The "Unofficial Pre- Hot Stove (2010)" thread.

[example1]

I'm not arguing about the stated reason by the Red Sox. IMO Werth is not much more valuable than Bay even with those concerns. If the Sox wanted a big right handed bat to play left but were concerned about Bay's health' date=' they should have made a bigger push for Holliday. Holliday is a far superior offensive player than bay or Werth.[/quote']

 

I have concerns about Werth too. It seems like signing him for a lot of money would be questionable.

 

This team will have so much more flexibility if they make a big trade. Landing a significant bat for "only" prospects would give them a lot of money to spend either on players like Beltre and V-Mart, or Crawford, or Dunn.

 

They already have a fair amount of $$ for next year, getting a player with talent would be helpful.

[a700hitter]

In the past 20 years including 2010, a team with a bullpen in the bottom 3 in the AL went to the playoffs only 2 times-- 2003 and 2005. Both times it was the Red Sox. In those years, the offense was first in runs scoring over 900 runs in each of those seasons. IMO, making the playoffs with this bullpen was not going to be easy even if the Sox stayed healthy.

[example1]

In the past 20 years including 2010' date=' a team with a bullpen in the bottom 3 in the AL went to the playoffs only 2 times-- 2003 and 2005. Both times it was the Red Sox. In those years, the offense was first in runs scoring over 900 runs in each of those seasons. IMO, making the playoffs with this bullpen was not going to be easy even if the Sox stayed healthy.[/quote']

 

I disagree about the outcome with a healthy lineup. I also disagree that it should have been a huge priority to fix the pen during the past offseason. Yes, they could have used an extra arm, but they had Ramon Ramirez and Manny Delcarman, Wakefield, Bowden, Doubront, Okajima, Bard and Papelbon, among others. I would think that group offerd enough for them to build around, certainly enough to have kept them in contention so a move at the deadline would have bolstered the 'pen. Instead, they had too many injuries to make a WS really even a viable option by the deadline (to myself and a number of others at least) and didn't even try. That's just my opinion about how it went down... though it is all moot either way.

[a700hitter]

I disagree about the outcome with a healthy lineup. I also disagree that it should have been a huge priority to fix the pen during the past offseason. Yes' date=' they could have used an extra arm, but they had Ramon Ramirez and Manny Delcarman, Wakefield, Bowden, Doubront, Okajima, Bard and Papelbon, among others. I would think that group offerd enough for them to build around, certainly enough to have kept them in contention so a move at the deadline would have bolstered the 'pen. Instead, they had too many injuries to make a WS really even a viable option by the deadline (to myself and a number of others at least) and didn't even try. That's just my opinion about how it went down... though it is all moot either way.[/quote']It was pretty obvious from early on in the season that the pen had major problems. Schoenweiss? My goodness! MDC's lack of velocity was well documented during spring training. I really expected them to make some in season upgrades to the pen. They didn't.

[Palodios]

It was pretty obvious from early on in the season that the pen had major problems. Schoenweiss? My goodness! MDC's lack of velocity was well documented during spring training. I really expected them to make some in season upgrades to the pen. They didn't.

 

Well, not exactly. At the beginning of the season, this team had 3 elite bullpen pitchers, Papelbon, Bard-- and before you start protesting-- Manny Delcarmen was absolutely dominant April and May of this year.

 

He's a second round pick that the organization has been in love with for years, but in June, he completely fell off the side of a cliff, and I think the team assumed it was injury related, so they figured they'd just wait until he came back from the DL, but he never really recovered.

 

Ramon Ramirez had a ton of potential too-- he has a 0.73 ERA in 24 innings with SF since leaving Boston, so its not like they overestimated his abilities, they just didnt realize how Boston would affect him.

 

It wasn't until July that the team really realized that it was in such bad shape, and at that point, it was too late to find an elite bullpen arm cheap, so they did the next best thing by converting their two best AAA starters to relievers. Realize that the bullpen that started this year was mostly the same that started last year, with Bard replacing Saito. It is not the FO's fault that Papelbon, MDC, RR, and Okajima all decided to s*** the bed the same year. I honestly think its gotta be the training/pitching coaches because this year has been a worst case scenario in so many ways for the pitching, despite being healthy.

