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Red Sox 2014 rotation/fifth starter discussion
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Post by James Dunne on Apr 9, 2014 9:49:28 GMT -5
I started typing this out in the Workman thread, but really the thoughts inevitably branched out onto the team general and I think it deserves its own discussion so that the Workman thread can remain focused on him specifically.
Ok, let's break this thing down, shall we? Right now, Lester, Lackey, Buchholz and Peavy are in the rotation. Doubront came into the season secure in his spot, but should he be? To me, the question boils down to this: how do you rank Doubront, Workman, and Webster in terms of how good they are today, and where they will be in, say, three years?
Since the start of 2012, Doubront has an ERA+ of 89. Since the start of last season, it's an ERA+ of 91. This is the starter he is, right? He's had stretches of excellent pitching, but he hasn't sustained improvements and he hasn't shown plus durability. The Red Sox have shown an unusual amount a patience with him - as I pointed out in the Rangers series thread, he's gotten 58 starts in the last three years, and still hasn't established himself as a reliable major league starter. Brian Rose, who it seemed like they gave forever to develop, only had 39 starts with the team before they gave up on him. And while his 5.73 ERA looks awful, Rose's 87 ERA+ wasn't significantly worse than Doubront's because of the offensive stats being put up in the era that they played.
As the fact I just compared Doubront to Brian Rose probably indicates, I'm just not really all that optimistic about his upside. I know his stuff is good, but it's not incredible - Doubront never made a Top 100 prospect list, even after a 2010 season when he jumped from Double-A to the majors as a 22-year old. He does seem like a player whose stuff *might play up in the bullpen. Given his lack of efficiency and durability, along with the mediocre output, we may be at the point where it's time to find that out.
Doubront's development isn't taking place in a vacuum, though - the Red Sox have World Championship aspirations, so if he's their fifth best starter now, it makes sense to use him even if Webster or Workman present better options to develop in the future. I'm skeptical of that, though. Webster has a 3.53 ERA in 114 Triple-A innings, with a K:BB over 2.5. His command and control get away from him at times, but they get away from Doubront too and Webster has the better pure stuff. Workman has a 93 ERA+ in 48 major league innings, but has done so with fantastic peripherals - his FIP is 3.17, xFIP is 3.06. Additionally, the small sample caveat only goes so far. One of my statistically inclined friends may be able to help, but how likely is it for a pitcher to strike out 54 and was 16 in 48 innings if his true talent level is only, say, a 2.0 K:BB?
Taking it a step further, though, one could easily argue that Webster and Workman aren't ready - that bringing them to the majors now might have the long-term consequence of stunting their development. I'm skeptical of that, but will take it at face value for the sake of argument. That would leave Doubront and Chris Capuano as the realistic fifth starter options. Capuano has had more major league success, and has a 97 ERA+ over the last three seasons with a K:BB over 3.0. On the other hand, most of his innings during that time have come in Dodgers Stadium, and over that time he's allowed 1.1 HR/9 - a lefty who allowed a homer every nine in Dodgers Stadium scares me some in Fenway Park. He's also not part of the team's long-term plans, so if you think Doubront does have upside, it makes little sense to swap their roles. It's only an option if you think that Doubront has plateaued and that Capuano is better right now.
Another consideration. Suppose Jake Peavy or Clay Buchholz goes down in two weeks. Moving Doubront from the bullpen and then needing him in the rotation might be counterproductive. Would making a change be cannibalizing their own depth?
I feel a little bit silly posting this after the eighth game of the season, but I'm trying to take the long view of Doubront's development and whether it's moving anywhere, rather than judging him on getting hit by the Rangers last night. Is Doubront a better option right now than Workman and Webster, both long and short term? Like I said, I'm skeptical.
So discuss away.
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Post by jimed14 on Apr 9, 2014 10:01:42 GMT -5
I'd say if that ground ball double by Fielder didn't bounce as high as it did, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
To answer the question, I think Workman is/could be one of our better pitchers this season and Webster is a few months away from being called up to the majors for good. Of course that will require injuries, because everyone with options is going to be stuck in AAA even if they are better than the pitchers in the majors because depth is more important than being good.
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Post by sibbysisti on Apr 9, 2014 10:16:32 GMT -5
Lester may not be back next year. It's another year, year and a half before Owens is ready. Doubront remains the only portsider in the rotation. He is inconsistent, however, every time I feel like canning him, he comes up with a gem as he did in Baltimore. His tools are outstanding. It's the tool box that needs re-tooling.
If he doesn't recover, he'll be nothing more than a #5, a guy who gets skipped when the schedule dictates. Workman is getting stretched out in AAA and Webster spun a quality start last night. They'll provide healthy competition later on.
