Monday, July 05, 2004
Lower than Lowe
Hope everyone who is celebrating the holiday weekend is having a good one. A typically solid baseball weekend, I got sucked into what was a tremendous Yankees-Mets series at Shea, watching almost every inning of the three games. Peeked in on the Sox-Braves a few times; ditto for the Reds-Indians. My last glimpse of baseball on Sunday was courtesy of the A’s-Giants game.
Scouring the slate of games for today, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it’s not as barren a schedule as I originally thought. Thirteen games, including a Day/Night Doubleheader between the Rays and O’s in Baltimore.
I don’t have anything in particular that is a pressing need to be addressed. However, there are a few things that have been continuing themes that don’t seem to be going away.
Of primary interest is Derek Lowe’s impending fade into oblivion. I had written a little bit about Lowe’s positive signs in June last week, and was spurred on to dig a little deeper by Saorse on the MLB Center Board. From my last post on Tuesday night:
Now, as if mirroring the fortunes of the team he's pitching for, Lowe’s season appears to be spiraling downward. Although plagued by terrible defense behind him on Tuesday, Lowe did absolutely nothing to help himself. In five innings of work he gave up nine hits and five earned runs (nine runs overall), and two costly home runs. After a few starts of posting decent strikeout numbers (for him), he only whiffed one batter.
And yesterday, Lowe’s season might’ve hit rock bottom. Against a middle-of-the-road offense in the Braves, he got racked around to the tune of 4.1 IP, 8 H, 8 R (all earned) and 1 HR. He walked two and struck out one.
His season ERA now sits above six. He’s given up 110 hits in 86.2 innings of work. And his strike out rate of 4.26 per nine IP is one of the worst in baseball.
Lowe’s never been a strikeout pitcher, but this season’s mark would be the lowest K-rate of his career. I should clarify that: Lowe’s never been a strikeout pitcher as a starter. As a reliever he had adequate strikeout rates.
The K/9 rates for the full seasons of his career (not counting ’97 when he split time between Seattle and Boston, pitching in 20 games and starting nine):
As a reliever:
1998 (63 games, started 10) – 5.63
1999 (74 G, 0 GS) – 6.59
2000 (74 G, 0 GS) – 7.74
2001 (67 G, 3 GS) – 8.05
As a starter (he has not appeared in relief since ’01):
2002 – 5.20
2003 – 4.87
2004 – 4.37
Those strikeout rates are about as low as you can find for a regular starter in the major leagues. Even that ’02 rate, a season in which he went 21-8 with a 2.58 ERA, would rank around 70th this year among eligible pitchers.
His BB/9 rates have not changed drastically enough to make you think that finding the plate has become a problem. He’s at about 3.9/9 IP this year, which has doubled since 2002. But it’s still not a rate that should cause that much alarm on the whole. It’s just when it’s paired with the strikeouts to come up with an awful 1.08 K/BB ratio that you give it much notice.
The GB/FB rate is a key for Lowe considering his propensity to throw the sinker. And this year’s rate, while down from the last several years, is right around his career average of 3.45. That’s an excellent number for a pitcher whose primary function is to induce ground balls, and in fact his rate this year (3.39) ranks second in the majors. Brandon Webb is first at 3.75.
And finally, here are Lowe’s HR/9 rates since ’02, and his BA/OBP/SLG numbers in that same span:
2002: 0.49 (12 HR in 219.2 IP)
2003: 0.75 (17 in 203.1)
2004: 0.83 (8 in 86.2)
2002: .211/.265/.302
2003: .272/.337/.397
2004: .307/.374/.441 (This last batch doesn’t include Sunday’s outing.)
These ingredients combine to produce a pretty distasteful stew for Lowe and the Red Sox. We have a pitcher whose strikeout rates are dropping steadily, and home run rates are rising steadily. His walks are also increasing.
To his credit, he’s still inducing a high rate of ground balls. Unfortunately he has one of the worst infield defenses in the majors trying to track them down.
I know fielding statistics are a tricky animal to tackle, but I think we can get a general idea of how bad the Sox infield D has been from some of these rankings:
Infield Statistics Ranking Among ML teams:
Fielding Pct.: 28th, ahead of only the Mets and Braves
Errors: 27th
Range Factor: 23rd
Zone Rating: T-24th
Double Plays: T-24th
While I can’t say definitively that if Derek Lowe was pitching in front of, say the Dodgers’ infield or the Marlins’, he would be pitching lights-out right now, the Sox’ poor play in the infield has to be having a negative effect on Lowe’s numbers.
So in answer to Saorse’s question from the other night: No, I don’t see anything that tells me that Derek Lowe is going to have a magical turnaround in the second half of the season. I would suspect that he could string a few starts together like the ones he had in June, and temper his numbers from getting out of control. Ultimately, he’s going to have trouble to be anything more than a .500 pitcher (on a good offensive team) with a sub-4.75 ERA.
----
Sounding Board
This is the first post of mine which is being mirrored within the Forums at a very cool site, MLB Center (www.mlbcenter.com). One of the things I'm excited about is the instant feedback that will be available from fellow board-members. Be sure to check out the area Mike has set up for me, as well as the other areas of the Forums, and the site in general.
I will be adding appropriate links on this page shortly.
