13 replies to this topic

[NomarRS05]

As I was watching the Red Sox get bitch-slapped by Gil Meche tonight, I was ranting and raving in the game thread (big surprise, I know) about how the Red Sox are completely inept against good starting pitching. So I went back and did a little research, compiling some basic data of Red Sox offensive performances against all starting pitchers with a maximum ERA of 4.00 at the time they made the start. The offense began June with relatively hot bats, beating up on good starters like Matt Garza and James Shields. But since the June 14 game against Cincinnati, the offensive numbers against good starters have left something to be desired.

Sheet1

Date	Pitcher	IP	H	ER	BB	K	HR
14-Jun	E. Volquez	7	7	2	1	9	0
16-Jun	C. Hamels	7	7	2	2	5	2
20-Jun	K. Lohse	6	6	1	2	4	1
22-Jun	J. Pineiro	7	7	2	0	1	1
24-Jun	D. Davis	6	7	4	4	4	1
29-Jun	B. Moehler	5.2	7	1	3	5	1
30-Jun	J. Shields	6.1	5	2	1	5	1
1-Jul	M. Garza	7	5	0	0	3	0
2-Jul	S. Kazmir	5	7	4	4	3	1
3-Jul	A. Pettitte	4.2	9	5	3	2	0
5-Jul	M. Mussina	6	4	0	1	5	0
6-Jul	J. Chamberlain	6	4	3	4	5	0
7-Jul	S. Baker	7	6	0	3	5	0
8-Jul	N. Blackburn	6.2	6	2	0	2	0
18-Jul	J. Lackey	7	5	3	2	6	2
19-Jul	J. Saunders	6.2	6	2	3	1	1
22-Jul	R.A. Dickey	6	9	4	3	0	1
23-Jul	F. Hernandez	6	6	2	5	6	0
23-Jul	D. Haren	7	2	0	1	5	0
25-Jul	J. Chamberlain	7	3	0	1	9	0
26-Jul	A. Pettitte	6	5	1	3	7	1
29-Jul	J. Lackey	9	2	2	2	4	1
30-Jul	J. Saunders	6	5	2	3	2	1
1-Aug	J. Duchscherer	6	5	1	3	2	0
Total		151.9	135	45	54	100	15

Since June 14, the Red Sox have faced 24 pitchers with ERAs of 4.00 or under at the time. Those pitchers have posted:

WHIP: 1.24
ERA: 2.67
K/9: 5.92

The pitchers have also recorded Quality Starts in 20 of the 24 outings.

OK, now teams go through slumps over the course of a season. This may just be an offensive slump. But those numbers do not inspire confidence in this team's ability to wear down quality starting pitching. Right now it's difficult not to imagine this being a major issue in the playoffs. Maybe they'll heat up at just the right time like in 2007. Or, maybe this team's fatal flaw is the offense, plagued by horrific performances from the 7-9 slots in the order (somewhat alleviated of late by Lowrie's emergence) and a lack of "thump" in the middle.

It's August. If this trend isn't reversed in relatively short order, we may be seeing a repeat of 2005.

[Noah]

WHIP: 1.24
ERA: 2.67
K/9: 5.92

Don't you think we need something to compare this to? What are these pitchers' cumulative numbers against all opponents?

[TheYellowDart5]

I mean ... isn't part of what makes all those pitchers listed quality is the fact that they routinely shut down offenses?

It's not like this is a list of stiffs, has-beens, and unheralded rookies. That's a who's-who of top starters in both leagues. That the Sox should struggle against them should surprise no one.

That said, I wouldn't be shocked to see that the Sox struggle more often against quality starters on the road than at home.

EDIT: Not to mention that "ERA below 4.00 at the time of the start" is kind of an arbitrary cutoff.

Edited by TheYellowDart5, 05 August 2008 - 12:04 AM.

[NomarRS05]

Don't you think we need something to compare this to? What are these pitchers' cumulative numbers against all opponents?

Perhaps you don't buy into ERA as much of an indicator, which I can understand, but in a lot of contexts it can be telling IMO. Only four starting pitchers in baseball right now have ERAs below 2.67: Haren, Peavy, Cliff Lee and Duchscherer.

I mean ... isn't part of what makes all those pitchers listed quality is the fact that they routinely shut down offenses?

