Here’s the latest from the American League East:
- The Rays are going to have to drop a player from their 40-man roster to account for the club’s bullpen injuries, Cork Gaines of Rays Index explains. With C.J. Riefenhauser joining Jeff Beliveau on the major league DL, and fellow southpaws Enny Romero and Grayson Garvin both on the DL in the minors, the club is low on options.
- While the Red Sox rotation additions have struggled badly to start the year, the club did not have many appealing alternatives available to it, Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal writes. MacPherson ticks through the possibilities, explaining that, by and large, Boston was probably wise not to beat other teams’ offers for several top arms.
- Masahiro Tanaka has trended up in his last two outings for the Yankees, as Brendan Kuty of NJ.com explains. His ability to pitch through a partial UCL tear remains critical to the club not just this year, but looking into the future.
Red Sox had plenty options available, it’s just most of their farm is untouchable or they don’t want to give up much talent to get any in return.
Lets say they traded for Hamels, would that have solved all their pitching woes so far? He still would only pitch once every fifth day. They would need to trade their entire farm system to get 5 better starters than they have now, which would be extremely foolish.
Sure. Because there isn’t a single guy on their current roster or in their farm that could be a 3,4 or 5.
Im not sure what your point is…this rotation can work if it pitches to its potential/competence. It just hasn’t done it yet consistently. My point was what else could Cherington have done, in hindsight
I think the point is you said they would need a whole new rotation even though Porcello, Miley, Kelly isn’t a bad 3-5.
My point is they do not need to replace the entire rotation as you implied. One top of the rotation arm would do wonders for stabilizing what they have now.
One??? What team have you been watching? Yes they have one pitcher who is being paid like an ace whom they signed for five years without even throwing one pitch for them. He’s no better then a number four. Clay and Miley are not any good. So one ace won’t do crap for them since he only pitches every fifth day.
Why trade their whole farm let alone trade for 5 starters? They could have traded for a better pitcher then Porcello or made Lester a better offer from the start not 4 years @ 70 million. They could have also kept Lackey, Craig is pretty much a useless and redundant piece for them. They went from having a pitching surplus to having a pitching panic.
Who else could they have gotten for one year of Cespedes? If they signed Lester, would they have a better record today? He hasn’t been lights out for the Cubs so far. Even if they would have kept Lackey, which there were rumors he wanted out, how much better is he than Kelly? But lets say we kept Lester and Lackey, we would still have Bucholz’s inconsistent starts, plus whatever #4 and #5 we would have to trot out there. Not so much better.
So basically you’re saying Boston has one of the best farms in this decade so far and they couldn’t pull off a trade? Detroit had a bottom 5 farm system and got a year and a half of Price, yeah they gave up Austin Jackson too (an outfielder) but last I checked Boston has a slew of those too. Boston just doesn’t want to give up talent to upgrade areas of need.
Detroit gave up Smyly (already proven as a fringe 3 SP with more upside), Wily Adams (a young but big upside SS), and Austin Jackson a proven 2-3 WAR CF.
Boston gave up talent to get Porcello and Miley who were upgrades. They will pay fair value but not overpay.
We already made three trades that gave up talent (Lackey for Kelly, Webster/De la Rosa for Miley, Cespedes for Porcello). My question is what three pitchers out there could the Sox have traded for, without seriously depleting the farm system?
They always brag the farm system up. Look at the way they bragged Daniel Bard up. The next Nolan Ryan how’s that working out. Jackie Bradley Jr the second coming of Fred Lynn yeah ok.
Boston shouldn’t have acquired Cespedes in the first place. Oakland was happy to dump him and many criticized Boston for getting a player like that when they gave up on the season. Cherington is just all over the place. He traded all the pitching depth from last season to aquire position players to block prospects that he doesn’t want to trade or take away at bats from guys who need to show value to be traded. That’s why they are stuck with players like Craig and Vic.
