2022 Starting Rotation Thread

[moonslav59]

So no difference between signing an ace for top dollar than some relief rental? Makes sense to me.

 

We'd be in great shape without Eovaldi. That makes total sense. I concede. You win.

 

IMO, we should trade for starters. It works better for us, but that doesn't change the fact that starters don't miss as much as RP'ers.

 

I'e also said, I'd rather we signed one better pitcher than 2-3 question marks- like Perez & Richards, last year and Paxton, Wacha and Hill, this year. (I was actually against signing most of the best FA pitchers, this year, because I did not see any "wow" starters, except for Scherzer and Verlander on shorter deals.)

[moonslav59]

So no difference between signing an ace for top dollar than some relief rental? Makes sense to me.

 

You need to take a course in logic.

 

All I said was that SP'ers were not as hit and miss as RP'ers. I never said it was better money spent. You read too much into simple statements.

[moonslav59]

Interesting.

 

and truthful, yes.

[mvp 78]

We'd be in great shape without Eovaldi. That makes total sense. I concede. You win.

 

IMO, we should trade for starters. It works better for us, but that doesn't change the fact that starters don't miss as much as RP'ers.

 

I'e also said, I'd rather we signed one better pitcher than 2-3 question marks- like Perez & Richards, last year and Paxton, Wacha and Hill, this year. (I was actually against signing most of the best FA pitchers, this year, because I did not see any "wow" starters, except for Scherzer and Verlander on shorter deals.)

 

So the available starting pitchers were very hit or miss then?

[mvp 78]

You need to take a course in logic.

 

All I said was that SP'ers were not as hit and miss as RP'ers. I never said it was better money spent. You read too much into simple statements.

 

You were the one who added the contract amounts originally with zero context clues for how their play was. It seemed to be a heavy focus of yours. If not, don't add them.

 

I'm sure you know better though.

[notin]

I never mentioned anything about the cost of a flopping SP'er outweighing that of RP'ers, just the hit-or-miss factor.

 

Cost is why hit or miss pitchers get jobs at all…

[notin]

Where did I say signing starters was a sure bet?

 

I just inferred they were less hit or miss than RP'ers.

 

The Sox examples are not indicative of MLB, as a whole, and counting just free agents, like I think the debate was referencing, discounts the Beckett, Pedro, Porcello and many other extensions, but here are our biggest FA pitching singings:

 

Eovaldi -Good

Price- Not so good, but some argue otherwise

Lackey- Pretty good

Dempster- Many thought it worked out fine

Clement- disaster

 

If you want to count Paxton, Richards & Masterson, then is skews downward.

 

Look, lots of SP'ers flopped or got hurt, too, but I think significantly more did better than top FA RP'ers did over the last 4-6 years.

 

Interesting Clement gets labeled a disaster. Until last year when Eovaldi joined him, Clement was the only Sox FA SP in recent years to be chosen for the All Star game…

[mvp 78]

Interesting Clement gets labeled a disaster. Until last year when Eovaldi joined him, Clement was the only Sox FA SP in recent years to be chosen for the All Star game…

 

Clement was great until getting hit with that line drive. He never pitched the same afterwards. Hard to get upset about that "miss."

[Nick]

Sox have never had a bad starter contract?

 

Yes but it's really hard to swallow his two year contract.

 

Ottavino signed for $4M this year. Too bad we didn't pick up that contract, a one year deal. We paid him net $7.875M last year.

 

I think Bloom is waiting for our farm to provide outstanding pitching in near future.

 

Bello is at the top of my list to become a starter in 2023.

 

Our pen will be better when and if 'old' Taylor returns.

[notin]

Clement was great until getting hit with that line drive. He never pitched the same afterwards. Hard to get upset about that "miss."

 

Clement’s problem was he destroyed his shoulder. His 3 starts after getting hit in the head were better than 3 before it…

[moonslav59]

You were the one who added the contract amounts originally with zero context clues for how their play was. It seemed to be a heavy focus of yours. If not, don't add them.

 

I'm sure you know better though.

 

Making no sense, again.

[Bellhorn04]

Making no sense, again.

 

mvp takes weekends off, you'll have to wait until Monday to resume your byplay.

[moonslav59]

Clement was great until getting hit with that line drive. He never pitched the same afterwards. Hard to get upset about that "miss."

