The Buchholz Dilemma
It is strange to see a pitcher be sent to the bullpen after throwing a
no-hitter, but that's exactly what has happened with Clay Buchholz. Tim
Wakefield will be able to make his next start, so Buchholz's next appearance
will be in relief.
Well, that's not really the reason. In a perfect world, Francona would love
for him to start every fifth day for the next four weeks. However, it is
clear that Boston has their priorities straight in terms of protecting their
best prospect's right arm (from FanHouse)"
"It's been proven with young pitchers if you're increasing their (yearly)
increments too much, you're putting them unnecessarily at risk," [Terry]
Francona said. "We don't want to do that."
Last year, at the age of 21, Buchholz threw 119 innings over 24 starts in A
ball. Here's his line so far this year.(數據請看原文網頁)
So that's 141 innings so far this year, 22 more than '06. Now another
Francona quote from this Yahoo article:
"What we'll do with Clay is try to get him on structured innings and out of
the bullpen. That doesn't mean he won't start a game again. (It's) because of
organizational philosophy, caring about innings, developmental innings, major
league innings."
The Red Sox have to do what they're doing right now. You can't be putting
more innings on this kid's arm with a six game lead and 99.988% chance of
making the playoffs. That wouldn't make any sense.
But October is a whole different animal. The difference between advancing and
getting eliminated is so tiny, teams can't afford to hold anything back. And
if they don't have Buchholz in their rotation, the Red Sox would be doing
exactly that. From Nate Silver's fascinating Unfiltered post on BP:
"Skipping a bunch of math, and assuming that Buchholz or Wakefield would be
slotted in as the #4 starter — #4 starters generally make about 17% of their
team’s playoff starts — the way this translates is that the Red Sox
increase their chances of winning a 5-game series against a .600 opponent
from .581 to .641 if Buchholz starts instead of Wakefield, and their chances
of winning a 7-game series from .608 to .644. Accordingly, they increase
their chance of winning the World Series from .215 to .255 — about a 4%
jump."
Silver goes on to explain just how significant a 4% jump is- it's the
equivalent of adding a five win player for two season, which would probably
cost a team about $25MM.
Looking at it in this light, it seems like it would be insane for the Red Sox
to not start Buchholz in October just to save a few innings from his arm. It
seems like a risk they have to take. And maybe they will. Regardless of what
their plans are for October, this is what they would have done. Either way,
it's not a good risk to have Buchholz starting games in September for a team
with a comfortable lead. But taking advantage of an asset like Buchholz in
the playoffs is a necessity. Hopefully, Theo Epstein has been reading BP
(entirely possible), and we'll get to see Buchholz's encore about four weeks
from now.
Stats taken from Baseball-Reference (now with minor league stats!). Pictures
taken from here and here.
Posted by Vegas Watch at 12:18 AM
Labels: Buchholz, Francona, Red Sox
From:http://vegaswatch.blogspot.com/2007/09/buchholz-dilemma.html
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