- Red Sox left-hander David Price is “feeling better, little by little,” as he works back from a wrist injury, manager Alex Cora said Tuesday (via Steve Hewitt of the Boston Herald). Although the Red Sox’s playoff hopes are dashed, Price still plans to pitch again this season. After that, though, he may need to undergo a minor surgery to repair the issue, Hewitt reports. Price’s wrist has been a problem since last month, having limited him to two appearances and a combined 4 2/3 innings since the end of July.
Red Sox Rumors
Red Sox Part Ways With Dave Dombrowski
Sept. 9: The Red Sox have issued a press release on the shakeup, announcing that a search for a new baseball operations leader will commence “immediately.”
“Four years ago, we were faced with a critical decision about the direction of the franchise,” principal owner John Henry stated within the release. “We were extraordinarily fortunate to be able to bring Dave in to lead baseball operations. With a World Series Championship and three consecutive American League East titles, he has cemented what was already a Hall of Fame career.”
Sept. 8: In a shocking development, the Red Sox announced that they have parted ways with president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. Assistant GMs Eddie Romero, Zack Scott, and Brian O’Halloran, and senior VP of Major League and minor league operations Raquel Ferreira will take over as the heads of the baseball ops department for the remainder of the season (MLB.com’s Ian Browne was among those to report the news of the assistant GMs in the interim roles, while Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reported Ferreira’s involvement.)
It was just last fall that the Red Sox captured a World Series championship with one of the best teams in recent baseball history, winning 108 regular-season games and then rolling through the playoffs with an 11-3 record. It marked the club’s first title since Dombrowski took over the job in August 2015, and his second World Series in over three decades as one of the game’s most respected front office bosses. Dombrowski also put together the Marlins team that won the 1997 Series, and his resume also includes two American League pennants with the Tigers in 2006 and 2012.
With such a track record of both past and recent success, it’s hard to believe that Dombrowski is so suddenly out of a job, though there had been some whispers that ownership took a dim view of Boston’s underachievement in 2019. Tonight’s loss to the Yankees dropped the Sox 17.5 games out of first place in the AL East, and eight games behind the Athletics for the last AL wild card slot, making a postseason return all but impossible.
Multiple issues surrounded the 2019 Red Sox, which were seemingly enough for upper management to decide that a change was needed. For one, the team exceeded the upper level of the luxury tax ($237MM) in 2018, and are again in position to exceed the new upper threshold of $246MM this season. As per Roster Resource, the Red Sox have a projected luxury tax number of over $257.7MM, putting them in line to face another maximum penalty — a 75 percent tax on the overage, as well as a drop of ten spots for their highest pick of the 2020 draft. (MLBTR’s Jeff Todd explored some of the financial ramifications for the Red Sox and the Competitive Balance Tax back in February.)
This cash crunch left the team unable to truly add new pieces to the roster, particularly a bullpen that seemed thin after Craig Kimbrel and Joe Kelly departed in free agency. Still, Boston’s offseason focus largely centered around re-signing key members of their 2018 roster (Nathan Eovaldi and Steve Pearce), while also extending Chris Sale and Xander Bogaerts, both of whom would have been free agents after the 2019 campaign.
Unfortunately for the Sox, a large chunk of their 2019 expenditures went for naught. Eovaldi (signed to a four-year, $68MM deal) and Pearce (one-year, $6.25MM) have both been ineffective or injured for much of the year, with Eovaldi shifted into bullpen work rather than his expected role in the starting rotation. Sale has endured a career-worst season after signing a five-year, $145MM extension that runs through the 2024 season (unless Sale opts out after 2022, which seems unlikely at this point).
Past Dombrowski acquisitions have also started to show their age this year. Eduardo Nunez and Mitch Moreland have combined for -0.4 fWAR at a combined cost of $11.5MM. David Price has put up generally good numbers since signing his seven-year, $217MM contract in the 2015-16 offseason, but his production hasn’t matched the big expectations that came with what is still the biggest deal ever handed to a pitcher in terms of total dollars.
If this analysis of Dombrowski’s misfires seems too centered around the results of the 2019 season, there’s really no other way to explain his firing, since at this time last year the baseball world was praising Dombrowski’s creation of a super-team. (Beyond the 2018 Series, Boston also won AL East titles in both 2016 and 2017.) Known for bold trades of prospects for star talent, it was Dombrowski who brought Sale and Kimbrel to Boston in major deals with the White Sox and Padres, respectively. The extensions for Bogaerts and Christian Vazquez both look like big pluses, and the J.D. Martinez signing was a major win.
