Koji Uehara is better than Jonathan Papelbon

The ninth inning has been something of a sore spot for the Red Sox this season. Joel Hanrahan was terrible, then hurt (or hurt because he was terrible). Andrew Bailey was excellent in April, but struggled after coming back from his injury, bottoming out this month. Something of a panic broke out last week, when Bailey blew two games in three days, that the Red Sox needed to acquire a new closer.

Yes, I agree with you - the idea of the closer is, itself, dumb. Saving your best pitcher for in case you're winning makes no sense. You're preaching to the choir. The fact is, teams use a closer, and it's a good idea for your closer to be a good pitcher. Moving on. 

Anyhow, one prominent suggestion was that the Red Sox should work out a deal with a Phillies team stuck in baseball purgatory for Jonathan Papelbon. This is a bad idea. One reason that it's a bad idea is that it's dumb to trade for saves. Pitchers with saves cost more money than pitchers without saves, even though they aren't generally better. SOME are better. Mariano Rivera and Craig Kimbrel and Billy Wagner and Dennis Eckersley are/were mcuh better than their contemporaries. But, as the Red Sox have learned the hard way THREE @#$%^& TIMES in the last two years, trading for Joel Hanrahan and Andrew Bailey and Mark Melancon because they had saves isn't a panacea. Trading for pretty good pitchers and making them closers? Yes! Trading for pretty good pitchers who have racked up saves? No!

Jonathan Papelbon is a pretty good pitcher. From 2006 to maybe 2009 he was a great pitcher. In 2010 he was mediocre. Since 2011, he's been between good and very good. The problem is, he won't cost what a good to very good pitcher will. That's one reason the Red Sox shouldn't trade for him. The other is that they have a reliever who is better.

Actually, they might have two who are better, but Junichi Tazawa's track record is short, even if his K/BB ratio isn't.

Anyhow, let's go to the old comparison chart! These numbers are since the start of the 2012 season.

Year	ERA	SV	IP	ERA+	WHIP	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	SO/9	SO/BB
PLAYER A	2.32	53	100.2	174	1.003	7	1.1	2.1	10.6	5.17
PLAYER B	1.85	4	68.0	238	0.721	5.2	1.1	1.3	11.8	8.9

Since you've already read the title to this piece, you know that Player A is Jonathan Papelbon and Player B is Koji Uehara. Papelbon beats Uehara is saves. He also is ahead in innings, so if you want to argue that he's more durable, you might be right, but the difference in their chances of getting hurt in the second half of 2013 is not worth what the Red Sox would have to give up for Paps. Since the start of last year, Uehara has struck out more batters, walked fewer, and been harder to hit. As a result, he gives up runs less frequently

If the Red Sox are going to use the traditional closer - and as a first place team following three straight playoff misses, they are - Uehara is a perfect choice.

Aside: The Red Sox aren't an ideal candidate for revolutionary bullpen usage. And by "revolutionary," I mean "what they did in 1987." 

Uehara's home run rate is a touch higher than I'd like to see, but there are so few runners on when he pitches that they are that they are likely to be solo shots. Indeed, three of the four he's allowed in 2013 have been with the bases empty. More importantly, Uehara represents an opportunity for the Red Sox to finally create their own closer, the way they did seven years ago with Papelbon. Uehara is a one-inning guy, so it's not like using him for short stints otherwise jeopardizes his usefulness. (Farrell continues to use Tazawa for one-inning stints as well, which is a soap box that I'm not planning to get off of.)  He came cheap.

The idea that someone the Red Sox could acquire is likely outperform Uehara over the next four months by such an amount as to justify the cost of that acquisition is kind of crazy. He's been one of the better relievers in baseball since the Orioles moved him there at the start of 2010, and has brought that to another, elite level over the last year and a half.

You may say that the Red Sox need now to fill the role Uehara is vacating if they use him as closer, and that's true to an extent. However, getting a "middle reliever" from outside the organization is much less expensive than getting Jonathan Papelbon, and the Red Sox have internal options for the role as well. Alex Wilson, Rubby De La Rosa,  and Brandon Workman could all be solid relievers right now, and Jose De La Torre could as well. Another option would be to not get into such rigid usage patterns with the current crop of guys. Craig Breslow, Andrew Miller, and Junichi Tazawa can pitch multiple innings. Farrell needs to let them do that sometimes. Burning through five relievers to get 11 outs is incredibly inefficient. It's one of the reasons there has been talk of the Red Sox pen being "overused" despite the fact they've gotten an above-average number of innings from their starting pitching.

