Red Sox pitching carousel thread (our pitching is HISTORICALLY bad)

sean1562

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Valdez looks like the real deal? To be fair, I have never actually watched him pitch. Hopefully we can identify at least one guy that can be a part of our bullpen the next few years.
 

Humphrey

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I thought 2 games ago Brasier was headed for the glue factory, but he's shown signs he's worth keeping around.
 

Max Power

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Valdez looks like the real deal? To be fair, I have never actually watched him pitch. Hopefully we can identify at least one guy that can be a part of our bullpen the next few years.
He doesn't throw super hard and has a full arsenal of pitches. He doesn't seem to be getting by with any kind of trickery that can be quickly figured out. He looks like someone who could be valuable in a swing role for a while.
 

joe dokes

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I thought 2 games ago Brasier was headed for the glue factory, but he's shown signs he's worth keeping around.
He's been trending down for awhile.Get something for him that the team thinks might the next Brasier, because I think this Brasier has peaked.
 

BaseballJones

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Valdez had a 3.94 era and 10.1 k/9 last year. That's the good news. The bad news is that he had a 1.63 whip and a 5.46 fip, so his era was pretty lucky.

This year though, he's got a 1.17 era, 3.23 fip, 8.8 k/9, and has lowered his whip to a respectable 1.24. That's a solid relief pitcher stat line. He's just 28, so maybe he's found something as he hits his prime. Not counting on it, as his minor league numbers were okay but nothing to write home about, but still...it's totally possible he's a useful bullpen arm moving forward.
 

BaseballJones

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He's been trending down for awhile.Get something for him that the team thinks might the next Brasier, because I think this Brasier has peaked.
Brasier was great in 2018, and was fine in 2019 through July 5, when his line stood at 3.16 era, 1.11 whip, and 8.0 k/9.

The rest of the year he proceeded to put up a stat line of 8.20 era, 1.98 whip, and 13.5 k/9. But really, that was fueled by two HORRIFIC outings:

July 15 vs. Tor: 0.2 ip, 4 h, 4 r, 4 er, 0 bb, 0 k
Aug 31 vs. LAA: 0.2 ip, 5 h, 6 r, 6 er, 1 bb, 1 k

Together, that's 1.1 ip, 9 h, 10 r, 10 er, 1 bb, 1 k

All the games count, but with relievers all it takes is one or two catastrophic starts to alter his season pitching line considerably. His last 8 games, he went 7.0 ip, 3 h, 0 r, 0 er, 3 bb, 11 k, 0.86 whip, 14.1 k/9.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Kyle Hart might legitimately be the worst pitcher I’ve ever seen in the majors.

Even before he gave up a 500 foot moonshot tonight, he had pitched 9 innings and already had “accumulated” -0.6 WAR. That’s nearly impossible to do.

Pretty good snapshot of our pitching staff there.

Edit: he just gave up another 3 run bomb. More negative WAR on the way.
 
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Humphrey

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Next man up, Mike Kickham (who the f***ck is he?). Don't see the upside of throwing a 31 year old guy out there who's never done much.
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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I know its a crazy time and Sale and Erod are hurt (and really, is that an excuse? - pitchers get hurt all the time), but the pitching staff this year is just pathetic. Its like they didn't even try to put together a staff. They're just pulling in guys off the street now.
 

Rovin Romine

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I know its a crazy time and Sale and Erod are hurt (and really, is that an excuse? - pitchers get hurt all the time), but the pitching staff this year is just pathetic. Its like they didn't even try to put together a staff. They're just pulling in guys off the street now.
Sunk cost. If the starting rotation was Sale, E-Rod, Eovaldi, Perez, and X (Johnson?), they'd probably be in the hunt with a bullpen of Barnes, Osich, Workman, Godley, Darwin, etc. They could have traded for a missing piece in a regular year, and there would be normal MiL games to maybe develop an arm or two. Easier to convert a two pitch MiL starter and put them in the pen, if you really have to. (Plus you *might* have had regular players like Benni, more ready for the season. if the normal schedule was in place.)

I'm glad they're committing to 2021 at this point. I'm glad they got what they could for their trade pieces. I wouldn't trade any viable piece for token respectability this barnstormer of a year.

TLDR: embrace the suck.
 

sean1562

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Has there been any confirmation on how the draft will work this year? Even if it is a combo of the last two years, I feel like our we are still on our way to a top 5 pick. Maybe the farm can turn around faster than we think? Man it would be such a boon to this team's future if Jay Groome could turn himself into a ML starter.

edit: Where do yall think Kumar Rocker or Leiter would be in the top 100? Top 20?
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Eh, there's a fine line between "2020 is a sunk cost" and "not even attempting to throw competent pitching out there." It's starting to remind me of the game in the 20s were the Tigers grabbed a college kid to pitch because the team went on a Ty Cobb strike and he gave up 20 runs or so.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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How bad has Kyle Hart been? He's been historically bad.

