This continues a series of looks at each team over the past month.
After finishing last in their division in 2012, 26 games behind the first place Yankees, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2013. It that makes them a Cinderella team, the clock struck midnight this year, as they're in last place again. Their 59-67 record ties them with the Twins for third-worst in the American League.
How Are They Doing Lately? On July 31, the Red Sox traded their ace starting pitcher, Jon Lester, and outfielder Jonny Gomes to the A's for left fielder Yoenis Cespedes. They also traded away No. 2 starter John Lackey. With Lester a free agent after the season, this move erased any question whether the Red Sox were throwing in the towel on 2014. Thus far in August, their 11-16 record is fifth-worst in the league (just ahead of the A's at 12-16, coincidentally). They've gotten there by way of a 4.29 ERA, fourth worst in the league, due largely to a terrible 5.38 ERA by their starters, second-worst. On offense, the team's batting .230 over the past 30 days, second worst in the league, with a second-worst .299 on base percentage and league-worst .336 slugging percentage.
What's Going RIght? The bullpen's been pretty good. Red Sox relievers have made 94 appearances over the past 30 days, partly due to the struggles of the starters, but they've compiled a solid 2.57 ERA, fourth best in the league. They've probably been a little lucky, as both their .264 batting average on balls in play and 7.6% of fly balls leaving the park are far enough below league averages that they're unlikely to be sustained. Further, they've induced swings on only 29% of pitches outside the strike zone, third fewest in the league, violating the On The Field of Play mantra that it's good to throw strikes, but it's better to get strikes. So we could see some backsliding, particularly if the starters keep going just 5.70 innings per start, fourth-fewest in the league over the past month.
On offense, it's pretty hard to find bright spots over the past 30 days, but the Red Sox have had solid defense this year, with both traditional fielding metrics and advanced ones placing the team near the top of the pack in the American League. They've stolen 16 bases and been caught just once so far in August. Granted, that's not a lot of steals, but it's the highest success rate in the league. I'm reaching here.
What's Going Wrong? Oh, everything else. As noted above, the relievers have been good but probably lucky. The starters have been just bad: Lowest strikeout rate and highest walk rate in the league over the past month, inability to throw strikes (48% of pitches in the strike zone, third-fewest in the league) or get strikes (swings on 25% of pitches outside the strike zone, second-fewest). Only two starters with over 20 innings pitched (Joe Kelly and Rubby de la Rosa) have an ERA below 5.50, and both of them have walked way too many batters (5.8 per nine innings for Kelly, 4.8 for de la Rosa).
As noted above, the team's compiled the worst- or second-worst batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage in the American League over the past 30 days. Has that been partly due to bad luck? Not really: the .282 team batting average on balls in play trails the league average of .292, and that's not enough of a gap to say that the balls just haven't been falling in on a regular basis. They've struck out too much (22% of plate appearances, third-most in the league) and while they're walking a lot (8.4% of plate appearances, second most) they lack the power (19 homers, tied for third-fewest) to drive those walked runners home.
Who's Hot? DH David Ortiz has a .342/.440/.603 slash line in August so far, ranking third in the league in batting and on base percentage and second in slugging. Second baseman Dustin Pedroia is having a subpar year for him but has been pretty good of late (.297/.333/.414).
The Red Sox's primary setup men are middle relievers Burke Badenhop, Tom Layne, Edward Mujica and Junichi Tazawa. Over the past 30 days, they've pitched in 48 innings, compiling a 1.50 ERA and 1.13 WHIP (1.04 excluding intentional walks). They've given up only two homers, both by Tazawa. Another middle reliever, Alex Wilson has a 1.17 ERA and has allowed only ten baserunners in 15.1 innings.
Who's Not? Ortiz has been hot, and three other hitters--Pedroia, Cespedes, and outfielder Daniel Nava--have been OK. Everybody else has been bad. Catcher Christian Vazquez is batting .197 over the past 30 days, with just a .212 slugging percentage, as his production has consisted of 12 singles and a double. First baseman Mike Napoli's hitting .184. Third baseman Will Middlebrooks is batting .200 and has supplemented that batting average with little plate discipline (just four walks) and little power (five doubles, no other extra base hits). Outfielder Brock Holt has supplied no power, either (.289 slugging percentage). And rookie shortstop Xander Bogaerts has seemed lost at the plate, batting .101 with a .130 slugging percentage, a far cry from the remarkably poised 21-year-old who batted .296 with a .412 on base percentage and .481 slugging percentage in last year's postseason.
The most notably bad Red Sox starters of late are Allen Webster (7.28 ERA, more walks than strikeouts), Brandon Workman (7.47 ERA over three starts) and Clay Bucholz (5.50 ERA). Workman's batting average allowed on balls in play is .408, a ridiculously high number that suggests an element of bad luck.
The notable exception from the list of successful Red Sox relievers above is closer Koji Uehara, who's compiled a 5.56 ERA over the past 30 days, with 16 hits allowed in 11.1 innings en route to two blown saves. He still has a 2.25 ERA on the year, but that compares to last year's otherworldly 1.09 and raises concerns that at age 39, he's nearing the end of the road.
What's the Outlook? The Red Sox are playing for 2015. Probably the most important thing the team could accomplish in the remainder of the year would be to get youngsters Bogardts (age 21), Middlebrooks (age 25), and Vazquez (24) squared away for next year. This year's a last-place waste.
