Pomeranz is healthy and pitching for now

JBJ_HOF

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He was throwing high 80-s fastballs, poor curveballs, issued 3 walks and a homer over 47 pitches. So he showed no sign of injury before being removed.
 
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Ed Hillel

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Not taking Espinoza back after finding out Pomeranz's arm was awful was probably unwise. Let's hope for all our sakes it doesn't define his legacy as our GM.
 

Snodgrass'Muff

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I don't know about defining moment, but it's definitely looking like a major blemish.
I don't think they had a choice at that point. They were headed toward a division title and a playoff appearance. They couldn't just cut out a starting pitcher and hope for the best. They were stuck with the trade by the time the elbow issues came to light.

If there was a mistake, it was in making the trade in the first place, but even that's not a sure thing since they had no way to look ahead and see that they'd be able to land Sale in the winter. It was a justifiable trade at the time, even if I wasn't particularly thrilled with it. And while I would look back now and undo it, I can't say that that's an objective opinion... or is even particularly close to being objective.

It's a shitty situation, but the choice to not undo the trade when it was presented to them was never really a choice.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Anderson Espinoza, welcome to Bagwell territory
This needs to stop already. We get it, people don't like the deal for Pomeranz. It's done. It's not being undone. It doesn't need to be brought up every time Pomeranz gives up a walk or loses a game or has an owie.

Also, all indications are that the triceps tightness he felt that caused him to be pulled from today's game is entirely unrelated to the injury from last year (the one that resulted in him getting the PRP injection last fall).
 

Snodgrass'Muff

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He gave an interview during the game where he said it wasn't so much that it tightened up during his outing so much as it just didn't loosen up as he threw pitches like he was expected. So they pulled him an inning short of his planning outing to play it safe.
 

joe dokes

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This needs to stop already. We get it, people don't like the deal for Pomeranz. It's done. It's not being undone. It doesn't need to be brought up every time Pomeranz gives up a walk or loses a game or has an owie.
l).
You mean wait til espinoza's thrown a pitch above a-ball? Pshaw.
 

Harry Hooper

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He gave an interview during the game where he said it wasn't so much that it tightened up during his outing so much as it just didn't loosen up as he threw pitches like he was expected. So they pulled him an inning short of his planning outing to play it safe.
Close but not exactly, at least per WEEI:

“The first inning, my triceps got a little tight toward the end of the first one. I told the trainers in between that inning, went back out and it stayed tight the whole time. Nothing crazy,” he said. “Just a little triceps tightness. I think my workloads have been a little higher this week. Who knows. I threw that second inning and it didn’t really loosen up. We just decided to call it quits. I could’ve thrown one more but it’s still the second start and we’ll give it a little rest.”

This item also states that Kendrick can't opt out of being a Red Sox until June.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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luckysox

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Let's hope that whatever Bannister and others have helped Kendrick with sticks and he's able to fill in admirably (or ably, or something), because I don't see Pomeranz being ready for Opening Day. I think I'm looking at the schedule in the right way - they'll need a number 5 right away, correct?

It is disheartening to see Pomeranz hurting after getting the injection and being handled very gently throughout ST. And triceps tightness, even if it's not the same pain as he dealt with last year, is still a bit concerning, even more so with Price in a weird limbo-world, too. All of a sudden, Kendrick is the 5, and Brian Johnson is likely your 6, especially if they are still messing around with Oh Henry's mechanics. Pitching, man. Pitching.
 

johnnywayback

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I'll resist the urge to dig up the eye-rolling responses to my "Let's Find A SP7" thread from a couple months ago and just note, per Eno Sarris and Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs, that:
-- Teams get 32 starts from starters below the top five on their depth chart on average.
-- Teams get six starts from an 8th starter on average.
-- Teams use 10 starters on average.

Having failed to get a fungible depth starter back for Buchholz (which would have been an extremely sensible move, seeing as you don't need to spend $13 million on a seventh starter), they tried to round out their depth with Kendrick/Cordier/Velazquez. Hopefully they hit on at least one.

