Wednesday, November 07, 2007

First of all, big ups to Yooooooook for being the only Red Sox first baseman to snag a Gold Glove since Boomer and “Black Beauty” won three of ‘em between 1967 and 1971.

A season with zero errors at the position deserves such an accolade.

But it’s this writer’s opinion that probably-soon-to-be-departed Coco Crisp got the proverbial shaft. A .998 fielding percentage with one measly error? C’mon, guys! What’s a dude gotta do? He outclassed every winner but Ichiro (who he tied) in both those categories.

He's made a lot of Web Gem-worth catches for this team. But this one will always be my favorite.

Over on SoSH, statistical savant Eric Van indulges in a bit of subjective recall...

I think video analysis would reveal that every highlight catch Grady Sizemore made this year would be made by Coco with ease and that Sizemore doesn't catch any of Coco's highlight catches.

But then again, Coco doesn’t hit like Sizemore.

Of course, hitting should not even enter the equation. But them’s the breaks.

At least Jeter didn’t win.

Meanwhile, there’s the interesting clause in Schilling’s contract that he earns a cool mill for a single Cy Young vote. Something tells me he won’t be getting one from CHB.

But one Gotham blogger raises an interesting potential ethical dilemma.

As an officer in the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, this is very troublesome to me....

Your one vote gets him $1 million. What is keeping some writer from saying, “Hey, Curt, I’ll vote for you. I want $500,000... What’s keeping Schilling from agreeing to the deal?

Um, lots of things. First of all, for all his faults, he just doesn’t seem like the type: simply by signing this contract, he’s already shown that money is not paramount to him. And anyone who’s read his posts on Sons of Sam Horn knows the weight he professes to place on setting the right example for his children.

But let’s look at it from the perspective of the reporter. Can you think of a worse athlete to pull that shit with than Curt Schilling? The guys’ got a mouth bigger than the Grand Canyon.

As one SoSHer puts it: “the real disincentive against a writer trying to wrangle a kickback from Schilling in exchange for a Cy vote is Schilling telling him to *&^% right off and then posting such info on his blog. The writer would be risking his career."

One peril of such a deal, however, pointed out by another member of the board, is that the Sox could find themselves paying out a million bucks even if Schilling submits something less than a Cy Young season.

“It wouldn't surprise me if some NY idiot with an axe to grind against the Sox thought it would be funny to give him a vote after he spent 2/3 of the season on the DL. I mean if you had a vote and Carl Pavano had such a clause...well it would be pretty tempting, wouldn't it?”

Ha!

Finally, about this six-man rotation idea...

Not a fan. Use Wakefield and/or Tavarez to spell anyone who needs it, whenever it’s needed. And no doubt, Gehrig 38, Dice-K, Lester, and Buchholz will probably all need a rest at some point during that long six-month grind.

But to formalize it like that depends on too much going right, and leaves you with little insurance policy if things should go wrong.

Plus, it takes innings away from Beckett. And we don’t want that, do we?

11/7/2007 2:06:33 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  
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