Red Sox Reality Check

Historically, the Red Sox have not rushed prospects to the bigs. Sure, there was Carl Yastrzemski at 21 in 1961, Tony Conigliaro at age 19 in 1964, Ken Brett at age 18 in 1967. Jim Rice (21) and Fred Lynn (22) made their appearances in 1974, and were rookie stalwarts on the 1975 World Series team. Jacoby Ellsbury had an 1.188 OPS in the 2007 World Series at age 23. Obviously, these 'exceptions' don't establish that Jackie Bradley, Jr. and Xander Bogaerts will light the baseball world afire in 2014. But it doesn't preclude the possibility that they can impact the Sox lineup as previous young players have. A multitude of fortunes must break your way to win championships. Do Red Sox fans expect that a team that hit a collective .227 in the postseason would get enough pitching to capture its third title in a decade? Do they recognize that without other-worldly performance by Koji Uehara this was impossible? Did they anticipate that Jon Lester would go 4-1 in October w...

Years ago I penned the piano falling from the sky and flattening Red Sox fans. 1967 wasn't so bad, the Sox prohibitive underdogs to the Cardinals of Gibson and Brock. No expectations. 1975 brought a miraculous series, squashed by the Big Red Machine. Ed Armbrister, where are you now? 1986 continued the misery, a thousand paper cuts in a vinegar plant, combining servitude in the ICU at Bethesda Naval Hospital with the apocalyptic collapse against the Mets. I'll ignore the 1972 'bad trip' around third base of Luis Aparicio leading to a half-game pennant loss, the 1978 Torrezian playoff game drilling by the Bucky Dentist, or "why does my wife ask me to call her Pedro?"..."Because I never take her out (2003)". The former meant little in the big picture, and WS I erased the Yankee defeats better than any tranquilizer. The worst demons hit the fan. Maybe young Sox fans envy grizzled Sox addicts the suffering. How many Sox fans can remember 1946 with th...

For the two of you who haven't seen this. While you may take a few things to the bank, the Yankees' internal pledge to stay below the salary cap isn't one of them. Their salacious pursuit of Masahiro could easily blow their pitching budget into the stratosphere. The posting fee for the Japanese import is twenty million and the right-hander is angling for a 17 million dollar per year contract. "If you want economy, then you have to pay for it." Meanwhile, the Sox have a surfeit of pitching (a dangerous concept indeed with the fragility of pitchers), but the odds favor them relocating one for cap space and maneuvering room to sign either Stephen Drew or more outfield help. Drew must be kicking himself (better yet uber-agent Scott Boras) for declining fourteen million dollars. First round draft pick compensation weighs on Drew like Roseann Barr singing the National Anthem. What I fail to understand is the bum's rush for Will Middlebrooks. Yes, I understand...

Rany Jazayerli, he of baseball authorship, pens about the demise of the Yankees . First, I think it unseemly to dance on another's grave, especially so when they have previously danced upon your'n so regularly. Second, baseball, being a game of mean reversion, sometimes exorcises strange demons and no birthright or copyright guarantees the Red Sox either a division or world title in 2014. In the world of baseball economics, the fantasy "wins/dollar", the Red Sox pummeled the Bombers, but both New York and Boston have a long way to go to catch Houston. Houston may have had only 51 wins, but spent 29.3 million dollars, .574 million dollars per win. The WC Red Sox 177.2 million dollars for their 108 (including post-season) wins, 1.646 million per win. But the Yankees, they of the 237 million dollar payroll, spent 2.79 million dollars per win, almost five times as much as Houston. Texans celebrate your frugality amid plenty. The beauty of being a big-market team i...

Sometimes "strength" is as much illusion as reality. Consider the Red Sox starting rotation. The "strength" argument looks at Lester, Lackey, Buchholz, Peavey, Doubront, and Dempster...with contenders like Brandon Workman (serious) and Allen Webster (are you serious?). Lester and Lackey are legit and I'm a Doubront fan, although his pitch efficiency (ability or willingness to pitch to contract) is an issue. Peavey is at least healthy, but Buchholz's 2013 can't be viewed (healthwise) as confidence inspiring and Dempster gives you more innings than high production. Yes, you can win with an E.R.A. approaching 5, as long as you lead the league in both on base percentage and runs scored, which is not assured. As for Anthony Ranaudo, Matt Barnes, and Henry Owens, you cannot expect to catch lightning in a bottle, no matter how tall the bottle. While all could pitch next season in Boston, we simply can't expect more than stopgap production. The S...

Mike Napoli tweeted his return to Boston...and Sox fans couldn't be happier. Napoli, in my opinion, was the most important of the cadre of free agents hanging in the dollarsphere, reportedly agreeing to a two year, 32 million dollar deal. The Red Sox now have established right-handed power, with the power production of Will Middlebrooks at the other corner and Xander Bogaerts at shortstop to be determined. As of now, the most likely lineup will look something like this: RF Victorino LF  Nava 2B  Pedroia DH  Ortiz 1B  Napoli SS  Bogaerts C   Pierzynski 3B  Middlebrooks CF Bradley, Jr. Also, there's huge money potentially coming off the payroll at the end of the season (pending the disposition of Jon Lester and John Lackey). Roughly speaking Ortiz (11.5M), Dempster (13M), Peavey (14.5M), Ross (3M), Pierzynski (8.25M) yield over 50M dollars to be redeployed. Obviously, the Sox still have interest in Stephen Drew who still has a few other...

The simple reality is that with more money floating around chasing fewer free agents (more promising talent being locked up early, like Evan Longoria), it creates a seller's market. Jacoby Ellsbury, Scott Kazmir, and Hunter Pence (among others) take advantage of that reality. In Boston, we like our players to show emotion, outward manifestations that they care. That doesn't mean that we can't embrace a 'cold-blooded' performer doing his job, like Ellsbury, and good looks aside, his personality and affection for the audience (engagement) never matched his ability. One can legitimately ask, "is that a problem for you?" If the Sox could field twenty-five baseball-playing, fire-breathing robots, cleverly manufactured in Bill James' baseball laboratory, and win the World Series every year, would that be enough for us? Conversely, how should we feel about media-friendly self-promoters, who underachieve yet develop a cult following. The raw numbers ...

In the bright afterglow of another championship season, the competition has the audacity to raid the Sox pantry, shoplifting the Red Sox former centerfielder Jacoby Ellsbury for the GDP of a small country. Of course, not everyone in New York is doing cartwheels.  Daily New columnist  Mike Lupica  put it, the Yankees "don't just pay, they overpay." Meanwhile the Red Sox lie low, waiting for the market to sort itself out, excepting the Boris Badanov  Burke Badenhop era, and another Boston Bad Boy, A. J. Pierzynski, whom you'd think was less popular than Whitey Bulger.  Now we're worrying about Jon Lester leaving, and probably soon starting to whine about signing Xander Bogaerts to a long-term deal.  Yes, there is an imperative to value assets properly, to develop your high value pieces, young players under control with manageable salaries. Those 'values' allow you to sign higher priced (and often bigger gambles) free agents.  First, more on Ellsb...