The 2023 Rotation

Max Power

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I'm a little surprised. He was injured and didn't look like his expected self in the short time he was back before the end of the season. I'm guessing there's discussion about a longer term deal with the Sox exclusively. I can't imagine another team will touch him for that amount and lose the draft pick.
Maybe another team is out there with a 3/36 that I can squint and see...
That's my take on it. There's no way any other team is going to give up draft pick compensation to sign Nate Eovaldi. He's either going to sign with the Red Sox or be unemployed until next June.
 

moondog80

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Another multi-year offer to Eovaldi scares me, frankly. I guess they have a sense of his health; they'd better. I like the guy a lot, but he's already the most accomplished multiple TJS recipient, and he finished the season with considerably diminished velocity.

Here are a few pitchers' combined line over the last six seasons.

Pitcher A: 469 IP, 87 GS, 115 ERA+, 3.30 FIP.
Pitcher B: 519 IP, 94 GS, 111 ERA+, 3.79 FIP.
Pitcher C: 568 IP, 95 GS, 149 ERA+, 2.66 FIP.

Pitcher A is James Paxton;
Pitcher B is Nathan Eovaldi;
Pitcher C is Chris Sale.

I mean, the 6 year window is obviously chosen to include 2017, when Eovaldi didn't pitch at all. If you went with last 3 years it would be 21.2 IP, 340 IP, and 48.2 IP.
 

GB5

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MiamiRedhawk. First of all I love Oxford. Great campus. Anyways it’s my recollection that most assumed that Sale was hurt in those playoffs as he couldn’t get through 3 innings, his release point was lower and his velocity was diminished.
 

chawson

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That's my take on it. There's no way any other team is going to give up draft pick compensation to sign Nate Eovaldi. He's either going to sign with the Red Sox or be unemployed until next June.
Good point. Eovaldi’s not especially old and he’s reportedly a very hard worker. I’d bet on a bounce back.

One thing that seems underemphasized is that signing Eovaldi and Hill, two guys who seem to want to be here more than anywhere, frees us up to trade someone else, likely Pivetta and/or Houck, who are valuable in this pitching-starved market.

I know everybody likes Pivetta’s innings, but we have a ton of major-league ready starting pitching depth (or at least 40-man-rostered pitching). If somebody goes down, we have the arms to replace him. Pivetta is helpful but his presence or absence is not capable of making or breaking our season.

Sale
Eovaldi*
Whitlock
Pivetta
Bello
Paxton
Hill(?)
Houck
Crawford
Winckowski
Seabold
Mata
Murphy
Walter
Ward
 

chrisfont9

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For anyone who is saying "Eovaldi's last fastball wasn't that fast and is therefore his new permanent reality," I'll just point out that he was hitting 96, one start after being slightly below that, in his two post-injury starts in October. In July when he came back from his sore back, he was at 97, 97, 96 and then 98. Earlier in spring he was hitting 100, coming into the season healthy and fully prepared. It seems much more likely that the fully prepared Eovaldi is the one we can expect to see when circumstances allow, not the guy who rushed back to throw a few last innings before hitting the FA market. Unless you think he was broken somehow by his last injury, which is possible but not very likely.

The Sox are treating him like a team mainstay who has been a postseason ace and who does not appear injured at all. I doubt that he is somehow on the decline in a way that only the fans can see.

[Hope this works]
https://www.fangraphs.com/players/nathan-eovaldi/9132/graphs?pitchgraphs=true&statArr=&legend=1&split=base&time=daily&start=2022&end=2022&rtype=single&gt1=15&dStatArray=FA&ymin=&ymax=
 

nvalvo

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I mean, the 6 year window is obviously chosen to include 2017, when Eovaldi didn't pitch at all. If you went with last 3 years it would be 21.2 IP, 340 IP, and 48.2 IP.
It absolutely was, you're right. I was trying to emphasize that Eovaldi is also an oft-injured pitcher who finished the season injured (edit: to be clear, I'm aware he pitched at the end of the season; I'm also aware that his fastball was 3-4 mph below normal), so including his second Tommy John surgery in the comparison with two other oft-injured pitchers who finished the season injured is preceisely the point.

