The Last Night of Spring Training

Anyone else feel that last night's slugging match was the last real Spring Training game and we won't start counting towards the standings until the Sox and Yanks play again tomorrow night? The pitching was generally wretched, the umpiring at first base so bad that I thought we were watching the 2009 playoffs all over again, and that ugly double whatever it was that allowed a New York run to score while the ball was in a player's glove in the infield gave the lie to the vacuum-like defense supposedly under Boston's command. With that supposedly deficient Red Sox offense, I might be forgiven for thinking the night was sunk after the Yankees pulled ahead in the fourth.

Of course, led by Mr. First-Hometown-Triple-Since-1999, the offense beat expectations and fought back twice, giving Youkilis the hero status and a prophet-like status thanks to his Spring Training utterance:

“Hey guys,’’ he shouted out to his teammates that February morning. “Can we score a bunch of runs on Opening Night so we don’t have to hear about this anymore?’’

Clearly the man knows things. We should all listen to him, no matter how crazy he sounds:

Happy Trails, Josh Bard

Did not see this coming: the Sox cut Josh Bard today, killing Bard's second Boston stint before it could begin and opening up the lanes for George Kottaras to join the big league club three years after they acquired him in a trade with San Diego for David Wells and a case of meat pies. It's a surprise because Bard seemed to be filling the role: he'd hit very well in his 13 spring training at-bats and caught Wakefield successfully, making him seem like a logical choice for the backup backstop. ProJo attributes the decision to Kottaras's lack of minor league options and the ability he's also demonstrated in catching the knuckleball under live fire. I guess the Sox see enough of the catcher of the future in Kottaras to want to both avoid the risk of a waiver claim and give him a season of tutelage under Varitek. It's too bad they had to do so at Bard's expense, but at the very least I think he's hit well enough thus far to earn himself a berth somewhere else.

Hat tip to Red Sox Now

We're Gonna Win!

At least Baseball Prospectus says so. And damned if they didn't call how terrible the Mariners were going to be last year. Anyway, the projections say we're supposed to beat out the Yankees by a game in the win column, setting up a playoffs where we host Oakland for the division series while the Wild Card-winning Yankees play the Indians in Cleveland. Expect 2009 to be another year when the AL East proves its superiority to the rest of baseball: at 92 and 70, the third-place Rays would three other divisions and come in second in the other two.

Heck, much like the Athletics, I think we should just call the season now.

Jon Lester, Wild Man

I guess control was too much to ask - but we won anyway. Lester acknowledges his mistakes, but insists that he's happy with how he did - even if the numbers (and his pitch count) say otherwise. I guess that's better than him getting bummed out about a premiere performance and spiraling into self-doubt and uselessness, and it's encouraging to hear him say that some of yesterday's blow away pitches would have been contact last year, but I wonder how much of that is rust on a Twins team that has a paltry 21 hits in its first three games. I know, I know, it's far too soon to pick apart Lester's performance - even if it's what's becoming a classic Lester - and we should all focus on the positive, like the fact that his arm didn't fall off. I just think it's indicative, and so does PECOTA: if you believe in statistical projections, Baseball Prospectus ranks Lester far below Clay Buchholz, ranking Clay higher in a whole variety of categories: everything from wins and games started to strikeouts/walk, strikeouts per nine innings, VORP, WARP, and the aptly named Stuff.

The point: yes, Lester's pitched once, and Buchholz hasn't pitched at all, but I won't be surprised if - and this is if push comes to shove about the rotation - it's Buchholz who gets the roster slot.

Thwomp

Final score after three games: Boston Red Sox 47, Everyone Else 3. That's the how the 2008 Red Sox roll, bitches: with blood and thunder and a serious beat down for all opposed - even if two-thirds of the victims are college players. I can almost taste the sweet, sweet tang of a Mayor's Cup victory.

Ahem.

Seriously though, how about that George Kottaras? A good year and a half since receiving the dubious honor of being the player to be named later in the David Wells trade, the free-swinging catcher started the pre-year out right by going 2 for 2 with a walk, two runs, three RBI and Red Sox home run number three of the evening. One good day doesn't make Kottaras a threat to take Tek or Mirabelli's jobs just yet - can he catch a knuckleball? - but if he's motivated to make 2008 the year he reverses his ugly collection of minor league stats (more than two strikeouts for every walk? Not cool), there's no better way to get started. I'm very interested to see how many rounds of cuts he lasts, and what he's able to do while he's getting the big league playing time.

