Isn't easier to find someone to slot in for the 8th inning then to find a relief ace to supplant Koji as closer? And why exactly are we pushing Koji down to the 8th inning anyway?Rasputin said:
"This too shall pass" ---- righting the ship for 2016
- Thread starter In my lifetime
- Start date
swingin val said:
The Sox need to succession plan for both Koji and Taz. Each of them has only one year left, anyway.
Koji's past 40 and was starting to look mortal even before breaking his wrist. Taz has been proctored and no longer looks likely to hold up well through a full season, even in a set-up role.
In fact, a solid case could be made that the Sox should trade Koji and Taz in the offseason, to reduce salary and bring back some young fireballing prospects a couple or more years away.
I've been starting to think that the best course of action this offseason might be to raze the entire 2015 bullpen to the ground in order to build up a whole new one.
Rasputin said:
I actually think Ross has earned the "primary lefty" job. Here are his numbers since June 24, when he turned 26
24 app
29 IP
22 H
10 ER (plus one unearned)
2 HR
10 BB
28 K
He clearly struggled earlier in the year, but he seems to have turned it around.
So really it's only two relievers, including one top-of-the-line guy.
The reality is that someone we view as "reliable" this year is likely to flame out next year or get hurt - that's just the nature of bullpen arms - so whatever number of arms we think we need, we probably need one more than that.
The good news in my view is that some of the extra arms might be sitting down in AAA. Guys like Hembree, Barnes, Light and Aro all represent potentially attractive pieces in the 2016 bullpen. All have shown either plus stuff (Light, Barnes, Hembree) and/or consistently dominate AAA hitting (Hembree, Aro). All of them are young and I believe all have options to move up/down as needed. Even if just one of them sticks, that'd be a nice, cheap piece to add.
The good news in my view is that some of the extra arms might be sitting down in AAA. Guys like Hembree, Barnes, Light and Aro all represent potentially attractive pieces in the 2016 bullpen. All have shown either plus stuff (Light, Barnes, Hembree) and/or consistently dominate AAA hitting (Hembree, Aro). All of them are young and I believe all have options to move up/down as needed. Even if just one of them sticks, that'd be a nice, cheap piece to add.
I'm figuring guys like Hembree and Aro (and maybe Varvaro) would ride the Pawtucket shuttle in case of injuries. Even if none of them break out the way we'd like, they should be fine if all you need is the 12th guy in a bullpen.
I'm assuming guys like Barnes and Workman will start in the Pawtucket rotation but could slide to long relief if needed.
I'm assuming guys like Barnes and Workman will start in the Pawtucket rotation but could slide to long relief if needed.
jscola85 said:
Very good post.
Building a good bullpen is a vital and relatively bizarre process, from what I can tell. That said, I think heading into 2016 with Koji, Taz, and the cheap AAA guys (Light, Barnes, Hembree) is already a decent headstart. There are also some interesting names on the free agent list (Soria, O'Day) and others that may be available through trades (Kimbrel, Chapman).
With a few additional pieces, it's even possible that the pen could go from being a weakness in 2015 to a strength in 2016, and I'm fascinated to see what Dombrowski does.
Edit: It's funny how much August has changed my opinion. I'm fairly excited about 2016, with the BBC covering the globe in the OF and an opportunity to reset the pitching staff.
Michael Dyer @Mike_Dyer13 6m6 minutes ago
Dombrowski on MLB Network: 'Guy who can "head rotation" is the off-season priority' 'We view Hanley as our 1B in 2016, Shaw a fallback'
Dombrowski on MLB Network: 'Guy who can "head rotation" is the off-season priority' 'We view Hanley as our 1B in 2016, Shaw a fallback'
dynomite said:
I think one very good RHPer set up 8th inning type and one very good LHPer set up 8th inning type is all that is required.
That seems readily obtainable from the FA market.
I am OK provisionally pencilling Koji and Tazawa into closer and 8th inning slots respectively but both of these options require significant hedging. If you add Soria (or O' Day or Clippard Ziegler etc.) and a good lefty like Sipp (or Howell or Bastardo or O. Perez) that gives you 4 decent options at the back end. We should be able to fill the rest of the slots with Wright, whoever loses the 5th starter competition (Kelly or Owens?), and the one best from Barnes, Ross, Layne, Ogando, Hembree, Johnson etc.
