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How Red Sox draft strategy has affected the club's pitching
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Post by Mike Andrews on Feb 13, 2024 12:53:33 GMT -5
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Post by iakovos11 on Feb 13, 2024 12:56:00 GMT -5
Just finished and came he to post. This was excellent, Ian!
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Post by ematz1423 on Feb 13, 2024 13:05:14 GMT -5
Really interesting read, leaves me with thinking they have no choice but to start allocating more draft assets into pitching if they ever want to start having a good enough minor to MLB pitching pipeline.
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steveofbradenton
Veteran
Watching Spring Training, the FCL, and the Florida State League
Posts: 1,826
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Post by steveofbradenton on Feb 13, 2024 13:19:59 GMT -5
Really interesting read, leaves me with thinking they have no choice but to start allocating more draft assets into pitching if they ever want to start having a good enough minor to MLB pitching pipeline. For sure. Excellent article!!!
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Post by 0ap0 on Feb 13, 2024 13:20:08 GMT -5
Really interesting read, leaves me with thinking they have no choice but to start allocating more draft assets into pitching if they ever want to start having a good enough minor to MLB pitching pipeline. They certainly need some sort of strategy to acquire pitching. I can imagine coming to the conclusion that it's inefficient to draft pitchers, but then to also not pay market price for them as free agents and not trade for them and sell them off for infielders and...
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Post by awalkinthepark on Feb 13, 2024 13:30:03 GMT -5
Great piece. Feel like the Red Sox approach to acquiring pitching is a perfect example of how the riskiest thing you can do is take no risk. In any dimension, whether it's the draft, the trade market or the free agent market - it's always going to make sense to prefer position players over pitchers. But if that's what you always do, you wind up with no pitching.
The Red Sox when they are at their best aren't afraid to make risky bets and I really feel like they've gotten away from that in recent years, in particular on the pitching side.
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Post by itinerantherb on Feb 13, 2024 13:34:33 GMT -5
Really interesting read, leaves me with thinking they have no choice but to start allocating more draft assets into pitching if they ever want to start having a good enough minor to MLB pitching pipeline. They certainly need some sort of strategy to acquire pitching. I can imagine coming to the conclusion that it's inefficient to draft pitchers, but then to also not pay market price for them as free agents and not trade for them and sell them off for infielders and... This was my reaction, too. I guess it really underscores why Breslow is so focused on developing pitchers who aren't necessarily blue chippers but who show promising traits. The primary alternative--the draft--is fraught with risk and means forgoing position players with a higher hit rate. ADD: Excellent article! Ian put a ton of work into the research.
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Post by puzzler on Feb 13, 2024 13:36:22 GMT -5
Really interesting read, leaves me with thinking they have no choice but to start allocating more draft assets into pitching if they ever want to start having a good enough minor to MLB pitching pipeline. Definitely need to allocate more draft assets for pitching, but I hope they don't make the mistake of over-correcting here. Multiple years of sinking top 3 round assets into mostly pitchers would not be good in my opinion.
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Post by julyanmorley on Feb 13, 2024 13:46:42 GMT -5
I'm a fan of the Red Sox drafting philosophy, although my expectation is that it will change. I don't think the league has quite adjusted all the way to the actuarial table reality of drafting pitchers, and so hitters remain undervalued. Despite extending this lack of capital investment to the major leagues, the Sox rotations rates to be middle of the pack, and only two wins worse than 5th place: www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=SP. With an elite position player group, that would be enough for a strong team.
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Post by ematz1423 on Feb 13, 2024 13:50:06 GMT -5
Really interesting read, leaves me with thinking they have no choice but to start allocating more draft assets into pitching if they ever want to start having a good enough minor to MLB pitching pipeline. Definitely need to allocate more draft assets for pitching, but I hope they don't make the mistake of over-correcting here. Multiple years of sinking top 3 round assets into mostly pitchers would not be good in my opinion. For sure, I'm not advocating to go completely 180 and to pull an Angels and draft all pitchers but after seeing the great breakdown in the article from Ian some sort of middle ground should be attainable I would hope. I'm no draft expert but the lack of any pitcher being drafted and given a bonus 1M+ over a 5 year span is pretty illuminating on why they may or may not have any SP prospects who project to be even mid rotation guys. Hard to explain that away as just the way things shook out during the drafts and would lead me to believe their whole strategy has been to avoid those types of pitchers in the draft. Which sure even if they had given multiple SPs bonuses that high it doesn't guarantee success at all but it's hard for me to sit here after seeing the #s broken down this way and think that this strategy has worked well for them.
