Felix Doubront tells the Red Sox: Start me or trade me

First baseman/outfielder Mike Carp has asked the Red Sox for a trade and apparently left-hander Felix Doubront wouldn’t mind leaving Boston either.

Doubront has been pitching out of the bullpen for about six weeks and after the Red Sox decided not to shift him back to the rotation following the Jake Peavy trade he went public with wanting to either become a starter again or be traded to a team willing to put him into their rotation.

Here’s what Doubront told Jason Mastrodonato of MassLive.com:

I just want to be a starter and stay there. If I stay, they have to know I have to be a starter. If I go, the other team is going to give me this chance to be a starter. ... The thing is, if they say I have to prove myself, I already did man. It’s [messed] up. So if these guys say I have to pitch to prove whatever, no, they already know what I have. I showed them what I have, as a reliever and as a starter. For me, they don’t see the numbers, they don’t care what I’ve done in the past. It’s hard to be happy like that with these guys.

Here’s the thing, though: Those numbers Doubront refers to as “proving” himself aren’t any good. Doubront has a 4.47 ERA in 69 career starts, which is fourth or fifth starter territory and not particularly valuable, although so far at least he’s been even worse in the bullpen.

Meanwhile, manager John Farrell says:

There’s a clear role for him in the bullpen and sometimes performance guides where you’re slotted.

In other words, the Red Sox no longer think he’s good enough to be in the rotation, which is interesting because Doubront was a full-time starter in 2012 and 2013.

He’s still just 26 years old and under team control through 2017, so presumably at least a few teams would be interested in taking Doubront off the Red Sox’s hands and giving him the starting role he wants.

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