Simon Mercedes, Pat Light and Reed Reilly

Mike Hazen has spoken about this on the radio.  The Red Sox like to keep pitchers as starters as long as possible.  Even if they never start a game in the majors they get a lot more reps as starters and are able to learn how to pitch with runners on base, etc.  A dominant minor league reliever might never enter into a situation where they have to get a tough hitter out with runners on base but he's likely going to have to do just that in the majors.

All three guys are likely bullpen arms at best, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be starting.

The craziest thing about that list is that there are only 25 relief pitchers with 3 or more total fWAR over 3 seasons.

I don't know that relief pitcher WAR is anywhere close to right as it implies that it's just a waste of time to spend a lot of money and effort on building a good bullpen.

FWIW, Jansen is a converted catcher and Doolittle a converted infielder, so they're special cases. (Although, does that have interesting bearing on this discussion?)

This is admittedly a hot(-ish)-button topic among the staff. We keep meaning to discuss it on a podcast, but there are definitely one or two people who disagree with Boston's philosophy here. Moonstone does lay out what the Sox's line of thinking is, which has its good and bad as does the philosophy to just develop guys as relievers.

I'd posit, though, that the guys the development philosophy would matter for are not the elite relievers, but the setup men who didn't become closers, or the middle relievers who never became setup men. Holland had about 250 minor league innings. Kimbrel and Robertson had about 150 each. To be major league ready with that kind of development time is kind of crazy if you think about it. Compare with Mercedes already at 163 and Light a shade below 200, and they haven't made it to Portland yet. Is Jonathan Papelbon better off that he got 277 innings in 3 years than he would have been getting it over 5 or 6 as a reliever? I honestly don't know the answer, and he's probably a terrible example anyway because he didn't even learn the splitter until Schilling taught it to him before his last season in the minors.

It's different for every player though, really - the Red Sox philosophy might benefit one future reliever (or with, say, a Masterson, allow him to become a starter despite his lacking that projection when drafted), and hinder another.

Craig Kimbrel and David Robertson had no experience of a starter in pro level. They were on fast track and succeeded in the big league. I don't think Red Sox are good at developing bullpen arms. It is just waste of time. Also pitchers are losing their velo after 25 old.

I don't want to sound like a broken record but I feel this is what the Yankees do best they convert some of there good arms and build a bullpen out of them. I really want the Sox to adopt this formula going forward. I don't mind maybe one or two veterans anchors but Masterson was the perfect person for the Sox breaking into the major league team and he was missed when traded.

The bullpen is one of the most fluid positions. If you use cost controlled young kids with options you are not tied up for 2,3 or 4 years in some rare instances. I believe though the closer isn't that easy to pluck in the system. Paplebon's don't grow in systems too easy.

This is completely unrelated... I don't know why but after reading this thread, Daniel Bard popped into my head. My god was that ever a f--_ing mistake. The guy never made a start above A ball where he was terrible. I'm trying to recall. Why did this happen? Were we just so desperate for starters after 2011 or what? Like who OK'd that and thought it was going to turn out well?

18 batters faced, 9 BB, 7 HBP, 0 hits.  And the most amazing part is no wild pitches.

To add to Chris' comment, a lot of these guys likely started out in the pen and stayed there for reasons other than long-term planning.  Robertson and Holland were both very low college draft picks with Holland going in the 10th round and Robertson in the 17th.  Guys picked that low are usually just thrown in the bullpen in favor of higher ceiling talent that the team had spent it's bonus pool and higher draft picks on.  If the player actually sticks it out for a couple of years and shows something, which is almost never the case, it doesn't make a lot of sense to switch him back to starting.  Why fix what isn't broken.

Doolittle and Jansen as mentioned were failed position players.  Such players have a specific problem because their six year minor league free agent, and rule five clock don't restart because they switched to pitching.  To actually get value out of the player, the team almost has to put them in the pen so that they can advance to the 40 man and hopefully the majors as soon as possible.  You can't give such a player the luxury of working on a third pitch as a starter for instance.  I would imagine that for this reason Williams Jerez won't be starting much.

In the case, of Mercedes and Light don't fit that profile as an international bonus baby and first round pick respectively.

Well that's the first time I've read of this. Apparently I do not read enough.

Beats the he just totally lost confidence reports