Stop blaming the WBC

In case you haven't heard the media has again jumped on the WBC will injure players and is holding Daisuke Matsuzaka as its number one example. You can see how people everywhere just assume this is the case (here, here and here)and even Pitching Coach John Farrell went on the local radio station and placed partial blame on the event. I would be very disappointed if Theo Epstein really blamed the WBC for this.

The problem is there is no evidence to back this idea up. We already went through his components last time and found he was slightly better in his numbers. So perhaps John Farrell is right and his stuff is not as good as last year, but that should still be seen in numbers like K/9, BB/9 and K/BB. First lets look at pitch selection.

Year FB     SL     FC    CU    CH
2007 55.10% 24.40% 3.60% 7.90% 7.20%
2008 53.90% 23.10% 9.50% 7.80% 5.30%
2009 49.00% 23.20% 15.10% 2.20% 7.70%

There is a drop in fastball use, but that moves to his cutter mainly. The cutter (FC) is one of his best pitches so far this year though in wCU/C (runs against per 100 cutters thrown). Perhaps a drop in velocity would display a change from 2008.

Year FB   SL   FC   CU   CH
2007 92.4 84.4 88.5 78.3 82.6
2008 91.9 83.1 88.9 79.2 82.9
2009 91.0 81.9 88.4 80.1 81.5

So his pitches are down an average of 0.6 mph so far this year and his starts before the first DL stint were slower than that, but he seemed back to full skill after that DL stint.

I'm going to avoid getting into pitch movement as that is not my specialty and I would only be presenting data. Of note is the varying horizontal movement of the fastball from start to start this year, but the average is still near last years total.

The last bit of evidence is his plate discipline. He has nearly the same rate of swings against his pitches in and out of the zone. His pitches out of the zone have been hit at a slightly increased rate, but his overall contact against rate is only slightly up.

There is little evidence to support fatigue or injury since the first DL stint. This is clearly a move to get the worst starter out of the lineup and hide him until a decision can be made. I can't see any other team taking him right now so they are stuck in 15 days when he says he is ready to go, but what the Red Sox do if the rest of the starters are still healthy is an interesting dilemma.