Not true. Supposedly, only Betts and Swihart are not going to be moved. That leaves Henry owens, Eduardo Rodriquez, Rafael Devers as BA top 100 prospects and Garen Cecchini, JBJ, Deven Marrero, Brian Johnson, Matt Barnes, Manuel Margot as other top kids available to be moved.
Teams just supposedly wouldn’t budge past either Swihart/betts and had this fixation on them, rather than looking at other kids they had, which are still better than what 90% of the league has.
I don’t think that’s true, they could’ve made more moves that didn’t involve Betts or Swilhart. That could be true for Hamels but they acquired Miley and Porcello via trade without giving up those. They could have acquired better pitchers thru trade.
Maybe for a #4-5 type pitcher, but who was really available? Look at that list of those types and the only one I would have wanted is Eovaldi, who has a LOT in common with Joe Kelly.
The 3 aces all cost way too much last FA year and Shields probably will be a bad deal the last half anyway as he ages.
Only if Cherrington had known Eovaldi was available and not made offers could have faulted him. Not hard to see a better deal put together than one headlined by Prado.
P.S I’m glad the Yankees pulled it off,Evo has got ridiculous raw potential and I think the deal has steal potential for them.
You’d be surprised, unless the Red Sox had a similar player to Prado then I doubt the Marlins would have moved him. They were looking for a veteran infielder who can still be good. Who fit that description for Boston?
Porcello is a solid 3 with number 2 potential and Miley is a solid 4 with number 3 potential.
Name a pitcher that was available who is clearly superior to them and could have been had for a reasonable cost.
I can only think of McCarthy if you believe in his periphials and health and Shark (though the A’s target specific types of players the Red Sox may not have had).
Reasonable cost in terms of prospect trade or free agent money? You’re not going to get an ace caliber pitcher or even a #2 pitcher without paying alot of money or giving up a top prospect or ML ready talent.
Well I think Lester and Shields were overpaid. Scherzer too but he is elite enough to potentialy warrant the contract.
And i don’t think Betts/Swihart should be traded.
But you think Porcello is worth $21 million a year?
I think he will be worth about 18 million a year for the next 4 years. The key to that deal is they gave extra AAV to only lock up prime years with less injury risk and shouldn’t be any decline.
Compare that to Lester that will be worth 30 million a year for 2-3 years if lucky but then could really fall to being only worth 10-15 million for the rest of the contract.
Younger pitchers are prone to TJ more so if not as much as older pitchers. But if a 3 to 5 type caliber pitcher is worth that then we have Boston to thank for driving up costs.
please tell me you aren’t a Yankees fan because I would hate to think that a Yankees fan would complain about another team driving up costs for others
Can you name a contract they signed that drove up prices that weren’t already set?
Tanaka has been really encouraging the past few starts, he’s really using his full repertoire well and being efficient at that. People are going to question health constantly, but I trust the experts that advised him in his decision and if he keeps pitching the way he’s been, it will be easy to look past that until it’s time to cross that bridge.
Tick tick tick on Tanaka’s arm, Yankees.
Keyboard surgeons are worse than armchair GMs.
Tick Tick tick on any pitchers arm really.
Well at least the Yankees still have time ticking the Rangers bomb already exploded. (Darvish)
While I understand not wanting to sign pitchers to long term contracts, or pay for “dead” years at the end, I just don’t think its realistic to do that with the entire rotation. Unless Boston is able to develop an Ace thru their own farm, Top Pitchers get those types of contracts, either thru free agency or extensions. I always hear how Boston can “afford” to acquire players, go over the cap, etc… Seems getting an Ace, Scherzer for example, would have been something they could afford also.
I agree the best option for any team is to develop their own ace but the Red Sox have struggled with that in recent years.
I also think it may have been a better plan to not sign Panda/Masterson and instead sign Scherzer but if he eventually needs arm surgery or starts declining early that contract would be quite the burden in years 4-7.
