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By Jeff, 8/10/2004 10:15 pm

As I’m sure you’ve heard, Edgar Martinez has decided to hang it up at the end of the 2004 season.

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know that Martinez is my kind of player. What I didn’t realize is that in our little corner of the internet (Red Sox fans), I’ve read that Edgar was pretty much the most popular non-Red Sox amongst the fans.

I don’t know if its the career .420 on base percentage, or the way he completely destroyed the Yankees in the 1995 ALDS (.571/.667/1.000), but Edgar seemed to have carved out a little nitch for himself among the Red Sox Internet Clique.

Before I get on to the meat of this post, let me post the line from Edgar’s 1995 season:

356 batting average
479 on base
628 slugging

That from a guy that didn’t hit 30 home runs in a year until he was 37 years old.

Now, the Mariners. They might be my least favorite franchise in the American League. Not only do they do goofy things like wait to give Edgar a job until he was 27, and release John Olerud without much warning, but they are perennial underachievers.

Think about it. Think about the talent on the Mariners teams in the mid-late 90s. How they never even made the World Series is beyond me. In 1997, they had Paul Sorrento, Joey Cora, Alex Rodriguez, Russ Davis, Ken Griffey, Jay Buhner, and Edgar Martinez all having above average years for their position.

They had Jeff Fassaro, Randy Johnson, and Jamie Moyer all having good years. Woody Williams never saw it fit to put a bullpen on the team, and they won 90 games in a weak AL West.

They lost to a very good Baltimore team in the ALDS, but the Orioles lost to very, very mediocre Indians team in the ALCS. That’s the story of those Mariners teams. They always had a good amount of talent, but when it came to exploiting an opponet’s vurnablity, they never could.

So that’s when the Mariners started to annoy me.

Fast forward to 2004. The Mariners were getting old, and new GM Bill “My dad built the Dodgers!” Bavasi decided the best way to combat that was to make the team older with 30+ signees Scott Spiezio, Raul Ibanez, and Rich Aurilia. In the process, he lost a draft pick to the Royals with the Ibanez signing.

Since then, the Mariners have gone into the tank. They DFA’ed John Olerud, Pat Boarders, and Aurilia. They’ve essentially platooned Edgar Martinez with 28-year-old “rookie” Bucky Jacobson. They’ve refused to cash in chips Eddie Guardado, and Randy Winn for tasty prospects. In short, the franchise is a mess.

Not saying the trio of DFA’s weren’t deserved (although I don’t see the logic of paying Olerud to play for the Yankees), but the Mariners should have never have been in that situation in the first place. The only good move they’ve made this year, and I’m saying good, not fixing a past mistake, is somehow getting Miguel Olivo and Jeremy Reed for Freddy Garcia and Ben Davis. I don’t know if that’s Bavasi’s good, or Kenny Williams being Kenny Williams again.

The Mariners are the AL West’s premier franchise in terms of revenue. However, rather than capitalize on that, Bavasi has turn the franchise into one with little direction, other than to try and out old the Yankees.

It’s a shame in their history, despite having a few great teams, they never capitalized. And now that Edgar Martinez is leaving at the end of the year, the organization loses the last bit of personality it had from those great teams. With Ichiro little more than a glorified singles hitter, and your best pitcher being 68 years old, it looks like some dark days in Seattle until people like Felix Hernandez are ready, and Chris Snelling learns to stay out of the hospital.

I think it will probably be a while before the Mariners aren’t just another random, faceless team. And I don’t think Howard Lincoln, and Bill Bavasi are smart enough to prevent that.

