Josh Beckett’s Missing Fastball Is the Real Story
Josh Beckett laid an egg last night, giving up seven runs while facing only 16 batters last night, and he got booed so loudly that the word lustily doesn’t even seem to do it justice. The boos were almost certainly louder than normal due to the recent revelation that Josh Beckett went golfing after he was scratched from his last start due to a strained lat muscle. The story has become that Beckett doesn’t care, and that his struggles are simply due to an apathetic attitude that was also the cause of last year’s late season collapse.
Maybe the story should be that Josh Beckett just isn’t healthy enough to perform up to his usual standards. I know, I know, that’s not nearly as fun as assassinating someone’s character, but it’s the conclusion that best lines up with the evidence.
Last year, Josh Beckett’s fastball averaged 93.0 MPH, and he topped out at 94-95 with regularity. This year, Beckett’s fastball is averaging just 91.5 MPH, and the fastest pitch he threw last night was 92.9 MPH. The difference is easy to see in graph form.
It’s not just his fastball, either. His curveball is off over 2 MPH from last year, so this isn’t just a case of a missing top-end velocity, but instead, Beckett’s just not throwing anything as hard as he has in the past. Missing velocity isn’t always a sign of a health problem, but in Beckett’s case, we don’t have to speculate about whether there’s something physically wrong – the Red Sox already confirmed that there is when they skipped his last start.
So, we have a guy whose velocity is down across the board, who missed a start nine days ago with an acknowledged muscle strain, and at the same time is posting the lowest strikeout rate and highest home run rate of his career. The logical conclusion is that the physical condition – whether it is actually as minimal as a strain or something more serious that hasn’t yet been discovered – is likely causing the diminished velocity, which in turn is playing a significant role in Beckett’s inability to get hitters out.
Tim Lincecum is battling similar problems over in San Francisco right now, struggling to live up to expectations while adjusting to life with a 90 MPH heater. Justin Masterson‘s fastball has gone missing in Cleveland, and he’s been nothing short of a wreck for the Indians since his opening day masterpiece against the Blue Jays. In Chicago, John Danks showed up for camp with a shiny new five year contract but without his best fastball, and he’s been awful over the first five weeks of the season.
None of those guys have yet been diagnosed with any kind of physical ailment that might explain their early season struggles, and none of these guys are being pilloried in the media.
The response to Beckett’s struggles – best exemplified in this piece by Gordon Edes – is far more about his personality than his performance. Beckett doesn’t come off particularly well in this recent golfing thing, and he has a history of being prickly to the media. It’s not overly surprising that they’ve turned the golf story into a firestorm and are openly calling for Beckett to be released.
But, guys with lousy attitudes can struggle for reasons other than their lousy attitudes, and connecting the dots between poor media relations skills and on field struggles requires a leap of faith that we just shouldn’t be willing to make. We saw nearly this exact same scenario play out a year ago, when John Lackey was crucified for his on field struggles and off field attitude, only to have it revealed later that he needed Tommy John surgery and had been pitching with a bum elbow.
Hopefully, Beckett doesn’t have that kind of serious injury, but given his velocity loss, his lousy performance, and the fact that he’s already had to miss one start, it certainly seems like a distinct possibility. And Beckett pitching through an injury would explain his troubles a lot more than some personality defect would. Beckett’s been a prickly guy for his entire career and it has never stopped him from getting hitters out before.
Maybe Beckett really is apathetic, doesn’t care that he’s struggling, and is just counting the days until the season is over. Or maybe he’s trying to pitch through an injury and figure out how to pitch without the ability to throw his fastball by hitters anymore. One of those two theories can be supported by the evidence and isn’t all that uncommon in the world of pitchers. The other requires us to judge the motives of another human being despite having no real knowledge of his inner thoughts.
Call me crazy, but maybe we should go with the one that doesn’t require us to believe we know what’s going on in Josh Beckett’s head. Maybe the Boston media should be more concerned with what’s going on in Beckett’s arm instead.
There goes Dave again, using his “logic” and “reasoning” to make a “reasonable argument”. Get back in your mother’s basement, Dave!
I certainly agree that the more concerning part for the Red Sox should be the missing velocity. That being said, if I were a member of the organization I’d be worried about the golf story as well. It certainly doesn’t seem to me that someone who’d been scratched from a start for a lat injury should be doing a recreational activity that runs at least a slight risk of aggravating said injury. Not that players (pitchers particularly) should never do anything recreational during the season, but it does demonstrate at the very least some questionable judgment.
