Dojji

The odds were also against Wells developing into a pitcher as good as Wells, but that's neither here nor there. Johnson had one job. Get through 5 in a position to hand a lead to the bullpen, so that we don't have to burn our high leverage relievers. That mission was accomplished tonight. We were able to finish the game with the bottom half of the bullpen, and have all our horses for the next game. Kimbrel, Barnes, and Hembree, which at the moment are our 3 most effective relievers, were all kept out. That was made possible by the refreshingly adequate job from our young emergency starter. Well done to him. The 2 inning performance from Brandon Workman is going to be a forgotten contribution for most fans, but I honestly think that what he did was very significant. If we take the next game, we have Workman to thank for soaking up that extra inning tonight and keeping out high leverage relievers out of the game.

If he is not our 5th starter because better options are present in the rotation, such as E-Rod and Wright, that's a good problem to have, wouldn't you say? Believe me, other teams are paying attention to what Johnson is doing. His value is inching upward with every start where he goes out there and doesn't die. He's made himself into valuable depth at the very least. Would I be surprised if DD parlayed that in the offseason into something he felt he needed? Not even a little bit. BTW, it's clear that the only reason Johnson hasn't surpassed Pomeranz on the depth chart is the sunk cost fallacy. He deserves to keep his spot in the rotation at least until E-Rod, Sale and Wright are back

I tell you what, Brian Johnson won't trick anyone into thinking he was an ace, but he scrapped like a warrior tonight. His body of work this year has been impressive in both starting and relief roles, and I think he showed us a lot after he got rocked in the first inning tonight and hung in there to go 5 and get himself a win. Great work by the youngster today. I could have wished he stayed in the game just a bit longer, but it's understandable, he'd fought hard, they were doing damage to him, it was time to go -- and the bullpen did its job. Considering how he's done so far this year, I wouldn't hesitate to put Johnson in the rotation for the rest of the season. He wouldn't be the guy who carried us, but he's a very acceptable 4-5 starter and that was the scouting on him to begin with. Pretty clear that Johnson is very close to living up to the early reports of his potential. Well done to the man for standing in there and showing that he had the maturity to battle and gut it out after a tough start to his game.

He's on a nice little comeback. Don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but he's showing us something right now. Glad we still have him.

Considering the number of times shoulder damage is a prelude to TJS.... I think it's pretty safe to say that the Nation is on high alert right now.

So pull him with 2 out in the bottom of the 4th inning and at least one strike on the final batter?

Vazquez has had a terrible year by his own standards. I'll be honest, if I had to cut one of Swihart of Vazquez going into next season, I'd think long and hard about cutting Vazquez. A Swihart-Leon tandem is interesting, and Vazquez has done little to help his own reputation.

A lefthander is not essential. I'd rather just have a bunch of good pitchers in general, and worry about matchups as they come along.

Worth mentioning for what it's worth In the last week, Swihart has officially passed Sandy Leon on offense by a few OPS points. Leon still has the overall edge because of his D, but Swihart is starting to build some momentum with his bat.

I'm inclined to agree. He's going into his age 35 season, and to be blunt about it, guys his size almost never increase their ability to stay on the field very much after about age 34.

The better your bullpen is, the more likely it is that an acquired reliever will only serve ti come in and cost some deserving rookie their spot and make things worse. You know who would lose his job if we brought in another arm, and it wouldn't be Pomeranz and it wouldn't be Kelly and it wouldn't be any the other guys you're thinking of. It would either be Brasier or Johnson, and I don't want to relplace either of those guys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminishing_returns

Lighthouse fallacy. You only notice the bullpen when it blows the game, resulting in a buildup of confirmation bias as the season goes on. I don't think there's a fanbase anywhere in baseball that actually likes their bullpen.

I disagree that the Sox are desperate for a reliever. Our bullpen isn't the best in MLB, but it's solid. We have a good rotation to take into the playoffs and 4 potential backline starters with relief experience to pad the playoff roster (although of those, the only ones I'd absolutely trust are Velazquez and Johnson) On the high leverage side, I have no reason not to trust Barnes and Kimbrel to get it done on the big stage, both have been very consistent this year. Like it or not, Barnes is a fine setup man and has done some good work this year. With Velazquez probably a lock for the playoff roster and the need for at least one emergency starter, that only leaves maybe as many as 4 slots for all of Kelly, Brazier, Hembree, ERod, Wright, Thornburg, Pomeranz and whoever else distinguishes themselves down the stretch and in September. The point is we're already going to have a fair number of pitchers on the outside looking in as it is, some of which would be deserving of playoff spots on many teams. There's always the possibility of upgrading with one more high leverage arm, but it's not an urgent requirement as long as Kimbrel and Barnes stay healthy. No reason to force a trade here.

Browsed a couple Angels forums, they seem comfortable with the trade as well. Sounds like the best kind of trade, where both teams feel like they got what they need. It's also, if I may say it, a good deal for the players involved. Kinsler gets a crack at a ring. Buttrey and Jerez are much less blocked in Anaheim and stand a better chance of breaking into the majors there. Wins all around.

