September 05, 2008
We are the jockeys; the jockeys are we.
So a lot of people have been talking up the idea of Dustin Pedroia winning the MVP award lately: the Fenway crowd chanted it at him, Ozzie Guillen famously called him a "jockey," David Pinto used his success in the cleanup role as an excuse to post the video of Andy Kaufman performing the Mighty Mouse theme on Saturday Night Live, and even Rick Sutcliffe floated the possibility during the broadcast of Wednesday's Rays-Yankees game. On Sons of Sam Horn, they're comparing him to the likes of George Brett, Derek Jeter, Pete Rose, and vintage Nomar. He is hitting (ready for this?) .667/.667/1.222 when batting fourth in the lineup (sample size, etc.) He's leading all second basemen in Nerdy McNerderson stats like VORP and Wins Probability Added. He is awesome.
The question, of course, is not whether or not he deserves the MVP award. He deserves to be considered as a serious candidate, for sure, along with Carlos Quentin, Justin Morneau, Josh Hamilton, Joe Mauer, Alex Rodriguez, Jermaine Dye, Grady Sizemore, and . . . well, Kevin Youkilis, but he's probably a different blog post altogether. The real question, though, is whether or not he can win the award when you factor in the mercurial nature of the voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Just looking at how they've voted in the past, they tend to look at a couple of things. First, with some exceptions, they tend to believe the MVP should come from a winning team, one that either makes the playoffs or comes close to doing so (closer than expected anyway.) They like guys who reach the classic plateaus in the Triple Crown stat categories - batting .300, hitting 20 home runs, and driving in 100 runs, though that last one has been negotiable for leadoff types. And sometimes, being a vocal-leader type, "clutch," or just generally a guy the media likes and would make a good story help out.
Pedroia fits all of those criteria - the Red Sox are likely to make the playoffs and 20 homers and a .300 average are within reach for him. He's perceived as "clutch" and he never shuts up. He gets a lot of "heart and soul of the Red Sox" ink. Would he make a great story? Of course he would! The media loves stuff like this! Pedroia's got more talent than most guys of his stature. But at the same time, when a lot of the people who write about baseball for a living see the guy, all they see is his height. And they love it! Couldn't this be a case of the media's ignorance playing into Pedroia's favor? Pedroia and Eckstein aren't similar players - Pedroia is, to put it succinctly, better at baseball - but the media frequently mentions them in the same breath, because they're both short guys. And they love Eckstein so much. They would have voted Eckstein for MVP five times over had his numbers been even remotely good enough to justify it. So they see Pedroia, who is a media-approved candidate, who is kind of short and plays up the middle like Eckstein . . . I mean, would you be surprised if they made the connection? They'd be voting for a good candidate, but for a bad reason. And I suspect Pedroia and the Red Sox would be okay with that.
August 28, 2008
Yeah, that isn't good. While there is some precedent for a pitcher to visit Andrews in Birmingham and come back without scheduling a date with a scalpel for the dreaded tendon transfer surgery (a/k/a "Tommy John surgery," after the gentleman pictured above, the first to undergo such a procedure.) But more often than not, it's the case. The negative side is obvious, of course - Beckett would likely be out for most of next season. On the one hand, the Red Sox could easily still make the playoffs in 2008. On the other hand, without Beckett at their disposal, their chances for repeating are much slimmer than they were this morning.
August 21, 2008
The scene at Hadlock Field this morning
So Clay Buchholz has been sent down to Portland, presumably so he can work with his old pitching coach.
People have been debating Buchholz and considering his struggles all year; perhaps it's luck, maybe it's his mechanics, maybe the issue is mental, or maybe he just wasn't ready. Regardless of the reason, things had simply reached the point where the Red Sox could no longer afford to let him work out his issues at the Major League level. Perhaps if the standings today were more similar to how they were on August 21 of last year, then they'd be more inclined to keep him around. But with the White Sox and Twins breathing down their neck in the Wild Card race and the Rays still very much within reach, it just made too much sense to let him figure things out elsewhere.
