View: https://twitter.com/ChrisCotillo/status/1569890369361350656
Jeurys Familia says he was designated for assignment.
Jeurys Familia says he was designated for assignment.
Jeurys Familia Dfa’d
- Thread starter soxhop411
- Start date
I'm not upset about this, but damn. An hour ago he was brought into a high leverage situation, and now he's DFA'd? Harsh.
Harsh, or a sign of poor communication between Cora and Bloom? If he was a potential DFA candidate then presumably he’s not good enough to be thrown into a high leverage situation. Maybe the manager and the GM should discuss these things.
Yeah. Or maybe this was a coordinated move? Sink or swim appearance in a lost season. Either way it's kinda weird.
No one left in the pen was good enough to be thrown into a high leverage situation. However the rules said they had to keep playing.
You could have given someone with a potential future on the roster (Zach Kelly, Eduardo Bazardo) a chance instead of him, though. Seems like bad roster management to me at a glance.
The replacement isn't too exciting either - Yu Chang.
View: https://twitter.com/ChrisCotillo/status/1569893847492341760
The replacement isn't too exciting either - Yu Chang.
View: https://twitter.com/ChrisCotillo/status/1569893847492341760
Strahm? Kelly? Ort, who has a 3.06 ERA if you remove the 25-8 game? There were still plenty of better options.
They had to make sure they had someone to blow tonight's game and send fans home angry.
It does seem to go a bit contrary to what Cora said last week about putting Ort into a high lev situation. Unless they thought that Familia was a legit candidate for the ‘23 pen, the more consistent move would have been to give someone like Kelly a shot.
It seems absolutely par for the course in 2022.
Chang will hopefully only be up for a few days as Story's heel gets some rest.
Not sure why they're not calling up Downs or Valdez for a cup of coffee.
Chang will hopefully only be up for a few days as Story's heel gets some rest.
Not sure why they're not calling up Downs or Valdez for a cup of coffee.
They brought him into the game to tank, and then boot him out the door afterwards. He stinks and should never have been on the roster, but man baseball is a harsh game.
I would've preferred Kelley there. Perfect tough-ish spot against a good team playing hard to give some insight into what he might be. I'd be more forgiving if went to a "good" regular like Strahm "trying to win the game" or some such. But Familia offered nothing, either on the mound or toward the future.
They only reason for him to have been in the game was to lose it. I am convinced they threw in the towel. There was absolutely zero reason for him to be in the game in that situation.
Dozens of higher character guys they could have chosen for that role. Not sure why they picked this piece of human paraquat to represent the team
Assuming that was a kind of murmured conversation, you think they'd play to the fan base. I'd go all-in as a Yankee spoiler (which is what the casual fans pay most attention to.) For the Yanks, use the A squad (particularly for relief pitchers), and, accordingly, have them ready to use in those games. Meaning rest them before the upcoming series.
Use your B squad otherwise. Rest your key starters only in non-Yankee games.
It's not really tanking so much as reserving the handful of chits you have for a specific goal.
I’d have no problem with that. Although maybe the long play is to keep Boone as Yankee manager for another contract? Or make Judge more interested in playing here?
Looks like the Sox were interested in his splitter most of all. He all but abandoned his slider and threw the split one-third of his pitches in Boston, well up from the 9 percent in Philadelphia and 5 percent career mark.
It was fairly effective too (.194 wOBA against), but the 4-seamer just wasn’t there anymore (.368 wOBA, shielding an even worse .444 expected wOBA), and the 2-seamer was even worse (.544 wOBA).
There are only 55 MLB pitchers who throw a splitter more than two percent of their pitches. 8 of them have been in the Red Sox organization the last year (Eovaldi, Sawamura, Familia, Houck, Robles, Norwood, Danish, and Hill). Seems like it’s something they look for.
It was fairly effective too (.194 wOBA against), but the 4-seamer just wasn’t there anymore (.368 wOBA, shielding an even worse .444 expected wOBA), and the 2-seamer was even worse (.544 wOBA).
There are only 55 MLB pitchers who throw a splitter more than two percent of their pitches. 8 of them have been in the Red Sox organization the last year (Eovaldi, Sawamura, Familia, Houck, Robles, Norwood, Danish, and Hill). Seems like it’s something they look for.
