Short Stops at Shortstop

Shortstop has been a problem position for the Red Sox the way drummer has been a problem position for Spinal Tap. They just can't keep anybody around. Since trading Nomar in 2004, the team has used Pokey Reese, Orlando Cabrera, Edgar Renteria, Alex Cora, Alex Gonzalez, Julio Lugo, Royce Claytopn, Gil Velazquez, Jed Lowrie, Nick Green and Alex Gonzalez again.

Theo has never cheaped out on a shortstop before, signing Edgar Renteria and Julio Lugo to long and lucrative contracts, before having to dump tem because the couldn't play in Boston.

But now, Theo chooses to nickel and dime Alex Gonzalez and a shortstop that could play here, and play here well, is off to Toronto. The option now appears to be Marco Scutaro, who was the Blue Jays shortstop and who will never duplicate his .282/12/60 2009 season. So theguy we want goes to Toronto and the guy they didn't want comes here.

First botched move of the winter.

The next step is the pursuit of Roy Halladay, who has been one of the best pitchers of the last decade, averaging 17 wins and pitching well over 200 innings a year. With an average of six complete games a year, he is a throwback to the time when pitchers went into a game expecting to pitch all nine innings. The Sox philosophy has always been the opposite of that. They make sure that their pitchers don't rthrow too many innings. They even go so far in the minor leagues as taking a pitcher out in the middle fo an inning when he is throwing a shutout because he has reached his pitch count. The Sox minor league pitchers don't have any idea what it is like to pitch into the seventh inning because they never do that. You would think they would look at HAlladay as someone who has thrown too many innings and whose arm is about to fall off. Plus, he'a a free agent after next season and we all know what a sorry record the Sox have in keeping their free agents.

That's why, if the Sox are about to empty the farm sustem in a trade, they should go after Felix Hernandez or Adrian Gonzalez. Hernanzed emerged in Seattle last year as one of the top pitchers in the game at age 23, second in the Cy Young voting. He was 19-5 and is compared to Pedro Martinez. Gonzalez could solidify the middle of the batting orfer. With protection around him like Victor Martinez and Kevin Youkilis, and playing in a smaller park, he should be able to improve on his 37 home run, 122 RBI lifetime averages.

Not to say that Halladay would not be a good pickup. But when you are giving up prospects, you hve to think a bit more long-term, and that is what Hernandez and Gonzalez give you - more in the long term.

And then there is left field. Jason Bay turned down $60 million from the Red Sox to become a free agent, and the whole affair has a real familar feel to it. "Just going out to try the free agent market" means this is being orchestrated by Brian Cashman, who tells free agents to pretend to play the market even though the deal is already made and the pinstriped jersey is waiting for them. And I don't mean the Phillies, Marlins, Twins or Astros pinstriped jersey.

That's OK, maybe Matt Holliday is a better fit here anyway. At least he doesn't strike out as much. Interesting that on baseball-reference.com's similarity scores, Holliday's #2 similar player is Jason Bay and Bay's #8 is Matt Holliday. Bay's #7 similar player is Trot Nixon, which throws some doubt into the whole "similar player" thing because I don't see Bay and Nixon as similar players at all, either statistically or in how they play the game. But Holliday's agent is Scott Boras.

With Cashman and Boras pulling the strings, this whole thing may turn out badly for the Sox, who mat end up with some second rate left fielder. I wonder what Troy O'Leary is up to now.

Free Agent Fiascos

On November 1, 1976, Major League Baseball held its first free-agent draft. That sounds like an oxymoron. How can it be both? Well, the owners were in panic mode after the Curt Flood/Andy Messersmith/Dave McNally/Catfish Hunter decisions combined to shred the reserve clause and it became obvious that free agency was going to be real, and a real problem.

So the owners decided to try to control the process by having a draft. Each team could choose negotiating rights to five free agents, and each free agent could be “drafted” by no more than five teams. So, for example, if Bobby Grich was “drafted” by the Pirates, Twins, Orioles, Cardinals and Royals, he was off the market and could only negotiate with those clubs. Free, but not so free. All the clubs participated except the Dodgers, who basically announced that they were too good and too historically minded to participate in such crass commercialism. Also too cheap.

