Angst von Buchholz

[Adrian's Dome]

Still, it's encouraging.

 
The five walks vs seven Ks part really isn't. Seeing his 4-seamer stay consistently around 92 was a nice sign, though. If he can keep that up, I think the big struggles will stay in the past.

 

[StupendousMan]

Below is a chart showing his pitches last night (from the excellent Pitch f/x website, of course).  You can see those changeups -- something like 14 - 18 of them.  Note that only 2 were swinging strikes.   There's a very nice separation between each type of pitch, which is often a sign that the player has "good stuff" on a given night.
 
Is the fashion these days to call the pitches which lie between the realm of fastballs and the realm of curves "sliders" or "cut fastballs"?  I've labelled them "cut" in the figure, but I don't really know how Buchholz was releasing the ball.
 
 

 

[Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat]

Don and Jerry were calling them cut fastballs last night

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

This pitch has gone through a real metamorphosis for Buchholz, about which there was a lot of chat here a couple of years ago. It's easy to see on his career pitch velocity chart: 

He started out throwing a low-80s slider that broke pretty sharply down and away from RHH. Through 2009 and 2010, he steadily ramped up the velocity on the pitch from a low of 81 to a high of 92. If you look at the horizontal and vertical movement charts, you can see similar development: as the pitch got faster it lost a good deal of its downward and glove-side break, to the point where by 2011 it had less downward movement than his changeup and in terms of horizontal movement was actually closer to his four-seamer than his curveball.
 
Interestingly, since then it has gradually moved back in the opposite direction: the current cutter has about the same horizontal break as his early-2009 slider, the same vertical break as the transitional "slutter" from late 2009-early 2010, and the velocity has stabilized at about 87-88 mph, again like the late 2009-early 2010 pitch.

 

[Toe Nash]

Hey, maybe we can talk about this because Clay struggling is a major problem when you only have 2 starters you can rely on. Since this thread was last posted in here is Clay's line over three starts:
 
15 IP 29 H 13 ER 7 BB 11 K 3 HR
 
He has a .448 BABIP during that time but he's also getting pounded. B-R has a 28% LD% but it seems even higher. I think he got just one singing strike last night, and two the game before.
 
Edes:

 
"As far as stuff goes, I feel like I had the best stuff in this start, velocity-wise, that I had all year," the Boston Red Sox pitcher said Wednesday night. "There's absolutely nothing physically bothering me."
 
So, what is it, then? Manager John Farrell insisted "it looks mechanical in nature," ticking off all the things that Buchholz did wrong Wednesday night: rushing his body ahead of his arm, falling behind too often with pitches up in the zone, finding the middle of the plate with pitches when he did bring them down, lacking the late finish he typically has on his cutter.
 
And Buchholz again bemoaned the lack of feel for his changeup, a pitch that he has thrown with devastating effect in the past.
 
"My whole career, my changeup has been my main pitch," he said. "To not have the feel for it every time it's called, that's putting added stress there. I've got to figure out how to find the command and control of the changeup."
 
But Buchholz is too experienced a pitcher, Juan Nieves too accomplished a pitching coach, and Farrell too in tune with what makes a pitcher tick for them not to have made the necessary corrections by now.

 
I tend to agree with his conclusion. Something is wrong and the Sox are losing games (and by taxing their pen, hurting their chances in other games) allowing him to work through it. I can buy it's mechanical and not physical, but whatever it is, it's a problem.

 

[HillysLastWalk]

Yeah.  And as sloppy the Sox have been on defense, as bad as some are hitting, throw in the fact that they aren't getting the breaks like last year (20 some odd wins in their last at-bat) ... if Clay Buchholz was pitching well, they could be in first place.  He lost what? 2 starts in the regular season (last year)?  They are 3-6 in his starts this year.  Make that similar to last year: so let's say 8-1, and they are 25-20 right now (good for 1st).  Without a good Buchholz it's going to be a very difficult year.

 

[RedOctober3829]

If he's not hurt, there's some real issues that might not get better this year. He's not finishing pitches especially his change up. Is he afraid to go full bore on his breaking balls so he doesn't get hurt?

