MLB Notebook: Red Sox should acknowledge the obvious; scouting report on Brice

Since the final week of the lost 2019 season, it's been obvious that the Red Sox -- both in their words and deeds -- were intent on cutting payroll.

How do we know this?

First, the words. Addressing reporters on the final weekend of the season, principal owner John Henry said: "This year, we need to be under the CBT (competitive balance tax). That's something we've known for more than a year now.''

Soon after Henry spoke, both chairman Tom Werner and president/CEO Sam Kennedy jumped in for some clarification, saying that Henry was speaking about a goal, rather than a mandate.

Translation: There could be some wiggle room when it came to spending, but the intent was obvious: rein in spending, preferably beneath the $208 million threshold, allowing the Sox to re-set their luxury tax.

Such an effort entirely made sense. After approaching $250 million in 2018 and nearing $240 last season, the Sox were being whacked by luxury taxes designed to inhibit clubs from wildly overspending. It acts as a drag -- particularly for big-market teams -- so that the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers and Cubs don't amass super teams and torpedo the idea of parity.

There are other incentives for re-setting, too. Last June, the Red Sox lost 10 spots in the annual amateur draft and had their signing pool lessened as well. There are other competitive disadvantages to continually going over the threshold.

Now, for the deeds: despite finishing in third place, some 19 games behind first-place New York, the Sox have done little to improve this winter. They've laid out just over $10 million on players outside the organization, ranking in the bottom third of teams in offseason spending. That's hardly typical for the Red Sox, particularly in the wake of non-playoff seasons.

That focus on the budget has extended



toward free agents. Travis Shaw, to name one, was told the Red Sox weren't in position to match the $4 million he had on the table from Toronto until they first cleared other salaries.

So...in publicly outlining their philosophy before the end of last year and by exercising immense restraint in committing news dollars, it's pretty obvious what the Red Sox are up to.

And yet, Henry angrily denied that storyline in an email to the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy.

"This focus on the CBT resides with the media far more than it does within the Sox...Just this week, I reminded baseball ops that we are focused on competitiveness over and above resetting (the tax rate), to which they said, 'That's exactly how we've been approaching it.' ''

Henry seemed downright offended at the narrative that the Sox are interested in reducing payroll.

"That has simply not been the way (Fenway Sports Group) operates here or (in Liverpool),'' noted Henry in the email.

There's nothing wrong with getting underneath the threshold for a year to re-set. The Yankees did it for several seasons, remained competitive and then returned with a flourish this winter, giving Gerrit Cole the biggest contract ever awarded to a free agent pitcher.

The Dodgers and Cubs have re-set, too. It happens. And while most Red Sox fans undoubtedly would have liked to see more additions and improvements this winter, most understand the process.

But Henry's outrage at the characterization of the Sox' fiscal restraint is puzzling.

Why not own the philosophy and try to be up-front with the fan base?

"We spent a lot of money in the last two seasons -- once, resulting in a championship and once, unfortunately, with little to show for our efforts. By re-setting this winter, as many big market teams have done recently, we can still put a competitive team on the field, further evaluate some prospects close to contributing at the big league level and then position ourselves to be more aggressive next winter and beyond for players who will help us win our next championship.''

Henry has a point about focusing on sustainability. It's not wise for teams to continually spend recklessly without regard for consequences. And there are plenty of other organizations who routinely compete in October without running up record-setting payroll levels.

But to deny that the Sox have spent their time and energy this winter on reducing payroll -- in trade talks involving high-salaried players on their own roster and avoidance of the free agent market, even at the modest end -- is to deny the obvious and in so doing, insulting to everyone's intelligence.

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A scouting report on reliever Austin Brice, obtained from the Miami Marlins in exchange for 17-year-old shortstop Anguidis Santos, from a veteran National League scout.

"He makes a lot of mistakes. He throws from a lower arm slot, so his deception is good. He's a pretty durable kid and competes well. His stuff is good enough, but he elevates a lot of two-seamers. He tries to keep it down and occasionally, balls will take off and that's where he gets most of his strikeouts.

"He's the kind of guy you should ride when he's hot and don't overexpose him. (Facing lefties) was a concern for me. He didn't get in enough on them and good lefties will kill him. If you catch him on the right streak, the stuff is good. but he's very erratic.

