Today’s minor transactions:
- Left-hander Ryan Buchter has cleared outright waivers, the Diamondbacks announced. Arizona designated the veteran reliever for assignment earlier in the week. Buchter was a generally productive middle innings arm between 2016-19, but he didn’t see much action in 2020 and has had a poor season in 2021. Buchter tossed 14 2/3 innings with the D-Backs, pitching to a 5.52 ERA with 13 strikeouts and walks apiece. As a player who has previously been passed through outright waivers, he has the right to reject a minor league assignment in favor of free agency.
- The Red Sox have released left-hander Bobby Poyner, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive (Twitter link). Poyner tossed 34 innings out of the Boston bullpen between 2018-19, working to a 4.50 ERA/3.68 SIERA. Boston passed him through outright waivers in January 2020, and he’d spent the 2021 campaign with Triple-A Worcester. Poyner has struggled in 13 innings at the minors’ highest level this year, allowing 15 runs on 22 hits (including six homers), two walks and three hit batsmen.
- Nationals infielder Humberto Arteaga has apparently cleared outright waivers after being designated for assignment over the weekend. Arteaga has been back in action for the Nats Triple-A affiliate in Rochester the past two nights. He’s spent most of the year with the Red Wings but was selected to the major league roster for a day last week, going 0-3 with a sacrifice fly. Arteaga was waived after the Nats acquired Alcides Escobar from the Royals to fill their vacant utility infield role.
Poor Bobby, I wish he did better.
Use vs lefty only, no invite to ST this year and don’t think he was last year either. Lots of times teams will drag along the retreads and young kids on ST road games to fill innings, I’m almost positive Poyner never appeared in any of those game types this past spring, just a forgotten type, 1 dimensional guy that is of little use when a pitcher must throw to 3 hitter minimum and said pitcher can’t get RH hitter’s out.
Toss all that to go with an upper 80’s to 90mph FB and just no point in the team keeping him around. Scarier part is the Sox AAA team has another handful of characters throwing relief they signed as so called milb depth pieces who really are no better. Worst job can remember in quite some time of bringing in people that have a chance of helping this last offseason and to me? It looked that way before the season started. MLB club cannot afford many (if any) pitching injuries, the depth isn’t there.
Johnsilver – Outstanding!! Worst job at finding people who can help!!
Pitching depth is coming in late July and early August with Houck and Sale but can guys like Richards and Perez relieve? Maybe Bloom can go get another half dozen guys to try out for the team as the season winds down!! If DD’s guys weren’t performing so well Bloom would be gone by now for a complete lack of action but since they are winning he’s not as exposed as he should be for sitting on his hands and not bolstering the pen. Is money available? Heck yeah, all the money they aren’t paying Mookie!!! They’ve been under the cap a year now so there is no excuse for his inaction. He better pray the Dombrowski gang keeps pounding the ball!!
Also, for those who have a short memory, Cora loved Poyner and pitched him at the most illogical times in the past. One more reason to throw him out with the trash. The way they threw out Mookie, Price, Benny and JBJ.
“If DD’s guys werent performing so well…”
What are you talking about? JD Martinez, Eovaldi, Dalbec and Chavis. Thats the only players on the team that were added during “DD’s” 3.5 year tenure, that are still with the club. All that money spent, all those prospects shipped out and we only have 4 guys and a rehabbing Sale to show for it.
Chaims additions: Verdugo, Kiki Hernandez, Renfroe, Marwin Gonzalez, Danny Santana, Franchie Cordero, Plawecki, Garret Richards, Martin Perez, Garrett Whitlock, Nick Pivetta, Matt Andriese, Brandon Workman, and Austin Bryce.
Chaim’s team has the best record in the AL, he hasn’t spent half what Dumbrowski spent, nor traded away any prospects.
Chaim will win Executive of the Year.
dennyd
Chaim will win Executive of the Year.
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Chaim has done an unbelievably good job, but so has Stearns & Zaidi. Given the payroll disparities, I’d give the award to Stearns, but certainly Bloom should finish 2nd or 3rd.
And adding Cora was a huge part of this as well.
Just for fun, I added up the additional bWAR that Bloom brought in. It is 12.0 WAR for a total of $36.3M. That’s outstanding.
You are lost and really excited about it. See Denny D.
DD’s guys really lit it up in 2019 didn’t they? Chaim Bloom has done an outstanding job. Exactly what the owners wanted and expected. In fact, nobody had dreamed this team could be @.500, let alone leading the division. Based on the financial constraints he has had to work with, They should extend his contract. He is the architect for their current success. It’s time RS nation started showing this man some love.
