Friendly Fenway

Progress

2007-01-14T09:43:00.000-05:00

How's the top 100 Red Sox list coming along? Pretty good so far. We have the top 18 ranked and there are plenty of people involved in the project. It's going to be a few weeks before we're ready to start posting things, however. There's bound to be plenty of "There's no way Joe Wood should be that low!" or "How did Ellis Burks get snubbed?!". I don't want to give too much away here.....but I'll give you a little teaser. Ted Williams is ranked pretty high.

Out of retirement

2007-01-07T10:11:00.000-05:00

I'm a guy who can't sit still. I don't dwell on one project for long and I'm the type who often doesn't finish what he starts. So it was no surprise to me that this blog didn't even last a year. At work I've gone from 30 hours a week to 50 hours a week so my free time has dwindled down to nearly nothing. So a full blown comeback is very likely out of the question. But, for the moment, I'm coming out of retirement to work on a project.

THE 100 GREATEST RED SOX OF ALL TIME

That's right.

There are many ambitious bloggers out there who take a look at their favorite team and undertake the process of putting up their 100 greatest players of all time on their blog, but I'm aiming higher. I don't want the 100 greatest Red Sox on my blog. I want the same list of the 100 greatest Red Sox on every single Red Sox blog on the internet from one as small as this one to the biggest one out there. I've already contacted many of my fellow bloggers and there are several who are willing to contribute. Who's on board?

Over the Monster
The Phoenix
Sox Prospects
Sox1Fan
Starting Aces
Firebrand of the AL
Joy of Sox
Peter's Red Sox Forever
LJ's official Red Sox community

If anyone at all in the vast world of the internet also wants on board with this then drop me a line at 100greatestsox @ gmail.com. There will be more details in upcoming days.

The four stories of the off-season

2006-03-27T10:01:00.000-05:00

The off-season is rarely a good time. I mean, unless Theo Epstein is having Thanksgiving dinner with Curt Schilling or Josh Beckett is searching the classifieds for a place to stay in Boston, there's not a whole lot to like about it. There's no baseball on TV, the weather outside sucks, and the littlest issue becomes a front page story. This October-March the headlines were littered with stories about Theo Epstein, Manny Ramirez, David Wells, and Johnny Damon. I avoided most of those stories because I, quite honestly, don't care. For the most part they were, and still are, non-issues. But they were a part of the offseason and I did say that I was going to give a little review of the offseason, so here we go. I'll give you four paragraphs about the offseason's four big stories.

Nobody actually thought that Theo Epstein was going to leave the team. We all figured that it was a sure thing that he'd be back. The deadline was approaching and the papers were reporting that a deal was close. So we were all pretty surprised when Theo said that he wouldn't be back. Why? We never did get any clear reasons. We all blamed Larry Luchino and the curly-haired boyfriend, but we were never given any actual reasons as to why Theo and the Sox parted ways. Theo Epstein was the only GM in the last 86 years to bring our team a World Series win so it was only natural that most Sox fans were getting a little nervous. Personally I saw no real reason to worry. Epstein has done a great job with the Sox, sure, but he's not the only guy in the front office. He has the final say, but he has surrounded himself by so many intelligent baseball people that his departure was not the end of the world. The only time I was even a little nervous about our situation was when the Jim Bowden rumors were floating around. When the Jed Hoyer and Ben Cherington were promoted I was pretty happy. They were part of the team that advised Theo. They're both smart guys who know what they're doing. They know the system, they know the Red Sox philosophy, and they weren't about to turn the bus around and go in the opposite direction. They would've done just fine. Then Theo came back. Whatever. As far as I'm concerned, everything is back to normal and all the stories and all the whining done on WEEI was for nothing. The two GMs made several moves while Theo was away and they were all good ones. The question came up, "How would things have been if Theo had never left? Would he have made those moves?". The answer to those questions is easy and obvious. Things would've went the same as they did go. And Theo would've acted just as the dual headed GM monster did.

What about Manny? Personally I don't like the guy. The whole "Manny being Manny" thing makes me sick. His lack of hustle, constant mood changes, kid-like tantrums, and even his hair are a disgrace. He does have one saving grace, however. His swing. I'm glad he wasn't traded. I never actually thought that he was going to be traded. He only has a few more years left on his contract and the money he's still owed isn't a huge deal to the team like the Red Sox. But there are few teams out there who would be willing to take it on. Any deal that involved moving Manny would've left the Red Sox getting less than face value in return and I really don't think that the Sox were willing to do something like that. He's one of the game's best hitters and he can single handedly turn an average line up into a good one. When the line up is already good as the Red Sox line up is he makes it a great one. Boston took a few hits to their offense during the offseason, but they're still one of the top run scoring teams in the game and a large part of that is thanks to the return of Manny Ramirez. As for him not showing up to spring training with the rest of the team...well, you have to be a real jackass to actually care that he showed up on time, a few days after the rest of the team.

Johnny Damon sold out. Anyone surprised? I'm not. Have you ever read the guy's book? I do not recommend it. I received it as a birthday gift so I figured I might as well put it to use. I read it and I was amazed at how absolutely dumb this guy is. The team was going around saying "we're just a bunch of idiots" and in Johnny Damon's case it really was true. The guy is D-U-M, dumb. Not to mention he is so incredibly full of himself. If you asked him to list the top ten players in the major leagues he'd name himself ten times. He believes that he is one of the elite players in baseball and he believes that there is nothing he can't do. For a man with his lack of intelligence and belief that he's the greatest thing alive it wasn't much of a surprise when he just took the offer that gave him the most money. Sure he told us many times that he'd never play for the Yankees, but morals and decency don't mean much to a guy like him. Obviously baseball is a business. The players don't owe the team or the fans anything. And the Sox/Yankees rivalry means a lot more to the fans than it does to the players. But Damon really is a despicable human being. I can't wait to be there for a Sox/Yankees game. I will be one of 35,000 people to boo him until we are all blue in the face. And he will deserve every boo.

So, David Wells doesn't like Boston. He doesn't like all the attention he gets and he'd rather be on the west coast. So why, exactly, did he love playing for the Yankees so much? And why did he sign with the Red Son in the first place? He finally takes back his trade offer after realizing that no one will give Boston anything in return for a 300 pound 43 year old, and what does he do? He starts calling everyone from Terry Francona to Bud Selig idiots. He also has a big issue with starting the year on the DL, something he'll tell anyone within earshot. He's becoming a distraction and, despite a solid track record it's only a matter of time before his weight and age make him a liability on the field. The one bad thing about the Arroyo trade is the fact that David Wells wasn't dealt instead. With all that said, I don't mind Wells so much. He's actually a little entertaining. While Damon's stupidity and attitude was a bit annoying, Wells' stupidity and attitude is pretty amusing in a "Carl Everett doesn't believe in dinosaurs" kind of way.

Off-season overview

2006-03-26T19:31:00.000-05:00

We all knew going into this winter that it was going to be a big one. There hasn't been a quiet off-season since Theo came into town and we were prepared for a lot of stuff to go down. Even being ready for it, there were a lot of moves that caught us off guard and there was even more turnover than we thought there was going to be. The team lost Kevin Millar, Mike Myers, Bill Mueller, and Johnny Damon to free agency. They also made four pretty bid trades to shake things up a bit and fill in the holes. I'd like to make up for lost time and get into those moves before the season starts, but first here's a quick recap of how the off-season went down.

10/15/05 - Released Adam Hyzdu. Sent Chad Harville, Mike Stanton, and Jeremi Gonzalez outright to Pawtucket. All three refused the assignments and became free agents.

11/02/05 - resigned Mike Timlin to a one year deal

11/18/05 - released Gabe Kapler

11/24/05 - Traded Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez, Jesus Delgado, and Harvey Garcia to the Florida Marlins for Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, and Guillermo Mota in return

12/01/05 - Traded a player to be named later to the Chicago Cubs for Jermaine Van Buren

12/07/05 - Traded Doug Mirabelli to the San Diego Padres for Mark Loretta

12/08/05 - Selected Jamie Vermilyea in the Rule 5 Draft. Traded Edgar Renteria and cash to the Atlanta Braves for Andy Marte

12/14/05 - The Los Angelos Dodgers signed Bill Mueller to a two year deal

12/15/05 - The New York Yankees signed Mike Myers to a two year deal

12/20/05 - Signed Rudy Seanez to a one year deal. Tony Graffanino accepted arbitration. Non tendered Wade Miller and Chad Bradford making them free agents

12/23/05 - Signed John Flaherty to a one year deal

12/23/05 - The New York Yankees signed Johnny Damon to a four year deal

01/06/06 - signed JT Snow to a one year deal

01/12/06 - The Baltimore Orioles signed Kevin Millar to a one year deal

01/12/06 - signed Julian Tavarez to a two year deal

01/19/06 - signed Bronson Arroyo to a three year deal. Signed Willie Harris to a minor league contract t

01/27/06 - Traded Andy Marte, Kelly Shoppach, Guillermo Mota, and a player to be named to the Cleveland Indians for Coco Crisp, David Riske, and Josh Bard

02/06/06 - Designated Roberto Petagine for assignment and lost him to the Seattle Mariners

03/20/06 - Traded Bronson Arroyo and cash to the Cincinati Reds for Wily Mo Pena

03/24/06 - claimed Hee-Seop Choi off waivers

And who could forget the big stories of the '05-'06 off-season....

- The Theo Epstein/front office dance.

- The Manny Ramirez trade demand/I hate Boston tantrum/permission to arrive on time to spring training.

- David Wells being a big, fat ass.

- Johnny Damon taking a shot at the Red Sox every time someone puts a mic in front of him...But really, he's moved on. He swears.

Arroyo for Pena

2006-03-21T00:02:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I wish I had the drive to update this every day and keep up with it. But I do get bored easily and I'm the type to move from project to project, never having finished the last project that I was working on. After a little while posting here I felt I had to post every day. It became to feel more like a job than a fun hobby. So I gave it up. Times like these, however, make me want to come out of retirement.

It has been one hell of an offseason for the Sox. We've all heard how it's been a very turbulent one and that there is too much turnover. Some of you have probably even thought that yourselves. There's even that laughable little theory going around out there where people are saying that the Blue Jays are better than the Sox. To me this has been one of the best offseasons for the Sox in a very long time. They have made trade after trade, improving the team and getting the better end of the deal every single time. They've signed some low risk players who have the potential to help the team while allowing Damon to walk. They've improved their defense, added depth to their pitching, and became a younger team. Their offense may not be a record setting machine anymore, but they are still top five in the league. They are going to score some runs. They're a better team than last year. There's no logical way that anyone can dispute that.

Today the Sox made another step to improve the team. From out of nowhere it was announced that the Red Sox dealt Bronson Arroyo to the Reds for Wily Mo Pena. Pena isn't my first choice in Reds outfielders (the thought of Adam Dunn in a Sox uniform makes me giddy), but for Bronson Arroyo? I will certainly take that deal. Is Pena a star? No. He's a one dimensional player who doesn't take a walk, isn't very good on the bases, and doesn't play very good defense. But he sure can hit the ball hard. His best asset? His ability to crush lefties. He's the perfect platoon partner for Trot Nixon. All the Sox had to give up in return was Bronson Arroyo, Boston's most overrated "star".

Today is a good day for Sox fans. So long, Bronson! Take a few pink hat wearing fan girls with you on your way out, please. And hello, Wily! You'll love it here.

Josh Beckett's 4.08 ERA

2005-11-30T10:17:00.000-05:00

What can we expect from Josh Beckett? Some say he's an injury prone youngster who is never going to reach his potential. Some say there are a lot of factors working against him in the move to Boston. Some say he's an ace and that he's going to lead the team to a damn good season in 2006. What do I think? As a Sox fan I'm a bit biased and more inclined to think that he's going to have a hell of a year (and possibly a hell of a career) for the Sox, but there really are some things working against the guy. The way I see it, there are two big things that are working against Beckett next year. One, he's moving to the AL and two, he's leaving a pitcher's park. You'd think that going from Florida's defense to Boston's defense would also negatively affect him, but based on the number of balls in play turned into outs last year, Boston's defense was only very slightly worse than Florida's. The change shouldn't be significant enough to affect Beckett all that much.

Let's take a look at a few numbers to see how Josh Beckett would've done if he had pitched for the Red Sox in 2005. First, let's see some real numbers. In 2005 he had a 3.38 ERA, a 3.08 ERC, a 3.42 dERA, and a 3.45 RCERA. ERA is the normal measure of earned runs given up over 9 innings pitched that we all know and love. ERC is a statistic that measures what a pitcher's ERA is expected to be based on the hits and walks he gives up. dERA is based on the work done by Voros McCracken and measures a pitcher's ERA based entirely on the statistics that a pitcher controls and the defense does not (K's, BB's, HR's, and HBP's). RCERA is a pitcher's ERA based on the Runs Created by the batters facing the pitcher. All four are relatively close to each other and it should be possible to tailor the last three stats to see how he would've performed in the AL in a hitter's park.

I started off by park adjusting the number of doubles, triples, home runs, and hits that Beckett allowed at home. I used the park indices in the Bill James Handbook to calculate the number of those four stats that he would've allowed had he pitched half his games in Fenway instead of in Dolphins Stadium. Then I plugged those new numbers into the formulas for ERC, dERA, and RCERA. His numbers for those three went up to an ERC of 3.25, a dERA of 3.46, and a RCERA of 3.68; an increase of 0.17, 0.04, and 0.23 respectively. Judging by those three numbers we could probably expect Beckett's ERA to increase anywhere between 0.04 and 0.23 points giving him an ERA anywhere between 3.42 and 3.61 had he pitched in Fenway park. But what about the effects of the DH?

In 2005 Beckett held number 9 hitters to a .121/.188/.172, very similar to the line NL pitchers combined for in 2005, .150/.180/.190. My methods are far from perfect, but just for fun let's replace the 63 pitcher plate appearances against Josh Beckett with 80 DH appearances, assuming that the DH would be batting higher in the order, therefore getting more plate appearances. The average DH in the AL put up a .260/.335/.444 line in 2005. As a little side note, Baltimore DH's, lead mostly by Jay Gibbons, Sammy Sosa, Javy Lopez, and Raphael Palmeiro, had a .210/.277/.362 line. That was, by far, the worst in the AL despite the fact that they outslugged Oakland DH's by .010. But anyways, let's figure out ERC, dERA, and RCERA while keeping his stats park adjusted for Fenway, but adding in the effects of a DH. Doing that changes his numbers more than I expected. His ERC jumped to 3.87, his dERA to 3.82, and his RCERA to 4.36; a change over his original numbers by 0.79, 0.40, and 0.91 respectively.

The average change in the three stats I looked at and adjusted was 0.70 after adjusting for Fenway and replacing 63 pitcher plate appearances with 80 DH ones. What do all these numbers mean? Well, going by my math (which, I'll admit is a little bit shaky, but it might be a good estimation), Josh Beckett would've had a 4.08 ERA had he been with the Red Sox last year. Also, the Red Sox scored 5.62 runs per game last year which is actually lower than the 5.89 run support over nine innings that Beckett got. With the jump in ERA, support of one of the worst bullpens in baseball, and not much of a difference in run support it's probably a safe bet to say that had Beckett been in Boston last year his record would've been worse than the 15-8 he had in Florida.

This was by no means a way to try and prove that the Beckett trade was a bad one. I still love that trade. Beckett is going to get better as he matures and the rest of the deal still works out in Boston's favor. Beckett will be a great number 2 starter for the Red Sox over the next few years.

Is Fenway really a hitter's park?

2005-11-27T23:47:00.000-05:00

One of the concerns that some Sox fans have about Josh Beckett is the fact that he's going from a pitcher's park to a hitter's park. Sure enough, in 2005 Beckett posted a 2.47 ERA in Florida while putting up a 4.31 ERA on the road. Over the course of the last 3 years he's had a 2.87 ERA at home with a 4.10 ERA on the road. So we can probably expect an increase in his ERA because he is going from a pitcher's park to a hitter's park.

I figured I'd check to see how much of a pitcher's park they have down there in Miami compared to Fenway. According to the Bill James Handbook, over the last three years the park index for runs scored in Dolphins Stadium is 90. A 90 means that 10% fewer runs are scored in Marlins games at home compared to Marlins games on the road. A 100 would mean that the park is neutral in terms of offense. Fenway has a 10% swing the other way with a 110 park index for runs over the last 3 years. Something is a little off when you look at Fenway splits, however. Red Sox opponents scored 1059 runs against them in 216 Fenway games. In 216 Red Sox away games their opponents scored 1060 runs. In Fenway, Sox opponents combined for a .264/.317/.422 line compared to a .267/.324/.424 line against the Sox away from Fenway. So Sox opponents were actually very slightly better on the road then they were in Fenway. So why is Fenway considered to be such a hitter's park? Well, over the last 3 years the Red Sox have scored 1343 runs in Fenway while scoring only 1122 on the road. They have a very impressive .297/.372/.492 line in Fenway over the last 3 years compared to a .265/.335/.440 line. In other words, the 10% increase in run production at Fenway park is entirely because of the Red Sox and Fenway is actually a neutral park for opposing line ups.

The fact that Fenway isn't a hitter's park for the away team's line up will make things a bit easier for Josh Beckett, but it does raise a few questions as to why Fenway only seems to help Boston. Does the crowd pump them up that much? Are they so used to everyone expecting them to do better at home that they step up their game that much? There are a lot of people who say that a hitter is built for Fenway or has the perfect swing for Fenway. Guys like Bill Mueller and Nomar Garciaparra are said to be Fenway type hitters. Are the Sox able to spot the type of hitter that will do well at Fenway and do they stack their line up with these guys? I know Kevin Millar loves to put the ball in foul ground. Maybe the fact that there is no foul ground at Fenway helps the guy out. I really don't know if there's any one factor that boosts Boston's offense so much when they're in Fenway.

Some common myths

2005-10-18T09:56:00.000-04:00

Here's just a few quick hits to dispell some myths going around Red Sox Nation.

- Manny Ramirez isn't going to be traded.
- Theo Epstein is not an essential piece to the Red Sox puzzle.
- Jon Papelbon is not the second coming of Roger Clemens.
- The Sox aren't going to sign Hideki Matsui, AJ Burnett, -and- Paul Konerko. They likely won't sign any of the three.

I'll go into detail about those points as the week progresses, except for that last point. That last one is just common sense.

Long time, no talk, eh?

2005-07-17T22:57:00.000-04:00

I thought I was going to still update this while I posted at Over the Monster, but apparently I lied. I've been having a lot of fun over there with the format and with more feedback that comes from the increased hits. What I'm not having fun with is the Red Sox themselves. This team isn't even treading water like the pre-August 2004 version was. This team is sinking. It sucks to watch them get beat by the Yankees in 3 out of 4. Even a 17-1 win didn't make that series any more fun.

Well, I'm back to Over the Monster. Just figured I'd check in.

A new place to post

2005-06-20T23:05:00.000-04:00

As the season has gone on I've been more and more sporadic with my posting. I've even been watching less and less baseball. I do love baseball, but I have the attention span of a five year old and a baseball season is a long time. The only posts I've actually been able to muster the energy for have been minor league posts. That's why I was pretty excited when Randy Booth, from Over the Monster asked me to start writing minor league updates for his site. So now I'll be doing my minor league reports, as well as other minor league related news and notes over there at Over the Monster. I hope to start using this site more for its original purpose. When I first started I wanted Friendly Fenway to mostly be about me and my experiences, thoughts, and opinions on baseball, but it quickly shifted over to mostly a reporting type site. So my posting here will likely get more sporadic and more oriented on me. The bulk of my baseball writing is now going to be at Over the Monster. I already made my first post there today, talking about the Paw Sox.

Nothing's over, I just need something to drink. Errr...I mean, nothing's over. I'm just moving most of my thoughts over to there. The benefits to this is that I get to get more in depth with minor league ball, don't have to post here if I don't want to, and I'll be posting to an audience that's about 5 times bigger than the one I get here. Plus, Randy promised me riches beyond my wildest of dreams! But I don't think he'll come through on that.

I'm going to be taking down the standings, MVP watch, and last 5 games. I haven't really been updating any of them on a regular basis and I think that with this moves, those would become even less up to date.

They could've had yesterday if it wasn't for that meddling bullpen

2005-06-19T10:50:00.000-04:00

I think last night showed one thing. John Halama and Alan Embree don't deserve a job. It had been nearly a week since either of them had pitched. In that week the Sox were on fire. They were brought in last night and things fell apart. They were both lucky to have allowed only one run. Embree wasn't horrible because he wasn't left in long enough to screw things up. Halama, on the other hand, came very close to blowing the game wide open. He managed to work himself out of the 1 out, bases loaded jam that he created and escaped the inning with only one loss. The offense, scoring zero runs, was obviously a problem too, but they are not a consistant problem. Embree and Halama, on the other hand, are. The rotation is settling in, for now, the closer is coming around, and the offense never had a problem. The bullpen needs some serious work, however. I think that in all the blind faith we've placed in Theo Epstein, few people have realized that the guy can't build a bullpen. The cast of charactors that he's brought in to pitch out of the bullpen has been pretty bad.

Wanna know what the worst thing about Tivo is? It doesn't record an entire baseball game. I missed out on the bottom of the 9th last night. Luckily nothing happened. I'm going to have to start recording the post-game show just in case the game runs over from now on.

Meet the catchers

2005-06-17T09:34:00.000-04:00

The Sox did exactly what they were supposed to in the last few days and that's beat up on the Reds starters and win the games. What came as a little surprise was the dominance of the Red Sox starters. The team has almost made it through a full turn in the rotation with each pitcher throwing a gem. Wade Miller hopes to make it a complete turn through the rotation against the Pirates tonight. This is another series that the Sox should be able to take.

Earlier in the week I posted a list of the top ten catching prospects in baseball. Since this is a Red Sox site I figured I'd have a list, in no particular order, of the catchers in the Red Sox system. They have a solid catching core at the top consisting of Varitek, Mirabelli, and Shoppach, but below that they really don't have much of anything. But I listed them all anyways. Here is a list of all the organization's catchers from the majors to low-A Greenville.

Jason Varitek - Over the last couple of seasons Varitek has catapulted himself towards the top of the list of best catchers in baseball. Very few in the game are more respected than the man that the Red Sox have behind the plate. While I am a little worried that he's getting to be overrated, it's hard not to like the guy. I just don't want him to turn into a Red Sox version of Captain Intangibles. Either way, the guy is good and is entrenched behind the plate for quite a while making life a little bit grim for a catcher in the Red Sox system.

Doug Mirabelli - Not only do the Red Sox have the best starting catcher in the league, but they also have one of the best back ups. No one has ever seen how Mirabelli would handle a full workload behind the plate, but many believe that he could be a starting catcher on half the teams out there. His numbers are way down this year compared to last year and not just because of the few weeks that he lost to injury. I think he just hasn't had the playing time to start coming around yet.

Kelly Shoppach - The trend doesn't stop with two of the best at the major league level. Kelly Shoppach is a name listed near the tops of most people's top catching prospects list. Shoppach is known mostly for his defense and for the power in his bat. He strikes out a lot and, like most catchers, can't run, but he produces some pretty solid numbers. He struggled at the plate last year, but after having a little while to adjust, he's doing just fine this year. He does have a low batting average at .264, but walks enough for a .374 OBP and his 11 homers and 8 doubles in 148 AB's give him a very respectable .541 SLG. He could be trade bait or he could be injury insurance. He could be a very valueable piece to the organization.

Shawn Wooten - Wooten was a non roster invitee to spring training this year, signed to add a little bit of depth and major league experience to the club. When he's not backing up Shoppach behind the plate, he's in the line up in Pawtucket at either first or DH. So far the signing has not been a good one as his .232/.291/.394 line in 203 AB's shows how much he's struggling. He was the 501st selection of the 93 amature draft by Detroit. He's also been part of the Angels and Phillies organization. He's had some good years at the minor league level, but so far at the age of 33, he's never put it together in the bigs despite getting a few shots.

Alberto Concepcion - Concepcion is known more for his defensive skills than for his light bat. He's hitting .269/.321/.366 as Portland's primary catcher and hits at the bottom of the line up. He hit the ball well in his senior year at USC going .363/.466/.637, but so far at the age of 24 he hasn't hit the ball all that well. He was a second round pick by the Padres coming out of highschool, but decided to attend college instead and fell to the 21st round when the Sox took him in 2002.

Jim Buckley - Buckley is essentially a 25 year old organizational filler. So far the best portion of his professional career was when he hit .236 in 55 AB's in high-A in 2003. He was drafted in the 25th round in 2002, has never hit a thing as a professional, and was called up from his back-up job in Portland when Wooten was called up to the majors in mid-May. In limited playing time so far in Pawtucket he's hitting .158/.289/.184. He's struck out 18 times in 38 at bats.

Clint Chauncey - Here is a guy who is 24 years old and is hitting .159/.222/.244...in A ball. He's working in his fourth organization since the Yankees drafted him in the 16th round in 2000 and he has exactly one home run as a professional. I'm willing to be my life on the fact that this guy will never even get a sniff of the big leagues.

Jeff Ontiveros - Oniveros was never drafted, but has been in the Red Sox organization since 2002. He's currently 26 and still playing in Wilmington. He's been getting the bulk of the team's time behind the plate and even batting clean up, but his .239/.352/.471 line isn't impressive for someone his age. He's taking the walks and hitting for power, but he's also striking out a lot.

Mitch Stachowsky - In 103 at bats the 20 year old Stachowsky has been Greenville's worst hitter with a pitiful .165/.298/.350 line. 11 of his 17 hits have gone for extra bases and he has walked 14 times, but so far the guy jsut can't hit. He's in his second year as a pro after being selected by the Sox in the 50th round of the 2003 draft.

Salvador Paniagua - Paniagua, 22, has walked 1 time in 104 at bats and has a .240/.248/.462 line. He's getting the extra base hits, but a 29-1 k-bb ratio will never cut it. He was signed as an amateur free agent by the Sox in 2001 and has so far had a professional career identical to the numbers he's putting up this year. He doesn't hit for average, doesn't draw walks, but manages an extra base hit every now and then.

Edit - Former fan favorite Brian Daubach is back up in the bigs with the Mets. Daubach will be sharing the first base duties with another former Sox first baseman, Doug Mientkiewicz. Minty has been struggling this year and is hitting only .208/.306/.354. Kevin Millar might be struggling at .278/.364/.400, but I've always believed that the Sox made the right choice when they shipped off Minty instead of Millar. You can argue the defense case all you want, but the Red Sox do not need a hole that big in their line up. Anyways, I wish the best of luck to Daubach. He was 0-1 with 3 BB's in his first game as a Met. If he wants to start getting some hits, I strongly recommend that he regrow the Amish beard.

Ready to trust Wells? Not yet.

2005-06-15T13:19:00.000-04:00

All over Red Sox Nation people are actually looking forward to the next start from David Wells. After last night's 7 inning, 1 hit performance, I can't say I blame them, but I'm not sold yet. He's had a couple of great starts this year, but then he's reverted right back to getting hammered the next start. This is the first time he's put together such a long streak of good starts, but I need a little bit more to get me to look forward to him. Maybe it's a case of numbers though. As Soxaholix pointed out, since Wells switched numbers with Edgar Renteria he has won 3 out of the 4 games he's started. His ERA is down to 4.54 from 6.81, his command has been perfect, and he's going deep into games. But I still have my doubts.

So far so good in this series. The Sox are doing what they're supposed to do and that's beating Cininati's bad pitchers. Tonight will be a little more challenging when they send out their surprise ace, Aaron Harang. I can feel a sweep though. I think the Sox will get it done.

Top 10 catchers

2005-06-13T11:57:00.000-04:00

Since I started doing the Red Sox minor league updates here every week I started to learn some other names and I started gaining more interest in minor league baseball in general. With the help of some of the posters at John Sickle's Minor League Ball I started compiling lists of the top posistion playing prospects out there. If you're just here for Red Sox news today, might as well skip this one. Here's my list of the top ten catching prospects and the numbers that they have up until last Friday. If I knew how to make a nifty little HTML table, I would, but for now you're going to have to settle with some pretty bad formatting. I didn't add any commentary because most comments that I have for the guys would either be taken directly from Baseball America's Prospect Handbook or they would be based on the stats that you can see for yourself.

Name - age/club - AVG/OBP/SLG/R/RBI/2B/3B/HR/SO/BB/SB/CS

1. Brian McCann - 21/ATL - .265/.359/.476/27/26/13/2/6/26/25/2/3 in 166 AB's/48 games in AA. He was recently called up to the big league club.

2. George Kottaras - 22/SD - .299/.385/.433/24/25/13/0/4/34/25/1/1 in 187 AB's/50 games in high-A

3. Kelly Shoppach - 25/BOS - .279/.392/.471/30/28/8/0/11/43/21/0/0 in 140 AB's/40 games in AAA. Just finished up a short stint in Boston.

4. Ryan Doumit - 24/PIT - .345/.415/.630/41/35/11/0/12/36/16/1/3 in 165 AB's/50 games in AAA. Currently in Pittsburg

5. Russ Martin - 22/LAD - .308/.442/.418/35/34/8/0/4/23/37/7/3 in 182 AB's/57 games in AA

6. Kurt Suzuki - 21/OAK - .275/.403/.455/41/23/13/3/5/31/34/3/2 in 189 AB's/51 games in high A

7. Jeff Mathis - 22/LAA - .263/.330/.500/32/27/12/1/8/34/16/2/1 in 160 AB's/43 games in AAA

8. Ryan Garko - 24/CLE - .263/.343/.488/40/31/12/2/10/35/20/0/1 in 205 AB's/56 games in AAA

9. Josh Willingham - 26/FLA - .343/.474/.759/48/47/11/2/18/37/37/4/1 in 166 AB's/50 games in AAA

10. Dioner Navarro - 21/LAD - .300/.414/.429/19/16/6/0/4/13/26/1/2 in 140 AB's/44 games in AAA

The Red Sox representative on this list is, of course, Kelly Shoppach. With his performance this year Shoppach is moving up on a lot of people's lists. He wasn't too impressive in his short big league stint, but his numbers in Pawtucket are very impressive. His defense is another plus that many people seem to like. The only problem is that this year is likely Shoppach's last year on this list. Once he hits the ripe old age of 26 it's going to be harder to consider the guy a prospect. He's wasting away his career in AAA, but as a Sox fan I don't really mind. I don't want to see him moved unless the Red Sox can get a really good deal. It's good for them to have him waiting in case Mirabelli or Tek goes down. Depth is something that the Sox have had a lot of in the last few years and it's something that a rich baseball team really should have.

