Where did all the southpaws go?

[Buzzkill Pauley]

Scenario: You are now the skipper of the Boston Red Sox. You are charged with keeping Chris Young game ready. He sucks against RHP and LHP is still very limited in the league, how do you get him playing time? Go.

Convince your President to trade away three of your five MLB-ready LHSP to divisional rivals? A steady diet of Elias, Owens, and Johnson would almost certainly turn Chris Young the Younger all beast mode.

But sadly, although the Sox have 5 LHSP on the 40-man, the AL East field only has 4 on the 160-man: Sabathia, Happ, Moore, and Smyly. There's not even any in the minors that wouldn't require a roster move! And with 76 games against those opponents, adding those three as fodder into the mill would mean a whole lot more logically defensible starts for our beleaguered 4th OF.

Maybe the plan all along was just to keep him away from the Sox' rivals. If so, thumbs up mission accomplished.

 

[Sprowl]

Split from another thread, because Chris Young is about more than whether Farrell is on the hot seat.

Why has Chris Young had so few legitimate starting opportunities in 2016? Did Dombrowski misjudge the league in signing a RHB platoon specialist? Sabathia, Sale, Wilson, Vargas and Miley... which other left-handed starting pitchers are still out there in American League?

 

[jon abbey]

Sabathia, Sale, Wilson, Vargas and Miley... which other left-handed starting pitchers are still out there in American League?

NY has seen almost exclusively lefties for the last week or so: Surkamp (OAK), Rich Hill, Smyly, Martin Perez, Matt Moore, Blake Snell (I think only up for one start but he'll be back up for good soon enough), and Hamels missed his scheduled start against them but will be back next time around.

 

[Buzzkill Pauley]

Why has Chris Young had so few legitimate starting opportunities in 2016? Did Dombrowski misjudge the league in signing a RHB platoon specialist? Sabathia, Sale, Wilson, Vargas and Miley... which other left-handed starting pitchers are still out there in American League?

The best ones seem to be on two likely AL post-season contenders: Texas and Chicago.

So Young could definitely be a post-season asset, even though the team first has to slog through five more months facing the predominantly-RHP AL East to make it in. Should the Sox end up facing Texas, there's Hamels, Holland, and Perez. The White Sox have Sale, Quintana, and Rodon.

Playing Young vs. RHP to keep him sharp during the regular season puts a fair bit of pressure on the 1-6 guys, though, since a 7-8-9 of Young-Bradley-Vazquez is not strong offensively against RHP. Like, at all. From a run-scoring perspective, it would be great to get Swihart into those games.

 

[Sampo Gida]

NY has seen almost exclusively lefties for the last week or so: Surkamp (OAK), Rich Hill, Smyly, Martin Perez, Matt Moore, Blake Snell (I think only up for one start but he'll be back up for good soon enough), and Hamels missed his scheduled start against them but will be back next time around.

I think 9 of 20 games against them have been started by LHP'ers and the Red Sox are throwing 2 more at them this weekend. Both teams should be looking at some regression in this regard going forward