Perhaps some quick history is in order. The first trade Dave Dombrowski made after taking over the team from Ben Cherington in August of 2015 was to acquire Kimbrel to anchor the bullpen. And that worked. But after Kimbrel? The ’15 Red Sox bullpen was a bit of a hodgepodge. To fix that, Dombrowski dealt for Carson Smith from the Mariners. Smith was coming off a fantastic season in Seattle, and was slated to be the primary setup man in Boston in 2016. He looked great, too, for 6.2 innings before he needed Tommy John surgery. Then last year, with Smith out of action, the Red Sox needed to solve that same problem again. Dombrowski again hit the trade market (because it worked so well the first time) and got Tyler Thornburg from the Brewers. Thornburg didn’t even make it as far as Smith’s 6.2 inning before needing surgery to relieve Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. That necessitated missing the entire 2017 season. Because they were without Smith and Thornburg, the Red Sox traded for Addison Reed during the season, but he became a free agent after the season ended and signed with the Twins.

Somehow Dombrowski managed to avoid dealing for another soon-to-be-hurt reliever this past offseason, which brings us to the present day. It seems we’re back where we started, but in fact, we’re not, because Smith is now healthy and throwing spring training innings. To be precise, he has nine strikeouts, two walks, and two runs allowed in six spring innings. Thornburg threw off a mound for the first time almost three weeks ago, but I can’t find any updates beyond that. Recovery from thoracic outlet syndrome is no sure thing, far less successful on average than Tommy John surgery, which has become somewhat rote in the baseball world.

It says here the Red Sox are planning on handing over the eighth inning to Smith, but there should be some caution exercised as Smith is coming off a major injury. That’s not to say he can’t handle an eighth inning reliever’s workload. There are numerous pitchers who, once they’ve returned from Tommy John, have immediately slotted back into their previous workloads. Yu Darvish and Lance Lynn come to mind, as does reliever Greg Holland. The future may be bright for Mr. Smith when it comes to health, but pitchers returning from Tommy John often don’t have full command for up to a year post-surgery. Maybe Smith will be fine, but there is at least some question about it, and Thornburg is a complete question mark given his current health (?) and the track record of players recovering from similar procedures (what’s now left of Matt Harvey springs to mind).

Beyond Smith and Thornburg, the Red Sox have a lot of that same smorgasbord of hard throwing somewhat erratic relievers they had back in 2016 and since. Last season it worked. Boston’s bullpen ranked fourth in baseball by FanGraphs WAR. That’s not the perfect measurement to rate relievers, but the point is clear: Boston had an effective bullpen in 2017. But! Half of that WAR came from Craig Kimbrel. The rest was split between a ton of mediocre relievers. Boston had 16 relievers throw six or more innings for them last season, and 11 threw 17 or more. That’s partially just the nature of relievers nowadays, but it’s also because the team struggled to find consistency in the late innings outside of Kimbrel.

This year promises more of the same on that front, as Matt Barnes and Joe Kelly will bring their fast fastballs and extremely walky walk rates to the eighth inning party. Barnes was a frequent and often ill-timed victim of the long ball last year. while Kelly probably should’ve been victimized more than he was. Both players could improve — they are relievers after all — but barring that, there likely needs to be some sheltering from specific matchups and bad platoon splits. Doing that limits their availability, and thus their overall value to the team. Brandon Workman merits a mention as well. He’s cut from the Matt Barnes cloth, but minus the strikeouts, which isn’t ideal for a late inning reliever.

Beyond those guys, the ‘pen is mostly just guys who seldom have the stuff or command to advance past the seventh inning. The farm system offers some intriguing arms, but they’re almost universally still starters in the low minors, which is to say bullpen help won’t be coming this season.

The Red Sox are clearly going to try to sort this thing out again over the course of the season. That’s fine. It worked out pretty well the last two seasons, and really, it’s extremely difficult to build a bad bullpen when your starting point is Craig Kimbrel. But Kimbrel can’t pitch all the time. Smith returning as the same guy the Sox thought they were getting from Seattle two years ago would be the best possible scenario, since it would fill the hole in the eighth inning without asking Dombrowski to head out on the trade market where things can get a bit expensive, not to mention dangerous. If Smith can’t be Smith though, the Red Sox will be facing the one part of their roster not ready to compete for a World Series.

Photo by Kim Klement — USA TODAY Sports

I’m going by the rotations as listed on Roster Resource, which of course may change during spring training. As for the order, I’ve organized them by their WARP projections.

Rotations

Red Sox:

1. Chris Sale (6.1)
2. David Price (2.1)
3. Drew Pomeranz (2.1)
4. Rick Porcello (1.2)
5. Eduardo Rodriguez (1.2)

(12.7 total WARP)

versus

Yankees:

1. Luis Severino (4.1)
2. Sonny Gray (2.5)
3. Masahiro Tanaka (2.4)
4. Jordan Montgomery (1.0)
5. CC Sabathia (0.6)

(10.6 total WARP)

Not unlike the two team’s lineups, their rotations aren’t too far apart in overall talent. Perhaps the Red Sox enjoy a bit more at the top of the rotation, whereas the Yankees have more overall depth. But the end result is roughly the same, as you can see from their respective WARP totals.

