SoxProspects News
|
|
|
|
Legal
Forum Ground Rules
The views expressed by the members of this Forum do not necessarily reflect the views of SoxProspects, LLC.
© 2003-2024 SoxProspects, LLC
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Home | Search | My Profile | Messages | Members | Help |
Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
What do you value in a 4/5 starter?
|
|
Post by jclmontana on Sept 19, 2014 14:28:15 GMT -5
Besides awesomeness, of course. I have been thinking about this topic a lot and wanted to throw it out to the board. The sox have many young guys that profile to perform in that range, but not all 4/5's are created equal.
While it would be great to have high performing guys in every rotation spot, it is really difficult to pull off. Payroll and talent constraints limit the number of high performing pitchers that teams are able to keep on their rosters, resulting in carrying pitchers with flaws--sometimes lots of flaws-- to fill the back end of a rotation. In a sense, GM's are in a position to pick the flaws they want to live with, react to, or attempt to fix by who they choose for these rotation spots. Roster composition, trade opportunities, and the free agent landscape will influence how a front office fills in the back of the rotation as well. If a team needs a miracle to contend, then maybe the front office takes on more high risk guys. If the team is already solid, maybe they take on less risky guys with less upside.
Here is my mental categorization of 4/5's.
1.) Young, upside guys who are getting their feet wet. These are the Allan Webster's and Rubby De la Rosa types. They can be great one week, shaky to downright awful the next. They also tend to hit a rookie or innings wall later in the season. The prospect watcher/gambler in me loves this type of 4/5 for obvious reasons. If they get "it" together, they can be dominating and give the team an incredible boost. The downside is often great as well, instability, poor performance, and roster management problems.
2.) "Creaky old veteran trying to reclaim the magic." Eric Bedard, John Smoltz, Brad Penny, Bartolo Colon are a few of the guys that fall into this category. My least favorite category as a fan, but perfectly reasonable to bring these types in as low risk gambles. But they do necessitate having really good back up plans, even early in the year. The problem for a team that strives to compete every year is that these guys can need a lot of patience, as they can look really bad at the beginning of the year. It also sets up the dynamic of bringing in a rehab guy, helping him through the early part of a season with poor results, then cutting him and watching him bloom in another place.
3.) The boom and bust known commodities. Tim Wakefield was this guy for quite a while when he was no longer great, but still decent overall. Wake could be really good for a game, or part of a game, then lose it completely. Clay Buchholtz, unfortunately, also falls into this category.
They can have great outings, but these guys can also put a lot of pressure on bullpens and the offense in unpredictable ways. With Wake, one couldn't really plan on what they were likely going to get, making it difficult to manage bullpen usage before a start or recovery after a 4 inning clunker. I think, ultimately, these are the worst type of 4/5 starters because you cannot plan around them.
For the back end of the rotation, give me a guy with slightly worse numbers overall, but who is reasonably predictable, rather than a guy with better numbers who is less predictable and who is harder to plan around. The young guys have the same problem with predictability, but at least with them there is usually the promise (illusion?) of upside down the road. Not so much with these guys.
4.) Boring stability and predictability. The innings eater. Bronson Arroyo is the Red Sox poster child here. Nothing great, not usually, but okay enough to keep the team in a game and fairly easy to predict what you need in terms of bullpen availability and whether or not to rest position players. These are the guys that, in my humble opinion, are critical pieces of successful teams, as long as there is above-average talent elsewhere on the roster. I hope that Joe Kelly falls into (at least) this category, although he is kind of a boom or bust guy at the moment, and he also legitimately has upside as well.
So, in regards to 4/5 pitcher types, I guess this means that I favor boring mediocrity as the flaw I would like the sox to live with. Probably because if we can sustain boring mediocrity in the 4/5 slots, it probably means the team overall is strong and the sox don't need to catch lighting in a bottle to be successful.
When the Sox pick and choose who they keep and who they trade away from their stockpile of talented, but flawed young pitchers, I would be okay with them trading away some of the high-ceiling/high risk guys and keeping more predictable, but perhaps less talented guys on the roster. This means that Webster would be gone, maybe Rubby too, while Workman and Ranaudo stick around.
I realize that some of my assumptions may be off, but I am not trying to present an airtight case here, just trying to find something new to write and read about. I also think the 4/5 rotation spots are going to be a hot topic this off-season, with good reason.
|
|
TearsIn04
Veteran
Everybody knows Nelson de la Rosa, but who is Karim Garcia?
