In conjunction with the recent offseason outlook, MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald held a Red Sox-specific chat. Click here to read the transcript.
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The way the RS treat Dalbec is terrible. Either trade him or play him. No reason for him to hit 30 bombs in AAA and stay there.
Its because when given a shot in the majors he strikes out over 30% of the time this year he hit .204 and last .215 with sub .300 obp..sure hes great when he makes contact but thus far hes failed to prove he can do it enough outside triple A.
Poolhall – Agreed, Dalbec struck out 35% in AAAA, and he struck out 53% in the MLB! He is also 28, so he is far past the age of being a prospect.
IMO, the Red Sox will trade him for a bag of balls (as he has practically zero trade value), and the 40-man roster spot is too valuable for a player who they do not see as a potential fit in Boston. He will be traded or get an waiver/DFA.
I think they have tried to trade him just no one wants to give anything up for him. He simply strikes out too much to really be effective in the big leagues. He struck out 35% of the time in AAA and in 50 at bats in the bigs last year he struck out in 50% + of his at bats. He appears to be a AAAA player he has a ton of power but strikes out to much to ever be viable. It’s probably worth keeping as a depth option but he’s unlikely to be anything other then that.
I saw Dalbec hit in a triple-A game this year. Same old story with him, Struck out at least 3 times, all while chasing bad pitches. I think he deserves another chance with another organization, but at best he might eke out a few seasons as a platoon bat, But that’s a big maybe.
Zack – Great point. For all those uneducated baseball fans that still think that strike outs matter more than OBP, research the game and come back with a more educated opinion.
Dalbec can strike out any number of times if he does two things:
1 – He puts up a solid OBP
2 – He homers or more specifically has an outstanding Isolated Power number
A batter who comes to bat with men on 1st and 3rd who is about to make an out can do it by striking out, flying out or grounding out. If he grounds out the inning might be over. If he flies out the runner may score from 3rd. If he strikes out the next player gets a chance to drive in the run. In this scenario, which is only ONE game scenario, it’s worst to be a guy that grounds out, it’s best to be a guy that flies out and a strike out places you in between the other two results. So are strike outs always bad? No. That;s a myth created by ignorant baseball fans.
No generalization is a good measure for a player because it’s all their skills that create their total worth. Dalbec’s skills line-up nicely as a power bat off the bench. He’s streaky like Duvall. He has more power than anyone on the Red Sox’s current roster and he can play multiple positions in the field, albeit not at an all-star level but as good as most of the players he would replace and significantly better than Devers. But to be fair, a local grade school kid could probably play as well as Devers. (Has led MLB in errors 6 of 6 full seasons making him first at being the worst fielder at his position in the 140 year history of the game).
Just remember next time you are reading something about strike outs being higher on one player than another, it means nothing. Go check the OBP. Yoshida hit into 20 double plays this past year and led the team in that specific stat. Nobody talks about the downside of grounding out compared to striking out. There are clearly times when each of the three types of outs can be most beneficial to a specific event in a game. There is no STANDARD RULE OF THUMB for which is better. It’s simply the rantings of uneducated fans trying to over simplify the analysis of a players performance. If you think about it, when a person looks at your skin color and makes decisions about you. Is it terribly different than a baseball fan looking at K% and concluding things about you? Nope, it’s called prejudice and society has tried to improve our behavior by eliminating it. Same should be done for baseball.
If Dalbec hit 30+ dingers, and posted a solid OBP, sure, you can take the brunt of the strikeouts. But the point isn’t that he’s a three-true-outcomes kind of hitter. But if he is striking out over a third of the time at Triple-A, how do you think he’ll fare in the majors? There’s a point where striking out that often will affect your overall potential and future outlook.
Look at some minor league statistics. FanGraphs tracks minor league statistics back to 2005. There are 104 minor league players since ’05 with 800+ plate appearances in the minors, and struck out over a third of the time. Only one has made any sort of impact in the big leagues, that’s Joey Gallo. How do you think a 34.8% strikeout rate at Triple-A is going to translate into the big leagues?
