Fernando Abad made minor history this offseason when he became the first player under the current ownership group to go to arbitration with the Red Sox. He wanted $2.7 million, the Red Sox felt he was worth $2 million, and, on the last day of January, the team notched its first victory of the season when the arbitrator ruled in their favor — saving $700K that they’d otherwise have to sell, like, five beers to make back. The horrors.

Will things get better for the bullpen lefty in 2017? Let’s find out.

What went right in 2016

A lot went right for Abad in 2016. He started the season in Minnesota on a minor league deal and ended up on first-place Boston after a summer trade for right-handed flamethrower Pat Light. A lefty specialist and journeyman, Abad put up a 2.65 ERA over 34 innings for the Twins, holding left-handed batters to a .163/.192/.265 line before the deal and holding opponents to a 45.2 percent ground ball rate.

What want wrong in 2016

Abad’s success in Minnesota didn’t translate to the Red Sox. He only pitched in 12.7 innings for Boston, but over that span his ERA ballooned to 6.39 as his ground ball rate fell just enough (to 38 percent) to do some real damage to his overall line. Virtually homer-proof for the Twins (0.5 HR/9), he gave up some dongers in Boston that pushed him to 1.5 HR/9, though he did increase his K/9 by nearly a full point. These are very small sample size issues, but they likely cost Abad quite a bit in arbitration. Sad!

What to expect in 2017

Especially at his discounted price, there’s a lot to like from Abad here. Last year’s Robbie Ross-or-bust approach to lefty relievers is blissfully a thing of the past, and if Abad can simply revert to the average stats of his peripatetic career — 3.71 ERA, 41 percent ground ball rate — he can be a valuable piece of a Sox team that most certainly wants its lefties to induce ground balls. At the very worst, Abad is a headline writer’s dream, a pun generator par excellence. That’s Agood thing.

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Steven Wright’s 2016 played out not unlike a knuckleballer’s best-day-turned-bad, inexplicable goodness followed by a stroke of bad luck, always on the horizon, that ended his season. He looked like the team’s best pitcher through two months, this on a squad featuring the most expensive hurler of all-time and the eventual Cy Young Award winner, and was celebrated as a revelation. Nonetheless, the Sox have added another shiny rotation piece entering this season, which could push Wright out of the rotation for good. But should it? Let’s take a look back and see.

What went right in 2016

The first half. Before the All-Star break, Wright was 10-5 with a 2.68 ERA. Over the same stretch, Rick Porcello was 11-2 with a 3.66 ERA and David Price was 9-6 with a 4.34 ERA. With his flat-brimmed cap and everyday countenance, he seemed like the everyday hero helping the Sox through a tough time, and for it, he rightly earned an All-Star appearance. Which is crazy! From now until the end of time, he’ll have that “All-Star” banner on Baseball-Reference.com thanks to one blistering, inexplicably great half of baseball. And it was great. Remember this?

Humans were not meant to try to hit this @Knucklepuck23 knuckler: https://t.co/aaZrxHyTe4 pic.twitter.com/3X3wk84PTN

— Cut4 (@Cut4) May 30, 2016

What went wrong in 2016

In early August, Wright pinch-ran against the Los Angeles Dodgers and suffered a shoulder injury that derailed his season. After the game, he told Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald: “It feels all right, it’s just inflamed right now. It’s a little sore when I get to certain spots when I lift up my arm. Hopefully in a couple of days I’ll be able to start throwing and hopefully make my next start.” He’d only make two more for the rest of the season before going back on the DL for aggravating the same injury.

What to expect in 2017

That’s the question, isn’t it? Wright is one of three people fighting for two rotation spots — the other two are Drew Pomeranz and Eduardo Rodriguez, and there are compelling arguments both to put Wright in the Opening Day rotation and to hold him back as a super-reliever, ready to step into the rotation at the first sign of trouble. In all likelihood, this is a “six of one, half-a-dozen of the other” arrangement, and Wright will be starting sooner rather than later, either out of necessity or by design. Can he repeat last year’s performance when he does? It’s foolish to predict how the knuckleball will dance — but we’ll have our dancing shoes on just in case.

Photo by Peter Aiken/USA Today Sports Images

The big question heading into this offseason was how the Red Sox would replace David Ortiz, but that was always a dead-end. The whole point of Papi was that he was irreplaceable and Dave Dombrowski, seemingly recognizing this, decided not to overextend the Sox at first base, instead opting to trade for the best pitcher in the American League. I’m into it, and if that means we see a lot of Mitch Moreland, so be it.