Whether golfing actually poses an actual risk of injury or not, I agree that guys in the spotlight should be mindful of the appearances of their actions, and that Beckett’s golfing trip doesn’t paint a particularly flattering portrait of his awareness of the situation in Boston right now. It was probably a dumb thing to do. No argument from me on that front.
I just wish the coverage of his struggles was a lot more about the actual reasons he might be struggling rather than the reasons why the local writers don’t like him very much.
I’m with you Dave. The problem we face in Boston is that the local writers are the product of a mix of old school mentality and the fact that they work in a changing marketplace (papers not selling, blogs doing well). This mixture produces pieces that focus on Sports Drama instead of the sport itself. I want to throw the talk radio hosts into this, but hesitate to do so only because they are talking about topics that get listeners to call in and engage in the discussion (onus more on the listeners?). As Mike Adams once said to a caller asking for more analysis based discussions, people just don’t call in for that. Writers face some of the same pressure as talk show hosts in terms of readership and selling papers, but have more freedom to at least attempt to discuss the purely sports based issues without bringing character and outside activities into the fray. Once in a while. Please.
I disagree. Golf is a pretty fairly common off-day activity among SPs, who have to deal with long stretches of inactivity (assuming you throw some side sessions and work out a few hours a day during your off-days, you’ve still got tons of extra time between starts). Also common: visiting Napa wineries during trips to OAK/SF (God forbid Beckett gets wasted and slips and falls while on one of those trips), visiting the local sites (one reason why a Vegas team would be super-lucrative for the local economy), playing video games (I can only imagine the reaction if Beckett was out with a “thumb blister” gotten from too much gaming), etc. Some people do more dangerous activities, like hang-gliding or motocross, which is why they often have those clauses in their contracts.
It’s golf, people. He’s not bungee jumping or free climbing.
The bigger danger to the Sox is that good players throughout baseball demand a steep “Boston premium” to sign with the BoSox due to the fact that their management and local media seem eager to backstab any players that aren’t performing up to par.
Or as SOSHer drtooth said in a post on Beckett’s FB velocity, “Attitude without the stuff to back it up has Beckett going from having bravado to being a tool.”
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/topic/72088-beckett-to-skip-55-start-due-to-stiffness-no-dl-yet/page__view__findpost__p__4124971
Agreed, but let’s be honest, Beckett is a douche. His velocity *is* the real issue, but he’s not doing himself any favors by being a jerk. If he wasn’t a douche, his velocity drop-off would be the thing being discussed. And hell, SoSH game threads (I like to read these when the Yankees kick the crap out of Beckett for a laugh) reveal that even Sox fans think the guy’s a douche. He is a douche, and always has been, so he has only himself to thank for this criticism. His wDBAG+ over the past 6 years is 157. That’s almost A-Rodian (A-Rod is at 172 over the past 12 years).
I hardly see how people can get so upset about a golfing outing when some of these guys are going out and getting loaded every night. There is plenty more risk of injury when guys are wasted and getting in to physical confrontations at bars and clubs.
It’s like when you get found-out at work for calling in sick to play golf. Just tell your boss, “at least I wasn’t getting wasted.”
60 % of the time, it works every time.
It’s an even year, so why is anyone surprised that Beckett’s doing poorly?
Sorry, but what does that matter? Is your post meant to be sarcastic….?
A common urban myth/meme about Josh Beckett is that he only pitches well on odd-numbered years.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/beckejo02.shtml
Look at the odd-year eras:
2001: 24 IP, 1.50 ERA
2003: 142 IP, 3.04 ERA
2005: 178 IP, 3.38 ERA
2007: 200 IP, 3.27 ERA
2009: 212 IP, 3.86 ERA
2011: 193 IP, 2.89 ERA
Even-years:
2002: 107 IP, 4.10 ERA
2004: 156 IP, 3.79 ERA
2006: 204 IP, 5.01 ERA
2008: 174 IP, 4.03 ERA
2010: 127 IP, 5.78 ERA
2012: 34 IP, 5.96 ERA
Obviously correlation does not necessarily mean causality, but it’s an eerie pattern without any real break. The highest ERA+ (adjusted for ballparks, 100 is league average and anything higher is above) he posted in an even numbered year (2008, 115) was still lower than any he posted in an odd year (2005, 118) and significantly lower than most of his odd years.
I think they’re two separate issues that have been blended together because it creates a better column for these guys. BOTH issues are concerning in their own right though, and if I’m the Red Sox they’ve both got to be weighed when making the decision about what’s best to do going forward.