It should also be noted that if the luxury tax overage was such a big strike against Dombrowski, that wasn’t entirely his doing. The Red Sox could have made just a minimal CBT payment if it wasn’t for the roughly $46MM in salaries paid out to Pablo Sandoval, Rusney Castillo, and Dustin Pedroia, all on contracts inked during the regime of previous general manager Ben Cherington. Pedroia’s career is in jeopardy due to chronic knee problems, Sandoval hasn’t played for Boston in over two years, and Castillo is stuck in minor league limbo until his deal is up.
In fairness to Cherington, he was also not far removed from a World Series title (less than two seasons) when he himself was replaced by Dombrowski midway through the 2015 season. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal recently explored the possibility of a Dombrowski firing, and pointed out the extraordinarily high standard that seemingly any Red Sox general manager will have to meet, given that not even recent championships were enough to spare Cherington or Dombrowski. As Rosenthal rhetorically asked, if Sox ownership is “frustrated with Dombrowski’s spending and his use of prospects as trade fodder, well, what exactly did they think they were getting? Dombrowski hasn’t broken from character in Boston, has never disguised his M.O.”
Boston’s farm system has been thinned by both Dombrowski’s trades, but perhaps moreso by the graduation of several of the top young prospects to the big leagues, so it isn’t as if the Red Sox are drastically short on premium young talent. Rafael Devers is still a pre-arbitration player, after all, while Andrew Benintendi is only arb-eligible this winter and Eduardo Rodriguez has two arb years remaining.
Even Mookie Betts has one final year of arbitration eligibility, and while his future in Boston was already a big question, it has become of even greater import in the wake of Dombrowski’s firing. Betts told reporters (including Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald) tonight that the front office change “is proof that it’s still a business.” While reiterating that “I love it here [in Boston],” Betts also said “it’s going to be the same answer” in regards to his plan to test the free agent market following the 2020 season.
It will be fascinating to see what direction Red Sox ownership takes in their search for a new baseball operations head. Since John Henry’s ownership group bought the franchise, they famously promoted young executives from within (Theo Epstein and Cherington) before going in the opposite direction with Dombrowski, a veteran baseball man from outside the organization. As Rosenthal noted in his piece, rebuilding doesn’t appear to be an option in Boston, so a new front office boss will have to creatively replenish the minor league system while still keeping the Sox in contention for another championship.
The next GM will inherit, after all, a team that is still talented — the Red Sox have a 76-67 record, and their offensive core of Betts, Bogaerts, Devers, and Martinez is as good as any in the sport. But with Martinez potentially opting out of his deal and some major work needed for the rotation and bullpen, offseason business could explore trades of players a year removed from free agency (such as Betts or Jackie Bradley Jr.) in order to refurbish the roster. Quite a bit of salary will also be coming off the books, so there’s a possibility the Sox could duck under the $208MM luxury tax threshold altogether and reset their penalty status.
Dombrowski was under contract though the 2020 season, and turned 63 in July. The exec hadn’t had many public ruminations on his future, though he wishes to continue working, one would imagine several front offices would be interested in bringing him on, at least in an advisory capacity. Or, it’s also not hard to imagine a team perhaps deciding to make a front office change now that Dombrowski is available.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Could JDM Opt For Later Opt-Out?
- Amidst the speculation about whether or not J.D. Martinez will exercise the opt-out clause in his Red Sox contract after the season, Ken Rosenthal (in his latest video report for FOX Sports) points out that Martinez doesn’t necessarily have to decide right now if he wants to leave Boston. The slugger also has opt-out clauses after both the 2020 season and (assuming he can avoid another Lisfranc-related right foot injury) 2021 season, so he could perhaps wait one more year to see if his market evolves. Despite Martinez’s hitting prowess, there aren’t too many obvious suitors for a mostly DH-only player….unless the National League were to become involved, as Rosenthal wonders if Martinez would stay in his contract to see if the NL adopted the designated hitter in the next collective bargaining agreement.
Red Sox Push Back Price’s Next Start; Chavis Suffers Setback In Rehab
The Red Sox’ faint Wild Card hopes may have taken another hit, as manager Alex Cora told reporters today that David Price won’t make his scheduled start against the Yankees this weekend after experiencing tightness in his ailing wrist during his most recent bullpen session (Twitter links via the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier). The outlook on infielder Michael Chavis is worse, it seems, as a setback in his rehab from an oblique strain has placed the remainder of the season in jeopardy for the 24-year-old rookie.