Tomorrow: round two versus the Twinkies in an afternoon game with the inimitable Jon Lester. Will he dazzle the Twins with his Harry Houdini style? Will the will-o-the-wisp of ball control be his at last to grasp? Only time and your favorite text-based play by play display will be the judge.

Bodies Everywhere

After Robin's post yesterday on the bullpen aftermath, I was curious as to how well the Red Scare really did this spring, so I pulled some numbers from the list of Spring Training stats MLB had hidden on its team sites like a rare and precious jewel and did some comparisons. My hypothesis going into the project was that the Red Scare is more a collection of available bodies meant to get between the starter and the end of the game/Jonathan Papelbon than something fierce, like Scot Shields or the bringers of death they have in Minnesota. And yes, I know most bullpens are just collections of inferior arms, but with the signings in the off-season and the number of young pitchers still in camp until this week, I'm seeing a bullpen that comes closer to emulating Zapp Branigan's military strategy than acting as a fearsome stopping force.

To make my list, I took everyone who pitched an inning at the major league level for the Sox this spring, took out anyone who had started a game (except Papelbon) as a starter or potential starter, added Tavarez as starter number five and removed Papelbon because he's not a middle reliever. A couple of interesting data points jumped out at me:

• The twelve relievers at the major league camp converted three out of eleven save chances this spring. Saves may be the most arbitrary statistic in baseball, but it does mean most of these guys couldn't bring the goods in a close-and-late situation. Thank God for Paps.
• I averaged the numbers from all twelve pitchers to get a sense of the average Red Sox bullpen pitcher this spring. This composite pitcher, in 8.3 innings, had a WHIP of 1.44 (yes, that's right: almost a base runner and half for every inning out on the mound). Of those 12 or so base runners, he allowed 4.3 to make it around the bases to score, including lucky guy with a round trip ticket.

Conclusion: even though we have the cream of this crop pitching at the major league level come Opening Day, the Red Scare's most impressive feature is its size: a whole of lot depth to step in if the first guys up can't get the job done. I think we may be looking at an Oakland A's-style job, where the team fields enough players to get through the first half of the season with some respectability, then drops the dead weight at the Trade Deadline and brings up fresh arms for a drive to the playoffs. I see a lot of close contests in our future...

Making the List

At this point in the spring (nearly a week away from opening day) pretty much every position player (barring injury or some Florida related trauma) has their position locked up. Thanks to Paps return to the closer role, the rotation is changed slightly, but it too is now cast in bronze. All that remained was the list of names that would pitch the majority of the 7th and 8th innings this year (hopefully nothing earlier). A list of the cast and crew of the bullpen. A list of the jobbers, the band-aids, the setup specialists, and the rejects.

So excuse me as channel Joe McCarthy and stand on my blogging soap-box and yell:

“I hold in my hand a list of names!”

Unfortunately this is an incomplete list. It’s just the guys who made it and some notable absentees. Just like in little league, if you have a (*) next to your name you made the team. Good luck guys.

*Mike Timlin: Starting the season on the DL is always bad. Reports are that if he was younger he could push it and be ready for opening day, but come on… wasn’t he too old last year?

Bryan Corey: A young arm that isn’t yet ready for the big show. He may be a September call up or a long shot to make it if one of the other guys goes down.

Manny Delcarmen: Juuuust missed the cut. MDC had a very mediocre spring and is going to AAA for his troubles. If someone doesn’t work out as planned, he’ll be back up quick. Otherwise, see you in September.

*Brendan Donnelly: Another vet. This guy looked like a great pick up, but he too looks long in the tooth. One of the first to drop out of the closer lottery.

Kason Gabbard: Gabbo had a really good spring training, but not good enough apparently. He is going to be a starter in Pawtucket and I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a few spot starts in the big leagues out of the 5th spot.

Craig Hansen: Bottom line… he pitched himself out of a roster spot. The once dubbed “Closer of the Future” has been AWFUL since the middle of last year. Another happy Boras client.

Jon Lester: The ace of the AAA crew? Once he gets checked out and looks 100% I think Lester is bound for the bigs. Probably the first called up if the injury bug bites.

*Javier Lopez: “Death to Lefties!” is his rallying cry. Is he a true LOOGY? I dunno, but at least he is another left handed arm for the pen. He should be better this year now that he’s the only Javy Lopez on the team.

*Hideki Okajima: This is the lefty reliever we got from Japan, not Dice-K’s translator. Yeah I was confused too. He will stick with the big club so Matsuzaka has someone to carry his equipment.

