Red Sox to stretch out two familiar faces as starters, will continue to focus on upgrades in free agency
Red Sox chief baseball officer has continued to stress that the focus for the club is to improve its starting pitching. Breslow hasn’t announced how many starters he is expecting to sign or trade for but he also acknowledges he has internal options that can help bolster the staff.
The Red Sox still view Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock as starters, but also understand the duo could help out of the bullpen, similar to Josh Winckowski’s role last season.
Breslow told reporters in Arizona that he plans on building Houck and Whitlock as starters this offseason. That could change on the potential acquisitions to address the flawed rotation.
“I’m thinking giving them every chance to get built out as starting pitchers makes a ton of sense,” Breslow said to reporters at the GM Meetings. “I think as we start to put into place the pitching infrastructure that we’re working hard to put in place, there will be opportunities to maybe tweak around the margins: pitch usage, pitch shapes, attack plans that can maybe get more mileage out of those guys. I also think just having them healthy and having healthy offseasons and anticipating healthy seasons gives us a better look at what they are capable of doing. So I’m not sure that decision gets made in spring training. My hope is they come in built up, they are viable rotation options and the team needs and how we best kind of put the winning team on the field dictates ultimately (their roles).”
Houck has been stronger out of the bullpen with a 2.68 ERA in 33 career relief outings (53 2/3 innings). He owns a 4.17 ERA over 41 career starts, starting this season due to injuries to the rotation.
Whitlock has been an enigma when on the mound. As a starter, statistically, he’s been subpar posting a 4.76 ERA in 19 starts over 90 2/3 innings. As a reliever, he makes the bigger impact, owning a 2.65 ERA in 80 appearances (132 2/3 innings).
Both pitchers are good insurance options for the Breslow and manager Alex Cora if someone goes down with an injury at any point. They both provide tremendous value for the Red Sox out of the bullpen.
“We need to make a decision as early as possible because I think it informs the way you prepare and train through the offseason,” Breslow said. “There’s a ton of value in starting pitching. I think we will build guys out as starting pitchers and give them every chance to claim a rotation spot. I have yet to meet the team that has too much starting pitching. And I think the transition is easier going from the rotation to the bullpen in terms of limiting the repertoire a little bit, lessening the workload a little bit. So that’s the direction we would go if we had to. So we value those guys as starting pitchers.”
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