Beckett - Bounce-back or Bust?

[Yaz Sideburn]

up until recently i had assumed that beckett just had a bad year due to injury and he would bounce back next year. afterall, he did have a lingering injury and his era, whip, hit rate and walk rate all appear to be major statistical outliers compared to the rest of his career. but i read something on rotoworld that made me think a little

 

Beckett's nightmare season is mercifully over. No one could have seen his 6-6 record with a 5.78 ERA and 1.54 WHIP coming, but the back injury can't be blamed fully. Some will predict a bounce-back in 2011, but we'd be wary of that. Overuse early in his career has eroded Beckett's once-dominant stuff.

 

i looked up his average fastball velocities the last few years, and there is a downward trend, although it is rather minor

 

2007 - 94.4 mph

2008 - 94.0 mph

2009 - 93.9 mph

2010 - 93.7 mph

 

so i'll ask you guys. do you expect beckett to have a bounc-eback season next year or do you expect him to continue to struggle?

[VA Sox Fan]

Hoping for the bounce-back season but not confident about that for some reason.

[soxfan74]

He hasn't been the same pitcher since the ALCS against tampa. Bust and extremely bad contract. Hopefully he proves me wrong. Funny how he and Burnett have gone down the same path at the same point in there career.

[Spudboy]

up until recently i had assumed that beckett just had a bad year due to injury and he would bounce back next year. afterall, he did have a lingering injury and his era, whip, hit rate and walk rate all appear to be major statistical outliers compared to the rest of his career. but i read something on rotoworld that made me think a little

 

 

 

i looked up his average fastball velocities the last few years, and there is a downward trend, although it is rather minor

 

2007 - 94.4 mph

2008 - 94.0 mph

2009 - 93.9 mph

2008 - 93.7 mph

 

so i'll ask you guys. do you expect beckett to have a bounc-eback season next year or do you expect him to continue to struggle?

 

You should edit your post.

 

If he's healthy, I expect him to pitch the way he did over the previous three years. I think that we'd all be satisfied with that.

[Palodios]

He seems to dominate in odd years. But, I'm undecided so far.

[Station 13]

He has 1 great year here and 1 good. The rest are s*** or mix bags.

[Yaz Sideburn]

You should edit your post.

 

sorry, english is my second language

[Spudboy]

sorry' date=' english is my second language[/quote']

 

Hahahahaha!

 

You have two 2008s.

 

And it's English.

 

But you know that.

[YanksHater213]

IMO...

 

Beckett sucks.

[BSN07]

Bounce back.

 

I think not pitching this off season is going to do a lot for all the pitchers on this ball club. I guess that is one of the good things(?) about not making the playoffs. Fresher arms and bodies come Spring

[jacksonianmarch]

The sox played 3 extra games last season. I highly doubt that was the toll that put them over the edge

[BSN07]

The sox played 3 extra games last season. I highly doubt that was the toll that put them over the edge

 

C'mon man, let me grasp at my feeble silver lining

[Keeper]

You have to believe he'll bounce back because he's not going anywhere anytime soon...

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

Bust. Thought this was previously established.

[jacksonianmarch]

I think he bounces back. His FB is still hard, his breaking ball is still tight and his changeup is still pretty good. His location was absolutely abysmal on his return, which is not characteristic of him. I dont think he returns to ace status, but an ERA right around 4 and mid teens wins is likely, IMO

[NateGrey]

if he stays in the al east he'll continue to be a bust.

 

 

 

[a700hitter]

Mound of facts against Josh Beckett

’10 tough to overcome

John Tomase By John Tomase / Red Sox Beat

Thursday, January 13, 2011 - Updated 10 hours ago

 

This is one of those good news/bad news things, so let’s start with the good news: Jack Morris, David Cone and Dave Stewart are just three All-Stars who endured seasons as bad as Josh Beckett [stats]’s woeful 2010. So the erstwhile Red Sox [team stats] ace at least shares solid company.

 

Better prepare yourself for the bad news, though, because it’s a doozy:

 

Virtually every pitcher to struggle like Beckett did last season not only was never the same, but almost to a man failed to produce a single, solitary above-average season thereafter.

 

The results are actually kind of staggering. And while they have no bearing on whether Beckett will bounce back in 2011, they should at least give Red Sox fans pause following last year’s 6-6, 5.78 ERA disaster that can only partially be chalked up to injuries.

 

So what are we talking about? Thanks to the magic of baseball-reference.com, it was easy to sort for pitchers in their 30s who posted ERAs above 5.75 while pitching at least 125 innings.

 

The search returned 69 such seasons by 66 different pitchers. Jaime Navarro appeared on the list three straight times (which helps explain why the White Sox were so mediocre in the late 1990s), while Tim Belcher made it twice.

 

Of those 66 pitchers, only three managed to regain something even remotely approximating their form, at least as starters.

 

Before his death in 2002, Cardinals starter Darryl Kile rebounded from an 8-13, 6.61 season with the Rockies in 1999 at age 30 to lead the NL in wins and go 20-9 with a 3.91 ERA for the Cardinals in 2000.

