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Simon Mercedes, Pat Light and Reed Reilly
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Post by juniorp90 on Jan 8, 2015 15:41:24 GMT -5
These pitchers are on our farms. Nobody has thought convert relievers? None has had numbers as relevant as to keep them as a future project starter, lack a 3rd dominant pitching that can be used for this purpose, these are pitchers who could be play very well. Not only must DEVELOP position players or starting pitchers, we can make them with relievers. What do you think? They all look intimidating pitchers and have a powerful straight.
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Post by moonstone2 on Jan 8, 2015 16:35:09 GMT -5
These pitchers are on our farms. Nobody has thought convert relievers? None has had numbers as relevant as to keep them as a future project starter, lack a 3rd dominant pitching that can be used for this purpose, these are pitchers who could be play very well. Not only must DEVELOP position players or starting pitchers, we can make them with relievers. What do you think? They all look intimidating pitchers and have a powerful straight. 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.
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Post by klostrophobic on Jan 8, 2015 17:22:16 GMT -5
If you look across the majors, it seems a lot of elite relievers were almost exclusively relievers from the getgo after being drafted/signed. Holland, Kimbrel, Doolittle, Jansen, Robertson all follow this model and they're probably five of the best ten relievers of the last three years. I don't know if this is a recent trend or not but it strikes me as interesting because I would not have guessed it. Just a quick glance at the top fWAR relievers since 2012 shows a great number of relievers who were strictly relievers from the start of their pro careers, which I would not have guessed. www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2014&month=0&season1=2012&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 8, 2015 17:36:06 GMT -5
If you look across the majors, it seems a lot of elite relievers were almost exclusively relievers from the getgo after being drafted/signed. Holland, Kimbrel, Doolittle, Jansen, Robertson all follow this model and they're probably five of the best ten relievers of the last three years. I don't know if this is a recent trend or not but it strikes me as interesting because I would not have guessed it. Just a quick glance at the top fWAR relievers since 2012 shows a great number of relievers who were strictly relievers from the start of their pro careers, which I would not have guessed. www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2014&month=0&season1=2012&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0The 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.
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 8, 2015 18:16:56 GMT -5
Yes and no. I think it's silly to give a pitcher $10-12 million a season and only give him 50 innings. That said, a good manager can strategically use his best relievers in high-leverage situations, meaning they will have a WPA far out of proportion to their WAR, because WAR doesn't take situation into account.
That's both a feature and a bug of WAR. On the one hand, it is very useful to have something that measures only inputs. On the other, it won't see the usefulness of a well-used high-quality reliever.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 8, 2015 18:20:43 GMT -5
If you look across the majors, it seems a lot of elite relievers were almost exclusively relievers from the getgo after being drafted/signed. Holland, Kimbrel, Doolittle, Jansen, Robertson all follow this model and they're probably five of the best ten relievers of the last three years. I don't know if this is a recent trend or not but it strikes me as interesting because I would not have guessed it. Just a quick glance at the top fWAR relievers since 2012 shows a great number of relievers who were strictly relievers from the start of their pro careers, which I would not have guessed. www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2014&month=0&season1=2012&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0FWIW, 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.
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 8, 2015 23:41:10 GMT -5
Masterson is a slightly different case though. He met no resistance at all in the low minors. At Lowell he was a piggyback guy and was totally untouchable. Seriously, I just went back and looked at his line that year, and it was just as dominant as I remembered him looking in person. His 2006 might have been the best-pitched season in Spinners history. Then he went to Lancaster the next spring and gave up only four home runs in 95 innings while all of his teammates were giving up four homers every time out.
I've had a pet theory for awhile that the botched Craig Hansen development has played a role in the Red Sox commitment to building the innings of their young arms. The one guy they tried to fast track in the bullpen ended up being a disaster. It led them to create a development plan with specific goals that every player needs to tick off.
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Post by wskeleton76 on Jan 9, 2015 2:15:11 GMT -5
Masterson is a slightly different case though. He met no resistance at all in the low minors. At Lowell he was a piggyback guy and was totally untouchable. Seriously, I just went back and looked at his line that year, and it was just as dominant as I remembered him looking in person. His 2006 might have been the best-pitched season in Spinners history. Then he went to Lancaster the next spring and gave up only four home runs in 95 innings while all of his teammates were giving up four homers every time out. I've had a pet theory for awhile that the botched Craig Hansen development has played a role in the Red Sox commitment to building the innings of their young arms. The one guy they tried to fast track in the bullpen ended up being a disaster. It led them to create a development plan with specific goals that every player needs to tick off. 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.
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Post by juniorp90 on Jan 9, 2015 7:58:29 GMT -5
Masterson is a slightly different case though. He met no resistance at all in the low minors. At Lowell he was a piggyback guy and was totally untouchable. Seriously, I just went back and looked at his line that year, and it was just as dominant as I remembered him looking in person. His 2006 might have been the best-pitched season in Spinners history. Then he went to Lancaster the next spring and gave up only four home runs in 95 innings while all of his teammates were giving up four homers every time out. I've had a pet theory for awhile that the botched Craig Hansen development has played a role in the Red Sox commitment to building the innings of their young arms. The one guy they tried to fast track in the bullpen ended up being a disaster. It led them to create a development plan with specific goals that every player needs to tick off. Not all will bear the misfortune of Craig Hansen to think that for this reason the organization does not develop players of this magnitude, in contrast to this case, Hansen was not extremely dominant in the minors to think it could be a regular reliever in the majors. What I think that like all positions, relief should also be part of the development of young players on our farm.
