The Red Sox’ trades of Jon Lester, John Lackey, Jake Peavy and Felix Doubront this summer created opportunities for younger Red Sox starters, but those young pitchers haven’t taken advantage, Tim Britton of the Providence Journal writes. Rubby De La Rosa, Brandon Workman, Allen Webster and Anthony Ranaudo have all been underwhelming this season. “What that group is learning is that it’s a sizable jump from Triple-A to here,” says manager John Farrell. “It’s a matter of learning challenges at the major-league level.” The Red Sox aren’t necessarily planning for all those pitchers to be successful, and they figure to pursue starters this offseason, but getting one or more solid starters out of the group of De La Rosa, Workman, Webster and Ranaudo would provide a big boost next season. Here’s more from throughout the big leagues.
- The Pirates’ organizational philosophy of finding buy-low players is likely to keep them from re-signing impending free agent Russell Martin, David Manel of Bucs Dugout writes. The Pirates appear to be bracing for fan backlash if they don’t re-sign Martin, and GM Neal Huntington points out that his organization might be about to become a “victim of its own success,” as Manel puts it. “Russ is one of those unique circumstances where we got beat up and highly criticized for signing him when we did,” says Huntington. “And if he does walk out the door, we’ll get highly criticized when he does walk out the door.”
- The results of the Cardinals’ in-season trades have been mixed, but their outfield has improved thanks to the team’s flexible approach, Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com writes. Justin Masterson hasn’t pitched well and Lackey hasn’t made a huge impact, and Oscar Taveras hasn’t hit well filling in for the departed Allen Craig. The Cardinals have, however, done well in the second half throughout their outfield in general, with Peter Bourjos and Randal Grichuk putting up solid numbers in center and right field, respectively.
You mean Jake Peavy, not Joe Kelly…
That’s right, thanks. I fixed it a few minutes after I hit publish.
Red Sox have had quite a drought in developing front end SP’ers since Lester (06) and Buchholz (07). For all the hype of their farm system, not much to show for it, and the failure of young homegrown talent (especially position players) was a big part of their failure this year. Barnes and Owens look to be the most promising pitching prospects, barring injury, while those mentioned in the article seem to project more as back or middle of the rotation arms at best.
While the young position player talent has failed, it kind of seemed like Cherington’s plan was a pseudo-rebuild and hope for the best from Bradley, Bogaerts, Middlebrooks, and eventually Betts. They were basically re-tooling this year and hoping for some more of the good luck where all their stars played at their best and remained healthy for the entire season… Bogaerts and Betts especially are going to be fine, while Bradley probably is more suited to be a defensive specialist a la Bourjos.
I rather the Red Sox plan than Yanks. I wish the Mets had the Yanks philosophy of go out and win
A big part of the Cardinal’s outfield has also been Jon Jay’s good play and Matt Holliday’s 153 second-half wRC+ in 243 PA. Holliday has been excellent the last two months and might even reach another 4-win season with a good final week, which would be quite interesting since it would put him up over 50 career WAR.
I do not follow the Cardinals enough to know this – has Holliday always been streaky or just recently?
He’s not really streaky in the traditional sense but occasionally he goes on a tear like this where he is capable of carrying the whole team. So far he has managed to defy the normal age curve.
Such a good deal the Cardinals got. It’s not often you see a player basically perform at an elite level for the entire contract at the length Holliday signed for. He’s signed on for the next two seasons, but the fact he’s still at the top of his game shows how well of a job the Cardinals did at taking somewhat of a chance.
De La Rosa could be an elite setup guy/closer but unless he comes up with a third pitch he’ll never cut it as a starter. And his changeup velocity is even a little too fast to be an effectively deceptive second pitch sometimes
good points. So what were they doing with him in the minors. Here is another great arm, not so great pitcher possibility. Too good an arm to give up on him as a starter yet.
Totally agree. He still has an elite arm though so I’d be ok going into next year with Bucholtz, Kelly and De La Rosa in the rotation as long as the sox fill out those first two spots with a couple quality guys. They should have a few minor league options behind De La Rosa in Owens and Johnson. In addition to the velocity difference as is the similar “fade action” on the fastball and changeup that gets De La Rosa in trouble. His command is also not what it could be. If he could work on his command and gain some more confidence in his slider he could perhaps be someone. We have seen flashes.
