Youkilis Trading In His Red Sox for Some White Ones

Yesterday afternoon immediately after, or during Youkilis’s at bat in the 7^th up to you to decide, the Red Sox wrapped up a 3 game set with the visiting Atlanta Braves the inevitable happened and Kevin Youkilis was dealt. To whom he was dealt however was somewhat a surprise considering most people had him linked to the SF Giants, AZ DBacks, Cincinnati Reds, or Cleveland Indians but in the last few days the dark horse White Sox emerged victorious. In the deal the Red Sox agreed to ship Youkilis and $5.6 million of his remaining $8 million salary for the rest of the year to the White Sox for super utilityman Brent Lillibridge and minor league RHP Zach Stewart. When you break down the deal, in my eyes, comes out as a win-win for both the White Sox and the Red Sox.

Looking at the deal from the White Sox perspective first they were able to land a proven middle of the lineup hitter on the relative cheap. Youkilis has struggled in Boston the past years ever since the Sox asked him to move across the diamond to his natural position of 3B to accommodate 1B Adrian Gonzalez. Prior to 2011 Youkilis, who started his career as a 3B but moved across the diamond to first to accommodate Mike Lowell, had become a 2-time AL All Star and Gold Glove winner at 1B. During his first 4 years at first base Youkilis managed to play in at least 136 games every season. In his final year at first he got hurt and racked up only 102 and last year after moving to third base the injury bug struck him again and he missed 42 games. This year he once again was struck by injuries and played in only 42 of a possible 72 games. Everything I just described to you coupled with the emergence of 3B of the future Will Middlebrooks is exactly why the Red Sox felt they could move Youkilis before a become a free agent at the end of the year (he has a $13 million club option that he’s known wasn’t going to get picked up from day 1).

The White Sox are getting a versatile, disciplined hitter who, if healthy, can provide them with the stability they’ve been lacking at third base. Youk is a career .287 hitter who hit over .300 for 3 consecutive years from 2008-2010. He can also play a pretty good third base and an above average first base whenever the White Sox want to give Paul Konerko a breather. Youkilis’s power numbers have dipped slightly in the past couple of years after peaking during his peak stretch between 2008-2010 but he’s shown recently that he still has the ability to hit the baseball a long way. The White Sox have been playing with a black hole over at third base since Brent Morel went down earlier in the year yet they managed to grab back 1^st place in the AL Central with a 1-0 walk off win on Sunday night. Kenny Williams showed his fearless side once again by going after the piece he knew his team needed to win this year while also not sacrificing his youth movement. Youkilis is an instant upgrade for the White Sox and as long as he can stay healthy he provides them with the kind of bat that might just allow them to stave off the Indians and the super talented Tigers.

From the Red Sox perspective the move was more about addition by subtraction then anything else. The return on Youkilis is halfway decent considering he’s been injury plagued the last few years and appears to be on the downslope of his career but it’s nowhere near the relief they get in now being able to plug Middlebrooks into third base for the foreseeable future without any sign of a controversy. Bobby V had been forced into playing musical chairs between Youkilis, Gonzalez, and Middlebrooks ever since Youk’s return from the disabled list but finally that’s over and he can now write in Gonzalez at 1B and Middlebrooks at 3B, barring injuries, for the duration. This deal also helps down the road when outfielders Carl Crawford and Jacoby Ellsbury come back and their won’t be a free spot in RF for Gonzalez to shuffle out to whenever Bobby V is trying to get all his bats in the lineup.

Middlebrooks has proven that he can hit big league by making the necessary adjustments after setting the world on fire in his first few games then getting figured out by the pitchers. It’s a cat and mouse game and I wasn’t fully buying into the Middlebrooks is ready hype until I saw him make the next move in the game of chess and in the past week or so he’s made that move.

The trade of Youk will also most likely help ease tensions in the clubhouse since it was a well-known fact, or well assumed, that Youk is the one who sold Beckett and the other drunkards down the river last year after the team’s epic September collapse. I don’t like that it appears the Red Sox have chosen to stick with Beckett and his antics because he’s a more irreplaceable piece than Youkilis but he it’s a business and there was a replacement waiting for Youkilis while there isn’t someone readily available to fill Beckett’s golf spikes. Hopefully without Youkilis around Beckett, Lester, and Buchholz (after he gets off the DL) will loosen up a little bit and pitch more like the guys we saw in 2010 not the jabronis who ran out there every 5^th day in 2011.

