If you had the OPS job....

[MongoLikeSox]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that analyst spot dedicated for pitching. Analysts we certainly have. There is a huge list of upper level employees listed on the 'Sox MLB site. We have 34 names on that list for Baseball Research & Development department. Imagine if we had that many baseball people on staff to coach these kids?

Fred, while I do care that Henry spends some more money on players, I would much rather see a lot of money spent on training and coaching these kids on the traditional game of baseball so that they arrive here ready to rock and roll. Maybe that's what he was trying to do with that baseball R&D department, but he maybe drank up way too much of the analytics first Kool Aide. That's what I think when I see the defensive disaster we had backing up our pitchers last year. It's like we had Maple gloves and leather bats last year.

[Sea Dog 23]

Interesting to see the Jays hiring Carlos Febeles (our 3B coach and  INF coach). 

Cora's brother got hired by the Tigers for 3B coach.

[Sea Dog 23]

Justin Horowitz, who had been with Boston for over 10 years in scouting, has been hired an Director of Amateur Scouting for the Pirates.
Horowitz has been a critical member of the Red Sox scouting team for years. He tabbed Jarren Duran as a 7th rounder in 2018, and was a significant part of the team’s process with first rounders Marcelo Mayer and Mikey Romero, among others.


Andrew Bailey, Breslow's old friend who was supposedly a fovorite to be Sox new pitching coach, is interviewing for the NYY bench coach job today.  Maybe Breslow is going in a different direction, or Bailey is going for the paycheck.

[MongoLikeSox]

Sheeesh! The hits keep coming.

[Sea Dog 23]

An update from Rosenthal, that Boston is near to signing Andrew Bailey as the pitching coach.  Apparently he was not impressed with working for Boone and the other A-holes at NY.  Bailey pitched for the Sox, and was a teammate of Breslow for five years in the bullpen. 

The deal is not finalized, maybe they still have to run it by Cora and Henry, who is exploring the eastern Antilles. 

[MongoLikeSox]

An update from Rosenthal, that Boston is near to signing Andrew Bailey as the pitching coach.  Apparently he was not impressed with working for Boone and the other A-holes at NY.  Bailey pitched for the Sox, and was a teammate of Breslow for five years in the bullpen. 

The deal is not finalized, maybe they still have to run it by Cora and Henry, who is exploring the eastern Antilles.

I was just reading KR's article to that end in the Athletic. I've seen this before, but it's music to my ears(eyes) to read it again. "At baseball’s general managers’ meetings last week, Breslow said the team was in the process of finding a new pitching coach and recognized “the opportunity cost of waiting” to hire someone."

"The opportunity cost of waiting." I will never understand Bloom's disregard, maybe even opposition to that concept. It makes the Yoshida signing even more surprising than it was, though I think we all know why the timing was crucial in that one.

Anyhow, I've seen this quote now a few times and each time I get into a better mood about the situation.

EDIT
The potential pitching coach while in San Francisco talking about the Giant's main pitching department. 

“Myself, Brian Bannister and J.P. Martinez, we don’t have any egos and we’re able to work together,” Bailey told the San Francisco Examiner. “Our coordinators like Justin Lehr, Matt Daniels, Clay Rapada and those guys down the minor league system really value and look at a guy’s arsenal and see trends in his shapes and usages, and our analytics department does a lot of that work as well.”

Very refreshing to see Analytics mentioned as additional help, weighing in after the hands-on approaches and eye tests that result from a system with baseball people leading the way.

[longgame]

I like the attitude that we're seeing, and like you, I was always frustrated with Bloom's deliberation and inability to pull the trigger on anything.  Those analytics work against building a team in two ways - not valuing what you see with your eyes and also on the financial side in determining a value for a player which for whatever reason never seems to account for the market.  When you get the guy whose price matches the skills he brings it's because he doesn't have those intangibles which make for star players. The computer can't value that.

Of course we'll have to see where we end up.

On a related note, I've seen a couple of items about how the Winter Meetings aren't the Winter Meetings of old.  I think there's a good reason for that.  20 years ago every team had a GM.  They didn't have 3 Presidents, a GM, Multiple assistants, etc.  Two guys at a table can get a deal done.  25 people crunching numbers will keep people from striking deals until all the analytics can be run.  We'll see what happens this year. One thing that always struck me about Bloom was he lacked charisma.  Breslow appears to be brighter and more personable.  That goes a long way in any personal interaction.

[Sea Dog 23]

Breslo is also bringing over Mason Macrae an amateur scout from the Cubs.  He is really steeped in analytics as well.  Here is an article Mccrae wrote on pitching.  It is really deep, well as Breslow is!

"About a year ago I started learning how to code at Tread. None of this would be possible without the brains of Cam (@k_camden) and Rylan (@RylanDomingues). Making this blog forced me to go back and clean up the code, but some of it is still a mess since it’s from the end of the summer when I started working on it. I’ve removed most of the code that involves stuff +, but I might’ve left some in. You’ll have to remove that.
"This is where we take the data from our two files and combine it so we’re able to get an xwOBAcon value for batted balls and a called strike probability value for every pitcher. Whenever a ball is hit with a 90 EV and 20 LA, the value from the BACON dataset will be inputed."

[SeaBeachFred]

I like the attitude that we're seeing, and like you, I was always frustrated with Bloom's deliberation and inability to pull the trigger on anything.  Those analytics work against building a team in two ways - not valuing what you see with your eyes and also on the financial side in determining a value for a player which for whatever reason never seems to account for the market.  When you get the guy whose price matches the skills he brings it's because he doesn't have those intangibles which make for star players. The computer can't value that.

Of course we'll have to see where we end up.

