Predicting The 2024 Opening Day Roster

[philsbosoxfan]

I'm curious what people think will happen with Mata who is out of options.

[puzzler]

Jan 25, 2024 11:13:33 GMT -5 philsbosoxfan said:

I'm curious what people think will happen with Mata who is out of options.

I think the plan is for him to have a really great spring; then you can either pitch him or trade him.  He seems like the type of pitcher than Breslow said they can't do much with (throws hard already and wild), but you never know.  If he can put in a good spring, maybe he can stick.  But if he falters at any point, he seems like a guy who will get claimed if he's DFA'd.

[gerry]

IMO a good ST puts him, or maybe stashes him, in the Pen for a longer look. Pre-injury Mata was the GUY. His return has been slow but he looks good enough now to hope on. His ceiling could be very high. It’s up to him and Bailey et al.

[dcsoxfan15]

The way the pitching staff is currently situated, Mata should easily make the team. Assuming Kutter and Houck make the rotation, the bullpen could be Jansen, Martin, Bernardino, Slaten, Whitlock, Schreiber, Mata, Winckowski.

[nomar]

Jan 25, 2024 14:55:48 GMT -5 dcsoxfan15 said:

The way the pitching staff is currently situated, Mata should easily make the team. Assuming Kutter and Houck make the rotation, the bullpen could be Jansen, Martin, Bernardino, Slaten, Whitlock, Schreiber, Mata, Winckowski.

His BB/9 was over 10 last year and still ugly in 2022 so it’s hard to say he should make the team without huge improvement to his command and control.

[incandenza]

Reading about the White Sox' prospects, I was reminded that we let Shane Drohan go in the Rule 5 draft for no apparent reason. If this was going to be a season in which we're just trying to find out what the young pitching is capable of, was it really not worth keeping a pitcher like him around?

Drohan has transformed in many ways since he was drafted out of Florida State in 2020. He recently traded his red socks for white ones as the Southsiders scooped him up in the Rule 5 Draft. Perhaps most notable, however, is the degree to which he has shortened up his arm action. He steadily climbed through the Red Sox system and had an incredible beginning to the 2023 season with six starts at Double-A, during which he boasted a 0.82 WHIP and allowed just five total earned runs. Due largely to his lack of precision working in the strike zone, his stat line sagged upon a promotion to Triple-A, as Droahn’s HR/9 grew more than sevenfold. Eleven of the 19 dingers he allowed at Charlotte came on belt-high beach balls. While his in-zone swing-and-miss took a tumble, his chase rate stayed in the mid-30s across both levels, and although he throws his slider more often, his changeup is his standout secondary in this regard, with a combined chase rate across the two levels of around 46%. He rarely threw the pitch to lefties, but righties struggled mightily against it, posting just a .154/.236/.262 slash line against the cambio in Drohan’s 89 innings post-promotion. Drohan’s Triple-A struggles were the first obvious stumbling block of his professional career, and if he can regain the command that allowed him to dominate at the lower levels, he could earn a role as a back-end starter. If not, he’s got the arsenal to be a changeup-heavy multi-inning reliever.

[pappyman99]

Jan 26, 2024 10:45:38 GMT -5 incandenza said:

Reading about the White Sox' prospects, I was reminded that we let Shane Drohan go in the Rule 5 draft for no apparent reason. If this was going to be a season in which we're just trying to find out what the young pitching is capable of, was it really not worth keeping a pitcher like him around?