Hope everyone who is celebrating the holiday weekend is having a good one. A typically solid baseball weekend, I got sucked into what was a tremendous Yankees-Mets series at Shea, watching almost every inning of the three games. Peeked in on the Sox-Braves a few times; ditto for the Reds-Indians. My last glimpse of baseball on Sunday was courtesy of the A’s-Giants game.
Scouring the slate of games for today, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it’s not as barren a schedule as I originally thought. Thirteen games, including a Day/Night Doubleheader between the Rays and O’s in Baltimore.
I don’t have anything in particular that is a pressing need to be addressed. However, there are a few things that have been continuing themes that don’t seem to be going away.
Of primary interest is Derek Lowe’s impending fade into oblivion. I had written a little bit about Lowe’s positive signs in June last week, and was spurred on to dig a little deeper by Saorse on the MLB Center Board. From my last post on Tuesday night:
However, he appears to be in the midst of turning his season around. I've caught a sizable portion of his recent starts, and he's been throwing much better. His pitches have had much more bite to them, and for Lowe that means better downward action. He's pitched seven innings in each of his last three starts, and his ERA has been going down as well.
Now, as if mirroring the fortunes of the team he's pitching for, Lowe’s season appears to be spiraling downward. Although plagued by terrible defense behind him on Tuesday, Lowe did absolutely nothing to help himself. In five innings of work he gave up nine hits and five earned runs (nine runs overall), and two costly home runs. After a few starts of posting decent strikeout numbers (for him), he only whiffed one batter.
And yesterday, Lowe’s season might’ve hit rock bottom. Against a middle-of-the-road offense in the Braves, he got racked around to the tune of 4.1 IP, 8 H, 8 R (all earned) and 1 HR. He walked two and struck out one.
His season ERA now sits above six. He’s given up 110 hits in 86.2 innings of work. And his strike out rate of 4.26 per nine IP is one of the worst in baseball.
Lowe’s never been a strikeout pitcher, but this season’s mark would be the lowest K-rate of his career. I should clarify that: Lowe’s never been a strikeout pitcher as a starter. As a reliever he had adequate strikeout rates.
The K/9 rates for the full seasons of his career (not counting ’97 when he split time between Seattle and Boston, pitching in 20 games and starting nine):
As a reliever:
1998 (63 games, started 10) – 5.63
1999 (74 G, 0 GS) – 6.59
2000 (74 G, 0 GS) – 7.74
2001 (67 G, 3 GS) – 8.05
As a starter (he has not appeared in relief since ’01):
2002 – 5.20
2003 – 4.87
2004 – 4.37
Those strikeout rates are about as low as you can find for a regular starter in the major leagues. Even that ’02 rate, a season in which he went 21-8 with a 2.58 ERA, would rank around 70th this year among eligible pitchers.
His BB/9 rates have not changed drastically enough to make you think that finding the plate has become a problem. He’s at about 3.9/9 IP this year, which has doubled since 2002. But it’s still not a rate that should cause that much alarm on the whole. It’s just when it’s paired with the strikeouts to come up with an awful 1.08 K/BB ratio that you give it much notice.
The GB/FB rate is a key for Lowe considering his propensity to throw the sinker. And this year’s rate, while down from the last several years, is right around his career average of 3.45. That’s an excellent number for a pitcher whose primary function is to induce ground balls, and in fact his rate this year (3.39) ranks second in the majors. Brandon Webb is first at 3.75.
And finally, here are Lowe’s HR/9 rates since ’02, and his BA/OBP/SLG numbers in that same span:
2002: 0.49 (12 HR in 219.2 IP)
2003: 0.75 (17 in 203.1)
2004: 0.83 (8 in 86.2)
2002: .211/.265/.302
2003: .272/.337/.397
2004: .307/.374/.441 (This last batch doesn’t include Sunday’s outing.)
These ingredients combine to produce a pretty distasteful stew for Lowe and the Red Sox. We have a pitcher whose strikeout rates are dropping steadily, and home run rates are rising steadily. His walks are also increasing.
To his credit, he’s still inducing a high rate of ground balls. Unfortunately he has one of the worst infield defenses in the majors trying to track them down.
I know fielding statistics are a tricky animal to tackle, but I think we can get a general idea of how bad the Sox infield D has been from some of these rankings:
Infield Statistics Ranking Among ML teams:
Fielding Pct.: 28th, ahead of only the Mets and Braves
Errors: 27th
Range Factor: 23rd
Zone Rating: T-24th
Double Plays: T-24th
While I can’t say definitively that if Derek Lowe was pitching in front of, say the Dodgers’ infield or the Marlins’, he would be pitching lights-out right now, the Sox’ poor play in the infield has to be having a negative effect on Lowe’s numbers.
So in answer to Saorse’s question from the other night: No, I don’t see anything that tells me that Derek Lowe is going to have a magical turnaround in the second half of the season. I would suspect that he could string a few starts together like the ones he had in June, and temper his numbers from getting out of control. Ultimately, he’s going to have trouble to be anything more than a .500 pitcher (on a good offensive team) with a sub-4.75 ERA.
----
Sounding Board
This is the first post of mine which is being mirrored within the Forums at a very cool site, MLB Center (www.mlbcenter.com). One of the things I'm excited about is the instant feedback that will be available from fellow board-members. Be sure to check out the area Mike has set up for me, as well as the other areas of the Forums, and the site in general.
I will be adding appropriate links on this page shortly.
