Rotation

[Palodios]

This is the only scenario I can see them bringing in another ML SP. But I haven't heard or read anything saying he won't be ready.

 

Lohse isn't going to fit, especially with the draft pick attached to him.

 

I am more interested in Marcum, personally. I just don't understand why the Red Sox aren't more concerned about Lackey. It seems to happen every year... a player gets hurt, loses an entire season, and when they come back, they need time to become a major league pitcher again.

 

Remember Buchholz last year? Beckett on odd years? It happened to Daisuke before he completely lost it. Giving Lackey some time against live bats makes sense.

[a700hitter]

I am more interested in Marcum, personally. I just don't understand why the Red Sox aren't more concerned about Lackey. It seems to happen every year... a player gets hurt, loses an entire season, and when they come back, they need time to become a major league pitcher again.

 

Remember Buchholz last year? Beckett on odd years? It happened to Daisuke before he completely lost it. Giving Lackey some time against live bats makes sense.

And he wasn't exactly Adam Wainright before the surgery.

[a700hitter]

I am more interested in Marcum, personally. I just don't understand why the Red Sox aren't more concerned about Lackey. It seems to happen every year... a player gets hurt, loses an entire season, and when they come back, they need time to become a major league pitcher again.

 

Remember Buchholz last year? Beckett on odd years? It happened to Daisuke before he completely lost it. Giving Lackey some time against live bats makes sense.

It's probably a safe bet that 1 of the pitchers misses significant time. That would be an improvement over recent years. When a guy goes down, we don't have ML ready depth to stp in and take a start every 5 days. Morales is not the guy. He is a stop gap spot starter. The guy has never tossed 100 innings in a season. He's not up to taking a regular turn.

[Station 13]

It's probably a safe bet that 1 of the pitchers misses significant time. That would be an improvement over recent years. When a guy goes down, we don't have ML ready depth to stp in and take a start every 5 days. Morales is not the guy. He is a stop gap spot starter. The guy has never tossed 100 innings in a season. He's not up to taking a regular turn.

 

We're a year+ away from Barnes being able to help this team. Yes there is no permanent replacement if Buchholz spent the entire 2013 on the DL. Beside the Rays and Braves, I don't think any team has depth for such fills in.

 

Quality SP is the most difficult to develop. it's why there's only 1 or 2 that hits the market every 2-3 years and we're paying them in their 30s.

 

Develop pitchers and have them in their 20s. I hate to have more Lackey/Dempters being 2/5 of the rotation.

 

It may also be why Barnes is the most important prospect in the system. If he bust, we're screwed.

[a700hitter]

We're a year+ away from Barnes being able to help this team. Yes there is no permanent replacement if Buchholz spent the entire 2013 on the DL. Beside the Rays and Braves, I don't think any team has depth for such fills in.

 

Quality SP is the most difficult to develop. it's why there's only 1 or 2 that hits the market every 2-3 years and we're paying them in their 30s.

 

Develop pitchers and have them in their 20s. I hate to have more Lackey/Dempters being 2/5 of the rotation.

 

It may also be why Barnes is the most important prospect in the system. If he bust, we're screwed.

We don't know what Barnes will be. Let's wait to see if he can dominate AA before we start penciling him into the ML rotation. We have a thin rotation as it is. We don't have an ace. An injury to our staff would be more crippling than an injury to a team that has a couple of studs at the top of the rotation. I differ with your conclusion. I think that in addition to the the Rays, the Jays now have better depth. The Yankees always have better depth. The O's staff is unspectacular, but they a bunch of guys who can step in and take starts and give some decent innings at the ML level. We are thin. The pitching problem has never been addressed adequately in two off seasons. If Salty is our primary catcher, I see little hope of a marked improvement.

[User Name]

They need to create more depth. Morales can take a couple of mid-season starts, but no more. I still think they should go after Marcum.

[BSN07]

They need to create more depth. Morales can take a couple of mid-season starts, but no more. I still think they should go after Marcum.

 

Ok, but where do you put him if Lackey is ready to go at the beginning of the season? I see 5 guys that are basically guaranteed to be in the rotation if healthy. If they are going to add depth it will have to be guys they can stash in the minors.