Is Luis Severino as good as Chris Sale? No, probably not, but he’s not wholly far off. Sale is the best player of either group and the one who the Red Sox hope can put them over the top, both during the regular season and in the playoffs. Severino has the potential to be that guy for the Yankees. Still, the advantage is with Sale.

The thing about PECOTA and really all projection systems is its innate pessimism. It’s not really even pessimism though because players get hurt all the time and age gets everyone at some point and then there’s the guys who just have bad seasons because of who knows what. That all said, it’s not difficult to expect more than PECOTA projects from a few guys on each team, and not coincidentally the two I’d expect more from are the same guys I’d point to when discussing the most pivotal pitchers of the rotation. That would be Price for the Red Sox and Gray for the Yankees. Both have been top pitchers before, as recently as 2016. In Gray’s four seasons he’s been above 4 WARP in three of them including last season, so his 2.5 projection seems a tad short. But there it is just the same.

Price likely has a similar issue to Gray, namely injuries. Price spent a significant number of days on the DL last season, the first time he did that in his career. The result was a one-win season after averaging six wins per over the three seasons before that. Still, the Red Sox are depending on Price this season in a way that I’m not sure fans have fully grasped. If Price gives the team 75 innings of 4.50 run ball and then exits stage left, the Red Sox are going to need a lot of quality innings from Steven Wright and/or Brian Johnson. To paraphrase the words of a former Yankee manager, that’s not what you want.

But if Price is healthy, he’s Boston’s second ace, and he changes the completion of the team completely. The same thing could be said for Gray, whose reputation took a hit during an injured and ineffective 2016 season. Peak Gray probably isn’t the equal of peak Price, though it seems that Gray reaching his previous heights is the more likely possibility of the two (though as of this writing both claim to be fully healthy).

Past the top two guys, the Yankees need Tanaka’s arm to remain attached to his shoulder, possibly a difficult ask considering his previous medical history. If he’s healthy though, a caveat that should probably be applied to all pitchers, Tanaka offers what any team would look for in a third starter: namely quality and dependability. The Red Sox are more on the first of those attributes and less on the second with their third starters (yes, two) in Pomeranz and Porcello. Porcello can’t be as bad as he was last season (can he?), but he’s probably not going to win another Cy Young either. As such, sure, two wins seems perfectly adequate, even if you maybe would hope for more given his $20 million salary. Pomeranz is hitting his stride as a starter after a late start to his career, but he’s always been on the fragile side. Together they’re probably in the five-win range, which is what the Yankees will likely get out of the combination of Gray and Tanaka.

The back end of the Yankees rotation is C.C. Sabathia and Jordan Montgomery, both of who had stronger seasons in 2017 than you’d have guessed given their respective ages and, in Sabathia’s case, everything else about him. And yet here he is again. Note that PECOTA is as unimpressed with him as you are. The Red Sox back end features the aforementioned Wright and Johnson unless, and this is the key, Eduardo Rodriguez gets healthy. Say what you will about Montgomery, but the Yankees don’t have a pitcher of Rodriguez’s quality in the back half of their rotation. If Rodriguez comes back healthy with no knee troubles, he gives the Sox rotation depth few teams can match.

If there is one place where New York has a step on Boston, it’s in previous injuries. Why are they important? A wise person once said the greatest predictor of future pitcher injuries is past pitcher injuries. With that as a background, the Red Sox are at greater risk with Price, Rodriguez, and deeper down, Wright and Johnson all having missed significant time in recent seasons. Only Gray fits that description with the Yankees (though Sabathia has pitched through injuries, he’s not particularly injury prone).

Bullpens

Predicting what will happen with bullpens is the greatest of impossibilities, like jumping across the country using only trampolines, or drinking an entire bottle of Gatorade without your tongue jumping from your mouth and running screaming down the street. The Red Sox have one of the two or three best relievers in baseball in Craig Kimbrel. That’s a good start. After that, they could have a very deep pen with Carson Smith and Tyler Thornburg splitting eighth inning duties and Matt Barnes and Joe Kelly covering the sixth and seventh. Or all those guys could spontaneously explode like Spinal Tap drummers.

Like the rotations, the Red Sox have that one top guy, but the Yankees have quality and more depth in their pen. And yet, Aroldis Chapman wasn’t so hot last season, and Dellin Betances wasn’t either. Both were fine overall, and very good at times, but showed real moments of shakiness. Tommy Kahnle was less than spectacular after putting up an amazing first half in Chicago, and David Robertson was good, but not amazing either. Still, those guys have track records of (mostly) excellence, so few are likely to flame out. It could easily turn into the Craig Kimbrel And That’s It Show in Boston, whereas the Yankees have too much depth and not enough Craig Kimbrel for that to occur to them.