I feel that the Pirates should match any AAV as long as the contract is 3 years.
I’d tend to agree, but there are some big-market teams that really, really need catching–the Dodgers first and foremost among them. Someone is going to offer Martin something insane along the lines of the McCann contract, and the Bucs can’t–and quite frankly, shouldn’t–match an offer like that.
I can’t imagine the Dodgers having any interest in Martin, and the feeling might well be mutual. He left LA under less than ideal circumstances, with some hard feelings it appears. Aside from that, the Dodgers will not want to disturb the Kershaw-Ellis combo.
Interesting – do you think Boston will make a run at him? Seems logical with them having a lot of young pitchers.
I don’t think Grandpa Ross can relate to them as well – “Are you whipper snappers on that interweb thing again??”
Vasquez and Swihart vote thumbs down on that possibility.
Well, maybe…but Ellis is 33 and has a triple-slash line that wouldn’t be that impressive if he was a pitcher. It’s one thing if you want to keep someone around as a personal catcher, but that’s no reason to let the guy hitting under .200 catch the majority of the other 130 games. The Dodgers will be looking for help behind the plate, Martin is far and away the best free agent option, and I suspect $ 80 million or so will sooth a lot of hurt feelings.
He’s been hitting reasonably well for the past month, and even with the overall poor first five months at the plate still has a respectable OBP of .326. In any case, you are missing the point. The Dodgers know his value to the team, and it goes well beyond a role as Kershaw’s “personal catcher.” He is one of the most prepared catchers in the game. Some things don’t show up in stat lines, but they are important just the same. What the Dodgers need for next season is a better backup option. They are not going to throw Ellis overboard for one poor offensive season after four good ones.
I think given the choice between Ellis’ intangibles and the things that Russell Martin actually does in terms of offense and defense to win games, the Dodgers will open the checkbook for Martin.
It isn’t about intangibles, but I said that already.
Generally speaking, those “things don’t show up in the stat lines” are intangibles.
Not at all. For one, tangibility does not require quantification. For another, statistics are not even created to explain many things, and some that are supposed to explain something don’t necessarily explain much, or anything. The irony here is that the value of catcher like Ellis is his preparation, which of course requires him to be a good study of statistics, something you insist is an “intangible.” That is called painting yourself into a logical corner.
Understand, I’m not saying what Ellis brings doesn’t exist–what I’m saying is that it’s not measurable, and things he does that are measurable make him a replacement-level player, and one who is going to cost the Dodgers a good chunk of money in his second year of arbitration; now you can make the argument that his prepartation is so head and shoulders above what another catcher would provide you that he’s acutally a quality MLB starting catcher, but it involves taking a great deal on faith and suppositon, and if the Dodgers want to pony up four or five mil to take that leap of faith, all well and good, but I can’t for one minute imagine any competent GM (and I’m giving Coletti the benefit of the doubt here) would be willing to do so.
I’m not taking it on faith or supposition. Pitchers talk about the quality of his preparation. Josh Beckett for one credited Ellis for reviving his career, and others report that working with Ellis is a real contrast to their previous teams. If praise for a catcher’s “intangibles” gets any higher than that, then I haven’t heard it. Just because something isn’t measured statistically doesn’t mean it isn’t measurable. In any case, the Dodgers don’t have to make these decisions based on dollars. They have plenty of dollars. So that is the wrong argument to make for whether they will decide to retain Ellis or go elsewhere. Money will be the last consideration.
Fair enough–what is the measure of value for Ellis’ preparation and ability to work with pitchers as opposed to, say, Russell Martin or Geovany Soto or Jeff Mathis? Is it two games in the standings? Three? Five? Ten? B-R and FanGraphs both show Martin as being 5.5 WAR better than Ellis this season; by what measure is his preparation and other skills serve to offset that, and on what basis do you measure that?
Seriously, you’re going to cite WAR as a response to my point? Okay, this is the sign that we’ve exhausted this subject for now. I just want to make it clear that just because a thing hasn’t been quantified doesn’t mean that isn’t meaningful, and also that a number isn’t necessarily a useful representation of anything. The biggest error I see from ball fans these days is not grasping these two concepts.
I’m sorry; I cerainly wouldn’t want data and research to get in the way.
