What's this based on? As I pointed out the other day, he hasn't been anything special on less than 3 days rest.
Career thus far with less than 3 days rest:
25.2 30 14 12 9 28, ERA of 4.21.
Red Sox in season discussion
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Career thus far with less than 3 days rest:
25.2 30 14 12 9 28, ERA of 4.21.
They didn't HAVE to move Whitlock to the rotation then. They could have brought someone up like Seabold, already on the 40-man roster, to get a spot start. They could have just had a bullpen game like most teams seem to have every so often. They could have done a lot of things but they CHOSE to move Whitlock to the rotation.
Sure. That has proven to be a mistake, less due to the performance of Whitlock and more due to the strain put on the pen since their lockdown guy was no longer there. So Robles and Barnes are now left to blow one run leads (seven of them IIRC since Whitlock was moved) instead of having a superior pitcher in there to lock down games.
So I dunno. Seems less than ideal.
Whitlock has been excellent since moving to the rotation, but it's very telling that in his 3 starts he's pitched 12 innings and has allowed only 3 ER but the team is 0-3 in those games because the bullpen has blown 9th or 10th inning leads in two of those games and the 3rd game was a 1-0 loss. Moving him to the rotation hasn't helped the team whatsoever even though he's been stellar because it's not the role the team needs him in right now.
Oh my mistake, I thought that Chaim Bloom was the one making these deals. And I never said that Bloom is the GM, I made it pretty clear in one of my last two posts that he was Head of Baseball OPs or whatever title Henry gave to him. Basically he's the one in charge of the front office; is that okay enough for you Walt?
No doubt Barnes has sucked, but he was rolling pretty good when he signed it (63 K, 11 B, and 4 HR in 38 IP), and the wheels didn't fall off until a month later. I'm not sure what signs were there that this would go badly. And as it is, getting 8 million this year and next is money I'd like to spend elsewhere, sure, but not franchise-altering.
I think the common point of reference here should be Cora. And not Cora as an isolated decision-maker, but a key figure in implementing overall strategy and philosophy.
2018 - featured career players in their prime guided by a "stay the course" player's manager.
2019 - more or less the same club, but a slow start equaled missed playoffs, and probably some correlation to the "stay the course" style. I don't know if you all recall, but we were constantly promised: "it'll get better."
2020 - Cora suspended, whacky season overall. I'm not too stuck on using this as predictive in any sense.
2021 - fast start for a team many wrote off. Faded in late July and August until outside help was added. (Covid forced roster change, so "staying the course" was not an option.)
At the all-star break (July 11) the team was 55-36 and Boston was 1.5 games up on Tampa in the AL East. I'm cherry-picking here, but by Aug 10, they'd fallen to 65-50, five games behind the Rays.
July - Rios and Robles picked up - solid pen additions.
Marwin Gonzalez released Aug 12. .414 OPS in August.
Schwarber, began play Aug 14. .959 OPS for the rest of the season over 168 PAs.
(Also tinkers with Dalbec per reporting sometime after he was acquired on July 29. Dalbec has 1.205 OPS in 72 PAs in August. Then .928 OPS in 85 PAs in Sept.
Shaw, acquired Aug 15. .843 OPS over 48 PAs.
Iglesias acqired Sept 6. .915 OPS over 64 PAs.
2022 - shades of 2019. Slow start, stay the course mentality. "We know deep in our hearts that we're a better team than this, so by golly, we're just going to keep with the same shitty approach."
In retrospect, in 2021, Schwarber was a great pickup, both for his own impact and his influence on Dalbec. Shaw provided adequate spelling and a bat off the bench, while Iglesias locked down the IF defense and was a huge upgrade over Arroyo. But I wonder if the final two moves were not made due to the Covid shakeup. In an alternate world, Marwin would have stayed with the team, and they may not have squeaked into the post-season by the skin of their teeth.