For tangible pieces the Red Sox got something in the form of Zach Stewart. Brent Lillibridge is a nice little defensive bench piece but he’ll never be more than that based on his .215 lifetime average and .175 he’s hitting this year. He can play anywhere on the diamond outside of pitcher and catcher and he gives Bobby V some defensive flexibility down the stretch in tight ball games. The real prize however is Zach Stewart and the potential he possesses to possibly become a good middle of the rotation big league starter. After being drafted in the 3^rd round out of Texas Tech in 2008, Stewart has shown he’s a valuable piece being traded twice already, once for Scott Rolen and once for Edwin Jackson (I prefer to look at him being traded three times now as an indictment to his talent level not that teams think he sucks). In both of those deals Stewart was the centerpiece due to his repertoire of pitches and ability to command all of them in the strike zone. In this move I think the Red Sox get a kid who has a good chance of being a big league starter and worst case he’s a nice bullpen piece after doing that for the first part of his minor league career and during the few games he’s been in up at the major league level. A look at his minor league numbers shows a guy with good control but is a little too hittable right now. He’s only 25 however and I like his odds to straighten that out a little bit and become more of a painter on the edges of the black and effectively be able to get big league hitters out. During his brief big league career he has managed to pitch 97 innings and only give up 22 BBs compared to 61 K’s so the potentials their the key for the Red Sox is tapping into that potential.

All in all I’m sad to see the talent level Youkilis brings to the table go but I think it was a move the Red Sox needed to make in order to get a glimpse at their third baseman of the future today. I don’t think Stewart helps the Red Sox this year but either next year or possible the year after I think you’re looking at a nice piece in the middle of the BoSox rotation. Good luck to Youkilis and we’ll see how he’s looking in the White Sox digs when he returns to the Fens in mid-July.

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

Ryan Braun: One Press Conference Too Many

The number one thing I’ve learned about the Milwaukee Brewers Ryan Braun in the past few days is that he is an idiot. When Braun, the 2007 NL Rookie of the Year and 2011 NL MVP, had his 50-game suspension for elevated testosterone levels overturned last week he should’ve celebrated his victory privately, released a statement through his legal team, and then attempted to assimilate himself into the Brewers spring training as quietly as possible. Instead he called a press conference and went on a 5-minute rant, basically, where he called the MLB drug testing system ‘completely flawed’ and said that he had been ‘a victim of a failed process’. He also went out on a limb and throw it out there that his sample was tampered with that’s why the testosterone levels were in rarified air. One problem Ryan: your defense team never argued that your samples had been tampered with they only argued that the chain of custody had been too slow getting the samples to the lab in Montreal.

In fact Braun’s defense team during the hearing with the arbitration panel had accepted the presence of synthetic testosterone and knew that their best shot was to attack the procedure followed by collector Dino Laurenzi, Jr. Now we haven’t seen the deciding arbitrator’s, Shayum Das, reasoning for why he sided with the Braun camp but it makes sense that he did so based on the fact that it’s spelled out in the MLB Drug Testing Policy that samples need to be sent out that day unless there are unusual circumstances. Once collected by Laurenzi it was after 5:00 pm on a Saturday in Milwaukee and we’ve all been there before there isn’t a post office in the world that ships that late on a Saturday or ever on a Sunday thus he was forced to hold onto the sample until he could ship it out on Monday, which he did. Braun’s team argued, successfully, that that 44-hour window between when the urine sample was collected and when it was shipped out by FedEx was too long a window but they never once argued that the seals were broken on the sample. Nice job Braun you just left your ass out in the wind by calling out the process and calling it flawed for producing a ‘false positive’ when your own defense team knew that that wasn’t true.

Throughout his press conference Braun also alluded multiple times to the idea that his sample had been tampered with by the collector. The best part about that is that Braun himself signed documentation stating that the sample had been sealed properly IN FRONT OF HIM and the lab in Montreal said that the samples they received were undisturbed. Even if Laurenzi, Jr. wanted to try and frame Braun he would have to take a completely wild guess at which sample was his because there are no names on the samples just random numbers. Laurenzi, Jr. has no idea what number sample belongs to which player. That means that Braun is suggesting that Laurenzi, Jr. made a phenomenal guess grabbed his exact sample broke the seal injected mass quantities of testosterone and then was able to, in a surgical manner, reseal all packaging to its original state fooling even the most trained eye. Sure why not, right Ryan?

