Smoltz in for Penny and Buchholz in for Wake, who moves to the pen. Wakefield has been terrible four of five starts and should not be a roadblock to a guy like Clay who still could be great.

From a purely statistical perspective, the best candidate to leave the rotation pitched yesterday. But Daisuke Matsuzaka isn’t going anywhere.

Ugh. Because statistics have somehow told us to ignore pre-2009 statistics. They're tricksy that way.

The rest of the article dances around saying that the Red Sox ought to trade Penny, but Tomase does no actual reporting on what the market for Penny might be like, or what the Red Sox are looking to acquire in a trade, or how the Red Sox value Penny. He just sort of says some stuff.

Wakefield has been terrible four of five starts

Three of five, and given where you drew the line, I'd presume three of six.

and should not be a roadblock to a guy like Clay who still could be great.

Agreed, though they're not suffering because they have Wakefield instead of Clay. Oh, wait, can Buchholz play shortstop?

If the Sox are serious about flipping Penny for anything useful, they'll need to give him regular starts between now and 7/31 and hope that he can get his ERA down to something (at least superficially) respectable. Otherwise, if they feel that they have better alternatives now (they do), then they should just cut him. The past ~150 IP that the guy has thrown have revealed him to be nothing more than a fifth starter (at best).

The idea that they should bench Dice-K is beyond ridiculous. This idiot should have his column taken away.

Boston Herald: As John Smoltz’ return nears, how should club proceed?

Releasing him would be quite funny.

Smoltz in for Penny and Buchholz in for Wake, who moves to the pen. Wakefield has been terrible four of five starts and should not be a roadblock to a guy like Clay who still could be great.

Not that I agree with this assessment anyway, but any Wake to the pen idea is severely complicated by the fact that their starting catcher hasn't handled the knuckleball regularly in more than half a decade.

Given Buccholz's struggles last year, I'm giving the Red Sox a very wide berth for how they handle his 2009. I have no idea what structure for his season will best help him overcome whatever mental #### was going on last year, and I'm guessing the Red Sox want to be very sure that Buccholz is up to stay before recalling him.

Releasing him would be quite funny.

Yeah! The aggrieved Smoltz and Glavine can team up with Maddux to start the Augusta National Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings, barnstorming around the country to prove they are just as capable as the major leaguers.

Everybody in New England, when asked about what the Sox will do when we get to late June, kept saying, "don't worry, something always happens to pitchers - things will work themselves out". We're about here, now, and if the back of Matsuzaka's jersey said "Penny" or "Wakefield", they'd be right. As it is, Penny probably has two more starts to impress management, or he'll be off the roster in some manner.

As for Matsuzaka, just a thought: the story has it that he was a throwing addict in Japan, regularly throwing 150-pitch starts, and then throwing crazy amounts on the side between starts (though Japanese pitchers usually have an added day of rest relative to MLB). It is clear that he is not going to become some "pitch to contact" efficient pitcher; it is also clear that he is a strikeout pitcher, who tends to require more pitches to get his outs, anyway.

If Nolan Ryan, to state the most extreme example, used today's 100-115 pitch metric to determine his ceiling, he'd never have been Nolan Ryan - in fact, it was not until late in his career that his BB per 9 IP dropped substantially. As the Sox continue to try to turn him into something he probably is not, should they instead decide to just let him try to be the outlier? Let him throw more pitches per start than anybody else (120 or more), let him know that'll be how they treat him from here on in so he stop thinking about it, and see what happens.

I hope the Sox aren't actually counting on Smoltz for more than 10 innings.

Is it really so urgent to have to work a 42-year old, coming off major surgery, into the rotation? Can't Smoltz chill in the pen for a while? I seem to recall he can pitch a little in relief.

Anyway, the answer probably is cut Penny. I can't see why anyone would trade anything for him when they know the Sox will likely cut him soon.

That's an interesting point. If Nolan Ryan came up today, he'd almost certainly be made into a reliever in most organizations. The thinking would be that he wouldn't be able to stay healthy throwing his fastball all the time and, because of the walks, he wouldn't pitch deep enough into games to be an effective starter.