Who is the real Buchholz? Last year or this year/2012?

 

[ivanvamp]

Of all the issues plaguing the Red Sox, I think Buchholz' suckiness is the most troubling.

 

[absintheofmalaise]

We had a thread on CB back in 2012 that has some excellent data in it. Much of which, IMO, is relevant this season since one of the main issues seems to be his lack of an effective change up and he was having similar issues then. He eventually remembered how to throw it and it became a very effective pitch for him again. Here is a quote from an article by BMac from May 2012. Post 107.

 
 
While he was warming up in the outfield on Wednesday, Buchholz finally, found his changeup -- the knee-buckling, hitter-baffling changeup that made him one of the top prospects in the game and a Cy Young contender two years ago.
"It was right before the game when I started warming up, throwing it," he said. It was probably a mental thing going on with it, thinking about it too much. I just started throwing it and thinking of it as a fastball just with a different group. It came out well a couple of times."

 

[Reverend]

We had a thread on CB back in 2012 that has some excellent data in it. Much of which, IMO, is relevant this season since one of the main issues seems to be his lack of an effective change up and he was having similar issues then. He eventually remembered how to throw it and it became a very effective pitch for him again. Here is a quote from an article by BMac from May 2012. Post 107.

 
From last night:
 

 
Hrm.  <_<

 

[Adrian's Dome]

Anyone remember 2011? Specifically, the year John Lackey pitched like shit the entire season and nobody could figure out why until it was revealed he was injured?
 
Clay Buchholz, 2014.

 

[threecy]

If the excuse that he can't get a feel for his changeup is indeed the reason, then it could make sense.  It's not like a fielding slump or hitting slump, in which the player can in theory take hours of grounders/BP to try to get it back.  Rather, he has only so many pitches he can make between and during starts, so one could understand why it might take awhile to get that back.
 
Again, if the excuse is valid and there aren't injuries we don't know about.

 

[judyb]

Anyone remember 2011? Specifically, the year John Lackey pitched like shit the entire season and nobody could figure out why until it was revealed he was injured?
 
Clay Buchholz, 2014.

If Buchholz is hiding an injury, then he really is an idiot after what happened to him in 2011.

 

[Snodgrass'Muff]

If Buchholz is hiding an injury, then he really is an idiot after what happened to him in 2011.

 
I thought it was later revealed that he was asked to pitch through his injury because of the insane amount of pitching injuries they were already dealing with.

 

[Reverend]

 
I thought it was later revealed that he was asked to pitch through his injury because of the insane amount of pitching injuries they were already dealing with.

 
That was Lackey. Buchholz was shut down in August when they found out he had a stress fracture in his frickin' back.

 

[absintheofmalaise]

Anyone remember 2011? Specifically, the year John Lackey pitched like shit the entire season and nobody could figure out why until it was revealed he was injured?
 
Clay Buchholz, 2014.

If he's hiding an injury I doubt he would be able to reach 93mph on his FB. Based on what he has said about not throwing it and the data at brooksbaseball.net not being able to throw an effective change makes the most sense to me. When he is on with that pitch it can be devastating to hitters.
 
Here is a good article BMac wrote about the Wednesday game. Speier has a similar one today as well. The quotes below are from the BMac article.
 

 
 
Buchholz is not injured. Both the pitcher and the manager made that clear in the aftermath of the third straight battering Buchholz had endured, this time nine hits and another half-dozen rockets to the outfield that were caught in 4 2/3 innings pitched. His ERA stands at 6.32 — and his confidence, understandably, looks shaken. But he still is expected make his next start in Atlanta on Monday.

 

 
Compounding the problem for Buchholz is that he’s pitching with a depleted arsenal. He doesn’t have his changeup. He doesn’t have his curveball. He doesn’t really have his splitter, either. He might as well be pitching with one arm tied behind his back.
“I’ve got to figure out how to command and control the changeup,” he said after the game Wednesday night.
That leaves Buchholz with primarily a fastball-cutter repertoire — making him as easy to time up as a batting-practice pitcher. Any secondary pitches that ordinarily would disrupt hitters’ timing have been coming in nowhere near the strike zone.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

You can really see the changeup woes when you look at swinging strike rates on that pitch since 2008:
 
18.8, 25.1, 22.9, 19.9, 19.2, 21.7, 13.8.
 