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Post by Guidas on Feb 13, 2024 13:51:22 GMT -5
Best piece I've read on baseball in the last 12 months. Congratulations!
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Post by Guidas on Feb 13, 2024 13:53:12 GMT -5
I'm a fan of the Red Sox drafting philosophy, although my expectation is that it will change. I don't think the league has quite adjusted all the way to the actuarial table reality of drafting pitchers, and so hitters remain undervalued. Despite extending this lack of capital investment to the major leagues, the Sox rotations rates to be middle of the pack, and only two wins worse than 5th place: www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=SP. With an elite position player group, that would be enough for a strong team. Or they could actually treat some of these elite position players as assets and trade some for legit (i.e. #1/2 starter types), controllable pitching.
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Post by incandenza on Feb 13, 2024 14:03:55 GMT -5
People are reading this as a problem that needs to be fixed by drafting more pitchers, but I don't actually think that's the case. In fact Ian doesn't even really say that.
This is a zero-sum situation: to spend more draft resources on pitching means spending less on position players. Does anyone really wish we had gone with pitchers instead of Casas or Anthony just so that we'd have a more "balanced" system?
Ian also points out that there were only 28 [but by my count 32?] pitchers with 3+ fWAR in the majors last season. I'd add that there were only 14 4+ WAR players. By contrast, there were 73 position players who put up 3+ WAR and 45 who put up 4+ WAR. That's another way of saying that there's just more value to be had in position players than pitchers. Seems to me their draft approach makes a lot of sense in light of that.
And finally: despite the fact that the Red Sox "never develop home-grown pitching," their rotation is set to feature 3 home-grown pitchers this year, each of whom has very respectable upside. That seems perfectly adequate, if the other side of the coin is that they are especially strong in positional player development.
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Post by asm18 on Feb 13, 2024 14:15:17 GMT -5
On a non-Red Sox note - I understand why the Pirates are #2 in total bonus money to drafted pitchers in the 2018-2023 timeframe in part because of Skenes and his 9 mil bonus… But, uh, what exactly did the Royals do to spend the most?
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Post by puzzler on Feb 13, 2024 14:17:19 GMT -5
People are reading this as a problem that needs to be fixed by drafting more pitchers, but I don't actually think that's the case. In fact Ian doesn't even really say that.
This is a zero-sum situation: to spend more draft resources on pitching means spending less on position players. Does anyone really wish we had gone with pitchers instead of Casas or Anthony just so that we'd have a more "balanced" system?
Ian also points out that there were only 28 [but by my count 32?] pitchers with 3+ fWAR in the majors last season. I'd add that there were only 14 4+ WAR players. By contrast, there were 73 position players who put up 3+ WAR and 45 who put up 4+ WAR. That's another way of saying that there's just more value to be had in position players than pitchers. Seems to me their draft approach makes a lot of sense in light of that.
And finally: despite the fact that the Red Sox "never develop home-grown pitching," their rotation is set to feature 3 home-grown pitchers this year, each of whom has very respectable upside. That seems perfectly adequate, if the other side of the coin is that they are especially strong in positional player development.
I don't disagree, but I do think the sweet spot is not to be dead last in bonus money given to pitchers. It's not so much that they haven't drafted pitchers, they have, they just haven't taken any top pitchers in basically 5 years. For the most part, I too like what they've done since 2020, but I don't think the sustainable farm system is sustainable if you can't occasionally pull in top of the rotation prospects.
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Post by ematz1423 on Feb 13, 2024 14:22:16 GMT -5
On a non-Red Sox note - I understand why the Pirates are #2 in total bonus money to drafted pitchers in the 2018-2023 timeframe in part because of Skenes and his 9 mil bonus… But, uh, what exactly did the Royals do to spend the most? 2018 the Royals picked Brady Singer 18th, Jackson Kowar 33 and Daniel Lynch 34, 2020 Asa Lacy #4 and 2021 Frank Mozzicato #7. Lacy cost $6.67M, Mozzicato 3.55M which was underslot by a lot. Singer cost 4.25M, Kower was 2.15M, Lynch was 1.70M and also in 2020 they took Kris Bubic with pick 40 who cost $1.6M. I suppose looking at that would illustrate why it's not as easy as just drafting and signing higher bonus pitchers since I'm not sure the Royals are going to get a ton out of value out of those guys.