David Pauley: One of the injury replacements for the decimated pitching staff last year. Although he held his own, let’s just say I am not too saddened he didn’t make the club. Maybe in September.

*J.C. Romero: Wasn’t this the guy who we tried to get from the Twins last year, but then it turned out he was on steroids? Now he’s in the pen?!?! Oh wait, he’s another lefty. That’s like a reliever’s “Get out of jail free” card.

*Joel Pineiro: Won’t be starting, won’t be closing, and isn’t named Rudy Seanez. Yeah, I can deal with him as the set up guy.

*Kyle Snyder: Just call him the anti-Craig Hansen. He performed quite well this spring and earned himself a long relief role.

Pretty much cut and dry. Biggest shocks were Kyle Snyder making it and Hansen blowing it. This is a deeper pen than last year and even though it isn’t AWE inspiring, it isn’t vomit inspiring either. Still, to keep with political metaphor, I think "The Red Scare" could be a good nickname for this crew.

Simple Pleasures

Welcome to the third and final part of the series of special reports done by DC on his trip down to the sunny land of Spring Training. This time around: simple pleasures watching a hand sign a paper, or a ball leave a bat. We hope you enjoy.

Since I was only in Florida for a weekend, there was only one Red Sox game that I could attend. Luckily, it was the coveted Saint Patty’s Day game. We got there early and hung out watching batting practice, which (excluding the Josh Beckett incident) was a lot of fun. One of the coolest experiences from Spring Training is Johnny Pesky coming out for 45 minutes, sitting in a folding chair and signing autographs, cracking jokes and telling stories. The guy has this down to a science! Johnny has a guy who stands by him and retrieves the memorabilia from the crowd, hands it to Johnny and then returns it to the correct fan. This guy is responsible for carrying three things: Johnny’s folding chair, a blue ballpoint pen and a sharpie. Why two pens, you ask? Johnny says that blue pen is best for signing baseballs and sharpies work the best on memorabilia.

Watch for that person who has that special item: a picture of Johnny when he was playing, a program from the 1946 World Series, anything of that sort. Then, right before your eyes, this simple autograph session becomes magical. You can almost see the memories pouring into Johnny’s mind as he smiles and starts to tell you a story. Just like that, he sucks you in: you forget where you are and you’re no longer worried about your impending sunburn; none of that matters. All you can think about is how lucky you are to be there at that very moment and how much you love baseball. Honestly, watching Johnny Pesky do his thing was almost as good as the game.

The other exciting thing that happened before the game had nothing to do with the Red Sox. It had everything to do with Cincinnati outfielder Adam Dunn. Adam Dunn taking batting practice was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Now I had seen big guys like Wily Mo and Papi hit some shots and I knew that Adam Dunn was a big man with an even bigger bat, but nothing could have prepared me to see him in person. The guy looks like Paul Bunyan in baseball pants. And as soon as he stepped into the cage and hit his first bomb, I just stopped looking around and watched. The guy hit bomb after bomb, just mythic, towering shots that never seemed to land. It was truly quite a sight.

One other off-the-field thing that warrants mention: Fergie Jenkins was there signing autographs for charity. For $10 you could get the Hall of Famer to sign a baseball and all the proceeds were going to Habitat for Humanity. He was an amazingly nice man and seemed to really be enjoying meeting the fans and doing the charity work. Maybe we can pay him to tutor young Joshua?

As far as the game went, there wasn’t really much that stood out, besides Hideki Okajima's funny, deceptive-looking throwing motion and Wonderboy getting hit in the hand with a pitch and leaving the game. Okajima looks pretty good, but I have to admit part of me didn’t care at all about Pedroia getting hurt. I swear the guy never hit the ball out of the infield during batting practice. Otherwise, the pitching kept things close and the Boston offense wasn't hitting, just like they haven't for most of the spring, leading to a 2 - 1 victory, a good game and a nice day at the ballpark. Oh and yeah, those green jerseys are sharp!

Time for the Minors

Part 2 of the series of reports from DC on his Spring Training trip takes our hero to the minor league fields, where he observed past and future legends in their natural habitat. Let's check in on the action...

On the first day of my Spring Training weekend I didn’t have tickets to any of the games, so I decided to go down to the Red Sox minor league facility to see what was going on. For those of you who have never been there, let me tell you: it's awesome. There are 4 fields set up with all of the backstops backed up against each other, allowing you to stand in the middle and have baseball happening on all sides of you. There are almost no bleachers and the dugouts are above ground - chain-linked fence encased benches giving the whole thing the feel of being at a kick ass Little League complex. A Little League complex that has former Major Leaguers sitting in golf carts or standing around talking, that is.

