What does Red Sox starting pitching look like in 2024?

[Cassvt2023]

I agree that you can't count on Sale for 28-30 starts. I'm hopeful that it's more like 18-20 than 10-14 though. That said, having multi-inning guys like Crawford, Houck, Wink and maybe Whitlock, Murphy and Walter seems to be enough depth for the inevitable Sale IL stint. In fact I think there is some redundancy there and the fact that they are all cost controlled means they should have some value to smaller market teams or those who are slashing payroll. I believe 1 or 2 will be involved in a trade(s) for 2B upgrade or RHH power.

As for your idea of a 6 man rotation, it really could work in my (dream) rotation scenario since the #1 and #3 are coming from Japan where that is their norm, Bello and Crawford(Houck) can continue to build their innings and Sale can be the +1 when he's able to go. I doubt it'll happen.

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

I agree that you can't count on Sale for 28-30 starts. I'm hopeful that it's more like 18-20 than 10-14 though. That said, having multi-inning guys like Crawford, Houck, Wink and maybe Whitlock, Murphy and Walter seems to be enough depth for the inevitable Sale IL stint. In fact I think there is some redundancy there and the fact that they are all cost controlled means they should have some value to smaller market teams or those who are slashing payroll. I believe 1 or 2 will be involved in a trade(s) for 2B upgrade or RHH power.

As for your idea of a 6 man rotation, it really could work in my (dream) rotation scenario since the #1 and #3 are coming from Japan where that is their norm, Bello and Crawford(Houck) can continue to build their innings and Sale can be the +1 when he's able to go. I doubt it'll happen.

I think the bolded here is mostly "true" but the issue is that you're depending on them for a lot more than that.

As it stands the rotation is Bello, Crawford, Houck, Pivetta and Sale, in some order. The only relative certainties in that are Bello (SP2) and Pivetta (SP4/5).

Crawford, there isn't the track record to point to and say he's good to go. I don't mind him at all in the SP4/SP5 conversation, I think he showed enough last year to warrant that chance, but he's in no way a "sure thing" (4.51ERA as a starter is a decent bit below league average). But those are where I think the error bars are reasonable shots to take. The idea being that if he can't cut it as a starter, you give the shot to Houck (or vice versa). Between the three of them, I think they are fine as SP 4/5 and a bullpen piece, but that's as far as I'd want the Sox to gamble. And of course, if they're in essence "backing up each other" you can't have them backing up Sale as well.

We'll just have to agree to disagree about the likelihood of Winckowski, Murphy and Walter being good enough (or Whitlock being healthy enough) to count on as starters for any period of time at the MLB level.

Which in a nutshell is why I "sports hate" the Red Sox current rotation. Too many error bars. Too many "maybe they're starters, maybe they're relievers, maybe they shouldn't be in the majors" type pitchers.

 

[YTF]

I fully advocate the acquisition of two starting pitchers for the top half of the rotation. At a certain level, I really don't care who they are at this point. Just go out, identify two pitchers you want here for the next 3 to 4 (at minimum) years while Breslow has a chance to actually try and build some pitching in farm system, and let Bailey and Breslow do their thing.

In your scenario (or mine) I'm very candidly going to Chris Sale and telling him that (an extended Nick Pivetta) and Kutter Crawford are part of the rotation and part of the future, and that he is not. I'd offer to try and find a trade if he would be open to waiving his no trade clause, and if he isn't, that he's going to be part of a 6 man rotation to help assuage the innings jump for Bello and Crawford. He cannot be depended upon to pitch a full season at age 35 when he hasn't done it for the last 5 seasons (I'm not counting 2020 against him) and if he's healthy, fine, but they should have a plan for their full rotation that doesn't include him, and he can be a +1 when he's able to pitch.

I'm curious as to when you would have this conversation with Sale.

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

I'm curious as to when you would have this conversation with Sale.

After the two starting pitchers have been signed (in my world, I think realistically these are Montgomery and one of Giolioto or Imanaga) and Pivetta has been extended. (I'll say "acquired" since an SP could come via trade, but I don't think the Red Sox have the pieces necessary - read starting pitching prospects - to make a deal for a top half of the rotation starter, so I'm going with "signed" because we know they have the money if they're willing to spend it).

At that point your rotation is - relatively speaking - in pretty good shape for this year and the next 3/4 while Breslow tries to build up the starting pitching in the farm system.

It'd be SP1 - Montgomery, SP2 - Bello, SP3 - Giolito, SP4 - Crawford, SP5 - Pivetta. (Houck is filling a bullpen role and serves as the injury insurance).


That rotation would have innings eaters at the 1, 3 and 5 spots, allowing you to assuage the increase for both Bello (hopefully getting up to the 175ip range this year) and Crawford (hopefully into the 150ip range). I'd tell Sale that if wants to stay in Boston as part of a 6man rotation, he's more than welcome to be here - Cora might even give him the ball on opening day! If he'd prefer to have the team explore options that were going to depend on him as a starting pitcher all season, I'd be happy to grant him that respect as well. But I'd also tell him that my 2 predecessors depended on him to be a stabilizing force at the top of the rotation, and he hasn't been that for a full season since 2017 so I'm not willing to make the same bet for the 6th season in a row.

He always talks about feeling that he lets the team down (and I actually genuinely believe he feels that way - he seems like an incredibly stand up guy and a good teammate). Tell him you can't take the risk of assuming another season that he's going to be fully healthy and ready to take the ball every 5th game when he hasn't been for 6 seasons.

 

[Sandy Leon Trotsky]

Chawson will have a meltdown about any Pivetta discussion that involves him still being on the Sox next season. We all are aware I think at this point at Pivetta's biggest problem- consistency. He'll go stretches when he pitches like vintage Pedro and then others when he pitches like post-injury Matt Clement and can't seem to find a good middle-ground there to reliably say he's a "no. 3" or whatever that means. While we all seem to feel confident he can provide 160+ innings as a starter, he might only be good for 80-90 of those. Despite that, someone that winds up with a 4.5ERA and 160 innings is still pretty good, especially for a back of the rotation guy. I have some optimism that he'll be able to find some consistency with Breslow/Bailey helping him out and that "walk-year" magic to delivery something around a 3.85 ERA. But he's still a big IF. The only guy right now I'm confident in is Bello to be a consistent, innings eating above average starter.
A trade for Burnes makes too much sense. Milwaukee needs to re-build. Adames and Burnes both have just one year remaining and a bunch of second tier prospects with Yorke and perhaps Fitts matches up well.

 

[chawson]

In your scenario (or mine) I'm very candidly going to Chris Sale and telling him that (an extended Nick Pivetta) and Kutter Crawford are part of the rotation and part of the future, and that he is not. I'd offer to try and find a trade if he would be open to waiving his no trade clause, and if he isn't, that he's going to be part of a 6 man rotation to help assuage the innings jump for Bello and Crawford. He cannot be depended upon to pitch a full season at age 35 when he hasn't done it for the last 5 seasons (I'm not counting 2020 against him) and if he's healthy, fine, but they should have a plan for their full rotation that doesn't include him, and he can be a +1 when he's able to pitch.

I still think you are letting your understandable frustrations with his injuries cloud your assessment of Sale's abilities here.

Pitcher A: 19 starts, 29.3 K%, 4.41 K/BB, 1.08 HR/9, .215 opp BA, 1.07 WHIP | 33.4 HardHit % | 3.79 ERA, 3.46 FIP
Pitcher B: 21 starts, 33.4 K%, 4.38 K/BB, 0.98 HR/9, .208 opp BA, 1.08 WHIP | 44.6 HardHit % | 3.53 ERA, 2.91 FIP

Pitcher A plays for a team who ranked 30 of 30 in outs above average (-50) in 2023.
Pitcher B plays for a team who ranked 14 of 30 in outs above average (+1) in 2023.

