 1st in MLB by fWAR, and the only Sox starter in the top 25). In addition, it's interesting that the Sox hitters haven't necessarily done worse against the top half of the elite 2018 MLB starters. They've struggled most against guys like Snell (ranked 22nd) and Gibson (ranked 23rd).

I'd view these numbers as anecdotally interesting as opposed to statistically predictive since we are still dealing with a relatively small sample size of 17 games. I think it's reasonable to infer that this caliber of starters is a reasonably proxy for the quality of starting pitching the Sox could face in the playoffs.

While the point of this exercise wasn't to look at the Sox relative performance to other top offenses because of non-comparability due to sample size issues, venue differences and a lack of overlap (Sox fortunately don't have to face Sale and the Yankees don't have to face Severino), it might be anecdotally interesting to see how the Yankees' and Astros' batters have done against the overall group. Just eye-balling the Yankees, it's clear that they've handled Snell and Berrios much better than the Sox, put up good numbers against the Indians' Bauer, Kluber and Clevinger, hit Skaggs less well than the Sox, hit similarly against the Astros' Morton and Keuchel, and struggled against Sale and, to a lesser degree, against Snydergaard.

 

[SirPsychoSquints]

Since I only did 80% of the work, feel free to pitch in and do some legwork to move the conversation forward to address some of your own questions.

The point of this exercise was to look at the Sox' absolute performance against top MLB starters this year. I think the key takeaway is that the Sox batters have struggled (understandably), but have grinded enough to support their own formidable starting pitching. That's how they managed to go 9-8 in these specific games, and 7-6 in games not started by Sale (who is ranked 1st in MLB by fWAR, and the only Sox starter in the top 25). In addition, it's interesting that the Sox hitters haven't necessarily done worse against the top half of the elite 2018 MLB starters. They've struggled most against guys like Snell (ranked 22nd) and Gibson (ranked 23rd).

I'd view these numbers as anecdotally interesting as opposed to statistically predictive since we are still dealing with a relatively small sample size of 17 games. I think it's reasonable to infer that this caliber of starters is a reasonably proxy for the quality of starting pitching the Sox could face in the playoffs.

While the point of this exercise wasn't to look at the Sox relative performance to other top offenses because of non-comparability due to sample size issues, venue differences and a lack of overlap (Sox fortunately don't have to face Sale and the Yankees don't have to face Severino), it might be anecdotally interesting to see how the Yankees' and Astros' batters have done against the overall group. Just eye-balling the Yankees, it's clear that they've handled Snell and Berrios much better than the Sox, put up good numbers against the Indians' Bauer, Kluber and Clevinger, hit Skaggs less well than the Sox, and struggled against Sale and, to a lesser degree, against Snydergaard.

If you're looking for performance against teams in the playoffs, we could look at performance against teams in the playoffs. Below are stats vs. HOU/NYY compared to all others (we haven't played the Indians yet???).

Sox have hit .262/.320/.445 against HOU/NYY vs. .271/.339/.460 against all other teams. A difference of .009/.019/.015. 9 points of BA plus 10 points of walks plus 5 points of ISO. I find this to be surprisingly small of a difference.

The Sox have actually scored 5.54 runs per game against HOU/NYY and only 5.29 runs per game against everyone else.

Sox have gone 15 for 16 (94%) in SB against those two teams, and 64 for 79 (81%) against others

The sample size is 500 PA against HOU/NYY and 3649 PA against all other teams. There are no adjustments made for park, or which starting pitchers happened to be pitching in these matchups.

 

[dbn]

Yeah, if ponch had done 100% of the work the thread would be 1 post long and finished. It was a brief look at the Sox's performance against top-tier pitching in order to prompt further discussion. Of course there are better, more complex analyses that could be done, but what I took from the OP was that the Sox are roughly 0.500 against the roughly most successful pitchers they have faced this year, which, while sample-size be heeded, bodes well for them in the playoffs. Anecdotally, it seems that past Sox teams feasted on bad pitching and suffered against top pitchers, more so than other contenders (again - this is anecdotal and may not be true), so having a 50/50 shot against the tops of playoff rotations sounds good to me.

edit: by "good" I mean that when the Red Sox have faced the competition's best pitchers in the regular season they haven't necessarily had their own best pitchers starting, and they've still won about half of those games. In the playoffs aces usually match against aces, so one might expect even better results. Of course the sample is so small in the regular season and even smaller in the playoffs, so it may not mean a lot in terms of predictiveness, but it's fun to look at, IMO.

 

[uk_sox_fan]

The Top 25 fWAR guys from ponch's list include everyone with 2.3 or more fWAR - with the marginal guy being Gibson (3.78 FIP 21 GS 129 IP 2.3 WAR). The 3.78 FIP would be 50th of all guys with at least 30 IP.

The Sox faced 7 other pitchers (8 games) with at least 30 IP and a better fWAR than 3.78 (IP are as a starter)

Archer x 2 (3.62 FIP, 17 GS, 96 IP, 1.7 fWAR) - sox went 1-1 vs him
Borucki (2.51, 6, 35, 1.2) L
Ohtani (3.29, 9, 49 1/3, 1.1) W
Cahill (3.42, 11, 63, 1.2) W
Foltynewicz (3.55, 20, 112 1/3, 2.2) L
McCullers (3.62, 21, 122, 2.1) L
Richards (3.66, 15, 75 1/3, 1.2) W

The Sox went 4-4 in those eight games (as indicated above) so that doesn't change Podge's narrative any.

