2008 as a starter:

54 IP
40 Hits
22 ER
8 HR
28 BB
39 K
3.67 ERA

2008 as a reliever:

34.1 IP
28 Hits
9 ER
2 HR
12 BB
29 K
2.36 ERA

He had a combined FIP of 4.69 with an OPS against of .787 against lefties, and .570 against righties. Total ERA+ of 145.

Tito clearly had a lot of faith in Masterson and used him in some pretty big spots. He had some shaky control at times, but other then that his move to the bullpen was pretty big success performance wise.

As usual there isn't much on the market as far as bullpen help, and I don't really see anybody on the farm who would be able to step up and contribute out of the bullpen right away. So do you keep him there in 2009 with MDC, Oki, and Paps? Or is he more valuable in the rotation?

I would personally like to see what he could do as a starter for a full season, but would be nervous about the hole he would leave in the bullpen.

They should use Scot Shields' '03 season as a model. Not that heavy of a workload and maybe only a spot start or two rather than 5+, but letting him be a setup/long/swingman type who can come in for 1 key grounder or give you 2-3 innings.

I would support his use in the rotation, but I am not sure there will be an open spot, so I see this as more realistic. A FA or Wakefield will be in his spot unless they totally abandon Buchholz.

I'd keep him in the 'pen. He looks like he'd be pretty mediocre as a starter, and it would give us a deeper pen without over-paying for a reliever.

Given, my POV is tainted by the post-season... but Oki-Masterson-Pap (or Masterson-Oki-Pap, for that matter)... that makes the game kinda short for the other squad.

I am thinking Derek Lowe (circa 1999) once he solidified his spot in the Bigs... set-up then closer then starter. If Masterson can mature just a bit and really refine that sinking cutter, he'll be deadly as a starter... until then I am very, very comfortable with him in the 7th or 8th inning setting up for 1-2-3, or 6 outs...

I don't think you can earmark a spot for him this early in the off-season. I know that there are discussion points here, but I do think there is a fluidity to roster construction that can't be addressed right now. If they break spring training with the same 25 they went into the ALDS with (and Lowell, Drew, Beckett healthy) then he's probably the best fit for the rotation. But, that's not the reality of the situation. The reality of the situation is that you plan for him being in the bullpen because that means you break camp with 5 guys better than him to be starters.

I think the "6 outs" thing is key. Using Masterson as a 1 inning set-up guy would be a waste of his talents. I'd love to see him used as a guy who could come in with men on in the 6th and take the game to the 9th. He's the type of pitcher you can use in new, daring ways.

I'd rather see him in the rotation. The mistakes he will make (the occasional hanging slider) can get buried in a 5-3 win over the course of 7 innings. Plus I think he can be an impact pitcher in the rotation.

I believe it will be easier to find a decent set-up man in the offseason than another starter. Masterson can be a starter right now.

My plan would be a starting rotation of beckett-matsuzaka-lester-masterson and let buchholz and bowden duke it out for the 5 slot in spring training.

Time for Tim Wakefield to retire.

How many rookies come in and look great as a starter right away? Hell, mediocrity is something many would aspire to.

I'd love to see an analysis of situational leverage and the value of long relief pitchers. While that role might make use of Masterson ability to go multiple innings, are those situations important enough to justify the use of his talents? If he became a guy who pitched from the 6th through the 8th, how often could he realistically pitch and how valuable would that be versus a more typical 1 inning high leverage setup guy who pitches more often in higher leverage situations?

Without access to pitch data, to my eyes Masterson's stuff, particularly his fastball, took a big step up when he moved to the pen. Until he hit a wall late, his reliever FB was sitting 95-96, and his speed as a starter was more 90-92. He just seems to be one of those guys more suited to relief.

Masterson is everything one could ask for in a pitcher. He's got a large build, three solid pitches, and plus he's a sinker ball pitcher. There's a lot to like about him and I think he's going to be a great starter in the near future. I do however subscribe to the theory that it takes a pitcher the better part of 2 full seasons to adjust to the bigs.