On this particular day I arrived to find two games occurring simultaneously. On one field: the AAA teams of the Red Sox playing the Twins. On the other field: the AA squads. Imagine, the future of the Sox playing mere feet away from me, and I’m literally leaning against the chain linked fence enjoying every moment. How could this be better? How about realizing that you recognize the guy warming up for the Sox AAA team: Jon Lester! Or how about standing two feet from Luis Tiant while he’s sitting in a golf cart signing autographs! Or shaking hands with Dewey Evans who looks like he could still gun down some poor fool trying to go first to third!

I couldn’t help it; I had to call Robin. It doesn’t matter that he was at work…in a blizzard. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: “Hey, so its 75 degrees with a nice breeze and I’m watching Jon Lester pitch a AAA game.”
Robin: “I hate you so much! I just came in from the ice storm from hell and I can’t feel my face.”
Me: “Oh and Luis Tiant and Dewey Evans are both here. El Tiante has a really nice signature on a baseball.”
Robin: “Seriously, I might kill you. Wait, did you say Lester? How’s he look?”
Me: “Oh hey, did I mention that I’m standing like 10 feet from Theo?”

At this point Robin became incoherent and amid promises of physical harm and ending our friendship I decided he’d had enough and hung up. Is there really anything better than being on vacation, watching the Red Sox in person and calling your friends at work to rub it in their faces?

Anyway, Lester looked G-R-E-A-T! His arm looked dynamic. His pitches looked alive. And on the way out he received a series of fist pounds, well wishes and applause - and as we walked through the crowd, we saw him signing autographs. Yeah, that’s right; he walked through the fans to the clubhouse. I had a very short conversation with Jon Lester. He’s feeling great by the way and he says “Hi” (ok, I made that second part up, he doesn’t know you). Other things that I saw: George Kottaras hit a nice dinger. Abe Alvarez just doesn’t look promising anymore. I smell a career long-reliever in the making. Theo seems really nice and personable. And yes girls, he is just dreamy in person.

Josh Beckett: Good Pitcher, Bad Guy

While those of us in the Northeast were wondering why exactly it had to snow in March, especially after a week of sunshine and balmy breezes, DC was in Florida taking in some Spring Training action. This week he's back with a few special reports to file. Here's the first one; enjoy.

So I just returned from a whirlwind three-day tour of Spring Training and for those of you who have never had the chance to go, let me tell you that you’ll never get a better chance to get to know the players’ respective personalities. I had intended to return and write about the games I saw and how a hand full of players are looking, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Right now I have a much more pressing issue to share with you all. Now, let me start by saying that I am not here to debate the current salary structure of professional sports; I don’t care whether or not you think athletes deserve millions of dollars they get each year.

What I am interested in is sharing an experience that I had while in Florida that left me disappointed, disgusted, and a whole bunch of other dis-words that I don’t even know. On game days in Florida the ballpark opens up very early so that fans can line the fences, watch batting practice, and most importantly interact with the players and hopefully get a couple of autographs. On this particular day, Josh Beckett was not pitching, so he was just standing around in the field watching warms ups and basically hanging out. As he walked toward the dugout, a bunch of fans (including many little kids) started excitedly screaming his name and asking him to sign a couple of balls. His response: "Show the green. Show the green."

Now, I can only hope that he realized that it was Saint Patty’s day and he was encouraging people to purchase green jerseys from the gift shop. But somehow I doubt it. Let’s face it, the guy’s name isn’t Josh O’Beckett. More likely, is that this guy can’t seem to get by on $4.3 million a year. Look, if you don’t want to sign autographs that’s your prerogative, but if that’s the case then smile, wave and express your distaste for the fans in the solitude of the clubhouse. Let us all live the dream that you’re actually a nice guy. Especially since you couldn’t keep the ball in the ballpark last year! Honestly, if we’re going to have an egotistical, fan unfriendly pitcher, we might as well take that $4.3 mil and put it towards a private plane for Mr. Clemens. At least with him we get Hall of Fame statistics and privilege of watching/rooting for one of the best pitchers ever! I think that would make the ego sit a lot better than getting it from a punk kid who thinks he’s hot stuff even though he isn’t smart enough to throw something other than a fastball. Heck, even Clemens has been known to sign a ball here and there.

