Here’s the latest from around the AL East…
- The Red Sox have given Hanley Ramirez permission to begin his offseason rehab process at his home in Fort Lauderdale, which ESPN Boston’s Gordon Edes feels is a curious and perhaps telling move from the team. While Ramirez has been shut down for 2015 due to a shoulder injury, Edes notes that the likes of Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, Koji Uehara and Junichi Tazawa all remained with the club despite being shut down with past and current injuries in order to keep supporting their teammates. It could just be a case of bad optics, or it could be a hint that the Red Sox don’t have Ramirez in their future plans and will try to trade him this winter.
- The Red Sox aren’t missing Jacoby Ellsbury given the wealth of young outfield talent on the roster, Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald writes. “Ellsbury was not viewed by the Red Sox as a must-sign,” Silverman said, as the outfielder went on to sign a seven-year, $153MM free agent deal with the Yankees. Given how Ellsbury has struggled this year, it’s no surprise the Sox would prefer to look to the future with Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Rusney Castillo.
- Some teams are already inquiring if Orioles pitching coach Dave Wallace will be available this winter, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko reports. Wallace and the rest of the O’s coaching staff are still without contracts for 2016, though executive VP of baseball operations Dan Duquette recently told Kubatko that the club was in “the process” of getting those deals worked out. The highly-regarded Wallace has been Baltimore’s pitching coach for two seasons and Kubatko speculates that if he were to leave, bullpen coach Dom Chiti could leave as well since the two are good friends.
- Matt Moore tells Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times that he feels he’s turned a bit of a corner in his recovery from Tommy John surgery and should be fully back to normal by Spring Training. Moore badly struggled in his first six starts back and was demoted to the minors, though since returning to the Rays he has pitched better, posting a 3.86 ERA and a 22-to-5 K/BB rate over his last 23 1/3 innings.
- The Yankees will replace Dave Miley as the manager of their Triple-A affiliate, George A. King III of the New York Post reports. Miley, who managed the Reds from 2003-05, just completed his 10th season managing the Yankees’ Triple-A team.
Interestingly 6 or 7 more wins and the Red Sox would have had a shot at a wild card spot. They seem to be doing fine without HanRam.
Yea had they stopped playing Napoli,Victrino and a couple others, and sent down Kelly eariler, they probably would have a shot.
There was a lot of people calling for the team to just release Napoli, Masterson and Victorino in June, rather than trying to get any team to pay nothing more than 1-2m of what was left of their salaries and bring up some of the kid’s and gives them a chance, fail or not. It didn’t matter really then. The team wasn’t going to win then anyway and was clearly out of the picture with that trio.
Johnson was ready by that time to pitch at the MLB level and could have stepped right in. Had the team gone ahead and just gotten rid of Napoli, Possibly Shaw would have been given a chance earlier.
Lot of “if’s” there, tho shows sticking with failing veterans to try to save a dime doesn’t work and possibly hurt them in the end in the wild card chase.
Agreed. There was no excuse to be playing De azia and Napoli to try to save a dime.
It wasn’t strictly about saving a dime in Napoli’s case. Sticking with him as long as they did was a mistake, but he’s a popular clubhouse figure who played a major role in their 2013 World Series. Sending him away without giving him a shot could’ve had just as disastrous consequences.
Clubhouse figures don’t win games and this team didn’t have a bad clubhouse atmosphere anyway. Not even with Hanley around, who was only lackadaisical in his approach to every thing, not any kind of trouble maker.
Napoli was a drag on the team. They were trying to bring his trade value up by constantly playing him, hoping his terrible numbers would improve, nearly the same with Victorino, who kept getting hurt and Masterson who was just awful.
Brian Johnson was nearly ready at the start on the season at AAA and was ready just before the AS break, he finally hurt his elbow in August, tho was an obvious replacement for Masterson and they abysmal results he gave.
I agree that clubhouse figures don’t win games, but they could have had a bad clubhouse atmosphere if they gave up on a well liked veteran early on.
I’m not saying it was the right move, I just don’t think it was strictly tied to money.
Hanley has $68.2M and three years left with a fourth year vesting option of $22Mil. I wonder if the Red Sox would pay a $27mil portion of his salary to move him over the winter for the Braves Swisher, Bourn or Maybin. If so he would be a possible LF option for the Braves.
I think they would do that deal or some variation close to that in a heart beat.
Doesn’t make sense. Hanley is having a terrible year, but he still has much more upside than any of those three. Plus the Sox don’t really need another outfielder. They need a starting first baseman, which rules Swisher out. When you take the salary of the returning player into consideration, the Sox would be paying way too much money for pretty much nothing.
Besides that, it doesn’t make sense from the Braves’ perspective. Hanley is not a LF option and shouldn’t be in the NL anymore.
Pretty bad trade for the Sox. Hanley can’t play LF but seems more confident that he can play first. He also could DH after Ortiz retires which could be a year or two more. Hanley was doing really well on the offesnive side before running into the wall in May. Hanley has way more upside then those guys and Maybin would be a waste on the Sox since we have three really good starting OF, a good back up, and several stud prospects in the minors.
Why would the Braves do that? Hanle is a negative WAR player when he has to play the field. The Braves would be stuck for nearly 40 million over the next 4 years for that. They would be better off sticking with the players they have and hope for improvement. If any of the three play well next year then they at least would be able to unload part of the salary near the deadline.
Hanley’s bat still carries some level of value for sure, but he had a pretty down year, should seriously be a DH which limits him to the AL, and his contract is still pretty considerably sized. I wonder how much Boston would really expect to get in return, and if it’d even be worth it. Will be interesting to follow.
Regardless of whether Hanley asked to rehab at home, or the Red Sox asked him to rehab at home – it’s not a good look.
I would trade for Ramirez, who knows maybe he still has something i mean any team could get him cheap.