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By Sully,

Obviously readers of Dewey’s House, the Red Sox responded to my challenge and manifested a little spunk tonight at Fenway. After falling behind by a run early, the Sox responded with three runs in the fifth inning, stringing together four hits with the most crushing blow coming off of Jason Varitek’s bat for a double. As is their recent custom, the Red Sox would squander the lead quickly. The Devil Rays came back in the visitor half of the sixth with three ground ball hits of their own, the last a triple down the first base line by Rocco Baldelli that plated the previous two Devil Rays that had reached. With the score 3-3 and a runner on third with nobody out, Bronson Arroyo did some of his best work of the evening, escaping the inning with the contest still tied. The Sox offense would reward Arroyo for his gutsy strand job in the top half. After Doug Mientkiewicz and Manny Ramirez made the first two outs of the inning, then next six batters would reach and before you knew it, the Sox had an 8-3 lead. While the hits themselves were obviously integral, it seemed that Ramirez’s 10-pitch fly out to deep right field depleted Jorge Sosa’s remaining resources, which to that point had been plentiful and effective. Arroyo came out for the seventh and made quick work of the first two hitters but gave up a flukey, spinning grounder off the bat of Julio Lugo that initially appeared to be a sure foul ball but curved back to hit the first base bag. The next batter being Aubrey Huff, he of the three hits to that point off of Arroyo, Terry Francona called upon Mike Myers, resident LOOGY, to finish the inning. He would strike Huff out. The Red Sox went on to an 8-4 victory.

We have all learned not to make too much of one victory. But a dark cloud loomed today as the local papers killed the Sox after last night’s debacle and I think it ought to be noted that the Sox came out and played a whale of a game tonight with the weight of a city on its shoulders.

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By Sully, 8/9/2004 11:44 pm

I have no idea what to make of tonight’s game. On the one hand, a Curt Schilling-John Halama Sox-Rays matchup should not mean that the Sox get their asses handed to them. Because they did. On the other hand, they just arrived home from a two-week road trip and all night they looked sluggish and fatigued. I mean, how many times can John Halama jam a team with 610 runs scored before you are forced to conclude they were tired? Still, it’s an excuse.

So that’s all I got. I am terribly perplexed right now – simultaneously outraged and somewhat understanding. Hopefully Manny returns tomorrow night and this team shows us something.

It’s well past time that this team take some responsibilty for their underachievement. You can talk about run differentials and yeah, perhaps they bear more predictive value than simply previous records. But at the same time, a team that comes through with men on base and a team that wiggles their way out of jams time after time deserves credit for doing so.

I remain very much on board with this team. But man, do they make it unenjoyable.

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By Jeff,

Offense
c – Toby Hall 272/324/390 (4.9 RC/27)
Jason Varitek 277/376/458 (5.5 RC/27)

1b – Tino Martinez 282/376/482 (6.0 RC/27)
Doug Mientkiewicz 316/350/368 (5.1 RC/27)

2b – Julio Lugo 273/340/404 (5.6 RC/27)
Bill Mueller 264/342/436 (5.1 RC/27)

3b – Aubrey Huff 280/347/464 (5.2 RC/27)
Kevin Youkilis 281/386/464 (7.0 RC/27)

ss – BJ Upton 222/263/278 (2.6 RC/27)
Orlando Cabrera 200/226/400 (2.4 RC/27)

lf – Carl Crawford 307/337/458 (5.8 RC/27)
Manny Ramirez 320/409/618 (7.7 RC/27)

cf – Rocco Baldelli 281/328/412 (4.4 RC/27)
Johnny Damon 303/379/469 (5.9 RC/27)

rf – Jose Cruz 235/352/443 (5.5 RC/27)
Kevin Millar 295/375/449 (5.1 RC/27)

dh – Bob Fick 201/276/333 (3.4 RC/27)
David Ortiz 308/374/616 (8.2 RC/27)

Bench
Tamp Bay
Geoff Blum 198/245/329 (2.1 RC/27)
Brook Fordyce 179/223/236 (0.4 RC/27)
Damian Rolls 171/264/211 (1.7 RC/27)
Rey Sanchez 257/295/359 (3.8 RC/27)

Boston
Rickey Guiterrez 308/308/385 (-1.8 RC/27)
Gabe Kapler 281/317/413 (3.5 RC/27)
David McCarty 246/320/388 (3.7 RC/27)
Doug Mirabelli 281/361/573 (6.3 RC/27)
Dave Roberts 286/333/429 (4.0 RC/27)

Team
Tampa Bay – 256/320/398 (4.4)
Boston – 279/357/467 (5.4)

Offensive Efficiency:
Tampa Bay – 97.0%
Boston – 98.3%

Clutch Number:
Tampa Bay – 9.848
Boston – (-11.051)

