So basically unless we sign Montgomery our pitching is completely screwed again. Because without him (who will suck up a lot of innings) our starters are going to be pitching more innings than they are capable of. As far as I see it, the only way to keep our starters fresh is a 6 man rotation. What if we do with a 6 man rotation and rest/rotate relievers in and out via the IL? I guess alternatively we could do a 5 man rotation with 6 starters and rotate them through the IL....
Offseason rumors
- Thread starter opes
- Start date
- Status
As was partially pointed out, new rules implemented over the past few years all make a 6-man rotation less likely...
• The 13 pitcher limit on the roster means that adding a 6th starter leaves you with 7 relievers. Your starters would need to pitch deeper into the game the vast majority of the time or you're actually putting a heavier workload on your bullpen... and adding more mediocre starters to your rotation probably isn't going to accomplish that.
• The limit on the number of times a player can be optioned during a season was a direct reaction to the Rays basically using their MLB and AAA bullpens as one and keeping a larger number of relievers available and demoting them for non-performance reasons. I think they also did away with the shorter IL they once had to avoid manipulating it for similar loopholes.
• The 3 batters faced (or end of an inning) rule for relievers could complicate things for starters being used out of the bullpen. When a starter is used out of the pen, he's almost always brought in to start an inning to allow for him to prepare as normally as possible. If you bring one in to relieve between starts and he can't find the plate – something that's always a possibility when you take him out of his routine – you may have no choice but to leave him on the mound for far more pitches than you planned on. Now you've wrecked your 6-man rotation anyway.
• The 13 pitcher limit on the roster means that adding a 6th starter leaves you with 7 relievers. Your starters would need to pitch deeper into the game the vast majority of the time or you're actually putting a heavier workload on your bullpen... and adding more mediocre starters to your rotation probably isn't going to accomplish that.
• The limit on the number of times a player can be optioned during a season was a direct reaction to the Rays basically using their MLB and AAA bullpens as one and keeping a larger number of relievers available and demoting them for non-performance reasons. I think they also did away with the shorter IL they once had to avoid manipulating it for similar loopholes.
• The 3 batters faced (or end of an inning) rule for relievers could complicate things for starters being used out of the bullpen. When a starter is used out of the pen, he's almost always brought in to start an inning to allow for him to prepare as normally as possible. If you bring one in to relieve between starts and he can't find the plate – something that's always a possibility when you take him out of his routine – you may have no choice but to leave him on the mound for far more pitches than you planned on. Now you've wrecked your 6-man rotation anyway.
In case anyone is wondering, we are approaching the one year anniversary of the mom of Clevinger’s kid (not wife I guess) alleging physical, verbal and emotional abuse of her and their kid. He then submitted to some sort of program voluntarily and MLB did not suspend him. What to make of all that, no idea.
4 x 4 seems like it would be practical in a world where everyone is focused on how starters pitch so much worse the third time through the lineup.
MLB starters and their egos are going to hate not having a chance to get the win.
The 5 innings for a SP to get the win is one of the dumbest still existing rules in sports. You can be by far the best pitcher in a winning effort, be in there when your team takes the lead for good, but still you get 'no decision'.
W/L for a pitcher in general is kind of dumb but this makes it even dumber in the current game. I guess it was originally there so that a team doesn't try to get a SP cheap wins? I think we're safe on that front in 2024.
It’s dumb, but it doesn’t effect the outcome of the game, unless the manager is dumb too.
Game outcome really isn't the main point though I don't think.
I don't lose sleep over the rule, but I look at it as more of a question of what would be an accurate representation of a starter's performance and value in today's game as to award him a win. Right now wins don't really tell much of a story and haven't for a long time.
And I always thought (assumed?) that it was 5 innings because it's the threshold of the majority of innings in a game, but credit to JA, I dug a little and found a list of pitchers who recorded wins of two innings or less between 1919 and 1950. I imagine a list up to 4 2/3 innings would be a lot longer. I'm not sure that's all that led to the changes, or why they settled on five innings as the new mark. Maybe I'll dig a bit more and lose a few minutes of sleep after all.
