Adrian Gonzalez, Red Sox Starting Left Fielder? Sure, Why Not?

The 2012 Boston Red Sox have been decimated by injuries through the first month and a half of the season. There's really no other way to put it. Each member of their starting outfield from opening day has found its way onto the DL and that's not even including presumed starting LF Carl Crawford who landed on the DL in spring training. Jacoby Ellsbury separated his shoulder, Cody Ross broke his foot and Ryan Sweeney bonked his head leading to concussion like symptoms. If the outfield injuries weren't bad enough the Red Sox also lost struggling 3B Kevin Youkilis to a DL stint earlier in the year. His injury though ended up possibly providing a solution to the Red Sox outfield injuries. Allow me to explain where I'm coming from here folks.

When free agent to be, well he does have a $14 million team option for next year but that puppy ain't getting picked up, Kevin Youkilis went down a few weeks ago the door opened for Sox top prospect Will Middlebrooks. All Middlebrooks did after being called up was provide solid defense at third and bring some pop to the lineup. After setting the world on fire the first 6 or 7 games the league adjusted to the young power hitter causing him to go into a mini slump and make it seem like the easy choice was to demote him to AAA when Youkilis returned. Not so fast, Middlebrooks surprised most people including me by making his own adjustments and getting right back on track handing the Red Sox into quite the quandary.Red Sox fans want the Middlebrooks era to start now but the problem for Red Sox management was that Youkilis has almost no trade value currently due to back to back injury filled seasons. Yes he's versatile but if he can't prove he's healthy teams won't fork over the young pitching the Sox covet.

No fear Red Sox Nation the answer came to my last night during Youkilis'a return engagement when he started at first, Middlebrooks at third, and Gonzalez in right. The best way to showcase that Youkilis is still worth a pretty good prospect and keep all your top bats in the lineup is to shift Gonzalez to left at home where it's a short field and allow Youkilis to play first while simultaneously providing in house insurance in case Middlebrooks hits a wall. If Middlebrooks stalls out then Youkilis can easily be shifted back to third with Gonzalez coming back to first. If Youkilis can't stay healthy or hit effectively you can yank him and again Gonzalez goes back to first. Best case scenario the Red Sox hold onto all the parties involved Carl Crawford comes back to LF and Youkilis bounces back and forth between first and third with Gonzalez starting at first on a daily basis. The ultimate insurance policy in a former All Star. I BY NO MEANS AM SAYING THAT GONZALEZ SHOULD PLAY OF FOR THE LONG TERM JUST IN THE SHORT TERM WHILE THE SOX GET THEIR DUCKS IN A ROW!

Now this entire situation is predicated on Gonzalez being willing and able to shift out to left field for a short while. Personally I think that as a pretty good team guy Gonzalez would be willing to roam LF, something that he did for a while while attempting to crack into the Texas Rangers lineup, and honestly he'd be fine out there. Watching him play the OF he gets good jumps on the ball off the bat and has enough athleticism to cover Fenway's left field. If Carlos Lee, Jason Kubel, and Josh Willingham can stand out in left so can Gonzo. I also don't buy into the whole hey he might hurt himself playing outfield. Gonzalez is a baseball player and an athlete he can handle a position switch for the good of the team. He plays Gold Glove first base he'll do well in left and luckily Youkilis is also a Gold Glover at first helping the cause.

The Red Sox seem to be starting to put it together after taking 2 out of 3 in Philadelphia from the Fightin's and 2 out of 3 in Baltimore from the AL East leading Orioles. They team is starting to click on all cylinders with their top prospect in Will Middlebrooks getting the best kind of seasoning possible; in meaningful games early in the season at the big league level. Putting Gonzalez in left field for a little while also allows the Red Sox to not only showcase and see what they have in Youkilis but also whether or not the Middlebrooks era is ready to begin on a full time basis right out of spring training in 2013. The DH spot also isn't an option for those who want to put Youkilis, Middlebrooks, or Gonzalez there as David Ortiz has once again solidified his spot among the games upper echelon of DHs. Shifting Gonzalez to left for the time being allows Bobby V to keep Ortiz, Youkilis, Gonzalez, and Middlebrooks in the middle of his order forming quite the 3-6 wallop.

