The Red Sox' bullpen is a weapon

When I was doing my preseason predictions, one of the things I stated was that it seemed impossible that the Boston Red Sox bullpen could be as good as it was last season when it was one of the reasons the team went all the way to the World Series title. While we are still in small sample size territory, it looks like I was dead wrong. It appears the bullpen for the Red Sox is every bit as good as it was last season.

The bullpen starts and ends with closer, Koji Uehara. What Uehara is doing is historical. We have never seen anything like this before. Uehara last blew a save on July 6, 2013. He has not blown another one since. But the save thing is not the statistic to focus on. Everything else is mind blowing.

Since July 5 of last year, he has walked one batter. One! Since the start of the second half of 2013, Uehara has pitched 34 times covering 37 innings and has given up twelve hits. Twelve! That works out to a .098 batting average. He has given up one run. One! That works out to an ERA of 0.24. He has struck out 48 batters in those 37 innings for a strikeout to walk ratio of 48 to 1. Good golly!

I am not sure the baseball world has really gotten a hold of how incredible this run has been for Koji Uehara. Like I said, we have never seen anything like this before. I will give you Kimbrel of the Braves. But which closer would you take right now? I would take Uehara.

I have always said that a great bullpen needs three really good relievers at the back end. The Red Sox have had that and more. Junichi Tazawa is not in the same league with Uehara, but if you throw out his bad September last year, a month in which his BABIP against was .360 and he has been very good as well.

So far this year, Tazawa has not given up a run and has an 8.7 strikeout to walk ratio. He has only walked one batter.

The American League got a bit of a break when the Red Sox activated Craig Breslow and sent Brandon Workman to the minors. Workman was doing an incredible job for the Red Sox bullpen. He had an 0.78 WHIP and a 7.00 strikeout to walk ratio. It's not like Breslow is not any good. The lefty did finish with a 1.80 ERA last year despite not striking out batters as often as the rest of the bullpen. He is just good at what he does and gets batters out. And the Red Sox have added another just like him in Chris Capuano.

Capuano had rebuilt his career as a starter the last couple of seasons after years of injury troubles. But the Red Sox have had him in the bullpen and he has really responded well out there. He has not walked a batter and has an impressive WHIP of 0.60. Capuano, Breslow, Uehara and Tazawa have not allowed an inherited runner to score this season. The bullpen has also not allowed a homer.

Edward Mujica had an early struggle, but picked up a save last night against the Yankees giving Uehara a rest. Andrew Miller can be erratic, but is hard to hit most of the time. The weakest link seems to be Burke Badenhop. Badenhop will not blow hitters away and relies on a high ground ball percentage, which means he is a bit open to the foibles of BABIP. Workman is clearly a better option than Badenhop, but the Red Sox understandably do not want to give up on Workman as a starter and thus the demotion to get reps.

The real key to understanding what makes Uehara, Tazawa and even Workman so good is their ability to get batters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone. Workman had an O-swing rate of 45.2%, which is pretty incredible. Uehara is at 39.4% and Tazawa at 42.9%. Capuano and Mujica are both over 30%. Uehara also gets a first pitch strike 68% of the time, which means that batters are pretty much at his mercy the rest of the plate appearance.

I did not think the Red Sox bullpen could be as good as last year. So far, I couldn't be more wrong. If the bullpen stays this good all season, the Red Sox are going to be mighty tough to beat.

Nasty boys - The best relief pitcher stuff of 2013

Last year I had this idea that if you added together the value given the pitches a pitcher throws you could rate the pitchers nearly as accurately as other measurements such as WAR, ERA+ and FIP. The results do not match up perfectly, but they are close in most cases. After all, if you throw consistently nasty stuff over the course of a season, the results you obtain with those pitches will lead to success. I have seen others rate the best fastball, the best splitter, the best curve, etc. But I like to add them all together to come up with a total "stuff" ranking.

Fortunately, this is fairly easy to do. Otherwise, I would not be doing it as I am no genius. All I did was go to Fangraphs.com's leaderboard and then go to the PitchF/X tab. And then I go to the Pitch Value tab. I prefer to use the PitchF/X calculations instead of Fangraphs' own proprietary pitch valuations as the latter seems (to me) more accurate for the type of pitch thrown. For example, Fangraphs.com says that Kenley Jansen throws a fastball and that is what they rate. But it is pretty obvious watching him pitch that he throws a cutter, which is what PitchF/X says he throws.

Anyway, once I have the pitch values in front of me, I downloaded the CSV file (Isn't it fabulous these stat sites are so generous with their data?). The CSV opens like a Microsoft Excel file and I can then delete the columns I don't want and do a Sum function to the first pitcher listed on the sum value of all his pitches to come up with a total pitch value. I copy that down for all the pitchers and then do a Sort to be able to see the top and the bottom. I did this for both starters and relievers. In my last post, I gave you my results for the starting pitchers. Today the relievers are rated..

