Whatcha Talkin' 'Bout, Willis?

John Farrell is a no go with the Mariners coaching, announcing that he's withdrawn his name from consideration. It's a good thing, too, because we're going to need him: the Sox are thinking a Lugo for Willis trade with the Tigers (thanks to Joy of Sox for the tip). I remember a time when the mere idea of seeing Willis suit up in a Sox uniform had me declaring AL East locks; two years later, I'm thinking it'd be a good way for the Sox to drop a part that's outlived its usefulness and grab a pitcher who could be another Bartolo Colon...a younger, lighter weight Bartolo Colon who doesn't eat his way on to the DL (seriously: almost three months for back stiffness? How badly do you have to beat yourself up to do that at age 35?) or stomp off to the Dominican in a huff before the playoffs.

While it's true the D-Train struggled most of this year after hurting his knee in April, or that many of his stats - particularly against righties - have been on the decline even without his poor 2008 campaign, there's some hope: Average Against and BABIP have both fallen, K/9 is particularly good against lefties, HR/9 is really good against lefties...and the guy's only 26, with plenty of time to turn his career around. Unless there's some chance we'll be able to trade Lugo for a catcher, I say Willis is worth a rider. Your thoughts?

Bring Forth the Jays

A few statistics heading into thes pivotal/not so pivotal (all depending on your answer to the question: how badly do you, as a Sox fan, want the Sox to win the AL East?) games against Toronto:

• As a club, the Boston offense has team splits of .221/.291/.399 in the Rogers Centre. Those aren't their worst overall numbers, but they're among the worst for the number of games played.
• Over the same time period, the pitching staff has compiled a 7.10 ERA in the Rogers Centre, almost a full run worse than their next toughest assignment, Rangers Ballpark. Some of it's been pretty wretched luck (BABIP of .316), but I knew there was a reason why I start thinking about the detention center on the first death star every time the Sox play a series in Toronto. I'd so rather see these games happening in the Band Box of Eutaw Street.
  
• Paul Byrd has a 3.93 ERA and a 4:1 strikeout to walk ratio in 34.1 innings in the Rogers Centre. His 0.96 WHIP ain't too shabby, neither. Score the man some runs and we just might win tonight's game.
• Dice-K has a 3.79 ERA, a 3.71:1 strikeout to walk ratio, and a 1.21 WHIP over 19 innings on the Jays' home turf. As he somehow keeps managing to win games this year while expending more pitches than the Fed's sent out dollars in corporate bailouts (a topical joke - how clever), I probably shouldn't be worried about Sunday's outcome.
• Jon Lester's stats in Toronto are stab-me-in-the-eye terrible and I refuse to discuss them.
  

We Can Rebuild Him...We Have the Technology

Our new catching acquisition has been battling back problems all year. Somehow, this fact does not inspire confidence.

Part of me wanted to write a Six Million Dollar Man spoof in honor of Buchholz's return to Portland, but since I've never watched the show, I kept the reference to the title. You'll thank me later. Instead, some thoughts on what I've seen 'round the Internets about Clay's downswing:

• A few days ago - before the fateful final start against Baltimore - I spotted an article (that I now can't find, of course) about Buchholz finding a hole in his mechanics during his side sessions with John Farrell. As a professional fixer of sorts, I like hearing rational reasons like "correctible mechanical problems" and since Buchholz gets a lot of good will for pitching that no-hitter, I want him to succeed. As a result, I develop an almost irrational faith in the potential of the fix: the coaches know the problem, so they'll fix it. Clearly, not so much. These fixes take time.
• The Herald quoted Kevin Cash and referenced Jason Varitek in two separate articles on Buchholz published today; both catchers spoke about the importance of pitcher confidence. The intimation of both articles is that Clay lacks the confidence in his pitches; Francona even cited an incident against Baltimore where Buchholz shook off a fastball because he felt he wouldn't succeed. As Jonah pointed out over at Soxlosophy, the pitcher is meat: the catcher should be making the calls that determine the course of the game. If the pitcher doesn't have the confidence to throw the pitches his play caller demands, it's time to step back, to the lower-pressure world of the minors if necessary.
• In the article that brings up Varitek, Tony Massarotti voices our worst fear: that Buchholz is a flame out, a reincarnation of Kevin Morton, whose stellar debut with the Sox in July, 1991 (five hit, one run complete game against the Tigers) marked the high water mark of his 16 game major league career. But I think the comparison is inaccurate. As some of the partisans at SoSH (which incidentally has a good discussion of the whole confidence issue) continue to point out, Buchholz's BABIP continues to be about 60 points higher than average, which makes him one heck of an unlucky pitcher. Morton's BABIP was three points below average, which - if nothing else - means that his numbers were a reflection of his abilities: he really wasn't that good a pitcher.
  

Jon Lester Is Pretty Damn Awesome

This post on Joe Posnanski's blog caught my eye because I attempted (unsuccessfully) to acquire Ziegler for my fantasy team yesterday. Named after A's reliever Brad Ziegler, it's a good illustration of a new statistic in development.

Clay Buchholz may not be living up to his promise at the moment, but he seems to be the victim of extremely poor luck: his BABIP for 2008 is an astronomical .364, over 100 points higher than his 2007 total (which was far lower than the .300 that defines "average"). Statistics say there's a better pitcher in there somewhere; maybe he'll show up before Colon comes back and makes the point moot.

Jon Lester, on the other hand, seems to be a golden god - or so says Peter Bendix over at Beyond the Box Score. Bendix points out that Lester's problematic stats (ERA, K/9, and the oh-so-worrisome BB/9) have all improved - not only since 2007, but in the twelve starts since his no-hitter, which seems to be a statistical turning point. Bendix suggests Lester might be the best pitcher in the AL, which seems a little extreme until - to tie the two ends of this post together - we note anecdotally that Lester does seem to have become the Type B pitcher ("An extreme ground ball pitcher who keeps walks down") Posnanski talks about in his Ziegler post and, more importantly, that Lester's Ziegler number for his last thirteen starts (starting with the shutout) is 122.4, higher than list-leader Brandon Webb's 112.6. Seems like Bendix has a good point...