So it doesn't get too overwhelming, we're going to start by just recapping the last 10 on the list:
80. Boo Ferriss, P
79. Mike Andrews, 2B
78. Troy O'Leary, OF
77. Ray Collins, P
76. Mike Boddicker, P
75. Sad Sam Jones, P
74. Ernie Shore, P
73. Jimmy Piersall, OF
72. Dennis Eckersley, P
71. Ray Culp, P
You know the drill by now.
70. Tom Brewer
Here's another obscure pitcher for you -- but a pitcher who won double-digit games for seven straight years with some fairly mediocre Red Sox teams. Brewer's best season came in 1956, when he went 19-9 with a 3.50 ERA; he earned his only career All-Star nod that season and pitched two innings in a 7-3 defeat for the American League.
It's funny to look back on that game's box score: Only three pitchers appeared in the game for the National League even though seven were on the roster. Among those left in the bullpen were Robin Roberts, a future Hall of Famer, and Clem Labine, who had pitched the Brooklyn Dodgers to a World Series title the year before. Johnny Antonelli, who would win 20 games for the New York Giants that season, pitched the final four innings of the game.
The American League, meanwhile, threw six pitchers into the game, including Whitey Ford, Herb Score and Early Wynn. Only Brewer and starting pitcher Billy Pierce went more than one inning. And you wonder who was playing to win the game?
Tangent aside: Brewer finished his career with 91 wins in a Red Sox uniform, good for 14th on the franchise's all-time list. His 1,509 1/3 innings pitched are good for 11th, just behind Lefty Grove; his 733 strikeouts are good for 15th, again just behind Grove.
The 1956 season was Brewer's best, but a rapidly aging Red Sox team finished in fourth place for the fourth straight season. A year later, Brewer won 16 games with a 3.85 ERA as the Red Sox -- behind a .388 batting average from a 38-year-old Ted Williams -- finished in third place. The righthander won at least 10 games in each of the next three season and had a sub-4.00 ERA in each of those seasons, though the Red Sox continued to founder in mediocrity. By 1961, the rookie year of Carl Yastrzemski, Brewer was all done.
69. Tony Armas
Playing in center field between Jim Rice and Dwight Evans, from 1983-86, Armas averaged a home run every 18 at-bats over his Red Sox career. In 1984, his best season, he hit 36 of his league-leading 43 home runs out of the cleanup spot in the order, anchoring a lineup that scored more runs than any team but the eventual World Series champion Detroit Tigers. (Armas' 123 RBI also led the league -- as did his 156 strikeouts.)
Two years later, though, the injuries that had plagued him earlier in his career began to resurface. He missed three weeks in July and frequently had to be lifted for a defensive replacement even when he did play. His unreliability, in fact, prompted the Red Sox in August to trade for a fairly nondescript center fielder from Seattle by the name of Dave Henderson.
The then-33-year-old Armas scuffled down the stretch, hitting .197 with no home runs in the Red Sox's final 21 games. Things didn't really turn around in the postseason, either; he had just two hits in the American League Championship Series against the Angels. And in Game 5, he had to leave the game in the fifth inning with a sprained ankle. Henderson, of course, came on as a defensive replacement -- and it was Henderson who hit the game-winning home run in the top of the ninth inning, a home run that eventually propelled the Red Sox to the World Series.
Armas' contributions to the Red Sox continued even after he departed via free agency. His son, born in 1978, turned out to be one of the players who would be traded for Pedro Martinez.
68. Dustin Pedroia
The Red Sox second baseman was sitting at the end of the dugout at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Tex., at the end of September last year. He was the only player in the dugout at that point; with half an hour to go before the game and the heat and humidity typically oppressive, the rest of the team was back in the clubhouse. The public-address announcer was just starting the monologue every public-address announcer at every ballpark delivers: "Welcome to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, home of your Texas Rangers..."
"Pedroia is just sitting there at the end of the bench just yelling to nobody in particular," Red Sox scouting director Jason McLeod told Joe Haggerty for this spring's Red Sox Annual. "He's yelling, 'Yeah, home of the Texas Rangers -- the team that's going to get their (butts) whipped tonight.' And he meant it. ... There's absolutely nobody else there. He's not doing it for show or trying to impress anybody. That's just Dustin."
In that series, for what it's worth, Pedroia went 2-for-11 with three walks. Don't expect that to have shut him up, though. Nothing has yet -- and nothing will even if, for whatever reason, he doesn't keep producing the way he has through two seasons with the Red Sox.
The 5-foot-whatever-you-want hit .317 (and OBP'ed .380) for the Red Sox in 2007, winning the Rookie of the Year award in the process. He then hit .283 and OBP'ed .348 in the playoffs; he came within a triple of hitting for the cycle in Game 7 of the ALCS against Cleveland and then hit a tone-setting home run to lead off Game 1 of the World Series against Colorado.
A year ago, Pedroia hit .326, OBP'ed .376 and slugged .493 -- enough to win him American League MVP honors. On top of that, he rated a plus-15 in the Fielding Bible's plus-minus system and won his first career Gold Glove.
Oh, and he's still not yet 26 years old. Predictions can be dangerous, but it's not hard to imagine him cracking the top 20 or 25 on this list by the time he's done.
67. Jeff Reardon
Calvin Schiraldi should have been the Red Sox closer for a decade; at age 24, he had a 1.41 ERA in 25 regular-season appearances and then a 1.29 ERA in his first five postseason appearances. The disaster in Game 6, though, ruined a promising career and sent the Red Sox on the hunt for a shut-down reliever who would never cause that type of heartbreak. Schiraldi first was dealt to Chicago for Lee Smith; Smith, in turn, was swapped to St. Louis to open a spot for Reardon.
The Red Sox signed Reardon, who had saved at least 30 games in five straight seasons to that point, as a free agent in the fall of 1989. Reardon appeared in 47 games that season, accumulating a 3.16 ERA; he didn't allow a single earned run until an ugly blown save in mid-May against Kansas City. After that, though, he settled right back down -- his ERA after May 19 as 3.03, and he finished the season with 21 saves.
He made just one appearance in the American League Championship Series against Oakland; he allowed two ninth-inning runs in a loss in Game 2. Other than that, though, the Red Sox never had need for a closer; not once did they hold a lead beyond the seventh inning. (Given the way bullpen use has evolved, one has to wonder if Reardon could have been of some use in the eighth inning of Game 1 with the scored tied; the A's scored a run in that inning and left the bases loaded before scoring seven runs in the ninth.)
A year later, Reardon had a 3.03 ERA and 40 saves -- at that point, a franchise record -- to earn his fourth career trip to the All-Star Game. The Red Sox, however, couldn't get any reliable starting pitching beyond Roger Clemens and finished seven games behind the first-place Blue Jays. A year later, Reardon was traded to Atlanta for the forgettable Nate Minchey. His 88 career saves with the Red Sox ranks him fifth all-time in that category.
66. Chick Stahl
At one point, Stahl ranked third in Red Sox history in runs scored, fifth in hits, fourth in doubles, first in triples and fourth in home runs.
Of course, that point was at the end of the 1901 season, the first season in franchise history. After that, Stahl started to drop in the record books a little bit -- but not all that much, and not until well after his death.
But the fact remains that Stahl was one of the first stars of Boston's American League franchise; with Jimmy Collins, Buck Freeman and Bill Dinneen, he jumped from the Beaneaters of the National League to play for Charles Somers' upstart team across town. He already had a reputation as a terrific hitter -- he'd hit at least .350 in 1897 and 1899 -- and would do the same for his new team. In 1901, he hit .303 with 16 triples and six home runs; his 42 extra-base hits ranked him 10th in the American League. He even saved an umpire from a mob after one August game, holding back several angry fans until a teammate could escort the umpire from the field.
The 1903 season saw the outfielder miss time with injury -- he played in a career-low 77 games that season -- but return in full force for the first World Series. He had a hit in seven of the eight games, including triples in Games 5, 6 and 7 as the Red Sox rallied from an early deficit to win four straight games and the first World Series championship. In total, Stahl went 10-for-33 (.303) with three triples and six runs scored in eight games.
Stahl hit .290 with 19 triples in 1904, and he hit .286 with four home runs in 1906. He was nearing the end of his career, but he still was one of the best players in the American League.
Before the 1907 season, though, he committed suicide in a hotel room in Indiana while the Red Sox were barnstorming northward toward Boston. The consensus among researchers is that Stahl was being blackmailed by a woman who had given birth to his child out of wedlock. Whatever the reason, it was a tragedy that rocked the fledgling baseball world.
Coming up: The most underrated home run in Red Sox history.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Josh Bard released
In somewhat of a surprising move, catcher Josh Bard today was placed on unconditional release waivers by the Red Sox -- appearing to open the door wide open for George Kottaras to take over duties as the team's backup catcher.
Bard had caught almost every appearance by Tim Wakefield this spring and appeared to be the front-runner; Kottaras was out of minor-league options, but if he wasn't going to catch Wakefield, it appeared unlikely that was going to get the job. Instead, though, Bard is gone and Kottaras appears almost assured of making the Red Sox roster.
Bard had caught almost every appearance by Tim Wakefield this spring and appeared to be the front-runner; Kottaras was out of minor-league options, but if he wasn't going to catch Wakefield, it appeared unlikely that was going to get the job. Instead, though, Bard is gone and Kottaras appears almost assured of making the Red Sox roster.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Top 100 Red Sox: 71-75
The list so far:
100. Keith Foulke, P
99. Hugh Bedient, P
98. Rick Ferrell, P
97. Butch Hobson, 3B
96. Lee Smith, P
95. Jesse Tannehill, P
94. Mike Timlin, P
93. Herb Pennock, P
92. Dick Stuart, 1B
91. Sammy White, C
90. Doc Cramer, OF
89. Freddy Parent, SS
88. Jerry Remy, 2B
87. Walt Dropo, 1B
86. Rich Gedman, C
85. Heinie Wagner, SS
84. Everett Scott, SS
83. Sparky Lyle, P
82. Billy Goodman, 1B/2B
81. Oil Can Boyd, P
80. Boo Ferriss, P
79. Mike Andrews, 2B
78. Troy O'Leary, OF
77. Ray Collins, P
76. Mike Boddicker, P
Let's keep going, shall we?
75. Sad Sam Jones
It's tough to assemble much more of a formidable pitching staff than the Red Sox assembled in the war-affected 1918 season. Among the stars: Carl Mays (21-13, 2.21 ERA), Joe Bush (15-15, 2.11 ERA), Babe Ruth (13-7, 2.22 ERA) and Dutch Leonard (8-6, 2.72 ERA). But none had a better won-loss record than Jones, who went 16-5 with a 2.25 ERA and five complete-game shutouts.
All five of those pitchers were in their mid-20s. Ruth, at 23, was the youngest, and Mays and Leonard were the oldest. Jones was right in the middle but by far the least experienced; he had just 10 career starts under his belt when the season began. That didn't seem to bother him, though, as he led the American League in winning percentage and ranked 10th in ERA.
He scuffled in 1919 and 1920, finishing with a sub-.500 winning record and an ERA closer to 4.00 than 3.00. (In 1919, in fact, he allowed more earned runs than any other pitcher in the league.) But he came back strong in 1921 as the ace of the rapidly fading Red Sox, winning 23 games for a team that won just 75 games all season. He had a 3.22 ERA and threw 25 complete games; he almost threw 300 innings, in fact.
That, of course, was enough to get him sold to the Yankees. Before he departed, though, he'd accumulated an ERA that still ranks him 24th in team history; his 64 career wins ranks him 32nd in team history.
(For what it's worth: Three of the other four starters on that staff are going to show up elsewhere on this list. Only Bush, who pitched just two more seasons with the Red Sox before he was sold to the Yankees, didn't make the cut. That's an impressive pitching staff.)
74. Ernie Shore
We all know the story: Babe Ruth walked the leadoff man on four pitches to open a start against Washington in June of 1917. Each pitch was somewhere near the strike zone; not one was called a strike. Ruth began to jaw at the home-plate umpire; the home-plate umpire began to jaw back.
"You get back in there and pitch or I'll run you out of the ballpark!"
"If you run me out of the ballpark, I'll take a punch at you on my way!"
(This is from a newspaper account; it's likely that Ruth's threat was a little more colorful than that.)
Ruth, of course, was tossed, and he did in fact try to throw a few punches. With no one out and a runner on first base, the Red Sox had to call on Shore to finish the outing. The 6-foot-4 righthander came out of the bullpen and retired 27 straight, including a caught-stealing to retire the hitter who had walked.
But Shore wasn't just the man who made the greatest relief appearance in history. Actually, he was a starter for his entire four-year career with the Red Sox. In 1915, he threw 17 complete games and went 19-8 with a 1.64 ERA; in 1916, he went 16-10 with a 2.63 ERA. In the 1915 and 1916 World Series, Shore went a combined 3-1 with a 1.82 ERA as the Red Sox won back-to-back titles. He tossed a complete game, surrendering just an unearned run, in the clinching game of the 1916 World Series against Brooklyn.
In 1917, he won 13 games to go along with a 2.22 ERA, including his remarkable effort in relief of Ruth. After that, though, he was pressed into military service and missed the 1918 season. When he returned, he was sold to the New York Yankees along with Duffy Lewis and Dutch Leonard -- the first of a slew of deals that would ruin the Red Sox for the next couple of decades.
73. Jimmy Piersall
Perhaps best known for his fight with mental illness and the book (and movie) "Fear Strikes Out," Piersall was an awfully good player, too. Funny thing is, he actually had his best years after his breakdown in the summer of 1952. At that point, of course, he wasn't yet 23 years old.
And when he came back, he replaced Dom DiMaggio as the Red Sox's regular center fielder and even earned two All-Star bids in the process. He hit .283 with 13 home runs in 1955, .293 with 14 home runs in 1956 and .261 with 19 home runs in 1957. And in his final season with the Red Sox, he even won his first career Gold Glove.
The breakdowns, though, provided all sorts of stories. Piersall was the future when he came up in 1952; DiMaggio was 35 and Ted Williams, who spent most of the year flying missions in Korea, was 33. Piersall, though, couldn't seem the handle the spotlight. He oinked at Satchel Paige after a bunt single; "That boy's sick," Paige said. He then threw a ball at his own pitcher and barked like a dog when the umpire ordered him to retrieve it. He later wrote that he had almost no memory, after the fact, of the first eight months of 1952, which included the birth of one of his daughters: "My mind is almost an absolute blank."
"Almost everybody except the umpires and the Red Sox thought I was a riot," he wrote in the opening pages of "Fear Strikes Out." "My wife knew I was sick, yet she was helpless to stop my mad rush towards a mental collapse. The Red Sox couldn't figure out how to handle me. I was a problem child. The umpires, whom I plagued with silly protests over routine decisions, thought I was a pain in the neck."
He was. He was also a heck of a baseball player.
72. Dennis Eckersley
For as many wins as Eckersley had in his first six and a half seasons with the Red Sox -- and he had 88 wins, tied for 18th all-time on the franchise list -- he had just as many words in his vocabulary that no one else had ever heard.
"He knew more words that weren't in the dictionary than ones that were," Bill Lee wrote in his autobiography.
Among them:
* "Yakker for your coolu" meant a fastball that was going to drill someone;
* "Cheese for your kitchen" meant a fastball up and in;
* "Getting oiled" meant going drinking.
"Dennis called me Sherwin Williams, claiming I was the greatest painter of home plate," Lee wrote. "I said, 'Well, then why don't you call me Picasso or Renoir?' But, no, Sherwin Williams was his idea of a great painter. I guess it was because Sherwin had made more money than the other two."
Eckersley went 20-8 with a 2.99 ERA in 1978. Down the stretch, when the rest of his team was falling apart, he lifted his game; he had a 2.28 ERA and 11 complete games in his last 15 starts. A year later, he won 17 games with a 2.99 ERA, the third-best ERA in the American League.
The Eck made his reputation as the most dominating short reliever in the game's history, as evidenced by his 0.61 ERA and 73-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 1990. (Seriously. Four walks. All season.) Before that, though, he was the ace starter who bridged the gap between the Red Sox of Lee and Luis Tiant and the Red Sox of Roger Clemens.
71. Ray Culp
Culp missed out on the Impossible Dream season of 1967; he was traded to Boston about a month and a half after the World Series ended. It turned out to be just the right time for him, though. Ace Jim Lonborg tore knee ligaments in a skiing accident in December, and Culp suddenly found himself the ace of the defending American League champions.
It was a tall order for a guy who had gone 8-11 with a 3.89 ERA with the Cubs the year before. No problem. Culp went 16-6 with a 2.91 ERA; he threw a career-best six complete-game shutouts, including four straight in September as part of a 39-inning scoreless streak. In that span, he blanked the Twins, Orioles, Yankees and Senators; in his start against the Yankees, he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning. Over the next three years, he won 17, 17 and 14 games and compiled a 3.47 ERA. After that, though, he faded into obscurity and was out of baseball by 1974.
It could be argued that Culp is one of the most underrated Red Sox pitchers of the post-World War II era, in large part because he didn't pitch for the 1967 or 1975 or 1986 World Series teams. Instead, he was the ace of a series of third-place teams in the years between Lonborg and Luis Tiant.
And here's one more fun story, courtesy of Bill Lee: "He once gave up a line drive to Willie Horton that caromed off Ray's head, shooting into center field where Reggie Smith made a shoestring catch on it. Culp shrugged it off, got the next batter and finished the game. When he came into the clubhouse, he said, 'Don't tell me I don't know where to play hitters.'"
Coming up: An MVP and a Rookie of the Year.
100. Keith Foulke, P
99. Hugh Bedient, P
98. Rick Ferrell, P
97. Butch Hobson, 3B
96. Lee Smith, P
95. Jesse Tannehill, P
94. Mike Timlin, P
93. Herb Pennock, P
92. Dick Stuart, 1B
91. Sammy White, C
90. Doc Cramer, OF
89. Freddy Parent, SS
88. Jerry Remy, 2B
87. Walt Dropo, 1B
86. Rich Gedman, C
85. Heinie Wagner, SS
84. Everett Scott, SS
83. Sparky Lyle, P
82. Billy Goodman, 1B/2B
81. Oil Can Boyd, P
80. Boo Ferriss, P
79. Mike Andrews, 2B
78. Troy O'Leary, OF
77. Ray Collins, P
76. Mike Boddicker, P
Let's keep going, shall we?
75. Sad Sam Jones
It's tough to assemble much more of a formidable pitching staff than the Red Sox assembled in the war-affected 1918 season. Among the stars: Carl Mays (21-13, 2.21 ERA), Joe Bush (15-15, 2.11 ERA), Babe Ruth (13-7, 2.22 ERA) and Dutch Leonard (8-6, 2.72 ERA). But none had a better won-loss record than Jones, who went 16-5 with a 2.25 ERA and five complete-game shutouts.
All five of those pitchers were in their mid-20s. Ruth, at 23, was the youngest, and Mays and Leonard were the oldest. Jones was right in the middle but by far the least experienced; he had just 10 career starts under his belt when the season began. That didn't seem to bother him, though, as he led the American League in winning percentage and ranked 10th in ERA.
He scuffled in 1919 and 1920, finishing with a sub-.500 winning record and an ERA closer to 4.00 than 3.00. (In 1919, in fact, he allowed more earned runs than any other pitcher in the league.) But he came back strong in 1921 as the ace of the rapidly fading Red Sox, winning 23 games for a team that won just 75 games all season. He had a 3.22 ERA and threw 25 complete games; he almost threw 300 innings, in fact.