It's not like this is a list of stiffs, has-beens, and unheralded rookies. That's a who's-who of top starters in both leagues. That the Sox should struggle against them should surprise no one.

That said, I wouldn't be shocked to see that the Sox struggle more often against quality starters on the road than at home.

EDIT: Not to mention that "ERA below 4.00 at the time of the start" is kind of an arbitrary cutoff.

These are valid questions, and I'll have to look further into how these same pitchers fare against other playoff contenders. For now, I can say that the reason I used 4.00 as a cutoff is so I could include a large enough number of pitchers in the table. The data includes 20 different starting pitchers, so it's not like each is having a banner season where they shut down good offenses routinely to such an extreme degree.

[TFisNEXT]

Maybe someone can calculate the FIP or any other metric of what the Red Sox "should" have done against these starters based on their stats, but it seems to me once you account for all the base runners (including HBP not listed here), that they should have scored quite a bit more than they did. A 1.25 WHIP does not equal a 2.67 ERA...and when you take into account errors, it seems even worse that they can't get more runs across the plate vs these guys.

It might go back to perhaps a longer season issue of being unlucky and inefficient on offense. It seems the Sox find new and improved ways to lose by 1 run for every game they win 10-2. They have the #3 scoring offense in the AL and the #4 pitching staff combining for the best run differential in the league. This reminds me of 2004 when they couldn't seem to win despite having a lot the pieces that were seemingly good enough, and then all of the sudden they started winning a week after going 4-4 in their first 8 games of August.

Maybe a lot of this "bad luck" happens to be against these good pitchers were they can't score more than they have despite the number of base runners they are getting.

[sachmoney]

Just if anyone was curious, we are 10-14 in those games...there's a typo in your table there...the start against Haren was on June 23rd...I was curious about that. Interestingly enough, 5 of those games have gone to extra innings, with the good guys winning 4 of them.

If we're four games under for this good pitching during this stretch, that's not bad, but it could be better. I don't know if it's bad luck that we're facing the best guys or if it's the fact that everyone wants to shuffle their rotation so that they can get their best pitchers against us, but either way, we've got to do better against these guys.

Three of those games, the bullpen got the loss. Two of those games we really should have had.

Wait a second...So that means 13 of the other games have been blown by the bullpen? NOW THAT REALLY HURTS.

Edited by sachmoney, 05 August 2008 - 02:59 AM.

[SoxScout]

Maybe someone can calculate the FIP or any other metric of what the Red Sox "should" have done against these starters based on their stats, but it seems to me once you account for all the base runners (including HBP not listed here), that they should have scored quite a bit more than they did. A 1.25 WHIP does not equal a 2.67 ERA...and when you take into account errors, it seems even worse that they can't get more runs across the plate vs these guys.

I took league average and came up with 6 HBP... so that gives these pitchers a 4.15 FIP in those 154.0 IP. The .264 BABIP and 83% Strand Rate explain a portion of the 1.48 difference in FIP and ERA.

Edited by SoxScout, 05 August 2008 - 03:18 AM.

[Bellhorn]

It might go back to perhaps a longer season issue of being unlucky and inefficient on offense.

Their under-performance in RS compared to EQR (48) is by far the biggest in MLB. The Rays are 2nd at 37, no one else is close. It's similar when you compare RS with AEQR: Sox 68, Rays 54, the rest of MLB far behind. (Interestingly, the five most inefficient teams by this measurement are the five AL East teams.)

The good news (sort of) is the Sox also led baseball in offensive inefficiency for a good part of last summer, also with a differential of around 50 IIRC, before things eventually corrected themselves.

[Vermonter At Large]

I took league average and came up with 6 HBP... so that gives these pitchers a 4.15 FIP in those 154.0 IP. The .264 BABIP and 83% Strand Rate explain a portion of the 1.48 difference in FIP and ERA.

The HR rate against those guys is reasonable - .023 HR/PA vs a league average of .025. The walk rate against that pitcher set is also decent (.084 BB/PA vs .087 league avg). The OBP of .293, however is very low. The problem is that there are just too many hitters in the lineup who have been absolutely shitty in making contact (the .264 BABIP speaks to that).

