Red Sox Rotation: Wait and Wade
This post continues our Depth Chart Discussions. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, rotation, and bullpen) and will continue to break them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find the Depth Chart Discussion posts gathered here.
Like their infield and outfield, the Red Sox’s 2015 rotation projects to look nothing like it did at the beginning of 2014. That’s probably not bad news: Red Sox starting pitchers were not very good in 2014. They placed 27th in FIP, 23rd in RA9-WAR, and 15th in fWAR. All told, the Sox gave starts to eleven different pitchers. Here’s a quick look at who started for them in 2014:
| Name | GS | IP | K/9 | BB/9 | BABIP | LOB% | GB% | HR/FB | ERA | FIP | xFIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clay Buchholz | 28 | 170.1 | 6.97 | 2.85 | 0.315 | 62.1% | 46.6% | 9.2% | 5.34 | 4.01 | 4.04 |
| Jon Lester | 21 | 143.0 | 9.38 | 2.01 | 0.308 | 74.0% | 43.2% | 6.5% | 2.52 | 2.62 | 3.00 |
| John Lackey | 21 | 137.1 | 7.60 | 2.10 | 0.298 | 73.7% | 46.9% | 11.5% | 3.60 | 3.56 | 3.32 |
| Jake Peavy | 20 | 124.0 | 7.26 | 3.34 | 0.301 | 74.3% | 39.0% | 12.6% | 4.72 | 4.80 | 4.29 |
| Rubby de la Rosa | 18 | 100.0 | 6.30 | 3.15 | 0.324 | 74.5% | 45.8% | 11.7% | 4.50 | 4.40 | 4.12 |
| Brandon Workman | 15 | 80.2 | 7.03 | 3.90 | 0.299 | 61.0% | 40.8% | 10.8% | 5.36 | 4.52 | 4.33 |
| Allen Webster | 11 | 59.0 | 5.49 | 4.27 | 0.297 | 65.3% | 46.0% | 4.9% | 5.03 | 4.35 | 4.97 |
| Joe Kelly | 10 | 61.1 | 6.02 | 4.70 | 0.237 | 71.1% | 55.3% | 11.1% | 4.11 | 4.62 | 4.46 |
| Felix Doubront | 10 | 50.1 | 6.26 | 4.11 | 0.280 | 66.4% | 36.3% | 11.3% | 5.19 | 5.30 | 4.98 |
| Anthony Ranaudo | 7 | 39.1 | 3.43 | 3.66 | 0.225 | 82.9% | 34.1% | 14.3% | 4.81 | 6.89 | 5.79 |
| Steven Wright | 1 | 5.0 | 7.20 | 3.60 | 0.250 | 66.7% | 60.0% | 0.0% | 0.00 | 2.73 | 3.47 |
From that list, only Buchholz, Kelly, Workman, and Wright remain in the organization. At a glance, Buchholz seemed to be the victim of some bad luck. That might be true, too, of the starting version of Workman, though we might not see much of that version in 2015.
Joining Buchholz and Kelly in the likely “opening day rotation” are Rick Porcello, Wade Miley, and Justin Masterson. While the additions to the rotation are nowhere near as flashy as their signings of Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval, the Sox figure to feature an improved rotation in 2015. Between projected improvement (or more average luck?) from Buchholz and by replacing bad innings from Peavy, de la Rosa, Workman, and Webster with [at least] more average innings from Porcello and Miley, they’d be hard-pressed not to be better.
Unlike the outfield situation in Boston, however, there doesn’t seem to be much mystery in how the rotation will look to start the season (though anything can happen between now and then), so let’s look at those top five guys…
