Clay's option

[Drek717]

Buchholz is a good contract, but that doesn't mean he's a good fit on this team. The team has a bunch of question marks on the pitching staff under decent contracts, and Porcello. At some point you need to stop going for value and start going for reliability and quality. Buchholz could be the latter, but he's certainly not the former. Yes, all pitchers are volatile, but he is especially so. Trade him to a team for a prospect. He has value as a #3 and #4 starter that could emerge as something better. He'd be a really good fit for KC.
 
We know E.Rod, Porcello, and likely Miley (unless he's traded) will be in the rotation in 2016. My perspective going in February 2015 was I like the pitching moves provided that they haven't yet acquired their ace. If they go into 2016 without a pitcher better than that trio, they're screwed. Ideally they'd wind up with a #1 and #2 with the back three being E.Rod, Porcello, and Miley, but if they go into the season with Buchholz on their roster as well as the other 3, they will fail.
 
We know the names that keep getting thrown around, and they're going to cost money or prospects. They need an ace or two, and they need to improve the bullpen. All assets, cash and tradable prospects should be devoted to those two things.

Buchholz is the best play to quality.  Buchholz is reliably better than two of the three guys you reference in the second paragraph as an argument against keeping him as well.  So that's reliability and quality in addition to value.
 
Whether he's kept or not will depend on what the market offers for him.  The likely facts as it stands now:
Porcello isn't going anywhere.
Rodriguez is exactly the kind of guy Dombrowski likes, he's probably not going anywhere.
Buchholz, Miley, Kelly, Owens, and Johnson all probably have some real market value.  
The last three still have options.  
There isn't a logjam of quality prospects at AA needing rotation spots in AAA.
 
I'd imagine Dombrowski is going to shop all five and see which one or two best help to fill a need.  He's also probably going to go SP shopping this winter in a deep market with lots of aces and #2s who might out-pitch the "aces" over the next 5 years.  What the market offers up will dictate how he solves those questions.  Miley might get better offers than Clay with his reasonable multi-year deal and high IP counts track record.  One or both of Owens and Johnson might both be moved to go after a high end starter on a different team.  I doubt there is any solid plans in place as to who is going and who is staying.
 
Dombrowski is a noted trade maker and trade winner.  He's going to have a nice stable of assets to play with this winter despite the Ramirez, Sandoval, and Porcello contracts.  Not an embarrassment of riches but some nice chips, in addition to a meaningful chunk of John Henry's money and likely the ability to easily ask for more at least the first time.  His track record suggests that he'll find a worthwhile starting rotation solution, we just might not see it coming.

 

[Buzzkill Pauley]

 
I go back and forth on this. You could make a pretty good argument that the presence of EdRo, Owens, and Kelly--who all (1) have shown the talent to be solid MLB starters, (2) have not yet shown they can do that for a whole season, and (3) have multiple options remaining--makes giving a rotation slot to a guy with a pretty high risk of pitching <20 starts a less scary idea than it would be for a team with less flexibility and depth. And the flip side is that if he's healthy for a whole year for once, that could be tremendous bang for buck.
 
I realize that keeping Buchholz and acquiring a new #1 would mean that only one of Rodriguez, Kelly and Owens can start the year in the rotation. And maybe that's an inefficient use of resources. But there could be worse problems to have. I think DD should take a "make me an offer I can't refuse" approach. There's no pressing need to trade a pitcher, but there's enough depth that he shouldn't hesitate to bite on a good offer.

 
The problem is that Buchholz, over his last six seasons as a full-season MLB starter, has maintained an inverse relation durability and quality.
 
2013 - 16 GS - 237 ERA+
2015 - 18 GS - 132 ERA+
2011 - 14 GS - 124 ERA+
 
2012 - 29 GS - 92 ERA+
2014 - 28 GS - 75 ERA+
 
2010 - 28 GS - 187 ERA+
 
This last guy is who the Sox hoped they'd get, when they inked Clay to his extension in the offseason thereafter, but to me that looks more and more like an outlier.
 