 

Many of the top FA RP'ers signed recently were disasters due to injury, too. It's part of the risk, but also part of the "miss factor."

 

I get that the contract makes their misses more acceptable, but it doesn't change the idea that they miss more often.

 

Afterall, most are RP'ers because they weren't good enough to be starters, although that notion is changing, and we're only talking about the top FA pitchers signed, recently.

 

I know a lot of starters have "missed," many due to injuries, and I have said I'd rather we trade for a good to great SP'er than sign one, but I still think they miss less often than the best RP'er signings each year.

 

The list I provided has a whole lot of complete failures and many nearly complete failures.

 

Some, like Chapman and Jensen, from like 5 years ago did well, but the vast majority failed.

[moonslav59]

mvp takes weekends off, you'll have to wait until Monday to resume your byplay.

 

Does what he said make sense, at all, to what we were talking about?

 

The rates of hit or miss has nothing to do with contract sizes.

 

That does not mean contract sizes are not an issue, and just because I replied to a comment about our FA SP'er signings not being very good by supplying the contract amounts does not do anything to change the hit or miss rate debate.

 

Eovaldi and Lackey were not misses. Many feel Price was not. Same with Dempster. He chose to bring the contracts of the Sox SP'ers into the debate, and I just responded to that point. Was he saying the Sox example was setting an example that starters miss more than RP'er?

[Bellhorn04]

Does what he said make sense, at all, to what we were talking about?

 

The rates of hit or miss has nothing to do with contract sizes.

 

That does not mean contract sizes are not an issue, and just because I replied to a comment about our FA SP'er signings not being very good by supplying the contract amounts does not do anything to change the hit or miss rate debate.

 

Eovaldi and Lackey were not misses. Many feel Price was not. Same with Dempster. He chose to bring the contracts of the Sox SP'ers into the debate, and I just responded to that point. Was he saying the Sox example was setting an example that starters miss more than RP'er?

 

To be honest, your back-and-forth was a little far down the rabbit hole for my liking. You're talking about vast masses of data loaded with variances of every kind. I don't think there are any clear answers.

 

Also, past a certain point in an argument mvp can become a jokester.

[moonslav59]

To be honest, your back-and-forth was a little far down the rabbit hole for my liking. You're talking about vast masses of data loaded with variances of every kind. I don't think there are any clear answers.

 

Also, past a certain point in an argument mvp can become a jokester.

 

Fair enough.

[Larry Cook]

Back to the rotation, I thought wacha threw a nice game today. He served up two meatballs, and had a couple of walks, but otherwise he looked decent.

[notin]

Back to the rotation, I thought wacha threw a nice game today. He served up two meatballs, and had a couple of walks, but otherwise he looked decent.

 

Wacha’s first 3 starts have all looked good…

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

Wacha’s first 3 starts have all looked good…

 

Me as culpable admits Wacha has been a pleasant surprise... especially after being demoted to mop-up, then basically cut, by the pitching geniuses in Tampa.

 

The only major disappointments in the rotation have been the unavailability of certain starters to pitch whenever -- and wherever -- their team needs them.

[moonslav59]

Me as culpable admits Wacha has been a pleasant surprise... especially after being demoted to mop-up, then basically cut, by the pitching geniuses in Tampa.

 

The only major disappointments in the rotation have been the unavailability of certain starters to pitch whenever -- and wherever -- their team needs them.

 

It's a short sample size, but I'd say, so far, we've had other "major disappointments," even though some of these guys did not have very high expectations to begin with.

 

The near totality of 2-3 of our starters' failures has been "major," IMO.

 

OPS Against

 

1.056 Pivetta (10.03 ERA/2.143 WHIP)

.891 Hill (7.00/1.556)

 

To a much lesser extent:

.816 Eovaldi (3.68 /1.296 are decent numbers)

 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

It's a short sample size, but I'd say, so far, we've had other "major disappointments," even though some of these guys did not have very high expectations to begin with.

 

The near totality of 2-3 of our starters' failures has been "major," IMO.

 

OPS Against

 

1.056 Pivetta (10.03 ERA/2.143 WHIP)

.891 Hill (7.00/1.556)

 

To a much lesser extent:

.816 Eovaldi (3.68 /1.296 are decent numbers)

 

 

Unfortunately, I base my opinions on not having "very high expectations to being with."

