Red Sox have unspectacular, but successful Winter Meetings.

Ben Cherington has a lot to think about after an exploratory winter meetings (Photo Credit: Comcast Sports)

While it wasn’t the most exciting week to be a Red Sox fan, it’s hard to look at GM Ben Cherington’s first winter meetings as anything less (or more) than a mild success. The Red Sox are in a better, more focused position heading out of the baseball’s annual free agent/trade suare, and were able to accomplish a few positive things on the to do list, including:

• Bringing David Ortiz back
• A completed lineup that allows the Red Sox to focus on starting pitching exclusively for the remainder of the offseason
• A near-full coaching staff with only the pitching coach position to be filled
• Several doors open to address SP needs with names such as Gio Gonzalez, John Danks, Gavin Floyd and Jonathon Niese involved.
• A more ideal position in the closer’s market with a strong selection of options and a more favorable negotiating position.
• Knowing that the Yankees aren’t any better now then when they walked into the meetings.

There were also some not-so-great developments to take away from the week as well. The Los Angeles Angels got a lot better, adding the best hitter (Albert Pujols) and pitcher (C.J. Wilson) to their roster. They’ll certainly be a player next year in an already competitive American League. The Blue Jays solved their closer issue and the Mariners seemed poised to make a big move or two that could thrust them back into the periffery of contention as well.

Still, all things considered, the Red Sox are in a better place today then they were on Monday, which is the whole point. Here’s a full recap of the week’s activity:

Lineup

By the time the week was over, it seemed as if the Red Sox were content with their starting lineup, especially after news that David Ortiz would accept arbitration on Wednesday. The two parties couldn’t reach an agreement on a multi-year deal, with there being about a $7 million difference between Ortiz and the Red Sox in spite of weeks of negotiations. The Red Sox upped their offer Wednesday night, but it wasn’t enough to get Papi to sign on the dotted line. Instead, Ortiz opted to accept the Red Sox offer of arbitration, which all but guarantees him a raise from his $12.5 million salary in 2011. The deal works for both sides as Papi will get more money short-term while giving up security and the Red Sox gaining more security despite the pay raise.

Luckily for the Red Sox, there wasn’t much of a market for Ortiz. The Orioles and Blue Jays were both rumored to be interested but declined interest publicly and never presented the 36-year old slugger with an official offer. Still, the Red Sox did their due diligence to start the conversation on some potential insurance policies kicking tires on Laynce Nix, Josh Willingham, Carlos Quentin and Michael Cuddyer as potential pieces should David Ortiz sign elsewhere or decline arbitration. Carlos Beltran had long been considered a potential target for the Red Sox had Ortiz not resigned, as he’d have served a dual purpose as a part time RFer and DH, but the Sox never expressed much interest.

In other bat-related news, it looks as if Ryan Lavarnway will be splitting DH and Catching duties full time with the Red Sox as Cherington gave a strong indication that the Sox weren’t interested in bringing back Team Captain Jason Varitek for another season. The Red Sox may add a right handed OF bat to compliment the winner of the Ryan Kalish/Josh Reddick competition at Spring Training, but by all accounts, the team seems set offensively. Some fans might be a bit underwhelmed by the lack of a big move, but truth be told it’s hard to upgrade the best offense in the AL.

Starting pitching

The biggest issue facing the Red Sox heading into the Winter meetings was how they were going to approach building their starting rotation. While we know more now than we knew on Monday, the problem still exists. Still, the perceived lack of progress wasn’t for a lack of activity.

By all indications, the Red Sox won’t be entering the high-priced free agent frakis. The Red Sox did their due diligence and checked in on both C.J. Wilson and Mark Buehrle, but never made an official offer to either. Jim Bowden at ESPN seems to think the Red Sox are lurking with regards to Japanese pitching sensation Yu Darvish, but management gave mixed signals on Wednesday, with Cherington seemingly cold to the idea, citing the existing level of financial commitment to the starting rotation as his reason. Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino didn’t rule out the possibility though, saying that he’d leave that decision up to Cherington. Roy Oswalt is probably be best available option out on the free agent market, although it might be former Dodgers hurler Hiroki Kuroda who interests the Sox the most.

On the trade front, the Red Sox opened a lot of doors, but didn’t walk through any of them. Over the course of the week, the Sox talked about Gio Gonzalez, John Danks, Gavin Floyd and Jonathan Niese with their respective teams, but like the arch rival Yankees, found the asking price on all of them to be astronomical. The A’s and General Manager Billy Beane are looking for a “Dan Haren-like haul” for Gonzalez. If you’ll remember, Haren was traded prior to the 2008 season as the Diamondbacks parted with Carlos Gonzalez (later part of the deal that sent Matt Holiday to Oakland), Brett Anderson, Aaron Cunningham, Greg Smith, Dana Eveland and Chris Carter. It’s safe to say neither the Sox nor the Yankees would be terribly comfortable doing that, much less having the pieces in place to get such a deal done. White Sox GM Kenny Williams’ price for John Danks is rumored to be just as high, although the market for Gavin Floyd is uncertain. Mets hurler Jonathan Niese is a fairly well regarded prospect who could be a potential fit depending on what direction the Mets want to go.

