Early Thoughts on Red Sox' Spring Training
It's going to be awful tough to accurately read this Red Sox team this year. They might have the best rotation in baseball, or they might have an overpriced, over-the-hill rotation that could collapse at any moment. I don't know about any of you guys, but I've got a real hard time putting complete faith in a rotation that consists of some five man combination of the following:
- A 40-year old starter carping about his upcoming contract situation...
- A 26-year old starter in his second year in the AL East, after a year when he had 16 wins, but a 5+ ERA...
- A 26-year old starter in his first season in this country, jumping to the most pressure filled city, in the toughest division in the Major Leagues...
- A 26-year old starter moving from closer to the rotation in order to help his sore pitching shoulder (yipes!)...
- A 40-year old starter who relies on the most uncontrollable pitch in baseball...
- A 32-year old starter that has been a complete bust so far, and is recovering from shoulder surgery after the orthopedic surgeon said his shoulder "looked like a bomb exploded" after doing an arthroscopy...
- And a 23-year old starter recovering from cancer.
Sorry - nothing about the above situation instills the utmost confidence in me, and I am almost always on the sunny side of the Red Sox situation.
Now, I know this may surprise some of you, but this year, Manny Ramirez & Curt Schilling have been generating the most (US) headlines. It certainly came as a surprise to me that the most enigmatic MLB superstar (Manny) and the most, um, media-friendly pitcher of his generation would be the ones getting the most press, or at least the most press in this country, but somehow they managed to do it.
Of course, the new star in town, Daisuke Matsuzaka, has been generating about five times as many headlines back in his native Japan. When the guy sneezes, the front page of the Japan Times reports the snot's size, color, texture and which garbage bin it got tossed into (hopefully, there's no information on the taste...). Matsuzaka will be under a microscope for the next five years, and never more than in the next three to six months. His transition to the big league in the US will be front page news in most newspapers in Japan, and probably a few major papers and webpages back in this country.
The other big pitching storyline coming out of the beginning of Spring Training is the most obvious question surrounding the team - who's closing games? Jonathon Papelbon was a revelation at the end of games, and an unbelievable weapon for Terry Francona to have at his disposal. Papelbon's presence basically shortened every game where the Red Sox had a lead to a seven or eight inning affair - opposing teams just weren't going to score on him.
But now, Papelbon's back in the rotation because his shoulder couldn't handle the strain of pitching every day or two, or at least being asked to warm up in the bullpen. Ironic - last year, 2/3 of the yahoo Red Sox fans on the radio were clamoring for the team to take Papelbon out of the bullpen to provide rotation help, but now that he's being turned back into a starter, those same fans are screaming that he needs to be the closer. This is why it's tough to be a Major League GM - you can never win.
The most obvious choice to take over the closers' role (for now) is either Mike Timlin or Craig Hansen, both of whom have closing experience, both of whom have the stuff to close out games. Problem is, Timlin almost has a mental block about coming in to a game with runners on base, and Hansen hasn't proven that he can handle big time situations since coming to the Major Leagues. That leaves a pu-pu platter of possible closers or, ugh, closers by committee. Suddenly, those yahoo fans are starting to make some sense.
On the offensive side, the two biggest questions involve both corner outfielders - can J.D. Drew hack it in Boston (and earn his ridiculous 5 yr/$70M contract), and how long will Manny last before shooting his way out of town?
There was a report about a week ago that the Red Sox might actually consider picking up one or both or Manny's $20M options for '09 and '10, considering the price of high-production outfielders this off-season (Vernon Wells - 7yr/$126M, Alfonso Soriano - 8yr/$136M, Carlos Lee 6yr/$100M... and we won't even talk about Drew, Gary Matthews or Juan Pierre). Financially, picking up the options makes perfect sense. Manny is still a better hitter than any of the six guys just listed, and only Wells could truly be called a better all around player. So two more years of Manny, guaranteed, at $20M per season suddenly seems like a reasonable number. The question then becomes - where will he be playing for those two seasons?
I like Manny. I'm OK with most of his antics (see my two posts on the situation: Post 1, Post 2) although his blatant quitting on the team last season was completely inexcusable. But even I am starting to think that he's finally worn out his welcome in Boston. He clearly doesn't want to be here (although he did grace the team with his presence this morning, three days ahead of his personal scheduled arrival date of March 1st). So why not move him? His contract numbers are at least palatable, if not wonderful. He's a Hall-of-Fame hitter who just needs to play somewhere less crushing. There's a lot of rumblings about a Manny for Todd Helton swap with the Rockies, but that's been tossed around for the past three seasons, with nothing coming out of it yet.
Given the choice, I'd like to see Manny end his career in Boston. Obviously. But I just don't see it happening. He wants out, the management seems to be done with him, and even the fans have finally shifted to a majority on the "ship him" side of the fence. It's time.
As for J.D. Drew... There is nothing I can say here. You will never convince me that he is worth $14 Million a season (by contrast... David Ortiz makes $12.5M this season. Curt Schilling makes $13M). The Red Sox were, by all accounts, bidding against themselves for Drew. His opt-out from the 3yr/$33M remaining on his Dodgers contract shocked the entire baseball world, mostly because everyone thought he was already overpaid. Then the Red Sox went out and gave him $70 Million. Amazing.
So that's the early breakdown of the Red Sox, at least from me. I'll be back with the full team-by-team breakdown sooner or later, and will probably be back next week with some NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament breakdowns.
Lata.
Labels: 2007, Baseball, Manny, Red Sox, Spring Training
posted by Big D @ 10:20 AM
2 Comments:
Geez, I forgot about Clement. Too bad Letterman (the Gene Wilder character from the Electric Company) couldn't rip the S off his varsity sweater, and turn him into Clemens.
On the bright side, are you anticipating every single thing that could go wrong, to go wrong? If 80% of it goes wrong, they're an 80 win team. If only 20% of it goes wrong, they're a 95-win team.
It took last month's Globe article on Lugo for me to find out he actually DIDN'T beat his wife a couple of years ago. I was freaking out over that signing for a while.
AL East the toughest division in baseball? Surely you can't believe it will be tougher than the AL Central, a division with 4 teams that could make the playoffs. I count 3 in the east.
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