The Red Sox are in first place, and they have one of the best relievers in the game as the closer. Since taking over the role, he's retired all six batters he's faced, four via the strikeout. He gives the best high-fives in the game, which is worth something. If you want to argue that Uehara doesn't have the "closer's mentality," I don't know what to tell you. I'm pretty sure the idea of a "closer's mentality" is made up, but if anyone has it then it's Uehara - he comes into the game with his sort of crazed intensity that I certainly wouldn't want to be in the way of.

Instead of giving up prospects for a closer, the Red Sox just need to trust the best reliever they have to do the job.

Top Ten Reasons to Watch the World Series

I've heard a few people complaining about the World Series this year, talking about how the "ratings" are going to be too low, how they were rooting for other teams to make it, and on and on. While this wasn't the matchup I was expecting, there are a ton of storylines that any good baseball fan should be excited about. Here are 10 I find appealing.

1. Old vs. New

Up until the Giants and Dodgers moved in 1958, the St. Louis Cardinals were the "western" team in Major League Baseball. They still have a huge fan base throughout the west. This is their 18th National League Pennant, and they are looking for their 11th World Series title - both are leaders among National League Franchises. They're the only team who has appeared in as many as three of the past 10 World Series. Their manager, Tony LaRussa, has won 2,728 games, third most all time. Their best player, Albert Pujols, is the greatest player in the game today, a sure bet Hall of Famer, and, by the time he is finished, may be one of the top 10 players of all time.

The Texas Rangers have never won a World Series. Before last year, they'd never even won a playoff series. They've spent their existence in the shadow of the Dallas Cowboys. "It's a football town" people would say, and the Rangers never really did anything to prove otherwise. In the last couple of years, though, things have changed. Some shrewd moves by GM Jon Daniels and a new organizational philosophy led by team president Nolan Ryan, manager Ron Washington, and, with far less fanfare, pitching coach Mike Maddux has had the Rangers winning, and perhaps more importantly, the fans responding. The Ballpark in Arlington has been louder the last two years than any other stadium in baseball. The New Yankee Stadium has the louder fans pushed back too far - the place doesn't rumble like the old yard. Fenway Park has become too expensive, and the rabid fans of previous decades have been replaced by business customers and yuppies more interested in singing "Sweet Caroline*." Rangers' fans have really picked up the slack. Is it bandwagon jumping, or is this the real deal? It's hard to tell. Football will always be king in Texas, but that doesn't mean baseball can't be huge as well. The Dallas-Arlington-Fort Worth metroplex is the fourth largest in the United States. The three who are larger (NY, LA, Chicago) each have two baseball teams who BOTH get tons of support. Doesn't it seem likely that the Rangers can join them? They've been well-run and have a huge population (a.k.a. revenue) base to work off of. They just signed a new TV contract last fall worth $80M a year. The word "dynasty" was thrown out in a couple spots, which is dumb, because they haven't won a World Series yet, but the Rangers have everything in place to be able to be an annual contender the way the Red Sox and Yankees are. They combine effective traditional scouting and development with smart statistical analysis. They are baseball's new school.

*Ok, I actually like Sweet Caroline. It's a good little ditty. But hearing it over and over in the midst of the Red Sox collapse made it, and the Sox fanbase, something of a laughingstock. The idea that it "rubbed off on the team" was preposterous - the Red Sox didn't lose their lead because they were complacent, they lost because their pitching stunk. The complacency of the fans singing whimsically while their baseball team collapsed around them is a pretty strong narrative of the change in mindset over at Fenway in the last 10 years. Anyway, that's the last I have to say about the Red Sox today. This is about the Cardinals and Rangers. I swear.

2. Star Power.

Albert Pujols. Josh Hamilton. Your 2011 World Series on Fox, coming up next.

That sounds... about right. I mean, doesn't it? Two of the best, most exciting and most popular players in the game, as the centerpiece of their pennant winning teams. Hamilton's season was off quite a bit from his 2010 MVP campaign, but his .536 slugging was still good for 8th in the American League. And his story is well-established.

Albert Pujols had the worst season of his career, when he hit .299/.366/.541. That should pretty much speak for itself. . During the first two round of the playoffs, he's hit .419/.490/.721. His first double of the World Series will set the record for most in a single postseason.

Baseball-reference.com gives him a career WAR of 89,1, good enough for 41st all time. At 31 years old, that puts him immediately below Randy Johnson, Warren Spahn and Cal Ripken. He's 18.3 away from the top 20. Whatever your feeling are on the WAR statistic, it seems to get the overarching career narrative down. Pujols is one of the greatest players of all time, and he's playing in the World Series. Isn't that enough of a reason to watch?

