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Red Sox Designate William Cuevas By Jeff Todd | September 2, 2016 at 3:13pm CDT The Red Sox have designated righty William Cuevas for assignment, per a club announcement. His 40-man spot was needed as the club purchased the contracts of lefty Robby Scott and top infield prospect Yoan Moncada. Cuevas, 25, received a brief major league promotion earlier this year, allowing six walks in the five frames he pitched. He has spent the bulk of the year at Triple-A, where he carries a 4.19 ERA over 131 frames. Trouble is, Cuevas wasn’t able to maintain the strikeout rate he had shown in prior years, as he K’ed just 5.8 batters per nine in that span. The 27-year-old Scott gets his first major league nod after turning in 78 innings of 2.54 ERA pitching with 8.4 K/9 and 1.6 BB/9 at the Triple-A level. He’ll be joined by Moncada, who is considered by some to be the top prospect in the game. (Read more on Moncada’s promotion here.)

I teach middle school ESL as a hobby.

At least RP'ers don't get $20M x 6. I get your point, though, RP'ers are so fickle, maybe inexpensive mediocre quantity is a better bet than expensive high quality 2-3 RP'ers.

...and on the flip side, it's not like they woke up a couple mornings ago and thought suddenly, he's ready...ummm, do you think he's good enough to play 3B now?

All great points. I guess what I am having trouble with is the determination of when a player is ML ready and that is the only point when a new position should be tried. I totally get the protocol and why it is the way it is. Really, I do. However, when a player is on a meteoric rise and the club is thinking there is a significant chance the player may be called up the minute they think he's ready, then, as with what happened here with Moncada, they speed up the timetable, so the player can play his new position when he is called up. They must have known Moncada might be called up on September 1st weeks ago. Do you personally think they moved Moncada to 3B after some reps there as soon as they felt he was ML ready, or did they tweek the timetable just enough so he'd be called up September 1st after having what they determined was all the time he needed at 3B to be "ready". We're only talking days and weeks here, so being "ready" is probably not something that happens or is determined from one minute to the next. It's not like they say, "Oh, he went 5 for 5 today- he's ready now!" The word "ready" is so ambiguous due to the many levels of "ready" and the team "needs" factor that may over-rule "readiness". I actually was not expecting Moncada to play 3B with Boston this year, even after he started taking reps at 3B shortly after I suggested they do it. I thought the winter league and spring training was not even enough for him to be completely ready to play 3B any significant amount of time. His youth and lack of experience at high level baseball makes him playing 3B after just 10 games a little different than Bogey in 2013. Maybe he's more of an "athlete" than Bogey, but Bogey was a SS and had more time on the Sox farm than Moncada. Maybe I'm discounting Cuban baseball too much. I guess my real question is that if we knew he was coming up 9/1 to play 3B, I think they should have moved him to 3B earlier than 10 days, despite the protocol. We're not even sure he will play 3B a lot, but it looks like he will. I'm not pretending to know more than the Sox. maybe they watched him at 3B and said, "Wow, he is ready!" If that's the case, I have no issues.

There's lots of permutations, but this might work well... 1) Beni 2) Bogey 3) Betts 4) Pedey 5) JBJ v R/HRam v L 6) Moncada 7) HRam v R/JBJ v L 8) Leon 9) Shaw v R/Young v L

He's just here for defense and the ability to PH for Holaday late in games.

I still think Swihart ends up being traded, but with his injury and value uncertainty, maybe Vaz gets traded instead. I'd rather keep Vaz, but it's a close call.

I think he'll play too. I'm not saying I think he'll do badly, but just that we know so little, I'm uncertain of his defensive level at this time.

I would think keeping Kimbrel and Ross is a given next year and possibly Kelly if he shows marked improvement from earlier this year. With Ziegler a FA and turning 38 should we try to resign him? Uehara is approaching 42 and probably not up to the rigors of another season. Abad has good stuff if he could be brought out of the funk. I question trying to do something with Tazawa, Barnes and Buccholz. Of our need for 7 RP's next year I only count 4 with a strong chance of helping us. Kimrel, Ross, Abad and Kelly. That means DD needs to add a few from internal sources or through trades. Internally we have Smith, Workman and Hembree who may fill some of our void. Lots to think about in the off season. Nothing against all these guys, but I really have no strong desire to bring back Uehara, Ziegler, Tazawa or Buchholz. I think we can do better, go younger and more dependable (healthier history).

I get it too, and it does make total sense. Moncada's situation was unique in several ways. 1) Cuban ball players are unique by themselves. Several make the jump to the bigs after very short stints on the farm. 2) He had no "true position" to begin with. 3) His offense, particularly against RHPs was probably close to Ml ready near day one in the system. I think the Sox knew what they were doing, but am worried about his lack of time at 3B, if they plan to throw him in there now. I'm not saying they screwed up. I'm just saying 10 games does not feel right to me.

The 40 man roster does not include 60 day DL players. It's my understanding that oif someone goes on the DL, they may be replaced in the post season or any other time only by players on the 40 man roster. We currently have 4 guys on the 60 day DL: Workman, Swihart, Sandoval and Smith, so we essentially have 44 guys on the 40 man roster right now. We've already filler those 4 "open" slots. We currently have Uehara and Benintendi on the 15 day DL. I am not sure about retroactively replacing them with someone not on the 40 man roster August 31st. I always thought that was a no-no. I did read somewhere that you can replace an injured player with MLB's approval, so who knows.