Even then, Dalbec isn’t even a three-true-outcomes hitter. He’s just a boom or bust hitter. His OBP in the big leagues is below .300. His career walk rate is under 8%.
mlb1225 – As I mentioned to Bruin1012, I agree that Dalbec is not ready to be a starter at the MLB level. What i try to get people to realize is that Ks are not that critical if a player can post a high OBP. That’s the point I was making with Dalbec. To me, he slots as a reserve CI at the MLB level but only if he can maintain a high Isolated Power to be a threat to go deep on any at bat he takes coming off the bench..
Dalbec like many hitters has a hand/eye coordination deficit in his skill set. Jeter Downs had the same thing despite him being ranked 44th on the prospect list. He never overcame that lack of skill and as a result his value was grossly over stated by the rating agencies.
If you can’t make contact and you don’t walk, you don’t have much of a future. Dalbec’s sole niche is his extraordinary power. It makes him a threat each time he steps into the batters box. Unfortunately, that’s only enough to be a reserve at the MLB level.
Troll theoretically you are correct but show me one guy who has been a useful big leaguer that strikes out in 35% of his at bats. The only one I can think of is Joey Gallo he had probably the best season in the history of baseball for someone that struck out nearly 40% of the time. So yes if you can walk 20% of the time hit to an iso of .344 and have defensive as well like Gallo did in 2019 then yes you can get away with a k rate over 35%. Those are unicorn numbers in the last 20 years I don’t think anyone in a full season carried that type of K rate and was successful.
The problem for Dalbec is his career obp is below .300. I like the guy but he us a AAAA player. The eye test says it as well he can’t pick up slider spin he chases those pitches and he struggles with fastballs up in the zone. The guy has had 1000 plate appearances in the bigs he is what he is. The only way it changes for him is if he suddenly recognizes slider spin and stops chasing high fastballs. I guess it’s possible it’s very likely though.
Bruin1012 – I think we agree on Dalbec because of his OBP not his Ks. He has scary power but his issues with making contact are reflected in his batting average and he doesn’t walk enough to make up for the lack of getting on base with hits. For me, he would be a great off the bench back-up but until he can produce an OBP of .350 he doesn’t belong in a starting line-up.
The fact that so many people care about Ks but ignore GDP or quantity of Fly Outs with bad exit velocity is disturbing. Each failure remains a failure and the cost is impacted by the situation. Throw in measurements of being clutch, succeeding with runners in scoring position and I simply find too many analyses that don’t look at the whole picture because FanGraphs or Statcast has drilled into their heads very limited concepts of analysis.
Since the start of the 162 game season, there have been just 13 players who have struck out in at least a third of their career plate appearances. Just four have played more than 500 MLB games, meaning that 9 of the players played what was the equivilant of less than 3 full MLB seasons. Only Gallo and Mike Zunino played more than 800 (the equivialnt of just under 5 MLB seasons). Of course, Zunino was a catcher, and a decent defensive one for a handful of years, so he got playing time based on that alone.
Everyone says that strikeouts are dominating baseball too much, but we’ve yet to see a player who strikes out that often, and have a long and strong career. There have been just 3 players with a 30%+ K-rate, and played in 1000+ MLB games. One of those players was Chris Davis, who, for his last 249 MLB games, had a 47 wRC+.
We did play him and he was terrible aside from one season. I agree, however, that we should have traded him.
This is a bridge year imo. Play the kids if you can move Verdugo as a piece in a bigger deal for a starting pitcher if possible. You need to play Abreu and Duran next year to see if they are long term fits. I think you also need to play Valdez at second see if his defense improves enough to be viable. He hit real well in September and I think he hits in the bigs. Second base isn’t nearly as big a problem as finding some pitchers that go 6 innings more often and a manager that will allow his starters to go 6 someone needs to have a talk with Cora about that since it doesn’t appear he’s going anywhere.
I’ve mentioned this before. If we traded Verdugo, the lineup is:
Wong
Casas
Valdez
Story
Devers
Yoshida
Duran
Abreu
Turner (?)
That leaves a lot of money to be devoted towards pitching. Assuming Sale, Bello, and Crawford are starters, add two FA/trade SPs, and move Whitlock & Houck to the BP, that’s a decent+ pitching staff.
