What Should We Expect When Matsuzaka Makes His Return?

Remember in the pre-season when starting pitching appeared to be our strength? If it was only true. Now that both the John Smoltz and Brad Penny experiments are over in Boston we can now turn to our latest gamble at gaining a semblance of a stable starting rotation: Daisuke Matsuzaka.

When he arrived back in 2007 he did so with much fanfare: the influx of Japanese tourists; a hyped up Fenway debut against Ichiro; the waiving Japanese flags amongst the fans- I even dressed up in his likeness for Halloween that year. Now into year three of the Dice-K era and we are left with an ok MLB debut and a bounce back 2008 season. However he fell off the horse again this season as he struggled in his first 8 games and made a number of phantom D/L stints to figure work out his problems.

In his frustration he lashed out against the club, blaming the conservative American training regimens for his ineffectiveness. He’s since made amends with everyone and is now training his way back to shape- the remarks did make me wonder what’s been wrong with Dice-K, and what can we possibly expect when he returns?

To answer the question I took a look at his numbers.

Prior to coming over to MLB, Matsuzaka pitched for eight seasons with the Seibu Lion where he was drafted right after high school. For the Lions we was a rather dominate pitcher going 108-60 with a 2.95 ERA and 1355 Ks over 1402.6 innings. He was coming to Boston after a career year in Japan where he went 17-5 with a 2.13 ERA; 200 Ks over 186.1 innings; and a career high 9.66 K/9. Pretty sexy stuff.

Of course you can’t realistically expect Dice-K to replicate those numbers in the US- in Japan Daisuke was pitching every 6th or 7th day and often ran up pitch counts that would of been ridiculous (maybe even ridonkulous) for over here. Past Japanese stars turned flameouts like Hideo Nomo have already set a precedent that one’s performance in Japan will is downgraded in MLB. Brandon Siefken for Baseball 81 wrote a really interesting (and math heavy) paper that shows the decline using Hiroki Kuroda as an example.

Something I did notice is that after his 2001 season with the Lions, where he made an innings jump from 167.2 to 240.1 innings, he hit the D/L for the majority of the 2002 season- perhaps a harbinger to his overuse risks.

In his 2007 debut with the Red Sox, Matsuzaka went 15-12 with a 4.40 ERA and 1.32 WHIP. His K/9 rate dropped from 9.66 in 2006 Japan to 8.84, not too bad of an adjustment. However his BB/9 also rose from 1.64 in Japan to 3.52. He also got tagged for the long ball seeing his HR/9 increase from .63 to 1.10. Regardless of his adjustment to the MLB he displayed some impressive games. In 2007 Matsuzaka had 12 starts with more than 8 Ks, and in 3 of that 12 he fanned 10. There were flashes of his potential brilliance.

Things appeared to have improved in 2008, where he went 18-3; dropped his ERA to 2.90; and was in the conversation for the Cy Young. However his 1.32 WHIP and walk rate continued to rise despite his improved performance; resulting in 17 starts with 3 or more walks. Absent from 2007 was the glimpses of power pitching, replaced with ineffective pitching to paint the corners.

In 2009 Matsuzaka just couldn’t keep people off the bases despite maintaining a 8.27 K/9 ratio. In his 8 medicore to poor starts this year he’s 1-5 with a 8.23 ERA and 2.06 WHIP.

A lot of people look at Daisuke’s work in the World Baseball Classic as the cause for his decline and I believe it is a factor, however he only pitched three games with a week’s rest between each start. His pitch counts for those three games were 65,86, and 98- numbers that aren’t too bad. I am left wondering what sort of training regimine he undertook with the Japanese National team in preparation for the WBC. Unfortuantely the Red Sox were often left out of the loop in regards to that.

The truth of the matter is Dice-K is a terribly inefficient pitcher. Take a look at his pitch numbers over his three years:

2007 (32 Games)

3480 pitches (12th in MLB)
108.75 pitches/game
17.04 pitches/inning
6.3 innings/game

2008 (29 Games)

2904 pitches
100.13 pitches/game
17.36 pitches/inning
5.7 innings/game

2009 (8 Games)

681 pitches
85.12 pitches/start
19.45 pitches/inning
4.3 innings/game

For comparison here’s AL Cy Young winner Cliff Lee’s numbers from last year:

2008 (31 Games)

3289 pitches
106.09 pitches/game
14.74 pitches/inning
7.1 innings/game

Dice-K’s always had a reputation for high pitch counts but besides his inefficiency, you see that it’s resulting in shorter starts.

So what can we expect from a rested Dice-K? At this point we can hope that he can flash some of the skills that resulted in the dominating performances of 2007, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s another 5 inning a start pitcher like Smotlz and Penny were. The key for him is to stop walking those batters! Maybe we should start calling him Dice-Walk instead of Dice-K.

2 Responses to “What Should We Expect When Matsuzaka Makes His Return?”

1. 4 Sport Boston: What Should We Expect When Matsuzaka Makes His Return? | The Definitive Dmbosstone says:

   September 3, 2009 at 4:19 pm

   [...] What Should We Expect When Matsuzaka Makes His Return? [...]
2. Mike C says:

   September 4, 2009 at 4:39 pm

   He’s a bum!