Yankees Miss Jugular

The New York Yankees won the first two games in their series against the Tampa Bay Rays and built their largest lead of the year in the division. They lost a tough game on Saturday on a walk-off homer. Hey, that happens. The team still had a chance of leaving that house of horrors called, Tropicana Field, of taking three of four games. Instead, Aaron Boone said it was a good time to rest his two most reliable and versatile hitters (and All Stars), DJ LaMahieu and Gleyber Torres. The Yankees scored one run against Charlie Morton and settled for a split. Instead of stepping on the Rays' jugular, the Yankees stuck to their every game is not important way of life.

I should be ecstatic with the lead the Yankees have in the division considering all the injuries the team suffered over the first half of the season (and continue to have). I should feel good about where the team is heading into the break. The team's place in the standings beats my expectations and hopes to this point. I should be grateful, right?

I would be more grateful if the Yankees' manager and staff (and those analytic squad-mates) had more of a killer instinct. I keep going back to my lack of understanding of the value of rest when a game is lost in the process. In theory, the rested player will perform at a higher level and be worth a few more percentage points in Wins Above Replacement from being rested. What I do not get is how hypothetical "wins" are more important than actual wins.

The counter argument would be: Can you guarantee that the Yankees would have won against Morton if DJLM and Gleyber played the game? Of course not. That said, I still think the odds of winning would have been far greater. The value of DJLM and Gleyber Torres is that they are versatile hitters. Those are the types of hitters needed against an ace like Charlie Morton. Without BOTH in the lineup, the Yankees are basically full of three-outcome batters (walk, strikeout, homer). A pitcher like Morton can fully exploit a lineup like that just as Morton did with one run and a gazillion strikeouts.

 Aaron Boone said that he felt that both needed a break as the team leaned on them heavily during the first half. How heavy is heavily? Both DJLM and Gleyber Torres have played in 81 of the Yankees' 88 games. They each now have seven days off to this point in the season. That does not sound overworked to me. Gleyber Torres is 23-years-old. Brett Gardner has played 83 games thus far. He is the older veteran.  Cody Bellenger is also 23 and has played in 88 of the Dodgers' 91 games. Max Muncy is closer to LeMahieu's age and has played 89.

One could also make a point that Torres and LeMahieu will not get a normal break like the others because of the All Star Game and have to travel to Cleveland. Oh boohoo! Mike Trout played Sunday as did Bellinger. Both are the best players in their respective leagues and have to travel further away from and to home for the All Star Game than any of the Yankees' players.

I do not advocate the Billy Martin way of playing his players and his pitchers until they dropped. Boone is observant enough to see the signs that a player needs a day. But this feels all too programmed and, at the same time, illogical. All I know is that the Yankees allowed the Rays to get two games closer and keep their hopes alive and, more importantly, allowed the Red Sox to creep two games closer instead of being buried in a deeper hole come the All Star Break. AND, it hurt them in the "best record in the AL" department.

The Yankees are in a tough division that is far from decided. Injuries still present problems and question marks. Pitching is still a bit of problem. The Yankees need to present the best possible lineup on the field. That means having versatile hitters interspersed with the boppers who sometimes deliver and sometimes do not. I should be happy. And I am. But I would be happier if this team had more of a killer instinct.

Some Unsung Babe Ruth Facts

The idea for this post developed while I was searching if Babe Ruth ever hit a home run, stole a base and pitched in the same game. I had heard some facts on Pablo Sandoval and his exploits of that trifecta being the first time anyone had performed such a feat since 1905. And no, Babe Ruth never hit a home run and stole a base in the same game that he pitched. But checking it out and looking at Babe Ruth's baseball-reference.com page did show me some things that blew my mind. So I thought I would share them with you.

There are two ways you can tell analytics did not exist back in Babe Ruth's time and one of those also showed how much animosity the press had with Ruth back in his playing time:

1. During his post-pitching career--basically from 1919 on, Babe Ruth sacrifice bunted 99 times in his career. What!? The most fearsome hitter of his era (or perhaps any era) gave himself up 99 times. Either his managers were dopes or Ruth did those things on his own to try to be a team player. In 1930, Babe hit 49 homers and batted .359 with a 1.225 OPS. Incredible numbers, but even so, he had 21 sacrifice bunts that season after having 13 the season before. At the peak of his powers, he either was asked to bunt or bunted on his own 66 times in a five year period. He even had 14 Sacrifices in 1927 when he hit 60 homers. Bob Shawkey was his manager in 1930. The team finished third that season. Joe McCarthy took over the following season and Babe Ruth never had another sacrifice bunt.
2. Babe Ruth only won one MVP Award. That was in 1923. The award was re-instituted in 1922 after a hiatus since 1914. Ridiculously, Babe Ruth did not get another MVP vote (not a single vote in between) until 1931 when he finished fifth. The following year, Ruth finished sixth. In contrast, Lou Gehrig won two MVP's and finished in the top five six other times. Babe Ruth played fifteen seasons for the Yankees and hit 659 homers during that time with a compiled 135.5 Wins Above Replacement during those seasons and only received MVP votes in three of those seasons. What a crock.

Most people think of Babe Ruth as the Yankees' right fielder. And for the latter third of his career, he mostly was. But Babe Ruth started almost as many games in his career as a left fielder as he did in right. Ruth started 1120 games in right field during his career and 1040 in left. He also started 64 games in center field and another 23 at first base. Ruth was lousy at first but he had a higher than league average fielding percentage in all three outfield positions. I don't know how b-ref figured range figures for back then, but according to them, Ruth also had better range than league average at all three outfield positions. He was not just a fat guy who slugged homers.

Babe Ruth won all three of his World Series pitching starts (all with the Red Sox). In those games, he pitched 31 innings and gave up three runs on 19 hits. His one start in 1916 lasted fourteen innings and he pitched them all to get the win.

Ruth's World Series OPS at 1.214 in 41 games was higher than his career average of 1.164. He was the original Mr. October. Between his pitching and batting careers, he won eight World Series titles.