It’s crazy. I was fairly optimistic with 85.5 wins. We’ve had really good health so far, especially with the rotation only missing one start, but a .614 is off the charts. That said, and with full applause for Bloom, Cora might be the best manager in BB right now. Not bashing Roenicke, but Cora makes a huge difference.
No problems myself on most every move Bloom has made at MLB level and his trades. It’s the MiLB depth pieces where he has failed and what have complained about numerous times, that and his hangup on “spin rates” which I personally have been ragging on since that nonsense term was pulled out of some geeks rear end.
He needs to get back to looking for MiLB talent who can throw and look for command issues.. Which worked in the past.. Forget about the weber type failures..
KD – full of your normal $hit!!!!!!!!!!
KD: Bloom took over one of the worst minor league systems in baseball. Yet all four teams, plus the major league ball club, have winning records. They lack quality pitching depth, but that should be expected, due to quality pitching prospects are difficult to pry from other teams. Not sure where you think he should’ve gotten more talent from, when he had very little to trade away last season, and lost draft picks due to punishment. I see excellent work with several new names appearing on their top 20 list.
I think if the Red Sox went 161-1, you would want to point out, that they lost the most important game of the year.
dennyd – thanks for putting the challenge out there to prove what a moron you are. I appreciate it. Things have been slow lately.
DD was accused of many things that were untrue like spending too much money and you fell into the ignorant response I was hoping for!!!
Lets use your list which is suspect but to keep you happy we’ll start there:
DD’s Adds according to you:
JD Martinez – All-star bat third in the 2018 winning season for the most part and bats 3rd this season when you are trying to give that jackass Bloom credit.
Eovaldi – the $17M over-pay who is an all-star
Dalbec – Starting 1B and home grown
Chavis – 2B being used as a utility player and added to the Red Sox before Devers who is NOT on your list. So either Devers should be included or Chavis shouldn’t be included.
Bloom’s adds –
Step down from Mookie (biggest Bloom subtraction) who DID NOT make the all-start team
Hernandez – crap utility player
Renfroe – Having a career year which looks good for Bloom but next year likely won’t be the same.
Santana – Crap utility player
Cordero – HUGE stepd0wn from Benny
Plawecki – Utility catcher = waiver wire material back-up to a Cherington guy not mentioned
Richards – ERA 4.88 WHIP 1.88 For $11M plus $16M of Price so $27M mistake (Price’s numbers – 3.58 ERA and 1.66 WHIP on a team with much more pitching talent
Perez – ERA 3.89 WHIP 1.44 and a 4.50 ERA 1.34 WHIP last year at $4.5M a year is at best a #5 SP
Whitlock – 6th reliever having a good year for a sixth reliever
Pivetta – LONE score by Bloom
Andriese – 7th reliever having a bad year
Workman – a guy DD also had
Bryce – 10th reliever with terrible numbers
WOW – you call that success? hahahaha What a joke!! Trash, trash and more trash. Whether you consider the core that existed before Bloom arrived DD or Cherington or Theo doesn’t matter to me, it’s pre-Bloom and it’s the part of the team providing the majority of the wins, the runs, the success of the team. It’s just that simple and people who know baseball understand where the success of the Red Sox this year is coming from.
The astute fan will realize jerks like you will try to spin this to be a Bloom or Cora success but neither wears a uniform nor helps the team win.
Thank JD, Bogey and Devers for this year’s success. That’s why they are all-stars along with Eovaldi and Barnes. Try to spin this however you like but everyone knows you are full of it.
As far a bang for the buck goes, you are also badly misinformed.
JD costs less than ALL the guys he’s added and he’s added more to the winning than all of them put together. Bloom’s forte is recycling trash!!
The two big buck guys you give credit to DD for are JD Martinez and Eovaldi and both are worth more than their money this year and were in 2018 too when DD paid them. Bloom horse crap group isn’t worth the money he paid for them. Cheap trash is still trash.
RS8 – Once again no baseball comment just trolling! Find a new site or shut the hell up!!
Bobby boy – A paid influencer or pure idiot? which suits you?
Nobody can make such dumb comments unless someone is paying them for their support of a crap GM like Bloom.
NOTHING of impact has been done.
NO MONEY CONSTRAINTS facing him.
He can’t have architected their success HE’S DONE NOTHING!!
See that’s what an architect does. He creates something that then gets implemented. Bloom has yet to add ONE impact player so the architect of this success precedes him!!
Get a clue.
JB = Since you mentioned the bWAR (fabricated stat) for Bloom’s additions can you now show the bWAR for those prior to him coming to the Red Sox?
