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You truly haven't gone through small town Iowa if you haven't listed Pizza Ranch.

Yeah, most closers have issues when they have big leads. It's a different mindset.

Kopech is a little different case where they are purposely going to leave him out there for multiple innings to build up his innings to start. He will be handled much differently than an ordinary reliever all year.

He may want to retire. After a game like that, it will all be downhill from here. ?

You position him towards the line and tell him to never go to your left. That is Robert territory.

But a heavy groundball pitcher.

But it's not physical on defense. He made some pretty tough plays with good strong throws from behind second base. His issues are all mental. He missed the easy play in the last playoff game and in a critical situation last night he missed an easy throw. Hes a little like Alexei that way. He needs to get his head right in critical situations. Hopefully, he calms down with experience.

He is favored in the moneyline tonight.

And catching the ball for plays at the plate.

Those two are exactly the types teams have on the roster for the playoffs. The speedy pinch runner to steal a base and score the winning run and the LH infielder to pinch hit in the late innings.

They cant stretch him out this year very much. A 60 innings limit or that of a typical reliever is about all he should do.

I think everyone knows he wasn't a starter in college. That's the primary issue. The plan was from him to be a starter his last year but COVID got in the way. The Sox are trying to turn him into a starter. No one knows for sure if he can do it so it will be a longer process than most.

The problem with this is that his season ends really early due to the innings limit. It would work but don't count on him for the playoffs.

It's true many stay. However, the plan with these two is to progress them to starters. In Kopech's case he just needs to build innings because he hasn't pitched competitively in 2 years. He will be a starter eventually. In Crochet's case, no one knows if he can handle a starters load so he needs to slowly build up and see what happens. In both cases, neither could be a full time starter this year. So the choices were to be bullpen guys in the minors or bullpen guys in the majors. I personally would not like the option of having them be starters in the minors and shut them down really early in the season. The advantages of the MLB are they continue to learn how to out MLB hitters and help the MLB team. I

Not yet. If they stick to their plan of him progressing to a multi-inning reliever, he will be.

Are you saying that Crochet can't become a start because they start him in the bullpen? I would disagree. Many pitchers have started in the pen and gone on to be starters.

I think it is a possibility. However, I don't think its some grand conspiracy theory that the FO has planned this all along. They have no idea and neither does anyone else, if he can handle it. I think they hope he can and will progress him as if he will be. It's not a secret the starters are more valuable than relievers.

I don't think the situations are really comparable though. Sale may have only had 71 innings but he had a history as a full time starter in college. He knew his routine and had built up innings as a starter. Crochet doesn't have any of that. His process will be an extra year, if he proves he can handle a starter load. There is still a question of that because he has never done it.

If Lucy Fell had one one of the best soundtracks from Marry Me Jane. Soundtrack was better than the movie.

He will be a full time starter in 2023. Barring significant injuries, of course.

He is going to need many innings so I would think that there will be plenty of non high leverage situations in which to work on the secondaries.

I agree. Crochet will have a lower innings goal than Kopech. He just hasn't thrown very many innings in his life. I would guess he is on a 2 year plan to becoming a full time starter.

Concern for their players' health because they have very little depth.

The main reason is those pitchers had a job and a plan of purely being relievers. The job description for Kopech is different. They have a different plan than a typical reliever. As I said 80-90 is a good goal for him. If they don't get that, than I would agree it was the wrong move, with the caveat that they could extend his season into the Fall to get thise innings. There will be no justification beyond that. All I'm saying is that it can work. He would be on a similar plan in the minors. The innings are the innings regardless of what level. The things pitching in the MLB does is having him continue to learn how to get out MLB hitters, which is different than the MiLB hitters. We'll see how it goes for the season. As it stands now, I'm not particularly a fan of Katz but I will reserve judgement until after a full season.

I also think that the innings target would be 80-90. With warm-ups and sit downs that's about equal to 100 or so for a starter.