Though their popularity appears to know no bounds, I’ve convinced myself that the Red Sox need to create a quasi-official evangelist role. And that I should be the prototype for said role.
The end result of my latest recruiting efforts: a two year old Big Papi fan. Who have you brought over lately?
Ask not what the Red Sox can do for you, but what you can do for the Red Sox. And so on.
By now, you’ve all probably seen that the good folks over at Baseball America rated our farm system second to Tampa’s stellar stable. So we’ve got that going for us. Which is nice. And while my enthusiasm is tempered by the realization that should the Santana trade be completed we’d slide back south of 10th, it’s still an achievement worth recognizing and appreciating.
In looking over the list of our Top 30 Prospects, however, it’s a stark reminder that when it comes to the catching position, we’re not exactly stacked. Pitching, we have. Fortunately. And though we’re a bit light in the power department (what with Anderson maturing slowly and picks like Jason Place not having panned out yet), we’ve got credible candidates in both the outfield (Ellsbury, Kalish, Moss, etc) and infield (Anderson, Lowrie, Tejeda, etc).
Then there’s the catching spot.
As far as I can tell, that’s going to be a bit of a problem. An untimely one, as well, with both the presumed current catching tandem of Mirabelli and Tek up for free agency after this year.
From the sounds of it, a reupping of Tek at $10M+ per could be in the works, and Mirabelli’s future – as always – is in the hands of one Timothy Wakefield.
Should they both depart, however, this is what we have on hand:
What if we don’t retain Tek? None of the kids are projected to be ready in ’09, so we’d probably have to go the free agent route. Tim Dierkes over at MLB Trade Rumors has suggested Kenji Johjima as a potential target, but I was surprised to discover that he gave up a couple of homers and better than 40 points of OBP to our current backstop. Surprised is precisely what I should have been, however, given Joe-mama’s performance against us: .375/.464/.708. David Ortiz, in other words.
Outside of Johjima, I’m not sure what the options are. But ultimately I think the Sox will look to lock up Tek, as the Yankees did with Posada, because Hazen’s right: there just isn’t much catching around.
Over lunch today, I happened to mention to Alex that after looking at Matsuzaka’s strikeout rate, I was reasonably optimistic that the Japanese pitcher would step up and perform closer to the level of a #2 starter. At which point he asked the question I should have: what were his first half/second half splits?
That, ladies and gentlemen, is why I don’t do this for a living.
Anyway, it’s always interesting to see what the league makes of a pitcher the second and third time around the league, after the players have the chance to see his stuff in person and the scouts have the opportunity to observe in detail his patterns, strengths and weaknesses. Particularly with a pitcher like Matsuzaka, who brings more than the usual arsenal of pitches to the table.
So without further delay, the numbers:
| Time | Innings | Ks | BBs | K/9 | BB/9 |
| Pre All-Star | 119.2 | 123 | 38 | 9.29 | 2.87 |
| Post All-Star | 85 | 78 | 42 | 8.26 | 4.45 |
| Season | 204.2 | 201 | 80 | 8.86 | 3.53 |
From which we can see that he did indeed tail off in the second half, but not as much as I expected, frankly, given the brutal nature of a couple of his second half starts. Frankly, if he does nothing but sustain the second half K/9 rate, I’m happy, though the walks need to come down. All in all, for a pitcher navigating his second turn around the tougher of the two leagues, it wasn’t bad at all.
In short, a closer look at the splits – as I should have done from the start – doesn’t dissuade me from my initial optimism. I think he’s poised for a step forward; maybe even a big one.
A great many words have been written regarding Matsuzaka’s transition from Japanese league phenomenon to Boston Red Sox starting pitcher. Way too many, in all probability. So all that I will say regarding said transition was that it was more or less what I expected. A bit less consistent than I might have predicted, and the control less sharp than had been forecast, but at the end of the day his line for an American League rookie pitcher was – as far as I’m concerned – excellent.
Which brings us to this year. Perhaps not quite as many words have been wasted on his sophomore season to be, but there are certainly no shortage of predictions available. The ZiPS line, for example, looks pretty reasonable to me: a 3.95 return in 196 IP over 29 GS, with 177K’s against 60 BB’s over that span.
Not only does it eyeball as realistic, that’s a fair return on a second year pitcher, in my book. But one interesting tidbit that I hadn’t realized until today: Matsuzaka struck out more batters last year than Beckett, 201 to 194. Granted he had an extra four innings to do it – which says something by itself about the workload he shouldered as a rookie – but his rate per nine was higher, 8.84 K/9 vs 8.70.
It’s tempting to argue that Beckett’s strikeout rate was the end result of the widely acknowledged change in his patterns, including increased usage of the other pitches in his arsenal, such as his change up or two seamer. But actually, the last time it exceeded 9 per 9 innings was 2003. Apart from the train wreck that was 2006, he’s been fairly steady in the 8’s.