That, of course, was enough to get him sold to the Yankees. Before he departed, though, he'd accumulated an ERA that still ranks him 24th in team history; his 64 career wins ranks him 32nd in team history.
(For what it's worth: Three of the other four starters on that staff are going to show up elsewhere on this list. Only Bush, who pitched just two more seasons with the Red Sox before he was sold to the Yankees, didn't make the cut. That's an impressive pitching staff.)
74. Ernie Shore
We all know the story: Babe Ruth walked the leadoff man on four pitches to open a start against Washington in June of 1917. Each pitch was somewhere near the strike zone; not one was called a strike. Ruth began to jaw at the home-plate umpire; the home-plate umpire began to jaw back.
"You get back in there and pitch or I'll run you out of the ballpark!"
"If you run me out of the ballpark, I'll take a punch at you on my way!"
(This is from a newspaper account; it's likely that Ruth's threat was a little more colorful than that.)
Ruth, of course, was tossed, and he did in fact try to throw a few punches. With no one out and a runner on first base, the Red Sox had to call on Shore to finish the outing. The 6-foot-4 righthander came out of the bullpen and retired 27 straight, including a caught-stealing to retire the hitter who had walked.
But Shore wasn't just the man who made the greatest relief appearance in history. Actually, he was a starter for his entire four-year career with the Red Sox. In 1915, he threw 17 complete games and went 19-8 with a 1.64 ERA; in 1916, he went 16-10 with a 2.63 ERA. In the 1915 and 1916 World Series, Shore went a combined 3-1 with a 1.82 ERA as the Red Sox won back-to-back titles. He tossed a complete game, surrendering just an unearned run, in the clinching game of the 1916 World Series against Brooklyn.
In 1917, he won 13 games to go along with a 2.22 ERA, including his remarkable effort in relief of Ruth. After that, though, he was pressed into military service and missed the 1918 season. When he returned, he was sold to the New York Yankees along with Duffy Lewis and Dutch Leonard -- the first of a slew of deals that would ruin the Red Sox for the next couple of decades.
73. Jimmy Piersall
Perhaps best known for his fight with mental illness and the book (and movie) "Fear Strikes Out," Piersall was an awfully good player, too. Funny thing is, he actually had his best years after his breakdown in the summer of 1952. At that point, of course, he wasn't yet 23 years old.
And when he came back, he replaced Dom DiMaggio as the Red Sox's regular center fielder and even earned two All-Star bids in the process. He hit .283 with 13 home runs in 1955, .293 with 14 home runs in 1956 and .261 with 19 home runs in 1957. And in his final season with the Red Sox, he even won his first career Gold Glove.
The breakdowns, though, provided all sorts of stories. Piersall was the future when he came up in 1952; DiMaggio was 35 and Ted Williams, who spent most of the year flying missions in Korea, was 33. Piersall, though, couldn't seem the handle the spotlight. He oinked at Satchel Paige after a bunt single; "That boy's sick," Paige said. He then threw a ball at his own pitcher and barked like a dog when the umpire ordered him to retrieve it. He later wrote that he had almost no memory, after the fact, of the first eight months of 1952, which included the birth of one of his daughters: "My mind is almost an absolute blank."
"Almost everybody except the umpires and the Red Sox thought I was a riot," he wrote in the opening pages of "Fear Strikes Out." "My wife knew I was sick, yet she was helpless to stop my mad rush towards a mental collapse. The Red Sox couldn't figure out how to handle me. I was a problem child. The umpires, whom I plagued with silly protests over routine decisions, thought I was a pain in the neck."
He was. He was also a heck of a baseball player.
72. Dennis Eckersley
For as many wins as Eckersley had in his first six and a half seasons with the Red Sox -- and he had 88 wins, tied for 18th all-time on the franchise list -- he had just as many words in his vocabulary that no one else had ever heard.
"He knew more words that weren't in the dictionary than ones that were," Bill Lee wrote in his autobiography.
Among them:
* "Yakker for your coolu" meant a fastball that was going to drill someone;
* "Cheese for your kitchen" meant a fastball up and in;
* "Getting oiled" meant going drinking.
"Dennis called me Sherwin Williams, claiming I was the greatest painter of home plate," Lee wrote. "I said, 'Well, then why don't you call me Picasso or Renoir?' But, no, Sherwin Williams was his idea of a great painter. I guess it was because Sherwin had made more money than the other two."
Eckersley went 20-8 with a 2.99 ERA in 1978. Down the stretch, when the rest of his team was falling apart, he lifted his game; he had a 2.28 ERA and 11 complete games in his last 15 starts. A year later, he won 17 games with a 2.99 ERA, the third-best ERA in the American League.
The Eck made his reputation as the most dominating short reliever in the game's history, as evidenced by his 0.61 ERA and 73-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 1990. (Seriously. Four walks. All season.) Before that, though, he was the ace starter who bridged the gap between the Red Sox of Lee and Luis Tiant and the Red Sox of Roger Clemens.
71. Ray Culp
Culp missed out on the Impossible Dream season of 1967; he was traded to Boston about a month and a half after the World Series ended. It turned out to be just the right time for him, though. Ace Jim Lonborg tore knee ligaments in a skiing accident in December, and Culp suddenly found himself the ace of the defending American League champions.
It was a tall order for a guy who had gone 8-11 with a 3.89 ERA with the Cubs the year before. No problem. Culp went 16-6 with a 2.91 ERA; he threw a career-best six complete-game shutouts, including four straight in September as part of a 39-inning scoreless streak. In that span, he blanked the Twins, Orioles, Yankees and Senators; in his start against the Yankees, he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning. Over the next three years, he won 17, 17 and 14 games and compiled a 3.47 ERA. After that, though, he faded into obscurity and was out of baseball by 1974.
It could be argued that Culp is one of the most underrated Red Sox pitchers of the post-World War II era, in large part because he didn't pitch for the 1967 or 1975 or 1986 World Series teams. Instead, he was the ace of a series of third-place teams in the years between Lonborg and Luis Tiant.
And here's one more fun story, courtesy of Bill Lee: "He once gave up a line drive to Willie Horton that caromed off Ray's head, shooting into center field where Reggie Smith made a shoestring catch on it. Culp shrugged it off, got the next batter and finished the game. When he came into the clubhouse, he said, 'Don't tell me I don't know where to play hitters.'"
Coming up: An MVP and a Rookie of the Year.
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Top 100 Red Sox: 76-80
Are we having fun yet?
100. Keith Foulke, P
99. Hugh Bedient, P
98. Rick Ferrell, P
97. Butch Hobson, 3B
96. Lee Smith, P
95. Jesse Tannehill, P
94. Mike Timlin, P
93. Herb Pennock, P
92. Dick Stuart, 1B
91. Sammy White, C
90. Doc Cramer, OF
89. Freddy Parent, SS
88. Jerry Remy, 2B
87. Walt Dropo, 1B
86. Rich Gedman, C
85. Heinie Wagner, SS
84. Everett Scott, SS
83. Sparky Lyle, P
82. Billy Goodman, 1B/2B
81. Oil Can Boyd, P
The interesting thing about a list like this is that the Red Sox are enjoying the the greatest run of success in their history right now. Players from the 1950s and 1960s have that historic aura around them, but there's a reason the Red Sox have won two World Series titles this decade after going almost nine decades without one.
The point is: Yes, there will be contemporary players on this list. Just not yet. Some of those contemporary players, after all, are pretty darn good.
80. Dave "Boo" Ferriss
The Red Sox lost almost their entire roster to military service during World War II. Hitters Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr and Dom DiMaggio all went into the service, and the pitchign staff wasn't spared, either: Ace Tex Hughson and mainstays Joe Dobson and Charlie Wagner likewise got the call midway through the war.
Ferriss, meanwhile, served from 1942-1945 but was discharged early thanks to asthma -- a tremendous stroke of luck for the Red Sox. He was just 23 years old when he made his debut at Fenway Park -- and he was an instant hit. He went 21-10 with a 2.96 ERA in his first season, and he made 31 starts and finished with 26 complete games, including five shutouts. He finished fourth in American League MVP voting behind Detroit pitcher Hal Newhouser.
And when the end of the war brought the heart of the Red Sox roster back to Boston, Ferris got even better. The 24-year-old righty went 25-6 with a 3.25 ERA and six complete-game shutouts; his seventh-place finish in MVP voting is perhaps even more impressive given that Williams, Doerr, Mickey Vernon, Bob Feller and Hank Greenberg all had returned from the service.
The Red Sox cruised to the pennant in 1946, outpacing Detroit by 12 games and the third-place New York Yankees by 17 games; it was their first pennant in almost 30 years. And while the World Series against St. Louis ended in defeat, the Red Sox ace did more than his part. In Game 3, Ferriss tossed a four-hit shutout to give the Red Sox a one-game lead in the series. In Game 7, he surrendered a run through four innings but was knocked out of the game in the fifth thanks to a three singles and a double; the Cardinals went on to win thanks to Enos Slaughter's race around the basepaths in the bottom of the eighth inning.
A year later, the 750-plus innings Ferriss had thrown in three seasons finally caught up with him. In July of 1947, he felt his shoulder go numb on a full-count curveball that got him out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the seventh inning. He went out and finished the game, even winning 1-0 on home run by Doerr in the ninth inning, but he never did recapture the sinking fastball that had won him all those games. He was out of the major leagues by 1950.
If not for Slaughter's dash and a couple of bad breaks, though, he could have been the pitcher who lifted the Red Sox to a World Series title.
79. Mike Andrews
The 6-foot-3 second baseman had all of 18 big-league at-bats under his belt before the 1967 season; he hadn't yet turned 24 years old. But when incumbent second baseman George Smith tore cartilage in his knee in spring training, Andrews suddenly had himself a full-time job.
He took it and ran with it, hitting .263 with 79 runs scored in perhaps the most memorable season in Red sox history; he hit .342 with six doubles and 12 runs scored in the month of September alone. In the game that put the Red Sox in first place for good, a Sept. 30 win over Minnesota, he went 2-for-3 and was standing on second base when Carl Yastrzemski hit a three-run home run in the seventh inning. He didn't start the season's final game the next day, but he turned a double play in the ninth inning to thwart a potential rally.
Andrews saw veteran utilityman Jerry Adair play in his place in each of the first four games of the World Series against St. Louis, but Andrews got the start in each of the final three games; he went 2-for-5 with a run scored and an RBI in an 8-4 win in Game 6. Like everyone else, though, he could muster little against Bob Gibson in a Game 7 defeat.
Andrews only got better in the years to come. He hit .271 with 77 runs scored in 1968, an even more impressive feat considering that the average American Leaguer hit .230 that season. He then went to his only All-Star Game thanks to a .293 average and 15 home runs. He followed that up with a .253 average and a career-best 17 home runs in 1970 before the Red Sox traded him to the Chicago White Sox. By then, Yastrzemski was pretty much the only survivor from the Impossible Dream team; the groundwork was being laid for a revival in the mid-1970s.
78. Troy O'Leary
Here's the best part of Troy O'Leary's ridiculous night against the Cleveland Indians in Game 5 of the 1999 American League Division Series: In the top of the ninth inning, with the Red Sox up by an 11-8 score, the Indians elected to pitch to Nomar Garciaparra (he doubled home a run) and walk O'Leary intentionally.
They really had no choice. In the two of the three previous trips through the order, they'd walked Garciaparra only to see O'Leary -- a waiver-wire pickup four years earlier -- hit home runs. His first was a grand slam in the top of the third inning to give the Red Sox a 7-5 lead in a back-and-forth game; his second was a three-run home run in the top of the seventh inning to give the Red Sox an 11-8 lead.
Both times, the Indians had opted to put Garciaparra on base rather than give him anything to hit. Both times, O'Leary jumped on the first pitch he faced and deposited it in the right-field seats.
Those home runs were all the more unlikely given the way O'Leary had played to that point. In four ALDS games against Cleveland in 1998, the soft-spoken left fielder went 1-for-16. In the first four games of the ALDS in 1999, he'd gone 2-for-16. And in the first inning of Game 5, after Garciaparra put the Red Sox ahead with a home run, O'Leary struck out to end the inning.
Not in the third. Not again. Not after a season in which he'd hit a career-best 28 home runs and driven in 100 runs. And not with a trip to the American League Championship Series -- his team's first since the expansion of the postseason five years earlier -- on the line.
"It's the biggest night of my life," he told reporters after the game.
No, really?
77. Ray Collins
Here's how good the Red Sox pitching rotation was in 1915 -- Collins, coming off a 19-win season in 1913 and a 20-win season in 1914, was relegated to the bullpen. He made just nine starts that season and didn't appear in the World Series; he was out of baseball by the next spring.
Before that, though, Collins was a force. He pitched for the Red Sox for six full seasons, throwing 19 shutouts in the process; his 2.51 ERA still is good enough for ninth on the all-time list, just ahead of a guy named Pedro Martinez. (Even if you adjust his ERA for the time period in which he pitched, he's still among the top 30 in team history -- ahead of Josh Beckett, Bill Lee, Sonny Siebert and Bill Monbouquette.)
He tossed 7 1/3 solid innings in Game 2 of the 1912 World Series, going toe-to-toe with the New York Giants' Christy Mathewson in a game that would end in a 6-6 tie. He then came back and pitched seven shutout innings in relief in Game 6 after the Giants knocked Buck O'Brien from the game after just the first inning. The Red Sox would lose that game and Game 7 but win Game 8 to clinch the World Series championship.
Collins' best seasons, though, were yet to come. He went 19-8 with a 2.63 ERA in 1913 and threw three complete-game shutouts; he went 20-13 with a 2.51 ERA in 1914 and threw six complete-game shutuouts. (His 19 career shutouts rank him seventh in team history in a tie with Tex Hughson.) Arm trouble and the rise of a youngster named Babe Ruth kept him out of the rotation in 1915, and he was all but finished after that.
76. Mike Boddicker
The 5-foot-11 righthander already was on the back nine of his career when the Red Sox acquired him in July of 1988 in exchange for Brady Anderson and Curt Schilling. He'd won 20 games in 1984 and at least 10 in each of the next three seasons after that. He was 6-12, though, when the foundering Orioles shipped him to Boston.
Two months later, he was pitching in the playoffs for the first time in five years. He had a 2.56 ERA in his 14 starts down the stretch, including a complete-game shutout against Cleveland on Sept 29 that clinched a share of the American League East title for the Red Sox. (He then was blitzed for six runs in 2 2/3 innings by the Oakland A's in Game 3 of the ALCS.)
Boddicker won 15 games to go along with a 4.00 ERA in 1989, but he was outstanding yet again in 1990 -- not coincidentally another year in which the Red Sox won a division title. He went 17-8 with a 3.36 ERA for the season, but he was 6-2 with a 2.08 ERA after Aug. 1. Boddicker's most important win wasn't his prettiest; the Red Sox were one game up on Toronto in the American League East with one game to play, and he surrendered just one run in seven innings of work to beat the White Sox and fend off the pesky Blue Jays.
Boddicker would depart as a free agent after the season and sign with the Kansas City Royals, where he'd all but play out the string. But his two and a half seasons with the Red Sox were enough to earn him a spot in the Red Sox record books -- his ERA (3.49) ranks him 31st all-time, and his ERA+ (118) ranks him 21st all-time -- as well a spot in Red Sox lore.
Coming up: The greatest relief-pitching performance ever.
100. Keith Foulke, P
99. Hugh Bedient, P
98. Rick Ferrell, P
97. Butch Hobson, 3B
96. Lee Smith, P
95. Jesse Tannehill, P
94. Mike Timlin, P
93. Herb Pennock, P
92. Dick Stuart, 1B
91. Sammy White, C
90. Doc Cramer, OF
89. Freddy Parent, SS
88. Jerry Remy, 2B
87. Walt Dropo, 1B
86. Rich Gedman, C
85. Heinie Wagner, SS
84. Everett Scott, SS
83. Sparky Lyle, P
82. Billy Goodman, 1B/2B
81. Oil Can Boyd, P
The interesting thing about a list like this is that the Red Sox are enjoying the the greatest run of success in their history right now. Players from the 1950s and 1960s have that historic aura around them, but there's a reason the Red Sox have won two World Series titles this decade after going almost nine decades without one.
The point is: Yes, there will be contemporary players on this list. Just not yet. Some of those contemporary players, after all, are pretty darn good.
80. Dave "Boo" Ferriss
The Red Sox lost almost their entire roster to military service during World War II. Hitters Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr and Dom DiMaggio all went into the service, and the pitchign staff wasn't spared, either: Ace Tex Hughson and mainstays Joe Dobson and Charlie Wagner likewise got the call midway through the war.
Ferriss, meanwhile, served from 1942-1945 but was discharged early thanks to asthma -- a tremendous stroke of luck for the Red Sox. He was just 23 years old when he made his debut at Fenway Park -- and he was an instant hit. He went 21-10 with a 2.96 ERA in his first season, and he made 31 starts and finished with 26 complete games, including five shutouts. He finished fourth in American League MVP voting behind Detroit pitcher Hal Newhouser.
And when the end of the war brought the heart of the Red Sox roster back to Boston, Ferris got even better. The 24-year-old righty went 25-6 with a 3.25 ERA and six complete-game shutouts; his seventh-place finish in MVP voting is perhaps even more impressive given that Williams, Doerr, Mickey Vernon, Bob Feller and Hank Greenberg all had returned from the service.
The Red Sox cruised to the pennant in 1946, outpacing Detroit by 12 games and the third-place New York Yankees by 17 games; it was their first pennant in almost 30 years. And while the World Series against St. Louis ended in defeat, the Red Sox ace did more than his part. In Game 3, Ferriss tossed a four-hit shutout to give the Red Sox a one-game lead in the series. In Game 7, he surrendered a run through four innings but was knocked out of the game in the fifth thanks to a three singles and a double; the Cardinals went on to win thanks to Enos Slaughter's race around the basepaths in the bottom of the eighth inning.
A year later, the 750-plus innings Ferriss had thrown in three seasons finally caught up with him. In July of 1947, he felt his shoulder go numb on a full-count curveball that got him out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the seventh inning. He went out and finished the game, even winning 1-0 on home run by Doerr in the ninth inning, but he never did recapture the sinking fastball that had won him all those games. He was out of the major leagues by 1950.
If not for Slaughter's dash and a couple of bad breaks, though, he could have been the pitcher who lifted the Red Sox to a World Series title.
79. Mike Andrews
The 6-foot-3 second baseman had all of 18 big-league at-bats under his belt before the 1967 season; he hadn't yet turned 24 years old. But when incumbent second baseman George Smith tore cartilage in his knee in spring training, Andrews suddenly had himself a full-time job.
He took it and ran with it, hitting .263 with 79 runs scored in perhaps the most memorable season in Red sox history; he hit .342 with six doubles and 12 runs scored in the month of September alone. In the game that put the Red Sox in first place for good, a Sept. 30 win over Minnesota, he went 2-for-3 and was standing on second base when Carl Yastrzemski hit a three-run home run in the seventh inning. He didn't start the season's final game the next day, but he turned a double play in the ninth inning to thwart a potential rally.
Andrews saw veteran utilityman Jerry Adair play in his place in each of the first four games of the World Series against St. Louis, but Andrews got the start in each of the final three games; he went 2-for-5 with a run scored and an RBI in an 8-4 win in Game 6. Like everyone else, though, he could muster little against Bob Gibson in a Game 7 defeat.
