moonslav59

Buchholz is going to get about 4 more starts. If he goes on a run, like he has in the past, he'll be too valuable to go to the pen. I don't disagree, but one could say the same about ERod and Pompom as well.

Man O man, I never seen a bunch of bandwagon jumpers as here.

soxprospects.com... Salem bounced back in a big way after losing the series opener, pounding out 10 hits. Rafael Devers led the charge with a 2-for-4 night, clubbing a two-run shot in the fifth to give the Sox some breathing room. Nice to see how this kid bounced back in a huge way. I'd love to watch him in Portland next summer!

We don't need Buch in the bullpen, especially not when he wasn't that good his last two times out as a reliever. We could use Buch and a reliever, and we could use his clone as a RP'er. His 6 relief appearances before the last 2 were brilliant: 7.1 IP 0 ER 1 hit 2 BB

No problem. When I think of "history", I think going farther back. If you look at recent performance, we have 5 aces right now: last 28 days: 5-0 1.85 Price (34 IP) 4-0 2.52 Porcello (36) 0-1 2.60 ERod (17) 2-1 2.73 Buch (26- some in relief) 2-2 2.90 Pomeranz (31) A longer recent look (2nd Half): 8-1 2.57 Porcello (74 IP) 1-3 2.73 ERod (53) 3-1 2.95 Buch (37, some in relief) 6-2 3.07 Price (73) 2-4 3.97 Pomeranz (57) 3-1 5.06 Wright (43)

Long run, agreed: Price is the clear ace when looking at a 2-4 years sample size.

....Buch and very possibly the best "stuff" available for that money... No doubt. That's why I defended him for years, but he's too damn unreliable for my taste.

I've been defending Buch for years, and when I finally give up on him, he puts together a few weeks of doing well, and suddenly he's "know commodity"! Buch is still one of the least dependable pitchers in MLB. I realize we could sign a stable and durable guy, and he could get hurt in ST'ing, but I'm done with Buch forever. He'd have to blow me away through the end of the year to want to have him on my roster next year. As of now, I'm thinking take the option & trade.

I'd rank out starters like this: Season: Porcello, Price with Wright close behind 1st half: Wright, Porcello, Price 2nd half: Porcello, Price, 3 way tie for third (Pom, Buch & ERod) I should have been clearer with my original post. I just posted ERA and not IP, but it was meant to show that Price was not pitching like our best pitcher in the first or second half, and since Porcello was 1 or 2 in both halves, I'd call him our ace. Plus, the whole FIP thing discredits pitchers like Porcello and helps high K pitchers like Price regardless of how many outs they are getting. We like to use OPS to judge a player's hitting, so let's look at OPS against for 2016: .648 Porcello (187 IP) .653 Wright (157 IP) .707 Price (198 IP) (.728 starter average) (.718 team average) .744 ERod .762 Pomeranz .766 Buchholz (.809 as a starter) starter WHIP 1.02 Porcello 1.20 Price 1.25 Wright Porcello blows price away in these important categories.

There's not as many days off as there used to be in the playoffs. With our bottom 3 starts all about equal and doing very well recently, I don't see the need to go to a 3 man rotation.

Price's playoff history and experience are not great, so using his "history" as an asset may be counter intuitive. Post Season: Price 2-7 5.12 (1.17 WHIP) 63 IP Porcello 0-2 4.41 (1.22) 16 IP Buchholz 0-0 4.21 (1.44) 26 IP ERod, Wright and Pomeranz have no PO experience. .

$13m is chicken scratch for a starter in todays MLB. Maybe so, but looking through rose-colored glasses, $13M could have gotten us this last winter (in theory)... $12M JA Happ $13.5M R Hill & B Colon combined or RHill plus a decent RP'er like Clippard and Ziegler

I said similar or better than Hernandez, and of course the value goes up, if Buch does very well to end the season. The one year deal also has enormous value due to low risk involved. I realiz4e that same value can be applied to the Sox for just keeping Buch, but I have to think his value to another team as their possible 2-3-4 starter is worth more than to us as our 5/6 starter. That is the foundation of making a trade. (I have said the same about Holt- his value to another team is greater than to ours, once we lose our DH only player.) Here's some of what $13M could have gotten last year (some hits-some misees): Starters: $12M x 3 JA Happ $8M x 2 Pelfrey $7.5M Colon $6M R Hill $6M C Lewis $5.8M x2 C Young RP'ers: $8.3M x 3 J Soria $8M x 1 W Davis $7.7M x 4 D O'Day $7.5M x 1 Benoit $7.3M x 3 R Madson $7M x 1 Fister $6.3M x 1 JP Howell $6.1M x 2 Clippard $6M x 3 T Sipp $6M x 2 Bastardo $5.5M x 2 M Lowe $5.5M x 1 Ziegler $5M x 3 S Kelly $5M x 2 Cishek, Axford. J Motte $3.5M x 2 O Perez $3M x 2 C Qualls We could have had Andrew Miller for $10M x 4 a couple years ago. I admit, I don't know much about this year's RP free agent class, but $13M can go a long way. With Uehara, Ziegler and Taz all FAs after this year, take a look at our projected bottom of the pen. Maybe we can do both, but we could use some serious upgrades, perhaps at the expense of starter depth. RP1 Kimbrel RP2 Smith (if healthy) RP3 Buch or Wright RP4 Ross RP5 Kelly RP6 Barnes RP7 Abad, Elias, Hembree RP'ers 5 through 10 look pretty scary to me, and we're not sure we can count on Carson Smith. Kimbrel has looked shaky. Ross has been decent, but he's not a sure bet pitcher.

