If Refsnyder were to return tomorrow, wouldn’t he likely take Abreu’s spot? A backup OF who bats LH doesn’t make much sense for this team, and I think Abreu is probably only up because there aren’t any other options.
Wave of mutilation: The latest injuries
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One of those last three would be starting, one would be bench, and one would be in Worcester. My point was that they'd all be more likely to be on the roster than Dalbec.
Dalbec has better positional versatility than Abreu and is a better defensive 3B than Reyes and a better defensive 1B than Refsnyder.
Reyes and Refsnyder can't be optioned to Worcester, Dalbec can. Hence they stay, he goes (if all are healthy).
Keep beating that Dalbec drum, you might find someone to accompany you someday.
Let me break it down explicitly here. If everyone's healthy, the roster looks like this:
1. Wong
2. McGuire
3. Casas
4. Grissom
5. Story
6. Devers
7. Yoshida
8. O'Neill
9. Duran
10. Reyes
11. Refsnyder
12. one of Rafaela/Valdez/Abreu/Dalbec
13. one of Rafaela/Valdez/Abreu/Dalbec
My contention is that Dalbec is going to Worcester along with one of the other three guys (probably Abreu).
That’s a point against him
Rafaela
Duran
Oneill
Masa
Refsnyder
You don’t really need another one
They don't need a corner if Devers and Casas are going to be penciled in everyday, which it seems they will be. Valdez and Reyes will cover the corners as needed. If there is a long term need Dalbec is in WOOstah waiting for the call. If you truly believe in the guy you should be happy to see him getting regular ABs to see if he can figure stuff out. IMO he's still in the organization because A) he's got options and B) he's not blocking anyone ATM.
Jansen "hopes" to be available "by series end" in Oakland. So presumably not for the next 2 games at least.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/04/01/sports/red-sox-athletics-lineups/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/04/01/sports/red-sox-athletics-lineups/
I read this earlier. My hope is that they aren't in particularly tight games against an inferior A's team and he isn't really needed in this series. Campbell and Martin each pitched an inning Saturday so both should be available tonight. Wink pitched 2 innings Friday so he should be good to go tonight/tmrw. I'm hoping for 5+ out of Houck tonight.
Strange that Jansen was throwing in the bullpen in the ninth yesterday if he was "unavailable". Would be weird coincidence that he chose the ninth inning to throw just to test himself out rather than to possibly be ready if Slaten got into trouble. Obviously a bad back can flare up unpredictably so it's not that I don't believe he's questionable for tonight. It just doesn't seem like it's a serious concern. More like they'd rather avoid him if at all possible, but if they need him, he can go.
Oakland is bad but the very worst teams still beat the very best teams a third of the time. This isn't college football where you can expect to thrash weaker teams every time.
It would be more surprising if we didn't have a close game with a late lead in this series.
Back injuries are weird. He could’ve warmed up fine last night and woke up this morning with pain.
Without saying whether a closer is required. . .I think it's more likely that those wins come against other weaker teams, unless the 100-loss team is riding a hot hand, or they play a short series against a good team hurt by IL issues. Then you may get a SSS split or see them win a series.
Here's OAK for last year. Scroll down to the individual team records. https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/OAK/2023-schedule-scores.shtml#all_win_loss
v. BAL 1-6.
v. NYY 1-5.
v. SEA 1-12.
v. HOU 3-10 comes close. And TEX 4-9 looks comparatively great. But generally, so on, so forth. SSS exceptions: ATL 2-1, MIL 3-0.
Conversely they had success against: CHW 4-3, DET 4-3, KCR 4-2, PIT 2-1, SFG 2-2, LAA 6-7, COL 2-1 That's 24 of their 50 wins.
As a subset of the above - against other hundred-loss teams: CHW 4-3, KCR 4-2, CRR 2-1. Total 10-6.
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I’m not assuming anything in this Oakland series. The Coliseum can be a house of horrors even when the A’s are shitty. Not always, but too often.