[a700hitter]

Well, not exactly. At the beginning of the season, this team had 3 elite bullpen pitchers, Papelbon, Bard-- and before you start protesting-- Manny Delcarmen was absolutely dominant April and May of this year.

 

He's a second round pick that the organization has been in love with for years, but in June, he completely fell off the side of a cliff, and I think the team assumed it was injury related, so they figured they'd just wait until he came back from the DL, but he never really recovered.

 

Ramon Ramirez had a ton of potential too-- he has a 0.73 ERA in 24 innings with SF since leaving Boston, so its not like they overestimated his abilities, they just didnt realize how Boston would affect him.

 

It wasn't until July that the team really realized that it was in such bad shape, and at that point, it was too late to find an elite bullpen arm cheap, so they did the next best thing by converting their two best AAA starters to relievers. Realize that the bullpen that started this year was mostly the same that started last year, with Bard replacing Saito. It is not the FO's fault that Papelbon, MDC, RR, and Okajima all decided to s*** the bed the same year. I honestly think its gotta be the training/pitching coaches because this year has been a worst case scenario in so many ways for the pitching, despite being healthy.

There was a lot of concern during Spring Training about Delcarmen's dip in velocity. The concern was that he wasn't healthy. Even though he performed well during the early going, he never regained his velocity. This was a guy who had been throwing 95-97 in past years. He was about 4 ticks short of that on his best day this season. With regard to Ramon Ramirez, there was a problem with him right out of the gate. We had one lefty out of the pen- Oki who was not looking good, and Schoenweiss is so bad that the Mets cast him off.

 

http://www.masslive.com/sports/index.ssf/2010/03/manny_delcarmen_working_throug.html

 

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2010/03/orioles-red_sox.html

[a700hitter]

Even though some people on site aired their concerns about the bullpen not being as effective, anyone who says (or implies) they "foresaw" a decline like this one is flat-out lying. I'm sorry to be a "Theo apologist". But no one expected it to happen. Not the FO, and certainly none of us, or any sports writer.

 

Here are just a few posts that I made in early season game threads. When I can do a search, I'm sure I can find more posts criticizing the pen in the early part of the season. I wasn't the only one to make these types of observations. The problems with our pen were evident early on.

 

http://www.talksox.com/forum/535640-post46.html

 

http://www.talksox.com/forum/536397-post82.html

 

http://www.talksox.com/forum/539834-post66.html

 

http://www.talksox.com/forum/541235-post132.html

[example1]

I think the bigger point is that the bullpen is not super difficult to address. They should be able to outbid most teams for a guy like Grant Balfour (31), Jesse Crain (28), Jon Rauch (31), JJ Putz (33) or Scott Downs (34), etc.,. Though none of those guys is obviously the answer, signing a few established relievers in their prime can turn into a nice bullpen foundation to add young guys around.

 

If they put down $15m/yr to get Balfour and Downs they could suddenly have a really nice bullpen combined with Papelbon and Bard and whomever else they assign to that role.

[Palodios]

Here are just a few posts that I made in early season game threads. When I can do a search' date=' I'm sure I can find more posts criticizing the pen in the early part of the season. I wasn't the only one to make these types of observations. The problems with our pen were evident early on.[/quote']

 

In all fairness, you do criticize a good number of players and areas.

[TheKilo]

What about answering the second question:

 

It does no good to answer the second question after I answered the first in the manner I did.

 

Once again, for someone who is punding his chest so much about how badly they needed to fix the bullpen, you offer no alternatives.

[TheKilo]

FWIW, the Tampa owner said last night that they were "absolutely" going to be cutting payroll next season. You can kiss Crawford, Pena, Soriano, and maybe Bartlett and others goodbye.

 

Doesn't seem to be a strategy I'd want to adopt, suck for 15 years, and then make the playoffs twice, and then self-destruct your own team...

[a700hitter]

In all fairness' date=' you do criticize a good number of players and areas.[/quote']

Really? What other position was I looking to upgrade early in the season with the possible exception of getting a RH OFer when Cameron's guts fell out. I was right about that, because there is no recovering from that injury without surgery. I can point to numerous posts where I disagreed with the hords that wanted to DFA Ortiz. Criticizing a bullpen is not criticism of a player, but rather of a unit. Let's be fair. The pen was terrible from Day 1. I and many others saw it early on as a problem. If we could see it, management could see it. It was not only foreseeble, but it was evident in April. Usually, teams continue to build a bullpen during the season. This year the Sox did not.

