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.
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.