Boston Red Sox trade deadline: Solving the bullpen puzzle

With the end of July approaching, the Boston Red Sox must evaluate their current relief situation, and how to address certain holes.

A couple of weeks ago, I explored the current starting pitching of the Boston Red Sox in a mid-year article, and argued that GM Dave Dombrowski should stay passive in his decision making. So far, so good.

Now, with only a couple of weeks until the coveted MLB Trade Deadline (July 31), Boston must examine its bullpen and its place in baseball.

As of right now, Boston holds the fifth spot for bullpen quality, according to ESPN. Still, their 3.18 ERA is far from the impressive 2.47 ERA that the first place Arizona Diamondbacks have.

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Spearheaded by star closer Craig Kimbrel (25 saves, 2.08 ERA), the nine-year player is already halfway to his career mark of 50 saves in a season (conjured up in 2013 with the Atlanta Braves).

Matt Barnes continues to be a viable seventh and eighth inning guy. According to Baseball-Reference, the homegrown commodity has dropped his ERA by more than a point over the past year (2.52 this year, compared to 3.88 last year).

Clearly, manager Alex Cora could not have expected a better season from an otherwise inconsistent player coming out of the draft back in 2014.

The rest of the pen is definitely up in the air as far as reliability goes. Joe Kelly’s been a nice surprise after a horrid 2016 year, where he bombed as a starter (5.18 ERA in only 40 innings pitched). With limited innings in 2017, Kelly bounced back with a 2.79 ERA in 58 innings.

Now, after 35 innings already under his belt, Kelly still shows inconsistencies. After a great start to 2018, where he obtained a 0.63 ERA for the month of May, Kelly’s struggled mightily since, gathering an 8.31 ERA for June, and a 13 so far in July.

Ideally, Kelly would become a long-game reliever when the starter experiences trouble. Unfortunately, he still isn’t comfortable in his role yet. Luckily, Tyler Thornburg is returning from the DL, giving the Sox another option in the long-reliever slot. Positions like these are key, especially when Boston needs to shorten its bullpen for the postseason.

In the meantime, the Sox can go after a bevy of options on the market. Brad Brach seems like an enticing option from Baltimore. He already has 10 saves, and could add some nice cushion to an already formidable bullpen.

Zach Britton is the other treasured relief pitcher Boston is targeting. If Kelly doesn’t get his act together, Britton could play that role of long reliever, especially since he was a former starter himself with the Orioles.

Unlike Joe Kelly, Britton is very happy with his current state in his career. Going to a large contender like the Red Sox could be the move he needs to jump start his stagnant place with a last place Orioles team.

Baltimore is looking to clean house too. No chance to compete means no point in keeping some of their players.

If I’m Dombrowski, I stick with the set-up man and closer that I’ve got. Stretch relief is the place to make a move in. To be honest, even if the Sox strike out on someone like Britton, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Next: Boston Red Sox starting pitching conundrum

With Thornburg coming back from injury, he could settle into the long-reliever role for at least this year. Not to mention, the Boston Red Sox are one of the best teams in baseball record-wise.

Regardless of what occurs over the next two weeks, Boston is still in good shape to make deep playoff run with the team they have now.