Bailey is in the house. Officially announced today as pitching coach. Just maybe one or two of the agents of young FA pitchers would realize how the combination of Breslow - Bailey could lead to a great career for their client.
he Red Sox announced Tuesday that Andrew Bailey will return to Boston as the team’s pitching coach.
Bailey served the same position for the San Francisco Giants for the past four seasons. The 39-year-old also was the Angels’ instant replay coordinator and coaching assistant after he retired from Major League Baseball in 2018 and before he was Los Angeles’ bullpen coach in 2019. San Francisco pitchers lead MLB with the fewest walks - 403 - this year and most complete games with four.
Michael McCormick has also joined the Sox as the pitching coach in the FCL down in Florida. He comes over from the Drive Line Sports group. Drive Line provides players with information, coaching, and game planning. Members receive guidance from a trusted source all year long
I hope this is beginning of the complete overhaul of everything the Sox do with regards toward pitching. I hope Cora listens to his pitching coach and does not undercut him the way Cora has others.
Quote from: elktonnick on November 21, 2023, 05:47:07 PM
I hope this is beginning of the complete overhaul of everything the Sox do with regards toward pitching. I hope Cora listens to his pitching coach and does not undercut him the way Cora has others.
Cora has to worry about who he puts on the field and leave the pitching development to the new group of pitching coaches we are assembling for the main club and for our minor league system. If these new tutors do their job better than the stumblebums we've had of late Alex only has to worry about the other eight he puts on the field. That should keep him busy enough.
I hope this is a popular move amongst returning pitchers the ones we're targetting in FA.
Breslow is filling out the pitching coaches. Noah Junis is the new BP pitching guy at Worcester. We are getting a couple of Drive Line company coaches, Junis is from a group in St Louis called Premier Pitching.
Another pitching coach, Jack Steele, has been assigned to the FCL. He's a college grad who pitched for UMass last year. For better or worse, the Sox are trying to revitalize pitching development in the organization. It can't get any worse.
And another day with accomplishing a damn thing worth noting. It would be very nice to see the Red Sox jump ahead instead of humping ahead and make a splash or two to beat the others to the draw. After all, most of those other teams didn't finish in the cellar two years in a row as we did. Come on Henry, open that damn safe and let's sign some pi tchers so we don't have to trade our best prospects to get the left overs from other team's rejects. What the hell is this team waiting for? We should have been very proactive now instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sorry friends, but I do not like this.
Winter Meetings start today so be patient for a little while anyhow. Certainly Breslow know what the need is. It was summed up nicely in an article on MLB.com today:
Red Sox: Bolster the starting rotation
There have been very few offseasons where the main need for the Red Sox has been so obvious: the club needs more starting pitching. Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow’s goal is to add one or two starters this winter, and you can be sure he will be in full pursuit in Nashville. Lefties Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell are two pitchers on the market who could bring instant credibility to the Red Sox. The same could be said if Breslow can make an international splash and sign Japanese free agent Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a 25-year-old righty with a deep arsenal of pitches. -- Ian Browne
Quote from: longgame on December 02, 2023, 06:28:03 PM
Winter Meetings start today so be patient for a little while anyhow. Certainly Breslow know what the need is. It was summed up nicely in an article on MLB.com today:
Red Sox: Bolster the starting rotation
There have been very few offseasons where the main need for the Red Sox has been so obvious: the club needs .......
There might have been very few seasons where the main need is obvious, but it's been that way since they fired Dombrowski.
Quote from: MongoLikeSox on December 03, 2023, 08:44:54 AM
Quote from: longgame on December 02, 2023, 06:28:03 PM
Winter Meetings start today so be patient for a little while anyhow. Certainly Breslow know what the need is. It was summed up nicely in an article on MLB.com today:
Red Sox: Bolster the starting rotation
There have been very few offseasons where the main need for the Red Sox has been so obvious: the club needs .......
There might have been very few seasons where the main need is obvious, but it's been that way since they fired Dombrowski.
Unfortunately Dombrowski's extension of Sale might have caused Henry to crawl into a rabbit hole. god help us if JH's wrath is spread upon another OPS guy, and he can only sign the ERod and Stroman quality pitchers going forward.
Quote from: Sea Dog 23 on December 03, 2023, 10:07:58 AM
Unfortunately Dombrowski's extension of Sale might have caused Henry to crawl into a rabbit hole. god help us if JH's wrath is spread upon another OPS guy, and he can only sign the ERod and Stroman quality pitchers going forward.
If the Sale deal didn't send JH into his favorite hidey-hole, the Price deal did.
