10 Baseball Postseason Thoughts for 10/14/08

I'm not sure I have anything to say about last night's scripted television, but I probably have some thoughts on the baseball I've been watching for seemingly 12 hours a night all month.

Ten of them, in fact... Cuz it's a round number.

1) Some folks in Red Sox Nation are getting antsy about going down 2-1 to the Devil Rays. I say, "Bring it on!" If a very superficial gloss of recent history has taught me anything, it's that the Red Sox are incapable of *making* the World Series, much less winning it, without making a miraculous comeback from 3-games-to-1 down. The last time the Red Sox even made the World Series without overcoming a 3-1 deficit was, of course, 1975. And the last time they *won* a World Series without doing it was 1918. You may have heard about that one. In 1986, the Sox came from 3-1 down against the Angels. In 2004, of course, they came back from 3-0 down (and therefore also 3-1 down) against the Yankees. And last year the Sox won the World Series after digging out of a 3-1 hole against the Indians. So it's all part of the plan, Nation!

The rest of my thoughts after the bump...

Click through...

Tweet

Man oh Manny that's a Trade

[Last year at the trading deadline, I made it clear to anybody who would listen that the Red Sox had no use at all for Eric Gagne, but that the trade might not be a disaster because at least it kept Gagne away from the Yankees. That didn't exactly end up being the case. Really, putting Gagne on the Yankees would have been awesome for the Red Sox, but it wouldn't have made a difference because, heck, the Sox won the World Series. So today, at the trading deadline, the Red Sox traded Manny Ramirez and, well, I just wanna rant... As always, if you don't like the baseball postings, just skip by and there'll be something movie related in a day or two...]

What's the value for the best pure hitter of his generation and the best clutch hitter of the past 40 years?

Follow through after the bump for the answer...

Click through...

Turns out the answer to that question is: Manny Ramirez = Jason Bay - (Craig Hansen + Brandon Moss + $7 million)

The math of Thursday's (July 31) Red Sox fire sale just baffles me a little. Manny Ramirez's value appears to be so much less than a guy with a lower batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage that the Red Sox had to throw in two major league caliber players to sweeten the deal. Now, to be fair, Brandon Moss and Craig Hansen aren't *good* major league players, but they're on the 40-man roster and Hansen was, at one time, supposed to be the closer of the future for the Red Sox. But meanwhile, because Manny's value was apparently so low, not only did they have to throw two major league players into the pot, but they then had to add $7 million, or the value of Manny's remaining salary for the season.

And it's not like the Sox gave the $7 million to a small market team trying to make ends meet. No, they gave the money to the Dodgers, a team in baseball's second largest market, a franchise that's already apparently flush enough that they're going to pay the fat, bloated corpse of Andruw Jones $18 million to sit on the bench for the next two years. But now they're picking up $7 million from the Sox, just for fun. Gravy, as it were.

So after Thursday's trades, what can we say?

Well, the Dodgers obviously got better. They gave up a minor league pitcher and a third base prospect (already behind Casey Blake and Blake DeWitt on the depth chart) in exchange for the aforementioned best hitter of his generation. They didn't have to give up Matt Kemp or Andre Ethier or Jon Broxton and Chad Billingsley, any of whom could have been considered an acceptable price to pay to get back in the postseason picture and to regain some of the local spotlight from the California Angels. Should Manny help put the Dodgers into the postseason, and given the weakness of the NL West it sure seems plausible, the Dodgers will be able to reap the benefits of a player with 353 lifetime postseason at-bats, 24 postseason home runs and one World Series MVP award. In addition, if Manny leaves as a free agent in the off-season, that's two additional first round draft picks for the Dodgers. Plus, he's FREE, because the Sox are paying.

And the Pirates? Well, they're already a last-place team, but only barely, so they can't get any worse. They gave up a player they wanted to jettison anyway, making room for minor league outfield prospects who come with a lower price tag. Hansen and Moss can probably play right away and maybe Hansen's just gonna need a change of environment. And in Andy LaRoche, not only do they get a solid young third base prospect, but they unite the guy with brother Adam. VIVA LAROCHES! So they aren't a better team, but they aren't worse.

That leaves the Red Sox.