One of these guys is Chris Sale from April 5 on this year (which excludes his April 1 game against the Orioles in awful rainy and cold weather).
The other guy is...

Spoiler: Pitcher B

Tyler Glasnow

 

[simplicio]

Talk about dumping Sale or moving him to relief or whatever is silly. If he's healthy, he's the best starter we have, and Crawford/Houck are in the pen. If he's not, Crawford/Houck are starting.

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

For what it's worth, I think Chris Sale is still an extremely talented pitcher. Just to be clear. His "stuff" is better than literally anyone I'm advocating for in the Red Sox rotation (well, who knows on Yamamoto, but I've already written him off). I'm a believer in "availability" being a key part "ability" and he's quite often unavailable.

Not that it ever came up because he was never really in discussions, but there is no way I'd have wanted the Sox giving up the equivalent of Pepiot (no idea who that is but in terms of "value" lets say Rafaela and Gonzalez) and then signing Glasnow to the deal the Dodgers just did. No chance.

Just like I'd not want them to go out and acquire Byron Buxton and assume he's the core RHH in the middle of the line up, despite his extreme and undeniable talent to play baseball.

 

[Petagine in a Bottle]

We’re gonna bump Sale from the rotation, or limit his role, because of Giolito or Imanaga? Or Pivetta? Come on now. We are at the point where there only a handful of available starters remaining who even profile better then Sale.

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

I'm saying I wouldn't let the 12 starts you'll get from Sale stop me from signing someone else for the long term. Hopefully that is a better way of saying it.

Once you've signed said pitchers, decide what to do with Sale. If that is a 6 man rotation where he gets the ball 1st and pitches until June, so be it. But don't depend on him being someone that is going to take the ball every 5th day.

 

[chawson]

Chawson will have a meltdown about any Pivetta discussion that involves him still being on the Sox next season. We all are aware I think at this point at Pivetta's biggest problem- consistency. He'll go stretches when he pitches like vintage Pedro and then others when he pitches like post-injury Matt Clement and can't seem to find a good middle-ground there to reliably say he's a "no. 3" or whatever that means. While we all seem to feel confident he can provide 160+ innings as a starter, he might only be good for 80-90 of those. Despite that, someone that winds up with a 4.5ERA and 160 innings is still pretty good, especially for a back of the rotation guy. I have some optimism that he'll be able to find some consistency with Breslow/Bailey helping him out and that "walk-year" magic to delivery something around a 3.85 ERA. But he's still a big IF. The only guy right now I'm confident in is Bello to be a consistent, innings eating above average starter.
A trade for Burnes makes too much sense. Milwaukee needs to re-build. Adames and Burnes both have just one year remaining and a bunch of second tier prospects with Yorke and perhaps Fitts matches up well.

I appreciate this but my thing with Pivetta is that, while fine, I think he's redundant with the number of back-end rotation pieces we've already got. I'd rather swap out Pivetta's value in a trade and further develop guys like Crawford, Houck, or Whitlock, who we control a lot longer than we do Pivetta.

Maybe he's taken a legitimate step forward with last year's repertoire tweak? He made major strides with his command. Maybe there are further tweaks to be made with the Bailey program? There's certainly a scenario he stays this version and sticks around, and I'm happy to admit I'm wrong if that's the case.

But I'll say, I don't know how Pivetta has convinced so many Sox fans that he's doesn't have an extreme home run problem. His home run rate against LHBs last year was second only to Lance Lynn! Even with his dominant stretch after being booted from the rotation, he still gives up a lot. If that command slips a little, it could be scary. You can't have a 10% walk rate and a 1.5 HR/9, you end up looking like the bad Yankee version of A.J. Burnett.

 

[ehaz]

The main change Pivetta made was adding a sweeper.

Brozdowski made a video back in August explaining what made that sweeper so unique. Basically no other pitcher with his over the top arm slot gets as much horizontal break on a breaking pitch.

View: https://youtu.be/Jgx-myj15xA?si=8iQuYWJlSm6Ypg-y

 

[simplicio]

But I'll say, I don't know how Pivetta has convinced so many Sox fans that he's doesn't have an extreme home run problem. His home run rate against LHBs last year was second only to Lance Lynn! Even with his dominant stretch after being booted from the rotation, he still gives up a lot. If that command slips a little, it could be scary. You can't have a 10% walk rate and a 1.5 HR/9, you end up looking like the bad Yankee version of A.J. Burnett.

He definitely has a LHB HR problem, but when you cherry pick data like this and fail to mention his HR rate vs RHB this year was one of the best in the game (a touch better than Snell), it feels a bit disingenuous.

 

[YTF]

Thank

After the two starting pitchers have been signed (in my world, I think realistically these are Montgomery and one of Giolioto or Imanaga) and Pivetta has been extended. (I'll say "acquired" since an SP could come via trade, but I don't think the Red Sox have the pieces necessary - read starting pitching prospects - to make a deal for a top half of the rotation starter, so I'm going with "signed" because we know they have the money if they're willing to spend it).

At that point your rotation is - relatively speaking - in pretty good shape for this year and the next 3/4 while Breslow tries to build up the starting pitching in the farm system.

It'd be SP1 - Montgomery, SP2 - Bello, SP3 - Giolito, SP4 - Crawford, SP5 - Pivetta. (Houck is filling a bullpen role and serves as the injury insurance).


That rotation would have innings eaters at the 1, 3 and 5 spots, allowing you to assuage the increase for both Bello (hopefully getting up to the 175ip range this year) and Crawford (hopefully into the 150ip range). I'd tell Sale that if wants to stay in Boston as part of a 6man rotation, he's more than welcome to be here - Cora might even give him the ball on opening day! If he'd prefer to have the team explore options that were going to depend on him as a starting pitcher all season, I'd be happy to grant him that respect as well. But I'd also tell him that my 2 predecessors depended on him to be a stabilizing force at the top of the rotation, and he hasn't been that for a full season since 2017 so I'm not willing to make the same bet for the 6th season in a row.

He always talks about feeling that he lets the team down (and I actually genuinely believe he feels that way - he seems like an incredibly stand up guy and a good teammate). Tell him you can't take the risk of assuming another season that he's going to be fully healthy and ready to take the ball every 5th game when he hasn't been for 6 seasons.

Thanks for explaining. In my mind I think you keep him at least into spring training Into see what he might able to contribute, especially if concerns about any of the others arise. That said, there are lot of variables here. There is likely a fair amount of $$$ to be eaten here. I'm not saying that they can't do it, but they will have to get something useful in return as the are not IMO in a position to just give him away. I also think there will be limitations as to what teams you can deal him to, so that is another consideration as well as the fact that having Sale on board with everything and being sensitive to his take on all of this will be so.ething that other veteran players will take note of.

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

Thank

Thanks for explaining. In my mind I think you keep him at least into spring training Into see what he might able to contribute, especially if concerns about any of the others arise. That said, there are lot of variables here. There is likely a fair amount of $$$ to be eaten here. I'm not saying that they can't do it, but they will have to get something useful in return as the are not IMO in a position to just give him away. I also think there will be limitations as to what teams you can deal him to, so that is another consideration as well as the fact that having Sale on board with everything and being sensitive to his take on all of this will be so.ething that other veteran players will take note of.

No problem.

