Tag: draft

In Case You Haven't Been Keeping Up With Current Events

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where I want to be, originally uploaded by sogrady.

Pap blew a save and we won, Oki imploded and we didn’t, and I single-handedly led us to victory on Wednesday. While I’m still mildly concerned about Beckett’s refusal to be Beckett, the starters performed well this week. The bullpen? Not so much, and of course the offense on the road has once again been tough to come by.

I’d have a scouter for you, but our seats to Wednesday’s Colon vs Olson start were in the bleachers, several hundred feet away and my eyesight’s good only for about ten feet. I can report, however, that John Henry and co dropped in new seats out there. Which was nice.

I’ll get to see some of the closer seats firsthand, fortunately, next Sunday as my brother and I will be at Fenway to celebrate his 30th. The weekly update may be late, but it’ll have that authentic, first hand feel. Kick ass.

Draft

The good news? We signed nine of our picks. The bad news? These were 12th round picks or later, and none of the tough signs.

But still, good to see, and I look forward to seeing how these kids perform at Lowell, the GCL and so on.

Drew

Ortiz was injured on May 31st, placed on the DL on the 3rd. His line at that the time he went down was .252/.354/.486, which is credible but decidedly un-Ortiz-like. Potentially replaceable, in fact.

But the statistics, in this case, lied. They obscured the fact that after the worst month he’s had in a Red Sox uniform, Papi went back to being Papi in May. And then some. So while his season line might be made up through roster manipulations, his more typical May numbers (.318/.409/.617) clearly could not be.

And sure enough, we’re on a 144 run pace for the month, off our 154 run May.

While some credit for the fact that we haven’t fallen off the table is due the pitching staff, which since Papi’s been out is pitching at a 3.41 clip over May’s 3.66, much should go to the Pariah of Philly, one JD Drew.

Despite my inherent bias against the player that took Nixon’s roster spot and then his number, the fact is that Drew has been straight lighting it up since our DH was felled. And while we certainly can’t expect him to keep up the .444/.544/1.067 (seriously, a 1.611 OPS) numbers he’s put up to date in June, every little bit he can do helps.

Particularly with a 1.026 OPS on the shelf. So cheers, JD.

Duncan

Perhaps you remember when one a certain Boston beat reporter said the following:

“I know Jason Giambi makes $21 million this year, but I’d play Shelley Duncan at first. What energy.”

And I questioned it. How’d that one turn out, you ask?

Giambi’s putting up a .259/.394/.562 line, while the Red Sox covering scribe’s chosen first baseman was just DFA‘d – for the second time – after hitting a buck seventy-five.

I won’t say it. But I’m definitely thinking it.

Okajima

I can’t speak for you, but personally, I had no expectation that Okajima would be what he was last year. He was too good, and the second time around’s always a bitch.

Just ask the little second baseman on our roster.

I’ve argued previously that many of his well publicized inherited runner failures were at least partially the product of some impossible spots: bases loaded, no one out, and so forth. Which was true, I think.

But these days, he can’t get through even a clean inning, as demonstrated by Francona’s 1 out quick hook during last night’s game against the Reds. In 4 June games, Oki’s given up 7 hits and 3 walks in 3 IP, allowed a .467 BAA, all of which have lead to 7 earned. Not good.

Nor is there any simple explanation; the splits don’t tell us much. He’s not getting especially tagged by hitters on one side of the plate – .618 OPS to lefties, .623 to right. Home vs road doesn’t make that much of a difference – 3.09 at Fenway to 2.76 away.

The one interesting tidbit? He’s only given up earned runs (which obscures the inherited runners problem, I realize) to two teams all season. The Angels, who’ve gotten to him for a run in 2.2 IP. And then there are the O’s who are beating him like a drum. 8 earned in 5.1 IP, off 9 hits and 3 walks.

So short of any other reasonable suggestions for turning him around, I’d start with this one: don’t throw Oki against the O’s.

Sabathia

Am I the only one that think that rumors of a potential swap for Sabathia are the inevitable media speculation that follows the appearance of Indians’ scouts at Sox contests? Rather than, you know, anything with actual substance? While our starting pitching is hardly the second coming of Smoltz, Maddux and Glavine, it’s hardly the problem.

The sizable lefty has settled down, certainly, after a rough start that saw him surrender 9 earned in consecutive starts for what has to be the first time in his career, posting a 2.44 ERA in May and a 2.40 through two June starts.

But he’s a free agent at the end of the year, and he doesn’t address our most pressing problem – the bullpen. Unless they get very creative and bump one of the current starters into the pen. Which, I’d contend, based on their reluctance to do so with Buchholz, is unlikely.

So why give up anything of consequence to secure him? Last year, of course, we went out and strengthened an area – the bullpen – that didn’t particularly need it. But that was done as a hedge against injuries and fatigue; circumstances that did come to pass, even if the hedge blew up in our faces in the person of Gagne. But this year, starting pitching candidates are not in short supply. In Beckett, Matsuzaka, Lester, Wakefield, Colon, Buchholz, Schilling, and Masterson we’ve got seven more or less viable candidates for innings.