On a related note, I've seen a couple of items about how the Winter Meetings aren't the Winter Meetings of old.  I think there's a good reason for that.  20 years ago every team had a GM.  They didn't have 3 Presidents, a GM, Multiple assistants, etc.  Two guys at a table can get a deal done.  25 people crunching numbers will keep people from striking deals until all the analytics can be run.  We'll see what happens this year. One thing that always struck me about Bloom was he lacked charisma.  Breslow appears to be brighter and more personable.  That goes a long way in any personal interaction.

Great post Ted!!!!!!!  You hit all the right points of what we need to do and what we have failed to do under Bloom.  However, while I hope you are right and those in charge  pay heed to what you said, the Red Sox have been in a funk for a few year now and we don't know how much money is going to be expended to get the right players because good talent does not come cheaply.  We saw how penny pinching and dumpster diving have resulted in three last place finishes in the past  four seasons.  It is up to Henry to start putting some mo ney where his mealy mouth is.  Until then I will remain a doubting Thomas until I see actions speaking louder than words.  We've been burned enough by incompetence the past five seasons.

[MongoLikeSox]

A VERY interesting situation in Cleveland. They DFA'd Cal Quantrill. He had shoulder inflammation this year, but recovered well with a 2.76 ERA upon his return in September, including 3 Quality Starts that gave him 8 on the season out of 19 total starts. He made 32 starts with a 3.38 ERA in 2022 and split time between the 'pen and rotation with a 2.89 ERA including 22 starts out of 40 appearances.

The big beef for Cleveland are the two years of arbitration left. He made $5.5M last year. The unofficial beef would be the shoulder inflammation thing and if it is healed. The Friday non-tender deadline roster set takes precedent, I think. They say they've been in trade talks with other clubs, but nothing so far, obviously.

[Sea Dog 23]

A VERY interesting situation in Cleveland. They DFA'd Cal Quantrill. He had shoulder inflammation this year, but recovered well with a 2.76 ERA upon his return in September, including 3 Quality Starts that gave him 8 on the season out of 19 total starts. He made 32 starts with a 3.38 ERA in 2022 and split time between the 'pen and rotation with a 2.89 ERA including 22 starts out of 40 appearances.

The big beef for Cleveland are the two years of arbitration left. He made $5.5M last year. The unofficial beef would be the shoulder inflammation thing and if it is healed. The Friday non-tender deadline roster set takes precedent, I think. They say they've been in trade talks with other clubs, but nothing so far, obviously.

Holy smokes.  Where has time gone?  I can remember when Quantrill was one of the trade pieces folks talked about for Mookie.  I think it was Mookie to San Diego for Will Myers, Quantrill and or a SD catcher. 

What is going to be fascinating, from a pitching reset perspective, is to follow all of our AA/AAA pitchers  as they go through the analytics grist mill of Breslow and Bailey (?), and which ones emerge in their standard of having the new upside of how values of pitchers will be the new Sox arms coming up from our system.  The Rule 5 and 40 man will tell a lot about which pitchers they value.

[MongoLikeSox]

We saw a trade last night between Atlanta and the Chicago White Sox that's typical for what we'd be likely to see this week with the non-tender deadline looming at the end of today. Dumpster diving by both clubs.

Chicago sends Aaron Bummer to Atlanta for a veteran lefty coming off a 6.74 ERA. He was good before this past season. 

In return, Chicago get
1: Former Royals light hitting middle infielder Nicky Lopez.
2: Michael Soroka, SP splitting 23 in AAA and MLB with both ERA's over 5.00. He got off to a great MLB start in 2019, but suffered an achilles heal injury that kept him out for 2021 and 2022.
3: Jared Shuster, SP and 2020 1st round pick out of college with a decent enough minor league career who also got a few starts in for Atlanta 
4: Riley Gowns -  SP who was a 2023 9th round draft pick
5: Braden Shewmake - SS -  A former 2019 1st round pick at SS pick that didn't work out for them. A brief call up for the Braves.

So Chicago trades a veteran player who bombed last year. Atlanta trades 4 bottom of the roster types and a 1st year prospect. A very good house cleaning trade.

It's the kind of trade I thought Bloomer would have done if I think back 4 years. In a sense, he did, but his house cleaning was not failing veterans. Bloom traded valuable MLB talent for other teams cast offs and spare parts. Specifically, the Benny, Renfroe and Vasquez trades. (We got Downs as the premier prospect in the Betts deal, but he did not work out at all, obviously.) Not trying to beat up on Bloom anymore, but I thought i"d point it out as a frame of reference and comparison in the event Breslow pulls off today before the non-tender deadline.

[Sea Dog 23]

Breslow, surrounded by the usual cast of FSG, could easily find himself caught up in the Dollar Store type signings.  However with the history of last place division finishes, I think the execs will pump some life in the Sox transactions and marketing this year.  lord knows they've reached a level of irrelevance that something is sure to happen. 

My guess, they'll make a splash for one marquis player, like Devers last year, then coast into Spring.  My guess, sitting here today is putting big money on Aaron Nola.  Early speculation, he is looking for as much as a six year contract.

[MongoLikeSox]

Just a follow up. Quantrill went to the Rockies via trade for a 2 year Minor League Catcher. The article said the Rockies were high on him for his catching skills is about all it said. An affordable "get" for the Rockies and they'll look good if his shoulder issue last year was a one time thing.

EDIT:
I forgot about the actual non-tendered pitcher yesterday - Wyatt Mills. The 2nd/3rd year reliever with good Minor League K-rates. I never saw him pitch, but I think he was supposed to have a live arm. I also think he was supposed to be out most of 2024, so they decided it made little sense keeping him on the 40-man all winter.

If I'm not mistaken, this brings us down to 37 players on the 40-man roster. MLB should start seeing bigger trades and actual FA signings now.