And admittedly I should go with more of a "the presence of Chris Sale and his 12 starts shouldn't stop the team from building a full rotation that doesn't depend on Sale, and then deciding what to do with Sale." His starts should be seen as their "bonus" and not the "salary" they need to depend on, in layman's terms.

 

[chawson]

He definitely has a LHB HR problem, but when you cherry pick data like this and fail to mention his HR rate vs RHB this year was one of the best in the game (a touch better than Snell), it feels a bit disingenuous.

Disingenuous like how? I don't know what motive I'd possibly have to make a bad faith argument about this. You're right that his home run rate vs. RHB improved from 1.2 HR/9 in 2022 to 0.7 per 9 in 2023. It's an excellent, if not quite elite, number. But lineups will again stack lefties against him if he's back in the rotation.

If Pivetta was still in pre-arb, I'd be thrilled about him and his potential. As it stands, I think he's a good innings eater with a history of command and home run issues, and a marginal upgrade at best on our other long-term rotation options, who I'd rather we develop into taking the next step.

 

[simplicio]

I'm not sure how 0.74 HR/9 vs RHB isn't elite, there were 2 starters with a lower overall rate and he's top 10 as a split.

The fact that he was even lower (.66) at home is wild.

I was totally out on him after his awful spring this season, but I'm a big fan of how he turned it around. If Bailey can help him with his LHB problems I think he's an extension candidate.

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

Disingenuous like how? I don't know what motive I'd possibly have to make a bad faith argument about this. You're right that his home run rate vs. RHB improved from 1.2 HR/9 in 2022 to 0.7 per 9 in 2023. It's an excellent, if not quite elite, number. But lineups will again stack lefties against him if he's back in the rotation.

If Pivetta was still in pre-arb, I'd be thrilled about him and his potential. As it stands, I think he's a good innings eater with a history of command and home run issues, and a marginal upgrade at best on our other long-term rotation options, who I'd rather we develop into taking the next step.

I can't speak for others, but one thing I realized for myself isn't so much in that we view Pivetta differently. It's that we view THE OTHER pieces of the Red Sox rotation (potentially) differently.

Don't get me wrong, I totally believe that Pivetta can be "improved" upon, so to speak. If we had a stable of Brayan Bello types (who FWIW I don't think was ever ranked by any of the major sites in the prospect ranking industry) then I'd agree totally about either trading (or jettisoning at the end of the year) Pivetta.

The difference is that Bello was a very good minor league starting pitcher that was consistently pitching "ahead of the curve" on the age advancement scale - ie he wasn't just carving up kids that weren't experienced and he was showing the ability to turn the order over multiple times - going pretty deep into games that he started.

Of the players that are either in the majors now or relatively close to them, nobody has shown that type of "upside" along with giving it on a consistent basis.

Maybe Winckowski was the "closest" but at a year older than Bello and the same environment (Worcester in 2022) he had an ERA that was nearly a run and a quarter higher. Crawford had a 5.18ERA. Guys like Walter and Murphy have pretty consistently been obliterated at the upper levels of the minors, at least at any type of "young" age for their level.

So it's not that I think Pivetta is all that great, but I think guys like Murphy, Walter, Mata, whomever are much worse.

 

[The Gray Eagle]

The Athletic has a blurb about Burnes:
https://theathletic.com/5150815/2023/12/19/yoshinobu-yamamoto-japanese-pitchers-rosenthal/

Burnes is projected to earn $15.1 million in his final year of arbitration before becoming a free agent. Unlike Tyler Glasnow, who last week went from the Tampa Bay Rays to the Los Angeles Dodgers, teams view him as unlikely to sign an extension. Burnes’ agent, Scott Boras, generally prefers his clients to establish their values on the open market. Glasnow is represented by the Wasserman Media Group, which historically is more open to such deals.

MLB Trade rumors adds:

Fans of rival clubs may be eyeing Burnes and envisioning a similar outcome, but the right-hander himself effectively quashed any such hopes in an appearance with Erik Kratz, A.J. Pierzynski and Hannah Keyser on Foul Territory (video link). Asked by Kratz about the possibility of taking the same path Glasnow did, Burnes replied:

“Being in my shoes, being a year away from [free agency], I think if a trade-and-extension type of deal came up — obviously, every guy that gets this close to free agency wants to test the market to see what your true dollar amount is, see what teams really are in on you. It would have to be something that would just absolutely blow you away to get you away from testing the free agent market and being able to choose where you want to go. I think that’s one thing every player in their career wants to get to. Once you get that six years of service time — which for a lot of guys takes seven, eight, sometimes nine years to get to — you get that chance to test the market and see what your top dollar is.”

It's been reported several times that the Red Sox aren't really interested in trading for pitchers who only have one year of control. I doubt the Brewers trade him unless they get a real haul, and it's hard to see many teams giving them that for one year of him.

 

[ehaz]

The Athletic has a blurb about Burnes:
https://theathletic.com/5150815/2023/12/19/yoshinobu-yamamoto-japanese-pitchers-rosenthal/



MLB Trade rumors adds:



It's been reported several times that the Red Sox aren't really interested in trading for pitchers who only have one year of control. I doubt the Brewers trade him unless they get a real haul, and it's hard to see many teams giving them that for one year of him.

Yeah the Red Sox probably don't trade for him if he doesn't extend. I love Burnes though so I hope they'd still try to "blow him away." $250M+, opt-outs, whatever he wants.

I also think the Brewers will still get a haul even if he doesn't extend. Padres got a ton back for Soto and San Diego was actively trying to shed salary. I think Burnes should be of similar value. After Yamamoto signs, teams in GFIN mode that might otherwise think twice about signing Blake Snell or Montgomery to $175M deal may prefer the better pitcher in Burnes. I think the trade value calculator thingy everyone uses for these trades (which is never accurate) gave Soto a BTV of ~30 and the Yankees' package was apparently worth ~60+. So, no, we are not getting Burnes even as a rental for Josh Winckowski and Brainer Bonaci on bail. And Milwaukee could always package him with Adames like the Nats did Scherzer with Turner to increase their haul.

 

[chawson]

I can't speak for others, but one thing I realized for myself isn't so much in that we view Pivetta differently. It's that we view THE OTHER pieces of the Red Sox rotation (potentially) differently.

Don't get me wrong, I totally believe that Pivetta can be "improved" upon, so to speak. If we had a stable of Brayan Bello types (who FWIW I don't think was ever ranked by any of the major sites in the prospect ranking industry) then I'd agree totally about either trading (or jettisoning at the end of the year) Pivetta.

The difference is that Bello was a very good minor league starting pitcher that was consistently pitching "ahead of the curve" on the age advancement scale - ie he wasn't just carving up kids that weren't experienced and he was showing the ability to turn the order over multiple times - going pretty deep into games that he started.

Of the players that are either in the majors now or relatively close to them, nobody has shown that type of "upside" along with giving it on a consistent basis.

Maybe Winckowski was the "closest" but at a year older than Bello and the same environment (Worcester in 2022) he had an ERA that was nearly a run and a quarter higher. Crawford had a 5.18ERA. Guys like Walter and Murphy have pretty consistently been obliterated at the upper levels of the minors, at least at any type of "young" age for their level.

So it's not that I think Pivetta is all that great, but I think guys like Murphy, Walter, Mata, whomever are much worse.

Alright, but all those guys have about half a decade more team control than Nick Pivetta. We don't have to decide whether to "jettison" him at the end of the year—he's a free agent! (Which I know you know.) What are we willing to spend on his age 32-35 seasons? Are his age 32-35 seasons going to be better than Houck's 29-32 seasons? Crawford or Whitlock's 28-31? Murphy's 27-30? Gonzalez's 24-27?