I’d be willing to hold my nose and hope for the best. The worst that happens is that Abreu & Valdez don’t work out and Mayer & Anthony, maybe Rafael take their slots in 2025.
But the fans, and Henry, have to be patient.
Thats one big assumption on Sale being a starter..might as well cross him off the list and be happy if he shows up
Joe – Does the team get better with that line-up or do we have the same weak defense we’ve had since Devers arrived in the MLB?
I agree with your line-up but seriously, can we afford to be that bad on defense or is it time for a change. Devers already leads all 3Bs in the history of baseball by making the most errors at 3B 6 out of 6 full years in the majors. In 2024, if not moved to DH he will break the tie and be alone at the top. That shouldn’t happen. He must play DH or be traded (not that anyone would take on his bloated salary). Also, Yoshida is not a good defender. Heck, it’s fair to say he’s a bad defender. So TWO positions could be fixed by moving one to DH and trading the other. That would jump the team defense 15 spots or more.
That would also allow a small change to improve the above line-up
Wong (80 OPS+ doesn’t qualify him for a starting job but he’s a fine back-up)
Casas
Valdez (nice placeholder until Yorke arrives or we invest in an all-star 2B)
Story (A Bloom mistake. $23.3MM too much for his skills)
TBD – Need to trade for a real 3B or sign Chapman
Abreu
Duran
Verdugo (until Anthony is ready then trade or non-tender Verdugo)
Devers/Yoshida ( the odd man out gets traded)
Houck was missing from your rotation. He might be the best of the three young guys. Bello had a better year but Boston needs to commit to Houck starting so he can settle in at one job. Sale can’t be counted on but he is quality depth if he is healthy. He should be the SP6 until he proves he can be more.
Boston needs SP1 and SP2.
Boston needs a lefty set-up man.
Boston needs to use Pivetta in long relief and Whitlock in stress relief.
So 3 pitchers are needed but the offense is so bad on defense some significant changes are needed to make this a competitive ball club. The line-up above can finish .500 but it’s going nowhere with no potential gains in the future if Devers and Yoshida are allowed to play the field. The pitching staff will suffer from that decision. The new POBO needs to fix the defense and the top end of the starting staff as his highest priorities.
Preaching patience to the fan base is bogus. The owners did this to the team so fixing it sooner rather than later is what the fan base wants and expects. Nobody told ownership to dump the 2018 roster, they did it. The only way to fix it is to piece by piece replace all that’s been lost both on offense and defense. The stellar defensive outfield has been replaced by a mediocre outfield at best. Third base 7 years later is still suffering from Devers. If waiting for a guy like Devers to move to his ONLY spot at DH after 7 years is impatience I think you live in a dream world. The move should have been made in 2019 after he didn’t hit in 2018 and didn’t field in 2018. Now he justifies his spot because he hits. It’s faulty logic but it clearly shows that Devers is all about Devers and not the team. That’s why I say, If you can find a dumb enough GM to take Devers contract, DO IT!!! We could get two outstanding players for his money or we could make a bid for Ohtani if you dumped his contract.
Bruin – I strongly disagree about 2024 being yet another bridge year. Money will be spent this winter, the payroll will rise, and there’s several highly paid players that are expected to produce. They wouldn’t have kept Martin, Jansen, Story, etc if they weren’t planning on contending next year.
Rafaela and Story will cover the middle infield for the majority of the games. Everyone believes Dugie is gone, to be replaced with either a big name from another team or perhaps Duran or Abreu.
I know you’re high on a lot of the prospects in the minors, but the Sox are not gonna keep punting until Mayer, Anthony, Yorke, etc are MLB stars.
FPG I think your hoping but this free agency class isn’t very deep and it’s going to be highly competitive. I just hope we aren’t the ones going north of 200 million for Snell when we lose out on the other high end options.
I think this team could be better if they add a pitcher in free agency and trade for another starter. Mostly I think that if Cora let’s his starters go longer that will go a long way to fixing the problem. He’s really bad at managing a bullpen he’s so worried about his pitchers facing hitters for the third time through that he burns his pen out by mid season. If the starters go over 5 close to 6 on average the team is going to be much better. This a huge Cora problem. Hopefully a guy like Breslow can convince Cora of this.