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Post by James Dunne on Feb 13, 2024 14:29:57 GMT -5
On a non-Red Sox note - I understand why the Pirates are #2 in total bonus money to drafted pitchers in the 2018-2023 timeframe in part because of Skenes and his 9 mil bonus… But, uh, what exactly did the Royals do to spend the most? Lots of pitchers who got more than $1M since 2018: Asa Lacy: $6.67M in 2020 Brady Singer: $4.25M in 2018 Frank Mozzicato: $3.55M in 2021 Ben Kudma: $3M in 2021 Blake Wolters: $2.8M in 2023 Jackson Kowar: $2.15M in 2018 Daniel Lynch: $1.7M in 2018 Kris Bubic: $1.6M in 2018 Hiro Wyatt: $1.5M in 2023 Ben Hernandez: $1.45M in 2020
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Post by julyanmorley on Feb 13, 2024 14:32:09 GMT -5
On a non-Red Sox note - I understand why the Pirates are #2 in total bonus money to drafted pitchers in the 2018-2023 timeframe in part because of Skenes and his 9 mil bonus… But, uh, what exactly did the Royals do to spend the most? 2023 #44 Black Wolters $2.8 million 2023 #75 Hiro Wyatt $1.5 million
2021 #7 Frank Mozzicato $3.5 million 2021 #43 Ben Kudma $3 million
2020 #4 Asa Lacy $6.6 million 2020 #41 Ben Hernandez $1.5 million
2018 #18 Brady Singer $4.2 million 2018 #33 Jackson Krowar $2.1 million 2018 #40 Kris Bubic $1.6 million
Not great results here.
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Post by itinerantherb on Feb 13, 2024 14:48:49 GMT -5
I'd be curious to know if those of you who understand the pitching data revolution better than I do believe that ever-increasing information about draftees' spin rates, break profiles, extension, etc. will reduce the risk of drafting pitchers. The higher injury risk will always be there, of course, but I would think that all that data would help evaluators make more reliable judgments about how, for example, a high school pitcher's raw stuff is likely to translate.
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Post by Guidas on Feb 13, 2024 15:11:54 GMT -5
People are reading this as a problem that needs to be fixed by drafting more pitchers, but I don't actually think that's the case. In fact Ian doesn't even really say that. This is a zero-sum situation: to spend more draft resources on pitching means spending less on position players. Does anyone really wish we had gone with pitchers instead of Casas or Anthony just so that we'd have a more "balanced" system? Ian also points out that there were only 28 [but by my count 32?] pitchers with 3+ fWAR in the majors last season. I'd add that there were only 14 4+ WAR players. By contrast, there were 73 position players who put up 3+ WAR and 45 who put up 4+ WAR. That's another way of saying that there's just more value to be had in position players than pitchers. Seems to me their draft approach makes a lot of sense in light of that.
And finally: despite the fact that the Red Sox "never develop home-grown pitching," their rotation is set to feature 3 home-grown pitchers this year, each of whom has very respectable upside. That seems perfectly adequate, if the other side of the coin is that they are especially strong in positional player development.
I agree with most of this. It's not always first rounder or the big bucks pulling in the pitching talent. In fact, Cleveland and LAD have been successful in rounds 3-5 consistently, and Tampa has been very successful acquiring undervalued guys - both inconsistent veteran and prospects - and sprinkling magic dust on them. I think the key is better scouting and pitcher development more than dollar asset allocation. These were supposed to be hallmarks of Chaim Bloom's skill set, but he had decidedly mixed results. Now Breslow and Bailey are the new Pitcher Whisperers™. We'll see. Also, I think the hit on pitching development hasn't been "no home-grown starters" as much as it is "no homegrown starters who aren't 4/5s." That's been much more representative of the outcomes over the last 10+ years, with Bello, who's a 3 right now but still has a ton of development, being a distinct outlier. Crawford was right there for most last year, too, although both ZiPS and Steamer has him regressing significantly this year. I don't know enough about their models to know what that prediction is base on, but results will be seen on the field. Either way, you've got two guys right now who are outliers from the last 10 years. The question will be can they improve, especially Bello who is just 24, to become consistent #2 types or better. But we'll need more, and more evidence that Breslow and Bailey offer a positive departure from the vast bulk of what we've seen from the last three regimes' pitching development.
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Post by julyanmorley on Feb 13, 2024 15:14:11 GMT -5
I'd be curious to know if those of you who understand the pitching data revolution better than I do believe that ever-increasing information about draftees' spin rates, break profiles, extension, etc. will reduce the risk of drafting pitchers. The higher injury risk will always be there, of course, but I would think that all that data would help evaluators make more reliable judgments about how, for example, a high school pitcher's raw stuff is likely to translate. That make sense, but on the other hand with pitchers throwing fewer innings there's less upside to getting a home run pick than in the past. Not obvious how it all shakes out. The teams that think carefully about how future results will be different than the historical database will gain an advantage.