Stolen Bases:
Tampa Bay – (-0.1 BG) 73%
Boston – (-15.7 BG) 66%

Sacrifices:
Tampa Bay – 3.05 per 550 PA
Boston – 1.00 per 550 PA

Pitching
Monday:
John Halama 5-5 4.39 (2.174)
Curt Schilling 13-5 3.38 (46.381)

Tuesday:
Jorge Sosa 3-0 4.69 (5.620)
Bronson Arroyo 4-8 4.15 (24.361)

Wednesday:
Dewan Brazelton 4-3 2.56 (21.699)
Derek Lowe 9-10 5.50 (7.910)

Thursday:
Mark Hendrickson 8-10 4.24 (22.784)
Pedro Martinez 12-4 3.94 (35.682)

Rotations:
Tampa Bay – 60.068
Boston – 133.391

Bullpens:
Tampa Bay – 40.084
Danys Baez – 15.115
Lance Carter – 14.597
Jesus Colome – 8.109
Jeremi Gonzalez – 1.328
Travis Harper – 7.327
Trever Miller – 11.590
Bobby Seay – 3.233

Boston – 73.514
Terry Adams – 1.125
Alan Embree – 7.545
Keith Foulke – 27.143
Ramiro Mendoza – 4.974
Mike Myers – 0.225
Mike Timlin – 11.468

Usage:
Tampa Bay – 2.5 RpG, 1.32 IPpApp
Boston – 2.6 RpG, 1.05 IPpApp

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By Sully,

The Sox took two of three from the Detroit Tigers this weekend, the one loss coming by a margin of – you guessed it – one run. The Sox once again left runners on base all night. Derek Lowe pitched OK, well enough to win in my opinion but he was let down both by a lack of offensive support and some pretty crappy defense as well. I am not one to rail against Terry Francona like some others do. I think he has certainly made some questionnable decisions this year but I am also open to the possibility that he has the right personality for this club and he may yet become an excellent manager. OK, now that I got that out of the way…why in sweet, sweet heavens would he ever play Bill Mueller at second base when Derek Lowe is pitching? Mueller has extremely limited range for a third-baseman, much less a middle infielder. Lowe had his groundball mojo working again Friday night but Francona failed to deploy a suitable infield behind him. The offensive downgrade from say, Youkilis to Gutierrez is dwarfed by the potential defensive upgrade with a pitcher on the mound that yields groundballs almost exclusively. Sure enough, the most backbreaking play of the game came in the Tigers half of the fourth when Carlos Pena hit a 37-hopper into right field that plated two runs.

Saturday night, the Sox turned to Pedro Martinez to help turn things around. Pedro was excellent early and good enough later as the offense, in an unspectacular performance, managed to register 7 runs on just 8 hits. The story of the game if you ask me was that Pedro Martinez set a Red Sox club record for the most ten-strikeout games. He did so in his 191st start in a Sox uniform, exactly half the total starts that Clemens made in the Carmine Hose. Let me repeat. Pedro Martinez exceeded Roger Clemens’ record for 10+ strikeout games in a Sox uniform in just one half the starts. I am dumbfounded by this even though I have always been of the belief that Pedro and Clemens were in separate galaxies as hurlers. I suppose this is just another data point. Sure, Clemens far exceeds Pedro in the areas of longevity and durability but as far as who the better pitcher has been, especially at their respective peaks, it’s not close. I guess I will just move on, as I think this may be a topic worthy of a column all to itself.

Yesterday, the Sox outslugged the Tigers, 11-9 as Tim Wakefield gave up six home runs and, um, earned the win. I am sure if you are reading this blog you understand this but for anyone that doesn’t, this is why it is dangerous to evaluate a starting pitcher based on his win-loss record. Put simply, six gopher balls per start generally won’t get it done. No need to dwell on the negatives of the victory, however. The Sox offense really exploded for the first time since the Nomar deal. Kevin Youkilis smacked two home runs and David Ortiz added another. Johnny Damon had three hits and Orlando Cabrera and Gabe Kapler each contributed a pair of doubles. Ramiro Mendoza relieved Wakefield and pitched wonderfully again. For some reason Francona lifted him for Mike Timlin, who gave up a two-run home run in the eighth before Keith Foulke slammed the door in the ninth. The story of the bullpen these days is Mendoza. He lowered his E.R.A. yesterday to 1.74 on the season and his emergence could not be happening at a better time as Scott Williamson suffers injury setback after setback. I hope Francona begins to turn to Mendoza some more in high leverage situations.