I agree with RR. Per the Log5 method, a 100 win team (2023 pythag Dodgers) would be expected to beat a 50 win team (2023 pythag Athletics) around 78% of the time.
I'm hoping for a benevolent house of horrors where the likes of Duran and Rafaela hit balls that just roll forever as they fly around the bases.
If Jansen is down, this pen is already seriously stressed. We sorta need at least 6 from Houck tonight and Chase Anderson to make an extended appearance to reset. There has to a role for Chase other than complete blow outs. Weissert, Slaten, Joely presumably unavailable tonight. Is Winck available on 2 days rest after 41 pitches on Friday night? And Campbell and Martin can't keep going every other day.
Maybe better just to DL Jansen now and get another arm up here. Any word on how Zack Kelly is doing?
Maybe better just to DL Jansen now and get another arm up here. Any word on how Zack Kelly is doing?
I could have been clearer. My point was that getting him an inning in a blowout might be better than in a save situation just to see how things hold up.
Pretty sure the thread title is an REM reference. Gotta remember the median age around here...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rOiW_xY-kc
Jansen last appeared on Mar 28, so backdating the 10 day IL is still an option. But if he's OK, is picking up a couple of innings early on v. OAK would be a plus as @YTF suggested.
Otherwise he'd be on the IL until the Apr 9th home opener v. Baltimore. He'd miss 3 v. OAK and 3 v. LAA.
So would you want a potentially gimpy Jansen, or some guy to throw something like two garbage innings twice against OAK and LAA?
Unless he can throw some pen-relief innings, I'd be tempted to go for the "some guy" option.
With starters being limited to 5+ IPs, 80-90 pitches, 20-22 batters, it is very hard to endure a relief pitcher who is down for 3 or more days, especially if you are also carrying someone who is use only in case of true blow out. You can't really cover the needed pen innings/batters with 8 RPs, let alone 6 or 7.
Eh, they still have a reliever who hasn’t thrown a pitch yet; and the other six guys have each thrown 2-2.3 IP. It’s probably not ideal for a sustained period of time but think it’s doable.
0.5 to 0.6 IPs/Team Game is obviously lot for a RP especially if working 1 IP at a time. We have 6 RPs on pace for 80 plus IPs this year (yes it is very early) which is obviously not sustainable, but necessary if the SPs are not pushed a few batters/outs more.
Will be interested in if/how they will use Winck in 2+ inning spurts, trying to get 80+ IPs from him in this way in approx. 40 appearances. If so, he would be seem to be likely to be on rest tonight and "scheduled" to go extended tomorrow.
And yes, they will need to get some outs from Chase Anderson or his replacement. I can see logic in having one spot in pen for a guy who is not very good, but sucks up innings and therefore keeps everyone else fresher. But one who is so bad, you do not want to pitch at all in a stretch of 4-5 close games doesn't make a lot of sense even if he doesn't have options.
Will be interested in if/how they will use Winck in 2+ inning spurts, trying to get 80+ IPs from him in this way in approx. 40 appearances. If so, he would be seem to be likely to be on rest tonight and "scheduled" to go extended tomorrow.
And yes, they will need to get some outs from Chase Anderson or his replacement. I can see logic in having one spot in pen for a guy who is not very good, but sucks up innings and therefore keeps everyone else fresher. But one who is so bad, you do not want to pitch at all in a stretch of 4-5 close games doesn't make a lot of sense even if he doesn't have options.
Some quick back-of-the-napkin math combined with Cora's statement about aiming to get 25 IP from each trip through the rotation leaves us with around 600 IP left for relievers to cover. 600/8 relievers is 75 IP per reliever.
Obviously we will have more than 8 relievers over the course of the season, but much of that will be caused by injury. I think the current model for covering all the innings necessary has some attrition baked into it. I'm not accusing Breslow of being Field Marshal Haig here, but if the Sox are really only hoping to get around 800 IP from their starters, they will need an 8-man relief core to average over 70 IP each, OR they are going to send relievers out at that pace and expect some injuries as a result.