[a700hitter]

It does no good to answer the second question after I answered the first in the manner I did.

 

Once again, for someone who is punding his chest so much about how badly they needed to fix the bullpen, you offer no alternatives.

I'll give you alternatives. Take your pick of any of the relievers that were traded to contenders at or before the trading deaadline. There were numerous.Pick up any two of thos guys and the pen would have been upgraded.

[a700hitter]

I disagree about the outcome with a healthy lineup. I also disagree that it should have been a huge priority to fix the pen during the past offseason. Yes' date=' they could have used an extra arm, but they had Ramon Ramirez and Manny Delcarman, Wakefield, Bowden, Doubront, Okajima, Bard and Papelbon, among others. I would think that group offerd enough for them to build around, certainly enough to have kept them in contention so a move at the deadline would have bolstered the 'pen. Instead, they had too many injuries to make a WS really even a viable option by the deadline (to myself and a number of others at least) and didn't even try. That's just my opinion about how it went down... though it is all moot either way.[/quote']You pulled the plug on this team some time in May. That was month's earlier than I threw in the towel. My recollection is that you criticized the bullpen among other criticisms of the roster makeup in your declaration. When you bailed, I took that very seriously, because you are certainly not the type of fan to bail out early. When the team made it's June run, you came back saying that you had been wrong. IMO, you were not wrong. The flaws that you observed in May were flaws right to the end. The mini-run in June was entirely against slumping and underperforming NL teams. The Phillies were in a horrendous stretch where they scored something like 2 runs over a 7 game span. IMO, that stretch against the NL was an aberration for the Sox. The rest of the season was more representative of the 2010 Sox. Yes injuries, were a huge factor in missing the playoffs, but as you pointed out in May, there were several problems with the construction of the 2010 roster. None of them were corrected during the season. It is extremely rare to make the playoffs with a bottom 3 bullpen.

[TheKilo]

At the trade deadline the So knew they were going to be without two of their best three position players for the rest of the year. Can't fault them for not wanting to give up any assets for that.

[Dipre]

My head actually hurts now.

[Palodios]

The thing is-- this team is 6.5 games back-- about the same number back they were back at the end of April.

[a700hitter]

At the trade deadline the So knew they were going to be without two of their best three position players for the rest of the year. Can't fault them for not wanting to give up any assets for that.

I have heard two explanations defending the FO for its inaction at the trading deadline:

 

1. They didn't make any moves because they were counting on the healthy returns of Pedroia, Ellsbury, VMart and Beckett in the second half, and that was better than any possible acquisitions.

 

The problem with this argument is that none of those guys addressed the bull pen problem.

 

2. The FO "knew they were going to be without two of their best three position players for the rest of the year. Can't fault them for not wanting to give up any assets for that."

Quoted from your post.

 

Well, which is it? One thing that both explanations have in common is that they excuse the inaction of the FO. Curiously, these explanations seem almost diametrically opposed to each other. We really started hearing explanation #2 after the reasoning in #1 didn't pan out. BTW, #2 is based on a false premise. Youkilis did not go on the DL until after the trading deadline had passed, and Pedroia was expected to recover and resume playing.

 

I find it amusing that people look for excuses for the FO. This is big business and they are grown ups. Hopefully, they are critically analyzing their own performance more so than we are doing here. That is what good businesses do.

[a700hitter]

The thing is-- this team is 6.5 games back-- about the same number back they were back at the end of April.

and this means?

[TheKilo]

You know what? You're right, I forgot they were banking on Pedroia to come back and make a run. Still, what was the best BP arm that was moved at the deadline? Qualls? Wood had a pretty bad start to the year with the Guardians, at that point was he really an upgrade to what they already had?

 

In all honesty, losing the players they did was the principal reason they are not playing in October. Yes the bullpen sucked but when you have Bard/Papelbon closing it out you've got one of the best tandems in the game. If Pedroia, Youkilis, and Ellsbury are healthy for the season, there's no doubt in my mind they contend for a playoff spot (not claiming they make it when it looks like TB and NY win 95), even with their bullpen now.

