Sox sell high on overvalued relief pitchers
The Red Sox never pay for relievers.
From Ben Cherington to Dave Dombrowski to Chaim Bloom, chief decision-makers in Boston have made a habit of letting their best relievers walk into free agency and waving goodbye.
Friday night, Bloom continued the pattern when he sent Brandon Workman, one of the best relievers in baseball since the start of 2019, to the Phillies along with Heath Hembree in exchange for a pair of young, controllable pitchers.
Workman will have 37 games with the Phillies before he’s eligible for free agency, where he’s likely to strike it rich thanks to his 104-strikeout season last year. He also had a 1.88 ERA and was worth 3.2 WAR, the third-highest value season of a Red Sox reliever in the last decade.
Only Craig Kimbrel’s 2017 season (3.6 WAR, 1.43 ERA, 126 strikeouts) and Koji Uehara’s 2013 season (3.5 WAR, 1.09 ERA, 101 strikeouts) were more valu- able.
Great relievers come and go, even the best ones, even those who show they can handle the ninth inning in front of a sellout crowd at Fenway Park.
That’s the way it’s worked in Boston. And it’s worked out just fine.
Anyone remember the Red Sox getting kicked out of the postseason because their closer wasn’t good enough? Nope. Their exits in 2016 and 2017 were quite obviously because they had no big-game starting pitch- ers. Kimbrel blew the final game in 2017, but it was David Price, Drew Pomeranz, Rick Porcello and Clay Buchholz who never gave them much of a chance from the get-go. Anyone remember a good Sox team missing the playoffs because they couldn’t figure out the ninth inning? Nope. The because 2011 of team — collapsed you guessed it — zero starting pitching. Jonathan Papelbon blew the final game that cost them a playoff spot, but it was the blimp-sized ERA from the rotation in September that really did them in.
The Red Sox leaned heavily on Uehara to win their 2013 World Series, but the 2018 team did it despite their closer, Kimbrel, who was so bad in the playoffs that Chris Sale had to close out the final game.
The point is, the Sox don’t pay for closers and they don’t pay for not paying for them.
Papelbon left after the 2011 season and signed a huge deal with the Phillies. Uehara was the only elite reliever in the last decade the Sox held onto. But he seemed intent on sticking in Boston rather than trying the free agent market, and Cherington signed him to a two-year, $18-million extension immediately after the 2014 season ended. Two years later, he left for free agency and signed with the Cubs.
Junichi Tazawa, a useful late-inning piece for former manager John Farrell, scored $12 million with the Marlins. Joe Kelly helped the Sox win a World Series, then went to the Dodgers for $25 million over three years. Andrew Miller was traded to the O’s for Eduardo Rodriguez before he signed a four-year, $36-millon deal with the Yankees that winter.
Should the Sox regret letting any of their elite relievers hit the road? Probably not. Miller, maybe, but they netted a real nice starting pitcher for him, and still made a strong effort to sign him in free agency.
In recent years they’ve focused their attention on the rotation (though arguably, not adequately) and ignored the back-end of the bullpen. It continues to look like the right move.
That’s what they did Friday.
Nick Pivetta is of the Jake Arrieta mold, a former prospect who grades well in the analytics world, despite struggling in his first few big league seasons. And Connor Seabold looks like a nice back-end starter for years to come.
The Sox will miss Workman,
but they weren’t likely to re-sign him anyway. He’ll be due an eight-figure salary in the coming years, and the Sox just don’t hand out those contracts to relievers. They’ll have bigger fish to fry as they look for another starting pitcher and an outfielder to replace Mookie
Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr.
Hembree was a nice middle innings reliever, nothing more.
Shipping strong relievers out of town for young, unproven starters with upside is an on-brand move for the Red Sox. And right now, it just makes sense.