We discussed the West earlier tonight. Here’s the latest from the East:
- Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval is expected to miss the rest of the season with pneumonia, writes John Tomase of WEEI.com. This comes just a couple days after fellow offseason signee Hanley Ramirez was shut down for the year with a shoulder injury. Sandoval hit .245/.292/.366 on the year with 43 runs scored and 47 RBI. Ramirez managed just .249/.291/.426 with 59 runs and 53 RBI. Advanced metrics labelled both players as terrible defenders this season (Sandoval at least has a history of solid defense). Undoubtedly, the pair was expected to produce about twice as many runs with passable defense. Had they performed to those expectations, Boston’s 6.5 game deficit in the Wild Card race could be a lead.
- Boston has three potential candidates to man first base in 2016, writes Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald. The club plans to train Ramirez at the position after he failed to adjust to the outfield. Undoubtedly, Red Sox personnel hope first base can help Ramirez to stay healthy. The other internal option is Travis Shaw. He’s done enough to earn another look after hitting .282/.348/.511 with 11 home runs over 210 plate appearances. Shaw, 25, was never a highly touted prospect. The team may prefer to use him as depth. If they’re uncomfortable with Ramirez and Shaw, they could always dig into the coffers for Chris Davis. Personally, I expect any big free agent investments to be in the rotation.
- The Phillies have their own first base conundrum to solve, writes Jake Kaplan of the Philadelphia Inquirer. They anticipate an influx of talent next season, but first base will probably remain a time share between Ryan Howard and Darin Ruf. Howard will be in the final guaranteed season of a five-year, $125MM extension. Previous attempts to swap him to the junior circuit have turned up zero trading partners. Howard still hits well against right-handed pitchers while Ruf handles southpaws with aplomb. The platoon has combined for about -1 WAR this season, but they’ve also bashed a combined 33 home runs with 78 runs and 108 RBI in 766 plate appearances. That’s roughly a third of the team’s run production. Clearly, they can have some value to the club so long as they avoid same-handed pitchers.
- Nationals shortstop Ian Desmond is frustrated with his 2015 season, he tells Bill Ladson of MLB.com. Desmond, 30, is by far the top shortstop entering free agency, but he’s coming off his first below average offense campaign since 2011. Desmond hit just .232/.286/.382 on the year. When asked if he would accept a qualifying offer, Desmond hinted it was possible.
Forget Davis. Boras will think his 200k’s a year is worth well over 100m. I’d rather go with a rotation of Ramirez/Shaw and then have Holt play there some than waste 100m+ on Davis. Bad enough they threw away that much on Sandoval, please don’t compound the mistakes.
I really don’t mind a player who strikes out a lot. It’s better than going up there and trying to get a hit on the first pitch, at minimum you’ve forced the pitcher to throw 3 pitches and often more. Wearing down pitchers is a strategy that has worked well for the Sox. Also if you look at the season stats for all players with 195 strikeouts or more in a season then you’ll see that 12 of them had seasons with OPS+ of over 110 and only 3 had under 100.
That said, yes, let’s avoid opening the checkbook to improve the offense. If Hanley can’t be traded then give him a shot at first, it’s the traditional spot for lousy defenders. If he is traded then give Shaw his shot. If he doesn’t work out after a couple of months then look to the farm or who’s on the market.
Giving Sandoval that 100m deal was the ultimate in buying nothing but hype and ignoring the fact his mediocre career was in a downward trajectory and had been for the last 3-4 seasons, exactly like BJ Upton’s was. Teams exactly what they deserve when they throw away large amounts of money on those kinds of players and ignore nothing but hype.
With Davis? There is *a little* bit of a chance some team *might* get a couple seasons of production out of him over 4-5 seasons, but it’s not worth the 100-125m outlay of cash and probable .300-325 obp that will come with it. Double that for a team that has signed JD Drew, John Lackey, Sandoval and Ramirez lately to FA deals lately with only Lackey giving (so far) a season and a half of respectability out of the lot.
