Remember when Josh Beckett was great?

Do you? Do you remember 2007? Where Beckett made Hanley Ramirez an after-thought? Post-2007, Hanley was merely Khalil Greene in the eyes of Red Sox fans.
Maybe not Khalil, but you get my point, right?
What Beckett did was incredible. We didn’t actually think Hanley was roughly a league-average SS, but we were okay with letting a future superstar go–especially with the addition of Mike Lowell as well.
Sure, Lowell was a salary dump, as we all know. But that turned out pretty good, agree? Yes, the answer is yes.
But there is much less panic when a team ships off their future superstar (Hanley) to acquire two veterans (Beckett, Lowell), and ultimately wins a championship with the help of both of them.
But neither has been what they were since.
And since this is mainly about Beckett, I will dispose with what Lowell has done since rather quickly:
Lowell was hurt in 2008, although solid enough when he played, and has begun the 2009 campaign red-hot. Aside from the injury, Lowell has been fine. But players in their mid-to-late thirties tend to get injured more frequently. So that is part of what we might have, with the two remaining years of Lowell’s contract.
Now to Beckett…
See the thing that frustrates us so much is that Beckett has great stuff. Beckett flashes a great 4-seamer, a good 2-seamer, two different breaking balls, and a Greg Maddux-like change-up.
“Maddux-like” in a sense that his change-up has the same velocity as Maddux’s fastball. But even mentioning Beckett in the same breath as Maddux really isn’t fair to arguably the smartest pitcher to ever step on a rubber.
Not yet anyway. And not anytime soon either.
And the change matters, complements his repertoire, but lets be real, it ain’t that great.
To be honest, I am kind of hanging with one arm secured on the bus, heading for “The land of Josh Beckett is overrated.”
Not because Beckett isn’t good. That would be a fallacy, a myth, a fable. Something made up by spiteful Yankees fans, or the casual fan lacking the knowledge to evaluate a baseball player–even by the simplest of metrics.
But after 2007, was there any doubt that Beckett was a great pitcher?
A 20-7 record, ERA+ of 145, 200 IP, 194 K’s, 40 BB.
And then, more importantly to most, Beckett cruised through the postseason like few we have ever seen.
Schilling-esque. Smoltzy-esque. Bob Gibson-esque.
Seriously, it felt like we had Bob Gibson after the 2007 postseason concluded.
The guy went through a somewhat depleted Angels lineup, but went through them like they had not a single credible hitter on the team.
Then, Beckett twice man-handled a very talented Indians lineup. One that consisted of Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez, and Grady Sizemore–to name a few, and to name the few best.
And to top it off, Beckett shut down, for the most part, a good Rockies lineup.
End result: 4 starts, 4 wins, 4 ER.
He was our modern day Bob Gibson. Or at least he felt like it.
But then Josh Beckett regressed. Somewhat due to injury, but as we are seeing now, probably due to simple, well, regression.
See, Josh Beckett had never been that great before. Good, flashes of greatness, and some serious postseason excellence.
But never did he put it all together, not to that extent.
Here are Beckett’s ERA+’s in seasons which he started 20 or more times:
98, 138, 108, 118, 95, 145, 115.
The no doubt great seasons would be the numbers 138 and 145.
And as mentioned, the 145 came in 2007, and was awesome.
So the 138 was great too…but it wasn’t really what it appears to be. As Beckett only made 23 starts that year, on a very good World Series winning Marlins team. The postseason is well-known by now; the underdog Marlins tipped over the Yankee juggernaut, with Josh Beckett being the largest reason why.
The outliers in the numbers above, are the two highest numbers, leading me to believe, that maybe, just maybe, Josh Beckett isn’t as great as many think he is, including what I thought of him, as recently as this off-season.
This isn’t just the frustration behind watching Beckett get shelled in back-to-back games by divisional rivals.
Because I know that Beckett will regroup. He will rebound, and he will be a good pitcher by seasons end–possibly even great.
After all, the stuff is there. But great stuff doesn’t always translate into greatness.
The one thing that stands out, that I overlooked in the past–in Beckett’s 2007 season of greatness–is his groundball rate. Josh Beckett induced ground balls, often.
By now, we know about Beckett’s 2007. His LD% was the lowest it had ever been, his K/9 and BB/9 were both spectacular, and with a good defense behind him, that translated into a great season.
But, Beckett put the ball on the ground with the best of them. He fell in at 16th in the AL in the percentage of ground balls induced, 47%. Probably due to effective use of the 2-seamer, but also due to effective command of all his pitches
So not only did he allow few home runs, miss a ton of bats, and walk very few. He also avoided well-hit balls in general, and kept the ball on the ground–allowing a solid defense to scoop them up.
This Josh Beckett isn’t doing that.
And I know that “game-calling” skills may be overrated. But in the case of Beckett, I prefer Varitek to be behind the plate, rather than Kottaras. No disrespect to Georgie boy, but I like when the calm, collective, intelligent mind of Tek is calling the shots while Beckett is on the hill. Could be just a personal preference I guess. But we will all agree, I’m sure, that nobody knows Beckett like Tek does.
Because after Beckett really concentrated, and developed his secondary pitches more so going into the 2007 season. The best thing at that point, was for him to simply nod when Varitek puts down his fingers.
Because who would you rather have calling a game: Beckett or Varitek? Sure, they both have a say in what is thrown. But I feel that Beckett may succumb to Varitek’s opinion, more often then he would with a catcher he is fairly unfamiliar with (Kottaras).
But expect this guy, Beckett, to get it together, but “together” may not be 2007, but rather 2008.
We wait and see…