I Don’t Give a Darn. He’s Our Shortstop.
I’ve got a slightly different perspective on this off-season than does Sully. Let me start by saying that it’s not even 2006 yet, and there’s a long time to go before the roster is finalized, and I’m in no way saying that the Red Sox are doomed …. DOOMED.
However, I am saying that, just as I believed last season, there’s a battle going on in the front office. It’s not just the oft cited and discussed Epstein/Lucchino differences, but a seeming complete strategic overhaul of the short- and long-term plans of the Boston Red Sox. There’s, as much as one can discern from inferences and biased newspaper reporting, a definitive plan to get younger and less dramatic, while simultaneously staying competitive. I certainly don’t disagree with this plan (well, the get younger part, at least). And I fully believe that a team with the second largest payroll in baseball should be able to rebuild and stay competitive.
I’m just not sure the Red Sox are going about things in the best way.
Let’s start with the 2005 regular season and the initial move away from near-strict performance analysis into a more nuanced (and less proven) clubhouse chemistry roster construction. Sticking with older players when younger counterparts were ready to offer up similar or better performance was the initial indicator that things were a-changing. Sticking with Millar and Embree, and bringing in Kapler, when we had cheap minor league resources available was the first sign that the Sox valued the clubhouse contributions of those players over the moderate improvement younger players might have brought. You can actually go back a little ways and look at the Pedro Martinez/Jason Varitek free agency negotiations to see that the Sox were taking a firm stand and saying “we can build a team of people who don’t flap their jaws or expect a separate set of rules for themselves,” even arguably overpaying a catcher who they claimed brought so much more than just his on the field performance.
Cut to the 2005 offseason. The Sox make a big acquisition of Josh Beckett (and Mike Lowell and Guillermo Mota), giving up a couple of highly touted prospects. It’s certainly a good deal, acquiring a young, really good pitcher for a pitcher who may never even hit the ceiling of what Beckett has accomplished to this point. Mota’s a throw-in, another arm for the bullpen to churn through to see if he’s got anything left. The problem, of course, is Mike Lowell.
Lowell looked done last year. Cooked. He’s been recovering from a pretty devastating illness, and the likelihood of him bouncing back and being better than league average is probably pretty small. Lowell, in essence, was the acquisition cost of Josh Beckett. And that’s where this deal starts to get a little less pretty.
See, the Sox already have a 3rd baseman who’s cheap and likely to give us a little better than league average performance (Youkilis). And they offered arbitration to 2 other players who would see time at 3B, if they accept (Mueller, Graffanino). Lowell just adds to the logjam at the position, moving Youkilis to 1B, and basically meaning that the cheap, young Josh Beckett is going to be costing the team about $11mm in each of the next 2 seasons. That’s not so cheap.
Still, Beckett is Schilling insurance, and was a solid pickup. Not a steal, but a good deal for the Sox.
Then the Sox made another deal. They traded backup catcher Doug Mirabelli to the Padres for 2B Mark Loretta. This is a steal. Mirabelli should be replaced by Kelly Shoppach, who projects to be a better hitter and catcher than good ol’ Doug. Loretta, although coming off a down, injury-ridden season, is signed fairly cheaply and is a good stop gap until Dustin Pedroia is ready to take over 2B full time. This deal is a great “keep the window open while planning for the future deal.” Now an infield of Lowell, Renteria, Loretta, Youkilis is probably about equal to what the Sox ran out last season (with Lowell playing the role of Kevin Millar), and maybe a little better defensively.
Except the Sox then traded Renteria to the Braves for Andy Marte. Marte’s a stud, no doubt, and if the Sox find a way to get a league average bat at SS, then in the long run, this will be a solid move.
But there’s just no way a team that’s trying to win the World Series should go into the season with Alex Cora or Tony Graffanino at SS. Neither has the defensive chops to play the position. Cora’s got a noodle bat, and Graf is coming off a career year. Suddenly the Sox have given back a bunch of the runs they gained when they acquired Beckett.
Still, one weak spot on a contending team isn’t awful.
Then Johnny Damon signed with the Yankees. I will state it clearly: I would not have resigned Johnny Damon for the deal the Yankees got him for. Where the Red Sox failed was giving Damon an ultimatum without having already lined up plan B.
Heading into 2006, the have no CF and no SS. Still no platoon partner for Trot in RF. The already thin free agent market is getting thinner, and now every team in baseball knows the Sox are desparate for a SS and CF. Why would Bill Bavasi trade Jeremy Reed for Bronson Arroyo when he could trade him for Bronson Arroyo and Jeff Corsaletti? Why would Friedman/Hunsicker deal Julio Lugo to the Sox for Matt Clement when they know they can get Clement and Shoppach?
Each move the Sox have made this off-season has looked very good in a vaccuum. If you evaluate just the individual deal, the Sox look brilliant. But when you step back … take a broader look, things aren’t as pretty. The Sox have backed themselves into a corner (further evidenced by the futile attempt to acquire Kevin Millwood). Other teams around baseball know that we don’t want to go into the season with George Lombard or David Murphy in CF and Alex Cora at SS, and they’re going to make the Sox pay to remedy that.
