Is Chris Sale the best left-handed pitcher in the game right now? Not according to 2018 fantasy points, where that honor goes to breakout Rays ace Blake Snell (2,668 points / 86.1 points per game). Although it's conceivable that Sale would have surpassed his AL East rival had The Conductor not been bitten by the injury bug, which limited him to 27 starts and 158 innings - 22 IP fewer than Snell and a career-low since he became a full-time starter in 2012. (Sale spent his first two seasons coming out of the bullpen, including a 21-game cup of coffee in 2010 where he failed to reach the requisite 40 innings pitched to qualify for my database.) It's a different story over the course of his career, with seven consecutive All-Star appearances, six consecutive top-six finishes in the Cy-Young Award voting (2018 results have, of course, not yet been released), and the all-time career records in both strikeouts per nine innings pitched (10.862) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.309). He doesn't have a terribly successful track record in the postseason, as he only made his first playoff appearance last year after a trade to the perennially contending Red Sox, but hopefully this World Series doesn't end in a sweep and he'll have one more shot to prove his case.
Can you believe that heading into the 2018 playoffs, David Price had made nine postseason starts and won none of them? He did pick up two wins pitching in relief, first in 2008 after a 14-game cup of coffee for the World Series runner up Rays (in the ALCS against Boston, ironically enough), and later in 2015 during Toronto's ALDS win over Texas. Consider his postseason demons exorcised, however, as Slam Dunkin Price came out on the winning end of a start once in each of the last two serieses: first in the decisive ALCS Game 5 against the Astros, and then in Wednesday's World Series Game 2 against the Dodgers. Unlike Sale, the well-traveled left hander does have a Cy Young Award to his name (in 2012 with the Rays, represented by the "^" symbol) to go along with six All-Star appearances and two midseason trades (both to playoff-bound teams, where he continued to rack up October ghosts). With four years left on the massive contract he signed prior to 2016, Price figures to be a fixture in the Red Sox rotation through at least 2022.
Like the previous two pitchers on this list, Nathan Eovaldi saw the majors before his first qualifying season: a six-start, four-relief-appearance cup of coffee in 2011 for his original team the Dodgers, where he put up 0.5 wins above replacement (Baseball Reference doesn't separate pitching WAR into two parts the way it does offensive and defense for position players). The very next year saw him sent to Miami in return for Hanley Ramirez, who was ironically cut loose by the Red Sox just months before they acquired Eovaldi from the Rays. He signed with Florida's other team prior to the 2017 season, even though it was already predetermined that he would miss that whole year and change recovering from Tommy John surgery due to an injury he incurred while pitching with the Yankees, a stint I'm sure Red Sox fans would like to ignore. However Evo pitched well enough upon his return in Tampa Bay that he netted a usable major league piece from the Red Sox at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. He then pitched well enough with Boston that he leapfrogged two of his incumbent rotation mates to start Game 3 of the ALDS against Houston, a role he will not reprise in the Fall Classic, as he came out of the bullpen in both Games 1 and 2.
Boston's Game 3 starter in the World Series will be 2016 Cy Young Award winner Rick Porcello, the only awards consideration he's received since finishing third in Rookie of the Year voting in 2009, his first season in the majors. Porcello spent six up-and-down years pitching in Detroit, where he helped his team reach the playoffs in three consecutive years, centering on a World Series berth in 2012, although he also failed to pick up a postseason win until this year's ALDS Game 4 start against the Yankees. In the 2014-15 offseason, after his best season to that point, he was traded to the Red Sox in the Yoenis Cespedes deal, after which he signed an early-season 4-year extension, for which Boston was rewarded with that Cy Young season the next year. Up until today, the pitcher known as Veintidós (cuz of his uniform number, you see) has had as many starts as he had relief appearances in this year's postseason, but he's got Alex Cora's confidence as the series heads into Los Angeles.
