|
Post by p23w on Nov 19, 2015 18:44:30 GMT -5
I want a world class bullpen for the RS in 2016. I think we are Giles or Storen away from this objective. I think we match up well with both the Phils and the Nats to bring one of this arms into the fold.
My thought is JBJ + Marrero for Storen. JBJ plays CF, Marrero replaces the departing SS. Nats get defensive strength up the middle. RS get a versatile quality end of game bullpen.
My thought for Giles is JBJ + Shaw. JBJ plays CF, Shaw spells Howard at 1B and Ruff in LF. RS get a quality younger arm to compliment Kimbrell and Uehara.
I don't believe we loose that much on defense in CF, SS. Possibly some at 1B, but that was to be expected with Hanley. When Hanley takes over from Ortiz at DH in 2017, Sam Travis should be ready to take over at 1B.
I think this will have a slight improvement to the offense. Holt will probably see more playing time.
The major benefit will be to the pitching staff. Starters will have the luxury of knowing that their work going through the opposition line up 3 times will more often than not result in a W. The embarrassing statistic of the BS from 2015 bullpen should result in a +10 win differential in 2016.
FWIW I'm looking for 185-200 IP from the back end of my proposed bullpen. The best quality 185-200 IP from the 1450 (or so) IP that the staff will throw.
Thoughts? Comments?
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Nov 19, 2015 11:25:59 GMT -5
The key (and the risk) to signing Hill is IP. And by IP I refer to quality IP at the ML level. I suspect 75IP is his floor and 140 is his ceiling. IMO Hill is making a mistake by signing with a team for a guaranteed spot in the rotation. I wish him well but I have serious doubts that he will make 20+ starts. I think he can achieve this plateau, but I believe he will need time off, for his 20+ starts to result in quality IP. I think if the Sox could have reached an arrangement with Hill, they would have a better team in 2016.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Nov 17, 2015 15:03:03 GMT -5
Ouch! I thought DD spent the last 6 weeks of the season watching this team? I hope this is just heresay and not a fact.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Nov 16, 2015 10:13:57 GMT -5
I would love to get storen from Washington, but not sure we match up as trade partners. Plus storen already pissed that Paplebon was the closer and he was moved to the 8th. No way he is happy to be here behind 2 proven guys better than him. My vote is keep Miley and move Bucholtz or Porcello. The pen does need at least one more hard thrower, preferably LH. Storen is pissed at Nats management (including the clueless recently departed manager). Storen knows Kimbrel. He knows he would be 2nd fiddle to Craig. Storen is not "behind" Uehara. Kimbrel closes the close games, no questions. Storen or Uehara finish off those games where Kimbrel needs breather. Who finishes the game off depends on the match ups. Point being you have three arms with 30+ save seasons at the ready. Anyone of which can step into the breech should an injury befall one of the others. One has to factor in Koji's age, and the fact that Storen has a 43 save season under his belt.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Nov 15, 2015 22:34:02 GMT -5
I would trade for (and extend for four years) Drew Storen. Between Kimbrel, Koji, and Storen the 8th and 9th inning is covered by a proven closer. Quality depth, injury insurance. As good or better than the Royals or Yankees. Sort out the balance of the BP during ST. Oh yeah, sign Hill.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Nov 14, 2015 19:25:35 GMT -5
I think the "deal" amounts to an overpay, but what is done is done. My concern is not about the value of the prospects, but in the value of the player received. His career year (to date) was 4 years ago. His "worst" year was last year. He is changing leagues. Can he (will he?) remain one of the top 3 relievers over the next 3 years? God willing. His post season record is, meh. In fairness his teams were overmatched in each series. Will he help? Yes. In the bullpen better? Yes. Is the bullpen championship caliber? Nope. More "help", better health is needed. Should be interesting.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Nov 2, 2015 13:20:39 GMT -5
My biggest takeaway from the WS in particular, the Sox bullpen is a major liability right now. I'm not entirely sure the best way to fix it. There aren't any obvious guys ready in the minors, overpaying guys coming off good seasons isn't ideal, and I don't think the club is ready to try to convert some of their young starters to the pen If they can get one of Light/Barnes to be a solid 7th/8th guy, that would be a major boost. What concerns me is that Dombrowski has never built a bullpen of any note. Hope that changes. The arms are on the roster. One solid experienced bullpen arm with the right stuff would work wonders, IMO.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 24, 2015 8:03:59 GMT -5
Meh. He has had poor command every time out in this series. Can't locate his off speed pitches and has poor command of his FB. Throws a nice low strike at the knees for strike one to Bautista and follows that up with a meatball in Jose's wheel house. Madson wasn't fooling anybody. Use him in the 8th at your own risk.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 23, 2015 21:51:50 GMT -5