Career wise, Nick Pivetta has one of the highest home run rates (1.50 HR/9) among all starting pitchers in the 21st century. There is one guy whose career stats match Pivetta's almost identically across the board, and that man is Vince Velasquez. Pivetta is more durable, sure. And he showed some nice stuff last year after making another genuinely interesting repertoire tweak. But I would strongly bet the difference between his 2025-2028 seasons and one of our other guys' is not worth the $40-70M difference in salary.

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

Guess I could have used a different word but I think of letting someone walk at the end of their term is in essence jettisoning (or dropping) them. But that isn't the point.

I'd advocate(d) giving Pivetta roughly what Lugo was given as I think they fill similar roles. Lugo has been a good relief pitcher with a good year as a starter at age 33. Pivetta has a longer track record of starting and a lot of bullpen success to also point to. So yes, I'd give Pivetta an extension (now) for either what Lugo just got (3/$45m) or tack on an additional year (4/$60m) which would cover his age 31-33 (or 31-34) seasons.

Edit (to reword more properly) I'd feel pretty confident betting that those seasons will be better than 2/3 of Crawford, Houck and Whitlock (and I feel confident that 1 of them will be better) would be able to provide as starting pitchers. More to the point, I feel very confident he's going to be more valuable in a starting role than what you get from Josh Winckowski, Chris Murphy, Brandon Walter, Brayan Mata, Brian Van Belle, Rio Gomez, Kyle Barraclough (do we still have him), CJ Liu, Grant Gambrell, Hunter Dobbins and Isaac Coffey during the 2024-26 (or 27) seasons.

I could absolutely see a scenario where Crawford is a better starter and Houck has better numbers in the bullpen or something. So it's tough to necessarily say the stats will be better. Winckowski's stats were far better than Bello's last year, doesn't mean I think Winckowski could provide as a starter what Bello did.

Really what it comes down to is that I think the starting pitching in AAA and AA is an abomination to the idea of "contention." Also, I don't get as caught up in years of control if I don't see even a minor league track record to suggest someone can contribute at the MLB level. With a guy like Bello (or even Crawford) sure, the years of control matter. For guys like Murphy and Walter, I don't get caught up in it.

I'm literally trying to think of a starting pitcher for the Red Sox this generation (call it since 2000) that has had between "meh" to "really bad" starts at AA and AAA and then became a good MLB starter in Boston and I can't do it. One probably exists as an exception to the rule, but I can't think of it off the top of my head.

The closest I can come up with was Masterson. He was a 4.28ERA guy in AA and a 4.29ERA in AAA. He ended up starting 184 big league games with a career (starting) ERA of 4.42, so just a little worse than he put up in AAA. He was really good as a SP for 2 seasons and atrocious for two others from his age 25-28 seasons. He was abhorrent in his age 29 and 30 seasons and didn't pitch a game in the majors after the age of 30. Of course, those seasons with success as a starting pitcher happened in Cleveland in the AL Central and not Fenway Park and the AL East. But that's the "best" example I can come up with.

 

[Rovin Romine]

I'm literally trying to think of a starting pitcher for the Red Sox this generation (call it since 2000) that has had between "meh" to "really bad" starts at AA and AAA and then became a good MLB starter in Boston and I can't do it. One probably exists as an exception to the rule, but I can't think of it off the top of my head.

This sort of assumes the minor league pitcher remains "the same" in terms of stuff and whatnot. Winckowski revamped his pitches and became more effective his second year in the majors. If he had done that a couple years ago, his numbers would have been correspondingly better at AAA before he was called up. It's possible we have another such potential revamp lurking in the minors somewhere; hopefully one that will be actualized with a new coaching staff.

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

This sort of assumes the minor league pitcher remains "the same" in terms of stuff and whatnot. Winckowski revamped his pitches and became more effective his second year in the majors. If he had done that a couple years ago, his numbers would have been correspondingly better at AAA before he was called up. It's possible we have another such potential revamp lurking in the minors somewhere; hopefully one that will be actualized with a new coaching staff.

It's nuanced, but it's not that I think the pitcher remains the same, it's that I question how much one can reasonably "bank" on for said refinement.

So just to keep it to Winckowski, I absolutely would believe that with the adjustments he made and refined from his minor league seasons, it's perfectly reasonable to assume he can do something like be a good major league relief pitcher that you're happy to have while he's under cost controlled contract terms. I don't put a ton of faith in middle relief pitchers repeating stats year after year, but if someone wants to say that he's now going to be "Junichi Tazawa" or even "Chris Martin" based on his refinements I'd say believe that.

Plenty of "failed" starters have tons of success in the bullpen refining and revamping their arsenal and approach. On the one extreme someone like Andrew Miller or Daniel Bard, more realistically optimistic (if that makes sense) of someone like Tazawa that I mentioned earlier.

But it's a pretty vast difference expecting someone to be able to do that in one or two inning stints where the manager has some semblance of control over the situation they're placed into for ~80ip and expecting someone to be able to take the ball for 150+ip having to face the likes of Bo Bichette, Vladdy Guerrero, Juan Soto, Aaron Judge and the entire Os line up 3x a game.


Who knows - maybe Winckowski will be literally the only pitcher I can think of in 25 years to go from being a 3.75ERA(ish) pitcher in the upper minors and not have that go up at all as a consistent starter in Fenway Park against the AL East line ups, and if he does I'm going a) be thrilled and b) give him and Breslow (and Bloom) incredible amounts of credit. I think it's unlikely for him (or anyone) to do that though.

it's also why I a) like Crawford but also b) try to pump the brakes on him a bit.



That said - I think they can ALL be good bullpen pieces (as in Houck, Crawford and Winckowski) that are quite valuable in their cost controlled years. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they all were. I'd be very surprised if any end up as someone that can consistently put up 150+ip of league average or better ERA with half their games in Fenway Park. If one of them do, that's a huge (and unexpected) win. "Budgeting" for that is, I think, going to lead to a lot of failure in terms of wins and losses at the major league level.

 

[grepal]

Right now I am not feeling very bullish that our rotation will be any better than last year except we won't have to watch a few Kluber starts. I hope I am wrong but Boston is rumored to be trying just not a place most of the guys we want to see would like to play for. We relly need Yamamoto but we seem to be in a bad place there if the reports are accurate.

 

[Rovin Romine]

It's nuanced, but it's not that I think the pitcher remains the same, it's that I question how much one can reasonably "bank" on for said refinement.

In Winckowski's case, it wasn't incremental refinement over time as he developed, but a significant and drastic offseason retooling of pitches that enabled him to be successful. And so in a sense, his "role" as he progressed (MiL starter to ML starter to ML reliever) does not really control as much as it might in other cases. He wasn't stretched out as a starter in 2023 ST, nor did he use his new pitches in a stater's role. If he had those pitches in the minors in 2022, he may well have been more successful as a MiL starter and viewed as a ML starter when the roster was being constructed for the 2023 season.

I think what you're thinking about is a more standard role change (Bard, Miller) that might also include minor tweaking - but basically the same pitcher with the basically the same stuff in a different role. Some of that is stuff maximization due to the role change - throwing the pitcher's best pitch more often to fewer guys than they would as a starter. Some of that is also flaw minimization - throwing less of the worst pitch less often to fewer guys than they would as a starter.

But to take a step back, when assessing MiL pitchers, there's a sort of physical component (some guys will never throw at 94+ no matter how you tweak their mechanics, and some younger pitchers develop power) and a skill/craft component. Winckowski didn't have a change in the physical department - his was all in the craft component. Or at the ML level, take Ryan Brasier - no physical change, but a new pitch and a new approach revitalized him. Or take Pivetta who developed his sweeper and became devastatingly effective.

