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2016 Red Sox Rotation Discussion
radiohix
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'At the end of the day, we bang. We bang. We're going to swing.' Alex Verdugo
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Post by radiohix on May 27, 2016 12:04:51 GMT -5
Last night while waiting for Clay's to start, I remembered this book called The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Two characters are discussing capital punishment and one makes this remark:
Sure enough, the guillotine dropped again last night and it dropped hard.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 27, 2016 14:36:53 GMT -5
We're within two weeks of the usual pattern of Buchholz hitting the DL for what will reportedly be 3-4 weeks with a strange injury, it taking eight weeks for him to come back for reasons that seem vague, everyone questioning his toughness, and them him coming back to pitch great for 10 weeks and everyone talking about how he'd be an ace if he puts it together for a full season (followed by an infuriating discussion of what an "ace" is - let's not do that part again this year, okay everyone? Please?). The overall value ends up there, but he is the most inconsistent - and by extension, frustrating - pitcher that I can recall. Not just with the Red Sox, but basically in my 30-year baseball-watching life. I'm trying to remember another pitcher who had so many 8-10 week stretches in his career of both excellence and terribleness and I can't. Maybe Scott Erickson? Javier Vazquez? I dunno. He drives me crazy. He's the reason I could never be a GM because I'd have released him at least six times by now. Actually, he's usually started pitching brilliantly sometime in May, before the injury. But your general point is valid. When your biggest online champion (me) thinks it's time to hit the phantom DL and hit it hard ... it's probably that time. Only once before, 2014, has he had a 10-start bad stretch, and that year he never really became himself. However, I do put some stock in his saying he feels fine physically. And he has been snakebit a little in terms of how consistently his mistakes have been hit. However, the key thing here is that you don't see much of a difference in your chance of winning his next scheduled start whether it's him or Elias. Getting him out of the rotation might actually help him clear his head.* I'm with using Elias for a start or two until they're sure E-Rod is ready. *Or not. Who the f knows? It's Clay Buchholz.
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Post by sox fan in nc on May 27, 2016 15:27:59 GMT -5
I like Elias for the next start. Seems we've given everyone else a chance. I'd hate to waste his good stuff in AAA. If he throws a gem, he'll get another turn. If he gets hit hard, then he'll go back to Pawt. Eddie will be ready for the next turn. If he's just mediocre, then he goes back down, but he'll get the 1st call next time.
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Post by iakovos11 on May 27, 2016 16:45:45 GMT -5
Eduardo with the start on Tuesday. Buchholz to the pen.
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wcp3
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Post by wcp3 on May 27, 2016 17:01:36 GMT -5
I don't really like Buchholz to the pen - tough to see him being effective there, and the Red Sox have little starting pitcher depth as is.
I would've liked to have seen them attempt to repeat what happened with Joe Kelly and Porcello after their DL stints last year, as you know the rotation won't stay healthy all the way through.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on May 27, 2016 17:05:18 GMT -5
I agree, give Clay some rest, nice little DL stint. Then a couple starts in minors and see what happens.
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Post by ryantoworkman on May 27, 2016 17:33:11 GMT -5
I don't really like Buchholz to the pen - tough to see him being effective there, and the Red Sox have little starting pitcher depth as is. I would've liked to have seen them attempt to repeat what happened with Joe Kelly and Porcello after their DL stints last year, as you know the rotation won't stay healthy all the way through. A number of starters have transitioned to BP roles over the years with great success. Trevor Cahill with the Cubs is the latest, while Wade Davis may be the best present day example. Working in the pen, Buchholz can use his best two weapons on any given day, and leave what's not working in the pen. Can't get away with that as a starter. He's contributed to two championship teams and I'll forever be great full for that, but his usefulness as a starter seems to be over. I also suspect his still slim frame lends itself to fewer innings.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on May 27, 2016 17:35:41 GMT -5
Hopefully he takes it like a pro and uses the time to his benefit. Plenty of season left to make his mark. If he whines, it'll be the first ticket out of town. No need for any negative Karma around this team. No need for Josh Beckett redux.
Add: read updated on Sox website.....sounded positive from him. Will be hoping for better days for him.
