Boston Rotation PFX Evaluation

Instead of focusing on one player, I wanted to take a different look at things. Let’s take a look at the Red Sox rotation as a whole. Looking at it I think it breaks down fairly well.

Beckett – Elite

Lester – Above Average

Matsuzaka – Average

Wakefield – Slightly Below Average

Buchholz – Below average

So I want to see what makes these pitchers different. Why is one successful, while the other are not. First thing I look at is the release point. Instead of the typical view, I decided to move it around some to really help gain some perspective on the difference between the pitchers.

Obviously Lester is the outlier on our right hand side since he is the lone left handed pitcher. What is interesting though is the differences between all of the other right handed pitchers. I expect a difference from Wakefield due to the knuckleball, but everyone else has a fairly distinct release point from each other.

Release Point

1. Matsuzaka is the furthest out along the horizontal axis and also the widest of the groups which leads me to believe he has a lower arm slot and also a less repeatable delivery than the other pitchers. After seeing the intricacies in his windup this makes perfect sense to me.
   
2. Beckett is next but one major difference I see is how tight his release point is. It's not nearly as wide as Matsuzaka's and also isn't as tall. The tighter a release point, the less the hitter has to recognize which pitch is coming. It's also the lowest among all of the starts which may mean several things. First, it could be due to a player being shorter than others but this is not the case because Beckett is 6'4". Another possibility is he strides longer than most pitchers because as the farther you stride, the lower your body has to be. That's what I think is going on with his release point.
3. Lester's release point is the next tightest, especially horizontally
4. Buchholz's release point looks just like Matsuzaka's except slightly higher.
5. Wakefield's is all over the place but that is somewhat to be expected with a knuckleballer.

Note: The interesting thing I saw in the chart to the right is that most of the balls that were hit into play were pitches that were centered in the release point group. I personally thought we'd see more along the fringes but instead they're centered. This is likely due to the frequency of pitches in the center and also maybe a slight over-estimation of the importance of the cluster size in relation to performance.

Movement

This is the one aspect that is always important when evaluating pitchers. First, let's look at it by pitch.


A couple of interesting things that I find here. In the first chart, clearly has a 2-seamer and a 4-seamer. Second it looks likes there is a slight second grouping to Beckett's fastball but not nearly as distinct as Lester's grouping. Lastly in that first chart, both Matsuzaka and Buchholz have very little control of their sliders. They don't know where the pitch will end up and sometimes it just rolls in there for the hitter to hit.

In the second chart, I broke it down by pitcher to see if there is overlap between the vertical movement on the speed of the pitch. Horizontal movement really doesn't have nearly as much of an effect on ineffectiveness as the vertical break does according to several scouts. Also, Buchholz's slider and change-up are basically coming in the same way and thus are likely slightly easier to hit. With the professional game, that's all that is needed. Looking at the pitchers who have been relatively successful this year (Lester and Beckett) and compare them to those who haven't (Buchholz and Matsuzaka), it's clear that the successful ones have very little overlap while the unsuccessful ones have at least a decent amount of overlap.

Pitch Result breakdown
last			pitch_type
				CH	CU	FA	FC	KN	SL	Total
B e c k	B	Count	5	1	93	216	2			317
		%	25.0%	50.0%	43.9%	31.5%	40.0%			34.1%
	S	Count	13	0	90	323	1			429
		%	65.0%	0.0%	42.5%	47.1%	20.0%			46.2%
	X	Count	2	1	29	147	2			183
		%	10.0%	50.0%	13.7%	21.4%	40.0%			19.7%
	Total	Count	20	2	212	686	5			929
		%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%			100%
B u c c h	B	Count	6	21	42	86			29	186
		%	66.7%	38.2%	36.2%	36.8%			37.2%	37.7%
	S	Count	2	24	58	104			41	229
		%	22.2%	43.6%	50.0%	44.4%			52.6%	46.4%
	X	Count	1	10	16	44			8	79
		%	11.1%	18.2%	13.8%	18.8%			10.3%	16.0%
	Total	Count	9	55	116	234			78	494
		%	100%	100%	100%	100%			100%	100%
L e s t e r	B	Count	18	25	66	261	39		9	418
		%	43.9%	53.2%	34.9%	33.9%	33.6%		37.5%	35.2%
	S	Count	15	16	84	342	60		10	527
		%	36.6%	34.0%	44.4%	44.5%	51.7%		41.7%	44.4%
	X	Count	8	6	39	166	17		5	241
		%	19.5%	12.8%	20.6%	21.6%	14.7%		20.8%	20.3%
	Total	Count	41	47	189	769	116		24	1186
		%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%		100%	100%
M a t s u z a	B	Count	9	30	27	229	44		56	409
		%	29.0%	51.7%	55.1%	43.5%	35.2%		28.6%	40.1%
	S	Count	13	14	17	231	46		107	443
		%	41.9%	24.1%	34.7%	43.8%	36.8%		54.6%	43.5%
	X	Count	9	14	5	67	35		33	167
		%	29.0%	24.1%	10.2%	12.7%	28.0%		16.8%	16.4%
	Total	Count	31	58	49	527	125		196	1019
		%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%		100%	100%
W a k e	B	Count	56		0	3		260		321
		%	37.1%		0.0%	27.3%		34.8%		35.2%
	S	Count	70		0	6		339		416
		%	46.4%		0.0%	54.5%		45.4%		45.6%
	X	Count	25		1	2		148		176
		%	16.6%		100%	18.2%		19.8%		19.3%
	Total	Count	151		1	11		747		913
		%	100%		100%	100%		100%		100%

The chart above breakdown whether or not the type of pitch resulted in a ball/strike/or hit into play. As mentioned above Buchholz's slider and change were hit above average compared to others off speed stuff. Matsuzaka throws his CH, CU, and FA for balls for often then strikes so it is no wonder he has as many troubles as he does. I think this really does show that you have to have command of your fastball in order to be successful.


Showing the release point of the balls/strikes/in play shows, confirms what we saw with the 2 dimensional view earlier. More balls and strikes were seen on the periphery of the release point cluster and balls were hit in play more often in the middle of the cluster. Could it be that the change in release point throws off the hitter some? I think a little more investigation is needed at another time.


Velocity


These two aren't as telling as the others but it does show that the elite pitcher of this group has a higher velocity than the others.

Summary: I think more investigation needs to get done but I think I have shown some key things. First, release points do make a difference in terms of size, especially horizontal size. Second, overlapping of vertical movement at the same speed on the different pitches lead to problems. When a slider comes in like a changeup, only bad things will happen.

I'm going to try and focus on more and see if this a trend or if this is merely a coincidence with the Red Sox.