If the craft component in the Sox's system sucked in 2021-2023, and now it's better, then we might have some gems there. That's all I'm saying. In Breslow we trust.

 

[Yo La Tengo]

Grant Brisbee has a good article in the Athletic about Shota Imanaga. The gist is that he doesn't get a ton of swings/misses on his fastball (21.2%)(primarily a 4 seamer) while his splitter is elite (42%) and his slider is near elite (35.9%). The issue is that he throws his fastball 59% of the time and has given up 26 home runs over the last 2 season on his fastball (out of 33 total). Brisbee notes, without citation, that Imanaga primarily uses his splitter and slider only when he is ahead in the count.

As mentioned elsewhere, his "Stuff+" ranking at the WBC was first place and his 68% strike rate would have been in the top 10 in MLB among qualified starters last year and showed excellent command, with 174Ks and only 24 walks last year in 148 innings.

is the solution as obvious as adjusting his pitch mix? If so, he could be a fantastic signing



https://theathletic.com/5146658/2023/12/19/sf-giants-shota-imanaga-free-agent/
https://www.sportsinfosolutions.com/2023/11/29/npb-free-agent-scouting-report-shota-imanaga/

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

In Winckowski's case... at the ML level, take Ryan Brasier - no physical change, but a new pitch and a new approach revitalized him. Or take Pivetta who developed his sweeper and became devastatingly effective.

If the craft component in the Sox's system sucked in 2021-2023, and now it's better, then we might have some gems there. That's all I'm saying. In Breslow we trust.

Edited down your post for the sake of reading and responding, forgive (and correct me) if anything is taken out of context; wasn't my intent.

I THINK we agree. Notice how in none of my posts have I advocated a single signing or trade for bullpen pieces? I absolutely agree and buy that with what is in the Red Sox system right now, Breslow and Bailey can do enough to coax out "several" Ryan Brasier types. I chose Tazawa, but Braiser is fine. I have absolutely zero concerns about them turning guys into valuable pieces for the 5 (I think) non Jansen and Martin portions of the pen. Heck, I'd even believe it for the 6 "non Jansen" versions of the 'pen if one wanted to advocate trading Martin.

I'd even believe that out of all of them they can make "another Pivetta." The problem is, I don't think there is enough talent to make an(other) SP2, an SP3 and an SP4 - which is why I'm saying to re-sign Pivetta. Then it starts to become more believable in that you have SP2 filled (at minimum) in Bello, and B/B get enough out of Pivetta to make him an SP4 and get enough out of one the myriad of pieces to make SP5 and fill the middle of the 'pen.




A break here so you don't think I'm directing this specifically at you @Rovin Romine, I'm not.

There seems to be a stream of thinking that the Red Sox don't need to bother addressing the "middle class" of their SP roster based on the assumption that with a couple of this year's versions of Michael Wacha, Corey Kluber, Rich Hill, Martin Perz or Garrett Richards AND B/B can make what we have into a good rotation. That is where I disagree. I think they can make it into a pretty good bullpen, and probably a back half of the rotation starter.

If you let PIvetta go at the end of the year (or trade him before) and then start asking B/B to make 2 or 3 of these guys into reliable starting pitchers, that's where I think people are being way too optimistic about the talent in the higher levels of the system.


So could (I keep saying Giolito because I like him, but lets remove him), could a situation like Bello, Stroman (assuming he'd come to Boston), Imanaga, Pivetta and they make Winckowski or Crawford into a consistently decent SP5 along with the 12 starts you get from Sale and then making a good bullpen from Crawford, Houck and whomever else. Yes, absolutely.

Do I think it could be done with Bello, whatever you get from Sale, Pivetta, Winckowski, Crawford, Houck, Ryu and Lorenzen and then said bullpen. No, almost assuredly not (like a less than 2% chance).

 

[Rovin Romine]

A break here so you don't think I'm directing this at you @Rovin Romine but there seems to be a current of thinking that the Red Sox don't need to bother addressing the "middle class" of their SP roster based on the assumption that with a couple of this year's versions of Michael Wacha, Corey Kluber, Rich Hill, Martin Perz or Garrett Richards AND B/B can make what we have into a good rotation. That is where I disagree. I think they can make it into a pretty good bullpen, and probably a back half of the rotation starter.

No worries on the post-trimming!

I'm more agnostic on this point than in disagreement with you. For example, could Houck become a middle rotation starter with different coaching? Maybe. Maybe not. But I think where we probably agree is that I don't think it's wise to construct the roster in a way that relies on one or more of them to take a significant step forward.

(I might feel differently if Breslow were looped in for the final 2 months of last season or something. Or if he's been spending weeks with Houck and there's already a plan in place that's bearing some fruit. But it's silly to wait until spring training to see if any of these guys are "really fixable" or the like.)

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

No worries on the post-trimming!

I'm more agnostic on this point than in disagreement with you. For example, could Houck become a middle rotation starter with different coaching? Maybe. Maybe not. But I think where we probably agree is that I don't think it's wise to construct the roster in a way that relies on one or more of them to take a significant step forward.

(I might feel differently if Breslow were looped in for the final 2 months of last season or something. Or if he's been spending weeks with Houck and there's already a plan in place that's bearing some fruit. But it's silly to wait until spring training to see if any of these guys are "really fixable" or the like.)

Exactly. Or +100 or whatever anyone wants to say.

Just to add something of substance, good find @Yo La Tengo. I guess I don't know how "simple" it is, but yeah, that makes sense that it could be a correctable offense, so to speak. I tend to think they can do wonders for guys that already have a lot of pitches in their arsenal, and it seems like Imanaga does.

 

[LogansDad]

(Sorry for the long post, I just don't think it is thread worthy and couldn't think of a better place to put it)

I got bored and decided to do some spreadsheet work, and while I have been concerned about the pitching situation this offseason, it is so much worse than I realized that I think Breslow is in a really tough spot.

In my opinion, (!!!obvious statement alert!!!) availability and consistent quality are the most important aspects of a starting pitcher. It's nice to have a guy who can throw and absolute gem every now and then, but if that same guy blows up two out of every three starts then he is going to seriously tax your bullpen over the course of the season. With that in mind, I wanted to look at starting pitchers around the league on a start to start basis, figuring out which teams were getting the most consistent amount of starts that gave their team a chance to win. I think that QS's are a good baseline for this, but I want to look a little bit deeper than that.

Paraphrasing what I did, is I looked at all of the individual starts throughout the league and assigned a score based off of innings, earned runs allowed and unearned runs allowed. Without boring with details, I started with a baseline of 5 innings pitched and 4 runs allowed, anything better and the pitcher gained points, anything worse and they lost points. My thinking with these numbers was that if a pitcher gave his team this much, he was at least giving them a chance to win the game. Unearned runs are also used in the calculation, though to a lesser extent than earned runs, as I think the best pitchers have an ability to prevent these when errors happen as well. I gave small bonuses for going 8+ innings and took extra points off for games in which they went less than 3 innings. I looked at total season scores, averages, and stuff like that, and I also look at how often a pitcher ended up in the top quartile of the 4860 games started and their delta with how many times they were in the bottom 30% (I didn't use bottom quartile because I wanted to account a bit for the openers that are used, who will always end up in the bottom of this type of data).

This was not a predictive analysis, as I did not look at things like K/BB rates, or HR/FB rates or BABIP against so it's a pretty surface level kind of analysis, but I think it gives a good idea of how much extra wear some of these teams put on their pitchers over the season.