3. Chris Carpenter vs. C.J. Wilson

Twice.

Neither pitching staff did especially much in the league championship series. Carpenter got the win with 5 mediocre innings against the Brewers. C.J. Wilson followed up his bad start in the LDS with a start that didn't get him out of the 5th inning and another where he gave up 6 runs in 6 innings. So far in the playoffs, he has an 8.04 ERA with 6 homers allowed in 15.2 innings.

That's only part of the story. Carpenter pitched a gem in game 5 of the NLDS, a 3 hit, complete game shutout against Roy Halladay. He NEEDED to be that good, too - Halladay gave up only one run. Carpenter was that much better that day, and it's the reason his team is still playing. He had two additional complete game shutouts in September. He's won one Cy Young Award, and also has a second place and third place finish on his resume. Since joining the Cardinals in 2004, he has 95 wins and a 3.04 ERA (good for a 134 ERA+). He is one of the few true, established aces in the game.

C.J. Wilson was a relief pitcher through 2009. Benefitting more than anyone from the tutelage of Nolan Ryan and Mike Maddux, he's complied 427 innings over the past two years. After last year, I was skeptical of his, and the Rangers success. In this year's AL West preview, I wrote that "If he can get that walk rate down from 4.1 per 9 to the mid 3's, then he may be able to keep up his success. If that walk rate stays up though, his ERA will follow." Wilson did more than that - he got his walk rate to a flat 3.0 per nine, and his strikeout rate jumped from 7.5 to 8.3 - the jump in K/BB from 1.83 to 2.78 resulted in a drop in ERA from 3.35 to 2.94. The success of Wilson and the success of the Rangers seem to very much be the same story. Both proved me wrong - the Rangers proved to be a legitimate contender, and Wilson proved to be a legitimate ace.

4. Breakout performers in the 2011 playoffs who aren’t actually that young. 

David Freese. Nelson Cruz. Alexi Ogando. Mike Napoli. Marc Rzepczynski*. Jason Motte. 

Only Freese is younger than 28, and he just had one of the best LCS performances in history. Arbitration eligible, he's been a good player since being called up in 2009, but has probably won himself a nice raise and enough goodwill to not have to compete for the starting 3B job next year. Cruz might not totally belong on this list, because he's made an All-Star team, but his ridiculous ALCS performance demands it. Ogando was named ace of the All-Ugly team. Rzepczynski had a 1.93 ERA and a memorable Game 6 performance where Tony LaRussa actually let a reliever pitch to more than 3 batters. He also has a name that rather lends itself to memorability. Jason Motte has pitched 8 scoreless innings in the playoffs, saving four games. The playoffs lend themselves particularly well to previously little known relievers becoming household names - Brian Wilson appearing in Taco Bell commercials goes to show that power.

For me though, the most satisfying is Mike Napoli. His dominant offensive statistics and lack of playing time led people to write things that would make you think Mike Scioscia was some sort of evil dictator or complete fool. Ok, maybe he is those things, because HE DIDN'T PLAY MIKE NAPOLI. Evoke the name of Matt Stairs, and some smart people, like Bill James and Joe Posnanski, will tell you that if he'd gotten the chance to play in his 20's he might have been a Hall of Famer. People will be saying the same thing about Napoli, only there is more evidence to back it up. He's been a dominant offensive player for six years, and he now gets the chance to show everyone.

*Note: On my original draft of this, I correctly spelled Rzepczynski, but misspelled "Marc," ending it with a k. Sounds about right.

5. Bullpens – overused or just awesome?

In the NLCS, St. Louis starting pitchers had only 24.1 innings in six games, leaving 28.2 for the bullpen. Tony LaRussa made 28 pitching changes, 4.66 per game. Yet they managed to win 3 games and compile a 1.88 ERA. Lance Lynn, not even on the previous rounds roster, pitched in 5 games. He gave up zero runs. Rzepczynski also pitched in 5 games. In game 6, he pitched 2.1 innings; in the other four games, he pitched a total of 2.1 innings. 

In the ALCS, Texas starting pitcher made it 28.2 innings in their six games, leaving but a meager 27.1 for the bullpen. Ron Washington made 25 pitching changes, 4.12 per game. Yet their bullpen won all four games, with a 1.32 ERA. Mike Adams pitched in 5 games, Feliz and Ogando in four apiece. Ogando, arguably the teams second best starter all year, won two of their games and gave up only 1 run in 7.2 innings, striking out 10. What appeared to be a tired arm down the stretch appears to be revitalized pitching in shorter stretches. 