Babe Ruth was the best pitcher in baseball in 1916. He led the league in starts with 40, ERA at 1.75, Shut outs (9), and hits per nine innings. He did not give up a home run that entire season. He was nearly as good in 1917 but gave up two homers that season. Add that up and he pitched 650 innings, gave up only 474 hits and only gave up two homers. He was a better pitcher than people realize.

Sometimes, we get images of the great Babe Ruth striking out and it makes us think he struck out a lot. But in all of his seasons, he struck out more than 89 times only twice (93, 90). Lest you think he was only a three outcome kind of guy, he batted higher than .350 eight times in his career.

Babe Ruth led the lead in extra base hits (doubles + triples + homers) six times in his career. In 1921, he had 119 of them (out of 204 hits). That has been a MLB record ever since. It was only threatened once by Lou Gehrig who had 117 in 1927. Barry Bonds had 107 in 2001 and that has been the closest anyone has been since. As you can imagine, Ruth's 457 total bases that season was only threatened once, by Rogers Hornsby with 450. That single season total has also been a record since 1921.

Babe Ruth led the league in Runs Scored eight times and seven times scored more than 150 runs in a season.

I could probably go on a lot longer, but I'm getting hungry. Sometimes I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and watch Babe Ruth play. Yes, I know it was a segregated game back when Babe Ruth played. Even so, no one has ever dominated the sport like he did.

A Realistic View Of The AL East

The title might be more of a reach as biases will surely crop up here. The one thing that is realistic is that the American League East is nowhere near where anyone expected it to be. The Tampa Bay Rays have jumped the season and its AL East rivals to build a quick five-and-a-half-game lead on the second place New York Yankees and an eight-and-a-half-game lead on the last place Boston Red Sox. How many people saw that coming?

The Yankees' rough start can be (in part) attributed to injuries. No team in baseball has a longer list of disabled players (I will never use the newfangled IL thing, so sue me). The bullpen has not been as much of a strength as expected. Who knows what having a healthy Dellin Betances available at the start of the season would have meant for the Yankees. The offense has been spotty with too many regulars missing and 4-A players getting too many at bats. Then there is the Red Sox.

The Red Sox have started the season in a real funk. Is it a World Series hangover? Did the long post-season take too much out of the starting pitchers? They have some holes, particularly at second, third and behind the plate. Expecting Dustin Pedroia to be able to come back was a pipe dream and now the Red Sox are stuck with an over-the-hill Eduardo Nunez who is terrible in the field and Brock Holt who seems unlikely to repeat last year's career year.

And, finally, there are the Bay Rays who never seem to lose in a similar way the Red Sox never seemed to lose last year. The Rays were projected as a 90-win team and, frankly, I thought that was high. The projection has now shifted to 94 wins and a division title. A lot has gone right for them so far. They lead the Majors in hard hit balls and their offensive OPS is terrific. Pitching was expected to be good, but it has been REALLY good as has the bullpen. Add to all these things the Rays' defense and you have a winning formula.

But let's be realistic here for a moment and try to remain as unbiased as possible. I do not care what the numbers are saying (run differential, offense, pitching), the Bay Rays are not this good of a team. Heck, I'll eat those words if I am wrong, but I do not think I am. Why exactly?

First, look at the early schedule thus far. Yes, they opened the season with the Houston Astros and beat them three out of four. The Astros were not themselves those first four games. The Astros started the season with a slumbering offense. That offense has since woken up and they are playing dominating baseball again. If the Rays were to play THESE Astros, the results would be far different.

After the Astros, the Bay Rays have faced the dregs of the dregs of baseball teams. The Rockies are a bad baseball team. Then they played the Giants, another bad baseball team. Those two teams are going to spar for last place in the NL West. Then they played the White Sox, another team that is not going anywhere. Then, to bring us up to date, the Rays have played five games against the Blue Jays and the Orioles. To recap, they had two series against the worst two teams in the NL West, a series against an also-ran in the AL Central and the two worst teams in the AL East.

The Rays' schedule stays somewhat soft until June. They do have two series against the Red Sox coming up, but those games are sandwiched around two series against the Royals. The other thing to look at is who the Rays are winning with on their roster. Their offense consists of a bunch of guys who they assembled and it has all miraculously worked. Ji-Man Choi? Brandon Lowe? Yandy Diaz? Austin Meadows? These guys have no track records. Are they this good? All of them? We'll see.

Plus, the only serious injury thus far is to Joey Wendle, last years ROY candidate. Ian Snell broke his toe, but he'll only miss one start. The Rays have zero depth. If anything happens to any of its players, they do not have replacements. The return to form of Kevin Kiermeier has been great and Tommy Pham was a good pickup as he has been an on-base machine.

I believe the Rays' pitching will hold up. But I do not believe in this offense over the long season. I still think that after all is said and done, they will be a 90-win team. That is good. Will it be better than the Red Sox and the Yankees?

Let's start with the Red Sox. Chris Sale will be better than he has started. He has been too good for too long to think otherwise. David Price will be fine. Nathan Eovaldi showed good signs last night of getting back to last year's form. The big question marks in the rotation are Rick Porcello and Eduardo Rodriguez. Porcello has had a very odd career where he has gone from Cy Young to terrible and back and forth. If this is another of those stinker years for him, that will hurt. Rodriguez still hasn't proved he can take his "stuff" to a winning level.

The offense will not be as good as last year, but it will be better than it is now. Mookie Betts is too talented not to think this is just a slow start. Andrew Benintendi is very good. Xander Bogaerts and Mitch Moreland will contribute meaningfully. JD Martinez is one of the best hitters in the game. The offense will be fine despite a black hole at catcher and at second. Rafael Devers is still only 22-years-old so who knows what he will be. Somehow, the Red Sox will find a second baseman and this offense will be fine.

Can they win 90 games? Yes, sure--even if it does not seem likely at the moment.

And then, there is the Yankees. Realistically, Aaron Judge has not gotten going yet. The jury is still out on Luke Voit long term. Gleyber Torres has been effective but can be so much better. Clint Frazier has found it. DJ LeMahieu has been a great pickup. Giancarlo Stanton will come back as will Gary Sanchez and the ball will start flying around the park again.