Anyway, one of the Red Sox draftees was pitcher Bill Campbell of the Twins and, just five days later, the deal was announced. It was a pretty good deal for Boston, as Campbell was 13-9, 2.96 in 1977 with 31 saves. That was the best season of the four he spent here, getting only 20 more saves in the next three seasons.

Since then, the Red Sox have been one of the most active teams on the free agent markets, with some successes (Manny Ramirez for most of the contract) and a lot of misses (Jack Clark and Matt Young, who pitched a no-hitter and lost).

But one thing that has been constant through the years has been the team’s inability to sign its own free agents and keep them in Boston.

This goes back to the 1980-81 offseason, when the Sox failed to offer contracts to Fred Lynn and Rick Burleson, allowing them to sign with the Angels, then sent Carlton Fisk his contract a day later than the deadline. He was declared a free agent and signed with the White Sox.

The list of their own free agents that the Sox have not signed includes Bruce Hurst, who went to the Padres. How times have changed. The Padres once could sign free agents. Then there was Wade Boggs, who left to go to the Yankees, Roger Clemens (in the twilight of his career), Mo Vaughn, Tom Gordon, Derek Lowe, Pedro Martinez, Johnny Damon (there are those Yankees again).

Which brings us to today, as we watch Jason Bay hit the free agency with what appears to be predictable results. The Sox negotiated with Bay all season and could not come to an agreement. Last week, Bay rejected a $60 million, four-year offer. If that deal was on the table in June, I’d bet it would have been accepted. But, at that time the Sox were only offering a three-year deal.

So now Bay is out there looking at offers. His agent says that there has been a lot of activity. Possibly, but how many teams can pony up $15 mil a year? Maybe Bay doesn’t want to stay here. For that matter, maybe the Sox don’t want him back and would prefer Matt Holliday, who is more of a pure cleanup hitter and struck out 40 fewer times than Bay. But Holliday is a Scott Boras client, which complicates any negotiation.

However it works out, there are some holes to fill on this team, including the long-standing black hole at shortstop. It would be nice to get the left field situation straightened out.

Separating Rumor from More Rumor

It’s that time of year when the rumors are flying faster than birds heading south for the winter. And if you believe all of them, you probably believe all the crap that spews from Scott Boras’s mouth.

Everything the guy says is designed to make you believe that some third-string catcher is equal to Carlton Fisk. This time, his naked hyperbolethon is trying to build Johnny Damon into something he isn’t, maybe hoping the Red Sox will sign him again. Boras made the statement that it’s because of Johnny Damon that Derek Jeter had a career year. JD was so good that teams had to pitch to DJ because they so feared JD.

OK, Damon had a good year, but maybe it was because he was hitting behind Jeter. So maybe Damon won’t get the “same as Jeter” contract that Boras wants. But somebody will bite on Damon. There’s always someone who will buy the Boras lines and overpay for folks like Boras clients JD Drew and Dice-K. Let’s just hope that someone doesn’t do it again and bring back Damon to play left field.

I’ve got to admit I don’t know that much about Matt Holliday. He’s been a National Leaguer his whole career and the only extended view we had of him was in the ’07 World Series when he was 5 for 17 and got picked off first at a crucial point in the fourth game. But his 162-game average of .318/29/112 compares to .280/33/107 for Jason Bay. Holliday strikes out less (115 vs. 157) and is two years younger. Up until now, I thought that the best option was getting Bay back, but now I think Holliday might be the better option. Except that he’s a Boras client. Which means that there will be a lot of public negotiations with the Sox and Holliday will end up with the Yankees, who will swoop in at the last minute. Meanwhile Bay goes to Seattle and we end up with Johnny Damon.

Just the kind of ploy that works out great for Boras. His buddy Brian Cashman ends up with Holliday. He’s stripped the Red Sox of Bay. He’s hoodwinked Theo again. And Damon ends up overpaid based on a one-year resurgence, after which he will become old and injury-prone again.

And then there is Adrian Gonzalez, who is two years younger than Holliday. His 162-game average is .281/32/98, which makes him the statistical equivalent of Bay. But those numbers are in a huge ballpark in San Diego. If the Sox can trade for Gonzalez and sign either Bay or Holliday, that will provide some punch that was missing from the middle of the lineup last year.

But at this point it’s all rumor.

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.