Of course, if he could pitch 90 IP a year as an ace reliever with even better rate stats, he'd still have tremendous value: say Gossage at his prime with Lee Smith's durability. It's hard to imagine his stuff being any harder if he were just pitching an inning at a time.

The prevailing theory is that if Ryan came up today he wouldn't be able to stay healthy throwing his fastball all the time and, because of the walks, he wouldn't pitch deep enough into games to be an effective starter.

It's a dumb theory, IMO.

Yes, Bill James had a piece in an Abstract about 22-25 years ago on how fastball pitchers have LONGER careers, in spite of the prevailing wisdom of the time.

It's a dumb theory, IMO.

But do you think 6-4-3 is right re. how teams would see him? I guess Kasmir would be a good counter-example, he stayed in the rotation.

It's a dumb theory, IMO.

Just to clarify, that's not my thinking. I was just presenting what I perceive to be the mindset of most organizations today with regards to pitcher development.

Smoltz in for Penny and Buchholz in for Wake, who moves to the pen. Wakefield has been terrible four of five starts and should not be a roadblock to a guy like Clay who still could be great.

Well, I said that before the season started (here or...elsewhere), and got shouted down for my trouble.

Wakes has one major strength: the knuckler lowers his BABIP. Otherwise his control is about average, he gives up lots of home runs, and K's a bit below the league average. If any of that starts to slip (walks up, K's down, but homers down as well), he becomes marginal. A basically league-average pitcher certainly has value, but one who has the definite potential to be much better than that should replace him. IMNSHO a depth chart for this team which has Buchholz 7th (or even 8th, depending on what Tito thinks of Masterson) is seriously FUBARed. Oh, and worrying about Clay's "2008" mindset reasserting itself is pretty ridiculous, if you ask me.

Ugh. Because statistics have somehow told us to ignore pre-2009 statistics. They're tricksy that way.

Any impartial reading of Dice-K's 2008 stats would note a serious chance for a big regression. Nobody in the history of the league has made a living (long-term) as an-above average ML starter doing what he did last year; holding down the BABIP unnaturally low with a high strand rate. Bill James (speaking of) back in the early nineties noticed this (he called it Indicated ERA; now it's FIP ERA). Now, as a complete unsurprise, in 2009 his BABIP has skyrocketed and all of a sudden he isn't stranding the people he did last year. This is unexpected only to those who didn't look at the underlying components which made up his ERA last year.

If the Sox are serious about flipping Penny for anything useful, they'll need to give him regular starts between now and 7/31 and hope that he can get his ERA down to something (at least superficially) respectable.

If another GM wants to ignore Penny's last month or so of work (where he has among other things a 4-1 K-W ratio), that's his problem. I'd still flip him for a utility IF, or as part of a deal for a slugging 1B slash OFer.

Yeah! The aggrieved Smoltz and Glavine can team up with Maddux to start the Augusta National Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings, barnstorming around the country to prove they are just as capable as the major leaguers.

They could field an outfield of Bernie Williams, Barry Bonds, and Rickey Henderson, and slot the Big Hurt in at DH.

If they could cobble together an infield they could give a few teams a run for their money!

Another point: Francona has done an excellent job so far mixing in all of his relievers at various points between the 6th, 7th, and 8th innings - it's a bullpen full of relievers (except for Masterson) set up to pitch about an inning each, every couple of days. There is remarkable consistency here - almost all of them have equal numbers of GP, IP, and Ks:

Delcarmen: 23 games, 24 IP, 19 Ks
Saito: 20 games, 20 IP, 19 Ks
Okajima: 26 games, 25 IP, 26 Ks
Paplebon: 24 games, 25 IP, 28 Ks
Ramirez: 26 games, 27 IP, 15 Ks (but only 14 hits!)
Masterson (who's been a reliever a little less than half the season): 9 games as a reliever, 14.2 IP, 13 Ks
Bard (who's been up for about half the season): 8 games, 10 IP, 9 Ks

Francona just keeps bringing them for an inning each, gets Ks, and then gets them out of there, to be ready two nights later.