The deal makes sense to me in only one circumstance. If Tito Francona walked into Theo Epstein's office last night after the Angels finished sweeping the Sox and said, "This isn't worth it. I can't do this anymore and the team frankly agrees with me. We can't play with Manny for another day." If the manager demanded the trade, then it had to get made. If Francona decided, "I managed to hold this guy together long enough to get two World Series rings,but that's all I've got," then it was the right move. But it's hard to imagine it making the Red Sox better.

Bay's gonna have to learn to play the Green Monster, something Manny did very well despite his other defensive liabilities. He's also going to have to discover how to handle the Boston crowds and the Boston media, because heaven help him if his Red Sox career launches with a couple 0-5 games. Then, if the Red Sox managed to bounce back from their currently malaise, Bay's gonna have to show that he's been repressing an inner clutch hitter for all of those years he was shrouded in Pittsburgh. Jason Bay is a good baseball player. Don't get me wrong. But in his entirely big league career, he's never played a single INNING that meant anything, that had any pressure or urgency other than basic personal statistics. If it turns out that Jason Bay has The Eye of the Tiger, then Theo Epstein's gonna look like a genius. If Jason Bay runs hard, gets his uniform dirty and makes use of Fenway's peculiar dimensions, the Sox fans will love him. Golly, they've even learned how to love J.D. Drew this season.

But he's going to have to make up for the intangible threat that Ramirez provided just by standing in the on-deck circle. He's going to have to make up for the swagger Ramirez brought to the team. He's going to have to prove that last year's .418 slugging percentage was a fluke. And he's going to have to make up for the fact that an already scattershot bullpen has just become thinner. I'm not sure how he'll pull off that last one.

Meanwhile here's the key thing I want to say: I'm not blaming Manny here. Not at all. Over the years, I mocked Manny over and over again for his defense, for failing to run out ground balls, for failing to even trot on home runs. But for a decade, the Red Sox enabled the guy and joked about Manny being Manny. His behavior was never censored or restricted and, probably as a direct result, he got two World Series titles for Boston, something unthinkable five years ago. If the Red Sox finally get sick of the behavior, well, they were the enablers in the first place. Whenever Manny returns to Boston, I hope he's treated with respect in perpetuity, rather than earning the "Cheer the first time up, then boos forever" treatment that Johnny Damon has received (and richly deserved). Unless Manny signs with the Yankees in the off-season, in which case...

But still... Thanks for the memories, Manny!

It will just be interesting to see if Manny is as toxic as the Red Sox seem to have believed him to be. Looking over the roster in the last week, Epstein was obviously able to skip over the flailing bullpen, to ignored that the franchise's beloved and iconic catcher/captain is swinging the bat like a pitcher. He looked at the lackluster play and said, "If we get rid of Manny, everything will improve." The hitting, the starting pitching, the defense? All related to Manny's open signs of apathy or even antipathy. If

Epstein's correct, that's some brilliant maneuvering. As it stands now? I'm on the record as being unconvinced.

But I'd be happy to owe Jason Bay a big ol' apology in three months.

Tweet

Is Curt Schilling a Hall of Famer?

Readers of this blog know that I'm a Red Sox homer. And people who have been to baseball games with me in recent years know that I'm prone to wearing my official MLB Curt Schilling jersey. Just for fun. And the most exciting game I've ever been to was Curt Schilling's near-no-hitter last June.

I mean, I love Curt Schilling despite the fact that I often really really really wish he'd, um, shut up.

So today, with Schilling discussing his pending surgery and potential retirement with just about anybody who would listen -- If you wanna do an interview, Curt, I'm game -- I took pause.

If Schilling never throws another pitch, he retires with 216 wins, 3116 Ks and a lifetime 3.46 ERA. More than that, he retires as The Guy With The Bloody Sock, a postseason warrior who will never need to buy another drink in New England as long as he lives. He's got three World Series rings. He'll go out with a reputation as a Big Game Stud.

But does he belong in the Hall of Fame?

Follow through after the bump for some rambling. And if you don't care, a movie-related post'll probably be up tonight or tomorrow...

Click through...

I started watching baseball in the early-to-mid-80s and when I think of the Big Game pitchers of my youth, the hurlers whose baseball cards I stockpiled, none of them are in the Hall.

