The Red Sox pay the price for their cheapskate position

Last night, when the Red Sox once again blew a lead in the final period, Seth Lugo did that to the Angels.

You may remember Seth Lugo in December when the Red Sox were interested in his services but weren’t willing to pay him market price. Instead, the Royals signed Lugo to a three-year, $45 million deal that Boston was unwilling to match in terms of either the length or AAV for the 34-year-old.

This was part of a much larger, more aggressive plan by Kansas City, which spent $109.5 million on free agents, more money than in any other offseason in franchise history… and that doesn’t even include the $377.7 million they spent on superstar shortstop Bobby Whitt Jr.

So while the Royals were actively playing the market, trying to turn a 106-loss 2023 operation into a playoff team, John Henry was flying to the other side of the world to chat with Saudi oil billionaires about the future of golf, which, six months later, is still unclear. (Bravo, gentlemen!) Meanwhile, the same Royals team that spent more money on much-needed pitchers than he did last winter is leading the race for the final playoff spot.

If you dig deeper, the details will only cause more resentment.

Here are the key players the Royals have signed on the pitcher side:

Seth Lugo, RHP: Three years, $45 million (exit after the second year of the contract)

Michael Wacha, RHP: Two years, $32 million (exit after the first year of the contract)

Chris Stratton, RHP: Two years, $8 million (exit after the first year of the contract)

Will Smith, LHP: One year, $5 million

The backup players didn’t work out for Kansas City, but that didn’t hurt them too much because the two starters they signed were excellent.

One of them is the aforementioned Lugo, who leads the league in innings pitched, batters hit, and, in case anyone else cares, pitching wins. (To be honest, he’s only tied in pitching wins… tied with (see notes)… Chris Sale. Oh my god!)

Last night, Lugo pitched seven strong innings, marking the ninth time this season that he has pitched at least seven innings in a game. The other key starter Kansas City signed over the winter, Michael Wacha, who has yet to pitch for the Red Sox in 2022, has pitched at least seven innings in a game five times this season.

This means that Lugo and Wacha have pitched at least seven innings in a game 14 times in 2024. The entire Red Sox pitching staff, on the other hand, has only managed to do so 12 times all year.

All of this brings us to the bullpen. Just as water naturally flows downhill and will eventually flood the lowest area if given enough time, gaps in the pitching staff naturally lead to more and more high-pressure innings that must be covered by the bullpen, ultimately exposing their weaknesses until the dam breaks. The Red Sox have left themselves vulnerable to this erosion on two fronts:

• First, the starters (as good as they have been for most of the year) rank 24th in total batters faced. They just don’t throw long enough in those games. Accordingly, the Red Sox relievers rank 6th in total batters faced, behind only the Rockies, Giants, White Sox, Marlins and D-backs — five teams that are a combined 117 games under .500 this year.
• Second, the Red Sox rank first in the American League for most at-bats in which their pitchers faced a batter in a difficult situation (953 at-bats and counting).

This combination burned through key relievers like a forest fire, and the mediocre additions the front office made at the deadline did little to extinguish the flames.

Here’s a table of the OPS batters have posted since the All-Star break against all Red Sox relief pitchers who have faced at least 20 batters. (I’ve included a few other helpful reference points along the way to illustrate just how bad this bullpen has been over the past few weeks.)

It’s important to note that the bullpen hasn’t been this bad until recently. Over the course of the entire season, batters still have just a .738 OPS against them. That’s remarkably similar to the .736 OPS opposing batters posted against the Royals’ weak bullpen in 2024.

The difference? The Royals’ starters play long. Kansas City’s bullpen has faced the second-fewest batters of any team in baseball this year (only Seattle has faced fewer), and that has allowed them to get away with failures in their bullpen acquisition because they have to face fewer high-leverage outs and ultimately build a shorter bridge to the end of the game.

As Eno Sarris and Jen McCaffrey wrote in the Athletic today, the Red Sox entered the season with a plan to limit opponents’ fastballs and catch them off guard. That plan worked, but the league has since adjusted it. Part of that plan also seemed to include limiting their starters’ availability in the middle innings, which worked in the first half but now puts even more strain on the bullpen as everything breaks down.

The bottom line is that if you skimp on the rotation and get away with deception, it will eventually come back to haunt you. (And no, Lucas Giolito’s injury is not a valid excuse for not having more pitchers available if you’re the Boston Red Sox and you’re still tens of millions of dollars under the luxury tax.)

One final note on last night’s games and the bullpens. Do you know who finished Kansas City’s 5-3 victory over the Angels after Lugo pitched seven strong innings? That would be John Schreiber. Yes, the same John Schreiber the Red Sox traded this offseason for David Sandlin, who has a 5.05 ERA in the minors and has allowed 12 home runs in just 14 starts. Maybe this move will pay off for the Sox in the long run, but it’s another example of Kansas City making a move designed to win in 2024 and the Red Sox making a move designed to win in 2025 and beyond. From that perspective, we shouldn’t be surprised that the Royals have the 2024 playoff spot the Red Sox need.

They put their money on the table relative to their market size last winter, the Red Sox didn’t. Now we’re all paying for it! I guess that luxury just isn’t for us.