ETA: On a less snippy note,
Brian MacPherson‏ @brianmacp 2m2 minutes ago
Farrell: Drew Pomeranz reported no symptoms when he arrived this morning. He's on track to throw a bullpen as scheduled and start Friday.
 

uk_sox_fan

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...they'll need a number 5 right away, correct?
Pretty much, yes. They could start Porcello in Game 5 on Saturday the 8th @Det on normal rest but they'd then need to put #5 in on Sunday the 9th. After that though they wouldn't need to start #5 again until Tuesday the 18th (@Tor) so if Drew (or someone else) isn't ready they're looking at possibly just one spot starter for the 1st 13 games (15 days) of the season. And hopefully by the time that spot comes around again (Sunday the 23rd @Bal) Mr Price will be ready. And all that is assuming no rainouts (which would probably still require a spot starter if made up right away with a DH or during one of the off days but there'd be a good chance the opposition would be doing the same).
 

Harry Hooper

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Pretty much, yes. They could start Porcello in Game 5 on Saturday the 8th @Det on normal rest but they'd then need to put #5 in on Sunday the 9th. After that though they wouldn't need to start #5 again until Tuesday the 18th (@Tor) so if Drew (or someone else) isn't ready they're looking at possibly just one spot starter for the 1st 13 games (15 days) of the season. And hopefully by the time that spot comes around again (Sunday the 23rd @Bal) Mr Price will be ready. And all that is assuming no rainouts (which would probably still require a spot starter if made up right away with a DH or during one of the off days but there'd be a good chance the opposition would be doing the same).
Given the Farrell Philosophy seems to be a more gradual build-up of starters' workload in ST and the first month of the season than is done by other clubs, the Sox are unlikely to aggressively skip the #5 starter in April.
 

Dewey'sCannon

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A practical issue with using Kendrick as a spot starter is that he doesn't have options.
If it's only one start, I doubt they're going to want to burn Kendrick for that, if they can otherwise keep him on the hook until mid-June. So I think we could be looking at Brian Johnson (or Velasquez?).
 

uk_sox_fan

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Given the Farrell Philosophy seems to be a more gradual build-up of starters' workload in ST and the first month of the season than is done by other clubs, the Sox are unlikely to aggressively skip the #5 starter in April.
Well, it's not particularly aggressive to send your starters out on normal rest and he did do that last year on their 2nd off-day (skipping Wright's turn on 16 Apr in favour of Price)
 

bosox1025

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Pomeranz to the DL.


Come on down Kyle Kendrick!

edit: Er, with it being a 10 day DL this year.. this might be more strategic than indicative of a larger injury.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Not necessarily. 10-day DL means he can be activated in time to start on Sunday 4/9, the sixth game of the year. With the off-day on Tuesday, Porcello can start the 5th game on Saturday on full rest.

My guess is this will allow them to carry Hernandez and Selsky so as to be better covered until Moreland is 100% recovered from the flu.
 

Puffy

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Not necessarily. 10-day DL means he can be activated in time to start on Sunday 4/9, the sixth game of the year. With the off-day on Tuesday, Porcello can start the 5th game on Saturday on full rest.

My guess is this will allow them to carry Hernandez and Selsky so as to be better covered until Moreland is 100% recovered from the flu.
Or keep an extra relief arm in the bullpen until the 6th game.
 

InsideTheParker

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David Price
Drew Pomeranz
Carson Smith
Tyler Thornburg
Are there any other pitchers on the DL hired by Dave Dombrowski for the Red Sox that I missed?
 

Harry Hooper

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Are there any other pitchers on the DL hired by Dave Dombrowski for the Red Sox that I missed?
Luckily, Abad is 100% healthy. As long as Sale stays off this list, Sox can muddle through.
 

phenweigh

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Not necessarily. 10-day DL means he can be activated in time to start on Sunday 4/9, the sixth game of the year. With the off-day on Tuesday, Porcello can start the 5th game on Saturday on full rest.