Let’s take a quick look at the credentials of the collector who Braun decided to come after in a passive aggressive manner to see if you think he’s a credible collector or not. Dino Laurenzi, Jr. has been collecting samples for Comprehensive Drug Testing since 2005, has performed over 600 collections for the MLB and other professional sports leagues, and holds a master’s in medical/athletic training from UNC-Chapel Hill. Sounds like a pretty stand up dude to me who’s never once been called into question for his credibility but again you’re right Ryan he chose YOU to screw over. I’ll say it again, Braun should’ve released a statement through his defense team, shut his mouth, and tried to return to whatever level of normalcy possible. 

When news first broke about Braun testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone I wanted to believe that he truly was innocent but after taking in all the information out there and knowing the culture of major league baseball I couldn’t believe that the drug test policy the MLB had fought so hard to implement would make its first mistake and the only one to date after thousands of collections with such a high profile player like Braun. After hearing Braun’s speech on February 24^th I realized that he wasn’t indeed innocent and he made himself look all the more guilty by standing up there and talking nonsense without looking at the facts himself. He made claims and said things about people with no factual backing, all things that tend to be done by someone who is in fact guilty and wants so badly to try and get people to believe he’s innocent that he overcompensates. Another huge piece of the puzzle to remember is that MLB doesn’t want Ryan Braun to test positive for PED’s because it sends them back to a dark place they just seemed to finally emerge from. They implemented this new drug testing and it was agreed upon by the MLBPA because both organizations wanted to prove to their fans once and for all that the game they loved was in fact clean and free of cheaters. Instead, one of the games biggest stars got caught cheating and was exonerated on a mere technicality.

Yes, Ryan Braun had his 50-game suspension lifted and he’ll be able to participate fully in the Milwaukee Brewers 2012 season, which is great news for them but in my mind and in many fans minds the truth remains that he was in fact busted for having elevated levels of testosterone. I hope that the MLB tests him daily and that he passes every single one of them and is able to maintain his position in the upper echelon of the MLB’s elite. If you read this article by Buster Olney you’ll see how many current MLB players feel about the situation and how they are outraged and know full well that Braun wasn’t innocent he got lucky a single arbitrator decided to rule in his favor based on a misstep in the chain of custody not a tampered sample. And you know what that’s exactly how I feel right now, betrayed by someone I affectionately called ‘The Hebrew Hammer’. Ryan Braun you’re an idiot for not only holding a press conference and throwing around multiple false accusations and claims that most likely will get you sued for slander by Dino Laurenzi, Jr. but for ever thinking you could get away with taking PED’s and when you got caught attempting to lie your way out of it. You let down not only the fans but your MLB brethren.

There you have it folks my take on the Ryan Braun verdict and subsequent press conference. I think I’ve made it quite clear how I feel the real question is how do you feel? Let us know! Until we cross paths again…

Geoff Jablonski

Yu Would Like To Play

The Texas Rangers delivered an early Christmas gift to their fan base, they hope, by winning the Yu Darvish sweepstakes with a record bid of $51.7 million. That’s $51.7 million just to hold a formal conversation with the young Japanese phenom not including the $50-60 million it’ll take to actually get him to pitch in Arlington. If you’re a Red Sox fan you’re probably holding back laughter and pointing your finger at the Rangers front office and thinking to yourself, “nice job Texas you just won the rights to the next Daisuke Matsuzaka.” I personally though am all in on the Whirling Darvish. I think he would’ve been money well spent for the Red Sox and believe that as long as the price tag is south of $125 million the Rangers got a great deal. Allow me to explain why Darvish’s situation is the polar opposite of Matsuzaka’s.

In my eyes the major difference between the two pitchers is their personal backgrounds. Daisuke was and still is a hermit crab whereas Darvish is a peacock thirsting for the spotlight. Matsuzaka is Japanese to the core and spent his entire childhood and adult life in that culture with his trip to become a Red Sox his first foray outside his comfort zone. Darvish on the other hand is the product of an Iranian father and Japanese mother. His parents met at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida where his dad was a soccer player. His father went to high school in the United States as well and Darvish has made it known for years that he wants nothing more than to return to the land where his father went to high school and college to showcase his skills. He is also a national celebrity in Japan who is consistently seen enjoying the nightlife where Matsuzaka was a celebrity in his own right but didn’t allow his personal life into the media like Darvish does. Darvish wants to be the main attraction of the island nation. Yu Darvish isn’t only the best pitcher in the Japan Professional Leagues he’s the nations number one celebrity having achieved cult status at the ripe age of 21. The advantage in preparation for making the move from Japan to America goes to Yu Darvish.

