Pitchers to watch this season?

Started by MongoLikeSox, February 23, 2023, 11:41:28 AM

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MongoLikeSox

I know the same questions happen every year. Will our FA signings work out? Were we correct in letting the ones walk that we let walk? Did the trades work out? Will the injured and under-performers rebound? Can certain guys continue to pitch well? 

I'm having trouble recalling a Red Sox off-season that has had so many moves and non-moves come into question. It's a massive organizational overhaui.  I'm looking at 39-ish pitchers to keep an eye on this year. Will this expose the Red Sox system as being entirely inept? Can we judge pitching talent? Did we trade, sign, release and otherwise spend wisely?

Well, I sometimes write when I deal with these extended Migraines like I'm having this morning. I usually delete what I write, but this felt to compelling to post. Should make for an interesting sub-plot to the upcoming season.


  • Jake Diekman: Traded to the White Sox for their about to be DFA'd 3rd catcher. One of two OK lefties for us, but lost the strike zone and was worse when it mattered most. Still, it was a hit to our bull pen to lose him, making our biggest need even worse. Will the White Sox teach him to finally throw strikes? TBD, but not much to watch here. The damage has already been done for both teams.
  • Taylor Broadway: The PTBNL part of the Diekman/McGuire trade. He did very well in 5 AA appearances (1.50 ERA) at the end of last season.
  • Jay Groome: Traded to the Padres as part of one of the stranger trades and subsequent DFA's you'll ever see. Will Groome flourish in SD and finally fullfill the hype, or will he prove the Red Sox correct in giving up in him.
  • Austin Davis: I never liked this trade to begin with, but he proved me wrong for a while. Cora turned him into a spent force and shipped him out on the DFA train. No idea if/where he's latched on yet. Houston might have invited him to ST.
  • Sawamura: Good luck time clock! If I was him, I'd high-tail it back to Japan. To me, this was a good signing. BUT, the Red Sox are all OCD on high strike zone pitching. Not a good fit for a nasty low-ball pitcher. No idea where he went.
  • Jake Reed: The Sox signed this 30 year old AAAA guy with an MLB ERA over 7.00 last year. The DFA'd Bazardo to make room for him. Reed was DFA'd by the end of November where the Dodgers claimed him. He's already cleared waivers again, but stuck with the Dodgers and is starting the year in AAA.
  • Eduard Bazardo: To make room for Jake Reed, the team with the worst ERA DFA'd a kid who did OK (2.76ERA) in 19 IP for the big team. Not enough strikeouts or not enough of an out pitch? He'll get his chances in Baltimore at some point. Is there a job for an OK, maybe a below average, but not horrible reliever in MLB? I've said "yes" for two years now.
  • Inmer Lobo: How the press is not in on this massive early off-season cluster-f*** of a Bloom depth piece trade is beyond me. We traded this young pitcher with 5 decent starts in the DSL for a HR/K guy(Hoy Park) that we only to DFA in November. WTH??? You'll see him in rookie ball starting in June for the Pirates.
  • Connor Seabold: Can the Rockies ease his MLB woes and turn him into the control pitcher he needs to be?
  • Noah Song: Maybe we get him back. Maybe he wins 150 games and a couple of Cy Youngs for the Phillies over the next 10 seasons.
  • Thad Ward: This one might not have been the most MLB ready prize, but the Nationals thought his upside was worth it.
  • Andrew Politi: Losing him on Rule 5 day was a little bit of a surprise and hurt less than the other two, but he might be as ready as any of the Red Sox rule-5 losses. The Orioles will let us know soon enough.
  • Brandon Walter: One of the great AA starters that the Red Sox protected. Rough go of it later in the year in AAA.
  • Chris Murphy: One of the great AA starters that the Red Sox protected. Rough go of it later in the year in AAA.
  • Matt Strahm: Free Agent that left the Sos for the Phillies.
  • Joely Rodriguez: Some of the reports are listing him has an improvement for the Red Sox BP. His 2022 Mets' season suggest otherwise. Which will it be? Idealistically, we "traded" Strahm's spot for Joely's spot.
  • Michael Wacha: Free Agent signed with the Padres to a creative contract. Which version will they get?
  • Rich Hill: He landed just where he should have. On a last place team needing some sort of MLB pitching help. Oh shoot! That's where he was last season.
  • Nathan Eovaldi: Left for the Rangers. Is his arm dead or did the Sox make a judgement error?
  • Josh Taylor: Traded for their oft injured 5 tool IL disapointment. Will Taylor rebound from his bad back IL lost year or will the Sox have gotten this one right?
  • Matt Barnes: Will he continue his up and down ways for the Marlins? It will take two seasons to answer that one.
  • Richard Bleier: Our return prize for trading Matt Barnes as part of the whole "let's throw strikes" paradigm shift the Red Sox have undertaken.
  • Franklin German. One year. That's what it takes to turn one of very few feathers in Chaim Bloom cap into dumpster fodder. Why? Because he got caught up in the whole strike throwing revolution on top of the 40-man roster woes. Will the White Sox teach him to throw stikes and gain one hell of an arm in the process?
  • Theo Denlinger: Our prize for Frankin German. Weill he even make it to the bigs someday? For now we'll just have to watch him on MiLB TV in Portland. In some sort of fairness, he's a non-40 man spot for a guy that needed 40-man protection. Not a straight up trade.
  • Wyatt Mills: Should fit right it. 4.60 ERA in half a season in KC last year. Another roster spot for mediocre depth, or are we gifted? Time will tell.
  • Zach Kelly: One of the ones that we will ultimately wonder if protecting him came a too great a cost.
  • Caleb Ort: Another of the ones that we will ultimately wonder if protecting him came a too great a cost.
  • Bryan Mata: A cross between wondering if protecting ends up working out, and wondering what he will eventually bring to the big club in 2023.
  • Kenly Jansen: Will he find at least one more Summer in the Sun or is he done? Hope it works.
  • Chris Martin: I think the Sox are universally applauded for this signing. Hope it works.
  • Ryan Brasier: Did he really fix something that magical late in the season that he was the one we kept?
  • John Schreiber: Was his late season demise a tired thing(see Alex Cora and overuse) or did he fall out of his tree?
  • Corey Kluber: He found the fountain of middle-age last year. I hope it works.
  • Josh Winckowski: We've not seen the last of him. He needs to be much more consistent at the MLB level with keeping his pitches down and getting them called strikes. He does that and he'll be OK. That's a big if.
  • Brayan Bello: The next Boston pitching stud? I hope it works out.
  • Kutter Crawford: To me, he's the most promising of the non Brayan Bello up and comers division. He throws hard and added as nasty hard slider/curve piece in one trip down to AAA. Came back and had some great outings.   
  • Tanner Houck: Will he finally get his consistent chance at starting? This indecision about him has hurt the Sox almoist as much as the failure to get a shot hurt the Sox in Toronto last season. Twice.
  • Garrett Whitlock: The darling Bloom coup. Can and will he hold up to starting pitching? As with Houck, they need to make a decision and stick with it.
  • Jake Pivetta: Out iron man. Can he get maybe be just a bit more consistent? 
  • James Paxton: Obvious injury investment. His existence on our 40-man cost us someone this off season. I hope he was worth it.
  • Chris Sale: What's left to say?