Individually I only ranked against players who made at least 10 starts (and only included starts), but team wise, all starts were considered. There were 188 players to make 10 or more starts this season.

Findings:
1. Not that it will be a surprise to anyone but... it didn't look good for the Red Sox, as they ended up 26th in total value from their starters. They were 27th in value from innings and 20th in value from runs prevented, and maybe more alarmingly were 24th in starts in the top quartile while their delta between top and bottom starts was -26, with only the A's and Rockies having a worse delta. This seems bad to me.

2. The top 11 teams by Total Value were all either playoff teams or in the race until the final weekend. These teams included Seattle, Toronto and Texas at 1-3, and pretty clearly a step above the rest of the league (and this is where I may start a new thread in the MLB forum). The only teams outside of the top 11 to make the playoffs were the Dodgers (22nd), the Marlins (18th) and the Rays (24th, and also maybe an idea for another thread).

3. Logan Webb is really, really good. He was #1 overall, and also #1 by average game value, and his top vs bottom delta (I really need to come up with a better name for this), though Gerrit Cole was tied with him for most games in the top quartile at 19. Also, George Kirby is excellent and anyone who thinks the Mariners are going to move him to the Red Sox for Jarren Duran should send me some of what they are smoking. Finally, Chris Bassitt might have had the most underrated season of 2023. I have no idea how he managed to be worth only 2.5 WAR, it doesn't make any sense.

4. Of the other players who I have seen mentioned in this thread at various times: Framber Valdez was a top 5 value guy (and, quite frankly, I think is underrated), Burnes came in at 9th, Montgomery at 13th, and Giolito (believe it or not) just missed the top 20 (I never said this work was perfect). Snell was 30th overall, but was #1 in run prevention. His value is really held back by how rarely he goes deep into games.

5. Bello was clearly the Sox best pitcher here, and came in 46th overall, but his lack of consistency was a clear tick against him, as his delta was just +1. He was also basically the only Sox player inside the top 100 (okay, Pivetta was at 98). Sale at 20 starts was at 108 overall, but it actually looks a little worse than that as his rankings in the average categories were not better, especially his value for innings.

6. You guys really, really don't want to know where Nate Eovaldi ended up on the list.

Why did you type all of this?
Finally, the reason I did this. I then plugged the current projected rotations in for each MLB team as currently constructed, and I have to say.... it looks really really bad for the Red Sox. The data basically puts them just above the Rockies, White Sox and A's when it comes to starting pitching for 2024. The Padres pitching looks bad, too, and the Dodgers are currently near the bottom of the list, but I am only using 2023 stats, so, for instance, getting Buehler back will bump them up (and I might go back and do some work with 2022 and 2021 data... but frankly that isn't going to help the Sox much anyway). The Sox current rotation was actually last in the league in their delta metric.

Perhaps worse is the fact that the Yankees, while not quite in the bottom tier with the Red Sox, also clearly need to add a starting pitcher before opening day, and I can't imagine they are going to let any of the big 4 (I throw 4 out there assuming Burnes is going to get moved) go easily to the Red Sox.

Again this was something I just put together this afternoon and I really haven't done more than glance at where the Sox stand. If anyone wants to reach out for more info let me know. Sorry again for the long post.

 

[simplicio]

Curious about how those numbers shift when you isolate for away games. Cause the M's, Rockies and Sox all had the most extreme park factors in the game this year.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast-park-factors

 

[LogansDad]

Curious about how those numbers shift when you isolate for away games. Cause the M's, Rockies and Sox all had the most extreme park factors in the game this year.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast-park-factors

It's a good and valid question. They basically become middle of the pack on the road, kind of the top of a third tier of teams clustered in the middle. Fenway does crush them as they are 28th overall at home (again with only Colorado and Oakland behind them). Perhaps the biggest issue, though, is their innings pitched. They were the worst staff in the league at home in IP value, the only other team that's even in their realm is Colorado.

And I totally get the Fenway is hitter friendly, but I think we can all agree that we expect a lot better than 30th at home for the Red Sox pitching staff.

 

[Sandy Leon Trotsky]

Grant Brisbee has a good article in the Athletic about Shota Imanaga. The gist is that he doesn't get a ton of swings/misses on his fastball (21.2%)(primarily a 4 seamer) while his splitter is elite (42%) and his slider is near elite (35.9%). The issue is that he throws his fastball 59% of the time and has given up 26 home runs over the last 2 season on his fastball (out of 33 total). Brisbee notes, without citation, that Imanaga primarily uses his splitter and slider only when he is ahead in the count.

As mentioned elsewhere, his "Stuff+" ranking at the WBC was first place and his 68% strike rate would have been in the top 10 in MLB among qualified starters last year and showed excellent command, with 174Ks and only 24 walks last year in 148 innings.

is the solution as obvious as adjusting his pitch mix? If so, he could be a fantastic signing



https://theathletic.com/5146658/2023/12/19/sf-giants-shota-imanaga-free-agent/
https://www.sportsinfosolutions.com/2023/11/29/npb-free-agent-scouting-report-shota-imanaga/

This needs more discussion IMO. Imanaga is smartly waiting out YY at this point along with the other upper tier pitchers remaining. This hidden strike-out potential info is likely known by the other teams of course too… but Becky read this I would have guessed a 5/125 contract would have been a crazy overpay. Now maybe not

 

[Yo La Tengo]

This needs more discussion IMO. Imanaga is smartly waiting out YY at this point along with the other upper tier pitchers remaining. This hidden strike-out potential info is likely known by the other teams of course too… but Becky read this I would have guessed a 5/125 contract would have been a crazy overpay. Now maybe not

I've been hoping he'd fly under the radar but I don't know if that is possible with a high profile pitcher from Japan. Either way, I think an Imanaga deal at something less than 5/125 would be a big win.

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

Thanks for doing that @LogansDad, very interesting stuff.

Curious about how those numbers shift when you isolate for away games. Cause the M's, Rockies and Sox all had the most extreme park factors in the game this year.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast-park-factors

Yeah, Fenway played like an extreme hitter’s park last year. But it pretty much always does. It’s park factors were 108/108 last year, but multi year are 106/106.

Even going back to 2018 and that juggernaut and it was 106/104 on the one year with 104/103 on the multi year (I BELIEVE multi year is factored in on a rolling 6 year basis).

It is what makes the approach of “throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks” in regards to starting pitching across all levels of the organization so mind boggling over the past four seasons. In SF, SD, Oakland, I can get it. There is so much room to work with.

To try it at Fenway Park, and compound it by not bothering to care about defense was always asinine. It’s why I say, it’s not the person picking the crap as much as it is the mindset to think ANYONE can do it. It is a park (and division) where you absolutely not to put an emphasis on the best pitching - not one to try and chewing gum and duct tape your way to a rotation.

 

[cantor44]

The main change Pivetta made was adding a sweeper.

Brozdowski made a video back in August explaining what made that sweeper so unique. Basically no other pitcher with his over the top arm slot gets as much horizontal break on a breaking pitch.

View: https://youtu.be/Jgx-myj15xA?si=8iQuYWJlSm6Ypg-y

Great analysis, thanks for sharing this.

 

[chawson]

(Sorry for the long post, I just don't think it is thread worthy and couldn't think of a better place to put it)

I got bored and decided to do some spreadsheet work, and while I have been concerned about the pitching situation this offseason, it is so much worse than I realized that I think Breslow is in a really tough spot.