 

I'm not against Marcum. I probably like him better then Lackey. But I just don't see him signing in Boston without a guaranteed rotation spot.

[Palodios]

Ok, but where do you put him if Lackey is ready to go at the beginning of the season? I see 5 guys that are basically guaranteed to be in the rotation if healthy. If they are going to add depth it will have to be guys they can stash in the minors.

 

I'm not against Marcum. I probably like him better then Lackey. But I just don't see him signing in Boston without a guaranteed rotation spot.

 

Whoever underperforms gets pushed to a longman spot until someone gets hurt. Because someone will get hurt.

[a700hitter]

Ok, but where do you put him if Lackey is ready to go at the beginning of the season? I see 5 guys that are basically guaranteed to be in the rotation if healthy. If they are going to add depth it will have to be guys they can stash in the minors.

 

I'm not against Marcum. I probably like him better then Lackey. But I just don't see him signing in Boston without a guaranteed rotation spot.

You guarantee Marcum a spot and use Doubs as a long man. Before the middle of May, Doubs will be getting starts, because someone will be injured or s***ing himself.

[User Name]

Why Doubront? He has a higher upside than post-op Lackey.

[a700hitter]

Why Doubront? He has a higher upside than post-op Lackey.

Just because he's likely to make less of a fuss than Lackey. It's very possible That Lackey needs to stay in Florida when camp breaks.

[Behindenemylines]

You guarantee Marcum a spot and use Doubs as a long man. Before the middle of May, Doubs will be getting starts, because someone will be injured or s***ing himself.

 

Plus it could be a way of having Doubront finish strong if they limit innings at the start of the season.

[User Name]

Plus it could be a way of having Doubront finish strong if they limit innings at the start of the season.

 

Excellent point. It makes a lot more sense if you apply that logic.

[a700hitter]

We are staking our season on Buchholz and Lester having big seasons. After taking a look at Lester's numbers, I am not very confident that he will rebound to his 2010 form. In two seasons, his strikeouts have dropped from 225 to 166. A drop off by 60 strikeouts in the same number of innings sets off alarm bells to me. I know that someone posted a list of guys who had improved their ERAs by a run or more from one season to the next. I wonder how many of those guys had experienced a 25% drop off of strikeout effectiveness.

[Dojji]

Not too worried about Lester personally. He's going to do himself credit this year. I blame a lot of his performance last year on our mediocre defense, and our defense should be much better this year with upgrades at shortstop and hopefully catcher.

 

That said, this season is going to come down to one person. Clay Buchholz needs to be the player he always had the potential to be. The time for being a "great pitcher, but..." is over. If he succeeds we have a chance to get somewhere. If not, nothing else we can do is going to make up for that.

[a700hitter]

Not too worried about Lester personally. He's going to do himself credit this year. I blame a lot of his performance last year on our mediocre defense, and our defense should be much better this year with upgrades at shortstop and hopefully catcher.

 

That said, this season is going to come down to one person. Clay Buchholz needs to be the player he always had the potential to be. The time for being a "great pitcher, but..." is over. If he succeeds we have a chance to get somewhere. If not, nothing else we can do is going to make up for that.

The defense wouldn't knock down Lester's k's by 25%.

[SoxFanForsyth]

The defense wouldn't knock down Lester's k's by 25%.

 

Lester's K's went down because of a mechanical flow that flattened out his cutter. His cutter had a decrease in horizontal movement of over 2.5 inches. This was largely due to the fact that his front leg was opening up (almost like a gate swinging open before striding toward the plate rather than striding forward with the front leg closed), which didn't allow him to get on top of the baseball and it flattened out his pitches, especially his cutter. This is something that Farrell has already identified. Now, whether or not Lester can correct the mechanical issue is one thing, but the fact that it's been identified should help him very much both with command and movement.

[a700hitter]

Lester's K's went down because of a mechanical flow that flattened out his cutter. His cutter had a decrease in horizontal movement of over 2.5 inches. This was largely due to the fact that his front leg was opening up (almost like a gate swinging open before striding toward the plate rather than striding forward with the front leg closed), which didn't allow him to get on top of the baseball and it flattened out his pitches, especially his cutter. This is something that Farrell has already identified. Now, whether or not Lester can correct the mechanical issue is one thing, but the fact that it's been identified should help him very much both with command and movement.