Like sifting through records at a yard sale hoping for something other than Herb Alpert.
I was lookin' for love in all the wrong places
Lookin' for love in too many faces
Searchin' their eyes
Lookin' for traces of what I'm dreaming of
Getting pretty clear that the "yard sale sifter" in Tampa who continually came up with bullpen arms that could actually get guys out was not Chaim Bloom.
Really? Schreiber is one of the five most valuable relievers in baseball. Strahm has been terrific when healthy, Kelly looks like a lock for next year’s bullpen as a potential 7th inning reliever and Danish has been a useful back-end guy. And then there’s Whitlock. Plus he spun his biggest miss, Diekman, into next year’s starting catcher. Seems like a decent hit rate to me.
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Bringing in Familia is on par with the other questionable bullpen moves Cora has made this season. Granted Cora has had a limited selection of relievers to relay on, but his continued reliance on Braiser to name one example has been head scratching.
Why are people so upset about this? Familia was a scrap heap guy we picked up on an mL deal after a DFA. He’s just 32, formerly excellent, still throws hard and had some bad luck in Philadelphia, an extreme hitters park with exceptionally bad defense. It makes sense to take a flyer on him with a depleted bullpen in an otherwise lost year. It’s not like he was part of Bloom broader offseason design.
Are you serious? Because people want the Red Sox to win (especially against the Yankees) and are sick of watching this shitty bullpen blow game after game after game.
The sort of devil's advocate argument is also to look at the misses: who was floated as potentially good and for how long?
Overall I think Bloom has done well at finding upside in players: Wacha, Schreiber, Strahm, McGuire, Refsnyder, etc.
OTOH, while there has to be some allowance for the growth and development of players, and natural ups and downs, the guys who are worse than average have also impressively piled up: JBJ, Hernandez, Cordero, Dalbec, Plawecki, Shaw, Wincowski, Davis, Brasier, Sawamura, Diekman, Robles, Valdez, Familia, Darwinzon.
You can't have a team of entirely above average guys, especially including AAA replacements pressed into service due to injury. And injuries were the core of the story this year. Sale, Paxton, Barnes, Hernandez, Story, Wacha, Strahm, Casas, etc. . .
But even so, the result is that it seems like all too often the club is OK with trading major-league games won and lost to see if the latest interesting scratch ticket or ongoing development project or emergency stopgap is really going to do well. Couple that with an insistence on carrying someone like an Arauz (who isn't even that) and you've got this season in a nutshell: you're very vulnerable when your handful of consistent players struggle amid a supporting cast of scratch tickets.
That all gets pressed down quite a bit if you've even got just a healthy Sale, Barnes, and Story. But that does not make emergency replacement play look any better when you watch it happening in real games.
It's 90% the character issue thing for me and 10% not trying internal options. If he had a clean slate, I'd be fine with the flyer. Just seems unnecessary to give him a roster spot.
Because if he was so close to being released that one more bad outing was going to cause that reaction, then he shouldn’t be pitching in a tie game against your biggest rival.
Taking the flyer on him was not the issue. Not for me anyway. It was that, given where the season is, and given Familia's performance in Boston (meh, at best), using him last night seemed to be a worse move than getting a tiny glimpse of what Kelley (for example) might have to offer the team going forward. September baseball is often meaningless, but a tie in extra innings against a NYY team still trying is about as close to meaningful as the Sox are getting the rest of the way.
But given the context, why does it matter? The Sox are done. The Yankees rivalry doesn’t matter a ton in the scope of that one game. Besides, the top four Sox relievers already threw, so it’s not like Cora punted the game. If Cora thought the most valuable thing to do there was continue Familia’s audition for next year and see if his stuff worked in an extreme high leverage setting, it’s totally defensible to me.
Familia was very good his first four outings, and then had three bad outings in his last six appearances, and now he’s gone.
I’m sure Kelly will get his innings, but I think he’s much more of a lock for next year’s bullpen than Familia was. And there’s probably benefit to not yet showing Yankee hitters how good his changeup is.
Then why even use Whitlock, who hasn’t been the same since his injury? That doesn’t seem like sound handling of a valuable arm to me.
