Baseball Musings: Rotation Evaluation, Boston Red Sox

February 26, 2008

Rotation Evaluation, Boston Red Sox

The series looking at team pitching rotations using the Marcel the Monkey projections continues with the Boston Red Sox. Their starters posted 4.21 ERA in 2007, second in the American League.

Note that in figuring ERAs, I'm using Marcel's mIP and mER columns. The ERA listed in the spreadsheet uses the average of mER and bsrER. I wanted to avoid posting 1/2 runs in the table. Pitcher order is taken from the CBSSportsline depth chart.

Clay Buchholz
Photo: Icon SMI

Marcel predictions for the Boston Red Sox top five starters for 2008.
Starter	Innings	ER	ERA
Josh Beckett	181	80	3.98
Daisuke Matsuzaka	162	79	4.39
Tim Wakefield	169	90	4.79
Jon Lester	98	48	4.41
Clay Buchholz	63	27	3.86
Totals	673	324	4.33

Looking at the predicted innings it becomes clear why the Red Sox signed Schilling for one more year and then inked Bartolo Colon to replace Curt. The Red Sox by this calculation are about 300 innings short of six innings per start. If things work out well, 200 of those come from healthy seasons from Buchholz and Lester, which would leave about one hundred inning for Julien Tavarez or a recovered Curt Schilling. But if there is a significant injury, then Colon can step in, or someone else from the Red Sox minor league system.

Boston did well last season with their replacement pitchers. Normally, when you go beyond your fifth starter it's to a pitcher not really that good. The young guns the Red Sox brought in, Lester, Gabbard and Buchholz all posted better ERAs than Julien Tavarez. With Gabbard gone and Buchholz and Lester in the rotation, there may not be as much depth as last season. So if the Sox can get at least 162 innings each out of their youngsters, they'll be in very good shape.

Previous posts in this series:

Posted by David Pinto at 08:19 AM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Examining this rotation really highlights the limitations of Marcel.

Beckett had an unlucky 2006 in terms of ERA, and underwent a fundamental change in talent level (in my opinion) last year. Marcel sees none of this.

Buchholz slated for 60 innings? If he stays healthy, he'll go between 160 and 175 I'd bet. Even if he gets hurt at some point... it's pretty difficult for a starter to only pitch 60 innings in a season.

Posted by: Mike at February 26, 2008 11:33 AM

Following on Mike's comment, it's hard to imagine Lester and Buchholz combining for only 161 innings. That would be a mighty disappointment for the Sox braintrust. They have to be hoping to get more like 300 innings from their young starters. I don't know how Marcel projects young pitchers, but it seems like an extremely conservative estimate.

Posted by: jvwalt at February 26, 2008 11:49 AM

Buchholz did 148 IP last year (between Minors and Majors) which was right where the Sox wanted him. This year they will bring him to 160+ and it's hard to imagine that much of that will be spent at the Minor League Level.

The only way I see him getting as few as 63 IP is if he struggles mightily and goes to the bullpen. However, in that case, you would expect to see Tavarez, Schilling or maybe even Colon as the number 5 guy on this list.

It appears Marcel has only projected Buchholz vs. his 22 IP in the majors last year.

Posted by: J at February 26, 2008 12:22 PM

When you've finished all thirty teams, it'll be interesting to see what the projected average for innings from the starting five will be--if it's well short of 900, it will be yet another indicator of how thin pitching talent is these days.

Posted by: M. Scott Eiland at February 26, 2008 12:25 PM

Posting in reply to myself here....

From Marcel's webpage, here's a good explanation why Lester and Buchholz are getting beat up in this projection:

"FAQ: "But, what about a player who's never played MLB? Where's his forecast?" That's simple. His forecast is the league mean over 200 PA, 60 IP (starter) or 25 IP (reliever). If you want to know what the league mean is, just take the average of anyone forecast with a reliability of 0.00. So, Marcel's official forecast for anyone coming over from Japan is that. "

Posted by: J at February 26, 2008 12:26 PM

I can't imagine the Sox will limit Lester as much as last season. I see Lester getting more than 98 innings. Wakefield is getting old.

Posted by: Scott at February 26, 2008 10:00 PM