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March 23, 2007, 01:07 PM ET
Papelbon Prospectus

by Nate Silver

There are several different angles to this story, but one that I find relatively less compelling is the notion than Jonathan Papelbon heroically stepped up to save the day by volunteering to take the closer’s job. I don’t doubt that Papelbon is a good, stand-up guy, that he was proactive in talking to Terry Francona about his role, or that this factored into the Red Sox’ decision. But Papelbon’s desire to close was, at most, a necessary-but-not-sufficient condition for making the move happen. It might have been utterly coincidental.

Peter Gammons uses Papelbon’s meeting with Francona as his story lead, but also describes how Papelbon’s shoulder was healthier than anticipated, how Papelbon was losing velocity when he started, and how the trade market for relievers was pretty unpalatable for the Red Sox. I can’t speak for the Red Sox, but I’d know which of those four factors I’d weight least in making my decision.

Curt Schilling commends Papelbon’s competitiveness and professionalism, but also reveals that “there were many meetings involving many people that occurred before this took place.”

Gordon Edes also mentions Papelbon’s meetings with Francona and Jason Varitek, but frames their impact somewhat differently. “By happy coincidence,” Edes writes, “Papelbon’s wish to remain in the role in which he had few peers last season […] dovetailed nicely with the fact that none of the candidates the Sox had auditioned seemed equal to the part’.

I mention this only because the Red Sox are very sensitive to public relations, which they have to be in a media market like Boston. As I described in Mind Game, this wasn’t necessarily something that came naturally to them; they learned the hard way after the very public implosion of the Alex Rodriguez trade negotiations three winters ago. You don’t have to read into the Gammons and Schilling and Edes articles too deeply to decode the fact that there is a bit of spin taking place here, perhaps to explain what’s happened to that part of Red Sox Nation with a short attention span.

Bottom line: you don’t make a decision of this magnitude simply because Papelbon steps up and says “Hey, skip, I want to close.” There’s just too much riding on it, not just Papelbon’s role for this season but also his future, as well as the roles of a half-dozen other pitchers on his team.

* * *

The updated PECOTA forecast for Papelbon is already available in the weighted means version of our spreadsheet (download and subscription required), and we’re working on getting it incorporated into our depth charts. But here’s how it compares to his prospective forecast as a starter:

Role      W   L   SV   G  GS   IP    H  BB  SO  HR   ERA   VORP  WARP
Closer    5   4   29  56   0  64.3  57  20  64   7   3.04  21.0   4.9
Starter  10   6    0  25  25 147.0 150  44 124  19   4.07  30.1   4.5

Interestingly, Papelbon’s VORP is higher as a starter, but his WARP is higher as a closer; WARP makes an adjustment for pitcher leverage whereas VORP does not.

Although both of those forecasts look reasonable, it’s worth bearing in mind that having our software convert Papelbon from reliever to starter and back again is a relatively speculative exercise. I personally think that Papelbon’s strengths are particularly well adapted to being a reliever, and that the difference in ERA is slightly larger than PECOTA is suggesting. That’s especially likely to be the case if, as Gammons mentioned, he was tiring quickly and losing velocity in his starts.

The other side of the equation is Julian Tavarez, who gets this forecast as the nominal fifth starter.

Role      W   L   SV   G  GS   IP    H  BB  SO  HR   ERA   VORP  WARP
Starter   6   7    0  31  18 112.7 146  41  63  13   5.60   1.3   1.9

That’s a pretty ugly line; then again, Tavarez is a pretty ugly pitcher. Okay, so that’s beside the point.

But there isn’t really a lot of evidence that Tavarez is likely to be especially competent in a starter’s role. Yes, he had a handful of nice starts during the stretch run last year, but over the course of his career, he’s posted a 5.04 ERA and a 1.17:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio as a starter, and most of those innings came when he was younger, threw a little harder, and was pitching in the National League. In fact, I probably wouldn’t support the Red Sox’ decision to move Papelbon to the bullpen if we knew that Tavarez was going to get 18 starts for them — but in practice the number will probably be much less than that between the forgiving April schedule, the presence of Jon Lester and Kyle Snyder, and the availability of pitchers like Jon Lieber. Oh, and that Clemens guy.

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