So people are advocating taking Whitlock out of the rotation where he excelled and putting him in the bullpen? I am not sure why. If he is a closer, then what do you do to get to the ninth inning. If Cora is going to continue to cling to the no third time through the order philosophy, then plenty of games will be blown before that. If they decide to use him as a multi inning reliever then he gets to pitch once every three or four days. Who pitches out of the bullpen on the other days? If the Sox had two decent relievers to pitch the 7th and 8th, it might make some sense to keep Whitlock in the pen to take care of the ninth, but moving him to the pen just seems like rearranging deck chairs. Not to mention the fact that if a pitcher is capable of being really good starter, it is a misuse of resources to throw them in the pen.
Did they really, though? Or is that what we tell ourselves after the year? Was a weird year with CoViD but that team had the same core this one has, and made the same kind of depth signings (Moreland, Pillar, Peraza, Perez, etc.). Nothing went right for that team but I think they went into spring training, pre covid, expecting to compete.
Another benefit of having Casas in AAA is that he can continue to rake and we can feel good about the future. Bring him up and he struggles and the bloom is off the rose pretty quickly. It also may not be a great environment for a young kid to be around right now, depending on the mood around the team.
I think we've seen that with the advent of teams reluctant to let their starters face the order a third time, that a starting pitcher has become less valuable, perhaps much less valuable, than in the past. If they're really going to adhere to the idea of not seeing a lineup a 3rd time, then a starting pitcher is realistically doing to go 5 innings max. A dominant, multi-inning reliever taking over the game in higher-leveraged innings 2 or 3 at a time and pitching every couple of days has the potential to make a bigger impact than a starter does in those conditions. 120-130 IP of kickass, dominant relief in the highest-leveraged innings has an enormous benefit, especially for a team that struggles to score runs like this one.
We've already seen that even as Whitlock has pitched well in the bullpen, the team has lost all the games he's started because the bullpen has continuously failed without him.
Whitlock was a unicorn, and the Sox decided to make him a typical draft horse.
Might be something, might be nothing. I'd say the fact that he's still K'ing more than a batter an inning(on less than 3 days) is positive.
30.2 IP w/ 39K in the 8th/9th in his career FWIW. He also clearly- to me- has a closer's demeanor.
(I prefer him as a starter ftr)
Show your work--and it has to be from the beginning of the season. You can't just say that "Ownership wrote off 2020" simply because you like Chaim Bloom.
Well looking at 2018 vs. 2019...
- The 2018 team played as well as humanly possible, really. They could have won like 112 games if they hadn't taken their foot off the gas. BUT...that team was a once in a lifetime squad that played out of their minds. The 1-2 punch of Betts and JDM (186, 173 ops+, respectively) was enormous, and they got huge contributions from Pearce (141 ops+) and Holt (109 ops+). Their rotation was phenomenal: Sale (2.11), Eovaldi (3.33), ERod (3.82), Price (3.58), and even Porcello (4.28).
- The 2019 team saw a lot of guys underperform compared with 2018. Mookie and JD were good, but not remotely AS good as they were in 2018 (134, 139 ops+, respectively). Pearce gave them a 31 ops+. But the key was the failing of the rotation. Look up at their rotation above, then look at this: Sale (4.40), Eovaldi (5.99), ERod (3.81 - only one who was decent), Price (4.28), Porcello (5.52). Their true level was probably between 2018 - when everything went right - and 2019 - when things went poorly for a team this talented. So one year you got the same group where everything went great and the next you had the same group where so much went wrong. They probably were about a mid-90s win caliber team both years.
And obviously it's going to go down from 108 wins and a WS title. Even bringing back the same crew. 108 wins is just...elite elite elite. Never had been done before by a Sox team in franchise history. Of course they were going to be worse. But 84 wins in a year when the pitching staff performs like that? Actually not too bad, to be honest.