No, wait, just show the bWAR for JD, Bogey and Devers and compare that number to the 12.0 for all the Bloom additions. (please note we are trusting that you have actually calculated that total correctly) Then you might want to explain what bWAR is and how it’s calculated and why that number would be more important than say adding up the Runs, HRs, RBIs or some other real stat for the non Bloom guys versus the Bloom guys.
There is no universe where the Bloom total comes out close to the pre-Bloom total so what’s your point? And I’m not even going to dignify your comment about the two time cheater. He was there in 2019 and the team performed badly. The play of JD, Bogey, Devers and all the star players of the 2018 team has nothing to do with the manager, it has EVERYTHING to do with the annual performance of each player individually and how that blends into team success. NO CREDIT GOES TO CORA.
Well, I think we’re in pretty good shape for the BP. Over the past 28 days, we have 8 RPs with ERAs of 4.50 (Rios) or better. The peripherals are slightly worse, but pretty close.
After that, we have Brasier and Seabold. These guys could always get hurt, but we’d have to be pretty unlucky to lose enough guys to get in trouble.
KD178 mins ago
(please note we are trusting that you have actually calculated that total correctly)
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Simple arithmetic is not as difficult as you seem to think it is.
Short guys in the pen have been terrific thus faras you mentioned JoeBrady and posted myself this same thing going 5 deep. No injuries in this area in a place most teams have had numerous does not bode well.
I understand Boston is hoping to have Houck and brasier back soon (Sale also), but from reports have seen.. neither Brasier or Sale can be expected until August, with neither begining a rehab assignment yet and Brasier still sidelined with the concussion. Seabold has been on the DL since?? I think start of the MiLB season with his elbow, tho do remember him being in 1-2 ST games. Have a bad feeling an almost lost season there. Bazardo was transferred to the 60 day MLB injury list recently (back dated) and will require a drawn out rehab once he’s eligible to come off.
I just see Houck being used as a swing man and Sale as the starter out of what they have at AAA, other than short guy Ort (if added to 40 man)
Andriese and Whitlock are the only 2 long guys for when Richards/Perez have blowup outings and we know they have them sometimes. Whitlock has to have several days off between games and Andriese is a loss when he’s on the mound. Another 2-3 inning reliever is needed. Can houck do that and/or start occasionally?
I think Andriese goes when Houck returns. It’s just been too long since any consistent streak. The K/W is still good, so I don’t think he is finished, but since 5/1, his ERA is a really bad 7.99. Hard to believe, but Workman and Rios continue to contribute.
Bobby Poyner was drafted in 2015 by Ben Cherington and was not recently on the 40-man.
John Silver, I really expected better from you. KD is a dumba$$, so his bs is typical.
RS8 – Once again, up yours jackass. Didn’t your parents teach you anything about manners?
KD17: You’re obviously drunk. No one babbles like that sober. See you later.
I always felt Poyner was a weird call up in 2018; not really a prospect, never spent a day in AAA, not on the 40-man. I guess his age (25) forced the issue.
He actually had a pretty good season in 2018. A lot of these guys are brought up/in to lesser the stress load on some of the better RPs. And Poyner wasn’t all that bad in 2019. He started with a couple of bad games and a meltdown against Texas, but when he came back in September, he had a 2.35 ERA with a 9/1 K/W.
He might still be capable of bouncing around a little. Maybe a little like Springs. A popular target to dislike, but someone with a modest amount of talent.
JB – Poyner sucked. His skill level was that of a minor league player but that horse’s rear end Cora liked him and inappropriately brought him up. Did you watch him pitch? Did you think he could break a pane of glass with his fastball? Did you think MLB hitters wouldn’t hit him after their initial shock wore off at his lack of velocity? He should have spent his career in the minors and he should thank his lucky stars the Red Sox had an inexperienced manager who played favorites and had no idea what he was doing.
Poyner sucked.
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What about him sucked? Using data, not your imagination. His stats were:
1-0 3.32 ERA 24/3 K/W in 22.1 IPs ERA+ of 139 a FIP of 4.01.
Now, list all his bad stats.
JB – This is exactly why I like debating things with you when you present facts. Excellent response. I hope you don’t mind if I go a bit deeper in the facts to show why I stated what I stated about his abilities.
Born in 92 Poyner played at Florida where he struggled his first two seasons but showed improvement while playing in the Cape Cod League after his sophomore year. His Junior and senior years were much better than his first two but he didn’t get drafted until the 15th round after his FOURTH year of college. Not a big bonus baby.