That he's thrown a decent number of innings since his second Tommy John surgery is not as reassuring as some seem to think.
 
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Sandy Leon Trotsky

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For anyone who is saying "Eovaldi's last fastball wasn't that fast and is therefore his new permanent reality," I'll just point out that he was hitting 96, one start after being slightly below that, in his two post-injury starts in October. In July when he came back from his sore back, he was at 97, 97, 96 and then 98. Earlier in spring he was hitting 100, coming into the season healthy and fully prepared. It seems much more likely that the fully prepared Eovaldi is the one we can expect to see when circumstances allow, not the guy who rushed back to throw a few last innings before hitting the FA market. Unless you think he was broken somehow by his last injury, which is possible but not very likely.

The Sox are treating him like a team mainstay who has been a postseason ace and who does not appear injured at all. I doubt that he is somehow on the decline in a way that only the fans can see.

[Hope this works]
https://www.fangraphs.com/players/nathan-eovaldi/9132/graphs?pitchgraphs=true&statArr=&legend=1&split=base&time=daily&start=2022&end=2022&rtype=single&gt1=15&dStatArray=FA&ymin=&ymax=
I get your point… but he’s better than a league average pitcher in quality…. Won’t face the ALE as much next season and has some real nasty stretches in him- plus great quantity.
You can virtually guarantee that he’ll toss 175+ innings around a 4.3ERA.
Can you you say that about anyone else on the roster?
Edit- shit…. I’m going to predict him to get his ERA below 4.00 for next season too
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Eovaldi has thrown 175 innings+ twice in his career. In one of those years, he had an 85 era+.

Had some great moments for this team, but he’s 33. I’d be inclined to take the pick and move on.
 

chrisfont9

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Eovaldi has thrown 175 innings+ twice in his career. In one of those years, he had an 85 era+.

Had some great moments for this team, but he’s 33. I’d be inclined to take the pick and move on.
By "he's 33" do you mean you don't want a multiyear deal? 33 itself isn't old anymore, and anyway it comes down to wear and tear more than anything. I'd take him back on the QO deal in a heartbeat, but that's not likely now that he declined. Two or three years seems like a good gamble on a guy who has been so clutch and such a leader.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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I mean, he’s 33 with a 101 ERA+ in his career. In a rotation that is already counting heavily on Sale and Paxton, I don’t know that he’s the guy I’d give $18-$20M per for 3 years to. Granted, he’s been better for the Sox than anyone else in his career, but what do we expect his age 33-35 years to look like? Then again, any of the guys who get a deal like he will sign for are similarly risky and I’m not sure what else the Sox are going to do with the money.
 

chawson

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I mean, he’s 33 with a 101 ERA+ in his career. In a rotation that is already counting heavily on Sale and Paxton, I don’t know that he’s the guy I’d give $18-$20M per for 3 years to. Granted, he’s been better for the Sox than anyone else in his career, but what do we expect his age 33-35 years to look like? Then again, any of the guys who get a deal like he will sign for are similarly risky and I’m not sure what else the Sox are going to do with the money.
This doesn't seem like an especially charitable way of looking at it. He's also got the 18th-lowest FIP (3.36) and 19th highest fWAR (6.7) among starters over the last two years. I wouldn't be at all surprised if his age 33-35 seasons looked like Lance Lynn's, Charlie Morton's or Yu Darvish's.

Using your lens, why not just sign Eovaldi at his crowdsourced 2/$30 and trade Pivetta? He's also under control for two years and his career ERA+ of 87 is far worse than Eovaldi's. There are only 17 starters out there projected to get multi-year deals, and two of them have already been signed. Surely someone would give up something interesting for Pivetta at 2/$16~ million, and we'd have Eovaldi and plenty of others on the 40-man to replace his league-average innings.
 

chrisfont9

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This doesn't seem like an especially charitable way of looking at it. He's also got the 18th-lowest FIP (3.36) and 19th highest fWAR (6.7) among starters over the last two years. I wouldn't be at all surprised if his age 33-35 seasons looked like Lance Lynn's, Charlie Morton's or Yu Darvish's.