Now I’m not saying that Beckett isn’t a good pitcher. In fact, if the Sox do go deep into the playoffs this year, he'll have to have something to do with it. But somebody needs to give this kid a reality check. Someone needs to remind him that he makes millions of dollars to play a game and he makes that money because people love baseball. Young Joshua needs to look around and see the people who make more than him and play a whole lot better than him pay back the fans by signing a few autographs and waving at the fans. And if $4.3 million still isn’t enough, then here’s a dollar and a green sharpie - someone tell him to bend over and I’ll show him where to stick it.

Spot Starter

As I watched the Sox slowly break open a lead against the Storefront Indian and reliever Todd Williams yesterday, wasting enough offensive opportunities in the process to make the 2 - 1 final score seem closer than it should have been (by touchdowns), I was contemplating the continued presence of Kason Gabbard in this spring's starting rotation. First, some stats:

Over four starts this March, Gabbard's pitched ten innings, giving up five hits, three earned runs and four walks, while striking out seven. By way of comparison, he pitched twice as many innings as a starter in 2006, giving up more than four times as many hits, about twice as many earned runs, more than triple the number of walks but only striking out five more. Extrapolating his current performance to the same amount of time as he started last year, Gabbard's already doing better than last year in almost all of these categories - as a starter.

As we all know, though, the Sox have an embarrassment of starting pitchers right now, so I have a couple of theories as to why Gabbard continues to start games:

1. Tito is using Spring Training to give Gabbard some major league experience when the games don't count before sending him back to Pawtucket for the year. Kason is 24, so keeping him in AAA for another year wouldn't seem to hurt his development at all. This theory seems like the most logical to me - Jon Lester would probably do the same thing right now if he wasn't rehabbing his arm - but it's also the least amount of pure speculative fun.
   
2. The Sox are pitching Gabbard against major league hitters because they're looking to dangle him as trade bait for a closer if one of the off-season acquisitions/closer by committee doesn't work out. The closer debate continues to fascinate me, especially since DC pointed out that the Sox may be the only team in the past 6 years that won a World Series with their Opening Day closer. If this theory turns out to be more than just a conspiracy pipe dream, I don't see it coming true until the trading deadline.
3. Gabbard is pitching some of Schilling's starts against AL East teams (like Baltimore) because of Schilling's policy of never tipping his hat in Spring Training. The MASN guys were all over Schilling for that idea, by the way, but I can see Schilling's point - if you've got a few pitches based on deception, why give your opposition any more face time than necessary?

Whatever the reason, I'd say that if we see Kason Gabbard in a Boston uniform this season, we're probably looking at a second coming of 2006.

All They Needed Was Some Rain...

DC IMed me on Wednesday, wondering whether or not we should be concerned that the Sox seemed to have lost the ability to score runs. He had a good point. Ever since the game on Monday where the Sox blew their load surmounting a five run Yankee lead, Boston scored 3 runs over three games, losing all three contests despite quality pitching from Beckett, Gabbard and Snyder. A mini-slump seemed to be rearing its ugly head as the weather up in the Northeast grew warmer and warmer...and then something weird happened: the wind shifted.

Temperatures dropped in the Northeast and right now it's sleeting something fierce here in New York City. Meanwhile, at the Dodgers/Sox game today in Florida, the skies opened up and poured rain on Holman Stadium. Eventually the weather postponed the game, but not before Wily Mo, Tek and Hinske all pounded in long home runs, scoring more runs (five) in two innings than they had all week. To top it off, Francona ordered Dice-K not to swing at any pitches today (probably with Mike Hampton well in mind) so when Matsuzaka came up he watched as Dodgers starter Hong-Chih Kuo worked the count to 0 and 2 before walking him on four straight balls, thereby assuring Kuo an almost guaranteed spot as the Dodger's sixth starter.

Nice interview on Yanksfan vs Soxfan with journalist Rob Bradford, where Bradford discusses the problems inherent with being a journalist and a fan of the same team. Rob doesn't out-and-out say so, but it sounds like getting a pass to go beyond the lines that exist between fans (including most bloggers ) and players as a member of the press is a bit like biting the apple of the Tree of Knowledge: your priorities change and you can't really go back to the way you were. The interview also links to Rob's blog, Bradford on Baseball, which is an excellent read.