Drohan has transformed in many ways since he was drafted out of Florida State in 2020. He recently traded his red socks for white ones as the Southsiders scooped him up in the Rule 5 Draft. Perhaps most notable, however, is the degree to which he has shortened up his arm action. He steadily climbed through the Red Sox system and had an incredible beginning to the 2023 season with six starts at Double-A, during which he boasted a 0.82 WHIP and allowed just five total earned runs. Due largely to his lack of precision working in the strike zone, his stat line sagged upon a promotion to Triple-A, as Droahn’s HR/9 grew more than sevenfold. Eleven of the 19 dingers he allowed at Charlotte came on belt-high beach balls. While his in-zone swing-and-miss took a tumble, his chase rate stayed in the mid-30s across both levels, and although he throws his slider more often, his changeup is his standout secondary in this regard, with a combined chase rate across the two levels of around 46%. He rarely threw the pitch to lefties, but righties struggled mightily against it, posting just a .154/.236/.262 slash line against the cambio in Drohan’s 89 innings post-promotion. Drohan’s Triple-A struggles were the first obvious stumbling block of his professional career, and if he can regain the command that allowed him to dominate at the lower levels, he could earn a role as a back-end starter. If not, he’s got the arsenal to be a changeup-heavy multi-inning reliever.

I’d say very apparent reasons.

He is 25 with little projection left and was historically bad in AAA last year. Other than 34 innings of Success he has been average to bad the rest of his minor league career.

Breslow doesn’t like pitchers who walk a lot and he walked over 6 batters per 9 in AAA

[puzzler]

Jan 26, 2024 10:59:21 GMT -5 pappyman99 said:

Jan 26, 2024 10:45:38 GMT -5 incandenza said:

Reading about the White Sox' prospects, I was reminded that we let Shane Drohan go in the Rule 5 draft for no apparent reason. If this was going to be a season in which we're just trying to find out what the young pitching is capable of, was it really not worth keeping a pitcher like him around?

I’d say very apparent reasons.

He is 25 with little projection left and was historically bad in AAA last year. Other than 34 innings of Success he has been average to bad the rest of his minor league career.

Breslow doesn’t like pitchers who walk a lot and he walked over 6 batters per 9 in AAA

Not to pile on, but looking at the projected rotation for Worcester, you have six guys. Five of them are easily better than Drohan with barely a glance and the sixth has more overall success at the upper levels than Drohan (Van Belle). There literally was no space for Drohan. But as you correctly mentioned, Drohan's BB/9 (not just at Worcester) is not good and the guys left for the Worcester rotation all have much better control than he does. Breslow and ownership get tagged for not being transparent and not communicating what they're doing, but the truth is when they do tell us something, it just gets ignored.  

[dcsoxfan15]

Jan 26, 2024 10:45:38 GMT -5 incandenza said:

Reading about the White Sox' prospects, I was reminded that we let Shane Drohan go in the Rule 5 draft for no apparent reason. If this was going to be a season in which we're just trying to find out what the young pitching is capable of, was it really not worth keeping a pitcher like him around?

Drohan has transformed in many ways since he was drafted out of Florida State in 2020. He recently traded his red socks for white ones as the Southsiders scooped him up in the Rule 5 Draft. Perhaps most notable, however, is the degree to which he has shortened up his arm action. He steadily climbed through the Red Sox system and had an incredible beginning to the 2023 season with six starts at Double-A, during which he boasted a 0.82 WHIP and allowed just five total earned runs. Due largely to his lack of precision working in the strike zone, his stat line sagged upon a promotion to Triple-A, as Droahn’s HR/9 grew more than sevenfold. Eleven of the 19 dingers he allowed at Charlotte came on belt-high beach balls. While his in-zone swing-and-miss took a tumble, his chase rate stayed in the mid-30s across both levels, and although he throws his slider more often, his changeup is his standout secondary in this regard, with a combined chase rate across the two levels of around 46%. He rarely threw the pitch to lefties, but righties struggled mightily against it, posting just a .154/.236/.262 slash line against the cambio in Drohan’s 89 innings post-promotion. Drohan’s Triple-A struggles were the first obvious stumbling block of his professional career, and if he can regain the command that allowed him to dominate at the lower levels, he could earn a role as a back-end starter. If not, he’s got the arsenal to be a changeup-heavy multi-inning reliever.