The Yankee bullpen will be fine even if Betances does not get back any time soon. Joe Harvey has been a nice find. It would do the bullpen good if CC Sabathia was treated as a five-inning "Opener" with Luis Cessa designated as his caddy (or Gio Gonzalez if they choose to go that route). The Rotation is not killer, but it is good depending on how well Domingo German can hang in there.

The bottom line? Can the Yankees win 90 games? Sure they can. Will they? I still think they will. The injuries sucked off several games of the team's original projection, but you would think things will have to improve on that front eventually.

The Bay Rays are not as good as they have appeared. The Yankees are not as mediocre and the Red Sox are not this bad. Injuries to the Yankees and the bad start by the Red Sox have guaranteed a three team race. But that is what it will be in the end. The Rays are not running away with the division, not in my humble opinion. But talk to me again in July and my perspective might be different.

So The Red Sox Won The World Series...

First of all, congrats to all Red Sox fans as you celebrate another championship team. It is what baseball fans live for and I lift a bottle of Sioux City Birch Beer to toast your happiness. That said, it has been nine seasons since Yankee fans have had that sort of feeling. It is time to think about what the Red Sox are doing right and what the Yankees need to do to turn these feelings around.

Unequivocally, the Red Sox have simply outsmarted the Yankees. No, that does not mean they tricked the Yankees. What it means is that they have been run smarter. They made the first move in the manager cycle by firing John Farrell, a terrible manager, for Alex Cora, a brilliant one. Of course, there were times during the season when the Red Sox Nation were anti-Cora on Twitter. But that is what fans do.

The Yankees could not do much about this though as they were still in the playoffs at the time and the Red Sox were smarting over their playoff loss. The Yankees came within a game of the World Series in 2017 and then fired Joe Girardi in favor of Aaron Boone. Boone is a nice guy and all, but Girardi was a better manager and Cora was the best choice for 2017.

The Red Sox also pulled the trigger on J.D. Martinez. People were worried about his feet and his age and those factors may still kick in as the contract continues. But Martinez was the right guy at the right time and as soon as he was signed, the Red Sox could have started selling World Series tickets. It was the perfect signing. Martinez took them from an average hitting team to the smartest and most effective offense in the game.

In a way, the Red Sox are like the Gene Michael / George Steinbrenner team of today. They will go out and spend money, but they spend it wisely and use their tools wisely. The Yankees, meanwhile, were trying to stay under the salary cap (call it what you want). I really cannot blame them for doing so. Why get "fined" millions and millions of dollars when you can take a year and reset the penalties. It might work out better in the long run.

I credit Martinez for making all of the Red Sox hitters smarter hitters. When you read about his fanatical approach to film and studying the art of hitting, it rubbed off on all the hitters in Boston. Freed from dour Farrell, the younger players like Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts could look to Martinez as the role model and blossom.

The Yankees won a hundred games. That is pretty impressive. Most of that work was done in the first half. The Red Sox won 108. That is no fluke. They were the better team. So what now?

First of all, the Yankees need at least one stud pitcher. Yes, they have Luis Severino. But they could use another one. There are a couple of choices in the free agent market. It will be disappointing if they don't get one of them. You cannot count on Jordan Montgomery yet and we will have to see what kind of pitchers Justus Sheffied and Jonathan Loaisiga can be.

So a rotation of New signee, Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, the better of the young guys (you cannot leave out Domingo German here) and perhaps bring CC Sabathia back for $8 million or so. The Red Sox proved that despite recent horrifying trends, the starting pitcher is still important in Major League Baseball. Hurrah that! I do not believe any team can keep expecting to get fifteen outs from the bullpen every game. But then again, I have always hated change.

The Yankees need a very good first baseman. They have given up (finally) on Greg Bird and though it was fun, Luke Voit is not that guy.

I would really hate to see the Yankees sign Manny Machado. I know that is an unpopular thought. But the guy just turns me off. I do not want to root for him and I do not want him to come to a team that is full of excellent people as well as players. Besides, Gleyber Torres IS a shortstop and there are options for second.

I cannot see the Yankees renewing Brett Gardner. It is a cruel world, but he is in Bernie Williams territory. He can field much better than Bernie, but he cannot hit like Bernie. Both Fangraphs and Baseball-reference had Gardner with a WAR at 2.5 or slightly higher. That is worth the $11.5 he was paid. So maybe one more year. We will see what happens.

Gary Sanchez needs to get fixed somehow. He could not do anything right in 2018. If he does not return to 2017 form, it will be tough because Austin Romine should never get more than a game or two a week.

The game now is about youth. The Yankees went that route and it almost paid off in 2017. They were darned good in 2018. Just not good enough. Long-term geezer-ending contracts stink at the end and I hope the Yankees avoid that. Whatever they do, perhaps they could learn a few things from their highly successful division mates up north.

Yankees Gave The Advantage Back To Boston

I warned the Yankees about Brock Holt before the game yesterday. The Yankees usually hold their own against the superstars. But the utility guys kick them around all the time. The guy has a 91 career OPS+ and he gets ten total bases in one game against the Yankees. Ah well, the fact is that once again, Luis Severino could not come up big in a playoff game. So he got David Priced by the Red Sox and from there, all hell broke loose.

So now the Yankees face elimination. They have to beat the best team in baseball two games in a row to advance. They lose tonight, they go home. And surprisingly, the Yankees have chosen CC Sabathia to start the game. While this seems a big gamble, it is not as if Sabathia hasn't been here before. He is 2018's Andy Pettitte trying to rally the day. But I thought sure that J.A. Happ would get the start. Boston is why the Yankees went and got him, right? That becomes moot if the Yankees go home.

On the other side, the Boston Red Sox will start, Rick Porcello, a pitcher who has made the Yankees look stupid on many an occasion. The Yankees had a lousy batting plan against Nathan Eovaldi and if they don't plan better against Porcello, they will go home. It is as simple as that. The Yankees cannot continue to try to pull the ball against these guys. Eovaldi will invade the dreams far into the winter.