The Madness Has Begun

Rivalries are funny things. Yesterday was March 12; the regular season doesn't begin for another half month and most of the men who took the field in Ft. Myers won't be donning a major league uniform when the games start to count. But Spring Training or not, the first game of the 2007 chapter of the Biggest Rivalry in Sports still had the power to turn a rehab start for Carl Pavano into a do-or-die contest of hitting wills, a meet-and-greet between three Japanese players into an international rivalry expansion and 1:05 radio-broadcast start into a 7:05 TV event with a sold-out crowd, as if we were watching a pivotal game in a pennant race instead of a warm-up for this year's contests. The madness has truly made its decent upon us all.

However, I'm not sure this level of excitement is such a bad thing, kept in the proper context. Spring Training games are irrelevant at their best and downright boring at their worst, as a steady stream of players (who we won't see again until the circus returns to Florida the following year) make their way across the playing field to keep the game going and the starters from getting hurt.
Even now, as the teams get smaller, the rosters tighten and players start to see more innings, the end-game can be, at best, a time to see how those draft picks are doing. When the game becomes important for itself, as a contest between two teams with a lot of competitive history, it makes the whole game more exciting to fans. It's like throwing the first punch in a boxing match: it probably won't have anything to do with who wins (unless you're fighting Glass Joe), but it sure feels good to strike first. In other words, it doesn't count in the long run, but guess what! We beat the Yankees last night! Rock on!

Speaking of madness: Dustin Pedroia has a lower batting average this spring than Bobby Scales, who's pulled time as his late-inning replacement. Maybe Wonderboy's hitting so far this Spring is like screwing up the dress rehearsal so you do well for the live audience? If not, that nine hole is going to look mighty empty this year...

Gild off the Lilly

I love the spring. Birds chirping, flowers blooming, Training in full swing. So it must also be time for the Red Sox to get under the skin of some team we have no business feuding with. Something about the Scarlet ‘B’ rubs other teams the wrong way and it happens every year. The Yankees may be the charter member, but the Sox can find a way to piss any team off. Devil Rays, Phillies, Marlins, Oakland… whoever… we manage to ruffle feathers.

This year it was with Detroit. Beckett, not having the greatest command on his curveball on Saturday (was wild as hell), managed to tag Sheffield and Magglio with some less than precise pitches. None of this was intentional (as far as I can tell) but it was a little ugly (he looked freaking awful).

The bean ball barrage did not go unnoticed and Jim “Nails” Leyland made sure that someone on the Sox team paid. Well he tried to make sure. J.D. Drew was the supposed target of Todd Jones… but Jones couldn’t hit him! Dodge, parry, dodge and finally the one that flew behind Drew was noticed by the umpire who unceremoniously tossed Jones and Leyland for orchestrating the whole thing. Well this caused ‘ol Jimmy to go a little B-A-N-A-N-A-S as he made his way on to the field. This is where it got rough.

DeMarlo Hale vs Jim Leyland!!! It’s the battle of the old school shouters!

They jawed and got into it until the benches cleared and… well… nothing. That was it. It petered out without a punch or shove. Awww. Maybe next time you frisky Tigers.

The second awful showing came from our OTHER supposed ACE on Sunday vs the Orioles. This time the foreign wonder, the gyro dynamo, the tsunami mami, DICE-K… looked like Chan Ho-Park on a bad day. He got taken deep by Knott (1 run) and Dubois (3 run) and managed to throw away a double play ball into center field. Yeah… bad sushi.

On the bright side, Joel Pineiro did manage to have a good 2 innings and is slowly pitching his way back into the bullpen. But other than that… not a great weekend.

It’s still early in Spring Training so whatever happens, the good or the bad, has a big chance of changing before the season starts. But I hope these pitching problems can iron themselves out sooner rather than later… or it is going to be a long season.

Run, Run, Run...

While listening to today's split squad game against the Blue Jays (won by the Sox in dramatic fashion with ninth-inning walk off double), I was reflecting on how the conventional wisdom (especially coming from the mouths of radio announcers) puts the Sox, Jays and Yankees all in the same ballpark when it comes to line up strength for 2007. Curious to know how things stack up (and because the Blue Jays have started to freak me out and I want to know if my fears are justified), I took this year's PECOTA projections, whittled the lists down to those players listed on each team's active roster and averaged the VORP and WARP scores for each team. Why only VORP and WARP? Because they appear to be the best quick measurements of future performance and I wanted answers now, dammit. You can protest my methods in the comments section if you want.

