http://cdn.pis.picapp.com/IamProd/PicAppPIS/JavaScript/PisV4.js*Editor’s Note: This was written last night before Mark Teixeira’s 8th inning home run off Ramon Ramirez. Teixeira’s home run only goes to further illustrate some of the points referenced in this column and there wasn’t time to edit/rewrite so here you go.
It’s not often that an unheralded newcomer to an established bullpen establishes themselves in April as the go to guy that will bridge the most critical situations between the days starter and the designated closer.
With the perceived depth of the Red Sox bullpen coming into the season, it certainly wasn’t expected that Ramon Ramirez, who entered the season behind Jonathan Papelbon, Takashi Saito, Hideki Okajima, and Manny Delcarmen in the bullpen rotation, would claim that mantle.
Red Sox fans don’t have to look to far into the depths of their memory to recall a newcomer making an early mark out of the pen.
As recently as the World Championship culminating 2007 season, Hideki Okajima did just that. After giving up a solo shot to John Buck, the first batter he would face in his Major League career, Okajima would go 21.2 consecutive scoreless innings before giving up another.
Okajima would take a 0.83 ERA to the All-Star game as the most unlikely American League representative of the season.
While Ramirez’s streak hasn’t quite reached Okajima’s 21.2 innings, he’s getting close as he has yet to give up a run in his first 15 innings pitched this season. Like Okajima in 2007, as important as the goose eggs Ramirez has been throwing on the board are the situations in which they are happening. As measured by Win Probability Added, Ramirez currently ranks as the #5 reliever in all of baseball and the only non-closer in the top five.
WPA Leaders (Relievers)
1. Frank Francisco (Tex), 1.58
2. Ryan Franklin (StL), 1.30
3. Jonathan Broxton (LAD), 1.25
4. Heath Bell (SD), 1.24
5. Ramon Ramirez (Bos), 1.05
Now that we’ve gotten a little bit of Ramon Ramirez under our belts, we can take under the hood to see what makes his engine run.
Over the course of his career Ramirez has featured a nice variety of complimentary pitches. It all starts with a fastball that runs 91-93 MPH. Ramirez throws the fastball 58.7% of the time and works both a two seam fastball (20.6%) and an effective 87 MPH change (13%) off of the fastball effectively.
Ramirez pounds the zone early in the count, racing ahead of batters and forcing the issue outside of the zone later in counts where hitters are decidedly off balance. So far this season, Ramirez has held batters to a .124 batting average against while stranding 100% of the runners that have reached base against him.
With the cadre of names that Terry Francona can point to out of the pen on the way to Papelbon, there is not one that makes Red Sox fans feel more at ease that Ramirez.
As we move into the second month of the season, can we expect Ramon Ramirez keep up this pace? Of course, he won’t end the season with a 0.00 ERA, but is continued excellence in Ramirez future?
Much like Okajima in 2007, its very fair to expect an excellent overall season from Ramirez, but some of the same statistics jump out at me now that do looking back at some of the struggles Okajima faced in the second half of ’07.
Okajima’s first half, like Ramirez featured two stats that would inevitably catch up with him; BABIP and HR/FB %. In ’07 Okajima’s first half BABIP was a decidedly below average .207 which would as expected regress to the mean in the second half (.304). Okajima gave up five home runs in the second half of that season compared to only one in the first half. Both of these factors would see his ERA jump from 0.83 in the first half to 4.56 in the second.
Looking at Ramirez, he has had a similar start. Ramirez’s BABIP is more than half the league average at .149 and he has yet to give up a home run in a season where he’s giving up fly balls at higher rates than his career average (52.5% to 42.7%). I would expect Ramirez to get burned a little more than he has to this point even with him pitching as well as he has to this point.
Even with some regression, it’s very safe to say that if Ramirez were to emerge as significant as an asset as Okajima did out of the bullpen in ’07, the Red Sox made a smart decision in targeting him as they looked for a trade partner for Coco Crisp.
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