Boston Red Sox Rumors: Fix Starting Pitching Before Addressing Loss of Papelbon

While many may be fretting about the state of the Red Sox bullpen, it's important to stand back and ask why those concerns exist. The biggest single reason, according to former Red Sox closer Dick Drago, is that the starting pitchers aren't going deep enough into games.

"The Red Sox are coddling the starters, letting them think it's OK to go no more than five or six innings," he said. "I understand the game has changed, and we'll never go back to the workhorses who would throw 20 complete games in a season, but the Red Sox need to stretch their starters out. And the only way a pitcher can pitch deeper into a game without breaking down is to pitch deeper into games from the start of the season. You can't practice that any other way." 

Drago points to Nolan Ryan as a baseball executive who supports the idea of more innings per start.

Red Sox stats from 2011 support Drago's argument. Despite the fact that Red Sox hitters gave their rotation more runs per start (5.7) than every other team in the league, only the lowly Baltimore Orioles averaged fewer innings per start than the Red Sox' 5.8. (The league average was 6.1.) 

The Red Sox had only two complete games all year–the lowest number in the league. (The average per team was seven, and Tampa Bay had 15.) 

The number of innings per start might be survived if the quality of those starts were well above the league average. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.  Again, only the Orioles had a lower rate of quality starts than Boston's 44 percent. (By contrast, both the Rays and the Rangers had 61 percent.) 

When you think about it, this is pretty basic. The more innings the team gets from its starting rotation, the fewer innings the bullpen will have to pitch. Reduce the workload on the relievers, and you decrease their chance of wearing down and/or getting hurt.

Just look at 2011. For the most part, the Red Sox bullpen did a very good job, posting the fourth-best ERA in the league (3.67). However, they also pitched the second-highest number of innings, 517.1, which was more than 51 innings above the league average, and a full 125 innings more than Tampa Bay's relievers.

Stated simply, the Red Sox starters' inability to pitch deeper into games added another 75 innings or so to the bullpen workload. In turn, that meant some of those innings had to go to less reliable bullpen arms.

Matt Sullivan has done an excellent statistical analysis of this argument on Over The Monster.

The conclusion is that the Red Sox should make their starting pitching decisions first, then worry about the bullpen.