I really hope that JH takes a long, hard look at what's happening in Atlanta. The Milwaukee & Tampa extension model might be extreme when it comes to how early they sign a kid long term, but the Atlanta thing seems to look like it will work.
I'm on the Internet reading the various Red Sox blogs and tune into MLB TV daily for what seems like hours at times, but while being told to be patient I want to see the Red Sox be proactive and not wait until the gems are gobbled up while we get the leftovers for pi tchers again. Losing Eovaldi and Wacha a year ago to FA and replacing them with duds like we did should have left a bitter taste in all our mouths. Henry needs to climb out of his rabbit hole and start acting like a multi billionaire who owns a big market team and not a penny pinching organization that never wins anything because of that habit.
Speaking of habits, the Red Sox media staff (aka Alex Speier and Pete Abraham) are up to their dangerous habit of ramping up hope for Sox fans. These two have been the only ones tossing the Red Sox into the list of front runners for Yamamoto.
Non Boston sportswriters are saying that the Dodgers Mets and Yankees are the front runners for Yamamoto. The point is that no one knows except Yamamoto. If it is anything thing other than money I think the Sox having Joshua is a plus.
Quote from: MongoLikeSox on December 03, 2023, 04:59:43 PM
Speaking of habits, the Red Sox media staff (aka Alex Speier and Pete Abraham) are up to their dangerous habit of ramping up hope for Sox fans. These two have been the only ones tossing the Red Sox into the list of front runners for Yamamoto.
Do Speirer and Abraham work for the Globe? Prune Face owns that paper and real Red Sox fans should be reading the Herald where their writers aren't scared shitless about losing their jobs because Henry doesn't like what they are writing. Amazing how many of the Globe writers have lost their guts because their are in fear of the guy who owns the paper. A few of them should stand up to Henry before they lose all credibility, that is, if they have of it left.
Quote from: SeaBeachFred on December 03, 2023, 07:06:47 PM
Quote from: MongoLikeSox on December 03, 2023, 04:59:43 PM
Speaking of habits, the Red Sox media staff (aka Alex Speier and Pete Abraham) are up to their dangerous habit of ramping up hope for Sox fans. These two have been the only ones tossing the Red Sox into the list of front runners for Yamamoto.
Do Speirer and Abraham work for the Globe? Prune Face owns that paper and real Red Sox fans should be reading the Herald where their writers aren't scared shitless about losing their jobs because Henry doesn't like what they are writing. Amazing how many of the Globe writers have lost their guts because their are in fear of the guy who owns the paper. A few of them should stand up to Henry before they lose all credibility, that is, if they have of it left.
It spreads to the two of the Red Sox Scribes in the Athletic, not including the occasional article by the Herald's Buckley. The MLB site is quite the spin machine, too, but not that is a lot more acceptable than the Athletic and the Globe. The Globe, Herald and Athletic are all behind subscription modeled paywalls. I only see bits and blurbs as other writers have nothing better to do but to write about what other writers are writing about. 'oy!
I am not defending John Henry but if Steve Cohen wishes to buyYamamoto there is nothing John Henry can do to prevent it. Henry can not match Cohen's deep pockets.
Some coaching moves today - Justin Willard was hired as Director of Pitching for the Sox organization.
The Red Sox have hired Justin Willard as their director of pitching according to multiple sources. Willard recently served as pitching coordinator for the Twins for three seasons.
They have one more move to reach in hiring a 3rd base coach, who will replace Carlos Febles.
Quote from: Sea Dog 23 on December 04, 2023, 07:00:36 PM
Some coaching moves today - Justin Willard was hired as Director of Pitching for the Sox organization.
The Red Sox have hired Justin Willard as their director of pitching according to multiple sources. Willard recently served as pitching coordinator for the Twins for three seasons.
They have one more move to reach in hiring a 3rd base coach, who will replace Carlos Febles.
I saw a rumor that it was going to be Andy Fox, the current Field Coordinator. No idea what a Field Coordinator does other than whisper into Cora's ear several times a game.
On the Pitching Director front, the MLB site said he's been respected for doing the same job with Minnesota. Our new Pitching Coach is from the Giants. Last year, for the entire MLB, the Twins and Giants finished 6th and 10th in ERA. The Twins finished 1st in Quality Starts while the Giants finished with an unsurprising 18th. (The Giants were still very high on Stats-Ball offensively at least, so stands to reason they'd do the same with pitching.)