 

He’s probably Beckett’s best hope at a comparable because he had another outstanding season in 2001 (16-11, 3.09) and was off to a good start in 2002 (5-4, 3.72) before dying of natural causes in his hotel room.

 

But extenuating circumstances clearly surround Kile’s return to form, the most obvious being that the two worst seasons of his career took place in the noted launching pad of Coors Field. Once he escaped the Rockies, he was an All-Star again.

 

Next on the list is Belcher, and even he is hard to label a success story. He went 7-15, 5.89 with the Tigers at age 32 in 1994. Two years later he won 15 games for the Royals with a 3.92 ERA, but that season was the outsider in an otherwise miserable run of seven poor years to end his career.

 

Then there’s Livan Hernandez, who came out of nowhere to post decent 10-12, 3.66 numbers with the Nationals last year. He had compiled a 5.28 ERA over the previous four seasons and would anyone really be surprised if he returns to that level in 2011?

 

And that’s literally it. Sure, pitchers like Darren Oliver and Jeff Fassero remade themselves into relievers with some degree of success, but the Red Sox aren’t paying Beckett $63 million over the next four seasons to become a latter-day Ramiro Mendoza.

 

They’re paying him to anchor their rotation.The same was once said of lots of good pitchers, like Morris, Cone and Stewart. Or Al Leiter, Pat Dobson, Ramon Martinez and Rick Sutcliffe.

 

Then they had seasons like Beckett’s 2010 and their careers were over. It’s hard to fathom that Beckett could experience a similar fate, but for whatever it’s worth, the game’s entire history is working against him.

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

Sooooo glad we spoonfed this guy a nice fat contract extension he didn't remotely deserve.

[jacksonianmarch]

I think he and Burnett have similar seasons. Runs of maddening inconsistency mixed in with runs of dominance. I think Beckett has the higher injury potential, though. My guess on Beckett is a 15 win season with an ERA around 4.20

[BSN07]

Them having similar seasons is reasonable. Beckett may be the bigger injury worry. But AJ is easily a bigger mental worry. If both sort their issues then high 3 low 4 ERA with a solid amount of wins seems likely.

[SoxSport]

A couple of problems I see with Beckett: 1) seems like he's always hurt, and 2) he lacks laser concentration on the mound.

 

Injuries frequently imply a lack of proper conditioning--something you could question about the entire Red Sox team last year.

 

The other problem he has is focus on the mound. I've noticed this when I've seen him pitch. He'll look dominating for a few innings. Then he'll throw a lollipop hanger down the middle and some mediocre hitter will pound it out of sight. Or he'll have some other kind of episode on the mound--an error or something behind him. End of Beckett for the day. Other times, he'll pull a Dice-K: terrible the first inning then good for the next 4 or 5 innings. His in-game consistency is lacking. He makes mistakes throwing straight pitches down the middle--too often. That is a recipe for disaster.

[Palodios]

I think Beckett is a serious outlier from that list. Once he came back from the injury he had a 4.93 ERA, with some really good starts in there. Its not like he had a completely worthless season, he started out injured, and then they brought him back early because they wanted to salvage the season from Wakefield's starts.

 

His peripherals weren't pretty, but it happens when injuries are involved. I'm going to repeat my mantra for the season, and say that losing Farrell will go a longggg way towards fixing pitching strategies and technique, especially since it looks like his stuff is still there.

[jacksonianmarch]

An interesting food for though, which players has the better yr, Lackey or Beckett? I go Beckett, as I thought Lackey's stuff looked pretty pedestrian throughout last yr

[BSN07]

An interesting food for though' date=' which players has the better yr, Lackey or Beckett? I go Beckett, as I thought Lackey's stuff looked pretty pedestrian throughout last yr[/quote']

 

Beckett. I think the Sox should consider themselves lucky if Lackey can provide mid 4 ERA ball during the duration of his deal.

[Bob_Boston]

Josh will bounce back if his head tells him to. Tough pitcher but not one of my favorite players.

[Northern Star]

One of my faves, and I'm an eternal optimist, so bounce back.

[Station 13]

wow this thread is old.

 

I think Josh will give us 185IP, 15W 3.80 ERA. THat's a good season.

[RedSoxfanforlife305]

I hope you're right.

[RedSoxfanforlife305]

Oh and he needs to not suck when we face that Yankees. That would satisfy me.

[SoxFanForsyth]

He has got to stop throwing that cutter that leaks over the middle of the plate. I'm so tired of seeing him throw a 90 mph meatball that gets raped.

 

2007 - threw the cutter 0.3% of the time, FB 63.1%, curveball 25.1%.

2010 - threw the cutter 15.3% (the most he ever threw it before was 5.1%), FB 55.2%, and curveball 18.2%.

 

It was like he changed his pitching strategy completely last year and he got absolutely lit up. He needs to go back to his fastball-curveball strategy and work his cutter in occasionally, and throw it off the plate when he's ahead in the count. In on the hands on a lefty, backdoor on a righty. Right now he's starting it on the corner and it's leaking right over the middle of the plate and he's getting raked.