Francona Discusses Red Sox Rotation

(Jim Davis)

Red Sox manager Terry Francona fielded questions on Thursday at the Boston Baseball Writers' Assocation of America. And for those of you wondering about the Red Sox rotation in 2008, he answered almost every question you could have.

According to Francona, the Red Sox will begin their rotation with Josh Beckett and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Although, Matsuzaka's wife may be having a child while the Red Sox are in Japan, so Matsuzaka may not be able to pitch in the second game of the season. I think it would be a real shame if Matsuzaka can't make the trip to Japan. It would be exceptional to see him pitch in front of his fellow countrymen who idolize him so much.

The Red Sox will play three exhibition games after they come back from Japan. Those exhibition games will allow them to use their top two starters not only in the first two games of the season, but also the third and fourth game of the season. The number three, four and five pitchers for the Red Sox will pitch in the exhibition games.

Francona also talked about the back of his rotation. Wakefield will begin the season as the team's number four starter. And Lester and Buchholz will compete for the fifth spot in the rotation. Given pitching coach John Farrell's strong like of Jon Lester, I'd be surprised if he didn't start the season in the rotation. But both Lester and Buchholz do have minor innings concerns. Their total workload will likely be capped somewhere around 180 innings each.

It's good to have Clay Buchholz, considered by most to be the best pitching prospect in baseball, as a backup starter. He could likely provide some high quality replacement innings for any other pitcher in the organization who either struggles or gets injured. Even though I think it's likely that Buchholz will start the season outside of the Red Sox rotation, if he pitches anything like he did last year, I'm sure he'll find a way onto the roster.

2008 Red Sox Pitching Projections - Starters

(Brian Snyder/Reuters)

So I just got my hands on a copy of the Bill James Handbook. It's become an annual tradition for me to view the information in it. Others might find it boring, but for me it provides some interesting food for thought when I'm in desperate need for baseball. I'm going to be discussing a lot of information in the book over the next few weeks. To begin the discussion I thought I'd look at the projections for the Red Sox starting pitchers. Here are the projections, coupled with my thoughts.

Josh Beckett - 3.50 ERA, 1.22 WHIP (203 IP, 184 H, 64 BB, 187 SO)

I was a little surprised to see such a high ERA projection, even though 2007 was a career year for Beckett. Since his rookie season, Beckett's posted an ERA on the lower side of 3.50 most of the time. Other than Beckett's atypical 2006 season, Beckett's BB/9 IP has gone down every year, yet the projection expects it to go back up in 2008.

I can understand why the projection is so high, as projections must give weight to Beckett's 2006 season. But most indications point to 2006 being an off year and 2007 being an indicator of improving ability at the major league level as he enters the prime ages of most pitchers' careers.

Daisuke Matsuzaka - 3.54 ERA, 1.23 WHIP (193 IP, 173 H, 64 BB, 184 SO)

I was surprised by these numbers too, but this time because of how low they were. But I can understand why the projection would like Daisuke so much. These numbers are similar to the ones he posted before he wore down late in the season. Matsuzaka had an ERA of 3.84 and a WHIP of 1.24 in the first half of 2007. Daisuke's ERA was as low as 3.59 on August 10th. You also have to consider that 2007 was Matsuzaka's rookie season.

Curt Schilling - 3.54 ERA, 1.16 WHIP (160 IP, 161 H, 25 BB, 150 SO)

I was quite surprised by this projection as well. Schilling hasn't posted a year like this since 2004, and he's not getting any younger. It's not that Schilling didn't have a very good year in 2007 (3.87 ERA, 1.25 WHIP). But why is his 2008 expected to be such an improvement? His projection seems to think there will be drastic drops in his hits rate and a drastic improvement in his strike out rate.

Tim Wakefield - 4.03 ERA, 1.31 WHIP (181 IP, 174 H, 63 BB, 123 SO)

Wakefield is up and down year to year but it's been a while since he's put up some numbers like these. Either the Bill James Handbook thinks Wakefield the fountain of youth, or they just assume every pitcher over 40 uses performance enhancers.

Jon Lester - 4.42 ERA, 1.55 WHIP (175 IP, 183 H, 89 BB, 149 SO)

It's easy to get excited about Lester given his raw stuff, but this is probably a fair projection for 2008. The numbers aren't great but they're about league average for a starter.

Clay Buchholz

Although Buchholz figures to play a large role in the Red Sox rotation, the Bill James Handbook could not project his statistics based on such a small major league sample size.