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2018 Spring Training Discussion
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Mar 26, 2018 18:01:29 GMT -5
Devers shaken up on a collision at home plate. Walked off, but looked a little fuzzy and may have been walking with a limp. Yeah. Remy says precautionary. Better damn well be. Fingers crossed
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Mar 26, 2018 18:47:07 GMT -5
Need 2016 Porcello this year.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Mar 26, 2018 19:06:51 GMT -5
Kelly looking good.
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Post by Addam603 on Mar 26, 2018 19:28:05 GMT -5
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Mar 27, 2018 9:47:15 GMT -5
I've seen you say this a couple times now, what exactly do you mean? Based on velocity and pitch values on fangraphs in 2017 his fastball was just fine and about the same as in 2013 and 2014 before surgery. Heck 2017 was his highest rated FB grade of his career. The biggest difference post surgery is he no longer throws a change up or slidder, but he's not starting either anymore. Are you just going off of Sping training games? I'm going by what I saw in September of last year when he was getting rocked and what I saw in spring training, yes. He has been getting hit really hard at times. Giving up homeruns and hard contact galore. For me he just wore down. Pitched almost 70 innings last year after 20 innings in 2016. He missed almost two full years. So I wouldn't look at his September stats and overlook the rest of the year. He was very good in July and August, wasn't getting hit hard at all. So I don't see how he lost his fastball overall. What happened in September is normal as he builds up his arm strength to be able to pitch a ton of innings.
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Post by telson13 on Mar 27, 2018 11:48:56 GMT -5
It doesn't surprise me that Workman is getting sent down however. He just doesn't have a quality major league fastball anymore and you need that in today's bullpen arms these days. If the Sox need a 40 man roster spot this year, I could easily see the Sox DFAing Workman at some point. He averaged over 92 last year, which is the best of his career. He’s also throwing a harder curve. His xFIP wasn’t great in MLB at 4.08, but that’s after an excellent AAA stint where walks, not surprisingly after all that time off, were his only real issue. I’d highly doubt they would DFA him, since he provides legitimate, tested RHP depth at low cost. He’s a well-known commodity to them, which has value in and of itself. Most likely they’re keeping Walden around because they like what they’ve seen and they want an extended look. And Poyner, for his handedness and ability to miss bats. Workman might be a trade candidate at some point, but I don’t think there’s really empirical, objective evidence to support what you’re saying. Even if he were only high-80s, it’s ST and if I recall, that’s what he was throwing early last year, too. There’s no reason they’d toss away a player who threw 40 moderately successful innings in MLB coming back from prolonged injury.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Mar 27, 2018 13:20:18 GMT -5
I was watching NESN briefly last night and Cora said (I'm paraphrasing here) that he decided on Poyner and Walden based on the stuff they were showing in spring training, not their spring training numbers.
Here's the exact quote:
"They won it. They pitched well," manager Alex Cora said. "They did an outstanding job throughout Spring Training. It's not about the numbers. You see the stuff and how they went about the hitters, the weapons, the pitches they can use, and we feel they're going to help us out right now."
Apparently he didn't like the stuff Workman was showing.
Makes sense I suppose. Workman's stuff hasn't been as crisp as it was in late August. Fatigue might be a factor. Either way a lot of this is really temporary.
They should get pack Pomeranz pretty quickly and E-Rod soon thereafter. I would think that would result in Velazquez going back to AAA and Johnson being displaced into the bullpen resulting in either Walden or Poyner going down and then when Wright comes back the other one is likely to be sent down.
Then again if somebody else gets injured or either of these guys set the world on fire, they could stick.
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Post by jimed14 on Mar 27, 2018 13:25:55 GMT -5
Benintendi just looks like he's going to be a monster this year. He looks a lot bigger and is hitting the ball all over the field. His HRs have been crushed. He definitely doesn't look like the skinny kid he was when he came up. I bet he's a lot closer to 200 pounds than the 170 he was as a rookie.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Mar 27, 2018 16:45:15 GMT -5
I'm going by what I saw in September of last year when he was getting rocked and what I saw in spring training, yes. He has been getting hit really hard at times. Giving up homeruns and hard contact galore. For me he just wore down. Pitched almost 70 innings last year after 20 innings in 2016. He missed almost two full years. So I wouldn't look at his September stats and overlook the rest of the year. He was very good in July and August, wasn't getting hit hard at all. So I don't see how he lost his fastball overall. What happened in September is normal as he builds up his arm strength to be able to pitch a ton of innings. It isn't a great sign that he's been in the 80's since what, September of last year and hasn't come back up from that. There's sign of injury there. Carson Smith showed the same signs before his Tommy John surgery for example.