They’re both real stories, IMO …just one is a lot more sexy to the average fan (unfortunately).
I think it’s naive to think that there aren’t players that get the big money and just do not give a crap anymore. Beckett getting roundly booed should at least send him an immediate signal that he’s not living up to the big bucks he is making and not helping his team. Playing golf on an injury timeout re-enforces the image he doesn’t care.
The golf story is simply absurd. The idea that a man can’t do what he wants on an off day, in my opinion, is ridiculous.
Getting away from the game and putting your mind on something else for three hours is probably necessary for everyone in the bigs sanity, let alone for a struggling, probably injured, pitcher in that baseball market
Sure, no one is saying that Beckett can’t golf on an off-day, and if he hadn’t just missed a start for being hurt (in a way that golf certainly COULD aggravate), then this would be a non-story. However, pro athletes certainly owe it to their teams to avoid off-day activities that put them at an inordinate risk for injury (or further injury, in Beckett’s case). His disregard for that is, I think, what has rankled most people.
I agree that, not knowing to the extent of the injury, golf could potentially re-ageivate certain injuries. However, I would protest that the pitcher would certainly be the best judge of that risk, and if he thought it was small to none, then I give him the benefit of the doubt.
Golf degree of physical exertion is minimal, especially compared to the re-hab and excercising that he likely does on a regular basis
Dave – In reading the Edes piece specifically, I don’t think he was trying to directly connect Beckett’s poor performance with his poor attitude, to be honest. He said that it looks like Beckett doesn’t care he and the team are performing badly, but I don’t think he pointed to one as the cause of the other.
Like I said, I think they’re entirely separate issues and I believe that Edes was only addressing one of them.
That’s not at all to diminish your article on the other (more important) issue though.
I usually like Edes, but he was blatantly trying to fan flames in that article. The entire lead is painting a picture of a team grieving the PA guy (so humble) and Beckett not caring about anything. I don’t know how he could have possibly been more blatant about it.
Maintaining your velocity into your 30s often takes a commitment to physical training that is strongly tied into one’s commitment to the game. So, character and velocity are not fully independent in all cases. Of course, you could show up to camp in tip-top shape and still be missing some mph on your fastball. Was this the case for Beckett, and has he earned that benefit of the doubt through a reputation for always giving 110%? The media jury seems to have ruled otherwise.
As far as him being on the golf course: If you call out from work (at a job where people rely on you) because you’re allegedly too injured, and then your employer/co-workers find out you were on the golf course the next day, they’re just not going to be thrilled about it. That’s life, not just baseball.
Here’s a fun scenario for you, if you want to play the “Real trend or statistical anomaly?” game. Josh Beckett’s ERAs have gone up and down every other year since he broke into MLB: 1.50 (4 rookie starts)-> 4.10 -> 3.04 -> 3.79 -> 3.38 -> 5.01 -> 3.27 -> 4.03 -> 3.86 -> 5.78 -> 2.89 -> 5.97 (current year)
It’s almost as if ERA isn’t a very good indicator of true talent/performance.
Yeah, well, this isn’t the first fangraphs article I’ve read, either. But I still get a few kicks when I observe a career pattern that is a 1 in 2000 occurrence by chance alone.
This 1 in 200000 statement confuses me.
Are you suggesting these are the odds that he would have produced the exact stats he has?
Or that someone named Josh Beckett would become a excellent major league pitcher?
1 in 2000 that a player over 12 seasons, due to random fluctuation, would have ERAs that go up/down/up/down/up/down every single year. Math: .5^11
It’s like when you’re watching a game and they say the Elias sports bureau tells us that this is the first game in history in which two pitchers named Pablo have each gone at least 7 innings and struck out exactly 5 batters apiece. They don’t mean that you’re necessarily supposed to infer anything out of this, it’s just a little curiosity they put out there.
And then people post “it’s almost like being named Pablo isn’t a very good indicator of the underlying ability to go 7 innings and strike out 5 guys against another guy named Pablo”, and they get a million thumbs up from the fangraphs crowd.
Tell us more about your fledgling Pablo metric. I think the fangraphs crowd would like to hear about it. Is it at all like Marcel?
If you click on that Gordon Edes link, you’ll get some videos automatically playing. The second one is Buster Olney on Mike & Mike, talking about the possibility of the Sox moving Beckett.
He says if the Sox were to try to move Beckett they’d have to eat the majority of his contract because going back to September of last year, Beckett has a 7.XX ERA. And then, I think I have this exactly right, “He just hasn’t been a very good pitcher, for QUITE A LONG TIME.”