Andrews only got better in the years to come. He hit .271 with 77 runs scored in 1968, an even more impressive feat considering that the average American Leaguer hit .230 that season. He then went to his only All-Star Game thanks to a .293 average and 15 home runs. He followed that up with a .253 average and a career-best 17 home runs in 1970 before the Red Sox traded him to the Chicago White Sox. By then, Yastrzemski was pretty much the only survivor from the Impossible Dream team; the groundwork was being laid for a revival in the mid-1970s.
78. Troy O'Leary
Here's the best part of Troy O'Leary's ridiculous night against the Cleveland Indians in Game 5 of the 1999 American League Division Series: In the top of the ninth inning, with the Red Sox up by an 11-8 score, the Indians elected to pitch to Nomar Garciaparra (he doubled home a run) and walk O'Leary intentionally.
They really had no choice. In the two of the three previous trips through the order, they'd walked Garciaparra only to see O'Leary -- a waiver-wire pickup four years earlier -- hit home runs. His first was a grand slam in the top of the third inning to give the Red Sox a 7-5 lead in a back-and-forth game; his second was a three-run home run in the top of the seventh inning to give the Red Sox an 11-8 lead.
Both times, the Indians had opted to put Garciaparra on base rather than give him anything to hit. Both times, O'Leary jumped on the first pitch he faced and deposited it in the right-field seats.
Those home runs were all the more unlikely given the way O'Leary had played to that point. In four ALDS games against Cleveland in 1998, the soft-spoken left fielder went 1-for-16. In the first four games of the ALDS in 1999, he'd gone 2-for-16. And in the first inning of Game 5, after Garciaparra put the Red Sox ahead with a home run, O'Leary struck out to end the inning.
Not in the third. Not again. Not after a season in which he'd hit a career-best 28 home runs and driven in 100 runs. And not with a trip to the American League Championship Series -- his team's first since the expansion of the postseason five years earlier -- on the line.
"It's the biggest night of my life," he told reporters after the game.
No, really?
77. Ray Collins
Here's how good the Red Sox pitching rotation was in 1915 -- Collins, coming off a 19-win season in 1913 and a 20-win season in 1914, was relegated to the bullpen. He made just nine starts that season and didn't appear in the World Series; he was out of baseball by the next spring.
Before that, though, Collins was a force. He pitched for the Red Sox for six full seasons, throwing 19 shutouts in the process; his 2.51 ERA still is good enough for ninth on the all-time list, just ahead of a guy named Pedro Martinez. (Even if you adjust his ERA for the time period in which he pitched, he's still among the top 30 in team history -- ahead of Josh Beckett, Bill Lee, Sonny Siebert and Bill Monbouquette.)
He tossed 7 1/3 solid innings in Game 2 of the 1912 World Series, going toe-to-toe with the New York Giants' Christy Mathewson in a game that would end in a 6-6 tie. He then came back and pitched seven shutout innings in relief in Game 6 after the Giants knocked Buck O'Brien from the game after just the first inning. The Red Sox would lose that game and Game 7 but win Game 8 to clinch the World Series championship.
Collins' best seasons, though, were yet to come. He went 19-8 with a 2.63 ERA in 1913 and threw three complete-game shutouts; he went 20-13 with a 2.51 ERA in 1914 and threw six complete-game shutuouts. (His 19 career shutouts rank him seventh in team history in a tie with Tex Hughson.) Arm trouble and the rise of a youngster named Babe Ruth kept him out of the rotation in 1915, and he was all but finished after that.
76. Mike Boddicker
The 5-foot-11 righthander already was on the back nine of his career when the Red Sox acquired him in July of 1988 in exchange for Brady Anderson and Curt Schilling. He'd won 20 games in 1984 and at least 10 in each of the next three seasons after that. He was 6-12, though, when the foundering Orioles shipped him to Boston.
Two months later, he was pitching in the playoffs for the first time in five years. He had a 2.56 ERA in his 14 starts down the stretch, including a complete-game shutout against Cleveland on Sept 29 that clinched a share of the American League East title for the Red Sox. (He then was blitzed for six runs in 2 2/3 innings by the Oakland A's in Game 3 of the ALCS.)
Boddicker won 15 games to go along with a 4.00 ERA in 1989, but he was outstanding yet again in 1990 -- not coincidentally another year in which the Red Sox won a division title. He went 17-8 with a 3.36 ERA for the season, but he was 6-2 with a 2.08 ERA after Aug. 1. Boddicker's most important win wasn't his prettiest; the Red Sox were one game up on Toronto in the American League East with one game to play, and he surrendered just one run in seven innings of work to beat the White Sox and fend off the pesky Blue Jays.
Boddicker would depart as a free agent after the season and sign with the Kansas City Royals, where he'd all but play out the string. But his two and a half seasons with the Red Sox were enough to earn him a spot in the Red Sox record books -- his ERA (3.49) ranks him 31st all-time, and his ERA+ (118) ranks him 21st all-time -- as well a spot in Red Sox lore.
Coming up: The greatest relief-pitching performance ever.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Calm down about World Baseball Classic loss
So I didn't get to watch the World Baseball Classic game between the United States and Puerto Rico on Saturday night. When I woke up on Sunday morning, though, I had plenty to read about:
* From SI.com's Jon Heyman: This nation, the United States of America, doesn't need to await the verdict on its team. It looks very bad. ...
This surely is a nice Puerto Rican team, but it shouldn't dominate a U.S. team like this. ...
Even if the U.S. teams looked better on paper, it was no match on the field, where Puerto Rico dominated every facet. Puerto Rico's starting pitcher Javier Vazquez, who's known here as a solid innings eater who supposedly chokes in big games, pitched a solid five innings before four relievers shut down the vaunted U.S. lineup.
Pitching against a lineup of All Stars, Vazquez belied his rep and dominated the U.S. team. He was the pitcher the Braves acquired in trade when they failed to land their top choice, who happened to be (Jake) Peavy.
Peavy was gone after two innings. But the by the time he was out, the game was over, and his trade value had dropped precipitously.
From FoxSports.com's Gerry Fraley: ... one of the darkest days in Team USA history.
* From Newsday's Ken Davidoff: This was supposed to be a leaner, meaner Team USA that partook in this second World Baseball Classic. A "team," with all of its positive connotations, that would avoid the slip-ups of its predecessor.
Last night at Dolphin Stadium, however, Team USA set a new low for ineptitude.
And I was left with one question: Isn't this, you know, baseball?
The best teams in the game lose 60 times a year. The best team in history -- at least, when you're judging by regular-season records -- lost 46 times, including five times by five or more runs. The worst team in history -- again, by regular-season records -- won 40 games, including, for example, a 13-2 shellacking of Houston in mid-June and a 10-4 beatdown a week later of a Los Angeles team that would go on to win more than 100 games.
Closer to home: The Red Sox won 95 games last season but, of course, still lost 67. They lost 17 games in blowout fashion, including a pair of butt-kickings delivered by Toronto (15-4 and 11-0) in a span lasting barely a week.
Yes, the United States lost to Puerto Rico on Saturday. Yes, it's embarrassing when the mercy rule is invoked on your behalf. But let's calm down and stop drawing broad, sweeping conclusions from one game. This still could be the leaner, meaner team that marches to a championship where the previous incarnation failed. It just isn't going to avoid having to deal with slip-ups.
After all, this is baseball.
Let's look specifically at Peavy. Critics everywhere are outraged that Peavy wasn't yanked before the game could get out of hand; others, like Heyman, are writing that Peavy's trade value has plummeted thanks to his spectacular flop on such a big stage.
Or, you know, not.
First of all, isn't it convenient 20-20 hindsight to go after Davey Johnson for failing to lift Peavy in the first or second inning? It is, after all, Peavy. The guy hasn't failed to pitch into the fourth inning in his entire big-league career. Could you really have made an argument, as everything was unfolding, that Peavy had less of a chance to keep his team close in the early going than Joel Freaking Hanrahan?
Second of all, it's baseball. Just look back at the track record of Peavy. Just two years ago, Peavy went 19-6 with a 2.54 ERA in winning the National League's Cy Young award; he struck out 240 and walked just 68, and opponents hit just .208 off him. That same year, though, he totally bombed in a late-season start at Arizona. He surrendered a two-run home run in the first inning, another home run in the fourth inning and then couldn't get an out in the fifth inning thanks to the three walks he issued to the first four batters he faced. (The fourth hit a triple.)
The reaction after that game -- a game in which Peavy was throwing on weird rest, just as he was on Saturday?
"I just didn't make a whole lot of good pitches," he said. "It was a bad night to a have a bad night. I felt great. Walking guys, getting behind; ... they had a lot of good at-bats, but I just didn't make good pitches."
That was it. No one's value dropped precipitously. No one's entire approach toward the game suddenly needed to be questioned. He had an awful night. He moved on. Matter of fact, he pitched seven strong innings in each of his next four starts.
It's baseball. You can't ever -- ever, ever, ever -- draw broad conclusions on the strength of one game. Maybe the United States really isn't taking the World Baseball Classic seriously enough. Maybe the American players don't feel enough national pride. Maybe Davey Johnson should have skipped the wedding he attended.
(More ridiculousness from Heyman: "It was Johnson who urged the team several days ago to commit fully to the team, and not treat it like an exhibition. But you have to wonder whether any of that message was lost in translation when Johnson missed Friday's practice, presumably for the rehearsal dinner.")
To draw all of those conclusions from one lousy game, though? Come on. We know baseball better than that, don't we?
* From SI.com's Jon Heyman: This nation, the United States of America, doesn't need to await the verdict on its team. It looks very bad. ...
This surely is a nice Puerto Rican team, but it shouldn't dominate a U.S. team like this. ...
Even if the U.S. teams looked better on paper, it was no match on the field, where Puerto Rico dominated every facet. Puerto Rico's starting pitcher Javier Vazquez, who's known here as a solid innings eater who supposedly chokes in big games, pitched a solid five innings before four relievers shut down the vaunted U.S. lineup.
Pitching against a lineup of All Stars, Vazquez belied his rep and dominated the U.S. team. He was the pitcher the Braves acquired in trade when they failed to land their top choice, who happened to be (Jake) Peavy.
Peavy was gone after two innings. But the by the time he was out, the game was over, and his trade value had dropped precipitously.
From FoxSports.com's Gerry Fraley: ... one of the darkest days in Team USA history.
* From Newsday's Ken Davidoff: This was supposed to be a leaner, meaner Team USA that partook in this second World Baseball Classic. A "team," with all of its positive connotations, that would avoid the slip-ups of its predecessor.
Last night at Dolphin Stadium, however, Team USA set a new low for ineptitude.
And I was left with one question: Isn't this, you know, baseball?
The best teams in the game lose 60 times a year. The best team in history -- at least, when you're judging by regular-season records -- lost 46 times, including five times by five or more runs. The worst team in history -- again, by regular-season records -- won 40 games, including, for example, a 13-2 shellacking of Houston in mid-June and a 10-4 beatdown a week later of a Los Angeles team that would go on to win more than 100 games.
Closer to home: The Red Sox won 95 games last season but, of course, still lost 67. They lost 17 games in blowout fashion, including a pair of butt-kickings delivered by Toronto (15-4 and 11-0) in a span lasting barely a week.
Yes, the United States lost to Puerto Rico on Saturday. Yes, it's embarrassing when the mercy rule is invoked on your behalf. But let's calm down and stop drawing broad, sweeping conclusions from one game. This still could be the leaner, meaner team that marches to a championship where the previous incarnation failed. It just isn't going to avoid having to deal with slip-ups.
After all, this is baseball.
Let's look specifically at Peavy. Critics everywhere are outraged that Peavy wasn't yanked before the game could get out of hand; others, like Heyman, are writing that Peavy's trade value has plummeted thanks to his spectacular flop on such a big stage.
Or, you know, not.
First of all, isn't it convenient 20-20 hindsight to go after Davey Johnson for failing to lift Peavy in the first or second inning? It is, after all, Peavy. The guy hasn't failed to pitch into the fourth inning in his entire big-league career. Could you really have made an argument, as everything was unfolding, that Peavy had less of a chance to keep his team close in the early going than Joel Freaking Hanrahan?
Second of all, it's baseball. Just look back at the track record of Peavy. Just two years ago, Peavy went 19-6 with a 2.54 ERA in winning the National League's Cy Young award; he struck out 240 and walked just 68, and opponents hit just .208 off him. That same year, though, he totally bombed in a late-season start at Arizona. He surrendered a two-run home run in the first inning, another home run in the fourth inning and then couldn't get an out in the fifth inning thanks to the three walks he issued to the first four batters he faced. (The fourth hit a triple.)
The reaction after that game -- a game in which Peavy was throwing on weird rest, just as he was on Saturday?
"I just didn't make a whole lot of good pitches," he said. "It was a bad night to a have a bad night. I felt great. Walking guys, getting behind; ... they had a lot of good at-bats, but I just didn't make good pitches."
That was it. No one's value dropped precipitously. No one's entire approach toward the game suddenly needed to be questioned. He had an awful night. He moved on. Matter of fact, he pitched seven strong innings in each of his next four starts.
It's baseball. You can't ever -- ever, ever, ever -- draw broad conclusions on the strength of one game. Maybe the United States really isn't taking the World Baseball Classic seriously enough. Maybe the American players don't feel enough national pride. Maybe Davey Johnson should have skipped the wedding he attended.
(More ridiculousness from Heyman: "It was Johnson who urged the team several days ago to commit fully to the team, and not treat it like an exhibition. But you have to wonder whether any of that message was lost in translation when Johnson missed Friday's practice, presumably for the rehearsal dinner.")
To draw all of those conclusions from one lousy game, though? Come on. We know baseball better than that, don't we?
The Top 100 Red Sox: 81-85
To recap:
100. Keith Foulke, P
99. Hugh Bedient, P
98. Rick Ferrell, P
97. Butch Hobson, 3B
96. Lee Smith, P
95. Jesse Tannehill, P
94. Mike Timlin, P
93. Herb Pennock, P
92. Dick Stuart, 1B
91. Sammy White, C
90. Doc Cramer, OF
89. Freddy Parent, SS
88. Jerry Remy, 2B
87. Walt Dropo, 1B
86. Rich Gedman, C
(If you're wondering why the list is so pitcher-heavy thus far, well, let's just say this: It isn't going to stay that way once we get into the top 30 or 40.)
Without further ado:
85. Heinie Wagner
You know what was fantastic about baseball in the pre-World War II era? At one time or another, the league featured all of 22 players either named or nicknamed "Heinie." Imagine the big-time advertising possibilities for a certain Dutch brewing company if only big-time advertising had existed back in those days. (Picture it now: Groh, Manush, Peitz, Reitz and Schuble all passing around a green bottle as part of a "Share the Good" commercial. Or maybe guest-starring with Austin Powers. There are so many ways you could go.)
The best Heinie the Red Sox ever had was Wagner, who hit .274 with 75 runs scored and 68 RBI for the 1912 World Series championship team. In his career, Wagner hit 47 triples -- tied for 19th in Red Sox history with Wade Boggs and one ahead of Johnny Pesky. While his career numbers (.250 batting average with 10 home runs in 12 seasons, including 11 with the Red Sox) aren't spectacular, some of that is a product of the period in which he played; he had an OPS+ of 100 or better in four straight seasons starting in 1909.
After his playing career ended, he took his place as a coach on the bases; in Game 2 of the 1918 World Series, he even stormed the Chicago Cubs dugout to exchange punches with a coach who had been harassing Babe Ruth throughout the series. All indications are that Wagner kicked his, well, Heinie.
84. Everett Scott
Casual fans know the answers to trivia questions; diehard fans know the questions before they're even asked. Here's one of those examples. If you really know your baseball history, you know the trivia question to which Everett Scott always will be the answer. (Hey, it's like Jeopardy!)
The question: Whose record did Lou Gehrig break when he played in his 2,130 consecutive games?
The answer, of course, is Scott, who played in 1,307 consecutive games for the Red Sox from June of 1916 until May of 1925. But while his career doesn't exactly rival that of Gehrig or fellow shortstop Cal Ripken Jr., Scott did do enough to etch his name in Red Sox history. He was the starting shortstop for three Red Sox championship teams, for example; no other player has started at shortstop for a Red Sox championship team more than once. He ranks 19th in Red Sox history in games played, just ahead of Manny Ramirez, Carlton Fisk and Tris Speaker. He ranks 23rd in Red Sox history in at-bats, just ahead of Fisk, Jackie Jenson and Mo Vaughn.
But he didn't just show up. He has more hits with the Red Sox than Fred Lynn, David Ortiz, Marty Barrett and Trot Nixon. He hit .278 in 1919, and he hit .269 with 12 triples and four home runs in 1920. Out at shortstop, he finished with a fielding percentage above .970 every year from 1918-1921 -- at which point he was traded to the Yankees with Bullet Joe Bush and Sad Sam Jones in another of Harry Frazee's cost-cutting deals.
83. Sparky Lyle
The second great closer in Red Sox history, Lyle's 69 saves from 1967-1971 ranked third in Red Sox history at the time and still are good enough for seventh on the list today, just ahead of Tom Gordon's 68. Lyle had a sub-3.00 ERA in four of his five seasons with the Red Sox; his best year likely was in 1969, when he went 8-3 with a 2.54 ERA in a whopping 71 appearances (and 102 2/3 innings pitched).
Lyle, of course, was dealt to the Yankees for first baseman Danny Cater in an absolutely ridiculous spring-training deal in 1972. Cater hit a grand total of 14 home runs in his three seasons with the Red Sox and never drove in more than 40 runs in a season. Lyle became a star with the Yankees, of course; he won the Cy Young Award in 1977 thanks to his 2.17 ERA and 26 saves in 137 innings pitched, and he won a pair of World Series rings with Billy Martin's Bronx Bombers.
Lesser known, though, is the role Lyle played for the storybook 1967 Red Sox. Called up in July, Lyle immediately became a regular part of Dick Williams' bullpen and finished the season with a 2.28 ERA in 43 1/3 innings.
He earned his first career save with 3 2/3 innings of relief against Detroit on July 16 -- he struck out Norm Cash with a runner in scoring position in the top of the seventh and again to end the game in the top of the ninth.
He earned his first career win with a scoreless 10th inning in a July 27 game in which the Red Sox had rallied with three ninth-inning runs; Lyle surrendered three singles in the 10th inning and only survived because Carl Yastrzemski threw out a runner at the plate, and he earned the win when Reggie Smith tripled and scored on an error in the bottom half of the inning.
And his most important effort down the stretch came at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 27, when he threw 3 2/3 innings of scoreless relief and wiggled out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth inning; the Red Sox would win by a 3-0 score. From Sept. 4 on, he allowed just one earned run in 8 2/3 innings of work; the Red Sox won five of the six games in which he appeared.
Lyle didn't pitch after Sept. 20 or in the postseason; closer John Wyatt pitched in two games, and starters Jose Santiago, Gary Bell and Gary Waslewski each came out of the bullpen at least once. But in a pennant race as tight as the one in 1967, you can't overlook the work done by a 22-year-old just learning how to pitch in the major leagues.
82. Billy Goodman
As versatile a player a player as the Red Sox have ever had, Goodman played at least 300 games at three infield positions and more than 100 other games in the outfield. He also did something few other players ever could: He made Red Sox fans think they could win without Ted Williams.
Goodman lost his job at first base early in the 1950 season thanks to an injury as well as the spectacular play of rookie Walt Dropo. When Goodman returned to the field, he saw time at third base and in the outfield -- until, that is, Ted Williams broke his elbow in the 1950 All-Star Game and missed most of July and August after undergoing surgery. Goodman took over in left field and finished the season with a .354 batting average -- good enough to win the American League batting title. Williams returned in September only to see his Red Sox lose six of their last eight and finish four games out of first place. Red Sox fans, who had seen their team come up agonizingly short in 1948 and 1949 as well, began to turn on Williams; it was easy to point to the play of the Goodman-led Red Sox in July and August as evidence against the slugger.