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wcp3
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Post by wcp3 on May 27, 2016 17:57:49 GMT -5
I don't really like Buchholz to the pen - tough to see him being effective there, and the Red Sox have little starting pitcher depth as is. I would've liked to have seen them attempt to repeat what happened with Joe Kelly and Porcello after their DL stints last year, as you know the rotation won't stay healthy all the way through. A number of starters have transitioned to BP roles over the years with great success. Trevor Cahill with the Cubs is the latest, while Wade Davis may be the best present day example. Working in the pen, Buchholz can use his best two weapons on any given day, and leave what's not working in the pen. Can't get away with that as a starter. He's contributed to two championship teams and I'll forever be great full for that, but his usefulness as a starter seems to be over. I also suspect his still slim frame lends itself to fewer innings. I don't see it working out that way, but I hope to be proven wrong. At the very least, I'm hoping he'll be able to add a couple ticks to his fastball so that he actually has some confidence in the pitch again.
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Post by rjp313jr on May 27, 2016 18:19:50 GMT -5
As depth I'd think so, but until he throws more than one great game in a row, I'd take a wait and see attitude. Meanwhile, we just have to hope that E-Rod's velocity increases as the season goes on. He should be quite fresh - you worry about his innings, but that shouldn't be an issue this season. And so that leaves you with Price/Porcello/Wright/E-Rod/Kelly as your rotation and Buchholz the first starting option if there's an injury. Then you get to Elias, O'Sullivan, and Owens as the depth options, which isn't a pretty picture. He went 7, with 3h and 8K his last time out, after the 13K game. But yeah, he probably needs a couple more nice starts before he stakes a claim. As for concerns about Rodriguez, the guy had a partial dislocation of his patella. That's a significant injury, I'm not surprised it still hurts. And the velo loss is almost assuredly the loss of leg strength coupled with being tentative about re-injuring it. My guess is that he doesn't return to form (velocity-wise) until 6 months post-injury. I don't think his knee strength is directly affecting his velocity as its his landing knee not the leg he generates power with. But not following thru on it will.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on May 27, 2016 21:23:56 GMT -5
You know what's kind of ironic is that anybody objectively looking at a decision that Dombrowski had to make last November would have said, "Of course you pick up the option on Buchholz and of course you can't guarantee Rich Hill a starting spot based on 4 very good starts (in about 7 years).
So the Sox passed on Hill and brought back Buchholz.
I think if we took a poll in November if that was the right thing to do I bet you about 97% (myself included) would have said that it made a lot of sense to bring back Buchholz rather than Hill (to bring back Hill you'd have to guarantee him a rotation spot - not have him as a #6 starter like Wright was who would be in the pen if he didn't get a starting spot.)
Yet here we are, and man do I wish the Sox had brought back Rich Hill and saved the money and let Buchholz go.
Could you imagine if we had Price, Porcello, Wright, and Hill in the rotation with E-Rod on the way?
This goes to show you that a GM can make a sound rational baseball decision and still not have it turn out correctly.
Can't say I blame Dombrowski or anybody else who thought that Clay would be a better investment than guaranteeing Hill a starting spot.
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Post by ray88h66 on May 27, 2016 21:23:59 GMT -5
We're within two weeks of the usual pattern of Buchholz hitting the DL for what will reportedly be 3-4 weeks with a strange injury, it taking eight weeks for him to come back for reasons that seem vague, everyone questioning his toughness, and them him coming back to pitch great for 10 weeks and everyone talking about how he'd be an ace if he puts it together for a full season (followed by an infuriating discussion of what an "ace" is - let's not do that part again this year, okay everyone? Please?). The overall value ends up there, but he is the most inconsistent - and by extension, frustrating - pitcher that I can recall. Not just with the Red Sox, but basically in my 30-year baseball-watching life. I'm trying to remember another pitcher who had so many 8-10 week stretches in his career of both excellence and terribleness and I can't. Maybe Scott Erickson? Javier Vazquez? I dunno. He drives me crazy. He's the reason I could never be a GM because I'd have released him at least six times by now. Actually, he's usually started pitching brilliantly sometime in May, before the injury. But your general point is valid. When your biggest online champion (me) thinks it's time to hit the phantom DL and hit it hard ... it's probably that time. Only once before, 2014, has he had a 10-start bad stretch, and that year he never really became himself. However, I do put some stock in his saying he feels fine physically. And he has been snakebit a little in terms of how consistently his mistakes have been hit. However, the key thing here is that you don't see much of a difference in your chance of winning his next scheduled start whether it's him or Elias. Getting him out of the rotation might actually help him clear his head.* I'm with using Elias for a start or two until they're sure E-Rod is ready. *Or not. Who the f knows? It's Clay Buchholz. Or , after all the grief you gave Clay bashers, you could admit to being wrong.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 27, 2016 22:41:50 GMT -5
Actually, he's usually started pitching brilliantly sometime in May, before the injury. But your general point is valid. When your biggest online champion (me) thinks it's time to hit the phantom DL and hit it hard ... it's probably that time. Only once before, 2014, has he had a 10-start bad stretch, and that year he never really became himself. However, I do put some stock in his saying he feels fine physically. And he has been snakebit a little in terms of how consistently his mistakes have been hit. However, the key thing here is that you don't see much of a difference in your chance of winning his next scheduled start whether it's him or Elias. Getting him out of the rotation might actually help him clear his head.* I'm with using Elias for a start or two until they're sure E-Rod is ready. *Or not. Who the f knows? It's Clay Buchholz. Or , after all the grief you gave Clay bashers, you could admit to being wrong. I said that Clay would probably be awful for 6 to 9 starts, then probably turn around and be great. He's been awful for 10 starts. We'll see what happens in the long run. Wrong? I was wrong about Castillo hitting well enough to make him a decent option in LF. That's what wrong looks like. Ditto that they should and would give Sandoval at least a few week's look before trying Shaw. (When you're right most of the time, admitting you're wrong when you're actually wrong is in fact trivial and painless. I'll cut you some slack for not knowing that, though.)