Moreland is not exciting, but he’s cheap ($5.5 million) and, critically, is a powerful left-handed bat who’s potentially got fielding skills for days. He won last year’s AL Gold Glove award at the cold corner and should see playing time against righties, allowing Hanley Ramirez to DH. Despite an eminently respectable fielding performance in 2016, that’s probably for the best for Hanley from time to time. Moreland’s not great, but he doesn’t need to be. It’s a good match.

What went right in 2016

Some of the Moreland’s raw numbers on offense were good. He hit 21 doubles and 22 homers in 503 PA, so the pull-side pop is real. As for the Gold Glove, well, look: Rafael Palmeiro famously won the AL award at first base in 1999 while playing a grand total of 28 games there, so perhaps this encomium doesn’t mean too much, but Moreland won it anyway and now has to try to field with a gold-plated mitt, smh (that’s how it works, right?). And he was okay, for sure. He put up a respectable 3.5 FRAA, right around his 3.0 career average, though in 2015, he put up -7.8 FRAA, which is Very Bad, and in 2012, he put up a 9.1 FRAA, which is Very Good, so he’s been all over the place. Anyhow, that’s the good part.

What went wrong in 2016

It gets hot in Texas in the summer, so I might not call Moreland’s extreme whiff tendencies “wrong,” insofar as they may have cooled some people off, but the guy has real trouble making contact and doesn’t walk too often. Unfortunately, his .233/.298/.422 slash is in line with his .254/.315/.438 career average, as were his 118 whiffs over those 503 PA. His BABIP last year was a paltry .266, which goes a long way toward explaining his slightly down year, but even in his average (near .300) BABIP years the numbers aren’t too much better. He is what he is, and that’s a player who depends on the kindness of the baseball gods to be average.

What to expect in 2017

He will hit around .240/.300/.415. He will play too much and frustrate and excite you exactly as much as a $5.5 million regular should. He will strike out a lot (though less than, says, Chris Carter would have) and hit home runs (ditto, except “fewer” instead of “less”). He will make some nice plays at first base. You will like those. Then he’ll strike out some more. Or pull a moonshot. That will be good.

Then he’ll strike out again.

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Last season went as well for Henry Owens as “Our American Cousin” did for Mary-Todd Lincoln; take out Owens’s effectively one walk per inning in his limited big-league run (or a similarly bad rate in AAA) and you might feel some fondness for the performance, much as Mrs. Lincoln may have enjoyed the show at Ford’s Theater, spousal murder notwithstanding. That, of course — as the line from a far more famous play goes — is the rub, and in neither case can we get past it.

But Owens’ Red Sox career, and his long-term future in Major League Baseball, is still alive. There is not a lot of hope, but there are examples of players with durable arms figuring their stuff out later in their careers, or at least after the age of 25, and a tall lefty is gonna get every chance to prove himself over the long term. If Owens fails himself out of Dave Dombrowski’s good graces, there’s almost no question that another organization will try to salvage him; one man’s trash, etc. At the very least, Boston’s current glut of potential starting pitchers (so many of them lefties) eases the burden on Owens to perform well right away, at least in theory. In practice, no number of starting pitchers is too many, and as long as he’s around, Owens might be called on for some garbage time innings in 2017. In the rare event they’re not garbage when he starts, they probably will be when he finishes. He’s got a long way to go.

What went right in 2016

On April 29, Owens pitched six innings of two-run ball at Fenway against the Yankees in a game that the Red Sox would eventually win 4-2. He struck out three, walked three, allowed a homer to A-Rod (his 691st) and six hits total. He left facing a 2-0 deficit, but the Sox would score two in the bottom of the seventh and take the lead for good on a David Ortiz two-run homer in the eighth. He neither pitched particularly well nor got the win, but it was unequivocally and far and away his best performance of the year out of the grand total of five appearances he made.