This was my favorite part of the off-season, getting clowned on for being upset over not protecting Drohan.  I remember being told that they were saving 40-man spots for roster improvements, and we should check back later in the off-season.  Today, Joe Jacques, Zack Weiss, and Max Castillo are on the Red Sox 40-man.

[incandenza]

Jan 26, 2024 13:06:14 GMT -5 puzzler said:

Jan 26, 2024 10:59:21 GMT -5 pappyman99 said:

I’d say very apparent reasons.

He is 25 with little projection left and was historically bad in AAA last year. Other than 34 innings of Success he has been average to bad the rest of his minor league career.

Breslow doesn’t like pitchers who walk a lot and he walked over 6 batters per 9 in AAA

Not to pile on, but looking at the projected rotation for Worcester, you have six guys. Five of them are easily better than Drohan with barely a glance and the sixth has more overall success at the upper levels than Drohan (Van Belle). There literally was no space for Drohan. But as you correctly mentioned, Drohan's BB/9 (not just at Worcester) is not good and the guys left for the Worcester rotation all have much better control than he does. Breslow and ownership get tagged for not being transparent and not communicating what they're doing, but the truth is when they do tell us something, it just gets ignored.  

Drohan was a top 10 prospect in the system in early 2023, with glowing reports about his improved stuff and velo before he even took the big step forward in Portland last year. Then he regressed in AAA (in a terrible pitchers' park) with uncharacteristically poor control issues. It's certainly possible that Breslow & co. think they can work wonders with Royals' DFA salvage piece Max Castillo or that Joe Jacques, Greg Weissert, and Zack Kelly will turn out to be important contributors, but if we're going to be in see-what-we've-got mode then I'd much rather see what sort of upside Drohan's got than mess with all of those other guys.

[dcsoxfan15]

Jan 26, 2024 13:26:43 GMT -5 incandenza said:

Jan 26, 2024 13:06:14 GMT -5 puzzler said:

Not to pile on, but looking at the projected rotation for Worcester, you have six guys. Five of them are easily better than Drohan with barely a glance and the sixth has more overall success at the upper levels than Drohan (Van Belle). There literally was no space for Drohan. But as you correctly mentioned, Drohan's BB/9 (not just at Worcester) is not good and the guys left for the Worcester rotation all have much better control than he does. Breslow and ownership get tagged for not being transparent and not communicating what they're doing, but the truth is when they do tell us something, it just gets ignored.  

Drohan was a top 10 prospect in the system in early 2023, with glowing reports about his improved stuff and velo before he even took the big step forward in Portland last year. Then he regressed in AAA (in a terrible pitchers' park) with uncharacteristically poor control issues. It's certainly possible that Breslow & co. think they can work wonders with Royals' DFA salvage piece Max Castillo or that Joe Jacques, Greg Weissert, and Zack Kelly will turn out to be important contributors, but if we're going to be in see-what-we've-got mode then I'd much rather see what sort of upside Drohan's got than mess with all of those other guys.

Important to note here, as well, the Red Sox completely revamped their minor league pitching infrastructure, including the AAA pitching coach and catchers.  Clearly, they thought there was an issue beyond Drohan that was contributing to a lack of success in AAA.

[yuchangclan]

Jan 25, 2024 15:35:56 GMT -5 nomar said:

Jan 25, 2024 14:55:48 GMT -5 dcsoxfan15 said:

The way the pitching staff is currently situated, Mata should easily make the team. Assuming Kutter and Houck make the rotation, the bullpen could be Jansen, Martin, Bernardino, Slaten, Whitlock, Schreiber, Mata, Winckowski.

His BB/9 was over 10 last year and still ugly in 2022 so it’s hard to say he should make the team without huge improvement to his command and control.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve had less and less patience for pitchers who can’t throw strikes. It’s like a kicker that can’t make field goals. I don’t care if you can throw the ball through a brick wall, you MUST throw strikes first. I would think Mata is on borrowed time as a result. He was once so promising, but it’s just about time to move on.