My guess is this will allow them to carry Hernandez and Selsky so as to be better covered until Moreland is 100% recovered from the flu.
Seems like a good guess to me. And assuming Moreland is ready by say game 3, they can easily demote Selsky for a reliever with options if they so choose.

It's hard for me to see the Sox calling up Kendrick for a short-term need.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Where is it mentioned that this a short-term thing?
Farrell said that there is no real injury, just that Pomeranz isn't quite ready because he got a late start. He will make a minor league start on Monday or Tuesday to continue stepping up his pitch count, then if all goes well, he will be activated to start the game on Sunday the 9th.

This tweet has a typo about that date that was corrected in a subsequent post.

 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Isn't admitting he's not really hurt a violation of the DL rule ? Or are ST DLs slightly more rexaxed?
I guess the easy thing to say is it's more relaxed, but the fact is that the DL is a regular season only thing. It doesn't exist in spring training until the final week or so before the season begins. He technically did have the injury for which he's being listed, it's just that there was no DL to be put on when the injury happened/he spent time shut down. At this point, he's in the rehab assignment phase of the process, for which a player is still technically on the DL even if he's playing in the minors.

The Red Sox did the same exact thing with Joe Kelly two years ago. DLed him at the start of the season but in a way that he was able to be activated to make his first scheduled start anyway (game 5 of the season).
 

Papifan34

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Once again, a player is injured or sick and it messes up the game. If you ask me, I'm really starting to get tired of this repetition of injuries and sicknesses. If this continues, we may have to start our closers and pinch hitters. Just like the Pats were considering starting Edelman as QB.
 

Average Reds

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Once again, a player is injured or sick and it messes up the game. If you ask me, I'm really starting to get tired of this repetition of injuries and sicknesses. If this continues, we may have to start our closers and pinch hitters. Just like the Pats were considering starting Edelman as QB.
This is almost as much of a non-sequitur as the post you made earlier in the Porcello thread.
 

TonyPenaNeverJuiced

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Tuesday morning's news. Last night Drew Pomeranz had a surprisingly good outing.
He looked liked the guy you thought we might get after the first half of last year... good mix of his two pitches, leaves a lot up in the zone but is deceptive enough to make up for a FB that sits around ~92... it was a really encouraging start.
 

nvalvo

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He looked liked the guy you thought we might get after the first half of last year... good mix of his two pitches, leaves a lot up in the zone but is deceptive enough to make up for a FB that sits around ~92... it was a really encouraging start.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the cutter. That had been a pitch that was discussed last season as being important to his step forward, especially against righties. It looks like (per Brooks Baseball) he didn't use it at all yesterday.

Is he still in a kind of extended spring training, and hasn't yet worked that pitch in? Or has it been scrapped?

Even so, he held the 20 RHB he faced to a .158/.200/.263 line. Not too shabby. It seems like when he's commanding the curve, as he did yesterday very effectively, dropping a bunch of them into the bottom third of the zone, he's just plain good.
 

TonyPenaNeverJuiced

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It will be interesting to see what happens with the cutter. That had been a pitch that was discussed last season as being important to his step forward, especially against righties. It looks like (per Brooks Baseball) he didn't use it at all yesterday.

Is he still in a kind of extended spring training, and hasn't yet worked that pitch in? Or has it been scrapped?
Admittedly I'm working with only clips I can find on youtube and the like, but the Pom puts a ton of strain on his forearm when throwing the cutter, with a rotation of his hand and wrist towards the first base side as he releases - it's really kind violent. Knowing that his injury was too the flexor tendon, I'd also toss out that maybe it's related to the injury. Any of your hypotheses hold true either way, but there may be an argument that that pitch is the root of some of his problems.
 

SouthernBoSox

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Well, he has to develop a third pitch or he has zero chance of sustainability as a starter in this league.