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Post by rjp313jr on Apr 9, 2014 11:14:20 GMT -5
Don't sleep on Ruby De La Rosa. Great first start of the year and this is his first completely healthy year since TJS.
Also, I'm a Doubront fan but realize he's not a proven product. He's only 26 and will be all season. Workman is less than a year younger than him. If Workman can still be developing then it's not much different for Felix. Why do you say Doubront isn't durable?
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Apr 9, 2014 11:36:13 GMT -5
The Sox are in for a penny in for a pound with Doobie. I'd rather give him a chance to prove his worth. He's arb eligible next year and will be more expensive.
The competition is fierce with all the AAA talent/potential. If they start nippin on his heels, they'll be forced to move him for a bucket of balls at the deadline.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Apr 9, 2014 12:46:00 GMT -5
I think Doubront is the 5th starter with a decent chance of being better than that. Peavy will probably wind up being the 5th best pitcher on the staff this season. Buchholz will miss time this year like he does every year. They definitely need Doubront to pitch better and this isn't that dissimilar to the start he had against Texas last year when he got knocked around. He definitely didn't have any help from Sizemore on defense. Be patient with him.
Eventually Peavy is gone, and it's possible Lester could be gone next year too (although I do have a feeling Lester and the Sox will work something out.) Lackey has one more season with the Sox left. They'll definitely need Doubront and looking forward only Owens is a likely bet to be better than Doubront. Webster and De La Rosa could be but they're question marks as their command isn't the greatest. Barnes and Ranaudo project to middle of the rotation which isn't that dissimilar from Doubront.
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Post by jimed14 on Apr 9, 2014 13:12:22 GMT -5
With how shaky the pitching looks so far, it looks like Lester is becoming more and more valuable to us. I know, SSS. I can't see letting him go.
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Post by jmei on Apr 9, 2014 14:59:47 GMT -5
Some random and scattered thoughts: -When we're talking about a 330 IP sample, I still trust advanced metrics more than ERA+, especially since we're really looking to project Doubront's future performance. From 2012-present, he has a 4.09 FIP (97 FIP-), a 4.00 xFIP (99 xFIP-), and a 4.07 SIERA. That's roughly league-average production, which almost every team would love to get from their fourth or fifth starter. Both ZiPS and Steamer project him as a roughly league-average pitcher (maybe a bit below-average) on a league- and park-adjusted basis going forward as well. -Even if you do want to look only at ERA+, Doubront's ERA+ of 89 over that stretch isn't that bad for a back-end starter. It's better than what this study indicated is the average production of a team's fourth and fifth starter, for instance, and it's better than other fifth starters in recent history (Wakefield's 82 and 84 ERA+s in 2010-11, Aaron Cook's 75 ERA+ in 2012, etc). That obviously doesn't mean that the Red Sox can't improve that spot in their rotation, but you mention that the Red Sox had "unusual patience" with Doubront, and I don't think that's really true. He's not a project like Bard where they put up with awful results because they thought he had upside, and it's not like the Red Sox just handed him a rotation spot-- he's been pretty clearly one of the five best starters on the team in each of the last two years, though the emergence of Workman, Webster, and others makes that proposition less clear going forward. The fact that Doubront was the one headed to the bullpen when all the starters got healthy towards the end of 2013 tells me that he isn't guaranteed anything, and if the Red Sox think one of the aforementioned guys is clearly better, I don't think they'll hesitate much to shift Doubront to the bullpen or dangle him in trade talks. -That said, I don't think either Webster or Workman is clearly better: (a) I want to see Webster maintain a fairly lengthy period of consistent command in Pawtucket before he usurps Doubront. He has the sort of upside that you really do want to nurture in the minors if possible. (b) Workman is a more interesting case. He has performed really, really well in the majors to date, but the majority of his innings have come in relief, and he's always been a guy scouts have worried would struggle as a starter because of his mechanics (though those have improved in the last year+ as well). His K/BBs are excellent, but he's also a fly-ball pitcher (career GB% of 40.2%) who will have trouble with home runs given his pound-the-zone approach-- think Joe Blanton or Ricky Nolasco. The point is well taken that at some point Workman's productivity in the majors has to count for something, and his ability to get swings-and-misses is particularly impressive and surprising (his swinging strike rate of 9.7% compares favorably with guys like John Lackey and James Shields, though remember that 61% of his career innings have come in relief), but I think there's clearly enough ambiguity that, this early in the season, you stay with Doubront and option Workman to maximize depth. Considering the injury risk that the rotation represents (Lackey and Peavy are old, Buchholz/Peavy/Doubront all are what I'd call "injury prone"), Workman should get a good number of additional starts by the end of the season, and how he performs will inform what role he has on the team going forward. -I do think in the long-term (read: perhaps as soon as 2015), Webster and Workman can and will push Doubront for a rotation spot, for many of the reasons you've discussed. But it's way too early to think about moving Doubront out of the rotation this season, and as I mentioned in a different thread (and jimed alludes to above), Doubront pitched better than his line showed last night. |
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Post by mwgray13 on Apr 14, 2014 21:39:53 GMT -5
As 2013 progressed I became more of a believer in Workman than Webster. Webster has the superior pure stuff but it's the lack of command and consistency which kills him. Webster projects best out of any of the pitching prospects to goto the pen, with that said typically even a 4th/5th starter is more valuable than a closer. Why is that? A 4/5th starter still gets the ball every 5 th day, and unless your the starter left out of the rotation in the playoff, you'll get your turn to play big. Koji season in 2013 was video game esqe, highly unlikely to be repeated, so asking a reliever for 3+ wins per year is not the most sustainable proposition. With that in mind, I would try to develop Webster as a starter until I run out of options. I currently rank our pitching prospects in this order:
Owen
Workman
De La Rosa
Webster
Ranaudo
Barnes
Britton
Wilson
Ball
Couch
Ramirez
Ball ranks this low because he is still in XST, and we have yet to see how he pitches over a full season.
