The slumping Red Sox are looking for pitching reinforcements and spent many days trying to obtain left-hander Chris Capuano from the Mets for cash, according to John Tomase of the Boston Herald. Boston’s lead over the Rays and Angels has shrunk to just 2.5 games after a 5-16 September slide.
The Red Sox would start Capuano Sunday against the Yankees if they complete a deal, but it appears that the Mets will keep the 33-year-old, who has a 4.47 ERA with 8.0 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 in 175 1/3 innings this year. Rob Bradford of WEEI.com hears that the Red Sox aren't lkely to make any deals and Joe McDonald of ESPNBoston.com hears that talks are "dead." Boston wouldn’t be able to use Capuano in the playoffs – they’re simply interested in boosting their chances of reaching the postseason.
Jon Lester pitches Friday's series opener and he'll be followed by Tim Wakefield and John Lackey barring a change of plans.
Sorry Epstein, Omar doesnt work there anymore. If you want him youre going to have give up something.
Mets like Cappy, hes been solid and want to resign him from what ive read
THIS.
Theo made some bad moves , like giving up 4 prospects for Bedard
4 prospect who if I called “prospects” before the deal you would have berated me. So why is it they’re suddenly prospect once they left the Sox? They were a group of low reward guys who had the ceilings of bench players who were rule 5 eligible and stood no chance of being protected on the 40-man roster. So that’s just a horrible argument.
What did Theo do wrong this year, he relied too much on light pitching depth.
chiang’s ceiling is higher than that, but his year really fell apart after the trade
Chiang never had a place in the organization even as a back up in the short or long run. As for his potential, it pretty much ranks up there with “guys who will start less than 50 games in the majors even with a perpetual last place team.”
you are conflating projection and potential, but it’s true he was a mile back on the OF depth chart
You’re right, I used the wrong word. But for me the word potential is kinda useless with prospects. When I see websites that talk about the potential of a player it’s usually something like “they could be a future hall of famer or a future bust.” It’s like when a proclaimed psychic says something will happen in the future… it’s stating an opinion that likely won’t be wrong.
And bedard has actually helped? or has he just been more of the same injured persona that everyone knew he was over the last several years?
lets see.. Some potential (any) or a cripple that everyone knows will end up injured.
Okay, BUT if he was to be healthy for the post season, that’d be a formidable top 3.
The key point here is that those players were all going to be rule 5 eligible and weren’t likely to be protected. They were expendable assets, and Theo used them to get some value out of them, rather than risk letting them be lost for no return.
You can keep him. This is a sure sign that the Sox have reached the point of desperation, and makes you wonder about Theo’s faith in guys such as Doubrant and Tazawa. Chris Capuano is the solution? Seriously? I’m going to avoid the Tobin for a little while.
this is the dumbest post. Faith in 2 guys who have barely pitched in MLB? Are you serious? Sorry to ridicule your post, but come on. There is no solution to this. The players need to play better. Maybe if John Lackey could give us 8 decent starts this year we wouldn’t have just a 2 game lead. He’s a failure.
Seriously man? That’s exactly the point. Doubrant was hyped as potentially being in the rotation in ’12 (certainly by ’13)- he’s fallen quite far in the eyes of management if they’d rather pick up scraps from the Mets and start that over him. Now is exactly the sort of time to see what he can do- it’s not like he can be any worse than Lackey, Miller, and some of the other crap they’ve thrown out there this year as I’m certain you’d agree. Give the young guys a chance.
Doubront has suffered injuries and ineffectiveness this season, that doesn’t mean management has lost any faith in him (he was really always seen as a back of the rotation starter in the AL East anyway, being a #3 would be absolute best case scenario for him).
Yeah he’s been injured, so has Tazawa, but they’re both up with the big club now and being used out of the bullpen. If you’re going to use them out of the bullpen, why not give one of them a start and see what they can do? Can’t be any worse than Lackey.
The fact that they haven’t at least been tried, yet Theo is looking into acquiring guys like Capuano, says to me that Theo has zero faith in them—this year. Maybe not in their long term prospects, but certainly no faith in them this year.
Red Sox are pathetic. Can’t even make the playoffs without buying/trading players.
btw: Cashman has passed Theo Epstein in the GM list rankings, this year. In my opinion
_
Neither Cash Man or Epstein have any latitude to fail with the budgets they are handed. It amazes that either of them would be listed high on anyone’s GM list ranking.
