Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Soxycontin

Brought to you by Paul "Fitzy" Fitzgerald... Check him out on NESN's "Pocket Money"!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEEwGZixc6Y

Monday, August 24, 2009

Lost weekend?

So the Red Sox dropped 2 of 3 to the Yankees and, for all intents and purposes, said goodbye to any chance of taking the AL East division title this season.

And with 39 games to go in the regular season, it's all about the following numbers -- 1, 6, 20, 22.

1 - The Wild Card standings currently have the Sawx sporting a one-game lead over the Rangers. The Sawx currently have a 2-7 record against the Rangers, who just dropped 2 of 3 against the Rays, the other serious Wild card contender. Which brings us to...

6 - That's the number of games the Sawx have remaining against the Tampa Bay Rays. The Sawx have posted a 4-8 mark against the Rays this season, looking old and slow against the youthful Rays. The six games are split evenly - 3 in Boston, 3 in Tampa - and that bears watching, as the Sawx have gone 3-3 vs. the Rays at home, but 1-5 at the Trop. At the very least, they need to hold serve against the Rays at Fenway and try and steal two games at Tampa. FYI - the Rays are 3 games back of the Sawx in the Wild Card standings.

20 - At 70-53, the Sawx have 39 games left, of which 20 (slightly more than half for you math majors out there) are against teams with winning records. Eleven of those games are at Fenway, where the Sawx are 39-20 (vs. 31-33 on the road).

22 - Of those 39 remaining games, 22 are at home. The Sawx need to take advantage of this advantage and win these home games, especially since they finish the season with 7 games at home vs. the under-achieving Blue Jays and Indians, both of whom should be well into "playing for next year" mode by the end of September.

Before I sign off, a quick note on last night's 8-4 homer-happy loss to the Yankees last night. After both Derek Jeter and Hideki Matsui hit Josh Beckett's first-pitch fastball home runs to start the first and second innings, respectively, I turned to Mrs. Wikked Hahd and said "I guess the Yanks plan is look first-pitch fastball for tonight"...

Come to find out that indeed was the case, as almost all of the Yankees homers on Sunday came on first-pitch fastballs and two-strike curveballs - Buster Olney on ESPN.com pointed that out here (scroll down to the "Sunday's Games" segment). So why could I see that but Beckett, Jason Varitek, Terry Francona and John Farrell couldn't? Is it because of Beckett's legendary stubborness? Or is he due for some pounding after being so brilliant for so long? He insists he's healthy and has no physical issues, so it could just be a blip.

Either way, it's never a good sign when I can see what's going on from my couch better than the Sawx from the field.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Favre = Chump.

I know this space is reserved for Baw-stahn spoohts postings, but I just had to say...

Brett Favre is a chump.

Why do we care? It's a freaking joke. The guy is killing his reputation and legacy in some sad Quixotic quest to remain relevant. And like Roger Clemens - the most recent "can't let go" athlete - he's ruining any goodwill from his career because he craves the spotlight too much to go off into the sunset (holy mixed metaphors!).

In the process, he's making fools of all football writers - from Peter King on down - whom he told just weeks ago that he was "done" and was "really" retired. Imagine you're Peter king: Favre is your real football BFF with whom you've shared innumerable dinners, locker room chats and text messages. He tells you "I'm done" and you report it to the world, only to have him reverse field a week later and come back. So now King, who is to the NFL what Peter Gammons is to baseball, looks like a fool. You think his reputation didn't take a hit and he's not upset? Check out the first half of this story for the former, and this one for the latter.

Don't forget, he's also pissing off his die-hard fans in Green Bay, folks who stood in sub-zero weather with foam cheeseheads on their head cheering for their icon. So now his fans look like fools, the football media cognoscenti look like fools, and - worst of all - he's burning bridges left and right.

Sigh... when November rolls around and he's hurt again and throwing wounded ducks up for grabs - ruining the Vikings chances for the playoffs and beyond - we'll all have to go through another stupid news cycle of "Favre done?" again. Only this time, hopefully no one will want to listen.

Hopefully...

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Drew-ing a blank

Quick quiz, "Jeopardy"-style: Five years, $70 million, highest per-year salary on the team in 2009.

Answer: Who is J.D. Drew?

That's right - the highest-paid player on the Boston Red Sox is not Josh Beckett, not Jonathan Papelbon, not Kevin Youkilis, not Jason Bay, and not Dustin Pedroia. Heck, not even David Ortiz.
And for that $14 million per year investment, the Sawx have gotten the following: 43 HRs, 173 RBI, 225 R, and a .269 Avg. in 2-3/4 seasons... meanwhile, Drew has done nothing to shed his injury-prone reputation, playing in 80 percent of his team's games (349 of a possible 442, counting last night). It's not for nothing that Bill Conlin, a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News (a city Drew famously spurned because they wouldn't pay him the Scott Boras-demanded $10 million as a draft pick), once called Drew "Superwuss" for his myriad of injuries.

By contrast, each of the positional players named (Youkilis, Bay & Pedroia) have played in 90% of those games -- collectively -- while making $15.8 million total. And each has more runs, more RBI, more HR and a higher batting average in that span.

