The Red Sox announced that right-handers Silvino Bracho and Darin Gillies have been signed to minor league deals and received invitations to the team’s big league Spring Training camp (when it opens). Boston also officially announced the signing of Tyler Danish — MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes reported two weeks ago that Danish had inked a minors contract with the Sox. All three players were minor league free agents, and thus eligible to be signed despite the lockout.
Bracho is a veteran of five Major League seasons, all with the Diamondbacks from 2015-20. However, he has tossed only a single inning in The Show since the start of the 2019 season, as Bracho underwent a Tommy John surgery and then had a setback in his recovery. As well, Bracho missed a good chunk of the 2020 campaign while covering from a case of COVID-19.
The 29-year-old righty signed a minors deal with the Giants last winter and reset himself to some extent with Triple-A Sacramento, posting a 4.14 ERA over 50 relief innings. Bracho ran into some home run problems and he had the misfortune of a .383 BABIP, though his 29% strikeout rate and 8.5% walk rate were promising. Missing bats has never been an issue for Bracho at the minor league level, though he has a more modest 24.1% strikeout rate over his 89 2/3 career innings in the bigs. Bracho posted a 4.82 ERA during his time in Arizona, allowing 17 homers in that relatively small sample size.
Gillies was a 10th-round pick for the Mariners in the 2015 draft, and apart from a cameo in independent ball in 2020 when the minor league season was canceled, Gillies has spent his entire career in Seattle’s farm system. The right-hander has a 3.96 ERA and 24.63% strikeout rate over 338 1/3 frames in the minors, working as a reliever in all but eight of his 215 career games. After struggling at the Triple-A level in both 2018 and 2019, Gillies had a more solid showing in Tacoma this past season, with a 3.74 ERA over his 21 2/3 innings for the Mariners’ top affiliate.
Bracho could be a useful piece. With the new all-in playoff format, teams will need even more pitching. Not to mention the delay will cause problems. Stockpiling arms might be a good plan. The goal is to get to the postseason with none of your important pitchers already overused. That requires lots of dribs and drabs along the way from dozens of contributors. Great teams lose 60 games. Some aren’t even close games. Those innings belong to the dribs and drabs of the staff. If you make an effective reliever pitch more than 70 innings, don’t be surprised when he’s not effective in the postseason. Two reasons. Too many innings. Too many opportunities for hitters to know your stuff. It all comes crashing down.
I think a lot will depend on whether the pitcher limit for rosters is finally implemented. Either way, I’m guessing the stockpiling will be in AAA and not the major league level. Cora loves making frequent pitching changes for matchups, so carrying a mop-up type guy seems unrealistic. I think there will be enough pitchers on the roster with starter experience who can cover low-leverage situations.
Yeah, your take last summer in re Green, Luetge, & Loaisiga & their early season usage was prescient, @hayzee.
Peralta, Rodriguez, & Holmes proved to be very good in-season additions. However, it was too little too late. Well…the volume was actually excellent but we leaned on our middle relievers far too much in the early going.
Those guys needed help.
& you were right: all 3 faded to some degree.
Now, they all had good seasons when the dust settled. but Green gave up 14 jacks, Loaisiga spent some time on the IL & Luetge wasn’t as effective as he had been down the stretch.
“You can never have enough pitching”, has gone from an adage to a truism.
I was a little more surprised with Green because he’s been around enough to kind of figure out how to get to the finish line. And he was not his best in the WC game. But it has been become so complicated with how long you stay with your starter, who you use in certain situations and so forth. You have to look at each tree and still know the forest.
As a primarily one pitch pitcher, I think Green goes into the “teams saw him too much” bucket (83.2 innings).
Ducky, I think I might be starting to get a leg up on the Lyme disease. Six months of antibiotics later. I know you’re in the woods a lot. Don’t get Lyme, it totally sucks the life out of you. But it has given me the perspective to not hate the Yankees so much. See, we can all grow up, “a little”. Happy Sunday.
That’s great, man! For real.
I do allow you to get under my skin at times (which is on me, of course), but I certainly bear no ill will towards you. So I sincerely hope the antibiotics work. But 6 months of them sounds a bit rugged. As far as Lyme disease for me goes, May through September are the months I earn my keep. So I miss tick season when I’m in the Northwoods.
I equate hunting with chilly to brutally cold weather. So no ticks. Gotta look out for the dog too.
The winter is definitely the best time to be in the woods. I’m not a hunter but I am a trail runner, when healthy. My buddy and I encountered a bow hunter on one of our runs and he was glad to see us. We keep the animals from hunkering down. Sure enough at the end of our run, he was off to help his friend haul out a deer. I guess we were accessories. I must admit, a dog would be a hell of a lot more effective than this tired old man. Woof.
Well, I wouldn’t mind getting out on a little trout stream now & again during the summer. But, I gotta build a few hundred jobs over the warm months to fund my lifestyle & that takes quite a bit of my time. Lotta long days/weeks/months, bro.
I bet the bow hunter was plenty happy to have you guys running around to push the deer. Probably asked you to be nice & loud. Personally, I go down to the river & go duck hunting when it’s the gun portion of deer season. Even with a blaze orange vest & a bell on my dog I worry about some trigger happy dude “mistaking” him for a deer.
This is my current dog’s rookie season.
Young hunting dogs are like young QB’s or pitchers. They are just simply going to make mistakes & do some confounding stuff. But he’s been acquitting himself better than I could have hoped. Looks like he’s going to be a good one.
It’s too bad players such as these can’t participate in minor league ST.
Replacement player depth?
Comments about these two players?
Really?
Crazy, uh?
It’s like this is a site dedicated to baseball or whatever.
Thekid- why are you here then? To comment about others comments? Really?
Bracho and Gillies are minor league free agents and they ARE eligible to participate in minor league spring training. The invitation to MLB spring training assumes that there is one before AAA games start April 5th. The Worcester Red Sox have just over 20 pitchers listed as possible choices for their final opening day roster, so some will either stay in extended spring training waiting for MLB camp or be released.
There may be a real need for these arms beyond just a tryout and hoping to get lucky. Crawford, Winckowski, Seabold, Eduard Bazardo and Philips Valdez are all on the 40-man and might still be idled for lack of a CBA by the time Worcester starts playing. It’s not impossible that the club has to press Frank German and possibly John Schrieber or Caleb Simpson into a starting role, which could leave as many as four bullpen slots open.
Agreed Horace. if I were a player on the 40 but not with a guaranteed MLB job, I’d be talking to my attorney. Just seems unfair. Normally being on the 40 is a dream but the lockout has created an unfair playing field amongst those without guaranteed deals. Even with a financial guarantee, it’s more important for some to be in a camp, working with coaches, etc.
Horace- agree 100 percent that Crawford, Seabold, and Winckowski probably would not be in the Worcester rotation even if the strike is settled in a couple weeks. The 20 pitchers I was speaking of already subtracts the five who are on the 40-man roster. There are probably 10 total 40-man spots taken by players who would have started the season in Worcester so additional position players have been signed as well.
Geez, I guess Bloom sees something in that poor Arizona farm or just increasing the arm count
Both Sox teams will defeat the Padres in the World Series later this decade.
Just fine tuning the super yacht at this point.