I think they'll take a long look this offseason at what to do with Masterson and I think the answer is that they need to make their determination on what is best for him longterm as opposed to some perceived short term need of the team. That may mean a season in the pen or it may mean as a 4th starter.

Because it's hurting the team to have a guy putting up an era+ of 111 in 180 innings for $4 million?

He just had one of the best seasons of his career. If he wants to retire because he's tired of the aches and pains, or because he wants to spend more time with his family, or because he's sick of the media, then it's time for him to retire. But he is a very useful player, and an absolute bargain. There are a couple of dozen teams who would be very happy to pay Tim Wakefield 4 million bucks.

Tim Wakefield is not the problem. The idea of Tim Wakefield having an offensive black hole of a personal catcher is the problem. I'm all for keeping Wakefield as long as the team's strategy at catcher is significantly changed.

I really like him in the setup role. Stick to the bullpen for now.

Beckett
Lester
Dice-K
Clay B or Bowden
Derek Lowe

Wake as a long reliever

Exactly. Derek Lowe circa 1998 when he did that job fantastically well.

Theo remains non-committal, which is to be expected.

Globe

Really? How many games did the Sox lose because their backup catcher was "an offensive black hole"? Since quality backup catchers (an oxymoron perhaps?) are so prevalent, who is available that you would rather have that could have made up the difference?

Seems like Masterson's value to the team might be maximized as a 5th starter for most of the year, allowing him to skip starts fairly often to keep his increase in total innings to a reasonable level. During the regular season, IMO, there will be more value in having him start games and give you more total innings (assuming his innings are better quality than, say, Wakefield's). In the regular season he would have less value as a 1-2 inning reliever.

If Dice/Lester/Beckett are healthy, it's likely that the team will not need Masterson to start playoff games, but then his experience as a 1-2 inning reliever this year will make him particularly valuable in the post-season. If he performs well enough as a starter that they would think about having him start playoff games, that's a bonus and a nice decision to have to make. Depending on the total innings, the switch to reliever could even be done late in the regular season as it was this year, allowing him to be available as a multi-inning reliever for stretch run games

If he's got nothing left for the postseason, then yes it is hurting the team especially if Francona feels the need to start him.

Exactly.

The problem with Wakefield isn't that he gives incredible value for $4 million during the season. That's great. It's the fact that Francona has to choose between him and Paul Byrd for a critical postseason start. If Masterson was in the rotation, there's no doubt that they would have gone to him over these two guys, considering as a starter, he was more consistent than both of these guys. I'm not going to side track and go on about Wakefield...that's for another thread.

In terms of what they intend to do with Masterson, I think it all depends what they decide to do in terms of adding rotation or BP depth. If they pick up BP depth, then Masterson is more valuable in the rotation considering he would probably give you solid six inning 3 run starts. If you add starting pitching depth, you need him in the BP. I can see why Theo remains non-committal. At the same time, this is probably when you have to make the decision to put him in the pen or the rotation long-term. In the pen, he could develop into the Ramiro Mendoza type to Papelbon's Rivera (sorry for comparing them to Yankees). If you put him in the rotation, it will be interesting to see his development.

I like Masterson in the rotation. However, it's probably better and easier for the team to add a starter to the rotation than to find good middle relief. Good middle relief might be amongst the hardest to find, and Masterson *could* develop into one of the best.

Does anyone have a list of Middle Relievers on the market?

Via Cot's

I don't think you can pencil Bowden in for a spot to start 2009. He should get a call up any time they need a spot start (and he's available) early in the year, and if he continues to find success in the minors, you consider bringing him up later in the year. I think people forget just how young he is. (just turned 22 in Sept) I definitely give Buchholz a shot over him at the start of the year if the roster doesn't change between then and now.

