Recently we learned that Daisuke Matsuzaka admitted to hiding a leg injury that occurred in the World Baseball Classic from the Red Sox. Matsuzaka said the injury caused him to overwork his shoulder to maintain velocity and that by admitting to his injury, cause a limit in his training that would have made him not available to the Red sox in his expected full capacity. Matzusaka also claimed the injury was not so much a physical problem but more a struggle mentally to prepare for his starts and overcome the nagging pain he would be forced to endure.
But I couldn’t use my lower body well, and I could not use my full body to generate the power. My fastball was not effective, therefore I lost effectiveness of my other pitches.
This definately can be seen in his first two starts, but looking at his full season there is less evidence that there was something different in his approach. The big numbers show a similar Matsuzaka in both season with a K/BB of 1.64 last year and a 1.80 in 2009. He was actually a bit better at avoiding walks, but a 4.55 BB/9 is still pretty bad.
Let’s look at his arm strength to see if there was any difference. His fastball dropped slightly from 91.8 to 91.0, but nothing to drastic and only his changeup also dropped more than 0.5 mph to match the fastball. Perhaps he was right that he was able to keep his speed up by relying on his shoulder strength, but we should be able to see some changes in his movement charts.
We don’t have a lot of data points from 2009, but what I see doesn’t show much difference from the previous season. His fastball was his biggest complaint, but here there isn’t much change in what the pitch was doing when he threw it. Perhaps he was not getting the pitch to go to the correct location.
There is a small amount of empty space low in the zone, but otherwise his pitches hit the zone almost the same as 2008. According to the numbers though his Zone% dropped from 51.2% to 49.1% making this an argument to agree he was having trouble locating. Well more than he normally does.
While I don’t want to say Matsuzaka was not injured it is surely not the main reason he was so bad in 2009. His numbers in 2008 made him number 4 in the Cy Young voting that year. That got a lot of Boston excited, but there were huge warning signs that he wasn’t that good.
First up was the walk rate we discussed, but it was over 5 and was something he could only get away with for so long. His ability to pitch so well was based on three stats that pitchers have not been shown to have control over; BABIP, LOB% and HR/FB. His BABIP was down at .267 and should be near .300, LOB% was at 80.6% and should be near 76% and HR/FB was at 6.1% and should be near 10-11%. It should be noted that there are some reasons these could be different, BABIP has been surpressed by some groundball pitchers, strikeout pitchers can support higher LOB% and pitching in pitchers parks can lower HR/FB.
If you didn’t see the regression coming then you just weren’t looking. His xFIP that year was 4.70 and with all the regression his xFIP again in 2009 was 4.83. His BABIP was .385, his LOB% was 75.8% and his HR/FB was 11.9% and resulted in his ERA jumping to 5.76. He wasn’t this bad as his numbers swung to the other side, but he was essentially the same with poor luck.
Injury is the easy answer in this case, but not the only answer. Matsuzaka must do one thing to become the player we all hoped he was. Walk less hitters and still strike batters out. In Japan he held a 2.69 K/BB and showed he could be better, but was as high as 5.10 in his last two years there.
Matsuzaka has put in a lot of work this offseason and is healthy, but will he be able to cure the biggest problem and cut down the walks? He will also be throwing to Victor Martinez much more this year and that could play a role. I don’t think we can expect him to suddenly improve his walk rate by a huge amount, but even a drop to 3.5 could make him a much better pitcher.
The signing of John Lackey has removed much of the pressure from Matsuzaka making him the current number five pitcher. If he could ever figure out his control problems though this might be one of the best rotations ever. More likely though we will be seeing a solid pitcher who often fails to get to or out of the 6th inning.