The Red Sox and right-hander Dinelson Lamet are in agreement on a minor league contract, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. The Rockies designated Lamet for assignment on June 17 and released him a week later.
It’s been a tough season for the 30-year-old Lamet, who missed multiple weeks due to a back injury and has been hit hard when healthy enough to take the mound. The 6’3″ righty pitched 25 2/3 innings with Colorado but was tattooed for 33 earned runs on 38 hits and a dismal 22 walks in that time. Lamet’s 31 strikeouts in those 25 2/3 frames look like a strong number, but because of all the walks and long innings, he’s actually only fanned 23.1% of his opponents — well below his career mark of 30.2%. His 16.4% walk rate, meanwhile, is a career-high mark.
Once one of the top pitchers in the National League, Lamet has endured a precipitous decline in recent seasons. The righty showed enormous strikeout potential early in his career with the Padres, but Tommy John surgery wiped out his 2018 season. He had a solid return in 2019 and looked to be taking his game to new heights in 2020, when he posted a 2.09 ERA, 34.8% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate in 69 innings during the shortened 2020 season — good for a fourth-place finish in NL Cy Young voting.
Lamet entered the 2021 season locked into San Diego’s rotation, but forearm injuries limited him to 47 innings with a pedestrian 4.40 ERA. He’s struggled to get back on track. In 58 frames between the Padres, Brewers and Rockies over the past two seasons, he’s yielded a grim 8.53 ERA. Lamet’s fastball, which averaged 97 mph in 2020, was sitting at 95 mph in this year’s 25 2/3 innings. His strikeout rate, swinging-strike rate, opponents’ chase rate, walk rate and home-run rate in 2023 are all at career-worst levels.
Obviously, the past few seasons do little to inspire confidence in a turnaround. However, the Rockies are on the hook for the remainder of Lamet’s $5MM salary, meaning the Red Sox would only owe him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the MLB roster. In other words, the minor league deal amounts to a free look at a big arm who as recently as 2021 was viewed as a potential high-end starting pitcher. At the very least, Lamet can provide rotation or bullpen depth in Triple-A, and if the Sox are able to get him back on track in a way that the Rockies weren’t able, he’ll only cost them a few hundred thousand dollars down the stretch. If not, they can move on with minimal investment in this particular dice roll.
face palm
You missed this sentence in the article:
“In other words, the minor league deal amounts to a free look at a big arm who as recently as 2021 was viewed as a potential high-end starting pitcher.”
William – If only Bloom would spend as much time and effort improving the current ML roster, right?
If only enough fans were smart enough to understand that signing a player like this doesn’t take away from considering other moves one bit, right?
Problem is, these are the only kinds of moves Bloom makes. There will be no other kinds of moves
king – You think no time or effort is spent on these minor league signings?
Or you think Bloom is 100% relying on AI to do all the work?
Speaking of AI, it would be an interesting replacement for Cora.
Fever – this is one move that conceivably could impact the MLB roster. He isn’t that far removed from being a useful pitcher. Perhaps a change of scenery, new coaches, can tease something out of him. Could even be a move to the bullpen makes an improvement ala pivetta.
For a maximum cost of 1/2 league minimum, or what, 250k-300k by the time he might get a look in a couple weeks from now, this move is fine.
GASox – I have no issue with minor league signings such as this, but I wouldn’t think Lamet gets “fixed” immediately at the ML level. Nor should they attempt to do so while they are still technically pursuing a Wild Card.
And pitchers are known to turn things around AFTER leaving the Red Sox coaching staff. Their track record for “fixing” pitchers is quite poor.
Fever: I think the Red Sox have a long-term plan to build a strong farm system and contend with a young core like the Orioles are now doing, but it takes some time. While the farm is being built, it looks like they are not trading prospects to improve the ML roster. They are also not signing free agents to deals which will block prospects. What you get is a mediocre ML team until the farm system starts producing. That’s what it looks like to me. I prefer this to the Yankees method of signing older, expensive free agents.
This seems really elementary to me. It’s very easy to understand and actually see it happening. And letting the young kids play is the only way to build a successful team for the long haul. Whether or not it works is still up in the air, but there are so many fans who are screaming for them to spend, spend, spend. An admittedly tough ask at the end of June. And also criticizing every move they make as if signing Lamet somehow prevents them from making other moves. In any case I wish every RS fan had a measured calm reaction to the obvious rebuild happening. I’m just grateful they didn’t do it the way the Astros and Braves did. Multiple 100 loss seasons are not pretty.