Williams, of course, stayed, and that meant Goodman had to find a spot elsewhere. He played 62 games at first base and 44 games at second base in 1951; in 1953 and 1955, he played second base full-time. He even was elected the American League's starting second baseman in the All-Star Game in 1953. He eventually was traded to Baltimore in June of 1957; in December of that year, he then was traded to Chicago in a deal that also included 24-year-old outfielder Tito Francona.
In a Red Sox career that spanned 9 1/2 seasons, Goodman hit .300 five times. His .306 average with the Red Sox, in fact, ranks him 11th on the team's all-time list -- just behind Manny Ramirez and Fred Lynn and just ahead of Mo Vaugh and Mike Greenwell.
81. Oil Can Boyd
Yeah, he went 16-10 with a 3.78 ERA for the 1986 Red Sox. Yeah, his 60 career wins in a Red Sox uniform ranks him 36th all-time (in a tie with Mike Torrez). Yeah, his control was outstanding; his strikeout-to-walk ratio ranked him among the top five or six in the American League for three straight years starting in 1984.
Really, though, the best reason to include Boyd on this list is the opportunity to list some of the greatest things ever to come out of his mouth. Among those:
(upon learning he was not selected for the 1986 All-Star Game despite an 11-6 record, a 3.78 ERA and five complete games)
"I want my reward, and I want it today. ... I've got a good mind to go back to Mississippi. I have had it with this town. ... I'm an angry young man."
(Boyd was suspended for his tirade but apparently got over it; he threw five more complete games in the second half and walked just 15 hitters in 85 2/3 innings.)
(to Bo Jackson before one spring training at-bat)
"I am The Can, and I am going to come right at you with my best (expletive), and if you can hit it, I want to see how far Bo Jackson can hit The Oil Can."
(Jackson hit the next pitch 515 feet.)
(after a game in Cleveland was postponed due to fog)
"That's what they get for building a park on the ocean."
And who knows? It might not be over. Even now, Boyd still is angling for a spot in a big-league spring training camp and declaring that with one 15-minute session in the bullpen, "they'll see that I can compete again at the highest level. I'm ready. I don't care about money or fame. I just want to get back."
Coming up: Who can? Boo can!
100. Keith Foulke, P
99. Hugh Bedient, P
98. Rick Ferrell, P
97. Butch Hobson, 3B
96. Lee Smith, P
95. Jesse Tannehill, P
94. Mike Timlin, P
93. Herb Pennock, P
92. Dick Stuart, 1B
91. Sammy White, C
90. Doc Cramer, OF
89. Freddy Parent, SS
88. Jerry Remy, 2B
87. Walt Dropo, 1B
86. Rich Gedman, C
(If you're wondering why the list is so pitcher-heavy thus far, well, let's just say this: It isn't going to stay that way once we get into the top 30 or 40.)
Without further ado:
85. Heinie Wagner
You know what was fantastic about baseball in the pre-World War II era? At one time or another, the league featured all of 22 players either named or nicknamed "Heinie." Imagine the big-time advertising possibilities for a certain Dutch brewing company if only big-time advertising had existed back in those days. (Picture it now: Groh, Manush, Peitz, Reitz and Schuble all passing around a green bottle as part of a "Share the Good" commercial. Or maybe guest-starring with Austin Powers. There are so many ways you could go.)
The best Heinie the Red Sox ever had was Wagner, who hit .274 with 75 runs scored and 68 RBI for the 1912 World Series championship team. In his career, Wagner hit 47 triples -- tied for 19th in Red Sox history with Wade Boggs and one ahead of Johnny Pesky. While his career numbers (.250 batting average with 10 home runs in 12 seasons, including 11 with the Red Sox) aren't spectacular, some of that is a product of the period in which he played; he had an OPS+ of 100 or better in four straight seasons starting in 1909.
After his playing career ended, he took his place as a coach on the bases; in Game 2 of the 1918 World Series, he even stormed the Chicago Cubs dugout to exchange punches with a coach who had been harassing Babe Ruth throughout the series. All indications are that Wagner kicked his, well, Heinie.
84. Everett Scott
Casual fans know the answers to trivia questions; diehard fans know the questions before they're even asked. Here's one of those examples. If you really know your baseball history, you know the trivia question to which Everett Scott always will be the answer. (Hey, it's like Jeopardy!)
The question: Whose record did Lou Gehrig break when he played in his 2,130 consecutive games?
The answer, of course, is Scott, who played in 1,307 consecutive games for the Red Sox from June of 1916 until May of 1925. But while his career doesn't exactly rival that of Gehrig or fellow shortstop Cal Ripken Jr., Scott did do enough to etch his name in Red Sox history. He was the starting shortstop for three Red Sox championship teams, for example; no other player has started at shortstop for a Red Sox championship team more than once. He ranks 19th in Red Sox history in games played, just ahead of Manny Ramirez, Carlton Fisk and Tris Speaker. He ranks 23rd in Red Sox history in at-bats, just ahead of Fisk, Jackie Jenson and Mo Vaughn.
But he didn't just show up. He has more hits with the Red Sox than Fred Lynn, David Ortiz, Marty Barrett and Trot Nixon. He hit .278 in 1919, and he hit .269 with 12 triples and four home runs in 1920. Out at shortstop, he finished with a fielding percentage above .970 every year from 1918-1921 -- at which point he was traded to the Yankees with Bullet Joe Bush and Sad Sam Jones in another of Harry Frazee's cost-cutting deals.
83. Sparky Lyle
The second great closer in Red Sox history, Lyle's 69 saves from 1967-1971 ranked third in Red Sox history at the time and still are good enough for seventh on the list today, just ahead of Tom Gordon's 68. Lyle had a sub-3.00 ERA in four of his five seasons with the Red Sox; his best year likely was in 1969, when he went 8-3 with a 2.54 ERA in a whopping 71 appearances (and 102 2/3 innings pitched).
Lyle, of course, was dealt to the Yankees for first baseman Danny Cater in an absolutely ridiculous spring-training deal in 1972. Cater hit a grand total of 14 home runs in his three seasons with the Red Sox and never drove in more than 40 runs in a season. Lyle became a star with the Yankees, of course; he won the Cy Young Award in 1977 thanks to his 2.17 ERA and 26 saves in 137 innings pitched, and he won a pair of World Series rings with Billy Martin's Bronx Bombers.
Lesser known, though, is the role Lyle played for the storybook 1967 Red Sox. Called up in July, Lyle immediately became a regular part of Dick Williams' bullpen and finished the season with a 2.28 ERA in 43 1/3 innings.
He earned his first career save with 3 2/3 innings of relief against Detroit on July 16 -- he struck out Norm Cash with a runner in scoring position in the top of the seventh and again to end the game in the top of the ninth.
He earned his first career win with a scoreless 10th inning in a July 27 game in which the Red Sox had rallied with three ninth-inning runs; Lyle surrendered three singles in the 10th inning and only survived because Carl Yastrzemski threw out a runner at the plate, and he earned the win when Reggie Smith tripled and scored on an error in the bottom half of the inning.
And his most important effort down the stretch came at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 27, when he threw 3 2/3 innings of scoreless relief and wiggled out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth inning; the Red Sox would win by a 3-0 score. From Sept. 4 on, he allowed just one earned run in 8 2/3 innings of work; the Red Sox won five of the six games in which he appeared.
Lyle didn't pitch after Sept. 20 or in the postseason; closer John Wyatt pitched in two games, and starters Jose Santiago, Gary Bell and Gary Waslewski each came out of the bullpen at least once. But in a pennant race as tight as the one in 1967, you can't overlook the work done by a 22-year-old just learning how to pitch in the major leagues.
82. Billy Goodman
As versatile a player a player as the Red Sox have ever had, Goodman played at least 300 games at three infield positions and more than 100 other games in the outfield. He also did something few other players ever could: He made Red Sox fans think they could win without Ted Williams.
Goodman lost his job at first base early in the 1950 season thanks to an injury as well as the spectacular play of rookie Walt Dropo. When Goodman returned to the field, he saw time at third base and in the outfield -- until, that is, Ted Williams broke his elbow in the 1950 All-Star Game and missed most of July and August after undergoing surgery. Goodman took over in left field and finished the season with a .354 batting average -- good enough to win the American League batting title. Williams returned in September only to see his Red Sox lose six of their last eight and finish four games out of first place. Red Sox fans, who had seen their team come up agonizingly short in 1948 and 1949 as well, began to turn on Williams; it was easy to point to the play of the Goodman-led Red Sox in July and August as evidence against the slugger.
Williams, of course, stayed, and that meant Goodman had to find a spot elsewhere. He played 62 games at first base and 44 games at second base in 1951; in 1953 and 1955, he played second base full-time. He even was elected the American League's starting second baseman in the All-Star Game in 1953. He eventually was traded to Baltimore in June of 1957; in December of that year, he then was traded to Chicago in a deal that also included 24-year-old outfielder Tito Francona.
In a Red Sox career that spanned 9 1/2 seasons, Goodman hit .300 five times. His .306 average with the Red Sox, in fact, ranks him 11th on the team's all-time list -- just behind Manny Ramirez and Fred Lynn and just ahead of Mo Vaugh and Mike Greenwell.
81. Oil Can Boyd
Yeah, he went 16-10 with a 3.78 ERA for the 1986 Red Sox. Yeah, his 60 career wins in a Red Sox uniform ranks him 36th all-time (in a tie with Mike Torrez). Yeah, his control was outstanding; his strikeout-to-walk ratio ranked him among the top five or six in the American League for three straight years starting in 1984.
Really, though, the best reason to include Boyd on this list is the opportunity to list some of the greatest things ever to come out of his mouth. Among those:
(upon learning he was not selected for the 1986 All-Star Game despite an 11-6 record, a 3.78 ERA and five complete games)
"I want my reward, and I want it today. ... I've got a good mind to go back to Mississippi. I have had it with this town. ... I'm an angry young man."
(Boyd was suspended for his tirade but apparently got over it; he threw five more complete games in the second half and walked just 15 hitters in 85 2/3 innings.)
(to Bo Jackson before one spring training at-bat)
"I am The Can, and I am going to come right at you with my best (expletive), and if you can hit it, I want to see how far Bo Jackson can hit The Oil Can."
(Jackson hit the next pitch 515 feet.)
(after a game in Cleveland was postponed due to fog)
"That's what they get for building a park on the ocean."
And who knows? It might not be over. Even now, Boyd still is angling for a spot in a big-league spring training camp and declaring that with one 15-minute session in the bullpen, "they'll see that I can compete again at the highest level. I'm ready. I don't care about money or fame. I just want to get back."
Coming up: Who can? Boo can!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Losing Lugo would be a big blow
If Julio Lugo does indeed have a tear in the meniscus of his knee, it would be a big blow to the Red Sox -- no matter how much you want Jed Lowrie to play shortstop for the Red Sox.
Yes, Lowrie probably deserves the job all to himself. The way he hit last season (.339 on-base percentage despite a wrist injury, 40 points higher than Lugo's 2007 OBP) and the way he fielded (a plus-8 in 49 games at shortstop, good for 10th in the American League) makes that pretty obvious. But with the way the Red Sox roster shapes up right now, Terry Francona's team is best served with Lugo as the starting shortstop and Lowrie as the utility guy who ends up playing pretty much everywhere.
If Lugo is healthy, he'd play about 110 games at shortstop and Lowrie the other 50 or so. In the meantime, Lowrie likely would play 30 or 40 games at third base and a handful at second base, and he'd still get better than 400 or 450 at-bats. And if anyone gets hurt, Lowrie will be right there and ready to plug the hole.
If Lugo has to spend significant time on the disabled list, on the other hand, the Red Sox infield consists of Kevin Youkilis at first base, Dustin Pedroia at second, Mike Lowell at third and Lowrie at shortstop. That's it. If anyone ever needs a day off -- and Lowell in particular is going to need days off -- the next best option on the left side of the infield suddenly would be Nick Green.
Yes, Green has hit well this spring; through Friday night's game against the Yankees, he was hitting .423 and getting on base at a .516 clip through 26 at-bats. He even has two home runs and five RBI. But in big-league games that actually count, Green has a .240 career batting average and a .309 career on-base percentage. In 318 at-bats with Tampa Bay in 2005, he hit .239 and OBP'ed .329.
The other option is Angel Chavez, who has five hits in 19 big-league at-bats -- all with San Francisco in 2005. In more than 450 at-bats with Triple-A Las Vegas last season, he hit .292 with 10 home runs. He hit a grand slam against Northeastern but otherwise has had an unremarkable spring; he was 2-for-8 in two games with Panama in the World Baseball Classic.
Neither would be a terrible sixth infielder. But if anyone else gets hurt, either Chavez or Green suddenly would be an everyday infielder on a team with World Series aspirations. That's not good news.
The other option, if Lowrie stays healthy, is to use Youkilis to give Lowell a breather. That would allow Terry Francona to play Jeff Bailey or Chris Carter at first base without weakening his lineup all that much.
As versatile as Youkilis is, though, the Red Sox have to be reluctant about shuttling him back and forth across the diamond. If Lowell gets hurt, sure, Youkilis can play third base full-time without much of a problem. But to ask Youkilis to play first base on Tuesday, third base on Wednesday and Thursday and then first base again on Friday might be asking a little too much, even out of a guy as versatile as Youkilis.
Yes, Lowrie probably deserves the job all to himself. The way he hit last season (.339 on-base percentage despite a wrist injury, 40 points higher than Lugo's 2007 OBP) and the way he fielded (a plus-8 in 49 games at shortstop, good for 10th in the American League) makes that pretty obvious. But with the way the Red Sox roster shapes up right now, Terry Francona's team is best served with Lugo as the starting shortstop and Lowrie as the utility guy who ends up playing pretty much everywhere.
If Lugo is healthy, he'd play about 110 games at shortstop and Lowrie the other 50 or so. In the meantime, Lowrie likely would play 30 or 40 games at third base and a handful at second base, and he'd still get better than 400 or 450 at-bats. And if anyone gets hurt, Lowrie will be right there and ready to plug the hole.
If Lugo has to spend significant time on the disabled list, on the other hand, the Red Sox infield consists of Kevin Youkilis at first base, Dustin Pedroia at second, Mike Lowell at third and Lowrie at shortstop. That's it. If anyone ever needs a day off -- and Lowell in particular is going to need days off -- the next best option on the left side of the infield suddenly would be Nick Green.
Yes, Green has hit well this spring; through Friday night's game against the Yankees, he was hitting .423 and getting on base at a .516 clip through 26 at-bats. He even has two home runs and five RBI. But in big-league games that actually count, Green has a .240 career batting average and a .309 career on-base percentage. In 318 at-bats with Tampa Bay in 2005, he hit .239 and OBP'ed .329.
The other option is Angel Chavez, who has five hits in 19 big-league at-bats -- all with San Francisco in 2005. In more than 450 at-bats with Triple-A Las Vegas last season, he hit .292 with 10 home runs. He hit a grand slam against Northeastern but otherwise has had an unremarkable spring; he was 2-for-8 in two games with Panama in the World Baseball Classic.
Neither would be a terrible sixth infielder. But if anyone else gets hurt, either Chavez or Green suddenly would be an everyday infielder on a team with World Series aspirations. That's not good news.
The other option, if Lowrie stays healthy, is to use Youkilis to give Lowell a breather. That would allow Terry Francona to play Jeff Bailey or Chris Carter at first base without weakening his lineup all that much.
As versatile as Youkilis is, though, the Red Sox have to be reluctant about shuttling him back and forth across the diamond. If Lowell gets hurt, sure, Youkilis can play third base full-time without much of a problem. But to ask Youkilis to play first base on Tuesday, third base on Wednesday and Thursday and then first base again on Friday might be asking a little too much, even out of a guy as versatile as Youkilis.
The Top 100 Red Sox: 86-90
And onward we march. The list so far:
100. Keith Foulke, P
99. Hugh "O" Bedient, P
98. Rick Ferrell, P
97. Butch Hobson, 3B
96. Lee Smith, P
95. Jesse Tannehill, P
94. Mike Timlin, P
93. Herb Pennock, P
92. Dick Stuart, 1B
91. Sammy White, C
Let's keep moving.
90. Doc Cramer
The Red Sox still were a decade away from winning an American League title, but it's hard to dispute that the late 1930s still represented something of a glory period for Tom Yawkey's new team. After a decade of last-place finishes -- seriously, the Red Sox finished in all but one year from 1922-1930 -- the Red Sox finished second (behind the Yankees) in 1938 and 1939. It was the first time the Red Sox had shown any sign of life at all since, well, the sale of Babe Ruth.
At the center of the ascent -- along with fellow Hall of Famers Lefty Grove and Jimmie Foxx, of course -- was Cramer. The steady center fielder hit .302 in five seasons with the Red Sox an averaged almost 30 doubles and more than a half-dozen triples a season; he hit his first home run with the Red Sox in 1940, his final season. In 1938, Cramer hit .301 with 36 doubles; in 1939, he hit .311 with 30 doubles alongside a rookie left fielder named Ted Williams.
Cramer led the Red Sox with an even 200 hits in his final season with the Red Sox, but by then, Yawkey and the Boston press were impatient with second-place finishes and demanding a shakeup. Even Williams wasn't necessarily safe; the Red Sox contemplated trading the talented but tempermental youngster for a young pitcher coming off 14- and 15-win seasons. That deal, of course, was called off.
Cramer, though, wasn't as untouchable as Williams. The then-35-year-old was shipped to Washington as part of a three-team deal that netted the Red Sox pitching prospect Joe Dobson. The seeds of 1946 were being sown.
89. Freddy Parent
Parent could be considered an original Red Sox; the shortstop had just eight big-league at-bats under his belt before he played 138 games for the 1901 Boston Americans. Parent hit .304 and had 17 triples in the 1903 regular season and scored eight runs in the eight games of the 1903 World Series. He singled and scored in the fourth inning of the deciding Game 8, a 3-0 victory for the Red Sox.
In 1903, though, the Maine native still was just 27 and coming into his prime. He hit .291 with nine home runs and a career-best six home runs in 1904, and he was at the plate when Yankees ace Jack Chesbro threw the wild pitch that decided the pennant on the season's final day. He played steady shortstop again in 1905 before moving to the outfield on a part-time basis in 1906.
By then, though, Red Sox owner John Taylor had started to sell off spare parts -- and the 31-year-old Parent was one of those spare parts. Off he went to Chicago, where he scuffled through three seasons before hanging it up.
88. Jerry Remy
No, sports fans, Gerald Peter Remy hasn't been a color commentator for his entire life. He actually was a pretty solid player in his day -- he hit .278 with 24 doubles for the Red Sox in 1978 and turned a whopping 114 double plays at second base. At the same time, he became a speed threat for a team that so often went without one; he stole 30 bases in 1978. In fact, Remy's 98 stolen bases ranks him 13th in Red Sox history -- only Tommy Harper and Carl Yastrzemski rank higher among players from the post-World War II era.
Remy also was part of the rash of injuries that cost the Red Sox the pennant in 1978; he was hit by a pitch on Aug. 26 and missed two weeks with a crack in his wrist. But in the one-game playoff against the Yankees on Oct. 2 of that year, Remy went 2-for-5 with a double and a run scored in the bottom of the eighth, the inning in which the Red Sox drew within one run but couldn't get any closer.
