Buying the Red Sox Starting Rotation

It is no secret that the Red Sox defense has been brutal at turning balls in play into outs this year. As a team, the pitching staff has allowed a .307 BABIP, second highest in the American League and fifth in baseball. But things are bound to improve as we have recently learned that Hanley Ramirez, currently sidelined with a sore shoulder, will never again (hopefully) play left field. Instead, he will take over first base duties when he’s healthy enough to return. While we have no idea how he will perform defensively at first, he can’t possibly cost the team as many runs there as he had done in the outfield!

To get an idea of exactly how Red Sox starters have been affected by the poor defense, let’s take a look at some relevant metrics:

The American League average BABIP for starting pitchers stands at .294, while the aggregate FIP is just below the ERA. Five of the six Red Sox starters above have posted BABIP marks significantly above the league average, while the same number have underperformed their FIP. While I am admittedly missing some key information from the above table, such as batted ball distribution, it’s highly unlikely that the pitchers themselves are worthy of the full blame for those inflated BABIP marks.

As we are well aware, Hanley Ramirez has been the biggest culprit for the team’s defensive woes. His disastrous -31.3 UZR/150 easily ranks as the worst mark among all players who have played at least 500 innings. And taking Hanley’s place in left field is Jackie Bradley Jr., he of the 27.0 UZR/150 at the position over a small sample. Bradley probably won’t continue to be that good, but he should represent one of the biggest defense upgrades you could imagine.

Mookie Betts has been slightly above average in center field, while Rusney Castillo has been fantastic in right, producing a 16.2 UZR/150. This is a truly excellent outfield and should be the starting trio heading into 2016.

The other major problem defensively resides in the infield, in the form of Pablo Sandoval. He has posted a grotesque -20.7 UZR/150, second worst among regular third basemen in baseball this year. That is surprising though, as Sandoval has typically been about average at the hot corner, aside from a random Gold Glove caliber year in 2011. His typical acceptable range has disappeared and has ranked second worst in baseball as well. For a player who has annually battled weight issues, you have to assume that his body has become problematic and preventing him from moving around like he used to. Unfortunately, I don’t know what the solution is here other than demanding he gets in better shape. But hey, the defense could only get better from here, right?

So aside from a question mark in Sandoval, this unit should actually be rather strong defensively. I haven’t mentioned Xander Bogaerts or Dustin Pedroia/Brock Holt manning second, but both have been slightly better than average, with Holt actually playing strong defense filling in for Pedroia. For the rest of this season, and certainly next year, Red Sox starters should enjoy some dramatic improvement.

Since none of their starters are elite strikeout artists (though Henry Owens certainly has the potential to become one), it is imperative that the team plays strong defense behind them. Obviously, every team should always play good defense regardless of who’s on the mound. But lower strikeout guys allow more balls in play, which gives fielders more opportunities to help or hurt their pitchers with their defense and ability to convert those balls in play into outs.

Depending on how exactly this group finishes the season, there’s a real good chance that many of them are severely undervalued in drafts next season. While I always stress ignoring ERA and evaluating pitchers based on their SIERA, this is even more important when we could reasonably expect the defense to be much improved.