Eduardo Rodriguez optioned to Triple A

soxhop411

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“@PeteAbe: The #RedSox optioned Eduardo Rodriguez to Triple A after the game.”
 

DeadlySplitter

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As desperately as we needed him to be good, I think that knee injury has really fucked him up for the year. Whoever deemed him ready to be back should be fired.
 

Sprowl

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Or it has nothing to do with the knee, in spite of the hunch of a message board poster. His velocity has been good the past two starts.
His secondary pitches are a huge problem, and I would imagine that's what he'll be working on.
I imagine that Edro would have received instructions something like those given to Lester -- learn to pitch without using your cutter. In this case, however, Edro will have to earn his way back to the majors by throwing sliders, cutters and changeups, and laying off the fastball. He really needs a decent pitch slower than a 89 mph changeup, and the slider lacks movement, deception and command.
 

twibnotes

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Or it has nothing to do with the knee, in spite of the hunch of a message board poster. His velocity has been good the past two starts.
His secondary pitches are a huge problem, and I would imagine that's what he'll be working on.

Why so dismissive? It's not a far fetched "hunch." The guy changed his mechanics back and forth bc of the injury.
 
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StuckOnYouk

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Or it has nothing to do with the knee, in spite of the hunch of a message board poster. His velocity has been good the past two starts.
His secondary pitches are a huge problem, and I would imagine that's what he'll be working on.
Or it could be both.
He still looks to me like there is very little push off with his lower body through his motion.
 

DeadlySplitter

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Or it has nothing to do with the knee, in spite of the hunch of a message board poster. His velocity has been good the past two starts.
His secondary pitches are a huge problem, and I would imagine that's what he'll be working on.
He probably should have fully developed a 3rd pitch too. Eck was commenting on it against Chicago, and eventually scouting will catch on and even a team like TB will shell you.
 

Harry Hooper

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Or it could be both.
He still looks to me like there is very little push off with his lower body through his motion.
And Clay also is having trouble pushing off and "pitching downhill" and not getting under his pitches. Add in Price's issues with his stride. Odd to hear of so many lower-body concerns with this year's staff.
 

Soxfan in Fla

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Cross posted from end of game thread.

I was at the game tonight behind the plate. To say Edro was awful is an understatement. The Rays were 11/18 with a walk against Edro. He either wasn't close with the fastball, way inside to righties for example, or dead middle of the plate. His fastball was running 93-95 and changeup running 87-89 on the Trop gun. There is very little difference in speed there at all. I know he had a minimal difference previously but the gap is damn near negligible. If he threw a curve or slider I don't remember it. I think he threw only fastball/change. With the speed being that minimal and him not spotting well at all he's basically throwing BP.
 

Rasputin

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I assume they're going to call up a reliever for the short term. Question is, who is going to get his next start? Joe Kelly?
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I assume they're going to call up a reliever for the short term. Question is, who is going to get his next start? Joe Kelly?
With off-days on the next two Thursdays, they can skip the fifth spot once through the rotation and the next time they need a fifth starter wouldn't be until at least Friday 7/8. They could, theoretically anyway, give Rodriguez's next start to Rodriguez. But that's assuming that he was sent down simply to get another fresh arm in the bullpen in the short term, and not for the more obvious reason that he's got some shit to work out before he steps on a major league mound again.
 

j44thor

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Or it has nothing to do with the knee, in spite of the hunch of a message board poster. His velocity has been good the past two starts.
His secondary pitches are a huge problem, and I would imagine that's what he'll be working on.
Great so his velocity was back last two starts, but what about the previous 4? It is also fact that he changed his delivery for his last rehab start before being called to put less stress on the knee. Then after being shelled ended up changing his delivery again a few starts ago. While his velocity was finally better the last two starts his command was shit. Could be that he was overthrowing to increase velo and sacrificing command.

He wasn't fully healthy in AAA, had just one OK start during rehab and should never have been called up. This isn't hindsight, sometimes the message board posters get it right. The Sox likely panicked and hoped that Erod was ready even though there was no indication he was during his rehab. Now we have to hope they didn't lose a 23yo pitcher for the year.
 

