As the Red Sox await news on the fate of left-hander David Price, ESPN’s Buster Olney runs down the list of options for Boston in the event that Price is forced to sit out part of or all of the 2017 season (ESPN Insider subscription required and recommended). The Sox do still have five big league starters in the form of Chris Sale, Rick Porcello, Eduardo Rodriguez, Drew Pomeranz and Steven Wright, though each has come with recent injury troubles. Beyond that, the team is lacking in quality depth options, though Henry Owens, Brian Johnson, Roenis Elias and others are present in Pawtucket. Free agents such as Doug Fister, Colby Lewis and Jake Peavy are still on the market, and Jose Quintana, of course, looms on the trade market. Olney notes that the Red Sox would likely have to utilize top prospect Rafael Devers as the headliner in a theoretical Quintana deal, however.
Beyond that, the Sox could wait to see which of the Dodgers’ plethora of rotation options fails to secure a spot. Similar rotation crunches will arise organically around the league, so Boston could take a more patient approach and see which opportunities materialize as Opening Day draws nearer.
A few more notes pertaining to the game’s Eastern divisions…
- Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald writes that the Red Sox’ lack of depth has been obvious all winter and opines that the team took an unnecessary gamble by relying so internal options and not signing more depth. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski suggested to him, however, that Boston’s glut of quality big league arms made it difficult to lure depth options to sign with the Red Sox this winter. Boston couldn’t guarantee any free-agent starter a spot in its rotation and couldn’t even offer much hope of being the first line of defense against an injury. Silverman notes that trading Clay Buchholz in a salary dump could come back to haunt the Sox, but Dombrowski said that even in light of a potential Price injury, he doesn’t regret moving Buchholz when he did. “You’re not going to just hold on to somebody in case things take place later on,” he told Silverman, also adding that it’s difficult to move that much salary this time of year.
- The Nationals are trying to move Derek Norris but finding it difficult to drum up interest in the catcher at his current $4.2MM salary, writes Jorge Castillo of the Washington Post. Castillo reports that the Angels, White Sox and Brewers are all wary of paying that type of money to a catcher that slashed just .186/.255/.328 last season. As FanRag’s Jon Heyman suggested yesterday, the Nats could ultimately just release Norris, as they’d only be on the hook for one-sixth of his salary (about $688K) due to the fact that arbitration salaries aren’t fully guaranteed prior to Opening Day. As for Norris himself, he acknowledged to Castillo that his D.C. days might be numbered but said he’s simply preparing to play the 2017 season somewhere. “It doesn’t change much for me other than the fact that it may or may not be the teammates I’ll be playing with,” said Norris. “So on my end it’s control what I can control. Go out there and play my games and get ready for a season.”
- Current indications are that right-hander Robert Gsellman is the leading candidate to occupy the fifth slot in the Mets’ rotation out of Spring Training, tweets the Record’s Matt Ehalt. A source also suggested to Ehalt that righty Zack Wheeler could very well open the year on the disabled list and head to extended Spring Training to continue to build up strength after missing the past two seasons while recovering from 2015 Tommy John surgery. If Gsellman is indeed in the rotation and Wheeler in XST, that’d leave either a long relief/spot starting role or a spot in the Triple-A rotation for Seth Lugo. One can imagine that the spring performances from here on out could still dictate which of Gsellman or Lugo ultimately claims that rotation gig, though. Both were impressive in the debut campaigns last year.
No point to trade for Norris when he will be available for the min in a couple weeks or month.
He’s a good framer and he wasn’t terrible offensively before 2016. I could see a team trading for him. I doubt Washington can expect anything more than “cash considerations” of 1$ though
He is a bad framer
Lol dumb comment bro
Hes not good or bad at framing and he has also become a great thrower behind the plate in recent years
Sorry Mr Silverman, got to agree with DD on this and let’s face it hind sight is 20/20, so playing cheap shot beat reporter doesn’t work for me.
Well, in fairness to Silverman, the Herald has written about the dangers behind the Sox’ lack of rotation depth for much of the winter. Not saying you have to agree with them, but SIlverman’s not really playing the hindsight card here.
It did mean that in the case of good health, 2 starters better than Bucholz would have been in the BP instead of just 1 and cannot overlook the fact still that he still isn’t worth half the 13.5m contract option that Boston picked up for 2017 given his inconsistency and always injury concerns.
This now could mean Elias/Hendrick have more starts in 2017.
Michael Silverman is going to have a lot to think about after he reads these comments. Good show fellas.
Ehh what he says is still true. He left himself with 6 starters headed into the season. That’s not nearly enough depth these days
Wonder if Price needs TJ surgery, Mets and Red Sox have a fit: Harvey plus prospect for Devers and someone like Travis Lakins (younger pitching prospect).
Sounds light on what the Mets get, to me.
That’s not light for the Mets at all. How much do you think Harvey is really worth? He had a poor season last year and has injury concerns himself.
Basically it’s Harvey for Devers. Never. He needs to add a lot more.
He as in Sandy or Dombrowski?
Edit – Nevermind, based on your absolutely horrible proposal below (Devers And Groome And another piece for Harvey, you’re certainly talking about Dombrowski.
not a match at all, Devers is Boston’s longterm 3B. He’s the last guy they’re going to move now Moncada is gone.
You don’t replace a guy who is having TJ by giving up a big prospect just for another injury (and performance) concern.
Devers, Groome and another piece for Harvey after this season…IF Harvey returns to form.
Ridiculous, Boston is never ever doing that. Matt Harvey is not Chris Sale.
Red Sox hang up the phone pretty fast
Hahahahahahahahahaha
That’s a lot to give up for a single season of Matt Harvey.
