Let's Lay Off That Throttle
- Thread starter soxhop411
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Blake Snell who’s on the List of Guys We Can Be Thankful We Didn't Sign.
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It is maddening to see the inevitable injuries to pitchers this year when looking at Montgomery, Imanaga, Lugo, Wacha, Lorenzen all off to good starts. The Sox starters have been great and this could get really ugly fast if these injuries linger.
There were posts here that wanted to maintain space for the young pitchers to get innings... well, at least they've done a good job of creating that space. I would have preferred a more competitive team.
There were posts here that wanted to maintain space for the young pitchers to get innings... well, at least they've done a good job of creating that space. I would have preferred a more competitive team.
Let‘s revisit this in September. At the rate pitchers are going it’s 50-50 anyone will still be pitching in five months time
The team is currently 3 games back in the ALE lead. .5 back in the WC playing with a decimated roster with some players about to return.
I know they often look terrible but every team other than the Braves have had embarrassing games.
I’m impressed by how competitive they actually have played despite the depleted squad. Things look good this season. 86 wins is not only reasonable to foresee right now but I’d even say it’s likely.
Every fan wants their team to be better but the team IS in fact competitive
The 14-13 record is competitive, but the pitching staff is not in great shape, with Cora already having to stitch together bullpen games on a regular basis. We saw how that goes last year.
I know of course…. But the record is essentially what matters at the end of the year. Looks like Pivetta is returning shortly and Criswell looks pretty good.
Grissom will be better than Valdez (right???…. RIGHT?!?!?). Devers should be back and hopefully Dalbec will be gone.
I don’t think it’s hard to see how the team will stay competitive and hopefully Breslow can get another starter by the deadline and Casas can come back do they don’t collapse in August again
Yeah, and Pivetta, Whit, and Bello are all going to be back sooner rather than later from everything I've seen. Not to mention Grissom is going to be here in less than a week, and I'm pretty confident first base will be addressed. And I really like the outfield.
It's a minor miracle that this team is where it is given the decimation of its key components. It's sad so many can't even enjoy it for what it is, even with the frustrating moments that come with a young, inexperienced team.
They lost their entire starting infield, 3/5 of the rotation, their leading home run hitter for stretches and with Story the season, and are above .500 27 games in. Most of the board didn't think the actual projected team could do that. There's a lot to be frustrated with, but this team fights and has no quit, so I expect the upcoming talent infusion will significantly upgrade the product on the field.
Well we'll be waiting a while for that data it seems.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/40016415/giants-blake-snell-placed-15-day-il-adductor-strain
Wow, hadn't seen that. Bellinger is out for a while too, but fractured ribs from running into a wall can't really be pinned on signing late.
I have been enjoying the hell out of this team, which is why I am so frustrated that the front office failed to address a glaringly obvious need by adding another starting pitcher. This team has the chance to be competitive all season, which is a key part of developing all of these young players. But injuries, and innings limits, could derail things really quickly.
No, but it points out the danger of signing a short term deal since the hope of a big payday next offseason really depends on these guys putting up big seasons.
How were they so far off on their assessment of free agents? They offered Imanaga less than half of what he ended up getting?
It's hard to judge exactly how "far off" their assessments were a month into the season, especially if "far off" can be measured in years as well as dollars. Not going harder for Imanaga doesn't look great now. If whatever medical concerns they may have had present themselves at some point and he misses significant time (particularly if it's on the back side of the deal that they were reticent to give) maybe they weren't all that far off after all?
And MLBTR predicted Imanaga would get 5/85.
Then again, they predicted Snell would get 200 and Montgomery would get 150. They had a bad offseason.
I’m wondering what others think about switching up the Winckowski and Whitlock roles when Garret returns
I’m basing their assessments of value by what they offered compared to what the player got.
Of course, as it relates to Imanaga- when the Sox didn’t sign him, the view seemed to be that Breslow knew his stuff wouldn’t translate.
Then there were rumors that they offered him more than he got from Chicago- at that point, the argument seemed to be, nothing we could do- he didn’t want to play here.
Now, we have to wait to see if he gets hurt, I guess, to know.