As for Masterson, I agree with the notion that you wait and see. The best thing about him is that he can offer both (though it's debatable if he can do so at similar levels), so if you go into next season with a need for a starting pitcher and the free agent/trade market didn't work out for you, he's there. If you shore up the rotation by spring training, he provides some great depth in the pen. His role on the 2009 team will be dictated by need.

I do like the idea of a Shields role circa 2003, though. If the goal is to get him into the rotation eventually, that might be the best way to go about it.

In other words, Wakefield's a great bargain, the problem is that you'd prefer to have him as a bargain at #5 instead of a bargain at #4.

You can address that while keeping Tim on the team.

People in general have no concept whatsoever of how well backup catchers hit.

Not ragging on you specifically -- I think this list will come as a shock to most of SoSH:

One problem with this list is that some of the catchers you listed aren't back up catchers, but were hurt for some of the year, thus playing less games than their counterpart (Victor Martinez, Josh Bard), or young up-and-comers who shouldn't be starters yet but maybe could be (Jeff Clement, Jarrod Saltalamacchia).

Another concern is how many of the actual back up catchers play every 5th game guaranteed? Looking at some of the "elite" catchers in the league, Brian McCann played 145 games last year, Russel Martin played 155, Joe Mauer played 146, and Geovany Soto played 141. Hell, Kurt Suzuki played 141 games, and Jason Kendall caught 151.

Jason Varitek hasn't caught more than 131 games in the last 3 years, so we tend to see our sucky back up catcher at LEAST 10 times more than the average team. As a result, the Sucktitude that is Kevin Cash is more on display for all to see.

He's got everything except, you know, the sort of track record that would suggest he's likely to be even a serviceable major-league SP.

After a dynamite 2006 in Lowell (0.84 ERA in 32 relief innings), in 2007 Masterson posted a 4.33 ERA in 27 starts (154 IP) between Lancaster and Portland. In 2008, Masterson had a 4.23 ERA in 8 starts at Portland before making a single start in Pawtucket en route to Boston. With only 88 innings in The Show, it's a good bet that his 4.69 FIP more accurately reflects his perfomance level than his 146 ERA+. I don't mean to go all Moneyball, but Masterson will be 24 by Opening Day-- isn't it fair to expect to see some kind of track record reinforcing what the scouts have been saying about him??

Obviously, I'm making the case against Masterson. A guy like Masterson who's 6-6, 250 has a higher ceiling than a guy with the same tools/stats who's 6-0, 185. Likewise, the fact that he has one identifiable "plus" major-league pitch is encouraging. But all that goes to potential, not to whether he'll be a useful major-league SP in 2009. The evidence strongly suggests the answer to that question is "no."

Nearly every expert likes Buchholz better than Masterson, and there's a good chance Bowden will be ready to compete for a rotation spot by 2010. Therefore, the most prudent course (imo) is for the Sox to trade Masterson to a rebuilding or small-market team that can let him take his lumps for a year or two before he figures out how to pitch in the majors (or doesn't). There are probably a few GMs who like Masterson as much as Traut does-- hopefully, one of them has a young catcher to trade.

If no trade happens, I'm happy to see Masterson back in the 'pen next year, but I'm wary of SSS regarding his standout bullpen work down the stretch. He has the stuff needed to be an elite RP, but he might struggle to make adjustments in his first full season; his 2009 line might not be better than MDC's. Which, again, is why he's the blue-chip prospect I'd be least reluctant to trade.

A few (useless?) facts pulled from the Pitch Data:

The Slider:
As a starter, 19% of sliders are swinging strikes and 35% are taken for balls. (13% called strikes)
As a reliever, 16% of sliders are swinging strikes and 33% are taken for balls. (16% called strikes)

As a reliever, this pitch gained (on average) 1.6 mph (81mph as a starter, 82.6mph as a reliver). Average horizontal movement increased .5 inches as a reliever.

The Fastball (sinker and 4seamer are unfortunately grouped, I will do more detailed analysis if people want it):
As a starter, 4.25% of fastballs are swinging strikes and 40.7% are taken for balls (17.5% called strikes).
As a reliver, 8% of fastballs are swinging strikes and 37% are taken for balls (18.7% called strikes).