What's really important to remember, though, is that this is hardly unprecedented. Young pitchers do struggle sometimes when they try to adjust to Major League hitters. To suggest that Buchholz is now doomed to be a #4-type or that his future belongs with some other organization is reactionary lunacy.
Consider the case of Roy Halladay, who put up a 10.64 ERA in 2000. The following year, the Blue Jays sent him all the way back to A-ball as a 24-year-old - same age as Buchholz - to get himself figured out. Just two years later, he won a Cy Young, and may win another this year. Or even last year, the Indians sent Cliff Lee down to Triple-A, two years after his outstanding 2005 season. A few months later he was starting the All-Star game.
Obviously just because these guys got themselves straightened out doesn't automatically mean Buchholz will follow the same path. These are three very different pitchers. Ultimately it's all on Uncle Buch to put in the work. But it's absolute folly to write him off completely. And to you connoisseurs of schadenfreude out there, I would say the same thing about Phil Hughes.
As for the rotation in the meantime, why not rescue Justin Masterson from low-leverage pen exile?
August 18, 2008
Is it getting Dusty in here?
No, I'm not talking about pitchers.
Since 2003, the Red Sox have felt the need to assign their backup catcher to near-exclusive duty as Tim Wakefield's personal knuckleball valet. With the exception of Doug Mirabelli's crazy-good 2004, that has meant that the Red Sox (like most teams, to be totally fair) have found themselves carrying an offensively-deficient glove man.
Currently, that man is Kevin Cash, he of the career line of .179/.237/.279. But with Wakefield currently on the disabled list and Charlie Zink not looking like he'll make another start any time soon, Cash's main purpose on the roster - specifically the ability to successfully catch a knuckleball - is rendered moot. While the Sox likely would not want to lose Cash's services should Wake recover in time for a playoff start - assuming there are playoffs in the Sox' future, they could perhaps find some space on the roster (Cash could go down with a phantom injury perhaps?) to call up either George Kottaras or Dusty Brown from Pawtucket to give them an extended audition and see what they can produce at the Major League level.
One of the more interesting situations with the Red Sox these days is the future of the catching situation - Jason Varitek has not had a good year (on or off the field) and, at his age, the next few years don't look too bright either. Around the league, he's revered for his ability to handle a pitching staff, and so because of that, it's probably for the best if the Red Sox try to find a way to keep Varitek - an impending free agent - around next season. But surely not at the rate of his current contract, and, ideally, he wouldn't be starting four out of five games in 2009. An ideal situation would involve Varitek handling a reduced workload while also mentoring a young backstop - grooming his own replacement, essentially. Many assume that replacement would come from outside the organization, someone like Texas's Jarrod Saltalamacchia or the St. Louis' Bryan Anderson. But with Brown and Kottaras both hitting acceptably well in Pawtucket, why not see what they can provide first?
August 13, 2008
"You messed up, dood."
The hotdogs
were cheaper.
It seemed
so logical at the time.
By the time
Sox Blogette met me at the Lower Depths last
night, Charlie
Zink had already retired the side in the top of the first. I had half a
beer left. Rather than book it on over to Yawkey Way and pay four bucks for a
Fenway Frank, we figured we’d just stay put, order another quick round, watch
the bottom of the inning on TV, and avail ourselves of the Depths’ dollar hotdog
deal.
In
retrospect, that was a mistake.
A walk, a
single, a home run. 3-0.
A single, an
error, a steal, a double. 5-0.
A walk, a
single. 6-0.
A single.
7-0.
Another
homer. 10-0.
“Man, I’d
hate to have tickets and be late to this game,” said the guy next to me.
I couldn’t
help but agree with him.
So we head
to the park, anticipating more fireworks. Instead, then it all started falling
apart.
We got a
couple runs in the bottom of the third, and they got eight in the fifth. We got a couple more in the bottom of the
inning, and they got five more in the top of the next one.