Since he was never a starter except one summer in the Cape Code League and he never closed much at Florida (8 saves in 54 games) he looked to be a middle reliever but the Red Sox chose to make him a closer in 2015. In 2015, he had a decent season at Low A at age 22. In 2016, his 23 yr old season, he had 16 games at A and was awesome then he went to Hi-A and got rocked big time. His ERA jumped from under 1 in A ball to 4.99 in 23 games at Hi=A.
In 2017, he returned to Hi-A and did much better and earned a promotion to AA where he did well and in 2017 he finally got to a strike outs per 9 innings ratio of greater than 10 as a closer should. This is something he would need as he progressed up toward the majors.
2018, is very hard to explain. He got called up March 31 because Cora liked him and he pitched to lefties primarily. He had six appearances against Tampa Bay, Miami and the Yankees by April 11 and then got sent down to AA after the Yankees got 4 hits, a walk and an earned run off him on the 11th of April. On the 19th he pitched an inning for AA then got sent to AAA where he pitched for about 2 weeks. On May 4 he got called up to Boston for 1 game then sent back down again after the game.
He pitched 41 innings from March to the end of July and did respectably. August and September were a different story and his ERA both months jumped to over 4.00 in 25 innings. Anyone who watched the games cringed when he came in like so many of the Red Sox relievers over the past several years and his 13 earned runs in 25 innings during the pennant race rightfully made fans uncomfortable when he entered the game.
That was his good year. 2019 saw his walks per inning more than triple while his hits per inning stayed constant and his Ks per inning decreased. His 2019 ERA was 6.84 and his WHIP was 1.29. MLB players had seen enough of him to figure out how to deal with his off speed pitches so he was no longer effective at the MLB level.
With no 2020 and his 2021 numbers the worst of his career at AAA the handwriting was on the wall. He was destined for a minor league career.
He had some decent seasons in the minors but his STUFF wasn’t good enough. Think of a pitcher like Seabold and what would happen to him if he lost command of his pitches. Guys that don’t have great STUFF need to be very accurate and effective at changing speeds to get hitters out. Without that accuracy, his Punch-N-Judy fastball wasn’t going to keep him in the majors.
That’s why I think Poyner sucked as a major league pitcher. Yes, if you take a small enough sample you can make him look better than he was but in the end the drop-off after 2018 was too much for any team to waste a roster spot on.
Also his actual Red Sox stats were:
Majors (2 seasons) 1-1 Record – 33 games – 1 start – 6 games finished
34.0 IP – 32 Hits – 17ER – 6 HRs – 8 BBs – 35 Ks – 3 HBPs – 142 Batters faced – 1..176 WHIP – 8.5 H/9 – 1.6 HR/9 – 2.1 BBs/9 – 9.3 Ks/9 and a SO/BB ratio of 4.38.
His ERA+ 103 and his FIP was 4.38.
Why the discrepancy in our numbers. Mine are for his career not the cherry picked 2018 season. These numbers are all from prior to 2020 and since then he’s gotten much worse.
Hope this clarifies why I said he sucked and you responded with data that was hand=picked to pretend his career was better than it was.
Give people the whole picture so they can decide for themselves!!
KD17
Born in 92 Poyner
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Your response reminds me of my 3rd grade reports when, trying to meet the requirement of a 600-word essay, I added as much BS as I could find.
I gave you statistics, and you respond with the dude’s birthday?
Ryan Butcher has a career ERA barely over 3. But because of 20 bad innings spread out over 2 years he no longer has a job. That’s kind of lame.
that’s because the bogus “indicator stats” say he should be bad.
It’s 20 innings spread out over 2 freaking years. And he has a pretty nice track record besides that. I just don’t get it.
It’s fish or cut bait time for a lot of guys on the fringe. Draft requires roster space for incoming college draftees and AA players ready for the next step. Expect to see marginal contributors released as players sign.
Joel Peterson
It’s 20 innings spread out over 2 freaking years. And he has a pretty nice track record besides that.
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His 2019 season was not as good as the ERA indicates. His LOB% was 91.4%. That’s really unlikely to be sustainable. His BABIP this year is .194, which is low by about 100 points, and he still has an ERA of 5.52 and his 3-year walk rate is 5.7/9.
That said, is he no longer with the Dbacks? He pitched on 7/3?
Okay, never mind. I only read the RS stuff. That said, someone will surely sign him to a minor league deal. While his walk rate stinks, he still has a 9.6K/9 over the past 4 years. Teams like Cincy, Philly and Atlanta have to take a shot on him finding the plate.