I think of Dave Stewart (168-129, 3.95 ERA), of Bret Saberhagen (167-117, 3:34 ERA), of Orel Hershiser (204-150, 3.48 ERA) of David Cone (194-126, 3.46 ERA). None of those guys are going to the Hall. Want me to try a ridiculous comparison as I think back to the big-time pitchers of my youth? Try Dave Stieb, with his 176 wins and only 137 losses despite playing the first half of his career on some of the worst teams in baseball history. Stieb's lifetime ERA? 3.44. He was a seven-time All-Star (Toronto was short on options in those early years) and was in the Cy Young Top 10 four times, same as Schilling. And nobody in their right mind took Dave Stieb seriously as a Hall of Famer. But growing up? He was a favorite of mine.

The guy I really think of most, though, is Jack Morris. I've argued Morris' case before and, in this context, I'll do it again. A record of 254-186 and a difficult-to-question status as the best pitcher of the '80s, which I acknowledge is an arbitrary distinction. His ERA of 3.90 was high and his strikeouts (2478) were low. He was in the Top 5 in Cy Young voting five times, which is one more than Schilling.

In the postseason, he'll always have the 10-inning CG-SHO Game 7 win from 1991. That's about as defining a single performance as you could possible get. But he also won a world series in 1984 with the Tigers and another in 1992 with the Blue Jays. Granted that he had NOTHING to do with that 1992 title, as he lost three games in that postseason, but he won two games in each of his prior World Series and threw three complete games. He was a horse. He was THE horse.

Want another comparison who seems valid to me and isn't in the Hall? How about a Mickey Lolich, whose stat line reads 217-191, 2832 Ks, 3.44 ERA, 195 CG, 41 SHO. Remarkably similar to Schilling's on several levels. And Lolich had his best individual seasons after the pitching mound was lowered post-1968. When he retired, no lefty in baseball history had more Ks.

But if we let the bloody sock and the co-Series MVP make Schilling a Hall of Famer, surely Lolich's 1968 World Series should carried equal weight? He won three games, completing all of them. And facing off against the greatest single-season pitcher the game has ever seen, he beat Bob Gibson in Game 7. Lolich was in the Hall discussion, but he never REALLY threatened induction.

Baseball Reference's most similar pitchers to Schilling? Kevin Brown, Bob Welch, Hershiser and Mike Mussina. Obviously "similarity" doesn't take intangibles into account, but still...

But who, from the current generation of starting pitchers, is going to make the Hall of Fame?

The Three Braves are locks. Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz should retire after this season and they should all go into Cooperstown together, albeit with the tacit acknowledgment that if Smoltz hadn't done the closer thing for three-and-a-half seasons, he wouldn't have saved his arm for those last three seasons as a starter and his Hall status would be cloudier. And perhaps there should be some tacit acknowledgement that the Braves REALLY ought to have won more than one World Series with a starting rotation led by three first-ballot Hall of Fame pitchers.

Who else?

Randy Johnson's easy. Pedro Martinez is easy, though his window-of-dominance was nearly Koufax-esque in its brevity.

Since I've been outspoken in my support of the Hall of Fame candidacies of Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds, I can't be a hypocrite on Roger Clemens. He'd get my vote.

But who else?

Mussina? That 260-148 record is utterly insane, but the lack of World Series titles and 20-win seasons is pretty crazy, too. Mussina has been a very good pitcher for 15 years. But do you realize that he hasn't had an ERA under 3.00 for a season since his first full season in the bigs? If he sticks around for two or three years, he'll probably get near-ish to 300 wins and he'll probably pass 3000 Ks. But was Mike Mussina a better pitcher than Tommy John? Or Bert Blyleven? Or Jim Kaat? Just asking... Was he a better pitcher than Schilling?

Things are going to get even worse after that. Look at the great pitchers in their low 30s... Tim Hudson's hit a wall. Roy Oswalt may have hit a wall. Roy Halladay's a horse, but he gets hurt every year. There's a very plausible reality that the career statistical measures for pitchers are going to have to be dramatically realigned after Mussina retires. Johan Santana has been the best starting pitcher in baseball for six years, but he finds himself at 29 with only 100 career wins.

My point? If you look back by the standards of baseball history, Schilling really is *not* a Hall of Famer. Or other people need to get in first for me to be satisfied. But looking forward, if Schilling isn't the standard by which you judge a Hall of Fame pitcher, pitchers may never be inducted ever again.