Can they keep it up? This sort of usage is extreme, and it's easy to say "if these teams want to win, they're going to get more use out of their starters. But the truth is that both teams, particularly the Rangers, have a TON of talent in their bullpens. I wouldn't ADVISE a strategy that involves taking out your starter in the 5th inning with the bases loaded and 6 runs already allowed, but both these teams have the offensive firepower and bullpen talent to overcome it.

6. Implications for Free Agents

Ok, this isn't something I'm personally interested in, because I hate to see good players leave good teams. Baseball is definitely better off if Albert Pujols stays on the Cardinals, and probably better off if C.J. Wilson does the same. Equally importantly, both players are probably better off if they stay in the same place, as the enormous goodwill for Michael Young shows. There's something to be said for a player being identifiable with a team. If Jorge Posada wasn't a Yankee in 1996, he wouldn't have been one in 2011. That said, the story is there, and will be talked about. 

The truth is, there's nothing Albert Pujols could do in this series to change his value, other than perhaps suffer some horrific injury. If he went 16 for 18 with 12 home runs, he probably wouldn't earn one cent more. If he goes 0 for 18 and strikes out 14 times, he probably won't get one cent less. His record of excellence is established, and anyone who thinks they're going to measure him based on four to seven games is a fool. Be ready, though, for a lot of "will this be Albert's final this, this and this as a member of the Cardinals."

Measuring CJ Wilson on the (possible) two games he'll pitch in this series is probably just as silly, but he certainly has a chance to set perception of him as an elite performer. He will be the best free agent pitcher available - I'm ignoring CC Sabathia who will almost definitely a) listen to some posturing about how the Yankees would not be happy to renegotiate with Sabathia if he opts out, b) exercise his opt-out clause, then  c) resign with the Yankees, for six or seven years, in relatively short order. There's little that shocks me anymore in baseball, but a chain of events that isn't as I described would at least surprise me. Anyhow, that leaves Wilson as the best starting pitcher available as a free agent. Wilson is on the cusp of ace-ville. He has 9.4 WAR over the past two years, going 31-15 with a 3.14 ERA in 67 starts, striking out 376 and walking 176 in a pretty tough place to pitch. In the playoffs, though? He's 1-4, with a 5.40 ERA. He's completed six innings in just 3 of his seven starts, never completing seven. Fair or not, a mediocre or poor World Series will solidify him in the minds of many as a good pitcher, but something less than a franchise player. A big Series, and he could be looking at $100M plus. 

There are other free agents - Edwin Jackson probably has a nice deal coming - but Pujols and Wilson are going to get the bulk of the attention.

7. The impact of potential over-management.

 LaRussa, as I wrote here, took out Lance Lynn for no reason in Game 2. Washington, I wrote here, had Josh Hamilton bunt in a game he was losing 6-0. (It came out the next day that Washington did not put on the bunt sign, but he thought it was a good play. I'm sure that's just protecting Hamilton, but it would've been ok for him to say something like "I love that he was willing to give him up for the team, but we need Josh to be swinging there").

I discussed above the number of pitching changes both managers made. Part of that was necessitated by poor starting pitcher performance. Part was just overdoing it on the matchups. LaRussa loves the sacrifice bunt, with 57 non-pitcher bunts. Leading the way was Daniel Descalso, who sacrificed 10 times - including twice when he was put in as a pinch hitter. Neither manager employs the intentional walk frequently, which is nice. Washington used the second fewest in the majors, with 21. His intentional walk of Miguel Cabrera very nearly burned him - it took a fantastic Nelson Cruz throw to get him off the hook.

So, I don't think we'll be in a situation where it's a repeat of 2001's Game 4, when Bob Brenly THRICE had Craig Counsell sacrifice Tony Womack, a strategy that produced a run in zero of those three chances, and the Diamondbacks lost by one run. That is still my go-to bad managing moment. Keep an eye on the pitching changes, though. Both managers got good results on their pitching changes in the LCS, but good results aren't always the product of good decisions. Both of these teams have offenses good enough to make an ill-timed pitching change look really, really bad.

8. The re-emergence of batting average. 

Batting average has taken a lot of heat in recent years, and with good reason - it doesn't correspond to run scoring as well as on-base percentage or slugging percentage, and it is subject to huge variation based on luck in balls in play. However, that doesn't mean batting average is useless. Guys like Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, Ichiro Suzuki and Derek Jeter hit for high batting averages for years, despite not hitting for much power. Why? Because hitting for average is a skill. It's true that there is variation based on luck, and it's true that some players fluctuate more than others. That doesn't completely devalue the statistic totally, it just means you need to be cognizant of possible external factors.