[ORS]

I have heard two explanations defending the FO for its inaction at the trading deadline:

 

1. They didn't make any moves because they were counting on the healthy returns of Pedroia, Ellsbury, VMart and Beckett in the second half, and that was better than any possible acquisitions.

 

The problem with this argument is that none of those guys addressed the bull pen problem.

 

2. The FO "knew they were going to be without two of their best three position players for the rest of the year. Can't fault them for not wanting to give up any assets for that."

Quoted from your post.

 

Well, which is it? One thing that both explanations have in common is that they excuse the inaction of the FO. Curiously, these explanations seem almost diametrically opposed to each other. We really started hearing explanation #2 after the reasoning in #1 didn't pan out. BTW, #2 is based on a false premise. Youkilis did not go on the DL until after the trading deadline had passed, and Pedroia was expected to recover and resume playing.

 

I find it amusing that people look for excuses for the FO. This is big business and they are grown ups. Hopefully, they are critically analyzing their own performance more so than we are doing here. That is what good businesses do.

The problem with this post is that it treats the trade deadline like it is an absolute deadline. Sure, if you look at July 31 and only July 31, then it should be one or the other, and I agree that at that time #2 is not a valid defense. However, trades occur during the waiver trading period in August, and commentary about what they should/shouldn't do continued into that time frame. Early you heard #1, #1 didn't come true and Youkilis went down, then you heard #2. This is how I remember the discussions going.

 

EDIT: I didn't see that Kilo actually referenced the deadline. However, since the comment smells like a blanket indictment of the two rationales, I'll let this stand. If it was meant for a response to Kilo, and Kilo only, I retract it.

[a700hitter]

You know what? You're right, I forgot they were banking on Pedroia to come back and make a run. Still, what was the best BP arm that was moved at the deadline? Qualls? Wood had a pretty bad start to the year with the Guardians, at that point was he really an upgrade to what they already had?

 

In all honesty, losing the players they did was the principal reason they are not playing in October. Yes the bullpen sucked but when you have Bard/Papelbon closing it out you've got one of the best tandems in the game. If Pedroia, Youkilis, and Ellsbury are healthy for the season, there's no doubt in my mind they contend for a playoff spot (not claiming they make it when it looks like TB and NY win 95), even with their bullpen now.

Capps, Dotel, Farnsworth, and Ohman were also traded. Brian Fuentes was available, but he got moved after july 31st. More pitchers such as Aardsma were rumored to be availble. All would have been an improvement over the garbage we have had in the pen.

 

I agree that the injuries are the principal reason, but it was not the only issue this team had. As you pointed out, if they were healthy and contending, the sucky pen could have still prevented them from making the playoffs.

[BSN07]

My head actually hurts now.

 

Banging one's head against a table repeatedly will cause this

 

 

 

Can we all just agree it was a s*** season? It's over. There is nothing any argument from either side can do to change this. Slap 2010 with a "spilled milk" reference and move on.

 

 

Now with a clean slate and no shoulda woulda coulda's let's focus on what the team needs to do going into 2011 and beyond.

[a700hitter]

Banging one's head against a table repeatedly will cause this

 

 

 

Can we all just agree it was a s*** season? It's over. There is nothing any argument from either side can do to change this. Slap 2010 with a "spilled milk" reference and move on.

 

 

Now with a clean slate and no shoulda woulda coulda's let's focus on what the team needs to do going into 2011 and beyond.

This is The "Unofficial Pre- Hot Stove (2010)" thread. This is the place to discuss how to make the team better for 2011. My point is that just getting everybody healthy is not the off season answer. The bullpen is broke and there is other work to do. This is what I have been saying since this thread started. I realize that this Hot Stove Thread started innordinately early-- August 5th, and maybe that has caused some confusion. I'd like to discuss how to make the 2011 Sox better. My approach to that is to first find out what is broke. Too many posters waste their efforts on trying to prove me wrong rather than discussing possible needs for the team. If you want to blame or not blame the FO for the atrocious 2010 bullpen, that's your personal choice, but it is not the issue for discussion. However, the stinkiness of the bullpen was not some July surprise or revelation. Their unreliability was evident in April. The fact is that it stunk and it contributed to many losses.

