Steven Wright’s PED Suspension Could Test Red Sox Depth
In what will be its 16th season suspending players for taking performance enhancing drugs, Major League Baseball has given Steven Wright an 80-game suspension. Tests revealed a growth hormone in Wright’s system. Wright indicated he didn’t know how the PED entered his body, but accepted the suspension. 2019 will mark the second straight year in which Wright will begin the season with a suspension; he missed 15 games in 2018 after violating the league’s domestic violence policy.
Without Wright, the Red Sox depth in the bullpen will be tested. I tried to test the depth of the Red Sox myself, but I almost broke both of my arms trying to swim in a pool of baseball players.
Jay Jaffe just wrote about the Red Sox bullpen as it relates to their lack of pursuit of Craig Kimbrel, despite losing the aforementioned closer as well as Joe Kelly.
Nobody new of any note has come into the fold besides Jenrry Mejia, who signed a minor league deal in January after being reinstated from a PED-related, lifetime ban that cost him the past 3 1/2 seasons. Via our depth charts, the primary pool of relievers appears to consist of lefties Brian Johnson and Bobby Poyner, and righties Matt Barnes, Ryan Brasier, Heath Hembree, Tyler Thornburg, Hector Velazquez, Marcus Walden, and Brandon Workman, with knuckleballer Steven Wright coming along slowly after arthroscopic surgery on his left knee [update: and also suspended for 80 games due to a PED violation] and Carson Smith not available until sometime in midseason as he works his way back from last June’s shoulder surgery.
Jaffe took a look at the ‘pen’s depth chart and noted the projections were not very good. Wright’s 0.1 WAR projection doesn’t make his suspension seem like a big loss, but knuckleballers might be a difficult bunch to project given the lack of comps. The Red Sox were certainly planning on using him and saw something beyond what our projections see, or at least, saw something better than their other in-house options, which include little help from the minors.
While Wright wasn’t expected to start, it’s also worth noting the Red Sox have almost no starting pitching depth either. They have a very good starting five with Chris Sale, David Price, Nathan Eovaldi, Rick Porcello, and Eduardo Rodriguez, but almost nothing beyond that. Boston should be a very good team this season, but their pitching staff has some weakness to it. Wright’s suspension isn’t likely to affect much, but it does hurt their depth just a little bit more, and in what is likely to be a tight division, small losses can have big impacts.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
the irony of this is that with the suspension, Jennry Mejia is maybe the favorite to take his spot on the roster
Mediocre middle reliever?
Is it wrong of me to feel that the Red Sox are making the same mistakes as the 2017 Nats and the 2018 Indians? “Oh, we can skimp on this one crucial area, we’ll be fine, the rest of our roster is great!” And then that one crucial area proceeds to bite them over the course of a 162 game season, especially when compounded by injuries to other somewhat shaky parts of the roster.
No the Nats actually made the playoffs in 2017– it’s more like the 2018 Nats, or 2015 Nats, or 2013 Nats…
The Sox are treating their pitching depth like their local brethren the Patriots treated their wide receiver corps. They’re hoping that their team’s talent will win games alone, but uh, if that doesn’t seem to work out then maybe they’ll get desperate and sign Josh Gordon. I don’t think a troubled ace is out there, though.
Why does a knuckleball pitcher need to do PEDs? We always think it’s about homeruns and strikeouts but they’re probably used for the grind on the season most of the time.
Perhaps to speed his lengthy recovery from knee surgery? I was wondering the same.
A lot of PEDS use was/is to speed healing rather than to improve performance.
Look to Wright’s statement denying that he “intentionally ingested anything for performance-enhancing purposes”.
It stupid, and a shame, that many drugs are off the table that should be used in rehabilitation. It’s like the difference using morphine for kicks, and using morphine recovering from surgery.
Look to adderall abuse for the reason: given the money involved it’s too easy to get unnecessary prescriptions.
Wonder if one of the side effects of that PED was domestic violence?
It’s not the greatest group on paper, but I can see why Dombrowski is bullish on this group. At the top of the reliever depth chart, Barnes/Brasier/Hembree are not the biggest names, but solidly above average, both in terms of stuff and results (Hembree in particular has improved his K% and xFIP each of the past two seasons). Thornburg and Workman have gotten good results in the past as well, though there are some injury questions there.
In terms of rotation depth, Johnson and Velasquez are both swingmen (each averaged over two innings per appearance last season, combining for 184.1 innings total) and can slide into the rotation if needed. Velasquez in particular has added value as a ground ball specialist.
They also are bringing a number of other arms into camp to compete for the 6th and 7th spots in the bullpen. A lot of risk, obviously, but potential rewards too. And it doesn’t preclude them for going into the trade market for a band-aid early in the season.
Based on his great AFL and some enthusiasm from the prospect team here, I think they might be betting on a fast track for Darwinzon Hernandez. It does look thin for hi lev options back there, but it doesn’t have to be a settled situation in April or even June. There might be some very motivated 40-man arms right now, since there is definitely a power vacuum in this bullpen.
Johnson or Velazquez is fine for a while if someone goes on the DL. Johnson specifically was a huge reason the team was able to back off Sale last summer.
In the first place, he wasn’t ready. He’ll be back for the last half of the year, which is probably when they will need him most. They won’t need him in the playoff format. Sox lose nothing.
Troublemaker
Look at the bullpen numbers in Detroit while Dombrowski was there. Not saying he was or is a bad gm, just saying, look at the bullpen numbers while Dombrowski was there.