So it was another luke-warm series to cap off another mediocre road-trip. The Sox now come home for 30 of their last 53 games and some of the macro signs are looking brighter. Derek Lowe and Bronson Arroyo both are pitching well of late. Pedro and Schilling seem healthy and ready for the stretch-run. And Wake, well he’s Wake; prone to the occasional shelling but never unable to bounce back. With capable starting pitching, improved defense, some home cooking and more consistent offense (Manny’s gotta break out soon), I think one quits on this Red Sox team at their own peril.

It starts tonight.

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By Jeff, 8/6/2004 12:03 pm

Today is the offical One Year Birthday of Dewey’s House. I wanted to thank the people that continued to read us, despite three prolonged vacations by myself. With out the readers, it would just be Sully and I posting our unique brand of inanity for eachother’s benefit. F that. Here’s the preview.

Offense
c – Ivan Rodriguez 347/394/522 (8.1 RC/27)
Jason Varitek 277/376/446 (5.4 RC/27)

1b – Carlos Pena 226/311/426 (4.7 RC/27)
Doug Mientkiewicz 545/583/636 (20.2 RC/27)

2b – Omar Infante 269/333/469 (5.4 RC/27)
Bill Mueller 261/339/437 (5.1 RC/27)

3b – Brandon Inge 282/341/482 (5.8 RC/27)
Kevin Youkilis 275/381/430 (6.4 RC/27)

ss – Carlos Guillen 322/388/564 (7.9 RC/27)
Orlando Cabrera 125/176/375 (1.0 RC/27)

lf – Rondell White 272/342/465 (6.1 RC/27)
Manny Ramirez 321/411/621 (7.8 RC/27)

cf – Alex Sanchez 328/348/391 (4.5 RC/27)
Johnny Damon 301/377/467 (6.0 RC/27)

rf – Bobby Higgenson 250/346/361 (5.3 RC/27)
Kevin Millar 298/374/456 (5.1 RC/27)

dh – Dmitri Young 276/355/462 (5.8 RC/27)
David Ortiz 310/377/617 (8.1 RC/27)

Bench
Detriot
Mike DiFelice 143/250/238 (1.4 RC/27)
Eric Munson 224/307/452 (6.0 RC/27)
Chris Shelton 243/356/351 (3.6 RC/27)
Jason Smith 318/338/636 (5.5 RC/27)
Marcus Thames 273/319/580 (7.7 RC/27)

Boston
Rickey Guiterrez 308/308/385 (-1.8 RC/27)
Gabe Kapler 271/309/396 (3.2 RC/27)
David McCarty 238/312/389 (3.6 RC/27)
Doug Mirabelli 287/350/585 (6.2 RC/27)
Dave Roberts 000/000/000 (-2.5 RC/27)

Team
Detroit – 277/342/448 (5.5)
Boston – 278/356/465 (5.4)

Offensive Efficiency:
Detroit – 98.8%
Boston – 97.8%

Clutch Number:
Detroit – 7.230
Boston – (-10.519)

Stolen Bases:
Detroit – (-53.8 BG) 57%
Boston – (-9.7 BG) 68%

Sacrifices:
Detroit – 4.78 per 550 PA
Boston – 1.03 per 550 PA

Pitching
Friday:
Derek Lowe 9-9 5.52 (7.713)
Mike Maroth 8-7 4.44 (18.055)

Saturday:
Pedro Martinez 11-4 4.07 (32.603)
Jeremy Bonderman 6-8 6.06 (-5.972)

Sunday:
Tim Wakefield 7-6 4.15 (24.977)
Nate Robertson 9-6 4.31 (14.717)

Rotations:
Detroit – 36.676
Boston – 135.554

Bullpens:
Detroit – 40.084
John Ennis – (-2.175)
Al Levine – 5.540
Roberto Novoa – 3.092
Ugueth Urbina – 7.417
Jamie Walker – 11.387
Esteban Yan – 12.374

Boston – 74.073
Terry Adams – 0.679
Alan Embree – 7.722
Keith Foulke – 27.045
Mark Malaska – 3.587
Ramiro Mendoza – 3.888
Mike Timlin – 13.139

Usage:
Detroit – 2.7 RpG, 1.13 IPpApp
Boston – 2.6 RpG, 1.05 IPpApp

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By Sully,

Stop by and check out the Detroit Tigers Weblog.