I have no idea what kind of a pitcher Imanaga will end up being, but a 2 year, $25M deal or whatever seems like it was a waste of time.
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When exactly is Whitlock healthy, though? He had 9 consecutive starts in 22, 7 in 23, 4 in 24.
Winckowski has shown when he is relieving that he can go back to back days. Whitlock not so much. I like the idea of both of them being starters but if one can't fit, I think Winck in the bullpen makes more sense.
And who is also on the List of Guys We Were Already Thankful In Real Time We Didn't Sign.
I’m asking based on the assumption that Whitlock is showing he’ll spend half his service time on the DL if he’s a starter. So yes… a downgrade from him to Winckowski is likely but you’re hoping to keep Whitlock as a steady and very good bullpen arm.
I think the best situation would have been Giolito not being injured and both of them in the pen and obviously that’s something that could still be done if Breslow can trade for a starter…. Although I don’t see that happening
As a Sox fan, this works for me because I got BBD all on my bedroom wall.
Putting Whitlock in the pen doesn't magically protect him from getting injured. As long as he's one of the five best starters on the roster, he should be in the rotation.
If he's going to stay in the rotation he has to demonstrate that his body is up to it. He hasn't so far.
Neither has Pivetta. Or Bello. Maybe they should all be in the bullpen when they return from the IL? /s
Can't prove you can stay healthy in the rotation if you're not in the rotation.
That would explain why this team’s innings distribution is Poisson. I just hope that Slick is ready to go six.
The single biggest way to add value is to develop young SPs, and in most cases that development is about letting them pitch. If you are going to hastily pull the plug on guys because of bad performance or injury, then you are shutting down development, period. It's baseball, not everyone's past is their permanent reality.
Nonsensical question. He can either do it or he can't. It's not a criticism, by all accounts he has worked hard. But he might be one of those guys who can't handle the workload of a starter.
Seriously? Pivetta has pitched at least 133 MLB innings 5 times. Whitlock has exceeded 78 .1 MLB innings 0 times.
Not a real comparison.
But he did have a full season pitching as a multi-inning relief ace in which he didn’t break down.
He hasn’t as a starter.
Again though, what exactly about his injuries have been caused by the workload of a starter as opposed to just dumb luck and misfortune? If it were a fatigue thing or an injury that could be entirely mitigated by throwing 15-20 pitches an outing rather than 80+, I could see the argument for blaming it being a starter. But it hasn't been. None of his injuries the last few years were clearly caused by starting and would have been avoided if he were a reliever.
Nice that you edited out the "/s" clearly indicating I was being sarcastic. Of course it was not a real comparison.
This team still has the lowest team ERA at 2.76, ahead of the Yankees and Royals at 3.01. Their FIP is third lowest in the league at 3.35. I guess I don't understand why we are second guessing the offseason pitching strategy when the results have been fantastic so far, even with injuries. The front office seemed to have a different idea of what the pitchers they had are capable of than many others, and it is paying off, laying the groundwork for what could be a really great pitching staff for years to come.
Our problem is our offense sucks. Rafaela may start hitting but he has been awful at the plate. We have several guys in our lineup with an OPS+ of 31 or below.
Our problem is our offense sucks. Rafaela may start hitting but he has been awful at the plate. We have several guys in our lineup with an OPS+ of 31 or below.
well having Devers back at 3rd upgrades Reyes to Yoshida. Grissom will be replacing Valdez shortly.
Cora appears to value Dalbec’s D at 1B over Ref’s offensive upside and lack of experience at 1B.
just wish a media member would ask…
Despite the low low production out of some (Dalbec, Rafaela, Valdez, Reyes), they're still scoring above league average per game (4.33 vs 4.09 league average). Offense is down across the league. Even with guys like Devers, O'Neill, and Yoshida missing games at various points, they averaged 5.17 runs per game on the recent road trip. They can score runs. Getting Devers and Yoshida in the lineup together, and Grissom coming back this week, can only help them be a bit more consistent with their production.
A lot of the negative thinking has been triggered by the injuries. There was concern from the start about how well this rotation would hold up over 162 games after the loss of Giolito, with only one guy, Pivetta, with any track record of innings.
Nah, we have one of those guys already on the IL; have you met Lucas Giolito?