What will be interesting to watch will be how many innings relievers pitch per games available. 75/162 is, as you say, about .5 IP/g. After last night's game, Anderson is above that at .6, and all other relievers except Jansen are at .4. Obviously there is more than just innings pitched when it comes to injury risk, but usage rates of certain pitchers like Anderson or Rodriguez might give some insight into whether the Sox are really expecting them to complete a season without having to sit for a bit and be replaced with a similarly-producing (hopefully) arm from AAA.
FWIW, league bullpens covered about 42% of all innings thrown last year. That is about 603 innings per team (655 for the Red Sox). So the goal of having the starters cover at least 5 innings per start (810 innings) shouldn't really put an unusual burden on the bullpen unless the personnel remains entirely static for the whole season. We know that is unlikely to happen.
MLB average last season was 5.1 innings per start. Last year's Red Sox team averaged only 4.8 IP/start, which was tied for 5th lowest.
Amazing how the combination of no disaster starts and just 1 or 2 more outs per start adds up.
It also mightily depends on how those 25 are distributed, how many tight games they play, etc. But overall, I agree that the number is necessary, but not sufficient -- a minimum target for success, not a guarantee of success.
Yes, I agree that expecting a bullpen to cover around 600 innings from a bullpen would put us right around league average and not unusual in any way. However, my point was more about the rate of usage. Yes, we will have more than 8 pitchers in the bullpen this year, and some of that is going to be because of injury. My point is that maybe instead of just looking at 75/80 innings as an unusual (or perhaps injury-causing), but rather the pace that would lead to a reliever pitching that many innings in a fully healthy season. If there is concern over starters throwing more than 100 pitches every five days, then we perhaps would want to look at relievers in a similar fashion. We would probably determine a starter to be overburdened if he were to be asked to throw over 200 pitches during two passes through a rotation. What is the equivalent for a reliever? It's not the 80+ innings at the end of season that is necessarily dangerous for a reliever, it's the pace that's required to get there.
Anyway, it's probably all moot because, as you said, relievers will get hurt and we'll have 10-15 guys at some point pass through the BP. It would just be weird if that were by design and strategy if the work rate necessary to get through the season with 8 relievers at any given point turns out to be injury-inducing -- somewhat like a (now hypothetical) design that relies on starters to go 6+ and throw over 100 pitches every start.
Edit: and that every team more or less does this now...
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That's probably true -- I didn't meant to twist Cora's words. Then again, we just did spend the last few days lauding how well our rotation did. Is it responsible to expect that level of performance all year?
He definitely meant it as a minimal long term goal based on watching him interviewed, but he certainly wasn't saying they'd hold guys back from going deeper when warranted. It seems like they believe they can afford to be careful after 5, and also seem to believe that fresh arms out of the pen that can throw filth as a bridge, rather than tired starters running on fumes, may be a better recipe for success. Not to mention helping to keep the starters fresher and more likely to stay healthy. There's also, IMO, no way they haven't also looked at reliever usage strategically, with every imaginable scenario dissected.
And just in general, while this discussion is tangentially related to injury potential, this thread was created to track actual injuries. Every time it's bumped I get palpitations. Let's let it get back to that and utilize the pitching threads we have, or start new ones where warranted, and hope this thread gets very little action going forward.
Sorry about that.He definitely meant it as a minimal long term goal based on watching him interviewed, but he certainly wasn't saying they'd hold guys back from going deeper when warranted. It seems like they believe they can afford to be careful after 5, and also seem to believe that fresh arms out of the pen that can throw filth as a bridge, rather than tired starters running on fumes, may be a better recipe for success. Not to mention helping to keep the starters fresher and more likely to stay healthy. There's also, IMO, no way they haven't also looked at reliever usage strategically, with every imaginable scenario dissected.