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By Sully,

Off day last night for the Sox so I guess I will just offer up a little sampling of my favorite stops on the web…

- Dirt Dog is still just pummeling the bejesus out of the dead horse that is the Nomar story.

- We’ve turned the corner. Really…we have.

- Aaron’s a little fed up too with mainstream baseball coverage. He’s right. Baseball Tonight has become unwatchable.

- Alex Belth draws a parrallel between John Olerud and an Edward Hopper painting.

- Bruce Allen has all the Pats links any gloomy Sox fan could hope for.

- BP’s Triple Play featured the Sox yesterday and it was the first blog/stathead type media piece I have seen defending the trade. It’s a free article, although that ought to be irrelevant because why anybody truly interested in baseball would not join BP is beyond me.

- For NFL scoop, nothing compares to this site.

That’s about all I got at this point.

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By Sully, 8/5/2004 4:14 pm

Despite being idle today, the Red Sox have lost even more ground in their respective races. Both the Yankees and Texas Rangers won this afternoon, extending their leads over the Sox to 9.5 in the division and 2 for the Wild Card, although I suppose since Oakland lost, it is now the A’s the Sox trail by just 1.5 games. Ahhh, Wild Card fever. Who can resist?

Beginning tomorrow night, the Red Sox are in Detroit for a three game series against the Tigers, who happen to be one of the more fascinating turnaround stories of 2004. I was wondering how it was exactly that the Tigers had already reached the 50 win mark while winning just 43 in all of 2003. The answer is that Dave Dombrowski, Detroit’s General Manager, had one doozy of an off-season.

We have said in this space before that one of the very most important components of being a quality Major League General Manager is possessing the abilty to accurately recognize strengths and weaknesses, both on your Big club and down through the organization. Last year, the Tigers had one of the most inept offenses of all time, but also featured some of the youngest regulars in all of baseball. Dombrowski, especially in his lineup, was able to identify weaknesses and address them through the execution of nearly flawless transactions. Last year, Tigers’ catchers and shortstops each posted OPS totals resembling a couple of medium length par 5′s. On a team full of holes, these two positions represented enormous, gaping vacuities. All Dombroski did to fill these holes was acquire the two players that respectively would become the best catcher and shortstop in baseball in Pudge Rodriguez and Carlos Guillen. If you are going to patch a hole, might as well do it right, no?

There have been incremental upgrades elsewhere, mostly because Dombrowski trusted some of his young talent and the natural progression that tends to accompany trust in young talent. Omar Infante and Eric Munson have made strides. Craig Monroe, of whom Dombrowski was understandably skeptical, had his at-bats replaced largely by Rondell White, who also has produced for the Tigers. The other holdovers from 2003, Alex Sanchez, Carlos Pena and Bob Higginson have progressed, treaded water and continued regressing respectively. Higginson just sucks and when the Tigers are relieved of his unrivaled albatross of a contract, Dombrowski should be able to make good use of the funds.

This weekend’s series is improtant for the Sox and unlike last year’s contests against Detroit, they will actually have to defeat a Major League Baseball team in order to accomplish anything.

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By Sully,

I checked over at BP’s situational run probabilities page to find out just how likely it was that the Sox would score one run had Dale Sveum held Dave Roberts at third in the ninth inning. According to the report, and this is for 2004 only, there was an 84.1% chance that the Sox would score at least one run. Of course this does not even factor that Dave Roberts, one of the fastest players in baseball, was the potential tying run.

This is the type of stuff that Dale Sveum has to be able to decide in a split second. It’s a third base coach’s job. “Is there more than an 84% chance that Roberts will score if I send him here with Baldelli, last year’s AL outfield assists leader, charging hard? Because if not, I gotta hold him because there just isn’t that much to be gained. It’s damn likely we score him anyway.”

