By Craig Goldstein
Rick Porcello, the rope that the Red Sox used to hang ex-GM Ben Cherington, is now 20-3 and might win the Cy Young Award.
— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) September 10, 2016
The Rope The Red Sox Used To Hang Ex-GM Ben Cherington is a brutal nickname, imo. But still, the sentiment expressed above is worth a record scratch/freeze frame: “How did we get here?”
First, a blind comparison:
| ERA | IP | K% | BB% | GB% | BABIP | FIP | DRA | |
| Player A | 4.32 | 177 | 15.4 | 4.9 | 55.3 | .315 | 3.53 | 2.98 |
| Player B | 4.92 | 172 | 20.2 | 5.2 | 45.7 | .332 | 4.13 | 4.14 |
| Player C | 3.21 | 193.2 | 20.8 | 3.8 | 44.7 | .270 | 3.45 | 3.35 |
There are a few things to note:
1) Player A is Rick Porcello’s 2013 season.
There are some obvious negatives (strikeout rate, ERA), but as the advanced metrics show you, he was actually quite a useful pitcher, and he made up for the lack of missed bats by keeping the ball on the ground and in the park (0.79 HR/9). More innings would have been nice but, if you were someone who buys wholesale into advanced metrics, you could make the case that this is the guy you’d anticipate would have the best next season of the three options above.
Read the rest at Baseball Prospectus.
Photo by Winslow Towson/USA Today Sports Images