Tweet

Baseball Moaning: Gagne, Thome, etc

I don't do this very often, but I have a little baseball-based ranting I need to do.

If you prefer my TV coverage...

Here's an article on Jeff Probst and "Survivor: China" for Zap2it!

Here's my recap of last night's "Kid Nation," which isn't necessarily good, but certainly isn't evil!

And one of these days I'm going to do a MovieWatch on "Eastern Promises" (I'm having a hard time cracking how much it does or doesn't matter to me that the ending doesn't work) and perhaps a couple words on "Juno" and "American Gangster," which I also caught earlier this week.

But follow through after the bump for a rant about Eric Gagne, a meditation on Jim Thome and whatever else I feel like adding.

Click through...

No Pain, No Gagne -- Might Eric Gagne single-handedly kill my eager anticipation for the July 31 trading deadline? Heck, might Eric Gagne single-handedly kill the July 31 trading deadling for all of baseball? If so, that would be a very sad thing. It used to be that I -- like so many baseball fans -- would look at the gaps on my favorite team (the Red Sox for those who somehow don't know me) and try concocting imaginary deadline deals of my own. Last summer, with the Sox on the verge of what would become a disappointing third-place season, I even won a buck from Sepinwall for asking Sox part-owner Tom Werner about possible deadline deals during a TCA press tour session (under normal circumstances, my journalistic qualms would prevent such a thing, but Werner's two shows last fall with "Twenty Good Years" and "Happy Hour" and I refuse to feel bad about straying off topic).

This was the first year that I told anybody who'd listen that I didn't want the Red Sox to make a trade. They had the best record in baseball and no player on the market seemed capable of improving the Sox at any particular position. When the Sox ended up getting formerly top-drawer closer Gagne (a favorite from his healthier [chemically suspect] days on the Dodgers), I was concerned. In the winter, I'd have signed him to an incentive-laden deal, what with Papelbon planning to start, but in late July, he served no purpose. The conclusion I came to, with some expert help, was that the Red Sox won by keeping Gagne away from the Yankees, the team with the seemingly more suspect bullpen. Addition by subtraction from another team. Who knew that the Yankees would actually win the trade with addition via subtraction from the Red Sox?

The stats for Gagne are remarkable. Three blown saves, 14 runs in 14 innings. He has been directly responsible for losses on four days when the Yankees also won (though, amazingly, he hasn't blown any games against the Yankees), meaning that he's single-handedly cost the Sox four games of a lead that once felt insurmountable. And he's actually been worse than the statistics show. Look at the appearances in which he hasn't given up runs and you'll see that he was great in games the Red Sox were either already losing or games in which they eventually won by scores like 11-1 or 10-1.

The Red Sox are no stranger to less-than-profitable deadline deals involving middle relievers. But as much as Sox fans lament the eventual absence of Jeff Bagwell, Larry Anderson was good for 15 games, 22 innings and an ERA of under 1.25. If Eric Gagne had provided those sorts of numbers the Red Sox would have clinched the division already. I can't help but feel that Gagne's ineptitude has directly put more pressure on Hideki Okajima, who has been shut down with a "tired arm," and on Papelbon, who suddenly looks mortal again. I think his presence has put extra stress on the starters and probably disheartened the hitters. If somebody can come up with a midseason acquisition who has had a more directly negative impact on his team in the history of the game, please share.

As God is my witness, I'll never root for a midseason trade again.

Thome or Not Thome -- Is Jim Thome a Hall of Famer? The dude hit his 500th home run last week against the Angels in darned dramatic walk-off fashion and now everybody's debating whether or not the slugger belongs in Cooperstown. The simple answer is that anybody with 500 home runs belongs in the Hall of Fame and that's that, which will cause additional complications when Carlos Delgado gets to 500 home runs in a couple years. Is Carlos Delgado also a Hall of Famer then? Carlos Delgado has made two All-Star teams in his career. Jim Thome has made five, which isn't all that many in an age where the same people go back to the All-Star games over and over and over again. 500 home runs sure seems like a lot, but this is for a guy who hit 52 home runs and drove in 118 runs in a season and finished *seventh* in the MVP voting. Why did Jim Thome magically become a Hall-of-Famer this week with his 500th home run and yet Fred McGriff won't make it to Cooperstown, despite a far cooler nickname, just because he came up a half-dozen home runs short. Jeff Bagwell is 51 home runs short of 500, but he's far more obviously a Hall of Famer in my book. Then again, Jack Morris and Bert Blyleven belong in as well. Speaking of Thome, did you know that he's No. 3 all-time in strikeouts for a batter? That's impressive to me. Yup. He passed Andres Galarraga earlier this year. Sometimes I like looking at some of the odder leader boards, and it amuses me to see that Reggie Sanders stands at No. 21 all-time in strikeouts.