He's one of 15 pitchers in MLB history to have an ERA over 15 with at least 10 IP.

He's faced 67 batters and 34 of them have reached base.

in 11 innings, he's put up -0.9 WAR, which is nearly impossible to do.

His WHIP is 3.091.

19.6 H/9. 3.3 HR/9. 8.2 BB/9.

3 of the runs he's allowed have been unearned, so his RA/9 is actually 17.18. His FIP is "only" 8.24 though.

Friends....we're witnessing history here.
 

BaseballJones

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Here's the stats for the Sox' pitching staff of everyone who's appeared in just about 20% of the team's games (8 games). Prepare to avert your eyes.

Brice - 17 g, 6.35 era, 1.35 whip
Valdez - 14 g, 0.86 era, 1.29 whip
Brasier - 14 g, 4.61 era, 1.54 whip
Osich - 13 g, 5.74 era, 1.34 whip
Barnes - 13 g, 5.54 era, 1.62 whip
Brewer - 11 g, 5.61 era, 1.75 whip
Hembree - 11 g, 5.59 era, 1.24 whip
Weber - 9 g, 5.79 era, 1.46 whip
Walden - 9 g, 12.00 era, 2.44 whip
Springs - 8 g, 8.49 era, 1.80 whip

Just ONE guy with an era under 4.61. One. EIGHT guys with an era of 5.54 or higher. 8 out of 10. I mean...good god.

Now compare that to the 2018 team - just two years ago though it seems like an eternity - looking at pitchers who entered 27 or more games:

Kelly - 73 g, 4.39 era, 1.36 whip
Hembree - 67 g, 4.20 era, 1.33 whip
Kimbrel - 63 g, 2.73 era, 0.99 whip
Barnes - 62 g, 3.65 era, 1.27 whip
Velazquez - 47 g, 3.18 era, 1.45 whip
Workman - 43 g, 3.27 era, 1.21 whip
Johnson - 38 g, 4.17 era, 1.43 whip
Brasier - 34 g, 1.60 era, 0.77 whip
Porcello - 33 g, 4.28 era, 1.18 whip
Price - 30 g, 3.58 era, 1.14 whip
Sale - 27 g, 2.11 era, 0.86 whip
Rodriguez - 27 g, 3.82 era, 1.27 whip

I mean...night and day. Eight guys with an era of 3.82 or lower. Only four of the twelve had an era higher than 3.82. None with an era higher than 4.39. Every single one of these guys would have better numbers than EVERYONE on the current staff except Valdez.
 

sean1562

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I embrace the full tank position the FO seems to be taking. Valdez looks like someone who will stick around for awhile? Tank for Kumar. Throw the kitchen sink at the rotation and hope somebody emerges as a 6/7/8 depth guy
 

BaseballJones

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Maybe one of the bright spots of this year is discovering that Valdez can be a pretty solid arm for 2021 and beyond.
 

Humphrey

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BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Well....they have a game to play and the rules require that they have someone pitch to the opposing team. Winning obviously isn't really a concern here at this point.
 

KiltedFool

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Hmm maybe some of these pitchers need to be sent to carousel for renewal?
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Here's the stats for the Sox' pitching staff of everyone who's appeared in just about 20% of the team's games (8 games). Prepare to avert your eyes.

Brice - 17 g, 6.35 era, 1.35 whip
Valdez - 14 g, 0.86 era, 1.29 whip
Brasier - 14 g, 4.61 era, 1.54 whip
Osich - 13 g, 5.74 era, 1.34 whip
Barnes - 13 g, 5.54 era, 1.62 whip
Brewer - 11 g, 5.61 era, 1.75 whip
Hembree - 11 g, 5.59 era, 1.24 whip
Weber - 9 g, 5.79 era, 1.46 whip
Walden - 9 g, 12.00 era, 2.44 whip
Springs - 8 g, 8.49 era, 1.80 whip

Just ONE guy with an era under 4.61. One. EIGHT guys with an era of 5.54 or higher. 8 out of 10. I mean...good god.