With an expensive free agent and trade market for starting pitchers looming, Cherington seems resigned to be on the lookout for bargains as the winter progresses. The team may also look internally as both Daniel Bard and Alfredo Aceves have been told to report to spring training stretched out and ready to start. Whether the Red Sox decide to do that or not could have serious implications for their relief corps, as that would mean the Red Sox would essentially lose their three most effective weapons out of the bullpen from last year. While it doesn’t seem like an optimal solution, it’s certainly on the table and being considered. Cherington also didn’t indicate that he was very warm to the idea of bringing Red Sox stalwart Tim Wakefield back into the fold. Andrew Miller was signed to a one year, at a shade over a million dollars.

Bullpen

The Red Sox bullpen was the focus of much of the chatter surrounding the team over the course of the week, and the deals that came closest to getting done seemed to be related to towards bolstering their relief.

The issue of who’s going to close for the team seems to be heading in the direction of an external solution. By all measures, the Red Sox have played the closer’s market well. With former closer Jonathan Papelbon inking a 4 year, $50 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies in November, the price of closers appeared to skyrocket. Because of the sudden spike in the market the Red Sox and others decided to wait for some pieces to fall and prices to normalize. All things considered, it appears as if it’s done just that.

The Sox seem to have their eye on four potential pieces right now – Free agents Francisco Cordero, Brad Lidge and Ryan Madson and incumbent A’s closer Andrew Bailey. The Red Sox had spoken with free agent Heath Bell and the Rockies about a potential trade that would have brought Huston Street to Boston, but nothing really materialized out of either of those discussions. The Red Sox appear to be most interested in Madson and Bailey who are probably the two best options left on the market. Both will come with a cost – Madson with years and dollars and Bailey with prospects/players, but are both quality players.

As for what it’ll take to acquire one of the two, we can make some educated guesses. I’m ASSUMING a deal with Madson would probably be in the 2-3 year range and in the neighborhood of $23-$27 million. There are, however, two red flags with Madson – the first being that he doesn’t have an extensive track record closing and the second being that he’s a Scott Boras client. There is a possibility that perhaps Boras would go for a 1 year, high dollar value deal for Madson, much like the ‘pillow contract’ that the Sox dolled out to 2B Adrian Beltre before the 2010 season.

Bailey will require a trade, of which some of the parameters have been tossed around publicly by reporters already. The first package bandied about would require the Red Sox to part with Right Fielder Josh Reddick and prospects. The second proposal involved several prospects further down the Red Sox system – with Lars Anderson, Raul Alcantara and Brandon Workman coming up as the rumored pieces. The A’s and Red Sox match up well for a trade. The A’s are in a holding pattern until a new stadium deal in Oakland is worked out or a potential relocation to San Jose. In light of that, the A’s would likely have more interest than most teams in some of the Red Sox A and AA prospects – the area of the Sox farm system that currently has the most talent. The A’s aren’t looking for immediate return and instead are focused on long-term value. Considering things from that perspective, the Sox system may be able to meet that need. With the closers market mostly limited to just the Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds right now, it looks like the Red Sox could be the only deal in town. Bailey is a former American League rookie of the year.

In terms of filling out the pen, the Red Sox also began the process of scoping out the marketplace. The Sox were connected to the Darren Oliver talks earlier in the week, but nothing was mentioned other than expressed interest. The team also talked with the Texas Rangers about a mutually beneficial trade that would involve sending utility infielder Jed Lowrie to the Rangers in exchange for Mark Lowe or Koji Uehara.

The Red Sox did make some depth moves during the winter meetings, singing Jesse Carlson to a minor league deal with an invite to spring training as well as acquiring Astros AAA-reliever Marco Duarte via trade during the Rule-5 draft.

Other news and notes

Bobby Valentine was wearing his full media charm all week, expressing hatred for the Yankees, mocking a lineup question and while he was at it – keeping us in the loop about the formation of his coaching staff. While it was announced that former bench coach DeMarlo Hale will be leaving for Baltimore, the Red Sox will be bringing back Tim Bogar, Dave Magadan and Gary Tuck. Bill Buckner’s name has been tossed around as a potential bench coach, although reports seemed to indicate that the organization wasn’t overwhelmed with excitement about the idea.

The one spot on staff that has yet to be filled is the pitching coach position. Valentine expressed a desire to name a coach sooner rather than later, and it seems the process is in full swing. The Sox interviewed Josh Beckett’s former Marlins pitching coach Brad Arnsberg on Wednesday. David Cone is another interesting name being discussed although Cone has more or less dismissed the idea.