The numbers are pretty much immaterial, as I do not expect Sveum to know the exact figure specifically. The figures do provide the hard evidence however in this case. But I would imagine that many astute baseball fans could guess that about 85% of the time, with runners on first and third and nobody out, you score.

It’s baseball-101 and a first-rate bungling by Dale Sveum.

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By Sully, 8/4/2004 9:49 pm

The Red Sox lost tonight because of two of the most costly errors you will ever see in a baseball game.

The first was a seventh inning error with men on first and second by Kevin Youkilis. He parlayed what was sure to be a double play into a bases-loaded-no-outs situation for the Rays. The next batter, Toby Hall, spoiled what had been a great outing by Bronson Arroyo by driving the second pitch he saw over the left field wall for a grand slam. Good thing we shored up the defense.

The second gaffe was just inexcusable. Down by one in the ninth, Kevin Millar lined a leadoff single into left. Terry Francona promptly called upon Dave Roberts to pinch run and on the second pitch to Doug Mientkiewicz, Toby Hall misplayed the ball and Roberts swiped second. Minky would line a hard single to center field, with nobody out mind you, and third base coach Dale Sveum sent Roberts. The play wasn’t close. Baldelli gunned down Roberts at the plate and the Sox would go on to lose, 5-4.

It’s losses like these that make you wonder if it is in fact your team’s year. Thankfully, the Sox are off tomorrow.

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By Sully,

There’s apparently a guy named Mark Bechtel who apparently writes a blog on si.com and he has just had it with Red Sox Nation. He writes,

“But there’s nothing more annoying than seeing Boston fans scramble to justify the Nomar Garciaparra trade.”

I don’t know why he feels this way, but whatever. Some strawman really pissed him off, I guess. He continues,

“I realize the guy had to go. Nomar was a cancer in the clubhouse, he’s a liability defensively, he’s not the same hitter he was three years ago, he’s as delicate as a hothouse flower, etc. “

He realizes he had to go? He did? Nomar was a cancer in the clubhouse? He was? A liability defensively? Maybe. Not the same hitter he was three years ago? He played in 21 games three years ago. As delicate as a hothouse flower? Oh now we are taking cheap shots. Super. He’s not done…

“But if anyone should have seen these things happening it’s Theo Epstein. “

Got that, Theo? Mercilessly, he continues…

“A few years back Carlos Baerga was basically Nomar. He had put up a series of incredible offensive seasons in Cleveland, and then he lost it, taking limos to games and yapping on his cell phone at inappropriate times, while putting on pounds and forgetting how to hit. (Baerga might have been the best bad-ball hitter I’ve ever seen; he made Nomar look patient. But when he got fat he lost enough of his reflexes that he could no longer golf sinkers off the plate and into center field).”

I don’t even know how to respond to this. I really don’t. Analogies do not get any less analogous than this. Did Nomar get fat? Or start using his cell-phone inappropriately? Assuming what he has to say about Baerga is true, and something tells me that would be quite a leap, what the hell does it have to do with Garciaparra?

It’s truly remarkable just how poor some mainstream media outlets’ sports content has become. Did you catch Jayson Stark’s trade winners and losers yet? Or how about Joe Morgan telling us that the Sox won and the Dodgers lost at the deadline?

Perhaps more than any time over the last few years, this weekend’s trade deadline has polarized the mainstream media folks and the stat-head blogosphere types. Over at all-baseball.com, there was a fantastic roundtable in which Mark McLusky put it best…

“We’ll look at this weekend, and especially the Dodgers’ deals, as a turning point in the ongoing revolution in baseball. Every single mainstream outlet is calling DePodesta’s trades a failure and that they’re horrible; almost every blog I’ve seen, BP, etc. are saying it was a huge win for LA. I happen to think it’s a win for them, and if that’s borne out over time, we might be able to look at this moment as when the mainstream media finally lost its credibility talking about this stuff. Seriously, I can’t find one guy who’s saying he liked the Dodgers’ moves.”

Well said.

