Should the Red Sox really be throwing more fastballs than any other AL team?

[Rough Carrigan]

I'm not sure what to make of this but there was a very interesting story over at Fangraphs.  They looked at which pitchers increased and decreased the percentages of fastballs that they threw (from the start of the 2013 season to now) going from bases empty situations to situations with men on base.  No Red Sox pitcher made the list of guys who either were most extreme in throwing more or fewer fastballs once men were on base.
 
Then the article looked at team pitching staffs as a whole.  And here's the list, for every team, of what percentage fastballs they threw with the bases empty and with men on base:
 
--------EMPTY--MEN ON
BAL      61        64
CIN      63        66
MIN      62        64
LAD     59        60
STL     69        70
DET     57        58
TB       60        60
NYM    65       65
SD       57       57
COL    63        62
TEX    62        61
BOS    70       68
AZ       66       65
SEA    61       59
PHI     67       65
WSH   68       65
SF       54      51
KC      62       59
CLE    66       63
CHW   61      58
TOR    59      55
OAK    66      62
ATL     66      61
CHC    66     61
PIT      65     60
MIA     65     60
HOU   64      59
NYY   59       52
LAA    67      61
MIL     62      54
 
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mixing-pitches-situationally/
 
These numbers took me by surprise.  I would NOT have thought of the Sox staff as the fastballingest bunch in the AL and nearly in all of MLB with only the Cardinals perhaps throwing slightly more.  Now, maybe some of this is calling Tazawa's and Uehara's splitters . . split fingered FASTBALLS, Peavy's sinkers as fastballs and Lester's cutters fastballs etc.  Maybe this is an error of categorizing pitchers.  But if so one has to expect that other pitchers' splitters and cutters would be getting the same categorization. 

 

[absintheofmalaise]

Moved here from MLB.

 

[PaulinMyrBch]

That is surprising, but since its tracking from the start of 2013, 2/3rds of that stat is made up of innings that won the world series. So maybe the Giants should be in what are we doing wrong mode.
 
So I'm guessing they are really looking for the change in the approach with runners on base, and since ours doesn't move much, it seems like we've got a plan that we stick to regardless of the situation. Sox don't lack organizational philosophy at any level.
 
I would be curious to see if the teams with lower fastball percentages have more innings from lefties than teams with high percentages. Our lefties throw a bunch of fastballs and cutters, and like you, I'm assuming those are all categorized as fastballs.  

 

[jimv]

Interesting. The Red Sox rank 3rd in the AL with a 3.60 era, if they are throwing a huge amount of fastballs it seems to be working pretty well.

 

[Snodgrass'Muff]

This makes sense given the organisational desire to win the battle for the strike zone. Fastballs are a great way to get ahead in the count early and are easier to throw for strikes in general.

 

[JMDurron]

Being in the top echelon of fastballs as a percentage of pitches thrown given generally good results seems like the result of organizational strategy, while the number may also be inflated a bit by Buchholz having much less confidence in his non-fastball variants this season.  Buchholz's curveball and changeup percentages are way down from last year (from 14.1% and 13.3% to 10.2% and 10.9%, respectively), while he's using the cut fastball as a substitute.  Lester has basically written off his changeup (12.3% of pitches thrown last year to 4.1% this year) while using way more cut fastballs (16.1% last year to 27.6% this year).  Adjustments by those two pitchers alone would account for an uptick in the total percentages if all splitters, cutters, sinkers, and straight-fastballs are being aggregated.  I realize that these numbers are coming from Fangraphs, and that the pitch classification algorithms aren't perfect, but we have articles about Clay's issues with his offspeed pitches, and it isn't hard to notice Lester avoiding his changeup during his outings.