Oopsie.

 

[Reverend]

Last night you could see Buchholz watch his own lack of control. Basically, he threw that meatball that was mid zone and up and I'm not sure the ball has landed yet. He followed this up by missing high and outside with a pitch he used to be the master of keeping down perfectly.
 
This exchange from the game thread last night, I think, exemplifies what we saw from Clay yesterday:
 

What is that pitch he keeps missing with high to the arm side?

 

 

What is that pitch he keeps missing with high to the arm side?

 

His change up.

 

 

His change up.

 

Huh. 

 
 
His pitches don't have the movement they have when he's on. But his velocity is up. And we've been down this road with Chuchhles before...

 

[soxhop411]

Ryan Hannable ‏@RyanHannable  2h
John Farrell and pitching coach Juan Nieves stayed late at Fenway last night reviewing film on Buchholz. He's not repeating delivery.
 
 
Scott Lauber ‏@ScottLauber  2h
Farrell/Nieves stayed up late last night analyzing video of Buchholz. Consensus remains that his mechanics are flawed. #RedSox
 
So this should be an easy fix.. Right?

 

[absintheofmalaise]

 
Ryan Hannable ‏@RyanHannable  2h
John Farrell and pitching coach Juan Nieves stayed late at Fenway last night reviewing film on Buchholz. He's not repeating delivery.
 
 
Scott Lauber ‏@ScottLauber  2h
Farrell/Nieves stayed up late last night analyzing video of Buchholz. Consensus remains that his mechanics are flawed. #RedSox
 
So this should be an easy fix.. Right?
 

Nope. If it was easy, it would be fixed already and this thread would be back on the second page.

 

[Snodgrass'Muff]

 
That was Lackey. Buchholz was shut down in August when they found out he had a stress fracture in his frickin' back.

I read his post as a criticism of Lackey, since he brought him up in responding to a post about Buccholz. If I was reading him incorrectly, mea culpa.

 

[Todd Benzinger]

I find Speier's piece on this very reassuring.
 
Here's the key 'graph. Any reason not to be reassured?

 
In 2010 he enjoyed a year of singular dominance, going 17-7 with a 2.33 ERA. The next year he had a 5.33 ERA through the first month of the season before settling into familiar excellence for the next seven weeks (before non-displaced fractures in his lower back cost him the final 3 1/2 months of the year). And in 2012 he had a 9.09 ERA through six starts and a 7.84 mark through nine starts -- yes, a worse performance than he has endured to the same stage of the 2014 season -- before authoring a sub-3.00 ERA in his next 19 starts. 
 

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

Obviously, the changeup is a concern, but O'Brien and Castig are constantly harping on the straightness of Clay's fastball, which is borne out by the data.
 
The first two months of this season are the least amount of horizontal fastball movement he's had other than when he first came back in September.
 
The other big thing that jumps out is the location of his changeup. He's leaving it higher in the zone than any time in his career.  

 

[Montana Fan]

Nope. If it was easy, it would be fixed already and this thread would be back on the second page.

Bowden said today that he thinks Clay's up and down performances don't indicate a simple control issue. He thinks Clay's pitching through a shoulder issue and the only way to confirm is an MRI.

 

[alwyn96]

 
Ryan Hannable ‏@RyanHannable  2h
John Farrell and pitching coach Juan Nieves stayed late at Fenway last night reviewing film on Buchholz. He's not repeating delivery.
 
 
Scott Lauber ‏@ScottLauber  2h
Farrell/Nieves stayed up late last night analyzing video of Buchholz. Consensus remains that his mechanics are flawed. #RedSox
 
So this should be an easy fix.. Right?
 

 
Mechanical stuff isn't easy to fix. It's easier to fix than say, a torn rotator cuff, but if it were easy to have perfect mechanics, well, everyone would have great mechanics. It's hard to make your body do stuff it doesn't want to do. 