The Red Sox would begin to disintegrate after that season; Rick Burleson, Carlton Fisk, Fred Lynn, Luis Tiant and Bill Lee all would be gone in short order. Remy, on the other hand, stayed entrenched at second base until May of 1984 and held down the fort until reinforcements -- in the form of Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens -- could arrive.
87. Walt Dropo
The Red Sox finished in second place in 1949, one game behind the New York Yankees in as disappointing a late-season collapse as the franchise had experienced to that point. It's easy to wonder what might have happened had manager Joe McCarthy handed a full-time job to Walt Dropo a year earlier.
Dropo didn't get the call until incumbent first baseman Billy Goodman broke his leg, and he didn't waste any time smoking the ball. By the end of the season, he'd hit 34 home runs and driven in 144 runs. When Ted Williams went down with an injury suffered in the All-Star Game, Dropo just kept right on hitting. When Williams returned, strangely, only then did the team's September swoon begin. Dropo earned the American League's Rookie of the Year, the first Red Sox player to do so.
Dropo looked poised to become the complementary slugger Williams and the Red Sox had been seeking for a decade. Instead, though, Dropo slumped out of the gate in 1951 and was shipped back to the minor leagues. He eventually was traded to Detroit midway through the 1952 season.
His 1950 season, though, remained the most electric rookie season the Red Sox would see for, oh, about 25 years.
86. Rich Gedman
A two-time All-Star, Gedman should have been what Jason Varitek ended up being -- the man behind the plate when the Red Sox clinched their first World Series title since 1918. The Worcester native hit 24 home runs in 1984, 18 home runs in 1985 and 16 home runs in 1986 for a Red Sox team that got within one strike of the World Series.
Gedman, in fact, hit .347 with six RBI in the American League Championship Series against the Angels; he was on first base when Dave Henderson hit the storybook home run in Game 5. His single to left in the seventh inning should have iced the game; instead, Jim Rice was thrown out at the plate and the Mets were given new life.
The wild pitch that deflected off his glove and allowed the Mets to tie the game in the bottom of the 10th inning likely still haunts him to this day. It certainly seemed to wreck his career; he hit .205 with just one home run in 1987 and never hit better than .235 again. But Gedman was the original pitcher-groomer, the man behind the plate for the ascent of Roger Clemens, the heyday of Oil Can Boyd and some of the best years of Bruce Hurst. That, more than the one pitch for which he's remembered, ought to be Gedman's legacy.
Coming up: The guy traded for the legendary Danny Cater.
100. Keith Foulke, P
99. Hugh "O" Bedient, P
98. Rick Ferrell, P
97. Butch Hobson, 3B
96. Lee Smith, P
95. Jesse Tannehill, P
94. Mike Timlin, P
93. Herb Pennock, P
92. Dick Stuart, 1B
91. Sammy White, C
Let's keep moving.
90. Doc Cramer
The Red Sox still were a decade away from winning an American League title, but it's hard to dispute that the late 1930s still represented something of a glory period for Tom Yawkey's new team. After a decade of last-place finishes -- seriously, the Red Sox finished in all but one year from 1922-1930 -- the Red Sox finished second (behind the Yankees) in 1938 and 1939. It was the first time the Red Sox had shown any sign of life at all since, well, the sale of Babe Ruth.
At the center of the ascent -- along with fellow Hall of Famers Lefty Grove and Jimmie Foxx, of course -- was Cramer. The steady center fielder hit .302 in five seasons with the Red Sox an averaged almost 30 doubles and more than a half-dozen triples a season; he hit his first home run with the Red Sox in 1940, his final season. In 1938, Cramer hit .301 with 36 doubles; in 1939, he hit .311 with 30 doubles alongside a rookie left fielder named Ted Williams.
Cramer led the Red Sox with an even 200 hits in his final season with the Red Sox, but by then, Yawkey and the Boston press were impatient with second-place finishes and demanding a shakeup. Even Williams wasn't necessarily safe; the Red Sox contemplated trading the talented but tempermental youngster for a young pitcher coming off 14- and 15-win seasons. That deal, of course, was called off.
Cramer, though, wasn't as untouchable as Williams. The then-35-year-old was shipped to Washington as part of a three-team deal that netted the Red Sox pitching prospect Joe Dobson. The seeds of 1946 were being sown.
89. Freddy Parent
Parent could be considered an original Red Sox; the shortstop had just eight big-league at-bats under his belt before he played 138 games for the 1901 Boston Americans. Parent hit .304 and had 17 triples in the 1903 regular season and scored eight runs in the eight games of the 1903 World Series. He singled and scored in the fourth inning of the deciding Game 8, a 3-0 victory for the Red Sox.
In 1903, though, the Maine native still was just 27 and coming into his prime. He hit .291 with nine home runs and a career-best six home runs in 1904, and he was at the plate when Yankees ace Jack Chesbro threw the wild pitch that decided the pennant on the season's final day. He played steady shortstop again in 1905 before moving to the outfield on a part-time basis in 1906.
By then, though, Red Sox owner John Taylor had started to sell off spare parts -- and the 31-year-old Parent was one of those spare parts. Off he went to Chicago, where he scuffled through three seasons before hanging it up.
88. Jerry Remy
No, sports fans, Gerald Peter Remy hasn't been a color commentator for his entire life. He actually was a pretty solid player in his day -- he hit .278 with 24 doubles for the Red Sox in 1978 and turned a whopping 114 double plays at second base. At the same time, he became a speed threat for a team that so often went without one; he stole 30 bases in 1978. In fact, Remy's 98 stolen bases ranks him 13th in Red Sox history -- only Tommy Harper and Carl Yastrzemski rank higher among players from the post-World War II era.
Remy also was part of the rash of injuries that cost the Red Sox the pennant in 1978; he was hit by a pitch on Aug. 26 and missed two weeks with a crack in his wrist. But in the one-game playoff against the Yankees on Oct. 2 of that year, Remy went 2-for-5 with a double and a run scored in the bottom of the eighth, the inning in which the Red Sox drew within one run but couldn't get any closer.
The Red Sox would begin to disintegrate after that season; Rick Burleson, Carlton Fisk, Fred Lynn, Luis Tiant and Bill Lee all would be gone in short order. Remy, on the other hand, stayed entrenched at second base until May of 1984 and held down the fort until reinforcements -- in the form of Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens -- could arrive.
87. Walt Dropo
The Red Sox finished in second place in 1949, one game behind the New York Yankees in as disappointing a late-season collapse as the franchise had experienced to that point. It's easy to wonder what might have happened had manager Joe McCarthy handed a full-time job to Walt Dropo a year earlier.
Dropo didn't get the call until incumbent first baseman Billy Goodman broke his leg, and he didn't waste any time smoking the ball. By the end of the season, he'd hit 34 home runs and driven in 144 runs. When Ted Williams went down with an injury suffered in the All-Star Game, Dropo just kept right on hitting. When Williams returned, strangely, only then did the team's September swoon begin. Dropo earned the American League's Rookie of the Year, the first Red Sox player to do so.
Dropo looked poised to become the complementary slugger Williams and the Red Sox had been seeking for a decade. Instead, though, Dropo slumped out of the gate in 1951 and was shipped back to the minor leagues. He eventually was traded to Detroit midway through the 1952 season.
His 1950 season, though, remained the most electric rookie season the Red Sox would see for, oh, about 25 years.
86. Rich Gedman
A two-time All-Star, Gedman should have been what Jason Varitek ended up being -- the man behind the plate when the Red Sox clinched their first World Series title since 1918. The Worcester native hit 24 home runs in 1984, 18 home runs in 1985 and 16 home runs in 1986 for a Red Sox team that got within one strike of the World Series.
Gedman, in fact, hit .347 with six RBI in the American League Championship Series against the Angels; he was on first base when Dave Henderson hit the storybook home run in Game 5. His single to left in the seventh inning should have iced the game; instead, Jim Rice was thrown out at the plate and the Mets were given new life.
The wild pitch that deflected off his glove and allowed the Mets to tie the game in the bottom of the 10th inning likely still haunts him to this day. It certainly seemed to wreck his career; he hit .205 with just one home run in 1987 and never hit better than .235 again. But Gedman was the original pitcher-groomer, the man behind the plate for the ascent of Roger Clemens, the heyday of Oil Can Boyd and some of the best years of Bruce Hurst. That, more than the one pitch for which he's remembered, ought to be Gedman's legacy.
Coming up: The guy traded for the legendary Danny Cater.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Red Sox-Yankees live blog
Red Sox! Yankees! Ortiz! Ellsbury! Wang! Rodriguez!
OK, so it's not Alex Rodriguez. It's just John Rodriguez. According to preliminary research, however, he is an actual, legitimate, totally real and not imaginary baseball player. (He hit has seven career home runs in the major leagues -- and three triples. Take that, Yuri Sucart.)
Just for fun, and because it seems like everyone else always does it and peer pressure works on me, let's try a Red Sox-Yankees live blog for tonight's game. It starts at at 7 on NESN.
Early observations: The Yankees have brought a fairly meager traveling squad to City of Palms Park, a squad featuring Alex Rodriguez replacement Cody Ransom at third base. So says the Globe, "Aside from that, there's not much intrigue. For example: Xavier Nady is batting cleanup."
Let's face it, though: With Rodriguez (Alex, not John) sidelined, who is going to hit cleanup on days when Teixeira (Mark, not Ruy) isn't hitting cleanup? In all seriousness, isn't it going to be Nady?
(Xavier, not XA900 Power Amp. Just in case you were confused.)
***
An interesting decision the Red Sox made, starting George Kottaras behind the plate. It's the first time all spring that Kottaras has gotten to catch Wakefield; a week ago, he and Josh Bard both made the trip to Port Charlotte to face the Rays and Bard was behind the plate for Wakefield's three innings.
It seemed obvious earlier in the spring that the Red Sox had chosen Bard as their backup catcher, barring injury. Kottaras wasn't catching Wakefield at all. Bard even had the locker that Doug Mirabelli and Kevin Cash once had. And at this point, you'd think you'd want to give your backup catcher as many chances to handle Wakefield as possible.
Maybe they're just showcasing the out-of-options 25-year-old in case another general manager happens to tune into NESN? Who knows?
Anyway, Kottaras fields his first knuckleball flawlessly.
And we're off.
***
Wakefield walks Brett Gardner to start the game.
Every time Clay Buchholz turns in another spectacular outing, one is forced to wonder just what it would take for the Red Sox to cut Wakefield loose and give Buchholz his rotation spot. At a certain point, a 4.50 ERA isn't good enough to cut it in a rotation like Boston's, right?
***
Jerry Remy: "You talk about Kottaras making the start tonight for the Red Sox: He caught Charlie Zink at the Triple-A level, I would guess, so (he has) some experience..."
Don Orsillo: "Yes."
Jerry Remy: "You didn't mention that, did you?"
Don Orsillo: "I did, but it's OK. It sounded good then, too."
Welcome back, Jerry. Welcome back.
***
Nifty play by Mike Lowell in his first chance at third base since last fall, getting in the way of a ground ball, barehanding it in mid-air and starting a 5-4-3 double play.
It's a good start. The next step: Going to his left and right. The step after that: Hitting.
***
David Ortiz against Chien-Ming Wang in the bottom of the first inning: The marquee at-bat of the night.
Pitch 1: Swing and a miss at a sinker in the dirt.
Pitch 2: Fastball inside.
Pitch 3: Sinker grounded to first for an out.
Remy: "I have no doubt that last year, the injuries certainly had an effect on David Ortiz."
The question, Mr. Dawg: What happens if those injuries keep lingering?
(Ortiz now is 0-for-8 in spring training at-bats. He was 2-for-8 with a double for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic.)
***
Passed ball for Kottaras with a runner on first in the top of the second. Somewhere, Josh Bard smiles.
Wakefield, meanwhile, walks Jose Molina and surrenders an RBI single to Angel Berroa. Somewhere, Brad Penny does some shoulder exercises -- or sips a mai tai, actually. He did pitch in an intrasquad game this morning.
***
Here's a fun Mike Lowell story for you: Yours truly was in the City of Palms dugout eight days ago as part of a media gaggle talking to Lowell about his return. Wanting to ask a question of substance, I tried to phrase something about how the return from the hip injury affects the way he gets his timing back and otherwise develops his swing as compared to the way he gets his timing back and otherwise develops his swing in a normal March. And if that sounds convoluted there, imagine how it sounded coming from a rookie reporter still a little overwhelmed by the idea of covering his first spring training.
Fortunately, Lowell was gracious about it.
"I really don't understand what you're getting at," he said. "Tell me in dumb people terms."
Right. Because the problem was that he was too dumb to understand the question and not that I was too dumb to ask it in a coherent fashion.
Anyway, based on his first at-bat tonight, Lowell's swing looks just fine. In fact, he got ahold of something that Wang hung over the outside part of the plate and yanked it over the left-field fence. He ran the bases a little bit gingerly, but it sure is nice to see a little pop out of that bat.
***
Am I the only person who saw the Syracuse-UConn highlights and thought, "Wow, that's a lot of missed shots"?
***
It has to be a good sign to see the Red Sox roughing up Chien-Ming Wang. You can't make too much of most spring training results, but given that Josh Beckett hasn't given up a single run in nine spring training innings, it's still encouraging to see the Red Sox get to the Yankees' ace. (Is he the Yankees' ace? Who starts on Opening Day? Does Sabathia get that start based on his contract?)
And then Ortiz goes yard on a pitch down and in, right in his wheelhouse. Another good sign.
***
It wasn't that long ago that Ken Griffey Jr. re-signed with the Mariners and I was wondering who it was, along with Mike Cameron, that made up the package the Reds sent to Seattle.
Now I remember. Brett Tomko.
Mike Lowell greets Tomko with a single up the middle for his second hit of the second inning.
***
Top of the third inning: Xavier Nady hits a two-run double to pull the Yankees within 7-3, and Jose Molina -- the middle Molina brother, in case you were wondering -- singles home Nady to make it 7-4.
Once again: How badly does Wakefield have to pitch to lose his rotation spot? In Terry Francona's mind, is that even an option? I'd be fascinated to hear the manager's thoughts -- if he was injected with truth serum, of course.
***
Pitching coach John Farrell did a live interview with NESN:
... on the depth in his pitching staff: "Overall, we've thrown the ball pretty well, particularly some of the young guys in their first year of camp. Daniel Bard has been somewhat the talk of the camp, and we'll get a chance to see him tonight. The additions that we've had -- Brad Penny threw a two-inning sim(ulated) game today, and Saito will pitch tonight -- it's been good from a pitching standpoint."
... on the length on spring training: "The thing we've done with our starters is allow them to go two innings apiece through their first two starts. We're not hitting that dead arm we otherwise might when we're ramping them up to three and four innings sooner in camp."
... on Daisuke Matsuzaka: "We get daily updates. ... He does go again on Sunday for his second start in the WBC, and the four innings he threw against Korea were solid once he got past somewhat of an extended first inning. We're monitoring very closely the number of pitches thrown, and everybody involved in the WBC is supportive, but at the same time, we have our concerns and rightfully so."
... on the overall strength of the pitching staff: "Health will have a lot to do with that. Provided we stay healthy and get Saito through camp healthy, which he's been outstanding. The recovery of John Smoltz is going very well, and he'll join us at some point either in May or in June, and Brad Penny was encouraging today. Not only will we have depth, but we'll have quality up and down the 12-man staff."
***
Jonathan Papelbon fans Xavier Nady on what looked like a splitter up and in. Take that, cleanup spot.
***
David Ortiz strikes out on a fastball away in the bottom of the fourth inning. All the concern that was alleviated by his home run in the second inning -- it's back!
Just kidding. Sort of.
***
In case you're wondering what it is that Takashi Saito -- two strikeouts in yet another scoreless inning of work -- brings to the Red Sox bullpen, consider this:
* In 2005, the 12th man on the pitching staff was Matt Mantei, who had a 6.49 ERA in 26 2/3 innings, or Jeremi Gonzalez, who had a 6.11 ERA in 56 innings.
* In 2006: Rudy Seanez, who had a 4.82 ERA in 46 2/3 innings.
* In 2007: Kyle Snyder, who had a 3.81 ERA in 54 2/3 innings but who was never what you'd call dominant.
* In 2008: David Aardsma, who had a 5.55 ERA in 48 2/3 innings.
In 2009, the 12th man on the pitching staff likely would have been Wes Littleton, acquired in an offseason trade with the Texas Rangers. Littleton has a 19.29 ERA in 4 2/3 innings so far this spring.
Instead, if everyone stays healthy, there won't really be a 12th man. Saito had a 1.40 ERA in 2007, his last full season; he's not what you'd really call a 12th man. Thing is, you can't really call Justin Masterson, Hideki Okajima, Manny Delcarmen, Ramon Ramirez or lefty specialist Javier Lopez the 12th man, either.
That's some impressive quality depth.
***
A taste of what it's like to cover spring training: Many of the beat writers won't get to see Saito's outing tonight; the fourth or fifth inning is right about the time the starting pitcher is showered and ready to meet with the media before heading out for the night.
That means a 10-minute press conference right in the middle of the game. Good times.
It makes for less work after the game, but it's difficult to keep track of everything when you end up in a room under the third-base bleachers for the fourth or fifth inning.
***
We'll close out the night of blogging -- the late innings of a spring training game are an endurance test I'm not going to pass on a Friday night -- with a look at phenom Daniel Bard's outing in the top of the sixth inning:
First up: Ramiro Pena. Weak ground ball to second. One out.
Next up: Top prospect Austin Jackson. Gets buzzed with a breaking ball that didn't break on the second pitch; strikes out on a 98-mile-an-hour heater on the fourth pitch.
Next up: Justin Leone. Weak popup to short.
Another pretty routine inning for Bard, who now has allowed just one hit and struck out eight in his five official outings this spring. Watch out, Boston. He's on his way.
OK, so it's not Alex Rodriguez. It's just John Rodriguez. According to preliminary research, however, he is an actual, legitimate, totally real and not imaginary baseball player. (He hit has seven career home runs in the major leagues -- and three triples. Take that, Yuri Sucart.)
Just for fun, and because it seems like everyone else always does it and peer pressure works on me, let's try a Red Sox-Yankees live blog for tonight's game. It starts at at 7 on NESN.
Early observations: The Yankees have brought a fairly meager traveling squad to City of Palms Park, a squad featuring Alex Rodriguez replacement Cody Ransom at third base. So says the Globe, "Aside from that, there's not much intrigue. For example: Xavier Nady is batting cleanup."
Let's face it, though: With Rodriguez (Alex, not John) sidelined, who is going to hit cleanup on days when Teixeira (Mark, not Ruy) isn't hitting cleanup? In all seriousness, isn't it going to be Nady?
(Xavier, not XA900 Power Amp. Just in case you were confused.)
***
An interesting decision the Red Sox made, starting George Kottaras behind the plate. It's the first time all spring that Kottaras has gotten to catch Wakefield; a week ago, he and Josh Bard both made the trip to Port Charlotte to face the Rays and Bard was behind the plate for Wakefield's three innings.
It seemed obvious earlier in the spring that the Red Sox had chosen Bard as their backup catcher, barring injury. Kottaras wasn't catching Wakefield at all. Bard even had the locker that Doug Mirabelli and Kevin Cash once had. And at this point, you'd think you'd want to give your backup catcher as many chances to handle Wakefield as possible.
Maybe they're just showcasing the out-of-options 25-year-old in case another general manager happens to tune into NESN? Who knows?
Anyway, Kottaras fields his first knuckleball flawlessly.
And we're off.
