Red Sox Rumors - Just Kidding
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With the Sox he's had an ERA- of 36, 100, 85, 33, and 141. In his one below average year he had his career high K/BB percentage, and a k% above his career average. He's the sort of dude that if another team non tendered him, fans on this board would want to sign for cheap. We're just scarred by actually seeing him pitch last year.
If Cora was willing to use him as a back of the pen guy, this would be fine. Given that Cora kept using him in high leverage situtions no matter how much he sucked, makes this move concerning.
When you have a terrible bullpen, your decisions tend to look bad no matter what you do.
Did they? I’d be surprised if so – his final numbers weren’t great but he had a number of decent starts this season.
Winck is still around; but he really doesn’t miss bats and gives up hard contact. Hard to see a very high ceiling there.
I dont think so, but he's pretty stuff limited. He has some value during his option years of being a guy in AAA who can come up and not be terribad and maybe he ultimately plays himself into an old-school long man in the pen/6th starter (i.e., more of the mop up soak up innings than the quality bulk inning reliever). There aren't too many guys who are successful pitchers at this point who have k/9 in the 5s. His stuff doesnt suggest that he's every going to be able to maintain high k rates in the majors as there isnt a single pitch that projects to be above average.
Cora continued to put Brasier in bad situations where his skills didn’t play up and also continued to being in Sawamura with runners in scoring positions despite all evidence showing he would fail. I still think Cora is just terrible at BP strategy in these times that it’s more important than ever.
He still seems to rely on- Timlin/Embree for the 8th- Foulke for the 9th. And I worry he’ll continue to be robotic going forward
I think it's easy to make bad bullpen decisions when your outfield is some combination of Verdugo, Duran, Franchy and Pham/Refsnyder.
A healthy Hernandez should help next year, but I almost think someone who can at least pretend to play COF defense is as important as a SS this offseason.
I fear that Bellinger or Gallo are in our future. If both guys are signed as one year flyers for short money, great but it really seems that Chaim will throw too much money at a "good value" guy.
His bullpen was horrid last season. Management of it was largely irrelevant.
That the Sox seem inclined to bring back much of the pen back is interesting.
Were you saying this in years past or are you maybe overreacting to one terrible and forgettable baseball season?
I would take a flier on Bellinger, perhaps. He's still only 27 and posted some monster years in the past.
The thing that concerns me with Beli is he's been terrible since his shoulder surgery. If the Sox felt he's fully recovered, I guess I could get behind it, but he's been really bad since the injury and there's been no indication that he's recovered. If he was, the Dodgers probably would've tendered him a contract.
One thing about Bellinger is that he has a kickass strikeout rate.... for an ace relief pitcher.
I want nothing to do with him on this team. If they were deeper and he lengthened the lineup, then maybe, but if he gets signed by the Sox it is because they are counting on him being a key contributor.
I want nothing to do with him on this team. If they were deeper and he lengthened the lineup, then maybe, but if he gets signed by the Sox it is because they are counting on him being a key contributor.
Another big worry for me with Bellinger is that he always seemed like someone who had a pretty big hole in his swing when pitched up in the zone. Even when he was mashing, I wondered how he was making contact with his swing path on elevated fastballs. His swing with the shoulder issues seem to be pretty troubling
I’m not a big Brasier guy, but this is where I'm at too. Among 144 relievers who threw 50+ innings in 2022 (by definition a fairly accomplished group), here's where Brasier ranked:
K/BB: 18th (4.92)
O-Swing%/Chase rate: 10th (38.6%)
BABIP: 132nd (.335, or 13th-highest BABIP)
Average FB velocity: 43rd (96.0 mph)
FIP: 90th (3.61)
xFIP: 65th (3.49)
ERA-FIP: 2nd (meaning he had the second-largest difference between ERA and FIP in MLB, suggesting extreme unluckiness)
These are all pretty strong indicators that he's still useful, in my book. He's just a fastball/slider guy and nothing particularly special, but I think his rubber armed-ness gives some extra value in a pen where we've had some bulk guys and starters designed to go only twice through the order. He tends to throw a good amount of back-to-back games.
Another reason not to fall into the Bellinger trap is handedness. JDM is gone, X might be gone as well. Story and Kike' are the primary right-handed hitters. Adding a Bellinger (or, for instance, a Kiermaier) does nothing balance out the ledger.
You're looking, at the moment, at Devers, Verdugo, Casas/Hosmer, McGuire as everyday players. There is a need for balance.