Aaron Hicks is back. Is that a good thing? Can he play defense with a bad hammy? Can he play it as well as Brett Gardner? At least he will bat third and push Luke Voit down in the batting order. The Yankees got really carried away by batting Voit third yesterday. The guy is easy to love and all of that, but he is not a three-hole hitter and will bog down against good pitching. He is another guy who had all his success hitting the ball to right field and suddenly wants to pull everything now. Why do all Yankee players turn into that? Giancarlo Stanton? Gary Sanchez? Pull, pull, pull. Go the other way!!

The Yankees will win if they have a good plan against Porcello and get him early AND if CC Sabathia can survive four innings with less than three runs. The Yankees will lose in all other scenarios. But at least one shred of dignity will be left. Other than the Braves, the Yankees will be the only vanquished Division Series team that won at least once in the series.

Oh, and remember one thing. In 2004, the Yankees took a 3-0 series lead against the Red Sox by scoring 19 runs in the third game. They never won the fourth game. So anything is possible. It's just not probable.

Yankees Set Up Nicely Against Boston

In a series of five games with the Red Sox getting a home, home, away, away, home advantage, it was crucial that the New York Yankees win one of the games in Boston. Thanks to Boston's insistence of starting David Price, the Yankees accomplished the split up in Boston. That sets the team up nicely as the series becomes a best two-out-of-three contest with two of the games occurring at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees could not have given the team a better chance to upset this American League Division Series.

But that means little. The team still has to go out and beat Boston, a great team, and beat them both games in New York. The Yankees will not want to play a fifth and deciding game in Boston. The Red Sox are very capable of winning one or both of the next two games.

The good news is that the Yankees can start Luis Severino tonight and J.A. Happ tomorrow. The former gives the Yankees its best pure talent on the mound to take a lead in the series. The latter is a lefty, something always useful in Yankee Stadium, and Happ should be better than he was in Game 1.

What could go wrong? Plenty. Severino could come out wild or flat and get banged around. He has lost his pinpoint command that he displayed in all of the first half of the 2018 season. He struggles to get through four or five innings with high pitch counts and lots of tension. He still shows flashes of what can make him so dominant. It would be great if he could be efficient and go deep. If he can do neither, that can be a problem.

What else can go wrong? It has been absolutely galling to see Nathan Eovaldi throw sixteen scoreless innings against the Yankees since Boston picked him up from Tampa Bay. Yankee fans have to be totally befuddled by that development since Eovaldi was a subject of derision when he pitched for the Yankees.

Eovaldi's improvement is not a fluke. His biggest problem when he worked with the Yankees was that his pitches had no movement to go along with his velocity. Thus, a team knew what it was getting and could pound him. Now, it seems as if everything Eovaldi throws has great movement and with his velocity, that makes things difficult for a team that swings for the fences like the Yankees do.

What the Yankees need to do is look for a good first pitch fastball to hit and be aggressive. Later in the count, look to the opposite field as he will be throwing cutters away from the right-handed batters.

The Red Sox have announced some lineup changes for Game 3. Brock Holt, Rafael Devers, Christian Vazquez and Steve Pearce will be starting in place of Ian Kinsler,  Eduardo Nunez, Sandy Leon and Mitch Moreland (respectively).

The Red Sox lose defense without Leon, Kinsler and Moreland, but Holt has always been a pain in the neck for the Yankees and Devers has more power than Nunez though they are both sub-par on defense. Pearce has been a Yankee killer since forever. Yankee fans hate that guy.

The Yankees have put themselves in a very good position. But the Red Sox are terrific and rarely beat themselves. While certainly better than coming home down by two games, the task is still great and the odds of the Yankees winning this series are still 50/50.

Sorting out the Red Sox position players

According to my untrained observation, the Boston Red Sox have eleven Major League starting players for eight positions on the field. Then there is David Ortiz who is as designated a designated hitter as there is in baseball. So after signing and anchoring Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez to third and left field with free agent signings, what happens to everyone else? What should happen to everyone else?

Judging from the question marks surrounding the starting rotation, you would figure that some of the excess will be traded for pitching. But what if the Red Sox round out their rotation with free agent signings? You still have to deal with a logjam on the roster.

And I am not even including here guys like Garin Cecchini, who I am convinced is the next Wade Boggs if given a chance. With Sandoval at third for five years, what happens to him? We already know that Will Middlebrooks has fallen out of favor with everyone except Jenny Dell. So he will either be traded or designated. With his power potential in a power bereft MLB, traded seems more likely.

I am also not including catchers here. With David Ross gone, two young unprovens (Christian Vazquez and Dan Butler) are projected for the 25-man roster, so then we have eleven fighting for seven spots.

Perhaps we should list out what we know. Dustin Pedroia will (of course) be the second baseman. There has to be worry about his recent surgery though. Xander Bogaerts will be the shortstop. There is no way the Red Sox are going to give up on him yet. You have Sandoval at third, Ramirez in left, Mookie Betts will get the first crack at center field and David Ortiz will be the DH.

Over at first, you have one year remaining on Mike Napoli's contract. His face has been wired shut all winter with his weird operation, but the guy was worth 3.2 rWAR in only 119 games last season. It would appear that he would be your first baseman with perhaps Sandoval taking over in 2016?

Right field is interesting. There is Yoenis Cespedes, Shane Victorino, Allen Craig and Daniel Nava. Baseball-Prospectus has Victorino projected as the starter. But I'm not on that train. He might be healthier now that he has had a back operation, but I wouldn't count on him being a productive player again. And even if he is healthy, you can't risk him in center field.

Allen Craig forgot how to hit last year, which is weird because he was fantastic in prior years. His ankle has to have been a factor. Is that chronic moving forward?

I think you can count Nava out, which is sad because Jerry Remy won't be able to say, "Nahver." anymore. Cespedes has to be your guy, right? After all, he was the big chip in the big trade last year. Rumors are out there that the Red Sox hate the guy. Who knows. Despite his lack of on-base skills, Cespedes makes a lineup deeper just with the threat of him.

