The lack of a traditional lead off type hitting ahead of Raffy, X, and JD has been frustrating, especially when they were the only 3 guys in the lineup who were hitting. Story may be a good candidate ATM, but during his tear in the month of May he was perfect where he was. Seriously I would consider Vazquez or JBJ until they cool off, but I've a feeling we'll be seeing Duran on this homestand, so he's likely to slip into the slot short term.
Cora has said that he didn't let guys go deep because he wanted to save them for September. You are right. Cora seemed to have learned his lesson, but in my opinion he should have learn that lesson a few weeks into the season, not a month and a half.
Did you also forget that the “lockout” killed a good portion of Spring training? So players were not as stretched out as they normally would be.
So as of right now he has succeeded in both having them in a playoff position, and also saving some bullets in their arms for september and hopefully beyond
Just remember that they need 9 innings out of their staff every night (obviously except for when they're away and they lose and the other team doesn't have to bat in the 9th, or when it goes extras....). Every "bullet" they save their starters by having them only go 4-5 innings is a "bullet" they need their relievers to use by having them go an extra inning or two. And those bullpen arms get just as tired as the starting arms and are just as prone to injury and fatigue.
Bullpen arms are easier to replace than a starter. And hasn't the drum beat since spring training been that they don't have much to get excited about in terms of relievers? Basically what I'm saying is that expending "bullets" like Robles and Brasier in April and May is less concerning if there are fewer expectations that those are bullets they'll need in September. Just as a for instance, last year saw a bunch of innings handled by Matt Andriese in the first half (26 appearances through July 9). Then he was DFA and they got 27 appearances from Hansel Robles in the second half. As rough as it's been this year for Robles, he was a key part of the pen in September and October. Ideally, they'll have a new and hopefully better "bullet" than Robles come the end of the season.
Do people actually believe Cora is just sitting there making all of these decisions by himself? This isn’t 1982. This isn’t the movie version of Moneyball, with the GM and the manager butting heads over strategy and usage. Organizations like the Red Sox employ managers who understand and support the front office’s approach. Starter pitch counts/times through the lineup; bullpen usage; lineup construction, including who hits lead off—all of it is part of a larger plan that is set by the front office. Does Cora agree with the plan? Almost certainly. Not because he‘s “told to” or a yes man but because that’s why he was hired for the job in the first place.
I think one aspect you are kind of missing is the risk of injury. A starter throwing an extra 20 pitches or whatever in April isn't necessarily just about getting him another 20 pitches in September. It's avoiding injury risk coming out of shortened spring training. Whereas with relievers, if they're going to throw the same 60-70 innings regardless, it doesn't really matter if you have to use one extra reliever per game in April for one inning, since you have more of those guys you can cycle through throughout the year. Not sure I articulated that well, let me know if you don't get my point.
Going into the season (which is when Cora had to make this call), did you think it was more important to save bullets like Brasier (career era of 3.49 going into this season) or Robles (3.60 era for Boston last year) or save bullets for Wacha (last two years' era: 6.62, 5.05)?
Did you read the other replies?
The shortened spring training is one thing I can get behind as rationale. The "saving bullets" thing doesn't work for me so much. I mean...it's not just about innings. For pitchers, bullets are *pitches thrown*.
Starters. Always starters. Whether it's Wacha or not, you are going to be more conservative in how you ramp up and use your starters over the course of 162 games than you are relievers. If for no other reason than your relievers are going to be "season ready" sooner than the starters. Even with the hyper-short spring training. And then there's the fungibility of relievers. They're more expendable. You can shut a reliever down for 2-3 weeks and get a reasonable facsimile in his place. Tougher to replace a starter, as we're about to find out with two on the IL presently.
Actually, as I just posted, "bullets" are pitches, not innings. And I don't know that good bullpen arms are more fungible and replaceable than Michael Wacha and Rich Hill. Bad bullpen arms might be, but not good ones.
I totally get what you're saying. But then....why are we hearing all this whining about how much the Sox need a shut down reliever? I mean yeah, crappy relievers are fungible. But good ones are not. So if the plan is to save starters' arms by having crappy pitchers throw a lot of pitches and innings, I mean, ok. If the plan is to save mediocre starters' arms by having good relievers throw a lot more pitches and innings....might not be the best plan.
Can we concede that some of the conservative approach with Hill is that he's 156 years old and has never really had a history of durability? For him, the "saving" is about maximizing his effectiveness. Keeping his pitch counts lower is about keeping him effective as long as possible because while he may be the obvious one to replace with a Sale or Paxton, their arrival has never been a fixed date. It wouldn't be good to use up Hill by mid June and not have either of those guys available until July or later (which has clearly been the expectation since the season began).
That's fair. But can we also concede that Cora really didn't "save bullets" of Pivetta or Eovaldi (his best returning starters), given that they both threw some of the highest number of pitches in some of their earliest starts?