Posts: 2,835 
|
Post by TearsIn04 on Sept 19, 2014 18:41:13 GMT -5
I value Tim Wakefield. I used to say that he was the greatest fifth starter in the history of BB. Think about it - five-man rotations go back only to the 1970s. Who was better over a sustained period time at the back of a rotation than him?
Wake wasn't really always the fifth best starter on the RS if you mean the fifth most effective or the guy who got skipped over for off days. But I always thought of him as the fifth starter type - the innings eater who was never hurt, always took the ball and - quite amazingly for a fifth starter, I think - put up a better than league average ERA. He had a career ERA-plus of of 105 and had a run from 2001 to 2009 in which he was below 100 only once (99 in 2004).
Innings + an almost league average or league average ERA = an excellent fifth starter.
|
|
|
|
Post by Guidas on Sept 20, 2014 12:17:40 GMT -5
32 starts and a sub-4.00 ERA.
|
|
|
|
Post by tonyc on Sept 20, 2014 14:18:10 GMT -5
Good thread. You alluded to variability, and that would be my answer, depending on circumstances. Obviously on this site we all would like the high potential young pitchers, and it's great fun to follow the progress of this roster, which has nothing to lose and can throw more of them out there than I can remember in Sox history. However, I recall a much different situation where a very "un-sexy" choice was the correct one made by Dan Duquette in 1999, fitting your "creaky old veteran option."
I quite liked his intelligence and, in general his choices, one of which was to correct flaws made in the previous years roster. Given budget limitations, he picked up and tried a large number of fringy players, and as a result had some great value hits- i.e. Troy Oleary, Tim Wakefield, Brian Daubach. One downside, however, was in 1998 a group of these pitchers filling out the bottom of his roster compiled a huge era. Next year he corrected this by acquiring a boring veteran in his last year, Mark Portugal, who ended up with an ERA of about 5.51 and was dumped before the season was over.
To the casual fan this represented failure, however, he was a stabilizer from an ERA of nearly double that for some of those back enders, and played his part in a playoff bound team.
|
|
|
|
Post by klostrophobic on Sept 20, 2014 22:15:32 GMT -5
Steven Wright, mostly. Barring that, maybe Jon Lester.
But really I'd prefer a boom or bust pitcher if management and the coaching staff are well-equipped to determine when he has reached bust status.
|
|
|
|
Post by pedroelgrande on Sept 20, 2014 22:42:31 GMT -5
That he'd be better than yor typical 4th/5th.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,911
|
Post by ericmvan on Sept 21, 2014 3:46:58 GMT -5
The confounding thing is that, at least taken in isolation (i.e., ignoring impact on the bullpen, etc.), pitching inconsistency is good.
Take two guys with a 4.50 ERA, who each run off a bunch of starts averaging 6 innings each.
Guy A:
6 IP, 3 ER
6 IP, 3 ER
6 IP, 3 ER
6 IP, 3 ER
Guy B:
7 IP, 2 ER
7 IP, 2 ER
7 IP, 2 ER
3 IP, 6 ER
You're going to win more games with guy B. With a typical offense (4.50 runs per 9 innings), guy A is a .500 pitcher. But guy B is going to beat that by heading slightly in the direction of 3 wins and a loss. With that offense, you win a 7 IP, 2 ER start 81% of the time, and you win all 3 good games 54% of the time.
The reason why this happens is that when you give up a whole lot of runs in one start, the piling-on runs start to have a diminished negative impact. Giving up 4 ER in 3 IP digs a deep hole, and giving up two more ER doesn't dig it that much deeper; those 2 runs allowed have a lot less impact on wining than the run not allowed in a game with average scoring (3 ER vs. 2 ER).
You can see this by looking at the impact on Win Probability from giving up runs in a scoreless tie game in the top of the 3rd. Here is the change in Win Probability as your crappy inning progresses:
First run allowed: -10.6%
Second run: -9.7%
Third run: -8.1% (point at which Guy A, but not guy B, gets out of the inning)
Fourth run: -6.5%
That's as far as the chart goes, but you can see the trend. Those three extra runs have a lot less impact than the first three.
That all this is true is confirmed by studies of the pythagorean run relationship. Teams with a high standard deviation in RA tend to outperform their Pyth. (And teams with a high SD of RS tend to underperform for the same reason -- all those extra runs scored in a blowout don't help you win the game any more so. At some point in the future, I can see the SD of RS and RA being listed at b-ref, and their being included in an alternate Pyth.)