[dcsoxfan15]

Jan 26, 2024 13:39:57 GMT -5 yuchangclan said:

Jan 25, 2024 15:35:56 GMT -5 nomar said:

His BB/9 was over 10 last year and still ugly in 2022 so it’s hard to say he should make the team without huge improvement to his command and control.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve had less and less patience for pitchers who can’t throw strikes. It’s like a kicker that can’t make field goals. I don’t care if you can throw the ball through a brick wall, you MUST throw strikes first. I would think Mata is on borrowed time as a result. He was once so promising, but it’s just about time to move on.

Y'all are right, he's fighting for a spot in the bullpen.  But, I don't think he has to show much to win that spot.  If he can show he's healthy and has improved his control and command somewhat, I think he gets a spot.  His stuff is insanely good, the team will be loathe to lose out on him so quickly.

[gerry]

Unless, of course, Mata shows marked control improvement in ST. Then we have what we originally thought we might have in his ascent through the system. Getting older, for me, has been a lesson in patience. I was less excited about Drohan than Mata but would have been patient with him; and will be patient with Mata (and others on this young team.) We will know soon.

[puzzler]

Jan 26, 2024 13:26:43 GMT -5 incandenza said:

Jan 26, 2024 13:06:14 GMT -5 puzzler said:

Not to pile on, but looking at the projected rotation for Worcester, you have six guys. Five of them are easily better than Drohan with barely a glance and the sixth has more overall success at the upper levels than Drohan (Van Belle). There literally was no space for Drohan. But as you correctly mentioned, Drohan's BB/9 (not just at Worcester) is not good and the guys left for the Worcester rotation all have much better control than he does. Breslow and ownership get tagged for not being transparent and not communicating what they're doing, but the truth is when they do tell us something, it just gets ignored.  

Drohan was a top 10 prospect in the system in early 2023, with glowing reports about his improved stuff and velo before he even took the big step forward in Portland last year. Then he regressed in AAA (in a terrible pitchers' park) with uncharacteristically poor control issues. It's certainly possible that Breslow & co. think they can work wonders with Royals' DFA salvage piece Max Castillo or that Joe Jacques, Greg Weissert, and Zack Kelly will turn out to be important contributors, but if we're going to be in see-what-we've-got mode then I'd much rather see what sort of upside Drohan's got than mess with all of those other guys.

Outside of 6 starts at Double A - where do you get this from? He's had control issues dating back to college.  

[scottysmalls]

Jan 26, 2024 13:06:14 GMT -5 puzzler said:

Jan 26, 2024 10:59:21 GMT -5 pappyman99 said:

I’d say very apparent reasons.

He is 25 with little projection left and was historically bad in AAA last year. Other than 34 innings of Success he has been average to bad the rest of his minor league career.

Breslow doesn’t like pitchers who walk a lot and he walked over 6 batters per 9 in AAA

Not to pile on, but looking at the projected rotation for Worcester, you have six guys. Five of them are easily better than Drohan with barely a glance and the sixth has more overall success at the upper levels than Drohan (Van Belle). There literally was no space for Drohan. But as you correctly mentioned, Drohan's BB/9 (not just at Worcester) is not good and the guys left for the Worcester rotation all have much better control than he does. Breslow and ownership get tagged for not being transparent and not communicating what they're doing, but the truth is when they do tell us something, it just gets ignored.  

Castillo, Gambrell, and Walter are all easily better than Drohan? At least in terms of the long term that is counter to what every prospect evaluator I can find says.