Cheap Wins
1950 Rule changes
The link actually goes through rule changes since Knickerbocker rules, so you'll have to scroll through some pretty interesting stuff to get to 1950.
If anything, I think the fact that the need was seen for establishing/changing how things were measured at the time (and throughout time) bolsters the argument that some change today is definitely called for. 1950 doesn't seem ancient for a guy like me, but it's 74 years ago. Probably time.
Tangentially related, I also despise that it still takes a six-inning, 3 run performance to be considered a quality start. I mean, a guy can put together a long streak of dominant 5 2/3 inning performances, and that's not considered quality today? I think that's kind of absurd.
Last edited:
True, but without Verdugo it feels like the base-running efficiency increases by about 50 percent ...
Yes, that is something else that had me extremely frustrated the past few seasons. When I previously basted Cora for this I got some push back. Again, he's not the guy running the bases, but IMO as manager some of this has to come back to him when we see the same players repeatedly making the same mistakes on the base paths. Fast as he is, Duran was a terrible base runner prior to last season, Vazquez was terrible and all too often Red Sox base runners found themselves running into out when they seemed unaware of game situations. Situational baseball doesn't require physical ability, it is something that is taught through coaching. I sometimes wonder about coaching philosophies being consistent from the bottom to the top of the organization. Or perhaps they are and need to be reexamined. The standard post game response to questions about base running blunders used to be "We want to be aggressive on the base paths." and the more they ran into outs, the more AC would double down. Then it just got ridiculous and the mantra became "We need to do better." I get that a manager has certain limitations in certain circumstances, but the coaching of fundamentals and situational awareness is something that should be constantly reinforced.
Last edited:
I was curious about how B-Ref and Fangraphs rated the baserunning last season.
Surprisingly, Verdugo wasn't the worst getting thrown out trying to take an extra base. That dishonor goes to Devers with a total of nine. Turner was next at five.
FG had Verdugo in the middle of the pack at -2. Yoshida was the worst at -5.. I don't have access the their breakdown of all of their stats that go into their Baserunning stat.
I will be interested to see what happens in spring training this year. Some of the problems discussed above as well as others, particularly baserunning, poor defensive decisions (overthrowing the cutoff man, throwing to the wrong base, throwing when there's no chance to catch the runner, etc.) and poor fundamentals in general (inability to execute rundowns properly) are things that need to be stressed early and often in Ft. Myers. These are things that Cora is responsible for in February and March and eventually show up, for better or worse, later in the season.
Of course the base coaches bear responsibility in this and who is in charge of them? Base coaches/assistant coaches are there to advance and teach the overall philosophy of the organization.
Those are all also something that needs to be stressed in the minors throughout the season. Hopefully, Breslow will stress the teaching of fundamentals more in the minors than has been done in the past.
100% and if he's responsible for this in ST, it stands to reason that he's responsible for it in season as well. They flat out acknowleged the need to address these issues with the announcement that they would be working on things in spring training, which I found infuriating. Why wait?
If one of the main complaints is "unaware of game situations" then who bears the responsibility of coaching them in that game situation? The base coaches. I get what you are saying and agree to an extent, but in game play falls on the shoulders of base coaches in that moment, which is probably why they have had 3 in 3 years at first base. I get that some blame falls on Cora because he is the head guy, but having fundamentally sound base coaches is more key IMO. That's what they are hired to do.
Where do you think the buck stops? Love him or hate him (I’m not a fan) Cora oversees all actions on the field. He’s accountable to those above him, but base running, fielding, etc fall squarely on him. I don’t know who is responsible for strength and conditioning teams, but if he is over them, he’s also responsible for that. As a manager, he manages all of this before, during, and after games. The same applies for all MLB managers.
