Eight selected to Red Sox Hall of Fame

Eight individuals have been selected for induction to the Red Sox Hall of Fame. The ceremony will be held on November 7th at the Marriott Copley Hotel in Boston.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the honorees:

Mike Greenwell: He was my second favorite Red Sox when I was growing up, coming in just a hair behind Wade Boggs. Pulling a Mike Greenwell card was always a treat, because you knew it was worth big money. And by big money, I mean $1.00—which was pretty good for a time when commons went for a nickel and packs cost 40 cents.

Wes Ferrell: According to my SUCK metric, Ferrell had one of the 25 worst seasons ever for a Red Sox pitcher. Fortunately for Wes, his first three seasons with the club were better. In 1935, he led the American League with 25 wins, 322.3 innings pitched and 31 complete games—all while hitting .347. Ferrell is widely regarded the best hitting pitcher of the 20th century. His career BA was .280, and he hit 38 lifetime home runs.

Bill Lee: He played his first ten seasons in a Red Sox uniform, and all of them were pretty solid. He threw 72 complete games and 10 shutouts, finishing his career with a 3.62 ERA, 1.364 WHIP and 119-90 record. He made the All Star team in 1973.

Everett Scott: Scott played for the Red Sox from1914-1921, and won the World Series 3 times. His offensive numbers are pretty weak—his career high OBP was .306, and his best BA was .278. But he had the best fielding percentage in the American League for 8 years, and appeared in 1,307 consecutive games from June 20, 1916 until May 6, 1925. His record was later broken by Lou Gehrig. 

Frank Sullivan: Sullivan played his first 8 seasons with the Red Sox (1953-1963). He was a two-time All Star, and had some pretty great seasons. His career best season came in 1955, when he threw 260 innings. He tossed 16 complete games that season, finishing with a 2.91 ERA, 1.288 WHIP despite a K/BB of just 1.29. 

Mo Vaughn: It’s easy sometimes to forget how good Mo Vaughn was in his prime. In his 1995 MVP season, he hit 39 home runs, drove in 126 RBI, batted .300 and slugged .575. Remember how eerie it was the first hundred times you saw David Ortiz swing a bat in a Red Sox uniform?

I can’t find much on these last two guys—

George Digby: Red Sox amateur scout from 1944-1994.

Edward Kenney Sr. : Red Sox executive.

Age and injury: How Schilling has adapted

I’ve been working with the Gameday pitch f/x data for a little while now, and thanks to a considerable amount of help from Joe Sheehan at Baseball Prospectus, I have enough tools to take a stab at some analysis.

We heard a lot about how Curt Schilling changed his approach after he was sidelined with a shoulder injury in the middle of the 2007 season. McCarver gushed about Schilling’s reinvention all through the ALCS and World Series, and I heard a good number of fans compare him to Jamie Moyer as a power pitcher who had to reinvent himself as he got older and lost some power. However, I never really heard anyone explain exactly how Schilling had adjusted his pitch selection and I thought it would be interesting to see exactly what he did.

The following scatter plot details the break of Schilling’s pitches from his one-hitter on 6/7/2007 at Oakland. Advanced Gameday was just being rolled out in the early part of the season, and most of games that were recorded contain some suspect data. Thankfully, this start looks like vintage Schilling, and it happens to be a performance where he was at his very best. It should serve as a good point of comparison.

The red and orange points in the top left are his fastballs. The blue points hanging off that cluster are his changeups, and the blue points at the bottom right are curveballs.

The red cluster in the center is sliders, and the greens hanging off it are sliders thrown at a slightly slower speed. The rest of the green points are splitters, though it’s possible a few changeups could be mixed in as well.

You can see that Schilling threw a balanced assortment of pitches. He relied most heavily on the fastball and splitter, and kept hitters off-balance with a mix of curves, changeups and sliders.

Now let’s look at his start on 8/6, which was his first start after returning from the DL.

His pitch selection is pretty similar to his 1-hitter on 6/7, though it does appear that he threw a few less fastballs and more curves.

Now let’s see how his approach compares to his 8/24 start at the White Sox, which was arguably his most effective post-shoulder injury start (6 IP, 3H, 1R, 1BB, 3K).

You probably noticed some major differences right away.