Where things stand now, the Red Sox have a slight advantage in the rotation, but when you factor in the bullpens, that lead dwindles. Like their offenses, and like the teams of 2003 and 2004, picking which one is truly better is likely a fool’s errand (thus these articles). We never know what will happen over the course of a baseball season, but often times we kinda know, right? Here I legitimately have no idea. Except to say this: even after 162 games it’ll probably be quite close.

Also, the Houston Astros are better than both teams.

Photo by Noah K. Murray — USA TODAY Sports

When you think of a guy you want in the eighth inning, Matt Barnes is far from your first choice, even if you limit it to only Red Sox and exclude Kimbrel as the closer. The relievers you want there can’t crumble under pressure, have some filthy pitches, and can be relied on as a “fireman” pitcher of sorts — to put an end to situations where the opposing team can put your lead to the torch. Barnes definitely had at least one filthy pitch, but the other two parts of that? Not so much. Barnes wasn’t worse than his 2016 self, but he also wasn’t a pitcher you felt comfortable putting in high-leverage situations, and he didn’t do much to keep your heart rate down. That’s the nature of relievers, but for Barnes, it was pretty apparent.

What Went Right

Barnes took notable steps forward from 2016. His strikeout rate rose over four percentage points to 28.9 percent, which was second-best of all relievers on the team. His walk rate dropped a single point to 9.8 percent, which was still mediocre — but it’s an improvement nonetheless! When the time came to eat up innings, Barnes excelled, striking out over 31 percent of batters in low and medium leverage situations, with a combined FIP nearing 3.20. He might not be a fireman, but he’s perfect for the mop-up crew.

His peripherals were solid, with a 3.33 FIP and a 3.22 DRA overall. Barnes also induced groundballs on 48 percent of all contact, easily the best of his career. He also substantially lowered the amount of hard-hit balls as those went below 30 percent of all contact, the first time that number hasn’t hovered around 35 percent in his career. The amount of fly balls dropped for the fourth straight season, and now sits just north of 28 percent. There’s a lot of career numbers here for Barnes, but just by looking at these numbers, he’s a strikeout machine that gets a ton of wormburners. That’ll fly.

Also his signature curveball still has that bite. Not even Brian Dozier can resist swinging when Barnes drops the hammer:

What Went Wrong

Pitching in tough spots isn’t easy to do, but Barnes absolutely crumbled in those situations. When pitching in a high leverage situation this season, Barnes’ strikeout and walk rates dropped to 20.3 percent and 17.1 percent, respectively. He allowed a .404 BABIP, a 8.78 ERA, and batters ripped a line drive on over 33 percent of contact made. Barnes had 13.1 innings pitched in high leverage situations, and he allowed 13 earned runs (14 total!), gave out 10 free passes, 15 hits, and allowed nearly two baserunners per inning. That’s downright ghastly. There’s a lot of credit due to the rest of the Red Sox bullpen for being able to build a bridge to Kimbrel here, since Barnes certainly didn’t make it easy on them.

If the last paragraph’s carnage wasn’t enough for you, Barnes also bought into the retaliation garbage with Manny Machado early in the season:

This is reprehensibly stupid, and Barnes totally deserved to be ejected. Christian Vazquez sets up low and away, and Barnes goes headhunting. For reasons that have been elaborated on by people far smarter than me, don’t ever do this. Or, in Barnes’ case, don’t ever do this again.

What To Expect

Hopefully some progression in the high leverage department. Barnes was truly awful in those few innings, but it’s also just 13 innings. It’s another small sample size, and when you’re dealing with one like that, the potential range of outcomes is pretty vast. He’s better than that, even if he only has his control 50 percent of the time.

Barnes has been improving year by year, and 2017 was mostly good for him. He’s slowly turning into a good reliever, and it’s no fluke. If he can learn to deal with being under pressure, and actually play up to his peripherals, we’ll see him turn in a better year than ever before. If not, well, we’re in for more of the same, which isn’t a bad thing, but it’ll keep him from being anything more than a solid innings eater.

Photo by Winslow Townson — USA TODAY Sports

Regardless of the exact root of Smith’s injury, it has limited him to only 10.2 major league innings in a Red Sox uniform: 2.2 in May, 2016, 6.2 in September, 2017, 1.1 in October, 2017 (postseason). As such, he is still something of a mystery for the 2018 roster. It is difficult to anticipate how any pitcher will respond to Tommy John Surgery; Smith is no exception. Will he regain his 2015 form? Can he maintain it for a whole season? Across multiple seasons? This last question can wait for now, but, even with the uncertainty that surrounds Smith, he is likely to enter the 2018 season as one of the Red Sox’s two primary setup men in front of Craig Kimbrel. That is an important role for a guy who hasn’t really played in two years.

WHAT WENT RIGHT

There is not a lot to say about a guy who didn’t play very much, but it is worth noting that in his few innings, Smith was solid. He allowed only one run, struck out a little over a quarter of the batters he faced, and generally had both of his pitches working.