The biggest drop in his k's was from 2010 to 2011. It's been a 2 year trend. It's taking him an awful long time to correct this mechanical flaw.

[SoxFanForsyth]

The biggest drop in his k's was from 2010 to 2011. It's been a 2 year trend. It's taking him an awful long time to correct this mechanical flaw.

 

And who was the pitching coach in 2010? And who left after 2010? I'm just saying. I know he's not going to come in and turn this team into a 100+ win team, but at the same time, his leaving clearly had an effect on both Lester and Buchholz.

 

And just for what it's worth, Lester's cutter decreased in horizontal movement by 1/2 of an inch from 2010-2011. So that's about 3 inches of lost movement from 2010. 1/2 of an inch doesn't seem like a lot, but that's the difference between a swinging strike 3 and a foul tip.

[a700hitter]

And who was the pitching coach in 2010? And who left after 2010? I'm just saying. I know he's not going to come in and turn this team into a 100+ win team, but at the same time, his leaving clearly had an effect on both Lester and Buchholz.

 

And just for what it's worth, Lester's cutter decreased in horizontal movement by 1/2 of an inch from 2010-2011. So that's about 3 inches of lost movement from 2010. 1/2 of an inch doesn't seem like a lot, but that's the difference between a swinging strike 3 and a foul tip.

Let's hope he can regain that movement. Losing that much movement is huge.

[SoxFanForsyth]

Let's hope he can regain that movement. Losing that much movement is huge.

 

Hahaha Ted. Your sig. Brutal.

[SoxSport]

Lester's K's went down because of a mechanical flow that flattened out his cutter. His cutter had a decrease in horizontal movement of over 2.5 inches. This was largely due to the fact that his front leg was opening up (almost like a gate swinging open before striding toward the plate rather than striding forward with the front leg closed), which didn't allow him to get on top of the baseball and it flattened out his pitches, especially his cutter. This is something that Farrell has already identified. Now, whether or not Lester can correct the mechanical issue is one thing, but the fact that it's been identified should help him very much both with command and movement.

 

Incredible how mechanical issues with Bard and Lester were quickly identified by Farrell that TWO pitching coaches last year failed to detect. Makes you wonder about the Red Sox organization.

[mvp 78]

Incredible how mechanical issues with Bard and Lester were quickly identified by Farrell that TWO pitching coaches last year failed to detect. Makes you wonder about the Red Sox organization.

 

As in why Larry didn't let Ben make the managerial decision last year?

[FredLynn]

And who was the pitching coach in 2010? And who left after 2010? I'm just saying. I know he's not going to come in and turn this team into a 100+ win team, but at the same time, his leaving clearly had an effect on both Lester and Buchholz.

 

And just for what it's worth, Lester's cutter decreased in horizontal movement by 1/2 of an inch from 2010-2011. So that's about 3 inches of lost movement from 2010. 1/2 of an inch doesn't seem like a lot, but that's the difference between a swinging strike 3 and a foul tip.

 

Lester has also lost velocity from his four seam fastball-from just over 95mph in 2009 to about 93.5 in 2011 and 12. I do not think that Farrell can correct that; once a pitcher begins to lose velocity he rarely regains it. The difference in speed between his FB and his cutter is less pronounced now that when he was at his peak. I think that is at least as important as the difference in movement on the cutter. Pitch Fx shows this more clearly than I have probably stated it.

[SoxSport]

Lester has also lost velocity from his four seam fastball-from just over 95mph in 2009 to about 93.5 in 2011 and 12. I do not think that Farrell can correct that; once a pitcher begins to lose velocity he rarely regains it. The difference in speed between his FB and his cutter is less pronounced now that when he was at his peak. I think that is at least as important as the difference in movement on the cutter. Pitch Fx shows this more clearly than I have probably stated it.

 

Lester is too young to be in decline. Could be his conditioning threw his mechanics out of whack.

[DocHolliday]

Lester is too young to be in decline. Could be his conditioning threw his mechanics out of whack.