BOS (10H/13A) 7 vs BAL 7 vs NYY 6 vs TOR 3 vs TBR Toronot has... (13H/10A) 6 vs BOS 4 vs NYY 3 vs BAL 3 vs TBR 4 @ LAA 3 @ SEA BAL (11H/12A) 7 vs BOS 4 vs TBR 3 @ TOR 3 @ NYY 3 @ DET 3 vs AZ NYY (13H/11A) 7 vs TBR 7 vs BOS 4 @ TOR 3 vs BAL 3 vs LAD Nobody has an easy shot. Here's the standings now: BOS -- TOR -1.0 (WC) BAL -2.0 (WC) ____________ DET -1.0 from WC HOU -2.0 NYY -2.5 KCR -4.0 SEA -5.0

If Price closes out the season, he won't be ready until the 3rd game of the playoffs, but if we clinch, he can skip the start. It's a touch call, but we have to make the playoffs, so I agree. The extra start by Price might be "priceless".

People have noticed how Buch is looking like the good Bcu of late, but he has clearly been our most inconsistent pitcher this year and over recent time periods. While ERod has looked inconsistent as well, and has battled injuries and maybe "pitch-tipping" issues, he's actually had a longer consistent stretch than Buch: ERod since July 16th IP H+BB ER 7.0 6 1 5.1 7 2 5.1 12 3 6.1 5 1 4.1 9 3 7.0 4 1 4.0 2 0 (Had to leave early) 5.1 8 5 (1st game back after 11 days off) 8.0 3 0 If you don't count his first game back, he has gone 19 IP allowing just 9 H+BB and 1 ER! It's hard to compare Buch's recent record with anyone, since he has had relief outings mixed in with his starts. Here are Buch's last 7 starts (3 in June & 3 in Aug & 1 in SEP): 5.0 5 3 5.1 12 4 4.1 8 3 4.1 6 3 6.0 6 1 6.1 7 1 6.2 8 1 His last 19 IP: 21 H + BB and 3 ER. Both him and ERod have looked very sharp of late. Here's Pomeranz in BOS: 3.0 10 5 6.0 6 2 5.1 8 5 6.0 10 2 5.1 7 1 7.2 7 2 5.0 4 1 6.0 8 2 6.2 7 3 5.2 8 2 If you throw out his first 3 games, he's gone 7 straight starts without allowing more than 3 ERs, and that was only once. His WHIP over that time looks worse than Buch and ERod's recent numbers though. To me, it's a three way race for the final 2 slots in the playoff 4 man rotation. I'd give the edge to ERod, if he's healthy with Buch close behind. Pomeranz still has a strong chance to finish in the top 2, and he's probably management's 3rd starter right now.

Just because I showed Buch and ERod had better ERAs, where did I say they were closer to being the ace? Porcello is our ace, and if Wright didn't get hurt, he'd be neck and neck with Price (by the numbers) as the number two guy.

While I think WAR is a useful metric, I think it goes overboard on FIP. Porcello has been better and more consistent. ERA- and WHIP are both better and the IP are about the same.

You think he's done better?

The reason Wright even started this year was because of Buchholz. Buch's the reason we traded Espinoza. Buch was "healthy" when we started Kelly for 6 games (8.46 ERA), O'Sullivan for 4 games (6.64) and Owens for 4 games (7.79). How soon you guys forget! You're all falling for the same old crap that keeps getting us in trouble year after year. Counting on Buch is like counting on a broken abacus. I've been one of Buch's biggest supporters year after year. I've posted how his best two ERA- minus years are among the very best in MLB history. I've posted how if you add minor leagues with big leagues, he's actually started over 24 starts a season way more than most think, but this year was the last straw. Unless the guy leads us to a ring, I'm done with him. We can do better with the $13M. Add the $13M to the $30M already there and maybe we can get someone very special plus a couple stable pen arms and a cheap vet starter as the 6th man. We'll also have Johnson plus Kelly, Elias and Owens to trot out there again anyways.

He has done very well, but by the numbers, he's not even close to being our first or second half ace: 1st Half: 2.68 Wright 3.66 Porcello 4.34 Price 5.11 Owens 5.91 Buchholz 6.75 O'Sullivan 8.46 Kelly 8.59 ERod 2nd Half: 2.57 Porcello 2.73 ERod 2.95 Buchholz 3.07 Price 3.97 Pomeranz 5.06 Wright Seasonal Leaders: ERA Minus 72 Porcello 74 Wright 86 Price 89 Pomeranz 108 ERod 119 Buchholz WHIP 1.02 Porcello 1.20 Price 1.24 Wright 1.30 ERod 1.32 Pomeranz 1.43 Buchholz ...not by the numbers, anyway.

No way we'd ever get anyone better than Buch for $13M, but it's the durability and stability aspect I'd be converting to happily. Like I said, I don't know much about the RP'er available, but pick a name out of a hat and you'll get better consistency and stability. You could probably get 3 for the price of Buch, plus whatever we get back in trade. Again, I seriously doubt it happens, but if I were the GM, I'd do it. Plus, I think we can get better than a single A player. I'm not sure if Melancon would be okay with 8th inning duty, but WTF, we're paying Kimbrel $13M, why not make him the number 2?

I'm not saying I think this, I was just saying, we don't really know.

There's no such thing as a proven Buchholz either, and speaking of puking, I've already puked enough concerning Clay over the last few years to fill a 50 gallon barrel.

I'm not an expert on other teams' RP'ers, but maybe Boone Logan and Ziegler could be had for $7-9M combined. Maybe we could apply the $13M towards Jansen or Chapman.