What the heck is he talking about? Beckett was awesome last year, except for when the whole team imploded.
Maybe there’s a valid point in there, like perhaps it would be difficult to move Beckett right now because his diminished performance since the fall has other teams concerned he may be injured. But to say Beckett is so bad that the Sox will have to eat the majority of his salary for the next 3 years to move him. WTF?
I know Buster’s not the most in depth analysis guy, but even he can look at traditional stats and see that Beckett was top 10 in the Cy Young voting last year, number 5 in ERA, and was an all star.
Beckett was a completely useless pitcher from September 29th, 2011 until the spring, just as every other MLB pitcher was. Other than that he’s had two bad months, which can happen to anyone.
Definitely cause for concern here, but seriously, Buster, lower the hyperbole a few notches.
Olney gets more respect than he deserves, imo. If he’s not breaking a story, I have zero interest in what he’s saying.
Your argument would be more convincing, Dave, were it not for the fact that Becket’s supposed loss of velocity has been written about by Boston and national media for more than four weeks. Google “fastball” and “josh Beckett” and “velocity” and you’ll find 62 stories since ESPN wrote about it April 18th. I found a report on April 11 on NESN.com that focuses exclusively on fastball velocity. At that stage, anyways, the evidence wasn’t as clear cut:
First start: Cleveland start Beckett threw 52 fastballs. None of those fastballs registered at more than 93 mph Average four-seam fastball velocity: 92.22 mph Average two-seam fastball velocity: 91.91 mph Final line: 5 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 4 K
Second start: New York start Beckett threw 40 fastballs Of those 40 fastballs, 24 of them registered at 94 mph Average four-seam fastball: 93.58 mph Average two-seam fastball: 93.35 mph Final line: 8 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 10 K
Read more at: http://www.nesn.com/2011/04/josh-becketts-fastball-command-velocity-is-key-in-regaining-form-as-top-of-rotation-starter.html
As to the link between velocity and injury, adding “injured” to the Google search above and applied to the “everything” category turns up more than 500,000 hits and many of those are dealing with Beckett in 2012.
In short, the whole issue of velocity and possible injury for Beckett has been written about for months, it’s genesis is from last season and it was renewed again this season. Simply put, its not news.
What was news more recently was that on a day he way too injured to pitch he was using the sore muscle to play golf. That was news. Not simply because it revealed something about Beckett’s decision-making but because it hadn’t knowingly occurred before. Did some sports writing hacks take it too far and try to make it an indictment of his character? Certainly. There are many more poor sports writers than there are effective one.
But does that mean the media outside Fangraphs has ignored the question of Beckett’s fastball and whether it is an indicator of injury?
Only if you shut your eyes to the many articles that have been written.
Just to be clear, Beckett’s velocity loss last year was marginal, but because the stats that are the focus of traditional media were so poor, that marginal velocity loss was written about. This year’s velocity loss has been more dramatic.
Not sure exactly what your search terms were but google “Josh Beckett fastball velocity golf” and you get “About 529,000 results”. Not sure Google is going to make your case here.
By the way, kudos for “it’s genesis is from last season and it was renewed again this season. Simply put, its not news.” — giving tension headaches to copy editors everywhere.
Hi fellow journalist. Surely you understand that the use of a search engine is just a first step towards acquiring knowledge. You need to apply filters to the results and you have not.
One important filter in this case is timing: Cameron has asserted the media ignored the drop in Beckett’s velocity and its relationship to a possible injury, then jumped all over is playing of golf the day after skipping a start.
The many stories about velocity and injury occurred BEFORE the recent golf incident. The stories about the golf incident came after. Cameron’s assertion was false.
As for copy editing, I offer you alternative suggestions:
(1) Defend the following sentence you wrote in this thread: “Where Beckett gets it wrong is that as it seems likely he’s got an injury, people will view it as irresponsible when he plays golf instead of resting.”
(2) Understand than when we write hastily after midnight we sometimes create sentences that in the cold light of the next day are grimace-producing.
Dave, I think your article is the first bit of rational thought I’ve seen applied to the Beckett situation. Beckett’s personality is making him into the scapegoat for the disaster that is Boston since Sept 1 of last year.
That said, part of the issue is maybe he isn’t all that good of a pitcher anymore. There was another piece on ESPN calling Beckett overrated, which I agree with. baseball-reference.com says that the most similar pitcher to Beckett through age 31 is Kevin Millwood.
By the way, I’m a Sox fan.