But the important part of his 2017 is that he got back on the field. Over the last decade or so, the number of pitchers requiring Tommy John Surgery and the success rate of the surgery has pushed us to dismiss (or at least ignore) the difficulty involved in returning to pitch in the major leagues after the procedure. When news breaks that a guy is putting his elbow under the knife, we take for granted he will be gone from the team for 18-ish months and then return ready to go, maybe even throwing harder than before the surgery. I know I’m guilty of this, as there were many days on which I advised David Price from my couch to get the surgery ‘over with’. Over with? What a ridiculous thing to suggest. While the success rate is high, it is not a magical guarantee. The player has to work hard, physically and mentally, just to get back, let alone perform well. The good news is that Smith checked both of those boxes in 2017, which must give him confidence for 2018.

WHAT WENT WRONG

To pick a nit – and immediately descend from the high horse I climbed on in the previous section – it did take Smith longer than anticipated to get back on the field this year. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I am no proponent of rushing player’s back from injury, but his rehab taking longer than expected can be classified as something that went wrong for him last year. He had a setback or two during his recovery and missed the expected return of late July/early August by about six weeks.

I suppose it is worth mentioning that while Smith pitched well in his eight appearances during the regular season, his two appearances in the ALDS were less than stellar. In Game Two he relieved Drew Pomeranz in the bottom of the third, walked the first two batters he faced before Josh Reddick hit a 93mph rocket at Deven Marrero for the first out of the inning. That was the end of Smith’s day. In Game Three he got the ball in the ninth inning with the Red Sox leading 10-3. He gave up two singles (only one of which was hit well), but induced a double-play and struck out Carlos Correa to end the game. It was not a terrible outing, but it was not clean and definitely not the sort of thing you want to see from one of the team’s to-be premier relievers. But again, this is mostly picking a nit. I’m not really worried that his 1.1 postseason innings were imperfect.

WHAT TO EXPECT

It is pretty simple: to start the year, Smith will be slotted into a role at the backend of the bullpen. Along with Tyler Thornburg and Craig Kimbrel, Smith will form Alex Cora’s primary trio of high-leverage relievers. On paper that is formidable, but the question marks looming over Smith and Thornburg leave us in an uncomfortable wait-and-see situation. If Smith pitches well and Kimbrel needs to miss time, Smith could even grab the capital-C closer role – with the critical caveat that we don’t yet know how Cora will run the bullpen. I think it is also worth noting that this is the last year on Kimbrel’s contract. Kimbrel is an elite reliever, but I suspect the Red Sox will be hesitant to shell out what a then-31-year-old Kimbrel is going to demand in free agency. So with a strong 2018 season, Smith can push himself further along the inside track to the spotlight and money that come with finishing games for the Boston Red Sox.

Photo by Patrick McDermott – USA TODAY Sports

Kelly throws hard – really, really hard – but still doesn’t provide much value considering how fast he is able to throw, even if it is really fast. But for those who simply cannot go on with their day without knowing more, let’s dive in:

WHAT WENT RIGHT

Let’s ignore the (lack of) strikeouts for now – they’ve never been Kelly’s strong suit. To his credit, he did manage to improve in lots of other aspects of his game. For starters, he lowered his ERA and FIP significantly, and I don’t clearly need to tell you that’s a good thing, even if that meant only going from a 4.32 FIP in 2016 to a 3.49 FIP. His ERA, which was hanging around 5 last season, dropped to around 2, which looks impressive in spite of luck playing into that a lot. He also did a better job keeping the ball in the park, dropping his HR/FB rate 10 percentage points this year. He was, however slightly, a better pitcher this season than the one before. That improvement came at the cost of his sinker, which got the silent treatment, as he stopped throwing it entirely. It’s curious why Kelly totally moved away from a pitch that represented half of his repertoire at one point, but that’s for a different time:

Examine Kelly’s fastballs over the last two seasons and you’ll clearly see how much he’s abandoned his sinker. Even in above-average seasons, his sinker was never that useful a pitch, so abandoning it was probably in the best interests of the team and Kelly. And the fans. And everyone.

Another thing that went right for Kelly this year was the uptick in his speed, something that you undoubtedly heard four thousand times whenever Kelly pitched this year. He’s clearly establishing a trend over his career:

Up until recently, it always seemed like improved numbers were going to follow Kelly’s improved velocity.  Throwing forcefully while being mostly ineffective has always been Joe Kelly’s game, so watching him rear back and throw some fire doesn’t exactly bring the same excitement as it does with other guys in the triple-digits club.