This effect, BTW, is one of the reasons to look at WPA for SP. Inconsistency is a real pitching quality that is adjusted for by WPA but is not reflected in any other pitching metric. Going into last night, Rubby had below average ERA, FIP, xFIP, and SIERA, but his WPA was average. (A better metric would be to translate each start into its odds of winning. BP used to do that with their "Support-Neutral" pitching stats, which they junked for some reason which escapes me. Another way to measure the same thing would be to convert each outing's runs allowed into a "Win-Adjusted RA.")
|
|
|
|
Post by tonyc on Sept 21, 2014 10:56:31 GMT -5
Eric,
I've had a theory that teams with a strong bullpen will outperform their projected pythagorean run relationship (2013 Yankees i.e.) as they will capture the wins within reach a higher percent of the time. Have you or anyone else run numbers on that?
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,911
|
Post by ericmvan on Sept 22, 2014 19:05:19 GMT -5
Eric, I've had a theory that teams with a strong bullpen will outperform their projected pythagorean run relationship (2013 Yankees i.e.) as they will capture the wins within reach a higher percent of the time. Have you or anyone else run numbers on that? Yup. The Yankees with Rivera beat their Pyth year after year, so this is an idea that's been kicking around. I did a study on this whose details are alas a bit hazy. IIRC, I initially found that something like 8% of pythagorean differential was predictive for next season. I added closer identity to the data set and discovered that the worst pyth underperformers changed closers about half the time and had no correlation when they did so, but a good correlation when they stuck with the closer -- that is, they strongly tended to underperform again. There may have been other evidence that I've forgotten in this little study, that pointed at the closer as the driver of a real tendency for pyth differential to be slightly predictive. I came up with a figure of 10% after eliminating the bad teams that changed closers. A future good study would look at offensive and defensive consistency and bullpen makeup, and then see if there's something left over that can be credited or debited to the manager. Oh, and you'd also want to look at clutch -- should the team that wins close games all season long because they keep getting the big hit get any credit for that, or is it all luck? My own sense is that team performance in certain or various high-leverage situations does tend to run in streaks, so it's real, but like most such things that are streaky, it's not predictive enough to bother with because the hot or cold streak may end at any time. |
|
|
|
Post by James Dunne on Sept 24, 2014 22:19:06 GMT -5
Eric, I'd looked into the same thing a few years back and also didn't really find anything conclusive. My theory is this - that modern closer usage may be sub-optimal, but it is not far from sub-optimal if that closer is, indeed, elite. However, if you have a non-elite closer - the Derrick Turnbow/Heathcliff Slocum types - then that usage pattern is quite a bit further from optimal. Since teams with bad closers and teams with good closers employ essentially the same usage patterns, it gives those teams with good closers a fairly significant competitive advantage over the course of a season. In simplest terms, it was really dumb for the Slocum-era Red Sox to try to beat the Rivera-era Yankees by using Slocum the same way the Yankees used Rivera.
|
|
|
|
Post by mgoetze on Oct 21, 2014 4:59:53 GMT -5
Eric, I'd looked into the same thing a few years back and also didn't really find anything conclusive. My theory is this - that modern closer usage may be sub-optimal, but it is not far from sub-optimal if that closer is, indeed, elite. However, if you have a non-elite closer - the Derrick Turnbow/Heathcliff Slocum types - then that usage pattern is quite a bit further from optimal. This seems counterintuitive to me. Let's assume the closer is the best reliever on the team. We'll define standard usage as to bringing in the closer in a clean 9th if leading by 1, 2 or 3 runs. Let's further assume that we can take the closer out of one inning and put him in another inning that season without any problems (this might not ALWAYS be true in practice, but I think it is close enough given that IMO relievers are underused in general *.) I would postulate that more optimal closer usage involves taking the closer out of some of those 3-run-lead games and into either tie games in the 9th or games where we are leading by 1 in the 8th (possibly with men on). Both the elite closer and the non-elite closer are very unlikely to blow a 3-run lead. But the elite closer will help more in the close games in the 8th/9th and also be more effective at putting out the fire if the second-best reliever gives up 2 runs of a 3-run lead. So there should be more to gain by switching strategy if you have an elite closer than if you have an ordinary one. Corollary: the further the run-scoring environment is depressed, the more suboptimal the current orthodoxy of closer usage becomes.