So, Buchholz projects to either (a.) pitch half a season as a legit #1/2 starter, (b. ) pitch a full season as a replaceable #4/5, or (c. ) beat the odds and hit the longshot bet from 2010 again.  
 
Any team out there could certainly use the first or last pitcher, including the Sox. Especially at only $13MM. The question is whether the Sox should go into 2016 bearing the risk of weathering the middle option, after 2 last place finishes and only one (blessed) playoff appearance in Clay's entire full-season tenure.
 
I suppose, it depends how desperate some other team is to acquire the upside risk of that first or third guy. Because as assets go, if DDski trades away a handful of legit prospects to get an ace, the best way to counter that would be trading off Clay to acquire a couple of new ones.

 

[Devizier]

Keeping Buchholz is a no brainer; the rotation needs to be deep, deep, deep and having a guy like Clay around makes it so. You can't count on lucking into a late career resurgence (Hill) from someone off the scrap heap every year.

 

[Rovin Romine]

Just thought I'd point out that Clay's contract has a 2017 option as well, for $13 or $14m depending on his performance.  
 
It's good odds Clay will deliver value - but, as Buzzkill pointed out, what type of value, and when does it occur during the season?   If you could magically guarantee Clay would peak in the second half (including post season) he'd command way more than $13m.   If Clay's going to deliver a first half excellent run and maybe be available post-season, he'd still be worth significant money.
 
Also, Clay's going into his 31 year old season.  He hasn't had a lot of mileage on the shoulder/elbow though.  I guess that's the plus side of assorted injuries - if there is one.
 
I have no idea what DDom's going to do - but there's clearly value there, to keep or to trade.   

 

[czar]

 
The problem is that Buchholz, over his last six seasons as a full-season MLB starter, has maintained an inverse relation durability and quality.
 
2013 - 16 GS - 237 ERA+
2015 - 18 GS - 132 ERA+
2011 - 14 GS - 124 ERA+
 
2012 - 29 GS - 92 ERA+
2014 - 28 GS - 75 ERA+
 
2010 - 28 GS - 187 ERA+
 
This last guy is who the Sox hoped they'd get, when they inked Clay to his extension in the offseason thereafter, but to me that looks more and more like an outlier.
 
So, Buchholz projects to either (a.) pitch half a season as a legit #1/2 starter, (b. ) pitch a full season as a replaceable #4/5, or (c. ) beat the odds and hit the longshot bet from 2010 again.  
 
Any team out there could certainly use the first or last pitcher, including the Sox. Especially at only $13MM. The question is whether the Sox should go into 2016 bearing the risk of weathering the middle option, after 2 last place finishes and only one (blessed) playoff appearance in Clay's entire full-season tenure.
 
I suppose, it depends how desperate some other team is to acquire the upside risk of that first or third guy. Because as assets go, if DDski trades away a handful of legit prospects to get an ace, the best way to counter that would be trading off Clay to acquire a couple of new ones.

 
Is there any hypothesis to why Buchholz does better in "short" years and worse in "long" years?
 
Peripherally, it looks like this:
 
2013 - 16 GS - 72 FIP-
2015 - 18 GS - 67 FIP-
2011 - 14 GS - 109 FIP-
 
2012 - 29 GS - 115 FIP-
2014 - 28 GS - 108 FIP-
2010 - 28 GS - 88 FIP-
 
which makes it much closer -- and if you flip like 2012 and 2013, suddenly the trend totally goes away.
 
This is the same argument people always have over "odd/even" year players. 95% of the time (and that's probably being conservative), it's just a clustering and means nothing. Yet some people still think ML GMs should "sell high" on Player XXX because he's coming off an even year. It's lazy analysis (if we want to be generous and call it analysis). It's like the guy saying "this stock has fluctuated up and down for a week, now I can make billions of dollars."
 