In my opinion it may be debatable whether Richards or Borucki should be included but the others certainly belong in the sample. There are also 7 other pitchers (9 starts) whom the Sox have faced with FIP just below Gibson's but <= 4.00:

Chirinos (3.81) WW
Heaney (3.91) W
Hardy (3.92) W
Happ x 2 (3.94) LW
Urena (3.94) W
Keller (3.97) W
Boyd (4.00) L

The Sox went 7-2 in these games so it looks like the threshold of where their winning percentage goes down to 50/50 is somewhere around Lance McCullers / Chris Archer's 3.62 (tied 41st best among 30+ IP starters).

And, yes, I know Chirinos wasn't really a starter when the Sox faced him twice early in the season.

I'm at work so I don't have time to crunch the Sox's stats against them, but I thought I'd throw out these names as others to consider.

 

[ponch73]

The Top 25 fWAR guys from ponch's list include everyone with 2.3 or more fWAR - with the marginal guy being Gibson (3.78 FIP 21 GS 129 IP 2.3 WAR). The 3.78 FIP would be 50th of all guys with at least 30 IP.

The Sox faced 7 other pitchers (8 games) with at least 30 IP and a better fWAR than 3.78 (IP are as a starter)

I think you meant to say "a better FIP than 3.78," right? Appreciate your taking the time to crunch some numbers in your post.

I'd respectfully argue that 30 IP is too low of a bar for top starters at this point in the season.

 

[uk_sox_fan]

I think you meant to say "a better FIP than 3.78," right? Appreciate your taking the time to crunch some numbers in your post.

I'd respectfully argue that 30 IP is too low of a bar for top starters at this point in the season.

Yes, meant to say FIP.

I agree that 30 IP is probably too low a bar. I selected a low bar on purpose to capture as wide a net as possible without being silly - by that I mean the lowest IP guys in my sample are Borucki (35 IP in 6 starts) and Ohtani (49 1/3 IP in 9 starts) who at least belong in the discussion because they accumulated over 1.0 WAR in their short stints. I've qualified their inclusion by showing their IP and WAR alongside their FIP so arguments can easily be debated on whether or not they should be included.

The case for Borucki is that he's seems to be in Toronto's rotation to stay now and he's posted game scores >50 in every start he's made other than the one against the Sox (just 22 - albeit ironically in one of his two wins against 4 losses). For Ohtani it's the opposite - he was a featured starter, if always on extra rest, until he was shut down in early June. When the Sox saw him though he was on top of his game and featured as one of the early season's best. Interestingly, his game score against the Sox, 35, was also his lowest of the season and one of just two games <50.

 

[ponch73]

I just updated the Sox numbers to include games against a MLB starter with at least 80 IP and a sub 4.00 FIP. This added 8 additional games against 6 additional pitchers (2 each against the Rays' Archer, the Blue Jays'/Yankees' Happ; and 1 each against the Marlins' Urena, the Braves' Foltynewicz, the Angels' Heaney and the Astros' McCullers), but didn't really change the story.

To date, the Sox have played 26 games against 18 different MLB starters of this ilk: 3 each against the Yankees' Severino (ranked 9th by FIP) and the Rays' Snell (ranked 20th); 2 each against the Rays' Archer (ranked 32nd), the Twins' Berrios (ranked 33rd), the Twins' Gibson (ranked 37th) and the Blue Jays'/Yankees' Happ (ranked 42nd); and 1 each against the Phillies' Nola (ranked 5th), Nationals' Scherzer (ranked 6th), the Astros' Cole (ranked 7th), the Astros' Verlander (ranked 8th), the Angels' Skaggs (ranked 10th), the Mariners' Paxton (ranked 12th), the Mariners' Gonzales (ranked 18th), the Astros' Morton (ranked 22nd), the Braves' Foltynewicz (ranked 27th), the Astros' McCullers (ranked 31st), the Angels' Heaney (ranked 41st) and the Marlins' Urena (ranked 43rd).

On a weighted average innings basis, the Sox have faced a 3.37 FIP and 2.9 fWAR pitcher across those 26 games. Remarkably, 17 of the 26 games have been on the road.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=sta&lg=all&qual=80&type=8&season=2018&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=17,a&page=2_30

In those 26 games, the Sox have gone 14-12. In games started by Sale, they are only 3-4. In games started by Porcello, they are 5-3. In games started by Price, they are 5-1. In a game started by Eovaldi, they are 1-0. In games started by Pomeranz, they are 0-3. In a game started by B. Johnson, they are 0-1.

Against the opposing starters listed above, the Sox have scored 69 runs in 152.3 innings (an average of 2.65 runs per outing and 0.45 runs per inning). Those opposing starters have gone 7-8, averaged 5.9 IP per start, a 3.77 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP with 9.7 SO/9, 2.7 BB/9, 8.1 H/9 and a mere 0.8 HR/9. Opposing starters have had a 12% swinging strike percentage and a 0.73 GB/FB ratio. The Sox offense has been held scoreless by only 3 of the 26 opposing starters (Snell, Snell and Severino), held to 1 or 2 runs by 12 opposing starters, held to 3 runs by 3 opposing starters, held to 4 runs by 1 opposing starter and scored 5 or more runs against 7 opposing starters.

Sox batters have slashed .296 / .373 / .669 against sub 4.00 FIP starters. In 26 games and 152.3 innings, they've managed to scratch out 137 hits (only 49 extra base hits -- 14 HR's, 31 doubles and 4 triples), 46 walks and 7 HBP. They've forced the opposing starters to throw 17 pitches per inning (4 pitches per batter faced). They've also gone 12 for 12 in stolen base attempts.

I think this aptly reflects who the 2018 Red Sox are: staying in ball games and playing .500 or better ball even when they're on the road (mostly), facing the best pitchers, with the offense struggling.