Nava is out of options so he can't be sent down without losing him. Craig is too talented to give up on. Perhaps Craig is your swing guy with time at first and right with hopes of getting him 400 PAs. Or perhaps you just trade both Nava and Craig.

Brock Holt is your most likely utility guy. He played seven different positions last season and despite a fade in September, was productive at the plate. If he isn't overexposed, he is the perfect utility option.  I don't like him at short though, so Deven Marrero or Jemile Weeks (who is out of minor league options) make sense as a roster spot.

If we recap here, we have the following extra players or trade prospects, if you will. They would be Middlebrooks, Craig, Cecchini, Nava and one of Victorino or Cespedes. My gut is telling me that the Red Sox will trade Cespedes if the rumors are true. But we'll see.

I have always heard it said that there is no such thing as too many pitchers. And I agree with that. Pitchers are remarkably fragile. But what about position players? It seems that the Red Sox have too many Major League ready guys for too few positions. You hate to see guys with offensive talent like Craig and Cecchini go to waste. If they do not have a position on the team, then trading them makes the most sense. Cecchini might be the next Jeff Bagwell, though, as the one that got away.

P.S. I haven't forgotten about Rusney Castillo. Baseball-Prospectus has him projected as the starting center fielder. But we'll see what the spring brings.

David Ortiz defies objectivity

There is a segment of the baseball writing world that can write dispassionately about baseball players. They focus on the cold, hard facts of performance. Beat writers are paid to be objective. Objectivity, in fact, is a journalistic must.  Not being a journalist but trying always to be fair, being objective about David Ortiz is impossible.

There probably isn't a player besides Ortiz (Jeter maybe?) that stirs up such passion from his own fans and those who are not fans of the Red Sox. Write any article about Ortiz and Red Sox fans are going to comment viciously and the return volleys will be just as pointed. To criticize Ortiz in any way is to provoke an entire fan base who worship the guy. To extol his accomplishments provokes anyone who isn't a Red Sox fan.

Take the latest story about Chris Archer taking aim at Ortiz for the dramatic bat flip Ortiz exhibited with the slugger's latest three-run homer. Archer wasn't pleased and in a very articulate interview, explained why he was unhappy with what Ortiz did. As reported on MLB.com, the comments show you what I mean. Dueling Red Sox fans and those not sparred endlessly to the point of nausea.

I thought to respond to what Archer said, but could not find an objective way to do so. I have long respected David Ortiz's ability to rise to the moment and change a baseball game.  The man has a .946 career OPS in high leverage situations. You can't argue with those kinds of numbers. But I cannot respond as such without admitting that I have never liked the guy.

And then I have to face the music because I have long stated that all those unwritten rules about showing emotion on the field are bogus. So what if a player celebrates? So what if a players bring a little flair to what they do. Remember Rickey Henderson snatching fly balls out of the sky? Ichiro has that flair in right field. Fist pumps by pitchers should not be a bad thing. Traditionalists do not believe that any emotion should show or any showmanship should be allowed. I don't agree.

Examining my thoughts fully, Ortiz falls under the showman category. When he flips his bat, it is no different than when Puig does so or others. The main difference is the entire persona Ortiz seems to inhabit on the field.

While Archer should probably get over the bat flip thing (fans rightly pointed out the time Archer kissed his arm after a big strikeout), he does have a point about the world revolving around Ortiz.

Ortiz and his on-field persona remind me a lot of Pedro Martinez when Pedro was king of pitchers. Martinez was in your face. He did not mind exhibiting that he was in charge, that he was going to dominate you. If you were not a Red Sox fan, it was hard to like.

The difference was that Pedro threw a hundred pitches. He was out there battling a juiced up offensive world for a hundred pitches and was nearly untouchable. He was the matador and was center stage. Ortiz has one skill: He can hit and he can hit important hits at important times. Pretty cool skills, no doubt, but not in the same category as Martinez as matador.

David Ortiz is not the only guy who flips the bat. But there are other things that add up after a while. Pitchers are not allowed to crowd him. Official scorers are not supposed to score against him. Umpires are not supposed to call a close pitch against him. And there is body language that tells you infield shifts are unseemly to him.

When was the last major event hosted by the Boston Red Sox that wasn't taken over by David Ortiz? The one-hundred year anniversary of Fenway was dominated by him. The post Marathon terrorist ceremony was dominated by him. The World Series ring presentation was dominated by him.

You could say the same thing being true at Yankee Stadium by Derek Jeter. The difference is that Jeter is the captain of the team. Ortiz is not.

All players have egos...big ones. They have been pumped up as special since they were kids in Little League. But it is obvious that Ortiz has the crowning achievement of egos. Those are strong words, I realize, and will provoke anger from Red Sox fans. I wish it wasn't so because many of my friends are such fans and I respect them and the Red Sox. But there are times when Ortiz is insufferable. Forgive me for saying it.

In the patriotic fervor following the Marathon bombing, what Ortiz said was cheered and fist pumped. I found it appalling. Call me old-fashioned, but polite speech should still be the norm and a stadium full of kids should not be given that kind of role model. There is enough of that kind of talk in their own playgrounds. Such a profane statement was pure Ortiz bravado at its worst and he did not care that such a statement would be cringe-worthy to at least 40 to 45% of people watching.

No one can deny what David Ortiz has done with his solitary baseball skill of knocking the stitches off a baseball. No one can deny or take away a career full of major accomplishments in big moments that propelled his team to improbable victories. He doesn't have to field and he doesn't have to run. He just has to hit and no one can deny that he has done that extremely well for his career.

But that doesn't mean that, for those outside of Red Sox Nation, we have to like him. His is a persona that defies objectivity. You either love him or you hate him. Red Sox Nation loves him with an almost bunker-like mentality and it is hard to blame them. Three championships in ten years is hard to argue or not be grateful about.

What I am saying (poorly) is that this gratitude should not always come at the expense of blindness to the fact that his persona and his demeanor are disrespectful and egocentric and does get old for many of those that witness it. Chris Archer was wrong. And yet, in some ways, he was right.