That is exactly what I want to hear. With the RS financial capability and minor league assets, a GM making that statement and the availability of several #1 pitchers, it is hard to imagine the RS not addressing this issue.soxhop411 said:
Now if Hanley can be the answer at 1B (remains to be seen), then that takes care of the position players.
And out of the shortcomings of the team, the bullpen is the least expensive and most unpredictable to address.
I feel the RS will go into the season with:
C Swihart, Hanigan + Vazquez (when ready)
1B Ramirez, Shaw
2B Pedroia
SS X
3B Panda
LF Betts
CF JBJ
RF Castillo
DH Papi
Supersub - Holt
4th OF - TBD
Rotation
#1 - TBD
#2 - Buchholz if healthy
#3 - EROD
#4 - Porcello
#5 - Miley
Depth - Kelly, Owens
BP
Closer/8th - Koji
Closer/8th - TBD
7th/8th - Tazawa
Rest of pen - a shake out of what is currently on the roster under team control for next year
3 TBDs to be addressed with the following assets
~35M available
One of 3 catchers
Any positional players in the minors except Moncada
One of the pitchers who constitute starting pitching depth (if Buchholz not healthy then this is not available but 13M more is available.
So to do list starts with
Medically evaluating Buchholz and making sure he can pitch before giving him his 13M
Work Hanley at 1B and make sure he is capable
Then the TBDS
It seems to me the RS are in a good position to fill all of their roster insufficiencies of this year.
I know this isn't an original point, but looking at lifetime's "to-do list" really underscores just how good a job Cherington did in terms of overall organizational strength, depth, developing and integrating talented young players, etc. It's only because he failed so spectacularly at the higher-priced add-ons to that organizational depth that he's out of a job. The disconnect between his strengths and weaknesses (or, more charitably, the bets that haven't worked out) is not something I think I've ever seen before in a personnel guy.
Yossarian said:
I agree with you. The failures were certainly not Ben's alone.
Who decided that sight unseen HRam could play LF?
Now that Castillo and JBJ are looking like very competent outfielders, was it Farrell or someone else who favored vets over them to relegate them to the minors for half the season?
Despite the hand-wringing over trading for Kelly/Craig, the deal could still look good next year if Kelly continues pitching well. At this point, the Craig portion looks like a total waste.
It is just a lot of things went wrong for the RS in the 1st half
Some on scouting, some on Ben, some on Farrell, some on just plan bad luck and some on unexpected poor performance.
I think Ben deserves criticism for (at least from what we can guess was done in his name --- who really knows who pushed for the moves) :
HRam - going along with any SS can play LF. But if he can play 1B and hit like he did the 1st month, this could work out to be ok (it will never be a great move - since the 1st yr is already a complete failure)
Porcello - premature signing. Even if he does well, the signing should have waited until he pitched for a month or so. This is probably an over-reaction for failing to sign Lester the prior year before he put up great numbers in 2014.
Panda - hard to imagine this deal will be anything more than marginal.
BP - I never understood the 2 year signing of Koji and then for the same AAV, not signing Miller. I would much rather have taken the extra 2 year gamble on Miller. Of course, Koji has been fine, but Miller is exactly the type of BP pitcher the RS needed. The 4 @ 40 deal never seemed out of line to me either. Breslow - I didn't quite get that signing, but it was not for multiple yrs or huge $
Deals that looked terrible 2 months ago, could still work out well
Craig/Kelly - Kelly alone could make this deal a good one.
Castillo signing
Moves (nontrades) that look very good
JBJ - not trading him
Miley - very reasonably-priced innings eater
ERod trade
And we should always be indebted to Ben for somehow pulling off a miracle reset button with the Punto trade.
In retrospect, it is just too much to ask to be a competitive team when you have changed 4/5ths of your rotation from the previous last place finish + your very reliable 8th inning pitcher and 2/3rds of the middle of the lineup. Players have to settle in and you are bound to get surprises - some good and some bad.
