Red Sox greatest relief pitcher bargains in franchise history

The Red Sox will dip into the bargain bin for relief help this winter. To inspire optimism, let’s look Boston’s recent clearance rack success stories.

Boston Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski is on record claiming that he doesn’t anticipate a huge relief pitcher acquisition this offseason. This could be a negotiating tactic of course –  obviously, it wouldn’t buy him much leverage to say we need a superstar closer and we will pay whatever it takes – but Dombrowski has always been a pretty straight-shooter.

If we are to take his words at face value it means that the Red Sox are going to be looking in the bargain bin to fill out their bullpen.

So the Sox will probably be signing some names far less exciting than Craig Kimbrel, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t value to be had. Every year there are bullpen arms that get signed for next to nothing only to anchor their respective relief unit. There are no guarantees the Red Sox find such a bargain, but to inspire a little bit of optimism, let’s take a look at five of the greatest bullpen bargains the Red Sox have found in recent memory.

Methodology:

I considered relievers the Red Sox acquired anytime between the 1999-2000 offseason and today. Because we are focused on the possibility of the Red Sox scoring big in the bargain bin, I only looked at relievers who could have reasonably been called under the radar or bargain bin acquisitions on the date they were acquired.

The next decision I had to make with this list was how to value these pitchers. I decided to only consider each pitcher’s value in the years under their initial contract with the Red Sox. That means if a pitcher re-signed with Boston after already establishing themselves as a success, the subsequent years were not taken into account on this list. I also decided to give more weight to short-term dominance than to long-term mediocrity since bargain bin relievers are generally signed to fill an immediate need and any pitcher signed this year would be no exception.

Finally, I decided to consider the context of their performance. In short, a reliever who was very good for Red Sox in 2004 was worth more than a dominant reliever was to the Red Sox in 2012. Now that we have our super scientific criteria, let’s start with number five.

#5) Mike Timlin

The Contract: $1.85 million for the 2003 season (years via Baseball Almanac, salary via Baseball Reference).

Performance:

The Red Sox bullpen was less than stellar in 2003. In fact, as a unit, they had the third worst ERA in baseball at 4.87. This made Mike Timlin all the more valuable. This was a year that Ramiro Mendoza pitched 66.2 innings for the Red Sox despite having a 6.75 ERA and a 146 ERA-. It’s really hard to imagine that the Red Sox beat out the Mariners for the wild card – the Red Sox won 95 games and the Mariners won 93 – if you give a good portion of Timlin’s 83.2 innings to pitchers of that quality.

And even if the Red Sox make the postseason without Timlin, they certainly wouldn’t have made it as far without him. The Red Sox climbed out of a 0-2 hole and edged out the A’s in five games in the 2003 ALDS. In Game 3, on the brink of elimination, Timlin came in to start the 8th inning of a tied game and kept the A’s from reaching base for three innings before the Red Sox won in the 11th. That performance was part of a playoff run in which Timlin threw 9.2 innings and allowed one hit while striking out 11 batters and walking two.

2003 didn’t end the way the Red Sox had hoped it would of course, but the Red Sox would re-sign Timlin after the season and he will always be remembered for his role in the 2004 and 2007 World Series Championships.

#3) Junichi Tazawa

The Contract: Junichi Tazawa came over from Japan to join the Red Sox in 2009 and thus was obligated to play in Boston until he achieved six years of service time after the 2016 season. Overall he earned $10.59 million between 2009 and 2016. (contract data via Baseball reference)

Performance:

Tazawa came over from Japan at the young age of 23 and thus he began his career in the minor leagues. He did very well in AA and AAA in 2009 and came into 2010 with considerable buzz. Unfortunately, Tazawa underwent Tommy John surgery in April 2010. He wouldn’t fully find his footing until 2012, but that year – in a season full of disappointments – Tazawa was utterly dominant. While the Bobby V circus was in full effect, all Tazawa did was post a 1.43 ERA while striking out nine batters for each walk he issued.

In 2013, he continued to be a star-level relief pitcher but luckily this time his performance was not squandered. He tied for seventh in the American League for holds with 25 while striking out six batters for each walk and anchoring the setup man spot for the eventual World Series Champion Red Sox.

The Red Sox never returned to the pinnacle during his tenure but he remained a productive reliever through the end of his rookie contract in 2017. In this millennium, Tazawa ranks fourth among Red Sox relievers in career fWAR, all of which was attained while on his rookie contract. It’s safe to say he overperformed the $10.59 million he was paid.

2) Hideki Okajima

The Contract: $2.5 million for two seasons (2007 and 2008) with a club option that was exercised for $1.75 million in 2009. (The club option was mentioned here and on Okajima’s Wikipedia page, but the link Wikipedia sites is broken. I was shocked by how hard it has been to find contract data on these relievers).

Performance:

I really struggled to decide between Hideki Okajima and Junichi Tazawa for the number 2 spot. I ended up choosing Okajima because if a competitive team had the choice between a reliever that is really good right now or a reliever that will be really good for slightly longer three seasons down the line they would certainly take the former and for the 2007 Red Sox, Okajima was just that.

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Okajima’s signing prior to the 2007 season was overshadowed by the news of another Japanese pitcher defecting to the Red Sox. Daisuke Matsuzaka and his gyroball were all the rage that winter. But, despite the initial gap in excitement, Okajima will certainly be remembered more fondly than Dice-K among the Fenway Faithful.

Among AL teams in 2007, the Red Sox’s bullpen placed 1st in ERA (3.10) and 4th in FIP (4.01). Boston’s relief corps that season were a huge part of their championship run and while Jonathan Papelbon was the headliner of that group, Okajima was easily Boston’s second-best reliever. That one season would easily have made his contract a bargain regardless of what happened over the duration. But Okajima delivered two more solid seasons and between 2007 and 2009 the southpaw maintained a 2.72 ERA while striking out nearly three batters for each walk and generating 2.6 fWAR.

And for all of that success, the Red Sox paid roughly the same amount to Okajima over three years that they paid Joel Pineiro to pitch at replacement level in 2007.

#1) Koji Uehara

The Contract: $4.25 million for the 2013 season with a $5 million vesting option for 2014 that took effect upon his 55th relief appearance of 2013. (Vesting option was reported by ESPN long after the initial contract was announced, salary data via baseball reference.)

Performance:

Alright, we all knew who would top this list before we even started. The rest of the league ignored the fact that the Japanese hurler had a 1.75 ERA and 14.33 K/BB ratio in 2012, and instead focused on his injury history and age (2013 was his age-38 season).

Those 29 teams made a humongous mistake. For the poultry sum of $4.25 million, Koji delivered a historically great performance. His K/BB (11.22) ratio in 2013 is among the top 10 for any reliever in a single season (minimum 60 innings) in the closer era and his WHIP (.57) is the greatest mark for any reliever with at least 60 innings ever. Tack on 13.2 immaculate play-off innings including 7 saves en route to a championship run and you have a player that will forever live in Red Sox lore. The fact that he was an all-star the next year was just gravy on top.

Koji is the gold standard for relief pitcher bargains and if they found a pitcher who could produce a third of what Koji did in 2013 the Red Sox would be ecstatic.