First, Schilling only threw a handful of splitters. The splitter is notoriously strenuous on a pitcher’s shoulder, so it isn’t a big shock that he put it on the shelf for a game following his shoulder injury. However, the splitter is the pitch that I’ve come to identify with Schilling over the years, so I’m impressed that he was able to put up pretty good numbers without using it much.

The second big thing that you’ll notice is Schilling’s big drop in velocity. While he still got his fastball up in the nineties at times, there are a lot more fastballs in the 85-89 range than there were in his 6/7 start. His changeups naturally diminished in terms of velocity as well, dropping from blue in June to green in August. That wasn’t a problem though, as it’s the variance between the fastball and change—rather than the speed—that makes the changeup effective.

The third thing that you’ll notice is that where old Schilling seemed to handle his strategy pitch to pitch, new Schilling seems to strategize on more of a start to start basis.

Check out his start on 9/25.

Look at all those curveballs! The splitter is back in a big way as well.

Now here’s his 10/7 start:

Here he threw an absolute crapload of fastballs and a lot of splits, but very few curveballs and only a small handful of sliders.

Because of his injury, Schilling probably couldn’t throw as many breaking pitches as he used to throw. So rather than throwing a balanced variety of pitches each game, he rotated pitch selection from game to game, focusing on 2-3 different pitches per game and using the others to keep hitters on their toes.

The one commonality between all of the post-injury starts is that his power noticeably diminished from his start in June. I know I’m not exactly unearthing some great unknown when I say he lost some power—that was evident to anybody who watched the games. But how much did he lose? Let’s take a look at a histogram.

The histogram above measures the number of pitches Schilling threw within each speed range on 6/7/07. There’s an impressively even balance in the 80-95 mph range that covers his fastballs, sliders and splitters. He also made consistent use of his curves and changeups (70-79 mph).

Now let’s compare that approach to his approach in his 8/6 start:

The drop in velocity is very noticeable here. It looks like he only hit 90 mph five times.

Schilling definitely altered his gameplan from game to game, but did he make any mechanical adjustments? Let’s take a look at his release points for 6/7 and 8/24, the two games where the strategies appear to vary the most.

At first glance, it appears that there is a pretty big difference in his release points (roughly half a foot vertically). But given the calibration issues with the release points between stadiums, the variance isn’t large enough to raise any red flags.

According to Baseball Analysts, the average release point for Oakland pitchers at home was 6.06. For White Sox pitchers at home it was 5.61. Those numbers are consistent with what we’re seeing here, and likely explain the half foot variance.

It will be interesting to see whether Schilling’s strategic adjustments carry over into 2008. I’ll revisit the topic once we have a few games of data in the new season.

25 Worst Red Sox Seasons Ever: Starting Pitchers

This is the start of a new feature, in which we rank the best and worst Red Sox players in a variety of different categories. For the maiden post, we’ll take a look at the 25 worst seasons ever for Red Sox starting pitchers.

To measure the 25 worst seasons of all time, I’m introducing the SUCK metric. Basically, SUCK measures the average number of bad things that happened to a pitcher per inning. SUCK = (H+R+BB+HBP+HR+SB)/IP. The higher the rating, the more their season sucked.

There are a couple qualifications for this list. First, the pitcher must have pitched at least 40 innings for the Red Sox in the season that he sucked. Further, to qualify as a starter, a pitcher had to make at least 60% of his appearances in that role. 

Here’s the list:

1. Mel Parnell, 3.130 SUCK: Parnell spent his entire career with the Red Sox, pitching ten seasons with the club from 1947-1956. He won twenty games in two different seasons, and retired with a 123-75 record. Parnell was a two-time All-Star, and he received MVP votes in 4 separate seasons.  His lifetime ERA was 3.50.

As good as he was for the majority of his career, Parnell wasn’t the same after he was hit by a pitch that broke his arm in 1954. He awful in 1955, when he gave up 44 runs in 46 innings. His WHIP was an astronomical 1.89, and he only managed to strike out 18 batters. He finished the season with an impressive 7.83 ERA.

Congrats on filling out the #1 spot, Mel.