Unfortunately the results put the Yankees on top, with Boston a close second and Toronto a more distant third:

• New York: 15.6 (VORP), 3.9 (WARP)
• Boston: 14.7 (VORP), 4.0 (WARP)
• Toronto: 6.8 (VORP) (a lot of dead wood on that team), 3.0 (WARP)

Remember that WARP takes both offense and defense into account, while VORP is pure offense (in runs), so New York will score more runs than Boston, but Boston has players who do slightly better in the field preventing runs. Given how close the WARP scores are, I would hazard to guess that the award for pre-season predictions of offensive power does go to New York, just like many of us have heard, while the Jays look like they won't be competing at the same level with the bat. Even with everything being subject to chance, the increasing competition around the league (damn you, AL Central) means pitching will be even more important this year. In other words, since Boston can't win the AL East by driving in more runs than the other guys, they'll need to prevent runs instead.

Dice-K Versus the Fish People

Matsuzaka faced Grapefruit League batters for the first time today, drawing an over-capacity crowd of journalists, a representative from the offices of Major League Baseball to collect all of the bases for post-game auction, a lot of asinine commentary from Marlin broadcasters ("We talked to so-and-so and he says the gyroball doesn't exist." Really? You might want to tell that to the scientists who invented it.) and a surprising number of hits by Marlins players no one has heard of but who will probably end up putting up massive numbers for no money like, say, Hanley Ramirez in 2006. Living as I was at the mercy of the broadcasters and my imagination I didn't see the pitches in question, but it sounded like hanging offspeed pitches were to blame, resulting in a ticklish situation in the second where the Marlins turned a walk and a ground-rule double into runners on second and third with one out. In my mind, Matsuzaka looked around, laughed scornfully and then belched fire at the plate, turning Scott Seibol into a human torch. In the real world, however, a strikeout for Seibol and a bunted pop-up for Reed sufficed.

Pondering the Zen Master phenomenon as I do, I wonder about Dice-K's supposed command of six or seven pitchers and what that means for things like strikeout rate (which just caught my eye in the past few minutes, because he's struck out so many this Spring). So far, including the game against the Eagles, Matsuzaka has six strikeouts in five innings. Baseball Prospectus forecasts 162 total strikeouts for this year, putting Dice-K seventeenth behind The Mighty Santana, who will lead the pack with 218. The average of those 17, by the way, is 176; Johan is a bit of an outlier.

Assuming those projections are reliable, it sounds like being able to throw so many pitches doesn't help or hurt a pitcher's ability to get strikeouts. If it helped, Dice-K would be in the top 10 with Peavy, Bonderman, Sheets, etc.; if it hurt, he'd have a much lower projected total. However, today we had an example of why knowing so many pitches can help a pitcher: Matsuzaka's breaking balls weren't breaking, so the Marlins got two hits and a walk in three innings. However, because Dice-K also developed a group of power pitches, he can still get the first pitch strike, still get the three strikeouts and still pitch his way out of jams like the one he faced today.

Foundation

It’s what you build on. It’s what everything is based on. It’s where you strength should be. In this case, the foundation of your 2007 Red Sox baseball team is its starting pitching rotation and it looks really freaking strong.

Remember back to spring training last year? We had just traded Bronson Arroyo for Wily Mo because we had “too many starters”. God that looks freaking ridiculous now. We were saddled with Schilling, Beckett, Wells, Clement, Wake and maybe Papelbon. Yep… too much talent there. I still think the front office made the wrong move (young arm vs broken down veterans and head cases) but I am not gonna harp TOO much because I like Wily Mo. It’s hindsight, but after watching less than a full season from Wells, Clement and Wake combined, it was the wrong move.

Sometimes it’s SHOCKING to see people in sports management learn from their mistakes, but this time it looks like Theo and Co. pulled it off. Now we potentially have (from top to bottom) the strongest 5 man starting rotation in the major leagues. Schilling (fat but strong), Beckett (2nd time around and better adjusted), Dice-K (ace quality), Papelbon (still the beast from last season) and the venerable Wakefield (unsung hero and damage sponge). You look at those 5 guys, and if you are wearing the right rose colored specs, you can see a 13+ game winner in each one.

Of course there are a TON of “ifs”.

IF Dice-K can translate his stuff to the USA.
IF Schilling and Wake can stay healthy.
IF Beckett is better attuned to the AL.
IF Papelbon can make the transition back to starter.

So it isn’t 100%, but it’s better than the “ifs” from last year. Another good sign is the great spring starts this crew is having. Watching Beckett mow down LA today got me all excited for this staff. I see it as fielding 4 probable aces and an ageless veteran. I don’t even think that is too far of a reach.

And if anything unforeseen does happen, we now have Jon Lester waiting in the wings. Yeah, I like this foundation.

