How do you improve the Red Sox

Mentioned this in the Rich Hill thread and it pertains to improving the Sox outside the organization-

I think it will be a buyer's market for relievers. There will be a ton of names to get for a ton of teams. Between Daniel Hudson, Jake MgGee, Andrew Miller, Chapman, Arodys Vizcaino, Sean Doolittle, Ryan Madson, Abad of the Twins and maybe a lot of others I'm not even mentioning and thinking about.

The Sox definitely do need one more arm for the bullpen with the loss of Carson Smith and the need for another bullpen ace. I think this is a even bigger need than the rotation. Elias could give the Sox some quality I think from the number 5 spot in the rotation and could be decent.

So that being said, go get a bullpen arm if it's easier to acquire without giving up as much for a starter.

Steven Wright began throwing the knuckleball predominantly in 2011 - that accounted for 5 of his 7 seasons in AA and AAA (and roughly 70% of his innings pitched at those levels). Furthermore, in his AA and AAA seasons alone since 2011 he allowed (using splits that I could find) 184ER in 472ip, which is a 3.50ERA (and darn close to the 3.60 I said based on estimations KNOWING he didn't throw the knuckle ball prior to 2011).

I generally find AA and AAA statistics to be slightly more predictive, however, if you'd like to simply use "as a knuckleballer", his minor league stats from 2011 forward are 228ER in 562ip, for a 3.65ERA. As I said, I would expect his roughly 3.60 ERA in the minors to translate to around 4.00 of an ERA in the majors. This still makes him a VERY valuable pitcher, and someone I want in my rotation, but is a far cry from the approximate 2.10ERA he has put up this far, and why I expect some regression from him.

Of course, this is my interpretation of his numbers - and that alone - if you see those numbers and project him to keep up the 2.10ERA pace he's been on, I'd be interested in having a discussion of your reasons why. Looking at the same numbers and drawing different conclusions makes for good discussion, and I enjoy that discourse.

If, however, you choose not to read my "wall of text" that's fine and absolutely your choice. I would respectfully ask that if you're not going to read what I write, nor simply ask me where I got my numbers from, you refrain from making uninformed responses about how I arrived at my conclusions. Thanks.

Would trading Eduardo be a bad idea if the Sox didn't have confidence in him this year to perform because of his knee?

Like trading him for a Sonny Gray as a example.

Just asking what everyone thinks about that. Less years and control for Gray but it could be a potential upgrade in performance for the Sox rotation this year. Nothing guaranteed of course with a Gray for Eduardo trade, but a interesting thought I think.

It all ties into "how do you improve the Sox in the near short term" and not down the road either, which some people may not want.

The most realistic ways to improve the team are probably something like this:

1. Find another back of the bullpen arm to replace Smith, push Koji to a lessor role and reduce Tazawas workload. This helps shorten games too which is very important for a team with a lousy/mediocre rotation.

2. Acquire a LHH LEFT fielder. Nothing outrageous but someone who can platoon with Young and give some additional lineup options.

3. Acquire one or two back end starters that hopefully can give you solid innings at a reasonable ERA. I disagree with those that think this team NEEDS a top starter. Price and Wright are those guys. We need reliability at the 4/5 spots. That is where this team has struggled....

I'll break into another post for this rant.

Sorry, missed the "2 out of 3" phrase.

That's a really interesting hypothesis Pedro. Anecdotally speaking, the knuckle ball seems to be said to be a pitch that takes a long time to refine, so I can see where you're coming from with that. I looked up some numbers, from Wakefield and Dickey as the only knuckle ball pitchers (excepting Wright of course) that I could think of from about 1990 on.

Wakefied was a position player initially, and only converted to pitching along with the knuckle ball, and his career minor league pitching statistics were a 4.33ERA across 119 games started across about 5 and 1/2 years, starting with 1990. His career ERA in Boston was 4.43. So for him, you saw a less pronounced jump than what you see from other starters.

That said, from the analysis I've heard (and this is from watching broadcasts, admittedly not something to easily cite, but hopefully others can back me up here), Wright's arsenal is more akin to RA Dickey. He throws the knuckle ball a bit harder than Wake did, and by virtue as coming up as a pitcher, he has other decent "secondary" pitches in his offerings.

Dickey transitioned to the knuckle ball in 2006, and in his minors career from there forward he had 444.2ip, and gave up 196ER, which was a 3.97ERA. For his major league career (isolating Toronto stats because I believe that's much more similar to pitching in Boston than pitching for NYM in the NL East) he has a 3.97ERA over 4 seasons.

