Reviews, Previews, and Ranks: Boston Red Sox
Introduction & Glossary Post Here
Hugely disappointing season for the Red Sox in 2022 as they finished last in the AL East with just 78 wins.
The problem with the team was clear, they posted a 4.53 ERA, the sixth-worst mark in the league. The offense wasn’t much of a problem as their team .730 OPS ranked 9th-best in the league.
They are going to need to dip their toes into free agency if they want to field a competitive roster going into 2023, they are very little to like on the starting pitching front (and Eovaldi is a free agent) - and they have Xander Bogaerts, and J.D. Martinez (potentially) departing via free agency as well. Let’s take a look!
Pitchers
Chris Sale
It’s not really worth looking at the numbers on Sale; he’s thrown less than 60 Major League innings since the 2019 season ended. Here’s the recent injury history
March 2020 Tommy John surgery
Broken finger in 2022
Wrist fracture (bike accident) in 2022
I’m probably actually missing one or two there, but the guy just can’t stay on the field. He last threw a full season in 2017, although he got close in 2018 with 158 innings thrown.
He will be back with Boston in 2023 to try to give it a go at age 34. There’s always the chance that he comes back and throws 150+ good innings, crazier things have happened, but way more often than not we profit by just not bothering with these player types.
Comps/RankArounds: Josiah Gray
Nick Pivetta
Classic Nick Pivetta year in 2022. He had some good runs of starts and some horrible runs of starts. When all was said and done:
33 GS, 4.51 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 22.6% K%, 9.4% BB%, 28% CSW%, 11.2% SwStr%
There were some spike games and some good series of starts:
At the end of the year he really got into the four-seamer and reduced the slider:
It’s Nick Pivetta we are talking about here, we have been down this road so many times. He is only 29, so there’s some gas left in the tank and he will certainly be in the rotation while healthy given the Red Sox (current) lack of pitching, so he could turn out to be a guy that should be owned in deeper leagues. His career ERA is 5.02, his career WHIP is 1.39, and the career K-BB% sits at 22.6%-9.4%.
I don’t see much upside with Pivetta, but I guess you could feel reasonably confident about getting the innings from him.
Comps/RankArounds: Marcus Stroman, Josiah Gray
Brayan Bello
The lone pitcher of interest in the Red Sox rotation is Bello. Here’s what his 2022 season looked like when the dust settled
AA: 7 GS, 1.69 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, 33.8% K%, 8.5% BB%
AAA: 10 GS, 2.76 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 33.8% K%, 10.0% BB%
MLB: 11 GS, 4.71 ERA, 1.78 WHIP, 20.5% K%, 10.1% BB%
The Major League numbers were not encouraging, but he did show improvement throughout the year.
His arsenal looked like this:
The sinker gets a ton of ground-balls, which is really a positive thing to see. He also had success with the changeup as you can see that 22.5% SwStr% really stands out.
He used the slider a bit more at the end of the year, here’s the arsenal breakdown for September-October:
In those 6 starts after September 1st, he pitched a 2.59 ERA, but still struggled with the WHIP at 1.53 - HOWEVER that was while the walk rate came down to a decent level at 8.6%.
The strikeouts weren’t there at the Major League level, but the guy consistently put up a 30%+ K% in the minors and you can see that he has this great changeup and a solid slider. He has lots of opportunities to get better, and the super high GB% will give him some semblance of a floor if he can truly keep the walk rate under 9% in the future.
It will probably be a rocky 2023 for Bello, but he seems like a guy with massive amounts of upside in the future - and who knows, maybe the future comes soon!
Comps/RankArounds: Hayden Wesneski, Roansy Contreras, Reid Detmers
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