There doesn't seem any logical explanation to me as to WHY we should expect Buchholz to pitch well if he gets hurt and suck if he's healthy going forward. In fact, if I didn't see a SP's stats, wouldn't I think the opposite is true? Either Buchholz has a lingering injury which eventually explodes (I would have expected him to pitch worse with the injury) or Buchholz has s***ty conditioning which predisposes him to injury, where I'd also expect him to pitch worse in those years.

 

[Plympton91]

 
There doesn't seem any logical explanation to me as to WHY we should expect Buchholz to pitch well if he gets hurt and suck if he's healthy going forward. In fact, if I didn't see a SP's stats, wouldn't I think the opposite is true? Either Buchholz has a lingering injury which eventually explodes (I would have expected him to pitch worse with the injury) or Buchholz has s***ty conditioning which predisposes him to injury, where I'd also expect him to pitch worse in those years.
 

 
I'm generally on your side here, but one thing to potentially consider is whether there is a particular pitch or grip on a pitch that Buchholz needs use to be that above average starter but that it places a strain on his arm that he can't sustain.
 
Of course, that doesn't fit with the first two injuries he had -- stress fractures in his back and a shoulder/neck thing that started with a sleeping baby and was aggravated by a fall covering first base -- which were not arm related at all (I suppose the shoulder/neck injury story could have been a cover for a weak shoulder due to pitching issues).

 

[Minneapolis Millers]

Miley and Porcello are both young, with relatively good track records of health, and are reasonably likely to get the team 200 IPs next year.  I think ERod is as well.  If they add a top SP w/o giving up all of Kelly, Owens, Johnson, and Wright, then they ought to have enough reliable SP innings to keep Buch's high upside/lack of durability in the rotation while maintaining some quality depth.  DD's hand isn't forced at all.  He can maximize his trade options.
 
One potential caveat is $$$.  If they think they need to deal Clay to free up the money needed for a top SP, then that's the route they'll go.  I'm pretty confident that they can get value back in a deal for Buchholz, given his contract.  That would save money far more easily than trying to dump Hanley or Sandoval.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

Miley and Porcello are both young, with relatively good track records of health, and are reasonably likely to get the team 200 IPs next year.  I think ERod is as well.  If they add a top SP w/o giving up all of Kelly, Owens, Johnson, and Wright, then they ought to have enough reliable SP innings to keep Buch's high upside/lack of durability in the rotation while maintaining some quality depth.  DD's hand isn't forced at all.  He can maximize his trade options.
 
One potential caveat is $$$.  If they think they need to deal Clay to free up the money needed for a top SP, then that's the route they'll go.  I'm pretty confident that they can get value back in a deal for Buchholz, given his contract.  That would save money far more easily than trying to dump Hanley or Sandoval.

 
If the bolded were a concern, they would have simply not exercised the option.  They exercised it because they foresee him being a contributing member of the team.  If they do end up trading him, I don't think that changes that equation...the trade will be a value for value transaction, not a salary dump.

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

 
If the bolded were a concern, they would have simply not exercised the option.  They exercised it because they foresee him being a contributing member of the team.  If they do end up trading him, I don't think that changes that equation...the trade will be a value for value transaction, not a salary dump.

 
It can be both - Clay most certainly has value - so you can always trade him later for something useful if you need the money. But big time FAs aren't signing for another month - and they had to make a decision on Clay right now. 

 

[czar]

 
I'm generally on your side here, but one thing to potentially consider is whether there is a particular pitch or grip on a pitch that Buchholz needs use to be that above average starter but that it places a strain on his arm that he can't sustain.
 
Of course, that doesn't fit with the first two injuries he had -- stress fractures in his back and a shoulder/neck thing that started with a sleeping baby and was aggravated by a fall covering first base -- which were not arm related at all (I suppose the shoulder/neck injury story could have been a cover for a weak shoulder due to pitching issues).

 
It's possible, but there's nothing in his pitch mix or PFX numbers that lead me to believe he's been doing anything differently in "good/injury" years when compared to "less good/healthy" years. 
 