He's right. We're talking about midtier prospects in a shattered system. Both of the guys we gave up are entirely replaceable, and the Angels, who have a much weaker pitching staff, might be interested in them as projects. I honestly thought when I thought when we brought in Kinsler that we'd had to give up something good, like Mike Shawaryn or CJ Chatham, guys with a high likelihood of MLB utility, if not stardom. Both Buttrey and Jerez strike me as bullpen filler guys, which we really don't even need since we already have more bullpen filler than bullpen slots right now. In other words, they were redundant scraps and we gave them to a team that needed them more than we did, for a guy we did need. Good trade DD.

Playing time is not given, it's earned. Swihart wasn't deserving of any more playing time than he got early in the season. That's one of the reasons that it's frustrating me that they're going back to jerking him around the moment he's finally starting to get his feet under him

It has the benefit of hindsight for having worked, and that makes it easy to appeal to history when the dangers of even trying this move is brought up. That doesn't mean that it was not dangerous. And it doesn't mean that I'll be happy with this team continuing to jerk the guy around. Utility is great, but at some point you need to pick a role and own it.

Why? Why the hell would you offer that much for a reliever, even a good one? They're the most volatile good on the trade market, and our bullpen is not an issue right now. Not to mention that the Reds have zero incentive to trade Iglesias right now. If they're going to sell pieces off it won't be their young cost-controlled guys

Not to mention that we've already seen several examples of how a wrist injury can linger if it's not dealt with properly at the outset. Rushing Judge back could result in a hugely inferior hitter wearing that uniform for the remainder of the season. We've all seen it. Pitchers don't screw around with ligament damage, and hitters don't screw around with wrist injuries. Especially if there's any chance of loose bone chips making matters even worse, and based on Jacko's description, that's something to worry about.

That won't end particularly well. I don't think he's ever played the position professionally, and his range was average to mediocre for a 3B

Are YOU saying that it's actually easier to find a young catcher worth half a damn, than it is to find a right fielder? Note, find a right fielder rather than Find Mookie Betts There's a lot of half decent right fielders going around. But if you want a young catcher with any offensive upside at all, that actually takes some finding. Go look around the league and tell me how many backup catchers are there because they're MLB caliber, rather than because they're the second least terrible catcher a team happens to have. The results might be a bit eye opening. We got super lucky with Sandy Leon. Most teams would kill to find a guy off the waiver wire for a few dollars that's anywhere near that good as a longterm backup/stopgap starter. Most good backups are over the hill starters, most of the rest fall under that "second least terrible" category. Anything much better than that, and someone either starts him, or tries to acquire him to start. Swihart is better than the overwhelming majority of second string catchers and is young enough to continue to improve. He would be the starter on at least 12 teams right now, even with the early season struggles factored in. Without them factored in, that number increases to somewhere between 15 and 18 teams, including ours. It is not hard to fill the second catcher's role with a Corky Miller/Ken Huckaby/Kevin Cash space filler who exists to be a catcher that happen to use to create a hole in your lineup 1-2 times a week because no one can catch full time and you have no choice. Finding a really good #1b catcher, a la Doug Mirabelli, David Ross, etc. is nowhere near that easy. Swihart has some early season numbers holding him back, but what he's shown in the last 2 months is that kind of catcher.

once again I disagree, unless you preface your argument by arguing that he's easier to replace perfectly. It's actually much harder to find a guy with Swihart's potential, even if that potential is somewhat orphaned at the moment, than it is to find a RF who could come into right field and be a good right fielder. If you're basing that argiment on the idea of someone coming in and being Mookie Betts, that is of course different but would also apply to whatever position Mookie happened to be playing

And how valuable is our last remaining big league quality backup catcher? Not an area where I'd be taking big risks either, if I'm being honest. Again, not necessarily arguing that Mookie to 2B is a sane move. I just take umbrage at the idea that it's somehow LESS sane than the carousel of madness we've been inflicting on Blake Swihart over the last 2 years. If people are insane enough to risk their only remaining backup catcher playing him out of position in a game that probably doesn't have any particular bearing on the outcome of the season given position in the standings, anything is possible.

Nice first impression by Eovaldi. The Twins aren't exactly a pushover opponent, and Eovaldi did everything right. Here's hoping that Leon is the cure for what ails Eovaldi. I notice going over the teams he's played for, he really has pitched mostly to guys known for their bat, such as Salty, and a lot of over the hill guys like the corpses of Rod Barajas. John Buck and Brian McCann This may well be the first time he's ever going to pitch full time to a guy in his prime whose sole MLB calling card is defense and game calling. I'm sure that helps his confidence, and as we saw with Drew Pomeranz last year, a little confidence can go a long way. So far the connection is working brilliantly, and Leon did a great job with him today, here's hoping that continues.