Price is currently able to throw fastballs but is having difficulty throwing his cutter and changeup. Cora didn’t offer a specific return date on the lefty, but his scratch will now relegate the Red Sox to a pair of bullpen games against the Yankees in their four-game series this weekend. Recently signed righty Jhoulys Chacin is a candidate to start tomorrow’s game in place of Price, but he’d apparently function as more of an opener than a traditional starter; Chacin hasn’t pitched in a big league game since July 24 and hasn’t pitched more than three innings in an appearance since July 14.
Price only just returned from a month-long absence that stemmed from a cyst in his wrist. The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey tweets that the left-hander underwent a platelet-rich plasma injection while on the injured list that was intended to help break up the cyst. Now, however, the ongoing discomfort in the area makes offseason surgery to remove the cyst a likelier outcome.
Chavis, meanwhile, has been out since Aug. 11 with the oblique injury that now threatens to put an to his rookie campaign. Long one of the organization’s top prospects, Chavis burst onto the scene in late April and turned in an OPS north of .900 through his first month-plus in the big leagues. His offensive contributions have slowly waned in recent months, though, and Chavis was mired in an ugly 5-for-32 slump at the time of his IL placement. In all, he’s given the Sox a respectable .254/.322/.444 line through 382 trips to the plate, clubbing 18 home runs, 10 doubles and a triple along the way.
Even with Chavis now unlikely to return in 2019, Cora noted that there’s still no thought to adding top infield prospect Bobby Dalbec to the Major League roster. Dalbec, also 24, hit .234/.371/.454 with 20 home runs in a very pitcher-friendly setting in Double-A — that slash line was 43 percent better than league average, per wRC+ — before graduating to Triple-A and hitting .257/.301/.478 (91 wRC+) in 123 plate appearances there.
Red Sox Announce Series Of 40-Man Moves
According to an official team release, the Red Sox are tinkering with the 40-man roster to make room for a number of September call-ups. Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com has the rundown on all the moves, which include the activation of left-hander David Price from the injured list. Newly-signed righty Jhoulys Chacin, catcher Juan Centeno, and outfielder Gorkys Hernandez have all been added to the 40-man roster. To make space for the above trio, injured pitchers Chris Sale and Steven Wright have been transferred to the 60-day injured list, while first baseman Joey Curletta was outrighted to Double-A.
Price last pitched for Boston in early August before a wrist issue forced him to the injured list—his second stint this season. As for much of his Red Sox tenure, it’s been a rocky year for Price, whose hefty contract looms in the face of good—not great—numbers.
Chacin, who yesterday inked a minor-league deal with Boston, will have a crack at the rotation as he seeks to redeem himself from a disappointing season in Milwaukee, which released him just a year removed from a stellar year. With the injury to Sale and many other options underperforming on the mound, Chacin represents a low-risk signee for a September audition.
Curletta has yet to make his big-league debut, and that milestone will have to wait a bit longer for the 25-year-old, a 2012 draftee of the Dodgers. He’ll remain with Double-A Portland though no longer on the Boston 40-man roster. He’s spent this season between the two levels of the upper minors, posting a combined .678 OPS with 14 home runs.
Centeno, 29, and Hernandez, 31, will each make their Red Sox debuts. Neither has appeared in the Major Leagues this season after inking minor-league contracts last winter. Centeno, who will offer depth beyond Christian Vazquez and Sandy Leon, is the owner of a career .227/.278/.331 batting line, playing parts of six Major League seasons with the Mets, Brewers, Twins, Astros, and Rangers. Hernandez made a name for himself with the Giants, where he played the previous three seasons. In 2018, he enjoyed a career year as he was given regular playing time, posting a .676 OPS to go with 15 home runs.
Red Sox Sign Jhoulys Chacin To Minor-League Deal
The Red Sox have signed free-agent right-hander Jhoulys Chacin to a minor-league deal, according to Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. Many expected Chacin to sign on with the Red Sox, who expressed interest in the ex-Brewer after he threw a bullpen session in front of Red Sox brass.
Chacin hit the open market on Monday after he was released by the Brewers, the team for which he took the mound on Opening Day this season. Evidently, Milwaukee’s opinion of the 31-year-old soured after he mustered only a 5.79 ERA in 88 2/3 innings for the Brew Crew. It’s been a swift fall from grace for Chacin, who just last season pitched nearly 200 innings of 3.50 ERA baseball en route to a game 7 start in Milwaukee. However, David Stearns and company prefer other in-house options, to the point that the club was willing to eat the $6MM remaining on Chacin’s deal.