The Cubs

2005-06-12T23:57:00.000-04:00

I don't like the Cubs. I don't like how they are compared to the Sox. I don't like how their fans always claimed to have suffered more than Sox fans. I never liked Sammy Sosa, but I guess that point is moot now. I hate Dusty Baker. I don't think they will EVER get 30 starts a piece in the same season from Wood and Prior. Really, I just all around don't like that team and I really wish that people would stop referring to them and their fans as cousins to Red Sox Nation. Both teams have been around awhile, they both have old stadiums, and until last year they had both gone a while without a World Series victory. That's about all they have in common. The Red Sox have typically always been a good team. They won the games, they just never went all the way. The Cubs have always just sucked. The Red Sox have an intelligent front office running their team. The Cubs don't. Boston fans are die-hard, faithful fans who stick with the team through thick and thin. Cubs fans flock to the stadium because, really, what the hell else is there to do in Illinois? I think I've grown bitter over the last few days watching the Red Sox suck it up and reading some Cub fans' comments that pissed me off. So maybe that's affecting my judgement. But I really don't like the Cubs. And they are in no way "cousins" to the Sox.

Soxaholix agrees.

The Sox are starting to develope a little pattern it seems. They start off a series with two embarrassing wins before a strong pitching performance allows them to keep a little bit of dignity. On paper tomorrow should break that trend. Matt Clement takes on Eric Milton and the Reds. That is the definition of an easy win. So chances are good that the Sox will blow it.

In roster movement news, Doug Mirabelli is back and as expected, Kelly Shoppach's stay with the team is over.

Interleague play has not been kind

2005-06-12T08:55:00.000-04:00

I had to leave when the Sox were up 4-0. Carlos Zambrano couldn't find the plate and he was getting hit hard. Trot Nixon and Bill Mueller both went deep and things were looking good. I set the Tivo to record the game and left with a good feeling. Because I had the game recording I didn't want to know what happened. So I avoided the radio. We got back home around 6. The game was still going on past 6 so the Tivo was just about to quit. So I checked out the score....it was 7-4. I sat down just in time to watch the Red Sox attempt a little come back, just to fall short. I don't even want to go back to see how the Sox managed to blow this one. I have no idea how bad Wade Miller pitched and the offense managed to go the entire game up until the 9th without scoring on a struggling starter and a weak bullpen. I'll be happy later in the week when interleague play is over and the Sox are back at home. At the moment it's not all that much fun to watch them play.

A long overdue minor league update

2005-06-10T00:37:00.000-04:00

It's been a couple of weeks since I've done a minor league update thanks to my lack of an internet connection last week so I'll try and throw in a few more details this week to make up for it. It'll be easy to do that because Pawtucket and Portland are absolutely on fire lately. I'm not going to go back to the last game I posted about because I'd be here forever, so I'll pick a point to begin from. Let's say May 30th. That's pretty much when both teams started their hot streak and that was the date of the Paw Sox game that I went to. The last two day's worth of games aren't included here because I wrote most of this two days ago.

Pawtucket Red Sox (PAW 12/NOR 2, PAW 4/NOR 1, PAW 4/NOR 3, PAW 6/NOR 2, RIC 9/PAW 4, PAW 8/RIC 5, PAW 11/RIC 3, PAW 3/RIC 0)

Pawtucket has outscored their oponents 60-25 in their last 9 games, winning 8 of them. That's an average of 6.7 runs scored and 2.8 runs allowed. Everything is coming together for the team. The starters have been very solid, although for the most part, not spectacular, the bullpen has done its job, and the offense is pounding the ball. The only thing the team isn't doing as good as they were before is running the bases, but that's a minor point to nitpick about. They are now 5 games over .500, in 2nd place, and are only 4 games behind the 1st place Buffalo Bisons.

The biggest blow to the Sox organization when Doug Mirabelli went down with an injury wasn't in Boston itself, it was in Pawtucket. It would be downright scary to see how many runs the Paw Sox would've scored last week had they had their biggest offensive weapon, Kelly Shoppach. Shoppach is in the bigs, taking in the scenery and backing up Jason Varitek for the time being which leaves a very large hole behind the plate in Pawtucket. Jim Buckley, a 25 year old who has shown zero skills in his professional career, was riding the bench in Portland before the Sox called him up. So far in 34 AAA at bats he's putting up a .176/.317/.206 line. Sadly, that's better than he was doing in Portland. Shawn Wooten, recently back down from the big league club, went right back to his low production ways last week. He went 5-22 with 3 2b's and 4 k's while scoring twice and
knocking in 0. Wooten also got in a couple of games at first when Buckley was behind the plate. Boston will survive without Mirabelli, but Pawtucket would love to get Shoppach and his .279/.392/.571 line back.

Despite Shoppach not being around, the Paw Sox's production has only increased thanks, in large part, to Roberto Petaine. Petagine has been tearing the cover off of the ball putting up a .330/.430/.725 line with 9 HR and 24 RBI in only 91 AB's. He went 13-31 last week with 4 2B's and 3 HR's. Petagine's production is making the John Olerud signing look like a bad one. With his track record and current performance it's quite possible that Petagine could be outperforming both Olerud and Kevin Millar. I hope that the Sox are able to find a spot on the big league roster for Petagine sometime this year. The one time I saw him play was probably his only unimpressive game so far as he struck out twice in 4 at bats so I'd like to see what he can really do.

Adam Stern is hurt again. I don't know if he's hurt or if he's "hurt", but he's currently sitting out thanks to a hamstring injury. The Red Sox are going to have to get very creative if they want to keep this Rule V pick around for the entire year, but so far have done a good job. I don't really hear about it with other teams, but with Lenny Dinardo last year and Stern this year, the Sox seem to have a tendancy of bending the rules when it comes to this kind of thing. Stern, so far, is putting up a .273/.370/.455 line in 22 AB's over 6 games. He's stolen 2 bases without being caught, walked 4 times, and struck out 3 times.

The members of the Paw Sox outfield that aren't suffering from mysterious injuries are performing very well so far this year. Justin Sherrod, a 27 year old who has spent his entire pro career floating around the Red Sox system, is putting up some of the best numbers of his career with a .282/.361/.505 line in
188 at bats, but has struck out 59 times to go along with his 35 RBI and 33 R in 52 games. Last week he went 8-30 and most of those hits were for extra bases as he hit 2 doubles and 5 home runs. He struck out 8 times and walked 5 times. The only man on the team that has struck out more than Sherrod is George
Lombard. The 30 year old has played for 4 different organizations in his career and will likely never be an impact player in the bigs, but he's helping Pawtucket so far this year going .269/.356/.472. He is second in the Internation League with 41 runs, but his 68 K's are also good (or bad) enough for second place in the league. Last week he went 6-20, struck out 6 times, walked 4, and scored 5 times. The real star of the Pawtucket outfield so far has been Chip Ambers. Ambers spent 6 years in the Marlins organization before this year and now, at the age of 25, he's not really considered a prospect, but he's very fast and has the ability to get on base. He also has a bit of pop to his bat. This year has been the best year of his professional career. He leads the team with a .331 average and with a .426 OBP and his his .569 SLG is behind only Shoppach and Petagine. His stolen base percentage was great before last week. He started the year off with 12 steals in 13 attemps, but after being caught 3 times last week he is now 13 out of 18. He always seems to be on base and last week he went 8-25 with 4 walks, continuing the trend. He also had a 5 RBI game last week. Whether he's at the top of the order or in the middle, Ambers has been enough of a success that I've actually heard mumblings of Ambers taking over for Johnny Damon in center next year. I don't know if I'd go that far as this is Amber's first really successful season, but he could be a valueable fourth outfielder.

The only negative thing about the Paw Sox lately has been the play from their middle infielder, Alejandro Machado. Machado has been above .300 for much of the season, but his lackluster play lately has dropped him down to a .282/.343/.340 line. He has been successful in 11 out of 12 stolen base attempts with his first time getting caught coming on Monday, but with zero power in his bat, he needs to keep his batting average high to be of any value. He was advertised as a guy that can work the pitch count and get on base, but he has walked only 12 times this year. Two of those walks came in the game I was at last Monday.

The best pitching performance of the week came from Abe Alvarez who pitched two games. His first game was average when he walked 4 and struck out 7 in 5.2 IP, allowing 2 runs on 4 hits. His second start was the great one when he went 7 IP of nearly perfect ball allowing only 1 hit while striking out 9 to get the win. Alvarez has been performing well this season, but not spectacular. He's 5-2 with a 3.91 ERA in 69 IP with a 52/16 k/bb ratio.

The worst start of the week came from Lenny Dinardo who lasted only 4.2 IP and allowed 10 hits and 1 walk for 3 runs. He struck out 3. Dinardo has pitched 9 games this year, all starts and is 1-1 with a 4.19 ERA. Personally I think he'd be more effective out of the bullpen, the posistion where the Sox are most likely to use him if he gets the call once again to Boston, but so far it appears as if they're grooming him to be a starter, or at least a long reliever.

Chris Naverson won both games he pitched with a 6 inning performance where he struck out 7 and walked only 2, allowing 1 run on 4 hits and a 5 inning game where he wasn't as impressive, walking 5 while striking out 4 and allowing 3 runs on 3 hits. From the looks of things, Naverson typically gets roughed up in the early goings before setting down. He typically gets better as the game goes along. So far on the season he is 3-2 with a 4.05 ERA in 53.1 IP with a 35/26 k/bb ratio. His ERA would actually be a lot lower if you took out his one horrible performance where he let up 7 ER in under 2 IP, but in reality his ERA probably should be higher than it is. His strike out numbers are pretty low and his walk numbers are very high. If he keeps that up it's only a matter of time before he starts getting hit a lot harder than he's getting hit right now.

The best news in the pitching department for Pawtucket last week was the performance of their closer, Cla Meredith. Meredith hasn't skipped a beat after his poor showing in Boston. He pitched in 4 games last week, all of which were 1 IP outings and he didn't allow a run. He saved 2 games and struck out 5 while walking only 1 and allowing only 1 hit. In the last game he pitched in he faced 3 batters and struck all of them out.

Portland Sea Dogs (POR 14/NOR 2, POR 3/NH 1, NH 4/POR 1, POR 5/NH 4, POR 10/NB 2, POR 10/NB 9, POR 6/NB 4, NB 12/POR 9)

The Sea Dogs are nearly as hot as their AAA counterparts, winning 6 out of their last 8 games. The pitching that has always been there is still there, but the offense woke up a little bit, managing to hit double digits in runs scored 3 times last week including a 14-2 victory over Norwich. Their recent hot streak has not been enough, however, as they have dropped down to second place in the Eastern League North standings behind New Hampshire, the worst offensive team in the Eastern League. Portland's middle of the pack offense has scored 246 runs so far. New Hamshire is dead last scoring only 187 runs, the next lowest scoring 209. Their league leading 3.15 team ERA is an indicator of their success. Portland has a team ERA of 3.57, good enough for 5th out of 12 teams.

One of the reasons why the Portland offense is starting to get it together is because of Brandon Moss. After a great year last year Moss was considered by many to be the system's number 2 prospect behind Hanley Ramirez. I'm still not impressed with the guy because he's had only one good year and most of his stats last year were heavily reliant on his very high BABIP. But after a horrible start to the year, hovering around .230 for most of it, his bat is starting to wake up. After a week where he went 16-31 with 5 2b's, 3 HR's, 3 K's, and 7 BB"s his line for the year is already up to .293/.370/.494. Dustin Pedroia and Hanley Ramirez, now usually always mentioned in the same breath as Boston's top two hitting prospects, are starting to cool off after both started the year red hot. Ramirez went 5-26 last week and is down to a .279/.335/.421 line. He does have 15 steals in 20 attempts, but his power isn't there this year with only 2 homers and his average has been in a steady decline for a while now. When it's said that Pedroia has cooled off, that only means that he is doing really good instead of great as he was during the first month of the season. He has a .312/.390/.497 line and still seems to be on base every game. He only went 8-34 last week, but did walk four times with only 2 K's. I think Ramirez is falling off the Sox radar as far as 2006 goes, but I still think that Pedroia should be playing second in Boston on opening day 2006. Get him up in Pawtucket now to see how he responds. If he still performs, then sign a cheap vet at second for one year as a safety net and trot Pedroia out there every day. It's still early to be talking 2006, but so far Pedroia looks like he can handle it.

When it comes to first base, the Boston system is nearly devoid of prospects. Ian Bladergroen was considered the top dog in the minors by most, although I never saw what was so impressive about the guy. Either way, he went down with an injury leaving Jeremy West as the only healthy first base prospect in the system. Well, you can cross him off the list too. He went down with an injury last week, although I can't find any information as to what kind of an injury it is. If anyone knows where I can find injury reports on minor league players, let me know. West was second on the team with a .319 AV to go along with a .376 OBP and .462 SLG. He's not quite a power threat with only 2 homers on the year, but he has doubled 15 times, tops on the team.

With a couple of exceptions, the pitching was strong for Portland all week long. The worst performance of the week came from the ace of the staff, Jon Papelbon. Papelbon's first start of the week was fantastic. He went 8 innings for his longest outing of the year, but didn't get the win thanks to some poor run support. The Sea Dogs won the game in extra innings, but Papelbon let up only 1 hit and 1 walk for 1 run. He struck out 4. His second start was as bad as his first was good. He went 6 innings and despite giving up only 2 walks, he let up 7 runs, 4 of them earned. He allowed 10 hits and struck out 5. 10 starts into the year, Papelbon is 3-2 with a 2.48 ERA in 61.2 IP. He's struck out 53 and walked 17.

The next three guys in the rotation have been throwing the ball well this year. Jon Lester, just behind Papelbon on the prospects list is 3-1 on the year with a 2.98 ERA in 57.1 IP over 10 starts. He's struck out 59, good enough for tops on the team and third in the Eatern League and has walked only 19. He lasted 5 innings in his last start, earning the win by allowing only 1 unearned run on 3 hits and 1 walk while striking out 6. Dave Pauley, the 22 year old who came over in the Dave Roberts deal has quickly made a name for himself and established himself as a solid prospect. So far this year he's putting up numbers similar to Lester's only he has struck out far fewer. He's 3-1 with a 3.02 ERA and has struck out 40 while walking 14 in 56.2 IP. He's allowing a few too many home runs with 7 already, but his career rate is much better. This year could easily just be a fluke created by a few bad pitches and a few good swings. He was named the Eastern League pitcher of the week last week when he pitched twice, winning both of his starts. He went 7 IP in both and in both let up only 2 runs. In his first game he fanned 3, walked 2, and allowed 5 hits, one of them a homer. In his second outing he allowed 6 hits, 1 a homer, but did not record a strikeout or a walk. Chris Smith, limited to only 5 starts so far this year because of an injury, has been making up for lost time. In 30 IP he has a 3.30 ERA and has struck out 20 to go along with only 5 BB's. He's 2-1. He earned the win in his last start despite a shaky performance, going 6 IP and letting up 4 runs on 6 hits and 1 walk. He struck out 5.

I think this has gone on long enough. So I'll just be ending it here.

Drafts

2005-06-09T09:11:00.000-04:00

Jeff over at The House that Dewey Built did a little pre-draft where are they now for the 2004 draftees. If you're wondering how the Sox did with last year's draft, take a look here. Like he said, it's not an in depth analysis, but just a little blurb about each pick and where they're playing at the moment.

As for the 2005 draft, from what I hear the Sox did pretty well. To see a list of who the Sox took, Baseball America has the complete listing for every team. The most in depth analysis of the Red Sox picks that I've seen came from a livejournal user and can be found here.

There's a minor league update that was supposed to be posted yesterday that's still on its way. I guess I just got a little bit lazy with that.

As for the big league club.....even after a win I don't even feel like talking about them. They shouldn't be scuffling this bad. They won't go on a 24-2 run again like they did last year. That doesn't happen for any team every year. That's hard to do. They need to start winning games on a consistant basis and they need to start doing it now.

A lack of posts

2005-06-08T01:22:00.000-04:00

After being without the internet for a week you'd think I'd be dying to get back into posting, but it ain't happening. I know I don't want to talk about the way the Sox have been playing lately, do you? I could mention the draft, but I really don't know much about the players who were drafted. I could mentioned the Sox on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but after seeing it for the first time tonight, I have to say that it is a really stupid show and not worth talking about. So until something good comes along, I think I'll just keep quiet. There will be a minor league update coming tomorrow though.

Gotta love the Damon heroics

2005-06-04T11:05:00.000-04:00

David Wells looked good yesterday except for one inning. There have been a few times this year where he's had a really good game going, but he had that one bad inning that made his whole night look bad. I'm not trying to defend the guy or say that he's been a huge help to the team, but I think he's going to get better and I think he's going to be able to keep the Sox in a few games this year.

Once again Keith Foulke's boxscore looked worse than his actual performance. He did let up a few singles to load the bases, but they were all just ground balls that found holes. He's coming around. I don't know if he'll be the dominant force that he was in last year's playoffs, but I'll just settle on reliable.

Edgar Renteria was finally started to get some support. After a great month of May the fans were starting to warm up to the guy. He's actually even received a few cheers this week. Of course after an 0 for 4 night with 3 k's and one of the worst errors I've ever seen a major leaguer make I think the boo birds might be back. I mean, come on, it was a pop up right to the guy. A pop up that I could've caught. And it dropped right out of his glove. His bat is coming around, but I'm still waiting for that gold glove defense that we've all heard so much about.

How bout them Yanks, eh? Six losses in a row...It's good to see them with a nice losing streak to help cancel out the hot streak they went on.

I'm back!

2005-06-03T09:32:00.000-04:00

You never realize how much you rely on your cable company until they are taken away. It nearly killed me to go almost a week without watching any of a game on tv or reading the news online. The closest I got to seeing a game was earlier in the week when I picked up a package at a Ruby Tuesdays while at work and they had the game on. I actually had to buy newspapers to follow what was going on and find out the scores. I felt like I was in the 1920's or something! But I am back with cable tv in three different rooms and with my computer in the office and the girlfriend's laptop, I can have internet access in any room I want!

For now, just a couple things.

The only baseball I really got a chance to see was the Pawtucket/Norfolk game that I went to on Monday. The Paw Sox are on fire, especially against the International League South division leaders, the Norfolk Tides. The Sox are riding a five game winning streak and they just plain pounded the Tides on Monday winning 12-2. It was my first look at Adam Stern who went 2-5 in the game with 3 RBI's. My friend and I joked that now that he's making his rehab from the DL, he's going to have to have an "injury" again if the Sox want to keep him around. Sure enough, the next day I hear reports that Stern tweaked his hamstring. I don't know if it's an actual injury or some Rule 5 rule bending, but it's going to take a lot of creativity if the Sox want to keep him around all year, especially since there's really no room for the guy on the big league club. The biggest news of the night was the manager/third base coach for Pawtucket. It was very un-Sveum like when Ron Johnson actually held runners up at third and didn't run the team out of rallies. As my friend Kellen screamed out, that guy needs to be promoted to Boston.

Yesterday's game was a great game to see as my first game back in the cable world. What else can you say except for the fact that David Ortiz is frickin' amazing. Out of all the moves that Theo Epstein has ever made from the trading for Byung-Hyun Kim to the Thanksgiving dinner with Curt Schilling, the Ortiz signing was, in my opinion, his best move. The game was almost lost by Keith Foulke, but it was another example where the boxscore looked worse than the actual game. His command was a little lacking, but the only mistake he made was one walk. The hit to lead off the inning was a soft rolling ball that Kevin Youkilis made a really good play on, but David Newhan beat it out by half a step. A steal and a bunt later and Newhan stood on third. Miguel Tejada was walked intentionally so now Foulke looks like he has allowed a walk and a hit when in fact the walk was intentional and the hit was pretty weak. Foulke then made his only mistake by walking Sammy Sosa to load the bases. Rafael Palmeiro was next up and hit what could have been an inning ending double play ball, but he just beat out the throw at first allowing Newhan to score on a fielder's choice. Small ball nearly won the game for the Orioles before Ortiz showed them that the Sox don't need no stink' small ball to win games although Edgar Renteria did lay down a perfect bunt for a base hit. So Foulke's boxscore line looked bad and he continued his struggles, but last night was mostly just a case of bad luck and good baseball strategy.

Bleck

2005-05-26T22:30:00.000-04:00

Apparently Toronto is the new Baltimore.

How bout those 4th place Boston Red Sox?

Tonight is my last night at the old apartment and I'll be without cable (internet and tv) until Thursday. With the way things are going I'm almost glad that I won't be able to see the Sox for a few days.

Minor League Update

2005-05-25T23:53:00.000-04:00

I'm in the process of packing and moving so it's been tougher to find time to post. I'll likely be without the internet for nearly a week starting on Friday so it will be a little tough for me to keep up with any of this at all. But, until then, here's a quick minor league update. I really like doing the minor league updates because it helps me to keep up with what's going on down on the farm and it's information that many fans in Red Sox Nation don't really know. Everyone watches the major league games and there are a dozen Sox blogs out there that analyze every game. Most of them do a better job than me. But only a few blogs out there talk about the minor leagues.

Pawtucket Red Sox (PAW 13/IND 2, IND 3/PAW 1, PAW 9/IND 3, IND 8/PAW 6, PAw 14/NOR 4, PAW 9/NOR 5, NOR 9/PAW 4, PAW 3/NOR 2)

The Paw Sox started off their season with a 4 game series against the Indianapolis Indians and they were swept by the Pirates' AAA team. The Paw Sox started the week off with another 4 game series against the very same team, now the top team in the International League. This time the results were a little different as the Sox managed to split the four game set. They were beat by Zach Duke and Ian Snell, the two top pitchers in the Pirates organization. So at least things are looking better for the Sox than they were at the begining of the year. After holding their own against the Indians the Sox went on to take 3 out of 4 from another top International League team, the Norfolk Tides. The Sox are now only one game below .500 and are climbing out of the cellar with a 22-23 record.

Neither Roberto Petaine or John Olerud are prospects by any stretch of the imagination, but both are in AAA hoping for a shot at the major league level. Petagine has played in 10 games and has put up a .244/.367/.707 line with 5 homers in 41 AB. He's walking at a good rate and hitting the ball hard. His average is a little low, but if a couple of balls had bounced the other way his line would be great. Olerud was crushing the ball in extended spring training and in his first start against real competition he hit a home run, went 1 for 4, and made a good play in the field at first. Olerud has been told that he'll be in Pawtucket for 7-10 days before being called up so it looks like Petagine won't get a fair shot. Unless, of course the Sox do something about Kevin Millar. But if the Sox won't sit Millar for the hotter hitting Kevin Youkilis, then there really is no way they'd do something with him to make room for Petagine. It's good to have depth though, at least.

Justin Sherrod was the offensive star of the week for the Sox going 9-20 with five doubles and 5 RBI. Kelly Shoppach hit another home run, doubled 3 times and knocked in 6 runners, but his week had a lot of bad news. Shoppach went a solid 7 for 27, but struck out 12 times to bring his yearly total to 40 K's in 133 AB. He trails only Sherrod (43) and George Lombard (54) on the team with K's.

Cla Meredith logged a couple of outings over the week including a perfect 2 inning performance to get his first win. He was shaky in his first appearance after his major league poundings, letting up a few hits, but he seems to be back on track.

Portland Sea Dogs (POR 5/ERI 3, POR 1/ERI 0, BOW 4/POR 1, BOW 2/POR 1, BOW 4/POR 0)

Chris Smith had an impressive first start coming off the DL last week and followed it up this week with an even better start. He earned his first win of the year against Erie going 7 scoreless innings, while allowing 6 hits and 2 walks to go along with 5 K's. Smith's win capped off a three game sweep of the Erie Sea Wolves, one of the better AA teams in the Eastern League.

Despite a strong start by Jon Lester the Sea Dogs lost the first game in the series against Bowie. Lester went 7, walked 4, and allowed 4 hits, but he struck out 8 and allowed only 1 run. The usually strong bullpen, however, allowed 3 runs and the Sea Dogs lost the game. The Sea Dogs ended up being swept in that series also in three low scoring pitching duals. The Sea Dog rotation has been performing great, but the offense just couldn't get the job done this week. Dave Pauley went 5 scoreless allowing only 3 hits and 2 walks and struck out 9 in a 2-1 loss and Jon Papelbon had a bit of a subpar game going 5.2 IP allowing 5 hits, 3 walks, and 3 runs. He struck out 4 as his record dropped to 3-2 on the season.

The Sea Dogs were also rained out three times.

A few things about the weekend

2005-05-24T11:12:00.000-04:00

Did you know that Jason Varitek has homered on five straight May 20ths? His homer on Friday was his ninth of the year and the fifth consecutive year that he has hit at least one home run on May 20th. Now that's just weird.

It was a good season for the Sox. Typically they struggle in interleague play and, for some reason, they've always had trouble against the Braves. Over the weekend thanks to two very solid outings by Matt Clement and Wade Miller the Sox took two out of three. Time Wakefield has regressed a bit this season after a fantastic start and is now putting up numbers more along the lines of his career norm. I don't want to sound down on the guy because he has been very solid for a very long time for the Red Sox, but I don't think anyone really expected him to keep his ERA below 3.00 and pitch like a staff ace for the entire year. He's dependable. He's solid. But he's not an ace. Clement and Miller, on the other hand, both have the potential to be very good starters and both showed that potential over the weekend. I already mentioned Miller, but I'm even more impressed with Clement. Clement has been good all season, but in nearly every one of his starts he walked a few guys and got deep in a lot of counts. It seems like his pitch count hit 100 every time the fifth inning rolled around. On Sunday he didn't walk a batter and he was mowing down the Atlanta offense with ruthless efficiency. He gave the Red Sox their first complete game of the season and so far the man has not lost a start now that he's up to a 5-0 record. Red Sox Nation still has mixed feelings about the guy, but as I've mentioned several times before, I think he'll do great this year. His outing on Sunday was just him getting the ball rolling.

Is Manny Ramirez breaking out of his slump? It's hard to tell after one game, but Manny was hitting the ball hard to the opposite field all day on Sunday and that resulted in a 3-5 day with his 11th homer of the year. Apparently he has been having problems with outside pitches lately and he has been working on driving those pitches to the opposite field. He was able to do just that and 4 out of the 5 balls he put into play were sent to right field. I'm not a batting coach and I don't know how to analyze a swing, but I think Manny is about to go on a tear. He has been too quiet for too long and I think he's going to break out this week.

What is it about the Red Sox and rookie starters? I don't have the statistical evidence to back it up, but it seems like every time the Red Sox face an inexperience starter, they get shut down. Kyle Davies is another example of this. On Saturday Davies shut out the Red Sox for five innings, striking them out 6 times. The Red Sox still managed to score five runs, but they did allthe damage after Davies was taken out of the game. It seems like the Red Sox approach of waiting for the right pitch and then hammering it would work well against an inexperienced pitcher, but it never seems to.

Tonight David Wells takes on the Toronto Blue Jays. The last time he did that he allowed back to back to back home runs. I'm not exactly confident that the Red Sox will get the win tonight, how about you?

yesterday's news and notes

2005-05-21T10:00:00.000-04:00

Now that is the Wade Miller that Sox fans were all hoping for. He earned his first win of the year with his best start of the year. With the top two starters in the Sox rotation down, one with injuries and one with a severe case of suck, the Wade Miller signing is looking better and better.

I don't mention Mike Timlin nearly enough here and I think that's the case with Sox coverage everywhere. The guy hardly ever gets any attention despite the amazing season he's having. He's on pace to have the best year of his very long career and helped that along last night with 1.2 innings of perfect baseball. The last time he allowed a run was on April 16th. He's giving the Sox that brilliant set up man that several of the really good clubs have. That's something that the Sox have been lacking for a while. They've had decent bullpens, but never the automatic scoreless innings pitched that Timlin has been giving them every time he touches the ball.

If only we could say as much about Keith Foulke. The optimistic Red Sox fans are saying that they're not worried about the guy. They're saying that he'll come around. He's too good not to come around. Well, he's not coming around. He made last night's game far too close for comfort. There was a little blurb in this week's Sports Weekly saying that several of Keith Foulke's friends believe his struggles this year are related to his pending divorce. If that's the case, just shoot the bitch and let's move on. The Red Sox have too much riding on Keith Foulke to let off field issues get in the way. Whatever the reason behind his pitching is, the fact remains that the guy has sucked this year. The only good thing one can say about the 3 hits and 2 runs he let up in last night's game is that at least, this time, he didn't let up a home run.

Johnny Damon and Jason Varitek remain on fire, which is good because Manny Ramirez went 0 for the night once again, bringing his average down to .230. I don't think I'm too worried about Manny yet. I'm not sure why Foulke has me cringing every time he is on the field, but I still have faith in Manny, but that's the way it is for me. I'm positive that Manny will break out of it. He's still hitting the ball for power, he's just not getting the base hits. He's striking out 25.9% of the time, which is high, but he's had those kind of strike out numbers before in his career. His strike out percentage fluctuates a lot from year to year so it's hard to tell if he'll start making better contact, but I'm confident enough to say that even if he remains at this strikeout level he'll be able to raise his average at least to the .280-.300 range. Manny, for the most part, is getting the job done. He's still knocking in the runners and a .353 OBP isn't very Manny like, but it's still passable. He'll come around, but until he does Damon, Varitek, and Trot Nixon seem to have no problem carrying the team.

One thing I liked about last night's line up is that Kevin Millar is slowly falling in it. He was batting seventh last night, but that's still not good enough. With Roberto Petaine crushing the ball in Pawtucket (he's only hitting .233, but already has 4 homers in 7 games), Kevin Youkilis already putting up good numbers at the major league level, and John Olerud making rehab starts, that gives 3 guys in the organization that are likely better options at first than the struggling sack of potatoes. I hope to see the guy benched in the upcoming weeks and I hope to see him packing his bags and moving somewhere like Tampa Bay for next year. For now, a drop to 7th in the line up will have to do.

Doug Mirabelli went down with a wrist injury. Apparently the injury came on Wednesday night when he brought David Ortiz's bat to the plate. Ortiz has a heavier bat than Mirabelli and he somehow tweaked his wrist swinging it. He went a few days hoping that he'd be fine, but the injury persisted and he was placed on the DL. I was hoping that means that we'd get to see how Kelly Shoppach performs at the major league level, but Shawn Wooten and his .225/.291/.384 line at Pawtucket got the call instead. The move makes sense. Shoppach wouldn't be able to play every day if he was called up. I'm still a little bit dissapointed though.

Clement

2005-05-18T10:12:00.000-04:00

I was wide awake last night when I started watching the 8th inning of last night's game and the Sox were down 5-3. I blink and the next thing you know it's the 9th, Keith Foulke is on the mound, and the Sox are up 7-5. I guess I was a little bit more tired than I thought and I missed the most exciting inning of the game. I'm getting old if I can't even stay up late enough to see the ending of a west coast game!

The good news for the Sox is that Foulke put in a very solid inning, striking out two, for the save. The bad news for the Sox was that Matt Clement was in serious jepardy of losing for the first time this year before Edgar Renteria bailed him out. What should Sox fans think about Matt Clement? I'm going to weasle out of the work of actually writing something and link you to two different views of the guy.

Mark Normandin over at Beyond the Boxscore believes that Clement is a better pitcher than he has been in previous years and believes he can keep it up. Evan Brunell at Firebrand of the AL does his best to dash our hopes about Clement saying that he likely won't keep up the pace that he's set so far. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but despite his poor outing last night I think I have to side with Marc on this one. I've been a big fan of Clement since day one. He's not an ace of a staff, but he is a very solid number two guy that I'm glad to have on my team and I think he'll do fine.