Todd Benzinger

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I am excited to see Wilkerson get a shot--I hope it is him they call up. He is the guy with the lowest prospect profile but the best results in AAA & AA--which makes him a bit like Wright (or Rich Hill last year) in a very narrow sense. That is to say, he is the kind of guy that teams don't plan to give a shot, because he is a "non-prospect," but who might open eyes once he gets to MLB. I am excited to see a guy who has shown he knows how to pitch in the minors, even if he doesn't have great velocity, draft position, hype etc. He has been a regular on the Fangraphs "fringe five" this year--like Mookie Betts a couple years back.

As I said about Wright when they called him up last year--I'd rather watch this guy struggle in MLB than see Edro/Buch/Kelly fail again in totally predictable ways. At least it will be a nice story that the indy leaguer gets his shot--and the results might even be interesting.

And whether or not it is stuff or (I hope) injury adjustments holding Edro back, I can't figure out why they let him go out there and fail for so long. Sure, the other options aren't great, but if you let the O'Sullivan and Elias types go out there and suck at least you aren't f*ing with a guy who could have a great career once he gets right.
 
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Smiling Joe Hesketh

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I'd take Andrew Miller back for Erod, thanks

this staff is toast. Again. So painful
Meh, this is too extreme. I certainly would not have done so when Erod put up a 110 ERA+ as a 22 year old starting pitcher last year.

He's very young. He has a lot of time to bounce back from this. Buchholz had to do the same thing in 2008-2009. No reason ERod can't as well.
 
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Reggie's Racquet

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I'd take Andrew Miller back for Erod, thanks

this staff is toast. Again. So painful
Meh, this is too extreme. I certainly would not have done so when Erod put up a 110 ERA+ as a 22 year old starting pitcher last year.

He's very young. He has a lot of time to bounce back from this. Buchholz had to do the same thing in 2008-2009. No reason ERod can't as well.
Yes there is...our coaching staff. Farrell and Willis need to go.They have not done a good job. IMO.
 

smastroyin

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I didn't see ERod in person last year, but when I saw him this year, he looked like he was landing really awkwardly and tentatively. I suppose this could be his natural tendency, but I tend to think the knee isn't completely healed, even if it is just mental with him at this point. I generally agree with the opinion that he was only pitching in Boston because they didn't have a lot of other options and there wasn't risk of increased injury.
 

ElcaballitoMVP

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This is what I was thinking needed to happen after watching yesterday's start. His lack of a 3rd pitch is really hurting him right now. When opposing team's only have to think about fastball and changeup and the location isn't great, it makes it a lot easier to hit. He needs something, a slider or a cutter, to keep them off balance and he can try to develop that pitch at AAA. Don't bring him back up until he figures it out. The knee issue hurt his development and they appear to have rushed him back. Which sucks, because this team needs another starter (or two) to step up.
 

BaseballJones

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Meh, this is too extreme. I certainly would not have done so when Erod put up a 110 ERA+ as a 22 year old starting pitcher last year.

He's very young. He has a lot of time to bounce back from this. Buchholz had to do the same thing in 2008-2009. No reason ERod can't as well.
I agree with you, SJH. Rodriguez has a ton of ability and he's very young. I'm still bullish on him. But for now, he definitely needs to be in AAA working things out. The Sox don't have a ton of options at this point. Gotta hope that Price, Wright, and Porcello do what they're supposed to do, and that Clay somehow, some way, starts being at least a 6 ip, 3 r kind of guy, which wouldn't be great (4.50 era), but my goodness, it would be SO much better than what they've been getting lately.
 

Soxfan in Fla

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I didn't see ERod in person last year, but when I saw him this year, he looked like he was landing really awkwardly and tentatively. I suppose this could be his natural tendency, but I tend to think the knee isn't completely healed, even if it is just mental with him at this point. I generally agree with the opinion that he was only pitching in Boston because they didn't have a lot of other options and there wasn't risk of increased injury.
He backed up a throw last night and stopped it from going into the Rays dugout. In the process I couldn't help but notice how completely awkward he looked in the process. Almost like he was scared of injuring a knee.
 

moondog80

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Miller had only had one year where his walk rate wasn't silly high when he was a free agent. Hindsight. Let it go.
 