It shouldn’t be long before Chacin is given a chance to pitch out of the Boston rotation, which has seemingly been in a constant state of turmoil this season. With Chris Sale unlikely to pitch again this year and rotation stalwarts David Price and Rick Porcello failing to meet expectations—to say nothing of Nathan Eovaldi’s underperformance and the flubbed acquisition of Andrew Cashner—the Red Sox are exhausting every last option in hopes that something will stick as the club hopes for a last-minute turnaround. As a last resort, taking a late-season chance on Chacin—who is just a year removed from a career year and whose injuries this year may in part be attributed to injuries—can’t hurt and has some potential for a nice payoff.
Red Sox Interested In Jhoulys Chacin
Free-agent right-hander Jhoulys Chacin conducted a workout with the Red Sox on Friday, Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald reports. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and manager Alex Cora were on hand to watch Chacin throw a bullpen session in Anaheim, but it’s unknown whether Boston will sign the hurler.
Chacin has been available since the Brewers released him Monday, which was an especially damning transaction when considering the adversity their rotation has gone through this season. After back-to-back quality seasons with the Padres and Brewers, Chacin dealt with multiple injuries and struggled to a 5.79 ERA/5.68 FIP with 8.12 K/9 and 3.86 BB/9 in 19 starts and 88 2/3 innings this year. The Brewers elected to cut ties with Chacin as a result, even though they’re short on viable starters and had to eat the rest of his $6MM salary in releasing him.
The Red Sox are also in dire straits in their rotation, leading to their interest in Chacin. They’re likely to go without injured ace Chris Sale for the rest of the year, while David Price (nearing activation from the IL), Nathan Eovaldi and Rick Porcello haven’t given the team the type of production it expected entering the campaign. Thanks in part to their starting staff’s issues, the defending champion Red Sox are a strong bet to miss the playoffs. Nevertheless, they could take a late-season flier on Chacin, who has a fan in Sox scout Steve Peck, according to Silverman. The club worked out Chacin at Peck’s recommendation.
MLBTR Poll: Superstars For Sale?
ESPN scribe Jeff Passan floated a very interesting tidbit in his latest column Wednesday: There’s a belief among rival executives that the Red Sox, Indians and Cubs will at least be willing to listen to trade offers for their franchise players during the upcoming winter. That means any of Boston’s Mookie Betts, Cleveland’s Francisco Lindor or Chicago’s Kris Bryant could change hands once the offseason rolls around. It’s far from a guarantee anyone from the group will wind up on the move, but the idea that they might should make hot stove season all the more interesting.
The only member of the trio with fewer than two years of team control remaining is Betts, who will enter his final season of arbitration eligibility over the winter. The 26-year-old right fielder is just a season removed from earning AL MVP honors, which helped him land a historic $20MM payday to avoid arbitration last winter. The 2019 version of Betts hasn’t been as stellar as the MVP-winning player, but that’s not a knock on his performance this season so much as a compliment to what he did a year ago, when he amassed an eyebrow-raising 10.4 fWAR. Betts is up to 4.8 in that category this year, having slashed a strong .282/.384/.494 with 21 home runs and 13 stolen bases across 622 plate appearances.
Just a year from winning their latest World Series title, why would the Red Sox possibly move Betts? They’re unlikely to make the playoffs this year, though a trip back to the postseason in 2020 hardly looks out of the question. However, Betts has indicated on multiple occasions that he’d like to test free agency after next season, when he could reel in one of the all-time richest contracts in the sport. For the Red Sox, trading Betts a year before a potential journey to the open market would help the club replenish its farm system to some degree. The Red Sox only came in 22nd place in Baseball America’s most recent talent rankings.
The Indians, on the other hand, boast the game’s 10th-best system, though they’re incapable of spending to the extent the Red Sox can. That means Lindor is quite likely to end up elsewhere in the coming years. Mr. Smile will be a free agent after 2021, but it would behoove the Indians to get something for him prior to then. In the meantime, the 25-year-old Lindor is sure to collect a notable raise over his current $10.55MM salary when he reaches arbitration for the penultimate time during the offseason. Lindor perhaps hasn’t been quite as great as he was in 2018, a career-high 7.6-fWAR campaign, but his 4.3 mark and .300/.353/.532 line with 24 homers and 19 steals through 522 PA are mighty impressive nonetheless. Needless to say, teams will line up for the elite shortstop if small-market Cleveland goes with the agonizing decision to make him available in the coming months.