This works for a few reasons:
1) He has a number of quality pitchers, most of them pretty young; most of them are unlikely to breakdown; and most of them not established in a specific role (except for Paplebon)
2) While the starters have been maligned for being the "weak link" of the rotation up to now, they've actually generally been pretty good at keeping the team in the game. The Red Sox have allowed the third-least runs in the AL, even with very poor defense at SS. The three starters who haven't missed a start all year (Beckett, Lester, and Wakefield) have gone at least 6 innings in 26 of their 34 starts, and less than 5 innings only 4 times, combined. Even Penny and Masterson have gone at least 6 innings 11 of 17 times, and less than 5 IP only twice in 17 combined starts. When the bullpen rarely has to cover more than 3 innings a night (and often a little less), and you've got 7 guys you can trust to give you a scoreless inning, you don't have to start using guys more than 3 innings a week, or an inning at a time.

Matsuzaka, not Penny, is the only pitcher threatening this perfect harmony. He's pitched 6 times this year, and has not finished the 6th inning yet in any start. He has gone between 5 and 5.2 five times, and 1 IP the other time. To give you perspective on both how little the Sox bullpen has been overused, and how problematic Dice-K has been, consider these two stats:

1) The Red Sox, for the entire season of 57 games so far, have had a relief pitcher currently on the roster record more than three outs in a single appearance only 19 times! (And 9 of those 19 times were either four or five outs)
2) Matsuzaka's starts, which account for only 6 of the 57 games, have included 8 of the 19 such appearances.

The reason the Red Sox may stick with Penny longer than many of you might like is that, although he's far from perfect, he is pretty good at giving you exactly 6 IP, and 3 ER. Their offense is good enough to stay in almost any game like that, and if it comes down to the bullpen, the Red Sox will almost certainly do a better job of getting those three runs to stick than anybody else. It's that extra inning every start - Matsuzaka's starts - that forces a relief pitcher to do something they'd rather not do - make an additional appearance that week, or throw an extra inning. Masterson, in several of Dice'K's starts, has become sort of an extra starter, pitching a few good innings to get it to the 8th for the other guys.

After a while, as a Red Sox fan, you start asking yourself: if management keeps using Masterson to pitch scoreless relief to make up for Matsuzaka's shortcomings, at what point do you let Masterson start those games?

Any impartial reading of Dice-K's 2008 stats would note a serious chance for a big regression. Nobody in the history of the league has made a living (long-term) as an-above average ML starter doing what he did last year; holding down the BABIP unnaturally low with a high strand rate. Bill James (speaking of) back in the early nineties noticed this (he called it Indicated ERA; now it's FIP ERA). Now, as a complete unsurprise, in 2009 his BABIP has skyrocketed and all of a sudden he isn't stranding the people he did last year. This is unexpected only to those who didn't look at the underlying components which made up his ERA last year.

You expected an ERA above 7?

Matsuzaka's FIP in 2007 was 4.23, and in 2008 it was 4.03. Those are solidly above average numbers. There's absolutely nothing in his record to suggest that he should be benched, and nothing in his record predicted 30 IP of pitching this poor - I fully expect that DiceK will be a solid, above average contributor for the rest of the season.

EDIT: slight issue of precision

After a while, as a Red Sox fan, you start asking yourself: if management keeps using Masterson to pitch scoreless relief to make up for Matsuzaka's shortcomings, at what point do you let Masterson start those games?

At the very least, you've got to reach the point at which Matsuzaka projects to pitch poorly in his next start. 27 IP with fluky high BABIP numbers (.453!) after two seasons of above average pitching don't even begin to produce evidence for that.

As for Matsuzaka, just a thought: the story has it that he was a throwing addict in Japan, regularly throwing 150-pitch starts, and then throwing crazy amounts on the side between starts (though Japanese pitchers usually have an added day of rest relative to MLB). It is clear that he is not going to become some "pitch to contact" efficient pitcher; it is also clear that he is a strikeout pitcher, who tends to require more pitches to get his outs, anyway.

