I know. I picked them to win 69 games before this injury. I just think that ownership is perfectly ok with that this year as long as they don’t dip into their construction money and keep the profit margin in place.
Lucas Giolito has an elbow issue.
- Thread starter soxhop411
- Start date
Everything is fine. Ownership is committed to doing whatever it takes to make the team better.
It is sort of interesting though. . .in a SOSH-minority driven world, we'd have Teoscar Hernandez on board and be up against the tax threshold.
As of today, they still have a gap before they get to the threshold.
Whether they will spend more (or not) and whether they should (or not) is a different story.
The team with one of the worst starting staff's in baseball has now subtracted Chris Sale and James Paxton and added exactly nobody. It's nothing short of a disaster.
And yea, that contract structure is looking mighty shitty.
And yea, that contract structure is looking mighty shitty.
Yeah, while the opposite is true. This is what happens when you sign misfit toys. Guys with conspicuously bad recent pasts, and guys who were good a few years ago and are reclamation projects. Time to just sign currently quality players who have been durable and have not been recently injured.
Did you pick a specific number of wins via a post and (optionally) answer some tie-breaker questions? You need that for bragging rights - no actual on-the-money winner can be trumped by a mere poll participant.
This is really one of the worst outcomes that MGT could imagine for an already thin rotation for go-to pitchers. Also Bailey and his Drive - Line guys are probably asking some questions as to trying to get too much torque from a few pitchers. They have that implemented in their checklist any way wherever they worked before.
"Partial tear" and "strain" are both vague and not particularly definitive as far as next treatment steps.
The idea that he may be out for the year certainly implies TJS or some other major elbow operation, so either the UCL "partial tear" and/or the flexor "strain" are pretty high grade.
From Giolito's perspective, great job getting that 2nd year player option tacked on rather than just a 1 year prove it contract. Most likely he will get to showcase himself at some point in 2025 for a new contract.
The idea that he may be out for the year certainly implies TJS or some other major elbow operation, so either the UCL "partial tear" and/or the flexor "strain" are pretty high grade.
From Giolito's perspective, great job getting that 2nd year player option tacked on rather than just a 1 year prove it contract. Most likely he will get to showcase himself at some point in 2025 for a new contract.
I don’t think that they see the tax threshold as a number that they want to be at this year. I think it’s temporary until they finish the construction around the ballpark, but that money is coming from somewhere, and that somewhere appears to be player payroll.
Unless you can point to some kind of pre-season injury concern (I am unaware of any after a casual search, but would like to know if there was such), Giolitto is a quality player who has been durable and who was not recently injured.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/giolilu01.shtml
It's almost like you can watch bias-confirmation slowly gaining momentum here.
So we went into the off-season needing two starting pitchers, and we came out needing three. Man, this year is going to be brutal.
We certainly don't have anything close to enough info to know about this, but the experience with Carl Crawford and others indicates players who are headed into FA at season's end will try to keep things quiet and play through issues that they might otherwise go on the IL for.
You're probably correct. It's just sort of an interesting circumstance. (And I'm not implying holding some cash in reserve was design on their part.)
Seems entirely possible... remember how bad Lackey and Matt Clement were before we discovered their arms were shredded?
Wouldn't he have failed the physical upon signing?
Sounds like Bailey's technique of added velocity did the trick.
I'm not a doctor, but the factors that argue against it would be that they did medicals before they signed him, and supposedly ID'd a mechanical flaw during the signing process that impressed him.
Also, this spring, he significantly increased his velocity because of those mechanical tweaks he implemented.
If anything, I'd guess it's more likely his elbow was strained by the old/new mechanics.
Right. But they knew Lackey's elbow was hanging by a thread because they built that option year trigger into his deal. No such concern with Giolito and I have to imagine they did a full exam including scans back when they signed the deal. Seems more likely it's just bad luck that it happened now than it's some sort of lingering thing that either Giolito hid or doctors missed.
Totally valid, I somehow forgot about the physicals necessary before signing deals.
I do find it rather amazing that doctors equipped with the best technology can't detect issues like this. I felt the same way about Sale.
But doesnt that speak to there likely not being an issue to detect when the physical was done? IANAD (much to dads chagrin)
Giolito wasn’t a misfit toy health wise though. It was literally his biggest asset.
Oh, I remember. And then after June, he pitched to the tune of a 6 ERA, followed by a 6.6 ERA the following year in 65 innings, and then his career was over.
It's amazing that doctors don't have time machines? Okay.
Every single pitcher is a risk for this kind of injury. Every single one. Thinking that there's some way to predict when it will happen and not accurately predicting it is some sort of flaw or shortcoming seems foolish.
FWIW, this means (at least) the Red Sox will in all likelihood have a $14m option on him in 2026 (assuming he pitches less than 140ip in 2025, which seems a good bet).
