Red Sox add Relievers Donnelly and Romero

Yesterday, the Red Sox added a couple of additional arms to their bullpen trading for veteran Brenden Donnelly and signing JC Romero.

Romero, signed a 1 year deal for $1.5m, and Donnelly was acquired from the Angels for minor league veteran Phil Siebel. Siebel is actually a some what interesting arm. One year off of TJ surgery he locked very good in the minors, and his CHONE projections aren't bad. He is an interesting guy to have stashed, and with the Angels track record for finding arms out of no where he might end up as something. Donnelly is likely a better and safer bet though, for a team like the Red Sox who have major issues with their pen.

Here is the Red Sox projected bullpen and CHONE projections:

K Rate + BB Rate + HR Rate + Hit Rate + Brendan Donnelly 107% 92% 104% 96% JC Romero 113% 131% 80% 94% Mike Timlin 80% 70% 75% 110% Manny Delcarmen 118% 119% 77% 101% Julian Taverez 83% 94% 86% 109% Nick Debarr Rule 5 - No Projection Hideki Ojajima Import - No Projection Devern Hansack 97% 93% 101% 105% Craig Breslow 113% 108% 80% 96% Craig Hansen 98% 126% 77% 103%

Now, pitcher projections aren't great, and the fact that these all of these pitchers are relievers, and all of them have limited MLB experience so they are being translated, makes the error bars even larger. But none the less that is an ugly set of projections, so it makes sense that the Sox are adding pitchers. Though I'm not sure if Romero is the right guy to add unless he is used strictly as a Looguy. Donnelly is a good addition to this pen, but it makes sense for the Angels to drop him for a guy with options who has some upside, since their pen is much better defined than the RedSox pen.

Geeknote: The pitcher stats listed are K+, BB+, HR+, Hit+, are projected stats based on Chone Smiths projection system called Chone and adjusted and expressed as a percent of league average. So you want K+ numbers above 100% and BB+, HR+, and Hit+ numbers below 100%. They are not park adjusted.