"When he first signed, he had more of a conventional three-quarter arm slot. Then, he started throwing more across his body to get that deceptive look.But he gets underneath the ball too much. I think he should go with one or the other -- either go back to the three-quarter, or go all the way down (to a sidearm delivery).  He's kind of caught in-between now. His intentions are good -- he's trying to make pitches on the edge, to both sides, but he's just too erratic.

"I always thought he was a back-guy end at best. He's not afraid of the hitters and that's good. It's basically about consistency with him. That's a tough (arm) slot to maintain. When he does, hitters can't pitch him up at all. But he can't always repeat the delivery. When he can command at the top odd the zone and change speeds at the bottom, he's tough. But it's so fleeting.''

Brice isn't someone to move the needle in terms of fan interest. He was, after all, claimed on waivers three different times last offseason alone, and at 27, has yet to complete a full season in the big leagues.

But one of the criticisms of the Dave Dombrowski Era in Boston was that Dombrowski seldom paid attention to the margins of the roster. That is, his M.O. tended to feature either blockbusters -- David Price, Chris Sale, Craig Kimbrel, J.D. Martinez -- or no activity at all.

Too often, the Red Sox lacked depth at both the major or minor league level. And because Dombrowski paid little or no attention to smaller moves, he missed out on uncovering hidden gems, obtained for negligible return.

The Yankees survived a biblical spate of injuries last season precisely because Brian Cashman focused on the details. It's how he was able to acquire, among others: Luke Voit, Mike Tauchman, and Gio Urhsela.

It's worth noting that one of the surprise stories of the 2019 Red Sox season was reliever Josh Taylor, who was the player-to-be-named-later when the team dumped Deven Marrero on the Arizona Diamondbacks in March of 2018. Taylor emerged as a quality lefty bullpen option for the Sox, and stands as evidence that sometimes, usable relievers can be found almost anywhere.

Maybe Brice will prove to be nothing spectacular. Maybe he'll never contribute so much as an inning to the 2020 Red Sox.

But he sure seems worth a shot -- especially considering that the Red Sox only sacrificed a player from the Dominican Summer League who hit .184 in 56 games last year.

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Every day, it seems, more data becomes available, to help quantify what we see on the field.

Each team has hits own proprietary methods, developed internally, and understandably, this information remains private.

But even the average fan has more and more access to publicly-available metrics. This past week, StatCast unveiled a new measurement to evaluate infield play.

For the first time, Statcast can now measure outs above average (OAA) for infielders; the same data on outfielders has been available for the past two seasons.

OAA aims to measure the intercept point -- or, how far the fielder has to go to get to the ball -- as well how much time he has to get there, how far the fielder is from the base where the out will be attempted and the speed of the baserunner.

Using that methodology, we can find some interesting things about the Red Sox infield.

First, as a team, the Sox infield performed almost smack-dab in the middle of the pack, ranking 16th of the 30 teams with a plus-three.

Individually, Rafael Devers got high marks, former Sox infielder Brock Holt performed far better than expected, and Xander Bogaerts wasn't as bad as you might have expected.

Devers, in fact, was ranked 19th overall among all infielders with seven OAA and fourth overall among third basemen, ranked behind only Nolan Arenado, Matt Chapman and Josh Donaldson. That's pretty good company. Of course, Devers still must overcome some sloppiness in the field, as evidenced by his 22 errors.

Holt had five AAO, a figure topped by just seven other second basemen. Michael Chavis, who didn't play all that much at second, was more than respectable 2, though he didn't have enough innings at the position to qualify for the leaderboard. Still, his number suggests the Red Sox should be comfortable having him play there at least some of the time in 2020.

Finally, there's shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who benefits from these metrics compared to others that have been in use. Using OAA, Bogaerts is -3, ranking him 23 among qualified shortstops. That's nothing to celebrate, but it does suggest that Bogaerts is at least closer to league average play at short than previously thought. The data, meanwhile, reveals what those who have watched likely already knew - that while Bogaerts lacks great range, either to his left or right, he's sure-handed and reliably turns plays he should make into outs 87 percent of the time, good enough for 13th among qualified shortstops.