I had shut up for a while on the Quality Starts topic as it was something I endlessly talked up after last season, over the Winter and into the Spring. 2023 had little change. 8 of the top 10 teams in QS's went to the playoffs. A 9th team finished 1 game out of the Wild Card Race. The only two teams finishing in the bottom half in QS's were the Rays and Marlins. I hope this new Pitching Director can make a difference sooner than later. FWIW, the Twins' QS rank was next to last in 2022. Let's hope this improvement was largely his doing.
For what its worth, I have argued for the last few years that the Red Sox not only needs pitchers but more importantly needs a complete revamp of their entire approach towards pitching, soup to nuts. In that regard, I like the moves Breslow has made thus far. Quite frankly I think these moves are laying the foundation for the future and are more important than any single move to acquire pitchers in the short run.
Time will tell what individual pitchers the Sox acquire. My guess is it will be at least one top notch starter.but I do not expect any significant acquisitions for several weeks mainly because their agents such as Horas want the negotiations to drag out.
Quote from: elktonnick on December 05, 2023, 08:15:22 PM
For what its worth, I have argued for the last few years that the Red Sox not only needs pitchers but more importantly needs a complete revamp of their entire approach towards pitching, soup to nuts. In that regard, I like the moves Breslow has made thus far. Quite frankly I think these moves are laying the foundation for the future and are more important than any single move to acquire pitchers in the short run.
Time will tell what individual pitchers the Sox acquire. My guess is it will be at least one top notch starter.but I do not expect any significant acquisitions for several weeks mainly because their agents such as Horas want the negotiations to drag out.
I'm in total agreement about the foundation needing to be put into place for pitching development. I do hope they expand their player development initiatives to better prepare our position players for defense and base running in the big leagues.
Quote from: MongoLikeSox on December 06, 2023, 06:56:59 AM
Quote from: elktonnick on December 05, 2023, 08:15:22 PM
For what its worth, I have argued for the last few years that the Red Sox not only needs pitchers but more importantly needs a complete revamp of their entire approach towards pitching, soup to nuts. In that regard, I like the moves Breslow has made thus far. Quite frankly I think these moves are laying the foundation for the future and are more important than any single move to acquire pitchers in the short run.
Time will tell what individual pitchers the Sox acquire. My guess is it will be at least one top notch starter.but I do not expect any significant acquisitions for several weeks mainly because their agents such as Horas want the negotiations to drag out.
I'm in total agreement about the foundation needing to be put into place for pitching development. I do hope they expand their player development initiatives to better prepare our position players for defense and base running in the big leagues.
No Red Sox fan can disagree that the team needs to revive completely the sad and sorry pitching development and training and tutoring of pitchers in our system. If this is the plan and it can be implemented I cannot see how this cannot be a big step in that direction. Now, what about those three pi tchers we got from the Yankees? Are they really good prospects or suspects of the kind we got under Bloom along with all those position players who seem to have simply disappeared. Still, I like the idea and hope it bears fruit. Now we have to start signing some good FA and get a couple of starting pitchers who won't be an embarrassment on the mound.
Quote from: SeaBeachFred on December 06, 2023, 11:31:24 AM
No Red Sox fan can disagree that the team needs to revive completely the sad and sorry pitching development and training and tutoring of pitchers in our system. If this is the plan and it can be implemented I cannot see how this cannot be a big step in that direction. Now, what about those three pi tchers we got from the Yankees? Are they really good prospects or suspects of the kind we got under Bloom along with all those position players who seem to have simply disappeared. Still, I like the idea and hope it bears fruit. Now we have to start signing some good FA and get a couple of starting pitchers who won't be an embarrassment on the mound.
We lost 2 pitching prospects in the MLB portion of the Rule-5 draft in the first 6 picks. Both took the Worcester Steamer to the dump pile as soon as they got promoted last year. Shane Drohan and Ryan Fernandez. Fernandez tripled his ERA and Drohan doubled his the minute they got to Worcester. We will know this coming Spring if we screwed up by leaving them exposed or if Paul Abbott had an impossible task.
Only 10 guys were taken in this year's MLB portion. Two of them were from the Red Sox, but we suck at pitching? We lost 3 last year, got 2 back and the 3rd did not do so well for the Nationals.
fwiw, we lost 7 minor leaguers in the AAA Phase including 4 pitchers. I misunderstood the eligibility rules of the AAA Phase as I thought the minimum service time was longer than 3 years. I'll have to read it again. I do know that they had to be protected by being on the 38-man AAA roster by the November deadline. I don't understand how we can be so bad at developing pitching, but keep losing pitchers in both phases of the Rule-5 draft.
FWIW, we took a journeyman, organizational type Catcher from the Yankees system and passed in the next round. We took nobody in the MLB phase.