Is this indicative of a failure of the front office? Maybe. Is the 2-headed GM working in concert, or are they pulling in different directions? Is Larry Lucchino’s desire to rid the team of any one who talks out of turn and isn’t a professional overriding the baseball operations group? Have the Sox gone so far in their thinking that they believe that they know the market better than the market?
Who knows. What we do know is, that heading into 2006, the Sox have a stronger pitching staff, top to bottom than they did in 2005. They’ve got a weaker offense, top to bottom, than they did in 2005.
There’s a long way to go until April, so this isn’t a death knell. It’s not even a “woe is me.” It’s simply a notice that the Sox haven’t had a successful or unsuccessful offseason. They’ve had an incomplete offseason. As much as some want to give the GMs all ‘As’ for acquiring Marte and Beckett, and some want to give them all ‘Fs’ for letting Damon and Mueller walk.
They get neither. They get an INC and a kick in the ass to start figuring out how to turn our collection of league average starting pitching and infielders into a bonafide major league SS and CF.
My apologies for a long and rambling post.
December 27th, 2005 at 12:21 pm
From my earlier piece…with ZIPS projections
Shortstop
2005 Sox: .272/.331/.377
Tony Graffanino: .287/.349/.394
Alex Cora: .269/.334/.368
Given the defense Renteria played last season, I just don’t see any way they get less out of SS.
As I see it, the offense will be about the same, the pitching better and if Schilling and Foulke are Schilling and Foulke, the Sox are WS contenders.
December 27th, 2005 at 12:42 pm
I’m not as optimistic on the offense.
Graffanino and Cora, I think, are a worse combo than Renteria given that they both have below average range at SS and are a best case to hit about as well as Renteria did in a bad year.
Ramirez/Ortiz/Varitek can’t be expected to hit as well as they did last year (maybe a slight bump by Manny). Trot is probably a wash, hopefully a little boost if they can find a legitimate platoon partner.
Loretta is a boost. Youks is a wash with Mueller. Lowell is a wash with Millar.
That leaves CF. I’m having a hard time envisioning a scenario in which we get Damon-like performance.
So assuming no regression, and no injuries, the offense is maybe as good as it was last year, but probably worse. The pitching staff is better, but the defense might be worse (depending on who’s at SS and CF).
I’ll wait to see how things shake out, but in an improved AL East, I don’t think the Sox have separated themselves.
December 27th, 2005 at 2:22 pm
WARP1 w/Boston in 2005:
Renteria: 1.8 in 695 PA’s
Cora: 0.5 in 114 PA’s
December 27th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
There’s no doubt Renteria was bad last year. The margin between Renteria and Cora grows when you throw in 3rd order wins, and it also probably grows a bit if you discount BPs FRAA stat, which is somewhat maligned (I think it’s included in WARP).
The issue isn’t that Renteria was bad, which he was. It’s that he’s likely to bounce back some in 2006. Cora’s never been as good as Renteria using any WARP measure, and when you factor in that he’s a below average SS (at least in full seasons), there’s no doubt it’s a downgrade on offense and probably on defense.
A downgrade at SS, a likely downgrade in CF, likely age related regressions from a handful of players, and no players who are likely to see a major spike in performance (save Youkilis) leaves you with a team that will probably be worse offensively than in 2005.
December 27th, 2005 at 5:40 pm
There is no such downgrade at SS between 2005 and 2006, however, regardless of who you think was the most viable candidate for the position this year. It would be virtually impossible to be worse than the Sox were at SS last season. And since the Sox won 95 games last year, staying the same at SS is just no big deal.
Further, you are totalling downplaying Loretta, who will provide an upgrade at 2nd Base that is quite likely to equal any downgrade we see in CF.
You also downplay Lowell’s likely bounceback. He is not the first player to have an off-year. A much more likely season should come in the form of some combination of his last 4. Mueller was not all that great at 3rd last year, either. Duplicating his output would not be out of the question by any stretch.
And finally, the Sox will improve at 1st. You know it, I know it, they just will. Kevin Millar is long gone.
It’s funny, I have gone and shown that the offense is likely to stay about the same by using someone’s projections that have proven pretty accurate over the years. You are simply tossing out what you think the big problems are, and even making assumptions about how the front office operates in some sort of problematic fashion for good measure.
It’s all interesting and well-written and even evidenced to some extent, but most of it adds up to little more than conjecture.
December 27th, 2005 at 11:31 pm
Love how two of the writers for the site are arguing amongst themselves in the comments thread. This is why I check Sox blogs, like, a hundred times a day.
Count me as one of the .00001% of fans that isn’t worried. Edgar sucked, our pre-ASB 2b sucked, our post-ASB CF kinda sucked, and our 1B sucked. Yet, we won 95 games. The Yankees are, to me, in a much worse position, as almost all of their players are in their decline phase, with the only exception (Cano) a possible candidate for the sophomore slump. And if that’s not enough, oh yeah, they have no pitching.
Maybe it’s just because I’m looking towards the future, but I’m not too worried about the team’s prospects, short or long term. But, an open question, if the Sox start to suck, is it traitorous to become a temporary Blue Jays fan after the ASB if it’s looking like we’re struggling to make a playoff spot? The way I see it, the Yankees and Blue Jays have 2 or 3 more years of possibly contending, while the Sox are on the way back up. If it comes down to it, I would definitely root for the Blue Jays over the MFYs.