There's been a line of thinking, one that I'm trying to do some research on whenever I get the chance, that teams who are good at hitting for average succeed in the playoffs. Why? Because they are better at hitting good pitches. Teams with a low batting average that rely on walks and the home run have trouble in the playoffs, because the teams they are playing against are likely there because their pitcher do a good job avoiding walks and home runs. This was pointed to a lot when The Oakland A's lost in the first round four straight years in the early 00's, but that was partially because traditionalists were trying to find any reason the de-legitimatize the statistical approach of Billy Beane and, somewhat ironically, tried to use statistics to do it. "My statistic is better than your statistic" became the baseball version of "my dad could beat up your dad." In this case though, maybe there was something it. After all, it sounded reasonable.

So far in 2011, the team with the better regular season batting average has won all six series. That includes Detroit, who beat the higher scoring New York Yankees, and Milwaukee, who beat the higher scoring Arizona Diamondbacks. The story was especially prevalent in that Tigers-Yankees series, where the middle third of the New York order, Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, and Nick Swisher, all notably struggled. All three hit below .280 and derive much of their value from power and patience. This is particularly true of Teixeira, who is now .207/.315/.322 in the playoffs in 143 plate appearances .

This is a small sample that doesn't "prove" anything, but if it had been the Moneyball A's rather than the Moneybag Yankees who did this, the narrative would be less that the players choked, and more that the organizational approach failed.

9. We’re on schedule for a really, really, really good one.

I've been watching baseball since 1988. The two best World Series of my baseball watching life were 1991 and 2001. There really isn't too much debate about it. Both are generally talked about as being among the best of all time. Following that pattern, 2011 should be classic.

10. The Yankees aren’t here. 

Which is awesome. The World Series is always more enjoyable to me when the Yankees are either not there, or lose. Either way. 

There's a larger point though. I've read a couple articles about how low the TV ratings are probably going to be for these two teams. So what? Do you choose your favorite TV show based on how many people watch? Are the best movies the ones that make the most money? Of course not. Baseball, as I've pointed out several times, shoots itself in the foot by constantly promoting the same teams. In the last seven years, the Yankees have been in one World Series, and the Red Sox have been in one World Series. The Cardinals and Rangers are both in their second in that span. 

So if you're choosing not to watch because of the way MLB chooses to promote themselves (or, more accurately, how ESPN and Fox choose to promote them - the MLB Network actually does a good job at least trying to promote the entire league), you deserve to miss out.


So that's it. 10 reasons to watch. If that's not enough for you, I'm sorry.

My prediction? Rangers in 7.

After all, they had the better batting average this year. 

Tony LaRussa's Overmanaging Making Me Sleepy

Seriously. It's 10:30 at night, and we're still in the top of the 6th inning. Lance Lynn, who I'd barely heard of before this series, induced an inning ending double play to Rickie Weeks with the bases loaded to preserve a 7-2 Cardinal lead. On the first pitch. Lance Lynn is stretched out as a starting pitcher.

Here in the top of the 6th, LaRussa pinch hits for Lynn with two out and the bases empty. Why? If Lynn's not good enough to pitch the 6th, how was he good enough to pitch to Weeks with the game on the line. Ryan Theriot just got a single, which doesn't really increase the Cardinals chances of winning. For that teenie advantage, the downside is that, to start the 6th inning, they'll have to go to their 4th pitcher. Even though their third pitcher got two outs on one pitch. 

Everyone gets up in arms about babying starting pitchers, but it's the use of relievers that's far less sensible.

Soriano's Usage Likely Will Be Sub-optimal. His Pitching Likely Won't.

A lot has been said over the past few weeks about the Yankees signing of Rafael Soriano - the sensibility in giving an "8th inning guy" to a three year, $35M contract; Soriano's ability to transition from "closer" to "set-up guy"; Yankee GM Brian Cashman's public disagreement with the move, stating that they would have preferred the draft pick. One fairly important matter has been lost in all the noise. Rafael Soriano is a very good pitcher, and there is no reason to believe that he won't continue to be a very good pitcher in the near future.