*) Remember how people said Koji could never be a closer because you can't use him on two straight days, and he then went on to play three straight days at times when he was the closer? |
|
|
|
Post by redsoxfan2 on Oct 21, 2014 11:35:53 GMT -5
I prefer my 4 starter to be a re-thread who can give you 200+ innings of 4-4.5 ERA and my 5 to be a 23 year old prospect with the upside of a 1-3.
|
|
danr
Veteran
Posts: 1,871
|
Post by danr on Oct 21, 2014 12:00:24 GMT -5
Eric, I've had a theory that teams with a strong bullpen will outperform their projected pythagorean run relationship (2013 Yankees i.e.) as they will capture the wins within reach a higher percent of the time. Have you or anyone else run numbers on that? I think this definitely can happen. In one of the Arizona Diamondbacks' seasons. when they made the postseason - I think 2007 - they beat the pythagorean by quite a margin when they had a terrific bullpen. |
|
danr
Veteran
Posts: 1,871
|
Post by danr on Oct 21, 2014 12:14:22 GMT -5
Depending on how a manager operates his rotation, the 4th and 5th starters are just about as important as the first. If the manager keeps the five man rotation through the season, regardless of days off, rainouts, etc. - every pitcher pitching every fifth game, then the first two starters will start one more game, 33, than the other three. I don't know of any manager who does this religiously, but many do it during the early and middle parts of the season.
However, if the manager changes the rotation so that the best pitchers are pitching every fifth day, then the number of starts per pitcher will be highest for the number one, and decline for each of the others. In that system the fifth starter usually will get fewer than 30 starts, more like 25 or so. I like this method better, and I think it works better for the better pitchers. It also is likely to produce a better record.
With that method, the best way to insure that a team will be competitive is to have at least four really good starters. The fifth position then can be filled by any one of the options you outlined.
|
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 21, 2014 16:23:59 GMT -5
I prefer my 4 starter to be a re-thread who can give you 200+ innings of 4-4.5 ERA and my 5 to be a 23 year old prospect with the upside of a 1-3. Getting 200IP from a #4 starter is a wet dream. I don't care about ERA, IP will speak for itself. 200IP from the #4 starter, regardless of age or ERA would be bliss. Show me a #5 starter who can give you 175IP and I'd be in pig heaven. Given the RS pitching depth I think your looking at a "rotating" #5 between 2-3 youngsters. I would love to see 200 IP from this collection. In fact I could envision both the #4 and #5 starters being a rotating competition among 4-5 young arms. BTW, I think Kelly will not be in this competition. |
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Oct 21, 2014 16:53:38 GMT -5
I prefer a 1999 Pedro type.
|
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 21, 2014 17:36:37 GMT -5
I prefer my 4 starter to be a re-thread who can give you 200+ innings of 4-4.5 ERA and my 5 to be a 23 year old prospect with the upside of a 1-3. Getting 200IP from a #4 starter is a wet dream. I don't care about ERA, IP will speak for itself. 200IP from the #4 starter, regardless of age or ERA would be bliss. Show me a #5 starter who can give you 175IP and I'd be in pig heaven. Given the RS pitching depth I think your looking at a "rotating" #5 between 2-3 youngsters. I would love to see 200 IP from this collection. In fact I could envision both the #4 and #5 starters being a rotating competition among 4-5 young arms. BTW, I think Kelly will not be in this competition. I had assumed he was being sarcastic given the specificity. But just for giggles, 34 pitchers pitched 200 innings this season. I think that about says it all. Only team that had three was Detroit (Scherzer, Verlander, Porcello). There were a number of teams with three pitchers over 190-all in the NL, not coincidentally-but nobody came close to having four guys with that many. |
|
|
|
Post by James Dunne on Oct 21, 2014 17:58:55 GMT -5
Wanting a #4 starter to be Mark Buehrle reminds me of the time when Nick Cafardo wrote in his Sunday notes column every week for an entire winter that the Red Sox should trade for Mark Buehrle... and put him in the bullpen.
|
|
|
|
Post by jerrygarciaparra on Oct 21, 2014 18:46:14 GMT -5
12 wins and an ERA of 4.75 or better. That's most important.