This does a reasonably good job at explaining why: https://www.overthemonster.com/2022/9/14/23353042/why-did-jeurys-familia-pitch-for-the-red-sox-last-night-against-the-yankees
That's a lumpy group of "worse than average" players you list there. You've got expiring vets, serviceable journeyman relievers, rookies rushed to the big leagues to fill injury gaps, expiring vets, an established above-average regular who played while hurt with a major injury and high-tool post-prospects still in their 20s. I don't think they all belong together.
But regardless, every single team has this situation! The Dodgers just DFA'd Heath Hembree, for chrissakes. If this were the Sons of Franklin Stubbs, we'd be complaining about Hembree, Joey Gallo, Jake Lamb, Edwin Rios, Hanser Alberto, Reyes Moronta, Kevin Pillar, Cody Bellinger, Ryan Pepiot, Tommy Kahnle, Robbie Erlin, Garrett Cleavinger and Justin Bruihl.
Cycling through these kinds of players is a smart thing to do. It's particularly smart after a pandemic that created an information gap and 40-man roster crunches on every team around the league. It's decidedly not what Dombrowski did, and the team paid for it. There was virtually no one DD acquired that accrued value after his acquisition (he gets points for Brasier, Taylor, Walden and Eovaldi, with an extra star for striking gold on the Steve Pearce rental). That's not true for Bloom, who has made pretty valuable players out of Whitlock, Schreiber, Arroyo, Pivetta, McGuire, Renfroe, Wacha, Kelly, Strahm, Danish and Kiké Hernandez (and had the right idea with Pérez and Springs).
So are you arguing that we should try our best to win games against our biggest rivals no matter the context? Or that we should shut down our best reliever?
I am arguing that EITHER we try to win games against our biggest rivals by using our best players OR we admit that we aren't trying to win and use guys like Familia and rest our best reliever who may be injured. Not go 50-50 like they did last night, using a dinged Whitlock and then bringing in the white flag.
If they were really doing everything they could to win last night, they would have IBB'd Judge five times. They sent mixed signals: On the one hand they pitched to Judge and used Familia. On the other, they used their best relievers earlier to get it to extra innings.
if they really weren't trying to win, they would have used a Familia type earlier in the game.
if they really weren't trying to win, they would have used a Familia type earlier in the game.
Yeah, but not every team has our record. Ergo they do the cycle in a way that works, or at least does not bite them in the ass.
Now, I'm not saying this season's results are Bloom's fault alone. Injuries are the story of 2022.
But you had wanted to know why actual Red Sox fans are irritated at losing an extra innings game to the Yankees via poor strategy and an inconsistent use of players. . .one of which was a re-tred who was DFA'd after the game. Who Bloom picked up to fix. But who sucked.
How are you doing with that?
Yup, this was a winnable game before the poor choice of pitcher, that virtually everyone is thinking, why is he in there? There's not a lot left to cheer for. Rooting for a Sox win over the MFY in the waning days of a lackluster season is the last we have, and it was annoying to see the same result that maybe could''ve been avoided. As someone else noted, if the goal wasnt to win, why werent the better arms saved for later?
I think the goal was to win, but Whitlock gave up a homer to Judge and they were out of the good relievers. At that point you put in someone and try to get lucky. If Raffy hadn't continued his second half crappiness, it might have worked.
I can't believe you got me to read that.
Is he a re-tread? Tyler Danish is a re-tread. Familia was one of the very best relievers in the game from 2015-18, then had injuries. I get the character stuff, but giving him a handful of innings is literally the same gamble the Rays and Cubs made with David Robertson, who everyone on this board pined for in July. It's the same reason the Dodgers picked up Kahnle, a formerly excellent reliever. Both those guys are older than Familia.
Sure it was a nail biter against the Yankees, but it really seems like an inconsequential game in the grand scheme. I don't get why everyone is so convinced that bringing in Bazardo or Kelly would have been obviously better. Torres has a .164 wOBA lifetime against splitters, which is Familia's best pitch.
That the game was relatively inconsequential is *exactly* the point. I don't think *anyone* is convinced that it would have worked out any differently with someone else. My point is that there's some evidentiary value in sending Bazardo or Kelley in to pitch in this game rather than against a team fielding minor leaguers and going nowhere. There's none with Familia. If the game "mattered," I suppose I could see going with "the veteran who has been there before" ™.