And just in general, while this discussion is tangentially related to injury potential, this thread was created to track actual injuries. Every time it's bumped I get palpitations. Let's let it get back to that and utilize the pitching threads we have, or start new ones where warranted, and hope this thread gets very little action going forward.
On topic, the MLB site had an update yesterday that Refsnyder and Grissom are both doing fine in extended ST and are on track. The plan is for them to meet the Sox for the home opener in Boston - then from there go to MiL games to get up to speed.
Mata. . .who knows?
Just note that given those numbers, the probability of the 100 win team sweeping a 3 game series is still less than 50% (0.78^3).
While no one can argue with the early pitching results, one concern that keeps bugging me is whether the seeming new focus on "breaking" pitches rather than four-seam fastballs and on increased velocity, may lead to an elevated risk of pitching injuries. I did a little bit of digging and found some fairly outdated articles from Driveline (of all places), which have some interesting data/results and brief reviews of contemporary research.
I'm not sure what conclusions, if any, to draw from the research in the articles below, but I am worried that pitchers throwing harder, with more movement, could result in more arm injuries. Does anyone know of more recent, relevant studies on this topic? I'm sure the Sox have their own research on this and seem to have made a clear decision that any increased risk of injury, if there is any evidence to suggest such, is outweighed by the improved pitch efficiency.
https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2017/02/fastballs-offspeed-pitches-comparative-relative-elbow-stress/
A follow-on from the above article.
https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2017/11/reviewing-offspeed-pitches-elbow-torque/
I'm not sure what conclusions, if any, to draw from the research in the articles below, but I am worried that pitchers throwing harder, with more movement, could result in more arm injuries. Does anyone know of more recent, relevant studies on this topic? I'm sure the Sox have their own research on this and seem to have made a clear decision that any increased risk of injury, if there is any evidence to suggest such, is outweighed by the improved pitch efficiency.
https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2017/02/fastballs-offspeed-pitches-comparative-relative-elbow-stress/
A follow-on from the above article.
https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2017/11/reviewing-offspeed-pitches-elbow-torque/
There is some really good discussion about the current state of pitching here:
https://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/the-frailty-of-the-modern-pitcher.42033/
The article linked at the end of the thread is especially illuminating.
But again, this particular thread is for tracking actual injuries. Let's keep it there. Thanks!
My sincere apologies. Thanks for the redirect.There is some really good discussion about the current state of pitching here:
https://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/the-frailty-of-the-modern-pitcher.42033/
The article linked at the end of the thread is especially illuminating.
But again, this particular thread is for tracking actual injuries. Let's keep it there. Thanks!
Some injury updates from the Glob:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/04/09/sports/red-sox-pivetta-injured-list/?
As noted in the Pivetta thread, his UCL is intact and he could come back not long after the 15-day DL stint.
Refsnyder and Grissom were with the team for the opener and will start rehab assignments soon. Grissom will take some reps at SS.
https://bosoxinjection.com/posts/red-sox-pitching-suffers-another-blow-with-reliever-chris-murphy-undergoing-tommy-john-surgery-01hv4mgpmt6w
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/04/09/sports/red-sox-pivetta-injured-list/?
As noted in the Pivetta thread, his UCL is intact and he could come back not long after the 15-day DL stint.
Refsnyder and Grissom were with the team for the opener and will start rehab assignments soon. Grissom will take some reps at SS.
Also: Chris Murphy had surgery and is done for the year:
https://bosoxinjection.com/posts/red-sox-pitching-suffers-another-blow-with-reliever-chris-murphy-undergoing-tommy-john-surgery-01hv4mgpmt6w
I haven't seen any updates on Brandon Walter, who was shut down late in spring training but wasn't ruled out for the season at the time.
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Devers scratched tonight, still dealing with his shoulder injury. I will let you guys discuss.
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/rafael-devers-day-off-shoulder-pain/
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/rafael-devers-day-off-shoulder-pain/