- The 2018 team played as well as humanly possible, really. They could have won like 112 games if they hadn't taken their foot off the gas. BUT...that team was a once in a lifetime squad that played out of their minds. The 1-2 punch of Betts and JDM (186, 173 ops+, respectively) was enormous, and they got huge contributions from Pearce (141 ops+) and Holt (109 ops+). Their rotation was phenomenal: Sale (2.11), Eovaldi (3.33), ERod (3.82), Price (3.58), and even Porcello (4.28).
- The 2019 team saw a lot of guys underperform compared with 2018. Mookie and JD were good, but not remotely AS good as they were in 2018 (134, 139 ops+, respectively). Pearce gave them a 31 ops+. But the key was the failing of the rotation. Look up at their rotation above, then look at this: Sale (4.40), Eovaldi (5.99), ERod (3.81 - only one who was decent), Price (4.28), Porcello (5.52). Their true level was probably between 2018 - when everything went right - and 2019 - when things went poorly for a team this talented. So one year you got the same group where everything went great and the next you had the same group where so much went wrong. They probably were about a mid-90s win caliber team both years.
And obviously it's going to go down from 108 wins and a WS title. Even bringing back the same crew. 108 wins is just...elite elite elite. Never had been done before by a Sox team in franchise history. Of course they were going to be worse. But 84 wins in a year when the pitching staff performs like that? Actually not too bad, to be honest.
The real miracle is that Eovaldi has pitched so well after 2019 and getting his extension. He got $100 million less than Sale and has obviously vastly outperformed him.
Does it really matter how lousy the bullpen is when the Sox have 6 players in their lineup who are automatic outs? This lineup is feeble.
Every game they're in is a close one and in a great many games already this season the bullpen has blown the lead and the game in the 9th and the 10th.
When the lineup is feeble you have to be able to protect the slim leads you chance to get. Without Whitlock the bullpen has continually failed to do that.
They're 3-7 in 1 run games. 0-6 in extra innings. And they've scored in some of those extra inning games so sometimes the offense does produce. You betcha the bullpen needs to shoulder a great deal of blame for the failure of this season, and a big reason for that is that their best pitcher was deliberately removed as an option. Doing so has made the results on the field worse.
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When Whitlock joined the team last year, he was used in low leverage spots with several days of rest. Only later in the year, when the team was more desperate, was he used more aggressively. There could be many factors influencing his lesser performance on short rest, not sure how predictive it is though.
Jaylin Davis makes the "Top 12 Players" picture lineup on b-ref.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BOS/2022.shtml
https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BOS/2022.shtml
I thought it was largely agreed upon that 2020 was a punt, but maybe I'm wrong. Mookie was gone, Cora was let go late in the winter, and they barely even tried to piece together a major league-caliber starting rotation. I don't know if I watched more than 9 innings total after the first week that season. It sure seemed telegraphed to me that they weren't remotely trying to compete. But YMMV, as they say.
Hard to imagine Casas hitting worse than Dalbec's OBP .440 even if he had to face lefties.
BTW, are lefties in AAA really that much worse than major league lefties that it'd affect his development?
Probably, with the caveat that no one knew if the season would even be finished.
What they didn't do was load up on long term FA pitching, probably again because they didn't know what the future would hold.
The 60 game season started on July 24. Questionable Rotation was Eovaldi, Martin, Weber (Dec 2018 FA), Osich (Dec 2019 FA), Hall (traded for Jan 2020.)
It was going to be subject to streakiness, but they started moderately poorly and were a quasi-viable 6-9 by August 9, 3.5 games behind the Yanks. Then they reeled off their 9 game losing streak to drop 10 games back, and hold the worst record in the AL at 6-18. And they were done by Aug. 18.
This was their "fire sale:"
- August 21, 2020
Traded Heath Hembree and Brandon Workman to the Philadelphia Phillies. Received Nick Pivetta and Connor Seabold - August 30, 2020
Traded Mitch Moreland to the San Diego Padres. Received Jeisson Rosario (minors) and Hudson Potts (minors). - August 31, 2020
Traded Josh Osich to the Chicago Cubs. Received a player to be named later. The Chicago Cubs sent Zach Bryant (minors) (February 27, 2021) to the Boston Red Sox to complete the trade.