In other news...it could be good or bad depending on how you look at it...David Wells goes this afternoon. Wells, now sporting the mustacheless goatee, will come off the DL and take the mound. Perhaps he'll perform better this time around? Unsurprisingly, Cla Meredith was sent down to make room for the big guy. Meredith will now try his hand at AAA after a very dissapointing time in the majors.

http://beyondtheboxscore.com/story/2005/5/16/115644/788

Minor League Update

2005-05-17T11:40:00.000-04:00

There's not much to a post, but John Sickles takes a look at the top 20 Sox prospects and checks in on how they're doing in an article that can be found here. Like I said, there's not much to the post, but I'm hoping that some insightful stuff gets posted in the comments section.

Pawtucket Red Sox (PAW 3/SCA 2, PAW 4/SCA 2, TOL 13/PAW 4, TOL 12/PAW 11, TOL 6/PAW 4, PAW 4/TOL 3)

The Paw Sox just barely avoided a 4 game sweep by the Toledo Mud Hens thanks to some 10th inning heroics and the team managed to post an even 3-3 record for the week. They started the week the same way the finished it with an Abe Alvarez start. Alvarez pitched well enough in both games but came away with a no decision in both even though the Paw Sox managed to win both games. He went 6 IP with a 6/1 k/bb ratio and allowed 2 runs with 7 hits. On Monday Alvarez went 6.2 IP, this time letting up 3 runs on only 3 hits and 2 walks while striking out 4. 26 year old Tim Hummel hit a solo shot and Shawn Wooten hit a two run blast that plated the red hot Chip Ambers to provide the offense in the first game that Alvarez pitched. The second game he threw in lasted long after he was out of the game and was decided in the 10th. Ambers, as mentioned, is still on fire. He went only 5 for 16 over the course of the week, but scored 5 times during the week, hit a two run home run, and walked 6 times. He also stole 4 bases on the week, three of them coming in a single game.

The Sox didn't fare very well against Toledo. The Mud Hens embarrassed the team in the first game of their four game series with a 13-4 win. Charlie Zink started the game, but lasted only 2 IP and gave up 8 runs on 7 hits and 4 walks. He earned the loss and was sent back to Portland on Monday. Toledo put up double digits again the next day scoring 12, but at least the Paw Sox put up a little bit of a fight and came back with 11 runs of their own. Kelly Shoppach hit his 9th home run in that game, just one day after hitting his 8th of the season. Shoppach has remained very consistant all year maintaining an average around .275 and hitting for power the whole time. He's still striking out far too much with 28 k's in 106 AB's, but so far that hasn't come back to bite him. Roberto Petaine, back from the DL, also homered in that game. Petagine, an offseason acquisition that I was excited about, has been out with an injury since spring training. So far in 3 games with the Sox he's 2-12 with a double and a homer to go along with 3 walks. Lenny Dinardo and Mark Malaska were both hit hard in the game. Both had been very solid for Pawtucket until Sunday's game. Dinardo lasted only 2 innings and gave up 7 runs (only 5 of the earned) on 7 hits and 3 walks while striking out only 1. Malaska came on in relief only to let up 5 runs in 2.1 innings. He struck out 3, walked 3, and allowed 3 hits.

Chris Naverson followed his dreadful start from last week with a solid, but unspectacular game going 6 innings. He struck out 4 and walked 2 while allowing 6 runs on 6 hits. He would've earned a win, but the bullpen blew the game.

Portland Sea Dogs (POR 6/NH 5, BOW 3/POR 2, BOW 2/POR 1, BOW 9/POR 3, POR 5/ERI 4)

The biggest loss on the week for the Sea Dogs came in a 9-3 loss at the hands of the Bowie Bay Sox. The Bay Sox scored 8 off of Dave Pauley in the bottom of the 1st. Pauley lasted only 3 innings and let up 8 runs (6 earned) on 10 hits and 1 walk. He struck out 2. Two of the runs the Sea Dogs scored came on a two run shot by Dustin Pedroiam who hit his second home run in as many days. The other run came on Hanley Ramirez's first homer of the year. Ramirez went 5-19 on the week to go along with his homer and 3 walks. He hasn't been hitting the homers, but he has been tearing up the bases, stealing his 10th base of the year last week. Pedroia went 5-17 with 2 homers last week. He walked 3 times and struck out twice. The Sea Dogs were swept by the Bay Sox and went 2-3 on the week.

Chris Smith was activated from the DL and made his first start for the Sea Dogs. Smith, 23, isn't on most prospect radar screens. According to Sox Prospects he has a good power curve, but needs to work on his curve if he wants to compete as a starter at the major league level. He made a good start to the year, prospect or not, with a 5.2 inning start letting up 1 run on 1 walk and 3 hits. He struck out 4.

Jon Lester got his first loss of the season to go to 1-1 on the year, but the loss was more of a result of poor run support than anything else. He went 5.2 innings and allowed only 2 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks. He only struck out 3. The Sea Dogs were held to a single run, a Pedroia solo shot.

Jon Papelbon continued to dominate with a 6.1 inning performance where he let up only 1 run on 2 hits and 3 walks. He struck out 5. Papelbon has been walking more in his last few starts than he was at the begining of the year, but he has still been very effective. He was in line for the win before Manny Delcarmen, a borderline Sox prospect having a bad year in the AA bullpen, blew the save by allowing 3 unearned runs in relief of Papelbon. The Sea Dogs went on to win the game and Marc Deschenes got the win by pitching a hitless 1.1 innings to end the game. With Cla Meredith in the majors, Deschenes is the guy who will step up as the Sea Dogs closer. His numbers aren't as good as Meredith's were in AA. He's actually let up a couple of runs. But the numbers are close. In 15.1 innings he's struck out 23 and has a 1.17 ERA. His biggest drawback appears to be his control. He's walked 11. If he doesn't cut back on the walks, eventually they will catch up to him and bite him in the ass.

With Ian Bladergroen struggling all year and now going on the DL with a sprained left wrist, Jeremy West is the top first base prospect for the Sox. West has been hitting clean up for the Sea Dogs for most of the year. He has only 2 home runs, but he has doubled 10 times and tripled twice. His .310/.376/.468 line shows that he knows how to get on base, but he does need to start hitting for more power if he wants to be considered a serious option at first.

Wilmington Blue Rocks

There's only one thing we care about down in Wilmington and his name is Anibal Sanchez. Sanchez went 6 innings allowing only 1 unearned run to get the win last week. He allowed 3 hits and 3 walks, but struck out 7. His ERA is down to 2.19 on the year and he has a 55/6 k/bb ratio in 7 games over 37 innings. It's only a matter of time before Jon Papelbon finds himself in AAA and Sanchez replaces him as Portland's ace.

Not what we expected...

2005-05-16T00:27:00.000-04:00

So much for an easy series for the Sox to extend their hot streak, eh? Dropping two out of three to the Mariners is not what the Red Sox were expecting, but baseball is like that. To quote the old saying, that's why the play the games.

Baseball is a game where a guy can just get unlucky. It's a game where a series of unfortunate events can happen back to back to back and before you know it, things are looking grim. It's also the kind of game where if you take out one piece of the puzzle, things can look incredibly different. In Sunday evening's game Seattle's second inning was a case of both of those happening. If you took out the struggles that Time Wakefield was having in that inning, he pitched a beautiful game and he would've had the win. You can't do that, of course, but it'd be nice if you could. The funny thing is that he wasn't even struggling. Only two of the balls in that inning were hit hard. Randy Winn and Willie Bloomquist both hit line drive doubles into the outfield, but Wakefield didn't walk a batter and the other three hits consisted of two weak hit grounders and a bloop single into shallow right. One of the runs scored on a groundout and the first out of the inning was a very weak ball hit back to the mound. Seattle didn't have Wakefield's number that inning. They were struggling. It just so happens that they were getting lucky. The only thing I fault Wakefield with last night is the fact that he was somehow unable to get Miguel Olivo out. The guy was on something like an 0 for 24 streak entering the game and ended up going 3 for 4 in the game with a homer. I guess even the lowest dog has his day. Baseball is like that too.

There was good news about Sunday's game. Plenty of good news. Wakefield wasn't as bad as his numbers suggest, but the biggest news of the day was Manny Ramirez and his 400th career home run. A huge congratulations goes out to him. Some say that he's struggling this year, but you could always just say that it's just Manny being Manny.

Streaks, Milestones, and Links

2005-05-15T09:24:00.000-04:00

Just a quick little post in case someone out there doesn't know. Manny Ramirez hit his 9th homer of the season last night to make 399 for his career. The next shot he hits will be his 400th. He's tied for 39th on the all-time list with his total.

As for streaks, Johnny DamonL went 0 for 5 last night breaking his hit streak leaving the longest hit streak on the team to Edgar Renteria with 10 games. Damon is third in the league in AVG and second in hits and is putting together a season much better than anyone thought he would. The question is, if he keeps up this pace and finishes the year with a fantastic season, do the Sox give him the 4 year deal that he wants? During his streak Renteria is 14 for 45. I'd be a little more optimistic about him finally breaking out of his season long slump if he had more than just one extra base hit in that time.

Evan Brunell breaks down Manny's slump to show us that it's not really that much of a slump. While he seems to think that Manny is done against lefties, I have a feeling it's just a case of a small sample size and that Manny will start crushing them any time now. But it is nice to see that Manny is still the same old Manny against righties. Either way, we all know that Manny is just one of his blazing hot streaks away from righting his season entirely.

Marc Normandin is expanding once again. He started off with the now defunct Baseball Ranting before expanding to a few weeks at Heads/Tails. He's now moved on to Beyond the Boxscore and started a blog that I'm really looking forward to, Sox on Deck. His latest post talks about a few Paw Sox players that he observed for the first time in his first game at Pawtucket. It also mentioned something that I hadn't heard about yet. Roberto Petagine is off the DL and played his first game for the Paw Sox. I was happy with the Petagine signing in the offseason and was looking forward to seeing him play, but because of his injury I mostly forgot about him. If he plays well in Pawtucket it would be nice to have his bat off the bench backing up Millar at first.

Couldn't last forever...

2005-05-14T00:58:00.000-04:00

Well, I suppose no one really expected Jeremi Gonzalez to be solid forever. Seven runs over 3.1 IP is bad enough, but the fact that he was hammered that hard against the Mariners just added insult to injury. I think we have no witnessed both ends of the spectrum from Gonzalez. He has shown us solidly mediocre and absolutely dreadful. Perhaps they should send him down before he causes anymore harm. He was pitching well in Pawtucket and, best case, he could at least help the Pawtucket team as they try to remain out of the International League cellar. John Halama came on in relief and was just as bad. No one was expecting Halama to be really impressive this year, but I think we were all hoping for a little more than what he's given us so far. He had a good stretch of relief work at the begining of the season and his spot start was pretty solid, but his ERA is up to 6.50 after tonight's shellacking. He's just not missing enough bats so far this season.

The game started off looking interesting. I love the ping pong, back and forth offensive games, especially when the Sox starter getting bombed isn't someone in the season long plans. But the Red Sox stopped scoring and the Mariners...well, they didn't. Mark Bellhorn hit his first homer of the season. Here's hoping that's the start of a trend. I knew he hadn't hit a homer yet this yeaer, but when you actually hear it said outloud it just sounds that much more worse. Even he and Trot Nixon couldn't keep the Sox afloat for long. I'm about to head to bed after this post and the Sox are down 14-6.

I assume Cla Meredith's stint in the majors will be over when David Wells comes off the DL, which is supposed to be pretty soon. Meredith was hit hard for the third time in his three chances and I think, for now, he's run out of chances. It's past time to put this little expiriment to rest and let Meredith get in some work at AAA. The jump was far too much for him at such a young age.

Damon walks, Payton doubles with 1 out in the 8th. Maybe the Sox are making a comeback! I know I'm not waiting up for it.

An end of an era

2005-05-12T23:15:00.000-04:00

The Blaine Neal era of Red Sox baseball is officially over as Colorado claimed the reliever off of waivers. Neal was out of options so when the Sox sent him down in favo of Blaine Neal all 30 major league teams got a crack at the guy before he could officially be placed on the Paw Sox roster. I was pulling for the guy, but with the way he pitched this year, I won't exactly miss him.

I haven't seen a single bit of a Red Sox game all week besides what Baseball Tonight has shown me and it's starting to drive me insane. Connecticut, in all its NESNless glory, really is hell on earth. Luckily I'll be heading back to good ol' Rhode Island tomorrow afternoon and I'll be able to catch some of, if not all of, tomorrow night's game.

The Red hot streak for the Sox should continue when they roll into Seattle. Jeremi Gonazlez, Wade Miller, and Tim Wakefield should be taking the mound against a below average team. The Red Sox are only a single game behind the Orioles and a series against the Mariners is just what they need to make a run at the division lead.

I'm not sure if it's good news or bad news, but David Wells is making progress. It is good in a way. I don't really have confidence that Jeremi Gonzalez can keep up his relatively solid effort, but...well, things have been nice without Wells! The same article mentions how Schilling isn't doing as well.

Minor League Update

2005-05-11T19:52:00.000-04:00

Pawtucket Red Sox (ROC 7/PAW 1, PAW 9/ROC 2, ROC 7/PAW 5, SYR 4/PAW 3, PAW 10/SYR 8, PAW 4/SCA 3, SCA 13/PAW 4)

The Paw Sox wasted their hot streak with a rather mediocre week which contained little, if any, highlites. Chip Ambres was the biggest standout for the team going 11 for 28 on the week, walking 3 times, scoring 7, and knocked in 5. He hit 2 home runs. Ambers has been the biggest offensive star for the team so far this year with a .360/.435/.653 line, all of which lead the team. He's also showing speed and power with 5 steals and 5 homers. If he keeps it up the 25 year old could be Boston's fifth outfielder before long, despite the fact that he's never showed this kind of promise before. Kelly Shoppach is still plodding along with a 7 for 26 week, keeping his average up there and staying in the race for the International League home run title. Right now he's 2 behind the lead and tied for 3rd with several other players.

I was ready to say how impressive Chris Naverson has been. I was about to even suggest that he could be in Boston by the summer. His first start of the week was strong with a 5 inning start for his first victory of the season. He did walk 4 and only struck out 1, but he spread out 6 hits to allow only 1 run. Then everything changed with a horrid second start yesterday where he lasted only 3 IP and allowed 9 ER on 11 hits. Still, it's hard to believe that at one time I actually felt that the Red Sox could've squeezed more out of a deal for Byung-Hyun Kim. Kim has been getting crushed in Colorado, blowing lead after lead as the Rockies still insist on bringing him in in close games. It appears as if they're finally starting to learn their lesson as he's only been used twice so far this month, but the damage has already been done. He did start today for the Rockies and pitched pretty well going 5 innings letting up only 1 run, but in his 11 relief appearances on the year he's 0-3 with a 7.62 ERA. Naverson, before yesterday was cruising along for the Red Sox. And even still, 9 runs will hurt his ERA for the rest of the year, but if he doesn't let the outing bother him he should continue to impress.

Charlie Zink, the 26 year old knuckleballer who, at one time, was considered a Sox prospect, but has been struggling for the last year and half, was promoted to AAA for the first time in his young career. The Sox shuffled pitchers around at the major league and AAA level a few days ago and when the dust settled, Zink found himself playing for Pawtucket. He came on in relief of Naverson in yesterday's game and continued to allow the slugfest that Naverson started. He went 1.1 IP allowing 4 runs.

Portland Sea Dogs (POR 5/NB 0, NB 10/POR 6, NOR 6/POR 3, POR 3/NOR 2, NH 4/POR 2, POR 6/NH 1

The Dustin Pedroia/Hanley Ramirez duo continues to impress. The issue is becoming less and less about just how good they did last week and more and more about when they're going to be promoted to AAA. Ramirez has been slightly dissapointing this year, still without a homer, and for the first time he's below the .300 mark with a .299 AVG. On the other hand a very solid .299/.364/.439 line isn't half bad and combined with 9 steals in 11 attempts and 6 triples and Ramirez is just looking better and better. Pedroia has outhit his double play partner so far this year with a .352/.439/.486 line. He's leading the team in walks and has been a solid run producer knocking in 18 of his teammates in 26 games. In just his second professional season Pedroia is making a strong case for a promotion. Is there room for the duo in Pawtucket? Yes and no. Pawtucket hasn't had a regular shortstop all year. They've rotated between several players, and only Tim Hummel, a 26 year old with some big league experience, is producing. Hummel has played some time at short, but has received most of his time over at third. So there is a spot open for Ramirez at short. Second base has belonged to Alejandro Machado, a 23 year old in his first season in the Red Sox organization. Machado has been very solid this year for the Paw Sox. I've suggested a promotion to the majors where his defense could greatly help a club that was forced to use Mark Bellhorn at short and his speed would be welcomed on a bench that doesn't really have a good pinch runner. At his age and experience level, however, that's probably not the best of ideas. The Sox want to continue to develope Machado so they won't move him to the bench and while I can't find any position data for the guy, Baseball America says that he plays both middle infield posistions, so a move to third or the outfield might not be a very good idea. So, for now, Pedroia, who seems to be closer to a promotion than Ramirez, is blocked by Machado. It's probably too early for mee to even be discussing this, but I'm anxious to see this combo in Pawtucket, a 20 minute ride from my house.

The Sea Dog rotation continues to be a strength for the team. Jon Papelbon, John Lester, and Dave Pauley continue to impress and each threw a good game last week. Pauley went 7 strong innings allowing just 2 runs on 3 hits and a walk while striking out 5. Pauley, the 21 year old minor leaguer sent over in the Dave Roberts deal during the offseason, doesn't get very much attention and is projected to be a back of the rotation starter. Baseball America rates him as the club's 26th best prospect, but if he keeps putting up good numbers at his age he may gain a little more favor. Papelbon is already considered the team's top pitching prospect only improved his stock with his last two starts. Early in the week he went 7 scoreless innings letting up only 3 hits and struck out 6. The only problem with his start was his control. He allowed his first 2 walks of the year in his start before last week, and the trend got worse last week. He walked 5. His controlw came back in the game he threw yesterday as he went 6 IP to get the win while allowing only 1 run on a solo homer, the only hit he allowed in the game. More importantly he walked only 1 while striking out 5. His ERA is down to 2.02 on the year and he's giving Sea Dog fans a lot to be excited about. Lester wasn't as good as Papelbon last week, but he did keep the Dogs in the game going 6.2 IP letting up only a single run on 5 hits and a walk. He struck out 8. He was in line for the win, but a poor offensive showing and a run let up by the bullpen gave him a no decision in a game that the team eventually did win.

Wilmington Blue Rocks (WIL 3/POT 0, POT 6/WIL 0, FRE 6/WIL 5, WIL 7/FRE 5, FRE 10/WIL 8, LYN 7/WIL 5, WIL 14/LYN 5)

The Blue Rocks had a rough week going 2-4. As always, the only stand out star for the team in my mind was Anibal Sanchez. He had a decent game going 5 while letting up only 2 runs. The team won the game, but Sanchez didn't earn the victory thanks to some shoddy bullpen work. The biggest story was his control. He walked 2 batters in thos 5 innings bringing his season total up to 3 walks allowed. He struck out 4 while letting up 4 hits. Luis Gonzalez may be a pitcher to keep an eye on. The 20 year old has a 3.19 ERA in 31 IP over 6 games (5 of them starts). He's only struck out 17 while walking 7, but he's pitched well enough to keep the team in the games when he's on the mound.

Bryan Pritz, recently promoted from Greenville has been helping the team from the leadoff spot since he got to the team on May 1st. Apparently the speedy centerfielder has really great range and so far his bat in Wilmington has been pretty hot as he's started his High-A career with a .379/.538/.379 line in 29 at bats over 9 games. He still doesn't have an extra base hit, but the season is still young he he's already 3 for 3 in steal attempts.

Ian Bladergroen has fallen off the radar nearly completely. The man who some hoped would develop some power and move quickly through the system when he came over to the Sox in the offseason has been dropped down to 8th in the lineup. He's going to have to heat up really quick if he wants to go from #8 hitter in the low minors to prospect.

POTATOES!

2005-05-10T22:52:00.000-04:00

My girlfriend calls Kevin Millar Potatoes because she says the guy looks like a sack of potatoes running around the bases. I don't give a damn what the guy looks like, that is a hell of a way to end a ballgame and he saved Arroyo from getting the tough luck loss. Arroyo remains undefeated and the Sox remain red hot.

A quick major league week in review to make up for a lack of posts

2005-05-09T22:08:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I actually talked about a major league game here. This blog has taken on almost a minor league type of feel which is not what I'm going for at all. It's just that blogging about the minor league system is the easier way for me to keep up with it and I don't want to relax on that because it won't be long before I don't know what's going on. Tonight I'll do a quick recap of the Red Sox week, but I won't be including links to the player's ESPN profile. Why? Mostly because I can't seem to get to ESPN at the moment. Also, if anyone actually looks for my updated MVP/Cy Young race, I'll be skipping that this week. I'm on a foreign computer (the girlfriend's laptop) in a foreign place (western Connecticut) for job training. I was hoping this would be a nice relaxing week of watching baseball, but I don't even get NESN in this hotel! So I'll be without the Sox all week. At least I can watch them through MLB.com's game day feature.

The Sox have been hot lately and it's been a little while since I've had to use the words ugly and mediocre to describe them. They've had their bad moments, of course, like Cla Meredith's major league career and Edgar Renteria's bruised finger, but for the most part they've been cruising right along taking 2 of 3 from Texas, 3 of 4 from Detroit, and 2 of 3 from Seattle. Picking on the lesser teams is how the Red Sox are going to make a run at 100 wins this year and so far they've been doing a decent job with that.

With Curt Schilling and David Wells down, the Sox have had to rely on a patch work rotation to get the job done and the team has really stepped up and done much more than anyone could ask for. Tim Wakefield, who is on the mound as I type this, and Bronson Arroyo have been amazing so far this year and both won their start last week. Wakefield did let up 10 hits and 3 runs, but pitched 7 solid innings to get the win against Detroit and Arroyo pitched a 3 hit beauty against Detroit going 8 innings allowing only one run on a solo shot by Carlos Guillen. The two healthy guys left over from last year's rotation have carried this team's pitching so far this year. They were expected to be solid 4 and 5 guys, but have exceeded expectations in every way possible. Matt Clement, despite mixed feelings from most of Red Sox Nation has produced this year, still hasn't lost a game, and his last start was one of his best so far in a Red Sox uniform. Jeremi Gonzalez and John Halama, the two fill ins, did plenty to keep the team in the game in their three starts combined. Gonzalez apparently impressed enough that he remained with the team when Lenny Dinardo and Blaine Neal went down. If he performs at this level all year he'll be a solid long man out of the pen. Wade Miller...well, the jury is still out on him, but many hopes and dreams rest on that man's shoulder.

Keith Foulke has still been a little shaky, but he seems to be settling down a little bit. To quote a caller on WEEI, they've been pronouncing the guy's title wrong all year. He's not the team's "closer". His job is to come in and make the game a little bit "closer". As in a closer score. The bullpen has had its bad moments with Embre's bad game, Neal's deserved demotion, and Cla Meredith, but in general it hasn't been bad. It's been another solid aspect of the team.

On the offensive side of the ball, all I have to say is Kevin Youkilis. I'm probably way too high on this guy, but he's hitting. Since he came back from Pawtucket he's been in six games and he is 8 for 21. He was held hitless in one of those games and he still managed to walk twice that night. Francona really needs to find ways to get this guy in the line up every damn day.

I started this post a couple of hours ago and now tonight's game is coming to an end. Meredith, unfortunately, got hammered again. I think he's going to be finding his way to Pawtucket real soon. Besides that, the game was all Sox. I really wish I had been able to see it.

Big news?

2005-05-08T16:28:00.000-04:00

Cla Meredith has made it to the bigs. The 21 year old has been amazing in AA Portland so far this year not allowing a single run over 15 innings.

Blaine Neal was sent to the minors to make room for the youngster which is a shame. I was hoping that Neal would turn out ok this year...mostly because I spent $5 to sponsor him on Baseball Reference. Neal let up 9 runs (8 earned) on 15 hits, 3 walks, and 2 homers.

Edited to add So, 2 walks, a grand slam, and a double later, the Cla Meredith expiriment isn't looking so hot. Maybe he was a little nervous or maybe he just wasn't getting away with some of the things that he could get away with in the minors. Then again, maybe Varitek didn't know his stuff and called for the wrong pitches or maybe the constant drizzle made it so that Meredith couldn't get a good grip on the ball. Whatever the reason, he couldn't find the plate. While only a couple of his pitches missed by a mile, most of his were obvious balls, but only a few inches off the plate. This makes me think that it was a combination of nerves and not being able to get away with the same stuff. It can't really be blamed on the rain. It's probably not the first time he pitched in the rain and the rest of the players were playing in the same condition. Perhaps he'll settle down, perhaps he'll find himself back in Pawtucket after the game...

Several Sox bloggers were suggesting that this guy get a shot in the majors, but I don't think I'm a big fan of the idea. I'm not scout and tonight was actually the first time that I've seen his stuff, so I can't give an expert opinion, but I'm not sure if I see the logic behind it. I just think that there are options that don't include so much risk. Meredith has been lighting things up in AA this year, but he's never blown people away before this year, he's 21, and he hasn't pitched above AA. He may have really good stuff, but he's a huge risk and some time in Pawtucket to see what he has would probably do him a world of good. Instead of sending down Lenny Dinardo when Wade Miller came off the DL, why not just keep Dinardo around and send Neal down then? If they wanted to shake things up and go with someone new, Chris Naverson and Mark Malaska are older and have more experience. Naverson, admittedly, is only a year older and has only a little bit of experience in AAA, but still, that's something. And Malaska went through nearly a year with Boston last year. Why not go with him? I can see wanting to shake things up a bit and I can see wanting to give the young kid a shot, but I think it'd make a little bit more sense if they let him loose on the International League before throwing him to the wolves.

It's getting quiet in here...

2005-05-08T08:12:00.000-04:00

Thanks to a hectic work schedule (and other lame excuses that I won't bother to come up with) I haven't been around here much lately. This is just a little not to say that I hope to change that this week, starting tomorrow. The only real posts that I've had lately have been my minor league updates. I don't want to skip out on them because they help me keep up with what's going on down on the farm. But with a double header today and Wade Miller going in the second game, there should be plenty to talk about tomorrow.

Minor League Update

2005-05-04T12:53:00.000-04:00

Last night I found out what it's like to be a west coast fan. I showed up in the 2nd and left in the 7th. Thanks to work and traffic I didn't get inside of McCoy Stadium until the start of the 2nd inning. And since Miller was out and the three of us were tired and a little cold, we just decided to take off in the 7th. It had been a while since I had tickets for a Pawtucket Red Sox game and I was amazed with how easy it was to get good seats. Less than a week before a game in which Wade Miller was starting I went online and ordered tickets, crossing my fingers that the seats would be decent. Not that McCoy has any bad seats in the house, but I wanted something close. I picked up my tickets once I got to the park and we had second row seats slightly towards the first base side of the plate. We were closer to the game than Theo Epstein! Theo was a couple sections over, directly behind home, but about 15 rows up. Miller's final line wasn't all that impressive. He seemed to have issues with control, walking 4 in 5.2 IP. I believe his final pitch count was 96, 57 of them for strikes. I wish I could critique his pithes and tell you how good he was throwing, but I'm not good enough for that. To be honest with you I can't tell the difference between a slider and a changeup. With an eye like mine, nearly every pitch looks the same. I can tell you that according to the radar gun his pitches hit everywhere from 66 to 96. I also got to watch one of the Twins' top pitchers, JD Durbin. I didn't even realize that he was pitching until we got to the game. Durbin has struggled since being called up to AAA last year and wasn't very impressive last night. He was throwing some serious heat, topping off at 96 mph, but his control was an issue and it seems like his control has been the culprit causing him to struggle in his 7 AAA starts last year and 5 starts this year.

Pawtucket Red Sox (PAW 9/ROC 2, ROC 9/PAW 8, PAW 1/SCA 0, SCA 8/PAW 6, PAW 13/SCA 2, PAW 6/SCA 1, PAW 6/ROC 5)

This was the week that the Paw Sox offense decided to show up. With the exception of a 1-0 win on Thursday they managed to crank out at least 6 runs in every game they played. That includes a 13 run explosion, a 9 run game, and an 8 run game. The biggest contributor to the offensive week was Chip Ambers. Ambers went 10 for 18 on the week with 4 walks to go along with 2 homers and 10 RBI's. With that week Ambers has become the club's best offensive player leading them in AVG and SLG. Kelly Shoppach was pretty quiet this week. He did hit a home run to account for the only run in their 1-0 game, but was only 6 for 22 for the week and struck out 6 times.

One oddity that I noticed while at the game last night was Shawn Wooten. He's making the case to non-statheads everywhere that RBI's don't matter. He has an absolutely dreadful .187/.248/.341 line, but somehow manages to lead the club in RBIs with 17. He has homered 4 times, but has only doubled twice. From looks alone I'd have to say that Wooten is probably one of the least speedy guys in the game so to get a double he has to hit the ball real hard.

Abe Alvarez, Jeremi Gonzalez, and Chris Naverson all made good starts for the Paw Sox last week. Alvarez, with a nice 17/2 k/bb ration in a team leading 27.2 IP on the year, struck out 6 in 7 innings while allowing only 1 run on 4 hits. Naverson, who leads the team with a 1.65 ERA, also went 7 innings allowing only a single run on 4 hits, but he struck out only 4 and walked 2. He would've earned the win, but the bullpen blew his 5 run lead letting up 7 runs in the 8th inning. Gonzalez went twice this week going a very strong 6 innings for his first win in Pawtucket before keeping the big league club in the game for 5 innings. His big league start was as much as they could've asked out of him as he let up only 3 runs, but I think we all know saw how badly the bullpen performed in that 8-3 loss.

I was surprised with the Red Sox decision to call up Tim Bausher when Curt Schilling went down. Bausher has been adequate for the Paw Sox out of the pen so far this year with a 3.24 ERA in 8.1 IP over 4 games. He was up with the big league club for only one day and didn't get to see any action, but I would've thought that Mark Malaska would've been the man to be called up. Malaska has been the long man in the Paw Sox bullpen and has put together some very impressive games. In 14.1 IP over 6 games he's struck out 13 while walking 4 and has a 2.51 ERA. His better numbers and big league experience put him above Bausher on the depth chart in my mind.

The biggest blemish in the Pawtucket pitching staff so far? That's easy. Anastacio Martinez. Last year this guy made a start for Boston and was considered an emergency option to fill in in the big league rotation, but this year, working out of the bullpen, he has been hammered in every game that he's appeared in. In 4 games he has lasted only 2.2 IP and has a 37.12 ERA after letting up 13 runs (only 11 earned). He's only walked 1 and struck out 1, but he's been hit hard for 13 hits. If the Pawtucket team is tryin to win games, they might want to think about not using this guy.