At the game yesterday, my brother and I were only half-joking when we said, as Matsuzaka was relieved around the 100-pitch mark, that it seems a shame, because he finally looks comfortable out there. It makes me wonder if he just needs to be coached/handled differently from the rest of the staff, whether because he learned differently in Japan or because he's just a freak who doesn't fit in the program.

I think the problem with him is not the innings he pitches, but those he doesn't. But what can you really do now? Theo has to keep running him out there no matter what.

You expected an ERA above 7?

Oh c'mon now Matt, you know better than to toss around scarecrows like that.

I said he would regress, and he has-more than anyone might have thought, but he has. The Sox are basically giving him a bunch of spring training starts-in the majors, as they did with Penny-and yes he will likely improve, but to what level? Another thing that that James' study showed is how often such overachieving pitchers get injured the next year (more recent studies on this subject welcome). I'd give Dice-K some rope, more than I would Wakes and Penny certainly, to try to unf*** himself. But I lack much long-term confidence in his success.

With Penny, Smoltz and Matsuzaka, they really should consider going with a 6- man rotation.

With Penny, Smoltz and Matsuzaka, they really should consider going with a 6- man rotation.

What would that achieve except to stress your bullpen more?

I'd give Dice-K some rope, more than I would Wakes and Penny certainly, to try to unf*** himself. But I lack much long-term confidence in his success.

Why? Matsuzaka's career FIP is 4.19. You've cited these relatively defense-independent statistics as that which people who look at the underlying numbers consider, but these numbers all say that Daisuke Matsuzaka is a good pitcher who projects to pitch well.

What is it that leads you to believe that DiceK's component numbers fail to measure properly his pitching and fail to project his future performance?

and if the back of Matsuzaka's jersey said "Penny" or "Wakefield", they'd be right.

Maybe someone should just sew it on his home jersey.

Releasing him would be quite funny.

Oh God, I would pay money for this.

Releasing him would be quite funny.

Oh God, I would pay money for this.

I wouldn't pay money for his release, but I would shell out a goodly amount of cash for a tape of his resulting press conference.

I wouldn't doubt that Daisuke should be handled differently, but it hardly seems worth the risk right now. A few bad starts that are likely due to bad luck or maybe health isn't enough to consider letting him throw 120+ pitches regularly. He's been an effective pitcher before, he should be an effective pitcher after. Maybe it would be dumb for the Red Sox to not try to get the most out of Matsuzaka, but risking injury for a proven effective pitcher isn't something I'd do anytime soon.

Obviously, there's some risk involved if the Red Sox decide to give him a higher pitch count than most (all?) other major-league pitchers. However, he has only three years left after this year on his contract, and unless they see signs that he can get out his career pattern of consistent 20-pitch innings, they only have a few choices:
1) live with the fact that they paid $100 million for six years of a starter who'll struggle to finish six innings throughout his career (which lowers his value to the team, because it forces the team to expend more resources on their bullpen);
2) trade him, which at $7m a year salary isn't so hard; it's just that they paid almost $50m to get the right to sign him up, so that's an enormous sunk cost, or
3) let him do what he did in Japan, and what he doubtless would like to do - throw more pitches per start than anybody in MLB today.

I'd let him do #3, because #2 involves too great a financial loss, and #1 is silly. #1 implies that he has some magical ability, unlike almost anybody else, to consistently load the bases with walks, pitch from behind in the count, and somehow make it all work out with bases-loaded popup after popup. I don't believe there is anybody in recent major-league history that consistently has shown the specific skill of being able to strand runners in scoring position that they, themselves, put on the bases. He strikes out a lot of guys, and he doesn't give up a ton of hits. But he's either going to learn to throw strikes, they'll let him throw 140 pitches per game, or he's just a 5-inning, 2 ER, 100 pitches guy.

I'd let him do #3, because #2 involves too great a financial loss, and #1 is silly. #1 implies that he has some magical ability, unlike almost anybody else, to consistently load the bases with walks, pitch from behind in the count, and somehow make it all work out with bases-loaded popup after popup.

His FIP in 2007 was 4.23, and in 2008 it was 4.03. It's very easy to project DiceK to be a good pitcher without mentioning his strand rate.