Neither Cashman or Epstein should be penalized, in terms of GM list ranking, because of their payrolls. It amazes me that either of them would be listed low because of it.
I guess a value should be set up – Wins Above Replacement GM, or WARGM. It seems, with few exceptions that most GMs would probably have their teams performing at, equal, or better than the Yankees and Red Sox if their payrolls had $150 million dollars added to it.
And that’s a silly assumption. Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon were two of the most important signings this offseason. Moves that were criticized and laughed at when they occurred. Sure, they have a greater margin for error because of the payroll, but give credit where credit is due. The Yankees missed out on all of their major offseason targets, suffered through a variety of big injuries, and still came out on top. Cashman did a great job.
Those were good signings – I guess even a blind dog finds a bone or two once in awhile. Those signings have to be weighed against all the bad signings that didn’t work out over the years. They also have to be weighed with the understanding there was no risk to the organization. Most other organizations would have been risking their payroll limits but not the Yankees. Easy decision to gamble when there is not much to lose.
I would hardly say that under $2 million would be a risk of payroll for any organization for two pitchers – the A’s dropped $10 million on Ben Sheets for one year, and that’s the A’s for pete’s sake. Using payroll as a reason to discount a GMs job ignores all of the other teams with large payrolls who haven’t even sniffed the playoffs recently
First – there may be teams, as you say, that have large payrolls, but none as large as Boston or New York. The $2 millions would not necessarily jeopardize a teams payroll goals, however both New York and Boston can make these commitments all season long and if they work out they are geniuses and if they don’t they don’t. Most teams do not have the same margin of error.
Actually, you’re incorrect. IIRC, Boston’s only #3 in payroll behind Philly.
I stand corrected – however that does not invalidate any of my points.
Not to mention Chavez and Martin
And if Garcia and Colon hadn’t pitched their brains out, the yankees wouldn’t even be in the playoff picture.
well we have a few examples to test your theory: angels, mets, cubs
That is why I qualified the statement “with few exceptions”. Those are the best examples of GMs with large budgets that do not deserve keeping their positions.
sooo 3/4 GMs with the money you say would make them do better than BOS/NYY in fact do much worse than BOS/NYY. but your theory is sound, those are just exceptions? what would it take to get you to question your theory, exactly?
also, does your “if most GMs had an extra $150M, they would do better than boston and NY” claim suppose that the GMs’ teams would have to compete in the AL East?
Always nice when you quote someone to make your point you quote them properly. I guess then you wouldn’t be making a valid point it you actually were accurate with your quote. I said “most GMs would probably have their teams performing at, equal, or better than the Yankees and Red Sox if their payrolls had $150 million dollars added to it.” I do think that Tampa and Toronto would be able to compete very well in the AL East with $150 million added to their payroll. I believe most teams would. There are, however some GMs that would still come up short – note I did not include Baltimore in my example.
pointing to two of the best GMs in the game and saying “if they had
more money, they’d prolly be better!” shouldn’t persuade anyone to
believe the same is true about the rest of the league’s GMs. it’s not as
simple as have money–>have lasting success. this is confirmed just
about everywhere you look, including – go figure – the teams that
already do have big money (the ones you say are just exceptions)
odds are neither friedman nor anthopolous btw would speak as sloppily as
you
have about the difficulty of building perennial contenders with strong
farms in the AL East, $150M or not. epstein and cashman are
well-respected by others in their profession. if only they could win
over the internet
the spacing of that comment would have been perfect if i had a bigger payroll
THIS is why you are the shizzle. Even if you how ended up on the “dark” side.
Not to belabor the point – are you saying that if Friedman and Anthopoulos had an additional $150 million the standings this year would be the same?
i know my comment is hard to read because it looks like a high school poem, but that clearly wasn’t the point. i called them 2 of the best GMs in the league
what i was saying: why should the fact that two of the most efficient resource-users in the game would likely get better with more resources make anyone think that less efficient resource-users would do the same?
you are seriously underestimating the difficulty of building franchises that compete every year
Again please read the original comment clearly. There would be some that would take that added budget and not be as efficient as Cashman and Epstein, there would be some that would take it and be as efficient and there are some that would take it and be better. With one or two exceptions there are none that would not improve the standing of their team with an added $150 million in payroll. It will never happen, however, if either Epstein or Cashman would take a GM job in Oakland or KC, for example, would they have the same results as in Boston and New York?