What went wrong in 2016

He was beaten out by Sean O’Sullivan for an emergency rotation spot, which says most of what you need to know. Owens’s other four appearances were a disaster, and his time in the minor leagues was *slightly* better. He was so bad in the show you’d think that he’d been replaced by Daniel Day-Lewis… except in that case you’d expect DD-L to be, you know, good. Owens was awful. The next time he toed the rubber following the Yankees start, he lasted three innings on the South Side against the White Sox, walking six, striking out two and allowing two runs. He’d only appear in two games after that: a spot start in Detroit in August (5 IP, 8 ER) and another one in September after the Sox had clinched the east against the Yankees in the Bronx (4.2 IP, 2 ER). At no point did it seems like there was any “there” there with Owens, who threw 120+ IP at Pawtucket over the year and still couldn’t find the plate (5.3 BB/9). But hey, he had a 3.53 ERA! Which leads us to…

What to expect in 2017:

Can Owens find the mound at Fenway this year? Barring a miracle turnaround or a disastrous sequence for the Boston rotation, the answer is probably NONONONONO PLEASE NO. At the same time, I don’t see how the Sox could find much value in moving on from him now… which doesn’t mean they won’t, but Owens’s value is either at a historical low or never existed to begin with. That sounds harsh, but the former is still more likely than the latter. There’s not much incentive to give up on Owens now — in fact, there’s a disincentive. The only thing left is upside, but there’s no telling if Owens really has a second act, or we’re already at the end.

Photo by Kamil Krazynski/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA): Royals starter Ian Kennedy was pretty good, especially in the early innings. He painted the corners well enough that John Farrell left the dugout yet again to discuss the strike zone (having also done so Tuesday night, and in the Ron Kulpa Incident), but home plate umpire Brian Knight was calling them correctly, and Kennedy really was just spitting fire along the borders of the Amica Pitch Zone. All that said, Kennedy’s biggest mistake was the least likely hit of the season since “someone named” Christian Vazquez’s home run off Yankees superreliever Dellin Betances: A certified Chris Young bomb off a right-handed pitcher, when Young typically can’t hit righties at all. We’ll take it!

Bottom Play (WPA): Oy. This is what the Royals do, right? They take an early lead and even if they later give it up, they’ve “won” innings like boxers might win rounds, and they’re playing from a position of strength all game. In the first inning, Eric Hosmer hit a carbon-copy of his Tuesday night dingalinger to right-center field, a no-doubter that set the game’s extreme pace, one from which it wouldn’t let up. (It ended in a scorching 2 hours and 23 seconds.) Wright would only surrender one more run all game, but this big fly would be too much.

Key Moments: Two near-misses stand out. The first came in the fourth inning, when Travis Shaw faced a 3-0 count with runners on first and third with one out. He swung through Kennedy’s low-90s fastball on the next two pitches before watching another fastball inside for strike three; based on the velocity of the pitches, it was hard to see how he looked so late, but the looming threat of the changeup can do that, one supposes. The second came in the eighth inning, when Xander Bogaerts was nailed at third base with one out on a David Ortiz single, Jarrod Dyson’s laser throw just beating Bogey’s head-first slide. Was it bad for us? Yes. But it was also a nifty motherloving play, and there’s not much to do other than tip your cap.

Trend to Watch: The Red Sox struck out six times in a row at one point in the game, and while that’s troubling, I’m going to go back to an earlier Bogaerts head-first slide — one that shouldn’t have happened. In the fifth inning, with Dustin Pedroia on first after a walk. Alcides Escobar made an absurd play at short on a Bogaerts one-hopper. Escobar dove to his right then fired a rocket to Hosmer from his knees; Bogaerts slid head-first and was out by inches. As much as I’d like to give Bogaerts’s instincts the benefit of the doubt, and as much as Escobar deserves credit for a bananas play, sliding into first is almost never a good idea, and I agree with this:

Never slide into first

— OverTheMonster (@OverTheMonster) May 18, 2016

How do they not drill that into every player’s head from day one?

— OverTheMonster (@OverTheMonster) May 18, 2016

Up next: By the time you read this, Game 2 will have started, so I’m not sure what you want from me here, people. I love you and all, but can I live?

Photo by Peter G. Aiken/USA Today Sports Images

Game-by-game, it breaks down thusly:

Which brings us to…

David Price’s Starts 2016, Ranked [Updated]

1. 66, third start, 4/16 — Seven crisp innings against the Blue Jays on a lovely Fenway Saturday.

2. 61, first start, 4/5 — Six strong on Opening Day at the Jake.

3. 43 second start, 4/11 — Five innings against the Orioles at home, one of which was Trumbo’ed.

Of these three starts, the second one drew the most attention, given that Price was allowed an extra day of rest to provide Steven Wright his normal first turn through the rotation. This kept Price off the mound in Toronto on a Sunday, and put him on the mound for Fenway’s home opener, away from his late-2015 stomping grounds, and he got got. Perhaps in response to this, John Farrell let Price pitch on regular rest for his third start, at which point the ace posted his best start of the year.