Great point on the Miller signing. I actually remember thinking at the time that that's the one loss we'd really regret, and that while I'd normally avoid overpaying for relievers, throwing money at a dominant power arm just coming into his prime and who clearly worked well in Boston would have been a risk worth taking. Especially with a 40-something guy like Koji as your other major option, and then a bunch of flotsam and dice rolls.
When Dombrowski talked about "power arms", do we know if he was talking about starters, relievers...or both?
It's certainly in vogue now to have hard throwers come out of the bullpen - if they have 3 pitches, well all the better. It also seems that splitters are the flavor of the month.
I'm bringing this up because the only "power arm" (short of the one the Red Sox are picking up this off season) right now is Kelly.
If it came down to a #5 (Ace, Porcello, Buchholz, Rodriguez, ?) being between Miley or Kelly - who do you pick as the starter (assuming both are kept and one goes to the pen).
Earlier I proposed Miley to the pen (based on his inability to get people out 3rd time around - and his uncanny ability to prevent stolen bases), but maybe Kelly can control his stuff and come out of the pen throwing 99. Unless Chapman is walking through that door, I don't see anywhere obvious where the team picks up a bona fide closer (or wants to pay stupid money or treasure for one).
I hope I'm wrong.
It's certainly in vogue now to have hard throwers come out of the bullpen - if they have 3 pitches, well all the better. It also seems that splitters are the flavor of the month.
I'm bringing this up because the only "power arm" (short of the one the Red Sox are picking up this off season) right now is Kelly.
If it came down to a #5 (Ace, Porcello, Buchholz, Rodriguez, ?) being between Miley or Kelly - who do you pick as the starter (assuming both are kept and one goes to the pen).
Earlier I proposed Miley to the pen (based on his inability to get people out 3rd time around - and his uncanny ability to prevent stolen bases), but maybe Kelly can control his stuff and come out of the pen throwing 99. Unless Chapman is walking through that door, I don't see anywhere obvious where the team picks up a bona fide closer (or wants to pay stupid money or treasure for one).
I hope I'm wrong.
He was great at everything other than getting his major league roster to win baseball games over the past 2 years.In my lifetime said:
Unfortunately, that's the thing. And it's a little confused these days, because some seem to think that the thing is to maximize the efficiency of roster construction or to create a sustainable developmental pipeline of young prospects or to maximize WAR per $.
But no. Those things are, at best, means to the end of winning major league baseball games. While BC gave us plenty of stuff to work with to create a team that could win baseball games, he failed ultimately because he didn't properly value making those final, critical moves to turn the 2014 and 2015 Red Sox into the dominant teams that they could have been.
DD's sins in Detroit were the opposite - he was, arguably, too aggressive, or too pushed by his aggressive owner, to win now. We could use a bit of that.
PrometheusWakefield said:
Yes, because that approach worked out great in Detroit, right?
Cherington is out of a job because he was not able to do what a GM, if truly invested in building sustainable success, has to be able to do in Boston. Satisfy the "monster" that is the combination of NESN, an impetuous ownership and the now entitled fan base, while building the "next great Red Sox team". I think Theo's greatest skill was to blend the win-now and build for the future; he gave out his share of hideous contracts too, but those were mitigated by better major league performance. The struggle to achieve those two goals at the same time chewed up Theo, and spit him out to run away to a place where he'd have more leeway to do it his way. The inability to do it cost Cherington his job - that, terrible major league evaluation and the fact that DD suddenly became available.
We'll see how DD does it; I'm not a huge fan of his work in Detroit, but there's no denying that he's as good a GM as anybody in MLB today (IMO better than Beane, who I think is overrated - had to say it) to take a stab at it.
PrometheusWakefield said:
Why, exactly, is that the case? Yes, 2 last place finishes in the last three years. Yes, the team is in last place now. But the team is also two years removed from a World Series which was its third in a nine year span. I'm not sure why "win now" has to be prioritized to the same extent that it was/is in Detroit (where they have an aging, title-less owner and a 30+ year championship drought).
Cherington certainly has "sins" on his resume. But the only reason he's out of a job at the moment is because DD became available. If Dombrowski hadn't been let go by the Tigers, Cherington's job was probably still secure.
I firmly believe that the changing of the guard on Yawkey Way over the last few weeks is less "Cherington fucked up and had to go" and more "Dombrowski is available and Henry has wanted him back in his employ since he left the Marlins".
