Fantasy Baseball: Evaluating Daisuke Matsuzaka

Of all the players in 2009 that have fallen off the map, none has been under greater scrutiny than Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Boston Red Sox.

While others like Jimmy Rollins and David Ortiz have had their numbers drastically slashed from lofty expectations, Matsuzaka’s decline is being blamed on factors external to the Red Sox.

Namely, the World Baseball Classic.
 
Matsuzaka was throwing 75 pitches a game in the middle of March, and to do so he had to increase his workload and workout regimen early in the offseason.

The result was a pitcher that was very effective, if not still wild, against sub-par competition during the early rounds.

Matsuzaka came back down to Earth when the Japanese team came stateside, but he still threw the maximum pitch counts that rounds would allow.
 
Where the United States team largely held to the wishes of the managers in the league, that was not true for the Japanese team. There was much more pride on the line for this squad, and that is how the tournament was taken.
 
For Boston fans who have spent the last few seasons watching Matsuzaka, the overall opinion is that something like this was due. Matsuzaka appeared to live on the edge much of last season, loading the bases almost on purpose just to see if he could get out of the resulting jam.
 
The statistics support that to a degree. Matsuzaka stranded 80 percent of runners in 2008 when the league average was about 70 percent.

In 2009, though, he is stranding almost exactly the league average of 71 percent. So, while it would seem that the perception in 2008 was correct, it is not holding to form this year.
 
When you examine every peripheral stat, the conclusion has to be that the numbers this season do not hang. Starting with the contact numbers, Matsuzaka is at or better than the league average on every measure that FanGraphs can put up.

Batters make contact with him at a rate not greater than the league average, whether his ball is inside or outside of the strike zone.
 
In fact, when the ball is in the strike zone, batters swinging make contact at a rate three points LOWER than the league average of 80 percent. The only major driver is Matsuzaka’s own differential in contact made on pitches outside of the zone from 2008 to 2009.
 
In 2008, batters made contact with those pitches only 55 percent of the time. That number has jumped to 62 percent of the time this year. That means when he misses, his mistakes are costing him.

That is likely indicative of a pitcher missing high rather than missing low.

When a ball is out of the zone low, it is hard to put in to play. Pitches up are hit, and often hit hard. Batters are swinging at about the same rate at pitches out of the zone—they just are having more success.
 
When you dissect the contact that is made against him, Matsuzaka is yielding far more line drives than he has in the last two years. The total is not even close, representing a near 50 percent increase.

It is not that he is necessarily giving up more fly balls, but the contact is resulting in gap shots and hard-hit balls. Obvious to the observer of his starts, but not necessarily shown in box scores.
 
Moreover, his home run/fly ball ratio is out of whack compared to the past. Matsuzaka is giving up the fly balls at about the same rate, but they are going out of the park more frequently.
 
Matsuzaka has also changed his pitch selection. In 2007 and 2008, he relied on his curveball for between four and five percent of his pitches. That number has dropped this year to under one percent.

The beneficiary has been his changeup, which has jumped to become 6.5 percent of his overall arsenal.
 
Boston analysts can tell you that Matsuzaka’s changeup is much weaker than his other pitches. It is a straight change, so there is little action at the end to deter a hitter’s bat away from it or to thinking it is a fastball.
 
The final problem? Luck.

Batters are hitting 100 points above the league average against him, checking in at .366 so far this season. When a ball is hit in play, batters increase their average to .435 against a league average of around .300.
 
The solution for Matsuzaka comes in several steps.

First, he needs to adjust his pitch selection to more closely mirror what he has done in the past. Matsuzaka routinely shakes off Jason Varitek, often considered one of the best pitch-calling catchers in the game.

Should he trust his catcher more, we may see those numbers come back to his career averages moving through the rest of the season.
 
Second, Matsuzaka needs to understand the real estate game—location, location, location. It is okay to miss, it just needs to be a miss in the right spot.

There is no indication of a mechanical flaw in Matsuzaka’s motion, but he needs to work on missing low. When the ball stays up in the zone for any pitcher, disaster results.

A change here will bring his home run ratio in line.
 
Finally, he needs his luck to average out. With greater control, this will come as well. Matsuzaka should see a regression toward the league average in terms of BABIP, and that will bring with it better numbers and results.

His walk rate has been above the average across baseball in every season, and this will likely be the case for most of his career. His success will come in hit reduction through adjustments in pitches and location.

Matsuzaka may be too far down to even suggest buying low in a fantasy league, but certainly look to leverage these numbers moving into the second half of the season.

Owners in leagues with 14 teams, as well as AL only owners, should evaluate him closely.

Even if you are not likely to start him now, a few adjustments will make him a stronger pitcher going forward.