***
Wakefield walks Brett Gardner to start the game.
Every time Clay Buchholz turns in another spectacular outing, one is forced to wonder just what it would take for the Red Sox to cut Wakefield loose and give Buchholz his rotation spot. At a certain point, a 4.50 ERA isn't good enough to cut it in a rotation like Boston's, right?
***
Jerry Remy: "You talk about Kottaras making the start tonight for the Red Sox: He caught Charlie Zink at the Triple-A level, I would guess, so (he has) some experience..."
Don Orsillo: "Yes."
Jerry Remy: "You didn't mention that, did you?"
Don Orsillo: "I did, but it's OK. It sounded good then, too."
Welcome back, Jerry. Welcome back.
***
Nifty play by Mike Lowell in his first chance at third base since last fall, getting in the way of a ground ball, barehanding it in mid-air and starting a 5-4-3 double play.
It's a good start. The next step: Going to his left and right. The step after that: Hitting.
***
David Ortiz against Chien-Ming Wang in the bottom of the first inning: The marquee at-bat of the night.
Pitch 1: Swing and a miss at a sinker in the dirt.
Pitch 2: Fastball inside.
Pitch 3: Sinker grounded to first for an out.
Remy: "I have no doubt that last year, the injuries certainly had an effect on David Ortiz."
The question, Mr. Dawg: What happens if those injuries keep lingering?
(Ortiz now is 0-for-8 in spring training at-bats. He was 2-for-8 with a double for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic.)
***
Passed ball for Kottaras with a runner on first in the top of the second. Somewhere, Josh Bard smiles.
Wakefield, meanwhile, walks Jose Molina and surrenders an RBI single to Angel Berroa. Somewhere, Brad Penny does some shoulder exercises -- or sips a mai tai, actually. He did pitch in an intrasquad game this morning.
***
Here's a fun Mike Lowell story for you: Yours truly was in the City of Palms dugout eight days ago as part of a media gaggle talking to Lowell about his return. Wanting to ask a question of substance, I tried to phrase something about how the return from the hip injury affects the way he gets his timing back and otherwise develops his swing as compared to the way he gets his timing back and otherwise develops his swing in a normal March. And if that sounds convoluted there, imagine how it sounded coming from a rookie reporter still a little overwhelmed by the idea of covering his first spring training.
Fortunately, Lowell was gracious about it.
"I really don't understand what you're getting at," he said. "Tell me in dumb people terms."
Right. Because the problem was that he was too dumb to understand the question and not that I was too dumb to ask it in a coherent fashion.
Anyway, based on his first at-bat tonight, Lowell's swing looks just fine. In fact, he got ahold of something that Wang hung over the outside part of the plate and yanked it over the left-field fence. He ran the bases a little bit gingerly, but it sure is nice to see a little pop out of that bat.
***
Am I the only person who saw the Syracuse-UConn highlights and thought, "Wow, that's a lot of missed shots"?
***
It has to be a good sign to see the Red Sox roughing up Chien-Ming Wang. You can't make too much of most spring training results, but given that Josh Beckett hasn't given up a single run in nine spring training innings, it's still encouraging to see the Red Sox get to the Yankees' ace. (Is he the Yankees' ace? Who starts on Opening Day? Does Sabathia get that start based on his contract?)
And then Ortiz goes yard on a pitch down and in, right in his wheelhouse. Another good sign.
***
It wasn't that long ago that Ken Griffey Jr. re-signed with the Mariners and I was wondering who it was, along with Mike Cameron, that made up the package the Reds sent to Seattle.
Now I remember. Brett Tomko.
Mike Lowell greets Tomko with a single up the middle for his second hit of the second inning.
***
Top of the third inning: Xavier Nady hits a two-run double to pull the Yankees within 7-3, and Jose Molina -- the middle Molina brother, in case you were wondering -- singles home Nady to make it 7-4.
Once again: How badly does Wakefield have to pitch to lose his rotation spot? In Terry Francona's mind, is that even an option? I'd be fascinated to hear the manager's thoughts -- if he was injected with truth serum, of course.
***
Pitching coach John Farrell did a live interview with NESN:
... on the depth in his pitching staff: "Overall, we've thrown the ball pretty well, particularly some of the young guys in their first year of camp. Daniel Bard has been somewhat the talk of the camp, and we'll get a chance to see him tonight. The additions that we've had -- Brad Penny threw a two-inning sim(ulated) game today, and Saito will pitch tonight -- it's been good from a pitching standpoint."
... on the length on spring training: "The thing we've done with our starters is allow them to go two innings apiece through their first two starts. We're not hitting that dead arm we otherwise might when we're ramping them up to three and four innings sooner in camp."
... on Daisuke Matsuzaka: "We get daily updates. ... He does go again on Sunday for his second start in the WBC, and the four innings he threw against Korea were solid once he got past somewhat of an extended first inning. We're monitoring very closely the number of pitches thrown, and everybody involved in the WBC is supportive, but at the same time, we have our concerns and rightfully so."
... on the overall strength of the pitching staff: "Health will have a lot to do with that. Provided we stay healthy and get Saito through camp healthy, which he's been outstanding. The recovery of John Smoltz is going very well, and he'll join us at some point either in May or in June, and Brad Penny was encouraging today. Not only will we have depth, but we'll have quality up and down the 12-man staff."
***
Jonathan Papelbon fans Xavier Nady on what looked like a splitter up and in. Take that, cleanup spot.
***
David Ortiz strikes out on a fastball away in the bottom of the fourth inning. All the concern that was alleviated by his home run in the second inning -- it's back!
Just kidding. Sort of.
***
In case you're wondering what it is that Takashi Saito -- two strikeouts in yet another scoreless inning of work -- brings to the Red Sox bullpen, consider this:
* In 2005, the 12th man on the pitching staff was Matt Mantei, who had a 6.49 ERA in 26 2/3 innings, or Jeremi Gonzalez, who had a 6.11 ERA in 56 innings.
* In 2006: Rudy Seanez, who had a 4.82 ERA in 46 2/3 innings.
* In 2007: Kyle Snyder, who had a 3.81 ERA in 54 2/3 innings but who was never what you'd call dominant.
* In 2008: David Aardsma, who had a 5.55 ERA in 48 2/3 innings.
In 2009, the 12th man on the pitching staff likely would have been Wes Littleton, acquired in an offseason trade with the Texas Rangers. Littleton has a 19.29 ERA in 4 2/3 innings so far this spring.
Instead, if everyone stays healthy, there won't really be a 12th man. Saito had a 1.40 ERA in 2007, his last full season; he's not what you'd really call a 12th man. Thing is, you can't really call Justin Masterson, Hideki Okajima, Manny Delcarmen, Ramon Ramirez or lefty specialist Javier Lopez the 12th man, either.
That's some impressive quality depth.
***
A taste of what it's like to cover spring training: Many of the beat writers won't get to see Saito's outing tonight; the fourth or fifth inning is right about the time the starting pitcher is showered and ready to meet with the media before heading out for the night.
That means a 10-minute press conference right in the middle of the game. Good times.
It makes for less work after the game, but it's difficult to keep track of everything when you end up in a room under the third-base bleachers for the fourth or fifth inning.
***
We'll close out the night of blogging -- the late innings of a spring training game are an endurance test I'm not going to pass on a Friday night -- with a look at phenom Daniel Bard's outing in the top of the sixth inning:
First up: Ramiro Pena. Weak ground ball to second. One out.
Next up: Top prospect Austin Jackson. Gets buzzed with a breaking ball that didn't break on the second pitch; strikes out on a 98-mile-an-hour heater on the fourth pitch.
Next up: Justin Leone. Weak popup to short.
Another pretty routine inning for Bard, who now has allowed just one hit and struck out eight in his five official outings this spring. Watch out, Boston. He's on his way.
Lester undergoing physical
Jon Lester is expected to undergo a thorough physical in Fort Myers this weekend before the Red Sox sign off on his five-year, $30 million contract, the Globe is reporting.
It'll be interesting to see if they find anything.
As detailed already in this space, giving Lester a five-year deal a year after he threw 237 innings is a huge risk. The injury to Ervin Santana -- who threw 219 innings a year ago and signed a $30 million contract extension in February -- only is the latest piece of evidence.
Every player undergoes a physical like the one Lester will undergo this weekend. Will doctors find anything, though? And will it matter?
With the news of the contract so widely disseminated already -- if not confirmed by any of the parties involved -- it would have to take something awfully severe for them to pull the deal off the table. Lester looks storng and healthy this spring, so it's unlikely there's anything wrong with his arm right now. That might not be the case, though, a month or a year or two years into the contract.
It'll be interesting to see if they find anything.
As detailed already in this space, giving Lester a five-year deal a year after he threw 237 innings is a huge risk. The injury to Ervin Santana -- who threw 219 innings a year ago and signed a $30 million contract extension in February -- only is the latest piece of evidence.
Every player undergoes a physical like the one Lester will undergo this weekend. Will doctors find anything, though? And will it matter?
With the news of the contract so widely disseminated already -- if not confirmed by any of the parties involved -- it would have to take something awfully severe for them to pull the deal off the table. Lester looks storng and healthy this spring, so it's unlikely there's anything wrong with his arm right now. That might not be the case, though, a month or a year or two years into the contract.
The top 100 Red Sox: 91-95
Onward we go with our trip through the top 100 Red Sox players in history; here's the list so far:
100. Keith Foulke
99. Hugh "O" Bedient
98. Rick Ferrell
97. Butch Hobson
96. Lee Smith
Let's keep moving:
95. Jesse Tannehill
Here's the first name that might make even diehard Red Sox fans go, "Who?"
Tannehill had gone 15-15 with a 3.27 ERA for the Yankees in 1903 -- the season the Red Sox won the first World Series in history -- but was traded to Boston for a 20-game winner named Long Tom Hughes. (In this day and age, I don't think you can get away with "Long Tom" as a nickname for a guy you share a locker room with.)
Tannehill didn't look the part -- he stood 5-foot-8 and weighed just 150 pounds -- but he'd shown remarkable endurance early in his career. In 1898, his first full season, he threw 326 2/3 innings -- including 34 complete games -- for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He then threw 313 innings the year after that.
In his first season with the Red Sox, Tannehill threw a measly 281 2/3 innings in going 21-11 with a 2.04 ERA for a team that won the American League title but was deprived of a chance to play in a second straight World Series. (The New York Giants of the National League refused to give credibility to the upstart Americans by playing them in a championship series.)
A year later, the 30-year-old Tannehill was the only Red Sox pitcher to finish with a record above .500 -- even Cy Young, despite a 1.82 ERA, went 18-19 -- as the Red Sox sank to fourth in the league. A year after that, the Red Sox lost 20 games in a row in April and May; Tannehill snapped the losing streak with a complete-game shutout and finished the season with a 13-11 record, again the best mark on the team. The entire pitching staff was getting old -- even Young was old -- and the early run of glory was over.
94. Mike Timlin
Mike Timlin was almost 37 years old and had almost 800 innings in 664 career appearances when he signed with the Red Sox before the 2003 season. He had two World Series titles under his belt; he'd pitched in the playoffs with the Blue Jays, the Mariners and the Cardinals.
As it turns out, he was just getting started.
Timlin tossed 9 2/3 scoreless innings in eight appearances in the 2003 postseason -- as the beat-your-head-against-the-wall mantra went, "Timlin in the eighth, Williamson in the ninth." A year later, he ran into trouble in the postseason (his ERA was 6.17 ERA 11 2/3 innings) but came up big in a couple of big spots -- including 1 2/3 scoreless innings to give the Red Sox a chance to rally in Game 5 of the ALCS against the Yankees. He then pitched a shutout inning of relief in Game 3 of the World Series against the Cardinals.
His best season, actually, might have been 2005, when he led the American League in appearances (with 81, a Red Sox record) and finished the year with a 2.24 ERA. But his age started to catch up with him at that point; his ERA jumped to 4.36 in 2006 and 5.66 in 2008.
In just six seasons, he vaulted himself into third place in Red Sox history in appearances (394, behind only Bob Stanley and Tim Wakefield).
93. Herb Pennock
If not for Harry Frazee -- whose name is sure to reappear in other capsules on this list -- Pennock would be far higher on this list. The lefthander finished his career with 240 wins and three times finished among the American League's top three in ERA; he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1948. Most of his success, though, came with the New York Yankees after Frazee dealt him away for three fringe players and $50,000 cash.
Pennock did have his share of success before his departure, though. He won two World Series titles as a bit contributor with the Red Sox in 1915 and 1916; the 21- and 22-year-old made a grand total of 14 appearances for the Red Sox in those two seasons. He then missed the 1918 season while serving in the Navy in World War I.
But when he came back, he rounded into the form that would take him to the Hall of Fame. He went 16-8 with a 2.71 ERA and five complete-game shutouts in 1919; he followed that with a 16-13 record and a 3.68 ERA in 1920. By then, though, the Red Sox were a shell of the team that had won three World Series titles in four years. Pennock began to scuffle in what should have been the prime of his career; he went 10-17 with a 4.32 ERA for the eighth-place Red Sox in 1922, making it a little more palatable for Frazee to ship him to the Yankees.
In his first two seasons in New York, of course, Pennock went 19-7 and 21-9 and pitched the Yankees to their first World Series title. But by then, his Red Sox days already were over.
92. Dick Stuart
They called him "Dr. Strangeglove," and not in a good way -- he made 29 errors at first base in 1963 and 24 errors at first base in 1964.
"You're losing more ballgames through the middle of your legs than you're winning with your bat," one manager told him.
But the Red Sox weren't paying him for his defense. They were paying him to hit.
(They weren't paying him to be a play-to-win teammate, either. As the story goes, Stuart once was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded but argued successfully that he hadn't been hit and thus should be allowed to stay at the plate and hit. He then struck out.)
Hit he did, though, to the tune of 42 home runs in 1963 and 33 home runs in 1964. His 75 home runs in those two seasons rank him 35th in club history, ahead of Kevin Youkilis and Tom Brunansky but behind Dom DiMaggio, Brian Daubach and Wade Boggs.
"I get paid to do one thing for this ballclub, and I do it very well, and that is to hit the ball out of the ballpark," Stuart told manager Johnny Pesky in one dugout showdown.
He wasn't the best defensive player, and he wasn't the best guy in the clubhouse. But he could hit the snot out of the baseball.
91. Sammy White
One of the staples of the mediocre 1950s Red Sox, White finished third in Rookie of the Year voting in 1952 and earned an All-Star nod in 1953. At the same time, he was the catcher behind the plate for the glory years of Mel Parnell and Ellis Kinder and the early years in the career of Bill Monbouquette. (Monbouquette held hitters to a .252 batting average with White behind the plate, lower than his mark with any other catcher who caught him for more than 25 games.)
"White steals more strikes from umpires than anyone else," Casey Stengel once said. "I'm not being critical. I'm just bowing to his skill."
At the same time, White still had a little pop in his bat. He hit 13 home runs and 34 doubles in 1953; he hit 11 home runs and 30 doubles in 1955.
One thing Red Sox fans should love: When the team tried to trade him to Cleveland in 1960, he refused to go; the Indians had to void the trade and send him back to the Red Sox. After White sat out the 1960 season, he accepted his sale to the Milwaukee Braves in 1961 and played out the string before retiring.
Coming up: Could it be... the RemDawg?
100. Keith Foulke
99. Hugh "O" Bedient
98. Rick Ferrell
97. Butch Hobson
96. Lee Smith
Let's keep moving:
95. Jesse Tannehill
Here's the first name that might make even diehard Red Sox fans go, "Who?"
Tannehill had gone 15-15 with a 3.27 ERA for the Yankees in 1903 -- the season the Red Sox won the first World Series in history -- but was traded to Boston for a 20-game winner named Long Tom Hughes. (In this day and age, I don't think you can get away with "Long Tom" as a nickname for a guy you share a locker room with.)
Tannehill didn't look the part -- he stood 5-foot-8 and weighed just 150 pounds -- but he'd shown remarkable endurance early in his career. In 1898, his first full season, he threw 326 2/3 innings -- including 34 complete games -- for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He then threw 313 innings the year after that.
In his first season with the Red Sox, Tannehill threw a measly 281 2/3 innings in going 21-11 with a 2.04 ERA for a team that won the American League title but was deprived of a chance to play in a second straight World Series. (The New York Giants of the National League refused to give credibility to the upstart Americans by playing them in a championship series.)
A year later, the 30-year-old Tannehill was the only Red Sox pitcher to finish with a record above .500 -- even Cy Young, despite a 1.82 ERA, went 18-19 -- as the Red Sox sank to fourth in the league. A year after that, the Red Sox lost 20 games in a row in April and May; Tannehill snapped the losing streak with a complete-game shutout and finished the season with a 13-11 record, again the best mark on the team. The entire pitching staff was getting old -- even Young was old -- and the early run of glory was over.
94. Mike Timlin
Mike Timlin was almost 37 years old and had almost 800 innings in 664 career appearances when he signed with the Red Sox before the 2003 season. He had two World Series titles under his belt; he'd pitched in the playoffs with the Blue Jays, the Mariners and the Cardinals.
As it turns out, he was just getting started.
Timlin tossed 9 2/3 scoreless innings in eight appearances in the 2003 postseason -- as the beat-your-head-against-the-wall mantra went, "Timlin in the eighth, Williamson in the ninth." A year later, he ran into trouble in the postseason (his ERA was 6.17 ERA 11 2/3 innings) but came up big in a couple of big spots -- including 1 2/3 scoreless innings to give the Red Sox a chance to rally in Game 5 of the ALCS against the Yankees. He then pitched a shutout inning of relief in Game 3 of the World Series against the Cardinals.
His best season, actually, might have been 2005, when he led the American League in appearances (with 81, a Red Sox record) and finished the year with a 2.24 ERA. But his age started to catch up with him at that point; his ERA jumped to 4.36 in 2006 and 5.66 in 2008.
In just six seasons, he vaulted himself into third place in Red Sox history in appearances (394, behind only Bob Stanley and Tim Wakefield).
93. Herb Pennock
If not for Harry Frazee -- whose name is sure to reappear in other capsules on this list -- Pennock would be far higher on this list. The lefthander finished his career with 240 wins and three times finished among the American League's top three in ERA; he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1948. Most of his success, though, came with the New York Yankees after Frazee dealt him away for three fringe players and $50,000 cash.
Pennock did have his share of success before his departure, though. He won two World Series titles as a bit contributor with the Red Sox in 1915 and 1916; the 21- and 22-year-old made a grand total of 14 appearances for the Red Sox in those two seasons. He then missed the 1918 season while serving in the Navy in World War I.
But when he came back, he rounded into the form that would take him to the Hall of Fame. He went 16-8 with a 2.71 ERA and five complete-game shutouts in 1919; he followed that with a 16-13 record and a 3.68 ERA in 1920. By then, though, the Red Sox were a shell of the team that had won three World Series titles in four years. Pennock began to scuffle in what should have been the prime of his career; he went 10-17 with a 4.32 ERA for the eighth-place Red Sox in 1922, making it a little more palatable for Frazee to ship him to the Yankees.
In his first two seasons in New York, of course, Pennock went 19-7 and 21-9 and pitched the Yankees to their first World Series title. But by then, his Red Sox days already were over.
92. Dick Stuart
They called him "Dr. Strangeglove," and not in a good way -- he made 29 errors at first base in 1963 and 24 errors at first base in 1964.
"You're losing more ballgames through the middle of your legs than you're winning with your bat," one manager told him.
But the Red Sox weren't paying him for his defense. They were paying him to hit.