Granted, this is a very small sample size (two pitchers) but that is always likely to be the case with the knuckle ball. It seems actually that minor league performance is possibly even more indicative of MLB performance for knuckle ball pitchers than another type of pitcher. So while I don't know if we should assume that Wright's ERA will improve relative to his minor league numbers, it might be fair to say that he wont see the increase in ERA that a lot of other pitchers do.

If he can sustain an ERA around 3.65 in the majors as he did in the minors (while throwing the knuckle ball) that makes him more of a number 2 starter in the AL East than a number 4. It's tough to say if there is enough data to make a good analysis, but if we assume this 3.65ERA going forward, that changes the equation a little, at least in my mind, from needing to acquire a number 2 starter to looking to get a consistent number 4 starter to slot in behind Price, Wright and Porcello.

To your other point, regarding a trade of Rodriguez, I don't really WANT to give him up because his stuff profiles to have a ceiling of a number 2 starter. That is much higher than any of our young starters closer to the majors than Espinoza. However, if you can trade him as the main piece in acquiring a young starter that is under a reasonable contract and comes with multiple years of control (like Sonny Gray, whom you mentioned) I'd probably do it.

Considering that he was just about the best pitcher on the planet in his 10 good starts in 2015 (terrible defense masked that it was his best year), why would you stop at 2014? Did Steven Wright replace him with an exact duplicate at that point?

I would have no problem with this if Gray's medicals check out, but I doubt Beane would do this straight-up.

[/quote]But if the inconsistency is ten bad starts followed by seven good starts? That is LESS valuable than a guy with 30 starts average starts and and a 4.00 era.

Heck, I say a guy with seven bad starts followed by 10 starts (which are the best of his career) is less valuable than a guy 30 starts and a 4.00 era. Thirty starts and a 4.00 era at least gave me a chance to win games over an entire season. The other guy gave me seven games that I was hard pressed to win, taxed my bullpen, then left me trying fill in the other 13 games with minor leaguers, swingmen, or a trade target.
[/quote]


Common sense is good to see. Add in, Clay is no longer stretched out enough to give any real help as a starter.

Buchholz that year had 2.7 bWAR. R.A. Dickey made 33 starts with a 3.91 ERA and had 2.3 WAR. Yordano Ventura had a 4.13 ERA in 28 starts and 1.9 WAR. So 30 starts at league average ERA is worth 2.0 WAR, which indeed is the standard number for MLB average.

Good teams have some rotation depth, but even if you're a little below replacement level in the 15 missing starts, you're ahead.

What about 2015, as an example? The Sox got 2.2 WAR in 15 starts from their #6 and #7 starters (Owens and Hill). The #8 guy, Wright, had 0.6 WAR in 6 starts plus 20 IP of relief. Even if you disqualify Hill as a fluke, you're talking about 1.0 WAR over the 15 missing starts, which is league average. But even if you're only halfway there with your replacements, you're talking about 3.2 WAR versus 2.0. It's not less valuable; it's more than 50% more valuable.

If your answer to this amounts to "you can't use WAR to measure this," that translates to "you should argue this emotionally rather than logically, because Buchholz annoys the crap out of me ... for instance, let's ignore the 10 games that you were extremely likely to win, which in fact hugely tip the equation the other way."


Which is to say, you admit that you went back just that far because you are trying to make an argument that he's bad. So you started with your conclusion, and now you're citing arbitrary data that supports it. Obviously, nothing at all happened there, because he was better than ever in 2015.

... where he made 4 starts, including a very good outing in game 6 of the ALCS and a good, very gutsy 1 UER allowed in 4 IP in WS game 4. He was a perfectly solid post-season #4, despite still obviously pitching hurt.

Gray has a track record of great performance. It would be a bet that the Sox are making on a guy like Gray but it's a worthwhile bet if I'm the Sox. Depends on the cost. If it's more than Eduardo and another piece or two, then I'm passing.

It's easy to say we need a starter. I cringe at what it will COST. In years past we would have a prospect list that gradually drop from 1-10. Now we have a very top heavy prospect list 1-4, then a tier 5-7 or so. As of now, Kopech, Travis, Swihart, Johnson are hurt or on rehab. That leaves the top 4. IMO, strengthen the BP & LF with anyone else 5-10 (preferably not Kopech). Cherry did well in keeping Betts/Bogey/Bradley/Swihart in house & we're much better for it. I don't want to trade the next wave of these guys.