If the
first inning was exhilarating, by the seventh, the game was getting excruciating.
The
bullpens couldn’t get anyone out. The at-bats were long. Things were dragging.
(One of the
few bright spots was the discovery that Jed Lowrie uses the Undertones classic
“Teenage Kicks” as his at-bat music. Derry punk
power pop forever! John Peel, RIP!)
It was past
10:30 now. Sox Blogette had to get up early the next day. And, truth be told, despite
getting a run in the seventh, I was not especially confident that we could pull
this one out. So we did something I’ve never
done before in my long baseball watching career: we left early.
My reward?
By the time we got home and scrolled back the TiVo a bit, Don Orsillo was
losing his shit: “You kidding me?!?!”
Nope.
And yes. Yes,
Pedroia had notched his fifth hit of the night, an RBI double. Yes, Youk, who’d
struck out twice in the first inning, had blasted his second homer of the night,
a three-run shot. Yes, the Sox were back on top. And yes, with a little
difficulty, Papelbon finally closed it out.
Yes, I had
tickets to the wildest win of the year and missed pretty much all the good stuff.
Oh well. On
TV or in person, it sure was one for the books.
The Sox gave
up 17 runs and still won. They scored 19 runs and still got out-hit. You don’t
see games like that come around very often. More, from the official post-game
notes:
* Boston
and Texas
combined to score 36 runs, tying the single-game A.L. record set on June 29,
1950 when the Red Sox beat the Athletics, 22-14
* The Sox set a season
high with 19 runs, the club’s most since scoring 25 on June 27, 2003 vs. Florida. (And Boston’s 10 runs in the
1st inning tonight are the club’s most in a single frame since scoring 14 in
the 1st inning of that game.)
* Boston
blew a 10-0 1st-inning advantage, matching the largest lead lost in club
history, done June 4, 1989 vs. Toronto
* It was the Red Sox’
30th inning of 10 or more runs, a major league record.
* David Ortiz became the
4th player in Red Sox history with 2 home runs in an inning …he’s the first
Sox player to accomplish that since Nomar in 2002.
* Ortiz’s is the 3rd Sox
player with 6 RBI in a single frame, the 1st since Carlos Quintana in the 3rd
on July 30, 1991.
* Ortiz now has 224 home
runs in his Red Sox career, passing Jimmie Foxx (222) and Bobby Doerr (223) for
sole possession of 7th place on the club’s all-time list.
* David Aardsma and
Charlie Zink became the 1st pair of A-to-Z Red Sox teammates to appear in the
same game since Harry Agganis and Norm Zauchin on June 2, 1955 at Chicago.
August 12, 2008
RED SOX ACQUIRE RIGHTHANDED PITCHER
PAUL BYRD
FROM CLEVELAND INDIANS FOR A PLAYER TO BE NAMED
LATER
OR CASH
CONSIDERATIONS
The announcement was made by Executive Vice
President/General Manager Theo Epstein.
Byrd, 37, has been added to Boston’s 40-man roster. The
Red Sox will make a corresponding move on the active roster once Byrd reports to
the club.
Byrd is 7-10 with a 4.53 earned run average
in 22 starts with the Indians in 2008. The righthander ranks second on the
Indians staff in wins, starts, and innings (131.0) and has issued just 1.6 walks
per nine innings, the eighth best ratio in the American League.
He has won all four of his starts since the
All-Star break with a 1.24 ERA (4 ER/29.0 IP) to lower his season ERA from 5.47
to 4.53. Byrd is tied for the major league lead in wins since the break and has
the second lowest ERA among pitchers with at least 20.0 innings behind
Arizona’s
Randy Johnson (0.66). He has worked at least 7.0 innings in each of his last
three starts, allowing six hits in going the route to win at Toronto, 4-2 in his last
appearance on August 9. Byrd has not allowed a home run in his last five starts
with a 1.80 ERA (7 ER/25.0 IP) in that span.
