Cora has said that Whitlock will get as many days off in the pen as innings he pitches. So if he pitches one inning, he will get one day off before his next appearance. If he pitches 2 innings, he gets two days off before his next appearance. Etc.
They could’ve had both Whitlock and Houck in the pen the whole time and the team would’ve been better for it.
Absolutely not. There is zero reason to believe that his injury was directly related to starting as opposed to relieving.
Taylor doesn't have 1.5 years and $6 million in guaranteed money coming to him.
Fair, but the Sox are on the hook for the money either way. There's no need to waste a roster spot on a guy who can be replaced internally at no extra cost. $6 million isn't nothing, but it's not Panda money either. It shouldn't be prohibitive if the player is not someone they can rely on and they have a better option in the pipeline.
I think this is correct, too. Whitlock will do whatever he’s asked but his future is in the rotation unless proven otherwise. If for no other reason because the Sox have a ton of other multi-inning guys on the cusp. It also substantially helps them to prepare Whitlock for 2023 rotation duty than enter the offseason needing to replace Eovaldi/Hill/Wacha’s innings with a rotation of Sale, Paxton and three rookies.
I think you're right, but what happened to Pivetta? I think it's safe to say that on paper we would like the 2023 rotation to be Sale, Paxton, Pivetta, Whitlock, and a fifth spot where we cycle through whichever of the optionable depth of Crawford, Winckowski, Seabold, Bello, Ward and Mata are healthy and effective. That takes us 9 spots deep, and one could go further with Brandon Walter if he's still viable healthwise — his weird neck situation has me spooked. But that's pretty incredible depth of viable SP prospects that Bloom has built pretty quickly.
This year before he went into the rotation, he had four appearances as a reliever.
True! It's a bit of an open question how good all these guys will be, but I think it's safe to say it's been a minute since we've had pitching depth like this.
Definitely, and it follows that one of them will likely be sent somewhere before the deadline
Add Groome to the mix, too. Although a lot of these guys are likely just JAG’s, and frankly, while it’s good to have depth they are going to have make some decisions soon and move some of these guys in deals- there’s only so many spots on the 40-man.
Last year: first season in the majors, they were being extra careful with him given his arm surgery in the minors.
I'd say the in-org depth chart at this point would likely run: Sale, Paxton, Pivetta, Whitlock, Crawford, Houck, Winckowski, Seabold. There are a number of live/convertible arms in the system also, and having someone like Ort catch on and stick in the bullpen would free up Whitlock/Crawford/Houck to go into the rotation, no matter what role they end up in for the second half of this year.
You can come up with reasons for why you think they've gone easy with him, but they've gone easy with him his entire career with Boston. There's no evidence that, except in the playoffs, they'd push him in a relief role. You can hope they will, and think they will, but there's no evidence for it other than that you want that to happen.
Weirdly blanked on Pivetta! Thanks.
We are allowed to use our brains on this site and make logical conclusions about topics.
Of course.
Well..."logically", maybe. But Cora has shown no sign of doing that with Whitlock. And while we can wish it were otherwise, until we see evidence of a change, we kind of have to go with how he's consistently handled him.
And if he handles him the same way going forward as he did in the past despite the changed circumstances around both player and team, we are allowed to criticize the hell out of that.
Sure. But there must be a reason why he has handled Whitlock like this. Maybe he just doesn't think Whitlock is as durable as we'd like him to be. If that's so, then I don't know that our criticism would be warranted. The fact is...we don't know. And likely we will never know.
Here again we disagree. I don't think "the manager knows more than we do" is always a valid argument, and everyone works off of what they know. Cora is pretty damn far from infallible.
Wait ... you actually think there are situations regarding his players where the manager doesn't know more than we do?
No. But if we're going to constantly allow arguments to be ended with "the manager knows more than we do and so we shouldn't question him" then this site has no reason to exist.
What I meant by "if that's so" is in reference to Whitlock's durability. It is very possible that he's not a durable guy. If that's true, then whether we know it or not, Cora is handling him correctly by not pitching him lots of innings several times a week, as you wish him to.
It doesn't "end" the argument, though. It establishes a fixed variable from which discussion and criticism can move forward. We have to debate from the position that there are factors in any situation to which we won't be privy. That doesn't in and of itself squelch discussion, but should rather be in the background to rein in baseless speculation.
I have found in my long and glorious history on the board that the argument that the manager has more information is always used to shut down discussion.
Still. It's not a good point to make, in general.
You're a Dope, so I accept the variable that you know more about that than I would.
Always? I've often found that "argument" to be an attempt to temper knee jerk reactions as well as encouragement to dig a bit deeper before going all game thread in the main forum. In fact there are other mods that remind us that there are often situations with players that we're not privy to, additional information that the manager has.
Is it an accurate point though? I mean, to the extent that the typical MLB bullpen actually is a bunch of one-inning guys and the Sox are somehow unique in how they use their bullpen?
I think there's a difference between "the manager knows best" and "the premise of your argument is that the manager is a moron."
This is a time-consuming thing to research but yeah, I think the Bloom-era Sox are beginning to join other smart teams in staffing more multi-inning instead of single-inning relievers. It seems like a strategy that went into overdrive since the three-batter rule, which disincentivizes specialists.
He was using him like that in April too, you know, before the injury. He pitched in relief 4 times in the first 14 games of the season with 2 or 3 days rest each time. There isn't really any reason to think that Cora was all of a sudden going to change his role and make him a guy that can be available to throw an inning most days.
As I mentioned above, that was likely due to the shortened spring training. The starting pitchers were on short leashes early as well.
He threw 139 pitches over almost 10 innings in those 4 appearances, he wasn't on a short leash. He probably threw more than most of the starters did over that time. He could have thrown those same 139 pitches over 7 or 8 shorter appearances, but Cora clearly decided they weren't going to use him in that way.
It was more likely due to them having a desire or an expectation to move him to the rotation at some point, especially with Old Man Dick Mountain in the rotation, which obviously they did. They had six guys they viewed as starters and only five rotation spots. The sixth man turned out to be Whitlock, who Cora explicitly said was going to be used as a long man/piggy-back reliever. They weren't being careful with him, they had a plan. As it turned out, it wasn't an injury that pressed him into the rotation, it was a block-head who couldn't travel to Canada.
And that's part of my point about doing a bit of a deeper dive before posting. Player A may be playing a certain position because player B has been dealing with something personal or physical. A reliever might be held from what seems to an obviously needed BP appearance because the status of a starter 2 days from now is unknown. A rift in the clubhouse might affect a decision and most managers are going to try to keep that in house. And again I'll point to the fact that other mods will caution that there are things that we may be unaware of and IMO it's not always used as a means to shut things down, but rather an attempt to improve the quality of some of the content here.