So the closest thing to a sure thing(Pivetta) might not even make it back to the Red Sox in time to ramp up the the trip north due to COVID.

Anyhow, I'll be curious to see the fails and successes of our brain trust this season. Which moves work out and which moves will not. Nobody will ever be perfect, but let's hope Bloom is right on more than he's wrong with.

longgame

Quite a writeup - I hope it helped you work through your migraine.  Had to laugh at "fountain of middle age" plus a few other good ones in there.   The Sox let a lot of question marks go and acquired a new set and then some.  Let's hope the one that got are all upside and the other ones, not so much. 

At least there is live baseball tomorrow!

MongoLikeSox

It certainly did. I worked on my song list all afternoon. Much better today.

A note about the starters' renewed importance. I looked around the AL. only 28 guys made 28 or more starts. We had 1 pitcher make 28 or more starts. We were joined by Baltimore, LA, MN and Oakland. Detroit and KC had none. Chicago and Texas had 2. Cleveland, Seattle, Tampa, Toronto and the Yankees all had 3. Houston had 4. (Playoff teams in bold)

Isn't it interesting. The concept of the strong starting pitchers construct was supposed to be largely de-emphasized, of not left for dead. But here we are now, and it means as much as it ever did. All of the teams with 3 or more 28+ starters made it to the playoffs. All of the teams with 2 or fewer starters failed to make the playoffs. 

I looked back at 1983 (4 pitchers and 78 wins), 1993 (4 pitchers and 80 wins), 2003(4 starters and 95 wins), 2012(3 starters, 69 wins) and 2013(3 starters and 97 wins). Just a small 5 season sampling designed to see if it matter so much in previous years. Obviously a great teams and the actual quality of the starters meant differences.

