FoxSports.com's Ken Rosenthal tweets that the Red Sox have signed Joe Nelson to a minor league deal. WEEI's Alex Speier says Nelson will make $735K if he makes the team.
Nelson pitched for Tampa Bay in 2009, posting a 4.02 ERA in 40.3 innings. The 35-year-old righty will have to earn a shot at the big club out of spring training, and his walk rate will have to improve over 2009 (27 in those 40.3 innings) to stick with Boston.
I wonder what happens if he makes the team…A possible trade of Manny Delcarmen?
More of the same for Theo: throwing small money at a bunch of underwhelming FAs and hoping they can flesh out a decent bullpen. When are we gonna see the Sox make some semi-big to big name FA acquisitions in the ‘pen?
You’re looking at the market like it’s still 2006. Low risk contracts are the name of the game these days. Besides, who’s really out there that you’d even want in a middle relief capacity (other than maybe Calero)?
He really doesn’t need to. Spending big money for a pitcher out of the pen is very risky. See Brian Fuentes and K-Rod as just a couple of examples.
They’re pen is fine the way it is. Bard, Ramirez, Oki and Paps make for a nice backend off the bullpen. Nice, low risk signing by Theo here.
“throwing small money at a bunch of underwhelming FAs and hoping they can flesh out a decent bullpen”
Erm.. thats pretty much what every team does.
Who exactly would you consider as a ‘semi-big to big’ FA relief pitcher?
I was hoping that the yankees did that last year, instead of just getting 25 year old out of AAA that noone had ever heard of. Never happens, there just aren’t guys who fit a big name relief pitcher that isn’t a closer.
I like how Theo is stockpiling all these potentially good arms to duke it out for the last two bullpen spots.
Teams who actually need the pitchers hate it though.
alot of them will be available after Spring Training though
it’s not like there is a shortage of cheap relievers with upside on the market, even at this stage, anyway.
it’s not like other teams couldn’t sign these guys…
Yea – cause that seemed to work for you last year LMFAO
i think the red sox needs another lefty. what do yall think
Depends on how much faith they have in Dustin Richardson being able to fill that role
i think they’ll be fine. see redsox4120’s comment. theo already signed shouse to a minor league deal, they’re looking at oscar villarreal (link to boston.redsox.mlb.com) and i’m pretty sure francona said he’s fine with the ‘pen as is (including whoever wins the spot or two remaining in spring training). plus they’ve already come out and said they’re not going to carry an additional lefty if they don’t need one.
I read somewhere that they actually like a couple of their righties against lefties–something about reverse splits. I’ll try to find the article.
Exactly what I was thinking.
the red sox needs a good lefty becuase every team in the east has a good left handed bat. in the yankees case i would rather have tex bat fron the right side, tb carl, pena, toronto adam lind, os markakis.
Delcarmen has historically been very good vs. LHP – .198/.297/.299 – more than 100 of OPS lower versus them than RH hitters
Yeah, plus Oki is a pretty reliable lefty. I think with those two, plus hopefully someone proving themselves in Spring Training, the bullpen should be fine.
They have a darn good lefty reliever prospect in Dustin Richardson. He has 96 K’s in 74 innings spread across AA and AAA last year.
link to thebaseballcube.com
He also had massive control issues…Oki should be there lefty.
Where?
Except that Oki isn’t a lefty specialist, he is a pure middle reliever who happens to be a lefty. Also the Sox like to have 2 lefties in the pen ever since they got Oki.
Yea, I didn’t realize we were talking about just a lefty specialist.
Not a problem. The way I see it, that’s all that the Sox need for their bullpen though. It’s certainly weaker than the end of last season, but they have a solid rotation and MDC can handle lefties if they need to go another route with the last bullpen spot.
oki is the only proven one
Anybody else remember his stint with the World Championship winning 2004 Red Sox?
I think Theo is counting on one of Nelson, Bowden, Tazawa, or Richardson to step up and be a solid bullpen guy. Otherwise it’s pretty well set. And without Penny and Smoltz there shouldn’t be nearly as many bullpen innings to eat.
Theo typically doesn’t like giving out long sure money contracts to middle relievers. So he signs a bunch of guys who have had a history of at some point having success. So of Achinson, Shouse, Nelson, he’s gambling at least one of them will be effective.
I see either Richardson or Shouse breaking camp with the Sox as their second lefty. Tazawa needs time in the minors, they want to keep Bowden stretched out as a starter in case of injuries, Atchison and Nelson are just AAA depth to have OK arms to bring up in the event of injuries to the bullpen or if they trade Del Carmen.
2 years ago with the Marlins, he pitched 2 games in the final weekend that knocked out the Mets. 6 up 6 down. I liked the way he was throwing then. Good signing, I like it.
Good Luck with that – you’ll need it