Much attention has been placed about Soriano's ability to "save" games at a better rate than any other pitcher in the American League in 2010. During the season, a lot is made of having a guy who pitches only in the 9th inning, and only when his team is winning. 2-2 game, on the road, bottom of the 9th, middle of the lineup due up? Let's get our fourth best reliever in there - we don't want to waste our best pitcher, just in case our fourth best relieve holds the tie and we score next inning. For whatever reason, that is the logic that has permeated the minds of essentially every MLB organization for 23 years. There are exceptions - Jim Leyland's Pirates teams of the early 90's were the last team that had sustained success without the help of the trademarked proven closer. In 2003, the Red Sox attempted to go into the season with a "bullpen by committee" which failed miserably. In the Red Sox case though, too much attention was paid to their usage of pitchers, and not enough attention to the fact that those pitchers were not very good (with a definite exception of Mike Timlin, a good pitcher who had one of his best years).

For all the attention paid to the save statistic and the need for a proven closer, when they become free agents in the offseason, teams are just not interested in paying top dollar for what amounts to 60 innings a year. Coming off his record setting year in 2008, Francisco Rodriguez received 3 years, $37M. For comparison's sake, in the same offseason, AJ Burnett, a zero-time all star starting pitcher who is five years older than K-Rod, was given a five year, $82.5M contract. Sure, signing Burnett for that much money was really stupid, but it showed where priorities were for GMs.

In 2010, Rafael Soriano led the American League with 45 saves, and was to become a free agent. Based on his save total, many assumed that he would be flooded with offers from teams looking for bullpen help. Instead, he was unsigned into mid-January. The Yankees, whose bullpen beyond Mariano Rivera had been pretty bad in 2010, were considered by some to be a smart fit, especially when taking into account the money that they tried to and failed to spend on Cliff Lee. Brian Cashman, however, said that he wasn't interested in signing Soriano, because of the necessary money, and more importantly, the draft pick they would lose because Soriano is listed as a Type A free agent and had been offered arbitration. In the end though, Soriano did end up on the Yankees. The details are fuzzy, but as best as people can tell, Randy Levine overruled and went straight to the Steinbrenner Brothers, and Brian Cashman was peeved about the whole thing.

In the wake of the signing, some were quick to point of the dissention in the ranks of the Yankee organization. Others were mocking of spending $37M on a set-up man, and defended Cashman. However, I think those who question the deal are focused too much on the role of set-up man (and by extension, the ridiculous way in which modern bullpens are run), and not enough on the fact that Soriano is excellent. There is one proviso, that being Soriano's injury history. He missed significant time in 2004, 2005 and 2008. As a 31 year old, it's not impossible to see these injury issues cropping back up. That said, Soriano's numbers are outstanding. Since the start of 2005, when he was still with the Mariners, Soriano has pitched 291 innings. His ERA is 2.53, (an ERA+ of 167), with 319 strikeouts to only 87 walks. Over the last two years, he's been even better, posting a 2.41 ERA in 138 innings, striking out 159 and walking only 41. That's not Mariano Rivera's level, but the quality speaks for itself.

Cashman's reluctance to part with his draft pick in this situation reminds me of joke my friends and I have. Every year a round NFL draft time reports come out about teams who are refusing to part with draft picks for proven players, who are likely much better than the ones they'd be able to draft. Certainly, some of that comes from a payroll perspective - the proven players is going to get paid based on past performance, while the rookie will be a low cost measure. However, more than that, it is the new toy mentality. Sure, I'd like Randy Moss, but that fourth round draft pick could turn into ANYONE! Well, that #31 pick in the draft that the Yankees essentially traded for Soriano could turn into "anyone." But instead of anyone, lets look at #31 overall picks from 2000 to 2009.

2000: Aaron Heilman, P - New York Mets.
2001: Brian Bass, SS - Baltimore Orioles
2002: Greg Miller, P - Los Angeles Dodgers
2003: Adam Miller, P - Cleveland Indians
2004: James Howell, P - Kansas City Royals
2005: Matthew Torra, P - Arizona Diamondbacks
2006: Preston Mattingly, SS - Los Angeles Dodgers
2007: Josh Smoker, P - Washington Nationals
2008: Shooter Hunt, P - Minnesota Twins
2009: Tyler Matzek, P - Colorado Rockies

Yes, the Rays are better than most teams at making their draft picks turn into major leaguers, but the point still stands - the likelihood that the Yankees were going to get someone of Rafael Soriano quality at #31 this June is kind of silly.