 

Could be a combination of all of these things. Poor conditioning, mechanical flaws - even Lester's mindset/demeanor on the mound has been different at times since 2010. He doesn't seem to have that same focus - I can't remember him being so frustrated and flustered on the mound pre-2010 as he has been the past 2 seasons. In the past, I always got the impression that he was incredibly focused and a bit hard on himself, but never let things he can't control affect his performance.

 

I also think that the league has adjusted to him as the years have gone by. You don't see as many RH chasing the inside cutter as you did a couple of years ago - but some of that is likely due to the lack of movement. The game is all about adjustments, and perhaps by making some adjustments, he can get back to a semblance of his old self.

[southpaw777]

Its normal for a pitchers velocity to go down starting around age 26...theres a good article on it on Fangraphs.com..

[Bellhorn04]

I don't think we can overlook the Salty factor with Lester either. Lester has a 4.55 ERA with Salty catching him. His ERA with other catchers:

 

VMart 3.24

Tek 3.41

Shopp 3.70

Cash 3.83

Lavarnway 3.90

 

It's quite possible that some of that frustration Lester has been showing on the mound has been not just with the umpiring but with his catcher. Not trying to use that as an excuse, just saying...the appearance of Salty seems to have coincided with the decline of Lester.

[wyo-sox]

I don't think we can overlook the Salty factor with Lester either. Lester has a 4.55 ERA with Salty catching him. His ERA with other catchers:

 

VMart 3.24

Tek 3.41

Shopp 3.70

Cash 3.83

Lavarnway 3.90

 

You should overlook it. In the past three seasons 4 of the above mentioned catchers only caught around 40 innings of Lester. In 2011 Lavs only caught 6 games. I think Cash only caught Lester for a two year period for a whopping 4 games. Is it fair at all to use such small sample sizes to compare to full time catchers? I think it is only fair to look at his full time catchers year by year that are behind the plate for 140 plus innings.

 

2007 Tek. 4.74

2008 Tek. 3.06

2009 Tek. 3.92

2010 V Mart. 3.64

2011 Salty 3.77

 

Now looking at the numbers to that point Salty was not his best or worst year, Those both belonged to Tek. up to this point, but you can see Salty had a full season with Lester that produced an era consistent with all the other catchers. Is someone going to deny that?

 

So yes 2012 Salty and Lester had a bad era, but if the era's above are correct..... and they are, then 2012 is Lester' s fault. If Lesters 2012 era was so much to blame on Salty then one would expect all the pitchers to have done worse with Salty..... and that simply was not the fact in 2012, as some pitchers pitched better to Salty. I know nobody likes Salty, and I don't think the guy is a very good player, but to compare his CERA to other catchers that only caught a handful of games is not fair or accurate.

[Bellhorn04]

You should overlook it. In the past three seasons 4 of the above mentioned catchers only caught around 40 innings of Lester. In 2011 Lavs only caught 6 games. I think Cash only caught Lester for a two year period for a whopping 4 games. Is it fair at all to use such small sample sizes to compare to full time catchers? I think it is only fair to look at his full time catchers year by year that are behind the plate for 140 plus innings.

 

2007 Tek. 4.74

2008 Tek. 3.06

2009 Tek. 3.92

2010 V Mart. 3.64

2011 Salty 3.77

 

Now looking at the numbers to that point Salty was not his best or worst year, Those both belonged to Tek. up to this point, but you can see Salty had a full season with Lester that produced an era consistent with all the other catchers. Is someone going to deny that?

 

So yes 2012 Salty and Lester had a bad era, but if the era's above are correct..... and they are, then 2012 is Lester' s fault. If Lesters 2012 era was so much to blame on Salty then one would expect all the pitchers to have done worse with Salty..... and that simply was not the fact in 2012, as some pitchers pitched better to Salty. I know nobody likes Salty, and I don't think the guy is a very good player, but to compare his CERA to other catchers that only caught a handful of games is not fair or accurate.

 

I don't mean to beat the dead horse on this...we've been over it a few times. Yes, some pitchers have done OK with Salty. But *overall* the staff ERA was a run higher in 2011 with Salty than with Tek, and a run higher in 2012 with Salty than with Shoppach.

 

Anyway if they keep Salty for 2013 we'll have another chance, to compare his CERA with Ross's.