Even 2021 saw numbers all over the place as Tampa(0) and Oakland(3) were at opposite ends of the spectrum, perhaps helping to further fuel the devaluation of the starter.  2022 happened, though, and with it came renewed importance of the Starting pitchers.

longgame

Part of the problem though, especially in the Sox' case, is that these "starters" go 4 or 5 innings and then go to the "front" of the bullpen which stinks on most teams.  The Sox have a durability problem in two ways - games started and innings per game. 

Good news is there is live baseball today!

Sea Dog 23

#4
Rays at Jet Blue today.  1:05 PM

Winckowski vs Rays Taj Bradley
in the field
Devers 3B
Hernandez SS
Nicko Goodrum 2B
Casas 1B
Connor Wong C
Yoshida LF
Duvall CF
Verdugo RF
Turner DH

Sea Dog 23

Sox get on the board in the 2nd.  Yoshida with a double to right center.
Verdugo singles him home, but thrown out at 2nd trying to stretch it.
Kike, flys out, then Duvall strikes out.  1-0.

Chris Murphy in to pitch the 3rd.


Sea Dog 23

In the 6th with the bases juiced, Matthew Lugo raps a 2-out double to plate 3 runs.  On to the 7th 4-1.

Sea Dog 23

#7
Jacob Webb gives up a grand slam bomb in the 8th.  Rays now up 6-4.

In the Sox 8th Matthew Lugo continues his good hitting with a triple driving in two more runs.  He now has 5 rbi's for the day, and on top of that he is manning SS today.  Tied 6-6 in the 9th.
Lugo is the nephew of Carlos Beltran.  Career wise his hitting outshines his glove work.

After the early innings, Cora has used the NRI, invitees pitchers to display their talents.  The NRIs have been struggling against the opposition this weekend as you would sometimes expect.

Sea Dog 23

Rays pitcher walks first two batters.  Fitzgerald, last spring's surprise, singles for the walk-off win.  7-6.

SeaBeachFred

Quote from: Sea Dog 23 on February 26, 2023, 02:52:41 PM
Rays pitcher walks first two batters.  Fitzgerald, last spring's surprise, singles for the walk-off win.  7-6.

We blew one yesterday afternoon in the ninth and came back and won one on a WO hit in the final inning.  What this means?   Hell is I know.

MongoLikeSox

I think Fitzgerald would have had to hit .550 last spring to have any chance of busting through that political brick wall in front of him. Not much chance this year, either as Bloom has trade fodder to parade out. I don't recall who got some sort of promotion, but Fitzgerald's offensive stats went to crap after getting passed over mid-late May. For a while, though, him and Duran were pure energy atop that batting order in Worcester.

Lugo's been on the radar for a while now. He's going to make things very interesting if he has a good year in Portland. I've only seen a little bit of him, but am looking forward to seeing more.

MongoLikeSox

How did Guerrero look? Drafted 17th round made 3 levels in the Sox system ending in greenville. 59K's in 39IP.

MongoLikeSox

Some late Spring Training surfing to check up on some ex-Sox. Mostly farmhands that we lost to Rule 5 and some DFA'd as fallout from our beloved team's master plan.

Thad Ward has impressed big-time. 9 games, 8.2IP, 4ER and 12Ks. I'm not sure which Rule 5 loss I'm most PO'd about, but this is the one that is going to make the Sox look like morons sooner than later. Oh, those 4 ER's were in one game a couple of weeks ago. He's been on fire other than that one outing. This one is going to sting for a long time.
Andrew Politi looks like a lock for the Orioles. Rule-5 had one horrendous outing two weeks ago. Scoreless in his other 7 games. Can't protect them all? I won't say Caleb Ort out loud tight now. I won't way a lot of names right now.
Jay Groome walked 10 in 14 innings so far for the Padres. WHIP at 1.50 and an ERA of 1.29, though, so good for him. Last I read, he's close enough on their depth chart to get called up for a start when needed.
Bazardo is surprising nobody but the Red Sox with a decent Spring so far for Baltimore. I'm rooting for this kid. The Sox never, ever believed in him.
Darwinson has already been DFA'd by the Orioles in January, but did invite him for ST. His 1.1IP over 2 games were a disaster.
Connor Seabold has pitched in 5 games this Spring, all in relief. One of those outings he was torched for 4 runs in 1/3 IP by the Padres. The other 4 outings were fine.  7IP, 5H, 1BB, 7Ks and 1 run.
Franklin German WAS having a good Spring until giving up his first 4 runs in a game 4 days ago. Kind of curious to see if he'll bounce back, or if the previous scoreless stretch was all against AA hitters.
Noah Song is a whole other conversation to have.

