Andrew Bailey

[elktonnick]

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.

[Sea Dog 23]

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.

[MongoLikeSox]

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.

[elktonnick]

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.

[MongoLikeSox]

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.

[SeaBeachFred]

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.

[MongoLikeSox]

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.