(They weren't paying him to be a play-to-win teammate, either. As the story goes, Stuart once was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded but argued successfully that he hadn't been hit and thus should be allowed to stay at the plate and hit. He then struck out.)
Hit he did, though, to the tune of 42 home runs in 1963 and 33 home runs in 1964. His 75 home runs in those two seasons rank him 35th in club history, ahead of Kevin Youkilis and Tom Brunansky but behind Dom DiMaggio, Brian Daubach and Wade Boggs.
"I get paid to do one thing for this ballclub, and I do it very well, and that is to hit the ball out of the ballpark," Stuart told manager Johnny Pesky in one dugout showdown.
He wasn't the best defensive player, and he wasn't the best guy in the clubhouse. But he could hit the snot out of the baseball.
91. Sammy White
One of the staples of the mediocre 1950s Red Sox, White finished third in Rookie of the Year voting in 1952 and earned an All-Star nod in 1953. At the same time, he was the catcher behind the plate for the glory years of Mel Parnell and Ellis Kinder and the early years in the career of Bill Monbouquette. (Monbouquette held hitters to a .252 batting average with White behind the plate, lower than his mark with any other catcher who caught him for more than 25 games.)
"White steals more strikes from umpires than anyone else," Casey Stengel once said. "I'm not being critical. I'm just bowing to his skill."
At the same time, White still had a little pop in his bat. He hit 13 home runs and 34 doubles in 1953; he hit 11 home runs and 30 doubles in 1955.
One thing Red Sox fans should love: When the team tried to trade him to Cleveland in 1960, he refused to go; the Indians had to void the trade and send him back to the Red Sox. After White sat out the 1960 season, he accepted his sale to the Milwaukee Braves in 1961 and played out the string before retiring.
Coming up: Could it be... the RemDawg?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Top 100 Red Sox: 96-100
So it was just last week in Fort Myers that WalkoffWalk's Kris Liakos and I were talking about the top 100 players in the history of the Los Angeles Angels. The blog Halos Heaven has put together a list of the top 100 players in the history of its beloved franchise -- and the pickings there are so slim that both Adam Kennedy and Doug DeCinces both are among the top 25. (Ever.)
We're fortunate, Kris said, to follow a team that has enough history not to have to put our mediocre infielders in the top 25.
I started thinking about who might land around No. 25 in Red Sox history and suggested Dwight Evans -- a notion to which my new friend took immediate offense because Dwight Evans happens to be his favorite Red Sox player of all-time. (Evans did, in fact, land higher on the list than No. 25 on this list. But I digress.)
The difference still is stark; Evans is the type of player who, while not a real Hall of Fame candidate, is someone who you can't automatically dismiss. Kennedy, on the other hand, hit a few home runs in one American League Championship Series and otherwise matches up pretty well with former overpaid Red Sox infielder Mike Lansing.
Here, then, is the start of a sporadic series that ought to take us through Opening Day:
100. Keith Foulke
With time, perspective is starting to kick in; the backlash from the closer's "Johnny from Burger King" exit has started to fade and the reality of what he did for the franchise in his one full season has started to rise back to the surface. (For many, it never faded -- but if you remember the boos that showered down on Foulke during a season in which he had a 5.91 ERA in 45 2/3 innings, you know what I'm talking about.)
Now, of course, we're more aware of just why Foulke had a 5.91 ERA in 2005 -- he all but threw out his arm during the Red Sox's World Series run in 2004. He appeared in 11 of the Red Sox's 14 games; he pitched 14 innings in a span of three weeks, including a 2 2/3-inning stint in his team's dramatic Game 4 win against the Yankees in the ALCS. He pitched in every game of the World Series, including a 1 2/3-inning stint in Game 1.
In that span, he surrendered just one earned run (for an ERA of 0.64) and saw opponents hit .140 against him. The only run he allowed was when he entered with a 4-0 lead in Game 3 of the World Series abd Larry Walker hit a one-out home run. Foulke then retired Albert Pujols on a fly ball to left field and struck out Scott Rolen to end the game.
David Ortiz's game-winning hits are the lingering memory from that spectacular postseason, but there's no way the Red Sox win the World Series in 2004 without Keith Foulke.
99. Hugh Bedient
If only he'd pitched in the modern day, some enterprising sportswriter would have dubbed him "O" so that we could have called him "O" Bedient. Just another missed opportunity. (Get it? "O" Bedient?) (Crickets.) (OK, moving on.)
Anyway, Bedient went 20-9 with a 2.92 ERA for the 1912 World Series champion Red Sox. In the World Series, he surrendered just one earned run in 18 innings pitched; he threw a complete-game three-hitter in Game 5, outdueling Christy Mathewson in the process.
Here's a sign of the times: Bedient's 19 regular-season complete games weren't enough to lead the team in that category. They weren't even enough for him to rank second. Then again, there's a reason he was out of baseball by the time he was 26 years old. (A few years earlier, while he was with a semipro team in New York, he had struck out 42 in a 23-inning complete game.)
He won 15 games with a 2.78 ERA (and threw 15 complete games) in 1913 before things started to fall apart; by 1915, he was pitching for Buffalo in the Federal League. He went 16-18 that season with another 16 complete games (and a whopping 269 1/3 innings pitched), but that would be it for his career. He wasn't even 26 years old.
98. Wes Ferrell
He's not in the Hall of Fame like his brother Rick, but maybe he should be -- in fact, many believe that the only reason Rick is in the Hall of Fame is because voters confused him with Wes. Rick was a decent catcher in his four seasons with the Red Sox; he hit .312 with eight home runs in 1936. But Wes hit .347 with seven home runs in 1935 -- an even more remarkable feat given that he was a pitcher.
Wes Ferrell twice won 20 games for the mid-1930s Red Sox; in 1935 and 1936, he was the ace of a staff that also featured an aging Lefty Grove. In 1935, in fact, he finished second in Most Valuable Player voting behind Hank Greenberg and ahead of Lou Gehrig, Charlie Gehringer and Mickey Cochrane. In 1937, he and his brother both were traded to Washington; he would bounce around the league until 1941.
In his career, he hit 37 home runs -- still a record for a pitcher. His most enduring legacy, though, might be his temper. "I saw him get so mad after losing a game of poker that he tore the deck of cards in half with his bare hands," one teammate said.
97. Butch Hobson
"Butch didn't play baseball," Bill Lee wrote in his book. "He played roller derby on spikes. On pop flies near the dugout, he would dive headfirst into the bat rack. He was never concerned with making the catch. For Butch, it was the crash that was more important. From the dugout, you could see him thinking, 'Hmm, let's see how badly bruised I can get on this play. How far can I dive into the ground without killing myself?'"
Young Red Sox fans -- and, yes, if you look at that picture over there, you'll see that I fall into that category -- mostly just remember Hobson as the manager who led the Red Sox to three straight sub-.500 finishes from 1992-94 before Kevin Kennedy took over and won a division title in 1995. (It helped, of course, that Kennedy had a resurgent Tim Wakefield, a resurgent Erik Hanson, a resurgent Troy O'Leary, a resurgent John Valentin and a Mo Vaughn who played so out of his mind that he even stole 11 bases.)
Before that, though, Hobson was a power-hitting third baseman who earned MVP consideration for a 1977 season in which he hit 30 home runs and drove in 112 runs. His fielding, though, wasn't so hot; he committed an astounding 43 errors in 1978. He hit 28 more home runs in 1979 and 11 more in an injury-marred 1980 season before he was traded to California; he finished his career tied with Ellis Burks for 28th in Red Sox history in home runs (94).
96. Lee Smith
Smith retired in 1997 as the big leagues' all-time leader in saves (478), a record he held until Trevor Hoffman passed him in 2006. The Red Sox acquired Smith -- who already had four 30-save seasons under his belt from his years with the Cubs -- for Al Nipper and World Series scapegoat Calvin Schiraldi, and he paid immediate dividends. OK, maybe not immediate dividends -- he gave up a 10th-inning home run to Alan Trammell in his first start in a game the Red Sox lost by a 5-3 score.
But after that, he did just fine; he finished the year with 29 saves and a 2.80 ERA. (A year earlier, Schiraldi and fellow closer Wes Gardner combined for a 4.93 ERA in 109 appearances.) In 1989, Smith had 25 saves and a 3.57 ERA. In 1990, though, the Red Sox traded Smith to St. Louis for Tom Brunansky in a move that helped lift them to an American League East title. (Free agent signee Jeff Reardon by then had assumed the closer role.)
Coming up: Nos. 91-95, including a man named Herb!
We're fortunate, Kris said, to follow a team that has enough history not to have to put our mediocre infielders in the top 25.
I started thinking about who might land around No. 25 in Red Sox history and suggested Dwight Evans -- a notion to which my new friend took immediate offense because Dwight Evans happens to be his favorite Red Sox player of all-time. (Evans did, in fact, land higher on the list than No. 25 on this list. But I digress.)
The difference still is stark; Evans is the type of player who, while not a real Hall of Fame candidate, is someone who you can't automatically dismiss. Kennedy, on the other hand, hit a few home runs in one American League Championship Series and otherwise matches up pretty well with former overpaid Red Sox infielder Mike Lansing.
Here, then, is the start of a sporadic series that ought to take us through Opening Day:
100. Keith Foulke
With time, perspective is starting to kick in; the backlash from the closer's "Johnny from Burger King" exit has started to fade and the reality of what he did for the franchise in his one full season has started to rise back to the surface. (For many, it never faded -- but if you remember the boos that showered down on Foulke during a season in which he had a 5.91 ERA in 45 2/3 innings, you know what I'm talking about.)
Now, of course, we're more aware of just why Foulke had a 5.91 ERA in 2005 -- he all but threw out his arm during the Red Sox's World Series run in 2004. He appeared in 11 of the Red Sox's 14 games; he pitched 14 innings in a span of three weeks, including a 2 2/3-inning stint in his team's dramatic Game 4 win against the Yankees in the ALCS. He pitched in every game of the World Series, including a 1 2/3-inning stint in Game 1.
In that span, he surrendered just one earned run (for an ERA of 0.64) and saw opponents hit .140 against him. The only run he allowed was when he entered with a 4-0 lead in Game 3 of the World Series abd Larry Walker hit a one-out home run. Foulke then retired Albert Pujols on a fly ball to left field and struck out Scott Rolen to end the game.
David Ortiz's game-winning hits are the lingering memory from that spectacular postseason, but there's no way the Red Sox win the World Series in 2004 without Keith Foulke.
99. Hugh Bedient
If only he'd pitched in the modern day, some enterprising sportswriter would have dubbed him "O" so that we could have called him "O" Bedient. Just another missed opportunity. (Get it? "O" Bedient?) (Crickets.) (OK, moving on.)
Anyway, Bedient went 20-9 with a 2.92 ERA for the 1912 World Series champion Red Sox. In the World Series, he surrendered just one earned run in 18 innings pitched; he threw a complete-game three-hitter in Game 5, outdueling Christy Mathewson in the process.
Here's a sign of the times: Bedient's 19 regular-season complete games weren't enough to lead the team in that category. They weren't even enough for him to rank second. Then again, there's a reason he was out of baseball by the time he was 26 years old. (A few years earlier, while he was with a semipro team in New York, he had struck out 42 in a 23-inning complete game.)
He won 15 games with a 2.78 ERA (and threw 15 complete games) in 1913 before things started to fall apart; by 1915, he was pitching for Buffalo in the Federal League. He went 16-18 that season with another 16 complete games (and a whopping 269 1/3 innings pitched), but that would be it for his career. He wasn't even 26 years old.
98. Wes Ferrell
He's not in the Hall of Fame like his brother Rick, but maybe he should be -- in fact, many believe that the only reason Rick is in the Hall of Fame is because voters confused him with Wes. Rick was a decent catcher in his four seasons with the Red Sox; he hit .312 with eight home runs in 1936. But Wes hit .347 with seven home runs in 1935 -- an even more remarkable feat given that he was a pitcher.
Wes Ferrell twice won 20 games for the mid-1930s Red Sox; in 1935 and 1936, he was the ace of a staff that also featured an aging Lefty Grove. In 1935, in fact, he finished second in Most Valuable Player voting behind Hank Greenberg and ahead of Lou Gehrig, Charlie Gehringer and Mickey Cochrane. In 1937, he and his brother both were traded to Washington; he would bounce around the league until 1941.
In his career, he hit 37 home runs -- still a record for a pitcher. His most enduring legacy, though, might be his temper. "I saw him get so mad after losing a game of poker that he tore the deck of cards in half with his bare hands," one teammate said.
97. Butch Hobson
"Butch didn't play baseball," Bill Lee wrote in his book. "He played roller derby on spikes. On pop flies near the dugout, he would dive headfirst into the bat rack. He was never concerned with making the catch. For Butch, it was the crash that was more important. From the dugout, you could see him thinking, 'Hmm, let's see how badly bruised I can get on this play. How far can I dive into the ground without killing myself?'"
Young Red Sox fans -- and, yes, if you look at that picture over there, you'll see that I fall into that category -- mostly just remember Hobson as the manager who led the Red Sox to three straight sub-.500 finishes from 1992-94 before Kevin Kennedy took over and won a division title in 1995. (It helped, of course, that Kennedy had a resurgent Tim Wakefield, a resurgent Erik Hanson, a resurgent Troy O'Leary, a resurgent John Valentin and a Mo Vaughn who played so out of his mind that he even stole 11 bases.)
Before that, though, Hobson was a power-hitting third baseman who earned MVP consideration for a 1977 season in which he hit 30 home runs and drove in 112 runs. His fielding, though, wasn't so hot; he committed an astounding 43 errors in 1978. He hit 28 more home runs in 1979 and 11 more in an injury-marred 1980 season before he was traded to California; he finished his career tied with Ellis Burks for 28th in Red Sox history in home runs (94).
96. Lee Smith
Smith retired in 1997 as the big leagues' all-time leader in saves (478), a record he held until Trevor Hoffman passed him in 2006. The Red Sox acquired Smith -- who already had four 30-save seasons under his belt from his years with the Cubs -- for Al Nipper and World Series scapegoat Calvin Schiraldi, and he paid immediate dividends. OK, maybe not immediate dividends -- he gave up a 10th-inning home run to Alan Trammell in his first start in a game the Red Sox lost by a 5-3 score.
But after that, he did just fine; he finished the year with 29 saves and a 2.80 ERA. (A year earlier, Schiraldi and fellow closer Wes Gardner combined for a 4.93 ERA in 109 appearances.) In 1989, Smith had 25 saves and a 3.57 ERA. In 1990, though, the Red Sox traded Smith to St. Louis for Tom Brunansky in a move that helped lift them to an American League East title. (Free agent signee Jeff Reardon by then had assumed the closer role.)
Coming up: Nos. 91-95, including a man named Herb!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Buchholz sparkles again
"(The Red Sox) have got a decision to make," Clay Buchholz told reporters after his second start of the spring, an outing in which he danced in and out of danger against Puerto Rico's loaded lineup. "There's seven or eight guys that are in line for five spots. It's basic math. Not all seven or eight guys can be in the rotation. I came in here thinking, 'Hey, they're going to have to make a decision and they're going to have to have to make that decision regardless, so I might as well make it as tough on them as possible."
With every appearance Buchholz makes this spring, he makes that decision tougher. After throwing three no-hit innings against the Orioles -- a lineup that included Nick Markakis, Matt Wieters and Luke Scott. Counting his outing against Puerto Rico, Buchholz now has surrendered one run on four hits in seven innings pitched; he's struck out five and hasn't walked anyone.
"I feel relaxed," Buchholz told reporters after his third start. "I feel I have some confidence going out there, whereas last year, where I was, my mind was just an array of thoughts. I didn't even know what I was thinking. ... You can't be like that to compete at this level. Slowly but surely, it's getting better and I feel more comfortable and more confident."
The Red Sox are going to have themselves a problem if Buchholz keeps pitching the way he's been pitching. Buchholz looks primed to have a Lester-type breakout season -- but he can't do that if there's not a spot in the rotation. Brad Penny, a 30-year-old veteran who went 16-4 with a 3.03 ERA just two years ago, is working his way back from shoulder issues. Tim Wakefield is doing what he does; he's surrendered four earned runs in seven innings this spring and has walked four, but yanking him from the rotation would be equivalent to forcing him into retirement. Future Hall of Famer John Smoltz, who had a chat with Buchholz before the youngster's start yesterday, has already been penciled into the rotation for July, August and September.
But there's another option for Buchholz.
Baseball Prospectus has the Detroit Tigers projected to finish second in the American League Central with an 80-82 record. As weak as that division is, the Tigers could be in it until the end.
But if things go wrong for the Tigers early this season, they might be tempted to sell off an expensive part or two with an eye on rebuilding their starting rotation. (Sorry, but Nate Robertson ain't getting it done.) Buchholz might be just that piece around which the Tigers could build.
The cost? This guy.
Miguel Cabrera will have six years and $126 million left on his contract after this season. One team that could absorb that type of money, though, is a team that shaved Manny Ramirez from its payroll, a team that failed in its attempt to throw $180 million at Mark Teixeira and a team that is in the process of achieving cost certainty with its core of young players.
It's also a team that certainly could find a spot for a guy who can hit 30 home runs and drive in 110 runs and get on base at a .380 clip and slug .550 and be pretty much what Manny Ramirez was for eight years in Fenway Park's right-handed batter's box.
Might this be part of the big plan? If the Red Sox leave Buchholz at Triple-A Pawtucket to carve up inferior competition, might they just be preserving his value?
It's tough to trade away a potential ace. But when you can get a guy whose Baseball-Reference.com comparables include Ken Griffey Jr., Hank Aaron, Orlando Cepeda and Mickey Mantle, well, you don't have much choice.
With every appearance Buchholz makes this spring, he makes that decision tougher. After throwing three no-hit innings against the Orioles -- a lineup that included Nick Markakis, Matt Wieters and Luke Scott. Counting his outing against Puerto Rico, Buchholz now has surrendered one run on four hits in seven innings pitched; he's struck out five and hasn't walked anyone.
"I feel relaxed," Buchholz told reporters after his third start. "I feel I have some confidence going out there, whereas last year, where I was, my mind was just an array of thoughts. I didn't even know what I was thinking. ... You can't be like that to compete at this level. Slowly but surely, it's getting better and I feel more comfortable and more confident."
The Red Sox are going to have themselves a problem if Buchholz keeps pitching the way he's been pitching. Buchholz looks primed to have a Lester-type breakout season -- but he can't do that if there's not a spot in the rotation. Brad Penny, a 30-year-old veteran who went 16-4 with a 3.03 ERA just two years ago, is working his way back from shoulder issues. Tim Wakefield is doing what he does; he's surrendered four earned runs in seven innings this spring and has walked four, but yanking him from the rotation would be equivalent to forcing him into retirement. Future Hall of Famer John Smoltz, who had a chat with Buchholz before the youngster's start yesterday, has already been penciled into the rotation for July, August and September.
But there's another option for Buchholz.
Baseball Prospectus has the Detroit Tigers projected to finish second in the American League Central with an 80-82 record. As weak as that division is, the Tigers could be in it until the end.
But if things go wrong for the Tigers early this season, they might be tempted to sell off an expensive part or two with an eye on rebuilding their starting rotation. (Sorry, but Nate Robertson ain't getting it done.) Buchholz might be just that piece around which the Tigers could build.
The cost? This guy.
Miguel Cabrera will have six years and $126 million left on his contract after this season. One team that could absorb that type of money, though, is a team that shaved Manny Ramirez from its payroll, a team that failed in its attempt to throw $180 million at Mark Teixeira and a team that is in the process of achieving cost certainty with its core of young players.