As a reliever, this pitch gained (on average) 2.3 mph (88.9 mph as a starter, 91.2mph as a reliever). Average horizontal movement functionally decreased .7 inches from -9.98 to -9.29.

I think that early there was some indication that his stuff might be a ton better as a reliever than as a starter, but I'm not sure that really panned out. His fastball does gain quite a few MPH, which is really a big upgrade, but it's difficult to know how much of this is due to a different distribution of sinkers and 4seamers as a starter vs. as a reliever (more number crunching needed).

What I do think happened is that his matchups got more favorable. As a starter, he faced 57% LHH and 43% RHH, but as a reliever, he faced only 30% LHH and 70% RHH. For those of you counting at home, that's a pretty big increase in RHH.

Lastly, purely for trivia purposes, his average situational leverage increased from .89 (.44 stdev) to 1.09 (1.08 stdev) as a reliever.

I agree with your general points, but man do I hate this combination. The basic implication here is that a 4.69 FIP pitcher is not serviceable. There were only 28 qualified pitchers in the AL with a FIP better than that. There were 14 worse and of course a lot more worse that didn't qualify.

I agree that if other teams want him then he is the one that should go, but I also think most teams feel the same way you do in some sense and scouts would put his basic "Stuff" well behind Buchholz and about even with the two years younger Bowden. To which point I'm saying that I don't think he is really going to be overvalued. And since he should be a pretty good middle reliever, I have no problem if that is the "plan." I stand by my earlier statement, which is that you go into spring training with at least five guys more qualified to start than Masterson, which is not a knock on Masterson (if he drops 170 innings even at that 4.69 FIP he will help this team), more a statement of how these types of guys should be treated in roster construction.

All good points.

Perhaps the best hope for Masterson are other sinkerballers. Webb broke into the majors at 24 and was rather unimpressive for the better part of three seasons. For example he gave up 21 homeruns in 2005 and only 13 in 2008.

With a small adjustment, Webb went from average to great:



Another big bodied sinker ball pitcher, Roy Halladay, was shipped back to the minors for a year and a half before sticking with the Jays. The adjustment he made was changing his delivery to a 3/4ths side arm delivery instead of throwing the ball straight over the top.

I'm not saying that Masterson becomes Webb or Halladay but I wouldn't bet against him making an All-Star game as a starting pitcher..

Did the pitch data include playoffs? I think Masterson noticeably hit a wall at the end, so if the data you put up includes playoffs, I think it sells his increase in stuff as a reliever a little short by including the period of time when he was an out-of-gas reliever.

If I "fixed" that, it would make Cash look better than he does on this list (relative to real backups), not worse. E.g., Cash did not outhit Clement, but he did outhit Johjima.

The guys on the list are the guys who were second on their team depth charts at the end of the season, based on PT and health, as near as I could determine it.


If you rank the catchers on this list by RARP instead of RC/27 -- which factors in playing time -- Cash moves up to 13th. If you include everyone who wasn't a starting C, he is still 17th (three of the guys ahead of him are Rangers). So it would appear as if his PT for a backup C is average.

It's just hard to get around the reality -- Cash is a perfectly ordinary hitter for a backup catcher. We were really spoiled by Mirabelli, as Phillie fans were spoiled for years by Todd Pratt.

No, just up through the regular season. Sorry for not indicating that.

Cash just had his career best year at the plate.

His career year moved him to about the middle of the pack for backup catcher which is a group of horrendous offensive players.

So his peak is to be a decent horrible hitter. His valley is to be about the worst.

Cash, in a career year for him, is an ordinary hitter for a backup catcher. That makes his offense merely bad and not historically bad, as many of us feared in the preseason having seen his track record. If he stays around, I hope this was due to a tangible adjustment and not just luck and that he can maintain this as a new level.

