The Red Sox will sign right-hander Ronald Belisario, CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman reports (via Twitter). Belisario is represented by the McNamara Baseball Group.
Belisario signed a split contract with the Rays last winter and only appeared in six big league games with the team, posting a 7.88 ERA over eight relief innings. Belisario then elected free agency after being outrighted off Tampa’s roster. Given how Boston’s bullpen has struggled this year, there’s certainly opportunity for the 32-year-old to find regular work in the Sox relief corps.
Prior to the 2015 season, Belisario held a career 3.75 ERA, 7.3 K/9 and 2.17 K/BB rate over 331 1/3 innings with the Dodgers and White Sox. He’s coming off a tough 5.56 ERA over 66 1/3 IP with Chicago in 2014, though advanced metrics indicate that Belisario was rather unlucky to post such an unsightly ERA. Belisario is a ground-ball specialist (60.9% career grounder rate), which should help him at hitter-friendly Fenway Park.
Why???
Because the bullpen outside of Tazawa and Uehara (and sometimes Ogando and Layne) is quite bad. The guy hasn’t had very good numbers lately, but there is little risk in giving him a shot when he is probably an upgrade over Barnes, Breslow, etc. I would’ve rathered Feliz, but I’m find with gambling on Belisario.
Feliz is the better option, which is why im confused on why they didn’t give him a shot.
I always laugh when I see fans and media saying gee, that player was just so unlucky that he gave up 20 hits in five innings and the opposition scored 18 runs off him. If a pitcher gives up that many hits in a certain number of innings, it isn’t he was unlucky. He just wasn’t any good, because the opposition were able to hit the ball where it couldn’t be caught. Luck has nothing to do with it. Unlucky is when a squibbler sneaks through the infield and was inches from the glove of a defender which happens maybe once a game at the most. Bloop singles are still base hits, the same as hits in the gaps display that the pitcher should be in the minors, not the majors. In the same view, I guess hitters with a .200 average are also unlucky that they can’t hit the ball and strike out 200 times a year. I guess it is just luck that the pitcher always throws the ball where they can’t hit it. lol.
Some of it is luck though. He could have given up 20 hits, but half of them could have been bloop singles or a weak infield hit that nobody could get to. That’s where advanced stats like hard hit balls and line drive rates show if a pitcher has been bad or unlucky
Desperation, but that’s what you get when you don’t have anyone fully reliable outside of Tazawa and Koji
More cr*p, when will Ben learn?
Why—his numbers don’t even warrant a sniff. Is the Sox BP that bad?
Red Sox are beyond desperate.