Portland Sea Dogs (BIN 13/POR 10, BIN 3/POR 2, POR 2/BIN 1, NOR 8/POR 0, POR 10/NOR 9, POR 4/NB 1, NB 5/POR 3)

Two vastly different games with the same results started off the week for the Sea Dogs. Binghamton beat them twice in a row once in a battle of the bats and once in a close, low scoring game. They finished the week with a losing record going 3-4 in games that ran all over the spectrum. They won a few close games, two thanks to the pitching (4-1 and 2-1) and one thanks to their bats (10-9). Super closer Cla Meredith, still unscored upon this year in 15 innings, factored in all 3 decisions with a win and 2 saves. The guy has only allowed 8 baserunners so far this year and has struck out 12.

Hanley Ramirez has been struggling mightily in the last couple of weeks, last week going only 4-23 with a single walk. He did manage to steal 2 bases, but his line has dropped to .276/.330/.425 after a hot start and he still hasn't homered. His double play partner has it in cruise control going a respectable 10-33 over the week with a couple of walks, couple of steals, and his second homer of the year. He's still up there at .337/.426/.500.

Charlie Zink and Brandon Moss continue to struggle on the year and are both quickly falling down the prospect ranks for the Red Sox. Zink had a couple of good games to start the year, but after lasting only 1 inning in his last start while walking 4 and allowing 5 runs, his ERA on the season is up to 6.35. Zink was a borderline prospect after a dissapointing year last year and unless he starts to take it up a notch, he's going to fall completely out of the Red Sox radar. Moss, on the other hand, was considered by many to be the #2 hitting prospect in the system after what is now looking like a fluke year in 2004. He hasn't been hot at any time so far this year and his average is down to .215 after a 6-27 week. He is second on the team to only Jared Sandberg with 26 k's and has walked only 6 times. It's tough to find a bright spot for him so far this year.

Chris Durbin has continued to hit this year after a 12 for 20 week. He also walked 4 times and knocked in 9 on 3 doubles and a homer. Durbin has been the hottest hitter on the Sea Dogs so far this year with a .377/.449/.638 line, all three stats leading the team.

The Jon Lester/Jon Papelbon duo gave the Dogs a couple of very good starts last week. Lester went 7 innings and allowed only 1 run. The bullpen ended up with the win thanks to poor run support, but he allowed only 4 hits and walked just 2 to go along with 4 strikeouts. The win also went to the bullpen in Papelbon's game as he lasted 6 innings and allowed just one unearned run. He struck out 6 to go along with 4 hits and 2 walks. The two walks were his first two allowed so far this year.

Wilmington Blue Rocks (POT 9/WIL 0, POT 4/WIL 2, WIL 4/POT 2, WS 10/WIL 4, WS 6/WIL 2, WIL 1/WS 0, WIL 6/POT 2, POT 7/WIL 6)

The Blue Rocks started the week 1-4 before two strong pitching performances by Anibal Sanchez and Jose Vaquedano allowed them to win 2 out of their final 3 games. Sanchez went twice on the week getting a no decision in his first game, a 6 inning effort allowing just 2 runs (1 earned) on 3 hits and no walks. He struck out seven. He earned the victory in his second game by going 6 scoreless innings, once again not walking a batter and allowing 4 hits to go along with 9 K's. That leaves him with a 2.42 ERA and a 44/1 k/bb ratio in 26 IP. Let's say that again. 44/1!!!!!!!!!!!!! Vazquedano's winning effort was his first start of the year after 4 games of being used as a long reliever. He lowered his ERA to 3.00 in 21 innings with a 15/2 k/bb ratio after last week. The team offense still has nothing to talk about.

In non-Sox related minor league news, Ryan Howard is going to get his chance. I've been following his games this year, especially after my friend suggested a Hanley/Howard deal. Jim Thome, struggling mightily this year with only 1 homer and a .204 avg, was put on the DL with a bad back. Philly is hoping that Thome will be out for the minimum of two weeks. So Howard has two weeks to impress the big league club. Howard has only hit 4 homers in 79 AB so far this year, but he does have a very impressive .316/.423/.570 line. He's striking out a LOT with 29 k's. With that many strikeouts big league pitchers may eat this guy up. But I'm hoping he puts up some good numbers.

Olerud signs

2005-05-02T23:46:00.000-04:00

The MVP/Cy Young packs are starting to separate itself from the herd and the season's great players are starting to distinguish themselves. Brian Roberts continues to amaze the league and lead the bunch and I can honestly say that he's starting to piss me off. On the one hand, I was pretty high on him before the year started. I didn't realize exactly how huge he'd be, but this year he was a great late round fantasy option at second base so I picked him up. And I do like having him support the rest of my struggling team. What I don't like is the fact that he's starting to turn the Orioles into a team that people have to actually seriously look at. While it's still very likely that the O's are going to fall off after such a hot start, it's still tough to ignore just how good they've been. There are some Sox fans out there that say when they look at the standings they eliminate the other three teams and right now just see the Sox as being 3 games ahead of the Yankees. They pretend like nothing else matters. I can't stand that attitude. Sure, it's very likely that the Red Sox and Yankees will fight it out for 1 and 2, but this is baseball. Anything can happen. Maybe the O's have a 1 in 50 shot of actually competing all year, but there's still that 1 chance. If the Rangers could make a run at the playoffs last year and the Royals could make a run the year before, absolutely anything can happen. It's not a smart move to count out any team, especially the team with baseball's second best record.

Rather than talk about the beating Detroit just gave the team, let's talk a bit about John Olerud. As we've all heard already, the Sox picked up the veteran gold glover. I've seen every response to this move from elation to disgust, but I have a pretty indifferent attitude to the deal. Yeah, I'm very glad that it means the end of the Dave McCarty era in Boston, but in general it's not going to be a huge impact signing. If he's healthy, he'll be able to help the club a little with his glove and he'll be able to get on base every now and then. But in the big scheme of things, it's not a major move.

I'll be in Pawtucket tomorrow to see Wade Miller on the mound. It's been a while since I've been to a Paw Sox game and I'm looking forward to it. Especially since this year I'm starting to get more and more into the prospects game. The biggest thing I'm looking forward to though is obviously Miller himself. We really need this guy to come back strong.

That's what I like to see

2005-05-01T01:27:00.000-04:00

I can't give you any in depth analysis because I didn't get a chance to see the game, but the boxscore tells a pretty good story.

- Kevin Youkilis was just starting to get a little hot in Pawtucket and now here he is, back in Boston and starting thanks to Mark Bellhorn being the latest victim of the team's flu bug. Not only did Youk start, but he collected 3 hits.

- Bill Mueller, starting at second, reached base five times and scored thrice thanks mostly to four walks. That's a pretty impressive little performance.

- Kevin Millar and Edgar Renteria continued their season long struggle going a combined 1-10. Millar still hasn't homered this year. In fact just about the only thing he is doing is walking. His on base percentage isn't bad, but he's not much help to the team if his bat doesn't have at least a little bit of pop to it. His numbers have been declining over the last couple of years while his weight has been increasing so I suppose it doesn't come as much of a surprise. I'm still hoping for better out of him though. In both of his years as a member of the team he has had one ice cold half and one red hot half. I guess, just like last year, he's saving his performance for the second half of the year. As for Renteria, I still hate him a lot less than most of the rest of Red Sox Nation. I think he'll come around. His decent numbers at Fenway give me a little bit of hope.

- The biggest news of the day was the continued excellent performances of Jason Varitek, Johnny Damon, and Bronson Arroyo. All three had great years for the team last year, but a lot of people had doubts that those seasons could be repeated. So far all three are off to a hot start. Damon hit his first homer of the year, but his extra base power is there with 8 doubles not to mention that he's hitting .365 with a .404 obp. Once again he's performing like one of the game's top leadoff men. Varitek is busy quietting those who felt his contract was for too much money. He hit his 6th homer which leaves him on pace to smack 42! I realize he's probably not capable of such a feat, but an impressive start is still an impressive start. Arroyo pitched 7 very effective innings to go to 3-0 on the year. With half the staff on the DL, Arroyo's presence in the rotation has been a huge boost to the team. If all 6 of the Red Sox starters ever find themselves healthy at the same time, it's going to be very hard for Franconna to banish Arroyo to the bullpen.

- And speaking of bullpens...a 1-2-3 innning by Keith Foulke??? That's what I like to see!

- Those of you that base your week around my MVP/Cy Young updates are going to have to wait a little longer this week. Tomorrow night I'll be heading to bed nice and early because on Monday I'll be up before the crack of dawn for a little work related training. Because of that I won't have time to do any updating so looking for that update on Monday evening.

Red Sox Nation speaks again

2005-04-30T01:41:00.000-04:00

About a month ago I emailed a few questions to a handful of Sox bloggers here on the World Wide Web and threw all their responses together in one giant post. This time I did the same although because a few less guys got back to me and those who did respond were a little more brief, this entry is thankfully shorter than the last. Even though I did kinda cheat and ask several questions inside of all three of the questions, this one turned out to be a little more manageable.

My questions were....

1) Have your expectations for the Red Sox and the AL East in general changed after everything that has happened in the season so far?

2) What has been the biggest Sox dissapointment to you so far this year? What about the biggest pleasent surprise?

3) In all of baseball, whose fast surprise start (team or player) do you think has the best chance to stick? How about slow start?

And the guys answered with....

Tim from Bullshit Memorial Stadium

1) Not really- in fact, the season thus far has started sort of like I guessed- slowly. The roster is a little old, and out of the gate, the starting pitching is a little tenuous- guys coming off rehab, guys changing leagues, etc. I full expect this team to be a type that hits a stride like last year- though not as hot and not following a long .500 stretch. That being said- though I still think they'll win the division, I don't think they'll win 98 games like last year, due mostly to improvements made by Toronto and Baltimore.

2) I didn't necessarily think that Renteria would be worth the money, but I never thought he'd be this bad. Of course, it's early, and he's already showing signs of breaking out- being more patient, going to the opposite field- but since it's early and that's the context of the question... Renteria I guess. Schilling and Foulke are obvious choices too, but I don't think anyone expects their struggles to last.

Pleasant surprise is Varitek, no question. He's just been hitting tremendously from day one, and seems to have been able to coax Clement into pounding the strike zone early in games. Jay Payton too, and I thought Ramon Vazquez played some really great defense at 3B subbing for Mueller being sick.

3) The Dodgers will win the West, and though I wasn't surprised at the fast start, some people seemed to be, so I'd pick them. There's just no one else in that division worth betting on, including San Francisco, who had this hype attached to them I still fail to grasp. As for players, Mark Buehrle. Probably the most underappreciated great pitcher in baseball.

I think the Twins will come around, but I'm convinced more and more everyday that Chicago is pretty much sewing up the division right now. Oakland as well- I have them winning the West, and they're a lot better offensively than they've played. As for slow starts sticking- the Yankees? Seriously though, I think the Cubs are going to have a lot of problems all season, especially if Wood goes back down. Also, it's getting hard to be optimistic about Magglio Ordonez.

1) Have your expectations for the Red Sox and the AL
East in general changed after everything that has
happened in the season so far?

Marc from Baseball Rants

1) My expectations have been met by the Red Sox and the AL East so far, yes. The Sox are more dangerous rotation wise due to the added depth, but the lineup is not as scary yet since Mueller, Bellhorn, Millar, and Renteria have not done much. Renteria is meeting my expectations so far by the way, and is angering me greatly considering Dustin Pedroia's .358/.470/.509 start for Portland. I can't even talk about how much I dislike the Renteria signing anymore. The rest of the AL is shaping up mostly the way I envisioned it: The Blue Jays are middle of the pack, the Orioles can score in bunches but can't always prevent scoring, and the Devil Rays aren't threatening without Kazmir on the mound at his best. The Yankees are off to a bad start record wise (like last year) but there is something different this time around, as they look worse than their record shows. I can't wait to run the pythagenport standings for the AL again this weekend so I can see how they are actually overachieving at this point.

2) The fact that one of these guys in the rotation is going to have to go for Wade Miller soon. I expect a lot from Miller when he joins the Sox, but it is sad to think Arroyo or Wake is going to be booted from the rotation. The biggest pleasant surprise? Well its nice to see the Trot Nixon/Jay Payton platoon working out well, as well as seeing 3 of the top 10 starters in the league on the same team (Schilling-Clement-Arroyo) even though Schill hasn't done his part yet. Is that a surprise though, or am I just happy to see it in action?

3) The LA Dodgers start. It was not a surprise in stathead circles at all, as I watch DePo at work with admiration and wonder at what schemes he has employed, but it was a surprise to say, Skip Bayless and Buster Olney, who usually jump down the throat of guys like DePo and Beane. Glad to see the Dodgers doing well, especially Lowe (since he's on someone else's tab).

Slow start that'll stick? Well its not really a slow start, but Arizona's 12-8 record won't last. They have scored 91 runs and given up 100, which should stick them under .500 sometime for the rest of the year once it catches up to them, and it will. When I did pythagenport standings on Saturday for Baseball Rants, Arizona's win percentage was .360 according to their play so far. The Phillies slow start is more surprising, but I don't expect it to last.

For players, I'm concerned about Vernon Wells slow start; in fact I dumped him off my fantasy team because I am not going to wait around all season for him again. 2003 is starting to look like the outlier (kind of like Renteria). As far as quick starts to stick, I'll take Adam Dunn's .304/.435/.750 over whatever number Brian Roberts has found himself at today. By the way, Dunn has a fast start on strikeouts too, with 19 already...at least he doesn't hit into double plays constantly, like a certain shortstop for Boston (I'm not bitter, ok!)

Denton from Surviving Grady

1) Not at all. I still the think the Sox and Yankees will finish 1-2 in the East with the Sox winning the division and the Yankees getting the wildcard. Sox pitching is better and deeper. Baltimore will outslug a bunch of teams for third but doesn't have the pitching to stay where they are now. Tampa Bay is young and improving, finishing fourth with Toronto in the basement.

2) I would have to say Wells is the biggest letdown. I thought his experience pitching in big games and hostile environments would make him a good Fenway/Boston pitcher.

I think Damon's and Varitek's hot starts have been a great surprise. For different reasons (Damon's off field distractions and Tek's big contract), I thought they'd start slower. And I mean that with no disrespect to Jason's work ethic, I just thought there might be a subconscious letdown.

3) Oakland's Harden is legit, though maybe not really a surprise. He will compete for the Cy Young this year. Same with Pedro in the NL.

For slow starts, I'd look towards Jaret Wright (maybe a moot point now that he's on the DL) and Zito as not having much potential to get a lot better. I think their slow starts are an accurate portrayal of what to expect.

Allan from Joy of Sox

1) Expectations are the same. I'm not sure we can spot any trends only 20-22 games in. The Orioles are playing much better (and playing the Yankees tougher) than I expected. While the Yankees started off last season at roughly the same pace they are at now, a significant part of that team could get old really quickly. And they'll have fewer options if their staff suffers the injuries we're dealing with this week.

2) I had originally written "no major disappointments, only minor gripes," but that was before Schilling and Wells went on the DL. Ugh. It's too early to say how long either of these guys will be out -- but they may both miss all of May. Wells threw poorly in three of his five starts and Schilling hasn't been consistent at all, so who knows -- maybe we can weather the storm
with Halama, Miller (when he returns) and a Pawtucket arm (Jeremi Gonzalez?).

I'm trying convince myself that:

(a) Foulke's struggles are temporary -- like his crappy 2004 spring training -- and hope he doesn't end up on the DL too; and

(b) It's not wise to get too bent out of shape -- it's still April and we've played only 21 games.

The minor gripes: Renteria's slow start, various base running gaffes, bullpen rustiness, having Mueller out for a week with Youkilis in Pawtucket.

Pleasant Surprises: Wakefield's excellent start (a league-leading 1.75 ERA), Ortiz's and Manny's mashing (which I expected, but is still nice to see), and the only MLB team with a perfect stolen base percentage (7-of-7!).

3) I haven't followed the rest of the league very much, so I'll skip this
one.

Evan from Firebrand of the American League

1) not at all. i will say i picked the yankees to win the wild card officially on my site (orioles i privately said to friends were gonna be real good). the last 3 years ive picked them to crash and burn and the orioles to finish 2nd. the year i finally give up and give the yankees some credit of course i turn out to be right.

2) dissapointment ... i dont really have any ... and foulke is NOT a dissapointment because he'll be in lockdown mode eventually. so I would have to say its schilling not being healthy enough. Biggest surprise is Wakefield's hot start.

3) Orioles for fast start, they're for real. Brewers have had a slow start, don't think they'll last. Yankees are in crisis mode, I have a feeling they'll finish with ~85 wins. But the slow start bound to stick I would say is oakland. i said it once ill say it again: no offense.

Randy Booth from Over the Monster

1) My expectations haven't changed -- I still think the Sox will win 90+ games and win the East, but I think it's going to take awhile for this team to gel. With David Wells and Curt Schilling out for awhile, our rotation will be in pieces for a good couple of months until everyone is completely healthy and we have it all settled. I fully expect the bats, like Edgar Renteria, to come around and put up another great offensive season.

2) Biggest dissapointment so far has been Curt Schilling. He missed the first couple of weeks, then came back and was far less than impressive, and now is back on the DL. Biggest pleasant surprise has been Mike Timlin's hot start to the season. I figured his age this season would become a factor, but not for the first month of the season.

3) I think the Dodgers as a team have a really good team, and they'll perform well this season and make the playoffs. They won't stay as hot as they are now, but they'll definitely perform well. The White Sox as a team will start slipping at some point and, once again, lose to the Twins. Brian Roberts of Baltimore has started hot, but he won't keep it up. .270 batting average and 15 home runs is probably all for him.

Frawst, a friend and respected baseball fan over at Livejournal

1) Early impression is that it's going to be much tighter than normal. All predictions going into the season took it for granted that player decline is a gradual process. But that's simply not true. Sometimes it's the cliff. Steroids or no Giambi cliffed, Kevin Brown has cliffed. If not for the Superhuman efforts of Jeter and Posada where would the Yankees be? In general I think things will end up much as we all thought they would before the season, but without the large gap between 2-3 and without the Wildcard coming from the East. My expectations are lowerd for the Sox because my expectations came with the explicit proviso that they stay healthy. They haven't already, and this Schilling relapse is worse than they're saying. Without arms they're not hanging in all year.

And Brian Roberts had best pray that the Devil doesn;t come to collect early.

2) It has to be Edgar Renteria. Foulke and Embree's scuffling will turn around to at least some extent. And there hasn't really been another big disappointment.

There's no such thing as 'clutch', but dear lord it seems like everytime Rent comes up with a duck on the pond he shoots him. I figure he'll still come around and give me the .280 15 70 I expect, but if he's doing while booting more balls than Fredy Adu what price glory?

Pleasent surprise? 1995 Vintage Timmy Wakefield. Without a doubt. You have to root for the guy, but it's much easier when the Devil is Dancin'

3)Joe Randa could easily maintain this start as a swan song. Troy Glaus likey the BOB, and he can keep it going. The D-Backs can contend in the Hot Potato NL West (YOU take it! NO YOU!) all year.

Kevin Brown is D-U-N done. It's too bad that a great career comes down to cratering in the Bronx.

Jeff Kuhn from The House that Dewey Built

1) My expectation of complete and total baseball domination has changed after a .500 month. It was probably an unrealistic expectation anyway.

The refreshing thing about the World Series win was that there was actually a reduced expectation. All off season, I wasn't worried about trivial things like Tito playing Pokey over Bellhorn, or if Soup Campbell's arm will hold up. We have a veteran team with very little variance with how they were going to be used.

Now that they have had some injuries and just aren't playing good baseball, my game by game expectations have changed from "We will win and destroy" to "It is unacceptable to be down four games to the Orioles, but we won the World Series. I enjoy beer with baseball." It's basically a look at how Jeff Kuhn lost his edge.

2) After spending two paragraphs on how I've been numbed to caring about such things, I'll use this space to tell you how much Renteria has pissed me off this year. I love Edgar Renteria, and I really think his defense is the best we've seen in Boston since Nomar's rookie year, but he's basically OC at the plate.

Last year, Cabrera would piss me off because he'd have a great at bat, 6-7 pitches and take a fastball to the opposite field for a single. Rest assured, the next time up, he's trying to crush everything eye high like he was a Pocket Ortiz.

I also can't rationally explain the Schilling situation without dropping a few c-bombs.

As far as surprises, Tim Wakefield should win this one going away. Every few years, he looks like he might put together one of those fun sub-3 ERA seasons he has in his arm. As bad as he looks when he struggles, he's a lot of fun to watch when he's pitching well.

3) Dodgers, because I really think DePodesta had one of the better off seasons in recent baseball history. And because I'm a contrarian to the mainstream ethos that exists that still kill DePodesta for the Mota/LoDuca trade.

Kansas City and Colorado are pretty much toast already, so it's no big stretch picking them to stay bad. Raul Mondesi has been bad enough to have been released…John Schuerholz should have known better.

Speaking of should have known better, Eric Milton is way too Eric Milton for the Reds. It's amazing what people would rather have than money.

More minor league updates

2005-04-29T01:28:00.000-04:00

I usually do minor league updates on Monday night/Tuesday mornings, but since the big league club has a couple of days off and there has been a few things of note in the minors, I figured I'd give them a mention.

Wade Miller started for the Paw Sox last night and put up 5 pretty solid innings. He only struck out 3 and wasn't really overpowering, but he didn't allow a run. He'll likely only need one more start in Pawtucket before being able to take a turn in the Boston rotation in a week and a half. Looks like Jeremi Gonzalez, who the Sox apparently have decided on to start Tuesday's game, won't be in the majors long.

Miller's game was a 1-0 pitcher's duel. The only run of the game came off the bat of Kelly Shoppach, who is pounding the ball in Pawtucket. He's one of the few bright spots on a fairly mediocre AAA team. Last night was his 7th homer of the year to plate the only run in the game. His average is still a little low at .278, but compared to last year's .233 and put on the side of a .722 SLG it's not all that bad. If Jason Varitek or Doug Mirabelli go down with an injury I'd be happy to see Shoppach get a turn in Boston.

The Wilmington Blue Rocks lost their game on Tuesday, but it was more due to a lack of offense and a shoddy bullpen than the starter, Anibal Sanchez. Sanchez went 6 strong innings letting up 2 runs, only 1 earned. He struck out 7 while not walking a single batter bringing his k/bb ratio for the year to an eye popping 35/1. Dustin Pedroia and Hanley Ramirez are getting all the love, but Sanchez is quickly becoming my favorite Sox farm hand and I had never even heard of him until this spring. Hell, I've only seen him pitch once and that was a spring training game that I watched in a noisy bar. This guy is showing that he's capable of great things.

I've been going through some minor league stats lately and I was going to talk about a few early stand-outs, but it's getting to be past my bed time. So maybe I'll post about that before I head off to work.

Who steps in?

2005-04-28T01:19:00.000-04:00

Call me a fool, but I actually believed that Curt Schilling's ankle was going to be perfectly fine this year. Well, it's not. Hopefully it's not a huge disaster. In the short term, the Red Sox won't miss Schilling. He hasn't exactly been keeping them in the game when he was on the mound. In the long term, if this turns out to be serious, the Red Sox are without an ace and could be in some trouble.

So what are the Red Sox options? The next four days are already planned out. Time Wakefield, Bronson Arroyo, and Matt Clement will take the mound for the series against the Rangers. John Halama will get his first start of the year on Monday taking the place of the injured David Wells. The problem now is who goes on Tuesday? Terry Francona has already ruled out the possibility of Wade Miller. Miller is nearly complete with his rehab assignment, but will not be ready for Tuesday. He did make his first rehab appearance on April 13th and has 30 days from that date before the Sox have to activate him from the DL. That means that the Red Sox will have to find a 5th starter for one start at the least, but two starts at the most. Miller may be able to make the start on May 8th, but even if he doesn't, he'll be ready to face the Mariners on May 13th. At the moment that is going to leave the Red Sox scrambling to find a starter for one or two starts. Who gets the ball?

Lenny Dinardo started a few games in Pawtucket and did an adequate job while he was down there. He could probably manage to go out there and not screw things up too badly for five innings before handing the ball to the bullpen. It wouldn't be an ideal situation, but losing the guys you thought were going to be the #1 and #2 starters isn't an ideal situation to begin with.

Last year when they needed an emergency start they called Abe Alvarez up from Portland to take the mound. Alvarez, clearly not ready, was blown out of the water, as most of us expected. This year Alvarez is another year old and another level closer to the bigs. He's not exactly lighting them up in AAA, but he's holding his own. Another couple of emergency starts wouldn't kill him. It might even teach him a thing or two.

If the Sox were willing to grab a kid from AA who clearly wasn't ready last year, why not do it again this year? Jon Papelbon impressed the Red Sox team with his performance and attitude in spring training this year and so far for Portland he's been pretty impressive striking out 18 without walking a batter in 3 games. He likely has the mental toughness where a thrashing at the big league level wouldn't scar him for life. It might not be fair to throw him to the wolves yet, but it is an option.

If the team plans on digging into their minor league system, but doesn't want a kid they could always go with Jeremi Gonzalez. The 30 year old Gonzalez has been solid in four starts so far in Pawtucket. He has experience as a big league starter in Tampa Bay and actually had a half way decent season in 2003 before taking a beating in 2004. He's the kind of guy that you put on the mound and hope that your offense scores 10 runs. But out of all the guys in the minors he has the least to lose.

With those four options being a bit on the underwhelming side, the team could decide to have their rotation go on short rest for one start as a last resort. Unfortunately the Red Sox don't have a day off until May 12th so there would be no rest for the starters. They'd each have to go out there on three days rest and hope that Miller is ready to come back strong a couple of days early.

If I had to choose, I'd probably go with Dinardo. He has more experience than Papelbon and Alvarez and he has more talent than Gonzalez. Bring Gonzalez up to work in the pen and back up Dinardo in case he can't cut it in his start. If Dinardo can go 5 and Gonzalez keeps the team in the game for 2 then the rest of the usual suspects can come on to close out the game. Just thinking about it makes me actually miss David Wells, but it's a pretty bad time for the Red Sox rotation right now. On the bright side at least the Yankees are as thinned out and desparate as the Red Sox are...

Should we worry?

2005-04-27T00:10:00.000-04:00

There is no reason why the Red Sox should've lost tonight's game. At one point they were up 8-3 and it is absolutely inexcusable for them to lose the game 11-8. Matt Clement must have an evil twin brother. That's the only thing I can think of. The real Clement goes out and pitches 8 scoreless innings one week and the next, his twin takes the mound and gets shelled for 7 runs. Thanks to Manny Ramirez the game still should've been a win despite Clement's start but then Francona decided to go with Keith Foulke in the 8th. For some reason he went to the guy that has been struggling all year and went with him early. Foulke then proceeded to have his worst game so far this year letting up 4 runs thanks to two two run homers by Javy Lopez and Miguel Tejada. The loss falls squarly on the shoulders of Clement and Foulke tonight as the offense did their part.

It's obviously too early to worry about the season in general. This is a playoff team and they're in second place. A bad week is nothing to worry about when it comes to the team. But there are several components of the team that are a little bit worrisome so far....

Foulke. I couldn't tell you what's wrong with Keith Foulke this year. All I can tell you is that there is definately something wrong. He's walking guys, not striking enough out, and letting up the longball. He has a 7.20 ERA this year to go with his 1-3 record in 10 games. Tonight was his first official blown save, but he just hasn't had it all season long. He's had only 2 perfect innings in the 10 innings he's pitched so far. His performance so far is reminding me of how he performed in spring training last year, only this time it's counting. I'm not entirely worried yet. Ok, that's a lie. I'm trying to not be entirely worried about him yet. He should break out of this. He's better than this.

David Wells. The big guy has struggled in a few games this year and hasn't looked all that impressive. Well, we don't have to worry about which Wells will show up for his next start because Wells limped his way to the DL with a sprained foot. It really was only a matter of time before he collapsed under his weight. So now we can delay our worries about how Wells will pitch and focus our worries on the fact that John Halama has made his way into the rotation. Lenny Dinardo, coming off a solid 5 inning start in Pawtucket, has been called up to fill the roster.

Mark Bellhorn. I was a big fan of the guy last year and even believed that he would improve this year, but so far that has not happened. In the spring there were rumors that he was trying to cut down a little bit on his k's, but his k-rate has actually increased so far this year. He's striking out in 40% of his at bats this year compared to the 34% mark from last year. He's also walking less this year and still doesn't have a home run. He's swinging at bad pitches, something you didn't see at all last year and he's just plain being unproductive. A guy who strikes out as much as him is obviously going to go through cold streaks, but he really needs to turn it on soon. He wasn't the most popular guy in Red Sox Nation before and this isn't helping him. I still think he can turn his season around and be one of the most productive second basemen in the game, just like he was last year, but he needs to turn things around really quick.

Kevin Youkilis. It would've been really nice to have Youk on the bench when Bill Mueller went down with the flu. But, of course, the Sox thought that Dave McCarty is somehow more valuable and sent Youk to Pawtucket. The worst part about the whole thing is that Youk made management look smart by struggling pretty bad once he started to play every day. He's batting a whopping .182 so far in 33 at bats. I want to see this guy playing every day at the major league level, but first I want to see him prove that he can handle it.

Minor League update

2005-04-26T11:06:00.000-04:00

Pawtucket Red Sox (SYR 11/PAW 3, PAW 2/SYR 0, PAW 14/BUF 5, BUF 2/PAW 0, BUF 5/PAW 3)

The Paw Sox had another pretty sub-par week as they went 2-3 mostly thanks to their lackluster bats. With the exception of one very good 14 run game the offense managed only 8 runs combined in the other four games of the week. Kelly Shoppach was the only offensive standout for the Paw Sox last week as he lead the way for the team in that 14 run explosion hitting two home runs. He had a good week overall going 4-15 with 4 walks although he did strike out 4 times. Out of his 4 hits, 3 went for homers and 1 was a double.

Kevin Youkilis continues to struggle at AAA while playing mostly first base. He only drew one walk last week while going 5/18 at the plate. Three of his hits were doubles, but he's still looking very unimpressive. While Youk has been struggling at AAA, Bill Mueller has been sidelined by the flu. Youk really isn't making a case that he should be the one starting in Mueller's place.

Mark Malaska had a hot and cold week as he was shelled for 4 runs thanks to 3 walks and 4 hits in one game while only managing to get two outs. Three days later he earned the win in a game by going 3 scoreless innings in relief without allowing 1 baserunner and striking out 2.

Chris Naverson and Lenny Dinardo both had good starts this week while Abe Alvarez didn't look all that good. Naverson pitched 5 scoreless innings and struck out 2, but didn't get a win thanks to poor run support. Dinardo put up a similar line going 5 scoreless and striking out 2, but he allowed 5 hits and a walk as opposed to Naverson's 1 hit and 1 walk. Dinardo also failed to get a win when Pawtucket didn't manage to score any runs until the sixth inning. Alvarez also went 5 innings and only let up 5 hits without a walk, but the hits were strung together and Alvarez let up 3 runs. He also only managed to strike out 1.

