Exactly. I don't see them signing Monty without moving Jansen (if the need to shed salary to sign him is true), so that moves Houck to the closer role and Pivetta stays in the rotation. IF they had signed both Snell and Monty (pillow deals), I would imagine that Pivetta might be moved to the pen as the long guy.
If the Fangraphs projections are the innings limit that you'll get out of everyone, why play the season at all? Hand the projection World Series to the Braves and save everyone a lot of time.
So, B&B have some magic pitching elixir or throwing techniques that haven't been previously discovered in the century and a half the game has been played? OK, some of those years the pitchers threw underhand. Can't wait to see the results, but we won't know until the guys have their 150 or whatever innings in without injury.
Yep, this seems to have been the messaging from the team and even then I think the scope of the contract that the Sox would be willing to do would be pretty narrow. I also think that it might start the path toward one of Houck or Whitlock shifting to the back end of the pen.
No, they're still frail modem pitchers and a couple will get injured. But that's no different from any other team's rotation these days.
I don't know. Breslow's constant talk of "limitations" (which apparently aren't just financial now, whatever that means) suggests that his "courage" is born out of necessity, not necessarily a path he's chosen purposefully.
Yep. And there's no way Breslow and Bailey are not all over figuring out how to augment that. Will they do it well? We'll see.
I'm just using the innings as a reasonable (and regressed) proxy for estimating the innings in their given roles (as a comparison BRef hash Houk and Whitlock at 182 IP, but are obviously basing that on last year's time in the 'pen). Asking those 2 to jump into a "full starters workload" (150 IP each?) after last year when they were at ~ 200 including the minors seems like a much larger jump than we'd expect, unless the plan is to play them through the season and then shut them down when they reach their innings limit and the Sox are out of it anyways, and then add some cast offs to pitch in September garbage time.
Your first sentence I'm on board with, but the second is just pure speculation, unless you mean they should pay any premium to get him. I don't see him as that kind of pitcher, and apparently neither do they, or so far, any other team. Cool if you disagree, no snark.
I agree with so much of this, and was actually thinking about it earlier when I was reading posts about guys still holding out hope for Montgomery. If it was going to happen, it likely would've long before now. I'm guessing they were comfortable with him at 3 yrs w/ an option at an AAV of over 15m but under 20m, no opt outs. Boras thought he could do much, much better elsewhere. It is quite possible that Breslow and Bailey don't value him beyond that, think they have guys in house with higher ceilings at a steep fraction of the cost, and Breslow did not want his first multi year, big money signing to be for a flawed pitcher on the wrong side of 30.
Yes, I'd say there have been some significant changes in how the baseball is thrown over that time frame.
Everyone who has looked into it has found that innings limits are completely ineffective in managing injuries.
That's a 2015 study from the University of Waterloo, Ontario. I think this would take a deeper dive than that.
CJ Cron says hello. I think he's probably more likely to take that roster spot.
Who said ignore it? Just saying it's one study. Research studies often come up with different results based on their methodology etc. It would be nice to see more.
I don’t know…. But intuitively it doesn’t make any sense. Other sports that have exertion of a particular kind can go out once per week or more after a few days of rest. It’s going from a 10k run to a marathon over a week that destroys people. But once you get there people go and run 25 miles once a week and are okay.
I’d take the first 4 if they were actually good. For example, last year Houck had a 4.50 ERA at the end of April, and 5.30 at the end of May.
I guess I should be clear that I don't think that the Sox should just give Monty whatever he wants (otherwise they'd have signed him already), but at the same time Sox Ownership's plan is pretty terrible if they're actually planning to be competitive. They knew they needed pitching at the end of 2023, and they ultimately haven't increased the innings they need (even with Giolitto being out they were looking for 2 pitchers at the start of the offseason and only swapped Sale for Giolitto, so they knew they needed to do more). There's probably a middle ground where they can sign Monty at what we think is a reasonable rate (based on the fact that he hasn't signed yet for an unreasonable rate), but as you said, we'll see what he signs for; I'm willing to wait to see how it turns out.
If I'm reading that right, what it says is that inning limits don't correlate to pitcher health, that the real issue is the effort required, and that coaches/ teams/ etc need to look at much more granular and specific data
We already knew this, teams have talked for at least a decade + about monitoring and limiting high-stress pitches. It matters for pitch counts in-game as well as overall workload. But that doesn't mean that Houk and Whitlock are going to split 360 innings between them; any plan expecting that is patently ridiculous. If you want to know "why why a couple of 27 year olds can't throw 180+ innings, regardless of how many they pitched last year", the answer is very simple: there's a very high likelyhood that they'll get tired and then ineffective and shut down (if they're not hurt). Do you know off the top of your head any team that would expect any developing pitcher to throw this much more, or any itcher that's actually done it?the quoted study said:
He'd have to if they really want to see what they have in Houk & Whitlock. I guess if you can't keep a spot in the Pirates' rotation you have to take a bullpen job if it comes with a MLB deal.
I'm not predicting anything. I'm saying they're not going to be on any kind of innings limit and that innings limits from year to year are not productive.
I think that the only think keeping Dalbec around is the fact that he has options and the Sox can cobble together a short term CI replacement from the 26 man unless/until they absolutely need to bring him up.
All of those guys had pitched more than Houck or Whitlock did last year before their jump to 180+(except Mikolas, but he was coming back from injury and had been a 200ip guy before). They'd also exhibited an ability to go deeper into games than our guys have.
Cron opted out yesterday, I think Breslow has until sometime tomorrow to decide whether or not to add him to the 26 man.
Then we're not even discussing the same thing. I didn't say that the Sox would have them on innings limits, I'm looking for a way to assess how many innings the Sox need vs what they have (or had, I guess we can tack on some innings from Anderson now).
I'm actually bit surprised there are this many, although that isn't a progression I'm recognizing for Mikolas in MLB (for Yomimuri?), but it's also self selecting for some of the top pitchers in the game. Again I'm not sure I'd put H&W in with this group (per the reasons @simplicio states), but maybe the Sox get lucky and it works out.
Yes, that's my understanding as well.
Yeah, it does seem like the age is a big factor.
they have Cron starting at 1B and hitting in the 4 spot with all the other projected starters in tonight’s split squad game, while Casas (1B) and Dalbec (DH) traveled to Bradenton to play earlier today. FWIW, Dalbec drew 3 walks in that game. I don’t think they’ve decided if Cron is one of the 26 yet.
Yeah I missed that, but still figure Reyes or Valdez would get the nod over him. I only threw his name in there because he's on the 40 and carries multiple gloves.
You may be right, leaving one or the other on the bench. I wonder if Rafaela is going to see anymore ST time at 2nd.
Completely agree. Going with Whitlock/Houck was a lot more defensible last year than this. I am honestly shocked this is it.