Byrd has a career major league record of
104-91 in 330 games/242 starts with the New York Mets (1995-96), Atlanta (1997-98; 2004), Philadelphia (1998-2001), Kansas
City (2001-02), Los Angeles Angels (2005), and Cleveland (2006-08). He has
won 10 or more games five times, including four of the previous five seasons
(2002-07). Byrd has issued just 2.12 walks per nine innings in his career, the
sixth lowest figure among active major league pitchers with at least 1,500
innings. He was a member of the 1999 N.L. All-Star Team with the
Phillies.
Byrd established career bests for wins
(17), starts (33), innings (228.1), and strikeouts (129) with Kansas City in 2002. Last
season, he was 15-8 with a 4.59 ERA in 31 starts for the A.L. Central Division
champion Indians and led the A.L. with a ratio of 1.31 walks per nine innings.
Byrd was 2-0, 3.60 in his two post-season starts, including a 7-3 victory over
the Red Sox in Game 4 of the ALCS on October 16 in Cleveland. He also won the
fourth and deciding game of the ALDS on October 8 at New
York.
PAUL BYRD—2008 AND MAJOR
LEAGUE CAREER
W-L ERA G GS CG SHO SV IP H
R ER BB SO
2008—CLE 7-10 4.53 22
22 1 0 0 131.1 146 70 66
24 56
ML Career 104-91 4.37 330
242 17 6 0 1614.0 1752 881 783
235 886
July 31, 2008
As my fiancée and I were filling out paperwork to get a marriage license today, just around 3:58 in the afternoon, the front offices in Boston, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh were doing something similar -- shuffling sheets filled with stats and dollar figures and sending them off in flurries of transcontinental faxing.
The Red Sox were ending a marriage. It lasted seven and a half seasons. It sure did have its moments. And looking back on it now, in the immediate aftermath of the divorce, it's almost headspinning how fast it all unravelled.
Sure we'd had a lot of rough patches. They usually came around this time of year. But it wasn't that long ago at all that everything seemed totally hunky dory. This spring, Manny Ramirez was feeling groovy and talkative. Zen-like. He smiled a lot. He seemed mellow and more mature. He hit his 500th homer and we all went nuts. He said he loved us. He said he wanted to stay with us forever. Why not 600?! "I'm going to finish my career here," he said. And the hits kept coming.
But, almost before anyone realized what was happening, it all started to spin out of control. A couple ugly incidents of domestic violence. Angry and inflammatory words. One event after another, following in ever-quickening sucession.
And then, just like that, it was over.
He was awe-inspiring. He was endlessly entertaining. He was damn infuriating. And he will be missed.
But this is how baseball works.
It's still really, really weird to see him Photoshopped into that Dodger-blue uniform.
Joe Torre managing Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Lowe, and Manny Ramirez. Baseball really is a funny game.
July 31, 2008
A big deal for "the man with snakeskin boots"
We'd tell you more, except the entire internet is down right now.
UPDATE Sports Illustrated says Jason Bay goes to Boston. Pittsburgh gets minor leaguers. We sincerely hope one of them is named Andy LaRoche. While we're in speculative mode, we wonder if LA also gets Jack Wilson somehow?
UPDATE 2 It is indeed LaRoche, finally freed from his Colletti-and-Torre-imposed purgatory. Red Sox also send Craig Hansen and Brandon Moss to the Pirates, with one more prospect (presumably from the Dodgers) headed Pittsburgh's way. That's all it took to pry Bay out of there in all this?
This is a good deal for the Red Sox - they get a guy who is closer to Manny offensively than we realize (they're five points of OPS+ apart; remember: it isn't 2005 anymore) and whose defense makes him even better. It would have been nice to get some bullpen help, but one could fairly argue that removing Hansen from the equation is addition by subtraction. Moss is a nice possible fourth outfielder, but it's hard to get too upset about that. Bullpen help is an overvalued commodity at the deadline, particularly when a lot of that help is still available off waivers in August.
