Doctor Google told me that, while a second TJS has a lower recovery rate than a first, recent reports suggest it's not nearly as bad as previously thought.
I mean 2020, sorry if unclear.
The theory is fine. We dont know how he'll do "multiple times per week," but even beyond that, appearances like that can't really be "scripted," like the 7-9 often are. It always seems that such plans end up with "too bad he pitched yesterday," or "why waste him today." As others have said, its not a bad problem to have. And it also may be that "wasting" this asset is not the end of the world, if there are other assets to cover the team's needs.
I suspect Breslow/Bailey Theory goes like this:
It would be absolutely wild for Boras to mismanage one of his pitching clients two offseasons in a row.
I actually think this makes it more likely that "ownership spends money" since if they go over the luxury tax either now, or with an in season acquisiton. This money coming off the books next year, will help go back under.
My thoughts are that while it’s still a bit of a coin flip, the limited time I saw him in the playoffs his stuff looked pretty good. So that’s at least a decent datapoint in the right direction.
But what pitcher can you sign (ever) that doesn't have questions like this? Giolito was the pillar of making his starts, until he wasn't. Pitching is inherently bad for the human body, I can't think of a single pitcher that the Sox could sign and not have question marks about.
Every single pitcher is an injury risk. Burnes is an injury risk because of his massive workload. Crochet is an injury risk because his lack of workload.
Thanks for posting this, good to get some confirmation on it. As @chawson alluded to, I, like others would have preferred something longer term, generally speaking, and assuredly last year. Not from a dumb “is this cheap or not” argument, but because I like having stability in a rotation for planning purposes.
This sounds about right as to their approach. And it certainly makes sense as a hedge against the bolded in 3.
The Priester deal just looks like moving a player that they couldn’t fit into lineup - 2B options are already crowded - for an arm they like. It’s not more complicated than that, and whatever they might’ve thought about him at the time, the Sox now have their own in-house analysis to work from
I was just thinking that with Buehler, we get a player much like Pivetta. A guy with elite stuff, who struggles to harness or command at times. Buehler's price was almost exactly the QO price.
I mean, I agree — but what does "an arm they like" mean? Probably an arm they like as a potential rotation piece, right?
This is a good point. This puts us in a position of strength to deal in a market where pitching is exorbitantly expensive.
I agree on stability. But very few teams have ongoing stability 1-5 year over year. The Sox had 3 guys make over 30 starts last year. That's a pretty stable base. Even if they shuffle things up, those 3 are still on the team.
I’m honestly surprised Buehler didn’t want multiple years. He turns 31 in July. Severino got 3/67, Eovaldi 3/75, Manaea 3/75. He was pretty bad last year outside of a few postseason innings. He’s made about $25M in his MLB career. Taking a big risk by turning down $50M or so and not sure the upside is there for him unless he rediscovers his age 26 season in his age 30 season.
Well if nothing else Breslow and co. are aware that you can't perpetually build rotations on one-year deals, but if Buehler wants to bet on himself and they're fundamentally opposed to deals longer than 2-3 years for over-30 pitching, not much they can do other than aim for someone like Flaherty instead (and who knows if they rate Flaherty as highly). I'm assuming the goal was to get him to sign something roughly equivalent to Giolito's deal.
The combined commitment to Buehler/Sandoval is exactly that. They spread it out over 2 pitchers.
I'd guess he didn't get any offers as close to those given that Severino and Manaea are coming off better seasons; better bet is that he was looking at 2/40 or 3/54 or something along those lines.
It looks like he just wanted a pillow contract to reestablish his value on the open market. That sounds like a pretty reasonable gamble for a professional athlete to make.
With the Sandoval deal, it's like they signed Buehler's replacement before they signed Buehler.
The QO basically functions as a mutual option, but I agree and would have thought he'd get a player option too.
It depends on what you mean by all in. If it’s a 2 year deal for that last piece, maybe not quite yet, but it always makes sense to add all star quality talent and upgrade as much as you possibly can. If the kids are all only Trot Nixon/Andrew Benentendi good, you’ll just need to upgrade more spots down the road. I don’t see the advantage to waiting to make sure they’re what we’re hoping they are. If it doesn’t pan out this year you can sell and reload at the deadline. But if they are Rice/Lynn and you realize it mid season, now you’re going out and overpaying at the deadline to add…
I’m not really sure I understand your point. They spent $21M (with another $3M or so in incentives potentially) on a former elite SP who is 18 months out of his 2nd TJS, who didn’t cost them a draft pick, who could potentially earn them a draft pick (with a QO), and who will be highly motivated to perform next year to go get his last, big contract.
He's just trying to divine the likelihood of future actions based on current actions.
If the other five are healthy and performing halfway decently, there won't be a lot of 4th-5th-6th inning opportunities for Crawford to pitch. If you've got five good starters, they're pitching into/through at least the fifth every game. I certainly understand the desire to have a guy of Crawford's abilities as your sixth starter and things have a tendency to work themselves out (i.e. someone gets hurt or performs poorly), but there are diminishing returns on stashing him in the bullpen the longer the rest of the guys are performing. At some point he's not a starter in waiting, he's just another reliever.