You may wonder why I used the pitch values and not the pitch values per hundred. Unfortunately, the latter does not work for me because the numbers get skewed. For example, a pitcher may have pitched four curves all season. If the four were crappy, then his pitch value per hundred on the curve would be like -25 runs or something. That doesn't work for what I am doing.

Without further ado, I give you the nastiest relief pitchers by pitch value for 2013:

1. Koji Uehara: 27.7
2. Kenley Jansen: 21.8
3. Craig Kimbrel, Joe Nathan: 19.4
4. Greg Holland: 18.8
5. Mark Melancon: 18.3
6. Alex Torres: 18.1
7. Tyler Clippard: 17.7
8. Luke Hochevar: 17
9. Luis Avilan: 16.8

The really interesting part of this list is that each pitcher killed with different pitches. Uehara, the most dominant relief pitcher in baseball in 2013, scored well with his fastball and his split finger was off the charts good. Kenley Jansen killed with his cutter. Kimbrel and Nathan used a combination of the fastball and slider to have great seasons. Nathan had a really great comeback season. Melancon relied on a deadly cutter. Torres and Avilan used a two-seam fastball to great effect.

The list also showed a strong season for Luke Hochevar, a pitcher that never lived up to his starter potential, but found a great home in the eighth inning setting up Holland, who was also terrific.

These guys were nasty good and their combined pitch values really showed how difficult a task batters had facing them.

And, of course, if you see the good, you want to hear about the bad, right? The five relief pitchers with the combined lowest pitch value scores were:

• Carter Capps and Michael Gonzalez with -11.9
• Brandon League with -11.6
• Jose Mijares with -9.9
• Chris Perez at -9.7

No other qualifying relief pitcher scored below -6, so that gives you an idea of how ineffective these relievers were.

MLB Game Picks - Friday: October 18, 2013

I tried to find it and could not. But basically what I was looking for was this tweet by a big-time beat writer that said that Koji Uehara had given up four runs in four post season innings. I remember he said, "Yikes" at the end of the tweet. This was after Uehara had taken a loss on the famous Jose Lobaton homer in the ALDS. The tweet was laughable because we all tend to make a big deal over such small sample sizes when it comes to the post season. Koji Uehara has been amazing ever since that homer. He is a difference maker.

And that is a good lesson to take when picking winners in these games. You cannot get all hung up because one player is batting .500 in the series. Each game is a crap shoot inside of a series that is a crap shoot. If you play 162 games, you have a pretty good idea how good a player and a team are. Five or seven games? Not so much. As much as possible, you go by the 162 and not the latter. Such was the case in my pick yesterday between the Red Sox and the Tigers. And on that day, it worked. Today? Who knows. Remember, it is a crap shoot.

Friday's pick:

• The Dodgers over the Cardinals: This game is the perfect illustration of what I was just talking about. Michael Wacha had a very good 2.78 ERA in the regular season in what still is a short sample size. Even smaller is his fourteen brilliant innings so far in this post season. He has pitched two games, 14 innings, one run, seventeen strikeouts while allowing only six hits and three walks. That is enough juice to make you whistle in awe. But it was just two games. He still has to pitch a third. And you know what? He still has to pitch against what has been the best pitcher in baseball over the past two seasons. Clayton Kershaw also is a lefty. The Cardinals don't like lefties. I cannot see them scoring more than a run. So the Dodgers have to score two or three to win this game. I see a Game 7 happening in this series.

Yesterday: 1-0

Post season: 18-13

Season: 1391-1080

BBA Post Season Awards 2013

Every year, the membership of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance votes for the BBA's versions of the post season awards. This is an Internet version of the awards given by the BBWAA with similar categories containing different names for the awards. I have already given you my manager choices here and here. What follows is the rest of my ballot.

The Willie Mays Award is the award for the top rookie of the season. My votes:

• National League - Yasiel Puig (Dodgers). This one was really difficult. Baseball Prospectus and Fangraphs.com both rated Puig as being more valuable than Jose Fernandez of the Marlins. But Baseball-reference.com rated Fernandez much higher. It is a bit of a fallacy that the Dodgers took off as soon as Puig showed up. In fact, the team was 7-10 in his first seventeen games. If I could pick a tie, I would pick them both. But since I must choose one, I will go with Puig.
• American League - In the junior circuit, the pick came down between Wil Myers and David Lough. Both were rated similarly, but Lough's value came mostly from his defense and base running. The defensive stats are still troublesome for me, so my pick is Myers.