It's also a team that certainly could find a spot for a guy who can hit 30 home runs and drive in 110 runs and get on base at a .380 clip and slug .550 and be pretty much what Manny Ramirez was for eight years in Fenway Park's right-handed batter's box.
Might this be part of the big plan? If the Red Sox leave Buchholz at Triple-A Pawtucket to carve up inferior competition, might they just be preserving his value?
It's tough to trade away a potential ace. But when you can get a guy whose Baseball-Reference.com comparables include Ken Griffey Jr., Hank Aaron, Orlando Cepeda and Mickey Mantle, well, you don't have much choice.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Pitchers and the 200-inning barrier
In the wake of reports that the Red Sox are about to lavish $30 million on lefthanded ace Jon Lester, one has to wonder just what the Red Sox are about to get in return for their investment.
Here are the facts:
1. Jon Lester is 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds.
2. Counting the playoffs, Jon Lester threw 237 innings last season.
3. The 200-inning barrier is a dangerous barrier to break, particularly for a young pitcher.
How dangerous?
Sixty-four pitchers threw at least 200 innings in a season in either 2005 or 2006 (or both). Forty-four of those pitchers -- almost 70 percent -- have had some sort of injury issue in the years since.
Almost 70 percent. That's an astonishing statistic.
Not convinced of how astonishing it is? Here's the list of pitchers who threw 200 innings in 2005 and/or 2006 and then landed on the disabled list or saw their ERA go into the toilet or broke down in some form: Aaron Cook, Aaron Harang, A.J. Burnett, Barry Zito, Bartolo Colon, Brett Myers, Chris Capuano, Chris Carpenter, Cliff Lee, Curt Schilling, Dontrelle Willis, Ervin Santana, Freddy Garcia, Gustavo Chacin, Horacio Ramirez, Jake Peavy, Jake Westbrook, Jason Jennings, Jason Johnson, Jason Schmidt, Jeff Weaver, Jeremy Bonderman, John Lackey, John Smoltz, Jon Lieber, Jose Contreras, Josh Beckett, Josh Towers, Kenny Rogers, Kevin Millwood, Mark Mulder, Miguel Batista, Mike Maroth, Nate Robertson, Noah Lowry, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Rodrigo Lopez, Tim Hudson, Tim Wakefield, Tom Glavine, Vicente Padilla and Zach Duke.
Some breakdowns were fairly minor; Beckett, for example, saw his workload catch up with him at the end of the season and during the postseason, but he never landed on the disabled list. Others, though, weren't so fortunate:
* Chris Capuano broke out in a big way in 2005, winning 18 games with a 3.99 ERA for a Milwaukee team that was just starting to find its identity. Rickie Weeks and J.J. Hardy both were 22 years old; Prince Fielder was 21. Ben Sheets only was on the disabled list twice. It was heady times in Brewer-land. Capuano had already undergone the obligatory Tommy John surgery; he was poised to join Sheets as a one-two punch that could overwhelm the National League.
He took on even more of the load in 2006 as Sheets spent even more time on the disabled list. He tossed two complete-game shutouts and compiled a 4.03 ERA; he struck out just as many hitters as the year before but cut his walk total almost in half. Bill Hall had a huge season at third base for the Brewers, and Prince Fielder and Carlos Lee each hit 28 home runs. It looked like the entire team -- with Capuano at the forefront -- was about to take a huge leap forward.
And then his workload -- 219 innings in 2005 and 221 1/3 innings in 2006 -- caught up with him.
He scuffled in 2007, going 5-12 with a 5.10 ERA and spending most of the month of June on the disabled list with a strained groin. ("We might have a problem here," he told his pitching coach minutes before a scheduled start.) At spring training in 2008, his elbow started to hurt. He underwent Tommy John surgery in mid-May and is hoping -- hoping -- to be ready to pitch again by mid-May this year.
* Gustavo Chacin won 13 games to go along with a 3.72 ERA in 203 innings pitched for the Blue Jays in 2005. His rookie season was good enough, in fact, that he finished in fifth place in American League Rookie of the Year voting - ahead of Joe Blanton, Nick Swisher and Scott Kazmir.
Things started innocuously enough the next year; he won five of his first six starts despite a relatively mediocre 4.50 ERA. At that point, actually, he led an injury-depleted pitching staff in victories. (Free-agent signee A.J. Burnett was on the disabled list, and Josh Towers, who had thrown 208 2/3 innings the year before, was 0-7 with a 10.09 ERA through seven starts.) By early May, though, things started to go downhill. Elbow soreness forced him from a start on May 10, and he ended up on the disabled list. The same soreness returned on June 9.
"You feel for the kid," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said at the time. "We've got to take care of him."
Chacin was promptly shelled in his first start back in late August -- he surrendered five earned runs in 1 1/3 innings against Oakland. He's never been the same. A year ago, he went 1-7 in 11 starts for the Dunedin Blue Jays, Toronto's Single-A franchise. This spring, he's a non-roster invitee to the spring training camp of the Washington Nationals and is a longshot even to make that pitching-desperate roster.
* Ervin Santana is a goofy case -- particularly since the Angels should already have learned their lesson once.
Santana went 16-8 with a 4.28 ERA in 2006, teaming with John Lackey and Jared Weaver to give the Angels as impressive a young starting rotation as any in the American League. But that season, his first season beyond the 200-inning barrier, caught up with him right away. His ERA had jumped to 6.22 by the time the Angels shipped him off to Triple-A to rediscover himself, including 12.56 in the month of July.
Rather than back off on Santana when he showed signs of his old self the next spring, the Angels threw him right back in there.
"Hopefully, his struggles last year weren't for naught with Ervin," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said at the time, "and he understands more about his mechanics. He got in some bad habits last year. Hopefully, he got them cleaned up."
Santana then threw a career-high 219 innings a year ago in going 16-7 with a 3.49 ERA as the Angels put together the best record in the major leagues. With John Lackey fighting injuries and Kelvim Escobar sidelined for the season, he and Joe Saunders had as much to do with the Angels' 100 wins as anyone else. The Angels rewarded him early in spring training with a four-year, $30 million contract extension.
Then, of course, this happened.
There's no way to tell who's going to break down. Roy Oswalt stands 6 feet tall and weighs 170 pounds and hasn't broken down despite throwing 200 innings in each of the last five seasons. Tim Hudson stands 6 feet tall and weighs 170 pounds and underwent Tommy John surgery last summer after back-to-back 200-inning workloads.
At the end of the spectrum, Roy Halladay stands 6-foot-6 and 225 pounds and still is going strong despite throwing more than 200 innings three years in a row. Chris Carpenter, on the other hand, stands 6-foot-6 and 215 pounds and underwent Tommy John surgery in July of 2007.
Opponents to pitch limits and inning limits can point to plenty of success stories. Brandon Webb and Mark Buehrle still are going strong and show no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Greg Maddux, all 170 pounds of him, threw almost 5,000 innings in his 22 full seasons -- an average of 226 innings a year -- and endured exactly one stint on the disabled list.
But it's astounding to think that 69 percent of pitchers who hit the 200-inning barrier in 2005 or 2006 have run into issues in the two (or three) years since. Some of those pitchers -- including the electric Dontrelle Willis, who went 22-10 with a 2.63 ERA in 2005 -- have all but disappeared from the major-league radar.
The Red Sox could go right ahead with their plan to pitch Lester every five days, to let him pitch his arm off for 30 starts or 35 starts or whatever it takes for him to carry his team to another World Series or two.
But it's a gamble -- and it's a gamble that history shows doesn't have a great chance of paying off.
Here are the facts:
1. Jon Lester is 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds.
2. Counting the playoffs, Jon Lester threw 237 innings last season.
3. The 200-inning barrier is a dangerous barrier to break, particularly for a young pitcher.
How dangerous?
Sixty-four pitchers threw at least 200 innings in a season in either 2005 or 2006 (or both). Forty-four of those pitchers -- almost 70 percent -- have had some sort of injury issue in the years since.
Almost 70 percent. That's an astonishing statistic.
Not convinced of how astonishing it is? Here's the list of pitchers who threw 200 innings in 2005 and/or 2006 and then landed on the disabled list or saw their ERA go into the toilet or broke down in some form: Aaron Cook, Aaron Harang, A.J. Burnett, Barry Zito, Bartolo Colon, Brett Myers, Chris Capuano, Chris Carpenter, Cliff Lee, Curt Schilling, Dontrelle Willis, Ervin Santana, Freddy Garcia, Gustavo Chacin, Horacio Ramirez, Jake Peavy, Jake Westbrook, Jason Jennings, Jason Johnson, Jason Schmidt, Jeff Weaver, Jeremy Bonderman, John Lackey, John Smoltz, Jon Lieber, Jose Contreras, Josh Beckett, Josh Towers, Kenny Rogers, Kevin Millwood, Mark Mulder, Miguel Batista, Mike Maroth, Nate Robertson, Noah Lowry, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Rodrigo Lopez, Tim Hudson, Tim Wakefield, Tom Glavine, Vicente Padilla and Zach Duke.
Some breakdowns were fairly minor; Beckett, for example, saw his workload catch up with him at the end of the season and during the postseason, but he never landed on the disabled list. Others, though, weren't so fortunate:
* Chris Capuano broke out in a big way in 2005, winning 18 games with a 3.99 ERA for a Milwaukee team that was just starting to find its identity. Rickie Weeks and J.J. Hardy both were 22 years old; Prince Fielder was 21. Ben Sheets only was on the disabled list twice. It was heady times in Brewer-land. Capuano had already undergone the obligatory Tommy John surgery; he was poised to join Sheets as a one-two punch that could overwhelm the National League.
He took on even more of the load in 2006 as Sheets spent even more time on the disabled list. He tossed two complete-game shutouts and compiled a 4.03 ERA; he struck out just as many hitters as the year before but cut his walk total almost in half. Bill Hall had a huge season at third base for the Brewers, and Prince Fielder and Carlos Lee each hit 28 home runs. It looked like the entire team -- with Capuano at the forefront -- was about to take a huge leap forward.
And then his workload -- 219 innings in 2005 and 221 1/3 innings in 2006 -- caught up with him.
He scuffled in 2007, going 5-12 with a 5.10 ERA and spending most of the month of June on the disabled list with a strained groin. ("We might have a problem here," he told his pitching coach minutes before a scheduled start.) At spring training in 2008, his elbow started to hurt. He underwent Tommy John surgery in mid-May and is hoping -- hoping -- to be ready to pitch again by mid-May this year.
* Gustavo Chacin won 13 games to go along with a 3.72 ERA in 203 innings pitched for the Blue Jays in 2005. His rookie season was good enough, in fact, that he finished in fifth place in American League Rookie of the Year voting - ahead of Joe Blanton, Nick Swisher and Scott Kazmir.
Things started innocuously enough the next year; he won five of his first six starts despite a relatively mediocre 4.50 ERA. At that point, actually, he led an injury-depleted pitching staff in victories. (Free-agent signee A.J. Burnett was on the disabled list, and Josh Towers, who had thrown 208 2/3 innings the year before, was 0-7 with a 10.09 ERA through seven starts.) By early May, though, things started to go downhill. Elbow soreness forced him from a start on May 10, and he ended up on the disabled list. The same soreness returned on June 9.
"You feel for the kid," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said at the time. "We've got to take care of him."
Chacin was promptly shelled in his first start back in late August -- he surrendered five earned runs in 1 1/3 innings against Oakland. He's never been the same. A year ago, he went 1-7 in 11 starts for the Dunedin Blue Jays, Toronto's Single-A franchise. This spring, he's a non-roster invitee to the spring training camp of the Washington Nationals and is a longshot even to make that pitching-desperate roster.
* Ervin Santana is a goofy case -- particularly since the Angels should already have learned their lesson once.
Santana went 16-8 with a 4.28 ERA in 2006, teaming with John Lackey and Jared Weaver to give the Angels as impressive a young starting rotation as any in the American League. But that season, his first season beyond the 200-inning barrier, caught up with him right away. His ERA had jumped to 6.22 by the time the Angels shipped him off to Triple-A to rediscover himself, including 12.56 in the month of July.
Rather than back off on Santana when he showed signs of his old self the next spring, the Angels threw him right back in there.
"Hopefully, his struggles last year weren't for naught with Ervin," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said at the time, "and he understands more about his mechanics. He got in some bad habits last year. Hopefully, he got them cleaned up."
Santana then threw a career-high 219 innings a year ago in going 16-7 with a 3.49 ERA as the Angels put together the best record in the major leagues. With John Lackey fighting injuries and Kelvim Escobar sidelined for the season, he and Joe Saunders had as much to do with the Angels' 100 wins as anyone else. The Angels rewarded him early in spring training with a four-year, $30 million contract extension.
Then, of course, this happened.
There's no way to tell who's going to break down. Roy Oswalt stands 6 feet tall and weighs 170 pounds and hasn't broken down despite throwing 200 innings in each of the last five seasons. Tim Hudson stands 6 feet tall and weighs 170 pounds and underwent Tommy John surgery last summer after back-to-back 200-inning workloads.
At the end of the spectrum, Roy Halladay stands 6-foot-6 and 225 pounds and still is going strong despite throwing more than 200 innings three years in a row. Chris Carpenter, on the other hand, stands 6-foot-6 and 215 pounds and underwent Tommy John surgery in July of 2007.
Opponents to pitch limits and inning limits can point to plenty of success stories. Brandon Webb and Mark Buehrle still are going strong and show no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Greg Maddux, all 170 pounds of him, threw almost 5,000 innings in his 22 full seasons -- an average of 226 innings a year -- and endured exactly one stint on the disabled list.
But it's astounding to think that 69 percent of pitchers who hit the 200-inning barrier in 2005 or 2006 have run into issues in the two (or three) years since. Some of those pitchers -- including the electric Dontrelle Willis, who went 22-10 with a 2.63 ERA in 2005 -- have all but disappeared from the major-league radar.
The Red Sox could go right ahead with their plan to pitch Lester every five days, to let him pitch his arm off for 30 starts or 35 starts or whatever it takes for him to carry his team to another World Series or two.
But it's a gamble -- and it's a gamble that history shows doesn't have a great chance of paying off.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Maybe it's time for a six-man rotation
The Red Sox have never shied away from trying something new with their pitchers. (Remember the Chad Fox-led "bullpen by committee" in 2003?)
This year, it might be worth again trying something new: A six-man starting rotation.
Not one Red Sox pitcher is without question marks:
* Josh Beckett, after back-to-back 200-inning seasons, was too beat up by October to be his normally dominant self.
* Daisuke Matsuzaka averaged more 100 pitches per six innings pitched last season.
* Jon Lester, as detailed below, took a huge jump forward in his innings pitched last season.
* Tim Wakefield is 42 years old and missed three weeks in August with tightness in his shoulder.
* Brad Penny had a miserable season a year ago and already has had to revamp his rehabilitation program this spring.
* John Smoltz underwent shoulder surgery last June.
* Clay Buchholz has never pitched more than 145 innings in a season.
* Neither has Michael Bowden.
Might it be worth trying, then, a six-man starting rotation?
The main argument against such an arrangement is that it would give top-of-the-rotation arms like Beckett and Lester fewer opportunities to get to the mound. That's still true; rather than the 32 starts they'd get with a five-man rotation, each would get 27 starts with a six-man rotation.
But the Red Sox need to find a way to limit the work Lester has to do, and with the issues Beckett had a year ago, it might not be a bad idea to give him something of a break, too. It might even make some of the American League's best pitchers even better. Consider these career numbers:
* Beckett has a 3.88 ERA on four days' rest and a 4.19 ERA on five days' rest, but his opponents' batting average (.250 to .247), on-base percentage (.313 to .304) and slugging percentage (.405 to .396) all drop with that extra day.
* Lester has a 3.89 ERA on four days' rest and a 3.39 ERA on five days' rest. His opponents' hitting numbers drop even more drastically than Beckett's do.
* Matsuzaka, who pitched with extra rest in Japan, has a 4.22 ERA with four days' rest and a 3.41 ERA with five days' rest.
* Penny has a 4.20 ERA on four days' rest and a 4.12 ERA on five days' rest.
* Buchholz has a 6.89 ERA on four days' rest and a 5.40 ERA on five days' rest -- as well as a 3.93 ERA on six or more days' rest.
* Only Wakefield (4.19 ERA on four days' rest and 4.57 ERA on five days' rest) and Smoltz (3.15 ERA on four days' rest and 3.80 ERA on five days' rest) see their numbers go the wrong direction when he has an extra day to rest.
While many teams don't have the quality arms to go even five deep, the Red Sox have more than enough. Beckett would be the ace of almost any staff, while Lester, Matsuzaka and even Buchholz have the stuff to be No. 2 or No. 3 starters elsewhere. Wakefield and Penny still are serviceable arms -- and if you have to take a couple of extra starts from them to make sure Beckett and Lester are healthy for the postseason, wouldn't you do it?
This year, it might be worth again trying something new: A six-man starting rotation.
Not one Red Sox pitcher is without question marks:
* Josh Beckett, after back-to-back 200-inning seasons, was too beat up by October to be his normally dominant self.
* Daisuke Matsuzaka averaged more 100 pitches per six innings pitched last season.
* Jon Lester, as detailed below, took a huge jump forward in his innings pitched last season.
* Tim Wakefield is 42 years old and missed three weeks in August with tightness in his shoulder.
* Brad Penny had a miserable season a year ago and already has had to revamp his rehabilitation program this spring.
* John Smoltz underwent shoulder surgery last June.
* Clay Buchholz has never pitched more than 145 innings in a season.
* Neither has Michael Bowden.
Might it be worth trying, then, a six-man starting rotation?
The main argument against such an arrangement is that it would give top-of-the-rotation arms like Beckett and Lester fewer opportunities to get to the mound. That's still true; rather than the 32 starts they'd get with a five-man rotation, each would get 27 starts with a six-man rotation.
But the Red Sox need to find a way to limit the work Lester has to do, and with the issues Beckett had a year ago, it might not be a bad idea to give him something of a break, too. It might even make some of the American League's best pitchers even better. Consider these career numbers:
* Beckett has a 3.88 ERA on four days' rest and a 4.19 ERA on five days' rest, but his opponents' batting average (.250 to .247), on-base percentage (.313 to .304) and slugging percentage (.405 to .396) all drop with that extra day.
* Lester has a 3.89 ERA on four days' rest and a 3.39 ERA on five days' rest. His opponents' hitting numbers drop even more drastically than Beckett's do.
* Matsuzaka, who pitched with extra rest in Japan, has a 4.22 ERA with four days' rest and a 3.41 ERA with five days' rest.
* Penny has a 4.20 ERA on four days' rest and a 4.12 ERA on five days' rest.
* Buchholz has a 6.89 ERA on four days' rest and a 5.40 ERA on five days' rest -- as well as a 3.93 ERA on six or more days' rest.
* Only Wakefield (4.19 ERA on four days' rest and 4.57 ERA on five days' rest) and Smoltz (3.15 ERA on four days' rest and 3.80 ERA on five days' rest) see their numbers go the wrong direction when he has an extra day to rest.
While many teams don't have the quality arms to go even five deep, the Red Sox have more than enough. Beckett would be the ace of almost any staff, while Lester, Matsuzaka and even Buchholz have the stuff to be No. 2 or No. 3 starters elsewhere. Wakefield and Penny still are serviceable arms -- and if you have to take a couple of extra starts from them to make sure Beckett and Lester are healthy for the postseason, wouldn't you do it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