I'm putting Eduardo Rodriguez here with the starters since that was his role for 23 of his 27 games in the regular season, but once October rolls around, he falls victim to the postseason tradition of using starting pitchers out of the bullpen. Although Rodriguez made his MLB debut in Boston, he was signed out of Venezuela by - and subsequently spent the majority of his development with - Baltimore, until he was traded straight up for left handed relief ace Andrew Miller in 2014. El Gualo was arbitration eligible in 2018 for the first time as a Super Two player, so he'll continue to be a reasonably-priced rotation piece for the next three seasons.
Craig Kimbrel burst on the MLB scene in 2010 with 21 games of 0.44 ERA pitching for the Braves and hasn't looked back. Starting with his Rookie of the Year season in 2011, Kimbrel led the league in saves four years in a row, making four All-Star teams in the process. This performance earned him an extension with the Braves prior to the 2014 season... but then also a trade to the Padres just one year later. Despite a 2.58 and 39 saves that season, Dirty Craig missed the All-Star game for the only time in his career; he made it back to the Midsummer Classic all three years following his second trade in one calendar year, this one to the Red Sox. As a free agent following the World Series, the active leader in saves will be setting his sights on a record setting contract.
If Kimbrel does take his talents elsewhere in 2019, setup reliever Matt Barnes would likely be first in line to pick up saves in Boston. While his fantasy point totals lag far behind that of the regular closer (due to the inordinate value placed on saves), Barnes had a 2018 strikeout rate that compared favorably to Kimbrel's (14.0 to 13.9 K/9 IP) and they each put up an identical 3.10 K/BB percentage. Who knows if the Boston brass thinks that Barnacles has the intestinal fortitude necessary to lock up the ninth inning in high pressure situations, or if Dealin' Dave Dombrowski and Co. will try to pick up a more established arm in the offseason, but the underlying numbers are there.
Joe Kelly has had a roundabout career as far as his role is concerned. In his first two seasons with the Cardinals, he bounced between the rotation and the bullpen, performing better as a reliever in his rookie year, but then flipping the script in his sophomore campaign. No sooner was he moved to the rotation full time, then he was shipped off to Boston in the John Lackey deal, where he continued as a starter for the next 1.5 seasons, with varying results. After spending the next year transitioning to the bullpen full time, Kelly peaked as a reliever in 2017, but his 100+ mph fastball still plays just fine in the postseason.
Yup, Heath Hembree is on Boston's World Series roster. He's even racked up three appearances so far this postseason, although none since Game 1 of the ALCS. Did you know that he came up with the Giants in 2013, then had two more non-qualifying seasons with the Red Sox after being involved in the Jake Peavy trade? Also it's fun that his ERA was exactly 4.20 in 2018. Yeah, blaze it, Heath!
Drew Pomeranz was added to the roster for the World Series, replacing embattled reliever Brandon Workman (he of the 45.00 ERA over the first two rounds), although his 2018 season as a swingman type pitcher was entirely forgettable. Once a big time prospect for the Indians with two stops on Baseball America's top 100 prospect list, Pomeranz didn't get his start in the majors until a trade to Colorado (for Ubaldo Jimenez) for a cup of coffee in 2011. But Big Smooth didn't truly break out until two more trades - first to the A's (for Brett Anderson) and then to the Padres (for Yonder Alonso) - where his 2.47 first half ERA earned him a trip to a contender in 2016 in a transaction that was steeped in controversy (due to his medical issues that were not properly disclosed by Padres GM A.J. Preller). After one and a half solid seasons in the rotation, the wheels fell off in 2018, but you could do worse when it comes to a second lefty specialist on a World Series roster.
To round things out, journeyman reliever Ryan Brasier didn't pitch enough to make his way onto my database (just shy of 34 innings), although he did put up a 1.60 ERA that translates to 462 points and 13.6 points per game. It's not uncommon for players to blossom into postseason heroes after just a brief showing in the majors (just ask David Price), but so far I wouldn't say that "solid relief work" has elevated him to "hero" status quite yet.
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