Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Curb Your Enthusiasm on John Farrell
As
fans, we try to be insiders. We read the
main-stream media outlets, listen to sports radio and TV, check out of the blogs
and chat rooms, but we are outsiders. We
only have a tiny inkling about what characteristics would be a good fit as the
Red Sox Manager - let alone who that person should be.
We
are not in the dugout or the clubhouse.
The two essential places that one could start to collect information and
draw an informed opinion on what characteristics would make for a successful
Manager of our local nine.
We
can only go on what the media informs us, who more often than not come with
their own bias. And when we do get a
direct quote, the Red Sox employee is often filtering himself. We are always being put through the spin
cycle.
We do
have unbiased data on players and therefore can do a before/after analysis of
John Farrell’s four year tenure as Pitching Coach. It may give us an indication of Farrell’s
impact on the 2013 Olde Towne Team’s pitchers.
Clay
Buchholz, Daniel Bard and Jon Lester have enough information to analyze and are
still property of the Red Sox heading into 2013.
|
NAME
|
IP
|
K/BB
|
ERA
|
Year
| |
|
Clay
Buchholz
|
22.2
|
2.20
|
1.59
|
2007
| |
|
Clay
Buchholz
|
76
|
1.76
|
6.75
|
2008
| |
|
Clay
Buchholz
|
92
|
1.89
|
4.21
|
2009
| |
|
Clay
Buchholz
|
173.2
|
1.79
|
2.33
|
2010
| |
|
Clay
Buchholz
|
82.2
|
1.94
|
3.48
|
2011
| |
|
Clay
Buchholz
|
189.1
|
2.02
|
4.56
|
2012
| |
|
Daniel
Bard
|
49.1
|
2.86
|
3.65
|
2009
| |
|
Daniel
Bard
|
74.2
|
2.53
|
1.93
|
2010
| |
|
Daniel
Bard
|
73
|
3.08
|
3.33
|
2011
| |
|
Daniel
Bard
|
59.1
|
0.88
|
6.22
|
2012
| |
|
Jon
Lester
|
63
|
1.61
|
4.57
|
2007
| |
|
Jon
Lester
|
210.1
|
2.30
|
3.21
|
2008
| |
|
Jon
Lester
|
203.1
|
3.52
|
3.41
|
2009
| |
|
Jon
Lester
|
208
|
2.71
|
3.25
|
2010
| |
|
Jon
Lester
|
191.2
|
2.43
|
3.47
|
2011
| |
|
Jon
Lester
|
205.1
|
2.44
|
4.82
|
2012
|
In
terms of ERA, each pitcher peaked in Farrell’s last year in Boston and have
fallen off to varying degrees over the past two seasons. But ERA is a flawed
measure to evaluate a pitcher’s production (most notably since it does not
accurately separate a fielder’s performance). Other newer metrics give us a
clearer understanding of a pitcher’s true value, although the simple K/BB ratio
usually does an admirable job in many cases. So when measuring Farrell’s
coaching using K/BB, it is more murky.
Buchholz
had an uptick each year after 2010. Bard was better in 2011, and then had an
epic collapse this season. Lester has slightly declined after Farrell’s
departure in 2010. It is far from a given that Farrell will be able to bring
these three back to their stellar 2010 ERAs, just like we are unclear if he
will be a good fit as the Red Sox Manager.
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