Plympton91

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Miller had only had one year where his walk rate wasn't silly high when he was a free agent. Hindsight. Let it go.
That's why teams employ people called "scouts" and general managers are tasked with using something called "judgment" so that they don't make dumb decisions based on mindless computer algorithms. It's also why a qualified statistician would look at trends around that "one season" and also consider things like "splits," such as discounting significantly stats accumulated as a starting pitcher
 

moondog80

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I doubt you'll find many people who thought the Yankees got a bargain when they signed Miller. Here's what Keith Law said:

The current version of Andrew Miller, who signed a four-year, $36 million dealwith the New York Yankees on Friday, is one of the best relievers in baseball. But do you really want to give a 29-year-old reliever who has had two good seasons a contract that runs twice that long?

Miller was the sixth overall pick in the 2006 draft, but he washed out as a starter due to poor command of his wipeout slider and the lack of a true third pitch, although the way the Detroit Tigers raced him to the majors couldn't have helped his development, either. The Boston Red Sox took a flier on him in 2012, put him in the bullpen full time and were patient with him while making some wholesale adjustments, such as having him work permanently from the stretch and reducing his leg kick. The conversion really paid off this past year; he started throwing both his fastball and slider for strikes more frequently, which was more a function of increased confidence than any mechanical changes for this season.

The Yankees are paying Miller to be most of that guy for four more years, and it's bloody unlikely he'll do that, in large part because very few relievers who've pitched at that high a level have maintained it for as long as three consecutive years, nevermind five. (At this point, some troll will bring up Mariano Rivera, and if you think Miller is the next Mo, I have some Panamanian real estate I'd like to sell you.) Relievers get hurt quite often, perhaps because pitching on consecutive days isn't the greatest thing for arm health, and their performance year to year is extremely volatile. Miller does miss a ridiculous number of bats, and as long as that, his most established skill to date, remains, he'll be a useful component in the Yankees pen, even if he doesn't appear superficially to be worth that money. It's a substantial financial bet he'll be better than that, maintaining this newfound control going forward despite the fact he had never showed it before last year.
 

Adrian's Dome

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They could have signed him but not at a reasonable price.
In the same offseason they burned the equivalent amount of money for that season on Justin Masterson?

Come on. They essentially lit 9.5m on fire, and that's 1/4 of the Miller contract right there, and the Miller deal had a far higher chance of of providing real, actual value in return.
 

In my lifetime

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or $2M more per annum than Koji is making? You pay up for quality, not average (see Panda and Hanely)
Actually not. Koji is 2/18M, so it is the same per year. This is why at the time, it never made sense to me to sign Koji and act like Miller was too expensive when you considered their relative ages. It is the rare free agent contract that is a good deal for the team, so I am certainly not going to state that at the time Miller's contract was a bargain. However, I would have much rather have a 30 yr old Miller at 4/36 M than a 40 yr old Koji at 2/18M. This is why I never understood the decision not to make a more concerted effort to sign Miller at the time.
 

#1GreenwellFan

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He probably should have fully developed a 3rd pitch too. Eck was commenting on it against Chicago, and eventually scouting will catch on and even a team like TB will shell you.
This is a couple of weeks old but I haven't seen this for his most recent starts so this is all I have. This looks like more than two pitches to me. Was this game just out of the ordinary or am I missing something?

 

Sprowl

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This is a couple of weeks old but I haven't seen this for his most recent starts so this is all I have. This looks like more than two pitches to me. Was this game just out of the ordinary or am I missing something?

Edro has been fiddling with his repertoire quite a lot from game to game over the last month. He hung around David Price for a few games, and all of a sudden he is throwing a cutter and a two-seamer, in addition to the fastball, changeup and slider. He certainly has the ability to throw those pitches, but apparently not to command them yet.