Thing is, even if you've got the shut down reliever, you're going to pace him more than your fungible middle relief guys. He's still only going to throw 65-75 innings in total, and he's not the one who is going to throw more innings because the starters are throwing fewer. The innings the starters aren't throwing in April and May are going to be picked up by the middle relievers who are a dime a dozen. Ultimately the calculation comes down to whether the 5th and 6th and 7th innings of games in April are better covered by starters pushing beyond their limits (physical limits, not management imposed) or by fresh but decidedly mediocre arms. Is fresh and rested Tyler Danish a better bet in the 6th inning than a tiring Michael Wacha or Nick Pivetta? When guys aren't conditioned to throw 100 pitches an outing yet, the scale might tip toward the fresh arm. Or at least that's the management's approach, which in truth is an approach not unique to the Red Sox.
I wasn't the one who started using the term in this thread. That was @scottyno in post #704.
While I appreciate these are sensitive times, metaphor policing is taking things in the wrong direction, imo, especially considering how prevelant they are:
"That's a bomb to deep center"
Could we PLeAsE keep the conservative vs. liberal stuff off the main board.
Wait, seriously? Conservative is actually a real word with real meanings that have nothing to do with politics. Which is how RHF was using it.
Farty (great, btw) was obviously making a joke, no? I thought it was pretty funny...
Sorry. Once SJH broke the Main Board, I don't know what's up or down anymore.
Yeah, though Hill has been a breaking ball heavy pitcher for years now. Since 2010 his FB% has only cracked 55% of his pitches once (2018) and that 3 year Dodgers stint is the only time in that timeframe that he has been above 50% fastballs. If anyone can handle this kind of usage peak, it's Hill.
I think this is a good point. If they think they have a top-flight offense, they can wait for the pitching to come around.
I don't think they were worried about saving Wacha's arm, I think they were worried about the fact that he hasn't had a good full season in 7 years and was terrible the last few years. Getting 5 innings and 1 run a start was found money.
The Sox have lost nine games so far this season in which they allowed 3 or fewer runs. That's nine games in which just matching league average offense (4.33 runs/game) would win the game. Six of those came in the first 29 games of the season (10-19 record). So really, the offense didn't do the pitching staff any favors over the first few weeks as they were ramping up their starters and sorting out the "crapshoot of relievers", even when those pitchers did their jobs well.
I know that the word was that they were going to monitor his innings, but he made 6 appearances in April throwing 16 2/3 innings. He started 2 games with a total of 7 IP and made 4 relief appearances with 9 2/3 IP which doesn't seem like a whole lot. By comparison, 5 games in May (all starts) for 22 innings and 2 games in June for 10 innings. In his 48 2/3 innings pitched he's thrown 764 pitches averaging 15.69 per inning.
Yeah, I don't think his April usage was that out of line with their intent, and certainly not with past usage.
Keep in mind April wasn't a full month. They didn't start until the 8th and only played 22 games in 23 days, compared to 28 over 31 days in May. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd be pretty surprised if coming into the year their plan was for him to throw 123 innings, plus the playoffs, though it seems like that plan may have changed when they decided to put him in the rotation.
Not sure why it's a surprise that the plan would be for him to throw 120ish innings (+ playoffs). Cora said just before Opening Day he wanted more than 70 innings out of Whitlock this season. A roughly 50 inning bump isn't really outside the norm when it comes to increasing a young starter's workload. As an example, the Astros bumped Framber Valdez from his career high of 70.2 innings in 2020 to 134.2 last year. Whitlock has thrown 120+ innings in a season before. In 2018, he had a combined 120.2 minor league innings, so it's not entirely unfamiliar territory for him.
No, not serious one bit. Sorry. I should have marked that for sarcasm.
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I do think it's interesting that Wealthy Knoll has added a skidder to his conglomeration of flings, especially given that is registering as around 13% of his pitches so far this year but it is also atypically slow, even adjusting for his velocity paucity, clocking in this year at a robust 69 (nice) mph, slower than his normal curve by 2 mph. So I'm thinking what is getting classified as a "slider" is really just a curve with a different movement profile. I think he's historically thrown multiple versions of his bendy pitches so I think the perceived bump in sliders is really just automated pitch classifying systems trying to make sense of his curve. His Baseball Savant page breaks down some of the characteristics of his sliders vs. curveballs and while you can see two populations of pitches by movement and release point, his "slider", which averages 23 inches of horizontal and 58 inches of vertical break, has much more in common with your average pitcher's curve (9 inches horizontal and 54 inches vertical break) than a slider (6 inches horizontal and 38 inches vertical).
Doesn't he sometimes drop down to something like sidearm while throwing his curve? If so, maybe that pitch looks more like a slider to the computers.