The Red Sox team as a whole would benefit from Gonzalez taking a bullet for the team while they determine the right move between Middlebrooks and Youkilis in the long run. Adrian Gonzalez can more than handle 30 games or so roaming the territory in front of the Green Monster. Give it a shot Bobby V and if it doesn't work then oh well, you can shift back Gonzo back to first base and decide on third base another day. Hell maybe the shift will ignite Gonzalez's bat and get him on par with where he should be and not sitting around .280 with 3 HRs. Gonzalez is a bat that needs to be in the lineup and the best way for the team to maximize its talent level currently is being putting Gonzo out in the OF. Hey what's the worst that can happen?

Geoff Jablonski

Winning the Offseason Doesn’t Always Translate to Winning During the Regular Season

If you want to bring fans to the ballpark and increase a teams revenue stream it’s really quite simple: make a huge splash in the free agent market or swing a blockbuster trade that lands a marquee player while simultaneously depleting your farm system. The assumption there is that the signing of a top player will lead to more excitement amongst the fans that put butts in seats and those butts stay in the seats because higher priced players get you more wins on the field. Not so fast. I don’t disagree that signing marquee free agents leads to higher ticket sales but if the past few years are any indication winning the offseason rarely leads to winning the division. 

A look around the MLB only reinforces this idea that winning the offseason doesn’t give you a rite of passage to wins on the field. The top teams across Major League Baseball as it stands right now are the Baltimore Orioles, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves, Washington Nationals, St. Louis Cardinals, and LA Dodgers. Out of those 7 teams how many of them were listed amongst this past offseason’s ‘winners’? The answer there is possibly one in the Washington Nationals. Rather, namely, the Orioles, Rangers, Cardinals, and Dodgers were all generally listed as ‘offseason losers’ for either spending too much on an unknown commodity (Texas with Japanese import Yu Darvish), not spending any money (Dodgers who were hamstrung by their ownership situation that’s finally been resolved), or allowing their top player to walk away (Cardinals watching superstar Albert Pujols ride out of town).

The 2011-2012 MLB offseason winners? The Detroit Tigers with their signing of Prince Fielder, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim with their coup of Albert Pujols and CJ Wilson, the Miami Marlins who snagged Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle, and the Cincinnati Reds who dealt for young stud Mat Latos and stole Ryan Madson when no one else wanted to offer a closer 4 yrs/$50 mil a la Jonathan Papelbon (for the record Madson blew out his elbow before ever throwing a pitch in a Reds uniform, not much you can do there). Month and a half into the season and only the Marlins and Reds has their heads above water, the Marlins at 18-16 and the Reds at 17-16. The Tigers and Angels who were supposed to be vying for the AL supremacy currently check in at 17-17 and 15-20, respectively. Now I’m not saying that those two teams won’t be duking it out for a ticket to the World Series in October but as of right now neither team is living up to expectations.

So what’s the difference between the teams who won the offseason and those who lost it? The teams who didn’t do much in the offseason were able to retool and get off to a good start through organizational depth and solid starting pitching. Nothing leads a team from worst to first like good pitching and that’s exactly what the Orioles, Rays, and Dodgers have done. Instead of lunging after a marquee free agent that they knew wouldn’t solve all their problems in one fell swoop they focused their resources on other areas like scouting, development, and digging diamonds out of the rough. They made the wise choice of not allocating all their resources into only a few players leaving other spots on the roster weak. The Cardinals are the poster child for having been called offseason losers after winning the World Series and letting their megastar Albert Pujols leave for the greener pastures of 10 yrs/$254 mil in LA. To replace Pujols’ offense the Cardinals went signed recently oft injured OF Carlos Beltran and looked towards David Freese to continue his hot streak that began last postseason and World Series. This far into the season the Cardinals decision has been a wise one with Pujols checking in at  .196 BA/1 HR/12 RBI/.234 OBP while Beltran is leading the NL in HRs at 13 and Freese is hitting .288 with 7 HRs and 26 RBIs. Advantage: Cardinals.