I'd be interested to see how well the team is performing against the reciprocal set of crappy pitchers over the same time frame. My bet is that they are even worse against the league vs crappy pitching than they are vs good pitching.

[Rudy Pemberton]

Their under-performance in RS compared to EQR (48) is by far the biggest in MLB. The Rays are 2nd at 37, no one else is close.

I have to think that the under-performance is almost totally a result of having three or four near automatic outs in the lineup over the past two to three months. How many times has Tek, Ellsbury, Coco, or Lugo (when he was here) come up in a big spot and provided absolutely nothing?

I'd be interested to see how well the team is performing against the reciprocal set of crappy pitchers over the same time frame. My bet is that they are even worse against the league vs crappy pitching than they are vs good pitching.

I don't think this is true, or even possible. If the Sox are doing crappy vs. good pitchers and crappy vs. crappy pitchers, wouldn't their overall record be much worse than it is?

Edited by Rudy Pemberton, 05 August 2008 - 08:14 AM.

[Todd Benzinger]

To me the most striking thing here is that in the last month and a half, we have faced 22 high-quality opposing SPs.

That seems pretty anomalous, even if you discount several people on the list as not true quality pitchers but just low-era blips in mediocre careers (ie, Lohse, Pineiro, RA Dickey)...

PS I think VAL means even worse relative to the league vs Crappy Pitching... which might be possible, but given the Sox overall good offensive numbers, seems unlikely, unless they are feasting ridiculously on SP in the middle-class (4.00-4.75 era?)

Edited by Todd Benzinger, 05 August 2008 - 09:18 AM.

[Bellhorn]

I have to think that the under-performance is almost totally a result of having three or four near automatic outs in the lineup over the past two to three months. How many times has Tek, Ellsbury, Coco, or Lugo (when he was here) come up in a big spot and provided absolutely nothing?

Hmm...I would think that a top-heavy lineup would tend to increase efficiency rather than decrease it, as it would presumably promote the bunching together of hits, one of the primary factors in offensive efficiency.

Anecdotally, however, I certainly agree with your observation that there have often seemed to be a disproportionate number of runners on base for the weaker portion of the lineup. One thing that might help is moving Drew to the top of the lineup (let's hope last night's move is permanent), as his BB rate plays much better in front of competent hitters.

[mjswarner]

To the very day, I brought this up last year--Do the Red Sox get dominated by good pitchers?

There was some truth to it then (at least up till August, I didn't follow through with it to season end).

As a point of curiosity, Rudy Pemberton said in that thread:

Should we wait until the Red Sox fail in the post-season before concluding that their approach (which we seemed to have defined ourselves) doesn't work in the post-season?
...
I guess I just don't see any real definitive determination of how the Sox are going to do should they get into the playoffs. Every team has some serious flaws, the Sox also seem to have some great strengths. Should they make the tournament, I can see them winning the WS, or getting swept in the first round. The Yankees seemed better over these past three days, but it wasn't that long before that where the Yankees looked pretty crappy.

Should the Sox get to the playoffs and lose, I'm sure there will be lots of posts about how it was predictable, so can we agree now that the Sox are capable of and have the personnel to win it all? Whether they do or not is a story that hasn't been written yet and is really up to the 25 men on this team.

The story was indeed written. The big difference is that this year's team obviously doesn't have the quality pitching it had last year, but the 2007 team wasn't ruined by an 'incapability' to hit quality starting pitchers.

Edited by mjswarner, 05 August 2008 - 04:12 PM.

[maufman]

It's impossible to compute BABIP solely from the numbers given, because we don't know how many DPs the Sox hit into and how many outs they made on the bases. If you assume 15 DPs/running outs (close to the league avg for 150 IP), the Sox have a .275 BABIP in these games. That compares to the Sox' .313 BABIP for the season and a league-average BABIP of .299. Only 10 of the 46 AL pitchers with enough IP to qualify for the ERA title have held opponents to a BABIP lower than .275.

SSS caveats apply, but I think you're onto something.

Edit: Conventional sabermetric wisdom is pitchers have relatively little control over BABIP. Thus, the Sox' low BABIP suggests that they are underperforming in these games, even accounting for the above-average skills of the pitchers on this list.

Edited by maufman, 05 August 2008 - 08:25 PM.