Let’s just get it out of the way now; the golf outing was in poor judgement. When I first heard about it though I had a different reaction. Beckett’s last start before being shut down with a lat strain was against Chicago and he threw 120+ plus pitches and was worked pretty hard. The Red Sox wanted to get Aaron Cook on the roster to prevent an opt-out situation and likely wanted to get him a start, but needed to skip someone to do so. Now, Beckett may have had some soreness, but it may not have been bad and the team saw it as a good excuse to skip him. If he’s not that hurt, it now makes more sense why he’d go golfing on an off day, but it still looks bad when the media is already jumping all over the guy for last September.
That said, the local media has been out of control lately. The chicken and beer thing was ridiculous, as if that caused the collapse of the 2011 Sox, but now it’s even worse. Beckett has been made the poster boy for the Sox struggles, but even Adrian Gonzalez had a nice hatchet-job done to him last week calling into question if he can “handle” the Boston market (nevermind his fantastic 2011 campaign, the Boston media must think we all have short-term memories). Beckett doesn’t do himself any favors though when he says stuff like baseball isn’t as important to him anymore or looks to be out of shape on the mound. It makes me wish we had access to some of the data the Red Sox likely have on Beckett to see if he truly is showing up to camp out of shape. It would certainly help explain the drop in velocity to start the year.
Until last night, Beckett was starting to right the ship and was arguably the best starter on the Sox so far this year. Not that that is saying much. Lester looks awful so far, and Buchholz even worse. This velocity drop bug seems to have affected the entire staff and it calls into question what kind of program is the team putting its pitchers on? I’m sure it can be verified, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Red Sox starters have the worst strikeout rate in the league. Felix Doubront is the only guy getting consistent wiffs.
Lester has struggled but not because of velocity. His fastball velocity is virtually the same and his cutter and changeup are faster.
A faster change-up would seem, potentially, a velocity problem too.
“Maybe the story should be that Josh Beckett just isn’t healthy enough to perform up to his usual standards.”
What are Beckett’s “usual standards”?
2006: 5.01era, 5.12fip, 4.44xfip
2007: 3.27era, 3.08fip, 3.31xfip
2008: 4.03era, 3.24fip, 3.19xfip
2009: 3.86era, 3.63fip, 3.30xfip
2010: 5.78era, 4.54fip, 3.86xfip
2011: 2.89era, 3.57fip, 3.58xfip
2012: 5.97era, 5.78fip, 4.33xfip
Beckett’s AL East Career: 4.10era, 3.90fip, 3.63xfip
Solid pitcher, some great years, some awful years, some decent years. 32 years old and a ton of innings pitched on that arm. Are we really still surprised that Beckett is prone to bad stretches, even very long bad stretches, and that they might become more and more frequent as he gets further past 30?
Guess not.
“Solid pitcher, some great years, some awful years, some decent years”
God, you’re the best. When you’re arguing that Carl Crawford sucks as bad as Vernon Wells, you include his stats from when he was a 21 year old adjusting to the big leagues and then call other people cherry pickers. When you want to make Josh Beckett look mediocre, you ignore his very good years before 2006.
You have no interest in being objective, you’re just out to make the Red Sox look bad any way you conceivably can, and cry bias because nobody cares about your poor little Blue Jays. Were you even alive the last time they made the playoffs?
In fairness to him, Beckett was in his age 26 year when he came to Boston. So if you want to try to look at what should be his best years, that’d be close to the time to start. He only had 2 years of 150 IP in Florida at 24 and 25 and was pretty good.
I think more what he was saying is that Beckett isn’t a true ace. He’s erratic. Always has been for the most part. He probably should have had much better numbers in 2008.
I see Beckett as a guy who can be awesome, but isn’t in the upper tier. I think too many people try to put him in a higher slot than he really is.
To be honest, Andrew, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
You won’t find any knowledgeable baseball person crying about “bias” when someone ignores NL stats when assessing an AL pitcher – most especially an AL East pitcher. This is something that you have to do, not something which really is a choice. If you were basing your AL expectations of Beckett on what he did in the NL, I’d say that you were misleading yourself. His AL numbers paint the picture of what Beckett actually is and what expectations should have been on him coming into the season – a solid but not great pitcher, equally capable of giving you a very good or a very bad season in any given year, and on the wrongside of 30 with a ton of innings on that arm. If you were expecting him to match or even really come all that close to what he did last year for you, and if you didn’t expect a significant drop off in his performance this year (though, admittedly, it didn’t have to be THIS bad….though, again, he has been this bad before, more than once) I’d say you were the one being biased, and overrated your team’s player.