Snarl – Multiple last place finishes are not pretty either, yet the Sox are headed for their 3rd in 4 years.
Sox fans were calm in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. Enough is enough. Sale is the only carryover contract remaining, Dombrowski can’t be used as a scapegoat anymore.
Yanks had a rebuild in 2016, they’ve made the postseason every year since. Red Sox should have had the same approach, spend on talent and flip those players for prospects. They are a big market team, a 5-year rebuild is not necessary.
The kid GM is still napping apparently.
Bloom is an “analytics expert”, which means he knows very little about baseball, but attended Ivy League schools and knows lots of very important, influential people.
mlb – A lot of people think Bloom graduated from Yale University.
He did not, he graduated from Yale College.
Big difference.
Not that I GAF what Bloom’s educational background is, but Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. He has a bachelor’s degree from Yale.
syco – That’s like someone graduating from Stanford Junior University saying they have a degree from Stanford. It’s deceiving at best.
“Colleges and universities primarily differ in program offerings and degree types. “University” refers to larger institutions offering both undergraduate and graduate programs. “College” refers to community colleges, technical schools, and liberal arts colleges.”
Stanford Junior University is the official name of Stanford University, It’s the same university. so it definitely wouldn’t;t be deceiving. to say either. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University
Bloom has a bachelor’s degree from Yale… I know a lot of people who do, and I’ve never considered them to be “deceiving” anyone.
Again, Yale college Is undergrad, Yale University is a graduate school, if you graduate from either, you are a Yale graduate.
Undergrad arm of Yale.
yalecollege.yale.edu/
learn something new everyday
Doesn’t matter what they call themselves, doesn’t mean they turn out quality baseball people, in fact, mostly its pompous and/or narcissistic people who don’t know half of what they think they do.
In fact, moving away from grading and testing both in admissions and coursework up to college graduations support this for the Harvard, Yale, etc types.
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
Good. Rotation depth with some possible upside is always nice to have
ERA of 11, the local hot dog vender can provide that for free.
No he cannot. He would need to agree to a contract with the team and be paid at the major league minimum as per the collective bargaining agreement.
Yay! More dumpster diving by the inept Bloom! Keep that firm grip on 5th place!
Does the hot dog vendor have a 95 mph heater?
someone else made that joke and it wasn’t funny the first time…
All the horrible moves Bloom continues to make aren’t funny either, just sad at this point
Acell.. I think your comment was in response to mine. I was responding to that original comment, which appears to be deleted.
I dont expect anyone to get too excited over Lamet at this point.. but a low-risk move with upside. Clearly some major control issues this year but sometimes that stuff can be ironed-out quickly.
no one should get excited either way about this singing
Hole: literally a nothing move along with every other minor league signing and not worth getting excited about one way or the other
Keep throwing sh— against the wall and hope it sticks . Bloom must go
he def thought RSN would be intrigued
this ain’t the Pirates fan base
If we wanted to root for trash we would be Royals fans. Stop the madness set us free, sell the damn team…
Serious dumpster diving! Bloom loves putting his rubber gloves on and picking through the trash.
It’s a minor league deal. No impact to the club’s payroll or CBT at all. He is definitely a project but if they can fix his control issues, it could be a great signing. If not, they’ll just release him with no impact to the major league club whatsoever.
“Once one of the top pitchers in the National League”
This seems like a bit of a stretch.
For about a year and a half, he really was one of the best pitchers in the NL. His Tommy John surgery ruined him unfortunately.
WAS ! Chaims been nominated 4 Atlantic league executive of yr swooping up there potential players right b4 Long Island Ducks call
John Henry is the real culprit here. He hired bloom to bring costs under control. This is taking a flyer on a former ace that may or may not be fixable. No loss if it doesn’t pan out.
He had a fantastic ’20 w/ Cy votes and massive upside/potential. I think the statement is factual.
Err… @Lloydy
I really wanted this to happen last year. I felt like he still might have had some potential upside that would be useful on this team. Now I think it’s too late.
#FireBloom
I wanted him last you also. We probably won’t get anything out of him, but based on results last year with CO, he is an interesting gamble.
I know he was highly touted, but just out of curiosity, when was he “once one of the top pitchers in the National League”?
4th in Cy Young voting in 2020 with San Diego
12 starts, 69 innings, 2.09 ERA
2020 had some weird results overall
dam – We would have to ask the cardboard cutouts, they are the only ones who watched “baseball” in 2020.
Not to defend Bloom, but not every player finishes top 5 in the Cy Young award winner. The award is designed for the best pitcher that year.