And then there’s Bryant, yet another former MVP. The Boras client joins Lindor as another all-world performer who’s slated for his second-last trip through arbitration in a few months. Bryant, 27, is well on his way to another raise (he’s currently on a $12.9MM salary), having batted .282/.379/.521 and smashed 29 dingers over 552 trips to the plate. Whether the Cubs would truly consider parting with Bryant is up in the air, but they are amid their second somewhat disappointing season (albeit one that looks as if it will culminate in yet another playoff berth), and waving goodbye to the third baseman/outfielder would go a long way toward aiding them in bolstering their system. It’s definitely a below-average group, according to BA, which places it 29th in baseball.
We’re still a couple months from the offseason rearing its head, but if anyone from this trio hits the block, it should make for an incredibly interesting winter of rumors. Do you expect any of them to actually change teams after the season?
(Poll link for app users)
Looking At Brock Holt's Free Agent Case
- Super-utilityman Brock Holt is enjoying the best season of his eight-year career, leaving MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo to wonder if the Red Sox will be able to affordably re-sign Holt in free agency this offseason. Despite missing over seven weeks due to shoulder and eye injuries, Holt has hit .320/.393/.455 over 206 plate appearances, playing mostly as a second baseman to help the Sox fill the void left by the injured Dustin Pedroia. Cotillo thinks the 31-year-old could find a three-year deal worth $27MM-$30MM on the open market, though “that might take a market rebound and some teams rewarding Holt for trending upward this season.” While Boston has a lot of money coming off the books this winter, the club still has roughly $159.35MM in projected salary commitments (as per Roster Resource) and that’s not counting big raises due to arbitration-eligible players like Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr. Andrew Benintendi, or Eduardo Rodriguez. The Red Sox have Marco Hernandez on hand as a possible heir apparent utility infielder, should they choose to let Holt go and spend elsewhere. For his part, Holt stated last spring that he “would love to stay here for the rest of my career.”
Can The Red Sox Mount A Late-Season Comeback?
It has been presumed for some time that the World Series-champion Red Sox were sunk in their quest for a repeat. While the club has easily kept its head above water, it has struggled to bag enough victories in a highly stratified American League.
An eight-game losing streak wrapping the trade deadline — at which Boston held pat — sent the club’s chances plummeting. By August 21st, Fangraphs’ playoff odds tracker gave the Sox a meager 1.8% chance of making the postseason.
But here’s the thing about postseason odds charts: they make for useful, rough gauges as to where a team stands at a given moment. But they can’t and don’t reflect all the nuanced factors that can influence performance swings. And the odds are based upon simulations of how the remainder of the season can play out. Thus, they necessarily change as actual results come in, and can change rather significantly in fairly short periods of time.
(The Red Sox suffered a drop of nearly fifty percentage points from July 27th through August 4th. The Mets did nearly the opposite from July 24th through August 10th — only to quickly shed many of the “gains” with a recent skid.)
With just a month of the season remaining, there are less plausible scenarios. But several of them certainly involve the Red Sox continuing to play once the regular season concludes.
After an 8-3 stretch of play — coupled with middling periods from the Rays and Indians — the BoSox have shot back up to a 9.8% chance by reckoning of the Fangraphs computers. Other systems are less optimistic: 538 puts it at 7%, Baseball-Reference at just 3.1%. But these systems are telling us the same essential thing: there’s a chance, and not just in the Lloyd Christmas sense.
The Indians just lost Jose Ramirez and are still missing some key pitchers, as are the Rays. The Athletics seem to be cresting, but who’s to say the rotation can keep outperforming ERA estimators by such a wide margin? (4.02 ERA; 4.87 xFIP; 4.94 SIERA.) Or that the Red Sox’ opposite fortunes won’t suddenly reverse? (5.02 ERA; 4.44 xFIP; 4.41 SIERA.) David Price is slated for a return, with Michael Chavis perhaps not far behind him. Boston relievers have reversed their fortunes over the past month, perhaps portending good things for high-leverage situations.
Gut out a few extra wins, and those postseason odds will keep lurching forward. Gain some momentum, and perhaps the goal will feel — and even actually be — more attainable than the numbers would suggest. This team has been there before, so there’s no questioning the capacity. And it’s arguably the best of the AL Wild Card contenders from a true-talent perspective.
That’s the argument in favor of a stirring comeback, anyway. But what do you think? Do you agree with the computer simulations, or do you believe the Red Sox will mount a successful charge? (Poll link for app users.)