Using your lens, why not just sign Eovaldi at his crowdsourced 2/$30 and trade Pivetta? He's also under control for two years and his career ERA+ of 87 is far worse than Eovaldi's. There are only 17 starters out there projected to get multi-year deals, and two of them have already been signed. Surely someone would give up something interesting for Pivetta at 2/$16~ million, and we'd have Eovaldi and plenty of others on the 40-man to replace his league-average innings.
Indeed, the best year of his career, bar none, was 2021, when he racked up a 2.79 FIP and 4.5 bWAR. So either his downturn in 2022 was that his body is now suddenly old and worn down, or he had a couple minor injuries that scrambled his season. I think he's a very good bet to bounce back and his aging cliff is still somewhere off in the future.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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If Eovaldi is willing to take a 2/$30 deal, yeah, I’m sure the Sox would be down with that. I suspect he’s looking for more years and a higher aav though (as he should).
 

chrisfont9

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If Eovaldi is willing to take a 2/$30 deal, yeah, I’m sure the Sox would be down with that. I suspect he’s looking for more years and a higher aav though (as he should).
A bit? The QO might have squashed that. I can see another club being tempted at 3x$15 or $16 but not much beyond that. Sox could do that easy, maybe with an option on the end.
 

Max Power

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That makes sense for a team that's trying to rebuild the farm. You don't want the international bonus pool wiped out by signing anything but a very top of the line free agent. Xander and Correa are the clear shortstop targets and would likely be worth a premium over Turner and Swanson just because of the QO implications.
 

moondog80

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Petagine in a Bottle

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Is there any guarantee that they will spend to the cap, though? Bogaerts, Eovaldi, Abreu, Conforto and and a reliever or two would prob get you close. And they could extend Devers. Or trade for high priced players / lousy contracts.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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That makes sense for a team that's trying to rebuild the farm. You don't want the international bonus pool wiped out by signing anything but a very top of the line free agent. Xander and Correa are the clear shortstop targets and would likely be worth a premium over Turner and Swanson just because of the QO implications.
Plus all four guys come with health question marks or age concerns that make a long term investment questionable at best. And really, you want to make a long term commitment if you're giving up picks and bonus money for a QO recipient. Verlander is probably the only one that won't require more than a two year commitment, but at age 40 and as the reigning Cy Young winner, why would he sign on to a re-build instead of going somewhere that he'd be the last important piece for a title push (like the Mets or going back to the Astros)?
 

moondog80

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Is there any guarantee that they will spend to the cap, though? Bogaerts, Eovaldi, Abreu, Conforto and and a reliever or two would prob get you close. And they could extend Devers. Or trade for high priced players / lousy contracts.
No guarantee, but they've been there or close every year, factor in the pressure they are under and my guess is they get there or very close.
 

chawson

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Is there any guarantee that they will spend to the cap, though? Bogaerts, Eovaldi, Abreu, Conforto and and a reliever or two would prob get you close. And they could extend Devers. Or trade for high priced players / lousy contracts.
Is there ever any guarantee? The Sox haven't finished a year more than $5M below the luxury tax threshold since it mattered. I think it's been since 2009, and that was functionally a much different CBA and set of rules overall.

https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/al-east/boston-red-sox/
 

nighthob

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Multiple instances? Sale went on the IL in 2018 with shoulder inflammation. That's the end of the list of instances of his arm health being "severely compromised." There was always talk of his frame and his violent delivery being a recipe for elbow problems eventually, but until 2019, after the extension was signed, there were no visible signs of it. The revisionist history has to stop.
After July of 2018 he was pretty ineffective. There were definitely visible warning signs, otherwise there wouldn't have been a 72 page thread on the extension.