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Post by deepjohn on May 28, 2016 4:08:26 GMT -5
All signs are that he's healthy, his velocity is good, and his offspeed stuff is moving. The changeup has the great horizontal movement he developed last year. He really is an ace pitcher, as he showed last year and in 2013.
But the problem this year is, he has a much higher 13% BB rate against lefties* (only 5% against righties) and predictably, is also getting crushed by lefties. In the past, he's typically walked fewer lefties and held lefties to a lower OPS.
Also, unlike his early season bad streaks in the past, when he was equally bad against righties and lefties, now he's doing fine against righties, and bad only against lefties.
Why is he so much more wild and worse now against lefties?
One thing that's noticeable is that now when he's behind in the count to lefties, he goes more often to the 2-seamer. And his 2-seamer has been missing more against lefties, both down and inside.
Maybe that's fixable?!
*in a significant sample of 129 TBF.
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Post by bigpapismangosalsa on May 28, 2016 7:39:14 GMT -5
We may be arguing semantics here, but how can you say that in 2012 he didn't have strings of 10 starts where he was very bad (maybe others are saying "he was horrible through 9, and turned it around in the 10th", I'm just looking at that full sample of 10 games - already a small sample size). In his first 10 starts that year, he had an ERA of of 7.35 over the months of April and May. Yes, he pitched much better over his next 9 starts, but went right back to being very bad over his last 10 starts of that year with an ERA of 4.75 in those last ten starts. Granted, he had some excellent starts mixed in with those streaks (just like he had two good starts and one excellent one in this past 10) but I think those certainly qualify as bad stretches of 10 starts. Through that entire season he put up an ERA+ of 92 and was a very below average pitcher.
We agree on 2014. He was pretty much horrible from start to finish with a 75 ERA+ that year. That is the EXACT reason I said that people should predict him to be horrible this year. It's been his track record over the past six seasons. Half a season of dominance, he gets hurt. Comes back the next year and isn't effective (my guess is that it's related to the prior year injury casuing issues to his mechanics or stuff or something, since that's about 99% more likely than him being "scared of even years"). Pitches the next season with a half season of brilliance, gets hurt, rinse and repeat. This is exactly what happened starting in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. While I think going into this season penciling in Clay Buchholz and Joe Kelly as parts of your starting rotation was a HUGE mistake, and that the team should have seen it coming, I'm at least glad that this year we're going to try someone else who might give us a reasonable chance to win games early on rather than go through the entire season basically "forefiting" every 5th game.
I don't think that sending him to the bullpen is necessarily a "good" move, however I bet it was more something like this: they told him he was coming out of the rotation. They offered him the option of going to the DL with "arm fatigue" or going to the bullpen, and he chose the bullpen. In this circumstance, the BP is the right move because you cannot allow him to go out and give your team no reasonable chance to win 70% of the time AND because Joe Kelly is terrible, Eduardo Rodriguez is young and coming off an injury and it looks like we have nobody in AAA ready to step in. You cannot just "DFA" Buccholz or trade him for 20 cents on the dollar because of all the other question marks with the starting pitching. We all accept he might not be good at it. This year he also is a HORRIBLE starter, but you might need the depth because you have other horrible starters (either in the bigs or in the minors) and there is a chance Clay goes on one of his good runs, even in a bad year - like the middle of 2012, for instance.