I now realize I might have ventured into the territory of just polluting the thread with random nonsense, but I thought this was actually a fun figure.



This shows pitcher usage for each month of the season, plotted by the average Leverage Index for pitches thrown that month. Masterson was obviously used as a starter for some of these months (and thus you should discount everything from 7 on), but you can clearly see that by the end, he's throwing the majority of his pitches in high-lev situations, actually amassing a higher lev index average than Papelbon. This is no doubt because Francona was trying to balance using Papelbon against saving him for the playoff run, but it's interesting that of all the bullpen arms, Masterson got the call (the final point is circled in blue).

A few other things you can get from this figure:
1) Delcarmen's role in the bullpen was extremely consistent all year (green line), showing little change in average leverage from month to month. It's pretty interesting that at the start of the season, innings seem to be divided up evenly between Delcarmen and the other members of the pen but then Delcarmen really seems to settle into the mid-lev relief role.
2) Timlin (over the first 4 months of the season) takes a dive into the tank (indicated by the arrow).
3) Okajima and Papelbon (highlighted) shoulder by far the majority of the high-lev relief work over the first four months of the season, really splitting the burden fairly evenly in terms of the average lev of their appearances. Okajima falls from grace rather suddenly as Masterson takes over his role. But, we all know that changed in the post-season, with Okajima pitching (arguably) some of the best appearances he's thrown as a member of the sox pen.

Of course, you could have just watched the season and known all this stuff, so I'm not sure it really tells you anything new, but I think it's a fun way to look at bullpen usage and really highlights Masterson's role.

I noticed that Cot's does not have Casey, Colon, or Timlin listed as FA, so their list is very likely incomplete.

A more complete list appears to be at MLB Trade Rumors.

I was reading THT's Batted ball scouting reports article (really interesting btw, be sure to order their 09 annual) and found this fact interesting.



We basically knew that Masterson had good luck in terms of BABIP this year, so it's not exactly earth shattering news, but it's just a different way of looking at it.

Sorry, that was sloppy on my part.

That 4.69 FIP was compiled in 54 innings as a SP (61%) and 34 1/3 innings as a RP (39%). Iirc, a pitcher who moves from being a SP to being a RP can generally expect to improve his ERA by about one full run. (Masterson's ERA dropped by about 1 1/3 runs as a reliever.) Therefore, for purposes of projecting Masterson's 2009 value, perhaps we should analyze him as two separate pitchers: a starter with a FIP of 5.08, and a reliever with a FIP of 4.08. (Weighted average=4.69)

Smas still has a valid point-- a starting pitcher with a FIP of 5.08 is serviceable, but very low-end. Masterson is young, and would likely improve on that 5.08-- perhaps considerably. I still think the Sox can and should do better.

In relief, a 4.08 FIP would still compare unfavorably to Oki (3.67) and MDC (3.38)-- let alone a relief ace like Papelbon (2.11). I'm optimistic that Masterson would improve quickly, though, both because of his age and because he's just learning to pitch in relief at a high level. If he isn't traded, I'm comfortable slotting Masterson into our middle-relief/set-up corps. I just think most Sox fans (and many SoSHers) have unrealistic expectations about what Masterson would bring to the 'pen in 2009.

Some relevant facts:

1) The usual ERA difference between starting and relief is 0.80 (The Book, p. 201).
2) His actual FIP was 5.50 as a starter and 3.29 as a reliever.
3) FIP, while useful, assumes that allowing a low BABIP is not a skill, whereas it is. Although Masterson's .216 BABIP as a starter and .284 as a reliever need to be regressed heavily towards the mean, regressing them all the way is a mistake. (And the .284 barely needs it at all, since the team average was .291).
4) Much more importantly in this case, FIP assumes that getting GDPs is not a skill, while it not only most certainly is, it's arguably Masterson's biggest. If Masterson had had Papelbon's GDP / BFP rate, his component ERA would have been 0.60 higher.