Now compare that to the 2018 team - just two years ago though it seems like an eternity - looking at pitchers who entered 27 or more games:

Kelly - 73 g, 4.39 era, 1.36 whip
Hembree - 67 g, 4.20 era, 1.33 whip
Kimbrel - 63 g, 2.73 era, 0.99 whip
Barnes - 62 g, 3.65 era, 1.27 whip
Velazquez - 47 g, 3.18 era, 1.45 whip
Workman - 43 g, 3.27 era, 1.21 whip
Johnson - 38 g, 4.17 era, 1.43 whip
Brasier - 34 g, 1.60 era, 0.77 whip
Porcello - 33 g, 4.28 era, 1.18 whip
Price - 30 g, 3.58 era, 1.14 whip
Sale - 27 g, 2.11 era, 0.86 whip
Rodriguez - 27 g, 3.82 era, 1.27 whip

I mean...night and day. Eight guys with an era of 3.82 or lower. Only four of the twelve had an era higher than 3.82. None with an era higher than 4.39. Every single one of these guys would have better numbers than EVERYONE on the current staff except Valdez.
The irony that three of the guys on the second list are on the first list should say something as well. It's not like the Sox started the season planning to run shitty pitching out there. They and, I assume, we expected better out of Barnes, Hembree, Walden, and Brasier at least (of the bullpen crew) simply because they have been better as recently as last season. Two of the expected rotation have been on the IL all year and a third guy is currently there. It's been a perfect storm of suck between underperformance, injuries, and the pandemic limiting options. In March they had the makings of a serviceable pitching staff...not great, not shit, but somewhere in the middle. By late July, they didn't and had no real recourse to fix it. So they're steering into it and throwing all kinds of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Maybe they stumble upon a couple more Valdezes by the end of the month.
 

BaseballJones

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The irony that three of the guys on the second list are on the first list should say something as well. It's not like the Sox started the season planning to run shitty pitching out there. They and, I assume, we expected better out of Barnes, Hembree, Walden, and Brasier at least (of the bullpen crew) simply because they have been better as recently as last season. Two of the expected rotation have been on the IL all year and a third guy is currently there. It's been a perfect storm of suck between underperformance, injuries, and the pandemic limiting options. In March they had the makings of a serviceable pitching staff...not great, not shit, but somewhere in the middle. By late July, they didn't and had no real recourse to fix it. So they're steering into it and throwing all kinds of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Maybe they stumble upon a couple more Valdezes by the end of the month.
For sure. I mean, a rotation of a healthy Sale, ERod, Eovaldi, Perez, and (insert name) is a pretty good rotation - you've got a true ace in Sale, a very solid pitcher in ERod, a legit #3 in Eovaldi, and Perez is fine as a #4 or #5. And in the bullpen, you'd start with Barnes, Brasier, and Workman, who have all performed very well for Boston in the past, and you'd also have Walden (3.43 era over his first two MLB seasons), Hernandez (showed legit promise as a reliever last year with a 3.95 era and 16.5 k/9), Hembree (3.86 era last year), and even Colten Brewer (who had a 4.12 era last year for Boston) was serviceable.

That staff should have been pretty solid.

But.... Sale needed TJ surgery, ERod got Covid, Hernandez missed time, and everyone else just frigging fell off the face of the earth in terms of performance. I've never seen anything like it.
 

Rovin Romine

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Eh, there's a fine line between "2020 is a sunk cost" and "not even attempting to throw competent pitching out there."
I'd agree with this - but as a practical/roster matter, who do they have on the backup squad to send into the valley of death?

I'm all for developing our staff, even if it means releasing a "meh" level arm or two. But there's also a fine line between trying to leverage the oddities of this season into pitching experience and traumatizing someone who might otherwise develop into some sort of useful piece of a future puzzle.
 

Rovin Romine

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and everyone else just frigging fell off the face of the earth in terms of performance. I've never seen anything like it.
I think the responsibility for that is mostly found in Roenicke and the staff. Some blame has to fall on the individual athletes, but whatever the organization did to deal with the Covid season and the possibility of returning to play clearly didn't work as well as other team's approaches.
 

Humphrey

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Taylor too. Was reliable last year. From 1.183 WHIP to 1.500 and a ton of time missed.
 

shaggydog2000

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For sure. I mean, a rotation of a healthy Sale, ERod, Eovaldi, Perez, and (insert name) is a pretty good rotation - you've got a true ace in Sale, a very solid pitcher in ERod, a legit #3 in Eovaldi, and Perez is fine as a #4 or #5. And in the bullpen, you'd start with Barnes, Brasier, and Workman, who have all performed very well for Boston in the past, and you'd also have Walden (3.43 era over his first two MLB seasons), Hernandez (showed legit promise as a reliever last year with a 3.95 era and 16.5 k/9), Hembree (3.86 era last year), and even Colten Brewer (who had a 4.12 era last year for Boston) was serviceable.

That staff should have been pretty solid.

But.... Sale needed TJ surgery, ERod got Covid, Hernandez missed time, and everyone else just frigging fell off the face of the earth in terms of performance. I've never seen anything like it.
They also signed Collin McHugh and then he opted out of the season. He could have been a #4 or #5 starter, or at least a strong opener. When that much of your planned starting pitching goes down, you're going to be filling so many innings that you'll be using complete scrubs and running any good pitching you have into the ground.
 