One more thing - I do think the posters that are questioning how Clay would take a move are really being unfair here. Buchholz might be one of the most maddening pitchers any of us have seen in a long time, but he has really never done anything to suggest he's a bad teammate here in Boston. He took his demotion back to AAA in 2007 very well (when he was pitching to an insane 303+ ERA in his starts); he had no problem pinch-running as a pitcher when he was younger; he absolutely gutted out a sneaky effective start in the 2013 World Series when his arm had pratically fallen off; he made those ill-fated but well-intentioned "I'm the Ace / He's the Ace" t-shirts last year, etc, etc. This year, he's been nothing but diplomatic about his struggles and going to the bullpen, and I don't think anyone should have expected any less. Is he a frustraing pithcer - absolutely - he's also been an exceptional teammate.
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Post by soxcentral on May 28, 2016 7:40:15 GMT -5
You know what's kind of ironic is that anybody objectively looking at a decision that Dombrowski had to make last November would have said, "Of course you pick up the option on Buchholz and of course you can't guarantee Rich Hill a starting spot based on 4 very good starts (in about 7 years). So the Sox passed on Hill and brought back Buchholz. I think if we took a poll in November if that was the right thing to do I bet you about 97% (myself included) would have said that it made a lot of sense to bring back Buchholz rather than Hill (to bring back Hill you'd have to guarantee him a rotation spot - not have him as a #6 starter like Wright was who would be in the pen if he didn't get a starting spot.) This goes to show you that a GM can make a sound rational baseball decision and still not have it turn out correctly. Can't say I blame Dombrowski or anybody else who thought that Clay would be a better investment than guaranteeing Hill a starting spot. I was one of those voices saying bring back Hill and not Buchholz, and it seems like there were more than just a few isolated voices here that thought the same, so 97% might be a bit too high. The reasoning was very simple, Hill was pitching very well going into the off-season and Clay was coming off an injury. Did it take a rocket scientist to figure out who was going to start this season looking better? That said, it's only May 28. Clay can regain his form or become Carson Smith's in-house replacement and Hill could get hurt any day. But it does look like the biggest blunder of the off-season so far.
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Post by sibbysisti on May 28, 2016 8:22:10 GMT -5
While Rodriguez has been announced as Buchholz' replacement in the rotation, there has been no roster adjustment yet.
With Hanigan dinged up from his last start, he could be a candidate for the 15 day, especially with Swihart now on the roster.
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Post by ray88h66 on May 28, 2016 12:35:50 GMT -5
Or , after all the grief you gave Clay bashers, you could admit to being wrong. I said that Clay would probably be awful for 6 to 9 starts, then probably turn around and be great. He's been awful for 10 starts. We'll see what happens in the long run. Wrong? I was wrong about Castillo hitting well enough to make him a decent option in LF. That's what wrong looks like. Ditto that they should and would give Sandoval at least a few week's look before trying Shaw. (When you're right most of the time, admitting you're wrong when you're actually wrong is in fact trivial and painless. I'll cut you some slack for not knowing that, though.) I found this post refreshing, even with the shot at the end. I'll give you the point , Clay could still help. I don't think so ,but hope to be wrong , as I am a lot more often than you.
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Post by James Dunne on May 28, 2016 13:11:39 GMT -5
Current rotation preference, following the top three of Price/Porcello/Wright 1. Eduardo Rodriguez 2. Clay Buchholz 3. Roenis Elias 4. Three to four innings from Robbie Ross with Heath Hembree piggybacking him 5. Keith Couch 6. William Cuevas 7. Sean O'Sullivan 8. Henry Owens 9. Tim Wakefield 10. Roger Clemens 11. Greg A. Harris 12. Greg W. Harris 13. Gene Harris 14. Harrison Barnes 15. Joe Kelly
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Post by dnfl333 on May 28, 2016 13:27:22 GMT -5
Or , after all the grief you gave Clay bashers, you could admit to being wrong. I said that Clay would probably be awful for 6 to 9 starts, then probably turn around and be great. He's been awful for 10 starts. We'll see what happens in the long run. Wrong? I was wrong about Castillo hitting well enough to make him a decent option in LF. That's what wrong looks like. Ditto that they should and would give Sandoval at least a few week's look before trying Shaw. (When you're right most of the time, admitting you're wrong when you're actually wrong is in fact trivial and painless. I'll cut you some slack for not knowing that, though.) Bucholz has been bad or hurt for 2 and half years, how long you need?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 28, 2016 14:29:02 GMT -5