In my opinion, (!!!obvious statement alert!!!) availability and consistent quality are the most important aspects of a starting pitcher. It's nice to have a guy who can throw and absolute gem every now and then, but if that same guy blows up two out of every three starts then he is going to seriously tax your bullpen over the course of the season. With that in mind, I wanted to look at starting pitchers around the league on a start to start basis, figuring out which teams were getting the most consistent amount of starts that gave their team a chance to win. I think that QS's are a good baseline for this, but I want to look a little bit deeper than that.

Paraphrasing what I did, is I looked at all of the individual starts throughout the league and assigned a score based off of innings, earned runs allowed and unearned runs allowed. Without boring with details, I started with a baseline of 5 innings pitched and 4 runs allowed, anything better and the pitcher gained points, anything worse and they lost points. My thinking with these numbers was that if a pitcher gave his team this much, he was at least giving them a chance to win the game. Unearned runs are also used in the calculation, though to a lesser extent than earned runs, as I think the best pitchers have an ability to prevent these when errors happen as well. I gave small bonuses for going 8+ innings and took extra points off for games in which they went less than 3 innings. I looked at total season scores, averages, and stuff like that, and I also look at how often a pitcher ended up in the top quartile of the 4860 games started and their delta with how many times they were in the bottom 30% (I didn't use bottom quartile because I wanted to account a bit for the openers that are used, who will always end up in the bottom of this type of data).

This was not a predictive analysis, as I did not look at things like K/BB rates, or HR/FB rates or BABIP against so it's a pretty surface level kind of analysis, but I think it gives a good idea of how much extra wear some of these teams put on their pitchers over the season.

Individually I only ranked against players who made at least 10 starts (and only included starts), but team wise, all starts were considered. There were 188 players to make 10 or more starts this season.

Findings:
1. Not that it will be a surprise to anyone but... it didn't look good for the Red Sox, as they ended up 26th in total value from their starters. They were 27th in value from innings and 20th in value from runs prevented, and maybe more alarmingly were 24th in starts in the top quartile while their delta between top and bottom starts was -26, with only the A's and Rockies having a worse delta. This seems bad to me.

2. The top 11 teams by Total Value were all either playoff teams or in the race until the final weekend. These teams included Seattle, Toronto and Texas at 1-3, and pretty clearly a step above the rest of the league (and this is where I may start a new thread in the MLB forum). The only teams outside of the top 11 to make the playoffs were the Dodgers (22nd), the Marlins (18th) and the Rays (24th, and also maybe an idea for another thread).

3. Logan Webb is really, really good. He was #1 overall, and also #1 by average game value, and his top vs bottom delta (I really need to come up with a better name for this), though Gerrit Cole was tied with him for most games in the top quartile at 19. Also, George Kirby is excellent and anyone who thinks the Mariners are going to move him to the Red Sox for Jarren Duran should send me some of what they are smoking. Finally, Chris Bassitt might have had the most underrated season of 2023. I have no idea how he managed to be worth only 2.5 WAR, it doesn't make any sense.

4. Of the other players who I have seen mentioned in this thread at various times: Framber Valdez was a top 5 value guy (and, quite frankly, I think is underrated), Burnes came in at 9th, Montgomery at 13th, and Giolito (believe it or not) just missed the top 20 (I never said this work was perfect). Snell was 30th overall, but was #1 in run prevention. His value is really held back by how rarely he goes deep into games.

5. Bello was clearly the Sox best pitcher here, and came in 46th overall, but his lack of consistency was a clear tick against him, as his delta was just +1. He was also basically the only Sox player inside the top 100 (okay, Pivetta was at 98). Sale at 20 starts was at 108 overall, but it actually looks a little worse than that as his rankings in the average categories were not better, especially his value for innings.

6. You guys really, really don't want to know where Nate Eovaldi ended up on the list.

Why did you type all of this?
Finally, the reason I did this. I then plugged the current projected rotations in for each MLB team as currently constructed, and I have to say.... it looks really really bad for the Red Sox. The data basically puts them just above the Rockies, White Sox and A's when it comes to starting pitching for 2024. The Padres pitching looks bad, too, and the Dodgers are currently near the bottom of the list, but I am only using 2023 stats, so, for instance, getting Buehler back will bump them up (and I might go back and do some work with 2022 and 2021 data... but frankly that isn't going to help the Sox much anyway). The Sox current rotation was actually last in the league in their delta metric.

Perhaps worse is the fact that the Yankees, while not quite in the bottom tier with the Red Sox, also clearly need to add a starting pitcher before opening day, and I can't imagine they are going to let any of the big 4 (I throw 4 out there assuming Burnes is going to get moved) go easily to the Red Sox.

Again this was something I just put together this afternoon and I really haven't done more than glance at where the Sox stand. If anyone wants to reach out for more info let me know. Sorry again for the long post.

Not saying the pitching’s fine, but I really wish we had a handle on how it is notwithstanding the massive defensive issues, and the injuries.

The 2023 Red Sox were tied for the second-lowest OAA of all MLB teams since they started recording the stat in 2017. Put another way, the ‘23 Sox were tied for 209th worst of the last 210 MLB teams to take the field.

That, plus hitters park, injuries (like line drive comebackers, which can’t be helped), plus a leaguewide crackdown on error rulings driven by MLB’s interest in raising batting averages for the casual fan, and you’ve got some really bloated ERAs on the Sox staff.

Again, they weren’t great. But if you remove Kluber from the equation and normalize the rest, they were…closer to average?

 

[simplicio]

I'm reading the bolded and I'm mostly curious about how/why this is a 230 team sample.

 

[DeadlySplitter]

The 22nd could be a whole big day of pivoting for everyone. Hope Breslow is ready.

 

[jon abbey]

View: https://twitter.com/martinonyc/status/1738056397542101293

 

[nighthob]

Talk about dumping Sale or moving him to relief or whatever is silly. If he's healthy, he's the best starter we have, and Crawford/Houck are in the pen. If he's not, Crawford/Houck are starting.

Healthy Chris Sale is hanging out in Scotland racing Nessie across the Loch with Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowman…

 

[chrisfont9]

(Sorry for the long post, I just don't think it is thread worthy and couldn't think of a better place to put it)

I got bored and decided to do some spreadsheet work, and while I have been concerned about the pitching situation this offseason, it is so much worse than I realized that I think Breslow is in a really tough spot.

In my opinion, (!!!obvious statement alert!!!) availability and consistent quality are the most important aspects of a starting pitcher. It's nice to have a guy who can throw and absolute gem every now and then, but if that same guy blows up two out of every three starts then he is going to seriously tax your bullpen over the course of the season. With that in mind, I wanted to look at starting pitchers around the league on a start to start basis, figuring out which teams were getting the most consistent amount of starts that gave their team a chance to win. I think that QS's are a good baseline for this, but I want to look a little bit deeper than that.

Paraphrasing what I did, is I looked at all of the individual starts throughout the league and assigned a score based off of innings, earned runs allowed and unearned runs allowed. Without boring with details, I started with a baseline of 5 innings pitched and 4 runs allowed, anything better and the pitcher gained points, anything worse and they lost points. My thinking with these numbers was that if a pitcher gave his team this much, he was at least giving them a chance to win the game. Unearned runs are also used in the calculation, though to a lesser extent than earned runs, as I think the best pitchers have an ability to prevent these when errors happen as well. I gave small bonuses for going 8+ innings and took extra points off for games in which they went less than 3 innings. I looked at total season scores, averages, and stuff like that, and I also look at how often a pitcher ended up in the top quartile of the 4860 games started and their delta with how many times they were in the bottom 30% (I didn't use bottom quartile because I wanted to account a bit for the openers that are used, who will always end up in the bottom of this type of data).