How is he doing it?

I was intrigued by the idea of doing a Price deep-dive so that I could familiarize myself with some of the more in-depth analytics that are available to me on the tubes; I mention this just to make it clear I’m feeling my way around in the early going, so feel free to skip ahead if you’re caught up on Price’s Brooks Baseball profile.

Three games isn’t a huge sample size, but it’s big enough to give us something. In this case, it’s clear that Price’s velocity is down across the board, even if just a tick:

To that end, check out this craziness:

Noah Syndergaard average changeup this year: 91.5 mph.

David Price average fastball this year: 91.4 mph

— Brandon Warne (@Brandon_Warne) April 18, 2016

Which isn’t necessarily a knock on Price, because, as Pedro said, “Thooooooooooor!” But it might be a little concerning. If he clocks in for April at 92.87 average miles per hour on his four-seamer (the sinker’s at 93.01, the cutter 89.1), it would be the lowest mark of his career for any given month. He’s only been under 93 for any month twice in his career — the last two months of 2014 — and he’s never had an April under 94.

Sometimes, though, velocity isn’t everything: The Trumbo homer, Price’s only HR allowed on the year, came on what MLB.com calls a 2-seam fastball, but I’m gonna say was a 4-seamer, at 94 miles per hour. Speed most decidedly did not kill Trumbo, but the stage was set for a big hit before Price let go of the pitch, his 24th of the inning, and the most likely culprit was Price getting in his own head.

This is just one theory, at least, but after Price gave up a leadoff double to Joey Rickard to open the game (but escaped the jam), he looked extremely tentative to Rickard in the third, walking him on five pitches. Follow that with a HBP to Manny Machado and a single to Chris Davis, and there was something bad hanging over Fenway that manifested itself in Trumbo’s impressive blast just to the right of the triangle.

This is most definitely armchair psychology, but even at the time he seemed so unnecessarily tentative to Rickard that it was clear the double was weighing on him. This time Rickard got him less directly, but was merely the first domino in a chain reaction that eventually led to Price’s lone bad inning of the year. We will live. For now.

But enough about the bad stuff

The Price we saw on Saturday was the one we’d been waiting for, as evidenced by this video of him striking out, among others, Bautista and reigning MVP Josh Donaldson:

Yeah, the Donaldson pitch was three inches inside. We’ll take it. That guy is a house on fire, and Price managed to put him out. It’s worth mentioning that Price’s last two starts have been against the lumbering offenses of Baltimore and Toronto, and he’s merely managed to be pinched once, and in impressive fashion, no less. Starting with Thursday’s game against the Rays (for whom he used to pitch, I’m told). Should be fun, especially because Price’s presence means no Corey Dickerson, an no Dickerson leaves a neutered Rays line. Their current listed pitcher is listed as “TBA,” but knowing the Rays, it’ll be someone of whom we’ve never heard and who is amazing… but not as good as David Price.

Photo by Butch Dill/USA Today Sports Images

Ten years ago, the Red Sox and Yankees fought for every bat they could find, creating plodding, ogrish lineups at which the world gawked. Now they’re collecting relief pitchers just as vigorously, building bullpens of unprecedented depth and talent. With the trade of Wade Miley to the Mariners in December, the Red Sox added Seattle fireman Carson Smith to a stable of power arms that includes Craig Kimbrel, Koji Uehara and Junichi Tazawa, while the Yankees currently boast a back three of Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman. In this context, there is every reason to think that the Sox got the better end of the Miley deal: In Smith, they got a better, younger player at an increasingly premium position.

What Went Right in 2015

Last season was Smith’s first full year in the show after a 2014 cup of coffee, and it didn’t take long for Mariners fans to call for him to replace Fernando Rodney as the team’s closer. It was for good reason. Through June 5th, Rodney put up a 6.94 ERA, while Smith’s was 1.13, but manager Lloyd McClendon stuck by the veteran as long as he could, preferring his experience over Smith’s obvious talent. While the dam eventually broke, and Smith briefly closed in the middle of the season, McClendon went with Tom Wilhemsen to close out the team’s few wins down the stretch instead of ya boy, who finished with a 1.7 WAR, 2.31 ERA and 2.67 DRA (Rodney was traded to the Cubs). In almost certainly related news, McClendon was fired in the offseason, which seemed to forge a path for Smith to close in Seattle in 2016. But the front office had other ideas.

