It’s not a secret that I’m a huge fan of Nick Carfardo from the Boston Globe.  He’s one of the best baseball reporters in the business, and his Sunday “notes” column should be required reading for anyone who loves baseball—especially Red Sox fans.  I guess that’s why I was so disappointed in the article he posted yesterday titled “Changing Luck with Dice-K.”  Within that piece, he made the following remark:

“There’s a perception that on a Red Sox team that doesn’t seem to have many issues, there’s nothing to do but play the schedule and get fitted for World Series rings.

Not the case.

Any team that has Daisuke Matsuzaka on it always will have something to worry about, team personnel scratching their heads trying to figure out what’s going on with him. Wondering how they can turn him back into the pitcher international scouts felt so strongly about that a $51 million posting fee was paid to the Seibu Lions. After all, the Sox have seen glimpses — 33 wins in his first two seasons — but not much since. The last two seasons, it’s been an exercise in futility, with some miscommunication thrown in.”

Don’t get me wrong.  I am the first guy to admit that Dice-K is an enigma wrapped in a riddle.  He’s incredibly frustrating to watch; has an uncanny ability to go from 0-2 to 3-2 in the blink of an eye; walks too many batters; dances in and out of jams; burns through 100 pitches in just under five innings; and is the sole creator of the five hour regulation nine inning game.  Ok, that last one wasn’t true, but his starts do tend to be incredibly long, nevertheless.  Still, I think help but think that Carfardo is way off in his assessment of the situation.  In fact, I might even go as far as saying that he’s channeling his inner-Curly Haired Boyfriend—albeit he’s not as strong on the rhetoric.

While I completely agree with his statement that the Red Sox are not locks to win the World Series, I find calling Dice-K “an issue” to be a gross exaggeration.  When evaluating Dice-K, we first need to remember the role that the team is currently expecting him to play–fifth starter.  On most teams, the fifth starter is an interchangeable replacement level pitcher that in many cases will not be in the rotation by the fourth of July.  Dice-K is not that type of player.  In fact, he’s not even close.  For all of his flaws (of which he has many as described above), Dice-K has produced at least 2.0 fWAR in three out of his four grueling seasons.  While that may not seem impressive considering his immense talent, it does give some credence to the idea the Red Sox are not crazy to continue to sending him out to the mound every fifth day.

Furthermore, it’s important to note that Dice-K will make “only” $10M in 2011.  In essence, assuming the average cost of a win (above the replacement level) on the free agent market is worth $5M (per Fangraphs), Matsuzaka would only need to provide 2.0 WAR in value to justify his salary.  In other words, he’d need to provide production along the lines of a league average starting pitcher.  I don’t know about you, but getting that kind of production out of your number five guy is quite a coup.  If that’s not enough, consider this:  our chief rival and primary threat is holding a competition for not only the number five spot in their rotation, but also the number four spot.  Can you remind me again, why we’re complaining about Dice-K?

Just for fun, I’m going to list each team’s projected fifth starter.  If you can find any more than five pitchers on this list that you’d rather have than Dice-K, you are trying way too hard.

BAL – Jake Arrieta

BOS – Daisuke Matsuzaka

CHW – Edwin Jackson

CLE – Josh Tomlin

DET – Brad Penny

KC – Sean O’Sullivan

LAA – Scott Kazmir

MIN – Brian Duensing

NYY – Ivan Nova

OAK – Brandon McCarthy

SEA – NatE. Robertson

TBR – Jeremy Hellickson

TEX – Derek Holland

TOR – Jesse Litsch

ATL – Mike Minor

ARI – Armando Galarraga

CHC – Carlos Silva

CIN – Mike Leake

COL – Jhoulys Chacin

FLA – Chris Volstad

HOU – Nelson Figueroa

LAD – Jon Garland

MIL – Chris Narveson

NYM – Chris Young

PHI – Joe Blanton

PIT – Scott Olsen

SDP – Wade LeBlanc

SFG – Barry Zito

STL – Kyle McClellan

WAS – John Lannan

On this list, I found exactly five pitchers that I like as much, if not more than Matsuzaka.  My list includes Edwin Jackson, Joe Blanton, Jeremy Hellickson, Derek Holland, and Mike Leake.  That’s it.  With Jackson and Blanton, I’m not entirely convinced that either is markedly better than Matsuzaka.  At the very least, they’re probably coin flips.   As for the last three pitchers (Hellickson, Holland, and Leake) I included on my list, I did so purely because of their potential.  Hellickson has the potential to be an ace, while Holland and Leake should blossom into solid pitchers within the next couple of years.  I will take young, cost controllable pitchers with potential over a 2.0 WAR number five starter almost every day of the week.  Still, I was only looking at pitchers that were projected to be their team’s fifth starters.  To be fair, I’m sure there are a lot of number four starters that I’d pass over in favor of Matsuzaka as well.  In fact, there are at least three teams (Pirates, Royals, and Nationals) in which Dice-K would probably be the staff ace.  Granted, these teams are pretty poor, but it’s important to note.

The problem with Carfardo’s argument is that it lacks any kind of perspective.  Yes, Dice-K is incredibly frustrating to watch.  Yes, I find his unwillingness to adapt to a new training program to be incredibly irritating.  Yes, it was probably a mistake to sign him, and we’re likely stuck with him through the end of the 2012 season.  That said, Dice-K provides value to the team.  We (collectively) may not be able to see that value because of our myopic viewpoint of the situation, but I assure you that the value he provides does exist.

It’s time for us to re-evaluate our expectations for the mercurial Matsuzaka.  While he’ll never be the ace we’d once hoped he would be, he’s still good enough to provide solid production out of the number five spot in the rotation.  With Lester, Buchholz, Beckett, and Lackey filling the other four spots, league average production from Dice-K is just icing on the cake.