 

[wine111]

Bowden said today that he thinks Clay's up and down performances don't indicate a simple control issue. He thinks Clay's pitching through a shoulder issue and the only way to confirm is an MRI.

This is the year where Clay's raw talent combined with his experience should have led to consistent success.  He should be competing with Lester for staff ace.  No more waiting.  Check him out thoroughly.  He won't be able to follow through properly if his shoulder is not at full strength.  More throwing could mean more damage.

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

One thing the Sox are almost universally lauded for is their shoulder strength monitoring program. The pitchers all have to go through a series of exercises on a consistent basis to not only maintain shoulder strength, but for the staff to monitor if there are any significant changes from session to session. 
 
It's possible they're lying because there's a reason for Clay to pitch through it, but I can assure you they're not going to get caught by surprise by some shoulder issue that Buchholz has been hiding and both the team and Clay have been consistent in saying there's nothing physically wrong, other than that he's behind in building up strength due to a shortened offseason and less frequent bullpens to ease him into the season. 
 
His velocity does not say "shoulder problem," either.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

This is the year where Clay's raw talent combined with his experience should have led to consistent success. 

 
The funny part is that this sentence could have been written virtually any of the past several years (except of course for 2010 when it actually happened).
 
Clay is the Roseanne Roseannadanna of pitchers: it's always something.
 
All the ups and downs have added up to a solid though unspectacular pitcher. If you take his 7+ year career and condense it to four years, he has averaged 32 starts, 197 innings, a 15-9 record, 150/75 K/BB, and 3.1 fWAR per year along with his 3.76 ERA. That guy is a solid #3 starter, a rock-of-the-rotation type, a Derek Lowe or a Tim Hudson. But because we're getting that guy in weird, interrupted, Jekyll/Hyde doses, he's infuriatingly hard to build around.

 

[threecy]

All the ups and downs have added up to a solid though unspectacular pitcher. If you take his 7+ year career and condense it to four years, he has averaged 32 starts, 197 innings, a 15-9 record, 150/75 K/BB, and 3.1 fWAR per year along with his 3.76 ERA. That guy is a solid #3 starter, a rock-of-the-rotation type, a Derek Lowe or a Tim Hudson.

Problem is with the 32 start metric, he's never started more than 29 games in the majors.  If you were to look at 2010 (first full year in the majors) - 2013, he's averaging 21.75 starts, which is not what you'd expect from a #3 starter.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

Problem is with the 32 start metric, he's never started more than 29 games in the majors.  If you were to look at 2010 (first full year in the majors) - 2013, he's averaging 21.75 starts, which is not what you'd expect from a #3 starter.

 
I can't tell if you're saying this to affirm or refute what I wrote, but just in case it wasn't clear, that was more or less my point. I'm saying that the total body of work is that of a solid #3 starter, except that we've gotten it in intermittent, wildly inconsistent chunks.

 

[Sampo Gida]

Is using velocity as a proxy for shoulder issue correct?.  Wouldn't difficulty in repeating your delivery and command issues also be present with a shoulder issue, and perhaps one of the first symptoms?  
 
I mean, it may very well be just a problem with losing the feel for his changeup, but coming off a shoulder issue last year and pitching so poorly this year, you have to wonder.   Could a shoulder issue affect his changeup in someway? 
 
Furthermore, what the Red Sox and Clay say publicly about health issues shoudl probably be taken with a grain of salt. Most teams don't like to disclose issues until they reach the point where a DL stint is required, and even then they provide as little information as posssible.
 
One thing I have noticed looking at the game logs is his poor starts tend to follow games where he has thrown more than 100 pitches, except in one case where he had 6 days between starts, and that extra time did not help him the next start.  That could be sheer coincidence though.

 

[Plympton91]

I know the Red Sox strength program is universally lauded, but if I remember right they kept saying Matt Clement was passing all the shoulder strength tests too until they did an arthogram and discovered it was spaghetti.
 
Hard to believe this all basically started with a baby sleeping on his shoulder.  But, perhaps that fall he endured a couple starts after that story came out is the real cause of all the trouble.  That fall could have screwed something up.
 