The key question here is the nature of Masterson's dramatic improvement as a reliever (4.14 ERC to 2.14 despite the rise in BABIP). It's huge compared to most such differences.

Buried in my post of facts:



I'm not trying to make myself sound smarter than I am, but any improvement you consider in Masterson's numbers has to be evaluated in the context of this statistic.

That's an excellent point. I wonder how much of the improved performance generally seen from starters moving to the pen has to do with increased platoon advantage. Obviously, Masterson is the type of pitcher who get a bigger boost from being able to maximize his platoon split.

Anybody ever seen a study comparing the percentage of ABs with and without the platoon advanatage for starters vs releivers?

I'd like to say I ignored Masterson's actual start/relief FIP splits because of Jnai's observation about matchups, but I'm not that smart. Are FIP splits available, or do you calculate your own?

Thanks for the ERC comparison. Even with usual SSS caveats, and also Jnai's caveats about matchups, it's simply too huge to ignore.

I know the samples here are small, and there's a key part of Masterson's game (forcing groundballs) not represented here*, but I looked at Masterson's platoon splits as a starter & reliever, and they're not what I expected to find:

STARTER:

RELIEVER:

http://mlb.mlb.com/stats/individual_player...p;sitSplit1=gsp

* If anyone has any idea how to look at a pitcher's "triple split" (GB% vs RHH & LHH as a starter vs. as a reliever), I'd be interested in looking at that.

EDIT: Ha! Thanks, EV. Classic. You have no idea how much time I spent trying to figure that out.

It's on the page you linked to, under "Next Stats"!

STARTER:

RELIEVER:


maufman -- I calculated the FIP splits using (HR*13 + (BB-IBB+HBP)*3 - SO/2) / IP + 3.13.

I may be exposing my own stupidity, but how does a guy have an ERA vs. RHH and an ERA vs. LHH? i.e. if Masterson faces three consecutive RHH who all get on base by a walk or hit, and then a LHH hits a grand slam. Do all four runs count towards his ERA vs. LHH?

Here's one. Is there any way to quickly check the stats of the opposing batters Masterson was facing as a reliever split by RHH and LHH?

The question is: is Masterson much better against LHH as a reliever because he's only being allowed to face weaker LHH hitters? I.e., would Francona go to Oki / Paps if the situation got to the point where Masterson would have to face a LHH Power Hitter?

I realize there were at least a few times in the playoffs it didn't work out this way, but I'm wondering about his regular season relief numbers.

The samples are all ridiculously small, but the one that really jumps out from Hairps post is the 6.6 BB/9 rate vs LHH as a starter vs 3.2 as a reliever.

Hard to imagine that's not real since it's so big and easily explainable - he works around LHH in low leverage situations (hopefully) as a starter, but with less room to maneuver he has to come right at them as a releiver. And for whatever reason that approach worked out of the pen in 2008.

Nobody posted HR rates, but certainly his vLHH SLG as a starter was pretty bad. Must have been a bunch of XBHs in there.

So he nibbles and pitches around LHH and still gives up XBHs as a starter, but attacks them and doesn't give up too many free passes or XBH as a reliever.

Well, I think the solution is quite obvious, no? And they say it's a hard game to play...

Be interesting to see how these splits play out over next year and the bigger sample.

Except that as a reliever he adds at least 2-3 mph on his fastball.

Right. Jnai, do you have pitchf/x splits for his time in both roles? Just what does his sinker look like (velo, break) as a starter? Is his "playing up" in the role just a couple mph or something else?

How does his starter sinker compare to the Lowes and Webbs of the world or is his starter stuff not even close?

Some of that info is in here, at least through the time the Sox clinched a playoff spot and I was baseball bored for a few days:

http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?showtopic=37107

A public Google spreadsheet is linked in the first post. It might provide a head start for Jnai or anyone else who wants to update it and tackle more specifically the questions you raise.

EDIT: Awesome, Jnai. Thanks. Looking forward to checking it out.