“most GMs would probably have their teams performing at, equal, or better
than the Yankees and Red Sox if their payrolls had $150 million dollars
added to it.”
that’s the original comment. it continues to lack any supporting evidence and is in fact contradicted by what evidence we do have
i’m not denying the existence of an advantage. i’m denying the crazy conclusion you jumped to from the mere existence of that advantage
What is the “evidence we do have”? We have evidence that the two GMs perform well with unlimited budgets. There is nothing to the contrary because they have never managed a team to the contrary. Your contention that they are among the elite of GMs is based on incomplete evidence. Now Friedman has a track record of building a very credible team with a very limited budget. My contention is that it certainly takes more talent and guile to do that. The addition of a Sabathia and a Texeira to the Tampa Bay team would probably have them in first place this year.
and if they had the money to do that, they wouldn’t have the high first-round talents they have. you’re loving having it both ways
but let’s try to stay focused: the evidence we have are the GMs with large budgets who fail to even compete, let alone compete every year in the AL East. i thought we covered this awhile ago
are you going to claim that e.g. the cubs and mets would have turned it around with another $20M? give it up. no one doubts that good GMs would do better with more money, the argument was that most (your word) would do as well as or better (your words) than BOS/NYY. that’s a serious overstatement
First and foremost I think we both agree that certain organizations, which have proved themselves to be incompetent would be so no matter what their budget — Cubs, Mets, Angels to name a few. There certainly are other teams with low budgets that are poorly run by incompetent GMs. Twenty million more won’t help these organizations at all and I never suggested that the Mets or Cubs would be World Series contenders with a $20 million cash infusion. We are, however, not talking about $20 when we are talking about the disparity between the Red Sox, Yankees and most of the rest of baseball. We are talking, in most cases, about $100 to $150 million dollars. Yes – I do think that would make a difference in the rest of league as far as the standings go.
“make a difference” is not the same claim at all as “make most of them as good or better than BOS/NYY”. you have moved the goalposts, but at least we agree now
i know how to finish this, andrew friedman style:
See NY Mets, Chicago Cubs, LA Dodgers, etc. if you need examples of why operating budget has zilch to do with evaluating a GM
Try most other teams to see why it does. Cherry pick the worst of the worst – that does not prove your point. It does not validate the argument that Epstein and Cashman are more competent then Friedman and Anthopolous. The only way to prove it one way or the other is the even the playing field as far as payrolls and then let the cream rise to the top.
After the yankees phillies and the red sox the next 6 highest payrolls arent making the playoffs, so i dont see how he was cherry picking the worst of the worst.
Having money doesn’t = great results. See the Cubs, Mets and Tigers from a few years ago.
Say what you want but Cashman amassed a nice assortment of vets, journeyman and minor lge prospects that have all done well this year.
When emergencies arose he didn’t have to sell the farm for replacements.
When Jeter went down, he had Nunez.
When Arod went down, he had Chavez.
When Chavez went down, he went back to Nunez at 3b.
When Soriano, Joba and Feliciano went down, he went out and got or promoted Noesi, Ayala and Wade.
When Hughes went down he put Garcia in the rotation.
Plus he acquired Granderson at the expense of AJax and IPK but was rewarded with a MVP type season.
He also has seen a lot of mlb production from prospects who “experts” didn’t consider to be top 100 prospects when they debuted like Gardner, Robertson and Nova that came in the organization during his watch.
When you can replace $100 mil worth of players and get good performances from guys earning under $1 mil then that’s pretty good depth.
lolyankeesarethesame
Most teams can’t make the playoffs without buying/trading for players. I guess the Tigers, Giants, Phillies, Yankees, Cardinals, Brewers, etc are all pathetic too.
It’s not worth arguing the small market/large market thing any more for me. I’m holding off on that argument until the off season when the CBA becomes more prominent.
the “slumping” Red Sox? more like desperate
more like both slumping and desperate.
Desperate because they’re slumping?
Desperate because they’re slumping and the Rays and Angels aren’t all that far behind.
noteworthy that the rays aren’t exactly hot right now. they’ve sucked less dramatically than boston, but neither tampa nor the angels are on fire. as has been the case all year, boston’s a considerably better team. a better team that’s playing terribly and a terrible time
Capuano would be able to pitch for the Red Sox in the post season, thanks to some roster gymnastics. MLB rules allow a player who wasn’t on the roster August 31 to make the playoff roster if they are replacing an injured player. With Jenks out for the season, Capuano could easily take his spot, should they decide they need the starting pitcher. Most famously, the Angels used this rule to get K-Rod on to the roster for their World Series run.