BaseballJones

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They also signed Collin McHugh and then he opted out of the season. He could have been a #4 or #5 starter, or at least a strong opener. When that much of your planned starting pitching goes down, you're going to be filling so many innings that you'll be using complete scrubs and running any good pitching you have into the ground.
Yep...totally forgot about him. Their pitching staff should have been really solid this year, but literally everything fell apart for them - a combination of injuries, illness, and just a bottomless pit of sucky performances.
 

Humphrey

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Irony of ironies....Springs comes in and pitches a clean inning when I wanted him to give his usual performance. Osuna was due up 7th and I've never seen a guy hit 4 homers in a game. I was at Fenway when Freddie Patek, of all people, hit three...and he had an at bat or two after that. The Sox lost that night, 20-2.
 

nvalvo

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They also signed Collin McHugh and then he opted out of the season. He could have been a #4 or #5 starter, or at least a strong opener. When that much of your planned starting pitching goes down, you're going to be filling so many innings that you'll be using complete scrubs and running any good pitching you have into the ground.
Just to make sure we have the narrative right, McHugh opted out because he wasn't quite healthy yet (from prior surgery), and he decided it was worth more to him to rehab at home with his family than get a check to rehab at the Alternate Site in Rhode Island. It sounded like there was mutual interest to bring him back for 2021, and I think that would be smart.
 

shaggydog2000

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Just to make sure we have the narrative right, McHugh opted out because he wasn't quite healthy yet (from prior surgery), and he decided it was worth more to him to rehab at home with his family than get a check to rehab at the Alternate Site in Rhode Island. It sounded like there was mutual interest to bring him back for 2021, and I think that would be smart.
I'm giving the team the benefit of the doubt that they thought he would contribute this year before the pandemic, even if it was just a delayed start. Otherwise I don't think they would have signed him. That he didn't play at all seems to be another situation outside of their control that contributes to this crap-tastic pitching display.
 

nvalvo

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I'm giving the team the benefit of the doubt that they thought he would contribute this year before the pandemic, even if it was just a delayed start. Otherwise I don't think they would have signed him. That he didn't play at all seems to be another situation outside of their control that contributes to this crap-tastic pitching display.
All I'm saying is that his opt-out decision came after he got to Summer Camp, threw a bullpen, and they decided he was still a couple months out from pitching competitively. I don't want anyone to conclude that McHugh let down the Sox in any way.
 

rhswanzey

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Maybe one of the bright spots of this year is discovering that Valdez can be a pretty solid arm for 2021 and beyond.
I think we should be careful about overreacting to 20 innings of a guy in his late 20s who has had some pretty significant problems with walks throughout his minor league career. The last time the Sox fielded a team this bad, some people wanted to hand a starting job to someone who was apparently named Pedro Ciriaco. Who?

...that said...


This guy has a really filthy changeup. He hits the strikezone gridlines with it and when he misses, it tends to miss running in on righties hands, and he's gotten several awkward failed check swings out of it. I think he might be using two different grips/pitches, as against lefties he has more vertical action and doesn't feature the late run, which would send it middle-middle. The change is good enough that he should probably throw it almost every single pitch. Eck and Remy were getting a real kick out of him throwing 12 or 13 in a row a couple nights ago (may have been 8/29 vs WAS linked below). Eck said he didn't think he had ever thrown any of his pitches that many times in a row.

I don't really buy that he is going to keep suppressing home runs and especially walks at these rates, but should we give this guy 60 or 70 middle relief innings next year? Yeah. Just not a fan of squinting to see an 8th inning guy - squinting gets us into trouble.

Here's a montage of Valdez striking out Juan Soto (who fell over swinging), Howie Kendrick and Adam Eaton the other night.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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All I'm saying is that his opt-out decision came after he got to Summer Camp, threw a bullpen, and they decided he was still a couple months out from pitching competitively. I don't want anyone to conclude that McHugh let down the Sox in any way.
Agreed. And who knows how his rehab might have been different in a "normal" season where he's consistently working out with the team or at their facilities, as opposed to where ever he may have been working during the shutdown. He was someone I was optimistic about in March, even if he wasn't going to be ready until May or June. Just another bummer that was entirely out of the team's control.
 

RoDaddy

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Tonight's pitchers included Leyer, Kickham and Triggs - aka who's on first, what's on second, and I don't know on third except they're all pitchers I never heard of. This staff keeps getting worse and worse. We're at the bottom of the league in ERA at >6 and not even close to the team above us. To the point of this thread, it's now September and seriously looking like this year's staff is the team's worst ever.