It’s too late to worry about that. Never have so many statistics been quoted by those who understand them so poorly.
Enough “dead president’s” should cure Martin and his alleged animosity towards the Dodgers.
And the first and third parts of my statement were…..?
The Pirates really did not get beat up when they signed Martin. But they certainly will if they make a sub-par effort to keep him. He has be integral in their turn-around. Can someone give that team some money????
There was quite a bit of criticism for signing an aging .210 (or whatever– I can’t remember) hitting catcher that even the Yankees wouldn’t pay. And then they went and overpaid for him. This was a pretty common refrain in the Pittsburgh media at the time.
I guess I didn’t hear it (I live in the Pittsburgh area). I was excited by the Martin signing, knowing how bad their previous catchers had been. Defensively alone he was going to be a huge improvement. any hitting that came with him would be (and has been) a bonus.
Maybe you didn’t hear or read it, but I sure did. Pittsburgh media and the many sunshine supporters in town always mis-judge the good moves the Pirates make. They were very adamant about their dislike for the signing of Martin. All I could do was laugh at them. You can’t reason with people like that.
You are darn right it was.
Mario Lemieux tried to buy the team and The Nuttings refused him. Don’t ever forget that.
The Pirates have a zero chance of re-signing Russ. All this talk by Huntington is meaningless because the team simply can’t afford to pay any player $10 million+ a year which is what he’s worth. They said all this stuff about AJ last year and then got priced out of the market because somebody always overpays in free agency – and he’s not 1/50 the player Martin is. I get fans love Martin and I’d like him to return but the bottom line is the Pirates are one of the poorest teams in baseball and they just don’t have the financial ability to increase payroll beyond what it is now.
Bob Nutting is a billionaire. He just refuses to put more money in than what he is making, no matter the situation.
Which always brings to mind why Bob Nutting and family turned down Mario Lemieux’s offer to buy the team and infuse into the payroll New York Yankee-like revenue. If they didn’t care about the fans then, they sure won’t care now. The Nuttings made great profit even when the Pirates were a perennial losing team. Why should they ever put any money back into the team when they are rolling in profit from the many ticket buyers who went just to enjoy Fireworks nights and receive free promotional merchandise even while the Pirates were notorious last place dwellers?
On top of that, Nutting came out and said that he wanted the Pirates to be a “family business”… He is buying (and already has) bought more and more of the team’s shares. I don’t think that he is putting the team’s success before his family’s inheritance. Which is another reason why the franchise would be much better off if Lemieux and Burkle bought the team. The bottom line is Nutting has set his “family business” priority over the organization’s well-being, which is a shame because that is something that Lemieux and Burkle would not do.
‘The Pirates appear to be bracing for fan backlash if they don’t re-sign Martin’ – Well, they are not going to be able to brace themselves enough. This is will not be forgotten. Pittsburghers don’t forget.
If they aren’t willing to pay pitchers big money, at least pay the man they throw to. The argument can be made that he is, in large part, a big reason as to why this pitching staff has been solid for the past few years. Unfortunately, I think he is going to ask for $15+ million. With that money you could sign Walker, Harrison, and possibly another player. If the Bucs actually try to resign him and offer a fair salary, and he doesn’t sign, I won’t mind. But if they try to low ball him and act surprised when he doesn’t resign, management better expect a big PR backlash. This team is finally winning, don’t let money get in the way of it.
Allen Webster has had two good outings in a row and seems to finally be coming along well. He’s quieted down his control issues and just needs to get deeper in games. Farrell could help that by allowing him to pitch, rather than yanking him at the first sign of adversity. Webster may be in the competition for a rotation slot in 2015.
Workman has been too inconsistent this season and will likely transition to the bull pen.
Ranaudo and DLR have had too many innings of work to be fairly judged at this point, but both are still projects in the later stages of development. DLR has to get command of a plus breaking pitch and expand the velocity differential between his change up and fast ball. He’s minor steps away from making the rotation. They’ll both start in AAA next year and hopefully make the step up by the end of next year.
Barnes looked fantastic in his first and only showcase, but that’s a plainly insufficient basis for judging. He’ll return to AAA as well.
None of these have had their final determinations made. They have not succeeded yet, but also have not failed yet. There remains reason for optimism.
Red Sox just trying to get ready for the off-season just like the rangers are too