As for the Wells-Crawford comp, I used many different stats to demonstrate their similarity, and you made up many reasons in your head why my stats were “biased”. For example, you argued that using career stats for 2 guys who started at age 20 was unfair and biased. of course, this is just what you wanted to believe, not reality, so you were very surprised when i turned out to be right. You would think after I was shown to be unbiased by the performances on the field, you would realize that I wasn’t being biased, but that I was right.
And to be honest, I’m not sure why you keep saying that I’d be jealous of the red sox as a Jays fan. We’ve both watched our teams win 2 world series (of course, my team didn’t need a wild card spot, a ridiculous payroll advantage, or a whole lotta steroids to win theirs, which is nice). Your team hasn’t made the playoffs in a while, and are continuing on a downward spiral this year, with a very messy near future thanks to some awful contracts. Really, Andrew, there’s not much for me to be jealous of there.
Everdiso:
(1) The Blue Jays had the highest payroll in the majors when they won the world series in 1993 and the third highest and within $2 million of the leader when they won in 1992. Boston was second its two world series years, each time about $55 million behind the Yankees.
(2) Any sane Blue Jay fan has been jealous of the Red Sox for most of the past decade. I say that living in London, Ontario, where about half the baseball fans root for the Blue Jays (the other half for the Tigers). The Blue Jays management since their last world series win 19 years ago until their current GM was hired has ranged between mediocre and awful, and during much of that time, the Red Sox have been among the best run organizations in MLB. I say that as a Mets fan who roots for the Blue Jays because they are so close. AA had done a great job overall but if you’re not jealous of what the Red Sox did in the first decade of this century than you are incapable of seeing beyond your own bias.
(3) Never saw your expose on Crawford and Wells. A silly comparison. Crawford derived so much of his value from defence and speed on the bases and from full season 2 until full season 8 never had a bad year, ranging from good to dominant. Wells was an average fielder with little value on the bases who from full season 2 until full season 8 had only on year comparable to Crawford’s better years, who declined in a big way in year 6 and who in the past five years combined had a WAR less than what Crawford had in 2010 alone. That Crawford hit a wall last year and has been hurt this year doesn’t erase the previous eight years.
(1) Jays were 3rd in payroll in 1992 at $43.6m, and 1st in 1993 at $45.8m. This was before the massive salary explosion that happened in all sports in the mid-90s, and really is in no way comparable to the ridiculous payroll advantage teams like the Yanks and Sox have had over the last decade.
(2) The past is the past. The Sox were jealous of the Jays 20 years ago, the Jays were jealous of the Sox more recently. Right now, however, there’s nothing to be jealous of when looking at the Sox.
(3) Heading into last season, the Angels were widely panned for trading for Wells aka the worst contract in baseball (and rightly so), while the Sox were widely praised for signing Crawford. My comparison between the two was made because of the astonishingly different take that was taken on the acquisition of these two similar players to fill each team’s LF slot on similarly awful contracts in the same off season. It didn’t make sense at the time, and it still doesn’t. We can review the data again, but I presented a pretty solid case as to why these two players were of similar value.
In brief, Crawford’s only claim to being an elite player, all his WAR, and only advantage over Wells as a player was based solely on unreliable defensive metrics – an advantage that looked to be largely eliminated by a number of factors: 1) Crawford’s UZR number was a crazy outlier, and weirdly was massively influenced by his home defense numbers. On the road, through all those years in tampa, he was just a good defender, while at home he was, through all those years in tampa, an otherwordly defender. That was a clear warning sign IMO that his huge number might not be legit. 2) He was moving from that home park to Fenway Park, whose famous LF seemed sure to eliminate much of his defensive value, specifically by nullifying most of the value of his great range, 3) Wells’ value and WAR was negatively impact by his poor defensive ratings as a CF, but given that it was only really his range that had deteriorated in recent years, and not his other defensive skills, the switch to LF was bound to increase his defensive value by a good margin. Unsurprisingly to me, Wells has gone on to put up elite defensive numbers in LF in LA, and Crawford’s defense has been exposed as not as advertised in Boston. I was called a biased idiot for arguing that this was a likely case going forward last offseason, and now even after it turns out i was right, I’m still being called a biased idiot.
So with the defensive differences nullified, we’re left with comparing their offensive contributions. Both entered last year with career wOBA’s a hair over .340. Both entered last year coming off of very strong 2010s, but with inconsistent performance over the previous 3 years (Wells .362-.314-.357 wOBA, Crawford: .378-.367-319).