[Palodios]

In all fairness, you've been complaining about the bullpen for a while without making any viable suggestions on how to fix it. I made a list of twelve possibilities to add to this team about a month ago, and you shot all of them down without giving a single reason.

[a700hitter]

In all fairness' date=' you've been complaining about the bullpen for a while without making any viable suggestions on how to fix it. I made a list of twelve possibilities to add to this team about a month ago, and you shot all of them down without giving a single reason.[/quote']This is helpful discussion? I'm not interested in revisiting an old disagreement... are you? Repost your suggestions and members can discuss.

[example1]

You pulled the plug on this team some time in May. That was month's earlier than I threw in the towel. My recollection is that you criticized the bullpen among other criticisms of the roster makeup in your declaration. When you bailed' date=' I took that very seriously, because you are certainly not the type of fan to bail out early. When the team made it's June run, you came back saying that you had been wrong. IMO, you were not wrong. The flaws that you observed in May were flaws right to the end. The mini-run in June was entirely against slumping and underperforming NL teams. The Phillies were in a horrendous stretch where they scored something like 2 runs over a 7 game span. IMO, that stretch against the NL was an aberration for the Sox. The rest of the season was more representative of the 2010 Sox. Yes injuries, were a huge factor in missing the playoffs, but as you pointed out in May, there were several problems with the construction of the 2010 roster. None of them were corrected during the season. It is extremely rare to make the playoffs with a bottom 3 bullpen.[/quote']

 

The reason I was compelled to pull the plug so early was their slow start and particularly the slow start of David Ortiz and the pitching staff.

 

I figured, if this team had a broken down Ortiz they were in trouble. When Ortiz turned it on (1.211 OPS in May) and the team was healthy with a productive Adrian Beltre, Youkilis, Pedroia, etc., I got optimistic again because they looked good enough to win. Then the injuries piled up and it was obvious that they needed things to bounce right for them to win at all this year. The bullpen became a key part of that--they needed the guys they had to pitch well but they didn't.

 

The team was fragile from the beginning and really needed many things to go their way to compete with NY and TB.

[Yaz Sideburn]

The team was fragile from the beginning and really needed many things to go their way to compete with NY and TB.

 

people forget that at one point with ellsbury, pedroia, v-mart, buchholz, beckett, matsuzaka, varitek and lowell all on the disabled list all at the same time, we somehow managed to pull within 0.5 a game of the yankees and have the second best record in baseball. i would say that we were competitive with the yankees and rays then without much of anything going our way for most of the year

 

we were a very good team before all the injuries but when we started relying on 6th outfielders and 7th starters for months at a time, many of those guys who were hurt never returned and youkilis went on the disabled list as well, we couldn't keep it up any more

[a700hitter]

The reason I was compelled to pull the plug so early was their slow start and particularly the slow start of David Ortiz and the pitching staff.

 

I figured, if this team had a broken down Ortiz they were in trouble. When Ortiz turned it on (1.211 OPS in May) and the team was healthy with a productive Adrian Beltre, Youkilis, Pedroia, etc., I got optimistic again because they looked good enough to win. Then the injuries piled up and it was obvious that they needed things to bounce right for them to win at all this year. The bullpen became a key part of that--they needed the guys they had to pitch well but they didn't.

 

The team was fragile from the beginning and really needed many things to go their way to compete with NY and TB.

I don't know if I would have called them "fragile", but you were right at the time when you said that Theo had work to do. I differed from you in only one respect about that. I felt that he could have made some in season moves that would have helped the team without any major roster surgery. You felt that major off season surgery was the way to go. Now, the point is moot. Whatever, needs to be done will be done in the off season. The top three items on my hit list are the following: 1. Sign Beltre; 2.Rebuild the pen. I'd keep Papelbon for another year and try to add 2 quality arms-- one lefty. Dubront can be the other lefty. 3. Get a top shelf OFer allowing them to move old man river Cameron to the 4th OFer status.

 

I think all three are very doable.

[Dipre]

I see that Beltre, another one of Theo's "Colossal failures" and the classic "Banjo hitter" is getting some love over here. Oh where art thou rhet......

 

By the way, i wouldn't touch him with a 10-foot pole unless they gave him a perpetual "contract year" option, he'll be productive, but not for the price Boras will put on his services.