Overall I think the plan of building up a strong offense, bullpen, defense, and a rotation full of threes can work (O’s, Pirates, Royals, A’s come to mind) but the team’s bullpen is lacking a bit and for Masterson, Kelly, and Clay to all be threes they needed three big rebounds/improvements which is a lot of uncertantity.
I would say A Lot of teams have struggled with that, not just Boston.
For sure but from a Red Sox fan perspective it seems they have not put enough emphasis on pitchers in the draft. And when they had a high draft pick in 2013 they take a high risky two way player out of high school instead of a safer soon to be ready college pitcher.
Probably not all that bad a thing in an era where offense is at its worst in 30+ years.
Remind me of the 2013 pick you are referring to…
Trey Ball with the 7th overall pick and he has completly bombed pitching in the lower levels.
Matt Barnes pitched pretty well this spring. Seems like an obvious fill somewhere on the Sox pitching staff.
I don’t love the Red Sox rotation, but it’s not bad, and there is some talent in the farm system. Some of the coverage of this has been a little bipolar. Yesterday, we read stories about how trading for guys like Kelly and Rodriguez showed FO acumen because these were “pre-aces” and today we are talking about how additions have “struggled badly”. Best thing you can do is don’t buy the hype, in either direction. It’s a long season.
Clay Buchoulz is looking sneaky good this year. There were reports on him in ST that his velocity was up and I read an article on fangraphs saying his ST K% was up from last year.
So far this year (SSS) 30 Ks to 7 Walks for a 11.7 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, and 2.7 FIP. Combined with a 55% GB rate he is actually looking excellent in the periphials.
Hey gave up 7 runs to the Yankees in just the first inning who alot claim have a weak offense. Bucholz is very streaky, it’s like he’ll either throw a gem or clunker, hard to know what you might get out of him.
Definitly streaky but the K/BB ration and high GB% is looking great! Just thinking that one clunker of a start may be leading to people undervalue him so far this year (myself included until I looked up his periphials)
Mehh, I wouldn’t judge him based on 1 start. And look at what the Yankees offense did to Price
Please note I’m not comparing the 2 pitchers, but I just think 1 start is cherry picking
I completely agree about him being very streaky.
Main thing with that Detroit game that was different was the weather, Warren gave up 4 until the snow stopped in that first inning, Price is a tropical body man use to pitching in Florida heat. Buch has the talent, I thin his problems are more mental like Burnett for instance. He might feel pressure since he might be viewed as their ace and with the Boston media being the way it is. But I’m not judging him just based on that one start, I’m just using that as an example of how shaky he can be.
I want to see Brian Johnson, Henry Owens, Matt Barnes, and E-Rod get chances to start a few games by the end of June. I wonder if the Red Sox could actually make a 6 man rotation work considering they lack the true ace that a 6 man rotation takes starts away from.
Red Sox fan here. I don’t really have a problem with what the Red Sox did. I was bummed they didn’t sign Lester, but that’s crazy money the Cubs are paying him. Yes, the Sox’ rotation isn’t very good. But, there’s some serious potential there and I’m glad they didn’t trade away any of their top prospects. I’d rather they be loaded for years to come than trade away 1-2 big pieces to contend this year. It’s just not that desperate a situation. They’ve won so much recently that it’s fine by me if they want to play it smart.
If I’m going to criticize the Sox for anything, it’s not doing more to shore up the bullpen. With a weaker starting staff, you’ve got to have a shutdown bullpen. I think they should have made more of an effort to sign Miller. But, so it goes…
The Rays have been bombed by injuries so far this season. Since the start of spring training they have lost their starting 1B, 2B, DH, #1 SP, #3 SP, #5 SP, closer and 2 LH middle relievers. That doesn’t even include Matt Moore who would have been their #2 SP and is still recovering from TJS. To think that they are only 1 game out of 1st place after all of the injuries, offseason changes and already playing every team in their division is pretty amazing. The good news for the Rays is they should be getting most of those players back in the next couple of weeks, which could be trouble for the rest of the AL East.