 

 

[KenTremendous]

He just tied a MLB season high for walks in an outing. With eight. In three innings. Time for a reboot.

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

Yeah, he's broken Either DL him or send him down to the minors to figure it out. He's getting worse, as impossible as that seems.

 

[richgedman'sghost]

I know the Red Sox strength program is universally lauded, but if I remember right they kept saying Matt Clement was passing all the shoulder strength tests too until they did an arthogram and discovered it was spaghetti.
 
Hard to believe this all basically started with a baby sleeping on his shoulder.  But, perhaps that fall he endured a couple starts after that story came out is the real cause of all the trouble.  That fall could have screwed something up.
 
 

Is it the same training staff? The Clement injury happened in 2005. I am almost positive the Red Sox have changed their medical and training staff since 2005
so I'm not sure what the point is comparing Clement's diagnosis with Buchholz diagnosis.

 

[soxhop411]

Tim Britton ‏@TimBritton  17s
Farrell said no determination has been made on Buchholz's next start.
 
Brian MacPherson ‏@brianmacp  5m
Was emphatic last time Buchholz would stay in rotation. RT @TimBritton Farrell said no determination has been made on Buchholz's next start.

 

[jimbobim]

Clay does not sound like someone happy with the mechanics talk/fix. 
 
He made it sound like the proposed fix made things harder and though many thought it weren't possible he was abysmal and worse today. 
 
Good Luck Mr. Farrell on this case. Just give me good clay again after its done. 

 

[drtooth]

If he has any options left, he should be sent to the minors to straighten out his issues. Whether he'll go willingly is another thing. He can't stay in the rotation to try to work it out any longer.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

He has 5 years service time, so I believe he can reject the demotion.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

Buchholz has an option, but he has to pass through OAW and with 5 years of service time, he has veto power as well.
 
DL seems the more logical route...shut him down for at least two weeks and then give him 4-5 starts in Pawtucket to see if that can fix what ails him.

 

[soxhop411]

 

 
ATLANTA — Following another hideous performance from Clay Buchholz on Monday, pitching coach Juan Nieves said what fans watching Buchholz all year have openly thought.
“I wonder how healthy he is.”
Nieves’ postgame statement runs counter to what Buchholz has insisted, to the media and to the front office, about how he feels physically. Before Monday’s start, general manager Ben Cherington said that Buchholz is “adamant that he feels good physically.”
“I’m healthy,” Buchholz said after Monday’s 8-6 win over the Braves. “I’m going to take the ball whenever they give it to me. I’m never beaten before I step on the field. It seems to snowball on me right now as far as getting out there and giving up a couple hits in a row.”
Buchholz has said repeatedly that the issues he’s currently enduring don’t stem from a current physical problem, but rather from mechanical ones brought on by compensating for his injury last season.
“Whenever you are hurt, you try to find a way to throw so it doesn’t hurt,” Buchholz said. “And that might not be the exact same way you pitched prior to that. There’s a little rust in-between last year’s and this year’s mechanics.”
“The movement is back; the controlling of the movement isn’t,” Nieves said. “It happens to guys that get injured. They forget. They’ve been nursing an injury, so they forget actually how they throw. They might have the same delivery, but the arm angle or the little things that have to be there don’t play.”
Buchholz’s spiral has been hard to break because the consistently poor results — even his best starts have looked shaky at times, and the contact against him has been hard throughout the season — have eroded his confidence. Buchholz’s start in last year’s World Series suggested to the pitcher that he could get by without his best stuff; this season has cross-examined that idea with impunity.
“When you’re out there thinking about getting big-league hitters out and thinking about three different types of mechanics you were doing in the bullpens, it makes it that much harder,” Buchholz said. “I felt really good in the bullpen, commanding everything. It’s tough to do in-game; it has to be second-nature at that point. I have to get to the point where I’m not thinking about anything — just throwing the baseball like I have been my whole life.”
“Of course there’s an issue of confidence,” said Nieves. “Sometimes you see [positive results] in the bullpen, and you’re hoping for it during the game. It was a challenge for him. Of course we saw it, almost to the point of evading contact.”
Indeed, Buchholz smashed his prior career-high for walks on Monday, issuing eight in three-plus innings. He’d never handed out more than five before. Those free passes almost seemed strategically delivered to the Braves hitters that could do the most damage, as he walked both Jason Heyward and Freddie Freeman three times apiece. Of course, it’s not really managing a lineup when you’re putting that many runners on in such a short span.
“Inside the game, the command was erratic,” manager John Farrell said. “We just tried to get him through as many outs as possible.”
Buchholz threw fewer than half of his 88 pitches for strikes, even against a team as free-swinging as Atlanta. After allowing six runs while recording only nine outs, his ERA is up to 7.02.
Two seasons ago, Buchholz carried a 7.19 ERA into June. That time, though, he had at least made some encouraging strides of late. This time, there were no positives.
“We won. That’s about it,” Buchholz said when asked what positives he could take away from Monday’s start. “Nothing for myself.”
Farrell said there had not been a determination about whether Buchholz would make his next start Saturday against the Rays. That’s in contrast to Buchholz’s last start, when Farrell declared afterward that Buchholz would make this start in Atlanta.
“We’ve got to look at this a little bit closer,” Farrell said. “We’ve got to continue to talk about what he’s currently going through and what’s best for him and what’s best for us.”
“If I wasn’t healthy, [skipping a start] might be an option in my mind,” Buchholz said. “I’m not really helping the team right now either; that comes from higher up. I’m sure I’ll hear from them shortly.”
With Boston running through all but one of its relievers Monday, the team could use another arm in the bullpen Tuesday. Placing Buchholz on the disabled list — with whatever — would be the simplest means of accomplishing that end.