PrometheusWakefield said:
I would argue that signing both Hanley and Pablo last year was precisely being "too aggressive," and came from overvaluing "making those final, critical moves." Ben's problem isn't that he was too patient, it's that he wasn't patient enough. He and/or ownership caved in to fan and media pressure after the last-place finish and overcompensated with moves that got us into the same pickle we were in back in 2012, but with much less hope of getting out of it quickly. If DD is likely to do more of that kind of thing, and not less, then we could be in for a bumpy ride.
That's quite a lot of news. Pete Abe's piece on JBJ also says they're moving him back to CF and Betts to a corner. Change is coming awfully quickly.soxhop411 said:
Snoop Soxy Dogg said:
Let's look at the record:
2001 (1 BD): 66 wins
2002 (1 AD): 55 wins
2003: 43 wins
2004: 72 wins
2005: 71 wins
2006: 95 wins - went on to the WS but lost in 5, the last 2 losses by scores of 5-4 and 4-2
2007: 88 wins
2008: 74 wins
2009: 86 wins
2010: 81 wins
2011: 95 wins - lost the ALCS to Texas in 6, including 2 extra-inning losses
2012: 88 wins - swept by SF in the WS, including two 2-0 losses and an extra inning (1 run) loss in game 4
2013: 93 wins - lost ALCS to Red Sox in 6, we all know the details (suffice it to say it was "close")
2014: 90 wins - swept in ALDS by Orioles, game 3 a 2-1 loss
Is that considered a failure? Turning around a 100-loss team and ending up in the playoffs 4 of the last 4 years?
geoduck no quahog said:
I don't think I said Detroit was a "failure". But it certainly wasn't a resounding success. Listing the wins is nice, but ignores context. Detroit has consistently had the largest payroll in that division, the division (other than Detroit) was largely terrible for some time, and their performance when they made the playoffs wasn't that great (yes, "it was close", "extra inning", etc.), and in many of those cases, they were undone by DD's bullpens, year after year. I like DD, but he has his warts.
One thing that I'd assume suffers little dispute is that the organization he's getting from Cherington is in much better shape that what he bequeathed to Avila in Detroit. (And yeah, "the owner made him do it", but the owner will put pressure on him in Boston too).
All that said, if you're going to get rid of Cherington (and there certainly was a good case for doing so), getting DD is probably as good as anybody you'll get; I guess I'm just a little more guarded than most in my enthusiasm for him.
I think the larger question isn't DD per se, but what his hiring means. What exactly his mandate is, given the ownership and fan base's impatience with losing - We'll just have to wait to see what moves he makes, it's a bit pointless to render major judgment now. But it's fair, I think, to have some trepidation, if one believes that long term, sustainable success is built through the farm system.
Good god...geoduck no quahog said:
Four straight years in the playoffs is respectable enough, particularly for a team built around quality pitching, which can be a bit more fickle than offense. Naturally, that includes some luck in so far as injuries never quite piled up high enough to derail them, or maybe simply being in the AL Central is luck enough. And I've certainly had my issues with the type of team they built, which was mercilessly exploited by the Sox in 2013 (slow, ham-fisted, etc). But even if you don't love Dombrowski's work in Detroit, as I don't, you have to at least admit that it was solid.
Savin Hillbilly said:
Yeah signing the wrong guys is a bad idea. So is drafting the wrong ones. Or trading for the wrong ones. If you wait to develop a player at every single position at roughly the same time, you can be waiting a long time just based on chance. You need to combine all three.
Im not conviced about Rusney, to tell you truth. Im fine with Mookie and JBJ going foward, but I would like to trade for some power corner outfielder who isnt a butcher on the field. My candidate? Carlos Gonzalez. Plus he is signed through the next two seasons. He was miserable during this year at some point and now he is putting very good numbers. Supposedly, he was available before the trade deadline. All in all, an OF of CarGo, JBJ and Betts would be terrific. And I guess there must be some interest in Rusney, right?
ArgentinaSOXfan said:
Meh. His value is on the rebound and the Rockies will be asking a lot for him now that he's mashing. He's got a huge platoon split (career 89 wRC+ vs. LHP), a career 102 wRC+ on the road, he's a significant injury risk and only an average defender. Project Rusney's current line over a full season and he's a 2 win player. Not hard to imagine a bit of improvement there and him being a 2.5 or 3 win guy next season.