Dice Clay, Zen Master

I really, really wanted to start this post with, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Red Sox will win the 2007 World Series because of Daisuke Matsuzaka." But I can't. Dice K's first outing (against the college boys) while a nice showing of 25 pitches with 19 strikes, wasn't the massive dominance I might have hoped for before I opened up Gameday Audio. It was as good as anything Schilling or Beckett has put together this past week, but it didn't live up to the hype - he didn't make every batter cry just by looking at him. However, disappointment aside, I find myself intrigued by the intersection of Matsuzaka and the hype...so let's talk about that hype for a moment.

Ever since Matsuzaka joined the Sox, there's been a growing buzz about the pitcher, about his pitches, about his past successes, etc., etc. and, now in America as in Japan, there is a hype about him. I've seen the phrase "possibly the best pitcher ever" ever bandied around by people who, if they were serious, should probably know better. Even if that claim is overboard, it's par for the course in this sport; anyone who gets a massive contract from a team based in a city with a fan base whose love of baseball borders on rabid (paging Mr. Rodriguez) is going to get a lot of attention from everyone. But I'm not telling you anything new so far. What is interesting that Matsuzaka doesn't seem to give two craps about everything that's going on around him.

All throughout this process we've heard about Dice Clay working out, Dice Clay talking about how he's excited to pitch here and how Dice Clay is the only one not excited to pitch to start the season (by pitching to a group of college baseball players) - that he's spending the time focusing on hitting the strike zone, not on the thrill of starting the spring. But all of the news reports about these activities seem to suggest as a subtext that all expectations slide off of Dice Clay's back like water off a duck's ass. Baseball players say all the time that they're just out there to play, but I now feel like Matsuzaka really means it from the core of his being.

Overall, Daisuke Matsuzaka seems to be a man so used to living life as a celebrity that he flows through all of the attention, all of the hype, all of the expectations like they aren't there and just goes and does the job he gets paid for. It's not even like he's aware of the celebrity but thinks that he needs to be above it - he's like the frickin' Zen Master of celebrity, able to float serenely in the turbid waters like a fish (for some reason, celebrity just screams water similes to me). And, knowing that, maybe I really can say now: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Red Sox will win the 2007 World Series because of Daisuke Matsuzaka."

Total side note: Jacoby Ellsbury's speed translates very, very well over the radio. He just legged out a triple in what sounded like doubles territory. Awesome.

Gyro! An Exercise in Hype

Tonight our Asian import Dice-K San makes his big debut against the all powerful Boston College (GO EAGLES!) and the anticipation is palpable. No, really!

Dice-K may or may not have ace quality material right away. He may or may not be the savior of the Boston pitching staff. He may or may not have a magic pitch that defeats evil spirits with its aura rendering spells. He may or may not be a Pokeman.

I guess testing these unknown skills against an OVERMATCHED college team is as good a place to start as any. Those kids are going to get a kick out of the Japanese Media that are swarming the place. The last time a college team got this much international coverage they played lacrosse (allegedly).

So if you want to test the waters of MLB audio around 6 tonight (or NESN I assume), you might get to witness the greatest Japanese import since Pockey. Or you might be privy to an out of place foreign guy get lit up by a group of kids who were playing beer pong last night. Either way it should be a great show.

Someone Broke Baseball

So there was baseball tonight. Red Sox baseball, in fact. With Curt Schilling pitching, no less. The first time there was real, live, honest-to-god baseball in six months...and you know what I couldn't do? Watch it. Not because I didn't want to, not because I hadn't paid to play...it was because MLB.tv, despite upgrades and a price increase, despite its fourth (right?) year of operation, still can't get things right when it comes to streaming games. I'm not talking about the momentary glitches and buffering errors; I'm not even talking about the system's annoying habit of dropping the connection every few minutes. Instead, MLB.tv literally killed the connection without any explanation for six innings and I missed the best part of the game; the part where the players we'll actually be seeing this year were on the field.

I know even being able to watch out-of-market baseball games is a wonder of modern technology that I should be grateful for, blah blah blah, but you know what? It stopped being so novel when I started paying the equivalent of a premium cable channel price ever year for service that is, at best, bleeding edge quality. I know Major League Baseball doesn't care about the fans at all; they're just looking to get more money, increase the bottom line, corporate bs, etc. and MLB.tv is a part of that. We're just caught in a sucker's blind because there's no other way for us to watch games. I've lost any hope that things will change, but I'm still tired with being dicked around.

Oh and congratulations to the Sox for tying the first game of the year. Mayor's Cup, here we come!