 

... which only revisits the true disappointments by me and many others here with the organization for not recruiting better options this winter.

[moonslav59]

Unfortunately, I base my opinions on not having "very high expectations to being with."

 

... which only revisits the true disappointments by me and many others here with the organization for not recruiting better options this winter.

 

No doubt, many of us had wished we did better on acquiring pitchers with better expectations than Paxton, Wacha, Hill, Diekman and Strahm.

 

Same with last year's Richards, Perez, Sawamura and others.

 

I kept expecting a trade to be made, as so many decent pitchers changed teams over the winter- some at seemingly bargain basement returns.

 

Somehow, Cora seems to cobble together a well-functioning pen out of scraps and reclamation projects, but the rotation vaccine avoidance has now forced Houck and Whitlock to the rotation.

 

I'm giving Bloom a pass on 2020, although pretty close to zero of his starter winter acquisitions showed any smidgeon of success, that season. (Pivetta was a summer addition.) But, it's extreme wishful thinking to expect big contributions from guys like Richards, Paxton, Wacha, Perez and Hill. Somehow, we have to start going aiming a little higher.

[Bellhorn04]

Wacha is pitching a lot better so far than some of the more expensive options like E-Rod and Stroman.

 

So you can see some of Bloom's reasoning.

[Bellhorn04]

As always it's easy for us armchair GM's to say "shoulda got Gausman" because he's doing much better out of the gate than the two I mentioned.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

Wacha is pitching a lot better so far than some of the more expensive options like E-Rod and Stroman.

 

So you can see some of Bloom's reasoning.

 

This is the mystery to me. The Rays can't say they dumped him because of a higher impending contract, because they already had banished him to the pen in the playoffs when they started three straight rookies instead.

 

And yet, somewhere before that ALDS game when the Sox lit up Wacha in relief, Bloom and his Boston norsemen saw some glimmer of hope that Tampa didn't...

[Bellhorn04]

This is the mystery to me. The Rays can't say they dumped him because of a higher impending contract, because they already had banished him to the pen in the playoffs when they started three straight rookies instead.

 

And yet, somewhere before that ALDS game when the Sox lit up Wacha in relief, Bloom and his Boston norsemen saw some glimmer of hope that Tampa didn't...

 

He pitched some good games in September and supposedly changed his pitch mix or something.

 

That's the way this stuff works now-one little tweak can make you much better, one little glitch can make you much worse.

 

Analysis and coaching is a huge part of the process.

[notin]

Me as culpable admits Wacha has been a pleasant surprise... especially after being demoted to mop-up, then basically cut, by the pitching geniuses in Tampa.

 

The only major disappointments in the rotation have been the unavailability of certain starters to pitch whenever -- and wherever -- their team needs them.

 

 

 

And Pivetta…

[moonslav59]

Wacha is pitching a lot better so far than some of the more expensive options like E-Rod and Stroman.

 

So you can see some of Bloom's reasoning.

 

I can see the reasoning clear as day, but how long can you sustain a winning team when you go 1 for 5 on scrap heap starter signings?

 

Richards

Perez

Paxton

Wacha

Hill

 

Now, the jury is still out on Paxton and Hill, but he has to find more gems in the rough than 1 out of 5, especially when you are spending over $38M on these 5.

 

I'm not saying it's easier finding 1 in 3 good starters for $38M, but the odds favor it, IMO.

 

He's spreading the risk. I get it, but you often get what you pay for, and we've gotten mostly crap.

 

Bloom has done better in trades and Rule 5 than free agency.

[notin]

It might be a little early to write off Hill and Paxton

[Bellhorn04]

I can see the reasoning clear as day, but how long can you sustain a winning team when you go 1 for 5 on scrap heap starter signings?

 

Richards

Perez

Paxton

Wacha

Hill

 

Now, the jury is still out on Paxton and Hill, but he has to find more gems in the rough than 1 out of 5, especially when you are spending over $38M on these 5.

 

I'm not saying it's easier finding 1 in 3 good starters for $38M, but the odds favor it, IMO.

 

He's spreading the risk. I get it, but you often get what you pay for, and we've gotten mostly crap.

 

Bloom has done better in trades and Rule 5 than free agency.

 

Personally I look at all his acquisitions in totality.

 

As for the 5 you listed, the only clear bust was Richards.