There’s a good pitcher somewhere in Kelly, maybe even a great one – he just hasn’t figured out how he fits into a major league pitching staff yet. He’s not a starter, and he’s definitely not a closer. He was best as a reliever in medium-leverage situations, which is about as unhelpful a statistic as you can find on the internet. He was somewhat tough on righties this year, tallying a 2.82 FIP with a strikeout rate at 20 percent and a walk rate below five percent. Kelly’s ceiling might be a hard-throwing righty specialist, which leads into…

WHAT WENT WRONG

Strikeouts! Or lack of them, more specifically. Kelly continues to baffle people by throwing 103 miles per hour and not being able to strike a single person out. He threw 58 innings this year and finished with a just-barely-average strikeout rate (21.9). That number was always destined to go down from last year, however, as his uptick in strikeouts in 2016 was always more of a red herring than anything. He also continued to walk batters at a staggeringly high rate (11.3 walk rate, 4.19 BB/9). Frankly, the Red Sox already have a hard-throwing righty who struggles with control, and that’s Matt Barnes. Kelly’s going to have a hard time finding innings for himself when he projects as a back-end power arm that can’t strike people out. Carson Smith, Tyler Thornburg, and Barnes are all currently better choices for the 7th and 8th innings.

WHAT TO EXPECT

What you’ll see a lot of:

• 100 mph pitches, walks
• jokes about him on Twitter
• occasional cameos in the Win, Dance, Repeat routine

What you won’t see a lot of:

• strikeouts
• clean innings
• appearances in high-leverage situations

Like I mentioned at the top, Kelly is what he is. At 30 years old with 600 innings under his belt, it’s hard to imagine that Kelly turns into much of anything different. Since he became a reliever, Red Sox fans have been waiting for him to settle into his role and become that reliable backend arm, and it just hasn’t happened. In fact, given that Kelly ran a .252 BABIP this year (by far the lowest of his career), it’s not inconceivable that Kelly’s numbers would regress next year. He’s a free agent at the end of next season, so Kelly’s clearly inclined to put together a career year. If he doesn’t though, it’s not hard to see the Red Sox moving on in 2019.

Photo by David Kohl – USA TODAY Sports

With Sandoval on the DL and jack of all trades, master of none Brock Holt still experiencing symptoms of vertigo, Rule 5 draft pick Rutledge was at third base yesterday. He was starting because utility infielder Marco Hernandez has a fielding percentage that starts with an eight. *Barely* starts with an eight. But Hernandez isn’t a third baseman. He’s a shortstop with some time spent at second base. Rutledge played a bit of third too, and is a fine fill-in for a few innings, but he’s not a third baseman either. In six seasons in the majors he’s had 50 chances at third base. Compare that to over 1,000 combined at shortstop and second. He’s in Hernandez’s boat. He’s a player being asked to do something he’s not capable of doing. There is a saying you’ve likely heard. Put players in position to succeed. So far, at third base, the Red Sox have done the opposite. They have put their players in position to fail.

So don’t be tempted to blame Hernandez, or for that matter, Rutledge, whose error yesterday shows only a glimpse of what is in store for the Red Sox should he continue at the position. They are merely doing what was asked of them. No, it’s not their fault. It’s the Red Sox fault.

Of course this all comes back to the front office. It goes deeper than Dave Dombrowski too. The Red Sox haven’t had a competent regular third baseman for more than a season in almost a decade now, so the fault for that goes well beyond the team president who took over just over a season ago. This is on Ben Cherington, and even Theo Epstein before him. But, man, Dave Dombrowski did his part here as well and since he’s the one in charge now, it bears looking at what he’s done.

Just this past off-season Dombrowski dealt 2016 starting third baseman Travis Shaw to the Brewers along with Mauricio Dubon (and Josh Pennington) for reliever Tyler Thornburg. Thornburg is injured and hasn’t thrown a pitch for the Red Sox. Shaw is hitting .263/.302/.545. Then Dombrowski traded Yoan Moncada (along with others) for Chris Sale. Moncada had moved to third base while in the Boston system, but the White Sox have since moved him back to his preferred position of second base. Still, for the Red Sox, Moncada represented depth at third. So did Shaw, for that matter.

The organization has to have a plan. Is the plan to start Pablo Sandoval at third base? Okay, that makes sense given the financial obligations and the player’s history, but who can back him up if he struggles or gets hurt?

The issue isn’t should the Red Sox have traded for Chris Sale or not. Who could make that argument and not look like a jackass? The point here is less specific, more abstract. The organization has to have a plan. Is the plan to start Pablo Sandoval at third base? Okay, that makes sense given the financial obligations and the player’s history, but who can back him up if he struggles or gets hurt? This is a guy who just missed almost an entire season and before that wasn’t hitting enough or fielding well enough to hold down a major league job. There has to be a backup plan. Travis Shaw fits that mold perfectly, but he was traded.

That’s not to say Travis Shaw shouldn’t have been traded. Of course you can trade Shaw (though I didn’t care for it then and that deal looks like crap now), but if you do you have to get someone back who can fill that same role for the organization, if not in that deal, then in the next, because without Shaw, that depth does not exist in the Red Sox organization. There isn’t anyone in Triple-A who can step in and not hurt the major league team without Shaw.

Instead, Dombrowski went further in dealing Moncada. Again, this isn’t to say you can’t trade Moncada. You can! You just have to be sure the organization can handle his loss. You have to cover for whatever hole he leaves behind. The Red Sox and Dombrowski didn’t do it, Sandoval predictably got hurt, and now we have the current predicament.