The only thing different in 2015 (relative to the last 4 years) was that his changeup usage jumped from ~11% the last couple years to 18%. However, even if we assume his changeup could be trouble on his arm (the general consensus is that the changeup is one of, if not the least stressful pitches to throw), that doesn't explain why his career CH% was at it's lowest point in 2013 when Buchholz ALSO got injured. There is nothing in the physical movement estimates (particularly w/r/t to cutter/slider and curveball) which looks any different over the last 4-5 years. The cutter has transitioned a bit more into a horizontally-moving, straighter pitch, but that's happened over the last 3-4 years.
 
I think you can make a compelling argument that Buchholz is altogether more brittle given his track record. I am not sure you can make the case that overtly extends to his arm, but being on the DL because of a bad back and a bad shoulder essentially provide the same zero value. However, folks need to be very, very careful not to overanalyze the injury/production relationships, particularly when he's really had ("only") 4 major injuries during a 9-yr big league career, two of which (back and hamstring) really need to be stretched to assign an ongoing performance factor which would also be somehow detrimental when he's "healthy."
 
There's been a lot of bad/lazy analysis regarding a lot of players (I'm just picking on Buchholz because we are talking about him in this thread) in 2015, which is outside of the norm this board has been known for the last 10 years (not directed at you, Plympton).

 

[Minneapolis Millers]

Exactly, BCs.  If they see Clay's option as buying $1 now for $.75, they'll do it, even if there's a chance they might need (or decide they want) to use that $.75 elsewhere down the road.  They know, with a high degree of certainty, that they can sell that $1 value for at least $.90 or $.95 cents in a month or two.
 
The Sox have the resources and risk tolerance to pay to maintain multiple options (even if those resources aren't unlimited).  Exercising the option, assuming Clay's health, was never a question.  How they ultimately build the rotation still certainly is.

 

[alwyn96]

There's been a lot of bad/lazy analysis regarding a lot of players (I'm just picking on Buchholz because we are talking about him in this thread) in 2015, which is outside of the norm this board has been known for the last 10 years (not directed at you, Plympton).

 
There's certainly more data available than there ever has been before, which means you can usually dig up some number that looks different when a guy is good than when he's bad and chalk it up to that without really giving much thought to cause and effect. I think it's particularly true when looking at pitch type data. We often have no granular data on why pitchers throw the mix of pitches they do. Maybe sometimes a guy throws a lot of changeups because he happens to be facing a lot of opposite-handed hitters. That's something we can at least check on. Sometimes a guy throws a lot of changeups because in the bullpen before the game his changeup just had insane movement on it for some reason, so he went crazy with it. Maybe he throws a lot because he established his fastball early in the game, and was pitching well and deep enough into the game to be able to throw more changeups when going through the order a third time. Maybe he throws a lot because his curve is terrible and he needs something offspeed. Or he can't throw his fastball for strikes and he needs to throw something. Or maybe he doesn't throw many because the team is up by a ton of runs and all he needs to do is throw strikes with his fastball. Or he doesn't throw many because the way he's throwing it at the time the pitch is a meatball and would be crushed by any competent hitter. Or he throws more because it hurts to throw a slider. Pitch quality can be dynamic, and all these things can happen to varying degrees across the course of a season. Percentage of a certain pitch type thrown is such a blunt tool that it's really hard to know what to make of it. It seems to me one of the less likely explanations is that the pitcher/catcher/coach/manager/front office all just forget that the pitcher throws a certain pitch and that pitch mix is the cause of a guy's problems rather than a symptom, but that seems to be an explanation I see put forward pretty frequently. I think it's because we have data on that, and not very good data on the other stuff, so we tend to assume the stuff we have data on is what's the most important, rather than the forces that are driving that data.
 
I think a lot of the analyses we tend to see are very much driven by the streetlight effect. To steal from the wikipedia article, the streetlight effect is "a type of observational bias where people only look for whatever they are searching by looking where it is easiest."

 

[iayork]

I think a lot of the analyses we tend to see are very much driven by the streetlight effect. To steal from the wikipedia article, the streetlight effect is "a type of observational bias where people only look for whatever they are searching by looking where it is easiest."