We may be arguing semantics here, but how can you say that in 2012 he didn't have strings of 10 starts where he was very bad (maybe others are saying "he was horrible through 9, and turned it around in the 10th", I'm just looking at that full sample of 10 games - already a small sample size). In his first 10 starts that year, he had an ERA of of 7.35 over the months of April and May. Yes, he pitched much better over his next 9 starts, but went right back to being very bad over his last 10 starts of that year with an ERA of 4.75 in those last ten starts. Granted, he had some excellent starts mixed in with those streaks (just like he had two good starts and one excellent one in this past 10) but I think those certainly qualify as bad stretches of 10 starts. Through that entire season he put up an ERA+ of 92 and was a very below average pitcher. He had a 2.79 ERA over 18 starts from May 27th to September 20th, and an ERA of 14.09 in his last 2 starts. His highest Game Score in his first 9 starts was 51. He bested that in 15 of his next 18 starts and matched it in another. His 4th worst start in that 18-game stretch was 7 8 2 2 1 6 (which was in fact the first of the 18 starts). It was a consistent stretch of excellent pitching over 18 starts. You simply can't take a running 10 game-average and ascribe the result to the whole stretch. Now, the collapse in the last 2 starts may well be another real problem, besides the slow starts. In 2009 he got annihilated in starts 31 and 32, here it was 28 and 29, and only one other time did he get that far in a season pitching well, where he was good in his 28th start in 2010.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 28, 2016 14:41:00 GMT -5
I said that Clay would probably be awful for 6 to 9 starts, then probably turn around and be great. He's been awful for 10 starts. We'll see what happens in the long run. Wrong? I was wrong about Castillo hitting well enough to make him a decent option in LF. That's what wrong looks like. Ditto that they should and would give Sandoval at least a few week's look before trying Shaw. (When you're right most of the time, admitting you're wrong when you're actually wrong is in fact trivial and painless. I'll cut you some slack for not knowing that, though.) I found this post refreshing, even with the shot at the end. I'll give you the point , Clay could still help. I don't think so ,but hope to be wrong , as I am a lot more often than you. At one point at SoSH I used as my sig a quote of my own to the effect that Tony Clark was going to have a monster year. You have to keep track of your mistakes and try to learn from them. I'm actually not emotionally invested in being right or wrong in terms of it being about me. Being right or wrong one more time is not going to budge the self-worth meter at all. I get a lot of pleasure from being right about positive predictions about the team, but that's about the team and the player. I derive no pleasure at all from being right about negative predictions. When I worked for the team I sometimes advised that a certain player should not get a start against a certain pitcher, and of course Tito didn't always follow that advice. It took me a little while to figure out what to root for -- which was that the player involved go 4 for 4, all of them cheap or lucky hits with weak contact. But being right there was, again, about being able to help the team win games in the future. If he hits the ball hard against the guy, my predictive model looks to be off. If he makes weak contact, it strengthens the trust in the model and we can do a better job of putting the best lineup on the field the next time we face the pitcher.
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Post by bigpapismangosalsa on May 29, 2016 7:19:06 GMT -5
Fair enough with his stretch in 2012 - at least during the middle of the season - and don't get me wrong, it would be excellent to get that stretch of Clay Buchholz for two months this year, which is why he shouldn't just be DFA'ed or traded for nothing of consequence. I just don't think it's fair to say that he's never had bad 10 game stretches before (other than 2014 and this year). His opening to 2012 was pretty darn awful, and over the course of the full season, he was a below average pitcher. Maybe we can at least agree that over that last two month stretch in 2012 he was inconsistent. He gave up 4ER or more in 5 of those 10 starts.
With all this in mind, I don't think it's unfair at all to question the wisdom of depending on three starters in the rotation going to a second year pitcher, a Clay Buchholz that a fair number of us predicted would be quite bad this year and a starter that had a 92ERA+ in 2014 and an 89+ in 2015. His pitching to a 72 ERA+ at this point this year shouldn't be a huge surprise to anybody.
Either way, I do think that if this team is going to be a legitimate contender, they're going to need to get a least one more dependable starter and one more pitcher that at least gives them a 50/50 chance to win the games on the days they pitch. I certainly hope that Rodriguez can be the "first" pitcher mentioned there, but obviously coming off an injury and with a fairly short track record as is, that is a concern.
Also, that list of starters before Joe Kelly was quite funny, and I agree wholeheartedly. He just quite frankly is not a legitimate starting pitcher in the AL East.
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Post by jimed14 on May 29, 2016 11:47:53 GMT -5
So how long will it be before people start clamoring to replace Joe Kelly with Buchholz?
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Post by ray88h66 on May 29, 2016 11:57:48 GMT -5
So how long will it be before people start clamoring to replace Joe Kelly with Buchholz? I think the clamoring will be for anyone other than those two choices.
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