I said earlier that this wasn’t all on Dombrowski, that it was in some part on Cherington as well. Now, a few paragraphs later, I’m rethinking my position on that. Cherington left the organization with Sandoval, Shaw (drafted under Epstein, but not traded by Cherington), and Moncada. That’s not perfect, but it’s something. It’s capable of being improved on, but there is some competent depth at the position. After dealing both Shaw and Moncada and not replacing them with anyone, there is no depth at the position. So maybe this is all on Dombrowski.

To me it comes back to a few things. Not caring enough about organizational depth is one, but over-valuing relievers is another. Of all the moves that Dombrowski has made, perhaps his most polarizing, and from a statistical standpoint most damaging, have been his deals for relievers. He has made three big deals specifically for relievers. Those deals have cost the Red Sox Dubon, Shaw, Pennington, Wade Miley, Logan Allen, Javier Guerra, Carlos Asuaje, and Manny Margot. That’s a whole lot of talent (and even more if you look at what Miley is doing this season in Baltimore), and so far the Red Sox have received one season of good (not great) relief pitching from Kimbrel. That’s it. It’s been stated time and again that relievers are maybe the most volatile of players, and making big deals for relievers is a time-tested way to ruin your franchise. That’s not to say it never works. The Indians are probably fine with the Andrew Miller deal, for example, even almost a year later. But deals like Miller’s are the exception to the rule. Far more common are deals like the Thornburg deal. It’s possible that Thornburg could return and be amazing, but even if he does, it’s highly unlikely he’ll approach the value the Red Sox sent off to get him. Also, even if he does, look what the deal did to Boston’s depth at third base. Look at who they’re running out there every day. Thornburg better be good.

Of all those now gone players, only Shaw is a full time third baseman, but that’s less the point. Sure, Shaw would be incredibly useful to the Red Sox right now, far more so than Thornburg, but imagine having Margot, or Asuaje, or even Allen. Those guys could be traded to bring in someone so the Red Sox don’t have to keep running Rutledge or Hernandez, or if he gets better, Holt, out to positions they shouldn’t be playing. Instead of getting the biggest shiniest name on the market, perhaps the organization should put some stock in depth. It’s what got them through last season when Sandoval was lost early to season-ending surgery. It’s what allowed the organization to survive the loss of starting catcher Christian Vazquez last season. It’s also what they lacked in left field in 2016, causing them to move Blake Swihart left where he got hurt and was lost for the year.

Depth is important. Injuries happen. Starters don’t always stay on the field. You have to be able to cover for them without hurting yourself badly in the process. That’s the Red Sox biggest problem at third base. It’s not that their starter is hurt and can’t play. It’s that they have nobody else to step in for him. Like all depth-related issues, it was a little problem, but now it’s a big one.

Photo by John E. Sokolowski – USA TODAY Sports

Tyler Thornburg was the most exciting Red Sox offseason acquisition for about three hours. Traded for Travis Shaw, Mauricio Dubon and Josh Pennington, Thornburg becomes the de facto set up man for Craig Kimbrel. Especially with Carson Smith not returning until early-summer, Thornburg will see his fare share of high-leverage situations right out of the gate.

What went right in 2016?

Thornburg had a career year in 2016 and it wasn’t particularly close. Only 11 relief pitchers were worth more wins. He reached a career high in innings (67) and posted career best statistics across the board, including WHIP (0.94), ERA (2.15), and FIP (2.83). It was his first healthy season of being used exclusively as a reliever, and Thornburg didn’t disappoint. His K/9 jumped from 8.91 in 2015 to 12.09. What’s better, the walks didn’t rise with the strikeouts. His BB/9 remained virtually the same, going up from 3.15 to 3.36. Having a clean bill of health unquestionably played a large part of his stellar season, but so did adding a curveball, apparently. 

What went wrong in 2016?

It sounds lazy, but nothing, really. If we’re going to split hairs, batters put the ball in the air against Thornburg a lot. His FB% (44.8) was the 14th highest of any qualified relievers, according to FanGraphs. (It just so happens that Craig Kimbrel sits seven spots higher on that list, so there’s a new nightmare to look forward to.) He also threw 67 innings for the first time since suffering an elbow injury that almost required Tommy John, which isn’t in itself an unusually heavy workload – there’s just always more of an element of unknown after a serious elbow injury. But again, splitting hairs.

What to expect in 2017?

A dominant eighth inning guy. It’s clearly his spot to lose, and if 2016 was any indication, he’ll be one of the league’s best in that role. There will by fly balls caught by Jackie Bradley/Andrew Benintendi that are 440 feet into dead center, but that’ll just be a fun excuse to watch them make some nice running catches. Thornburg gives the team a scary trio of backend options, and while it’s certainly not without its warts (elbow concerns, fly balls, Kimbrel not knowing where any pitch he throws is going), it’s better than what a lot of teams can offer.