5 inning Snell… who wants an ace who can’t crack 200 innings? I wouldn’t trust him
Bruin1012 – When you say bridge year it’s not terribly clear what that means. We started in 2020 with a fully loaded team with a few injuries. By the end of 2020 we were a significantly weaker team. The idea sold to fans was that the changes would lead to sustained success but that was not true in any way. The changes made the talent level drop and that continued each year Bloom was allowed to be the POBO. The end result was not a team bridging to being better, it was a team completely devastated because the loss of JD, Bogey, Nate and others was the last step down in talent from when Bloom arrived.
The choice of using a phrase of bridge year is far too optimistic but to me you meant the false statements made by Bloom that a better team was coming still haven’t come to fruition so the process is still bridging. The irony of Fever’s response is that he’s suggesting that keeping key guys like Jansen suggests 2024 will be a competitive year.
I can’t agree with either of you until I know the new GM/POBO. RIght now the team has a couple of key components they didn’t trade but I don’t think they are strong enough to suggest the team will be anything more than .500 in 2024. A lot depends on the new POBO and if he has the backbone to fix things like Devers and Yoshida. If they remain in the field, the team can’t exceed .500 because the defense will be too horrendous like years past. If the new POBO realigns the team and fixes the holes at 3B, LF, 2B, SP1, SP2 and Lefty set=up man, then I think a new short bridge will have been built and this team could win 90 to 100 games.
I agree that the Bloom approach created an ever extending extension bridge that was nowhere near the other side when he got fired. I also agree with Fever that Bloom tried to not step backward by trading Jansen and a few other legitimate resources that will ease the return to greatness for Boston.
It all comes down to who gets the job and how much they care about defense and pitching being the fastest way to reverse the Bloom curse.
Wrong guy guarantees no division titles before 2030. Right guy and the team could win the division in 2024. There is a ton of money but the roster is broken and must be fixed. If the new guy puts lipstick on the pig, the team continues it’s spiral downward. If the new guy can treat the situation as if it’s a broken car that was built incorrectly and knows enough about cars to put the parts in the right places and buy the needed parts to make it sore, I think we will love 2024. The young guys all coming together with a leader other than the cheater would also go a long ways toward changing the atmosphere from one of back stabbing to one of family. That would be great to see.
What I mean by a bridge year is play the young guys see what you have. They need to play Abreu in right, Rafaela in center, and Duran in left. They also need to play Valdez at second see if he can be viable defensively. I think there will be growing pains with those guys but let’s see what we have. If it all comes together, unlikely, the team can surprise.
We all know the starting pitching is the key but I think it’s going to be very tough to get that in a very competitive free agency fir starters. I mean let’s be real even with all the warts when the starters went 6 this was a .600 winning team. Cora doesn’t seem to understand bullpens. He burns bullpens out before mid season because he doesn’t let his starters even go 5 innings a lot let alone 6. Hopefully Breslow can make Cora understand this. You have to let your starters go longer. I can’t tell you how many times I watched Cora take out Crawford because he got to the third time through the order not because he wasn’t pitching well you just can’t do that you will burn out your bullpen.
All managers are pulling pitchers these days. Crawford just wasn’t always effective.
This year was weird. We were definitely in it at times, we just went on one streak after another.
We can get to the postseason with some fine-tuning and updating our bullpen.
Judgement Day – who wants an ace who can’t crack 200 innings? I wouldn’t trust him.
The guy has been at the MLB level for 7 years and looks to have 2 Cy Young awards.
Trusting his stuff vs trusting his health are two different things. His skill level is outstanding but he doesn’t stay healthy. That’s a legitimate concern. His innings pitched per game is NOT a concern because that is determined by the manager. Since Boston has Cora we know what it’s like to have an idiot manager who never pulls pitchers at the right time.
Twice in 7 years Snell has made over 30 starts and both times he will have won the Cy Young. It’s entirely about his health. I would NOT recommend getting Snell if we have Cora as the manager but if we got a REAL manager who knows pitching, I would spend big bucks to get Snell. He is one of the most talented lefties in the game.