I think it's on the 40 man roster (which Moncada was added to in time) not just "in the organization".

Looking at his numbers in 2014 and 2015, it doesn't look like a LOOGY, but clearly that was why we got him. Abad had the best LHP vs RHB OPS (.712) on MN, so maybe that played into their different usage. We have slightly better options but not much --only Kimbrel, Ziegler and barnes have a better than .712 OPS against RHBs in the Sox pen- Hembree was not on the team enough). His .458 OPS vs LHBs with MN this year was the reason we got him. I get that, but it's hard to put the blame on JF for why Abad went from .712 vs RHBs in MN to .917 here.

Great points, and severely negatively judging the Sox on the TBall pick is not recognizing the odds of hitting pay dirt with a top 10 pitcher drafted. Here are our top pitchers or top 38 picked-pitchers drafted each year: 2016: 12 Groome 2015: 171 Lakins 2014: 33 Kopech 2013: 7 TBall 2012: 31 Johnson/37 Light 2011: 19 Barnes/36 Owens 2010: 39 Ranaudo 2009: 77 A Wilson 2008: 30 Kelly 2007: 55 Hagadone 2006: 28 Bard 2005: 26 Hansen (42 Buchholz) 2004: 3rd round A Dobies 2003: 2nd round A Alvarez 2002: 2nd round J Lester We've only had 3 pitchers drafted in the top 20 over this period....only 2 in the top 12.

Maybe he pinch hits or pinch runs him tonight and tomorrow night, and he gets his first start on Sunday.

I agree- totally. I think Young might be more valuable than what we may think, depending on who we have at DH next year. He's a lefty killer.

The biggest issue I have with Farrell is he seems to have a tough time assigning roles in the pen. That's expected when whenever you try someone new, they suck or get hurt. You try to ride the "hot hand" but with the Sox, we haven't really had many. The only things I might have tried differently are to use Ross more and giving Hembree a longer look. Maybe bring Kelly up before now.

Abad has faced 17 LHBs and 30 RHBs, so on the surface you appear to be right, but over his career, he has faced 663 RHBs and 492 LHBs. He was a starter once, so thoise numbers might not be fair. How about this year with MN? 86 vs RHBs 52 vs LHBs Why the 2.65 ERA with MIN and the 6.30 ERA with Boston? Is that really all JF's fault? He's using him at almost the exact same ratio as MN used him. vs RHBs: 64% to 62%. In 2015, the A's used him vs LHBs (110) more than RHBs (95) and these were the results: vs LHBs: .859 OPS vs RHBs: .753 OPS In 2014, he also did better vs RHPs (.475 in 116 PAs to .527 in 100 PAs) Sounds like JF is really not to blame for Abad sucking.

Our pen sucks. Injuries are a major factor, but the fact is, beyond Kimbrel and Ziegler, JF has no "real" choices that are bound to make him look good. When the season started, I thought we had a top 5 or 6 pen in MLB. Smith's whole season loss hurt a lot, and I guess we should have expected Uheara to decline or get hurt, but those two long injuries killed any chance of us having a plus pen. I wanted JF let go at the end of last season. I do not like his style or some of his choices, but I find it hard to blame him on pen usage when almost any choice he could make is a losing one.

Yes, I should have added the disclaimer, but it does give a general sense of where we may be going forward, and where are strengths and weakness may be. It's weird how they have Wright in the rotation in 2017 and 2019 but not 2018. I guess the departure of Pomeranz opened up his slot again. They now have Pablo at 3B next year with Moncada at AAA. They list "acquisition" in the DH slot, instead of Young or HanRam.

The system hasn't worked that well in the pitching department. The scouts and men at the top have changed over the years, so I'm not sure we can say the system we have in place this minute is not conducive to proper pitcher development. Espi, Kopech and Groome will be the future examples of how well Sox management has done in choosing (Espi, Groome, TBall and Kopech) and developing (Groome, Kopech & TBall) our pitching prospects. I'm not saying we have reason to be optimistic, but I think the extreme pessimism may be unfounded.

Being a Red Sox fan from 1970 to 2003 was not difficult - the team was almost always good! There was heartbreak which stinks - and some years stunk even more. The reason it was so easy to yammer about a curse is that the Red Sox WERE good - the idea that they would get to Game 7 four different times and lose is mystifying. But I'd recommend that being an Expos fan was slightly harder during that time frame - the angst of the pre-curse Sox fan (let alone post) is why other fan bases hate us. They were fun to watch, and GM/manager bashing became an art for most Sox fans, but it was very difficult to me. Heart break is not easy. I agree, it's not easy going through a summer when your team is 8-15 down by July, but the sweetness of victory quickly washes away all that pain for me..

Im hoping Farrell stops screwing around and put pitchers in their proper roles and starts using them correctly. Maybe Joe Kelly can help our pen out. I think he just needed a little time to get used to a bullpen role again. He was pretty good in that role with St.Louis. I'm not a JF fan, but I don't think he has many options or choices. My guess is, if he uses Kelly and he blows a game, people will again call for his head.

AL pitching 2nd half: WAR 6.3 BOS 5.8 HOU 5.7 TEX 5.4 NYY 5.4 TOR ERA- 81 DET 81 TBR 84 KCR 85 BOS 88 NYY 90 TOR 91 TEX Starter 2nd half ERA- 82 DET 82 BOS 86 TBR 87 KCR 91 TOR WORST RP'er WHIP: 1.47 CWS 1.43 MIN 1.39 BOS 1.37 BAL