The team, if a gamble is to be taken, should go for a starter with 1b fairly covered internally by a poor FA signee already and Shaw/Holt and Sam Travis from the farm system in probably another year to year and a half, who has gotten little media attention.
It’ll be an entertaining winter hearing Boras give his 12 reasons why Chris Davis is greater than Lou Gehrig pitch.
A rotation of Ramirez/Shaw/Holt sounds better than the rotation you guys have throwing pitches this season. Bwahahaha sorry, too easy.
It’s well past time of making fun of the early season rotation problems Boston had. I’d be more worried about a few other teams and age issues they have than the rotation and depth Boston has now and next season and beyond.
Eduardo Rodriquez, henry Owens have pretty well shown they belong in a MLB rotation the last 2 months. Owens just now went 7 2/3 of 3 hit ball shut out innings. He’s done a really good job this year as a 23 year old kid, as has fellow 22yo Rodriquez. They were not among the disastrous rotation the 1st half of the season and will be next year.
We’ll see if Kelly is able to continue that 8 game win streak he was on after he was shut down for the 2015 season after on a roll. See if it was a new person, more willing to go to his power fb and use his off speed less, or go back to his old ways or not that made him unreliable as a starter prior.
Miley is the solid one, who can be counted on to give innings every time he shows up. Every team needs that. Then there is Bucholz who was excellent after April until getting hurt (again) in late July.
Point is. Add an ace to this, or just another front end type veteran and this bunch (as of “right now”, not prior to mid season), is as good as any in the AL east, other than Toronto. Not to mention? This bunch isn’t ancient.
Actually, Kelly started pitching better this season when he stopped trying to consistently blow guys away with 98 MPH fastballs and instead changed speeds more with his fastball sitting 94-95 and getting it up to 98 or so when he had two strikes on a guy to try to put him away. Also, in addition to mixing up his fastball velocity, he startsusing his off speed more. Each time out I have seen Owens improve. Rodriguez has shown signs of being a future number 1. He has 9 wins right now on the season and if he manages to get one more win then he will be the first RedSox rookie to win 10 games since Daisuke Matsuzaka. Miley, I agree with you, is just very solid. You know you are going to get 6 or 7 innings 3 or 4 runs every time out and he has an arm that just eats innings. I likr him as my 3rd starter and love him as my 4th or 5th. Bucholtz has shown over the years that he can pitch like an ace. Unfortunately he tends to get bitten by the injury bug every year. Based upon the fact his option is only 13 million next year and knowing his upside, I think it is a given that his club option is exercised if he passes a physical. Brian Johnson is an interesting guy too. He is a guy who didn’t make the most of his little opportunity in the majors this year and was hurt. But he pitched well in Pawtucket, the RedSox are high on him and will only be 24 or 25 next season. He is a rotation option but I think given the fact of what happened this year with him and how Owens and Rodriguez pitched this year in addition to guys who are a given to make the team such as Bucholtz and Porcello, he is viewed to a lesser extent as an option. Porcello is another guy that you did not address. Just signed this big deal worth 20 million next year and is entering his age 27 season. But he was terrible all of this year except for his last starts since coming off of the DL. Given how his season has gone and his contract, it makes no sense to trade him at this poiny where his value is at an all time low. I think next year he can redeem himself as a solid number three.
Wheoever goes anywhere near Chris Davis in free agency is going to regret it. I assume that the Sox front office will acknowledge that Sandoval and Ramirez are big enough useless money sinks and keep away.
Davis to Boston doesn’t make sense for a number of reasons. First, unless the team can move Ramirez and his contract there’s nowhere for Davis to play. It’s highly doubtful they move one of the young OF and put Davis in RF. Plus, Shaw seems to be completely capable and now you’ve stranded him in Pawtucket unless you trade him. Second, signing Davis doesn’t help them repair the rotation. The Sox have already $183 mil on the books for 2016 and still have to go to arbitration with Kelly, Tazawa, Ogando, Ross and Machi. If you pile on another $20 mil for Davis and exercise Buchholz’ option the payroll is at least $220-225 mil and you still haven’t changed the rotation to start the season.