The trade deadline came and went, and the Red Sox basically did nothing. They technically traded Shane Victorino for Josh Rutledge then sent cash to Oakland for Ryan Cook, but they effectively made no moves.
Despite finding themselves in a clear selling position, this wasn’t too hard to see coming, as they had next to nothing of value to trade. Their two best trade chips resided in the bullpen, and although I’m sure they fielded phone calls on Koji Uehara and Junichi Tazawa, they opted to retain them for 2016. This article will focus on the latter name. Prior to the deadline, I was a proponent of trading Tazawa; however, I’ve come around to the idea of keeping him. In fact, I think they should try to sign the right-hander beyond 2016.
After failing as a mediocre starting-pitcher prospect, Tazawa converted to a full-time relief role in 2012 and has been one of the most under-appreciated bullpen arms in all of baseball. Since joining the bullpen in The Year Of Bobby V, he ranks 15th in FIP among pitchers who have thrown at least 100 innings with 80 percent of their appearances coming in relief. That’s right between Steve Cishek and Jordan Walden, and that’s better than guys like Jonathan Papelbon and Wade Davis. Among that same group, he ranks 25th in ERA+, checking in between Mark Melancon and Glen Perkins while besting Trevor Rosenthal and Luke Gregerson. Where he truly excels, however, is with his control. Only Uehara, Sean Doolittle and Kenley Jansen have a better K/BB since 2012, as Tazawa is striking out more than 5.5 batters for every walk.
That’s a relatively long range of seasons, though, and bullpen evaluation is more typically fond of the “What have you done for me lately?” variety. In 2015, it feels like Tazawa is having something of a down year, especially recently. While it’s true that he’s been worse than usual, it’s certainly not the same thing as being bad. He still has a 2.68 FIP and a 127 ERA+. He has a good-but-not-great DRA- of 75, ranking 88th and putting him roughly in the same tier as Joakim Soria and Shawn Tolleson. Neither are elite relievers, of course, but they’ve both held down closer jobs on decent teams. The more predictive cFIP is a bigger fan of Tazawa relative to his peers, as his 79 mark is 48th best among pitchers with at least 30 innings. That’s higher than relievers such as Rosenthal and Perkins, both of whom are more highly regarded than Tazawa.
None of this is to say that the 29-year-old is a perfect reliever. He has his flaws, and they prevent him from being an elite closer, but he’s still an outstanding setup man. Tazawa has been prone to hard contact over his career, roughly allowing a home run every nine innings over the last three seasons and a consistently-above-average line-drive rate. On top of that, he’s been worked extremely heavily since joining the bullpen, appearing in 71 games each of the last two seasons. Coincidentally, he’s on pace for 71 once again in 2015. There’s clear risk in extending a reliever with that much mileage on his arm. The last, and maybe most famous, weakness for Tazawa is that fact that he’s seemingly allergic to the Blue Jays. Even before they put together their current spectacular lineup, they’ve historically crushed him. In his career, Toronto has a 1.157 OPS against Tazawa, while no other team with at least three games against him has an OPS above .855. This probably isn’t something to take too seriously when projecting his future, but it’s more than a little weird and is one of those things that sits in the back of your mind.
With all of that being said, the good outweighs the bad. Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen the league shift more towards shorter outings for the starting pitchers while leaning on stronger bullpens. The Royals’ trio of Greg Holland, Wade Davis and Kelvin Herrera immediately comes to mind, but Kansas City isn’t the only team building this way. The Yankees have Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances, and they reportedly discussed trading for Craig Kimbrel or Aroldis Chapman at the deadline. Teams like St. Louis and Pittsburgh have also added many quality arms to their relief corps. Even a sabermetric darling like the Astros dove deep into the reliever free-agent market last winter, and it’s been a big reason why they’re contending this season.
In a great bullpen, Tazawa is probably the third man in a dominant three-headed monster, though teams could easily get away with making him second in line. Ideally, the Red Sox would be able to develop their own arms to take his spot when he’s ready to hit free agency following the 2016 season, but that hasn’t worked out well. Guys like Matt Barnes, Heath Hembree and Noe Ramirez were supposed to take big steps forward this year and become back-end arms, but that hasn’t happened. Joe Kelly has long been mentioned as another late-inning possibility, but he needs to work on his command before anyone can be comfortable with him pitching in any capacity. No clear replacement for Tazawa exists right now, so instead of having to completely rebuild the bullpen, keeping the right-hander in Boston for the next few years gives the club’s bullpen some much-needed stability.
An extension shouldn’t be too expensive, either. This year, through arbitration, he’s earning just $2.25 million. Next winter, one would expect him to make something in the vicinity of $3.5 million. The front office could offer him a contract guaranteeing him around $4 million in 2016, $6-7 million in 2017, then a series of options and buyouts. This gives the team the stability they need, while offering Tazawa financial security. He’d have to at least consider a deal like this given the volatility of relievers and the chance of him lowering his value markedly before next winter. It’s possible they’d have to guarantee 2018 as well, but that shouldn’t be a deal-breaker. The upside is there for him to contribute that deep into his career, and even if he doesn’t, it won’t come at a price that will significantly hurt the payroll.
The Red Sox have a lot of catching up to do in a game that is shifting more and more towards dominant bullpens. The best teams have at least two very good arms in the late innings, and many have three. With many of Boston’s best relief prospects taking steps back this year, they should lock up the best chance at long-term success they have. Tazawa has been consistently good for several years and would be difficult to replace. Assuming he’d be open to negotiating an extension this winter, Cherington should make it one of his priorities in the coming months.