The player still needs to be in the organization prior to 9/1 to qualify for that loophole. Capuano would not.
Ah, ok. I was wondering about that after I posted it. Thanks for letting me know.
guess Theo forgot that
Theo -Jake Peavy here – I’m available – haven’t pitched in a month
another bad trade
Would be a great move for the Red Sox since they need pitching like a fish needs water.
I think the Mets hold out though. They don’t really need salary relief at this point now that Beltran and K-Rod are gone. A solid prospect would prob get the deal done though.
Do what you need to do, to get to the dance. Then any team has a chance. One player could carry the team.
That might be true much of the time. But the Red Sox seem to be circling the drain right now, and I have little hope that if they somehow manage to survive and make the playoffs, that they’ll miraculously turn it all around and start playing like the playoff team they should be.
The fat lady’s warming up for the Red Sox. It’s only a matter of when she takes the stage. 🙁
Wake and Lackey, mmmmm
Lester will probably beat us though. If this team makes the playoffs, I’m still scared of facing them. Lester, Beckett, and Bedard are a pretty strong 3.
Theo needs to get someone on his staff that knows how to build a bullpen. Wheeler has been solid, they knew what they were getting into with Albers, Jenks has been Jenks, and Okajima has been in AAA. After that, how about finding guys who won’t whine about everything when they lose? “Oh the schedule is too hard” “Man this interleague stuff is terrible” “These rules are horrible” Give me a break, these guys have no one to blame but themselves. And maybe find a few guys who aren’t so injury prone. Josh “My stomach kind of hurts for two weeks” Beckett, Bedard, as much as I think he’s a really good pitcher, hasn’t pitched a full season in years (though I agree with the acquisition, the only other option really was Jiminez and he aint exactly lighting it up in Cleveland), Dice-K, well nevermind him, he wasn’t going to be a factor anyways, Wakefield is 45 years old, and Lackey is as effective as Blake Wheeler was for the Bruins (sorry for the hockey crossover). What they need is to find a pitcher who A) Actually knows how to pitch well in the Majors and B) Will most likely pitch a full season. As much as I love the A-Gon deal, this is a time where Casey Kelly could lend a little bit of a hand. Right now, they need to put Aceves into the 5 spot and go from there. Bucchholz could actually be back for the playoffs and, if he’s fully healthy, might be someone you put in for an inning, maybe two, when you hit the 7th. Lester – Beckett – Bedard – Lackey – Aceves looks a lot better than Lester – Lackey – God Help Us when you’re desperate to keep your lead in the Wild Card. It’d be nice to see Miller either in AAA, in the bullpen, or released and Wakefield calling it quits next year with Bucchholz coming back and the possibility of Wilson making the team. Lester – Beckett – Bucchholz – Lackey – Wilson next year. Although my pipe dream would see Lackey gone and a guy like Doubront, Aceves, or even Tazawa sliding into the back end. Then try and find relievers who won’t blow up or get hurt in the middle of the year. And Theo should probably try to stay away from projects like Jenks and Albers, find some guys who are established. Then if Tito could grow a pair and stop being such a cheerleader they could be ready to start the year. Don’t get me wrong, I like Tito, but when Daniel Bard loses a hitter on 0-2, he should get him no matter who he is, especially if it’s Evan Longoria hitting .240 on the year, and Tito shouldn’t scoff at questions about Bard’s meltdown as if they’re sins saying “Well he almost had him. I mean he got to 0-2, that should be good enough”. It just makes it clear that, unless he’s epically bipolar, he’s saying the same stuff to Bard and others behind the scenes. “Hey don’t worry about it, you almost had him” and he needs to stop making excuses for the team. Someone needs to whip them into shape, and it sure as hel isn’t gonna be Francona.
paragraphs my friend. paragraphs.
Haha, sorry about that. I wrote that without any planning, I was just racking things off the top of my head. i’ll repost it.
Theo needs to get someone on his staff that knows how to build a bullpen. Wheeler has been solid, they knew what they were getting into with Albers, Jenks has been Jenks, and Okajima is in AAA. After that, hpow about finding guys who won’t whine about everything when they lose? “Oh the schedule is too hard” “Man this interleague stuff is terrible” “These rules are horrible” Give me a break, these guys have no one to blame but themselves. And maybe find a few guys who aren’t so injury prone. Josh “My ankle is a little sore” Becket, Bedard, as much as I think he’s a really good pitcher, hasn’t pitched a full season in years (though I agree with the acquisition, the only other option really was Jiminez and he aint exactly lighting it up in Cleveland), Dice-K, well nevermind him, he wasn’t going to be a factor anyways, Wakefield is 45 years old, and Lackey is as effective as Blake Wheeler was for the Bruins (sorry for the hockey crossover).
