Dojji

They clearly plan to select someone. Your paranoia makes that someone Ockimey. it might well happen, but you're overselling your point

A consistent 2-3 inning middle guy would be amazing. Those guys don't happen very often, especially pitchers who can do that kind of long relief everyman role for more than a season or two. There have, however been a lot of teams that thought they had a guy like that only to turn around and ruin a perfectly good reliever's arm because he wasn't quite as durable as they tricked themselves into thinking he was The "long middle relief" role is a pit of death and despair for young relievers. Guys like Alfredo Aceves and Junichi Tazawa and Manny Delcarmen and others like them can get it done for a year or two and then they either get hurt or lose effectiveness. It's not a sustainable long term role for any pitcher. Prediction: He'll be a guy who can be relied on for 1+ innings on a fairly regular basis. Using him more aggressively than that is just another word for murder.

How about a spring training invite for Josh Tomlin? He's good SP depth coming off a tough season, give him a flier and see if there's something in the tank or not

I disagree about both. I think Swihart's bat is too slow for the big leagues and I know Velazquez is too hittable to survive long in the rotation. Look at HV's underlying numbers. He gives up a ton of baserunners. WHIP of over 1.4 which is VERY bad news, especially for a guy with reasonable command. It means he's getting hit a lot, and with a h/9 of over 9, he was. Better to restrict a guy like that to short appearances if you don't want him getting exposed. As a starter, Velazquez had a .872 OPS against this year, .888 career. Not a guy I want to give more innings to. Leave him in the bullpen where he pitches pretty well and you can control his matchups. Moving this guy to the rotation is an invitation to almost certain disaster.

Swihart has to start getting it done in his cameos if he wants a full time role. If he doesn't, he won't ever get the chance and yes, that will be his fault.

He's going into his age 26 campaign. It's nowhere near time to worry about E-Rod, much less to give up on him.

The same risk there always is with Clay. Clay Buchholz is proof positive that living, breathing humans can actually be illusions.

The only pitchers on last year's roster who took starts that aren't on the roster this year are Jalen Beeks and Drew Pomeranz. If we assume that we can survive without those two pitchers, we're ok. We already have one new starter in the pipeline who wasn't in the picture last year -- Mike Shawaryn. We also have Wright and Johnson in the wings. And that's before any potential in season moves to shore up our SP depth. We do not need to make SP a major offseason priority. The kind of injury wave that would destroy this rotation would probably destroy this rotation plus 1 or 2 more mediocre AAAA guys. At a certain point you do have to trust things to work.

GOD NO. If Wright starts the year in the minors on rehab, we're good for depth with Wright, Johnson, Shawaryn and possibly Hernandez. How much depth do you need?

Johnson yes, he could probably put up somewhere between a 4.2 and 4.7 ERA over 170+ innings right now, and that's good enough to be on a lot of teams' rotations. I agree a little less completely about Velazquez, he seems like an Afredo Aceves type "tweener." Good enough for multiple innings of relief, not good enough to go through a lineup 3 times. Looking at his BAA and WHIP the guy would be torched as a regular in the rotation, keep him in the bullpen where he looks like a solid MR, that's where his calling is.

As our rotation appears to be written in ink at this point I feel this is a good time to kick off a thread specifically talking about this aspect of the team. We have a very good 5 man rotation on paper Sale Price Porky E-Rod Eovaldi That's good. That's super good. That's "3 different Cy Young winners and 2 young power arms behind them" good. With Johnson and potentially Wright (if he ever gets healthy) in the wings and a couple further depth options behind them, particularly Mike Shawaryn and Darwinzon Hernandez, who is on the horizon having finished last year in AA. Darwinzon is a good year in AA/AAA from putting himself in the pitching picture, and he was recently put on the 40 man, so don't sleep on him. We ought to be alight for SP depth, unless crap really hits the fan. Remembering that Eovaldi is the 4th or 5th guy and signed to what in this market is a pretty reasonable deal takes the edge off any concerns about his performance level. He has ace type stuff but he does not HAVE to be an ace to be worth what he is being paid. Rough ERA levels and IP I'd expect and be satisfied with for each slot: Sale: 2.90, 175IP Price 3.25, 190 IP Porcello 3.75, 200IP E-Rod 3.90 150 IP Eovaldi: 4.25, 160IP I suspect our depth will be tested due to the durability issues of Sale, E-Rod, and Eovaldi, but I think each pitcher can achieve those marks, and if they do, the Red Sox will win a lot of games

Considering how lethal Eovaldi was out of the pen, I'm going to second guess that part of your statement. I know it's not going to happen, but I still think Eovaldi would make one heck of a closer.