Sabathia, to me, seems like a luxury. One that we can ill afford during these economically tight times.

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In Case You Haven't Been Keeping Up With Current Events

Well, I don’t even know where to start. You’re screwed. You missed 1.) a sweep of Tampa, 2.) a brawl with Tampa, 3.) a brawl between Manny and Youk (not joking), 4.) an injury to Ellsbury, 5.) progress from Schill, 6.) held breath on Papi, 7.) two more good starts from Masterson and so on.

Oh, and the draft was this week.

So good luck catching up on all of that. But I’ll tell you what, we’ll try for you anyway.

The Brawl

I’m with the SOSH folks on this one: I’m not sure I can defend Coco here. Maybe on the hard slide – that’s debatable, but not in charging the mound. Shields – to his credit – hit him in exactly the right way, not dialing it up and not shooting for the head. True, he was an idiot for doing it in the second inning, but he handled himself well, while Coco – in my view – did not.

Either way, I’ll take the sweep.

The Bullpen

One of the brighter spots in the past week to ten days has been – shockingly – Boston’s bullpen. Tito seems to be easing Hansen into a MDC-in-’07-like 7th inning role. The onetime bust out of St John’s is unscored upon in his last five apperances, and over 5.2 IP has K’d 5, walked 2 and given up just one hit. Speaking of MDC, you know who also has exactly the same numbers over his last five appearances? That’s right. MDC. Throw in the potential of Masterson down the stretch, and we may not have to do too much to reconstruct our once leaky pen.

One minor down note: Daniel Bard, he of the 100 MPH fastball, got lit up today against Akron. In 1.2 IP, he coughed up 4 hits – 2 of them homers – and 4 runs, striking out only one. On the plus side, he didn’t walk anybody.

The Draft

Lots of takes on the club’s haul in the draft, and obviously the signing process for these kids will be lengthy, but I’m encouraged not just by the reports but by the fact that it would appear that we’ll be ignoring the commissioner office’s slot recommendations once again. As we should.

Here’s Baseball America’s page (sub req’d, sorry), but, better, here‘s Keith Law’s take on our draft class:

Boston bet it all on red, taking one high-ceiling player after another. Apparently, they’re willing to worry about the signability of these players later on. Casey Kelly is a first-rounder as a pitcher or position player, but his bonus demands and commitment to play quarterback at Tennessee scared off potential suitors. Ryan Westmoreland’s bonus demands ($1.6 to $2.1 million) and commitment to Vanderbilt had him viewed as completely unsignable all spring, even though he was a top-40 talent and had performed well over the summer with a wood bat. Bryan Price was totally misused at Rice, and was one of the best reliever-to-starter conversion opportunities in the draft. Derrik Gibson and Pete Hissey are both athletic, projectable tools players with the chance to play in the middle of the field (Gibson as a shortstop/second baseman, Hissey as a center fielder); both also have commitments to strong college programs (North Carolina and Virginia, respectively). Even if the Red Sox don’t sign all four of those high school talents, signing Kelly and one of the others would be an impressive haul of talent — and we know the Sox have the resources to sign more than just two.

So the class is good. But good as in better than the Yankees? Law says yes:

Steve (Clemson, SC): Hey Keith, Sorry but I have to ask: Better 2008 draft, if they sign most of their picks, Red Sox or Yankees?

SportsNation Keith Law: Red Sox.

We can only hope.

The Fight

At the SeaDog brewpub down in Brunswick, they have HD. Which is good. They don’t have audio, which is bad. So I had no idea what the hell was happening when M-Ram and Yoooook had to be separated in our own dugout. Neither, I learned later, did anyone else, but still.

If the reports are accurate, and that this centered around the (potentially widely held) perception that Youk is putting his own concerns in front of the teams by tearing apart the dugout post an at bat in games where we’re up comfortably, then I’m glad this came out now. Better to let it out now, ugly as it appeared, then let it fester.

Besides, the guys are Surviving Grady are spot on, it was worth it just to hear Tito’s one line summary:

I think they were just exchanging some views on things.

The O’Brien Factor

I’ll acknowledge up front that this could just be me. I’ll also acknowledge that I don’t particularly care for Dave O’Brien (I’d prefer to have a Sox only play by play announcer), even while I’ll concede that he’s a well regarded national broadcaster. But there is one thing he’s doing that is making me insane: he’s ignoring, completely, generally accepted rules against jinxing games, performances or players.

Jon Lester’s no hitter? He was discussing it freely in the fifth. We’re poised to take the third of three games against Tampa? He’s calling it a sweep before the game is ended. Masterson’s the pitcher of record in a game we’re winning by a run? O’Brien’s word choice is “will win.” Not the conditional “would,” but “will.”

I’m not saying that this is anything but trivial. I’m also not saying I’m sane. But listen to a game he broadcasts and see if you notice: he has no sense whatsoever with his tenses or conditionals. None.

And it’s driving me crazy.