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Post by jmei on Apr 22, 2014 11:23:10 GMT -5
At a time when he's struggling mightily on the field, a little optimism for Clay Buchholz, courtesy Alex Speier: |
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Post by mgoetze on Apr 26, 2014 0:39:08 GMT -5
Gordon Edes writes:
Early numbers suggest Capuano's stuff is really playing up in the bullpen (.222 BABIP and 0 HR/FB won't be sustained but his xFIP at 2.61 is also more than a full point below career average), and I would be loathe to take him out of there before giving RDLR and/or Workman a shot.
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Post by moonstone2 on Apr 26, 2014 1:01:28 GMT -5
It's not just the numbers but he's clearly throwing harder. He's up to 92 93 whereas he wouldn't crack 90 as a starter.
He is also featuring a much better changeup than I thought he had which is valuable versus righties.
I like him right where he is. If the Sox want to take Doubront out of the rotation they should DL him.
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Post by rjp313jr on Apr 26, 2014 9:18:25 GMT -5
Ruby De La Rosa should be Doubront's replacement in the rotation.
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Post by jmei on Apr 26, 2014 9:28:07 GMT -5
Capuano's average fastball velocity is up a bit this year, but less than you'd think. Here are his average and max velocities on his sinker from the last few years: Career: 88.3 (avg) 2011: 87.6 (avg), 92.2 (max) 2012: 87.9 (avg), 91.9 (max) 2013: 88.9 (avg), 92.5 (max) 2014: 89.3 (avg), 93 (max) ...and here's his velocity chart: [ADD: velocity chart isn't showing, click here to see it] What's really been fueling his success is the increased movement he's gotten on the pitch. He's averaging 12 inches of horizontal movement and 8.1 inches of vertical movement on the pitch (overall movement of 14.6 inches), compared to 10.1 horizontal/7 vertical/12.8 overall over his career. So far, that's resulted in more whiffs (6.2% swinging-strike-rate on the pitch, compared to 5.3% over his career), fueled largely by hitters offering much more at sinkers outside the zone (O-Swing% of 26.8%; 20.4% career) and swinging-and-missing more at sinkers in the zone (86.6% Z-Contact%; 89.9% career). It's also resulted in a lot more called strike threes (33% strikeouts on the pitch, which is much more than you'd expect even taking into account the increased whiff rate; his career strikeout rate on the pitch is just 17.4%). Some of that is going to regress, but so far, the results have been impressive. I agree that Capuano has been really great in the role he's in, and DLing Doubront/calling up Workman would be my preferred option (I let RDLR have some more success at Pawtucket first). But if DLing Doubront isn't an option (phantom DL stints are tougher to pull off in the majors), swapping Capuano and Doubront is their only real option (the only pitcher with an option on the major-league team is Tazawa, who is pretty much untouchable), and it's at least a solid one. |
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Post by mgoetze on Apr 26, 2014 9:34:35 GMT -5
But if DLing Doubront isn't an option (phantom DL stints are tougher to pull off in the majors) I'm sure noone in power would ever think of it, but would it be legal in MLB to trade Doubront to another team (preferably National League) with a stipulation that they must trade him back in 2 months? |
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Post by chavopepe2 on Apr 26, 2014 9:42:07 GMT -5
But if DLing Doubront isn't an option (phantom DL stints are tougher to pull off in the majors) I'm sure noone in power would ever think of it, but would it be legal in MLB to trade Doubront to another team (preferably National League) with a stipulation that they must trade him back in 2 months? That isn't even legal in my fantasy league. |
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Post by moonstone2 on Apr 26, 2014 12:11:55 GMT -5
Capuano's average fastball velocity is up a bit this year, but less than you'd think. Here are his average and max velocities on his sinker from the last few years: Career: 88.3 (avg) 2011: 87.6 (avg), 92.2 (max) 2012: 87.9 (avg), 91.9 (max) 2013: 88.9 (avg), 92.5 (max) 2014: 89.3 (avg), 93 (max) ...and here's his velocity chart: [ADD: velocity chart isn't showing, click here to see it] What's really been fueling his success is the increased movement he's gotten on the pitch. He's averaging 12 inches of horizontal movement and 8.1 inches of vertical movement on the pitch (overall movement of 14.6 inches), compared to 10.1 horizontal/7 vertical/12.8 overall over his career. So far, that's resulted in more whiffs (6.2% swinging-strike-rate on the