Portland Red Sox(POR 5/BIN 4, BIN 6/POR 5, POR 5/HAR 4, HAR 4/POR 3)

Portland only managed to get in 4 games this week thanks to a rain out and then the next day's double header was snowed out. They had a 2-2 record in 4 one run games. The team is still riding strong on the backs of Dustin Pedroia and Hanley Ramirez with the help of their starters always keeping them in the game. Pedroia and Ramirez both actually had a subpar week. Pedroia struggled going 4-17, walking only once, and striking out 4 times. He had struck out only twice in his first 36 at bats. He also made his second error of his pro career. His week was pretty well split, however. He started the week off going hitless in his first two games at an 0 for 8 mark before having two two-hit games immediately afterwards. Ramirez had a very similar week going 0 for 7 before he also rattled off two two-hit games. He was 4-18 on the week and topped that off by getting caught stealing and making an error.

Brandon Moss continues to struggle as he went 4-16 on the week. His poor k/bb ratio continues as he struck out 4 times and walked only twice. His 18/4 k/bb ratio for the year is the main reason why he's struggling so much and is batting only .212.

Jared Sandberg is quickly making a case for himself that he'll never make it to the major leagues again. He is leading the team (and second in the league) with 5 homers, hitting his fifth last week. But he also went 3-15 last week dropping his average to .313 and made his 7th error. If he was solid in the field his bat might make him useful someday, but if he can't catch the ball he won't have the numbers to justify a spot as a major league DH. He has already struck out 19 times and his power numbers are a lot less impressive when you take into consideration the fact that he's a 27 year old playing in AA.

Jon Papelbon didn't get a start last week, but Jon Lester impressed in his outing while Charlie Zink and Kason Gabbard managed to keep the team in the game despite struggling a little bit. Lester went 5 strong, striking out 6. He did walk 3, but only allowed 2 hits and 1 run. His 4.85 ERA on the year is unimpressive, but he has struck out 19 batters in 13 innings while walking only 4. Gabbard went to 3-0 on the year with a 5 inning performance. He allowed only 2 runs, but walked 4 and allowed 4 hits to go along with 4 strikeouts. He's one of only 4 guys in the Eastern league to go undefeated in his first 3 starts. Zink is a borderline prospect that can not afford to struggle, but he did last week when he walked 3, allowed 4 hits, and 3 runs in 5 innings. He did manage to strike out 6, but the team lost the game and his ERA went up to 3.94 for the year.

The Sea Dogs have had some great work out of the bullpen so far this year. Their closer, Cla Meredith, still hasn't been scored upon this year in 8 games. He's up to 7 saves so far this year and has struck out 7 without allowing a walk in 8.1 innings. Marc Deschenes, a 32 year old who still hasn't had a taste of the big leagues, has pitched in with 2 saves while allowing only 1 run in 8 innings. He's struck out 12 and walked 4. Talley Haines, another older guy at 27 who still hasn't been to the bigs, has thrown 10.1 innings, striking out 8 and only allowing 1 run. Phil Devey completes the trio of old guys impressing at AA. He's gone 10 innings with 11 k's while only walking 1 and still hasn't let up a run.

Wilmington Blue Rocks (KIN 4/WIL 0, WIL 5/KIN 0, FRE 6/WIL 4, FRE 9/WIL 8, WIL 5/FRE 4, FRE 2/WIL 1)

The week started off on a little bit of a sour note for the Blue Rocks as they were two-hit by 20 year old Indians' prospect Nick Pesco. Wilmington turned the tables the next day when 2004's fourth round pick, Tommy Hottovy took the mound and went 5 scoreless innings, striking out 7, allowing only 2 hits and a walk. Jose Vaquedano finished off the game with 4 shutout innings of his own that brought his season ERA down to 4.50 as he's working exclusively from the bullpen for the first time in his short career. The rest of the week didn't go very well as the Blue Rocks had four very close games, but lost three of them, and finished off the week at a 2-4 mark.

Anibal Sanchez had his first bad start of the year going only 4 innings and letting up 5 runs on 7 hits and a walk. He did keep up his amazing strikeout rate with 6 k's as opposed to his first walk of the year giving him a 28/1 k/bb ratio for the young 2005 season.

Ian Bladergroen continues to struggle with a 3/18 week at the plate. He struck out 8 times and is starting to show that the Red Sox really don't have any first base prospects in their system. It's still early and Bladergroen is showing patience by leading the team with 9 walks, but his .224/.350/.347 line in 49 at bats for the year isn't very impressive.

Chad Spann, a 21 year old who still hasn't made a name for himself, had a decent week belting 2 homers in one game and now leads the Blue Rocks with 3 home runs. The problem is that he also leads the team with 19 k's and has only a .241/.308/.431 line. At that rate he never will make a name for himself.

Best known for his glove and the fact that his name is Iggy, Iggy Suarez went 6/22 over the week, but didn't walk at all and his season long .288 OBP says that if he does go anywhere, he's going to have to use his glove to get there. At 23 he's a little bit old to expect him to ever develop a bat.

I still haven't talked about the Greenville Bombers, the Sox low-A affiliate, and I may keep it that way unless someone extraordinary starts to show himself. So far the team is 8-9 and while they have a few guys that seem to be doing fairly well, none of them actually jump off the page.

Ugly

2005-04-26T01:21:00.000-04:00

In general it was an ugly game. David Wells was ugly, the line-up was ugly, the defense was ugly, the baserunning was ugly, Jason Varitek's arm was ugly, Matt Mantei limping off the mound was ugly....Ugly just seems to be the word when the Sox lose a game. When they lose, they make sure that they look bad doing it.

Wells continued his Jeckle/Hyde impression getting bombed after two really good, encouraging starts. For a guy that has been so consistant over the course of his career, he has been anything but that this season. He didn't even make it out of the fourth inning tonight. I still maintain that it was a better idea to bring in Wells than bring back Derek Lowe, but so far it doesn't look like it. The worst part is that Wells limped off the mound after the mear thought of going after a soft hit ball and it's strained his right foot. The seriousness of the injury is still unclear.

I can understand wanting to give Manny Ramirez a night off from fielding the ball. And I can even almost see wanting to get David Ortiz a little time in at first to keep him sharp for interleague play. What I can't see is why you'd do both of those things in the same game and stick Kevin Millar into the outfield. Put Manny at DH when the team goes up against a righty so that Jay Payton can move into left for the night. And if Ortiz is going to play the field, just give Millar the night off. Why would Franconna comprimise two defensive posistions in one game?

I was hoping that the Yanks inherited the 2004 Red Sox inability to beat the Orioles and it looked like they had when New York dropped 5 of their first 6 games against Baltimore. And it almost started to look like the Red Sox weren't going to take that crap anymore with a two game sweep in Baltimore. But after last night's game? Who knows. The Sox have lost 3 out of their last 4 to two teams that they should be knocking around. There's not much positives that can be said about their recent play.

a few random notes

2005-04-25T01:07:00.000-04:00

- Updated the Cy Young and MVP sidebar. Brian Roberts is still the man despite a slow week and Jamie Moyer has been surprising everyone now that he has aparently forgotten all about last year and has gone right back to his 20 game winning ways.

- There was one major snub that was pointed out to me in last week's Cy Young race and it has been corrected this week. Rich Harden has only started three games so far this season, but in those three he has only allowed one run. If the A's ever figure out how to score a run or two they're going to be a dangerous team.

- David Ortiz didn't just hit three home runs in Tampa Bay. He hit three HOME RUNS. He wasn't fooling around with any of those three. One was about 430 to right-center. One was over 450 to right and nearly hit the back of the stadium. I didn't hear a measurement for the one he hit on Sunday, but it was another hell of a shot. That guy is not fooling around.

- Good news has been slim for Edgar Renteria, but there is one bright spot in his season so far. The guy loves Fenway park. His .209/.277/.209 line as a visitor is pretty pathetic and not what the Red Sox are paying $10 million a year for. His line at Fenway, however, is a little bit better. Every one of his extra base hits (3 doubles, 2 homers, and a triple) have come at home and he has a .281/.303/.625 line.

- It's funny in a kinda sad sort of way that I get a lot of hits to my site thanks to mispelled words. People will put a funky spelling into google or another search bar and they'll come to my site because I also spelled the word wrong. I always forget about the spell check, but I'm really going to have to make an effort to remember.

- Speaking of mistakes, the sidebar shows up fine on my computer. But I've noticed when I check on someone else's computer it can be a little screwed up. How does it look to everyone? Does anyone know how I can fix how it shows up other than asking everyone to maximize their browser?

- Still haven't had much time to catch up with the baseball world and I'm still on vacation schedule. No staying up til 4am for me tonight, I'm about to crash.

Back from Camden

2005-04-24T00:11:00.000-04:00

Baltimore has one hell of a stadium, but that's about all they have going for them. The city itself was a mugging waiting to happen, we all know about the team and their hopes for third place, and I think I might have came across three actual Orioles fans.

The stadium was beautiful. I've always heard that you can't make a case for keeping Fenway if you haven't seen what a modern stadium is like. I've always been a supporter of keeping Fenway, but seeing Camden definately tipped my scales in the other direction. The seating was great. Plenty or room and there wasn't a single concrete beam blocking a seat in the place. The whole thing was just really nice to look at and I'd make another trip to see a ballgame there any time. Even the surrounding area was nice. The Inner Harbor area, a couple of blocks from the stadium, is a really nice place filled with tons of stuff to do. There are museums, stores, restaraunts, bars, and boat rentals all surrounding the harbor. The rest of the city? Well, if you visit, don't go out alone. We apparently stayed in the really nice section of the city. That basically meant that the drug dealers and muggers had the courtisy to wait until dark before doing their business unlike the rest of the city which was really sketchy 24/7. I now believe it when I hear that Baltimore/DC has the highest crime rate in the nation.

I almost felt bad for the Orioles. Almost. No matter what way you looked in Baltimore, you'd see a Red Sox fan. I think I might have seen three Oriole hats the entire time I was there, but the Sox hats were too numerous to count. I couldn't imagine what it would be like if I went to Fenway and heard an Orioles chant. But sure enough the "LET'S GO RED SOX" chants were louder than anything the O's fans could get going. It had to be at least 60% Sox fans, 20% O's fans, and 20% people who didn't know what the hell was going on. Even if you were able to find an Oriole's fan you couldn't even give tickets away to them. We had a couple extra tickets that a Baltimore friend of ours tried to unload and she couldn't even give them away. Do you realize that if you get a value meal at a Wendy's in Baltimore, they give you a free Orioles ticket??? The city has a brand new, beautiful stadium and they can't even get a decent showing at a game.

I never thought a trip centered around baseball would leave me so far behind in the baseball happenings. I saw the games on Wednesday and Thursday, but I haven't been able to post here, haven't been able to surf the web for baseball news, and the only way I knew what was going on was with the box scores in the paper the next day. So it's going to take me a few days to catch up here.

Off to Baltimore

2005-04-19T14:34:00.000-04:00

In 6 hours I'll be landing in Baltimore and 24 hours after that I'll be attending my first baseball game that didn't take place in Fenway or Yankee Stadium. I've never seen a modern park before. If things stay the way they are I'm on pace to see the two new guys, Matt Clement and David Wells on Wednesday and Thursday.

I probably won't get a chance to post here until I get back on Saturday, but when I am back I'll probably have some pictures and a better perspective on the old Fenway vs. new Fenway debate.

Edited to add - The Sox have reached an agreement with Time Wakefield that could make him a Red Sox until the end of his career. The terms of the deal still haven't been released, but Wakefield is guaranteed a deal in 2006 and the club has an option every year after that. As long as they keep excercising their option, they will have an option for the next year. So, in other words, until Wakefield decides that he's done with baseball, the Sox can hold on to him. Wake's been with the franchise for a very long time and I'm glad that he'll be around for a little while longer.

Minor League update

2005-04-19T11:41:00.000-04:00

Pawtucket Red Sox (PAW 5/LOU 1, PAW 6/LOU 0, LOU 1/PAW 0, PAW 4/BUF 3, BUF 10/PAW 3, PAW 9/BUF 4, BUF 5/PAW 4)

The Paw Sox went winless in their first week, but managed to improve a little bit this week going 4-3. The pitching and offense have both been average which is what one would expect with a near .500 winning percentage.

Kevin Youkilis, a man who is not happy to be in the minors, has struggled so far going 1-15 with only a triple and 4 walks in his first three games at third for the Paw Sox. He has struck out three times and his cold start can more than likely be attributed to a little bad luck and a little bit of being cold from not playing in a little while.

Justin Sherrod has cooled off after a hot first week and is now playing like the sub-par player that he is. He struck out 11 times in the last week and his 2/6 k/bb ratio after one week is now a very unimpressive 13/7. His average dropped 91 points to a .273 mark.

Kelly Shoppach has also struggling. He hit a home run this week, but his average also dropped to .273, a drop of over 100 points.

The offense is still struggling as a whole with only Alejandro Machado and Mike Lockwood hitting over .300. Machado is only 23 and is already a journeyman working on his fifth organization. That says a little bit about him right there. The Sox traded for him over the winter. According to Baseball America, who ranked him the 21st best prospect in the Nationals system before he was traded to the Sox, Machado draws a decent amount of walks, has no pop in his bat, and his speed is average although he is intelligent on the basepaths. He has good range at short or second and an average arm. If he ever manages to make it to the majors in his career his likely role will be that of a utility player. So far this season he is 11 for 34, but has yet to draw a walk. Lockwood is a 27 year old in his second year in the Sox organization after being drafted by Oakland in 1999. He has a .364 OBP in 6 minor league years so he does get on base at a solid rate, but he doesn't have a future in the majors. Used in reserve in Pawtucket this year he is 7-18 with 2 homers and a .389 avg.

George Lombard, a 30 year old who has major league experience in ATL, DET, and TB has struggled the most so far this year batting a meager .154 with an eyepopping 19 k's in 39 at bats. He's walked 8 times, but his numbers are pretty pathetic and won't have a job in baseball soon if he keeps it up.

On the pitching side for the Sox, Abe Alvarez has took the mound twice in the last week giving solid performances both times. He went six shutout innings in his first start allowing only 4 hits and no walks while striking out 2. His second start wasn't as impressive going 5.2 innings allowing 3 earned runs on 5 hits, no walks, and 6 k's. So far in 3 games Alvarez has struck out 10 while only walking 2 and has a 1-0 record to go with a 4.60 ERA.

Former Blue Jay, 28 year old Scott Cassidy had a good game in relief going 4 scoreless innings allowing only 1 hit and 2 walks with 6 k's. He has 2 wins so far this year in the long relief role to go along with a 4.82 ERA

Chris Naverson, the young pitcher who came over for Byung-Hyun Kim has been mediocre so far in 2 games (1 start) and 4.1 innings. He's allowed 4 h, 3 bb, 3 runs, and has struck out 3. Still, he's doing better than Kim is in Colorado!

Lenny Dinardo had a decent start going 5 innings letting up only 1 er on 1 h and 2 bb while striking out only 1.

Mark Malaska was the third pitcher of the night in a 10-3 loss to Buffalo. Former Blue Jay Jason Kershner got hammered by the Bisons letting up 8 runs in 3.1 innings, but Malaska came on to pitch the final 3 innings of the game allowing only one hit and striking out 3.

The Paw Sox have been unimpressive so far and there are few prospects worth talking about. It will likely be that way all year unless the Sox decide to move up some of the many impressive guys on the AA squad sometime during the year.

Portland Red Sox (POR 6/NB 4, POR 8/TRE 4, POR 7/TRE 4, POR 5/TRE 1, POR 11/TRE 6, BIN 3/POR 1)

The Portland Sea Dogs are on fire starting the year 10-1 after losing their first game on Monday as the Binghamton Mets somehow managed to hold the stellar Portland offense to one run. The Red Sox AA team is expected to be full of excitement this year as many of the organization's top prospects are on the team. So far they have no dissapointed.

The top offense in the Eastern League has been led by Dustin Pedroia, Hanley Ramirez, Jared Sandberg, and semi-prospect/slugger Jeremy West. Pedroia is riding a 7 game hitting streak and has reached base in all 10 games that he's played in. Last week he went 9-20 with five walks and four doubles. He's hitting .417 so far this year. Ramirez's .348 avg so far this season almost looks pale in comparison. Ramirez went 8-25 last week with 7 RBI's and 2 triples. Sandberg leads the team with 4 homers on the year while batting .333, usually in the clean-up spot. West is off to a surprisingly well start hitting .421 so far this year. He went 11-25 last week striking out only once but also walking only once. Sandberg is the only one of the group to not get excited over. At 28 he's far too old to be wasting away in AA. He's always had decent power, but he has already proven that he strikes out far too often to be effective at the major league level.

The team's usually leadoff hitter, Christ Durbin, hasn't made a blip on the prospect radar but he's off to a .351/.400/.649 start.

The only dark spot on the Sea Dog offensive unit has been Brandon Moss who has been doing his best to justify the fears of many Sox fans who believe that last year was a fluke. So far he is batting .194 for the year and leads the team with 14 k's. It's still early in the season, but many believed that the breakout season for the #2 prospect in the Sox system was done with smoke and mirrors. So far that appears to be true.

The pitching for the Sea Dogs has been nearly as good as the offense. The ace of the staff, Jon Papelbon, went twice last week and despite the fact that he earned the team's first loss he was fairly impressive in both of his starts. In his first he went 5 innings without walking a batter and allowed 2 runs on 6 hits while striking out 2. In his second start he had a little problem with the longball as he let up 2 homers that resulted in 3 runs on 5 hits. But for the second start in a row he didn't walk a batter and on his second start he managed to strike out 9.

Jon Lester (4 IP/7 h/0 er/3 bb/6k) and Kason Gabbard (7 IP/2 h/1 er/1 bb/4 k) both pitched very well for the team last week. Lester didn't last very long and did get into a lot of trouble, but worked his way out every time and didn't allow a run. Gabbard, an unknown with a long injury history entering the season, has performed very well in both of his starts this year and leads the Sea Dog starters with a 0.64 ERA.

Charlie Zink (5ip/6h/4er/0bb/1k) and Dave Pauley (5ip/8h/3r/0er/1bb/2k) both struggled a little bit, but kept the team in the game. Zink served up 3 home runs in his start to allow 4 runs despite his impressive control and only 3 non-homer hits. Pauley allowed 3 runs, but none of them were earned thanks to a Jared Sandberg throwing error that should have ended the inning. Sandberg leads the Sea Dogs with 4 errors so far this season.

The Sea Dogs have also had a lot of support form the back end of their bullpen as their closer, Cla Meredith, hasn't allowed a run in 6.1 innings this season. He's pitched in 6 games and has 6 saves. He still hasn't walked a batter and has allowed only one hit so far.

Wilmington Blue Rocks (WIL 7/KIN 4, KIN 9/WIL 1, WIL 6/SAL 2, WIL 2/SAL 0, SAL 2/WIL 1, WIL 4/KIN 2)

The Blue Rocks had a good week with a 4-2 record and are 6-5 overall for the year, good enough for second in the Carolina North division. As a whole the team offense is struggling batting .231 and scoring only 44 runs in 11 games. The team has only hit three home runs. The pitching has been a little bit better as they lead the league in strikeouts with 95, but their 3.95 ERA is towards the higher end of the pack.

Ian Bladergroen, the first baseman who came over for Doug Mientkiewicz, has struggled so far this season hitting .258 with only two extra base hits. Although he does lead the team with 7 RBI. While I do agree that Mientkiewicz was the obvious choice for the Sox to ship out, I don't like the trade. If the Sox were able to get a major league arm like Blaine Neal (who has admittedly struggled, but that's not the point) for a AAAA guy like Adam Hyzdu then how did they get stuck with a borderline prospect like Bladergroen for a great fielding first baseman?

The only bright spots for Wilmington's bats so far have been the usual all-glove, no-bat shortstop, Zach Borowiak and Scott White, a 21 year old third baseman with power potential. Borowiak has hit .371 so far with 5 doubles and a triple, but still hasn't walked this year and hasn't displayed much of his speed going 1/2 in stolen base attempts. White has a .350/.422/.450 line to start the season, but hasn't had any of his power as he only has 4 doubles and no homers. He also has been spending a lot of time at DH with Chad Spann getting a lot of time at third.

The only story on the mound for the Blue Rocks so far has been Anibal Sanchez. Despite only pitching 10 innings so far this year Sanchez has opened a lot of eyes around the country with his 22/0 k/bb ratio. He has allowed only 1 run and 4 hits in his 2 starts and so far is looking very good.

on a roll

2005-04-19T00:08:00.000-04:00

Thanks to an ugly 12-7 victory over Toronto the Sox have moved into a tie for first place for the first time this year. That's five in a row for the Sox. Curt Schilling and Manny Ramirez both had mixed results on the day. Schilling pitched to his first win of the year while striking out 10. He didn't exactly look impressive though as he gave up 10 hits and 5 runs. His day would've been a lot easier had Manny be able to give him a little defensive help. Manny lost two balls in the sun (only one of them was called an error, but both were horrible plays) on back to back plays causing 2 of the runs that Schilling let up to be unearned. On the flip side of things, Manny hit 2 homers. One was absolutely crushed over everything in left. Manny has homered 4 times in the last three games and has seriously hit his stride this season. He also walked twice and knocked in 5. Johnny Damon and Trot Nixon were able to get on base in front of Manny today. Damon had 3 hits while Trot had 2. Both knocked in 2 runs and scored 3 runs between them. Damon also hit a ball deep to the warning track to right in his first at bat but Alex Rios tracked it down.

In the same day the Yankees CRUSHED the D-Rays 19-8 after Georgie's pep talk to the team. While it is kind of impressive to score 19 runs against any team, it is pretty embarrassing for your new free agent pitcher to give up 8 against the Devil Rays.

Look for a minor league update to come sometime in the next 12 hours.

Quick starts

2005-04-18T12:41:00.000-04:00

I updated the MVP and Cy Young race portions of the site and so far it looks a little like this...

Roberts .449/.534/.896/15/5/14/6

Tejada .375/.436/.614/8/3/18/0

Ichiro .447/.500/.596/12/1/4/6

Young .362/.423/.660/10/3/11/0

Ortiz .295/.360/.614/8/3/11/0

Matsui .327/.358/.571/6/3/12/0

Jeter .326/.456/.457/11/1/4/2

Konerko .233/.298/.674/7/6/11/0

Buehrle 2-1/24/12/6/19/2.25

Halladay 2-0/22/21/8/2/18/3.27

Lopez 2-0/20.1/20/6/7/17/2.66

Santana 3-0/18/18/8/2/27/4.00

Moyer 2-0/18/21/5/5/13/2.50

Bonderman 2-1/21/19/9/5/16/3.86

Clement 1-0/17.1/18/6/10/16/3.12

Johnson 1-0/19/18/10/5/19/4.74

There are a lot of guys in the league off to some unexpected quick starts and I said last week that I wouldn't include a guy in the MVP or Cy Young race if I didn't think he could maintain it all year. So why did I include Brian Roberts? Do I think he'll be able to win the MVP award this year? No. But he's just doing so good that I had to include him. And I think that while he won't keep up at the pace he's at now, he will surprise some people this year.

Here's a look at some guys that are out to quick starts and how I expect them to do this year.

Brian Roberts - He's already tied his career high homer total with five and we're only 12 games into the season. He's on pace for 81 steals and 67 homers to go along with his .449/.534/.898 line. Obviously the guy is going to regress, but I think he's going to be very solid this year. Many prospects have their power potential judged by the number of doubles they hit. The logic is that as a player matures and grows into his body he'll start getting the extra pop needed to smack those balls off the walls a little harder and put them into the seats. Roberts hit 51 doubles last year. At 27 years old and with 5 years of major league playing under his belt I'm not suggesting that Roberts is a prospect. But it's not too hard to believe that maybe he made an adjustment to his swing or hit the weight rooms a little bit harder this year. He's not going to stay among the league leaders in home runs, but I do think that he might have another 15-20 homers left in him this year. He could end up with 25 homers and 40 steals this year to go along with a near .300 average.

Gustavo Chacin - I'm just excited that I finally learned how to pronounce the guy's name. This 24 year old rookie has had mixed success in the minors, but is considered to be a prospect with a decent shot to make it in the bigs. Apparently last year he added a cut fastball to his repetoire of pitches and then went on a tear for Toronto's AA team. After a few failures at AA, Chacin had good numbers in AA, AAA, and in two major league starts. His first game this year against Tampa Bay might have been a fluke. His second start against a struggling Oakland line up wasn't as impressive as his first, but it was still a decent outing. His third start of the year was his best so far and it was against a strong hitting Texas club. Two of the three runs he's let up this year have been on solo shots and he's walked only 4 batters in 19 innings. It's tough to tell after only three starts, but Chacin seems to be the real deal. He's become an early favorite for the AL ROY and I know I've added him to my fantasy team.

Pat Burrell - Burrell's stats pop out at you because he's already managed to rack up 17 RBIs. He's been pretty hot this year, but obviously you can't judge a guy by the number of RBIs he's had. His .354/.400/.667 line is very impressive, but it's bound to drop significantly. With that said, Burrell could still manage a hell of a year in 2005. It was only a few years ago that he was a legitimate slugger. His struggles during the last couple of years have been blamed on everything from injuries to an unhappy clubhouse, but with the way he's playing so far this year it's obvious that his wrist is feeling 100%. The average will drop back to a more Burrell like .280 but he could easily hit 30 homers with 120 RBIs this year.

A.J. Burnett - The only thing holding this guy back is the injury risk. Tommy John surgery before last year eliminated all but four starts of the season for BUrnett. In 2005 he looks stronger than ever. Two out of his last three starts have been complete games and neither of them have been all that taxing on the arm. One was only 103 pitchers and the other was 105. As long as his arm holds up, and there's no reason why it shouldn't, the guy might be in the running for a Cy Young this year.

Jason Lane - Lane has been waiting for years to get a shot at a starting job and he's making the best of it so far batting .326 with 4 homers after only 11 games. The guy is for real and now that he has a starting job he is going to produce this year. The average will drop a little bit, but the power should stay. A .280 average with 25 homers this year is within his reach. The only problem with Lane so far this year is that he hasn't drawn a single walk and that could easily come back to bite him in the ass. His OBP is actually lower than his AVG so far on the season. He's had moderate patience in his career so he could just be trying to be too agressive to prove that he is worth the starting job. Once he settles in his walk numbers should go up.

Mike Hampton - Hampton has started the year off with three very good starts, but he's continuing a trend that he had last year. He doesn't strike out anyone. He's struck out only 5 batters this year. That kind of non-dominant stuff has a way of catching up with a starter. He might be able to get away with it for a little while, but he certainly won't have a sub-2.00 ERA by the end of the year. He'll be lucky to have a sub-4.50 ERA. To quote Baseball Prospectus Hampton is "a fifth starter with #2 name recognition".

Clint Barmes - At the age of 25 Barmes had a breakout year in AAA in 2004. He has doubles power and manages to get the bat onto the ball, but he doesn't walk very often. A solid, but average season can be expected out of the guy. He's not going to stay amongst the league leaders in home runs like he is now, but he could approach 20 if everything falls his way. He's not going to be a superstar though.

Tim Wakefield - The one thing Sox fans know about Tim Wakefield is that you never know about Tim Wakefield. The knuckleball is the most unpredictable pitch out there. Some games (hell, some seasons!) the guy can look like the ace of the staff while others he gets hammered pretty hard. You never know what to expect. So far this year Wakefield's three starts have come against two teams that he's always seemed to have success against; the Yanks and the Devil Rays. So maybe that's why he's started off so good. Or maybe he really is in line for one of his good years. Or maybe the moisture in the air caused the knuckler to knuckle a little more. You never know with this guy.

Joe Randa - Maybe the change in scenery has really helped him? Maybe now that he was able to escape Kansas City he'll turn into one of the game's best sluggers? Nah. Joe Randa is 35 years old and got off to a hot start. This is the guy that has always been so sickenly average. He'll get on base just enough to not suck. He'll have just enough extra base hits. He'll play an average defense. He's just...vanilla. He'll hit 10-15 homers this year even with the 4 he has already. He'll even manage to come within 20 points of .300. It seems like he always does. But he's not anything spectacular out there. He never has been.

Manny 6/Tampa Bay 2

2005-04-17T03:00:00.000-04:00

We've waited ten games for this and finally it happened. Manny Ramirez broke out. Manny homered twice and knocked in all 6 runs as the Sox beat the Rays 6-2. Both were line drive shots over the monster, the first clearing everything and the second, a grand slam, landing in the stands. It's good to see Manny being Manny. Matt Clement pitched essentially the same game that he's been pitching so far this year only this time he pitched it against the Devil Rays. He threw a lot of pitches and got deep into the count. I wasn't counting, but it seemed like he had a lot of full counts. The difference is that he has the stuff to make bad hitters look bad. And TB has quite a few bad hitters. He went 7 for his longest and best outing of the year to get his first win.

The Yankees, meanwhile, have fallen to 4-7. It's their worst start in quite a while. That's always good to see.

Can you think of a weirder way to end a game? Rich Harden and Jarrod Washburn both pitched one hell of a game keeping it scoreless through 8 before the bullpens took over. In the bottom of the tenth Nick Swisher scored from first...on a bunt. The beauty of baseball is that no matter how many games are played, you never see the same game twice and you still haven't seen everything.

10-0 has a nice ring to it

2005-04-16T03:12:00.000-04:00

This is the way it's supposed to be. Trade blows with the Yanks then beat down the lesser teams. Things looked good all the way around against the D-Rays tonight. The club took advantage of some wild TB pitching to get on base 7 times via the walk. Edgar Renteria is starting to come around with some extra base hits and nice plays in the field. John Halama and Matt Mantei combined for two innings only letting up one hit and no runs between the two of them. And best of all, David Wells pitched a beauty.

On a somewhat scary note, Mark Bellhorn has played in ten games so far this year. He has exactly as many walks as he has games without a K. Three. And in all seven games that he's struck out, he's struck out at least twice. I don't mind the K's when he's walking his way around the bases, but if he doesn't make it to first then his strikeouts become a problem. Will he struggle this year as many people think that he will? I hope not. He did have a good game tonight. It's far too early to give up on the guy, of course, but he's someone that many in Red Sox Nation aren't stat-savy enough to like in the first place.

catching up with two games, a demotion, and a rehab start

2005-04-15T04:17:00.000-04:00

So we lost the game we should have won and won the game we should have lost. Curt Schilling looked good at first, but just didn't have it all working for him in the later innings. That's pretty much why I thought he should have had another start in the minors. But he didn't do all that bad and I'm sure everything will be ok with him for the remainder of the season. What did surprise me is how quiet Jaret Wright kept the bats. The Sox should've knocked that guy all over the place. The Sox did end up knocking Randy Johnson though. And it's a good thing because Bronson Arroyo pitched like shit. Keith Foulke also didn't look very good. I'm starting to worry about him. It's still early, but he's struggled in nearly every appearence so far.

As for the Gary Sheffield incident...well, the fan was a complete moron, Sheffield reacted in the same way anyone would have when he believes he's attacked, and let's just leave it at that.