Sure, CarGo could bounce back to being a 3.5-4.5 win player and stay healthy. But he could also end up being worse than Rusney next year, and more expensive. There's a lot of volatility in that acquisition, and it appears to be a position of relative strength, or at least adequacy. I would rather worry about upgrading the rotation, and hedge against any OF troubles by bringing in a decent 4th OF type with some LH pop.
ArgentinaSOXfan said:
It's an interesting idea, although I'm not convinced CarGo is enough of a lock to be better than Rusney to be worth giving up his likely talent price for. He's a career .756 hitter on the road; granted, the road parks in the NL West are brutal for hitters--especially if your home park is Coors. Also, he's probably not as good a defender as Rusney, so that evens the scale between them a bit more. OTOH, he's a legit LH power hitter, and would make nice Papi insurance in that regard over the next year or two.
Also, FWIW, I think there's at least as much reason to be wary of JBJ as Rusney; his recent outburst is encouraging as hell, and I'm not saying I see any reason to doubt that it could be for real, but I think it's too soon to count on it. For that matter, while I think Mookie has shown enough to confirm our early suspicions that he has a respectably high floor, it's far from clear yet what his ceiling will turn out to be.
I think we should go into 2016 with those three guys in the OF, see how that works, and make whatever adjustments turn out to be needed at the trade deadline or in the 2016-17 offseason, rather than trying to pick the winner(s) among them speculatively this winter.
The real reason to doubt that Bradley is for real is his strikeout and contact rates, which remain worryingly high.
Hitting doubles instead of groundouts to second when he does make contact is a big improvement, though.
Hitting doubles instead of groundouts to second when he does make contact is a big improvement, though.
nvalvo said:
His K rates are indeed high, but JBJ's path to success was never in becoming an elite bat-to-ball guy, it was in having a good approach (11% BB) and having surprising pop for a guy of his size and defensive skill. If he gets to something like .260/.320/.420 that's an above average hitter which combined with his defense and team control makes him incredibly valuable.
Savin Hillbilly said:
Well, so imagine if instead of this offseason:Toe Nash said:
- Trade Cespedes for Porcello (+ extension)
- Sign Sandoval for $85m
- Sign Hanley for $95m
- Trade spare parts for Miley
- Sign Masterson for $12m
We had this offseeason:
- Trade prospects for Hamels (or if you prefer spending money on Lester, do that the rest of the numbers end up about the same)
- Sign Scherzer for $210m
- Sign Headley for 4/$52
- Trade spare parts for Miley
Where would we be?
1) Our outfield defense would have been massively better, with Hanley's -17.9 runs replaced by Cespedes +18.1. Our infield defense would have better, as Headley despite being below average this year (-1.2) is still massively better than Sandoval at -14.7. That's 49.5 runs of better defense! 49.5 runs less damage to every one of our SPs and to our bullpen.
2) Our rotation - Scherzer-Hamels-Buchholz-Miley-Kelly, with Edro on his way up - would be one of the best in the league, rather than one of the worst. I have Scherzer and Hamels at +8.1 WAR better than Porcello and Masterson so far and +9.5 WAR over a full season out of the rotation.
3) Our offense would be way better, as Cespedes (+24.7) and Headley (+3.5) have outhit Ramirez (-7.5) and Sandoval (-17.1). Overall thats 52.8 runs of better offense.
4) Our 2015 payroll would be about $8m lower granting us the backdated contract on Scherzer and Porcello, or about the same if you go by AAV. Our long term payroll obligations would be about $80m higher, most of that of course Scherzer.
So put that all together, 52.8 runs of offense plus 49.5 runs of defense plus 8.1 WAR of improved pitching is 18.33 more wins this season. 18 additional wins in 2015 would put the Red Sox 79-54, tied for the third best record in MLB, second best in the AL and 3 games better than the Blue Jays in the AL East. And that's before we think about second order impacts of all these moves. How much better would the pitching be if we didn't have to throw all those extra pitches because of our lousy defense. How would our performance through July impact our decisions at the deadline. Etc etc.
