Garrett Whitlock to the Red Sox bullpen makes too much sense

First it was Joely Rodriguez, then Wyatt Mills, and now Zack Kelly. The Boston Red Sox bullpen has taken some early blows already this season and it’s not even Marathon Monday.

When everyone is healthy, Boston potentially has seven-eight major league starters for only five spots.

Instead of rushing prospects into the bigs like they did with Brayan Bello last season due to injuries, moving Garrett Whitlock back into a reliever position makes too much sense now.

Boston Red Sox would have a stronger bullpen with Garrett Whitlock

Whitlock is known for being a lock down reliever in this Boston Red Sox bullpen taken from their rivals in the Rule 5 Draft and Boston has been trying to move Whitlock from the bullpen into the rotation for about a year now.

Last season, Whitlock appeared as a starter in nine appearances and posted a 4.15 ERA and opponents batted .261 off of him. As a reliever last season, he had a 2.75 ERA and opponents batted .179 off of him.

Career wise, Whitlock has been far more dominant as a reliever than as a starter (even though the sample sizes are vastly different) when you look at his 2.24 ERA as a reliever vs his 4.70 as a starter.

With the loss of another bullpen arm, why not throw Whitlock back into the bullpen? By doing this, Boston could be able to call back up Kutter Crawford (who they just sent down after the Adam Duvall injury) and put him into the rotation until Bello and/or Paxton come back and when they both inevitably come back up you can worry about that when you get there.

While Whitlock has the ability to be one of the most dominant starters in this struggling Boston rotation, their bullpen might need the insurance more than the rotation at this point in time.

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Right now, the Red Sox bullpen sits in the top ten for ERA with 3.38 and with Kelly going down you can expect them to drop down in the list, but if you add a Garrett Whitlock to that puzzle, they could easily jump up.

With that being said, their rotation ranks in the bottom ten for ERA with a 5.06 which is where I understand the argument of keeping Whitlock in the rotation. I do, however, have the utmost confidence in Bello when he comes back as I think he can and will be Bostons number one pitcher come August/ September this year.

I have always believed that Whitlock belonged in the bullpen because that’s where he is most effective and useful. It will be interesting to see how Boston Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom and Red Sox manager Alex Cora move pieces around on this Boston pitching staff.