Traded Kevin Pillar to the Colorado Rockies. Received a player to be named later. The Colorado Rockies sent Jacob Wallace (minors) (September 18, 2020) to the Boston Red Sox to complete the trade.
BTW, the box score on Aug 18 pretty much says it all (can't format it but go take a look at who is hitting and who isn't.)
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And FWIW, lots of things made me nervous heading into this season. Honestly, penciling in Kike as our everyday CF made me nervous. Expecting Shaw to be anything but a corpse made me nervous. JBJ outside of snagging fly balls... nervous. Bullpen... nervous.
But I thought this lineup would slug their way to competing. Wrong.
But I thought this lineup would slug their way to competing. Wrong.
Where is this 120-130 innings of relief pitching figure coming from? Going back the last five years or so, the max for a reliever seems to hover between 80-90 innings a season, with one outlier from Ryan Yarbrough and his 88 MPH fastball throwing 118 relief innings in 2018. Throwing Whitlock out there for 120-130 relief innings while he is throwing 96 MPH fastballs two years after he has had Tommy John surgery sounds like a bad idea.
If it's more the same in 2023, I'm all for firing him.
Because it was a weird year with all of like 60 games on the schedule. 2022 very much counts. If they continue to play this way, it should count against Bloom. Enough to get him fired? I don't think so, but if it's the same song and dance in 2023, sure. Can him.
Presumably, they brought him in to build from the farm up. One would think the farm is his area of strength. Building from within. The farm lost a full year. I want to see what the farm can do before firing him, and I think expecting some results from the farm in 2023 is entirely fair. If 2020 had been a normal year for minor league development and the Sox were in the same position, I'd have more issues with Bloom. If 2020 happened, maybe Casas and Duran are already established. Maybe Bello and Walter are in AAA.
Your argument would make more sense if Whitlock could pitch 4 innings per game, six games per week. So now you have him pitching 5 innings every fifth day, instead of going 3 innings every fourth day, which is pretty much a wash. Moving him back to the pen would mean that you only have seven guys capable of blowing a one-run lead rather than the current 8.
There is no reason why Houck couldn't perform just as well in the same bullpen role you suggest, except he's absolutely sucked since being omitted from that Toronto series, which brings his makeup sharply into question.
It's not so much about the results. It's about getting the 60 PA and learning from them.
I could be remembering wrong, but didn't Ortiz struggle vs lefties in the early going of his career? I saw someone make the argument that splits don't really go away. While true, that doesn't mean players don't improve vs L or R as their careers advance.
The irony being that of Whitlock's four relief appearances before he moved to the rotation, one of them involved him giving up a one-run lead. And outside of his last relief appearance, he was never really used in a traditional fireman's role. He was piggy-backing on starters. The idea that he was the lynch-pin of the pen before Houck messed it up is fantasy. The plan all along was to use him in longer stints and eventually move him to the rotation. He's not a closer, he was never intended to be the closer, and screaming for him to be put in that role is about the same as demanding that Eovaldi do it.
I would probably have Whitlock go 2 innings a few times a week, I don't think it's worth the tradeoff to have him go 3 innings every fourth day.
My larger point is that the Sox had a guy who was the ideal multi-inning dominant relief ace, and they took him out of that role because their shithead pitcher couldn't pitch in Toronto (which OK, not what I would have done but defensible) and now have insisted on keeping Whitlock in the rotation despite the fact that 1) they need him more urgently in the pen, 2) his pen replacement has sucked, and 3) a low scoring team needs more help protecting slim leads than starting pitching given 4) the insistence that starters don't see the lineup a 3rd time.
And they've lost every game he's started through no fault of his own for the reasons listed above.
It's not working. It was an experiment where the results haven't come. And they are refusing to adjust to reality.