|
|
|
|
Post by redsoxfan2 on Oct 22, 2014 9:54:34 GMT -5
Wanting a #4 starter to be Mark Buehrle reminds me of the time when Nick Cafardo wrote in his Sunday notes column every week for an entire winter that the Red Sox should trade for Mark Buehrle... and put him in the bullpen. I believe I suffer from bram bramage. You're all right, wanting 200 IP from my number 4 starter is an unrealistic dream, sadly. As long as he can give you more innings than the average 4 starter and stay around a 4 ERA, I'm happy. I always want to be giving my 5th starter to prospects as if they flame out, they aren't counted on as a vital piece. If they work out, then your rotation is dominate. This of course unless the Red Sox have more than one highly touted prospects. The Sox have some kids with potential and some of them (Rubby, Workman, Webster, Ranaudo) all have some level of ML experience. I'd be willing to roll the dice on two of them. Getting a solid 4th starter mid-season shouldn't be that impossible should one of all the above implode and none of Rodriguez, Owens, Barnes, Escobar are able to fill that void. |
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 22, 2014 21:10:57 GMT -5
Getting 200IP from a #4 starter is a wet dream. I don't care about ERA, IP will speak for itself. 200IP from the #4 starter, regardless of age or ERA would be bliss. Show me a #5 starter who can give you 175IP and I'd be in pig heaven. Given the RS pitching depth I think your looking at a "rotating" #5 between 2-3 youngsters. I would love to see 200 IP from this collection. In fact I could envision both the #4 and #5 starters being a rotating competition among 4-5 young arms. BTW, I think Kelly will not be in this competition. I had assumed he was being sarcastic given the specificity. But just for giggles, 34 pitchers pitched 200 innings this season. I think that about says it all. Only team that had three was Detroit (Scherzer, Verlander, Porcello). There were a number of teams with three pitchers over 190-all in the NL, not coincidentally-but nobody came close to having four guys with that many. I don't believe this team, given its' current roster, is even remotely close to putting out a #4 and #5 starter that could account for 325 innings, let alone 400IP. What I do find interesting with this roster is that it "could" get 1000 IP from the sum total of its' starters. Reaching that point would keep the bullpen relatively fresh.... especially if some of those starters could fill in on occasion. Using this "strategy" would be one way to separate the wheat from the chaff with respect to starters while allowing field management to keep its' younger prospects to a reasonable IP or pitching count (however they keep track of such things). I've never seen a Red Sox team with this kind of pitching prospect depth. And I've never seen so many talented southpaws despite the trades of Lester and the Doubrant. I have modest expectations for 2015. IMO it will be a very interesting year with which to observe pitchers. I hope the expectations of management are not unrealistic for 2015. I think this teams comes together big time in 2016. |
|
|
|
Post by soxfan1615 on Oct 22, 2014 21:39:49 GMT -5
I had assumed he was being sarcastic given the specificity. But just for giggles, 34 pitchers pitched 200 innings this season. I think that about says it all. Only team that had three was Detroit (Scherzer, Verlander, Porcello). There were a number of teams with three pitchers over 190-all in the NL, not coincidentally-but nobody came close to having four guys with that many. I don't believe this team, given its' current roster, is even remotely close to putting out a #4 and #5 starter that could account for 325 innings, let alone 400IP. What I do find interesting with this roster is that it "could" get 1000 IP from the sum total of its' starters. Reaching that point would keep the bullpen relatively fresh.... especially if some of those starters could fill in on occasion. Using this "strategy" would be one way to separate the wheat from the chaff with respect to starters while allowing field management to keep its' younger prospects to a reasonable IP or pitching count (however they keep track of such things). I've never seen a Red Sox team with this kind of pitching prospect depth. And I've never seen so many talented southpaws despite the trades of Lester and the Doubrant. I have modest expectations for 2015. IMO it will be a very interesting year with which to observe pitchers. I hope the expectations of management are not unrealistic for 2015. I think this teams comes together big time in 2016. The punt 2015 to go for it in 2016 makes no sense to me. After 2015, the contracts of Ortiz, Napoli, Cespedes, and Victorino are all up, so unless you unrealistically think the prospects are going to fix all of that, we're going to have to overhaul the offense through free agency, which is expensive, or trades, which cost the prospects you think will fill in. In my opinion, the best strategy is to sign or trade for a bunch of guys to fix all our needs for 2015. This way, we can have a competitive team for 2015 and a core to build around in 2016. But leaving everything to prospects in 2016 is going to put us in a much less likely position of competing than we are now. Another thing worth considering is that the Red Sox TV money comes from owning a part of NESN, so all their sources of income are dependent on performance. Leaving it all to the prospects in 2016, and not going all out for 2016 could send us into a long rebuilding process, which is not only miserable to watch, but will also kill the amount of money the team has to spend, negating the point of prospects |