And notice, that's not a particularly original offseason. Obviously any offseason you can pick apart to find guys who did remarkably well and who in hindsight was a huge steal. I'm not doing that. I'm saying that if the Red Sox had gone into the last offseason saying "lets use our resources to build the best possible rotation for a team designed to win a championship" and brought in 2 of the 3 most obvious, public targets to do that, this team would right now be competing for a championship and Ben Cherington would clearly still be in charge. And while hindsight is 20/20 that's really not much of an excuse when the whole job of GM is based on foresight.
But is your scenario really being "more aggressive," as opposed to making better (and different) bets?
Well, JBJ is under control for a lot more seasons on the cheap, while Rusney has an anual contract of over 10M. And JBJ will always be the better defensive player.Savin Hillbilly said:
Rusney leads MLB, among outfielders, on groundball ratio (balls put in play) and he makes tons of soft contact.
Again, I wont go mad if he starts for us in 2016, but I would be completly fine if he is traded and we acquire a corner OF with power (we only have Ortiz as a power threat at this point).
There was fan and media pressure to give roughly $60 million of AAV over the next 5 years to two third basemen with known warts and Detroit's 4th starter? And then throw in $10 million to the worst starter in MLB in 2014?Savin Hillbilly said:
I don't by that at all. There may have been fan and media pressure to dramatically improve the team, Cherington got a budget to do so, and he failed miserably. Spending money very stupidly got him fired.
For that same $60 million AAV and on net about the same or more longer-term flexibility, he could have spent 40% of Pandas commitment on Miller, an extra year and a couple million per more to keep a durable top of the rotation starter in Lester, a 2 year deal on an upside play like Volquez to add another potential #3 or better piece, keep Cespedes for whatever he was scheduled for one year in LF when that's what you ended up needing anyway, and that extra $12 million for Masterson/Breslow on Luke Hochevar and Chris Young (the pitcher) to fill out the pen and provide 6th starter depth, respectively.
That doesn't even include the debacle of Allen Craig.
Cherington didn't get fired because panda and Ramirez and Porcello were the only options to spend a budget on to improve the team. He got fired because he was given a budget to improve the team and he chose poorly. Very very poorly. He got beat by Drayton Moore (and others like him who SOSH had declared morons in prior years) in talent evaluation. Plain and simple. He failed at talent evaluation, the GMs job.
And yet, if we take the statements at face value he wasn't fired. He quit. Because despite all those failures they claim they wanted him to stay on and instead of reporting to Lucchino report to Donbrowski. So, I have even less sympathy.
Fair enough.Savin Hillbilly said:
BC failed because he wasn't aggressive enough in acquiring top of the rotation starting pitching. He aimed for an average pitching staff, which is a pretty universal way to get a bad one.
PrometheusWakefield said:
He didn't aim for an average staff. He aimed for a good one. I think he got a good one that, for various reasons didn't pitch up to ability for half a season.kieckeredinthehead said:
kieckeredinthehead said:
Out of curiosity, I looked to see where the Sox rank (in the AL) per Fangraph stats for the entire season:
Offfense:
4th in wOBA
6th in WAR
Starting pitching:
7th in FIP
8th in xFIP
8th in WAR
Defense:
4th in "Def"
Bullpen:
15th in FIP
13th in xFIP
15th in WAR
That pretty much speaks for itself, doesn't it?
PrometheusWakefield said:
Obvious weakness to your "If the Sox did X instead of Y" on the Hamels trade scenario for prospects is: Who did they deal? Maybe it was Betts and Eddy... it probably was to be honest.
Of course the Sox would be better this year with those moves = but if they didn't win it (for example, Swihart was part of the package and Hannigan gets hurts down the stretch so the Sox are forced to play Leon all through the playoffs while Buchholz, Hamels, and Scherzer either fade or get hurt) - Cespedes leaves in FA next year and there likely little to no depth in the farm system for the next two to three years.
No one expected HR and PS to be below replacement level players. But so they were - and Ben no longer has a job (unfortunately). Still, the Red Sox seem pretty well set up for the next five - ten years and despite PS and HR, they have some payroll flexibility (due to the plethora of cost controlled contracts) to address their major weaknesses. If they get lucky (or prescient) on a couple of relievers, they should be in the mix next year and the years to come.