Madson chokes.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 15, 2015 8:20:52 GMT -5
Bad science begets inaccurate results that leads to flawed expert analysis. Methodology is EVERYTHING. The determination of "best relievers" begins with corporate culture and their conviction to build and maintain a world class bullpen. This has not been the case for the Red Sox. Gorman, Duquette, Epstein, Cherrington were never known to either invest in, or specifically develop internal bullpen expertise. It has ALWAYS been catch as catch can. THE ONLY REAL closers the Red Sox ever developed came about through happenstance; Radatz, Lyle and Papelbon. Of those three Radatz flamed out early while playing for poor teams, Lyle was traded for "offense" (and went on to win a Cy Young award as a reliever), Papelbon (originally a starter) closed out a world series but was allowed to walk in free agency rather than being offered market value by the Red Sox. In short the commitment was never really their. Now we have a decision maker who has NEVER built (let alone maintained) a world class bullpen. The question at hand is not about Farrell (or Lovullo) it is about managements' commitment to staffing a bullpen with the best relievers available. Whether those relievers are developed in house, bought through free agency, or traded for. The decision on when and how to use each reliever becomes much easier the greater the choice of quality arms the field manager has at his disposal. It becomes really easy to second guess, when the manager has very few quality arms to choose from and is constantly at risk of burning out those arms due to lack of quality depth. Regardless of how good or bad a bullpen is, the manager can be judged on how he uses it, unless you have a bullpen of 8 identical relief pitchers who fare the same vs. LH batters and RH batters. Disagree. The choice of who to use and when does not lend itself to statistical analysis. Too many variables and too few samples. In addition, it was apparent (to me at least) that Farrell (and Lovullo) made numerous pitching changes that were intended to audition some relief pitchers to specific roles. Two examples which come to mind are Layne (lefty specialist) and Ramirez (righty specialist). Neither pitcher were used in this fashion while at Pawtucket. Making assumptions with respect to a set bullpen when only a handful of teams have such rosters is the beginning of bad science.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 14, 2015 12:16:31 GMT -5
Bad science begets inaccurate results that leads to flawed expert analysis. Methodology is EVERYTHING. The determination of "best relievers" begins with corporate culture and their conviction to build and maintain a world class bullpen. This has not been the case for the Red Sox. Gorman, Duquette, Epstein, Cherrington were never known to either invest in, or specifically develop internal bullpen expertise. It has ALWAYS been catch as catch can. THE ONLY REAL closers the Red Sox ever developed came about through happenstance; Radatz, Lyle and Papelbon. Of those three Radatz flamed out early while playing for poor teams, Lyle was traded for "offense" (and went on to win a Cy Young award as a reliever), Papelbon (originally a starter) closed out a world series but was allowed to walk in free agency rather than being offered market value by the Red Sox. In short the commitment was never really their. Now we have a decision maker who has NEVER built (let alone maintained) a world class bullpen. The question at hand is not about Farrell (or Lovullo) it is about managements' commitment to staffing a bullpen with the best relievers available. Whether those relievers are developed in house, bought through free agency, or traded for. The decision on when and how to use each reliever becomes much easier the greater the choice of quality arms the field manager has at his disposal. It becomes really easy to second guess, when the manager has very few quality arms to choose from and is constantly at risk of burning out those arms due to lack of quality depth.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 13, 2015 21:26:16 GMT -5
Drew Storen, excellent arm. Good match, closer in waiting.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 12, 2015 13:15:19 GMT -5
IMO Utley should "man up" and not contest his suspension. The Dodgers won the game, that should be enough. Whilst I do not like the Met team, I hope they win with Harvey today. Ultimately I'd like to see the Dodgers advance sans Utley playing perhaps until the World Series.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 11, 2015 19:00:01 GMT -5
Hard slide by the offense, bad judgement by the defense. Two wrongs. Umpires decision makes for the trifecta of incorrect decisions from this play. The rules got in the way of doing the right thing, IMHO. I think you are right on all counts. If they want to change the rules like they did for catcher's, that would be a good idea. Not so much here, but reading in other places folks talking about the runner not touching the base. The rule states he "must be able" to touch the base, not touch it. This play also reminds me of the growth of Xander this year. He exposed himself like that a lot last year. I didn't see him do it once this year. Not sure if it was coaching, working with Pedey, or on his own, but glad he stopped doing it. Agree 'bout Xander. Probably does have a lot to do with Pedey. One reason I am bullish about a better defense in 2016.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 11, 2015 8:19:50 GMT -5