You're looking, at the moment, at Devers, Verdugo, Casas/Hosmer, McGuire as everyday players. There is a need for balance.
Right, and with Valdez and Abreu in the mix too, plus a likely strong-side platoon outfielder to pair with Refsnyder, a RHB will be key.
Signing Jose Abreu seemed a couple months ago like too simple a move for Bloom to make, but he really seems like a great fit with this lineup.
I personally think there are a lot of moving parts to this. I've always seen Cora as a good, but not great manager, the big leagues are filled with these types. Back in 2018 we marveled at how AC "pushed all of the right buttons", but in reality this doesn't happen unless you have the right buttons to push. Specific to the 2022 season the team was uncertain at best on opening day and for a good part of the season it was a mess with lots of contributing factors. The offensive peaks were high and the valleys were abysmal. The roster construct going into the season was lees than ideal and didn't improve as the season wore on. Injuries to the rotation affected the bullpen and injuries to the pen made a bad situation worse and the choice to use Whitlock in a limited manner also played a part. We like to point to the team's overall offensive numbers and feel like they weren't so bad and while numbers wise you might think so, we all know that those numbers are greatly skewed by a six week stretch. First base was an offensive liability for most of the season, Story couldn't keep on the field, post all star JDM was MIA, Bogaerts had a prolonged slump and Devers was trying to play through an injury that clearly affected his hitting. An impotent offensive, unreliable defense in the outfield, and a battered pitching staff all played into the bullpen decisions that Cora made as well as the end result of those decisions.
Management of it is the furthest from irrelevant. There were plenty of times were there was a better option then Braiser, but it didnt matter how many times he blew it, Cora always went to him
And despite the jokes about Brasier living another day, you could also read it as a sign for how competitive Bloom sees the 2023 team becoming. It'd be a lot more forward-thinking to non-tender Brasier, who is a FA next winter, and protect a decent prospect like Ward or Wikelman Gonzalez in the Rule 5 draft. It's probably a good sign that he believes that we're going to need him this year.
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The SoxProspects guys were speculating that Winckowski might be a candidate to shift to the 'pen, where he can apparently throw quite hard. If a bit more velo on the fastball helps him miss a few more bats with the secondary stuff, he could be pretty interesting as a middle-leverage, two-inning guy.
Brasier turned 35 last August and was horrible in his age 34 season. It'd be a miracle if he isn't completely washed up.
He's never actually been good for a full season in his career. He's only thrown over 50 innings in a season twice and was lousy in both of those seasons. Now he's 35. He's really unlikely to suddenly become good at his age.
There's zero need to keep this guy around and give him a roster spot, much less hand him $2 million, much less to use him in close games again.
If we don't want to sign a better reliever to replace him, we'd still be much better off using that roster spot to cycle young relievers up and down from AAA next year.
It's depressing to think that we are going to bring back one of the worst pitchers from a horrible bullpen.
He's never actually been good for a full season in his career. He's only thrown over 50 innings in a season twice and was lousy in both of those seasons. Now he's 35. He's really unlikely to suddenly become good at his age.
There's zero need to keep this guy around and give him a roster spot, much less hand him $2 million, much less to use him in close games again.
If we don't want to sign a better reliever to replace him, we'd still be much better off using that roster spot to cycle young relievers up and down from AAA next year.
It's depressing to think that we are going to bring back one of the worst pitchers from a horrible bullpen.
Find me a manager who's "good at bullpen management" when he has, at most, 3 consistently dependable releivers.
I agree, though, that Braiser seems replaceabe by some random pitcher we've never heard of.
Guys like Wikelman almost never get added - its counter productive - there's zero risk that he's going to stick on a MLB roster for a full season and you're materially increasing risk of running out of option years. He has great stuff, but his results in A ball were not good, he likely needs a lot of time before hes ready for the majors. Adding him in now locks him in into a pre-2026 MLB timeline - that is certainly possible, but there are a number of scenarios where he needs more time and would be a good player in his mid 20s.
If they thought that Thad Ward was likely to be picked, I'm sure they'd clear a spot for him.
It’s really insane that they didn’t seem to make a big effort to get under the tax threshold, and now they may not really pursue FA’s who got QO’s? Hopefully just a smokescreen, otherwise pretty sobering.
The fact that they are interested in Kluber…is that three years in a row, now?
For further back criticisms of AC prior to ‘22, myself and plenty of others here posted during their post ASB swoon that if the Sox missed the playoffs, Cora’s BP usage was going to be reason no. 1 in ‘21.