2. Wes Ferrell, 3.096 SUCK: Ferrell pitched in the Major Leagues for 15 seasons, and he had some pretty good ones. He was a two time All-Star, and received votes for the MVP in four separate years, finishing second in 1935. He played for the Red Sox from 1934-1937, with 1937 being his crappiest year. He pitched 73.1 innings with a 7.61 ERA before he was shipped to Washington. Given his WHIP of 1.98, things really could have been a lot worse. Maybe. Somehow. Actually, probably not. This is the bottom.

3. Mike Brown, 3.090 SUCK: Mike Brown started his career in Boston, and played in the Major Leagues for 6 years. Each season was pretty awful, but 1984 was his worst. He finished the year with a 1-8 record, an ERA of 6.85, and he allowed 104 hits and 19 BB in 67 innings. I’m looking for a silver lining somewhere, but I just can’t find it. Sorry, Mike. Congrats on the bronze medal, though.

Mike also has the distinction of being on this list more than once. Go Mike!

4. Steve Avery, 2.869 SUCK: Avery put up ace-like numbers for the Braves in the early 90s, but he came unglued in Boston. Generally speaking, pitchers are expected to peak when they’re 27-years-old, but Avery had been so overworked by the Braves that he didn’t have much left in the tank. By the age of 24 he’d pitched in 135 major league games, and he injured himself in 1996 before joining the Red Sox in 1997.

In 1997, Avery finished with a 6.42 ERA. In 96.2 innings he gave up 15 homeruns, 127 hits, and walked 49. But hey, he only hit 2 guys.

5. Chris Nabholz, 2.857 SUCK: Nabholz was pretty good for a few years in Montreal, but by the time he made it to Boston in 1994 he was pretty awful. He threw 42 innings for the Red Sox that year, allowing 32 runs in the process. He played for the Cubs in 1995, but didn’t do much better there. He retired at the end of the season.

6. Eric Hetzel, 2.834 SUCK: Hetzel played his entire career for the Red Sox—all two seasons of it (1989 and 1990). Both seasons were miserable, but 1989 was the worst. He allowed 93 baserunners in 50.1 innings. It is safe to say that there will never be a Major League award named after Mr. Hetzel.

7. Tomokazu Ohka, 2.783 SUCK: The Red Sox brought Ohka over from Japan in 1999, and he was the Red Sox Minor League Player of the Year in 1999 and 2000. After he pitched a perfect game in Pawtucket, expectations were huge. Unfortunately, he really sucked big time in 2001 when he was called up to Boston. He allowed 40 runs in 52.3 innings before the Sox gave up and shipped him to Montreal mid-season.

8. Matt Clement, 2.765 SUCK: Clement made the All-Star team immediately following his arrival with the Red Sox in 2005, and was solid for the Sox until he took a line drive off his head. He did not make the All-Star team in 2006. That’s what happens when you allow 121 baserunners over 65.1 innings. Oh, and he also hit 6 guys...an average of one beanball every 10.8 innings.

9. Gene Conley, 2.761 SUCK: Conley was a pretty good pitcher for the first ten years of his career. He was a three-time All-Star, and received MVP votes in two separate years (finishing 22nd and 23rd). Solid stuff. Unfortunately, Conley stuck around one season too long. After throwing 241.7 innings in 1962, he managed only 40.7 for the Red Sox in 1963, posting a 1.770 WHIP and a 6.64 ERA. He retired at the end of the season.

10. Wes Gardner, 2.756 SUCK: Wes was one of those guys who teams kept signing even though he was never very good. In 7 seasons he had only one year in which his ERA dropped below 4.00. He was downright awful in 1989, despite posting the second-lowest season ERA of his career at 4.89. He gave up 64 runs in 86 innings that year. On the bright side, he didn’t balk once. Congrats on making the top 10.

11. Fred Anderson, 2.750 SUCK: Anderson would turn into a very good pitcher after a really crappy year for Boston in 1913. In 1913 his ERA was 5.97, and he allowed 106 baserunners in 57.3 innings. He left Boston after that season, and immediately got much better. He ended up with a 2.86 lifetime ERA. Go figure.

12. Jerry Stephenson, 2.723 SUCK: Jerry played 7 years in the Major Leagues and pretty much sucked in all of them. 1966 was the worst, though. He allowed 51 runs in 66.3 innings that year.