JB – Use the English language when making your points. LOB% without even saying what LOB stands for and why you think that stat is important? Left on Base percentage can be meaningful to relievers as a way to show whether they keep runners from scoring but like so many other new stats they can be very misleading in telling the full story. Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) is another stat that needs definition to the average reader.
Definition – BABIP measures a player’s batting average exclusively on balls hit into the field of play, removing outcomes not affected by the opposing defense (namely home runs and strikeouts). For example, a hitter who goes 2-for-5 with a home run and a strikeout would have a.333 BABIP. He’s 1-for-3 on the balls he put in play.
Again, this is a bogus meaningless stat that gets used by nerds to try and explain luck rather than skill in hitting. Is a .194 BABIP good or bad? WHO CARES other than stat nerds? Not baseball fans that simply enjoy the game. There is no need to belittle the success of a hitter because he didn’t hit the baseball hard but got a hit or he was able to place the ball in the holes of the defense. This is a prime example of the ignorance in modern metrics.
JB – Joel deserves a better response that is in English and explains your viewpoint. Nobody can argue with innocuous stats like those you present in every write-up. It’s a great way to avoid discussions on baseball concepts if you feel you are wrong. Let’s hope that’s not your driving force in being so abstract in your responses.
Joel – I completely agree with you. While I can’t find out why his career started at 27 (8 years in the ATL farm system) other than there must have been better RPs in ATL, he did an excellent job for years. Then, during COVID he falls upon his first season without success followed by a few innings in 2021 that are unsuccessful and he’s released. Since I never saw his 2021 or 2020 IPs it’s hard to say if he lost velocity or control or simply had some bad luck since the sample size was so small.
He’s 34 now so he still has good years left if his stuff still exists as it did for over a half decade.
KD actually make Joe Biden look intelligent
KD must be drunk lol
RS8 – Drunk? What a completely ignorant thing to write. Then, to further how ignorant you are you add lol as if being drunk is something to laugh about!!! Wow have you got issues beyond stupidity and ignorance of the game of baseball.
Week after week you take cheap shots and I respond by embarrassing you over and over again. At what point do you grow up and comment about baseball rather than making juvenile cheap shots at others on this site? I guess we should all think like you to avoid insults.
Seriously, grow up.
KD17
JB – Use the English language when making your points. LOB% without even saying what LOB stands for
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I am addressing an audience for whom these terms are familiar. Everyone I know knows what LOB stands for in the context of a baseball discussion. I assume everyone in here, except you, knows what it stands for.
Does anyone in here, besides KD17, not know what LOB stands for?
JB – You are asking for another whooping!! hahaha
Why is LOB important and how is it interpreted by baseball professionals?
Anyone can mouse over an acronym I’m asking you specifically what it means and why it’s so important hot shot. I’ve known for nearly 50 years I’m curious if you just spew acronyms or you actually know what they mean.
I use LOB for the same reason that i use other abbreviations. To save time.
Why did you just use the abbreviation ‘I’m’?
IRT why I use that particular stat is because ERA, by itself, is a less useful stat over a short period of time. Why do you need an explanation of so many simple concepts?
He has a 13/13 K/W. That walk rate ranks him #516 in the MLB this year. And I actually like Buchter, but he is having a bad year.
Again 14 innings. That’s 2 starts. If a starter has 2 bad starts does he get DFAd? Nope.
I just don’t get how shortsighted these people can be.
If he is that good, he will get picked up tomorrow morning by another team. No problem then, right?
As a core piece of the Royals teams that went to back to back WS, I’m happy Escobar is getting a chance to play at the big league level. I was surprised he couldn’t get an opportunity anywhere the last two years. He obviously has something left in the tank.
No wonder Buchter was passed over. His xFIP of 4.94 shows how extremely lucky he has been. Other guys have high snake-bit ERAs with much lower xFIPs. These are the guys teams should look at especially if they have never been hurt.
KG’s responses:
dennyd – thanks for putting the challenge out there to prove what a moron you are.
RS8 – Once again no baseball comment just trolling! Find a new site or shut the hell up!!
Bobby boy – A paid influencer or pure idiot?
JB – It’s KD not KG!! Just one more mistake in a career full of mistakes commenting on this site..
Why not also pull the insults that led to those responses? Ahhh, that’s right you don’t believe in showing all the facts just the ones that support what you are trying to say, ie your tunnel vision opinion.
Why don’t the Sox cut ties with Andriese. That guy is a freaking bum. Smh.
He inherited an 11-3 lead, and walked the first batter. Just throw the ball right down the middle.