[incandenza]

Jan 26, 2024 14:17:54 GMT -5 puzzler said:

Jan 26, 2024 13:26:43 GMT -5 incandenza said:

Drohan was a top 10 prospect in the system in early 2023, with glowing reports about his improved stuff and velo before he even took the big step forward in Portland last year. Then he regressed in AAA (in a terrible pitchers' park) with uncharacteristically poor control issues. It's certainly possible that Breslow & co. think they can work wonders with Royals' DFA salvage piece Max Castillo or that Joe Jacques, Greg Weissert, and Zack Kelly will turn out to be important contributors, but if we're going to be in see-what-we've-got mode then I'd much rather see what sort of upside Drohan's got than mess with all of those other guys.

Outside of 6 starts at Double A - where do you get this from? He's had control issues dating back to college.  

Well, his BB/9 by year were:

2021 (A ball): 4.57

2022 (high-A): 3.41

2022 (AA): 4.13

2023 (AA): 2.38

Total of the above: 3.74

2023 (AAA): 6.37

So, just sort of looking at those numbers that are right in front of me is where I get that from.

(Admittedly I botched the grammar with "uncharacteristically poor control issues," but still, I don't think it's really debatable that the AAA performance was uncharacteristic.)

[julyanmorley]

Max Castillo is an interesting name to bring up. He's a few months younger than Drohan and has gotten significantly better results each of the last three years. They both have dead zone fastballs that are a problem at the major league level, and one legit secondary pitch. Castillo's third pitch is well ahead of Drohan's. And...we got Castillo for free and nobody would care if he was DFA'ed tomorrow.

[incandenza]

Jan 26, 2024 14:41:43 GMT -5 julyanmorley said:

Max Castillo is an interesting name to bring up. He's a few months younger than Drohan and has gotten significantly better results each of the last three years. They both have dead zone fastballs that are a problem at the major league level, and one legit secondary pitch. Castillo's third pitch is well ahead of Drohan's. And...we got Castillo for free and nobody would care if he was DFA'ed tomorrow.

Kinda makes you wonder why the Royals DFA'd him and no one else in line ahead of the Red Sox scooped him up... But to be fair, Castillo seems like the most interesting potential Breslow/Bailey reclamation project. I'd still rather have Drohan than Weissert, Jacques, or Kelly.

[puzzler]

Jan 26, 2024 14:25:44 GMT -5 scottysmalls said:

Jan 26, 2024 13:06:14 GMT -5 puzzler said:

Not to pile on, but looking at the projected rotation for Worcester, you have six guys. Five of them are easily better than Drohan with barely a glance and the sixth has more overall success at the upper levels than Drohan (Van Belle). There literally was no space for Drohan. But as you correctly mentioned, Drohan's BB/9 (not just at Worcester) is not good and the guys left for the Worcester rotation all have much better control than he does. Breslow and ownership get tagged for not being transparent and not communicating what they're doing, but the truth is when they do tell us something, it just gets ignored.  

Castillo, Gambrell, and Walter are all easily better than Drohan? At least in terms of the long term that is counter to what every prospect evaluator I can find says.

No, not from prospect evaluation, but from results and especially in terms of what Breslow said they were looking for (strong command profile with the ability to squeeze out additional velocity). 

[scottysmalls]

Jan 26, 2024 15:04:43 GMT -5 puzzler said:

Jan 26, 2024 14:25:44 GMT -5 scottysmalls said:

Castillo, Gambrell, and Walter are all easily better than Drohan? At least in terms of the long term that is counter to what every prospect evaluator I can find says.

No, not from prospect evaluation, but from results and especially in terms of what Breslow said they were looking for (strong command profile with the ability to squeeze out additional velocity). 

On the performance piece that's fair, I guess I just care way more about their prospect status than their historic minor league performance. Totally possible the prospect evaluations have been wrong (and that the Red Sox current FO disagrees with them) anyhow. 

[ematz1423]

At least to me with Drohan it's not necessarily him vs Castillo, Gambrell and Walter. I'm with Incandenza it's him vs Jacques, Weissert & Kelly. I would have DFA'd one of them to put Drohan on the 40.

Chances are none of them really stick long term as ML pitchers but Drohan seems to have a lot higher upside than those 3.