Which if nothing else means they'll at least have a $14m pitcher in the rotation for 2026 (which is when a lot of us - self included - think the Red Sox might actually have a chance to be good again).
https://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/mlb/lucas-giolito-contract-red-sox-mlb-1.7073653#:~:text=Lucas Giolito hopes to revive,$58 million over three seasons.
(@curly2 got there a moment faster).
Which if nothing else means they'll at least have a $14m pitcher in the rotation for 2026 (which is when a lot of us - self included - think the Red Sox might actually have a chance to be good again).
https://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/mlb/lucas-giolito-contract-red-sox-mlb-1.7073653#:~:text=Lucas Giolito hopes to revive,$58 million over three seasons.
(@curly2 got there a moment faster).
I like the way you used "fewer" and "less" back-to-back, and correctly, and not by accident, I'm sure. Well done!
He probably should just get the surgery as soon as possible to give himself a chance to come back as early as possible in 2025.
Legit concern...who the hell is the team's 6th starter now that Whitlock is most likely moved to the rotation? Nobody else in the bullpen is a capable starter and AAA doesn't seem to have anyone who is ready. We are 1 injury away from having to rely on an opener like last year, except this year this is happening in the 1st week of March. I would love to have Montgomery, but at this point we have to have a Clevinger or Lorenzen at BARE MINIMUM. Ideally, I would take 1 of those guys and Montgomery.
OK, but it's also an indisputable fact that Giolito was getting treated like Charlie Brown at the end of 2023. Folks seemed to be ascribing a lot of that to his divorce situation.
Numbers that bad often indicate a health issue.
If I remember correctly, Clement's first couple months with the Sox were excellent.
They will probably have the option, but not sure they will use it.
Assuming TJS or some similarly major elbow surgery, I doubt they will be too excited to pay a guy coming off a partial 2025 season 14M in 2026. I guess if he pitches great they might go for it.
But Giolito was already a bit of a buy low candidate this offseason. At the end of 2025, it will probably have been a long time since he was particularly good.
Yup, he had an all-star first half before everything went to shit. And Lackey wasn't terrible his first season, but both he and Clement had very long stretches of just awful performance before they finally got off the field.
that's not the point. Any signing/trade in any sport has physicals before it becomes official. Lackey, was already brought up in this thread.. But on the position player side, Mike Napoli had his entire contract re-worked when his physical showed hip issues...
This just shows that even durability is no guarantee... Lucas Giolito rarely missed any extended time in his career. This was not signing someone with a list of injury history like Sale.. With our luck we sign Montgomery and he gets injured within a week
So is the rotation Bello, Crawford, Pivetta, Houck, Whitlock right now, with the depth being Fitts and Weissert?
I don’t think any of those five starters are bad, and I’m actually pretty bullish on Crawford, but I think Houck and Whitlock are better off in the pen. There’s going to be a lot of innings on the bullpen this season. If we’re not going to add Montgomery, then we might as well pick up some scrap heap guy like Kluber, and force him to throw 100+ pitches each start. Who cares if he puts up an 8.79 ERA or whatever.
Honestly would not be shocked if we added Bauer at this point. Horrible person, but will probably give you 150-180 innings for ~$1M
I don’t think any of those five starters are bad, and I’m actually pretty bullish on Crawford, but I think Houck and Whitlock are better off in the pen. There’s going to be a lot of innings on the bullpen this season. If we’re not going to add Montgomery, then we might as well pick up some scrap heap guy like Kluber, and force him to throw 100+ pitches each start. Who cares if he puts up an 8.79 ERA or whatever.
Honestly would not be shocked if we added Bauer at this point. Horrible person, but will probably give you 150-180 innings for ~$1M
I know this was probably said as a joke, but why won't teams take a chance on Bauer? The woman has literally admitted that she set him up, lied about the rape, all to get at his money. He reportedly likes rough sex, he's clearly not a saint, but neither are a bunch of other professional athletes...and he didn't rape the woman and it was mostly her idea in order to make it look like rape so she could set him up. Should her lies ruin his livelihood forever? It's already ruined several years of his life. I say give the guy a chance.
He threw 60 really bad innings last year, but towards the end of that stretch he had a 3 start stretch in september 19.1 innings giving up only 5 earned runs with 27ks and 4 walks. I realize that's a pretty damned small sample, but if his last 2.5 months or so of overall wretched pitching was due to health, would he even be capable of throwing that well towards the end of the that stretch?
Right there's a fair amount of luck (good and bad) with injuries. We've already have Gio and Grissom get hit with injuries - two of my fav offseason acquisitions. I'm just holding on to my horseshoe for O'Neill. But it's possible since he's the one with the injury history, he escapes the bug...
Hey at least we don't have to worry about Giolito winning the Cy Young and opting out - he should be back for '25.