When the Chris Martin issue came up a couple of weeks ago, there was some coverage of all the mental health specialists and services that the Red Sox provide to all their players and staff. I also remember a few years ago , the Red Sox employed Bob Tewksbury the ex Twins pitcher as a mental skills coach. Plus wasn't that part of Brian Bannister's responsibilities when he worked for the Sox?
I grew up in Cambridge and later on in New Jersey. This is where I played little league, pony league and then high school ball until I moved to Spain, where I played in the Spanish Baseball League (https://www.rfebs.es/es/events/2024-spanish-baseball-league/home) and now am the head coach of the Valencia Astros, one of the top teams in Spain and Europe.
Holy Sh!t, thanks for being here at SoSH. I hope you post more frequently given your outstanding background and writing skills. For example, I'd love your perspective on the challenges of Latin American teens making the language, financial, and cultural leap from their origins to stateside MiLB (I know you're not in Latin America but you might have a valid take on it).
Every other stat gets worse as well - like Ks and BBs. And that’s despite expecting a survivor bias to cut against these changes, with better pitchers more likely to pitch deeper in games.
I once had to "educate" a very knowledgeable coach in Peoria AZ about the cultural differences. He was a great coach, and an even better person. He really took an interest in teaching the game to his players. He was very annoyed with a young talented Dominican young man, because when he was telling this young player what he had to do in order to improve his hitting mechanics, the young man kept looking at the ground. The coach interpreted this as a disrespect, which would be understandable under European or Stateside manners, but I had to let him know that in the DR a young man looking at his coach in the eyes would have been considered provocative or challenging and not submissive. "Wow! Really!", was his response.
Yeah, I mean, he should have been out of that inning, but it doesn't change the fact that his pitch mix kind of sucks. A 10% whiff rate on a 95 mph sinker says to me that hitters know exactly what he's going to throw.
Agreed. I was at the game last night and he was pretty dialed in for the first two innings. As soon as Valdez missed that ball and Abreau air mailed that throw, Bello just fell apart.
This is a bull case IMO. If he fell apart because he was overreacting to poor defense, well, we’re planning to pretty dramatically overhaul the defense over the next 18 months or so.
I’ve watched enough baseball to know that it can only take one small thing, a missed called strike 3, a dropped pop up in foul ground, a ball fair or foul by an inch, and so much more, for the flood gates to open up and change the whole tone of a game. If you aren’t mentally strong enough to survive that, the snowball effect can happen very fast. That is what I was last night, and his final pitching line will never reflect it.
He’ll gain that strength with age and experience. It’s a classic young player trait.
I think this is especially true now with the pitch clock in effect. It is crazy how fast things can fall apart now, without the ability to step off and waste two minutes to get your head straight.
I don't know, were we expecting him to bat 1.000? No credit for what we're seeing from the bullpen additions of Weissert, Slaton, Kelly and Booser?
I had the same take from section 126. Somebody else mentioned Devers botching the bunt the play before which would have been frustrating. The bunt was good, and the GB was a bit tricky, but with competent fielding he’d have had two outs and not be spiraling.
Honestly it's so hard to ever evaluate BP arms. Unless you're consistently "elite" it seems like it's nothing but yo-yo types when guys can really get hot for a stretch and then look terrible for a season, then pitch for an incredible stretch that'll involve saving some high stress playoff games and turn that into a great contract and then pitch awful for the next season. Bullpen arms really need a long, long view and it's hard to ever get that.
The Sox are currently running with just 4 starters on the roster unless we want to count Winckowski as one. In either case, optioning Bello would very much necessitate bringing a starter back up. I assume that would be Criswell. With the off-day tomorrow, they can probably finagle the rotation to skip Bello then add Criswell once his 15 days expires.
Critically - sure, that's always on the table. It's tough because the staff normally rolls over a bit, and much of that is Breslow. But he and Bailey seem to be much on the same wavelength on what they're looking to do. So this is Breslow/Bailey v. Bloom/Bush. Injuries being the wild-card.
He's throwing harder this year, apparently without anymore effort.
Exactly this. Red Sox are 6th in MLB in team ERA this season. In 2023, they were 21st. In 2022, they were 25th. In 2021, they were 15th. In 2020, they were 28th. This has been a stunning turnaround, even if (as always) there are dozens of factors at play, ERA is a blunt measurement, and there's plenty of blame, credit, and causation to go around.
Bello mixed the 4 seam back in tonight, and had his best start in a while, probably his second bast of the season. It looks like he threw it about 11 times. It didn't generate any whiffs on 4 swings, but only had one put in play, and the sinker generated twice the whiff rate it had been this season.
Let's hope so. With some of the minor injuries and the way Cora has so far managed the rotation I'm getting a little more optimistic that the existing 6 starters (Bello, Houck, Crawford, Pivetta and adding Winckowski and Criswell) can go the distance. After the initial crazy good start to the rotation, the expected regression happened- maybe a little too dramatically for everyone not named Houck (last outing being the hopeful rare instance)- but perhaps they're leveling off now. Houck is looking like a true ace.... Crawford and Bello making a very good mid rotation compliment and Pivetta being the Wild Card type that he's always been. As bottom of the rotation guys, I'll take Criswell and Winckowski over just about any other team's no. 5 and 6.
A 5.40 ERA in July from a would-be ace or rotational lock is not good. Not good at all.
This seems like something Bailey should be working on. He needs to dump the sinker entirely.
He threw 7 four seamers in the most recent start, and I think 11 the start before it. It's a pitch that got hammered last year that he dumped this season in favor of the sinker. If he dumps the sinker he is essentially a two pitch change/slider pitcher, which I think is untenable, even for a relief pitcher.
While I tend to agree with you, it’s also untenable to throw a pitch 40% of the time when hitters are crushing it a .357 clip.
Oh, absolutely.
…and Logan Allen.
Stud prospects frequently don't clean up the stats for a while. Can't overreact. Reaching the performance level expected of him is complicated. Nearly every great pitcher has taken time to get there. The 10 straight Ks is more telling than the ERA.
I felt the same way. I don’t have an issue with him pitching the 6th given the circumstances, but I was hoping he was done after 5.
His two seam fastball (sinker) is routinely 95-97. He shouldn’t abandon that pitch, but he does need to command it better.