Now that we're beyond the draft pick thing, the main criticism is that Soriano will now be an overpaid "8th inning guy." Critics say there's no way he'll "earn" $37 million over the next three years just by setting up by Mariano Rivera, no matter how well he pitches. Well, if that's true, isn't that more of an indictment on the way bullpens are used, and by extension, a criticism of Joe Girardi for his by-the-book sub-optimal system? If the Yankees can't get value out of one of the best relief pitchers in baseball, then shouldn't they be re-evaluating how they use their bullpen? Wouldn't the Yankees be devestating if Soriano were used earlier in one-run or tie games, or to come in between innings, leaving Rivera to do the standard one-inning closer role? Wouldn't it make sense to use Soriano on days after Rivera pitches, so that neither have to frequently pitch on consecutive days, and since they are pitching less frequently, are able to pitch for multiple innings more often? Wouldn't that even lead to them getting some silly combined nickname thing come the end of the season to describe their dominance, like Rafariano Riveriano? What should be feared as the most lethal bullpen duo in baseball is instead scorned, because onlookers believe Soriano isn't likely to get the opportunities to help his team win games.

So, what will Joe Girardi do? It's tough to say. But as a Red Sox fan, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that he proves the critics and Cashman right, and uses his bullpen in the most predictable, standard, sub-optimal way possible.

Sox Bullpen

Now a week into spring training games, the question of who will be the Red Sox closer continues to be a wide open one. Now, this isn’t the time for discussion on the merits of the closer role—the Red Sox will not be trying a committee setup like they did in 2003. So, who are the candidates?

Joel Piniero – What’s the old saying? If you tell yourself someone is a good pitcher enough times, maybe he’ll actually become a good pitcher? Actually, I’m not sure if that’s an old saying or not, but it seems to be the mantra they’ve taken with Piniero, a one-time Mariners prospect whose ERAs have been increasing with age. In 2002, at 23, Piniero had a 3.24 ERA, earning him note as one of the best young pitchers in the league. Since that time, his ERA has increased in seemingly regular increments, to 3.78, 4.67, 5.62, and peaking with a 6.36 last season. Meanwhile, his strikeout rate dropped from the high 6’s/low 7’s into the 4’s. His walk rate has climbed into the mid 3’s. In spite of all this evidence that Piniero is slipping, the Red Sox not only signed him, but have seemingly made him the front runner to be their relief ace.

The Sox are high on Piniero on the advice of advance scout Allard Baird, former GM of the Kansas City Royals. Baird thinks Piniero was misused as a starter, and has the makeup and quality stuff to make a great closer. With all due respect to Baird, if he has the power to identify misused starters who can become bullpen aces, he certainly didn’t display it as Royal GM. The Red Sox need to get Piniero pitching well before putting him into high leverage situations, instead of hoping that the high-leverage situations will bring out the best in him. He may begin the season as the closer, but I’m not convinced that it shouldn’t be as the closer in Pawtucket, quite honestly. Putting a player in a major role without a recent history of success does not make any sense, regardless of how his spring training ERA turns out. This isn’t to say that Piniero definitely can’t become a closer—just let him prove himself first.

Brendan Donnelly – Like Piniero, Donnelly’s ERA has been steadily rising for four years now. Unlike Piniero, it’s still within the range of what is acceptable for a major league pitcher. In 2006, Donnelly had the worst season of his major league career, posting a 3.94 ERA over 62 appearances, a stat that shows just how effective Donnelly has been since the Angels plucked him off the scrap heap in 2002. His best season came in 2003, when he sported a 1.58 ERA, struck out 79 batters in 74 innings and was named to the All-Star team. He hasn’t matched that success since, but he has remained an effective part of the Angels bullpen, striking out close to a batter per inning. His control was a bit of an issue last season, but it’s to say how relevant that is when dealing with only 64 innings. He’s been an effective reliever, and all signs seem to indicate that he’ll continue to be an effective reliever. He’s not likely to be a shut down guy, but he’s a couple good bounces away from a 2.50 ERA/ 30+ save season. The Sox could do much worse at the back of their bullpen. And they may. Among this group, he’d be my choice, if only by default.

J.C. Romero – The Red Sox other offseason acquisition from the Angels, Romero got roughed up in a big way last season. Romero’s positives are essentially that he still keeps the ball in the ballpark. Other than that, everything else seems to have dropped off significantly from his glory days with the Twins. His strikeout rates have been dropping, and walk rates rising, to the point where they were nearly 1:1 in 2006. Lefties still had trouble with him, hitting only .202, but he couldn’t throw strikes to them either, walking 13 and striking out 13 against only 89 AB’s. Your lefty-one-out-guy can’t be walking lefties. He seems to be considered a real long shot for the closer role, and it seems likely that if he wanders into it, he won’t be there long.