Shouldn't be their cornerstone move going into the season but back end of the rotation insurance who was healthy last season and should come at a decent price considering where he is in his career. If he's willing to mentor a couple of the young guys, better still.
Why not? There were only 36 MLB starters more valuable than Kluber’s 3.0 fWAR last year, and he’s got Massachusetts ties. Seems like he’d slot in well if we do something like a 6-man to keep everyone’s innings down.
That said, has there ever been a Sox interested in…Sox sign sequence in the Bloom era? Seems like there’s tons of reports of us being in on someone, yet all the actual moves come out of nowhere.
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That dosn't mean you were right that it was reason No. 1. Just that you predicted it would be.
Kluber seems to get mentioned often because he profiles well with the rest of Bloom's starting pitching signings over the last three years: relatively low cost veterans with "flaws" (Perez, Richards, Hill, Wacha, Paxton, etc). He's an easy and almost safe rumor for reporters to float. I don't personally put a whole lot of stock in it at this point.
As for the stories about disinterest in the biggest names, is it really that insane? For all the shit that has been heaped on the Sale deal, it seems weird to me that there might be a fair amount of support for signing more expensive but aging and/or "injury-prone" pitchers, even if they're the cream of the free agent crop.
The youngest of them is entering his age 30 season (Rodon) and he has all the durability questions that people like to bemoan with Sale. While it might not take Sale's AAV to get Rodon, it will require that kind of length. It's a risky proposition. deGrom has missed a ton of time the last couple years and is entering his age 35 season. If he stays on the field and performs, it's a huge boon. If not, he's a more expensive Sale. Bassitt strikes me as the most attractive as far as combination of likely price/length needed (only because I don't think Verlander is leaving Houston), but he's entering his age 34 season and thus no lock to maintain or improve on his last three seasons.
Personally, I'd be fine with them taking a shot on any of those guys, but I can certainly understand why they'd not be entirely gung-ho about any of them.
I get not going after the high priced starters; but the article suggests they aren’t interested in signing any players who were offered a QO. Who knows at this point though, that may just be a preference as opposed to something set in stone.
Right and while the idea of Judge signing with the Red Sox seems like an improbability, such a stance would lock them out of Turner and Swanson should X go elsewhere. They could conceivably sign Correa, but I can't envision current management doing so and still signing Devers.At that point you would be looking at bridge shortstops until the rookie crop develops
There are not really a ton of compelling options among the guys who got QOs. Bogaerts and Eovaldi don't really count in this discussion, then it's Rodon, Bassitt, deGrom, Contreras, Turner, Swanson, Correa, Nimmo, and Judge. If we eliminate the pitchers and Contreras (I think they're rolling with McGuire and Wong), that leaves the shortstops and the outfielders. I imagine the preference at SS is to re-sign Bogaerts and they're not about to even have the appearance of considering the others until Bogaerts is no longer an option. The Yankees won't be outbid on Judge. Nimmo might be a decent fit but I suspect enough other teams (the Jays?) feel the same that he's going to get paid way more than he's worth, and Bloom would be wise to not be the GM that does that.
Generally we have higher standards at SoSH than random tweets by unknowns but this thread seems to be an allowed exception thus far. This account is one of a handful of anonymous alleged MLB insiders I follow, which I do for entertainment mostly, any occasional actual info is a bonus. That being said:
View: https://twitter.com/MLBMarathon/status/1594197027851624449
View: https://twitter.com/MLBMarathon/status/1594197027851624449
That could appease both Bloom and ownership. Bloom doesn’t lose any picks and keeps his future farm system building intact while ownership shows fans who think they are too cheap that they will in fact spend.
I guess after seeing all the articles that stated the Red Sox are going to be BIG players this off-season I was a bit disappointed this was one of the first rumors I saw. I get it though, it is a LONG off-season and there are plenty of needs for this team. My post wasn't intended to knock Kluber per se, just wanted to see bigger deals being planned.
I think the Sox being big players and the Sox going after a premier free agent are two different things. I can see them trying to sign a veteran pitcher, with Evoldi being the prefered choice and a guy like Kluber being second. They are probably going to sign a few bullpen arms and they are going to try to sign Hill/Wacha types. I don't see them going after Nimmo, Redon, or Degrom due to various injury concerns and I think if Judge doesn't sign with the Yanks he is either going to the Dodgers or Giants.