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Matt Barnes certainly isn’t the flashiest name in the Red Sox bullpen. He’s not the most talented pitcher, either. What Barnes brings to the bullpen, for starters, is durability. 2016 was his second full season in Boston, although he made a brief appearance in 2014. After logging 43 innings in 2015, Barnes stepped it up last year, adding 23 extra innings to his workload in 2016. That inning count (66) was the highest of any Red Sox reliever in 2016. He was primarily split between the 6th (18.2 IP), 7th (16.2) and 8th (12) innings. It was an increased workload that probably took a toll on him towards the end of the summer. That aside, Barnes became a passable reliever who was capable of showing frequent flashes of the talent that the Red Sox saw when they drafted him 19th overall in the 2011 amateur draft.

What went right in 2016?

Comparing Barnes’ 2016 stats to the season before tells a mostly encouraging story. The strikeouts skyrocketed – his K/9 went from 8.2 to 9.6 while his K% soared from 19.6 percent to 24.7 percent. His ERA dropped 1.4 points and his FIP dropped almost two entire points. He walked over one batter less per nine innings and held his opponents to a slightly better TAv in 2016 (.255) than the year before (.260).

Barnes kept the ball in the park significantly more often in 2016. His GB% increased by seven percentage points, going from 38 percent to 45 percent. Consequently, his FB% dropped six percentage points. Why is that? Looking at his pitch frequency percentages, the only drastic change Barnes made was incorporating a slider more often, mostly at the expense of his change up. He only threw his change up five percent of the time in 2016 after throwing it 15 percent of the time the year before.

In his second season, and first with a major-league level workload, seeing such improvements across the board is never a bad thing.

What went wrong in 2016?

With that said, Barnes’ numbers are still … very much average. Of the nine Red Sox relieves that threw at least 20 innings for the team, Barnes ranked 5th in K%, 4th in K/9, 8th in WHIP, and 6th in FIP. He was, however, in the top third for BB% and AVG against. He also had the highest Hard% of any Red Sox reliever. He was right in the 50th percentile for a good but not necessarily great bullpen in 2016.

Secondly, while Barnes’ numbers did improve from 2015-2016, a look at where those numbers fell leaves more than a little to be desired. Despite the improvements, he still had an ERA above 4.00 and while his WHIP improved, 1.40 isn’t blowing anyone away. Of 85 qualified relief pitchers who through at least 60 innings, Barnes ranked 44th in K%, 50th in FIP, 71st in WHIP, and 60th in AVG against. It’s not especially inspiring.

What to expect in 2017

Hopefully, continued improvements. Barnes is a first-round talent and has shown the ability to improve considerably during the short time he’s been in the majors. He’ll need to continue to improve at the current rate, especially with the additions of Carson Smith and Tyler Thornburg. Both Thornburg and Smith are righties who, when healthy and available, would get called upon in a high-leverage situation before him. With that said, Barnes is only 26, can throw in the high 90s and can mix in two other pitches. It’ll be an uphill climb for him to see any high-leverage innings to begin the season, but a Barnes reaching his ceiling as a power backend arm isn’t that unrealistic, either.

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The Carson Smith Experience has been a true test of patience. Wade Miley’s doing his best to remind everyone how lopsided that trade seems to be, but Smith’s only pitched 2.2 innings for the Red Sox so far. If he’s the pitcher he was in 2015, when he threw 70 innings and posted a 2.09 FIP, he’s one of the Red Sox’s best arms; he’s the pitcher that Red Sox fans use to pretend they don’t miss Andrew Miller.  With good reason, though:

That is an 45 incredible seconds. That pitch to Nick Castellanos made me legitimately laugh out loud. But everything being written about the outlook of the Red Sox bullpen seems awfully presumptive when it comes to Smith. Andrew Bailey had a sub-3 FIP (among a number of other impressive stats) the year before he got traded to the Red Sox.  Tommy John recipients continue to make huge strides in terms of health and longevity, but recovering from TJ is still not a sure thing. We can hope and even expect that he’ll be good in 2017, but we should stop short of presuming he’ll once again be excellent.

What went right in 2016?

Nothing, really! He hurt his arm in spring training, came back in May and pitched three times over the span of 11 days before getting shut down and opting for elbow surgery.

What went wrong in 2016?

The part of the previous answer that had to do with hurting his arm in spring training, coming back in May and pitching three times over the span of 11 days before getting shut down and opting for elbow surgery.

What to expect in 2017?

More than likely, a solid bullpen arm. There will be strikeouts — especially to right-handers, who he struck out 40% of the time in 2015 — and ground balls aplenty; Smith had the sixth-best ground ball rate (64.8%) of all qualified relievers that year. It’s hard to get a gauge on what to expect when Smith’s only pitched more than 70 innings once in three seasons, with the other two seasons totaling a combined 10 innings. My official guess is that Smith, coming off a calendar year without pitching, starts slow, blowing two saves in July, the uglier of which is a four-run disaster in Tropicana, which makes every loss look worse. The fans freak out, Dombrowski and Farrell say all the right things about how he needs to get some more experience while simultaneously removing him from any high-leverage situation. Tyler Thornburg becomes the new Carson Smith. He toils around without a real role for 3-4 weeks before going on an under-the-radar run of excellence and returns to backend of the bullpen in September. How’s that for a specific prediction!