I like his fastball, especially at his angle. I love his curveball. But he is never going to be anything other than a 5-6 inning guy with 2 pitches that aren't lights out
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
Admittedly I'm working with only clips I can find on youtube and the like, but the Pom puts a ton of strain on his forearm when throwing the cutter, with a rotation of his hand and wrist towards the first base side as he releases - it's really kind violent. Knowing that his injury was too the flexor tendon, I'd also toss out that maybe it's related to the injury. Any of your hypotheses hold true either way, but there may be an argument that that pitch is the root of some of his problems.
That's interesting. I thought one of the things that made the cutter so attractive to pitchers and pitching coaches was that unlike a slider it didn't involve much wrist rotation and so didn't present as much of an injury risk.

In this context I took a look at Pomeranz's PitchFX numbers from last year and noted a couple of things: (1) his cutter has a lot of drop relative to his 4-seamer, a 5.9-inch difference--compare Lester (3.9 inches), Price (3.7), and Hamels (4.1); (2) his average velocity on the cutter was 85.2 mph, about 2.5 mph slower than the median for qualifying P's, and only 0.3 faster than the median for sliders.

Maybe the problem with his cutter is that it's really a slider?
 

Cesar Crespo

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Well, he has to develop a third pitch or he has zero chance of sustainability as a starter in this league.

I like his fastball, especially at his angle. I love his curveball. But he is never going to be anything other than a 5-6 inning guy with 2 pitches that aren't lights out
Improving his control would go a long way. His major problem going deep into games is pitch count. I also never understood the hatred this guy gets. He made 13 starts last year for the Redsox, and in 8 of them he gave up 2 or less runs, in a 9th he gave up 3. It's like people only focused on his first start and decided to write the guy off.

And for a guy who doesn't have lights out stuff, his K rate the past 3 years: 23.0%, 23.0%, 26.5%. The 26.5% was good for 10th in the Majors last year. His walk rate the last 3 years: 9.4%, 8.7%, 9.3%. 9.3% was good for 76th. I'm far more worried about his health than I am his results.
 

TonyPenaNeverJuiced

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Well, he has to develop a third pitch or he has zero chance of sustainability as a starter in this league.

I like his fastball, especially at his angle. I love his curveball. But he is never going to be anything other than a 5-6 inning guy with 2 pitches that aren't lights out
This video from MLB (2010) says he had a "vastly improved" change-up coming out of college. I guess it stopped improving, or the movement wasn't good enough to fool anymore.

That's interesting. I thought one of the things that made the cutter so attractive to pitchers and pitching coaches was that unlike a slider it didn't involve much wrist rotation and so didn't present as much of an injury risk....

... Maybe the problem with his cutter is that it's really a slider?
I wish I had the ability to slow down clips/from catcher angles, but compare these photos:

This one is just tossing, but it's shows the exaggerated way Pom throws either the cutter or the fastball (more in a second)

This is his release point - from the grip, this looks like either fastball or cutter.

Now look at this video. @1:13, he sets up to the throw the cutter (notice how he has to specify which side of the plate he's throwing it to, as if there's two versions of the pitch, not just inside-outside. I know this was his "first session" with the Sox, but it's relevant because of what happens at the end of the video)

He then starts throwing the fastball @2:05. Similar whip in the arm - I sometimes suspect that when he leaves pitches way up, his hand is not catching up to his arm/flexor, and therefore drags behind at the point of release.

And @3:08 he's throwing either the cutter or some other pitch - the action is a stark cut down and towards a lefty.

What I'm getting at is: I think Pom's dramatic drop is related to that hand/flexor action - more rotation outward creates drop, like a sinker almost (see last part of the vide), while one without so much jerk would cause a more horizontal shift, a la a slider (see 2:05) - it's like a slurve version of a cut slider - a Clurter? I used to throw a slurve and would similarly strain my forearm to get different kinds of movement - I don't think it's unfathomable that Pom would be doing the same, or that it's not necessarily the kind of thing that's consistent every game/over the years.

I'll can it for now, but his (kn)curveball release is more traditional, and involves virtually no arm twisting.
 

Minneapolis Millers

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Isn't the "hatred" linked more to giving up Espinoza for him? If you give up The Next Great Starting Pitcher you have to be getting back a currently great one, right? Not just a pretty good, controllable, cheap but frequently injured and not clearly established one. Or so the thinking/kvetching goes.