I think there's a difference between coaching and teaching. While younger players still may need to be taught, more experienced players should primarily need to be coached. Using your example, that includes runners knowing when to steal and when not to, when to try for the extra base and when not to, etc. Often the coach specifically tells them what to do, sometimes the player chooses based on instinct and experience. It can't be held against the coach if he tells the runner to stop and the runner goes through the sign.
So I go back to my previous comment about the importance of stressing the fundamentals in spring training. If the players generally know what to do and when to do it the job of the coach becomes much easier.
I would agree with that... by the time you get to the professional level you should have the basic fundamentals down or you probably wouldn't be there. The responsibility of in game coaching is entrusted to coaches you have hired that have proven experience and knowledge to coach those situations. When you can no longer trust that coach based on negative outcomes, you have to fire them - which is what has happened the last three years. Of course the manager oversees the coaching staff, but in game situations are trusted to coaches - such as you pointed out. I would agree that much of this should be reinforced in the off-season and Spring training with continued guidance throughout the season.
You should do a little research here and see what the history of the 1B coaches has been under Cora as the manager.
Tom Goodwin was the 1B coach from 2017 to just before the playoffs in 2021. He was replaced by Ramon Vazquez before the playoffs because of the vaccine mandate by MLB. Goodwin was let go by the Sox after the playoffs and then hired by the Braves. He's now their 1B coach. The Braves don't have a history of hiring incompetent people to be coaches.
Vazquez was promoted to bench Coach after the 2022 season. The 1B coach in 2023 was Kyle Hudson. He's still the 1B coach.
Carlos Febles has been the 3B coach since 2018.
I'm sure there is some blame on Cora and the coaches, but it always comes down to the players actually listening to the coaches and making the correct decision. That goes for baserunning and hitting and defense. Sometimes players think they can do more than they actually can. To me that's why fundamentals have to be drilled into the players from day one in the instructional league. Not every player has baseball smarts and they will try to do more than they should. But working on the fundamentals daily from day 1 should help with that.
Last edited:
Generally speaking, when your opinion is that the “only way” the team can do something is to choose a path it’s almost certainly *not* going to chose, that’s an indication that you may want want to reconsider your opinion.
Febles was fired at the end of the season. They must have placed some of the blame for baserunning and infield defense on him.
I agree to some extent, but preparing both the base coaches and the players for what is going to happen on the field of play is the responsibility of the manager, in my opinion. Cora has been talking about "fundamental baseball" heading into spring training since the day he arrived, and whatever kind of schedule/drills/training he has put into place over five seasons in the spring is either not effective, or not translating onto the field for some reason.
For what it's worth, "fundamental baseball" to me means everything that happens from the time the pitcher starts his windup, from a player's secondary lead until the umpires signal that the play is over or dead, and it includes both offense and defense.
This team has failed in many, probably most, and, in my opinion, something pretty close to all aspects of fundamental baseball over at least the last two seasons, and really the last five (keep in mind that after the hot start in 2021 the team totally stumbled down the stretch and did not appear prepared for the rigors of a pennant chase, before eeking in on the final day and being Kiké Hernandezed to within two games of the World Series).
That baserunning and defense chart that @absintheofmalaise posted above is depressing enough, but watching it play out in real time is even worse. It isn't just getting thrown out taking extra bases, it's not taking an extra base when you should. It's not just caught stealing, it's putting your team in a bad spot when stealing at an unnecessary time, or doing it recklessly. It's not just errors, it's not being in the right place to put your team in a spot to make a play, or making a throw that shouldn't be attempted. It's not just routine plays, it's reacting when something goes awry, like a bad hop or a player on the other team doing something unexpected (and other teams know they can execute out of the ordinary plays against the Red Sox because they have watched them fail to execute during them for the last five seasons). There is not a lot of "coaching" going on during the plays, and so it is incredibly important for the players to be ready for any situation that could occur before the play starts.
It takes one game of watching, say, the Rangers (or the Braves, or the Diamondbacks, or the Mariners, or any number of other teams) execute the "little things", to recognize that there is something fundamentally wrong with how the Red Sox on the field have been run since 2019.
