Boston Red Sox Moving Nathan Eovaldi Back Into Rotation?

Nathan Eovaldi as a reliever looks to be a failed experiment, but are the Boston Red Sox jumping too quickly, and is this the best thing for Eovaldi’s health?

Nathan Eovaldi, a legend in Boston Red Sox nation for years to come, has had his struggles with arm health throughout the course of his career. Most notably, 2019 has been especially problematic for the 29-year-old as he spent well-over three months on the shelf nursing elbow issues before returning on July 22 as a reliever.

In my opinion, the usage of Eovaldi as a reliever is the best/safest way to utilize his skillset moving forward due to his chronic arm troubles.

We see starting pitchers convert into closer roles all the time a la Wade Davis, Brad Hand, Ian Kennedy, Blake Treinen, Raisel Iglesias, Andrew Miller, Shane Greene, and Archie Bradley just to name one or two (tee hee) current MLB players who’ve successfully made the transition. Not to mention, most if not all pitchers coming up through the minors begin as starters.

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We’ve also seen the flipside with guys like Daniel Bard from the Red Sox a few years ago and even one Aroldis Chapman when he was young with the Reds be stretched out into starter roles and not be as effective…..also getting hurt in some cases.

So, is it safe to say it’s easier to shorten a workload than to stretch it out?

The Boston Red Sox have since announced their plans to move Nathan Eovaldi back into the starting rotation in place of Andrew Cashner who will be sliding to the pen. This decision comes on the back of Eovaldi’s 10 appearances as a reliever for this team (one of which came Tuesday when this news was announced) in which he racked up 11.1 innings of work with 8 earned runs surrendered. That brings Nate’s ERA for this short timespan as a reliever to 6.49.

But on the stronger side, he’s only walked 4 batters in those 11.1 innings as opposed to the 11 walked batters in 21 innings as a starter this year. Still not fantastic by any means, but an improvement from a 52% walk rate to a 36% walk rate. Granted, maybe the drop is strict because of the lighter workload rather than an improvement inaccuracy, but it’s certainly worth noting.

From what I’ve seen of Nate since returning from the IL, he still looks a bit shaken up; not nearly the pitcher he was at the tail-end of 2018. Maybe that’s because of the team’s struggles as a whole where nothing seems to be going right. Maybe that’s indicative of a decline in Nate himself.

Right now, I’d lean towards the former in that nothing seems to be going right for the Red Sox. Nate’s velocity still looks crisp, but as “FanGraphs” shows us, he’s dipped away a bit from the cut-fastball in favor of the four-seam:

2018

39.7% four-seam fastballs
32.3% cut-fastballs

2019

41.2% four-seam fastballs
26.4% cut-fastballs

And if we look at spin rate via “Baseball Savant,” we’ll see Eovaldi’s spin rate on the fastball is league-average at best (49th percentile). That means (at least in my eyes) that the more movement he uses on his fastball (such as the cutter), the more effective he is because, though he throws hard, the ball moves in a more linear trajectory, which makes it way easier on hitters to pick up.

Next. Curt Schilling mulling run for Congress. dark

So, two things in closing with Nathan Eovaldi and the Boston Red Sox.

I still think Nate can be best-utilized as a reliever and the team shouldn’t give up on him yet in that regard.
Nate also has to start moving to the cut-fastball more often and continue to reduce his walk rate. If he can do that, he can be one of the best relief pitchers in baseball with his velocity and electric secondary pitches.

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