What Went Wrong in 2015

McClendon. While I don’t begrudge managers for sticking with plans or players to which or whom they are devoted, if only for a couple months, Rodney was especially bad last season at a time when Smith was especially good. It’s pretty clear that Smith probably should have been in higher leverage situations early on, and late-season the decision to back away from Smith in favor of Wilhemsen seems like something by a lame-duck manager in service of a long-exhausted point. Anyhoo, insofar as any of this went “wrong” for Smith, it went right for the Red Sox, who by any real measure got him on the cheap.

Outlook for 2016

I suspect Smith will be a fan favorite this year, with the potential for much better things. He’s talented and young in a bullpen that’s talented and old, which potentially opens doors we want to remain shut. In the best-case scenario he is a sixth-and-seventh-inning lockdown reliever. If things go wrong, we might see him in the eighth. If things go really wrong, we could see him in the ninth, but I don’t expect it. The stormclouds of the last two years ought to have cleared by now. If they haven’t — and God help us, let’s hope they have — Smith’s ability to finish games will be a silver lining. If he doesn’t, the whole bullpen ought to be golden, and Smith ought to glow.

 Photo be Jennifer Nicholson/USA Today Sports Images

For now, it’s simple enough to say that Farrell has won the World Series in exactly half of his full seasons in Boston, a ratio that’s merely going to put Bruce Bochy in the Hall of Fame after a half-decade of success, and that his job is safe. On top of that, there is the constant caveat that Farrell does not play in the games himself and is ultimately a manager in the secular sense of the word. If we are constantly focusing on small decisions by managers, it’s perhaps because they’re the only decisions they make.

But this situation is alarming, and worth scrutinizing, because it’s either a) just baseball, and it happens, or b) something is wrong. If it’s “a,” then there’s nothing left to write, and we’re better off playing drone basketball. If it’s “b,” we’ve got to look at everyone and everything, even the guy at the helm with the granite chin.

As Matthew Kory and I talked about on a podcast yesterday, it seems likely that Ben Cherington consulted with Farrell, the former pitcher and pitching coach, before putting together a five-man rotation consisting of live arms. (Ironically, one of the dead ones hits 96 MPH.) The signing of Justin Masterson is a particular indictment of everyone involved. Masterson was terrible last year and there was no reason to think he’d suddenly be able to regularly retire lefties for the first time in his career.

Now: as fans, we were allowed to hope it, but I don’t think it was hope that led us to generally think the Red Sox had put together a low-ceiling, medium-floor rotation. I think it was trust, if only to trust the organization not to make its players worse. With errant, arrogant fireballer Kelly, plus Masterson — he of the ineffectual Juan Nieves mound visit to literally end all Nieves mound visits — they seem to have done exactly that.

In a vacuum, that’s not a problem, but it doesn’t help that the other offseason acquisitions, Rick Porcello and Wade Miley, have also done worse than last season. With Miley, it’s to be expected with his transition from the National League, and he was great for most of May, but it’s been nothing interesting. Porcello has been fine except for his sudden tendency to give up a ton of home runs.

Which is bad.

The offense isn’t much better, and while there’s even less Farrell can do about that than he can do about the pitching, the funk in which the hitters find themselves doesn’t seem to have been resolved by the team meeting Farrell called with a quintet of veteran hitters (David Ortiz, Mike Napoli, Dustin Pedroia, Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez) over the weekend. It’s a pro forma move, but one that ultimately might get results, in the way of… something. We just don’t know.

More than anyone else, the manager is employed at the pleasure of the club. When your good decisions go well, everyone will recognize them as good decisions; when they backfire, they’ll likely notice them too.

If it doesn’t, then Farrell is in trouble. Pitchers deceive, but they do it directly; managers deceive indirectly, by definition. If he’s lost control of the narrative, the narrative will control him. Should it? I’m tempted to say no, but why the hell not? I have nothing against Farrell, but if your team meetings aren’t working, your pitchers aren’t working and your team can neither field a beach ball nor catch a break, you deserve the heat under your seat.

More than anyone else, the manager is employed at the pleasure of the club. When your good decisions go well, everyone will recognize them as good decisions; when they backfire, they’ll likely notice them too. When your bad decisions ultimately go right, like Brandon Workman hitting for himself in a critical World Series moment, as Kory reminded me on the podcast, most of us will forget it during the celebrations (I sure did). But when bad decisions go bad, they can compound, and suddenly those decisions don’t look so little. Farrell’s trying to get through this any way out there he can, but right now he doesn’t have his stuff. It’s an admirable, workman-like performance, but it’s not working.

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