In a later game he threw a slow changeup at 80 mph, quite different from his hard change at 88. He seems to have physical issues lingering from spring training, pitch-tipping issues, repertoire issues... there's just too much up in the air for him right now
 

Wayapman

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We know he has had problems with tipping his pitches in the past, is it possible he was tipping again? Perhaps the alterations he has made to his pitching motion to protect the knee caused the pitch tipping to resurface? He looked like he was trending upward in his start vs the White Sox...and then this crap fest against the Tampa Bay flacid batsmen?
 

lexrageorge

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Before we declare the Miller for EdRod trade a failure in order to appease P91 and the rest of the anti-Cherington crowd, we should recall that Rodriguez did pitch to a 3.9 FIP last year at the age of 22. No GM or scout could have predicted that he would dislocate his knee on the first day of spring training. The injury could not have come at a worse with regards to his development.
 

Plympton91

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Before we declare the Miller for EdRod trade a failure in order to appease P91 and the rest of the anti-Cherington crowd, we should recall that Rodriguez did pitch to a 3.9 FIP last year at the age of 22. No GM or scout could have predicted that he would dislocate his knee on the first day of spring training. The injury could not have come at a worse with regards to his development.
There is no choice between Miller and Rodriguez. Miller became a free agent and the Red Asia had every opportunity to sign him instead of Pablo Sandoval and Justin Masterson. It's all about priorities and decision making. They chose to spend a lot of money on a pitcher who's been terrible and an overweight declining 3B There were any number of ways to reallocate that $100 million.

Getting Rodriguez for Miller at the deadline was a good solid trade. If only they'd gotten similar fair value for Lester and Lackey, 2015 May have been much different.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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There is no choice between Miller and Rodriguez. Miller became a free agent and the Red Asia had every opportunity to sign him instead of Pablo Sandoval and Justin Masterson.
If you actually know that Miller's team gave Cherington a chance to beat the Yankees' offer, and he declined, please share your source. I don't agree with those who say that 4/36 is crazy for a reliever of Miller's caliber -- yes, there's a pretty good chance of an overpay there, but also a decent chance of a bargain, and the overall risk is low. But unless you know something the rest of us don't, you can't say with any certainty that Cherington had, and whiffed on, a chance to land Miller for that price. All we know for sure is that they didn't and the Yankees did.
 

Adrian's Dome

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If you actually know that Miller's team gave Cherington a chance to beat the Yankees' offer, and he declined, please share your source. I don't agree with those who say that 4/36 is crazy for a reliever of Miller's caliber -- yes, there's a pretty good chance of an overpay there, but also a decent chance of a bargain, and the overall risk is low. But unless you know something the rest of us don't, you can't say with any certainty that Cherington had, and whiffed on, a chance to land Miller for that price. All we know for sure is that they didn't and the Yankees did.
So you're saying you need a definitive quote from a trusted and reliable source (IE: either Miller or Cherington themselves, since everything else out there would include a degree of assumption,) to buy the argument that Boston had a chance to sign Miller and didn't? You do realize how inflexible and impossible that is, right?

In a calendar year where a literal truckload of money was burned on Castillo, Sandoval, Ramirez, and Masterson (among a couple others, like Breslow and Koji,) I'd say it's more ridiculous to imply Miller wasn't on the table at all at any point for that money and to demand a source to believe otherwise.
 
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Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Ooh look, P91 is fapping to Andew Miller again. How quaint.

This thread actually about the 23 year old starting pitcher we got for him, and how he can be turned around to resemble the guy he was for the Red Sox last year.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
So you're saying you need a definitive quote from a trusted and reliable source (IE: either Miller or Cherington themselves, since everything else out there would include a degree of assumption,) to buy the argument that Boston had a chance to sign Miller and didn't? You do realize how inflexible and impossible that is, right?

In a calendar year where a literal truckload of money was burned on Castillo, Sandoval, Ramirez, and Masterson (among a couple others, like Breslow and Koji,) I'd say it's more ridiculous to imply Miller wasn't on the table at all at any point for that money and to demand a source to believe otherwise.
I can't make sense of this. "Wasn't on the table at all at any point for that money?" What does that even mean?