I think the Red Sox recognize that they have a good pitcher here, a valuable contributor to a championship-quality club. They will treat him as such, and not start messing around with his workload. I have some hope that he's still young enough to improve his command a tick and get into some Cy Young conversations, but even if he doesn't, Daisuke Matsuzaka is a good pitcher and projects to be a good pitcher.

What is it that leads you to believe that DiceK's component numbers fail to measure properly his pitching and fail to project his future performance?

Now were more into fan territory, as opposed to analyst territory. Call it a hunch (tho it's partly based on the records of similar pitchers who could never harness their control (most notably Hideo Nomo)), but I don't think he's going to last 5 more seasons in the North American major leagues. He's likely going to continue to spend a lot of time per season on the DL, going to continue to tax the bullpen most every time out, have some flashes of brilliance between the frustrating-as-hell bits, but ultimately I think he's going to wear himself out. It basically boils down to his walks (pitches...baserunners) putting too much pressure on the other parts of his game. Hell I hope like heck he'll recover the kind of control he had in the Japanese leagues, but I have little confidence he will.

This is not an overreaction to his current struggles-I've believed the preceding ever since his rookie season.

So what will the Sox do?

Step 1: Cajole the Boston press into writing glowing articles about the Red Sox pitching depth.
Step 2: Rally the Boston press to write about the feverish trade interest in Brad Penny.
Step 3: Enlist the Boston press to run a more popular starter out of town when step 2 fails to generate a trade market for Penny.

So I guess we should just sit back and wait for the articles about how Josh Beckett isn't a team player and Dice-K is too soft.

The rest of the article dances around saying that the Red Sox ought to trade Penny, but Tomase does no actual reporting on what the market for Penny might be like, or what the Red Sox are looking to acquire in a trade, or how the Red Sox value Penny. He just sort of says some stuff.

Um, how do I put it? That fat fluck Tomase isn't very well known for his reporting ability.

Yeah! The aggrieved Smoltz and Glavine can team up with Maddux to start the Augusta National Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings, barnstorming around the country to prove they are just as capable as the major leaguers.

They could field an outfield of Bernie Williams, Barry Bonds, and Rickey Henderson, and slot the Big Hurt in at DH.

If they could cobble together an infield they could give a few teams a run for their money!

I'd flip Bernie for Edmonds, bring in Piazza(or Lo Duca) at catcher, Durham at secondbase, Grudzlienek out of position at short, Damion Easly? for third. Sexson for first?

Wakefield has been an above-average pitcher every year since 2001, and is again this year.

Sure, not very far above average, but he's doing EXACTLY what you'd expect from him. He is what he is. It looks bad when the knuckler isn't knuckling right or he gets just a bit off, but there's no reason to think he won't recover and reel off another set of 4 or 5 gems.

If Wakefield is the problem in the rotation, the team is in great shape.

True, and such a pitcher, over a period of years, has great value. But the next 2-3-5 years, Clay would/should (given the opportunity) outpitch him tremendously. Yes it's not an either/or choice...

For good or bad, on any other team in the majors Buchholz would have been up after his little DL stint in early April. The problem, if you want to call it that, is that their incredible pitching depth is having a limiting factor on what they can do in terms of building the most optimal rotation they can. In an ideal world, where egos, contracts, options (or roster flexibility), and such don't play a part at all, the Sox rotation should be Beckett/Lester/Buchholz/Dice-K/Masterson (or Smoltz as the 5th). That is likely what it will be next year, but now they are hamstrung because releasing some of their vets isn't an option (they want to wait to get good return if possible), and in the case of Smoltz they want to give him a genuine shot first it seems. So the 3rd best starter (yes you heard me right) is relegated to the minors, and the 5th/6th best is the long man in the pen.

I probably won't be too upset if Penny (a) stays, and (b) keeps on like he has for the last month, getting the ERA down around 4 by the end. I just think Clay we be lights out (fan hat here) for this club within 2 seasons, and every month he remains exiled at AAA is a lost month's worth of development time in the majors. It will probably work out okay in the end, I just typically almost always prefer the young kid to the vet, all other things being equal (which like I said isn't true here).