RedSox - musical chairs time

In modern baseball there haven't been too many instances of teams having too much quality pitching. None that I can come up with anyway. The current RedSox have such a problem. Thursday, John Smoltz will come off the DL. Here is the list of available major league quality starters they have:



Josh Beckett
Jon Lester
Daisuke Matsuzaka
Brad Penny
Tim Wakefield
John Smoltz
Clay Buchholz

7 fits into 5 spots how?

Great problem to have, everybody is talking about it, offering up their opinions.

I have read/heard :

a) Trade Penny while his stock is high, he has pitched better each time out
b) Demote DiceK to AAA or the DL
c) Demote DiceK to the bullpen
d) Demote Wakefield to the bullpen
e) go with a 6 man rotation for a while

None of these scenarios allow for Buchholz to come back up to the majors, he is tearing through AAA and already has a no hitter in MLB on his resume from 2007. He also has expressed some frustration in interviews lately with the path currently blocked to the majors.

Tony Massarotti, of the Boston Globe, wrote about this problem yesterday

He lays out the options, talks about the pro's and cons of each. Nice article, better yet were some of the responses in the comments section from readers. Someone named "chops" wrote:

How about a different approach altogether: make Matsuzaka and Smoltz "co-starters". Or to phrase the idea better, give Smoltz the role of "finisher" for Matsuzaka. Dice-K hasn't been getting past the 5th inning. Smoltz is 42 and coming off shoulder surgery: neither one is going to be throwing a lot of complete games. The argument against sending Smoltz to the bullpen is that he'd lack the every-five-games routine of a starter and the slow prep toward each start. But as Matsuzaka's "finisher", he could have that routine. Every five days he'd prepare, knowing he'd be brought in sometime during the game - the 2nd inning would be a good time in most Dice-K starts this year, but the 5th or 6th is what the Sox would hope for.

So Dice-K starts the game. He nibbles and throws 95 pitches through 4 innings, and Tito lifts him before the heart of the opponent's order gets their third look at him. Then Smoltz comes on and throws his 70 or 80 pitches and finishes the game or hands it over to the true bullpen in the 8th or 9th.

Now the bullpen won't be heavily taxed every five games to clean up Dice-K's mess, and both pitchers will be kept active, healthy, and fresh in case an injury occurs somewhere in the rotation, at which point the Sox can go back to a conventional rotation... or call up Clay Buchholz.

I like this idea, for the short term anyway. If DiceK continues to perform subpar, then let Smoltz take the hill for first pitch and make a decision on DiceK (minors/DL) later. This option buys you some time at least.

All this drama will unfold and take shape this week and into next week. A week from Saturday? RedSox are in Atlanta to play the Braves...this blogger has tickets and is hoping to see Smoltz take the hill against the ol' Braves and seek revenge on behalf of Tom Glavine as well as how Smoltzie was treated as well last off season.