Yankees lefty CC Sabathia will not need surgery and hopes to limit his absence to an approximately two-week layoff, Bryan Hoch of MLB.com reports (Twitter links). It had been feared that his balky right knee could end his season. The southpaw also said that he’d be amenable to working in relief when he comes back, if requested, saying he is open to “helping the team any way I can.”
- This August has apparently been heavy on waiver claims, with one general manager telling Peter Gammons of GammonsDaily.com that he’s never seen this many claims made. “The Orioles seemingly claim everyone,” said the unnamed GM. Of course, Baltimore has yet to pull off any deals this month (or end up being awarded any claimed contracts).
- The Red Sox head towards 2016 as “almost an entirely blank slate,” writes Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald. Many pieces of next year’s roster remain to be determined by new president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, he explains, to say nothing of the front office and coaching staff.
- One interesting decision for the Red Sox has been somewhat surprisingly underplayed thus far, says Rob Bradford of WEEI.com, who writes that the team faces a difficult decision on Clay Buchholz and his $13MM option. It’s entirely unclear what Dombrowski thinks, of course, and elbow issues have the remainder of the season in question for the righty. Buchholz has been quite good this year, of course, but isn’t set to resume a throwing program for another week. Even if he doesn’t return to the hill this year, says Bradford, that option still seems like a reasonable risk. The 30-year-old, meanwhile, denies that he views a return as necessary for his own contract situation. “I’ve been assured by a couple of different doctors that if the Red Sox or any other team needed any kind of word on how they should view it they would definitely call and talk to whomever they need to talk to just to reassure I’m 100 percent healthy even without throwing,” he said. “Time is the best doctor for this sort of thing from the information I gathered from Dr. Andrews. What I’m looking to do is just start playing catch.”
- Especially after a strong recent run, righty Joe Kelly remains an “intriguing” (albeit uncertain) piece for the Red Sox, writes Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. Senior club analyst Tom Tippett rightly noted recently at the SaberSeminar in Boston that evaluations of trades are always changing. In this case, he said, “if we can figure out how to turn Joe Kelly into a number two or three starter with all those great tools he has, it might look very good a few years from now.”
- Another major Red Sox question mark, of course, is Hanley Ramirez. Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe argues that Ramirez should not be considered an option at first base, arguing that he either needs to improve in left field or hit the trade block. But sources tell Cafardo that Ramirez has not put in extra work on his outfield defense since Spring Training, though there appears to be consideration regarding injuries and wear and tear that account for that to some extent. Of course, the trade route doesn’t look terribly promising either, though Cafardo suggests that some kind of bad contract swap could be explored.
- Interestingly, though Ramirez was spotted today working with a first baseman’s mitt and receiving instruction from David Ortiz and coach Brian Butterfield, Lauber tweets. Needless to say, it’s far too soon to reach any conclusions even as to what kinds of possibilities the club could pursue, underscoring the uncertainty that Lauber highlighted in the above-linked piece.
- If you’re interested in a discussion of all those moving pieces, be sure to check out last week’s MLBTR Podcast with Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald, who did a nice job of setting up the fascinating offseason to come.
Am I the only one still shocked the Sox haven’t tried Joe Kelly as the closer/SU yet?
As for Hanley, just put him at 1B until Ortiz retires.
Agreed on Kelly. Ether put Hanley at First or Third, which ever they/he thinks will go better, then have Sandivol play the other.
The Red Sox could potentially have the next Wade Davis or Dellin Betances. And yet they insist on having Kelly start.
Can agree with you there, then he’s also got 4 plus pitches (FB, CB, Change and slider) giving him the potential tools to be a top end starter.
It’s really a conundrum with him and they are giving him a lot of rope before giving up. Davis was given many chances to start also, but he doesn’t have as many plus pieces (pitches) as Kelly even. The problems with him, IMO are in his selection and in his head. There is an article… Thinking on WEEI either today, maybe yesterday that goes into detail with regards to it.
When he was with the Cards, he didn’t make his own pitching calls, he ALWAYS went with Molina’s 1st selection. In Boston, he was not doing that. Hanahan was hurt half the season, he must have had trust issues with 2, basically rookie catchers in Swihart and leon (story didn’t go into detail there) and he was making his own pitch selections. He was hit hard.
Now he’s letting Hanahan call pitches and going with his 1st choice every time and his last 4 starts have been pretty good.
Kelly doesn’t have four plus pitches, no matter how good they occasionally flash. He’s never had a FIP below 4.00 in four MLB seasons or had a FIP under 3.75 in a full minor league season. Players with four plus pitches don’t have such mediocre results in 6+ seasons. His curve and slider have continually been below average pitches. He’d be better off moving to the bullpen, scraping his breaking pitches and going primarily two seamer and change. I think he would have a good chance to be a high leverage reliever if he did.
I think you got a bum scouting report if it read four plus pitches. His fastball is the only pitch that really has the potential to be a real plus pitch and he’s ever even been able to generate a lot of swing a miss with it. He is what he is, long man/spot starter.
This will be the last time every waste time with a reply on you:
You yourself were hyping how good Joe kelly was, before the trade to Boston and how good his secondary pitches are. Why not get off that high horse you can’t get off of and see that there are 29 other teams in the league, other than ones which play in St Louis?
And he was never anything more than a #5 starter with the Cardinals, not sure why what he did there would be helpful.
Kelly’s 5-0 with an era of 3.03 over the last month. I doubt they’re looking to move him out of the rotation right now.
Ortiz is telling Ramirez.. “look man.. If I can play that position, anyone can do it”.
Think DD will be happy with 1B being played as well as Ortiz does it?
Not to mention, Ortiz played it a couple days back in June, when Napoli couldn’t buy a hit that month and Ortiz started complaining that his knees were hurting too much to play it on day 3.
I don’t really think he’s the absolute worst 1b have seen the last few years when he’s out there (think Adam Dunn, Michael Morse), but then you combine his WAY below average D, his balky knees and ankles? He has no business playing 1b more than 20 +/- games a year.
“The Orioles seemingly claim everyone,” said the unnamed GM. Of course, Baltimore has yet to pull off any deals this month (or end up being awarded any claimed contracts).
This strategy of DD is apparently about as effective as Showalter’s shift!
SMH
These two (DD and Buck) deserve each other.
That’s not generally why teams make waiver claims. It’s more commonly to block teams behind them on the priority list. O’s must think the Yanks and Blue Jays (and others) are going to be active, so they’re just using their leverage to stop it.
And this leverage is helping the O’s in the win column?
I know it’s not exactly helping against the Royals tonight that’s for sure.
It would help his Knees if he joined Weight Watchers!
Hanley is like the anti- Brock Holt. He fails at every position he “tries”.
There isn’t enough time for Buchholz to build up his arm strength to be a starter this season. How about trying him at closer or setup man when he comes back? He can’t be worse than what they have.
I don’t think he would be amicable to that at all since it would essentially guarantee they wouldn’t pick up his option and it would be a serious detriment on his FA stock.
The best way CC can help the Yanks is by sitting out the rest of the season.
That 13 million option is definitely a bummer. He doesn’t really deserve it and yet it’s low enough that they’ll probably take the flier.
Sox and Buch will work out a 2 year deal for about 18M.