The more I look into this, the more convinced I am that the Red Sox strategy is a "lower half of the strike zone" strategy and not a "ground ball strategy", which may be why they haven't felt a need to really focus on infield defense as much as they might.
To demonstrate this, let me give you seven names: Dallas Keuchel, Jose Quintana, Garritt Richards, Alex Wood, Alex Cobb, Hisashi Iwakuma, and Jacob deGrom. Call them the Keuchel Seven.
What do the Keuchel Seven have in common? Three things:
1. None of these guys was projected as a potential front-end rotation starter as recently as two years ago. I took a look at my 2013 Baseball Prospectus and collected a few quotes:
Quintana: "It's his turn to make adjustments, and as he lacks the raw stuff to blow hitters away, his best chance to return to adequacy will be to find another trick to add to his bag."
Richards: "Richards doesn't have a plus secondary pitch, which allows hitters to sit on the fastball and prevents him from racking up the kind of strikeout totals his velocity would suggest," [a scout] said,ranking him seventh in the system with the upside of a fourth starter.
Wood: "Ultimately Wood will need to develop a better breaking ball or a cutter in order to avoid the bullpen."
Cobb: "He's likely to occupty the fourth or fifth starter role for at least a few years, provided his command doesn't desert him."
Iwakuma: "an improved strikeout rate and peripherals that suggest he credibly fills a number-three slot".
deGrom got the biggest insult of all: the 2014 NL Rookie of the Year did not get even a mention in 2013 Prospectus, and to be fair to them after the 2012 season he was 24 years old and yet to crack AA, although he did have a very good season in high-A.
BP was a little higher on Keuchel himself, "When knows how to pitch" runs up against "not enough skill (yet)", something has to give. In this case, Keuchel did the giving."
2. All of these guys have had at least one season over the past two in which they pitched like a strong #2 or borderline ace. Quintana had the 9th highest WAR in MLB last year, 0.1 behind teammate Chris Sale (is there a more underrated pitcher in the league right now?). Iwakuma ranks #19 with 7.2 WAR over the past 2 years. Richards had a 2.60 FIP last year. Keuchel's was 3.21. Wood's xFIP over the past 2 years are 3.18 and 3.19. Cobb's are 3.26 and 3.33. If you were investing in starting pitching in the 2012-2013 offseason, these are seven of the smartest bets you could have made.
3. All of these guys have found success over the past two years pounding the crap out of the lower half of the strike zone. I'm going to post the pitch zone from Brooks Baseball for all of them if I can figure out how to do it, because really, they're all pretty remarkable. There are some real GB heavy pitchers on this list, starting with Keuchel and also Cobb, Iwamura. But Quintana isn't, and neither is Wood.
One other thing that is interesting reading through all these scouting reports: high baseball IQ is mentioned on a lot of them, including Keuchel, Cobb, Quintana and Iwakuma.
Keuchel:
Quintana:
Richards:
Wood:
Cobb:
Iwakuma:
Degrom:
There are a couple other guys who are borderline candidates for this list, guys who have had more success than expected and who are primarily low in zone pitchers but not quite as dramatically as these seven. Those include Keuchel's teammate McHugh, Tyson Ross, and our own Rick Porcello. The revival of Francisco Liriano might also be partially attributable to the falling strike zone.