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Post by telson13 on Mar 27, 2018 16:58:29 GMT -5
For me he just wore down. Pitched almost 70 innings last year after 20 innings in 2016. He missed almost two full years. So I wouldn't look at his September stats and overlook the rest of the year. He was very good in July and August, wasn't getting hit hard at all. So I don't see how he lost his fastball overall. What happened in September is normal as he builds up his arm strength to be able to pitch a ton of innings. It isn't a great sign that he's been in the 80's since what, September of last year and hasn't come back up from that. There's sign of injury there. Carson Smith showed the same signs before his Tommy John surgery for example. That’s probably a valid concern. Though I still think it may just be a tendency to start slowly. FWIW I’m psyched about Walden, I posted on him way back at the start of this thread and I’ve been rooting for him since. Shows some quality stuff.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Mar 27, 2018 19:02:27 GMT -5
For me he just wore down. Pitched almost 70 innings last year after 20 innings in 2016. He missed almost two full years. So I wouldn't look at his September stats and overlook the rest of the year. He was very good in July and August, wasn't getting hit hard at all. So I don't see how he lost his fastball overall. What happened in September is normal as he builds up his arm strength to be able to pitch a ton of innings. It isn't a great sign that he's been in the 80's since what, September of last year and hasn't come back up from that. There's sign of injury there. Carson Smith showed the same signs before his Tommy John surgery for example. www.fangraphs.com/pitchfxo.aspx?playerid=11428&position=P&pitch=FA&data=piHe wasn't in the 80's in September. His velocity went down from around 94 in July to around 92 in September, but was around 90 early in the year. He didn't have a game all year were he averaged below 90 mph.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Mar 28, 2018 0:31:00 GMT -5
It isn't a great sign that he's been in the 80's since what, September of last year and hasn't come back up from that. There's sign of injury there. Carson Smith showed the same signs before his Tommy John surgery for example. www.fangraphs.com/pitchfxo.aspx?playerid=11428&position=P&pitch=FA&data=piHe wasn't in the 80's in September. His velocity went down from around 94 in July to around 92 in September, but was around 90 early in the year. He didn't have a game all year were he averaged below 90 mph. It would make sense if he was coming back from Tommy John surgery last year and slowly working back and raising his velocity along the way. What is alarming is that his velocity has dropping since September of last year and is *worse* to start this year than it has been in since he has come back originally from Tommy John surgery. You can blame it on fatigue. I can blame it on a injury. Neither of them are good signs for Workman. He didn't even make the team when he had a clear spot for him on the roster. I don't personally see Workman making it past 2019 spring training with the Red Sox at the latest (when he's out of options).
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Mar 28, 2018 8:23:50 GMT -5
It would make sense if he was coming back from Tommy John surgery last year and slowly working back and raising his velocity along the way. What is alarming is that his velocity has dropping since September of last year and is *worse* to start this year than it has been in since he has come back originally from Tommy John surgery. You can blame it on fatigue. I can blame it on a injury. Neither of them are good signs for Workman. He didn't even make the team when he had a clear spot for him on the roster. I don't personally see Workman making it past 2019 spring training with the Red Sox at the latest (when he's out of options). This isn't hard analysis by any means but Workman certainly seems like one of those guys who's pretty intriguing when he's at 100%, but who never manages to be 100% for more than a couple months at a time.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Mar 28, 2018 8:25:33 GMT -5
It would make sense if he was coming back from Tommy John surgery last year and slowly working back and raising his velocity along the way. What is alarming is that his velocity has been dropping since September of last year and is *worse* to start this year. If he's in the 80's now, then that would be his worst mark since he's been back from Tommy John surgery. You can blame it on fatigue. I can blame it on a injury. Neither of them are good signs for Workman. He didn't even make the team when he had a clear spot for him on the roster. I don't personally see Workman making it past 2019 spring training with the Red Sox at the latest (when he's out of options). He was in the 80's last year in spring training. Did you look at that chart? He was throwing pitches in the 80's in his first two call ups but was averaging over 90 combined in early May and early june.. So they had him take it slow and after a few months he was hitting 97 MPH again. You then see his velocity start to drop when he hits like 50 innings after only pitching 20 innings the year before. So you think injury, I think he was able to fully regain his velocity. As 97 was basically as hard as he ever threw. Now they just need to keep strengthening his arm so he doesn't wear down late in the year. Given that I would expect they are taking it easy with him to start the year, just like last year. More about building arm strength than trying to throw hard in spring training for him. I won't be worried unless he's still in the 80's come May/June. Frankly I'm surprised they pushed him so hard last year, but once he regained his velocity he was a very good bullpen arm till he started to wear down.