This was not a predictive analysis, as I did not look at things like K/BB rates, or HR/FB rates or BABIP against so it's a pretty surface level kind of analysis, but I think it gives a good idea of how much extra wear some of these teams put on their pitchers over the season.

Individually I only ranked against players who made at least 10 starts (and only included starts), but team wise, all starts were considered. There were 188 players to make 10 or more starts this season.

Findings:
1. Not that it will be a surprise to anyone but... it didn't look good for the Red Sox, as they ended up 26th in total value from their starters. They were 27th in value from innings and 20th in value from runs prevented, and maybe more alarmingly were 24th in starts in the top quartile while their delta between top and bottom starts was -26, with only the A's and Rockies having a worse delta. This seems bad to me.

2. The top 11 teams by Total Value were all either playoff teams or in the race until the final weekend. These teams included Seattle, Toronto and Texas at 1-3, and pretty clearly a step above the rest of the league (and this is where I may start a new thread in the MLB forum). The only teams outside of the top 11 to make the playoffs were the Dodgers (22nd), the Marlins (18th) and the Rays (24th, and also maybe an idea for another thread).

3. Logan Webb is really, really good. He was #1 overall, and also #1 by average game value, and his top vs bottom delta (I really need to come up with a better name for this), though Gerrit Cole was tied with him for most games in the top quartile at 19. Also, George Kirby is excellent and anyone who thinks the Mariners are going to move him to the Red Sox for Jarren Duran should send me some of what they are smoking. Finally, Chris Bassitt might have had the most underrated season of 2023. I have no idea how he managed to be worth only 2.5 WAR, it doesn't make any sense.

4. Of the other players who I have seen mentioned in this thread at various times: Framber Valdez was a top 5 value guy (and, quite frankly, I think is underrated), Burnes came in at 9th, Montgomery at 13th, and Giolito (believe it or not) just missed the top 20 (I never said this work was perfect). Snell was 30th overall, but was #1 in run prevention. His value is really held back by how rarely he goes deep into games.

5. Bello was clearly the Sox best pitcher here, and came in 46th overall, but his lack of consistency was a clear tick against him, as his delta was just +1. He was also basically the only Sox player inside the top 100 (okay, Pivetta was at 98). Sale at 20 starts was at 108 overall, but it actually looks a little worse than that as his rankings in the average categories were not better, especially his value for innings.

6. You guys really, really don't want to know where Nate Eovaldi ended up on the list.

Why did you type all of this?
Finally, the reason I did this. I then plugged the current projected rotations in for each MLB team as currently constructed, and I have to say.... it looks really really bad for the Red Sox. The data basically puts them just above the Rockies, White Sox and A's when it comes to starting pitching for 2024. The Padres pitching looks bad, too, and the Dodgers are currently near the bottom of the list, but I am only using 2023 stats, so, for instance, getting Buehler back will bump them up (and I might go back and do some work with 2022 and 2021 data... but frankly that isn't going to help the Sox much anyway). The Sox current rotation was actually last in the league in their delta metric.

Perhaps worse is the fact that the Yankees, while not quite in the bottom tier with the Red Sox, also clearly need to add a starting pitcher before opening day, and I can't imagine they are going to let any of the big 4 (I throw 4 out there assuming Burnes is going to get moved) go easily to the Red Sox.

Again this was something I just put together this afternoon and I really haven't done more than glance at where the Sox stand. If anyone wants to reach out for more info let me know. Sorry again for the long post.

Where is Montgomery on your list? I’d have to think his consistency and innings move him up pretty high.

 

[chrisfont9]

The 22nd could be a whole big day of pivoting for everyone. Hope Breslow is ready.

How could he not be? I’m sure they have spent far more time than we have gaming out the “Yamamoto wants to live somewhere else” scenarios.

 

[chawson]

I'm reading the bolded and I'm mostly curious about how/why this is a 230 team sample.

Typo, sorry — the ‘23 Sox defense were ranked T-209th of 210 teams since they started tracking OAA.

 

[BaseballJones]

So now the Sox are going to majorly overspend on a secondary pitcher now that Yamamoto is with the Dodgers.

OR they're just going to fritter around the edges. One or the other.

 

[SouthernBoSox]

So now the Sox are going to majorly overspend on a secondary pitcher now that Yamamoto is with the Dodgers.

OR they're just going to fritter around the edges. One or the other.

I weirdly think this market is much softer than people think. It’s just not that strong of a class and many of the top teams are pretty strapped with a significant 25 class around the corner.

I can’t see the Yankees giving Montgomery 25 AAV over 6 years.

You’ve got the Yankees, Mets, Giants, Red Sox and Rangers as large market teams looking for a starter. Snell to Giants seems obvious. Mets have made very weird comments about not spending.

Are the Yankees and Rangers really going to throw big money at Montgomery? I just don’t see it.

 

[bluefenderstrat]

So now the Sox are going to majorly overspend on a secondary pitcher now that Yamamoto is with the Dodgers.

OR they're just going to fritter around the edges. One or the other.

I’m pretty sure there are some in-between scenarios, but that’s not what this forum believes these days.

 

[BaseballJones]

I weirdly think this market is much softer than people think. It’s just not that strong of a class and many of the top teams are pretty strapped. I can’t see the Yankees giving Montgomery 25 AAV over 6 years.

You’ve got the Yankees, Mets, Giants, Red Sox and Rangers as large market teams looking for a starter. Snell to Giants seems obvious. Mets have made very weird comments about not spending.

Are the Yankees and Rangers really going to throw big money at Montgomery? I just don’t see it.

Why not? They need pitching. They have money to spend. And Montgomery is...good. Really good. And now he's a proven playoff performer.

 

[Sandy Leon Trotsky]

Why not? They need pitching. They have money to spend. And Montgomery is...good. Really good. And now he's a proven playoff performer.

I don't like Snell or anyone else available except Montgomery.... Montgomery would be a good addition no doubt but he's going to rake in the dough now and it's more of a question of his value and it's cost to what is clearly a hard budget that Henry has on the team. There's lots of cap space available in '24 and even more in '25 so it really shouldn't be a problem... but maybe it is? I've wondered before if Henry sees the Sox as maxing out profit and that adding payroll won't increase profit any longer. He can put out teams that "compete.... and with health and good luck they could sneak into the playoffs where it's a crap shoot" and bring back the same amount of profit as putting together a massive costly team.
Anyhow.... Montgomery SHOULD be added and I don't give a shit about Henry's wallet as much as the budget he imposes which I can only guess based on the past that it's not going to be Dodger/Yankee levels. If they can also add Imanaga- who is intriguing as a relative undervalued starter still despite likely getting $25-$27.5M AAV (I'd guess 5 years). If they can do that... great. I think yeah.... the team can compete with the Yankees, Jays and Orioles, Rangers and Astros.
The route I'd like to see is getting Burnes but with his agent, it seems unlikely since he openly said he wouldn't be signing an extension, and I'd be hesitant to deal one of the top 5-6 prospects for one season. The other team that looks like a potential trade partner to fix the Sox rotation, Seattle, has also publicly said it's not trading pitching. So.... my hope now is Montgomery and Imanaga. I suspect they'll get one of the two and that'll be it for the season. They'll be right back in the "compete... and with health, yada yada....." framework again. And it's correct. A healthy Sale through a full season paired with Montgomery/Imanaga, a step forward from Bello and luck from the Houck/Crawford/Pivetta group and it's a really good team. But the margin of error here is.... ugh....