13. Ramon Martinez, 2.704 SUCK: Ramon came into the Major Leagues in 1988 with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was a very good pitcher for most of his career, finishing 2nd in Cy Young voting in 1990, and 5th in 1995. But like a lot of guys on this list, he stuck around too long.

Ramon came to the Red Sox in 1999, where he was reunited with his little brother Pedro. He underwent rotator cuff surgery before he joined the team, and only pitched 20.7 innings his first year with the club.

In a way, Ramon rebounded in 2000. He was much more durable, but it would have been just as well if he wasn’t. In 127.7 innings gave up 143 hits, 16 homeruns, and 67 bases on balls. He ended his career in Pittsburg the following year.

14. Kyle Snyder, 2.702 SUCK: Like many crappy players, Snyder came up through the Royals’ farm system. He played (and sucked) for Kansas City for the first two years of his career. In 2006 he pitched 2 innings for KC before ending up in Boston. He started 10 games for the Red Sox in 2006, and gave up 42 runs in 58.3 innings.

Snyder was moved to the bullpen in 2007, and he was much more consistent in that role. The Red Sox just signed him for another year, so let’s hope it wasn’t a fluke season.

15. Derek Lowe, 2.690 SUCK: Lowe is a two-time All-Star, and he was downright dominating for the Red Sox from 1999-2002. In 2002 he pitched a no-hitter against the Devil Rays, and finished 3rd in Cy Yong voting. He struggled a bit in 2003 before crapping out altogether in 2004, when batters hit .299 against him and reached base nearly 35% of the time. Thankfully, Lowe was able to redeem himself by winning all 3 series clinching games in the 2004 playoffs.

He entered free agency at the end of that season, and he’s pitched solid baseball for the Dodgers ever since.

16. Bruce Hurst, 2.676 SUCK: Hurst pitched the first 9 of his 15 Major League seasons for the Red Sox, and most of the time he was a pretty solid player.

1982 was his third season with the team, and it’s the one that earns him a spot on this list. His WHIP was a mind-boggling 1.718 that year, as he allowed 161 hits and 40 BB in 117 innings pitched. Things would turn around for him, though.

He went to the All-Star game in 1987, and received MVP and Cy Young votes in 1988.  He retired after the 1994 season with a respectable 3.92 lifetime ERA.

17. Willard Nixon, 2.660 SUCK: Nixon spent his entire 9-year career with the Red Sox. He was never very good, but his first year was his worst. In 1950 he gave up 126 hits in 101.1 innings, finishing the year with a 4.90 ERA.

18. Bill Piercy, 2.652 SUCK: Piercy pitched 6 Major League seasons, three of them with Boston. He showed promise with the Yankees in 1921, and the Sox added him to their roster the following year. Unfortunately, he wasn’t very good in Beantown. In 1924 he threw 121 innings over 18 starts, hit 10 guys and walked 66. It didn’t help that he gave up 156 hits, either.

19. Tim Wakefield, 2.647 SUCK: Wakefield started his career in Pittsburg in 1992, and came to the Red Sox in 1995. He put up huge numbers in his first year with the club, posting a 2.95 ERA and 1.183 WHIP. 1996 wasn’t as kind, as he gave up 238 hits, 90 BB, and 38 homeruns in 211.7 innings.

20. Danny Darwin, 2.646 SUCK: Darwin had a remarkably long career. He pitched for 8 different teams over 21 seasons before retiring after 1998. He played 4 seasons for the Red Sox, from 1991-1994. He had his ups and downs in Boston, with an exceedingly miserable season mixed in. In 1994 he gave up 54 runs in 75.7 innings.

Regardless, it’s amazing that Darwin was able to pitch as long he did. He had a handful of great seasons, but most of them were pretty mediocre. His lifetime ERA was 3.84. 

21. Mike Brown, 2.627 SUCK: 1986 wasn’t Brown’s worst year, but it was still bad enough to earn him his second spot on this list (in case you forgot, he took home the bronze medal). I don’t really want to get on the guy anymore than I already have, so I’ll leave it at this: 10 HRs in 57.3 innings.