http://www.providencejournal.com/sports/red-sox/content/20140526-as-red-sox-ponder-clay-buchholzs-future-questions-about-health-persist.ece
 
Seems he will be going on the DL… As I do not know what missing just one start would do...

 

[Plympton91]

That was just so absolutely painful to watch him go through that agony, someone who is generally one of my favorite pitchers to follow, that I turned the game off in disgust and missed the comeback.  I am really worried that if they keep throwing him out there with this stuff that he'll end up like Daniel Bard.  He needs to come out of the rotation and, if they can't get him on the DL or in the minors, pitch mop up innings with no pressure for a while.   Watching him go through this so soon after Bard's career blew up is disturbing.  The discussion of changing the mechanics on the fly in the bullpen and how you get messed up compensating for an injury is the only reassuring thing going on, because otherwise I'd be convinced he was pitching with a shredded shoulder or elbow.
 
And, to respond to the question of why Clement is relevant, it's not a point made to impugn the Sox medical staff but rather to convey that the strength tests, while very useful, are not perfect indicators of the health of the shoulder.

 

[ivanvamp]

Season:  
Last 4 starts:  18.0 ip, 33 h, 19 er, 15 bb, 15 k, 9.50 era, 2.67 whip (!), .398/.480/.578/1.058
Last 2 starts:  7.2 ip, 13 h, 10 er, 10 bb, 6 k, 11.74 era, 2.49 whip, .351/.489/.622/1.111
 
In his 10 starts, in only 4 has he given up fewer than 4 earned runs.  He's had 4 games where he hasn't gotten out of the 5th inning.  
 
Remember when Lackey was just horrific in 2011 (6.41 era, 1.62 whip)?  Well, compared to what Clay has done so far, 2011 Lackey was Cy Young.

 

[WenZink]

At this point I'm willing to bet that Ranaudo gets Clay's start this weekend on his normal rest. What were the odds 3 years ago that two of our organizations best arms would both go Bard and Buchholz on us?

Bard was an easy call, since he'd gone wild, literally, in his first full year in pro ball, and was reworked as a reliever in the instructional league.  And when Buchholz started 2008 in a funk, you got an idea that he might be one of those up-and-down "aces."  His whole career has been manic-depressive.