It's not all on Cora, the organization and, yes, the base coaches, all have some of the blame. But Cora is the one who should be leading the way and figuring out ways to help the players perform at the best of their abilities, and I do not believe that this has happened under his tutelage.
One would think that MLB players already have the fundamentals with base running and fielding before they get here. If they run through signs or make poor choices, Cora needs to address that. He’s not the type of manager to pull Reggie Jackson off the field mid-inning, nor should he be, but he has tools in his belt to address these issues. If upstairs keeps him from benching/remediating these issues, it’s on them. I haven’t seen that reported anywhere, so I’ll put it on him to insist on additional drills and/or benching. He seemed comfortable in dealing with Verdugo, but there were plenty of others who could’ve used a modified Billy Martin/Earl Weaver kick in the pants.
edit: I’m guilty of contributing to this as well, but could a dope possibly move this line of back-and-forth from the rumors thread? I get pissed not seeing rumors here and then stupidly add to the problem.
edit: I’m guilty of contributing to this as well, but could a dope possibly move this line of back-and-forth from the rumors thread? I get pissed not seeing rumors here and then stupidly add to the problem.
Cora has the overarching responsibility to nip egregious trends in the bud. (Base running mistakes)
I can’t imagine the remedy would take generations to shore up. There’s no excuse.
I can’t imagine the remedy would take generations to shore up. There’s no excuse.
I think this can be fairly finely parsed. If Cora hired a new conditioning guy who proves to be an idiot and we have a bunch of pitchers go down with shoulder problems, the usual kind of analysis would apply - a sort of reasonable reliance on best information since Cora obviously does not have an independent deep background in strength and conditioning.
Cora does have significant baseball experience though, and he's been a ML manager for 5 seasons now. So base running and fielding issues should be held to a higher standard.
Cora needs to hire and oversee coaches who will maximize the skills of the players on the roster. He needs to engage players to maximize those skills. He needs to instill a culture or pattern of doing things the right way.
I think they've had some individual successes with players improving in the majors (Duran is notable). But overall the organization seems not to bring prepared players up from AAA. . .or they kind of fall apart when they get here. I understand it's a big adjustment and it affects individual players differently. Fielding slumps can pair up with hitting slumps and vice versa. But I haven't, overall, seen a lot of success from Cora's team. Devers, Casas, the parade of second-basemen, OF's missing the cut-off man, the baserunning, etc.
To me it's just mind-boggling that this has been an issue for the past 3 years and there's (seemingly) little or nothing that's been put in place to effectively address it. I am sure they're doing stuff. What they're doing is not working.
***
As a side note, I think the results from the hitting coaches have been poor overall. I have no idea why they (and other coaches) are so stoutly defended. Again, I am sure they're doing stuff. What they're doing is not working.
And no, I don't think the answer is to churn the ML roster to bring in players that fit the coaches . That might work in other sports, but in baseball, I think it's the exact opposite.
I agree with you on the fundamentals, and I agree (or am agnostic on) the idea that the various Sox coaches are all fantastic individuals. I also agree with the above.
However (and this is a big however) when the input remains the same (or has strong constants - Cora) and the output remains generally poor over three seasons in a row. . .at some point that input has to change. That may or may not be firing people. But it's literally in "strike three" territory.
I do wonder how many players get through the minors on pure athletic ability and talent, and never have to learn the fundamentals of the game. For me the poster child for this was Rusney. I had the privilege of watching him in Pawtucket several times, and there were numerous occasions where he would do something physically amazing, and then do something stupid like getting picked off.
I don't think managers have much to do with hiring most coaches anymore, they get asked for their opinions but it's almost always a front office thing.
Also I think if there are organizational problems with baserunning/defense, that is a minor league issue, not a major league one, and it's definitely not the manager's job. It's not very clear what managers do and what they don't do anymore, but I think most managers are basically PR spokesmen for the team before and after games, and make in-game substitutions (not even sure about this). I think lineups generally come from the front office for most teams now.