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The hours after the news of the Sale trade broke on Tuesday were predictably filled with Takes, both hot and otherwise. Most of Red Sox Nation – myself included – is thrilled by the prospect of the current Cy Young holder as a number three starter. Remember when this was supposed to be a quiet offseason? It is clear now that a 6-foot-6 asterisk was attached to that proclamation in the shape of Chris Sale.

Much of the national media now has the Sox pegged as the odds-on favorite in the American League. Sports Illustrated and CBSSports’ Jonah Keri (RIP Grantland), opines that the move puts the team in the driver’s seat in the AL. Ben Lindbergh over at The Ringer agrees with his former co-worker. Most all fans and baseball analysts liked the trade for, really, both colors of Sox. Rob Bradford makes the case at WEEI.com that this was the biggest trade in recent Red Sox history. The closest to a negative reaction to the trade, from what I read, was this column by WEEI’s John Tomase fretting about Dave Dombrowski’s notable propensity to empty the prospect war chest in order to achieve the all-important Win Now. Even Tomase’s gripe is more with the totality of Dombrowski’s work, and he acknowledges the boon that is acquiring Chris Sale.

There is a clear and not-hard-to-decipher consensus that the trade makes the Red Sox demonstrably better heading into the 2017 season. And, considering the Nationals on Wednesday traded the White Sox arguably baseball’s top pitching prospect in Lucas Giolito for a guy with ‘Spanky’ in his Twitter handle, the price the Red Sox paid for Sale seems relatively reasonable.

Tuesday saw the Red Sox deal four of the nine top players in the farm system (including Luis Alexander Basabe in the move for Sale and Mauricio Dubon for reliever Tyler Thornburg), per SoxProspects.com. So in a way, Tomase is totally right: the cupboard looks pretty bare. Rafael Devers and 18-year-old Jason Groome are the two remaining genuinely promising (though you may be bullish on some others) players in the minor leagues.

That being said, let’s remember a significant reason for this truth: a lot of former prospects are performing at the Major League level! Andrew Benintendi looked ready to play an everyday role in left field in his limited and injury-interrupted audition late in 2016. Eduardo Rodriguez doesn’t turn 24 until April and posted a 3.24 ERA in 14 starts after returning from Pawtucket in July. Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts are All-Stars that just turned 24 in October. (Aside: my heart grew three sizes after realizing that Mookie and Xander were born six days apart as I imagined them throwing joint birthday parties. Anyways.)

All of this is to say that the Red Sox are young, are good right now, and just got better right now. As Ben Buchanan lays out for Over the Monster, this trade was the best way for the team to make a move for Sale if they were going to do so; no Jackie Bradley Jr. or Rodriguez or other major league talent was involved. They just took what was a 93-win team and added probably the best non-Clayton Kershaw lefty in the world. That feels pretty good.

Before all that craziness transpired, the Red Sox had made a trade with the Brewers for reliever Tyler Thornburg, who threw 67 innings last year for Milwaukee to the tune of a 2.15 ERA and .940 WHIP. Craig Kimbrel has a very talented new set-up man.

The more minor trade has an array of interesting consequences for the team going forward, both significant and trivial. For one, the trade included Travis Shaw, meaning Ding Dong City either a. needs a new mayor or b. is a mobile municipality of a kind heretofore unknown. Also, the Red Sox sent Mauricio Dubon to the Brewers, breaking the heart of colleague Matt Collins but perhaps more importantly allowing for this magnificent Twitter interaction to occur.

From a baseball standpoint, the combination of the two deals makes clear the team’s commitment to and faith in Pablo Sandoval playing third base next season. As Jason Mastrodonato reports in the Herald, Dombrowski thinks Sandoval is “ready to come back.” And Sandoval seems to be too. In fact, he might even be in the Best Shape Of His Life.

Check out the slimmed-down Pablo Sandoval https://t.co/v0YffLEA9G #RedSox pic.twitter.com/8s6AWWscc8

— ESPNBoston (@ESPNBoston) December 7, 2016

As Alex Speier points out in the Globe, the hefty price for Thornburg reflects the incredibly high cost and value of relievers in today’s climate. Andrew Miller’s postseason messed with some peoples’ heads, apparently. Since Alex published his piece, the Cubs traded noted masher of baseballs and very promising talent Jorge Soler to the Royals for reliever Wade Davis. As I’m writing this, the Yankees just signed Aroldis Chapman for five years and $86 million. So, yeah. Go back in time and train yourself to be a set-up man.

Finally, the Thornburg acquisition closed the door on the possibility of Koji Uehara returning in 2017, Dombrowski said. This is not a shocking development but a sad one nonetheless. Thanks for the memories Koji, we’ll miss you and your logic-defying sinker.

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