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By Sully,

So it has been over three days now since the trade and still, mud is flinging from both sides. Nomar has called the front-office a bunch of liars while Larry Lucchino and John Henry have countered by publicly accusing Garciaparra of, well, lying. It’s awfully childish and a tragic ending to one of the truly fun tenures in Sox history. I wish the front office would take the high road and shut up. I wish Garciaparra would publicly acknowledge, at least to some extent, that he was not particularly fond of the current Red Sox management. Unfortunately both sides seem intent on kicking and screaming, each trying to do so more loudly than the other, until they have satisfactorily swayed the court of public opinion. It sucks and I have no interest in any of it.

From a baseball perspective, I have begun, a little bit at least, to come around. Orlando Cabrera does play one hell of a shortstop and as long as he is getting healthier, totals closer to his 2003 line of .297/.347/.460 might reasonably be expected. Curt Schilling certainly has had some ringing public endorsements for the kid. Maybe the combination of knowing where your home is, playing in front of pumped up fans and having the support of future hall-of-famers will aid Cabrera’s progression to the mean.

I too like Doug Mientkiewicz as a player. Unfortunately, I also like Kevin Millar when he is slugging .600 as he has for the last month. And I like Gabe Kapler who is also hitting of late. And I like Dave Roberts who is as automatic as they come when it comes to stealing bases (33 in 34 attempts in 2004) and also quite good at getting on base against right-handers. So who sits when David Ortiz returns from suspension? Mientkiewicz and Millar both have non-existent platoon splits. Roberts is productive against right-handers and Kapler hits left-handers proficiently. So the latter two would seem to be ideal platoon partners, what with their defensive abilities and speed. But if you platoon Kapler and Roberts, one of your five or six best hitters (Millar or Mientkiewicz) has to ride the pine everyday. And I don’t want to even think about the logjam if Trot Nixon returns to health any time soon.

So this is my new problem with the trade. Even if you think the Sox may have received an acceptable amount of talent in return for Nomar and Murton (they didn’t), how the hell do you allot the appropriate amount of playing time to four guys that all probably should be playing with some regularity, and in the case of Millar and Mientkiewicz, every day? This issue represents another data point for the case against this trade. The more and more I think about it, the more I try to give it the benefit of the doubt, even the most tride and true Theo apologist would have to concede is that the deal appears to have been, at the very least, rushed into.

And does their public trashing of Nomar not support this? Does it not seem to others as though by tirelessly dragging Nomar through the mud (and Nomar is no innocent bystander), that the front office is somehow acknowledging that they were backed into a corner and just had to get something? If they truly believed it was a good baseball deal, then simply say, “trades are part of the game, we did what we had to to get better”. But they know better.

Either way, there is a silver lining in that the team’s biggest problem now as I see it, is a talent logjam. So things could be far worse. There does appear to be some new enthusiasm. Minky does seem tremendously likeable. Cabrera is a pleasure to watch in the field. The team should yield fewer runs and the offense is still formidable. So by no means is all lost.

The fairness of the deal itself aside, this Red Sox team as presently constituted is still fantastic and I look forward to renewed faith and energy – my two Sox garments that I treasure most – that were temporarily stripped from me when one of my all-time favorites was unceremoniously shipped out of town.

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By Sully, 8/3/2004 10:40 pm

The Sox won their second straight game tonight. But I still wonder what kind of team they are going to feature down the stretch.

As you might be able to tell, I was not thrilled about the Nomar deal. I think chiefly because it was the first major deal by this front office that could not be rationally and reasonably defended with clear statistical evidence. The only way it makes any sense is if Mientkiewicz and Cabrera revert back to their 2003 numbers and even still, I am not sure they improved. For the first time, I think local media pressure got to Theo et al.

I will miss Nomar. I think mostly I miss the demi-god that played in 1999 and 2000 but even with his regression, I thoroughly enjoyed Nomar. Around the turn of the century, I didn’t think there was a chance I would never see Nomar celebrate a World Series title in the carmine hose.

Sigh.

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By Jeff,

Today, my job has brought me to the precipice of hell (Clay Aiken concert), so I can’t post my thoughts yet in a congizant manner until sometime tomorrow.

Depending on how it goes, Sully and I might get into a knife fight. I’ll sell tickets through this website.

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By Sully, 8/2/2004 8:11 pm

Small-ball! Defense! Chemistry! Intangibles! Wheeeee!

I will post my thoughts on the deal when I am of more sober mind. Or just sober for that matter.

Blech.