Mending Sox
by Felton Trigg
It’s almost 2005, and with the Sox addressing all of their personnel needs, we can pretty much assume that the offseason is over for Theo and the gang. I’m still expecting one of the first basemen and BK “middle finger” Kim to be dealt, but I can’t see them adding anyone more than a middle reliever to the major league team through this process. I think we can all agree that swapping the OC and Williamson for Renteria and Mantei is at worst a wash. That being said, I have focused this column on starting pitching additions and subtractions.
Theo had been quoted to say that if Pedro didn’t come off his unrealistic contract demands he would replace him with 2 pitchers who would “at least show up on time.” Well, in fact, Theo used Pedro’s $17.5 million to sign 3 starters, 2 that will show up on time. Wade Miller, Matt Clement and David Wells will team up to replace Pedro and D-Lowe in the rotation. While we cannot quantify the intangibles that Pedro and Derrick brought to playoff baseball in Boston, we can compare their regular season statistical trends to those of the new guys.
The difference in salaries between Wells and Miller to Pedro make Theo’s new 2-headed starter a lower risk than Pedro would have been. Let’s start with durability: Over the past 3 years, the new starters have averaged 182 innings per year, while Pedro and Lowe have averaged 192 innings. If we go back 4 years, we factor in Pedro’s injury and Derrick’s bullpen work, the latter skews the numbers in favor of the new guys. Lowe and Clement seem to be the least likely to suffer a major injury over the next 2-3 years, while Pedro and Miller have shoulder problems that they are currently dealing with. David Wells will most likely be hampered by back problems for the remainder of his career. The difference in salaries between Wells and Miller (combined $5.5 million guaranteed in 2005) to Pedro ($14 million) make Theo’s new 2-headed starter a lower risk than Pedro would have been. Now let’s examine effectiveness: I believe that On-base Percentage + Slugging Percentage Against (OPS Against) is the best measure of a pitcher’s effectiveness. It does not favor one pitching style over another (ie, Mulder’s OPS is lowered by his superb accuracy, while Wood’s OPS is lowered by his high strikeout rate) and to a certain degree softens the contributions of things the pitcher cannot control (such as singles). Figure 1 shows the OPS Against for each of these 5 pitchers over the past 5 years. The dashed lines represent the 2 pitchers leaving the Sox, while the solid lines represent the 3 pitchers coming to Boston.
The most striking data belongs to Pedro Martinez. From 2000 to 2003, Pedro’s OPS declined at an almost linear rate, from ‘perhaps the greatest ever’ to ‘one of the best pitchers in the league’. I believe that 2004 served as the forecast for what to expect of Pedro in his elderly baseball years. The two most plausible scenarios were that (1) Pedro’s linear decline would continue or (2) that his OPS would plateau at around .600. I certainly did not expect Pedro to throw 200+ healthy innings in his contract year and see his OPS increase as much as it did. I’m sure this trend was as much of a reason for not resigning Pedro as his shoulder was. Since both Wade Miller and Matt Clement have consistently been around .700 over the past 3 years, and we should be able to expect some improvement from them as they age, I think Theo did well here. Can we expect either of these players to pitch around .600? Probably not, but other than AJ Burnett and Randy Johnson, I don’t think there was a pitcher available this offseason whom that could be expected. Replacing what Lowe has done in the regular season over the past two years should not be difficult. One of the biggest misnomers of the past year was that Derrick Lowe was too inconsistent. In fact, Lowe was consistent if nothing else. His was consistently terrible during the regular season and outstanding during his 4 postseason appearances. D-Lowe has always been a GREAT playoff pitcher. Remember when he owned Jim Thome in 1999? How about the greatest back-to-back strikeouts in Red Sox history in 2003? And we all know about 2004. But let’s not kid ourselves, during the 2003 and 2004 regular season Derrick Lowe sucked. In addition to the gaudy OPS numbers, he lead the majors in runs allowed, allowed left-handed batters to hit a robust .305 against him and allowed a league high 34 stolen bases out of 36 attempts (that’s a 94% success rate for the thieves) in 2004. Replacing what he has done in the regular season over the past 2 years should not be difficult.
That brings us to David Wells. He had OPS numbers between .700 and .800 from 2000 to 2003 while pitching in Yankee Stadium, a park that was practically designed for his style of pitching. He then reduced these values to just below .700 in 2004 while pitching in the biggest park the majors has seen in 50 years. I expect his transition to Fenway Park to be brutal. The two positive angles that can be taken with Boomer is that he increased his GB/FB ration from 1.20 to a career high 1.51 last year and somehow got right-handed hitters to slug 200 points less than lefties last year (in 2002 and 2003, both lefties and righties slugged .470 against him). He will need to pitch successfully against righties in 2005 to avoid giving up 40+ home runs.
All and all I think that Sox did well, given who was available and the price at which they paid. I would still love to see Tim Hudson, AJ Burnett or Ben Sheets in Fenway, but limiting the amount of money guaranteed to Boomer in 2006 (it could work out to be a simple $2.5 million buyout if he stinks it up) should give Theo a lot of flexibility moving forward. I think that staff of 2005 (barring injury) should help them get up to around 95 wins they will need to get into the playoffs. Whether they pitch well in the playoffs (relative to Pedro and Lowe) is another story.
How did Theo do?