Is the problem that they took Whitlock out of the bullpen and made it weaker, or is the problem that they brought back the same bullpen from last season that, Whitlock aside, was pretty damn mediocre? He papered over a lot of problems with that group, and as others have noted, it sure didn't seem like there was a set offseason plan with what to do with him. Either way, he belongs in the rotation, but they didn't do the work necessary to bolster the group behind or beyond him. Relying on Barnes to be anything was a mistake, and for whatever reason they thought Strahm and Diekman were viable both-side options. Why not grab one of the better righties available like Graveman or Joe Kelly or Ryan Tepera? Even guys like David Phelps or Archie Bradley or Yimi Garcia would've been helpful. And not one of those players signed for anything near big bucks.
Again, the failure here seems to be an offseason more focused on cutting costs (or at least not incurring additional ones) than beefing up the existing roster. And yes, I know they signed Story, but he fell into their laps. Bloom and company seemed content to stand pat despite visible holes in the lineup and bullpen and went more for low-cost stopgap solutions like Wacha and Hill instead of more reliable/higher-ceiling contributors. That's how you end up in a muck like this.
Again, the failure here seems to be an offseason more focused on cutting costs (or at least not incurring additional ones) than beefing up the existing roster. And yes, I know they signed Story, but he fell into their laps. Bloom and company seemed content to stand pat despite visible holes in the lineup and bullpen and went more for low-cost stopgap solutions like Wacha and Hill instead of more reliable/higher-ceiling contributors. That's how you end up in a muck like this.
All their off-season moves were consistent with them essentially punting the 2020 season. And the big payroll commitments were made prior to Bloom joining. So show your work on why 2020 should matter rather than just stating you don’t like Bloom. And they did sell assets in August, which for the most part turned into useful pieces.
If there is anything to pin on Bloom from that period, it’s the return on the Betts/Price trade. So far, it seems weak, but that canvas is still being painted.
And he's also on the injured list a month into the season; that's why he was available for virtually nothing. That he pitched well during that month is nice, though those numbers are beyond unsustainable, and regardless, he's hurt now. Also, what is it with people nitpicking the smallest points on this board to try to refute an argument? Four good starts from Michael Wacha doesn't mean he wasn't a low-cost stopgap solution or that the offseason wasn't focused on low-cost stopgap solutions, Story aside.
For obvious reasons, the 2020 season was unlike anything that we've experienced before. But going into the year, no one thought that a. the pandemic was going to ravage the world and b. MLB would lose half of its season. I'm obviously not holding that against him. But, looking at that lineup (aside from second base), it's really not that bad (aside from the obvious giant Betts-sized hole): Vazquez, Moreland, Bogaerts, Devers, Benintendi, Bradley, Verdugo, Martinez plus a second baseman should have been able to bring in some runs. Pitching is where there was a weakness. From what I remember, the early spring scuttlebut was that they'd hit and win a bunch of games 8-7, 9-6, etc. You add a couple arms to that bullpen or staff, I'm not saying that they'd win the Series, but they'd certainly finish better than they did that year.
Even if it was a "punt year", I doubt anyone thought they'd end up with the fourth worst record in the league.
I don't think that 2020 should be enough to get Bloom fired. I also don't think that he should be canned after this year, but 2020 is a piece of evidence that needs to be added to his resume. You can't just sweep all of that away because of Covid, any more than you can do that for the other 29 clubs. I do agree with the bolded. I mean, if we're sitting here after the 2023 and Bloom has two last place finishes and a second-to-last place finish out of four seasons; that's a bunch of time. You really have to start thinking about whether this guy can do two things at once (build the farm system and keep the big league club in contention). It's not an easy job and it's not for everyone.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but right now it would take 92 wins to get into the playoffs.
The Sox would have to finish 82-51, .617 the rest of the way. That's a pace of 100 wins over 162.
The Sox would have to finish 82-51, .617 the rest of the way. That's a pace of 100 wins over 162.
Yeah Bobby has a 29 OPS+ right now, and I'd feel pretty damn confident pitching Wiffle to him lefty or righty.