Here's an article with some relevant quotes:

Andrew Miller: Boston Red Sox Made An ‘Impressive Offer’ In Free Agency

“They were in it. I know it’s hard for everybody to keep straight what it was, but they made a heck of a run at it. It just so happened that I had a better offer here and it’s something that fit me better I thought.

"Hindsight is always 20-20, so you can talk about it later, but it wasn’t for lack of effort or them making a bad offer. They certainly made an impressive offer. If I had taken it, it certainly wouldn’t have looked bad for me. This [the Yankees' offer] seemed like a better fit, with the total package.”
Note that nowhere in there does he say "I went back to the Sox after the Yankees made their offer, and gave them a chance to beat it, and they declined." Maybe he wouldn't have thought that an appropriate thing to disclose, but the fact that he might not have said it even if it was true is not evidence that it's true.

We know that the Yankees made a better offer for Miller than we did. That's all we know. How you go from that to "we had every opportunity to sign him" baffles me. We had an opportunity to sign him in the sense that his team wasn't refusing to listen to us. But P91's language suggests that Miller was basically saying "if I get a good offer from you guys, I'll sign, so what are you waiting for?" and we sat on our hands. Which is nonsense.
 

Adrian's Dome

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I can't make sense of this. "Wasn't on the table at all at any point for that money?" What does that even mean?

Here's an article with some relevant quotes:

Andrew Miller: Boston Red Sox Made An ‘Impressive Offer’ In Free Agency



Note that nowhere in there does he say "I went back to the Sox after the Yankees made their offer, and gave them a chance to beat it, and they declined." Maybe he wouldn't have thought that an appropriate thing to disclose, but the fact that he might not have said it even if it was true is not evidence that it's true.

We know that the Yankees made a better offer for Miller than we did. That's all we know. How you go from that to "we had every opportunity to sign him" baffles me. We had an opportunity to sign him in the sense that his team wasn't refusing to listen to us. But P91's language suggests that Miller was basically saying "if I get a good offer from you guys, I'll sign, so what are you waiting for?" and we sat on our hands. Which is nonsense.
That Miller quote is fanservice and nothing more, he's appeasing to both sides. You don't know anything of the actual negotiations, and Miller would have nothing to gain and a lot to lose by throwing the actual exact details out there.

What you're doing is essentially calling P91's view that the Sox bungled their chance to sign him "nonsense", but countering it with simply "they gave it a good college try and failed." So...what then? That makes it okay? To me, they both mean exactly the same thing: The Red Sox' assessment of value was off and they lost out in the end, very similarly to how they lowballed Lester in the extension talks, lost the Lackey trade, and allocated a ton of resources to the bad contracts outlined earlier.

The Eduardo trade was good in nature, trade an asset for a high-ceiling arm in a losing season with a very good chance to reacquire that same asset a few months later for nothing but cash. When the latter part failed, the exchange went from a potential total coup to a simple swap of positive assets...but with another chance of losing out in the end. They've received half a good season of baseball out of Eduardo so far, whereas Miller has been a consistent shutdown reliever.
 
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Plympton91

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Ooh look, P91 is fapping to Andew Miller again. How quaint.

This thread actually about the 23 year old starting pitcher we got for him, and how he can be turned around to resemble the guy he was for the Red Sox last year.
I wasn't the one who brought up Miller, check your thread.

I agreed with those who said there's no need to lament the trade, because they could have had both if they'd just signed Miller in FA.

About the negotiations with Miller, all I'm saying is the Red Sox offered less that I would have. I think those who say, "relief pitching is too volatile to pay for," are being lazy. You get ahead by identifying the exceptions, not by playing the averages.
 

alwyn96

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You get ahead by identifying the exceptions, not by playing the averages.
That's also a way to make terrible, terrible decisions. It means you'd have to trust that your decision makers/information team is way smarter than everyone else, which...I don't know. I'm not sure I think that.

But back to Rodriguez, I'm not sure there's much to say other than I hope he can figure his stuff out. If Wilkinson poops the bed and Rodriguez has a couple decent starts in AAA, he's probably back around the end of July, since they're running out of warm bodies.
 
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