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Post by GyIantosca on Jan 9, 2015 8:22:26 GMT -5
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.
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Post by brianthetaoist on Jan 9, 2015 12:42:41 GMT -5
Masterson is a slightly different case though. He met no resistance at all in the low minors. At Lowell he was a piggyback guy and was totally untouchable. Seriously, I just went back and looked at his line that year, and it was just as dominant as I remembered him looking in person. His 2006 might have been the best-pitched season in Spinners history. Then he went to Lancaster the next spring and gave up only four home runs in 95 innings while all of his teammates were giving up four homers every time out. I've had a pet theory for awhile that the botched Craig Hansen development has played a role in the Red Sox commitment to building the innings of their young arms. The one guy they tried to fast track in the bullpen ended up being a disaster. It led them to create a development plan with specific goals that every player needs to tick off. I don't think it was just Hansen ... it seemed like the Sox had a system-wide attempt at developing guys strictly as relievers around that time. Hansen was the marquee guy, but Cla Meredith was another, and my memory is that there were a few others along the same time. But it really didn't produce all that much (with some notable busts), and they went back to a more traditional approach of keeping guys as starters as long as possible. Which makes intuitive sense ... not only to you give guys a lot more development innings, but you also increase the sample size to get better evaluations of them as pitchers. I mean, relief pitching is volatile enough at the major league level; it seems like it'd be nearly impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff in a couple minor league seasons.
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Post by dirtywater on Jan 9, 2015 14:12:37 GMT -5
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?
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Post by dirtywater on Jan 9, 2015 14:13:55 GMT -5
oh my god i'm literally almost in tears looking at his bref page now. He pitched 2/3 of an inning for the Rangers A affiliate last year and gave up 13 runs.
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 9, 2015 14:21:59 GMT -5
oh my god i'm literally almost in tears looking at his bref page now. He pitched 2/3 of an inning for the Rangers A affiliate last year and gave up 13 runs. 18 batters faced, 9 BB, 7 HBP, 0 hits. And the most amazing part is no wild pitches.
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Post by dirtywater on Jan 9, 2015 14:28:21 GMT -5
oh my god i'm literally almost in tears looking at his bref page now. He pitched 2/3 of an inning for the Rangers A affiliate last year and gave up 13 runs. 18 batters faced, 9 BB, 7 HBP, 0 hits. And the most amazing part is no wild pitches. my bet is the official scorer just felt bad and stopped keeping count
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Post by moonstone2 on Jan 9, 2015 16:07:10 GMT -5
If you look across the majors, it seems a lot of elite relievers were almost exclusively relievers from the getgo after being drafted/signed. Holland, Kimbrel, Doolittle, Jansen, Robertson all follow this model and they're probably five of the best ten relievers of the last three years. I don't know if this is a recent trend or not but it strikes me as interesting because I would not have guessed it. Just a quick glance at the top fWAR relievers since 2012 shows a great number of relievers who were strictly relievers from the start of their pro careers, which I would not have guessed. www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2014&month=0&season1=2012&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0To 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.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 12, 2015 15:45:19 GMT -5
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? We've beaten this to death, but since Nick Cafardo keeps saying this and not everyone realizes he's an idiot, here are the facts: Bard was unimaginably terrible as a reliever in September of 2011 (12.46 ERA in his last 9 games), and (after a winter of rest, of course) very good as a starter in April of 2012. How is that consistent with the conversion to starting being the cause of his problems? His swings and misses for his first four starts in 2012: 17, 13, 11, 5. (The 17, BTW, was more than Justin Verlander had gotten in any game going back a season and a half, or something like that). Why would being converted to starting cause that pattern? Bard now says that he was already experiencing numbness in his pitching hand as a result of what was eventually diagnosed as thoracic outlet syndrome. He started suffering a decline in velocity and especially movement in 2011, as a reliever. That decline started again in 2012 and accelerated very rapidly beginning in May. Based on the actual evidence, it's 100% clear that his collapse had less than zero with being converted to starting, which, BTW, is precisely what Bard will tell you.
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TX
Veteran
Posts: 265
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Post by TX on Jan 12, 2015 18:56:03 GMT -5
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
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Post by telson13 on May 18, 2015 17:43:57 GMT -5
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 I think Beckett had surgery for it. Fwiw, it's a pretty wild surgical procedure. Light has looked very, very good this year in AA, with his K/9 up near 11 and a low BB rate and low WHIP. I'm wondering if he gets promoted to AAA soon with a July/August call-up possible given the relative fluidity of the 'pen. He's supposedly working high-90s, touching 100, and his splitter has shown some improvement (Koji might help him on that one). Another interesting arm is Williams Jerez. Never hit like a second-rounder but has pitched quite well for an inexperienced guy. I think the high K rate portends good things, especially once his command improves and the H/9 come down.
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