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Post by incandenza on Feb 13, 2024 15:54:51 GMT -5
People are reading this as a problem that needs to be fixed by drafting more pitchers, but I don't actually think that's the case. In fact Ian doesn't even really say that. This is a zero-sum situation: to spend more draft resources on pitching means spending less on position players. Does anyone really wish we had gone with pitchers instead of Casas or Anthony just so that we'd have a more "balanced" system? Ian also points out that there were only 28 [but by my count 32?] pitchers with 3+ fWAR in the majors last season. I'd add that there were only 14 4+ WAR players. By contrast, there were 73 position players who put up 3+ WAR and 45 who put up 4+ WAR. That's another way of saying that there's just more value to be had in position players than pitchers. Seems to me their draft approach makes a lot of sense in light of that.
And finally: despite the fact that the Red Sox "never develop home-grown pitching," their rotation is set to feature 3 home-grown pitchers this year, each of whom has very respectable upside. That seems perfectly adequate, if the other side of the coin is that they are especially strong in positional player development.
I agree with most of this. It's not always first rounder or the big bucks pulling in the pitching talent. In fact, Cleveland and LAD have been successful in rounds 3-5 consistently, and Tampa has been very successful acquiring undervalued guys - both inconsistent veteran and prospects - and sprinkling magic dust on them. I think the key is better scouting and pitcher development more than dollar asset allocation. These were supposed to be hallmarks of Chaim Bloom's skill set, but he had decidedly mixed results. Now Breslow and Bailey are the new Pitcher Whisperers™. We'll see. Also, I think the hit on pitching development hasn't been "no home-grown starters" as much as it is "no homegrown starters who aren't 4/5s." That's been much more representative of the outcomes over the last 10+ years, with Bello, who's a 3 right now but still has a ton of development, being a distinct outlier. Crawford was right there for most last year, too, although both ZiPS and Steamer has him regressing significantly this year. I don't know enough about their models to know what that prediction is base on, but results will be seen on the field. Either way, you've got two guys right now who are outliers from the last 10 years. The question will be can they improve, especially Bello who is just 24, to become consistent #2 types or better. But we'll need more, and more evidence that Breslow and Bailey offer a positive departure from the vast bulk of what we've seen from the last three regimes' pitching development. Bloom had "mixed results" but the two "outliers" from the last 10 years have both emerged in the last year or two. Hmm...
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Post by bojacksoxfan on Feb 13, 2024 16:41:05 GMT -5
I'm a fan of the Red Sox drafting philosophy, although my expectation is that it will change. I don't think the league has quite adjusted all the way to the actuarial table reality of drafting pitchers, and so hitters remain undervalued. Despite extending this lack of capital investment to the major leagues, the Sox rotations rates to be middle of the pack, and only two wins worse than 5th place: www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=SP. With an elite position player group, that would be enough for a strong team. Can you provide some examples of the successful execution of that philosophy? And as a followup, how does that compare to other philosophies that you don't like? And while some might appreciate your using projections of future success, what would actual results on the field from the last couple years say about the wisdom of lacking capital investment?
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Post by bojacksoxfan on Feb 13, 2024 16:43:32 GMT -5
This is a zero-sum situation: to spend more draft resources on pitching means spending less on position players. Does anyone really wish we had gone with pitchers instead of Casas or Anthony just so that we'd have a more "balanced" system? That's one (or two!) cherry picked for you. Now what do you say to people that cherry pick wishing the Sox had taken Bobby Miller (drafted #29) instead of Nick Yorke (#17)? Ha, jokes on them. Miller already graduated and merely helps the Dodgers win actual MLB games and has nothing to do with balancing the system.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Feb 13, 2024 16:51:14 GMT -5
This is a zero-sum situation: to spend more draft resources on pitching means spending less on position players. Does anyone really wish we had gone with pitchers instead of Casas or Anthony just so that we'd have a more "balanced" system? That's one (or two!) cherry picked for you. Now what do you say to people that cherry pick wishing the Sox had taken Bobby Miller (drafted #29) instead of Nick Yorke (#17)? Ha, jokes on them. Miller already graduated and merely helps the Dodgers win actual MLB games and has nothing to do with balancing the system. That's not cherry-picking, that's just saying that there's an opportunity cost either way, and that getting good players should continue to be the sole priority (my interpretation of it, at least).
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