What do all the offseason winners have in common? They signed a marquee free agent that forced them to shift established players out of their comfort zones and into new environments and not everyone is adjusting well. In Anaheim CJ Wilson is doing a stellar job helping to head a starting rotation alongside Dan Haren and Jered Weaver but the man he displaced as the #3 starter Ervin Santana hasn’t fared so well. He’s been a wreck all year going 1-6 with a 5.09 ERA. And the man that Pujols moved off 1^st base? Well that’d be Mark Trumbo and he’s currently in no mans land. A 1b with power who’s being forced to try out LF, RF, and 3b in an attempt to keep his bat in the lineup (.321 BA, 6 HR, 16 RBI, .394 OBP) and defensively he’s been a mess committing 4 errors in 8 games at 3b, the main spot that the Angels hoped he’d be able to hold down instead he’s been a nomad.

In Detroit the main problem with signing 1b Prince Fielder was that it moved the guy they had at 1b, Miguel Cabrera who was in the bottom 5 defensively, across the diamond to 3b leaving their infield defense far below average. So far that prediction hasn’t been too far off with Fielder committing 3 errors over at first and Cabrera making 4 at third. The Tigers also haven’t been able to get outs at a good clip having turned only 22 double players through 35 games, a number in the bottom 3 in all of Major League Baseball. Offensively the team has also struggled as well with Fielder only going yahtzee 5 times and Cabrera 7 times. In order for this move to work the stipulation was that Fielder and Cabrera were going to out mash other teams and hide their defensive inadequacies. The Tigers and Angels made huge splashes during the offseason but so far results have been hit and miss with no consistency to be found on a day-to-day basis.

For all the Red Sox fans out there this message isn’t coming out of left field in any way as the Sox are the prime example for how reaching after big name free agents that don’t seem to fit doesn’t tend to end well. Take the 2009 and 2010 offseasons for example when the Red Sox reached for John Lackey (5 yr/$82.5 mil) and Carl Crawford (7 yr/$142 mil) when neither player was entering his prime, a la Pujols, and neither filled a hole or a team need. Last year Lackey was the worst starting pitcher IN THE HISTORY OF BASEBALL while Crawford wasn’t able to do what he was brought into Boston to do, steal bases and create offense from the top of the lineup. Instead Crawford was relegated to the bottom third of the lineup where he hit .255 with 11 HR, 56 RBIs, 18 steals. This year it got to the point where the best thing that happened this offseason to the Red Sox was John Lackey being shelved for all of 2012 after Tommy John surgery. The ultimate addition by subtraction, which is saying a lot for a team that once traded Carl Everett in his prime for Darren Oliver.

I know that the first 35 to 40 games of a year don’t equal an entire season but the trends we’ve seen developing throughout the beginning of the year aren’t new or abnormal. It’s been proven time and again that the best way to win in the big leagues and sustain that success is through good scouting, solid player development, and top notch starting pitching. Those are things that for the most part can’t be bought in a single offseason. Starting pitching tends to be highly volatile in the free agent market because teams are paying for what a player has done and generally they are actually buying a players decline years not his peak years, see: Pujols, Albert. If you want to win it’s actually quite simple: develop pitchers and watch them throw your team into the playoffs. Watch out Red Sox fans the Orioles, Rays, and Blue Jays seem to have figured this out while the hometown 9 were busy throwing money at overpriced, injured superstar free agents.

Geoff Jablonski

Almost Time to Go.

I've been on sabbatical for the last month or so as you've clearly seen from my lack of posts. And by sabbatical I mean I was either too lazy to post or the Red Sox were making me vomit so violently I couldn't see straight.

Nearly a month and a half into the season is more than enough for me to fully judge the team that I prognosticated to be 3rd in the AL East and what's my synopsis? I severely over-estimated where they'd finish this year.

Now however is an opportunity. An opportunity to not only to prove to the fans that the owners of the Boston Red Sox are not complete incompetents but an opportunity to build for the future. This team isn't going to win. They don't have the pitching and it seems like they are allergic to getting a hit with 2 outs and runners in scoring position.

What the Red Sox have are pieces. Pieces that other teams that are actually in the hunt would want. The Red Sox have a core of 6-7 players that that should be untouchable:

Dustin Pedroia: Despite his "That's not how we do it here" comments, you don't get rid of arguably the best player at his position in baseball, EVER.

Adrian Gonzalez: Is he hitting like Rosie O'Donnell (post-A League of Their Own, of course)? Yes. But up through last year, there is a case that he could have been one of the Top 3 hitters in baseball over the last 5 years, yes five years.

