This is a series of evaluations that will be done this offseason on every player that closed the season on the 40-man roster for the Minnesota Twins, with one appearing every weekday from now until each player has been evaluated. The plan is to start with Mr. Albers and move all the way through the pitchers, then to the catchers, infielders, outfielders and finally those listed as designated hitters on the club’s official MLB.com roster. That means we’ll wrap it up with Miguel Sano sometime in the first week of December.
- Name: Buddy Boshers
- 2016 Role: Lefty specialist who wasn’t a complete mess against righties.
- Expected 2017 Role: Assuming he isn’t outrighted off the 40-man roster — which, in my opinion would be a mistake — he’ll battle Ryan O’Rourke to fill the same role next year.
- MLB Stats: 4.25 ERA (2.84 FIP) in 36 innings, 9.3 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 1.17 WHIP, 0.6 fWAR.
- MiLB Stats: 1.04 ERA (2.71 FIP) in 26 innings, 10 K/9, 3.8 BB/9, 1.12 WHIP at Triple-A Rochester.
- Contract Status: Free agent after 2021 season it appears as of right now.
2016 Lowdown:
One thing Terry Ryan had an eye for was finding relievers in the damnedest places. He plucked Casey Fien out of relative obscurity, grabbed Jared Burton on the rebound and even got plenty of usage out of Blaine Boyer last year and even Fernando Abad this year. Boshers is no exception, as his big-league experience prior to this year was limited to a 25-game stint with the Angels back in 2013 — one that included making an appearance against the Twins, at Target Field, in fact. It was a mostly nondescript stretch, as Boshers had a 4.60 ERA (3.11 FIP) with some strikeouts, too many walks and a bit of trouble throwing to righties (.595 OPS, but 5-7 K/BB ratio).
After his big-league cameo in 2013, Boshers spent the next two seasons in the minors. Well, sort of. The Angels sent him to Triple-A to start the 2014 season, then bumped him to Double-A Arkansas in mid-May after he’d amassed a 6.23 ERA over 11 appearances (13 innings) to start the season. Boshers went back to Double-A, and as a 26-year-old made 29 appearances (eight starts) with a 2.66 ERA, more than a strikeout per inning (10.3 K/9) and again, control issues (4.0 BB/9).
Boshers declared minor-league free agency after the season, and inked a minor-league deal with the Rockies only to be released during spring training in 2015. It’s hard to know why; Boshers only made one appearance in a game while in Rockies camp, pitching a clean inning with nary a walk, strikeout or even a baserunner allowed. Boshers sat on the market for more than a month, and found no offers to his liking. Ultimately he landed with the Somerset Patriots of the Independent Atlantic League, and spent the whole season there working in relief to the tune of a 1.00 ERA (six earned runs in 54 innings) with 11.8 K/9 and a vastly-improved 2.3 BB/9. Boshers continued that roll into winter ball with Caracas in Venezuela (1.79 ERA, 9.1 K/9 and 0.97 WHIP).
Boshers inked a minor-league pact with the Twins in mid-December, and after a good start with the Red Wings was thrust into a sagging bullpen with the big club in late May and hung with them for the duration, save for a brief DL stint.
The improvement in control for Boshers continued with the Twins this year to the tune of a stunning 1.8 walks per nine innings. Boshers doesn’t have overwhelming raw stuff, but it’s not bad either. Brooks Baseball had him at 92.3 mph with his four-seam fastball, 87 with the change and 81.4 with the slider, and he mixes the pitches judiciously, throwing the four-seamer about half the time, the slider about 40 percent and the remaining pitches are changes. Boshers told me this season he views the changeup as a “use it or lose it” pitch. Back when he was a starter, he had to have more than two pitches in his repertoire and so he threw it more often. By still throwing it once every 10 pitches, he not only has it in his back pocket for if he needs it, but he can also retain the “feel” for it. Like most pitchers with same-sided changeups, Boshers literally never throws it to lefties. In fact, Brooks finds just one instance all year, as he instead hulks up a bit with more fastballs and sliders to combat lefties. Against righties, he’ll throw the change about 14-15 percent of the time, mostly at the expense of the four-seamer.
Boshers neutralized lefties quite well for the Twins this year, limiting them to a .241/.267/.293 line with just three extra-base hits — all doubles. Boshers gets plenty of grounders overall (46.7 percent), and that happens even more so with lefties (50 percent) — hence the low slugging percentage. Righties only hit .253 against Boshers in 2016, but elevated the ball a bit more, and as a result slugged .434 thanks two three home runs, four doubles and a triple. Overall though, he had a .727 OPS against from right-handed hitters, which is a workable figure.
For instance, it’s a much better mark than Abad had this season (.789) as a left-handed specialist.
Where Boshers is more intriguing is that two of his three pitches — basically his non-fastball stuff — had strong swing-and-miss tendencies. The curve induced a swinging strike 19.6 percent of the time — very, very good — and the changeup was a more than respectable 14.3 percent as well. All of this is to say…the Twins might have a fairly strong find here.
It would be a mistake to let Boshers go, and hopefully the Twins avoid that.
So that’s why it’d be a mistake to let Boshers get away on the basis of an iffy ERA. Boshers had one horrible outing in which he allowed nearly 40 percent of his runs for the season, and immediately went on the DL afterward with elbow inflammation. Before and after that, he was fantastic. In fact, here’s what his numbers look like without that outing: 2.86 ERA, 9.6 K/9 and a WHIP of 0.97. That’s a pretty good lefty specialist who won’t kill you if there’s a righty mixed in here and there.
And that’s why guys like Boshers and Abad make infinitely more sense than dropping massive amounts of cash — relatively speaking — on guys like Antonio Bastardo (two years, $12 million and a 4.67 FIP this year) and Tony Sipp (three years, $18 million and a 6.19 FIP), for instance.
Grade: A-. It would be a mistake to let Boshers go, and hopefully the Twins avoid that.