Lamet was phenomenal that year and now looks nothing like that guy. I really cannot believe that Lamet is healthy.
You have to think about what he is, not what he was. If past performance meant anything Kluber would be our ace dominating the league, and Bloom would have signed Clemens and Maddox out of retirement. This is another typical flier move that means nothing and will yield nothing, so whatever, but there are far too many of these moves being made the last couple of years to patch things up for a last place team instead of solving obvious problems all over the place.
I am well aware that teams need to pick out of the trash bin to patch things for a while or replenish depth. I am just pointing out that it shouldn’t be the building foundation for any team that has any aspirations of competing. The eye should be on solving issues and upgrading. My suspicion is that the front office did not have any confidence in competing again this year which would explain a great many moves rather than trying to figure out the inexplicably bad moves one after another if they genuinely thought they had a contender.
I would rather believe they are simply lying to fans to sell tickets and have a plan at some point to reemerge as a relevant team by losing enough to draft well. I don’t want to believe the Red Sox are being so incompetently run. It’s better they are used car salesman than buffoons.
William – In all fairness to Kluber, he WAS our Opening Day starter this year.
Heheheheheh …
Fenway – There would be a lot more starting pitchers with Top 5 Cy finishes if just 12 games or 69 innings was the norm.
Sorry, nothing in 2020 counts.
Yeah, 2020 shouldn’t count for anybody.
Henry has no interest in competing it cost too much! As long as he can get enough casual fans to buy into his lies that the plan is working it will continue! Bloom is just the front man to absorb the blame when the fans wake up to the reality of monumental failure!
Bloom is building the Red Sox through the farm system….like the Rays which is where Bloom came from. It takes time and the difference will be that the Red Sox will be able to retain their good players, unlike the Rays who can’t afford to. I prefer this approach as opposed to signing older free agents to long, expensive deals only to see them go on the IL of underperform. The Orioles and Rays, for example, have built through the farm system and are outperforming the Yankees with their expensive free agent signings.
or underperform
I hope they sell in a couple of weeks.
The problem is that their minor league system does not have enough quality pitching to build the next Rays team. They have some interesting offensive prospects for sure, but their pitching prospects are few and far between. Mata & Drohan might make it, but the rest have all taken two steps back this year. They’ll need some of their low-A and A ball pitchers to develop if this team has any chance of becoming the next Rays or even Orioles team where the pipeline of real prospects seems endless.
Dorothy: I think you draft the best player available when you pick. They can eventually trade from what they have excess in the farm system for what they need. For example, the Orioles should be trading from their excess middle infielders for pitching now. The Cubs built from the farm system and went out and signed Jon Lester and traded for Aroldis Chapman. I am not too worried about this. It will take time. Bloom has only had 3 drafts so far.
In all honesty, hoping that Bloom is done drafting after this one.
Red Sox have one great prospect and a bunch of meh to awful prospects. If Bloom is building the team through the farm system he is failing even worse that he has at the major league level.
Yes, other than Mayer the Red Sox don’t have one single prospect graded higher than “neh” and the rest are awful.
Very astute analysis.
Hyperbole is fun!
Meh. If you can’t even type in the word …
Name a Red Sox prospect other than Mayer that is graded 60 or higher.
60 = above average or NOT meh on scouting scale.
The Red Sox farm system ranked 16th or meh on MLB.com.
So please, either bring receipts or sit down.
BaseballisLife: No one said the Red Sox have a great farm system, only that they are working on it. Agree they have a middle-of-the-pack farm system as of now.
After the draft last year the Red Sox farm system was ranked 11th. We had reason for hope. They are regressing now. mlb.com/news/farm-system-rankings-2022-midseason
BaseballisLife: I think the farm system is in good shape. The regression in ranking is probably due to the graduation of Casas, Bello, Duran, Wong, Winckowski and any others not coming to mind now.
Casas was the only one of those guys that was still a prospect at that time. If one guy graduating knocks the farm system that far down the rankings, what does that say about the system?
BasebalisLife: Not sure what is going on with the rankings, but I like the players Bloom has been adding to the farm system.
Ditto in Detroit.
The owner, Chris Illich, mutli-billionaire, seems to have Phineas Taylor Barnum as his role model and hero.
He demonstrates BY THE MINUTE, what he really thinks of me and the other Tiger fans.
IF this wasn’t baseball and IF I wasn’t born in Detroit…..
I would NOT BE A CUSTOMER.
The Illiches are very clearly taking advantage of thier MONOPOLY situation to take advantage of all of those people.
Sad.
Sad because these are types of.people the country is counting on for thier integrity and…..