The best era of pitcher development for the Sox in recent times, maybe ever, was the 80s, when we not only had a homegrown rotation but we'd done a few other teams some big favors in trades (Tudor, Ojeda). Here is a list of these players and when they evolved into durable, consistently good players:
Roger Clemens: year 3, after two minorly injured seasons. He is of course the gold standard here.
Bruce Hurst: Year 4 at the earliest; Year 6 made the real performance leap. First three years a mix of AAA and bullpen.
Oil Can: year 3 or 4, depending on what you call acceptable performance. Some time in minors, but no injuries
Bob Ojeda: year 5; two years of AAA time, year 3 got sent to bullpen and shut down for poor performance.
John Tudor: year 4 at the earliest; two years of AAA time mixed in; injured half of year 3
Al Nipper was who he was from day 1, although I'm not sure that's much to get excited about.
By the standard of "they haven't stayed healthy or been top starters in their first couple years so let's give up on developing them," you would have cut or traded all of these guys except Clemens. You can't do that. You have to wait to see who they become. That takes even more patience now in the era of high spin rates and blown elbows.
Are those guys good comps for Whitlock though? He turns 28 soon and he was never a highly touted prospect. This is his 4th year in the bigs. He had a brilliant season as a "relief ace" in 2021. Since then he's had 3 runs as a starter cut short by injury after 9 starts, 7 starts and 4 starts.
Well, that’s where it gets tricky to compare past eras, timelines are different now as guys miss years for elbow stuff. But those lost years are just subtracted from the development curve, meaning Whitlock’s age 25-27 seasons are comparable to a guy ages 23-25 back then. In the 80s, sure, by age 28 there was no changing your stripes, but we see lots of guys developing later now.
You may be proven right about where is career is going, but I don’t think we know yet. And people lumped Houck (also 28) into the same discussion, and he clearly warrants a full starter’s leash now.
Clemens was 23 in his third year.
Hurst was 25 in his fourth year and had to deal with Don Zimmer being a shithead and questioning his manhood in his first years (he didn’t swear enough for Zim).
Oil Cam was 24.
Ojeda and Tudor were traded before they got really good. Though you can argue that the Sox got value for those trades. Tudor got Easley who got Baylor. Ojeda got Schiraldi (among others). Both Baylor and Schiraldi were instrumental in the 1986 Sox. Plus Schiraldi and Nipper got Lee Smith.
The young guys that we have in the rotation are all, at minimum, two years older than the dudes that you’re referencing so I don’t see this as an apt comparison.
Wanting the Red Sox to get a top-of-the-line starter this offseason is/was not an unreasonable ask. I mean Houck, Whitlock and Crawford are pretty much known quantities at this point in their careers.
The issue was the depth and the ability to go the full season. Houck has been a revelation way beyond prediction but Crawford and Bello have been better than predicted. I don't know how long you want to keep Whitlock as a starter. You need him to at least give you 5 IP consistently especially with all the injuries. If Criswell or Winckowski give you a better opportunity to get there, you need to move on with them when Pivetta gets back. There is a real threat that move than 2/3s of the pitching staff is going to get beyond their career most innings when you get into the meat grinder which September.
I would still be looking to trade away Jansen, o'Neill, Pivetta, Martin, and McGuire if you are .500-.525 team at the end of July.
Known quantities?
This offseason I don’t think many observers thought that two of those pitchers would be in the top three in the AL in FIP a month in, and, perhaps even more stunningly, 10th and 11th in IP.
They still have the capacity to surprise.
I like what they’re doing so far, they’re pitching very well but I think that we need to pump the brakes on comparing this group of young pitchers to Clemens(!), Hurst, Tudor, Boyd and Ojeda after one month.
That’s my point.
In my follow up comment just above yours I explained how you can deal with the age difference from past eras, which is often related to elbow injuries. Also I was all for getting Monty or Yamamoto too, I don't disagree they need another. Just arguing that the guys they have, even Whitlock, should be developed until we are sure they can't handle the role, and we aren't there yet.
That's misreading my point, which was that even guys who evolve into excellent starters *routinely* need time to adjust at the ML level, even years. It was true then and now.