What they need is to find a pitcher who A) Actually knows how to pitch well in the Majors and B) Will most likely pitch a full season. As much as I love the A-Gon deal, this is a time where Casey Kelly could lend a little bit of a hand. Right now, they need to put Aceves into the 5 spot and see how Doubront would do in a spot start. Bucchholz could actually be back for the playoffs and, if he’s fully healthy, might be someone you put in for an inning, maybe two, when you hit the 7th. Lester – Beckett – Bedard – Lackey – Aceves or Doubront looks a lot better than Lester – Lackey – God Help Us when you’re trying to keep your lead in the Wild Card. It’d be nice to see Miller either in AAA, in the bullpen, or released and Wakefield calling it quits next year with Bucchholz coming back. Lester – Beckett – Bucchholz – Lackey – Doubront next year. Although my pipe dream would see Lackey gone and a guy like Wilson sliding into the back end. Then try and find relievers who won’t blow up or get hurt in the middle of the year. And Theo should probably try to stay away from projects like Jenks and Albers, find some guys who are established.
Then if Tito could grow a pair and stop being such a cheerleader they could be ready to start the year. Don’t get me wrong, I like Tito, but when Daniel Bard loses a hitter on 0-2, he should get him no matter who he is, especially if it’s Evan Longoria hitting .240 on the year, and Tito shouldn’t scoff at questions about Bard’s meltdown as if they’re sins saying “Well he almost had him. I mean he got to 0-2, that should be good enough”. It just makes it clear that, unless he’s epically bipolar, he’s saying the same stuff to Bard and others behind the scenes. “Hey don’t worry about it, you almost had him”. Someone has to whip them into shape cause it’s obviously not gonna be Tito who does.
While I agree with your criticism of Francona and his use of the bullpen, I can’t help but take a bit of issue with the rest of your post:
Clearly most of us wouldn’t mind if neither Dice-K or Lackey ever pitched a game for the Sox again at this point, and that might happen with Dice-K because he had Tommy John, but no one is taking Lackey from us, and it would be beyond stupid to just release him with the money he is owed. So he’s on the team regardless at this point.
Coming into the season there was really only one guy in the rotation who wasn’t considered “a pitcher who A) Actually knows how to pitch well in the Majors and B) Will most likely pitch a full season.” That one pitcher would be Dice-K; say what you will about Lackey but in his time with the Angels he was both of those things, and there was no reason to believe that he wouldn’t continue to be when they signed him.
Also, while Albers may have been a bit of a question mark coming into the season, Jenks actually was an established late innings reliever, he just got hurt (stuff happens). And Kelly wouldn’t have helped anything this year, have you checked his numbers in AA? Now imagine what they would have looked like in the AL East; we’d have been begging for Lackey.
Though Kelly is near ready, he isn’t ready for the show just yet. Plus if they had him would you really want to risk placing that many more innings on his arm this season? He threw 95 innings in 2010, this season he threw 148 including playoffs. That is already a major jump and more then I think Red Sox or even most organizations would like to push further.
Building a bullpen isn’t exactly easy. Especially for a team like the Red Sox who didn’t have the greatest depth in their system to begin with. People think that the Padres being able to unearth relievers from anywhere comes from nowhere, but its mostly been driven by trades and drafting safer picks then the Red Sox. Those safer arms tend to end up in the bullpen. If you are simply talking about signing a better bullpen there are two inherent problems, 1) relievers are volatile, and 2) the price on the open market makes it hard to sign surer things. The Red Sox have a self imposed budget of staying under the luxury tax level, thus they can’t spend much on the bullpen as they have most of the money tied up in the lineup and starting rotation.
iglesias or bust
Picking up this guy is like spitting to put out a forest fire. With Theo’s track record of late season pitching acquisitions they’d probably assign Gagne’s number to him. 600M spent since 2007 and nothing to show.
yeah im not 100% sure, but i think they won the world series in 2007.
However we could say that about 26 other teams, right? 400M or 600M, does it really matter if you have nothing to show? Is it all wasted money?
Hows about 324 sold out home games? Sometimes we forget that this is a business and that even teams with “nothing to show” do hold value various ways.
theo Just doesn’t want to realize that the only option he has left is Kei Igawa ! lol