An Even Odder Career Leader Board -- I remember when Hoyt Wilhelm made the Hall of Fame that one of his claims to fame was that he was the all-time career leader in games played. At the time, that was awfully impressive. He currently stands at No. 5, behind the esteemed Dennis Eckersley, the perfectly respectable John Franco, the ageless Jesse Orosco (your all-time leader, with 1252, 182 more than Wilhelm, though you don't hear anybody saying Orosco belongs in Cooperstown) and, at No. 2 all-time, Mike Stanton. The immortal Mike Stanton. Granted that your Top 15 includes Lee Smith, Kent Tekulve (my favorite baseball card player ever) Rich Gossage and Rollie Fingers, but it also features Dan Plesac, Jose Mesa, Roberto Hernandez and Mike Timlin. There's totally nothing suspect about all of these pitchers throwing well into their 40s. Actually, as I think about it, it's less the fault of steroids and more the fault of Tony Larussa.

OK. Baseball blogging is out of my system.

Tweet

Wednesday's Red Sox Lineup

I usually opt not to discuss sports in this blog, for whatever reason, but since I've been ranting and raving about it all afternoon, I figure why not rant and rave in blog form...

The gist:

Today's (08/30/06) starting lineup for my beloved Boston Red Sox may well be the worst batting lineup in the history of the franchise.

It went a little something like this:

Kevin Youkilis LF
Alex Cora SS
Mark Loretta DH
Mike Lowell 3B
Gabe Kapler CF
Doug Mirabelli C
Eric Hinske RF 3
Dustin Pedroia 2B
Carlos Pena 1B

Not surprisingly, the Sox lost 7-2, though those two runs (and 10 mysterious hits -- one for every person in the lineup not named Alex Cora) are slightly miraculous. In addition, despite oodles of defensive inexperience, the Sox didn't make a single error today. Odd.

Interesting things about the Sox lineup today:

1)Only three of the players have been regular starters this season -- Youkilis, Lowell and Loretta. Of those three players, only Lowell was playing in his natural position. The batters who didn't/couldn't play for the Sox today include David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Coco Crisp, Jason Varitek, Wily Mo Pena, Trot Nixon and Alex Gonzalez. That's insane.

2)Loretta, an all-star at second, was the designated hitter, which is a bit odd for a second baseman with four home runs for the season. It makes sense, though, when you know that Loretta DHed so that rookie Dustin Pedroia and his .138 batting average could be in the lineup.

3)Mirabelli, the catcher, is a .189 hitter. Of course, the Sox only have Mirabelli because he can catch Tim Wakefield's knuckleball. That's valuable. Unfortunately, Wakefield has been on the disabled list for a long time and, thus, Mirabelli and his .189 average are playing regularly, because the alternative is Javy Lopez, who has no knees. To Mirabelli's credit, he only allowed one stolen base today. Not to his credit? He allowed the opposing team's catcher to steal the base.

4)Best of all: The Sox had two Jewish players -- Youkilis and Kapler -- in the same outfield today. That doesn't happen very often. I'm too lazy to see if Youkilis and Kapler have been in the outfield together at any point this season. I'd still be curious to know when the last time it happened previously.

4a)This has absolutely nothing to do with their respective degrees of Jewishness, but is a Youkilis-Kapler-Hinske outfield the lead coordinated outfield imaginable? Yes. It may be.

This is why the Sox are going to need a miracle to stay ahead of the Blue Jays for third place in the AL East.

It makes me sad. ays for third place in the AL East.

It makes me sad.

And do you want to know the worst part? I still found this freak show more interesting to write about than last night's premiere of "Celebrity Duets."

Tweet