pitch, compared to 5.3% over his career), fueled largely by hitters offering much more at sinkers outside the zone (O-Swing% of 26.8%; 20.4% career) and swinging-and-missing more at sinkers in the zone (86.6% Z-Contact%; 89.9% career). It's also resulted in a lot more called strike threes (33% strikeouts on the pitch, which is much more than you'd expect even taking into account the increased whiff rate; his career strikeout rate on the pitch is just 17.4%). Some of that is going to regress, but so far, the results have been impressive. I agree that Capuano has been really great in the role he's in, and DLing Doubront/calling up Workman would be my preferred option (I let RDLR have some more success at Pawtucket first). But if DLing Doubront isn't an option (phantom DL stints are tougher to pull off in the majors), swapping Capuano and Doubront is their only real option (the only pitcher with an option on the major-league team is Tazawa, who is pretty much untouchable), and it's at least a solid one. For a reliever in April overall pitch txt stats are pretty useless especially for this pitcher. The average velocity can be greatly effected by the conditions and the length of the relief outing. It can also change as time goes on Capuano in a one inning stint last night was averaging over 92 with his sinker according to Brooks Baseball. Doubront's numbers are telling. Only K's and walks are that much different from what he normally does. That tells me it's a control issue as opposed to a stuff issue. Doubront's always been inconsistent with his command and control but we've seen how good he can be when he harnesses that which he has done for extended periods. If the Red Sox had an all world starter sitting in the pen or someone lighting up AAA I would give them a shot. But for now the best thing to do is to ride it out and hope Doubront's command improves. |
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Post by jmei on Apr 26, 2014 12:36:11 GMT -5
Capuano's velocity was definitely up in that outing, but if you look at his velocity chart, that's really the only stint this year where his velocity has been meaningfully higher than it was last year. As such, I don't think all or even most of his success this year has been driven by a velocity increase. I also don't mean to suggest that Doubront should be replaced right away, and he should get at least a half-dozen more starts-- he's earned at least that much. But if he continues to suck it up, then yeah, it has to be on the table. |
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Post by jimed14 on Apr 27, 2014 10:24:33 GMT -5
Gordon Edes writes: Early numbers suggest Capuano's stuff is really playing up in the bullpen (.222 BABIP and 0 HR/FB won't be sustained but his xFIP at 2.61 is also more than a full point below career average), and I would be loathe to take him out of there before giving RDLR and/or Workman a shot. Let me say that I was completely wrong thus far about Capuano. |
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Post by kungfuizzy on May 5, 2014 5:56:48 GMT -5
Gordon Edes writes: Early numbers suggest Capuano's stuff is really playing up in the bullpen (.222 BABIP and 0 HR/FB won't be sustained but his xFIP at 2.61 is also more than a full point below career average), and I would be loathe to take him out of there before giving RDLR and/or Workman a shot. Let me say that I was completely wrong thus far about Capuano. I was also wrong about Capuano. I think the wrong move is to remove him from the pen. Instead I would promote Webster. As I mentioned in the offseason there is one thing notable about him. Websters control issues coincide with being promoted to a new level. He seems to do much better repeating a level after failing the year before. Although it wouldn't be hard to do better than an era of 8 I think we would see a better starter than Doubront right now. That's if the current trend is correct and he does much better his second time around. If the control is fixed then he has the highest ceiling and one of the least amount of miles on his arm out of the prospects. |
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Post by moonstone2 on May 5, 2014 7:50:29 GMT -5
Nobody in that AAA rotation looks like they are ready to steal a rotation spot from someone, nobody. It's one of the early dissapointments thus far.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on May 5, 2014 7:54:45 GMT -5
Nobody in that AAA rotation looks like they are ready to steal a rotation spot from someone, nobody. It's one of the early dissapointments thus far. Ruby De La Rosa disagrees with you. Not saying he won't end up like Webster did, but he's earned the chance so far this year. |
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