How Felix Doubront Fits With The Red Sox

Entering spring training of last season, everything looked good for Felix Doubront— he was slated to be their primary lefty out of the bullpen.  However, he showed up to camp out of shape and was quickly shelved with an injury to his throwing elbow. Everything went wrong for Doubront and the Red Sox in 2011 from that point on. Without a solid lefty in their bullpen, the Red Sox were forced to trade for Franklin Morales of the Rockies. Morales pitched well after arriving in Boston, putting up a 3.62 ERA and 8.64 strikeouts per nine innings in 36 games. Those numbers practically beg for Morales to return to Boston’s bullpen in 2012. However, there is one little quirk to that: Felix Doubront is out of options– he can’t return to the minor leagues without passing waivers and he won’t pass waivers. He is a talented enough player that one of the 29 other teams in major league baseball would pick him up.

However, there isn’t a whole lot of room in the bullpen either. By all reasoning, Andrew Bailey, Mark Melancon, and Alfredo Aceves will start the season in the bullpen. Franklin Morales and Matt Albers probably will as well– just to provide two quality arms with experience. That leaves two spots open for several pitchers– among others, Andrew Miller, Michael Bowden, and Doubront– those three have no more options. While the Red Sox could use Doubront in the bullpen, one way that they could keep all three of those pitchers is using Doubront in the rotation. Four of the five rotation spots are filled (assuming Bard gets the spot) and the fifth is full of competition.

It’s entirely plausible that Doubront could be the frontrunner in that discussion though. He has pitched pretty well this spring with a 3.38 ERA and 6.75 strikeouts per nine innings. However, it’s not like he’s the only pitcher being discussed as several other pitchers have held their own this spring: Vicente Padilla (4.50 ERA in 10 innings), Ross Ohlendorf (0.00 ERA in 3.2 innings), Aaron Cook (0.00 ERA in 5.1 innings), and Clayton Mortensen (0.00 ERA in 6 innings). I would actually really like to see Doubront get the fifth rotation spot. He’s a very talented pitcher (SoxProspects ranks him thirteenth in their system) and even if it doesn’t pan out they’ve got depth.