To make room for Schilling on the roster, Kevin Youkilis was sent down. I don't agree with this. I've already stated that I'm a pretty big fan of Youkilis and I want to see him get a lot of at bats this year. Youkilis has already said it himself...he's not a kid anymore. He doesn't have all that much to learn in the minors. What he still has to learn, he will learn in the big leagues. Sure, it'll be nice for him to get to play every day, but with a little manuevering he could be getting a lot of at bats in the bigs. The first comment made to this article does make a good point though. I agree with what the poster said about how 12 pitchers is too many for any team to carry. But the commenter made a lot of sense. Right now the Sox are just looking to see what they have. They want to take a good look at the 12 pitchers on the roster to see who will be around come October. And I also agree with the point that he makes about the bench. The Red Sox won't be using very many bench players because they have a very solid starting 9 and there's no need to bring in replacements on most nights. So a four man bench is adequate. The point remains, however, that Youk deserves a spot on the club.

Wade Miller made his first rehab start earlier in the week. He went 4.2 innings giving up 2 ER on 1 BB and 4 H. Not bad for a guy pitching for the first time since last year. It was only against A level hitters, but it is a good sign. And now that he's made his first rehab start he'll be with the big league club in less than 30 days.

Schilling goes tonight

2005-04-13T13:27:00.000-04:00

In a game that could set the tone for the rest of the season, Curt Schilling takes the mound. If Schilling pitches the way he can, all will be well in Red Sox Nation. If he pitches the way he did last week for the Pawtucket Red Sox, those who are already in a panic after a 3-4 start will be jumping off bridges. Schilling says that he feels good and says that he is ready. He wasn't happy with the final results of his minor league game, but he was happy with the way he felt. Personally I would like to see him go one more start for the Paw Sox just to make sure that he really is ok before pitching in a game that counts. But I think he'll do ok tonight.

There is even more good news about the game tonight besides the fact that Schilling is starting. The weather looks decent, although a bit cold for a ballgame, after a questionable forecast earlier in the week. The best news though is that Jaret Wright takes the mound for the Yankees. Wright was shelled in his first outing of the year and many, including myself, are expecting a lot of the same all year. By the end of the year the Yankees will see that they made a huge mistake and that Wright was a one year wonder.

Game starts tonight at 7. I'll be following it from work.

As for the whole jersey contraversy that Harold Reynolds and John Kruk made up....you're kidding me, right? The baseball season is in full swing! You guys don't have to make up stories to keep busy. There was no issue during the ceramony. Derek Lowe and Dave Roberts wearing a Red Sox jersey for the ring ceramony is not, in any shape or form, an issue.

Minor league week in review

2005-04-12T12:03:00.000-04:00

I hope to give a run down of how the Red Sox farm teams are doing on a weekly basis. This week, while I'm still getting into the swing of things, I'm just going to touch on the top two levels while leaving both A level clubs alone.

You think things are tough for the major league club? The Paw Sox are off to an 0-5 start this year and are the only winless team in the International League. (LOU 8/PAW 1, IND 7/PAW 6, IND 7/PAW 4, IND 7/PAW 6, and IND 7/PAW 5) Kelly Shoppach is off to a hot start already with 2 homers and a .385 avg in 13 at bats. Right fielder Justin Sherrod, a 27 year old with little in the way of a future, but with a little pop, is the only other Paw Sox player with an average over .300 as he started the year batting .364. He also leads the team with six walks. The pitching has also pretty bad. The season started off with Curt Schilling getting hammered. Lenny Dinardo (4.1 IP w/ 5 K's and 4 ER on 3 H and 2 BB), Jeremi Gonzalez (6 IP w/ 2 K's and 4 ER on 9 H and 1 BB), Abe Alvarez (4 IP w/ 2 K's and 5 ER on 4 H and 2 BB), and John Stephens (6 IP w/ 4 K's and 4 ER on 6 H and 1 BB) also contributed to the teams record with poor starts.

The Portland Sea Dogs, on the other hand, are a perfect 5-0 this year. (POR 1/NB 0, POR 8/NOR 0, POR 7/NOR 4, POR 7/NOR 3, POR 4/NOR 2) Former Devil Ray and nephew of Hall of Famer, Ryne Sandberg, Jared Sandberg is leading the way for the offense with 17 total bases already to go along with a .467 avg. Double play combo and prospect duo extraordinaires Dustin Pedroia (.385/.500/.615 w/ 4 R, 4 RBI, 1 HR, and 1 SB) and Hanley Ramirez (.353/.353/.471 w/ 6 R, 2 RBI, and 2 SB) are both off to good starts. Although Pedroia has already made his first error as a pro. The only dissapointment so far has been the .182/.250/.273 showing so far by Brandon Moss. The rotation has performed well for the most part. Kason Gabbard (7 IP w/ 0 K and 0 ER on 3 H and 2 BB), Jon Papelbon (6 IP w/ 7 K and 2 ER on 5 H and 0 BB), and Charlie Zink (6 IP w/ 2 K and 0 ER on 4 H and 0 BB) all pitched fantastic games for the Sea Dogs to get the win. Dave Pauley (5 IP w/ 5 K and 1 ER on 4 H and 2 BB) and Jon Lester (4 IP w/ 7 K and 3 ER on 5 H and 1 BB) both pitched well enough to keep the team in the game.

Week in review

2005-04-11T14:07:00.000-04:00

In the first full week of competition the Red Sox have gone 2-4. They've scored the fewest amount of runs in the AL East while allowing the most. They've made a dramatic 9th inning comeback twice only to lose in the bottom of the inning both times. The bullpen has been awful. The Yankees beat them. The Blue Jays humiliated them. All in all it has been one of the worst ways that the Sox could've started off the season. The team has given us plenty to worry about so far. But should we remain worried? Instead of talking about the individual games, let's take a look at the players.

Should we worry about....

Manny Ramirez? Only the hardcore worriers in the audience have given Manny a second thought. The guy can hit. There is no question about that. He's batting .200 and his only extra base hit has been a double, but for Manny, it's only a matter of time. He's going to put up MVP caliber numbers this year. When he gets hot he will be scorching the ball.

Edgar Renteria? If I hear one person say that Orlando Cabrera is a better player than Edgar, I will physically beat that person. I will admit that I thought the Sox should've just re-signed Cabrera, but Renteria is a better player in nearly every aspect of the game. Renteria will come around. He's a much better player than the guy we've seen at short the last week. He's a fairly good hitter and a good defender. At the end of the season he'll have had a respectable season in Boston. And that Orlando guy that you love so much? Take a look at him. He's batting .158 out in Anaheim.

Mark Bellhorn? He's struck out 11 times?! Wow, that's just nuts, right? Sure. But that's what we're expecting from the guy. He's going to break strikeout records this year, but he's still going to remain a productive player. Chances are if you didn't see his value last year, you won't see it this year. So you're just going to have to trust me that he's a good player to have on the team.

David Wells? I'd love to say that there's nothing to worry about. I'd love to look back on his career to see how consistent that he's been and to see how he's a much better pitcher than the guy that's been blown away in two starts so far. I'd love to say that I'm not worried. But I am. I was never completely confident in the signing, but I was hoping it'd turn out to be a good one. So far it hasn't. Looking at the spring he had and the two starts he's had I don't know if I see things getting better. The good news is that he settled down in the second half of the game against the Jays. The bad news is he had already let up back to back to back homers. I'm worried about Wells. But look at the bright side. Once the season is all said and done he can't possibly be worse than Derek Lowe.

Matt Clement? If it were an official statistic I'm sure Clement would be leading the league in jams. He's had baserunners all over the place. The control that he showed in spring is completely gone. He's hitting batters and handing out free passes left and right. He's throwing 100 pitches and not making it out of the 6th. The good news is that so far he's kept the Sox in the game. Both games he's pitched have been close. And while he's getting into an alarming number of james, he's getting out of most of them. While it appears as if Clement won't be the Cy Young contender that I was foolishly hoping for, he's going to be a very good #2 or #3 starter. As long as he keeps the Red Sox in the game he's doing his job. And he will have a few brilliant games this year, I can promise you that.

Curt Schilling? He got shelled in a minor league start and that might be a little worrisome. But let's wait until we see Curt throw a major league pitch before we jump to any conclusions. I think we all have a feeling that Curt will be fine anyways.

the bullpen? Yikes...Keith Foulke has blown a save already and he's being hit in every game he enters. Matt Mantei can't find the strikezone. Mike Timlin and Alan Embree aren't looking horrible, but both are showing their age. They're showing a reluctance to use Blaine Neal and the longman, John Halama doesn't even have 2 innings yet despite the fact that the starters aren't lasting very long. I know I'm worried. Foulke should settle down, but I'm not confident in Mantei, Embree, and Timlin. I think we might be looking at a long year. In Theo we trust, of course, but he doesn't exactly have a wonderful track record of putting together bullpens. This could be trouble.

the Red Sox in general? If you're worried about the team after six games then I don't even want to talk to you. This is a playoff caliber team. This team is going to win at least 90 games, likely more. This team is almost guaranteed a playoff spot. Many, many things would have to go wrong for this team to go under. The team has far too much talent to not be a powerhouse in the American League.

It's been a rought week, but come October none of us will remember the rought start. We'll only remember that the Sox are there, competiting for the championship.

Speaking of championships.....we're about to see a ring ceramony.

A bad weekend, but a good way to start the homestand

2005-04-11T03:19:00.000-04:00

So back to back losses for the weekend, eh? I didn't get to watch any of either of the games so you can tell as much as I can from the game wraps and box scores. From what it looks like the starting pitcher was mediocre, the bullpen was bad, and the hitting was average, at best. But at least it's still early.

No matter what happened in the first 6 games it can't take away from what we get to see tomorrow. Get your VCRs ready to start taping tomorrow at 1pm. They'll be starting off with an hour of pre-game shows and then it's the ring ceramony. The words "World Series rings" erases any bad feelings you might have from a 2-4 start.

Is it too early to talk about MVP and Cy Young yet?

2005-04-11T02:28:00.000-04:00

It's the first Sunday after the first full week of baseball. So it's the first time I updated my weekly sidebar updates. All year I'll be tracking the AL Cy Young and AL MVP. The race will go as I see it. Obviously for the first couple of months of the season it's not going to be an accurate list. Guys will get off to ice cold or red hot starts. No namers will be pounding the ball and hall of famers will be whiffing left and right. And on the other side, it's hard to rank pitchers based on 2 starts. So I kept both lists to guys that have an actual shot of being there at the end of the year. That's why I'm not going to list Tony Graffanino or Jorge Cantu no matter how hot a start that they get off to. This is obviously just for fun. Here's how I see it after one week of play. This week Curt makes it based on name recognition alone since there wasn't much to go with.

Ichiro .478/.538/.522/7/0/1/3

Ortiz .435/.480/.870/5/2/6/0

Young .375/.444/.958/9/3/7/0

Jeter .435/.552/.609/7/1/2/2

Matsui .348/.385/.783/6/3/8/0

Konerko .333/.391/.810/4/3/6/0

Tejada .375/.444/.417/5/0/5/0

Crawford .250/.269/.458/3/1/5/4

Johnson 1-0/12/13/3/10/3.75

Lopez 2-0/14/13/3/10/0.64

Santana1-0/12/12/2/17/4.50

Bonderman1-1/13/13/5/11/5.54

Halladay1-0/13/16/1/9/4.85

Buehrle1-1/15/9/4/7/3.00

Clement0-0/10/11/8/10/4.35

Curt Schilling0-0/0/0/0/0/0.00

Every Sunday night you should see the same thing here.

Sox win, Yanks don't, Francona feeling fine

2005-04-09T04:08:00.000-04:00

So the Sox are 0-2 with Francona, but 2-0 with the skipper hospitalized...That's it! Fire the man!

Francona was released from the hospital yesterday and the news looks good. The doctors found no problem with his heart and believe the problem was just a viral illness. Francona will use the rest of the weekend to rest before joining the team on Monday for the home opener.

While the manager was away tonight, the Sox held off the Jays and won the game 6-5. Keith Foulke did everything in his power to blow the save, getting hit hard again, but managed to record the save. In one inning of work he allowed 3 hits, 2 earned runs, and a walk. The good news is that Bronson Arroyo allowed those same numbers, but he spread his line across six solid innings for the win. Johnny Damon stole the first base of the year for the Sox, Mark Bellhorn struck out two more times (now on pace for 364 k's!), and Trot Nixon and Jason Varitek both added homers.

In more good news, if you though David Wells was bad in his debut with a new team take a look at Jaret Wright's debut for the Yankees. With a final score of 12-5 you -know- that guy didn't pitch well. Once we get Curt Schilling back I still say we have a better rotation than the bad guys.

a few bits of news

2005-04-08T13:01:00.000-04:00

Good news for Terry Francona. There still don't seem to be too many details about his condition, but it has been confirmed that it wasn't a heart attack and that the test results are coming back good. Still no word on when he'll rejoin the team, but it appears as if he'll be ok.

I caught the second inning of Curt Schilling's rehab start for Pawtucket and I almost wish I hadn't. He let up a home run in the first to give Indianapolis a 1-0 lead and was just plain bad when I watched him. His splitter hit the dirt a couple of times, he was hit hard, and every batter was putting wood on the ball. The only things that made the inning easier for him was a questionable bunt attempt with two strikes that went foul, resulting in an out and a rocket of a throw by Kelly Shoppach to catch a runner trying to steal second. He threw 104 pitches, lasted six innings and was knocked around for 11 hits, 7 earned runs, and two homers allowed. Pawtucket ended up losing the game 7-5. Schilling says that he felt great, but was obviously dissapointed. He still plans on making his 2005 debut this week against the Yankees.

Speaking of Schilling, this article tries to make a case that he belongs in the hall of fame. I'm still not really convinced and I don't think the writer changed my mind at all. He's definately going to be a border liner, especially if he has a couple more years like he had in 2004.

'I can live with the business part of it, not being able to afford me, or thinking I'm not that good, but I cannot understand the part where you mistreat my name, or mistreat what I did for the city of Boston because they have to build another image of me,'.....Pedro says the Sox can keep his World Series ring, eh? Screw him. I'll miss the Pedro we had a few years ago. The guy that could bring it. The guy that wasn't spouting ridiculous fucking comments every five minutes. I will not miss the asshole he's turned into. I will take 35 outings of David Wells getting shelled over that guy and his mouth. Does he honesetly believe that Boston mistreated him? NEVER did the Red Sox mistreat him. They bent over backwards giving the guy anything he could think to ask for. He got special treatment from managment and from the fans. He did what he wanted when he wanted and we didn't mind. He was Pedro. The Sox made every effort to sign the guy. The Mets decided to make a foolishly large offer and the Sox let them make their mistake. When Pedro stabbed Red Sox Nation in the back by going for the money, I hoped that his arm fell off. Now I believe that fate is too good for him. Here's hoping he falls into some industrial farm equipment. And when he makes it to the Hall, I hope he's wearing an Expos hat. I realize the quote has probably been taken out of context and I'm probably reacting a lot stronger to it than I should, but really, every time this guy opens his mouth something asinine comes out.

2005-04-07T14:05:00.000-04:00

So we're 1-2. Not exactly the way we all envisioned the first series against the Yankees (who are appently being called CFY or Choking-Fucking-Yankees across the internet world now) to go. No worries though. I try not to be the type that looks at the what-ifs and what-might-have-beens, but with this series it was hard. Because think of it this way...We were pretty much one Curt Schilling and one clean played DP by Edgar Renteria away from sweeping that series. There were a couple of really good games in there and we were without our ace. I think the Sox did fine.

Looking ahead to the weekend, we'll be rolling into Toronto and there's no way the Sox will settle for 1 game out of 3 up there.

Game 1 : Bronson Arroyo vs. David Bush
Game 2 : David Wells vs. Roy Halladay
Game 3 : Matt Clement vs. Ted Lilly

The Sox should be able to take 2 out of 3 this weekend and if Wells decides to show up on Saturday we could sweep. In addition to seeing the Sox win 2 of 3 I want to see Kevin Youkilis play 2 out of 3 games. I'm still not sure why Dave McCarty was put into the game yesterday ahead of Youk, but I'm hoping it doesn't happen again. Youk could start on Friday at first, giving Kevin Millar an extra day to recover from his little cramp. And then on Saturday Youk could take over at third so that Bill Mueller doesn't go three straight games on the turf with his knees. I want Youkilis to get 400 at bats this year and so far after 3 games we haven't seen a glimpse of him.

On a side note, while doing some yard work shoveling some fertilizer I asked Kellen a question. What's the difference between David Wells and this pile of shit? The pile of shit didn't balk.

Hanley for Howard?

2005-04-07T05:09:00.000-04:00

I'm making the same change that I've seen a few bloggers already made. I'm not sure if anyone clicks the player links here, but I'm going to be switching from Baseball Reference to ESPN when I link to a player. ESPN updates their stats daily as opposed to the yearly updating by Baseball Reference.

Kellen, a frequent commenter on this site, had an idea while we were watching the game today. He's one of many Sox fans who isn't a very big fan of Kevin Millar and he'd like to see him gone. At the end of the year he's a free agent so the Sox are going to need a first baseman. There are a few options out there. They could overpay for Paul Konerko and hope that he doesn't regress back to his 18 homer 2003. They could pay a fortune for Todd Helton. They could resign Millar. There are a few options out there, but none of them are very desirable. The Sox top prospect at first base is Ian Bladergroen, the young, inexperienced guy that came over in the trade for Doug Mientkiewicz. He won't be likely for at least three more years if he ever will be ready. Why don't we go and get a young firstbaseman that could help us right now and for years to come? Picture this...We trade Hanley Ramirez to the Phillies for Ryan Howard. Hanley is a year or two away from helping the Sox and he's blocked at short anyway. So far there has been no talk of moving him to a new posistion and I think it's likely that the Sox are going to move him this year anyways. Instead of trading away Hanley for a rent-a-player who may or may not be the "last piece of the puzzle" why not trade him for a guy that can help now and in the future? Howard was one of the biggest power guys in the minors last year. He's 25 years old and ready to show off his bat in the bigs, but he will forever be blocked by Jim Thome. He could kick Dave McCarty of the team this year and take over for Millar full time next year. I'm not sure if the Phillies would go for it because they're a bit blocked up the middle with young talent, but Hanley would have a much better shot breaking through in a couple of years then Howard will have trying to break through any time soon.

First win of the year

2005-04-06T18:36:00.000-04:00

The first win of the year is always a beautiful thing. Tim Wakefield has become the ace of this young season and Fruit Bat proves once again that the Sox have his number. The offense was a little shaky up until the ninth inning. The Sox were getting on base in droves but thanks to double plays, a caught stealing, and good ol' fashioned leaving runners on they weren't scoring. Many Sox fans were complaining about this last year but it's not an issue. It never will be an issue. The more guys the Sox get on base, the better, even if they leave them stranded. Sooner or later those guys are going to get home. The best part of the game was obviously the 9th. Alex Rodriguez had a chance to minimize the damage if only he could have made a play on a routine grounder. Instead of what could have been an easy double play, everyone was safe, and the Red Sox went on to score five in the inning. Kevin Millar was 3 for 3 before leaving the game with a cramp and is on fire to start the season. Edgar Renteria broke out of his slump with two hits. The bullpen, although a little wild, was decent. Keith Foulke did leave a few balls up in the zone again today resulting in some hard hit balls to the outfield, but he pitched a scoreless inning.

The only bad news on the day is that Terry Francona was hospitalized with chest pains earlier in the day. Nothing has been determined yet, but I'm hoping it's nothing to worry about.

minor league rosters

2005-04-06T03:47:00.000-04:00

Giving up on the big league team already you poor, pathetic fool? No need to jump off the Sox ship already. Soxprospects has posted their predicted rosters for every minor league team that the Sox have. If you're looking for a winner check out the AA Portland Sea Dogs. That team is jammed packed with Sox prospects.

I've never been too into minor league ball, but I'd like to start following it more this year. We're finally begining to get a real farm system. Pawtucket, the team that plays 15 minutes away from me, looks pretty mediocre as far as prospects go, but by next year they should be fun to watch.

0-2???

2005-04-05T18:24:00.000-04:00

Well, to paraphrase from the post game show this loss was a lot more heartbreaking, but we can take a lot more good from it.

- Matt Clement pitched like shite. That wasn't what I was envisioning after I worked him up so much in my head. He did work himself out of a few tough jams...but then again he got himself into those tough jams. His line doesn't read as bad as David Wells, but he was constantly behind in the count and he hit 91 pitches in less than five innings of work. He'll get'em next time I suppose.

- The bullpen looked good until Keith Foulke left a few balls up in the zone. The one thing that I'm concerned about is that Francona seems to be using the hook to early for the relievers. When your starter comes out early like the Sox starter has in both of the first two games then why not use your long relief guy for a bit longer? Instead of using every pitcher we have available why not let John Halama go a bit longer?

- I've already been hearing a lot of people getting on Francona for not putting in Jay Payton to face Mike Stanton in the 7th. Trot Nixon looked silly up there against a lefty before grounding into a weak double play to end the inning. The way I see it, if Trot comes out so does Stanton so I'm not too upset over that managerial move. I've also heard plenty of people get down on Johnny Damon for not trying harder to break up that double play but I didn't actually see that part. I was too busy looking for something to hit after Nixon's pathetic little stab at the ball.

- Edgar Renteria? Well....he'll get better.

It was a tough loss, but the bullpen did good, the offense managed 11 hits (although only got 1 walk and 3 runs to go along with it), and the game was close. It was a great game and it was great to have an afternoon of baseball. So I don't think there's anything here to complain about. Yeah, I realize I just spent this whole post complaining. But that ain't the point!

Tomorrow afternoon the Yanks go for the sweep throwing Mike Mussina out there against Tim Wakefield. Let's hope that knuckler is dancing.

BASEBALL! And it allll counts

2005-04-04T19:41:00.000-04:00

Pedro Martinez struck out 12 even though the Mets lost.

Jake Westbrook and Mark Buehrle were part of the seasons first pitcher's duel.

Former Yankee and current member of my fantasy team, Javier Vazquez got knocked around.

In a matchup of young pitching stars Ben Sheets pitched great while Oliver Perez didn't.

I could go on and on about the happenings of the day, but you get the point. Baseball is officially here for every team.

And don't forget to check out Baseball Rants for an interview with John Sickles.

What a way to start the season

2005-04-04T03:43:00.001-04:00

Thanks to two of my alcoholic prick roommates staying up until 7am and the clock moving ahead an hour I got almost no sleep on Saturday night so I was going into the game already very tired. With the game doing nothing to hold the intrest of a Red Sox fan I actually slept on and off from the sixth inning on. Luckily I didn't miss much. David Wells"> carried his spring training struggles over into the regular season earning the loss in the Opening Day game. Besides Jason Varitek's three hit night there was nothing for Red Sox fans to get exited about. Edgar Renteria looked bad in the field. The bullpen led by Matt Mantei and newcomer Blaine Neal was hideously inneffective. Mark Bellhorn is on pace for 486 strikeouts.

With all that said, there is really very little to worry about. I had almost forgot how much I sometimes hate sports talk radio. Driving home from the girlfriend's house after the game I heard incredibly stupid comments ranging from "David Wells threw the game" to "the Yankees are far far superior to the Red Sox this season". But if anyone comes to me with a doom and gloom outlook on the season I swear I will beat them. That was 1 game out of 162 and while it was one of the uglier games the Sox have played, there's not much to worry about.

The one thing I am worried about? David Wells. I didn't hate the signing when it happened. I figured that he could be a solid #3 guy and give us 200 quality innings. Thanks to his horrid spring performance and now this, I'm starting to worry. It's definatley possible that he's about to turn things around and go back to being solid, but I'm doubting that more and more by the day. The good news is that it doesn't really matter how bad he sucks, he'll still be a step up from Derek Lowe.

In a bit of good news, the Yankees pitching staff is already falling apart. Kevin Brown's back will have him missing some time to begin the season. There's no mention about how long he could be out, but from the sound of it he should only miss a few starts. But then again this is Kevin Brown we're talking about. The guy has been a walking injury for the last four or five years. Ya know, I had thought about starting a Yankee rotation injury pool. The rules were going to be simple. Pick the Yankee pitcher to go down and pick the date that he goes down. I nixxed the idea because I don't want to turn this into a place of Yankee hating. But I really didn't think that an injury would come before the season even started!

In a bit of news that doesn't pertain to the Sox at all, Alex Sanchez?!?! steroids!??! Damn...never would've guessed that one. Four homers in 1351 career at bats and .364 career SLG aren't the numbers I'd expect to see next to the name of a guy that tests positive for steroids.

What a way to start the season

2005-04-04T03:43:00.000-04:00

10/16/03 - 10/27/04 : My story

2005-04-03T04:23:00.000-04:00

I still remember October 16th, 2003 as if it were yesterday. It was Game 7 and every Sox fan knew that after 85 years this was really The Year. Things were sounding so good too. I work in a very loud warehouse environment, but there were several radios positioned about the place, all blasting the game as loud as they'd go so that you could hear the game from most places. The Red Sox got out to an early lead and Pedro was on the mound. We were up 5-2 in the 8th and our bullpen was lights out for the post season. We had the game! World Series here we come!!! But wait...what the hell is Pedro doing out there? Umm...he's already thrown 100 pitches. Grady, get him out. Come on now, he's getting hit hard. Grady, get him out. HE'S LETTING THE TYING RUN CROSS THE PLATE!! GRADY, GET HIM THE FUCK OUT! But it was already too late. The game was tied and going into extras. The bottom of the 11th...what little of it happened, is something that will always be etched in my mind. Just as the game came back from commercial the conveyor belts in the warehouse went down as they often do. The place was dead quiet besides the radios blasting the game. First pitch and BAM. You could tell by the radio announcer's home run voice that the ball was gone. People hung their heads, crushed. I had to fight back a tear. One of the few Yankee fans in the place (the stereotypical fan...the type that loves the Yankees and Deter Jeter is hot OMG and wait...who's Gary Sheffield?) began cheering as soon as someone explained to her what just happened...one guy had to be held back from hitting her. It was over. It wasn't supposed to end that way.

The following weeks Red Sox Nation walked with their heads down, shuffling their feet, at a loss inside. We didn't know what to do or how to feel. It wasn't supposed to end that way. It was supposed to be The Year. We had it!!! And it was lost. The Yankees losing the World Series was a small comfort. Very small. I personally didn't give a damn what the Yankees did at that point. It was just a bad time to be a Sox fan. A bad time to even be alive.

As time went on Red Sox fans started talking about it. They started talking with other Sox fans. There was no way to comfort a Sox fan and no way to tell him or her that it would be ok. We'd never forget the pain. But somehow things started looking better. Once we took a step back and realized that we almost did it, things started getting better.

We came so close to beating the Yankees. The two teams were even, all year! We faced them 26 times in 2003 and went toe to toe with them, often beating them. With a little bit of bad luck and bad management we ended up losing in the end. But that year was different. We were actually getting calls that fell our way. It almost seemed like lady luck was on the side of the Red Sox. When it was all over and I took a step back I realized that the balance of power was tilting. For a scale so lopsided it takes a while to tilt, but in 2003 things were even. The Yankees won the final game, but after a month of mourning Red Sox Nation was able to raise their heads and say with confidence for the 86th year in a row...Next year. Next year is The Year!!!!

Thanksgiving was rolling around and as the Game 7 funk wore off, there were rumors. Curt Schilling??? You can't be serious. No. I won't get my hopes up. The deal is done, we just have to convince Schilling that it's a good idea? No, I can't believe it! Theo Epstein is having Thanksgiving dinner with the Schillings!? Holy shit, we might have him. The deal is done. We have him. That sealed it. 2004 officially became The Year. I don't believe in fate, but in this instance I think I almost did. From that moment it was written in stone that in October 2004 the Yankees and

the Red Sox would meet again. Once again they would take it to 7 games. This time it would end different. The Year was coming. I don't even know why the other 28 teams bothered. 2004 wasn't about them. They didn't have a shot. It all came down to the Red Sox and the Yankees. It was going to come down to a game 7 and when the Red Sox won that they were going to win it all.

The rest of the offseason hardly seemed to matter. We got Keith Foulke and that only re-affirmed that this was The Year. The Yankees passed on Vlad to sign Sheffield, what a joke. We tried to get A-Rod, but failed. So what? It was a win-win situation. Which duo of all stars did you want, Nomar and Manny or A-Rod and Ordonez? Either way we were set (and in hindsight we got the right duo). The Yankees ended up with A-Rod. But the Nation did not falter. I can't say it enough. We knew. It was fate. It was written in stone. It was going to happen. 2004 was going to be The Year.

The season started. We all know how that went. They started off with a bang in April. Everything was going right and everything looked like it was supposed to. Then once the weather got warmer, the team got colder. A lot of people paniced after what seemed like 6 years of .500 ball. Fire Francona! Screw Theo! Trade Nomar! All kinds of crazy stuff. Well...the Nomar thing wasn't so crazy. A lot of people say that the reason they got hot was because they traded Nomar. That obviously wasn't the reason. A lot of people say that the reason why they got hot was because the team was fired up after the fight between A-Rod and Varitek. That obviously wasn't the reason. Hell, I even take credit for them getting hot. I went under the knife for surgery in mid-August. They won that night. I was too heavily medicated to remember even asking the nurses what the score of the game was...but apparently I did. In the three weeks that I was out of work I believe the team lost twice. But obviously that wasn't the reason they got hot. The 2004 Red Sox were a damn good team. They were underachieving for a while and it was only a matter of time before they went on a streak like that. It wasn't because of a trade that didn't actually improve the team that much. It wasn't because of a fight that only the fans got fired up about. And it wasn't the fact that I wasn't working or shaving and had my playoff beard going on. They were just a damn good team. They fell short of the Yankees even after a late season surge, but they made the playoffs. The stage was set. This was The Year.

They made quick work of the Angels. I don't think the team even broke a sweat. I was in Pittsburg for a wedding when the Yankees clinched their series victory over the Twins. I celebrated that night along with some Yankee fans and a few other Sox fans. The Yankee fans had their team making it to the ALCS and the Sox fans had the rematch that we had been waiting for since October of the year before. The match up that was destined to happen was about to go down.

Games 1 and 2 were a blur. They were close, but they were losses. No one lost faith. It was The Year. A 2-0 deficit was nothing. Things weren't so great after game 3. I've never witnessed such a crushing. earth shattering defeat. 19-8. That game zapped the energy out of my friend's place filled with Sox fans. It was over. No team had ever come back from a 3-0 defeat before. Like nearly every other member of Red Sox Nation, I lost faith. We were humiliated by the team that we hated more than any other. It was every bit as crushing as 2003 and things weren't even over yet. For 24 hours for the first time since Thanksgiving of the year before, I didn't believe.

I didn't even want to watch game 4 that Sunday. Why bother? I saw bits and pieces, checking the score while at the girlfriend's house. They were losing. We were going to get swept. I was driving home during the 9th inning. Rivera was on the mound and he was about to shut us down. Millar walked and Roberts came on. Every person in the stadium, every person watching at home, and every player on that field knew what was about to happen. Roberts was going. He did....I nearly blew the roof off my car screaming at the radio. They had a chance. Mueller...single...TIE GAME! Were they toying with us? Were they delaying the inevitable? It didn't matter. They were back in it. With one swing in extra innings David Ortiz brought it all back. After seeing his shot and hearing Dirty Water blast over the Fenway sound system, just like magic, all faith was restored. I felt and still do feel shame for doubting them even though game 3 was so crushing and even though history and everything in the world was against them.

