Lighting the Hot Stove

Quote form Curt Schilling on WEEI:

"Oh, let's all cheer up because A-Rod's come full circle now. He's got his ring, he's complete, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Listen, they’re used to it, and they have to accept the fact that no one outside New York is even remotely happy today. OK, the Yankees won. Move on. When does spring training start? When do we sign free agents?”

Couldn’t agree more, so let’s turn the page and move on.

Lets start the off-season with Jeremy Hermedia. Back in August, I did a column on “average players.” According to Baseball-reference.com, the major league average batting average is .263, the average number of home runs a hit by a player is 16, and the average RBIs is 68. I found that the most average player in baseball was JD Drew’s brother Stephen, the Arizona shortstop. Through the 2009 season, his 162-game averages are .270/16/70. Well, that’s close, but our new outfielder, Hermedia, is closer at .265/18/66. Congratulations, Theo, you have traded for not just an average player, but THE average player. If he’s going to be a fourth outfielder, probably a good pickup, especially since we gave up nothing to get him. But if Jason Bay heads for the Yankees or wherever (and every indication so far is that the Sox don’t want to give him what he wants), Hermedia doesn’t cut it as a regular left fielder.

Too bad they didn’t wait a couple of days on Hermedia. Coco Crisp was released by the Royals!

So, what is the initial 2010 outlook? The Sox have a good base to start with, mainly players from the farm system. Youk, Pedroia and Ellsbury are into the prime of their careers and have shown what they can do. Ellsbury and Pedroia give the Sox a good start to the lineup and an ability to get on base. Youkilis is miscast as a cleanup hitter because he does not hit for genuine power, and probably never will be much more than a high-20s home run hitter. He is, however, a classic number 3 hitter. But so is Victor Martinez. They don’t have a true cleanup hitter. There aren’t many of those out there, and the farm system hasn’t produced a power hitter since Mo Vaughn, so they may have to consider trading for Adrian Gonzalez. Even if Bay comes back, they don’t seem to consider him a cleanup hitter despite leading the team in home runs and RBIs, and Matt Holliday is not one either.

The other issue is the older players playing like older players. While the Yankees older players all had not just good seasons, but career seasons (I wonder what’s in the water in the new stadium…HGH perhaps?), the Sox older players just got older. Lowell and Ortiz each have one more year left on their contracts and Varitek will likely exercise his $3 million option. Basically the team’s hands are tied. This might be a season like the Yankees had in 2008, where you have to take a year to blow out the roster and reload.

On the pitching side, things look better. With Beckett, Lester and Buccholz, the top of the rotation is OK. Wakefield falls into the Lowell/Ortiz/Varitek category. They could use a fifth starter and I’m not sure Michael Bowden is it. Hopefully, they will go out and get a pitcher without arm problems or issues. Erik Bedard, Jon Garland and Brett Myers are free agents, as is Randy Wolf if the club wants to go for a Type-A free agent (draft choice compensation required).

In the bullpen, it may be time to part with Manny Delcarmen. It’s nice to have a hometown player on the team, but his apparent inability to pitch in clutch situations is disturbing. Maybe going away from home will help. Bard looks ready to be the 8^th inning guy, and maybe the closer if they decide to put together a blockbuster trade for someone like Felix Hernandez and move Papelbon. One more arm would be helpful, perhaps someone like Kelvim Escobar, who is only 33, although it seems like he’s been around a lot longer.

The GM meetings are coming up this week, so next season is about to start. It’s going to be an interesting three months until it’s time to load up the truck.

Notes from the Evil Empire

I asked a friend who is a lifelong Yankee fan for his take on the Series going into game 3. Here it is:

A-Roid and CC seem to have reverted to their past postseason selves. Strangely, NY is an 8-5 favorite to win it all, even with 3 of the remaining games in Philadelphia. Yanks are a slight favorite tonight, which I assume is based on Hamels' lackluster record in 2009. Still, I think he will be tough tonight, especially on the lefties like Damon, Matsui and Cano. The pitchers get to bat tonight, which could be in Philly's favor.

