Pitcher Tim Wakefield told John A. Torres of Florida Today that while his preference is to pitch for the Red Sox in 2012, he will consider retirement. The knuckleballer has also received interest from a number of teams and won't necessarily rule out pitching for another club besides Boston next season.
“There have been a number of clubs who have called, who have an interest in signing me but I’m kind of just weighing my options right now,” the 45-year-old said. “I think I can be a valuable asset to them as an insurance policy, you know a fifth or sixth starter or if something doesn’t pan out for some of the guys they have already penciled in to the rotation. You know that’s kind of been my job these last two years; I don’t have a problem doing that.”
Earlier this month, Red Sox skipper Bobby Valentine said that he "couldn't imagine" Wakefield coming in to Spring Training and competing for a job. General Manager Ben Cherington has also said that he doesn't expect Wakefield to be with the team in 2012.
In his 6 year career with Red Sox, Josh Beckett made 4 official trips to the DL and logged 115 days on the DL.
In his 5 year career, Clay Buchholz has made 4 official trips to the DL and logged a total of 114 days.
That seems like a lot of DL time to me.
In the last month of the 2011 season, the following Red Sox pitchers made starts:
Lester (6)
Lackey (5)
Beckett (4)
Wakefield (4)
Bedard (3)
Weiland (3)
Miller (2)
And as for Bard, I’ll believe it when I see it. The Sox tried to stretch out Papelbon, and that really didn’t work. They tried to stretch out Aceves, and he can only make it 5 or 6 innings at best. They don’t really have a good track record for converting relievers to starters. In fact, I can’t even think of one in recent years, but I could be wrong.
“My comment about Wake was ONLY speaking to the fact that I think he deserves to be in that list of depth guys if he wants that’s all…”
I agree.
“not some misconception of our rotations health based on
an entirely different season.”
Not by season, but by career. And health certainly plays a role in determining a rotation, and so it would follow that detrimental health would have a detrimental impact on rotation formation. I don’t think it’s that far beyond the scope of rotation formation to include health as a major factor in such a determination. If you want to ignore it, fine. I won’t top you.
Yeah except most of Buc’s and Becketts DL time came from one season. The rest of their DL time was sporadic and never stopped them from making their starts. Beckett had 2010 where he racked up injury time and Bucs mostly came last season. Aside from that they have mostly typical DL records. Buc was the major injury last year, and a lack of solid veteran pitching depth lead to that crazy September of starting pitching. Bard is not a guranteed thing but he is one of the leagues better relievers and has three good pitches two of them are plus, so its not a stretch to think he will transition well. He was a successful starter back in his college days, and he has matured since then. Papelbon was different. Papelbon was considered for starting based off of concerns his arm couldn’t handle multiple days in a row as a reliever, and they thought one outing every five might help him stay fresh. Something like loose joints or something as I remember. If Bard is given the chance I firmly believe he could be better than CJ Wilson, but we will have to see. The team is coming back rededicated, if we are healthy we are going to be more than fine.