What's most maddening, tho, is looking at the players currently outperforming Drew for other teams for a fraction of the cost, knowing that the Sawx are on the hook for Drew's salary for another 2 & 1/4 seasons, which hurts when you consider that Youkilis and Pedroia both have bigger salaries that kick in next season and Bay is a free agent at the end of this season, and you have to believe that Drew's salary will be a sticking point in those negotiations.

In his defense, you can't quite call Drew's salary "dead money" because chances are, on one of those days when he DOES play, he COULD do something to help the team win at least one game. Unfortunately, no one -- not Terry Francona, not his teammates, not Theo "J.D. has naked pictures of me" Epstein, and especially not Red Sox Nation -- knows when those days or that game will be. It's just as likely to be in a meaningless May game as it is in Game 6 of the 2007 ALCS to send the Sawx to a decisive Game 7 and eventual World Series title.

So when you watch Drew strike out on bad pitches out of the strike zone, bounce out to the second basemen to kill a rally, or pull up on a line drive to right field, it is enough to make you nuts. Last night's bad strikeout in the eighth inning (on an inside fastball around his eyebrows) and obvious pull-up on a line drive to him that scored two runs and prolonged a painful inning only serve as Exhibits 100 & 101 of how frustrating a player he is.

By all accounts, Drew is a nice guy -- respectful, deferential, a good husband and father (most players aren't either, let alone one or the other) -- but appears to be an indifferent teammate and not a "gamer" (on a team full of them) willing to "grind it out" and play hurt for the team.

And therein lies the rub -- he's a talented player who has proven that he can be a game-changing force, but has never delivered on that talent and seems to not give a crap either way. Epstein was captivated by the promise of that talent, and is now hostage to it.

And so are we... but just think: Only 2 & 1/4 seasons and $30 million or so left to go.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Stick a fork in them?

It's August 17 - six weeks to go in the season, and the Red Sox are now trailing in both the AL East and Wild Card standings.

7-1/2 games back of the Yankees, 1/2 game back of the Rangers. 12-17 in their last 29 games.

This is not a blip - it's a trend, and it's looking ugly.

Beyond wins & losses, though, is this troubling statistical split -- 118 and 20. The first number is the amount of stolen bases allowed by the Sawx pitching/catching batteries this season, the second is the number of runners caught stealing. That's a 98 stolen-base split... yikes. In fact, the Sawx are last in both stolen bases allowed and runners thrown out.

As the Tampa Bay Rays have demonstrated in nearly every game against Boston this season -- and as the Texas Rangers painfully reinforced this weekend (8 steals in 3 games) -- today's game is a speed/defense/pitching game, and not the bash people's heads in game of past years. Sure, everyone knows that, and the Sawx are Exhibit A writ large of what can happen when you fall behind the athlete curve.

As a team, the Sawx have stolen 92 bases and succeed in their steals 75 percent of the time -- fourth in the AL in both categories. Those rankings, though, are deceptive: Jacoby Ellbury has 53 of the Sawx 92 steals, and is the only player on the team with 20+ steals and a plus-75% success rate (generally considered the cut-off for an effective base-stealer). By contrast, the Rays have 3 players with 20+ steals, each exceeding 75% in their success rates (Carl Crawford 54 steals, 84% success rate; B.J Upton 35 steals, 76% success rate, Jason Bartlett 21 steals, 88 % success rate) and a team mark of 80% success rate (158 steals, 39 caught), which trails only Texas (84%) in the base-stealing efficiency ranks.

Here's another troubling fact -- the Sawx are now the sixth-best fielding team in the league by fielding percentage (.984 - total assists & putouts/total chances), but that's deceiving when you consider that the Sawx have the fewest amount of total chances in the league. Some of that is due to the pitching staff, which has struck out the second-most batters (900) in the league - after all, you can't catch the ball if the batter strikes out - but the Sawx have also allowed better than a hit per inning (1.02 H/IP). Amongst contending teams - division leaders and wild-card contenders - only the AL West-leading Angels have allowed more.

Number, numbers, numbers... what does this all REALLY mean? It means that the Sawx, who for the last three season either had the highest or tied for the highest fielding percentage in the AL, are slipping behind their competition. Hence the trade for Alex Gonzalez to solve their shortstop problem, the shuffling of Mike Lowell between 3B and DH, the move of Youkilis to 3B, the trade for Casey Kotchman, bringing up Josh Reddick, etc. - all moves designed to make the Sawx better in on defense.

When you consider that the 3-5 spots in the pitching rotation currently sport a collective ERA of almost 6.00 and a WHIP (walks + hits/IP) of almost 2.00, it's critical for this team to be able to get outs in the field and control the base paths. And the Sawx are just not getting it done in those departments - and no amount of production from the offense will fix that. You can't beat the opposition if you can't get them out or stop them from running on your pitchers/catchers.

The truth is, this team's flaws were evident early in the season, but the line-up was producing (Big Papi's season-long funk notwithstanding) so they weren't as obvious. But now they are... and I'm not sure how they can be fixed as we move into the Aug/Sept stretch drive.

And that, more than the lack of production from Papi, J.D. Drew, Jason Varitek, etc., may have the Sawx on the outside looking in when the playoffs roll around.