It's way too early to declare much of anything yet. We'll see what's happening in June. It will be interesting to see who makes their new teams, though.

Sea Dog 23

Quote from: MongoLikeSox on March 24, 2023, 07:35:52 AM
Some late Spring Training surfing to check up on some ex-Sox. Mostly farmhands that we lost to Rule 5 and some DFA'd as fallout from our beloved team's master plan.

Thad Ward has impressed big-time. 9 games, 8.2IP, 4ER and 12Ks. I'm not sure which Rule 5 loss I'm most PO'd about, but this is the one that is going to make the Sox look like morons sooner than later. Oh, those 4 ER's were in one game a couple of weeks ago. He's been on fire other than that one outing. This one is going to sting for a long time.
Andrew Politi looks like a lock for the Orioles. Rule-5 had one horrendous outing two weeks ago. Scoreless in his other 7 games. Can't protect them all? I won't say Caleb Ort out loud tight now. I won't way a lot of names right now.
Jay Groome walked 10 in 14 innings so far for the Padres. WHIP at 1.50 and an ERA of 1.29, though, so good for him. Last I read, he's close enough on their depth chart to get called up for a start when needed.
Bazardo is surprising nobody but the Red Sox with a decent Spring so far for Baltimore. I'm rooting for this kid. The Sox never, ever believed in him.
Darwinson has already been DFA'd by the Orioles in January, but did invite him for ST. His 1.1IP over 2 games were a disaster.
Connor Seabold has pitched in 5 games this Spring, all in relief. One of those outings he was torched for 4 runs in 1/3 IP by the Padres. The other 4 outings were fine.  7IP, 5H, 1BB, 7Ks and 1 run.
Franklin German WAS having a good Spring until giving up his first 4 runs in a game 4 days ago. Kind of curious to see if he'll bounce back, or if the previous scoreless stretch was all against AA hitters.
Noah Song is a whole other conversation to have.

It's way too early to declare much of anything yet. We'll see what's happening in June. It will be interesting to see who makes their new teams, though.

Yet with all that manuevering, we still have Ort and Brasier.  SMH.  sigh

MongoLikeSox

The Noah Song situation could get interesting. I have my doubts about how much the Red Sox brass will push back on the Phillies, though. That's probably just a general lack of confidence in these guys.

For reference, this is the basic set of rules about the Rule 5 pick that the Phillies have to abide by. I copied this from the MLB site and made a simple bulleted list. The "receiving team" is obviously the Phillies. I'm sure this is just a loosely written summation. MLB-dot-com writers have been known to screw things up when it comes to rules. One writer for the Phillies wrote that the waiver system takes place before the offering of a player back to the original team step. Nope.

  • The receiving team must then keep the player on the Major League 25-man roster for the entirety of the next season, and
    The selected player must remain active (not on the disabled list) for a minimum of 90 days.
    If the player does not remain on the Major League roster, he is offered back to the team from which he was selected for $25,000.
    If his original team declines, the receiving team may waive the player.

So, Song developed back tightness about 3 Bullpen sessions into Spring Training and was shut down. I do not know if he's been throwing at all. The general theme I read from the Phillies' world is that he'll have to start the year on the 15-day IL. He would still cost a 40-man roster spot unless the Phillies could convince MLB that a 60-day stint is warranted. Regardless of which for of IL he ends up on, he still has to get 90 days of active MLB roster time in. That's uninjured, 1 of 26 players MLB roster time.

The other consideration is that there is a maximum of 30-days that a player can spend on a rehab assignment. Should Song be stashed away for a month while he works out with 18 years olds at their FCL complex in Clearwater, he could come up to speed and then get a 30-day ramp up for the MLB world. Basically, it buys the Phillies a bunch of time.

Remember back when Whitlock came over from the Yankees that we had to have him on the Roster? It doesn't make sense that we would not have been able to stash him on an IL and 30-day rehab to the Majors. Was this an option? Does it need to be OK'd by MLB?

My hopes are that the Red Sox are pushing MLB to not let the Phillies get away with a whole bunch of shenanigans. This could open up a big can of worms if MLB lets the Phillies get away with this.

Still TBD.