Jon Lester: Has he been an Ace? Nope. But you don't get rid of a left handed starting pitcher that consistently gives you 200 innings, and an ERA in the low 3's or better. He needs to go back to being fiery and not ornery, big difference (more on this to come).

Daniel Bard: An electric arm, and he is getting better. If Bobby Valentine knew how to run a pitching staff he'd probably have 2 more wins and a couple less runs on his ERA. His ridiculous decline in strikeouts this year is worrisome but he's getting outs and pitching to contact. He needs to add another pitch and keep his arm slot consistent when he's tired but he is indispensable right now.

Jacoby Ellsbury OR Carl Crawford: Unfortunately you have to pick one. You can't afford to pay two outfielders 20 million dollars and Jacoby Ellsbury is probably going to approach it after 2013. Would it suck to eat 70-million dollars? So, you have to pick your poison, an oft-injured CF that has no problem hitting lead off and seemingly has the capability to hit 30 HRs. Or an oft-injured LF that was a strange fit to begin with that won't hit lead-off and clearly has issues upstairs. I'd vote for Ellsbury, but I could keep Crawford if it meant getting a stud in return.

Will Middlebrooks: I hate rushing judgement on players but he has the smooth swing of an Evan Longoria and is 3x the fielder that Kevin Youkilis is at the Hot Corner. He is a player you build around not store on the farm.

It's tough to watch the Red Sox when you hate the manager and the starting rotation is in shambles. But now is when Ben Cherrington needs to earn his money and build us a winner for the future.

Stay Tuned

Norton

These Sox Can't Get Started

Two teams, 17 innings, Baltimore 9 Boston 6 with the pitchers of record being two position players. Chris Davis of the Orioles threw 2 shutout innings to grab the first win for an AL position player since 1968. For the Red Sox Darnell McDonald got hung with the loss and saw his ERA balloon to 27.00 after giving up a 3 run homer to Adam 'not PAC-man' Jones. After wading thru 17 innings to polish off a 1-5 homestand against perpetual AL doormats Oakland and Baltimore the Red Sox Achilles heel has openly shown itself. That weak link in the chain is Red Sox starting staff. They ultimately will be the ones who determine the fate of John Henry's latest Beantown Bunch.

This isn't news to most Red Sox fans seeing that before the season most of the teams question marks were located in the team's bullpen and starting staff. I thought that Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, and Clay Buchholz would provide stability at the top with Daniel Bard and Felix Doubront providing great potential in the 4 and 5 slots. The bullpen was in semi disarray at the start of the year after Andrew Bailey's injury and Alfredo Aceves shaky introduction into the closers role but in the past few weeks the back end of the pen has really solidified itself. The starting rotation on the other hand, which I thought would be a strength based on Beckett and Buchholz having strong bounce seasons has actually been God awful.

The Red Sox stand at 11-16 in the basement of the AL East. Their defense hasn't been the problem (outside of a few miscues by saltalamacchia) their offense hasn't been the problem (Ortiz has made up for Youkilis sucking and A Gonz power outage) but rather it's been the teams starting 5. It's gotten to the point where when I watch a game I'm shocked to see one of the Sox starters even start the 7th inning. I'm openly jealous of almost every other teams starting rotations being able to work deep into games effectively instead of doing it Clay Buchholz style where you pitch 7 innings and give up 7 runs.

Speaking of Clay Buchholz, the Red Sox #3 starter who is currently sporting an ERA north of 9.00, I think I've found the perfect solution for him. Instead of letting him try to work out his command issues in the big leagues and taxing the bullpen in the process I say utilize the fact that he still has options left and let him take the Cliff Lee route of ironing out his problems in AAA before coming back to the show. Cliff Lee spent the beginning of the 2007 season ironing out his issues only to find himself as one of baseballs best a year later. It can work. Give Buchholz a chance to find himself in a pressure free environment get him righted and back to where he was before he broke his back. Then he can truly be the Red Sox #3 starter and help lead them to the playoffs, hopefully.