Games 5 and 6 were torture. I didn't want to die of an ulcer at the age of 24. I listened to both games at work, the entire time my stomach tied in a knot, feeling like I was going to puke. Both games they won and just like that, fate comes true. It was all about to come down to game 7.

This time it was different. Right from the begining the Yankees didn't have a chance. Thanks to the memories of 2003 it was impossible to feel comfortable even once during that game, but it was actually going to happen. And it happened. I watched the final two innings of game 7 in a packed break room, the work that was supposed to be getting done was getting ignored and no one cared. It was unbelievable. Unimaginable. It was every adjective that I'm not good enough of a writer to be able to come up with. I'm not even sure if the best writer in the world could even describe it. And the best part was it was going to get better.

St Louis was a tough team. They won more games than any other ball club in 2004. But no one in Red Sox Nation seemed worried. The entire series passed without a close game. The Cardinals never even held a lead in the series. Was it boring and anti-climatic like some of my non-sports friends somehow call it? Fuck no. It was still edge-of-the-seat, still feeling like I was going to puke action.

It ended. I celebrated. That's about all I can say about that. The feeling of a Red Sox World Title victory is indescribable, but every Sox fan out there reading this knows exactly what I mean. That amazing feeling of ecstasy, shock, and awe that still hasn't gone away. It was The Year. My grandfather, a man who was buried wearing his Red Sox hat, lived 60 years never having saw what I witnessed. Ted Williams, the biggest legend in Red Sox history went his entire life without having saw what I just did. I can't even fathom the number of Red Sox fans that lived between 1918 and 2004 and never saw what I saw. The Sox won it. They won it for everyone. The fucking won it.

Tonight, for the first time in 86 years, the Red Sox are starting the season as the defending champions. Tonight 2004 is history. Tonight we start the wild ride again. The Sox roll into New York with their heads held high looking to take it all again. Tonight it starts. Tonight the celebration ends (although the feelings will never grow old). Tonight. Opening day.

Red Sox Blog Nation speaks

2005-04-01T14:13:00.000-05:00

One opinion doesn't do very much good. But when you get the several opinions from a group of people that know what they're talking about you start to get a better picture of how things are. So while I like giving my opinion here I think it's a little more helpful for everyone reading if they know what others think. So I visited about a dozen Red Sox blogs, tracked down some email addresses, and talked to the guys running them to see what they think about a few things. Most of the emails I sent out were returned and I thank everyone who took the time. I curse all those who didn't to an eternity of hell (being brought back in time to October 16th, 2003 and having the 8th-11th innings of game 7 replayed forever).

I asked these three questions to everyone;

1. What do you think was the best offseason move that the Red Sox made? Why?

2. What do you think was the worst offseason move that the Red Sox made? Why?

3. Who improved more this offseason? The Yanks or the Red Sox?

And I got the following answers, in no particular order. Be warned, this is about to get long. Real long.

Jeff from The House that Dewey Built

1. I loved the Wade Miller signing. For almost no cost, and two years of delightful arbitration control, we have one of the best pitchers the Astros have ever developed. I mean, if the Sox medical staff play their cards right (always a questionable decision) the Red Sox can get a top-30 in the MLB starter for 50 starts off the free agent market.

Miller is a hell of a pitcher. When the red flag is a shoulder problem in a career that is full of shoulder problems (to varying degrees), I’m not terribly concerned with the risk part of the signing. If he blows out this year, than he costs $2.5 million. Drop in the bucket, when he might be worth something like $10 million in terms of games won. Just an excellent risk/reward signing.

2. The Jason Varitek signing. I know he’s the heart and soul for the team, and that he’s the best handler of pitchers since Mo Berg retired, but lets examine the actual validity of these Claims from the Alter of Remy.

Was Varitek the heart and soul in 2003? What about 2002? 2000? When did it happen? In June, when the team was in the midst of their mediocrity, Peter Gammons said that Varitek wasn’t a vocal leader. Then he facials ARod and all of a sudden, he’s the Moses of the Red Sox, finishing an 86 year old exile. I don’t buy it.

The same argument holds for the pitcher thing. The Red Sox were 8th in the AL in runs allowed. Why wasn’t Tek a great handler of pitchers then? I mean, unless being average is your definition of being among the best in baseball. In that case, the Indians can be called great in 2004.

Now, I like Jason Varitek. He hits at a position where hitting is scarce, and probably is full of those tasty nuggets of intangibles that he is rumored to have. That doesn’t change the fact that he was handed $40 million to play a physically demanding position for ages 33-36. There aren’t many catchers that remain productive (able to start and be in the top half of the league) at age 36….Johnny Bench had retired, Yogi Berra had moved to left ect. I’ll save you the work and say the ones I found were Carlton Fisk and Gabby Hartnet. That doesn’t bode well for the Red Sox pocketbook.

They could have signed him cheaper. They should have tried harder, and if not, they should have gotten creative. I’m more annoyed by the apparent complacency than the cash lay out.

3. I think the Yankees did, but with an asterisk.

Last year, as has been repeated pretty much ad nausem on Dewey’s House and other places, the Red Sox true level of play was somewhere in the 98 win range. The Yankees were somewhere in the 93 win range.

Now, with their moves, I think the Sox broke even. There is some shifting of run values and all those SABR-friendly things, but I would expect them to be just as good in the regular season as they were last year.

The Yankees could have been a contender, but busted their load on RJ, and had to settle for Tony Womack and Carl Pavano/Jaret Wright. Before the obvious complaining about the lumping of Noted out machine Womack and those pitchers, keep in mind that Pavano and Wright have been in the majors 15 years, and have had three seasons combined when they pitched more than 100 innings of league average pitching. Clement has 3 years himself.

What that means is that the Yankees are better than a 93 win team…I would say the 95 win range. That still means they aren’t as good as Boston though.

As for the playoffs, Johnson and Mussina are formidable. Schilling and Clement are too. Still a seven game toss up, friends.

Denton from Surviving Grady

1. Re-signing Varitek and naming him captain. The team has sorely lacked leadership for quite a while. Pedro, Manny, Nomar never stepped up. Schilling could do it but he's too focused on pitching. Varitek will be great in that role. The other obvious reason is his game-calling ability and ability to work to make pitchers better.

2. Keeping Millar over Doug Mientkiewicz. Doug has a superior glove and a more consistent, though not as potent, bat. He could have hit second as he did in Minnesota and let Renteria hit 5th. Pretty dangerous line-up, especially with Varitek and Nixon and Mueller. Millar is suspect defensively and becomes a major hole in the batting order when in one of his extended slumps.

3. Not to be a "homer" but I think the Sox did. Pitching: Johnson is a stud, but Pavano, to me, is a gamble. Wright will not pitch well as a Yankee. Wells is a gamble also but Clement and Miller are solid. Mantei could be huge. And Halama has some potential as a spot starter or in long relief.

Position Players: Tino Martinez and Tony Womack - not very imposing.

Renteria the only major change, and a good one.

Marc from Baseball Rants

1. The best offseason move? Locking up Matt Clement instead of Carl Pavano, and doing it for the same amount of money the Reds locked Eric Milton up at. I expect much better things from Clement than Pavano (no matter what the mass media says) and think the Sox did a great job of improving their rotation and giving us a certifiable co-ace.

2. Signing Edgar Renteria. No offense to Renteria is meant by this, because it was still a good move, but the worst of the ones they made. We have way too many shortstop prospects (Hanley Ramirez, Dustin Pedroia, Kenny Perez) to be dishing out 4 years, $40 million to a guy who is going to put up a .300/.350/.43 line. I like that line, but not for $10 million a year. The saving grace might be that Hanley is asked to move to center when Damon departs, and Pedroia takes over at second base eventually, which would make the Renteria deal make more sense. As of right now though, it is a head scratcher with scenarios galore to explore.

3. Well, I think the Red Sox had a slightly better winter, because none of their moves countered each other like New York's did. The Yanks got Randy Johnson, but then signed Pavano and Wright, who should make the rotation a little more top heavy for Johnson. I don't mean that in a good way; I mean that NY will depend on Johnson. Since the Sox were a better team than the Yankees last year anyways, and they had a slightly better offseason, I have to give them the nod as the team to beat in the division. For those who don't believe the Sox were a better team, simply look at the pythagorean records from 2004, which are a better indicator of future performance than the actual records themselves.

Evan from Firebrand of the American League

1. The Red Sox's best offseason move was resigning Jason Varitek. Why? Who
else could we use? It's that simple.

2. The worst offseason move in my opinion was ... actually, I can't think
of one. I'm pretty happy with how this team has turned out.

3. The Yankees, but keep in mind that their pythagorean record last year
was 12 wins above normal. So even though they improved, they could end
up with a worse record.

Randy Booth from Over the Monster

1. In my opinion, the best offseason move the Sox made this season was signing Matt Clement. Clement is an upgrade over a more expensive Derek Lowe, and has the most potential over any other free agent pitcher on the market last season.

2. The worst offseason move made by the Sox not resigning Mike Myers. It wasn't a bad move until today, when the Sox traded for Myers. So we get back Myers, who would could of had as cheap, but have to give up someone in return.

3. Red Sox. I think the Yankees made a bunch of moves that just seemed right at the time, but weren't in their best interest long term (Tony Womack, for example). The Sox didn't lose anyone in the lineup, and made up for the losing Pedro Martinez (Lowe doesn't count).

Frawst, a friend and respected baseball fan over at Livejournal

1. Not pverpaying for Pedro and Derek. The easiest thing to do when you win a ring, especially when you win it in epic fashion, is to go overboard in trying to keep that lovin' feeling. A 4 year deal for Pedro and anything above an incentive laden 3 year for Derek would have hamstrung a team moving forward with Curt's World Series raise and his option triggered and the Largest Intact Contract in baseball on the books in Manny (ARod's deal is being subsidized by the Rangers)

As far as straight up player acquisition? David Wells. He'll immediately fit into the clubhouse, and he'll provide at a #3 level for this year. And they didn't overpay for him.

2. Tek's deal. It's too much, it's too long. I love Tek, I wanted mroe than anything for him to re-sign. There is a good amount of distance between reigning a catcher on the decline to a reasonable contract and being sodomized with a lemon reamer by Teh Boras. That said, I forgive them :)

3. Short term, the Yankees. The player for player moves on the Sox are smarter and better geared towards the future. But you don't swap out 3/5's of your rotation including a man whose good day evoke Koufax without taking a hit. The Sox have more flexibility now, and really good parts, ut the Yanks added a stone cold playoff killer in Johnson. He has all the pedigree that Schilling does, with better stuff and a smaller mouth. (They're roughly equal in surliness).

Swapping out a part that doesn't work for you (according to rumor) in Vasquez for a Hall of Famer (even in decline) is huge. Pavano and Wright are risk signings, but no more risky than Miller and Clement are. And getting rid of Esteban Loaiza always makes you better.

Long term the Yankees got older and more expensive. If Lil Theo can stay flexible and cold hearted we can maintain an edge even as our core get some grey in their greasy hair.

Tim from Bullshit Memorial Stadium

1. My first, gut-reaction answer would be to say Matt Clement, mostly because I think he's being underrated by the hype created by writers like Buster Olney, falling all over himself to tell us he doesn't have "big market makeup," whatever that means, and like Olney would know. And while I still think that, I think the "best" moniker comes down on two transactions- the Wade Miller deal, and the Roberts-for-Payton, Vazquez, and mLer trade.

Miller because it was a signing for a great pitcher, they played out the deal without succumbing to the temptation to get him via trade (instead waiting for the non-tender deadline), they tied most of his salary into performance-based clauses, and because they will retain control of him for next year as well through arbitration. If he's healthy, he's a bona fide #2 behind Schilling, along with Clement who I think will be the same.

Roberts-for-Payton because ultimately, it meant we turned Henri Stanley (who we traded to LA for Roberts originally)- a mLer we picked up for nothing- into "the Steal," facilitating a World Series, a mL pitcher, our platoon partner for Trot Nixon and able day-off bench guy for Damon in Jay Payton, our utility infielder that can play three positions and hit in Ramon Vazquez, and we even got the Padres to give *US* some cash. Roberts seemed like a great guy, but that was a fleecing, plain and simple.

The best non-move was keeping Hanley Ramirez.

2. There weren't any egregiously poor moves this offseason, thankfully, but the Varitek and Renteria signings were for a bit of a lot of money. Mantei was a great signing, along the lines of Miller, but I would have maybe liked to see them spend more for a dependable, less-injury-prone setup man. But, life isn't perfect. I think Mantei will throw some meaningful innings this year, but that he'll lose time somewhere along the way.

3. Honestly, though I still think the Sox are actually better, the Yankees may have improved more. It's tough to beat the addition of Randy Johnson to your staff. That said, I expect Carl Pavano to regress a bit to his 2003 numbers (2004 was a bit of an outlier in ERA alone- his peripherals were similar), I expect Jaret Wright to implode, and I expect, at some point, for someone in their front office to do their job and inform George that signing Tony Womack to start 2B ranks as one of the dumbest things the organization has ever done.

The Sox got better, but seemingly only incrementally- Mantei over Williamson, Renteria over Cabrera, Clement/ Wells/ Miller over Martinez/ Lowe, Varitek to Varitek, Payton over Kapler, Vazquez over Reese. The Yankees made a big leap, but I still think the Sox are better. FWIW, I think our bench this year to start is one of the best in team history and certainly the best in baseball, compared especially to NY's, a team with a lot of injury potential, who have a very poor bench.

The writer from El Guapo's Ghost

1. Making the right call and trading Minky instead of Millar. A good hitter is always more difficult to find and valuable than a good glove.

2. Signing Renteria to $40/4 for a number of reasons: 1) he is exiting a players normal prime years, 2) besides one season, he has not hit well enough to warrant that payday, 3) he has shaky patience at the plate making him rely on average for OBP, 4) his defense has slipped over the past few seasons and he may be overrate with the glove after spending so much time next to Rolen. Rolen allowed Renteria to play more up the middle gettting to more balls than most, but without necessarily better range., 5) it is the sox deepest position in the minors with not only Hanley, but Lara and Soto.

3. Yanks, but they needed to after being "only" a 89 win team. RJ gives them a five win upgrade. The rest of the rotation is a wash. The pen should be much deeper and better givimg them a couple more wins. Giambi/Tino can't be
any worse than sick Giambi/Olerud/Tony "freakin'' Clark. The only area that could be worse is at second. Tony Womack's deal with the devil should be end in 2005 since he will be playing for his son. The devil loves irony.

If Miller and Mantei can get back, the Sox run prevention s/b better but that is a big IF given their histories. The upgrades of Renteria and Nixon should offset the career years of Damon, Tek, Bellhorn - the offense is a wash. The Sox are still a 98 win team.

Matt from Baseball Rants

1. Hard to put my finger on just one move that I think was the Sox best. Wade Miller has the potential to be the best move we made. For 1.5 million, if he’s hurt, and we only get 10 games out of him, they’ll be 10 decent games, and at the market rate of someone like Kris Benson (3 years, 22.5), I’ll take Wade Miller any day.

Furthermore, if Miller is healthy, and pitches like the perennial 13-17 game winner we know he can be, we get him for 4.5 million. It’s hard to argue with 13-17 wins for 4.5 million dollars, especially when you have Jaret Wright and Benson making almost double that, and I don’t foresee either of them doing nearly as well as a healthy Miller can.

Yet as Red Sox fans, we know if ifs were buts, and well, I don’t remember the rest, something about candy, the point is, Wade Miller is a big if, and for that reason, I can’t call him the best. I think our best move was Matt Clement. He’s slated to make 6 million this year, and considering the contracts of Wright and Benson above, he’s a bargain to begin with.

Clement has been a fantasy darling for years. A decent era, a ton of innings pitched (200+ 3 times in his career), and did I mention all the strikeouts (his K/BB are phenomenal)? With some run support behind him (and no one can argue the Sox won’t pile up the runs this year), a manager who isn’t trying to see if his arm can tear off on his 130th pitch, and the support of Red Sox nation, I see Clement evolving into the pitcher we always thought he could be. A 14-17 game winner, 180-200 SO’s, and a 3.5 to 3.7 ERA. Did I mention he’s not named Jaret Wright?

2. Far and away, 4 years 40 million for Edgar Renteria. I just don’t see the point. It’s not like our lineup was strapped for hitters, and we needed another big bat to contend. With Pedroia, Kenny Perez, and Hanley Ramirez in the wings, why bother?

Then again, I’m not entirely sure how the Sox could have better spent the money. I’m about to address how I feel about the Pavano signing below, and I’m thrilled we didn’t touch any of the problem child free agents (the ever injured Sexson, the broken knees of Delgado, the uncertainty of Beltre, the shoulder of Glaus, ad nauseum.)

The money we spent here could have easily been spent on extensions for our current players, saving money, or even chasing down Pedro (if we really wanted to). The point is that the Sox didn’t need to sign Edgar Renteria. After watching our playoff run, our off season, and spring training, I can’t say the Sox biggest problem is their bats, so why did they spend so much money addressing it? Under those pretenses, I think that’s why Renteria was our worst singing.

3. Ok, I’m going to try and remain as objective as humanly possible here. With that said, I hate the New York Yankees.

In terms of offseason moves, it seems clear cut to me (bias aside) who the big winner was: the Boston Red Sox. The Yankees made some horrible personnel decisions. Not picking up the option on Lieber, backloading Giambi’s contract, and the signing of Jaret Wright to name just a few.

Let’s be fair and look at this analytically. In terms of aces, the rotations match up equally, and with Schilling hurt (although I expect a full recovery), you have to give the edge to Randy Johnson. This isn’t your average pitcher changing leagues. This is one of the best left handed power pitchers ever to play the game, and he’s going to have no issues mowing them down in the pinstripes, nor would he have issues in any other uniform. So for now, edge Yankees. When Schilling is healthy, PUSH.

Number 2 starters, Mussina v Wells. Mussina was an ace at one point, but at 36, he’s not getting any younger, and signs of decay are pretty evident. A 12-9 record last year with a 4.6 ERA is hardly what I want from my number 2 man. Mussina’s numbers are often misleading, especially since joining the Yankees. A high run support translates into a lot of wins, but in 2 of the past 3 years, he’s finished with an ERA over 4. The same can be said for Wells. He’s 41, and one can only wonder how long his arm is going to hold out (in the past 10 years he’s thrown 45 CG’s). He’s a dedicated workhorse, but what really impresses me is his lack of walks. Walks are what happens when old finesse pitchers lose their finesse (ask Tom Glavine), and until I see it from Wells, I’m going to say he’s not losing his edge. A lot of question marks here, 2 potential 18-20 game winners, or 12 game winners. PUSH.

Carl Pavano v Matt Clement. This is where I think the difference becomes a lot more evident between the two teams. Now I believe in breakout seasons as much as the next guy, but what proof does any of us have Pavano’s last season was the rule, and not the exception? Before last season, in a season where Pavano started at least 20 games, his lowest ERA was 4.2! 4.2! Pavano is leaving the National League, the pitcher’s league, and finds himself smack dab in the middle of YANKEE STADIUM, the most high pressure environment in all of baseball (outside of Fenway of course). This is not an easy transition; it takes a world class talent (like Johnson) to effortlessly transition leagues. Look at the Yankees track record with cross league stars. Does anyone remember Javier Vazquez? Kevin Brown? Maybe in the same league, like Esteban Loaiza? It’s not easy pitching in Yankee Stadium, and Pavano is going to find out just how hard.

Clement on the other hand, I see continuing to perform as he has. He’s always had great IP, usually a decent ERA, and always been high on the strikeouts. Without a manager trying to rip his arm from the socket (see Dusty Baker), and some run support behind him, I see Clement finally emerging and winning 14-17 games this year. To stem the argument that he is transitioning leagues just like Pavano, I say this. Clement has had more than one decent season, has Pavano? ADVANTAGE RED SOX.

Jaret Wright V Arroyo/Wakefield/Miller? I’m going to say Wright v Wakefield for the moment, because I’m too lazy to look up otherwise. Without doing any stats out, or giving you any proof. His name is Jaret Wright, he’s making 21 million over the next 3 years. Outside of Atlanta, he’s never had a season with an ERA under 4.7, and only had one winning season (12-10). Let’s be blunt here. Leo Mazzone is the Yoda of pitching. Atlanta is Dagobah, and when you go there, he teaches you the force if you are a pitcher. Jaret just left Dagobah, without mastering the force, and went right to trying to fight the Empire. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. You weren’t that good in Atlanta, with Yoda, what makes you think you’re going to be better in a tougher league, in the second highest pressure situation in all of baseball, without Yoda to fix your mechanics? Did I mention Tim Wakefield is the greatest modern knuckleballer (emphasis on modern, being since I started following baseball). Even if it’s Arroyo, it’s going to be pretty easily argued that Arroyo is primed to breakout, and without any stats, let’s face it, he’s better than Jaret Wright. MAJOR ADVANTAGE SOX.

Kevin Brown v whoever doesn’t pitch for the sox above. Do I need to even give reasons for this? Kevin Brown’s back doesn’t even exist anymore; it’s just an injury waiting to happen, never mind the rest of him, like punching walls in the ALCS! The last time Kevin Brown was effective, people were worried Y2K was going to destroy the world. Did I mention he’s making almost 16 million dollars this year? Is it possible for me to just take Brian Cashman out back, and beat him until I can’t remember Kevin Brown is making almost 10x more than Johan Santana? Does it even matter who Brown matches up against? He’s going to get hurt and they’re going to trade for someone else anyhow. ADVANTAGE SOX

In terms of closers, it’s a pretty even draw. Rivera has supposedly been about to decay for years, and every year he brings that cutter, and dominates in the playoffs. Foulke has been everything we expected since we got him, but I find myself leaning toward the experience here, and saying that Rivera has the advantage. ADVANTAGE YANKEES

I’m not going to psychoanalyze bullpens and the such, I’ll leave that for someone else. The lineups are very comparable, with a few noticeable question marks. Tony Womack played over his head last year, and now he’s in a tougher league playing in Yankee Stadium; he’s not going to repeat his 04 numbers. How hurt is Giambi? Is he the Giambi of yore (the Lumberjack of steroid induced homerun fury), or is he now just Jason Giambi, white guy with a bat? I’m not expecting big things at all from Giambi, and I think his presence will be a distraction all year. The Yankees needed a big bat this winter (and with the ailing Bernie Williams in center ready to finally keel over, Beltran would have been a PERFECT fit). Instead they addressed pitching, and while they have slightly improved their pitching, pitchers can’t win games without run support.

The Sox just don’t have holes like this. Scoring runs was far from a problem last year, and you could argue Renteria’s bat is just as good if not better than Cabrera’s. The lineup just didn’t change besides that. Varitek is now the team captain, Mientkewicz is gone, and the rest of the players are happy (well, save Johnny Damon, but there’s enough people waiting to fill our CF void that I could careless what his demands are.) The sox lineup beat the Yankees last year, and as I’ve argued, the Yankees didn’t get better, and the sox didn’t get worse. ADVANTAGE SOX

So, in being totally bias, not backing up most of my work, and using “Screw the Yankees” as my general premise, it is my professional, informed, and extensively researched opinion that the Red Sox are better this year than the Yankees, especially after this winter.

Going nuts with the wait

2005-04-01T04:31:00.000-05:00

What is there to say? I could link you to an interview with Terry Francona where he just goes through the motions of giving all the right answers. I could show you an article in the Globe about Edgar Renteria and how the team likes him. I could tell you about how Bronson Arroyo looked bad in his final spring start in a 10-9 win over the Diamondbacks. (and I'd also mention the article talks about the 4-2 loss to the Twins). But I don't want to do any of that. What I really want is it to be Sunday. Spring training doesn't matter anymore and we all know it. Today, tomorrow, and Sunday are the only days that we have to wait until we finally see something that matters. So close.

A few updates to the site

2005-03-31T19:04:00.000-05:00

I added a few things to the sidebar. I plan on keeping track of the standings on a daily basis and I will be the only idiot in town keeping tabs on the MVP and Cy Young race (from my point of view) from day one. I'm also going to add a few player bits on the bottom of the sidebar when I have time. I'm thinking of keeping track of Manny's climb up the career HR leaderboard among a few other things. If anyone has any ideas on what I should keep track of, let me know. I've always liked the idea of tracking things on the sidebar ever since I saw The House that Dewey Built doing it last year. I also added a few new links on the side.

So this post wasn't a complete waste of time, one of the sites I recently added to my list of links talked about how the Byung Hyun Kim re-signing wasn't the worst signing that Theo made. Going by VORP per dollar, Ramiro Mendoza was actually a worse buy.

One of the other new links I added, Bullshit Memorial Stadium is embarking on a year long project that I'm going to enjoy following. Every Wednesy he plans on taking a look at Brandon Moss and his progress throughout the year. Every Tuesday he plans on checking in on Jon Papelbon. Stop in now to find out everything you wanted to know from every available online source about the duo.

My 2005 predictions

2005-03-31T14:57:00.000-05:00

AL East
1. Boston - Call me a homer, but I like their chances. They have superior depth and offense than the Yanks and a good case can be made that they have a better pitching staff than their rivals.
2. New York - So this is the best team that $200 mil can buy, eh? Color me unimpressed.
3. Baltimore - Sosa will help an already good offense, but they don't have the pitching. Forgive me if you've heard that one a thousand times.
4. Tampa Bay - They're still young and still improving. They'll hit .500 some day.
5. Toronto - Vernon Wells and Roy Halladay better bounce back in a big way to make up for the team's biggest offseason additions being Shea Hillenbrand and Corey Koskie.

AL Central

1. Minnesota - The Twins will win the division and also win the worst division winner award.
2. Cleveland - I'll be pulling for this team, but Kevin Millwood just doesn't cut it. Especially with C.C. Sabathia starting the year on the DL.
3. Chicago - Scott Posednick, eh? This team is going to need a lot of help.
4. Detroi - They're going to make a good run at Chicago. They do have a decent offense and their pitching is improving. If Ordonez can stay healthy all season then I'll give them the nod over the White Sox.
5. KC - Worst team in the majors right here.

AL West

1. Anaheim - It pisses me off that we're going to have to call these guys the LA Angels...but that's besides the point. They're a good all around team with the reigning MVP and a good supporting cast.
2. Oakland - There are two kinds of thoughts about the A's offseason. I'm one of those who likes the moves that Beane made. The pitching won't take as much of a hit as many think. Hudson and Mulder had off years and out of the swarm of youngin's in the rotation at least two should step up to be decent major leaguers this year.
3. Texas - I think they got lucky last year with their playoff run, but they are a young and improving team. They have one of, if not the, best infields in the game. They won't scare Anaheim and Oakland again this year though.
4. Seattle - It's going to take more than Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson to turn this team around. But they will improve. Just like I don't think Texas was that good last year, I don't think Seattle was that bad.

Team that could surprise - Detroit

NL East

1. Atlanta - I've learned my lesson. Never, no matter what happens in the offseason, speak out against Atlanta. With the additions of Kolb and Hudson combined with the fact that Adrew Jones looks like he's primed to have a monster year, the Braves should take the division for another year.
2. Florida - They've had the pitching over the last few years and their offense is getting there too. The addition of Delgado should help Cabrera put up even better numbers.
3. New York - Beltran and Pedro will help, but they won't be enough to get the wild card.
4. Philidalphea - This is always a team that should take the division. But they never do. This year second place will even be too much for them to think about.
5. Washington - Their pitching is underrated but their offense just isn't there. Vinny Castilla can't hit outside of Coors and Christian Guzman is one of those AAAA players that somehow managed to hold on to a starting job all these years. I like the trade for Guillen but after Nick Johnson and Jose Vidro go down with injuries he's going to have to carry the team along with Brad Wilkerson, something neither of them are up to.

NL Central

1. St. Louis - Their line-up is as potent as ever and they added Mark Mulder. This team will once again run away with the division.
2. Chicago - No matter what they tell you, they'll miss Sammy. The injuries to Wood and Prior don't seem as serious as they did last year. I think they can pull a decent season out of their ass.
3. Houston - Clemens won't repeat what he did last year, they lost Kent, they lost Beltran, and Berkman is hurt. Bagwell and Biggio are reaching that point in their careers where they probably get asked by kids if they ever played on the same team as Babe Ruth. This team will be competing to stay ahead out of the second tier of the division, not fighting to win it.
4. Milwaukee - This club is finally starting to come around and will make a run at a winning record for the first time since 1894. They added Carlos Lee to the middle of the line-up Ben Sheets is a Cy Young waiting to happen, and Doug Davis was a great surprise #2 guy. With the crop of kids they have waiting to come up they should do ok this year.
5. Cincinati - They had an exciting first half last year...but all good things must come to and end. They have the deepest outfield in the league when all four are healthy but what can you really say about a team that uses Paul Wilson as an ace?
6. Pittsburg - Worst NL team. At least they have a chance to win every fifth day with Oliver Perez.

NL West

1. San Diego - I think Dave Roberts is overrated, but besides him this is mostly the same team that nearly won 90 games last year. They don't have to hit at home if their pitching staff doesn't let up the runs at home.
2. Los Angelos - I'm one of the many who is not a fan of the moves that Paul DePodesta has made in the last couple of years. Some aren't convinced that Derek Lowe is really that bad, but I'm convinced that he'll be the worst signing of the offseason.
3. San Fransisco - I wasn't convinced that they could do it with Bonds. Without him they don't have shot in hell. Moises Alou had a huge spike in production last year and can not be counted on to do it again. So this team is back to having no real bats besides Bonds. And they don't even have him.
4. Arizona - They're not quite as bad as their 100+ loss season last year suggests, but they're not as good as they think they are with their shiny new thirdbaseman.
5. Colorado - A team relying on so many rookies is destined to fail. I think some of their rookies will produce, but not enough to get them out of the basement.

Team that could surprise - Washington Nationals

ALDS - Boston over Minnesota
Anaheim over New York
ALCS - Boston over Anaheim
NLDS - St. Louis over Florida
San Diego over Atlanta
NLCS - St. Louis over San Diego

World Series - Boston over St. Louis (this time they might last six games)

AL MVP - Manny Ramirez - Yeah, I'm biased. So?
AL Cy Young - Randy Johnson - although I hope I'm wrong and he throws out his back trying to swing at a reporter
AL ROY - Nick Swisher - With Dallas down in the minors with a hurt back the award is Swisher's to lose. He had a horrible, error filled spring, but I think he'll do better as the season goes on.

NL MVP - Albert Pujols - He'll benefit from a Bondless league almost as much as the Dodgers and Padres will.
NL Cy Young - Jason Schmidt - Ben Sheets, Oliver Perez, and Jake Peavy are three youngsters who will be hot on his tail, but I think Schmidt will finally take it this year.
NL ROY - Garrett Atkins - He's not a superstar waiting to happen, but he is a solid hitter playing in Colorado

Details on the Kim trade

2005-03-31T04:10:00.000-05:00

The trade that I reported earlier was a bit off. I announced it before it was official and the Sox are actually getting two different players rather than one 26 year old "prospect". The final deal for Byung Hyun Kim has been announced and the Red Sox will actually be getting Charles Johnson and Chris Narveson. Charles Johnson was promptly released. The Sox will be paying most of Kim's salary while the Rockies will be paying most of Johnson's.