We officially have to hope so now.

If you can get Ottavino for 3 years 11m you do it yesterday. I doubt it's that little. If it was that little, it would already be done.

Eh. Lukewarm to this move. I've already said this a few times, but I'm not by any means convinced Eovaldi is going to repeat the performance he gave in the second half of last year. This reminds me very much of Mike Lowell's last contract, where a guy's being rewarded mostly on his most recent accomplishments rather than measuring the whole of his body of work.

The Church of Saint Eovaldi needs to slow its roll IMHO. He had a good half year with us and was fantastic in the postseason but look at the dude's overall track record before saying we NEED to bring him back. This guy screams "regression to the mean" out of every number on the stat sheet. You can't sign a guy based on half a year where he played out of his mind. you have to look at the whole body of work. And the overall body of work from Eovaldi is not all that good. He has shown neither great reliability nor great durability over his career, and I haven't heard of anything to suggest he's actually made major changes in Boston such that the old stats should be disregarded. If we sign Eovaldi we stand a much better than normal odds of regretting it by the end of the contract. I remain much higher on Dallas Keuchel than Nate Eovaldi. I suspect the two will cost about the same and given the choice, I sign Keuchel.

For those arguing for spending the money on pitching -- who would you sign, and why does that mean a trade for Cervelli can't happen?

Not that simple We need a roleplaying reliever or two, a closer, and we might need a SP for the bottom of the rotation. We don't need an ace pitcher, so if the team isn't going to spend big on a closer there really isn't a lot of places extra money in the offseason is actually going to go. A lot of our pitching needs are going to be done in in-season acquisitions, especially filling any needs in the rotation. None of it necessarily precludes bringing in a higher-paid catcher.

If we're talking upgrading catchers, Cervelli's a great one to target. Hits well, defends pretty well, and has a great attitude for a catcher, always seems to have his pitcher's back and doesn't take crap from anyone. Not sure we should expect 2018 Cervelli if he comes here, but he would still represent a big upgrade even if he regresses a little. At the very least he'll bring some OBP to the position and help keep a few more rallies alive.

Incidentally this trend is good news for guys like Xander Bogaerts who is really well built for a shortstop. In terms of long term deals Bogaerts is probably the best bet for a long career on the team right now.

Yeah I wasn't referring the Betts. I was giving an example of guys I've seen a lot of injuries from, and it's usually the bean poles. I know people joke sometimes about this being a fat man's sport, but there's some truth behind the barbs. This is a fast twitch muscle sport, anaerobic rather than aerobic like hockey or basketball, which puts a lot of pressure on the joints and ligaments, and if you have some natural muscle mass in those areas it seems to help a lot. That's one of the reasons you can sometimes see a big heavyset player like Raja or Colon or David Wells back in the day, our our own Big Papi, who can stick around for a surprisingly long time.

Travis Shaw was well below average at second base. Good hands, great even, but didn't have the range. Which is about what we expected considering his track record as a very sure-handed 3Bman. If we had Travis Shaw though, Devers would probably be breaking in as a 1Bman. Shaw has been superb defensively at 3B by any reasonable metric. He's been a ~4 bWAR player over 2 years in Milwaukee, we really should not have let him go. It's water under the bridge now of course but hopefully also a lesson learned.

Nope. Anecdotally, the big guys tend to stick around as long as anyone else, as long as they don't let themselves get overweight. Having some extra meat on your bones, and especially a good muscle tone around your ligaments, actually helps with longevity, and big guys have an advantage there. The guys I've seen the most injury trouble from have honestly been the really skinny ones. The ones without a lot of natural meat on their bones that have to work all the harder to bulk up and tone up, guys like Clay Buchholz. You seem to need a certain muscle mass to keep the pressure off your ligaments and bone structure. That said I'm gonna worry about Betts' longevity when he gives me a reason to. Right now he's having a lot of fun out there and playing a position that's not particularly strenuous for him, I think he'll last awhile. If he has to move to centerfield or the infield, then it might be OK to worry a bit.

Hard to deny that we'd rather have Travis Shaw playing 1B for us right now... but I'm cautiously optimistic on Thornburg.

"Hello highly rated amateur player, we just drafted you. How do you feel about playing for a team that hasn't won crap since last century?" "Hello, highly rated amateur player. We just drafted you. How do you feel about playing for a team that won a championship and is competitive to win more for at least the next few years?" I have to think that having the championship in the cupboard will help with the bareness problems. If it means a few more low signability guys wind up in our uniform, then mission accomplished.