Kuzul

Earlier this spring, it was reported that the San Francisco Giants‘ two-time NL Cy Young award-winner Tim Lincecum would shelve his slider in order to save wear-and-tear on his ligaments.

Seems smart, right? Anything to prolong a potential Hall-of-Fame career.

The reasons for this decision were simple. Questions are lingering on whether the 27-year-old righty is concealing an injury this spring, as his velocity has been down—his fastball was sitting just a tick under 90 mph in yesterday’s 5-4 Opening Day loss to the Diamondbacks. 

Lincecum (0-1) lasted just 5.1 innings, while giving up five earned runs, despite striking out seven and walking just one. And the ace stuck to the plan too: He threw exactly zero sliders.

Not to sound the alarm just yet, everyone has rough outings. His strikeout-to-walk ratio was actually quite impressive yesterday, and there’s no real way to tell if he’s missing his slider after a single start.

At this point, his velocity is more of a concern than the slider, anyway. 

Last week, in a story concerning the aforementioned breaking ball, Andrew Baggarly addressed the issue:

It’s true, Lincecum hasn’t thrown hard this spring. But that is not atypical. He often starts out slow before zipping 94 mph on the gun when the season begins. More important, he says, is location of his two-seamer so he can get ahead of hitters and try for more efficient, contact outs.

So, as the season progresses, hopefully we’ll see the mph slowly rise over the next month or so. If not, he may have to bite the bullet and reintroduce the slider to his repertoire. But right now, the radar gun is definitely something to keep an eye on.

Alex Pavlovic noted following yesterday’s game:

I don’t want to sound any alarms, but Lincecum’s average fastball was 89.7 mph according to MLB.com…Again, don’t want to sound any alarms, because there’s been no indication from the Giants that there’s a problem.

So, not to throw a cliche in your faces here, but it seems to fit in this case: Where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire. Early indications aren’t good for Lincecum so far, and I hope I’m wrong, but don’t be surprised to see a prolonged disabled-list stint from him in at some point in 2012.

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Jonathan Papelbon’s departure. Heir-apparent Daniel Bard’s shift to starter. Andrew Bailey’s arrival and subsequent thumb injury. Alfredo Aceves‘ tenuous grasp on the closer role.

Needless to say, the Boston Red Sox haven’t seen this much focus on their bullpen since the Theo think-tank rolled out the concept of closer-by-committee in 2003.

At this point, it’s still early. Things will come out in the wash. Someone—be it Bard, Aceves, Franklin Morales, Vicente Padilla, or Mark Melancon—will fall into the role. But, what is the best way of going about determining who that guy is? 

I know, I know, you’re screaming “performance on the field!” But is there a better way than traditional stats—specifically saves—to determine who is the best man for the job? A better way than the eyeball test?

The guys over at FanGraphs think so, and that method comes in the form of a pair of stats called shutdowns (SD) and meltdowns (MD).

To keep it simple, shutdowns and meltdowns are better ways of measuring a reliever’s success because they gauge the percentage a pitcher has added to, or subtracted from, his team’s chance of winning on a given night. Add to the probability of winning more than six percent, and you get a shutdown. Subtract that number or more, and you have a meltdown.

Pretty easy, right? 

Grantland.com’s Jonah Keri wrote a great piece on the subject following Cleveland‘s closer Chris Perez’s ninth-inning meltdown versus the Blue Jays on Opening Day. He explains the stat as such:

By using 6 percent as the cutoff, you get a stat that runs on a similar scale to saves and holds. Elite closers and setup men will rack up 35-40 (or more) shutdowns and very few meltdowns, just as a dominant closer can earn that many saves, while blowing very few.

With that in mind, we’re able to take a better look at just who’s getting it done in the ‘pen. This is because it’s a universal stat—not one that is applied solely to closers. If Franklin Morales is lights out and deserves to slip into the closer role, Bobby Valentine and company will know it regardless of his number of shutdowns and meltdowns. However, these stats—if they catch on—can take some of the pressure away from save itself.

Clearly, without throwing the numbers at you, the Sox bullpen didn’t fare so well on Opening Day in Detroit in the shutdown category. Fine. But it will be interesting to keep an eye on shutdowns and meltdowns over the first few months of the season, to see if it can bring any more clarity to the situation.

