I would not mind this, *if* the Red Sox made it clear to Torii Hunter that he would end up with limited playing time and be expected to serve as a mentor to some of the younger Red Sox outfielders.
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Tag: baseball
I still cannot believe this trade got made. [Over the Monster](http://www.overthemonster.com/2012/8/29/3275699/the-incredible-improbability-of-the-red-sox-mega-deal) has the complete list of every thing that needed to happen for the trade to get done.
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Bringing John Farrell back to Boston
One option people have been mentioning is trading Daniel Bard to the Blue Jays for him. [Over the Monster](http://www.overthemonster.com/2012/8/28/3274436/john-farrell-and-the-insanity-of-player-manager-trades) explains why that is ridiculous:
> The idea of trading a player who has been very good in the past and could well be very good again in the near future when all the team needs to do is find someone competent seems like an overreaction. You will find few scenarios where trading a player for a manager is worthwhile, and none of them involving a player who has the ability to be as good as Daniel Bard.
Agreed. Instead, the Red Sox should just fire Bobby Valentine and promote Tim Bogar for next year. If that doesn’t work, John Farrell’s contract with the Blue Jays is up next year anyway.
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Welcome Back Aceves
Always fun to wake up to another blown save.
> If there’s any positive to this, it’s that the Bobby Valentine coffin which seemed to be pried open a few inches by the blockbuster trade and the Aceves suspension has hopefully been nailed back down. But that seemed shut for good a week ago, so who can even say?
I could not have been more wrong with my pre-season thoughts on how Bobby Valentine would do in Boston. He has been a disaster,
The top of my list includes:
> **Can Ryan Lavarnway Catch:** Ryan Lavarnway has been a favorite of ours here at Over the Monster. The Yale product did not start catching until he was in college and has been dogged by questions about his ability to stick at the position since being drafted in the sixth round of the 2008 draft. This season he made enormous strides behind the plate, being named the best defensive catcher in the International League by AAA coaches. Even with that honor on his resume, Red Sox fans have gotten a look at some of the challenges he faces as he transitions to the role of a big league catcher since his call up at the start of August
and one of my favorite players to watch:
> Che-Hsuan Lin is a 23 year old from Twain prospect who brings elite defensive ability, excellent speed and a very patient approach at the plate to the table. All of that would make Lin an extremely intriguing player if he had some ability to drive the ball. Lin has struggled to produce reasonable batting averages at the AAA level thus far. In two seasons at that level and almost 800 plate appearances Lin has just a .241/.325/.304 line. He does square the ball up well and he has virtually no power in his swing. However, he makes a great deal of sense for the 2013 as the fifth outfielder and top pinch running and defensive replacement option. Even with his poor hitting skills, his strike zone judgment helps him get on base and once there, he is an excellent runner stealing 145 bases in six minor league seasons while getting caught just 45 times. For a team that has gotten away from the grinding, patient approach that brought the Red Sox their greatest successes, Lin is certainly worth a look and deserves some consideration for the final bench spot.
Seeing Lin live is incredible. He gets to balls that you would think no one has a prayer of reaching. I hope he can prove he has enough of a bat to get him in the lineup.
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Red Sox Want Ross and Ortiz Back
I like this plan. Bring back Big Papi and Cody Ross to provide some veteran leadership and overall stability to a very young team.
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The Argument for Signing Jacoby Ellsbury
> So we’re talking about a player with exceptional speed, who is capable of hitting for power, as well as for average, and, although lacking a powerful arm, is an outstanding outfielder.
Pretty good argument. Of course, with Scott Boras as his agent, he will probably try to cash in on a mega-deal somewhere.
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Bill Simmons on The Trade
> I thought the Red Sox were like that once upon a time. We won twice in four years. Somewhere along the line, we lost our way. I don’t know if we found it. Time will tell. I just know that I’m interested again.
Same here.
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An Early Look at the 2013 Red Sox
*Fangraphs* gives an early preview:
> Now, the question is, is the above a good team or a bad team? I would submit that it’s actually a pretty good team. Even during the worst offensive season of his career, Pedroia is still a top-10 second baseman, and both Aviles and Middlebrooks rank in the upper half of the league at their position this season. Ellsbury has shown that he can be a top-10 player in baseball, let alone a top-10 center fielder. When healthy, Ortiz has shown no signs of slowing down, and despite the best (or is it worst?) efforts of Melancon and Matt Albers this season, the Red Sox bullpen still sports an 88 FIP-, good for eighth-best in baseball entering Sunday. Catcher remains a concern, as does the starting rotation, but the structure of a good team still remains.
I will be fine going into next year with Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, Jacoby Ellsbury and a bunch of young, unproven guys who play hard and always hustle[^stuff]. I would prefer watching that kind of team fight for a wild card spot over watching a team like the Sox had this year just collapse while they collect paychecks.
[^stuff]: I think I can consider Will Middlebrooks as “unproven” because his sample size is so small. Also, I think I would prefer to see the Red Sox give the starting shortstop position to Pedro Ciriaco instead of Aviles.
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Bartolo Colon Suspended for PED Use
In a story that *everyone* saw coming. He probably was not using last year when he was on the Yankees though right?[^bit]
[^bit]: Now I am not only bitter the Red Sox are terrible this year, but I am bitter they missed the playoffs last year when the Yankees beat them with guys like Colon who were juicing.