22. Bob Turley, 2.580 SUCK: Turley had a great career. He played 13 seasons, went to the All-Star game 3 times, won the Cy Young in 1958, and received MVP votes in two separate seasons. He spent 8 seasons with the Yankees, but by the time the Red Sox got him halfway through the 1963 season he was pretty much cooked. He started 7 games for the Sox, finished with a 1-4 record, while giving up more than a hit an inning. He retired at the end of the season.

23. Aaron Sele, 2.566 SUCK: Sele was the Red Sox’ first round pick in 1991. He flew through the minors, and by 1993 he was playing in Boston. He started 18 games that year, and finished with a 2.74 ERA and 1.325 WHIP. He came in third in rookie of the year voting. 

Sele spent half of 1995 on the disabled list after experiencing pain in his throwing arm. He made 29 starts in 1996, but only managed to pitch 157.3 innings. He gave up 110 runs, 192 hits, and 67 BB. He also hit 8 guys.

Unfortunately, his 1997 season was almost as bad. It was his last year with the Red Sox.

24. Jack Lamabe, 2.558 SUCK: Lamabe wasn’t a terrible pitcher, but he had 2 terrible seasons with the Red Sox. His worst came in 1964, when he gave up 235 hits, 57 BB and 25 HR in 177.3 innings. He struggled again in 1965, and was eventually sent to the White Sox in the middle of the season. Lamabe played for 6 different teams in his last 4 seasons, and ultimately retired from the game in 1968.

25. Tom Bolton, 2.555 SUCK: Bolton pitched 8 pretty miserable seasons in the Major Leagues before retiring in 1994. He was called up to the Red Sox in 1987, but he didn’t earn his spot on this list until 1991 when he allowed 136 hits, 51 BB, and 16 HR in 110 innings. 

Beckett and Dice-K could start first four games of 2008 season for Red Sox

It’s never too early to start speculating, so let’s take a look at the Red Sox’ schedule for the beginning of the 2008 season and play a game of “guess the rotation.”

3/25 – Opening Day @Oakland (Japan)
3/26 - @ Oakland (Japan)
3/27 – off
3/28 - exhibition game
3/29 - exhibition game
3/30 - exhibition game
3/31 - off
4/1 - @Oakland
4/2 - @Oakland

With the way the schedule works out, Beckett and Dice-K could pitch the first four regular season games with six days off between starts.

Here’s the proposed rotation, and I expect the Sox will roll with this if everyone is healthy and present:

3/25 – Beckett
3/26 - Dice-K
3/27 – off
3/28 - Schilling
3/29 - Wakefield
3/30 - Lester
3/31 - off
4/1 - Beckett (6 days rest)
4/2 - Dice-K ( 6 days rest)
4/3 – off
4/4 – Schilling (6 days rest)

Of course, there’s the possibility that Dice-K won’t make it to Japan if his baby hasn’t been born yet. If that happens, then the rotation would probably look something like this:

3/25 – Beckett
3/26 - Schilling
3/27 – off
3/28 - Wakefield
3/29 - Lester
3/30 – Buchholz (it would be a great exhibition start for him, even if he starts in AAA)
3/31 - off
4/1 - Beckett (6 days rest)
4/2 – Dice-K
4/3 – off
4/4 – Schilling (8 days rest)

It’s also possible that the Red Sox would leave their 3-5 starters at home for the trip to Japan and start AAA guys in the exhibition games, but I don’t think the club will decide to do this. With the shortened Spring Training schedule, I think they’ll throw their top guys out there for the extra start before the season begins.

Despite my initial pessimism about starting the season in Japan, this trip could end up being beneficial to the Sox.

It sure won’t feel like Opening Day on March 25th, though.

Analyzing Dice-K’s rookie year: What does it mean for 2008?

Of all the questions surrounding Dice-K Matsuzaka’s second half struggles, there is one that carries the greatest implications for his long-term success: Were opposing batters starting to figure him out at the end of the season, or was he just fatigued?

To start things off, let’s take a look at his stats broken down by half.

	IP	SO	BB	H	HR	ER	WHIP	ERA
First 16 Games	106.2	110	36	96	9	46	1.24	3.90
Last 16 Games	98	91	44	95	16	54	1.41	4.96

Matsuzaka’s stats slipped in every major category in the second half. His WHIP went up 17 points, he allowed 7 more homeruns in 8 less innings, and saw his ERA shoot up more than a point.