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Post by patford on Mar 28, 2018 8:34:23 GMT -5
As I recall there was a stretch where Workman was dominant and most people here in live game threads were agonizing every time he was not used in pressure situations. And then he fell off really badly and started getting bombed. So hopefully fatigue and he will again become a useful part and not overused.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Mar 28, 2018 8:43:21 GMT -5
It would make sense if he was coming back from Tommy John surgery last year and slowly working back and raising his velocity along the way. What is alarming is that his velocity has been dropping since September of last year and is *worse* to start this year. If he's in the 80's now, then that would be his worst mark since he's been back from Tommy John surgery. You can blame it on fatigue. I can blame it on a injury. Neither of them are good signs for Workman. He didn't even make the team when he had a clear spot for him on the roster. I don't personally see Workman making it past 2019 spring training with the Red Sox at the latest (when he's out of options). He was in the 80's last year in spring training. Did you look at that chart? He was throwing pitches in the 80's in his first two call ups but was averaging over 90 combined in early May and early june.. So they had him take it slow and after a few months he was hitting 97 MPH again. You then see his velocity start to drop when he hits like 50 innings after only pitching 20 innings the year before. So you think injury, I think he was able to fully regain his velocity. As 97 was basically as hard as he ever threw. Now they just need to keep strengthening his arm so he doesn't wear down late in the year. Given that I would expect they are taking it easy with him to start the year, just like last year. More about building arm strength than trying to throw hard in spring training for him. I won't be worried unless he's still in the 80's come May/June. Frankly I'm surprised they pushed him so hard last year, but once he regained his velocity he was a very good bullpen arm till he started to wear down. I dunno man, not being worried about bad velocity and demotion to the minors is strikes me as some serious galaxy-brain level thinking. Dude's 29 this year, he's well removed from TJ, he had a full offseason to recover... there's no reason he shouldn't have his good velocity right now. You can look at that velocity graph and try to parse out when he had his good velo and why and when we can expect to see it come back... but to me the more obvious interpretation is that he's a guy who doesn't have consistent velocity. I don't really care when or why it comes and goes, the point is that it comes and goes.
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Post by James Dunne on Mar 28, 2018 8:54:38 GMT -5
he was a very good bullpen arm till he started to wear down. Yeah, I think it's a mistake to shrug this aside. Workman wasn't worked (no pun intended) particularly hard. If he started to wear down, that's not to be treated as just some thing that happened. There have to be very serious durability concerns here. And... it shouldn't have still been affecting him seven months later, but here we are, after another spring training, waiting for Brandon Workman to show some consistency. Brandon Workman is 29, they need a short term fix, and he and was far enough behind Marcus Walden that they made it a point to add Marcus Walden to the 40-man roster to get him up. Maybe I'm underselling Walden here, but he's not exactly some young gun whose profile seems to indicate he's a long-term solution (the way Bobby Poyner's may be, for example). He's a decent organizational arm who is the best fit for the last spot on the roster.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Mar 28, 2018 9:17:22 GMT -5
Got the sense that both Scott and Workman had chips on their shoulders yesterday in minor league camp. Workman kind of always seems that way though. As for Scott, he went out and made quick work of the O's AAA team in his one inning of work - so quick that I didn't get to see any of it because I was on the other field charting Houck.
Chip-on-shoulder could be a very good thing. It's up to them. I'll admit I haven't watched much of MLB spring training, but from everything I've read, both Scott's and Workman's stuff has been way down this spring. I think this is a situation where they pitched their way off of the roster just as much as Poyner and Walden pitched their way on.