Their team ERA currently is better than only the Minnesota 'we suck some awful' Twins coming in at a calm cool 5.36. They have 1 complete game and 1 shoutout to go with a 1.47 WHIP and .272 BAA. Most of these numbers are being inflated by the poor starting pitching the team is receiving. We've already been over the terrible awful that has been Clay Buchholz but he's been joined in misery by supposed ace Jon Lester who's 1-2 with a 4.62 ERA. Those numbers are pretty damn far off where I thought he would be checking in on May 7th just check my fantasy draft where I made him the ace of my staff. Lester's problems though seem to be quite fixable. The biggest problem he's been running into is falling back into his old habit of letting walks came back to bite him in the ass in the form of a long drawn out inning that jacks up his pitch count. His last two starts however after getting absolutely shellacked by the Rangers have been right on track, 7 IP 0 R 1 BB 7 SO against the White Sox and 6 IP 3 R 3 BB 2 SO against the Orioles. I like his odds of getting back into All Star shape.

My main issue with Josh Beckett is that he isn't the gamer everyone thought he was after the 2007 regular season and postseason. In that year Beckett single handedly made sure that the Red Sox were going to win the 2007 World Series but other than 2009 he's been altogether a disappointment. Beckett made 30 starts last year but as everyone knows quite well he wasn't around in late August and September while the team was collapsing he was too busy getting hammed on brewskis in the clubhouse. This year, outside of that gross first start in Detroit, Beckett had actually been the Red Sox best starter logging 4 straight quality starts but then, shocker, injury struck again in the form of a 122 pitch outing against the Chicago White Sox. After the start Beckett said he needed to be skipped next turn due to general soreness. That start that he needed to take off was made by Aaron Cook who got lit for 7 runs in just over 2 innings a game that the Red Sox lost to the Orioles. Beckett is talented there's no doubting that but when his team needs him the most he has a tendency to get injured or fade into the background. As of today he has been cleared to start Thursday against the Cleveland Indians and hopefully he's able to provide a quality start and get the team a much needed W.

Rookie LHP Felix Doubront is just that, a rookie. He throws too many pitches and gets himself into far too many jams but all in all he's been about as good as you can hope for at the back end of a rotation. He gives you 5 to 6 innings and tends to give up 3 or less runs. He hasn't been spectacular mostly thanks to high pitch counts and long innings that force him out of the game before he truly should be getting the hook but with time he'll learn to be more efficient. Right now the Red Sox need longer outings out of him but I don't know if this is the right place to be looking. Like I said just a sentence ago  he's far too inefficient right now to consistently work deep into ballgames and give the bullpen a day of rest.

That brings us to the Sox #5 starter and probably the one with the highest ceiling, Daniel Bard. Bard, much like Doubront, has given the Sox exactly what they must have expected he was moved from back end of the bullpen to the starting rotation. He has been keeping the ball in the ballpark, surrendering only 1 home run so far, and other than a start against Tampa when he walked 7 guys he's been keeping the free passes to a minimum. The biggest problem for him has been that he isn't stretched out enough yet to go more than 7 innings at the maximum. He's only worked 7 innings once and hasn't gotten out of the 6th on two other occasions out of 4 starts. His stuff has been top notch but, and the Sox can't pretend to be shocked by this, he hasn't been dominant in the starting rotation like he was at the back end of the bullpen. I get why they moved him to the starting rotation it makes sense to have your best pitchers pitch more innings but that comes with growing pains and at a time when the Red Sox starting rotation is in shambles they need someone to carry the load for a start or two and throw a complete game or two Roy Halladay style.

The best solution for the Red Sox is for these 5 guys to get themselves straightened out and that's up to Bob McClure to find the proper solutions. There are no outside solutions that I would endorse for the Red Sox considering the dearth of talent at the top of the farm system as is. As far as Buchholz is concerned I've stated that I think the best solution is some time to right himself away from the bright lights but as far as the others are concerned they'll have to work their problems out up in the Big Leagues. Red Sox Nation needs the Sox starters to go deeper into games and provide the team with innings it desperately needs. Like it or not Red Sox fans this season might not go as originally planned and you can blame the Sox starting 5 for that but unless the 5 individuals mentioned above can correct themselves. There is a legitimate chance we're looking at a year of misery in the Fens. As a fan I can't go through another year where the Red Sox finish dead last in quality starts even behind the terrible starting rotations thrown out there by the Minnesota Twins and Houston Astros of the world. It's time for the Sox starting rotation to step up and shit or get off the pot.