The purpose of this thread is to promote discussion with regard to the depth and expectations of the starting pitching for the coming season. Whether the prevailing thinking is to go all out with the expectation of a WS championship in 2016, or to build up to that end from the assets currently on the roster is the topic at hand. Feel free to predicate your thoughts involving trade deadline deals or to comment with respect to your expectations of the offense.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 11, 2015 7:32:36 GMT -5
Hard slide by the offense, bad judgement by the defense. Two wrongs. Umpires decision makes for the trifecta of incorrect decisions from this play. The rules got in the way of doing the right thing, IMHO.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 10, 2015 8:34:40 GMT -5
Edge >> Firefox >> Chrome (-10)
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 9, 2015 0:48:40 GMT -5
Oh my god, Game 1 is Lester vs. Lackey. I'm going somewhere to have a sad. I will NEVER get over game 7 Clemens vs. Shilling.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 4, 2015 18:05:55 GMT -5
Substitute Christian Yelich for a subsidized Castillo and Johnson and choice of Ogando or Hembree and you have my attention.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 1, 2015 22:17:43 GMT -5
That's not correct actually. He started the year with Syracuse pitching as a typical reliever and was released in June. After apparently building his arm strength up in July, he made two starts with Long Island in early August before the Red Sox signed him. As great as he's pitched, if I'm an MLB club, 10 starts by a 35-year-old after he'd been pitching in relief for 4 years don't give me confidence that he can handle a starter's workload over an entire season. It'll be very interesting to see what his market looks like this offseason. Never said Hill would/could handle a starters workload over an entire season. I was focusing on quality IP. Any MLB would be interested in 90+ quality IP. One doesn't just "build ip arm strength" after making 25 relief appearances. Arm strength is not the issue. Quality IP is. Sox paid Craig Breslow $2M this year for 60IP of dubious quality on the heels of spending $3.8M for 54 downright crappy IP the previous year. Sox management would be negligent if they were NOT to sign Hill. Adding Hill and subtracting Breslow from the roster is a no brainer.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 1, 2015 13:00:32 GMT -5
Looking at Hill's numbers for 2015 provides some insight. He began as a starter. That lasted for 3 starts then was picked up by the Nationals and used almost exclusively as a reliever. The Sox acquired him and used him as a starter. Three different organizations, four teams, two job descriptions. He was successful at both jobs at each level. What I intuit from this is that Rich Hill is both flexible in his approach and has a veteran's poise. He appears unflappable. He has pitched approximately 90 innings this year. My contention is if Rich Hill can pitch 90 innings for the Red Sox in 2016 with the same success as he had in 2015, than he would be an extremely valuable asset to the Red Sox roster. Finally there is the benefit of his veteran presence to a young staff. I don't get that sense from Buchholz (did with Lester).
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Oct 1, 2015 12:01:34 GMT -5
Totally disagree.
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Sept 30, 2015 22:20:49 GMT -5
SWEET!!
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Sept 30, 2015 18:25:29 GMT -5
Sayonara!
|
|
|
Post by p23w on Sept 30, 2015 15:53:22 GMT -5
Assuming that JBJ does not actually gave precog capability I will assume that negative .24 sec means JBJ is moving before statcast figures out where a hit ball is going.100mph is 16 ft per sec so perhaps JBJ figures it out 36 ft sooner than statcast. Or he has precog. He could also be moving after the batter has begun to swing but before the batter has made contact. But yeah, the most likely answer is Statcast measurement error. Before you get caught up in the precog mythology know that a top flight defender knows his pitcher, knows the batter and knows that in YS a RHP is going to go away to a LHB. The batter knows this as well. In the cat and mouse game the defender enters and plays a step or two toward CF, with the expectation that the batter sees this and commits his swing to LF. Likewise the defender commits his first step toward the LF line. It's not saber masturbation it's the game within the game. Quantify this if you must, but you wouldn't see this behavior in LF from our former LF novice, Hanley Rameirez. You are far more likely to see this behavior from a career OFer, particularly a CFer who is familiar with getting good reads (not that he can see the pitch call) but who can read a catchers frame. We used to call this this the frozen zone. When you're in it you know it. When you're not in it.... you wish you were. JBJ seems to have the ability to enter the FZ from each OF position. Remarkable in itself.
|
|