In other news, Louis Tiant won’t be elected to the Hall of Fame this time, with Cubs great Ron Santo getting the nod from the Veterans Committee. And shockingly, the Red Sox and Cubs have yet to work out compensation for Theo Epstein. Shocker there.

Read Full Post »

Incoherent MLB layoff musings and random rambling

Before Red Sox fans head for life rafts like rich people on the Titanic, maybe it’s worth taking an aside to point out that um – the Yankees aren’t playing particularly well, either.

Despite Boston’s seeming implosion over the past few weeks, the Yankees are still only up 3.5 games as of today. They’ve lost 6 of their last 9 games and perhaps most worrisome – the man they need to have pitch well – CC Sabathia – isn’t.

Sabathia was terrible in August, sporting a 4.68 ERA in 42.1 IP and has a WHIP over his past 6 starts sitting over 1.60. He gave up 50 hits in August and is well on the way to eclipsing that this month – nearly 12 more hits than he’s given up in any other month in the season.

Wallace Matthew of ESPN.com speculates whether the new six-man rotation the Yankees have employed is to blame and maybe he’s onto something:

“Sabathia worked on four days’ rest in 16 of his first 22 starts. The results were a 14-5 record and a 2.62 ERA. Since then, the numbers are 5-3 and 3.89. More alarmingly, he has allowed 81 hits in 69 1/3 innings, an average of 10.5 hits per nine innings pitched. “

But at the end of the day, it’s neither here nor there. The Yankees lack of pitching depth appears to be catching up to them. Needless to say, it’s the same song we’ve been hearing in Boston for a little while now.

The reality is that while the Red Sox and Yankees have really good teams, they also have some big holes. While it’s hard to decipher through the media maelstrom whether or not the Sox and Yanks have bigger holes than the other contending teams, I think it could be reasonably concluded that the other contenders closed the gap considerably, if not surpassed the AL East monsters at the trade deadline.

I’d even go as far as to say that I don’t think either team is the best in baseball. In fact, they might not even be the best teams in the AL right now.

Playoff lore is littered with teams that seem to find their groove at the right time, and if that’s any indication of what the future might hold, then maybe we should all be wary of the Detroit Tigers, who have torn through the second half of the season and – if the standings hold through to the end of the season – will face the Sox in the Divisional Series.

Justin Verlander is a man among boys, which we knew already. What we didn’t know is that Doug Fister would turn out to be one of this season’s best acquisitions. Since being traded to the Tigers in July, Fister’s gone 5-1 with a 2.28 ERA and even recorded a 13-strikeout game against the Cleveland Indians. He was having a good year under the radar in Seattle already, but I don’t even know if even Doug Fister’s mom would have seen this coming. All of a sudden, the Tigers look like a tough match up for anyone.

The Rangers are doing what they do – hit lots and lots of baseballs and pitch well enough to make you tread with caution, but also speculate what the world would be like with a dominant pitcher or two in their rotation. With nothing reasonably priced out on the trade market, they decided to substantially beef up the bullpen adding dominant middle relief arms Koji Uehara and Mike Adams to go along with the already potent Neftali Feliz, Darren O’Day and Darren Oliver. Beefy bullpens can lead to big Octobers. Could the Rangers be the team to beat in the AL once again this year?

The real eye-opener for me this year however, is the depth of the National League field. For the first time in forever, I feel like the two most balanced teams heading into the playoffs are both NL ball clubs. The Milwaukee Brewers already have as potent a middle of the order as there is in baseball with Rickie Weeks, Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun and Corey Hart. They’ve fielded a balanced starting rotation and added depth to their bullpen by acquiring Fransisco Rodriguez from the Mets in June. Since then, they’ve run away from a seemingly competitive NL Central pack and have turned the race into a virtual cakewalk.

Not to be outdone, the Phillies went out and finally got that bat they needed, adding Hunter Pence at the deadline. While they might have a few holes here and there in the ‘pen, it might not really matter as Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels will certainly drive them deep enough into ballgames where it might not matter too much.

I’m not ready to jump on the Diamondbacks bandwagon yet, but I wasn’t ready to ride along with the Rockies in 2007, the Rays in 2008 and the Giants in 2010 and well, look where that got me. The Braves are lurking in the shadows as well. The Braves probably have the best bullpen in the field and solid starting pitching, but it remains to be seen whether this team can put up the runs they need to on a consistent basis.

In years past, it’s been kind of easy to distinguish between the real contenders and the pretenders. This year seems to be a lot more ambiguous and that the gap seems to have been substantially leveled – especially due to some shrewd moves at the deadline by the Brewers, Phillies and Tigers.

There’s a lot more balance this year and that’s good for baseball, but not for the Red Sox and Yankees, who may find themselves both being bounced earlier than anticipated.

Read Full Post »