If I can add one thing though, Elias also looked very good. Could just be a matter of me having watched four days of A-ball pitchers (watching AAA BP very similarly created an "oh, that's what it's supposed to look like" feeling yesterday morning), but he struck me as a guy who could get MLB hitters out, as he also made very short work of the O's. Hopefully this isn't a situation where a year from now we're wondering why they added these guys instead of just rolling with Elias. Part of me thinks that they might also see Walden as the kind of guy who'll clear waivers if they need his 40-man spot midseason as well, so if they only need a guy for two weeks, might as well have it be him rather than give Workman or Scott the impression that the team was OK with what they were showing in camp. I get that line of thinking if it's indeed the case. ----- To briefly speak to the "why did they cut Marrero to add Walden" thing, I don't agree that's the case. Rodriguez and Pomeranz should not be on the DL for very long. The first countermove will probably be Velazquez down to AAA, but the second will probably be Walden getting optioned. Going with an 11-man staff doesn't make a lot of sense when you have both Velazquez and Johnson opening the season in the bullpen, and keeping both Marrero and Holt for a week or two doesn't make a ton of sense either - you're going to have to choose one very soon, and if you read what's been written about that situation, it started to get a bit tense in the last few days of that competition. It makes a lot of sense to me to make the call and pick one. ----- One other thing - Lin is at least an above-average defensive shortstop. I have no idea where questions about his defense are coming from. That was the one part of his game that was never in question in the minors.
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Post by patford on Mar 28, 2018 9:28:42 GMT -5
Workman was used heavily for a short period of time and then fell off a cliff. If all he can be counted on for is being a one batter or one inning guy then he is on very thin ice. This is almost certainly a make or break year for him. It is possible he is still recovering from TJ surgery. Some take longer than others to fully recover. Hopefully that is the case. No doubt his Spring numbers were horrible.
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Post by telson13 on Mar 28, 2018 10:12:35 GMT -5
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Post by James Dunne on Mar 28, 2018 10:13:08 GMT -5
Workman was used heavily for a short period of time and then fell off a cliff. If all he can be counted on for is being a one batter or one inning guy then he is on very thin ice. This is almost certainly a make or break year for him. It is possible he is still recovering from TJ surgery. Some take longer than others to fully recover. Hopefully that is the case. No doubt his Spring numbers were horrible. www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=workmbr01&t=p&year=2017I'm sorry, (and I think in general we agree so I'm not trying to come at you) but I'm just not seeing any part of this gamelog that screams "used heavily." And I don't like dumping on Workman here. But if that usage pattern caused him to "fall off a cliff" then that isn't an excuse, it's a serious problem. It does seem that way. I will caution that sometimes a clubhouse that is more welcoming to the writers will be portrayed as also being more fun to the players. Not sure that this is the case here, but I wouldn't rule it out. Either way, there's a definite sense in basically everything written this spring that the old "Farrell gets the most out of his players and that makes up for his strategic blunders" narrative was a full o' crap.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Mar 28, 2018 10:33:51 GMT -5
He was in the 80's last year in spring training. Did you look at that chart? He was throwing pitches in the 80's in his first two call ups but was averaging over 90 combined in early May and early june.. So they had him take it slow and after a few months he was hitting 97 MPH again. You then see his velocity start to drop when he hits like 50 innings after only pitching 20 innings the year before. So you think injury, I think he was able to fully regain his velocity. As 97 was basically as hard as he ever threw. Now they just need to keep strengthening his arm so he doesn't wear down late in the year. Given that I would expect they are taking it easy with him to start the year, just like last year. More about building arm strength than trying to throw hard in spring training for him. I won't be worried unless he's still in the 80's come May/June. Frankly I'm surprised they pushed him so hard last year, but once he regained his velocity he was a very good bullpen arm till he started to wear down. I dunno man, not being worried about bad velocity and demotion to the minors is strikes me as some serious galaxy-brain level thinking. Dude's 29 this year, he's well removed from TJ, he had a full offseason to recover... there's no reason he shouldn't have his good velocity right now. You can look at that velocity graph and try to parse out when he had his good velo and why and when we can expect to see it come back... but to me the more obvious interpretation is that he's a guy who doesn't have consistent velocity. I don't really care when or why it comes and goes, the point is that it comes and goes. What does his age have to do with it? He's pitched less than 90 innings since Tommy John surgery. So that's not well removed in my book. They always say it's not till year two when you fully regain every thing. He hasn't even pitched two full years yet. We also don't know if his velocity dip is by design or he just doesn't have it. What are his readings? We are going off Pedro saying he's always in the 80's, but he thought that he was in Sept and he wasn't. I have no data on spring training games. Is he even in the 80's regularly?