 

[ivanvamp]

Heh.  No kidding.  Just look at these numbers, year to year:
 
2007:  1.59 era, 1.06 whip
2008:  6.75 era, 1.76 whip
2009:  4.21 era, 1.38 whip
2010:  2.33 era, 1.20 whip
2011:  3.48 era, 1.29 whip
2012:  4.56 era, 1.33 whip
2013:  1.74 era, 1.03 whip
2014:  7.02 era, 1.98 whip
 
I mean, that's up and down like a yo-yo.  I think he is what he is at this point:  an incredibly gifted and talented pitcher who, when he is right mentally and physically, can absolutely dominate major league hitters and be an ace.  But when he is not right, he can be downright horrendous.  Generally, given his career 3.82 era (114 era+), he has been an asset.  But we are reaching the point where perhaps the Sox should consider the future cost vs. expected performance and maybe use the $245k buyout he has for 2016.  Of course, between now and then there's 2/3 of 2014 and all of 2015 still to go.  
 
I just don't think that, despite his tantalizing talent, he'll ever be a consistent major league pitcher.  He might have another great year or two in him, but it'll be surrounded by some real poor performance.  
 
Not that he has much trade value now, but his contract is not bad at all, especially with the cheap buyouts.  And, really, if he does mature, his salaries going forward aren't bad at all.  So the contract is very tradable.  

 

[koufax32]

I understand his frustration but he needs to shut up. If he gets DLed it's in his best interest and there is a limited time frame he can be away from the rotation. Would mlb go snooping around if he continued to say he wasn't hurt even though he had been DLed? It's like he thinks the organization doesn't have his best interest in mind here...past years notwithstanding.

 

[Bleedred]

He's absolutely atrocious to watch in person. I was at the game yesterday and he simply had no idea where the ball was going, was behind in almost every count(I bet he had less than 5 first pitch strikes all game) and was sulking quite a bit after each failed batter. Moreover, he's one of the slowest working pitchers in the game with men on base, which makes watching him right now just excruciating. I don't know how the Red Sox can justify trotting him out there every 5th day. Whatever it is, it has to be fixed....preferably at Pawtucket.

 

[Reverend]

I don't know if it's true for all pitchers, but you can see a lot of what's going on with Buccholz through tracking his spin. As abs alludes to in this post above
 

We had a thread on CB back in 2012 that has some excellent data in it. Much of which, IMO, is relevant this season since one of the main issues seems to be his lack of an effective change up and he was having similar issues then. He eventually remembered how to throw it and it became a very effective pitch for him again. Here is a quote from an article by BMac from May 2012. Post 107.

 
we tracked Clay's RPMs across 2010-2012. As an indicator of how he was doing, we looked at how many high-RPM balls he was throwing per game, in the 2000-2499 range and the 2500+ range. You can see the tables in the thread abs linked to--they start here. If you track Good Buchholz against Bad Buchholz, it becomes pretty clear that Good Buchholz gets some awesome spin on the ball that Bad Buchholz does not.
 
You can count how many few balls had high RPMs yesterday just by eye-balling the graph in the pitchf/x tool at Brooksbaseball.
 

 
 
Not good. Here's his last start. Also not good.
 

 
 
I don't feel like tallying up all the numbers for this and last year because I think the leg work abs did on that two years ago makes things clear to the point that we can take it as fact in the absence of new information, so here's a random graph from Good Clay last year--I took April 14th, 2013 because no reason:
 
 

 
 
The number of pitches with a high level of spin jumps right out. And oh hey, remember that pitch?
 
I can't be certain, of course, that this is the same thing that happened to him in 2012. But as weird as it sounds that a pitcher can just lose his makeup for mental-mechanical reasons, we know that it's happened before, and it's happened before with Buchholz, and when it happened in 2012, it looked a lot like what we're seeing now.

 

[chrisfont9]

If it helps, Lester had an OPS against for the end of 2011 through all of 2012 just under .800. It took thirteen months or so for the lightbulb to go back on, but it did. I'd hate to see any panic move where they trade Buchholz only to see his mechanics click in again.

 

[absintheofmalaise]

Here is the Verducci article I linked to in the 2012 CB thread on spin rates. I thought it might be helpful to post it in here so people don't have to click back through. 
 
