Three Aces for the Boston Red Sox
By Rick McNair
To get the best pitching the Boston Red Sox will feel the pain of young talent being shipped elsewhere.
The Boston Red Sox have one ace. One ace will not get you much in a card game but three aces? Three aces are almost a guarantee of a nice pot being under your control and three aces in a pitching rotation is something special – very special. But with ace acquisition comes pain.
The Boston Red Sox have traditionally thought bat before arm when constructing a team. Much, of course, was centered on a ballpark whose configuration awarded the right-handed slugger and even the left-handed one. From Jimmie Foxx to Manny Ramirez that right-handed power bat would take precedence over a strong arm.
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Examining the recent successes (and failures) it is noted that the centerpiece of such success revolves around pitching – and not just any pitching, but the ace type pitching. In fact, go back even further to Cy Young, Smoky Joe Wood and even a young lefty called Babe Ruth to see how formidable pitching became key ingredients to a World Series flag. Historically the Red Sox staff of the late 1940s had several aces. But back to the recent – at least my version of recent.
For me, recent can be 1967 and Jim Lonborg or 1975 and Luis Tiant. Maybe Roger Clemens and 1986 and carried into the Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, Josh Beckett and Jon Lester and the round of flags collected in the new century. Ownership knows this – hence David Price.
Baseball is a unique sport in that the defense controls the ball and the primary ingredient of defense is pitching. A pitcher controls the game. Fear of a slugger? Just walk him or if you have a stud that needs a challenge go Mano a Mano.
You never have enough pitching. Never. Remember a few seasons back when the mantra was what are we going to do with John Smoltz and Brad Penny? Will we end up with an eight-man rotation? By the end of the season, Paul Byrd was in the rotation. Pitching is a fragile resource that has created a legion of orthopedic specialist who are now capable of exotic procedures to rebuild shredded arms.
"Trade a wooden bat for a rubber arm and not the other way around. – John Gillooly"
Now we see it at the beginning in 2016 with the continued exploits of Clay Buchholz, Joe Kelly, and Rick Porcello. Or the huge dent caused by injury to Eduardo Rodriguez. The subsequent bullpen burnout may follow along as the season progresses. So what do you do? Bold moves in the past for Beckett, Pedro and Schilling. Now another flurry of bold moves.
Here are some options on pitching and just what would you be willing to pay?