We get this.
I don’t see how that is true since he went over the cap to come in last and is pushing the cap to come in last. This is a badly put together team with so many holes everywhere that a baseball person would never have attempted it. So many guys are playing out of position, and they wonder why the fielding is below MLB expectations? This was surprising?
The starting rotation never had a prayer of being consistent or exceptional, and we emptied a terrible bullpen from the previous year to fill that rotation out. We basically experimented with our rotation by adding bullpen arms, but what you ended up with was a weak rotation and a paper-thin bullpen because the entire front end of it is terrible. There are no answers from the 5th inning until the 8th inning starts, and what is worthwhile using would be burned out entirely if used as much as had been needed. The result is you need to either rotate bad arms up, or over pitch bad pitchers. How bad is it? ORT IS STILL ON THE TEAM AND BEING USED.
I am sorry, but 100 years have shown that last place Red Sox teams throughout history have put up numbers at Fenway. A team, any team, playing in Fenway will hit for a higher average, hit more doubles, and generally end a season with respectable numbers. This whole thing about our lineup being good is laughable. It is a middle tier lineup, with a weak back end, and puts the fear into exactly no one. If you do not have a solid rotation, a solid bullpen, a good offense, hit for a lot of power, or play defense your odds of coming in last are really high. Most teams don’t have all 5 things I listed, but a real good team absolutely has 3 or more usually.
I can’t say I am disappointed by this year, because I picked us to come in last, but I am disappointed that there are so many issues with this team at the moment that no one could possibly fix them without a complete tear down resulting in years of waiting, a massive Mets like spending binge which we would never see, or abandoning our attempt to build a great minor league system in the hopes of landing some talent to upgrade a few of the 10 or more black holes on this roster.
My humble opinion is that the team stinks. It is just unsavable in its current form. Don’t give me the division is too tough either. The team exists in reality, and the reality is that 4 other teams in our division are far superior today, and potentially will be better going forward. If we had a budget like Tampa (a team with no money yet insanely better, and competing year after year with no budget) I would say you need to expect lean years in the AL east. We aren’t. We have enough money to get talent, invest in scouting, sign high level prospects, absorb mistakes, and keep in house talent as it peaks. In what scenario outside of terrible decision making does a big budget team like the Red Sox come in last place so often? We have 5 last place finishes in the last decade. That is actually harder to do statistically for a big budget team than make the wild card nearly every year. Astounding.
If the Red Sox are serious about building their team through their farm system, they should find all of the key pitching development staff from the Cleveland organization, offer them a promotion (so they can hire them) and double their salaries. While scouting is important, there are teams like Cleveland who can take arm talent and turn it into above average major league pitching. The Rays and Dodgers do this as well. They have a defined process that develops this talent consistently throughout all levels of their minor league system; something Boston truly lacks at this time. If you can’t beat them, buy them!
Historically we are the worst franchise in baseball at drafting, developing, and getting gains from pitchers. Look it up. You can put all our drafting and development achievements in pitching on a business card in bold print. I am not talking about this decade, or half century either. EVER. It’s abysmal.
You can’t buy much lower than that…
Finally, somebody gets it!
Another player that perfectly fits Cora’s desires.
Why?
Meanwhile should start the sentence, it can’t be in the middle
@zbock – Meanwhile can either start a sentence or be in the middle of a sentence, is most cases after a semi-colon. Let’s give it a shot:
“MLBTR fans read these articles for baseball education and entertainment; meanwhile, zbock8 peruses the site for grammatical errors and proper English.”
There’s nothing wrong with doing that. Writing in proper English with good grammar and punctuation is important. Had the writer crafted his sentence in the manner zblock suggests, or the way you suggest, he probably wouldn’t have commented.
Zbock, if you paid for the writing on the site you might actually have room to complain; meanwhile there is no star next to your name indicating you are a paying customer.
Since when do you have to pay for a site’s content to comment on its quality? How much free content is there on the internet? Get out of here with this gatekeeping.
You can comment all you want but if you are not a paying customer its like pissing into the wind.
If only paying customers should comment, then why are we allowed to do so?
You aren’t a paying customer either BaseballIsLife, so you can butt out.
Great pickup ! He’s bosox #3 starter day1, Chaim B gone watch is on I’ve got he doesn’t finish season as GM … gota give beantown faithful sumthin to cheer bout b4 season runs out n u can only have so many Ted Williams bobblehead nites
More shopping at the Dollar Store. Dump Bloom and every player you can and start over. Time for Henry to sell the team and get an owner that wants a winning team.