I compiled the info in the table below at the excellent brooksbaseball.net site from the Buchholz player card.  The table below has the pitch use % by month and year with the whiff % per pitch type directly underneath for the same month and year.
 
[tablegrid= Buchholz Pitch Usage % and Whiff % ]Usage % Fourseam Sinker Cutter Curve Change Split 14-Apr 23.95 15.81 30 12.79 6.51 10.93 14-May 36.07 17.42 28.28 7.99 6.15 3.48 Whiff % Fourseam Sinker Change Curve Cutter Split 14-Apr 2.91 4.41 17.86 9.09 15.5 12.77 14-May 5.11 2.35 10 2.56 10.87 17.65               Usage % Fourseam Sinker Cutter Curve Change Split 13-Apr 29.22 21.25 21.25 15.18 13.09 0 13-May 31.3 17.22 22.04 14.07 11.48 3.89 13-Jun 23.26 21.51 29.07 15.12 6.98 4.07 13-Sep 30.1 20.16 26.7 12.3 7.33 3.4 13-Oct 25.07 25.67 24.18 11.64 10.75 2.69 Whiff % Fourseam Sinker Change Curve Cutter Split 13-Apr 8.44 0.89 28.99 6.25 7.14 0 13-May 8.88 6.45 25.81 6.58 8.4 42.86 13-Jun 7.5 5.41 16.67 11.54 10 28.57   13-Sep 8.7 7.79 17.86 8.51 12.75 0   13-Oct 5.95 12.79 19.44 0 12.35 22.22                   Usage % Fourseam Sinker Cutter Curve Slider Change Split 12-Apr 21.47 26.42 21.65 18.53 1.65 10.28 0 12-May 21.41 24.32 18.71 20.58 0 14.14 0.83 12-Jun 35.7 8.04 21.51 13.48 0 15.84 5.44 12-Jul 30.22 18.18 18.43 14 0 11.06 8.11 12-Aug 23.86 15.31 21.47 14.12 0 15.31 9.94 12-Sep 16.47 24.34 21 17.18 0 13.84 7.16 12-Oct 32.73 3.64 21.82 18.18 0 14.55 9.09 Whiff % Fourseam Sinker Change Slider Curve Cutter Split 12-Apr 4.27 0.69 10.71 22.22 12.87 6.78 0 12-May 0.97 4.27 17.65 0 13.13 11.11 0 12-Jun 3.97 2.94 17.91 0 17.54 8.79 17.39 12-Jul 7.32 6.76 17.78 0 3.51 8 21.21 12-Aug 2.5 2.6 18.18 0 9.86 6.48 12 12-Sep 1.45 4.9 27.59 0 20.83 10.23 26.67 12-Oct 5.56 0 37.5 0 0 8.33 0                 Usage % Fourseam Sinker Cutter Curve Change     11-Apr 23.87 29.89 15.7 11.83 18.71     11-May 10.85 37.8 21.53 10.34 19.49     11-Jun 6.5 44.4 18.77 19.49 10.83     Whiff % Fourseam Sinker Change Curve Cutter     11-Apr 3.6 5.04 17.24 3.64 10.96     11-May 1.56 6.28 22.61 8.2 11.81     11-Jun 0 5.69 26.67 7.41 7.69                     Usage % Fourseam Sinker Cutter Curve Change     10-Apr 28.87 22.3 18.31 9.15 21.36     10-May 28.39 26.79 18.5 7.66 18.66 10-Jun 42.56 10.76 19.22 8.47 18.99 10-Jul 12.12 34.85 25.76 8.59 18.69 10-Aug 22.93 31.41 20.04 9.44 16.18 10-Sep 24.67 26.64 20.09 8.73 19.87 Whiff % Fourseam Sinker Change Curve Cutter 10-Apr 5.69 11.58 25.27 17.95 24.36 10-May 5.06 2.38 23.08 8.33 8.62 10-Jun 2.69 0 22.89 2.7 8.33 10-Jul 0 2.9 24.32 5.88 17.65 10-Aug 10.08 6.75 22.62 0 10.58 10-Sep 4.42 4.1 19.78 17.5 5.43 [/tablegrid]