Even though the Game 3 winner of a 1-1 series goes on to win the title most of the time, that may not be the case in 2009. This has the makings of a long series, which we have not seen since 2002 (7 games) and 2003 (6).

I don't agree with those who think Pedro Martinez should have been yanked after six innings, even though he had made a lot of pitches. They removed him in the earlier series after he pitched a two-hit masterpiece, and ended up losing the game. I'm an old-school guy who thinks starters should go as long as possible, even a full nine innings, especially when the DH is in play.

Evidently, Sabathia has demanded to pitch Game 4, which he might get to do if NY loses Saturday. Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it! I suppose he's a better alternative than anyone else. If it goes the distance, we should see CC vs Hamels in Game 7 on Thursday, unless of course it's snowed out or pre-empted by an American Idol reunion show!

The Series Moves to Philly

Can you believe it’s four weeks since the regular season ended and we’re still playing baseball? I think pitchers and catchers report next week. If it goes much longer, Santa Claus will be out and the Philly fans can boo him again.

The amazing thing about the first two World Series games is the starting pitching on both sides, which has been pretty much lights out except for giving up home runs, and not too many of those. Pedro got the loss in game two because his bullpen failed him, and he was also left in too long. Should have come out after six. Charlie Manuel, meet Grady Little.

At this point I think New York has the advantage, even with the next three games in Philadelphia, because of their pitching. I give Pettite the advantage tonight with his experience and Hamels having a so-so season, going 10-11 for a team that won 93 games. And then in game four, the Phillies go to their number four starter, Joe Blanton, against Sabathia on short rest. Remember that CC went on threedays’ rest for the entire second half of 2008 at Milwaukee, as the Brewers were intent on running him into the ground, knowing that he would be gone to the Yankees after the season. Then he reached the playoffs and didn’t make it out of the fourth inning against this Phillies team. And although he pitched well in game one, he did look tired once the middle innings rolled around. All of which is to say that it’s not a lock for New York with that pitching matchup, but for all their money, the Yankees do not have a fourth starter.

For years, bad teams in all sports have tried to turn themselves around by hiring successful assistants from winning teams who will, no doubt, replicate the success of the boss. More often than not, it doesn’t work. The Patriots did it several times in the 1960s and 1970s resulting in such disasters as Clive Rush, who was a Tom Landry assistant at Dallas. The Bruins tried it a couple of years ago, with disastrous results, bringing in Dave Lewis, a former Scotty Bowman assistant at Detroit. Several Bill Belichick (a Bill Parcells protégé) assistants have gone elsewhere with mixed results. Charlie Weis seems to have found his footing after several so-so years at Notre Dame and Josh McDaniels is certainly an early success at Denver. On the other hand, going to Cleveland is the kiss of death. Romeo Crennel was so successful there that he’s now a pitchman for beer, and Eric Mangini, fired at the J-E-T-S, is now struggling with the Browns.

Well, the assistant-plucking has hit the Red Sox hard this off-season. Theo’s top assistant, Jed Hoyer, is now the GM at San Diego. Let’s see how he does with the second-lowest payroll in baseball.

In Houston, where the ballpark has a locomotive in it, the train wreck that is the Astros hired Brad Mills, Tito’s bench coach, to be the new manager, replacing former Sox first baseman Cecil Cooper. The Astros were in the World Series only four years ago, but that team is history, its best players gone to retirement and the Dodgers. It could be a long, slow climb for Mills.

Speaking of the Dodgers and train wrecks, when the Sox were for sale, how many of us were hoping that Frank McCourt would buy the team and build a new ballpark on one of his parking lots in Southie? Well, let’s be glad he didn’t. With his marriage breaking up very publicly and very badly, the Dodgers are going to suffer and may end up being sold. The reason the Padres hit the skids was the owner’s divorce. One of baseball’s crown-jewel franchises in Los Angeles deserves better than that.