This is a great deal for the Dodgers, surprisingly, who didn't give up anyone who fit into their plans - LaRoche is probably the best 3B on their roster but whatever - to get a two month rental of Manny, who replaces the slumping Andruw Jones in their lineup, and will help out in a close division. And Manny, Nomar, and Derek Lowe are reunited at last!
What seems odd is that the Pirates didn't get more than just those guys.
July 31, 2008
2:30 p.m. I'm having a hard time buying this myself, but if it's in the Globe it must be true: when approached for comment about the Manny situation, Curt Schilling had an opinion.
July 31, 2008
It's 1:55 p.m., and, if you believe what you hear, Boston Red Sox principle owner John W. Henry has been e-mailing with superagent Scott Boras. Apparently, the subject of one of the messages was "Fwd: FW: Gasoline cartoons- 'a sign of the times'"
July 31, 2008
It's 1:43 p.m., and at moment it's being reported that Theo Epstein has a deal in place to secure financing for a new midnight blue 2008 Toyota Tundra Double Cab.
July 31, 2008
At 1:27 p.m., several
sources say they've seen, sitting on Commissioner Bud Selig’s desk, a copy of
Tim Kurkjian’s rollicking new memoir, Is
This a Great Game or What?
July 31, 2008
As of 1:16 p.m., reports are in that Manny Ramirez has walked out of the Fenway clubhouse
— and across the street to El Pelón Taqueria for a tasty "El Guapo" burrito.
July 29, 2008
Future Sox/Love Sounds?: Matt Kemp
As is customary in the days leading up to the non-waiver trade deadline, rumors have dominated much of the discussion in the baseball world (well, rumors and the Sheets-Zambrano matchup tonight in Milwaukee which is inexplicably not on national television). And as you may imagine, quite a bit of it is focusing on the Red Sox and their famously mercurial leftfielder, who, as you may have heard, is presently at loggerheads with team management.
Certain things we don't need to tell you - Manny does this every year, the Red Sox know they can't replace him, this time it seems different, blah blah blah. We think Manny is less irreplaceable than he used to be - there is evidence that he's in a decline phase, and while that decline phase will still be better than a lot of the league, it does mean that he can be mostly replaced for less of a pure-dollars cost, which could free up some payroll to shore up other areas of the team. But all that is a discussion for the offseason. We only think he should be moved now if they can also acquire a comparable replacement, and the chances for that are dwindling, particularly now with Mark Teixeira on his way to... well, he's heading to Fenway, but he'll be joining the Los Angeles Angels and not the Red Sox. (And that's a bad thing for the rest of the league.)
All that said, one scenario has piqued our interest. Essentially, there are two NL contenders for whom such a move would make sense: the Mets and Dodgers. And unfortunately for the Mets, they have precious little to offer in return - Fernando Martinez is a great prospect, but he's essentially all the Mets have down there. So we have a situation where need and return match up pretty well in the Dodgers, who, according to reports, are willing to move either Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, or both. If the Red Sox can get either of those guys for the cost of Manny and eating his salary, we'd say go for it. Those guys are young and filled with potential. Their offense may never equal that of Manny Ramirez's, but they can still be damn good. The Red Sox could also then flip a package involving either one of those two or <gasp> Jacoby Ellsbury to Pittsburgh for Jason Bay or (and this is admittedly much less likely) to Colorado for Matt Holliday. A Pedroia-Youkilis-Ortiz-Bay-Drew-Lowell-Kemp-Varitek-Lowrie/Lugo lineup doesn't sound too shabby.
Pipe dreaming, sure. But that's what this week is for.
POST SCRIPT: Incidentally, we're also hoping there's something to this Taylor Teagarden stuff.
July 28, 2008
We'll have much more on this in the days and weeks ahead, but Peter Gammons has bid civility adieu and wrote a full-on attack of Manny Ramirez. We are aware that Gammons in the past has been sometimes used as a secret mouthpiece for the Red Sox - and other teams' - front offices, but there seems to be something different about this one.
Again - much more on this tomorrow.