Mulling over the Stephen Drew signing

I have kept quiet the last few days (even on Twitter) concerning the signing of Stephen Drew by the Boston Red Sox to shore up the left side of the infield. I wanted to get past my initial emotional reactions to deal with the signing in a rational way. What I have found is that my initial emotional reactions were based on rational thinking. This still feels like a panic signing.

The Red Sox were really the only team that could sign Drew before the draft day as doing so did not cost them the draft pick it would have cost every other team. And one of the reasons this feels like a panic signing is that the Red Sox did not get any kind of discount on Drew. The $10 million he is getting is an exact amount of the $14 million qualifying offer minus the time missed so far this season. Nobody else wanted Drew under those terms so it would have seemed like the Red Sox overpaid.

But let's examine the need for a moment. While I will agree that third base has been a disaster thus far for the Red Sox I am disappointed because I really felt like they had a viable option in Garin Cecchini. I have seen the guy play personally (in Portland) and love everything about him. He is and will be a Wade Boggs. He is that good an offensive player. And the knock on Boggs at first was his defense.

But Cecchini has the same kind of drive to become a good third baseman that Wade Boggs had. Boggs worked tirelessly at becoming one and he did. All reports are that Cecchini had the same kind of work ethic to become a good fielder. I believe Cecchini will be a better offensive player than Drew is and has been.

Even if it's not Cecchini, Brock Holt has been doing just fine too. He is hitting well and his fielding stats are conflicting. His errors have come at bad times and has made him look like a problem at third. But he is better than Middlebrooks there and could have settled into the position quite well.

To me, this is a question of Drew versus Cecchini and/or Holt and not Drew versus Xander Bogaerts. Bogaerts is going to play. He's just going to move to third base again where he played well last season. The feeling I get from all the Red Sox twitterazzi was that Bogaerts was a huge disappointment this season in both the field and at the plate. I don't see it.

Let's start with the offense. I guess the disappointment comes from Bogaerts now showing the power that people thought he was going to develop as seen in the post season last year. The guy was on fire in the post season. There is no doubt the expectations were high. But other than the low .118 ISO, Bogaerts has shown good progress at the plate.

Xander Bogaerts' walk rate is up which has pushed his OBP way up. His strikeout rate is down. His wOBA sits at a healthy .353 and his 120 wRC+ is just fine for a 21-year-old kid in his first big league season. If anything, he has been under-utilized in the lower part of the Red Sox batting order.

The problems the Red Sox are having on offense should not point to Bogaerts. And it has been unfair to lump him in the same category as Jackie Bradley, Jr., which I have heard over and over. Bradley IS struggling at the plate. Bogaerts is not.

Xander Bogaerts is the Red Sox future at short. Yes, they have another great prospect in the minors at the position, but Bogaerts has been tested. As mentioned, he is 21 and the time to settle him into a position he will handle long term, that growth period will again be delayed by pushing him again over to third.

Drew adds a win over Bogaerts with his glove IF he plays short as well as he did last season. Is a win going to reverse the Red Sox tough start? I don't see one win making that much difference. Drew's offense was worth only 3.4 runs last season. That is hardly as good as his offense has been made out to be. And will he even match last year's numbers after sitting out two months of the season?

The Red Sox's bad start has a lot of causes. The starting pitching is one. Perhaps a bit of a World Series hangover is another. Farrell's over-reliance on emotional attachments like Jonny Gomes is another. Losing Jacoby Ellsbury and not getting anything from his replacements is another.

To me, too much emphasis has been placed at the left side of the infield, which includes Xander Bogaerts. Yes, third base has been a problem. But the Red Sox had internal options and Bogaerts has not been nearly as bad as he has been painted. In fact, it seems that his growth as a player is right where it needs to be for a 21-year-old.

The Stephen Drew signing seems like a panic move to me and is trying to capture some magic that only happens a few times in a team's history. If the Red Sox salvage this season, it will be because the pitching straightens out and the team starts getting some production in the outfield.

The best and worst bullpens thus far

Measuring how a team's bullpen is doing can be tricky business. You really can't go by WAR like in other positions because, for example, the Red Sox' bullpen leads baseball in WAR. But that may be because they are pitching more innings than other teams' bullpens. The Red Sox' bullpen is actually doing extremely well, but is it the best as the WAR seems to indicate? One thing is for certain: If your team is not doing well in the bullpen, you are quite aware of that fact as it gets ugly.

So how then should we measure bullpens? We can look at FIP, which is probably better than looking at ERA. We can look at WPA. We can look at which teams have better success with inherited runners scoring. We can look at strikeout to walk ratios. We can look at a lot of different things. Let's look at the top and bottom five in each of these categories and see what we can see.

FIP

The top five teams in FIP are:

1. The Braves - 2.32
2. The Royals - 2.88
3. The Athletics - 2.93
4. The Red Sox - 2.96
5. The Padres - 3.02

The worst five teams in FIP

1. The Astros - 4.70
2. The Reds - 4.65
3. The Rays - 4.61
4. The Phillies - 4.60
5. The White Sox - 4.38

WPA

1. The Padres - 3.87
2. The Giants - 3.52
3. The Brewers - 3.35
4. The Red Sox - 2.38
5. The Braves - 1.61

The bottom five:

1. The Astros: -2.51
2. The Cubs: -2.22
3. The Marlins: -1.62
4. The Reds: -1.61
5. The Blue Jays: -1.52

Inherited Runners:

1. The Pirates - 84%
2. The Giants - 83.8%
3. The Padres - 80.7%
4. The Brewers - 79.6%
5. The Nationals - 78.6%

The worst five:

1. The Cardinals - 66.3%
2. The Tigers - 66.8%
3. The Astros - 67.5%
4. The Royals - 68.7%
5. The Rangers and Yankees: 68.8%

K/BB Ratio:

1. The Brewers: 3.53
2. The Braves: 3.47
3. The Cardinals: 3.20
4. The Giants: 3.19
5. Tigers: 3.14

The worst

1. The White Sox: 1.21
2. The Reds: 1.68
3. The Rays: 1.81
4. The Mets: 1.90
5. The Dodgers: 1.96

WAR

1. The Red Sox: 2.4
2. The Braves and Royals: 2.1
3. The Athletics 2.0
4. Two tied with 1.99

The worst:

1. The Mets: -1.3
2. The Rays: -1.0
3. The Astros and Reds: -0.7
4. The Phillies and Angels: -0.4

So have we seen any sort of patterns here? It is hard to pick on the Reds because they went most of the season thus far without Aroldis Chapman. But the worst bullpens appear to be (from appearances at the bottom of the most categories) the Mets, the Astros, the Rays and the Reds. The Yankees have made a run for the worst lately.