2 seasons, but still a lot to give up
With Harvey’s injury history, they’d be lucky to get one full season between the two.
One season because the deal mentioned was next year if Harvey returns to form. So he will have one more year after this year before he becomes a free agent!
Either way it will never happen and met fans as well as Red Sox, braces, and white Sox fans seem to make the craziest offers when it comes to trades!
Chris Sale comes with recent injury troubles? That’s news to me.
The Sox got 1015 pretty damn healthy innings out of him over the last five years. Add in an a thorough evaluation by the Red Sox before the trade was finalized, and I’d say that Chris can be excused from the blanket statement that Adams made.
Yeah it was definitely a head-scratcher.
Scratched his forearm defending himself from a vicious jersey assault.
Reporters be like “Red Sox have terrible pitching depth. Here’s 9 different starting pitchers they currently have available to pitch for them. But yep, no depth.”
To be fair he did provide a distinction of “quality” depth options. Whether or not you agree there is a distinction.
But those are quality depth options. None of them are as good as David Price but they are certainly better than the depth pitching a lot of other teams have
When compared to the vast majority of teams, the Red Sox have fantastic pitching depth. I do think that Sox writers tend to live in a wee bit of a bubble …
Owens is the worst pitcher I’ve ever seen. Johnson and Elias all have issues. They have depth, but none are MLB caliber pitchers
The Red Sox signed Kyle Kendrick and Hector Velasquez. How are those not depth signings?
Kyle kendrick stinks and who on earth is hector Velazquez. Signing pitchers isnt depth just because they are pitchers
A Quintana trade is headlined by Benintendi, not Devers.
Sale is better than Quintana and it didnt require Benintendi to acquire him. Feels like Benintendi is completely off limits
Quintana probably has as much ( maybe more) surplus value on his contract though. However, I agree that Boston won’t be giving up Benintendi for Quintana
I’ve seen that one extra year of control brought up often, I just don’t get how that makes the the large gap between Quintana’s value and Sale’s suddenly even out or skew more towards Quintana. Quintana is a very good pitcher but he’s not on that Sale/Scherzer/Bumgarner/Unquestionable #1 level (Kershaw is on his own planet, lets be honest). I think Quintana is a very nice pitcher, but it’s not exactly surprising teams aren’t champing at the bit to giveaway huge prospect packages for this guy.
The Red Sox gave up Moncada who was considered the more valuable prospect at the time of the trade (plus more).
Your not serious? White Sox fans think Quintana is a number 1 ace when he really isn’t an ace rather a great number two right now with a ton of innings on his arm.
White Sox trade for Benny Baseball starts with Quintana.
Haha. Gimme some of what you’re smokin.
They aren’t giving up Benintendi. Devers and Groome gets it close.
I doubt this encourages the Red Sox to pursue Quintana. The Yankees might since now winning the division went from “almost impossible” to “unlikely.” I’d think the Red Sox would rather trade for a one year guy
I agree with this, can totally see the Yankees giving up Torres and Judge for Quintana, who’s contract and years is probably the best value in baseball right now, out of all the guys who aren’t making the minimum/are rookies. CWS might even add in Frazier and/or Abreu depending on how badly the Yankees want the division.
I don’t think that’s a risk Cashman wants to take. Only way I see them going after Quintana (if he’s still available) would be at the trade deadline and the Yankees are in first or close to first place.
The fact they were tied to Quintana earlier in the offseason makes me think it could happen. Red Sox are much more in reach without price, so one would think they’d be more motivated in those talks.
Didn’t they already have a deal in place for him but ownership shot it down? Or am I mistaken?
If that was the case, it wouldn’t surprise me to see ownership approve now if Price is out.
I think the Yankees are still a year away. A lot of young talent, but I don’t think they catch the Red Sox this year, even if Price is out. As a White Sox fan, though, you guys have some good OF prospects the Sox could really use. They desperately need hitters.
As a Sox fan, I’m not interested in Judge. He’s a younger Adam Dunn. HR or K. Torres would be a good headliner, though.
Your nuts. Wtf would the Yanks give up their best prospect and there 4th best prospect in a rebuild for Quintana who strikeouts keep dropping, his overall stuff is avg and he has a ton of innings on his arm.
ummm… his K9 the last 4 years is 7.4 – 8 – 7.7 – 7.8.
Posted career low in era & whip last year.
Just because you keep repeating something doesn’t make it true.
Thank God you don’t work in a front office with that rediculous post!!!
Not to ridiculous. I don’t believe judge will ever cut down his strikeout rate and will possibly get worse in the bigs. As a white Sox fan I would not be interested in a high strikeout prospect either.
Dombrowski shouldn’t rush into anything right now. Let the team play and see where things stand by July. A Chris Sale and Porcello rotation is still excellent. Follow by 2016 allstar Wright and Pomeranz.
I’d say if Clay Buchholz was the key to your season as this article seems to suggest then the issues for the Sox run WAAAAAYYYYYY deeper than a simple 12th starter!
Gsellman for the win. I have been rooting and following him for the past few years. Keep Lugo in the pen and see if you can pass Montero thru waivers for Minor League depth.
Colby Lewis is coming off a solid season in TEX and would likely accept a reasonable 1-year deal.
Gsellman for the fifth spot.
Lugo long-relief and spot starts
Stop it. Bucholz sucks
the sox never shouldve signed price to that contract
Lifer O’s fan here. Absolutely do not understand the “lack of pitching depth” that’s being discussed here. Reigning AL CY Young winner, best lefty in the AL and 2016 All-star Wright fronting the rotation are not good enough? Get real. You’ll still walk away with the division. Must be nice to be a Boston sports fan the past decade…
But hey, the Orioles have the best record in the ALE the past few years. That’s, uh, something…