So Matsuzaka’s the better pitcher, right? Obviously not. But given the importance of strikeout rate as a metric for evaluating pitcher success and predicting future performance, let’s just say that I’m reasonably optimistic that Matsuzaka can – as Beckett did this year – take a step forward performance wise, matching his ZiPS line at worst, exceeding it we’re lucky.
Look, if we end up with Johan Santana – and sign him – I’m not going to complain. Pick your metric, he’s been the best pitcher in the league for several years now…by a wide margin. And of course I’m just as geeked about the possibility of slotting Beckett/Santana/whomever in a potential playoff series as the next guy. Maybe more so, given my self-admitted “problem” with baseball. But at the end of the day, I hope he ends up with the Mets. Seriously.
The problem with this position is that if or when you take it, the uninformed or superficial assume that you’ve gone koo koo for cocoa puffs, where cocoa puffs = Red Sox prospects. That you haven’t considered the matter logically, but rather have a weird and deeply confusing mancrush on Jacoby Ellsbury.
My Navajo brother aside, there are two very good reasons to be at least concerned about a potential trade for Santana. The first is that it doesn’t seem to make economic sense:
For the Red Sox, a trade is even more difficult to rationalize, driven by the lower free-agent valuation of Santana in a sold-out Fenway Park. Santana’s financial value to the Red Sox is in the range of $18 million to $20 million versus his annual value of over $30 million to the Yankees. Starter Jon Lester’s value may be lower than Hughes’ value because Lester has fewer years remaining until free agency, and outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury’s value is likely less than Hughes’ due to the premium paid to starting pitchers. However, neither of these facts changes the reality that the free-agent cost of Santana alone is likely more than his worth to the Red Sox. It may be that the only reason they are involved in trade talks is to bid up the acquisition price of Santana for the Yankees.
That whole piece is excellent, incidentally.
Just as important as the cost, is the predictability of the returns on that cost: i.e. the injury risk. Like many, I’m concerned by his late season fade (check his September splits). I seriously doubt that he forgot how to pitch, meaning that the most logical conclusion is that he wasn’t entirely right. Keith Law seems to share those concerns, saying:
“I haven’t read any of the others (I was on vacation), but I’d take A-Rod, Beckett, and Sabathia (because I’m a little concerned about how Santana finished 2007).
The good news is that I trust our front office – as I would not trust some others, say Houston’s – to have thought about all of this in far more detail than I ever would or could. As Seth put it:
I will, however, say this: I’ve always been reticent about jawing off when I have no real idea what I’m talking about…and such is the case with all of the sundry Santana trade permutations. I don’t mean the specifics of a possible trade — no one knows those except for Theo, Bill Smith, and Brian Cashman. I mean that I don’t know enough (and what’s more, haven’t done the work) to be able to make any kind of responsible or intelligent observations about whether this or that scenario makes sense. I don’t have the drilled-down numbers on Jacoby; I haven’t run the projections on Santana; I sure as hell don’t have any sense of what the pool of pitching talent is like in next few amateur drafts; I don’t know where else the Sox (or the Yankees) would spend that $130 mil or so it’ll likely take to lock up Santana…well, you get the idea. And even if I did have all of this info and even if I had done all of this work, I still would be so many light years behind where the Sox front office is in terms of brainpower, man hours spent hunched over spreadsheets, cumulative knowledge, and on and on, that it would be silly for me to start soapboxing about why this or that scenario makes sense.
It’s important to know what you don’t know, and in my case vis a vis Santana and the possible trade permutations, that’s just about everything. But neither will I concede that trading for him is an open and shut “hand over whatever the Twins ask for.” That’s just the kind of thinking that kept us out of the promised land for decades, so let’s skip it. Though some might lament the invasion of the game by the guys with “pocket protectors,” I don’t happy to be one of them. But then, I like winning World Series.
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Item #1: Mike Lowell’s wife’s name is “Bertica.” For serious. See the quote here. Wikipedia confirms, which is important as it’s Cafardo.
Far be it from me to poke fun at either member of the happy couple: I have nothing but respect for Mr. Lowell – as a player (though I agree with ZIPS that he’s in line for a substantial downward correction) and person – and I’m quite sure the the Mrs. is no less deserving.
It’s just that I’ve never heard of anyone – real, fictional, or imagined – saddled with a name like Bertica. Honestly, if I had to pick between being a boy named Sue or a girl named Bertica, I’d pick Sue seven days a week and twice on Sunday. I might even pick Trinka – as in former Sox wife-or-girlfriend Trinka Lowe – over Bertica, though that’s a tough call.
Anyway, all due credit to her for surviving the unfortunate appellation.
P.S. Thanks to Flickr user guano (no, not joking, and yes I appreciate the irony) for the Creative Commons licensed shot.
wicked clevah 