The Goose Gossage Award goes to the top relief pitcher of the season. My votes:

• National League - I do not base my picks on saves, but on overall value, WPA and other factors. In the end, Craig Kimbrel, Kenley Jansen and Trevor Rosenthal were all right there. Jansen had the better WPA and clutch scores while Kimbrel had the higher RE24. Rosenthal had the best FIP. I don't think you can go wrong with any of the three, but I am choosing Craig Kimbrel as my winner.
• American League - This comes down to a two-horse race between Greg Holland and Koji Uehara. Both had amazing seasons. Uehara had the better ERA, but Holland the better FIP. Uehara beat Holland by 30 points in WHIP. Holland comes out on top in WPA and Clutch, but Uehara came out on top in RE24. I have to go with Koji Uehara as my winner, though I could support Holland too.

The Walter Johnson Award goes to the top pitcher of the season. My votes:

• National League - There is no discussion. There is the one and only Clayton Kershaw.
• American League - Those in the discussion include Max Scherzer, his teammate, Anibal Sanchez, Yu Darvish and Felix Hernandez. The clear winner for me is Max Scherzer and his win-loss record is the least important of the reasons why.

The Stan Musial Award goes to the top player in each league. My votes.

• National League - My order of finish was: 1. Andrew McCutchen, 2. Matt Carpenter, 3. Carlos Gomez. 4. Paul Goldschmidt. McCutchen is my vote.
• American League - This award says, "top player," and not, "MVP," That being the case, Mike Trout was the top player in all of baseball, never mind just the American League. There is nobody close to him.

So those are my votes. The results will be released just after the World Series concludes.

The under the radar career of Koji Uehara

One of the unsung deals of this off season was when the Boston Red Sox signed Koji Uehara to a one year deal for $4.25 million. He was rated as the 35th top free agent on MLB Trade Rumors before the off season really got under way. But still, the signing went under the radar. And that is only fitting because Uehara's entire career has been under the radar.

Koji Uehara came to the majors in 2009 and started twelve games in his first season with a 98-loss Orioles team. Uehara pitched fairly well that season as a starter, though he did not go deep into games and missed much time due to injury. All of his appearances since the beginning of 2010 have been relief appearances. There are two basic flaws in Uehara's game. The first his the injury bug as he has had trouble staying healthy. That continued in 2012 as he missed much of the season with a lat strain. But when he is healthy, he has been pretty spectacular.

Since 2010, Uehara has led all relief pitchers in several categories. His ability to throw strikes is what sets him apart. His 1.06 walks per nine innings is easily the lowest among all relief pitchers since 2010. He is third among all relief pitchers in throwing first pitch strikes. The last thing you want from a reliever is to come in and start throwing balls and walking people. Uehara hardly ever does that. He has only walked 17 batters in 145 innings pitched!

While walking very few batters, Uehara strikes out batters at a very healthy pace. His 11.36 strikeout percentage is the fourteen highest among relievers since 2010. Add that strikeout rate to his walk rate and you have something pretty special. In fact, his strikeout to walk ratio as a reliever is 10.76 to 1, easily the best in baseball. That is a pretty tight resume.

But there is more. He also is stingy at giving up hits and has only allowed 7.1 hits per nine innings in his career including his twelve starts in 2009. Low hits plus low walks add up to a great WHIP and his 0.77 WHIP leads all over major league relievers since the start of 2010. And his .179 average against is the seventh lowest in that time.

Throwing strikes is one thing. Throwing effective strikes is another. Since the start of 2010, It's not like his 89 MPH fastball is going to blow you away. But his combination of combining a four-seam fastball with a split-fingered fastball have been very effective. He throws each about half the time so you never really know which one is coming and that keeps your eye level guessing.

His split-fingered fastball has been the second highest rated since he started relieving in 2010. And because of that pitch, Uehara has the highest O-swing rate among all relievers since he started pitching out of the bullpen. O-swing measures how many times a batter swings at a pitch out of the strike zone. Uehara's rate stands at an astounding 41.4 percent. It is this ability to get batters to chase that allows Uehara to lead all relievers in total swing percentage at 54.9 percent. And since his swing and miss rate is fourth best among relievers at a 15.7 percent rate, that's a great combination.

I mentioned earlier that one of Koji Uehara's flaws was an inability to stay healthy. The other comes from the fact that he is an extreme fly ball pitcher. His ground ball to fly ball ratio is a very low 0.64. Batters don't hit his pitches very often. But when they do, they hit the ball in the air. That has led to his one other flaw, his home run rate of 1.1 per nine innings.

Koji Uehara has had an average valuation of $5.67 million per season with his pitching. While the Red Sox are not getting a big discount paying him $4.25 in 2013, they should get their money's worth. Uehara has a unique combination of getting batters to swing at his pitches and never walking anyone. If he can stay healthy, the Red Sox will get a very stabilizing pitcher out of their bullpen.

Uehara's career has flown under the radar. Perhaps it is because he has not been a closer (he has saved fourteen games in his career). Perhaps it is because his career has had stops and starts with injury. And perhaps it is because when he went to the Rangers in the middle of a pennant race and was seen nationally for the first time, he struggled a bit. Be that as it may, Koji Uehara has been a terrific relief pitcher.