Making Garrett Whitlock A Starter Is A Mistake
They just continue to do the wrong thing and wonder why things go south. I don’t care about the analytical charts that suggests that starting pitching is more valuable than relievers. The only thing that should matter is that this idea that Garrett Whitlock is a starter continues to be an egregious mistake by this management group.
In case you missed it, yes, for absolutely no reason Boston announced that Whitlock will be a starter for the 2023 MLB Season. The Red Sox have no closer. No reliable set up man. None of that matters apparently. They’re going to force a square peg into a round hole because of pure ignorance.
It’s not about just the pure numbers but it tells a lot of the story.
Whitlock the starter: 4.15 ERA, .261 BA, 1.256 WHIP, 8.8 K per 9
Whitlock the reliever: 2.24 ERA, .215 BA, 0.994 WHIP, 10.0 K per 9
Those numbers are a great indicator on the truth but it doesn’t exactly explain why these numbers are the case. They’re very easy to explain. Unfortunately for the Red Sox, Trey’s brain must not come with that fancy computer program they have that decided Kyle Schwarber wasn’t good enough to keep.
What makes Whitlock so dangerous is his extension and fastball velocity. The man I like to refer to as Warlock ranks in the 99th percentile in extension. He covers a lot of ground getting the baseball to the catcher. He’s also 6-foot-5 so it’s no surprise he ranks high in that category.
We also know that pitching out of the pen allows you to pitch with higher velocity. Pitching one or two innings at a time allows the guy to go balls to the wall for his outing. In 2021, Whitlock’s fastball velocity was 96.3. When you have that extension and can pitch that fast, the ball just jumps on hitters which allowed Whitlock to become one of the best relievers in baseball.
The starting experiment decreased his fastball velo to 95.1 a year ago also decreasing his whiff rate down over 10 percent. It also probably got Whitlock hurt constantly transitioning back and forth from starter to reliever.
The thing I don’t get is why is this information used as a bad thing? Why be ignorant about it? Why continue to insist that Whitlock belongs in a role that doesn’t best suit him? The solution is very simple but these idiots running the show continue to do the wrong thing.
Boston had the 5th worst bullpen ERA in baseball a year ago. Once again we enter the 2023 season with zero solutions. The solutions exist already on the roster. This front office is just too dumb to acknowledge they exist.
Want my plan for running the Red Sox? Garrett Whitlock is the 7th and 8th inning guy. Chris Sale is the closer. I gotta have three starters on the free agent market. Nathan Eovaldi, Michael Wacha, and Rich Hill could easily all return filling up that rotation along with Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta, and James Paxton. Kodai Senga, Noah Syndergaard, Carlos Rodon, Jacob deGrom, Chris Bassit, and Justin Verlander are also on the free agent market.
Remind me again, why is Whitlock going into the rotation? So I can watch Matt Barnes blow it again? Hard pass. Idiotic brain dead front office continues to get it wrong over and over again.
