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Hard to argue that right-handed relief help shouldn't be at the top of the list in terms of needs. Zero good options beyond Houck and Schrieber in that department right now.

For what it's worth, Boston's playoff odds per FanGraphs bottomed out at 19.3% back on May 15; they're all the way up to 39% as of today. Granted, they started the season at 61.3%, so it's still a big fall, but they've clawed back a good amount of ground in just two weeks. They're still way...

If nothing else, Barnes is throwing harder; he was averaging 95.3 mph with his fastball last night, a mile up from his season average, and hit 96. That makes two straight outings with improved velocity, which makes me wonder if the team wants to give him a bit more rope to see if that extra...

I imagine a lot of Verdugo's issues as a hitter can be tied to the fact that he's got average power at best and either smashes the ball into the ground or lifts it into the air without much loft or force behind it. Ideally he'd be a gap-to-gap contact hitter with above-average patience, and you...

Andrew Politi is getting the bump to Worcester along with Bello after 13.1 IP with 20 strikeouts and three walks in relief. I would guess that he's the top internal bullpen option right now. Brasier, Danish and Houck all have options, so any of them could be sent down if and when Politi is...

If anywhere Dombrowski and company fell down, it was the draft. They're going to get nothing out of the 2016 class beyond whatever Dalbec produces going forward or if Jay Groome ever manages to stay healthy; the only other two major leaguers to date from that draft (Santiago Espinal and Shaun...

And to go off JA's point: Where is this team's equivalent of Holmes, or Andrew Kitteredge, or JP Feyereisen, or Ryan Thompson? Hell, the Rays are turning Jeffrey Springs into a starter; the dude has an ERA under 1 and a FIP under 2 after being white-hot garbage in Boston. Meanwhile Hansel Robles...

All fair points, particularly that it was designed to be temporary thanks to the short spring; I really do think the lockout and abbreviated camps hurt the team a lot. Still, to me, using Whitlock and Houck in those roles instead of whoever was capable of getting six to eight outs feels like a...

I think the big issue right now is that, for whatever reason, the farm system has yet to produce the kind of hard-throwing, cheap and (most importantly) optionable arms that stock a lot of MLB bullpens. You're right, reliever effectiveness is volatile, though the error bars for said volatility...

Honestly, if you want to complain about a bullpen decision that really has not worked out: using Houck and Whitlock as piggyback arms behind Wacha and Hill. It's a highly inflexible way to deploy your two best right-handed relievers, it puts them out of service for multiple days at a time, and...

Again: not the point. Hill and Wacha are illustrative of a particular roster-building approach that Bloom took: avoiding expensive long-term deals with top-tier free agents and choosing instead to sign cheaper, middle/lower-tier free agents to short contracts (again, with Story as the exception...

And he's also on the injured list a month into the season; that's why he was available for virtually nothing. That he pitched well during that month is nice, though those numbers are beyond unsustainable, and regardless, he's hurt now. Also, what is it with people nitpicking the smallest points...

Is the problem that they took Whitlock out of the bullpen and made it weaker, or is the problem that they brought back the same bullpen from last season that, Whitlock aside, was pretty damn mediocre? He papered over a lot of problems with that group, and as others have noted, it sure didn't...

Why is Matt Barnes still being asked to get high-leverage outs? Why is Hansel Robles still being trotted out in the ninth? Why is this team seemingly so committed to plans that don't work and keep failing? The vibe right now is someone trying to smash their head through a brick wall. I...

Because John Henry doesn't like being separated from more money than he deems appropriate.

Story didn't get a spring training and has had to adjust to a new league with new pitchers in a new park that isn't a mile above sea level and with a baseball that doesn't carry. He's a problem right now, and he needs to play better, but it seems too early to me to say that he was a mistake or...

Not facing Shohei Ohtani would be a big start. This roster wasn't finished during the offseason and just doesn't look coherent overall. There are too many dead spots in the lineup — Dalbec, JBJ, whoever is at catcher, Story currently, the DH when Martinez is out — and not nearly enough reliable...

And just to put a point on this, the guy that Alex Cora turns to to face three of the best right-handed hitters in baseball in the highest-leverage situation of the game is ... Tyler Danish? That's a real indictment of the bullpen construction process.

Brasier's fastball is down 3 mph from its 2018 average and he can't command it at all, so it's getting blasted to hell. He's lost velo on his slider too, which was hard and very good back in 2018 but is now middle of the pack because every righty throws a hard slider now and because his hasn't...

Good to see Franchy hasn't forgotten how to destroy hanging breaking balls. The big thing to keep an eye on will be strikeouts and walks. So far he's punched out seven times in 28 PA, which is a tad under his rate last year in Triple-A (28%), but obviously it's early yet. Only two walks in that...