he won’t be able to step up to a more important role

If not Daniel Descalso Jersey , ."Obviously, Workman has been around for quite some time now. We all remember when he burst onto the scene in 2013 and was something of a key figure in that team’s World Series run. Expectations were high for him, but after an up-and-down 2014 he went down with an injury the following year that eventually resulted in Tommy John surgery. The righty has been a full-time reliever since that point, and he’s spent the last two seasons jumping between Pawtucket and Boston. That, of course, can’t happen in 2019 as he is out of minor-league options.Since returning to the majors, Workman has been an interesting pitcher whose reputation really relies on how one judges a starting pitcher. By pure results, he’s been really good and it’s hard to argue against him being the number three in this bullpen. In two partial seasons, he’s pitched to ERAs of 3.18 and 3.27. That’s good! And consistent! He’s also been consistent by FIP, though on the other end of the spectrum. His FIPs the last two years have been 4.47 and 4.45. By DRA, though, it’s been a tale of two entirely different years. In 2017, he was well above-average with a 3.68 DRA but in 2018 he was well below-average with a 6.21 DRA. The big different between the two years was in the control department. Two years ago he walked 2.5 batters per nine innings and 6.8 percent of his opponents compared to 3.5 per nine and 9.6 percent in 2018. Looking more broadly, the biggest issue for Workman through his entire career has been a lack of deception. He’s missed some bats at times, but he’s given up a ton of home runs (he’s never allowed fewer than 1.1 homers per nine innings) and has had issues with control in every year but 2017.Roster Projection 2.0Kim Klement-USA TODAY SportsLooking specifically at last season, you can see a clear lack of deception from his plate discipline numbers. By Baseball Prospectus’ numbers, Workman induced swings on just 25.6 percent of pitches out of the strike zone. To put that into context, 432 pitchers threw at least 600 pitches in 2018 and only 38 got swings at a lower rate on those pitches out of the zone. That puts Workman in the bottom ten percent of the league. To be fair to him, he had good success on those swings as his swinging strike rate there was in the top three percent of the league. If he wants to reach another level in the bullpen, though, and become a third late-inning arm this team desperately needs, he’s going to need to benefit more from that swinging strike rate. And if he’s going to do that, he needs to get batters to swing at more bad pitches Ketel Marte Jersey , which again comes down to deception.It’s really not a mystery how this would help a pitcher, and just some improvement in this area could be a massive boost for Workman. Getting more swings out of the zone would lead to more strikes (even if he takes a step back from 2018 in terms of contact rate on pitches out of the zone, which is likely), which would obviously in turn lead to more strikeouts and fewer walks. Workman has struck out fewer than a batter per inning in each of the last two years, and it’s hard to be an effective reliever in today’s game like that. Perhaps most importantly, more swings on pitches out of the zone could be a big help in the home run department. Contact on those pitches are obviously worse, and even without contact it would help lead to Workman getting ahead in counts. More advantageous counts will then lead to more defensive hitters. If he can allow even a couple fewer homers per year, it would make a huge difference.Photo by Elsa/Getty ImagesThe issue here is that Workman made the adjustments last year that would ostensibly help lead to the changes we are talking about here. Specifically, he started throwing a lot fewer fastballs in 2018 and leaned more heavily on his curveball. Prior to last season, he had thrown his fastball at least half the time in every season, but that rate dropped below 40 percent in 2018. Conversely, his curveball rate was less than 25 percent in every season but in 2018 it jumped up to 37 percent. The problem was two-fold. For one thing, hitters not chasing his curveball enough, particularly on pitches below the zone. The other problem was with his third pitch, the cutter, which found itself with similar issues.As far as what needs to happen in 2019, Workman really has two paths he can take. The first is to just pound the strike zone more and hope that the improvement in walks will outweigh any increase in hard contact. The other is to work more on honing his secondaries and mixing his pitches more to get more swings out of the zone. In my estimation, his pure stuff isn’t good enough to make the first strategy works. To me, if Workman is going to take a step forward in his age-30 season, it’s going to be because he’s fooling more batters and moving closer to league-average in terms of swings out of the strike zone. I wouldn’t necessarily bet on it happening, but the Red Sox need someone to make a key adjustment in the bullpen, and Workman’s as good a bet as anyone. Adrian Beltre was back in Texas, still with the Rangers on Wednesday after a road trip that ended on the same day as the non-waiver trade deadline.That doesn’t necessarily mean that baseball’s active career hits leader will finish this season http://www.diamondbacksfanproshop.com/authentic-zack-greinke-jersey , the last on his contract and maybe the last of his Hall of Fame-caliber career, with the last-place Rangers.The possibility remains that, in the right situation, Beltre could get dealt to a contending team in August for a shot at finally winning a World Series title.”More or less knowing where I’m going to be for the next – who knows,” Beltre said after the non-waiver deadline passed Tuesday when the Rangers were in Arizona. ”I cannot sit here and say 100 percent I’m going to finish the season here, which I’d be happy to do. But you never know what comes up.”Beltre, 39 and in his 21st big league season, has been to the World Series only once . That was in 2011, his first season in Texas.Rangers general manager Jon Daniels was in constant contact with the Beltre in the weeks leading up to the non-waiver deadline, letting the veteran third baseman know when other teams inquired about him. Beltre, who could veto any trade, also gave the GM some feedback on the teams that made sense to him and why.”If he was going to go somewhere, it was going to be somewhere he could win, but also somewhere he could play and contribute,” Daniels said. ”He didn’t want to be a cheerleader. He was very clear about that. He also was very clear that he didn’t want to go somewhere that would lead us to not getting a good deal.”Beltre, who described the last couple of weeks as ”a lot of thinking” and ”wait and see,” said nothing got close enough for him to have to make a decision. He said there weren’t many teams willing to meet his requirements.”I didn’t want to be a bench player, and it didn’t work out,” Beltre said, not identifying any potential teams.The Rangers, who swept three games at defending World Series champion Houston before splitting two interleague games in Arizona, had a day off Wednesday before starting a seven-game homestand. They play four games against Baltimore, the opponent when Beltre got his 3 http://www.diamondbacksfanproshop.com/authentic-zack-greinke-jersey ,000th career hit last year, and three against Seattle, one of his former teams.Beltre, a four-time All-Star and five-time Gold Glove Award winner, is a .287 career hitter with 3,127 hits and 467 homers. His average this season is the same, .287, with five homers and 33 RBIs in 75 games that include 21 starts as the designated hitter.Like pretty much all Texas players, Beltre will be put through trade waivers this month. If Beltre is claimed by another team, the Rangers would have two days to work out a deal or pull back the waiver claim. If he clears waivers, a deal could be made with any club.Daniels said he would keep an open communication with Beltre like he has throughout the process.Beltre has indicated that if he plays another season, he’d like to finish his career with the Rangers. When Daniels was asked if he expected Beltre to play again next year, he said he didn’t know.”I don’t know that he knows,” the GM said. ”What he’s told us is very similar to what he said publicly, which is he’s going to digest everything, go home and be with his family, see how his body feels in the winter.”I don’t know if that’s November, December, January,” Daniels said. ”I don’t know what exactly the timeline is, and I don’t think it’s really fair of us to ask him right now.”—