I don't get this deal. John Sickles of Minor League Ball fame calls Narveson a B- prospect. Baseball Prospectus isn't as kind calling him a C level prospect. He's 23 and still has time to improve, but to me it looks like we're going to be paying $6 million for a guy to put up a 3.80 ERA in Pawtucket. The Johnson part of the deal is even more confusing...if the Rockies are paying him anyways then why was he even involved in the deal? Why didn't they just release him themselves? Maybe I just don't get something about the deal, but it doesn't look like all that great of a deal to me.

I feel like a broken record when I post a link about one of Matt Clement's games but with each time he pitches I get more and more excited. He went another five innings in yesterday's 6-4 win over the Devil Rays. Once again Clement did not walk a batter. The major knock on Clement has always been his control. If he has that problem under wraps then there will be no stopping the man. Most of the Red Sox runs came on a two run shot by Jason Varitek and a three run shot by Kevin Youkilis. Matt Mantei picked up the win despite going only one inning and allowing a home run to Josh Phelps.

Only three more days, folks. We're nearly there. Later on today look for my 2005 predictions. Tomorrow stay tuned for comments from several Red Sox bloggers out there who took time to answer some questions I asked. On Saturday I plan on giving my take of the 2004 season. Then Sunday? Sunday we PLAY BALL!

Good bye Kim

2005-03-30T14:09:00.000-05:00

It looks like we don't have to worry about Byung Hyun Kim this year after all. The Red Sox have apparently found a taker for Kim in Colorado. The deal isn't finalized yet, but the Red Sox will basicially be giving Kim away and getting nothing in return. They're willing to pay up to $5.5 million of the $6 million he's owed this year and the long prospect they'll get in return could possibly be the underwhelming 26 year old Jason Young. Young has a 9.71 ERA in 30 major league innings with Colorado. He was once considered a top prospect but it doesn't appear that he's going to turn into the pitcher that Colorado once hoped.

I was all for getting rid of Kim, but I was hoping we wouldn't have to pay his entire salary and get nothing for him in return... Ah well. Best of luck to Kim and he's going to need it pitching in Colorado.

The Sox are winning, Schilling is feeling good, and Mike Myers is back

2005-03-30T04:25:00.000-05:00

John Halama got the win in a 7-2 victory over the Yankees yesterday. The two teams split the spring training series this year and are about ready to start the first of 19 match-ups in only a few days. To me as you get closer to something it gets harder to wait. The last half hour of work drag by. The last half hour of work on a Friday night are the worst. And the next few days before the season actually starts are going to seem like an eternity. I don't care about spring games anymore. No one cares. It's time for the season to start. We're ready. Red Sox Nation needs some baseball.

'I threw a warmup pitch, and it was right. Everything was right.' Curt Schilling is nearly ready. In a minor league game yesterday Schilling was roughed up a little bit in the first inning. Then, before the second inning started, everything clicked for the ace. He then went on to go four more innings allowing only two baserunners and no more runs. He threw 69 pitches and 54 of them were strikes. This is the first time this spring that Schilling was happy with how he pitched. Not only did he feel good, health-wise, but he felt good pitch wise. He had command of his stuff. Schilling is targeting April 13th, a game against the Yankees at Fenway, as his return date which means he'll miss only one turn in the rotation.

If the Red Sox wanted to have Mike Myers on the team then why didn't they just re-sign him? Perhaps we will never know the answer to that question. What we do know is that Myers is back on the team after the Sox sent 20 year old speedster Carlos De La Cruz and 23 year old lefty Kevin Ool to the Cardinals to bring Myers back to the team. Myers is old and rather mediocre, but his deceptive delivery and ability to get out lefties could land him a spot on the roster. That means that Byung Hyun Kim might not have a job after all.

While cruising through Red Sox blogs the other night I came across a link to this site. I'd like to reiterate the point that the writer of that blog already made....If anyone and I do mean anyone tries to wave one of those things around at Fenway you will be beat to a bloody pulp and then made to eat that fucking sock.

all-time favorite Sox team

2005-03-29T14:25:00.000-05:00

The guys at Baseball Rants posted their all-time favorite Sox team and Marc was interested in seeing what I'd come up with for my team. So I took a little trip down memory lane and made up a team of my favorite former Sox players. THe pitching staff is a little thin. For some reason I was never into pitchers growing up. I didn't include members of the current Red Sox team because of the typical "what have you done for me lately" baseball mentality. I didn't want my list dominated by guys that just won my team a World Series so I left them out completely. Most of the guys on last year's team, however, would have a place on this list.

Before I show my list of all-time favorites, Marc wanted me to let you guys know that he has an interview with Will Carrol up on his site. So stop by and check it out.

C Jim Leyritz - He's known more as a Yankee than a Red Sox player so this might sap some of my Sox credibility, but I liked this guy. I think it's because he was on a couple of my winning fantasy teams as a kid. His Red Sox career was pretty forgetable, but I won't forget.

1B Mo Vauhgn - He was big. He was intimidating. He did tons for the community. And he knocked the snot out of the ball. He was the 90's version of David Ortiz and the combination of him and Nomar always seemed so devastating. If he hadn't been chased out of town by our former crackpot GM I think he would've went on to have a hall of fame career.

2B Phil Plantier - Nah, he never played a game of second base in his life. He probably didn't even sniff the infield when he was in little league. But we've gone through so many second basemen through the years that I never really got attached to any of them and I needed to fit Plantier in here somewhere. Why do I need to fit him in? Because I once owned a Phil Plantier autographed ball. My brother and I held on to that dearly thinking that one day we'd sell it and become rich. Once it became pretty clear that the guy was a bum we used it to play with. But I still have those fond memories.

3B Wade Boggs - He was a bit of a prick, not much of a team player, one OCDish bastard, and went on to play for the Yankees, but growing up he was number one in my books. His statistics amazed me. His ability to get on base was applauded even before getting on base became the cool thing to do. To me he symbalized the Red Sox before he went on to the bad guys.

SS Nomar Garciaparra - Maybe I'm the only one left in Red Sox Nation that still likes the guy after last year's fiasco, but I do still like him. Behind Pedro he was my favorite Sox player for a while. Hell, the guys at work still call me Nomah, but mostly only to mock my softball skillz.

LF Ricky Henderson - This might be cheating a bit because I didn't care that the guy was on our team. He was way too far past his prime when he was with us. But watching him play before he made it to us was fun. There has never been a guy like Ricky and there never will be another guy like Ricky. He was the best leadoff hitter of all time and could do things that no one else can do. Not to mention he gave some pretty damn good quotes.

CF Carl Everett - Most considered the guy to be a cancer in the clubhouse. And he was pretty much a bust once he got to the Sox. I don't give a damn how he's playing now or where he is. He makes this list for one simple reason. He doesn't believe in dinosaurs. And that amuses the hell out of me. His attitude was a problem, but sometimes it was fun to watch.

RF Tom Brunansky - Bruno was the type of guy that you could picture having a beer with at the local bar. Of course when I was 12 that's not what I was picturing, but you get the idea. His '91 and '92 seasons were so horrible but I, for some unknown reason, thought of him as a superstar slugger. I sure was a stupid kid.

DH Brian Daubach - I don't have a hard-on for the guy like many Sox fans seem to have. I swear they talked more about that guy in Faith than they did any active Red Sox player. But he was the most consistantly unconsistant guy you'll ever see play. He went through amazing hot streaks and agonizing cold streaks, but always finished the season with the same numbers. He was a nice, blue collar guy and his beard styles were much better than some of the hair styles we have going on this year and last.

C - Mike Macfarlane - I liked Mac for the same reason I liked Leyritz. He helped me win a championship. Fantasy baseball influenced a lot of my player loyalties in my early teenage years.

IF John Valentine - I think everyone loved this guy. I'm not sure what it is about him. His fantastic '95 season made you think that the guy could do anything even if that was a career year.

IF Scott Cooper - Why? I have absolutely no idea. Maybe it was because he was taking over for Wade Boggs and I, for some reason, thought he could fill his shoes. But I rooted for this guy and wanted nothing more than for him to suceed.

OF Troy O'Leary - He was a big part of the reason why we made the playoffs in '99. I still remember several times when Nomar was intentially walked just to get to Troy...and then he'd put the ball over the wall. He had a mediocre career, at best, but in 1999 he helped carry the team.

OF Mike Greenwell - His rookie card was one of my prized possessions growing up. It probably was never worth a dime, but I liked it anyways simply because he was Mike Greenwell. He had the porn mustache back before I knew what a porn mustache was. He had his best year in '88 before I even followed the game, but I knew about that season. And I always hoped for a repeat.

SP Pedro Martinez - Hell, I dedicated a site to the fact that this guy is god. Sure, his big mouth got tiresome after a while, but how can you not like a guy who is so far above mortal human beings pitching for your team?

SP Roger Clemens - I'm glad the guy left the Yankees so I can cheer for him again.

SP Aaron Sele - Like every Red Sox fan out there we knew he was so close to getting everything together and becoming our #2 starter. And also like every Red Sox fan he pissed me off once he put it together...as soon as he left the Sox. But I was always rooting for that guy to get his shit together.

SP Frank Viola - According to my father this guy was going to lead us to a string of championships. He was our missing piece. So I always got excited when it was his turn to take the mound. He had a couple of decent seasons with us, but...well...obviously no rings. So much for that idea.

RP Jeff Reardon - I liked this guy for one reason, and one reason only. I had his rookie card. For that brief moment that he held the all-time saves lead I thought I was going to be a rich man. That card probably isn't worth the cardboard it's printed on now.

RP Ken Ryan - There was a time when I thought this guy was going to be our closer for the next fifteen years. I don't remember much about him, only that I thought he was the next big thing. I only found out later that apparently he was a local boy.

RP Rich Garces - EL GUAPO!!

worried about Wells?

2005-03-29T04:32:00.000-05:00

Is it time to worry about David Wells? In four starts this spring he has an ERA approaching 8. Going by his numbers it looks like he's been hit pretty hard. No one really seems worried however. After throwing 83 pitches in yesterday's 9-5 win over the Phillies, Wells said he felt no fatigue. His next start is against the Yankees and that start counts. Opening Day is only five days away and Wells is going to have to forget his springtime numbers and begin getting guys out.

I'm not ready to panic about Wells. The guy is reliable. In 9 out of the last 10 years Wells has started 29 games or more. Only once in those ten years has he had a season shortened by injuries. He logs around 200 innings every year, doesn't walk anyone, and proves year after year that he's an asset for whatever team he's pitching on. Even this spring with as bad as Wells has appeared he has only walked two batters and only let up two homers. He's only struck out 10 in 17 innings, but that's always been the kind of guy that David Wells is. He lets the batters put the ball in play and relies on his defense to get the outs. He should do fine this year and his scary spring shouldn't be worrying Boston fans too much.

I'm not entirely worried about Wells....but then again I'm not exactly ready to trust the guy. Baseball Prospectus is only predicting the guy to go 118 innings. They think his already bad K-rate will drop, his walk rate will rise, and he'll let up more home runs. They're predicting a horrible year for David Wells. He's 42 and for all we know, he could still be on the Yankees payroll just like Ramiro Mendoza was the last couple of years. He has issues with his back, he's moving from a pitcher's park to a hitter's one, he's going from the NL to the AL, and he's drank more beer in his life than me and Kevin Millar combined. He should do fine this year. He always does. But what if he doesn't?

Wells is one of the things about this Red Sox team that has me worried the most. I have faith that Matt Clement will put up fantastic numbers. I think Wade Miller will give the team 20 starts, most of them of the quality variety. The offense will be huge the bullpen will be a strength and the team as a hole will compete for the division title. But the closer we get to the season the more I worry about David Wells and if he's going to help this team...or hurt them.

The future of Hanley

2005-03-28T14:38:00.000-05:00

What will happen with Hanley Ramirez? Well, you heard it here first....Whatever happens, it won't be our problem. Hanley is gone in July. Do I have some kind of inside source that you don't know of? Nah. It's mostly just a hunch. But I really think that Ramirez will be sent to another team in a bigtime deadline deal. His .314/.366/.463 line over four years of minor league ball is pretty impressive, especially for a shortstop. He's very likely to be a very good major league player. But he doesn't fit into the Red Sox plan. They just inked Edgar Renteria to a four year deal. Their farm system is filled with shortstops. Twenty year old Justin Pedroia will be switching to 2B in Portland this year, but 19 year olds Christian Lara and Luis Soto will be nearly ready for the majors by the time Renteria's deal is done if they develop properly. Even if those three prospects don't really pan out the Red Sox have enough cash to be able to bring in a shortstop in four years that will bridge the gap until another shortstop in our system is ready. The Red Sox have plenty of options at short and with there being no real talks of Ramirez switching positions I think he's going to be shipped off for some major league help down the stretch. Who would the Sox get in return? I'm not sure. I just went looking for a list of guys who will be free agents at the end of the year, but I'm not quite sure where to look for that. But if there's a major arm available on a team that's not going anywhere that team could find themselves in possession of a shiny new minor league shortstop. I'd like to see Ramirez make a name for himself as a member of the Red Sox. I mean the last time we had a minor leaguer take over at short, it turned out pretty damn good.

In the You Heard it There department, what about Ramirez in center? I like the idea. Ramirez has the athleticism to play in center and that would likely cut down on the high error totals that he's had coming up through the minors. With Johny Damon looking for big money once the year is over I don't think the Sox will be interested in bringing him back. So we'll be in need of a center fielder in 2006. In the link provided Marc over at Baseball Rants projects what he believes Damon and Ramirez will do up until 2012. What it boils down to is that Ramirez is an up-and-coming star while Damon is at his peak and about to start his decline. I'm not sure what there are for centerfield options out there on the free agent market, but I don't think there are any names out there that could dazzle. Damon isn't worth a huge pay day so why not have our own guy play?

I like the idea of Ramirez in center. I'm going to have to get into the habit of saying Hanley instead of just Ramirez. I think I nearly gave a Sox fan a heart attack by saying "Ramirez in center"....No, I didn't mean Manny. But I do like the idea of Hanley in center. What's the worst that could happen? But Hanley is going to start the season at short in Portland. And I have a feeling that by July he'll be playing on a non-contending team's AAA squad. My only hope is that he at least makes it up to Pawtucket so I can catch a few games of his before he goes.

A little news from the weekend

2005-03-28T04:02:00.000-05:00

Mostly because of the holiday I missed a day of posting. I apologize to my masses of readers (all three of you) and promise not to ever let it happen again. Well...at least not for the next couple of days. What happened in the day that I missed? Well...

The Red Sox roster is currently at 29 players after six were shipped to the minors. With Curt Schilling, Wade Miller, and Adam Stern likely to start the season on the DL that leaves Anastacio Martinez and Byung Hyun Kim to fight over the final spot on the roster. That means that Dave McCarty did indeed make the team. Hurry back Roberto Petagine! I probably would rather see Mark Malaska or Lenny Dinardo make the team, but if I had to choose between Kim and Martinez, I'd go with Kim. Even though the chances don't look very good, there still is that chance that Kim will revert to his pre-Boston days. Since there's not actually anything wrong with him maybe something will just click and Kim will become that dominant reliever that he once was. Or, a bit more likely, the Sox are just showing that they have some confidence in him in hopes that he puts together a decent April and another team will make an offer for him.

On Sunday Tim Wakefield was impressive in a 8-7 win over the Pirates going six strong innings letting up only one run. Kim, Matt Mantie, and Keith Foulke did not look impressive, however, going an inning a piece and giving up the other six runs between them. No worries though. Foulke is still having a much better spring than he did last year, Mantei is still healthy and impressing, and Kim...well...he got the save, that has to count for something, right? I got to watch most of the game, but it was at my family's house. With the volume down, people walking in front of the tv all day, and me having to watch the game across the table around my cousin's fat head so I wasn't able to pay all that much attention. It was a good diversion from the family though.

Marc over at Baseball Rants has linked here a couple of times in the last few days and there are a couple of his posts that I wanted to comment on here. But with the news out of the way I think it's nearly time to hit the sack. Later today look for a post with my thoughts on the future of Hanley Ramirez and possibly my favorite all-time Sox team.

A few bits of news before I head to bed

2005-03-26T05:02:00.000-05:00

Ya know what pisses me off? The first sentence of the Globe's article Curt Schilling will pitch Opening Day. But don't get excited. He'll be pitching the opender for the Paw Sox against the Indianapolis Indians in Indianapolis. What a way to get my hopes up! I mean, I've known for a while that Schilling won't pitch the opener, but when you see in print that he will, it gets you excited! Phooey. Still, the article is good news. Schilling will likely make two minor league starts before pitching in the Pawtucket home opener on April 7th. It's quite possible that he could be pitching for Boston on April 13th against the New York Yankees.

This article mentions a few newsworth points such as a quote by Manny Ramirez. Manny talking about his spot in the line up; "I'm getting old, man. I'm just trying to have a good four years and move on. Third, fourth, wherever they put me, I'm going to be fine, man." Am I reading between the lines too much or did he just say he wants out of Boston?

Another bit of news is that Francona is thinking of switching up the lineup. Trot Nixon could be spending a lot of time in the same spot he batted in in yesterday's game, the second spot. Kevin Millar and Edgar Renteria are going to find themselves moving back and forth in the fifth and sixth spot. In a way I like the move. Nixon gets on base a lot more than Renteria so I like him batting second. What I don't think I like is Renteria batting fifth. Renteria slugged .401 last year, a whole one point above his career average of .400. What the hell is a guy like that doing batting directly behind two onbase machines? I realize that the Red Sox are paying this guy $40 million and want him to feel important, but on this team Renteria bats eigth, maybe seventh. If he somehow manages to find the bat he had in 2003, bat him second. But he's not a middle of the line up guy.

In bits of good news, Matt Clement, bumped from yesterday's starting spot by Curt Schilling, pitched to the Baltimore Orioles AAA team. Clement struck out 8 in 5 innings and once again he did not walk a batter. The idea of Matt Clement being able to find the plate during the season as often as he's done in the spring makes me positively giddy. Jay Payton did not strike out 8 men yesterday, a tough thing for any right fielder to do, but his news was just as good. The hand he was hit on by Orioles starter Daniel Cabrera is not seriously hurt and Payton will begin swinging a bat again today.

Skating at Fenway Park???? Could be. The team plans on looking into the idea of installing a ice rink for public skating and college hockey during the offseason. If that doesn't damage the field, I'm all for that idea. I think that'd be a great place to go skating and a good way to keep the business in the area going year round. The Fleet Skating Rink is a beautiful place to skate in downtown Providence and it's nearly always packed on the weekends. There's no better view in the world that the inside of Fenway Park and the year round draw is part of the Red SOx plan to improve the area.

Schilling debuts

2005-03-25T13:11:00.000-05:00

1:05 : The game starts and Curt Schilling is on the mound. Two balls get put into play, but both line drives are snagged. He walks Nick Punto (I believe...I was too focused on the Sox to even notice there was another team out there....) promptly took off for second. Jason Varitek is in midseason form as his throw to second bounces twice before bouncing past Edgar Renteria and nearly into centerfield giving Punto the easy steal despite the high fastball from Schilling. The final line of the inning is one walk, one strikeout, and one ace looking like he's ready to go.

1:10 : Trot Nixon is batting in the two hole. Before Mark Bellhorn broke out last year and Nixon spent the bulk of the time on the DL, I was a big fan of the idea of putting Nixon at the top of the order. His OBP is typically pretty high and when he's on, he's a good hitter to want to have a lot of at bats. Now that Bellhorn has showed us that he can get on base I think Nixon should bat fifth or sixth, protecting the big guys. According to Remy and Orsilla, Francona says that he plans on using Nixon towards the top of the order a bit this year, a good move if you ask me.

1:20 : Get used to this site...David Ortiz knocks in Manny Ramirez with an RBI double. We'll probably see that about 800 times this year. The score is 1-0.

1:25 : The Twins are still putting the ball in play pretty hard when they manage to make contact. After striking out Mike Cuddyer for the first out and Shannon Stewart flying out to deep left, Michael Restovich knocked a fly to the warning track that Manny almost got...but he's Manny. Restovich scored on a single up the middle to tie the score at one before the third out on a fly to center.

Speaking of flies to center, am I seeing things funny or is Johnny Damon still really uncomfortable out in the field. He's making the plays but it always seems like he has to make a last second lunge to get to the ball.

1:40 : Brad Radke made quick work of the Sox in the bottom of the inning and leading off the top of the third Johnny makes me look stupid with a nice diving play. Apparently he took exception to me saying he looks uncomfortable out there.

According to Orsilla, Matt Clement had a great game pitching to minor leaguers earlier today. I missed the numbers he put up, but if there's a link later on, I'll be sure to put it here. Clement was supposed to start against the Twins today, but Schilling decided he was ready for action and got the start instead.

A bloop single is all the Twins get in this half. Schilling is looking good and there's no sign that he's not feeling good. He'll likely come out for his last inning in the fourth.

1:50 : The Sox make quick work of themselves once again when Bellhorn gets a line-drive single, Damon wipes him out with a fielders choice, then wipes himself out when being caught stealing by about 25 feet. A bad jump combined with a perfect throw and Damon didn't have a chance. Nixon made the third out and now Schilling is back out there for inning number four.

Schilling hits 50 pitches in the middle of a long at bat against Jacque Jones. On the eigth pitch of the at bat Jones takes a splitter over the fence for his first home run of the spring. The very next pitch and Mike Restovich puts the ball in the same place and the Twins are up 3-1.

With two outs in the fourth Schilling comes out of the game after 65 pitches. He waves to the crowd and is likely unhappy that he let up the home runs, but for the first start of the year I think we can all be pretty encouraged.

2:03 : I'm not sure why I did the running blog of the game and I wasn't planning on it. But Schilling is out and so am I. Time to start the day, cash the check, pay the bills, and all that other stuff that doesn't matter as much as baseball should.....but if I don't do it they shut off my cable therefor not allowing me to watch baseball. So I think I gotta go.

2:50 : Ok, I lied. I took a shower, but couldn't tear myself away from the tv and I'm glad I did. Schilling is in the middle of his press conference. "The ankle feels good and that's really the least of my concerns right now", he says. He wasn't even thinking about his ankle and has said a couple of times that it is no longer an issue. The biggest thing that Sox fans can take away from this day is that Schilling is healthy. He wasn't pleased with the way he pitched. He was pretty down on himself in the press conference, but it's not injury related and that's what's important. It was his first game against an opposing team this year and him being a little bit behind is to be expected. He's going to get more work in and he'll be ready soon. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty encouraged by all of this even if Schilling doesn't seem happy.

Now Matt Mantei is taking the mound for the Sox with a 5-1 deficit. Six games pitched and 5.1 innings is a pretty small sample size for Mantei, but in that small sample size he's put up some impressive numbers and his arm hasn't fallen off yet. Good times...good times.

NICE! Another diving catch for Damon. That guy is really pissed off at me for questioning his defense, and Johnny, I'm sorry.

And now this time, I mean it....I'm out of here.

Schilling pitches, Papelbon impresses, and Johnny Damon wants $$$$

2005-03-25T04:57:00.000-05:00

Today. 1pm. NESN. Be there. Curt Schilling will be making his first, and likely his only start of the spring today against the Twins. He'll be on a flexible 50 pitch count.

The Sox battled to a tie with the O's yesterday in a ten inning game that was called with a 5-5 score. Jon Papelbon's numbers weren't all that impressive (4 runs scored on 5 hits and a walk in 3 innings), but when you take into consideration that he's going to be starting in AA this year and he went up against a very tough Baltimore lineup, he didn't too bad. Francona and the rest of the team were very impressed with him for a variety of reasons including his poise on the mound. Jay Payton was hit with a pitch to the wrist by Baltimore's Daniel Cabrera. Payton left the game, but should be fine. In the bottom of the inning Papelbon threw one up and in on Sammy Sosa. Sosa started for the mound, but thought better of it and just glared at Papelbon. The Sox prospect was not intimidated. He earned a lot of respect from the team with his attitude out there. With a mid-90's fastball and a fearless attitude Papelbon could be pitching for the big league club by the end of 2006. Watch him this year when he plays for the AA Sea Dogs.

The same article mentions how there are only two spots left on the team. Kevin Youkilis convinced the club that he would learn more on the bench in Boston than he would on the field in Pawtucket so Youk will be starting the year in the bigs. Francona did suggest that if he can't find enough playing time for Youkilis, he could be headed back to AAA until he's needed. Spot #23 goes to the newest member of the club, Blaine Neal. On a little side note, I've been thinking about sponsoring a page over at Baseball-Reference for a little while now, but there's no way in hell that I'm going to drop $50 just to see my website's name up in the lights. When checking out some info on Neal I noticed that his page was available for only $5 so I went for it. Blaine Neal is the newest member of the Sox and the newest man to have his page on Baseball-Reference sponsored. The final two roster spots are still up for grabs but I have a sneaking suspicion that they will be filled by the last two men that I want to see in a BoSox uniform. Dave McCarty will likely make the club as a defensive replacement at first and in the outfield. I've already made it clear here that I think the man is useless, but at least he won't hurt the team too much. The other man that I fear will make the team, however, could easily hurt the team. With all the press he's getting lately and with the other two likely competitors, Mark Malaska and Lenny Dinardo, sent to the minors I think the final spot on the major league roster goes to none other than...(drum roll please).....Byung Hyun Kim. Yeah. I'm afraid too.

In what could be a bit of bad news Johnny Damon thinks awfully high of himself. Damon is the best of a group of Red Sox players who are eligible for free agency at the end of this year. There has been no talk between Damon and the club about an extension, something that doesn't surprise or upset Damon. He says that he would sign a four year deal right now, but after the season is done the 31 year old will likely be asking for six years. He even threw in a barb about how the Yankees will be looking for a new center fielder in 2006. Damon compares himself to Ichiro Suzaki and J.D. Drew. He'll likely be looking for the type of deal that one of those two players might receive. Drew, as you may know, signed a 5 year, $55 million deal with the Dodgers this off-season. Johnny Damon has become the identity of the Red Sox. He's coming off one of the best years of his career and is quickly becoming one of the highest profile players in the majors, but if the guy thinks he should get a 6 year $66 million deal, he's nuts. I'd like for the Red Sox to bring him back, but even the $32 million over four years that he's getting now is a bit much, especially for a guy who is on the wrong side of 30.

And finally, Aaron Gleeman's latest post is a space killer where he simply posted the first 40 songs that popped up when he put his IPod on shuffle. I've already seen two other baseball bloggers post the same and credit him for it. I swear to whatever higher power is out there that if that man brings memes to the baseball blog world I will find him and harm him. A lot. I deal with far too much of that on LJ to deal with it here too.

News bits o' the day

2005-03-24T04:58:00.000-05:00

So how about that David Wells, eh? The Orioles were swinging at everything he threw and hitting it hard as they knocked him around for 11 hits and 6 runs in their rain-shortened 6-1 victory over the Sox. Johnny Damon left during the middle of the game after coming up limping after running down a fly ball. Luckily it was only a cramp and Johnny was fine before he even made it to the dugout. The two teams meet again today with top Sox pitching prospect, Jon Papelbon ready to start the game for the good guys.

Need to lose those extra pounds, but don't really have the motivation? There's always the Fenway Park Diet.

The Baseball Analysts talk about the AL East with Sully from The House that Dewey Built and Cliff Corcoran from Bronx Banter. The article is a bit long as most Baseball Analyst articles have a tendency of being, but three out of four of them predict the Sox will finish tops in the AL East. The only one bucking the trend was Yankee fan Cliff. The main reason why Sully and the other two think the Sox will take it over the Yankees is depth. Both teams are old and injury prone. Both will likely suffer from plenty of missed time. The Yankees are in no way, shape, or form ready to handle the loss of anyone. Their bench is horrid and they have no sixth starter. The Sox, on the other hand, are stacked from the first guy on the team to the twenty-fifth. They have backup plans and the ability to play the game even if a few of their starters go down. That theory definitely makes a lot of sense.

Wade Miller threw to live batters before yesterday's game and said he felt great. If his shoulder still feels good then he'll throw again this weekend. If all goes according to plan Miller will get some pitching done in the minor leagues before making his way to the big league club in early May. If Miller really is back that early and is able to make 25+ starts for the Sox, that would be absolutely fantastic.

Lenny Dinardo and Mark Malaska were sent down to the minors yesterday along with four other players. That doesn't leave too many options for the final two spots on the pitching staff. With Curt Schilling and Wade Miller starting the season on the DL the Red Sox have two spots in the bullpen to fill. One of them will likely be filled by the newest member of the Sox, Blaine Neal. So who gets the final spot on the roster? Could it be that the Red Sox actually plan on playing Byun Hyung Kim?

Clemens offering money for a hummer

2005-03-23T19:27:00.000-05:00

Roger Clemens is willing to give $10,000 for a Hummer. Well...Ok, actually it was his Hummer. The truck that the Yankees gave Clemens as a retirement gift was stolen from the high school parking lot where his son, Koby, parked it for the day. So if you see an orange Hummer driving around Texas, give Roger a call and collect the $10,000 reward.

Sorry...just couldn't resist the headline.

Nothing earth shattering at the press conference

2005-03-23T13:18:00.000-05:00

Well, there was no earth shattering news revealed at today's press conference about the proposed improvements to Fenway Park. It was pretty much what I was expecting. It was mostly an official announcement that the club has no intention of building another park and will be renovating Fenway. Basically Larry Luchino said several times that the Sox have made some no strings attached commitments to the improvements. So while they'd like for the city of Boston to put some money into renovating the surrounding area and improving the Fenway neighborhoods, they will still go ahead with their modifications to Fenway park. The numbers of seats in Fenway will top out around 39,000. They don't want to add anything that would compromise the intimacy of the park. The other improvement they talked about was the removal of the glass covering the .406 club. They plan on doing that before the 2006 season.

Today's game against the Baltimore Orioles is just starting and it almost looks like Opening Day. David Wells is on the mound and our line-up is pretty much what you're going to see on Opening Day against the Yankees. Baltimore is also throwing most of their starters out there. The game is being televised today.

Speaking of Baltimore, Eric Dubose, a pitcher competing for their fifth spot in the rotation, was pulled over for drunk driving a couple nights ago. When the police officer asked Dubose, whose blood-alcohol level was .113, to say the alphabet backwards his response was "I'm from Alabama, and they have a different alphabet." Needless to say Dubose spent the night in jail.

Aaron Gleeman over at the Hardball times has 3 out of his 5 part series of the top 50 prospects done. Sox shortstop Hanley Ramirez ranks 26th on his list. Gleeman hasn't posted the top 20 yet, but I think we can safely assume that Ramirez is our only prospect on the top fifty. Ramirez did look good this spring and from what I've heard he'll be starting the season in AA Portland. I'm looking forward to his call-up to Pawtucket so I can watch him play once in a while.