As for the best bullpens, thus far, the Braves, Red Sox, Padres and the Brewers appear to have the best bullpens in baseball followed closely by the A's and the Royals.

Health or decline phase for Pedroia?

Dustin Pedroia is in his ninth year of Major League Baseball. He has been a leader and an admirable player for the Boston Red Sox and has earned two World Series rings during that time. In his time in the Majors, his offense has been worth 104 runs, a very good total, and his defense has been fantastic garnering another 77 runs. He has also been a very good base runner to bring about the full package. And yet, there are signs of decline. And the question to be asked is if the decline is health related or age regression.

The story we heard is that Pedroia played all last year with a bad hand or wrist from an injury he suffered in one of the earliest games of the season. Despite the injury, he played 160 games and was a big part of the World Series run. The story we are told is that the injury led to only nine homers and was a limiting factor. This season, he again hurt his wrist early in the season and feared there was structural damage. But the doctors gave him good news and he got a cortisone shot and was back in business.

But he has no homers this year. And injury last season or this season notwithstanding, the fact remains that Dustin Pedroia's slugging percentage is down again this year for the fourth straight season starting with his peak of .493 in 2010. The decline has been steady: .493, .474, .449, .414 and this year, .342.  So again, is it health or is it natural decline?

Pedroia still brings a lot of other things to the table. His fielding is still elite. It is too early in the season to be much concerned with his UZR/150 being down from years past. Every time I see him play, he is diving to get to balls you don't think he should get to.

But he is not stealing bases like he did in the past. He has only tried three times and has been thrown out twice. Compare that to his career average of 19 steals a season with a 77+% success rate.

We have only gone through one month of the season. So it is not overly concerning that Pedroia is only hitting in the .270 range. His BABIP of .300 doesn't show a lot of bad luck but it is down from his career BABIP of .313. But there is a disturbing trend in his batted ball rates.

Pedroia is hitting ground balls at an unprecedented rate for him. He has a career ground ball to fly ball ratio of 1.28. Last year that rose to 1.83 and this year is very high at 2.45. Taking last year and this year into account, more than 50% of his batted balls have been on the ground, a new wrinkle on his career and way higher than in his earlier years.

It's still early in the season, so there is not a lot of panic involved in Dustin Pedroia's wOBA only being .305. But the signs of decline are there and we have seen other second basemen peak early and decline fast. It is worth keeping an eye on Pedroia as the season progresses.

David Ortiz as Thorin Oakenshield

A lot goes through your mind when watching a typical four-hour marathon between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. I have watched thousands of such match-ups being in Maine and in NESN territory or otherwise on national television. And right in the middle of most of them for the last ten years has been David Ortiz. With so much time taken up by a nine-inning ballgame, the mind tends to get some strange thoughts. And one such thought last night was that David Ortiz was the Thorin Oakenshield of baseball.

I have had four main passions in my life. Baseball is one. J.R.R. Tolkien is another when I read his Middle Earth sagas as  an eleven-year-old in 1967. The Beatles and God. Those have been my four. I have combined these passions on a number of occasions. But I don't think I have ever combined Tolkien and baseball. But the thought persisted yesterday about Ortiz and the King Under the Mountain.

Bear with me here. I understand this is a weird thought. But here are the comparisons:

• Both sit on the sidelines most of the time while the rest of their teammates do most of the work.
• Both like to have every eye on them and dress to the nines.
• Both have this grand sense of who they are.
• Both consider themselves the most important member of their company.
• Both have had chips on their shoulders about how they have been treated in life.
• Both make a grand spectacle when they finally become part of the action.
• Both are bigger than life.
• Both have detractors. Thorin, the elves and Ortiz, Yankee fans.
• Both are begrudgingly given the respect they are due because when they have big moments, they have really big moments.

Thorin died with his sword on his chest and with a special stone. Someday in the distant future, David Ortiz will die with the bat on his chest and plenty of special stones on his fingers.

Complaints about replay are stupid

I will give John Farrell some slack here as he was frustrated about losing three of four to the Yankees. But his complaints about the new instant replay system fall flat on my ears. By my count, there have been two calls that the replay system has gotten incorrect. The one happened in the Red Sox - Yankees series where Dean Anna did lift his foot off the base and should have been called out. MLB stated the call should have been reversed. That was one of the two. Big deal.

On MLB Network's Intentional Talk program, it was mentioned that thus far 32 calls have been reversed with the replay system and 34 had been upheld. The time factor has not been that big of a deal and the only irritant is when the manager hangs around to wait to see if his people give him the thumbs up or not on whether to challenge the play. How is this slowing the game down when most of those plays would have been arguments between the manager and umpires anyway? The arguments take longer.

So the time is not a problem. Then what is? Yes, two have been botched. You would think with the system they have set up there would be no missed calls. But okay, two calls have been missed. But 32 have been overturned. That is 32 incorrect calls that would have stood if the replay system was not in place.

Two incorrect versus 32? Wouldn't that be a success under any kind of accounting? The bottom line here is that 32 calls would have been umpire goofs without the system. Is that preferable to Mr. Farrell or anyone else? I would not think so.

The entire idea of instant replay is to get the calls correct on the field. We are closer than ever before of making that happen with a margin of error of two calls. The instant replay is a big hit for me because the correct calls in games are what I want. I do not want games decided by a bad umpire decision. Now all we need is robot balls and strikes and I will be a complete happy camper. Good job, MLB. Keep it up.