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 23, 2014 22:24:58 GMT -5
I don't believe this team, given its' current roster, is even remotely close to putting out a #4 and #5 starter that could account for 325 innings, let alone 400IP. What I do find interesting with this roster is that it "could" get 1000 IP from the sum total of its' starters. Reaching that point would keep the bullpen relatively fresh.... especially if some of those starters could fill in on occasion. Using this "strategy" would be one way to separate the wheat from the chaff with respect to starters while allowing field management to keep its' younger prospects to a reasonable IP or pitching count (however they keep track of such things). I've never seen a Red Sox team with this kind of pitching prospect depth. And I've never seen so many talented southpaws despite the trades of Lester and the Doubrant. I have modest expectations for 2015. IMO it will be a very interesting year with which to observe pitchers. I hope the expectations of management are not unrealistic for 2015. I think this teams comes together big time in 2016. The punt 2015 to go for it in 2016 makes no sense to me. After 2015, the contracts of Ortiz, Napoli, Cespedes, and Victorino are all up, so unless you unrealistically think the prospects are going to fix all of that, we're going to have to overhaul the offense through free agency, which is expensive, or trades, which cost the prospects you think will fill in. In my opinion, the best strategy is to sign or trade for a bunch of guys to fix all our needs for 2015. This way, we can have a competitive team for 2015 and a core to build around in 2016. But leaving everything to prospects in 2016 is going to put us in a much less likely position of competing than we are now. Another thing worth considering is that the Red Sox TV money comes from owning a part of NESN, so all their sources of income are dependent on performance. Leaving it all to the prospects in 2016, and not going all out for 2016 could send us into a long rebuilding process, which is not only miserable to watch, but will also kill the amount of money the team has to spend, negating the point of prospects Punt was your choice of words. Their is no punting in baseball. While I think the Red Sox have numerous interesting trade chips to offer, I don't believe they have enough sample sizes to know which ones to keep and which ones to offer in trade. As for fixing the needs for 2015, there is simply too much to "fix" to compete in one year. This team is not going from last to first to last to first. Won't happen. A modest improvement, say a .500 record, would be more in line, IMO. I never consider money when judging talent. That is left up to management. My hope is that cash considerations don't weigh too heavily in rushing to judgement (and expectations) with personnel. Jon Lester would be an example of a financial consideration where I believe management missed an opportunity to extend him prior to the 2014 season. As far as putting unrealistic expectations on prospects, I disagree. Castillo is hardly a prospect. He is still a risk, but he's been there done that. Xander is of concern to me. I believe in 2015 we will see what we can expect to see from him going forward. I expect XB to be above league average. I am sold, lock stock and barrel on Betts. As for the contracts of Ortiz, Napoli, Cespedes and Victorino. If big Papi hits next year he can always be signed for another. Napoli is marginal beyond 2015, I think Cespedes is gone on or before 2016 and Victorino will not be resigned. Meanwhile Swihart, Cecchini, Shaw, Coyle, Brentz and Marrero get a full season of AB's in Pawtucket and probably some AB's for the big club. If the pitching is sorted out and of the caliber I am hoping for, then this team should be very competitive in 2016. Many of the prospect/suspects like Middlebrooks and Bradley will be gone, and the position prospects I believe in, Boegarrts and Betts will be fixtures. I'm not saying every position will be accounted for, but as an example, in 2014 the team used the hot hand between WMB, XB and Holt at 3B, in 2016 3B could be a rotation of Marrero, Cecchini and Holt. 1B instead of Napoli/Carp/Nave, it could be Napoli/Shaw/Nava. My chief reason for having modest expectations is the lack of an experienced ace. I would be more bullish for 2015 if I knew Jon Lester would be getting the ball every 5th day. I am not confident that a Shields, or Cueto, or Latos is going to be able to replace Lester in the short term. I hope none of these pitchers are signed or traded for. I base my prognostication on what is in the system. |
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Oct 24, 2014 7:21:57 GMT -5
I really liked the Red Sox starting piching back in the early-mid 80s when we had Clemens/Boyd/Tudor/Hurst/Ojeda/Nipper. We usually got pretty decent pitching from whoever was the 4/5 those years.
|
|
|