 
Yeah, the more I look at PITCHf/x data, the more I think that the easily-quantified stuff -- the velocity, spin, break, pitch mix -- is far, far less important than simple location.  An 88-mph fastball, located in the right place, is much more effective than a 99-mph fastball in the wrong place.  But the problem is that the "right place" changes with every pitch.  A strike on the outside black is almost always a good pitch, unless it's against someone who loves down-and-outside pitches, at which point a strike right down the center of the plate might be the perfect location, unless it follows another fastball in the middle, and so on.
 
If we were just looking at easily-quantifiable stuff, Joe Kelly would be a much better pitcher than Koji Uehara.  And he isn't.

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

 
Yeah, the more I look at PITCHf/x data, the more I think that the easily-quantified stuff -- the velocity, spin, break, pitch mix -- is far, far less important than simple location.  An 88-mph fastball, located in the right place, is much more effective than a 99-mph fastball in the wrong place.  But the problem is that the "right place" changes with every pitch.  A strike on the outside black is almost always a good pitch, unless it's against someone who loves down-and-outside pitches, at which point a strike right down the center of the plate might be the perfect location, unless it follows another fastball in the middle, and so on.
 
If we were just looking at easily-quantifiable stuff, Joe Kelly would be a much better pitcher than Koji Uehara.  And he isn't.

If Pedro is any guide, catcher positioning is also a huge component in this, too. Maybe this is obvious to other people, but it hadn't really sunk in until I read his/Silverman's book. He says he worked a lot with his catchers about positioning so that the batter wouldn't know where the pitch was coming. He basically says Piazza was too big to hide location and it made him a terrible catcher. Varitek was doing a lot of stuff back there to confuse the hitter about location. Probably not surprising that with a young catching staff this season the pitchers were underperforming.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

The notion that there's some correlation between Clay pitching a full season and pitching badly is contradicted by the simple fact that in both 2012 and 2014 (though more subtly in the latter case, thanks to a ghastly second-half strand rate), he pitched better in the second half than in the first. If Clay had been shut down at the All-Star break in 2012, for instance, his ERA would have been about a run higher and his OPS about a hundred percentage points higher than they turned out to be. Pitching a full season was the only reason why he wasn't worse that year.

 

[alwyn96]

 
Yeah, the more I look at PITCHf/x data, the more I think that the easily-quantified stuff -- the velocity, spin, break, pitch mix -- is far, far less important than simple location.  An 88-mph fastball, located in the right place, is much more effective than a 99-mph fastball in the wrong place.  But the problem is that the "right place" changes with every pitch.  A strike on the outside black is almost always a good pitch, unless it's against someone who loves down-and-outside pitches, at which point a strike right down the center of the plate might be the perfect location, unless it follows another fastball in the middle, and so on.
 
If we were just looking at easily-quantifiable stuff, Joe Kelly would be a much better pitcher than Koji Uehara.  And he isn't.

 
Absolutely. As you mentioned, a ton of this stuff comes down to game theory, which is part of why sports are so awesome and interesting. I mean, I haven't seen much stuff looking at pitch sequencing - which seems pretty important - because I would guess it's so insanely complex. It's not like pitchers just throw the same pitch mix at every batter all the time. Pitch type/break, velocity, location, sequence...within the at bat as the pitcher reacts to the hitter...in different game situations...with varying amounts of trust in fielders...across multiple at-bats in a game...against different batters with different hitting profiles...at different times of the season... - they're all games within a game. I'm not sure annual pitch mix really does justice to the different types of situations a pitcher faces over the course of a year.
 
Outside of game theory, there's also just basic dimensions of execution that we don't really measure - hiding the ball/deception, which we have basically nothing quantifiable on but clearly has an important effect; "effective velocity" aka why Carter Capps cheats so effectively (although maybe some data on this?); and weird/unpredictable/late movement - which I'm pretty sure is a thing that overall break doesn't capture very well. It's crazy out there.