The Red Sox' bullpen is a weapon

When I was doing my preseason predictions, one of the things I stated was that it seemed impossible that the Boston Red Sox bullpen could be as good as it was last season when it was one of the reasons the team went all the way to the World Series title. While we are still in small sample size territory, it looks like I was dead wrong. It appears the bullpen for the Red Sox is every bit as good as it was last season.

The bullpen starts and ends with closer, Koji Uehara. What Uehara is doing is historical. We have never seen anything like this before. Uehara last blew a save on July 6, 2013. He has not blown another one since. But the save thing is not the statistic to focus on. Everything else is mind blowing.

Since July 5 of last year, he has walked one batter. One! Since the start of the second half of 2013, Uehara has pitched 34 times covering 37 innings and has given up twelve hits. Twelve! That works out to a .098 batting average. He has given up one run. One! That works out to an ERA of 0.24. He has struck out 48 batters in those 37 innings for a strikeout to walk ratio of 48 to 1. Good golly!

I am not sure the baseball world has really gotten a hold of how incredible this run has been for Koji Uehara. Like I said, we have never seen anything like this before. I will give you Kimbrel of the Braves. But which closer would you take right now? I would take Uehara.

I have always said that a great bullpen needs three really good relievers at the back end. The Red Sox have had that and more. Junichi Tazawa is not in the same league with Uehara, but if you throw out his bad September last year, a month in which his BABIP against was .360 and he has been very good as well.

So far this year, Tazawa has not given up a run and has an 8.7 strikeout to walk ratio. He has only walked one batter.

The American League got a bit of a break when the Red Sox activated Craig Breslow and sent Brandon Workman to the minors. Workman was doing an incredible job for the Red Sox bullpen. He had an 0.78 WHIP and a 7.00 strikeout to walk ratio. It's not like Breslow is not any good. The lefty did finish with a 1.80 ERA last year despite not striking out batters as often as the rest of the bullpen. He is just good at what he does and gets batters out. And the Red Sox have added another just like him in Chris Capuano.

Capuano had rebuilt his career as a starter the last couple of seasons after years of injury troubles. But the Red Sox have had him in the bullpen and he has really responded well out there. He has not walked a batter and has an impressive WHIP of 0.60. Capuano, Breslow, Uehara and Tazawa have not allowed an inherited runner to score this season. The bullpen has also not allowed a homer.

Edward Mujica had an early struggle, but picked up a save last night against the Yankees giving Uehara a rest. Andrew Miller can be erratic, but is hard to hit most of the time. The weakest link seems to be Burke Badenhop. Badenhop will not blow hitters away and relies on a high ground ball percentage, which means he is a bit open to the foibles of BABIP. Workman is clearly a better option than Badenhop, but the Red Sox understandably do not want to give up on Workman as a starter and thus the demotion to get reps.

The real key to understanding what makes Uehara, Tazawa and even Workman so good is their ability to get batters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone. Workman had an O-swing rate of 45.2%, which is pretty incredible. Uehara is at 39.4% and Tazawa at 42.9%. Capuano and Mujica are both over 30%. Uehara also gets a first pitch strike 68% of the time, which means that batters are pretty much at his mercy the rest of the plate appearance.

I did not think the Red Sox bullpen could be as good as last year. So far, I couldn't be more wrong. If the bullpen stays this good all season, the Red Sox are going to be mighty tough to beat.

Thrilled for Grady Sizemore

I have to admit that I am a sucker for comeback stories. Sure, a part of me understands that a guy like Grady Sizemore has made millions of dollars in his short career and whether he ever played again wouldn't change that he has been more fortunate than most folks on the planet. But still, sports reflects life and Sizemore has been to the bottom and at least for one game, had come all the way back.

Admit it: Most of us were pretty skeptical when the Red Sox signed Grady Sizemore to a contract and invited him to their Spring Training camp. After all, he had not played in a MLB game since September 22, 2011. That was a long, long time ago. And we all had been privy to the litany of his physical problem: the microfracture surgeries, the elbow, back and hernia surgeries. It did not seem as if he was ever going to be healthy again.

We had seen him go from one of the best young players of the game from 2005 to 2008 when he compiled 26.8 fWAR, to a shell of that in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Sizemore became an example of just how fleeting success can be.  He was washed up at the age of 28.

So there was a bit of disbelief when the reigning World Series champs announced the signing. After all, the Red Sox had let Jacoby Ellsbury walk knowing they had Jackie Bradley Jr. in the wings. They had Daniel Nava and Mike Carp. What did they need Grady Sizemore for anyway? And why would they take a risk on a guy who had not played for the last two full seasons?

Some things seem inevitable. Guys like Reyes for the Blue Jays and DeJesus for the Rays were going to get hurt. Knowing these things, we waited for the inevitable to happen to Sizemore. Surely he would get hurt at some point during the spring. But he did not. And he had a very good spring and became the biggest story in the Red Sox Nation. And Lo and Behold, he not only made the team, but was tabbed as the starting center fielder over Bradley.

Seriously? How did that happen? Give the Red Sox credit. They are a smart organization. There had to be some within the organization that did not feel that Bradley was ready and that there is doubt that he will hit in the Majors. Bradley has looked over-matched by Big League pitchers.

The Red Sox took a long shot. And it came up aces. There is no guarantee, of course, that Grady Sizemore will either play well all season or stay healthy. There will continue to be doses of skepticism as time goes forward.

But for one glorious Opening Day, Grady Sizemore looked like the player of 2009 when he was on top of the world. He singled in his first at bat and then homered in his second. It was amazing to watch.

No, the Red Sox did not win the game. And Sizemore would probably have preferred that they did. But for one game at least, Grady Sizemore beat the odds and after a two-year absence, took center stage again and performed.

Let's take this one game at a time for Grady Sizemore and see what happens. And whether or not you love or hate the Red Sox, his story is one to root for and to marvel. I was thrilled for him. And I was thrilled for baseball.