I see what you're saying, but what really imploded our pitching this season and knocked us out of the race were two things:
- Barnes getting his act together too slowly. How many late inning blown saves does the bullpen have if Barnes pitched in April and May (17 IP of ~5 FIP) like has has in August and September (~16 IP of 2.60 FIP)? Three fewer?
- We weathered the first Sale injury (the stress fracture at the lockout-induced preseason workouts without the training staff — thank you, ownership) pretty decently, but what blew up our season was the overlapping simultaneous injuries to Sale, Eovaldi, Wacha, Hill and Whitlock. That's an entire good starting rotation on the IL at once.
I know that you're upset about Paxton, but he was filling a spot in the depth chart *that we only had* because he was starting the season on the 60-day IL. If he had to be on the 40-man, we couldn't have signed him.
But okay. Here's what I would do with the pitching for next season.
Assuming that they weren't lying when they sad that Paxton's stuff looked great before his rehab stint, I would aim to retain both Paxton and Wacha. If you can get Paxton cheaper than his option, great; otherwise exercise the option. Wacha should be gettable somewhere in the 2/$28m-3/$40m range; if it gets much higher than that, we look elsewhere for another oft-injured veteran with ace upside.
So the goal (health permitting) is to start the season with a rotation that looks like this:
Sale L
Wacha R
Paxton L
Pivetta R
Whitlock R
Then, in AAA, you have the following SP options.
Bello
Mata
Ward
Walter
Seabold
Winckowski
Murphy
That is
seven-deep in minor league starters who could be viable MLB starters in 2023 for at least a spot start or few turns. I'm not really bullish on Murphy or Winckowski, but the other guys are real prospects — some with a bit of relief risk. I don't feel like people are appreciating the extent of that depth — I don't think we've ever had that kind of SP depth since I have been following the team. It allows us to go for upside over reliability with our big league rotation.
As for the bullpen, I think we should try to add at least another setup type, and maybe retain Strahm. We move on from Darwinzon Hernandez, Ryan Brasier, and
- Barnes RH LaRussan closer
- Houck RH multi-inning relief ace
- Schreiber RH setup
- Taylor LH setup, if he's still alive, — otherwise, try to retain Strahm. Andrew Chafin? Brad Hand?
- New setup type, any handedness —
- LH multi-inning guy — hopefully someone a bit better than Chris Murphy, but he'd be a guy who might be able to get 3-9 outs.
- German RH middle relief
- Kelly RH middle relief
Then we have guys like Ort, Wallace, Bazardo, Politi, and I am sure we'll add a few more who can bounce back and forth. Some people think that Bryan Mata's best role could be as a multi-inning reliever; maybe that role would make sense for Brandon Walter or Chris Murphy, too. That is another option, given that if we get good luck with health, we could have trouble finding SP innings for everyone in Worcester.
Big picture: is this a lock-down surefire excellent pitching staff? Not really. We have a ton of upside, considerable injury risk, but hopefully enough minor league depth to absorb that injury risk so long as it doesn't all happen at the same time. Would adding DeGrom or Rodon really improve things much? We already have an oft-injured ace, but if you wanted to spend more and sub a guy like that for Wacha, that would be a defensible move IMO.
We have a lot of money to spend, but if I'm spending money, I'm looking to shore up the top and middle of the order by extending Devers (and Bogaerts, if reasonable) and adding as big a bat at OF/DH/C as possible. If that's Judge, then you go cheap at C/DH. If Judge is unavailable, maybe you try something like signing José Abreu to DH and adding Mitch Haniger and Willson Contreras.
If things break right, we could have a pretty good staff. If they don't, we probably won't. We need a longer lineup, one way or another.