Normally I'm not into rushing guys, but "what if Casas can't hit LHP yet" is not the roadblock here. Dalbec can't hit any HP.
This math-based optimism is a pleasant addition to the thread.
Again: not the point. Hill and Wacha are illustrative of a particular roster-building approach that Bloom took: avoiding expensive long-term deals with top-tier free agents and choosing instead to sign cheaper, middle/lower-tier free agents to short contracts (again, with Story as the exception because of circumstances and context that made him available and acceptably priced). That those two deals have so far worked out — which, hey, that's good — doesn't change what they are or the thinking behind them, and my argument is that the thinking behind them is part of the problem. I mean, that's presumably the same strategy behind signing Robles and Diekman and Strahm, and it's hard to argue they were good choices.
With the way this season is going, there's really nothing preventing Casas from learning on the job. It would probably benefit his long term development vs L assuming the rest of his game is ready.
Heh, I could see how one could take this as optimism (I wasn't being optimistic). It's hard to play at a 100 win pace but it isn't impossible. 2018 is fresh in our memories. And a 6-7 game winning streak right now would really impact the math. Another way of saying it is really early.
This is exactly how I feel. As I mentioned above, bring the kids up, trade off what we can (even if it means Xander and Devers) and see what we've got. Don't see how Casas and others are hurt by being called up in a a completely no pressure situation - we'll simply be battling Baltimore for 4th place. I would honestly rather see the kids playing and get a glimpse of the future than to watch our current lineup trot out everyday ... and I'm someone who love JDM and Xander. Realistically, they'll be gone soon anyhow, so let's try to get something for them. If someone is willing to give Dalbec, Kike, Vaz, and others a shot, great. None are a real part of our future anyhow.
I fully agree with you. I was just responding to the fact that Hill and Wacha were brought up as examples of why this team is in a "muck", when they're two of the few guys with positive contributions to the team this year.
I'm unclear about why you continue to ignore the fact that Whitlock needs 3 days rest to be any sort of ace at all.
120 innings of relief is a good way to ruin a guy's shoulder. The last full-time reliever to throw 100 regular season innings was Scott Proctor and we know how that went. (Eck's favorite Yarbrough threw 118 innings of relief in 2018 but made 6 starts) Last season when Whitlock was used as a multi-inning reliever he had to be shut down. This is a fantasy.
Yeah, it's a lot more fun to watch a developing team lose than to watch an established one lose. Considering how much money this team will have to spend, seeing what they have in Casas, Duran and a few others wouldn't be a bad idea.
I guess the problem with this plan is expecting to compete in 2023 while having a fire sale in 2022. They'd have to get prospects close to the majors or players already in the majors with multiple years of service time left. And if they finish last in 2022 and 2023, Chaim isn't going to last.
Sale needing TJ in March 2020 and Eduardo Rodriguez going down pretty much killed that "season" before it started.
There would have been a huge risk for them trying to fix the roster giving up significant assets with the world being the way it was. It's not like they had seats to fill.
I'm firmly on the wait and see what happens in 2023 train. I'm as disappointed as anyone, but you guys wanting to fire Bloom are nuts.
There would have been a huge risk for them trying to fix the roster giving up significant assets with the world being the way it was. It's not like they had seats to fill.
I'm firmly on the wait and see what happens in 2023 train. I'm as disappointed as anyone, but you guys wanting to fire Bloom are nuts.
Expecting to compete in 2023 looks problematic to me (although people will remind me I’ve been saying that for months). The biggest need is major league ready players…can they get those with the assets they have to deal? 1b and cf seem like the two positions they can potentially fill form within for next year, so it would be good to see they have in Casas and Duran sooner rather than later. The risk there, though, is what if they stink? What then?
Proctor notched 102 IP in 83 games in 2006, including 45 appearances on 0 or 1 day of rest. That's why his arm got burned out.
I am envisioning Whitlock getting 110-120 IP in 55-60 games, which will allow for longer stints in games and more rest between them.