Next lets break down Daisuke’s career in Japan with Yu’s. Daisuke spent 8 years in the NPB compiling a 108-60 record with a 2.95 ERA and 1,355 K’s. Over 7 years in the NPB Yu has compiled a 93-38 record with a 1.99 ERA and 1,259 K’s. They both won one Elji Sawamura Award as the best pitcher in Japan and two ERA titles and we’re selected to 5+ NPB All-Star Games but the difference is Darvish’s 2 Pacific League MVP Awards.  It shows just how much he means to his team that he has won 2 MVP’s over 7 years. Matsuzaka was a great pitcher in his own right but Darvish is on another level. They have both been the dominant and featured starting pitcher in Japan during their time in the NPB and we’re both the #1 pick coming out of high school. Their careers and numbers are nearly parallel though Darvish has had an ERA under 2.00 in the past 5 years with his 2011 season being the lowest at 1.44. For all the time Daisuke spent as the best kept secret in Japan, Darvish spent just as much time being the best pitcher in Japan and letting everyone know it. 

Each has an arsenal of pitches that are quite different though everything we know about Darvish’s pitch arsenal is heresay much like Matsuzaka’s was before he arrived in the Western World. Matsuzaka throws a fastball in the 90-92 MPH range, a slider/cutter in the mid-80s a changeup in the high 70s-80 range and a slow curve. There has been no gyro ball as was widely rumored but only a change up with fade into a right handed hitter. Yu throws a little harder fastball in the 92-95 MPH range, a hard slider around 80, and then an array of secondary pitches: cutter, curveball, changeup, and two seam fastball. Again most of those secondary pitches are hereseay and we’ll found out what he can really throw effectively when he gets to America. Physically Matsuzaka stands 6’0 tall and weighs 185 lbs. Yu towers over Daisuke standing at 6’5” and weighing in at 220 lbs. Physically Yu is built to succeed in the MLB’s 5-man rotation much more than Daisuke ever was. Daisuke was built for a 6 man rotation that tailored to his throwing routine, which consists of lots and lots of long toss, something that isn’t done but once every few days in America. Again I would personally favor Yu’s physical gifts more than Daisuke’s so I’ll give him the edge here too.

Now the final reason that I love the Darvish signing for the Rangers if they can finalize it: the market he’ll be playing in. Daisuke was thrust immediately into one of the two hardest markets, with New York being the other, in all of baseball to succeed in and asked to be an ace. He pitched quite well in his first two years going over 200 innings and 200 K’s in his first year and then racking up 18 wins with a 2.90 ERA. The past three years however have been wasted years watching his ERA, WHIP, and BB/9 skyrocket while his wins and IP have been on the decline. In true Boston fashion with each performance the expectations have been elevated leaving Matsuzaka virtually no chance of succeeding from here on out. In Texas, Darvish won’t be faced with nearly the same challenges from a media standpoint. He’ll also be helped out by the fact he’s joining an organization with the beginnings of a long-term juggernaut already in place. On the field the Rangers have a strong, fairly young starting 9 highlighted by 2010 AL MVP Josh Hamilton and perennial all-star 2B Ian Kinsler. The pitching staff is also strength for the Rangers even with the loss of SP C.J. Wilson. He’s being replaced in the rotation by former closer and relative flamethrower Neftali Feliz, who the Rangers are able to move due to the acquisition of rock steady CP Joe Nathan. The Rangers are coming off back-to-back AL Championships and World Series defeats. There isn’t the same amount of pressure on Darvish to be an ace like there was on Daisuke to be a savior in Boston. Darvish can come in and be a 3^rd starter on this team while he acclimates to his new surroundings and then in due time grow into the ace I think he can be.

My final analysis of the potential signing of Yu Darvish by the Rangers is that comparing it the Red Sox missteps with Daisuke Matsuzaka is like comparing Love Actually to Wedding Crashers. The two moves are/were done in completely different circumstances with different expectations in place. The Red Sox looked at Daisuke as a chance to crack the Japanese market wide open for themselves whereas the Rangers are looking at Darvish as a baseball player more than a global icon. From a baseball standpoint I also think that Darvish has a higher ceiling and, this is biased since I now know that Daisuke isn’t going to live up to the hype he came over with, is has a greater chance of reaching that potential. Darvish’s size and pedigree are going to be advantages for him during what is a major upheaval from the island of Japan to the great United States of America. In the end if the Rangers are able to sign Darvish to a 5 or 6-year deal for under $70 million dollars I think they’ve done a good job. That’s a guaranteed 5 or 6 years with 3 or 4 of those years being that of an ace at a well under market value contract. Can’t complain there if you’re the Rangers front office. Go sign Darvish, Jon Daniels and reap the benefits down the road. The Rangers are here to stay for a while. Until we cross paths again.

Geoff Jablonski