He also tended to be less effective as the games went on, holding opponents to a .220 batting average in the first three innings, and allowing a .275 average in the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings (opponents batted .315 against him in the 6th inning).

There were eight games in which Matsuzaka gave up 3 or more runs in a single inning, and four games where he gave up 5 or more runs in an inning (a total of 38 runs in less than 8 innings). Five of the eight three run innings came in the 4th inning or later. Seven of the eight came in the 3rd inning or later (he gave up 5 in the first on May 3rd).

To put it simply, Dice-K pitched well the first time through the order, but he struggled the second and third times.

Matsuzaka always established his fastball the first time through the lineup, occasionally throwing it upwards of 70% of the time. The second and third times through the lineup he relied more on his breaking pitches, throwing the fastball between 40-50% of the time.

Here are his stats by inning.

Inning	R	H	HR	SO	BB	BA	OBP	SLG
1	16	31	2	28	19	.250	.376	.339
2	2	18	4	30	5	.164	.242	.227
3	18	29	4	29	11	.242	.316	.383
4	18	35	5	41	16	.282	.369	.508
5	9	26	2	32	9	.230	.293	.345
6	28	34	6	26	12	.315	.390	.593

It’s interesting that Matsuzaka’s ineffectiveness in later innings coincided with his reliance on breaking balls.

Here are his pitch selection totals according to Josh Kalk:

Pitch	% Thrown
Fastball	41.1%
Slider	37.06%
Cutter	15.53%
Change	6%

Now let’s take a look at the effectiveness of those pitches. You can find this data here.

	Strike	Ball	Contact	Swung
Fastball	.651	.349	.733	.479
Slider	.602	.398	.733	.373
Cutter	.669	.331	.728	.446
Change	.581	.419	.773	.473

The biggest problem I see is with his slider. He throws it over 37% of the time, and it’s the pitch he goes to when he needs a strike in the middle innings.

But Dice-K only threw his slider for a strike 60% of the time, and batters only swung at 37% of them.

To give some perspective here, Felix Hernandez takes an approach similar to Dice-K’s, in that he establishes his fastball in the early innings and then mixes in his breaking stuff in subsequent innings.

The primary difference between the two pitchers is that Felix was much more successful with locating his slider. 65% of his sliders were thrown for strikes, and batters swung at them 45% of the time.

When Matsuzaka can’t get his slider across the plate, hitters are able to sit on the fastball or take an easy walk.

Over the first 16 games of the season Matsuzaka showed solid control, averaging one walk every 2.95 innings.

But in the second half, he walked a batter every 2.23 innings—a huge increase of 1.86 batters walked per 9 innings.

When a pitcher is tired there is a tendency to overthrow breaking pitches, reducing the break and making it harder to hit their spots. There is no doubt that Dice-K was fatigued as the season wore on, as his workload was pretty intense for a guy used to pitching one game a week. He actually led the majors in pitcher abuse in 2007.

I don't believe that there was an injury involved, given his pretty consistent release points. There is ~1 foot of variance, not enough to suggest an injury (thanks again to Josh Kalk).

Matsuzaka pitched a total of 3,487 pitches over 32 starts (compared to Beckett’s 3,100 pitches in 30 starts).

He threw over 100 pitches in a game 26 times, over 115 pitches 9 times, and 120 or more six times, with his highest pitch count of the season at 130 on June 5th.

The decline in command can be seen pretty clearly given these numbers:

	Pitches Thrown	Strikes	Strike %
First 16 games	1765	1141	65%
Last 16 games	1722	1070	62%

Like most pitchers, getting ahead in the count is incredibly important for Matsuzaka.

When he threw a first pitch strike, the opposition batted only .204, with a .254 OBP.

But when he threw a first pitch ball, the opposition creamed him with a .280 BA and a .407 OBP.

Further, after getting ahead in the count, Dice-K had a 2.32 ERA. After falling behind in the count, he had 6.71 ERA.

Many analysts have pointed to overuse of his fastball for his second half decline, but he only overused his fastball because he couldn’t throw strikes with his slider.

If he conditions himself well this offseason and if management is more aggressive with monitoring his pitch counts, I think we can expect Dice-K to have an excellent season in 2008.