If the youngsters can stay healthy, Ben's greatest legacy will be to have kept them all together. Not to jinx anyone, but I kind of have a 1995 MFY vibe with these guys. . . .
Yep, with an average bullpen, the Sox would likely be in the middle of the wild card race. Though that's not really where they'd like to be either, it's better than last place again.AB in DC said:
Good thing we've got the DRAFT PICK DEFENDERS on the job!
Buzzkill Pauley said:
The Forgotten Man in the bullpen plan is Brandon Workman, who I think should be ready pretty early in 2016. Not that you would want him to be the only "addition" to the bullpen in 2016.
This offseason actually features some truly difficult decisions about how to balance the needs of the truly woeful MLB bullpen against uncertainties and expected injuries in the MLB rotation. That is to say, to me it seems many of the best "depth" starter options are the same guys who might most easily, cheaply, and successfully slot into a bullpen role. Yet, the next wave of quality arms is such a long, long way off.Danny_Darwin said:
Who would you choose to convert to a bullpen arm, and who do you leave as a starter in the minors, out of Owens, Johnson, Workman, Barnes, and Escobar? Why? What holes does your choice open up, and where do you need to backfill during the offseason?
There's no clear answers, and each choice has foreseeable consequences because there's virtually no projectable pitching to be found between Greenville and Boston right now. That's the biggest reason why Pawtucket, Portland, and Salem are also last place in their respective standings.
I've been advocating awhile now for Johnson to join Workman as bullpen arms, and think they would make a truly great set of 7th-inning set-up relievers for 2016. But to do that, then then Barnes needs to start in AAA as the #8 option after Wright and Owens.
But a pen of Uehara, Tazawa, Ross, Workman, Johnson, Layne/Hill, and Wright would likely be solid and cheap, though I'd also kick the tires on Chapman and/or Robertson as a hedge against the possibility that one or both of Koji and Taz drops unexpectedly. But I'm not sure who I'd be willing to trade to get them, since every team in baseball is going to start negotiations with the Greenville Five (Moncada, Devers, Benintendi, Kopech, and Espinoza) while each is just too damn good to waste on even a "veteran closer" at the MLB level.
Those decrying the bullpen as the problem: how much of the gaping suck hole out there is because in the first third of the season our starting pitchers were terrible and the bullpen got overused?
I'm sure that is part of it, but this club went into 2015 with $2M committed to Breslow and $5M to Mujica, who where the next two most proven relievers behind Uehara and Taz. Hard to say that the overuse of Koji and Taz wasn't self inflicted. The bullpen put a ton of weight in some young unproven guys really working out, when they didn't it fell apart.ookami7m said:
Dalier Hinojosa looked pretty good today. Wish the Sox had given him more than 1 2/3 innings of a tryout...especially since they signed him for $4M.Drek717 said:
I went back through last Falls "3rd Base" thread and the fan base around here wasn't excited about going after Pablo for 3rd.Savin Hillbilly said:
Plus there was not a soul on this site or in the media that suggested signing Sandoval and Ramirez together. There was zero pressure to pull off that stunt. Ben, ownership, other front office executives, etc OWN that move.
They absolutely do, but part of the reason you can't find that soul is because the thought of Hanley moving to LF wasn't even a glimmer in someone's eye. He had a history of resistance to moving off SS to go to 3B, LF wasn't anything any of us imagined. Personally I would have been on that bandwagon because I wouldn't have imagined he could have so much trouble in LF and I still think Pablo will be fine.benhogan said:
benhogan said:
When did I say anything about fan and media pressure to make the Sandoval/Ramirez deals or any other specific moves? The kind of pressure I'm talking about is free-form; its only imperative is "do something!".
Also, I think it's misleading to talk as if SoSH is a barometer of fan sentiment.
OK, you didn't suggest a particular deal...Savin Hillbilly said:
But do you really think they "caved to fan and media pressure"?
Because if that was the case they would have re-signed Jon Lester.
I think Ben and/or the ownership made their decisions based on their judgements of talent and available data.
I can't imagine Ben or John Henry coming into the office and saying 'damn, did you read the Shaugnessey article, we got to do something now"