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A Documentary about the Knuckleball
> Filmed throughout the 2011 season with extraordinary access from Major League Baseball, the story follows 37 year-old R.A. Dickey (New York Mets, now a 2012 All-Star) and 18-year veteran Tim Wakefield (now retired), the oldest player in the major leagues and an icon of the Boston Red Sox. Knuckleball! details their personal and professional triumphs of the season, while exploring the bond between these two active pitchers and their only allies, the five living retired knuckleballers: Hall of Famer Phil Niekro, Charlie Hough, Wilbur Wood, Jim Bouton and Tom Candiotti.
I look forward to watching this via Netflix streaming some day.
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Expanded Instant Replay in Baseball
Finally. It is ridiculous that it has taken this long.
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Rob Neyer on Melky Cabrera
Rob Neyer tells the story of Andrew Baggarly, a Giant beat reporter for CSN Bay Area. Mr. Baggarly had heard that Melky Cabrera had failed a drug test, but when he confronted Mr. Cabera about it, Mr. Cabrera denied the claim. Mr. Baggarly then apologized profusely, including on Twitter, about the incident.
> Why on earth should Baggarly have believed Cabrera? I mean, believed him 90 percent? Sure. Even 95 percent. I probably would have. I have a trusting nature. But it seems to me that Cabrera might have lied about everything. He might have lied about contacting the union and his agent. He might have contacted the union and his agent, but he might have lied about what they told him.
It is not surprising that a player lied to a reporter. What is surprising is how that reporter just simply rolled over and started offering apologies. If that is how beat reporters handle their relationships with players, it makes sense why independent people, like [Yahoo Sports](http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/), end up getting all the big stories.
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The Wrist of Will Middlebrooks
I woke up yesterday to the [horrible news](http://joyofsox.blogspot.com/2012/08/globe-middlebrooks-has-broken-wrist.html) that [Will Middlebrooks had a broken wrist](http://www.overthemonster.com/2012/8/11/3235416/will-middlebrooks-has-a-broken-wrist). I guess it is a positive that [he will not need surgery on that wrist](http://blogs.providencejournal.com/sports/red-sox/2012/08/middlebrooks-shouldnt-need-surgery.html), but I am still apprehensive about any wrist injury and its effects on the long term health of a player (*see, e.g.,* Nomar Garciaparra.)
There is a lot of coverage today about how the Washington Nationals are handling their young ace. A [long column by Jayson Stark](http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8253442/shut-stephen-strasburg-just-let-pitch) got things started:
> No matter how loudly you scream, no matter how eloquently you argue, no matter how many compelling counterpoints you present, the Washington Nationals aren’t changing their minds. Period. That’s a wrap.
> So there is going to come a day, sometime in September, when the Nationals pat their ace on the butt, place his golden right arm in bubble wrap, and say, “Thanks for playing.” It’s as inevitable as the next Kristen Stewart tabloid blockbuster.
Then [Rob Neyer](http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/8/10/3233801/stephen-strasburg-nationals-innings-limit) and [Fangraphs](http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/strasburgs-innings-cap-revealed-to-be-180-ip/) took their turns[^180]. Though Fangraphs focuses on using the innings count to estimate when the Nationals will shut him down, Mr. Neyer is more critical:
> It seems like the Nationals have replaced an old paradigm — let pitchers pitch until they get hurt, which has actually been out of style for a while now — with something new that’s nearly as ill-considered as the old one. The only way to keep Strasburg healthy is to bench him after 160 innings and no time off? Really?
Pitching too much can be bad, so limiting the amount of pitching is good, right? I cannot wait to see the reaction when the Nationals refuse to their ace as they are playing a key playoff game. What a media circus that will be.
[^180]: Fangraphs cites a tweet from Jeff Passan that Strasburg’s inning limit is 180.
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Everyone Should Have Drafted Mike Trout
> If you’re an area scout in the Northeast, you may see hundreds of games without ever seeing what you’ve been searching for. In five years as an area scout for the Angels covering the Northeast, Greg Morhardt—known to his friends in the industry simply as Mo—spent a lot of time looking and not much time finding. He crisscrossed plenty of highways and dodged the raindrops that ruin a scout’s day. For five years, he hadn’t turned in a position player from his area that he projected to be a major league regular.
> And then it happened.
The story of Mike Trout, who is poised to be the MVP of the AL this year. Not bad for someone who [just turned 21](http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/mike-trout-finally-hits-something-hasn-t-season-220737103–mlb.html).
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Reddick with the Artful use of the Pie
I miss him Reddick on the Red Sox.
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Red Sox Take 2 out 3 from the Yanks
I still cannot figure out this Red Sox team. I would be fine with them just letting all the young guys play though. I am about 3 games away from ordering a Pedro Ciriaco Fathead for my wall.
*See also* [Fenway West’s Recap](http://www.fenwaywest.com/2012-articles/july/yankee-killer-pedro-ciriaco-does-it-again.html)
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Why the Red Sox Will Make the Playoffs
> Although Adrian Gonzalez’ bat has gone missing, Carl Crawford is just now wading back into the pool of full-time play, and Nick Punto continues to exist, the 2012 Sox are fully capable of going on an absolutely torrid stretch. And I mean torrid in a good way, not in an “every episode of ‘Happy Days’ after Ron Howard left the cast” way. In fact, a 21-8 August is not entirely out of the question. Neither, of course, is the thought that a race of alien Jessica Biels will abduct me and whisk me away to their home planet to help them repopulate. But just work with me here.
I’m trying to be this optimistic, but I just do not think this team is going to go on some kind of winning streak. I hope I’m wrong.
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Top Five in Fangraphs No Trade Rankings
Harper and Trout at the top. Not a big surprise.