Both were getting paid ~$20m per year, Crawford for 3 years longer, but also being 3 years younger, with both contracts expiring at age 35.
So by my assessment we had 2 similarly bad contracts, 2 likely similar defensive players, and 2 likely similar offensive players. But one was criticized as the worst contract in baseball, while the other praised as a great signing. Even if you gave crawford a marginal edge based on his speed on the basepaths and being younger, it still wouldn’t be enough to justify those insanely different takes on each player and contract.
The Crawford signing was a horrible contract from day one, but few wanted to admit it.
(1) While I appreciate your creative efforts on Wells and Crawford it smacks of someone seeking stats and a rationale to confirm his bias. If you are to compare offensive stats for two hitters who play in home fields with very different park factors, wouldn’t you want to chose a stat that factors in park factors? Seems kind of obvious. But you have chosen instead to use wOBA, which does not. Some wOBA also don’t included stolen bases/caught stealing though I’m not sure in the case of Fangraphs. In any case, a less biased yardstick that includes park and league factors is wRC+. Here’s how each fared in the four years before the trade/big contract:
Crawford: 140, 125, 94, 122
Wells: 125, 86, 117, 82
So Crawford was more than 20% above the league average; Wells was 2.5%
Lest you think I’m cherry-picking, Crawford was better the three previous years overall though by a much smaller margin. And as miserable as Crawford was last year with wRC+ of 83, Wells was at 77 and this year is at 74.
(2) Defensive metrics: A couple of points. Just because defensive metrics are less well understood doesn’t mean that defence doesn’t have value — what it means is that it can take more than 1 year of data to make an informed judgment. Taken as a whole, Crawford was a way-above average fielder and a single year’s data isn’t very informative. It’s fair to say Crawford’s range has less value in Fenway than un Tampa, as you suggest, but to suggest it has no value in Fenway based on one year’s data smacks of bias.
(3) When Boston signed Crawford he was a well-above average offensive performer wit superior base-running skills and defence. When the Angels traded for Wells he was a league average hitter, a below average fielder and at an age where his production could be expected to decline more precipitously. Were the Red Sox over-paying? Likely. Were they over-paying to the extent the Angels were overpaying for Wells? It’s not even close. There’s a reason four teams, including the Angels, by the way, made substantial offers for Crawford and that no team but the Angels ever made a serious pitch for Wells.
Great stuff, this is exactly why I read Fangraphs.
Phenomenal article. I live in Boston and it just kills me that most of the folks around here that want to talk “baseball” are willing to go along w/ the pathetic Boston “sports media” and indulge in stories like the golf story instead of paying attention to the actual in-game results and analyzing performances IN GAME. All this tabloid style crap makes me feel like I’m rooting for the Mets……..
Definitely no coincidence that Beckett, Lincecum, Masterson, Danks, Ubaldo, and to a lesser degree Gallardo are all seeing a velocity dip and all having bad years…
why, what’s the thread there?
They’re pitching slower.
So what we’re really asking here is, what’s Beckett’s handicap?
pitching.
heh. Nice.
This is the beauty of everdiso:
Dave: Maybe the story should be that Josh Beckett just isn’t healthy enough to perform up to his usual standards.
Everdipshit: What are Beckett’s “usual standards”?
Well, as you pointed out, it’s 4.10era, 3.90fip, 3.63xfip, all of which are at least a full run better than his 2012 stats, the first two being TWO runs worse. So thanks dude, for proving that Beckett isn’t up to his usual standards.
True: Six starts are all that’s necessary for ERA and FIP to stabilize as indicators of pitching performance.
If a nagging injury is the cause of Beckett’s problems, he shouldn’t be playing golf. Here is a link to some of the more common golf-related injuries.
http://golf.about.com/od/fitnesshealth/tp/commoninjuries.htm
It’s not an intense physical activity, but it’s not risk-free.
If he didn’t have a nagging injury, then he should have been available to start.
Either way, it’s an example of poor judgement, he deserves some ridicule for it. If his team were winning it wouldn’t be as big a deal, but they aren’t, and haven’t been since last season’s collapse.
The beer and chicken thing was dumb, but this story is relevant to Boston fans. Beckett shouldn’t expose his arm to any unnecessary risk or stress injury until he’s making his starts and back on track with his pitching.
I suspect Lester may also have a bit of an injury.
