Oh welcome to my winter wonderland! I might be the only baseball fan who finds the off season just as exciting as the regular season. I love the battle for free agents and the creativity (or lack of) in trades. I find it exciting to watch my team rebuild and retool for the future. I find it comical to see the Mets waste millions of dollars every year. I find it a great mystery to sit around and see what crazy shit Billy Beane will pull off next and who will be first to jump on his band wagon as his team again goes nowhere farther then the 1st round. I wait and wait on the edge of my seat to see which owner finally takes out a professional hit on Scott Boras. Oh its better then a Michael Bay movie.
This off season for the sox started before I could even get my first off season blog off. Last week the sox traded Coco Crisp to the Kansas City Royals for Ramon Ramirez. A hard throwing middle relief pitcher who could possibly become our new set up man. Good ol Pessimistic Keith Law is back at it hinting that both teams will be disappointed.
Coco Crisp did a very good job for us in a more limited role this year. He kept his mouth shut and did his job. He deserved this trade. He earned it. There is no reason to keep a player as good as him on the bench as a fourth outfielder. The Red Sox can get another fourth outfielder easily, but what they cannot seem to get is a stable top line bullpen.
So first thing's first. Is Jacoby Ellsbury better then Coco Crisp? Jacoby has only played one full year for the Red Sox so its hard to really tell, but lets compare his '08 season to Coco's best season for the sox ('07 in my opinion).
G R H RBI SB SB% OBP WS (HIT) Fielding WS (FLD)
Jacoby 145 98 155 47 50 82% .336 9 1.000 6.5
Coco 145 85 141 60 28 82% .330 7.5 .998 8.5
Rocco 136 79 145 74 17 81% .326 10.4 .978 4.9
You will notice a line for Rocco Baldelli up there. It is from his last fully healthy year back in 2004. Keep in mind the Rays were 70-91 that year.I bring him into the equation because he is a free agent who was in town last week to talk to Boston about that 4Th outfielder spot. In my opinion if his mitochondrial disorder is all better (and doesn't go all Parasite Eve on him) then he is worth the risk. Moving Coco so he can get a full time gig and picking up Baldelli would be a great set of moves to start the off season.
Now as far Ramon Ramirez goes I don't see how this hurts us at all either. A lot of people are saying he will come in and be the new set up man because of how Okajima apparently let everyone down last year. I don't know what Okie I was watching, but I never felt let down. Was he not as good as his debut year when no one knew who the hell he was? Yes. Was he bad? Not by a long shot.
Ramirez would be a good middle relief man as well. They say getting Ramon could allow for Justin Masterson to get put back in the rotation (where I think he belongs), but they just lost Mike Timlin to retirement so they had a hole to fill anyway (granted Timlin's hole could be filled by a baked potato). So getting Ramirez not only makes the bullpen better, but does something to it that I have not seen in awhile: He makes it flexible.
G ERA WHIP HR K INN Win Shares
Masterson 36 3.16 1.22 10 68 88.3 8
Ramirez 71 2.64 1.23 2 70 71.7 8.9
Okie 64 2.61 1.16 6 60 62 8
Timlin 47 5.66 1.62 9 32 49.3 1.4
Keep in mind that 9 of those games for Masteron were starts. Now that I look at those numbers on screen it blows my mind even more that people were upset by Okie's performance this year. 2.61 is a damn good ERA for a reliever. Well anyway that's it for now. Next time I have a chance to write it will be about why the Red Sox should be going hard after Mark Teixeira and why the naysayers to that plan should shut their mouths.
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1 comment:
The baseball pages are the first thing I check at work in the Morning. I agree that Rocco would be a good 4th and that Coco deserved more time somewhere. Well done. now we just need Texiera and it will be a great Christmas!!
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