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Post by telson13 on Mar 28, 2018 10:34:30 GMT -5
Workman was used heavily for a short period of time and then fell off a cliff. If all he can be counted on for is being a one batter or one inning guy then he is on very thin ice. This is almost certainly a make or break year for him. It is possible he is still recovering from TJ surgery. Some take longer than others to fully recover. Hopefully that is the case. No doubt his Spring numbers were horrible. www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=workmbr01&t=p&year=2017I'm sorry, (and I think in general we agree so I'm not trying to come at you) but I'm just not seeing any part of this gamelog that screams "used heavily." And I don't like dumping on Workman here. But if that usage pattern caused him to "fall off a cliff" then that isn't an excuse, it's a serious problem. It does seem that way. I will caution that sometimes a clubhouse that is more welcoming to the writers will be portrayed as also being more fun to the players. Not sure that this is the case here, but I wouldn't rule it out. Either way, there's a definite sense in basically everything written this spring that the old "Farrell gets the most out of his players and that makes up for his strategic blunders" narrative was a full o' crap. Eh, I think Farrell narrative was maybe true of veterans with a workman-like attitude (not the pitcher, although he actually kinda strikes me as that guy, which may have explained his use/success as a rookie). But yeah, Farrell struggled with young players and seemed more prone to blunt, rather than grow, his players’ personalities. Cora comes across as a lot more gregarious, thoughtful, and invested in his players as people. In my experience, that’s a lot more effective as a manager because it’s inclusive, not exclusive. I think we’re going to see guys really “be themselves” this year, and again, from experience, I find that that tends to grow strengths and often, discover new ones. And I’m *really* optimistic about that with this team. A 93-win team coming off of a generally down year, totally intact and with two big additions (JDM, full year of Devers; three if you count a healthy Price). A managerial change from a man who, on average, had his team’s results two wins under retrospective expected 3rd-order W%. And, they’ve already started doing INF shifts that have improved the defense, for example. I think the projections are underselling this team, a lot.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Mar 28, 2018 10:49:50 GMT -5
he was a very good bullpen arm till he started to wear down. Yeah, I think it's a mistake to shrug this aside. Workman wasn't worked (no pun intended) particularly hard. If he started to wear down, that's not to be treated as just some thing that happened. There have to be very serious durability concerns here. And... it shouldn't have still been affecting him seven months later, but here we are, after another spring training, waiting for Brandon Workman to show some consistency. Brandon Workman is 29, they need a short term fix, and he and was far enough behind Marcus Walden that they made it a point to add Marcus Walden to the 40-man roster to get him up. Maybe I'm underselling Walden here, but he's not exactly some young gun whose profile seems to indicate he's a long-term solution (the way Bobby Poyner's may be, for example). He's a decent organizational arm who is the best fit for the last spot on the roster. In a general sense I get it. He wasn't overused for a normal reliever. I'm just looking at a guy that had played in 10 games and pitched 20 innings since Tommy John surgery, then pitchers in 51 games and 68.2 innings the next year. Add up all the wear and tear from warming up for all those games, he had a massive increase in usage in his first full year back from major surgery. It doesn't seem crazy that a player like that would wear down. At the same time he was very good before Sept and he regained all his velocity. If you like Walden, why not keep him? Adds depth, you didn't lose Workman. We'll see I've always liked Workman more than most of you.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 28, 2018 11:28:20 GMT -5
The final word belongs to Cora, with input from the FO no doubt. The decision from what the team saw was that the initial go would be with Walden and Poyner given the approach and the stuff. This looks like it's going to be a meritocracy and pitchers will have to show well to get the ball. In that vein, Johnson was placed in the rotation after he looked prepped in spring training. We'll probably be seeing a lot more of this flavor of decision making. That is what a lot of people on this board asked for and that's what's happening.
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