But for now, even though Aceves was named the official closer, he really doesn’t get to carry that belt until he earns it. So Melancon, Padilla and Morales all have it in the back of their minds that they could step in at any moment should Aceves lose it. 

But let’s leave Daniel Bard out of it, shall we? He’s a starter, and he’s in that role because he wants to be.

Here’s the thing: If the Bard-as-starter experiment blows up in the Red Sox face, can they really go and insert him into one of the highest-pressure positions on the team, even if he does hit 100 on the gun on occasion? Probably not.

It seems as if they are committed to starting him, and won’t pull him from that role unless he is an abject failure. At that point, they’d have to work on getting his confidence back—not something they want to do night after night in the ninth inning.

As of now, Ben Cherington better hope Aceves and company can hold down the back end of the bullpen—and keep that shutdown category sky-high.

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Daniel Bard‘s success as a starter could very well prove to be the key to a 2012 playoff run for the Boston Red Sox.

Then again, he’s just as likely to be relegated back to bullpen duty.

But with two rotation spots up for grabs, all indications point towards the 26-year-old at least beginning the season in Bobby Valentine’s starting-five. As of this writing, Bard and fellow system-product Felix Doubront figure to fill the fourth and fifth spots, with 2011’s jack-of-all-trades Alfredo Aceves returning to the ‘pen.

Nothing’s official yet, but can they really send Bard back at this point? Assuming he has nailed down a starting role, what, if anything, has his performance in camp told us? 

Clearly, a lot of what happens in spring has to be chalked up to pitchers trying out new pitches, tinkering with arm slots, working out the kinks in their mechanics, etc. So the spirit of this exercise is certainly not to over-analyze stat after stat.

But a few things come to mind as we stare down the barrels of Opening Day.

First, the knock on Bard coming out of his role as a (generally) lights-out reliever was that he relied on just two pitches (a four-seam fastball and his bread-and-butter slider). He would have to redevelop and mix in an effective change to avoid tiring himself out while keeping hitters off-balance in order to be successful.

He’s now mixed in a two-seam fastball, a pitch he used frequently while at the University of North Carolina. Earlier this March, he told WEEI.com’s Alex Speier:

It’s a pitch I’m very comfortable with, going back to when I was in college. I probably threw more two-seamers than four-seamers this spring so far. I’ve been real consistent with the movement.

Okay, check. He’s got a second fastball down. But what about that changeup?

It seems as if he’s still struggling with it. In an interview earlier this month, broadcast on WEEI, the team’s flagship radio station, he stated (via The Boston Globe‘s Peter Abraham):

Fastball, slider – that’s where I’ve made my money the last three years…If I’m not 100 percent confident in those two pitches going into the season, then something is not right.

It doesn’t matter what my changeup is if my two best pitches aren’t fully ready. So I really went into this last [start] wanting to establish my fastball in the zone and use the slider as my put-away pitch.

In other words, it’s mission-not-accomplished at this point. Developing the changeup will be critical, as he can’t rely on his above-average velocity an entire two or three revolutions through an opposing lineup, like he did in his role as a setup ace.

But it’s not all bad news. He seems to be getting craftier with his slider. Sox shortstop Mike Aviles told Abraham:

-Spring K% and BB% actually do mean something and may help identify breakout and bust performers for the upcoming season
-Good and bad springs carry the same level of significance and they should therefore be treated equally
-Spring ERA is completely useless

So, good news on the ERA. But we knew that already.

The bad news is, his peripherals are hurting as well. His strikeouts-per-nine are down to 6.57 from 9.1 last year, while his walks-per-nine are up to 5.84 (from 3.0). The drop in strikeouts can probably be explained as due to his dialing back his effort in order to last longer. Fine.

But his strikeout and walk percentages? The stats that may actually be a legitimate predictor of regular season performances? God-awful. His walk percentage has jumped from 8.3 percent in 2011 to 14.5 this spring, while his strikeouts have gone from 25.7 to 16.4 percent.

Will any of this mean anything in the end? Maybe not. But the numbers aren’t very impressive this spring, and the lack of an effective changeup is daunting.

Here’s hoping he can put it together.

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