But Rusney didn't join the BOS organization until he was 26, he didn't come up through the minors like a draft pick or a 16 year old signee. You have to blame his Cuban teams for his lack of fundamentals, I think.
The talent that came up through Bloom's regime had terrible habits. Casas and Duran had to have a ton of the manager's effort to fix defects that should have been fixed in the minors. I can't remember any real issues with Bello
I’ve listened to long in-depth interviews with Joe Maddon and he has said that bad baserunning and bad defense is definitely part of the manager’s responsibility. His teams always focused on the fundamentals more than other teams and it usually showed.
Oh sure, but it isn't like the Red Sox are the only organization with boneheaded players. I went with Rusney because you really had to see it live to truly appreciate the art of it.
That and he never improved in Pawtucket with whatever coaching they had there
Is this true? Man, I really had no idea. I figured most managers hired their staff. And certainly set daily lineups.
If this is true, baseball is even more fucked up than I thought.
I agree. It isn't just a Cora thing, it's the entire MLB (and perhaps organizational) coaching staff. Cora, in my opinion, takes the largest share of the blame because he is the boss, and that's how life works. Unless, however, his job description from the top is "look bored in the dugout and talk to the press so we don't have to", which, well, I am not entirely sure isn't the case.
I can't think of a single player who has come here in trade or as a free agent and gotten markedly better, meanwhile, Brasier moves to LA after a month off and is immediately turned into a high caliber arm. Jeffrey Springs in Tampa before his shoulder fell off. Among others.
On the other hand, Llovera comes over from San Francisco and stinks. Kluber (older and washed up, for sure) signs and immediately starts walking almost 4x as many people as he had in his career.
I hope that Breslow, as much as we need better players, is also working on getting a system in place that actually allows those players to excel. I am also not convinced that Alex Cora is a part of that system. I hope that Andrew Bailey is.
I think there's certainly front-office involvement from a statistical point of view, and there's likely great weight on which players to play in certain situations or at certain times.
But I don't think that challenges, pinch running, pinch hitting, and last minute substitutions due to injury are amenable to a confab with the front office. Likewise, if a starter is struggling or gassed early on, it's most certainly ultimately the manager's decision to go to the pen or not. . .whether or not the front office has a preference for any given starter pushing their way deeper into games. Reasonable caveats apply for out of contention teams, showcasing players for trade bait and so forth.
I don't really get the organizational problem point. . .sure, it's absolutely an organizational issue if the minor leagues are or aren't teaching fundamentals. But what happens when you get a player who has none? You can't just throw up your hands and say, "the major league coaches and I can do nothing."
And in fact we know they don't - they coach players on these things. Cora's existing crew just seems not to be very good at it. (Unless of course the Sox have managed to assemble the worst baseball players ever, and marginal incompetence is the work savant coaches.)
International signings today...
Vladimir Asencio - $1 MM Dalvinson Reyes - $450,000 Anderson Fermin - $400,000
https://x.com/tylermilliken_/status/1746937759510520042?s=20
Vladimir Asencio - $1 MM Dalvinson Reyes - $450,000 Anderson Fermin - $400,000
https://x.com/tylermilliken_/status/1746937759510520042?s=20
I'm not sure what line of work you're in, but it's been my experience that an isolated incident is something to be learned from. If the incident is something that is repeated in a frequency that becomes problematic to the point where job performance affects the end product it's usually on the supervisor/manager to solve the issue or he/she is the one replaced by someone who can better serve in that capacity. The person in charge of the office, store, what have you is normally the person held accountable for the performance of his team, including those who assist him/her.
What bugs me about reports like this is why does it matter who their 3B coach is? At least why does it matter in January? If the Sox know who it is, that's all that's important right now, no? I can't imagine there's a free agent whose decision on whether to sign (or even talk to/negotiate with) with the Sox rests on the identity of the 3B coach being public knowledge.
Phrasing it the way McAdam phrased it sure makes it sound like he's a bit bitter that he hasn't yet gotten to report the "news" of the Sox 3B coach hire. Boo hoo.
- Status