Thoughts on the Red Sox pitching: Josh Beckett

by radiohix on Jul 16, 2010 9:18 AM EDT

This Saturday in Syracuse, Josh Beckett will be pitching what could be his last rehabbing start in AAA. If everything goes well, he'll be slotted into the Red Sox rotation at some point during the West Coast trip next week.

Albeit his apparently rocky start highlighted by an ERA of 7.29, a proper analysis lead me to think he will be a major addition to our pitching staff and here's why:

Josh Beckett was terribly unlucky with balls put in play against him (BABIP of .365) and stranding runners on base (LOB% of 55.9): Those are unsustainable numbers and they will come down because we're not talking about a skill here!
In his 8 starts this season Beckett has faced 212 batters, a sample too small to have an opinion on his increased BB rate (3.74 BB/9 compared to his career mark of 2.77 BB/9). That sample though is significant enough too asses his K/9, who at 7.88 remains very good.
When we're dealing with SSS, there's other numbers we can refer to so we can have a clearer picture: Here's a table that could help us

Year	FB Velocity	Contact%	First pitch Strike%	Whiff%
2007	94.6	87.8%	62.7%	8.8%
2008	94.3	88.0%	63.4%	8.6%
2009	94.3	87.6%	63.7%	8.5%
2010	93.5	87.1%	63.7%	8.6%

Looking at those numbers, I see the same exact pitcher who racked up 6.5, 5.0 and 5.3 WAR in the last 3 season while pitching in toughest division in baseball: He's throwing high heat (quick note here: The 0.8 mph decrease in FB velocity could be attributed to the beginning of the season starts where pitchers generally are building arm strength), he's getting ahead of hitters and he's missing the same amount of bats.

He's no John Lackey!

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Comments

I love this post.

Everyone here hates him, and in his whole career, he’s only had one bad season.

"If I was being paid $30,000 dollars a year, the very least I could do was hit .400."- Ted Williams
"man, this team they just suck so bad"- gizmosandy
Twitter: @BoldandBrash

by BoldandBrash on Jul 16, 2010 11:21 AM EDT reply actions

One thing of note

and keep in mind, I like Beckett a lot. But the strand rate was very low because he could not repeat his delivery working out of the stretch, he was having serious issues with that in the beginning of the season. So that’s not entirely luck.

I think he does get a kind of a bad rap, but that’s mostly in response to the fact that he is generally regarded as the Red Sox Ace, which gets equated with pitchers like Cliff Lee and Halladay and the like, and he isn’t on that level of domination. I think he’s a very good pitcher, though not near as good as Lester.

by wolf9309 on Jul 16, 2010 11:40 AM EDT reply actions

projecting

But I got a hunch (like when I had U. Jimenez as my # 1 pitcher to be drafted in March). Beckett will be back to his old form, by the middle of August. He will be well rested for the playoffs, where he can dominate.
2nd half Projections =12 Starts 8 wins 70+Ks ERA 3.50 Whip 1.20. 10 QS.
Back to his old non-injured self. For those of you who think that Josh hasn’t been injured for the better part of a year. Hello this is baseball and 1st base is only 90 feet away.

Jeffrey M Melhorn

by 18-1 damn on Jul 16, 2010 11:50 AM EDT reply actions