The Red Sox have one of the best starting rotations in baseball

Boston Red Sox starting pitcher David Price delivers in the first inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Indians, Tuesday, April 5, 2016, in Cleveland. Tony Dejak/AP

By Paul Swydan

May 6, 2016

3 minutes to read

COMMENTARY

At the start of the season, it was presumed that David Price would be the Red Sox’s best starting pitcher, Clay Buchholz would probably be second-best, and after that … well, there wasn’t a clear consensus, other than fear. A month into the season, things have gone better than expected. Price has taken some lumps, but overall the team’s three best pitchers – Price, Steven Wright and Rick Porcello – have been a stabilizing force. But how do they stack up against their American League competition? Let’s take a look.

As of Thursday morning, there were 66 AL starting pitchers who had thrown at least 20 innings for the season. Only one team had just three candidates – the Orioles – and for the other teams, I selected the three-best pitchers by total WAR (wins above replacement). Let’s take a look.

The Red Sox’ trio has been right at the top of the heap. Tied for fourth place as of May 4 is not too shabby, and really you could just call it second place, as the only team that has been overwhelmingly better than Boston to date is Chicago. And it could be considerably worse. Second place through seventh place is all within 0.4 WAR, but there is a bit of a drop off between the Yankees and Twins, and then the Angels are in a tier all by themselves at the bottom. While there will undoubtedly be some movement on this table, especially since it’s early in the season, I wouldn’t expect the Angels to move up much. They started from the bottom, and they’ll likely still be there come October.

Going back to the top, the White Sox’ Jose Quintana and Chris Sale are becoming one of the most potent one-two punches in the game – if not the best. Quintana and Sale by themselves would top this list, and Quintana – at 1.5 WAR – is better than the top three pitchers on six of these AL teams all by himself.

The other column you see here is K%-BB%, or strikeout rate minus walk rate. This is one of the best indicators of future pitching performance, and it’s here where the Red Sox shine, as their 20.3 percent mark has been the best in the AL. All three pitchers have better than average strikeout rates, and Price and Porcello have better than average walk rates. As a knuckleballer, Wright will always struggle with his walk rate, but as long as he keeps his hits in check, he’ll be fine. He has done that so far, as his 1.14 WHIP (walks plus hits divided by innings pitched) ranked 19th out of the 66 pitchers.

Better than average doesn’t actually do Price and Porcello justice. As of May 4, Price’s 30.6 percent K% was second in the AL to only Drew Smyly, and Porcello’s 28.1 percent K% ranked sixth. Porcello also had the eighth-best BB%, at 4.7 percent, while Price was 16th (5.6 percent). Overall, Price’s 25 percent K%-BB% mark was second-best in the AL (again behind just Smyly) and Porcello was in third at 23.4 percent. This bodes extremely well for the Sox. Price has had a few rocky starts, but the damage has all come on balls in play; he hasn’t walked more than two batters in any start this season. Sooner or later, the balls that have fallen for hits against him will drop into his fielders’ gloves.

Looking at the top three starting pitchers in a rotation isn’t necessarily the best way to determine how good a starting rotation is, of course. Especially since there are some very good pitchers, such as Felix Hernandez and Chris Archer, who didn’t make the cut here. Still, the season is young, and the bottom of most teams’ rotations will change shortly, Boston’s included. Six pitchers have already started a game for Boston, and when Eduardo Rodriguez gets back, it will be seven. The Twins have already used eight, the Orioles seven, and the only AL teams to just use five thus far are Kansas City, New York and Seattle.

With such fluidity at the bottom of starting rotations, using the top of the rotation is a better judge of rotation strength at this point. When doing so, the Red Sox grade out well, not only in their results but also in their process. Wright and Porcello have performed better than expected, and once Price rights the ship and Rodriguez returns, Boston may just end up with one of the better rotations in the American League.