Geoff Jablonski

Celtics Fry Up Some Grit In The ATL

"We all grit, all grit and balls man, that's what it is." -Kevin Garnett after the Celtics game 2 win in Atlanta sans Rajon Rondo

Kevin Garnett you hit the nail squarely on the head. The 2012 playoff Celtics are made up of exactly that: grit and balls. Last night’s game reinforced to me after a laying stink bomb in Game 1 vs. the Hawks that this latest version of the Celtics has one more run left in their aging legs. Now I’m not going to take for granted the fact that the Celtics gutted out this latest playoff win against an Atlanta Hawks bunch that is soft, overrated, and in general has no clue how to win big games.

If you’re like me then when you saw Rajon Rondo bump the official and subsequently get ejected near the end of Game 1 you were resigned to the fact that Game 2 wasn’t likely going to go the Celtics way. I figured it would take a huge game from Paul Pierce, KG, and a host of role players to steal home court advantage from the Hawks. Paul Pierce did exactly that racking up 36 points (13 in the first quarter to set the tempo and 13 points in the fourth quarter when the Celtics needed a leader) and, in my eyes, even more impressively 14 rebounds. KG didn’t really show up early but he was there late and finished with 15 points and 12 rebounds. Guys like Marquise Daniels, Keyon Dooling, and Sasha Pavlovic did a great job of picking up the slack with the Celtics, and the NBA’s, assists leader sitting out the game due to a suspension.

This year Rajon Rondo has probably been the Celtics most indispensible player after he averaged 11.9/11.7/4.8 and 1.79 steals a game and was a key cog in the Celtics ability to pick up the pace on occasion. We all know if he had it his way he’d be breaking out with Avery Bradley by his side every play but when you’re made up of older, slower players that can’t always be the case. In Game 1 against the Hawks Rondo again delivered by pouring in 20 points and dishing out 11 assists but for the most part the Celtics looked old, sluggish, and disinterested. With Rondo out for Game 2 the Celtics did what this team needs to do to win and that’s not rely on Rondo to create every single shot but grind out games with tough defense and put together strings of good offensive sets that result in easy baskets or open jumpers. The Celtics did a great job of getting back to basics. That’s what the Celtics did down the stretch of the regular season when they beat the Heat twice, once with a full supporting cast once without, and showed the league that they still have enough heart and guts to hang with anyone.

The Celtics found themselves down 11 in the 3^rd quarter last night but they didn’t blink and came back to steal the game away from a Hawks team that is too immature to win big games, and honestly I don’t know if the team as currently constituted even with a healthy Al Horford will ever have the mental toughness to make a deep playoff run. The Celtics are exactly the team that the Hawks wish they could become: smart, full of guile, and unafraid. I loved watching the Celtics show the Hawks last night that they aren’t quite down yet while sending a message to the Heat who had the night off. With the Magic sans Dwight Howard and the Bulls getting blown out by the 76ers without D Rose it looks like the Celtics may have a date with destiny in the form of the Miami Heat.

Game 2 was a microcosm of what the Celtics need to do if they plan on raising banner 18 in the Garden. They aren’t going to out talent the Heat or even the Bulls in the East but they can out guile and out balls them. I’m going to say that the Hawks series is going the Celtics way the bigger question is whether it’ll be in 5 or 6 games. I’m not going to waste your time and talk about the Hawks at all because they are a soft team without the balls to take a series when it’s handed to them on a silver platter. The Celtics were in position to be put down 0-2 and the Hawks couldn’t finish them off. Hawks time to blow it up and realize you can’t build a championship team around Josh Smith and Joe Johnson.

With the fear of being redundant I’m going to say it one more time: the Celtics outclassed the Hawks in Game 2 and with Rajon Rondo coming back for Game 3 and beyond the Celtics might have the opportunity to form a lethal combination of grit and talent. If Ray Allen can come back healthy sometime before the Celtics second round series I think the Celtics will have a legitimate shot at getting to the Eastern Conference Finals and beyond. Pierce showed he could still dominate a game when he needs to do, which is always a nice ace in the hole to have if you’re Doc Rivers. Game 3 is tomorrow night in Boston tune in boys and girls it should be fun. 

Have fun watching Paul Pierce Tebow after drilling a free throw late

Geoff Jablonski