Know Thy Enemy 2011: Tampa Bay Rays

photo © 2009 Keith Allison | more info (via: Wylio)The Rays could be labeled as a rebuild stage entering 2011,…

Lost in Translation

After reading Chip’s article on Daisuke Matsuzaka last week I wanted to take one more look at Dice-K.  There had…

Lackey starting to show some signs

Lackey starting to show some signs I’ve taken the enigma that is John Lackey as my pet project this year and looked at everything from new pitches to catchers as possible reasons for struggling in 2010.

Nothing seems to give a full answer and the only solid reasoning this year was trouble with left handed batters and nibbling as seen in his Pitch f/x. June started to change that as his K/BB was 2.67 that month and hopefully a sign of better things.

Red Sox stumble to break with replacements

Looking back on Sunday's lineup we may long for that day these next few weeks. The roster was: Marco Scutaro Daniel Nava David Ortiz Kevin Youkilis Victor Martinez J.D. Drew Bill Hall Darnell McDonald Jon Lester That lineup still held five of our expected starters. Getting back to the AL we will have Adrian Beltre back in that lineup, but with Martinez hitting the DL we are starting to see a lineup half full of replacement level players. Now it looks like Eric Patterson will be getting some time at second as well as Bill Hall, but neither has produced even one WAR in the past three seasons.

Papelbon struggles as Bard dominates

Papelbon has gone from an elite closer to what appears to be a replacement level reliever in just a matter of a few seasons. This year his numbers have fallen off a cliff as his K/9 was always his best skill and even though his walks were going up he could still maintain strong numbers. This year though his K/9 has dropped all the way to 7.67. That's not going to get it done when your walking more than 3 batters every nine innings. Looking at his xFIP of 4.74 you can see he has actually been lucky so far this year. There aren't many signs for what is wrong though. His arm speed is as good as it has ever been and while his slider is a bit slower it has been his best pitch according to run values.

Looking for Buchholz strikeouts

There are a few reasons why Clay Buchholz has outperformed his FIP and xFIP this season. He has been very lucky so far to currently have 10 wins and a 2.47 ERA. Coming into the season he had only Bill James and the fans projections on Fangraphs calling for an ERA under 4.00, but so far while his ERA has beat all the projections his strikeout rate continues to fall. In the minors Buchholz showed an elite strikeout ability getting over 12 K/9 in Triple-A, but after his promotion in 2007 his numbers had started to drop. Even after a return to the minors to figure things out he only broke a 10 K/9 for a short stay in Double-A. His K/9 fell to 8.53 in a return to the majors in 2008 and while lower still showed a solid skill for the strikeout.

Another reminder to delay all reactions

As it stands today on June 19 2010 the Boston Red Sox are only one game out of first in the division and two games in the loss column. Making any claims about a team with as much talent as the Red Sox being out of the Playoffs because of a early deficit is only a fools guess. We can also be reminded of this by David Ortiz who once again waited until everyone in baseball wrote him off and turned it on. His updated ZiPs projection now projects a 32 home run season with a line of .263/.370/.538. Making any snap judgments in April and May not backed by early preseason projections is a fools errand and we learned that again. The Red Sox still have a long way to go as they still have to pass the Yankees or Rays and hold the lead. Those are two fully loaded teams and will be there till the end this year if all teams stay healthy. Let's be reminded we need to wait a bit longer before writing off seasons.

Defense starts to silence the critics

After an off season that centered around pitching and defense we had the standard jokes this April, but since May those jokes have not been able to joke about defense. There has been some trouble finding solid options in left field and center field, but the defense has solidified to hold up its end. According to UZR/150 the defense has been worth 6.0 runs for every 150 defensive games played. Last year the team was worth only 0.5 runs for every 150 games. Depending on how many innings they total that could be an improvement of 30-40 defensive runs.

All quiet at short for once

It looks like we can finally spend our time harping on other things this year like A low K/BB from John Lackey or Jonathon Papelbon instead of worrying about our short stop production. Marco Scutaro won't be leading the box score every night or getting top billing in the recap, but you won't see him as the goat either. Since 2003 when Nomar Garciaparra totaled 5.4 WAR in his last great season the Red Sox have only had two Short Stops total more than 1.5 WAR. Jed Lowrie in 2007 and Alex Gonzalez in 2006. Some of those were in limited time so they were better than they seemed, but only these two seasons had a real chance to be greater than average in a full season. So far in 2010 Scutaro has been an average hitter totaling -0.5 batting runs above average. His contact has been better than ever only striking out 10 percent of the time. His 2009 season was solidified though with a 13 percent walk rate where he is only walking 10 percent so far this year.

Finding the key to Lackey

I've struggled this season to answer why John Lackey has been so off from anything we have seen from him previously. His Pitch F/x says he has added more cutters, but is that the only change and is it real? After some research I think I have found more of an answer and perhaps bring us closer to a solution. Let's start from the top with Lackey's career K/BB at 2.62 he stands as a very solid arm, but in 2010 he has a dismal 1.22. That comes from troubles in strikeouts and walks and little evidence in the numbers to point to one problem. I have spent plenty of time on this site trying to figure it out since he could be the hinge for the 2010 season being successful. Finally thanks to the Fangraphs.com splits I think I can get a step closer to identifying the problem. If you look at his K/9, BB/9 and K/BB in his lefty vs righty numbers there is a huge red flag. Against right handed batters this year Lackey has a stellar 3.83 K/BB with great control. Then you look at his lefty match-up and you see an amazingly bad 0.62 K/BB.