Daniel Bard Can Start

Over the winter, one of the big discussions floating around the Boston Red Sox was their decision to convert setup ace Daniel Bard into a starter. Few pundits thought he could make the transition, feeling that he was more valuable in the bullpen, which, if you understand grade 2 math, is ridiculous.

The change made sense to me. Does he have the stuff to start? Uh, yeah. Does he have the arms strength to last? I have no reason to believe otherwise. So they did. He started all spring, and he struggled, and people called for him to be moved back into the bullpen. Then the season started, and the Red Sox bullpen couldn't get the job done. And people called for him to be moved back into the bullpen. Then, last night, he took the mound against the Toronto Blue Jays, and allowed 5 earned runs in 5 innings of work -- and people stopped calling for him to be moved back into the bullpen.

Saying Daniel Bard is much better than his line is like saying that Andre Maginot was better than his. Daniel Bard was fantastic.

Bard answered every question thrown at him. Can he sustain his velocity? You bet. He averaged a tick under 95 mph for the evening (Justin Verlander's average in 2011), and his last two fastballs registered at 94 and 93.

Does he have the secondary stuff to keep hitters off balance? Absolutely. His slider is perhaps the best in the American League (according to a Danish pitch-tracking company called Trackman, it is), and Blue Jays hitters had no idea what to do with it all evening. He mixed in a so-so changeup, but you know who else had a mediocre changeup they didn't have to use much? Randy Johnson.

What about his results? He did allow five runs, after all. Baseball is not a fair game, least of all for pitchers. Runs allowed depend on everything from the hitters you face, to where their batted balls are hit, to how good your defenders are, to random-value order of events, to the arbitrary amount of outs in an inning. Earned runs are an awful tool for pitcher evaluation.

From what I saw, almost all of Bard's runs came on ground balls hit to the right places. All I saw was him striking guys out and inducing ground balls and popups. He was not hit hard at any point - in fact he got 18 swings and misses. Last year, Josh Beckett led the team with 20 in any one game.

How do we analyze his start, then? With comprehensive metrics, of course. The most comprehensive stat going is SIERA, which values every event independently of both circumstance and fielding, and by it, Bard dominated. Same by other fielder-independents like FIP and xFIP. Judged on a scale similar to that of ERA, Bard posted a SIERA of 2.08, a FIP of 0.87, and an xFIP of 1.74.

Daniel Bard passed his first test with flying colors. Frankly, I thought he looked better than any other Red Sox pitcher so far, including Jon Lester. He's not just earned the right to stay in the rotation, he's put the American League on notice. He's not another reliever trying to convert, he's a legitimate threat. Pay attention to him.