Baseball. Analysis. Analysis of baseball. Baseball of analysis. No, wait, that makes no sense.
Showing posts with label Edward Mujica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edward Mujica. Show all posts
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Los Angeles Angels, Hipster Throwbacks
The Angels' manager, Mike Scioscia, gets criticized by analysts for his reliance on one-run tactics like sacrifice bunts in a lineup full of sluggers like Pujols, Hamilton, Trout, and Trumbo. But one area where he goes decidedly against conventional thinking is his use of closers.
The Bill James Handbook has a section on relievers. Among other things, it counts, for each reliever, the number of long outings they make (over one inning) and the number of tough save opportunities (defined as when the pitcher enters the game with the tying run on base) they have.
For closers, the guy who gets the save at the end of the game, long outings have become rare. Here's a graph I did. It shows the number of saves of longer than one inning* per 100 games played per year over the last 40 years.
The Bill James Handbook has a section on relievers. Among other things, it counts, for each reliever, the number of long outings they make (over one inning) and the number of tough save opportunities (defined as when the pitcher enters the game with the tying run on base) they have.
For closers, the guy who gets the save at the end of the game, long outings have become rare. Here's a graph I did. It shows the number of saves of longer than one inning* per 100 games played per year over the last 40 years.
What the graph is telling you is that in 1984, 21 out of every 100 games ended with a reliever pitching more than one inning in order to get a save. That was the high water mark. This year, we set a new low in both the total number of 1+ inning saves (70) and number of 1+ inning saves per 100 games (2.9).
A lot of critics, both traditionalists and stats guys, don't like this trend. They say there's nothing magic about limiting relievers to just three outs, particularly since that one inning may not be the key one. Say you had a one-run lead against the 2013 Tigers. They have Cabrera, Fielder and Martinez due up in the eighth, and Peralta, Infante, and Avila after them. Don't you want your best pitcher going after the heart of the order in the eighth with the game on the line? But that's not how managers play it: the saves guy, the closer, comes in for the ninth inning only. As a result, the later innings are played more to the statistic--the save--than to the game situation.
Last year there were 37 pitchers who got at least 10 saves last year, and only 42 games in which a reliever got a save in which he pitched more than one inning (and fewer than three, as explained in the footnote below). Here are the pitchers with two or more:
Player
|
Games
|
IP
|
H
|
ER
|
HR
|
BB
|
SO
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
7
|
1.64
|
11.0
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
6
|
19
|
0.82
|
|
4
|
0.00
|
5.2
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
7
|
0.35
|
|
4
|
3.00
|
6.0
|
6
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
3
|
1.00
|
|
3
|
0.00
|
4.0
|
4
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
6
|
1.00
|
|
3
|
0.00
|
4.0
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
0.50
|
|
3
|
0.00
|
4.1
|
3
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
5
|
0.92
|
|
2
|
2.25
|
4.0
|
2
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
0.50
|
|
2
|
0.00
|
3.0
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
0.33
|
|
2
|
3.00
|
3.0
|
4
|
1
|
0
|
2
|
4
|
2.00
|
|
2
|
0.00
|
2.2
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
0.75
|
|
2
|
3.38
|
2.2
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
3
|
0.75
|
|
2
|
0.00
|
2.2
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
3
|
1.13
|
|
2
|
0.00
|
2.2
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
4
|
0.00
|
|
2
|
0.00
|
2.2
|
3
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
3
|
1.13
|
|
2
|
0.00
|
3.1
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
4
|
5
|
1.50
|
|
2
|
0.00
|
2.2
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
0.75
|
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/22/2013.
Number one on the list is the Angels' Frieri. Bill James tracks long outings in the Handbook, though it's not clear to me what his definition is. In any case, Frieri led the majors with 17, as many as the second- and third-ranked pitchers (Kevin Gregg, Cubs, 9; Addison Reed, White Sox, 8), combined.
How about pressure situations? As noted above, Bill James defines a tough save as one in which the reliever enters the game with the tying run on base. Here are the leaders from last year:
Pitcher Team Opportunities Saves
Ernesto Frieri LAA 6 5
Joaquin Benoit Det 3 2
Kenley Jensen LAD 3 2
Bobby Parnell NYM 3 2
Edward Mujica StL 3 2
Mariano Rivera NYY 2 2
Fernando Rodney TB 3 1
Rex Brothers Col 2 1
Danny Farquhar Sea 2 1
There were also eight pitchers with one tough save opportunity that they converted. But that's it. As with long saves, Frieri led the pack, easily.
It's not like the Angels are channeling the 1980s. The record for saves of more than one inning in a season was set by Bruce Sutter in 1984, when he had 30. Frieri had 7 last year. But it's a step; that's the most in the majors since 2010. Let's hope we move toward using the closer when the situation dictates, not just in the top of the ninth.
*There are three ways a pitcher who finishes a game can earn a save: if he pitches at least an inning with lead of no more than three runs; if he faces the potential tying run on base, at bat, or on deck; or if he pitches at least three innings. I excluded the last type of save from my analysis, because they're typically not all that hard. On August 28, Brett Anderson of Oakland inherited a 10-1 lead over the Tigers when he came in to pitch the seventh inning. Although he gave up three runs in the eighth, he pitched the last three innings of the game, which the A's won 14-4. He got a save. I think you'd agree that that's not a particularly valuable save. So I limited my definition of long saves to ones that are more than one inning but less than three.
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