Starting Rotation for the 2011 Red Sox
Posted by Andy on March 18, 2011
There are a number of oddities and points of interest about the starting rotation for the 2011 Red Sox.
Terry Francona has named his rotation and in order they are:
1. Jon Lester
2. John Lackey
4. Josh Beckett
Here are some observations:
- In 2011, Beckett will make $15,750,000 and Matsuzaka will make $10,000,000. I'm wondering if that's the most expensive 4-5 start combo in history. Keep in mind it doesn't even consider the $51.1 million posting fee that Boston paid to talk to Matsuzaka.
- In 2010, it was actually Buchholz who was the most valuable to the Red Sox, registering the highest WAR among pitchers for the team. In fact only Adrian Beltre had a higher WAR than Buchholz for the team.
- Those 4th and 5th staters, Beckett and Matsuzaka, also started the last three Opening Days for the Red Sox between them. Matsuzaka got the nod in 2008 when the Red Sox opened in Japan.
- John Lackey has himself started on Opening Day twice, both times for the Angels. A few years, he was beat out by the guy who looks to be the Yankees 5th starter this year, Bartolo Colon.
- And, of course, the Red Sox in 2011 will have a guy in Tim Wakefield who is by far the active leader in wins and IP for the team, and he's not even in the rotation (yet).
March 18th, 2011 at 11:25 am
1. Francona and Epstein deserve credit for recognizing that contracts are sunk costs, and letting Beckett & Dice-K fall to the spots they merit. Management has built up anough credibility -- and they have enough depth in their rotation -- that they don't need to force the big-money guys into the top slots just to cover their arses. Besides, after the first turn through, what difference does it make?
2. Clay Buchholz's 2.33 ERA last year is not remotely supported by his K & BB rates. Buchholz might have the talent to repeat that ERA -- but it's not going to happen if he repeats those K/BB numbers. Lester is clearly a better pitcher, and I think Lackey is, too. Lackey and Buchholz were on opposite sides of the luck spectrum last year -- Buchholz had a .263 BABIP, Lackey .326. Lackey had the superior K & BB data.
March 18th, 2011 at 11:33 am
JA, I certainly agree with both points. I wasn't trying to suggest that a different order would make sense.
March 18th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
If (a big if) Beckett and Dice-K are both healthy they will each start 32odd games. JA makes the essential point -- it just doesn't matter where you slot a pitcher. What matters is that they get the chance to pitch.
More than anything, a rotation with Beckett and Dice-K going 4 and 5 looks like a very, very tough beat.
March 18th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
With that lineup, all these guys will have plenty of chances to win games.
March 18th, 2011 at 9:47 pm
Also may we add to the comment of "with that lineup" - we must consider greatly, the relief pitchers they now have,
those starters will ALL be able to have 20 win seasons,
maybe the first time ever we have 5 pitchers with 20+ wins. 🙂
(At least 4 20-game winners, not done since 1971 Orioles).
The addition of Bobby Jenks and Dan Wheeler to complement Daniel Bard and Jon Papelbon will be a great improvement over the like of Manny (change-the-channel) DelCarmen or Ramon Ramirez or Hideki Okajima who seemed to have needed to adjust and did not in 2010.
March 19th, 2011 at 12:00 am
I the Sox still suck and Beckett and Matsuzaka combine to win 22 games for $30 million dollars.
March 19th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
I wouldn't call Beckett a sunk cost yet- His xFIP was 4.01 last season. I don't think he'll ever repeat 2007, but he could still very well be a quality starter in the AL East.
March 20th, 2011 at 8:16 pm
Tim Wakefield is the last player on a major league roster who played for the 1992 Pirates. (Miguel Batista is hanging on in the Cards system on a minor league contract.) Wake won two games against the Braves in the 1992 NLCS for the Bucs. That was the last year Pittsburgh made the playoffs and the last year they had a winning record.
March 21st, 2011 at 12:41 am
Wakefield is not just the active leader in wins for the Red Sox, he is (as I learned on the SABR mailing list) the active leader in wins for all of MLB. This is the first time since 1968 that no active pitcher has started the season with 200 wins.
This is assuming that Jamie Moyer, Andy Pettite, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz don't pitch this year.
March 24th, 2011 at 3:16 am
"maybe the first time ever we have 5 pitchers with 20+ wins." I don't think a team will ever have more than two 20+ game winners in a season again. In 2 of the last 5 seasons, no pitcher has won 20 games, so three or more on the same team seems impossible.
March 24th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
"maybe the first time ever we have 5 pitchers with 20+ wins." Wow! Possible but bloody unlikely. The last time any team had TWO 20 game winners was the Red Sox with Martinez and Lowe in 2002. Schilling and Beckett have had one each since then. Nowadays 5 in ten years is outstanding.
March 24th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Also consider that in order to have 5 20 game winners, a team must win at least 100 games. And that assumes that not even a single win is credited to the relief staff. While the red sox look excellent, and are certainly a reasonable bet to win 100 games, not every team that looks like it can/should will actually do this. Add in even a very *small* number of wins by the bullpen, and the team would probably need at least 110 wins. You would need a pitching staff this good, *and* an outrageous lineup, *and* a lot of luck to do that, then you'd also need none of your 5 starters getting injured for a significant stretch. And then you'd *still* have a pretty small chance of having 5 20Ws. In fact, you'd have a fairly small chance of getting 3 or 4, even if you won 110 and none of your 5 starters ever dropped out of the rotation for any reason all year long.
The idea that any team in modern times (or any times really) could legitimately be a threat to have 5 20game winning pitchers is extraordinarily far-fetched.
I would be flabbergasted if a team had 3, let alone 4.
Now 4 or 5 15 game winners would be an interesting threshold to see if they could cross (and still exceptionally unlikely, IMO)
March 25th, 2011 at 3:22 am
There have been at least two teams with 4 twenty game pitchers: The 1920 White Sox and the 1971 Orioles. Both of those teams used a four man rotation.
March 26th, 2011 at 11:10 am
Obviously, in the case of the White Sox, they didn't get a chance to repeat the feat in '21 since two of them were banned.