[chaimtime]

Jan 26, 2024 15:04:43 GMT -5 puzzler said:

Jan 26, 2024 14:25:44 GMT -5 scottysmalls said:

Castillo, Gambrell, and Walter are all easily better than Drohan? At least in terms of the long term that is counter to what every prospect evaluator I can find says.

No, not from prospect evaluation, but from results and especially in terms of what Breslow said they were looking for (strong command profile with the ability to squeeze out additional velocity). 

for what it’s worth Drohan’s projection on this very website was revised to “emergency up-and-down arm” before he got taken in the Rule 5, so it’s not like his scouting report was really all that much better than the other guys. Castillo seems like he’s pretty clearly ahead at this point, and Gambrell and Walter both have an “up-and-down” projection rather than an “emergency up-and-down” projection. So there isn’t really a scouting side rebuttal to the production argument.

I get that the idea of Drohan rediscovering the stuff that made him so effective in Portland is enticing, but what he was showing at the end of last year was just not MLB-caliber. He’s 25 years old and has 90 very poor innings at AAA to his name, I don’t think it’s really a mystery why he wasn’t protected.

[scottysmalls]

Jan 26, 2024 15:45:16 GMT -5 chaimtime said:

Jan 26, 2024 15:04:43 GMT -5 puzzler said:

No, not from prospect evaluation, but from results and especially in terms of what Breslow said they were looking for (strong command profile with the ability to squeeze out additional velocity). 

for what it’s worth Drohan’s projection on this very website was revised to “emergency up-and-down arm” before he got taken in the Rule 5, so it’s not like his scouting report was really all that much better than the other guys. Castillo seems like he’s pretty clearly ahead at this point, and Gambrell and Walter both have an “up-and-down” projection rather than an “emergency up-and-down” projection. So there isn’t really a scouting side rebuttal to the production argument.

I get that the idea of Drohan rediscovering the stuff that made him so effective in Portland is enticing, but what he was showing at the end of last year was just not MLB-caliber. He’s 25 years old and has 90 very poor innings at AAA to his name, I don’t think it’s really a mystery why he wasn’t protected.

Yet Drohan was ranked 15th while Gambrell/Van Belle/Walter were ranked far lower than that. This site's opinion seemed to be that he was clearly a better prospect than those guys. 

[puzzler]

Jan 26, 2024 15:52:54 GMT -5 scottysmalls said:

Jan 26, 2024 15:45:16 GMT -5 chaimtime said:

for what it’s worth Drohan’s projection on this very website was revised to “emergency up-and-down arm” before he got taken in the Rule 5, so it’s not like his scouting report was really all that much better than the other guys. Castillo seems like he’s pretty clearly ahead at this point, and Gambrell and Walter both have an “up-and-down” projection rather than an “emergency up-and-down” projection. So there isn’t really a scouting side rebuttal to the production argument.

I get that the idea of Drohan rediscovering the stuff that made him so effective in Portland is enticing, but what he was showing at the end of last year was just not MLB-caliber. He’s 25 years old and has 90 very poor innings at AAA to his name, I don’t think it’s really a mystery why he wasn’t protected.

Yet Drohan was ranked 15th while Gambrell/Van Belle/Walter were ranked far lower than that. This site's opinion seemed to be that he was clearly a better prospect than those guys. 

And less than a year prior to that he was 26th as basically a 24 year old.  He obviously had a fantastic spring and early summer...but going 26 to 13 to 6 to 15; he got a huge bump from one camp and 6 starts. I've seen him as high as 17 in a worse ranked farm system (White Sox) with almost 10 other arms ahead of him. No disrespect to his player evaluations or his rankings on this site (which is the best, sincerely), but I'm putting zero stock into his ranking alone. Mata was as high as 2 and is now 28. 

EDIT: Brandon Walter was 9 in April of 2023 and less than a year later is 32.