newper wrote:
Keyser Soze wrote:
This just in: Chris Sale is really good.
Yeah, this is going to put them in a bind... you can't let Sale pitch a full 200 inning season, so you are going to have to shut it down at some point. They need to avoid turning him into Prior. Yet, he is your most effective starter, and with any mediocre run support (3 or more runs) you anticipate winning while he's on the bump. I'd love to see the Sox get up by 6 or 7 games at the All-Star break where it is easy to shut him down, but if you're in a situation where you are within 1 or 2 games, that's tough to do. I hope they have the foresight to see the potential you have in this kid over the next 10+ years. Maybe they can move him to an every other turn starter... I'd love to have him in the playoffs, but I also don't want to see him jump into the 230-250 range of IP over a year after never having made it to 100 previously.
There is one thing they might consider and it was done last year under Ozzie....go to 6 starters. Leave Quintana in the rotation when Danks returns and go with 6. That way Sale doesn't have the innings piling up as quickly and Peavy (who actually leads the team in innings this season despite spending over a month on the DL each of the past 5 seasons) would get more time to recover as well. The 6 man rotation is not a good idea for many teams because it means fewer starts for the teams top starters in a rotation. But in this case, it would make sense, as it would be a benefit to those top 2 starters. Plus, Quintana has done a nice job so it's not like they would be inserting a weak starter into the rotation. If they don't do this, they might well leave Quintana in the rotation anyway and remove someone else from it. Just something to consider.