I have a theory (it’s just a theory, but that is sort of what this site is about) that there is an X-Factor with pitchers, and that is durability. It can’t be seen or measured but it exists for every pitcher, and is very different for each. Some pitchers just aren’t able to throw 200 innings in a year. Other pitchers can, but then suffer for it the next year. Some pitchers can throw 200 innings a year for an extended period time without noticable effects (e.g. Jon Lester), and then they hit their wall and break down. And some pitchers can throw 200 innings year after year after year.
When I see a pitcher like Beckett, who alternates between dominant and bad, I think it may be attributable to durability, that he periodically “hits the wall” and needs time to recover. In a best case scenario, I think a team would find a way to limit to Beckett to about 180 innings per year, and in a sense I think the constant blisters he used to suffer from were a blessing in disguise because they ended up doing just this.
I tend to think a large part of what happened to the Red Sox last September and is continuing this Spring is that Beckett and Lester both “hit their walls” at the same time, and they did it at the same time as the pitching staff was hit with other injuries. Fortunately, I don’t think there’s a strong reason to believe the damage is necessarily permanent, and both pitchers may very well bounce back. However, if I were running the Red Sox, I would be very tempted to write off this year and shut both of them down or at least make sure they both had significantly lightened workloads.
I agree with your theory that some pitchers get injured.
Agree completely. And this is what separates true ace’s from excellent pitchers like Beckett. A guy like Sabathia or Hernandez or for the most part Verlander are imo THE single most valuable commodity a team can have. There is simply no replacing consistency and the ability to be able to repeat the same line year in year out under tremendous work loads. To respond to the latest snarky dude below. It’s not about injury it’s about a subtle ineffectiveness that occurs from overuse. Unfortunately there is no way to truly know when the overuse is going to occur. however Beckett seems to have a pretty good track record now of being a guy who cannot sustain his elite performance year in year out. Whereas Sabathia and Hernandez and up until this season LEster seem to be immune to the ups and downs that guys with lesser durabililty encounter.
As a Red Sox fan and sports journo who has lived in several major cities including Beantown, I think the Boston sports media are among the worst I’ve encountered anywhere. Edes is actually a shining light of good sense and reason compared with most of his local colleagues.
Your analysis makes perfect sense; he very likely is injured. Where Beckett gets it wrong is that as it seems likely he’s got an injury, people will view it as irresponsible when he plays golf instead of resting. People aren’t bothered by the golf, but by the apparent lack of responsibility.
Send Beckett to the KC Royals.
His fastball will magically jump up to 95mph in no time!
Josh Beckett is a dick. He has always been a dick. The guy has made his own bed. If Josh Beckett stops being a dick, reporters will stop writing about what a dick he is.
To be honest, Andrew, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
You won’t find any knowledgeable baseball person crying about “bias” when someone ignores NL stats when assessing an AL pitcher – most especially an AL East pitcher. This is something that you have to do, not something which really is a choice. If you were basing your AL expectations of Beckett on what he did in the NL, I’d say that you were misleading yourself. His AL numbers paint the picture of what Beckett actually is and what expectations should have been on him coming into the season – a solid but not great pitcher, equally capable of giving you a very good or a very bad season in any given year, and on the wrongside of 30 with a ton of innings on that arm. If you were expecting him to match or even really come all that close to what he did last year for you, and if you didn’t expect a significant drop off in his performance this year (though, admittedly, it didn’t have to be THIS bad….though, again, he has been this bad before, more than once) I’d say you were the one being biased, and overrated your team’s player.
As for the Wells-Crawford comp, I used many different stats to demonstrate their similarity, and you made up many reasons in your head why my stats were “biased”. For example, you argued that using career stats for 2 guys who started at age 20 was unfair and biased. of course, this is just what you wanted to believe, not reality, so you were very surprised when i turned out to be right. You would think after I was shown to be unbiased by the performances on the field, you would realize that I wasn’t being biased, but that I was right.
And to be honest, I’m not sure why you keep saying that I’d be jealous of the red sox as a Jays fan. We’ve both watched our teams win 2 world series (of course, my team didn’t need a wild card spot, a ridiculous payroll advantage, or a whole lotta steroids to win theirs, which is nice). Your team hasn’t made the playoffs in a while, and are continuing on a downward spiral this year, with a very messy near future thanks to some awful contracts. Really, Andrew, there’s not much for me to be jealous of there.”
tl;dr
sorry I seem to have hit a nerve.
You’re right, Everdiso. Crawford and Wells are the same player offensively.
And why hasn’t anyone snatched up Ken Griffey Jr. this year? He has a .385 career wOBA!