Mike Timlin – Timlin is coming into his 5^th season with Boston, a period of time unheard of by today’s standards for middle relievers. Middle relievers are often seen as replaceable parts. In some ways they are, but identifying relievers who can be effective on a yearly basis can be difficult. Timlin had a rough season last year, missing a month with a right shoulder strain, and having trouble missing bats, a big deal in front of Boston’s highly overrated defense. The 2.24 ERA from 2005 was a bit of a fluke, based on the fact he allowed only two homers all season, a stinginess he’d never exhibited in the past and didn’t replicate last year. Timlin isn’t a stopper, but he’s likely to be a solid middle of the bullpen guy if he stays healthy, a good sized if for a guy turning 41 on Saturday. Timlin is 39 appearances from the 1000^th of his career, and 41 from tying Goose Gossage for 10^th on the all time list.

Hideki Okajima – He’s the wild card in the closer race. It seems unlikely that he’ll be in the closer role to start the season, but if he pitches well early in the season, and the closer situation still isn’t sorted, it’s very likely he’ll be given a chance. Okajima, a lefty, features an overhand curve as his best pitch. He may actually be best suited coming in in the 7^th and 8^th innings, following the flamethrower starters. He had a 2.12 ERA for Bob Costas’s favorite Japanese team, the Nippon Ham Fighters. While Japanese statistics don’t always transfer, the level of play there is somewhere higher than Triple A baseball in the states, and a 2.12 ERA is impressive in any language. Here’s to hoping he doesn’t get stuck with lefty-one-out-guy duties. At $2.5M over the next two seasons, he could turn out to be one of the bargains of this crazy offseason.

Manny Delcarmen – Delcarmen will not be the closer when the Red Sox break camp, but don’t be too surprised if he’s one of the Red Sox more effective relievers in 2007. That 5.06 ERA from 2006 is not indicative of the quality pitcher Delcarmen was. He, more than anyone else, was let down in a big way by the Red Sox bad defense in the second half. His BABIP of .368 was the second lowest in the AL among pitchers with over 50 innings, behind only Kris Benson, who was pitching in front of a league-worst Oriole defense. Sometimes pitchers have a high BABIP because they’re bad, and get the ball hit hard off of them. Other times, it’s because they’re unlucky. With Delcarmen, it appears to be the latter. If he was just bad, and was prone to giving up rockets all over the field that fielders can’t get to, it would also seem likely that he’s prone to giving up hits that go out of the park. That was far from the case with Delcarmen, who gave up only two homers to 243 batters faced, the third best rate in the AL with pitchers of 50+ innings.

There were 14 pitchers in the AL who gave up a homer fewer than once every 70 batters—7 of them had ERAs of .3.00 or lower, and the highest after Delcarmen’s was Ruddy Lugo’s 3.81. Seven of the guys in this category had 30+ saves: Mariano Rivera, B.J. Ryan, Joe Nathan, Jonathan Papelbon, Akinori Otsuka, JJ Putz, and Huston Street. Fairly strong company. I wouldn’t give him the closing job straight off, myself. Hey, maybe he IS a guy who is just always going to be prone to giving up a high number of hits on balls batted in play. However, Delcarmen should absolutely be on the opening day roster.

Julian Tavarez – What a season that was. I’m not going to sit here and predict what Julian Tavarez is going to do this season, because nobody has any clue, not even Julian. He could be the best reliever on the team, he could be released in June, he could end up suspended for kicking someone in the face. It’s a total mystery. He was a lot of fun to watch in September, though, with the highlight being the one-hit complete game win against Toronto. As far as handling the pressure of Boston, he’s perfect for it, since he’s completely insane. I wouldn’t trust him as my closer or housesitter, but he could be a valuable member of the bullpen.

Craig Hansen – Hailed as the bullpen stud of the future coming into the season, the Red Sox didn’t seem willing to wait for the future when it came to Hansen, despite the fact that he’d seen mixed results at Triple A Pawtucket. There were some positives in Hansen’s season—I like any 22 year old who can come into the majors with less than a year of minor league experience and strike out 30 guys against 15 walks in only 38 innings—but it was pretty apparent that Hansen wasn’t quite ready for the majors. In a couple of the paragraphs above, I talked about pitchers needing to experience success before being put into a major role. Hansen may have been an example of the opposite—a guy coming to the majors who had never really experienced failure. He had been the best closer in college baseball, was a first round draft pick in 2005, was given a major league contract on signing, tore through the minors up to Double A without giving up a run, and made his major league debut within three months of being drafted. When he got hit hard with Boston, he didn’t seem to really know how to make adjustments, and it compounded his problems. By the end of the year, his ERA was 6.63.

The Red Sox use of Hansen in 2006 was really a mistake. First, they started him in Double A Portland, despite the fact that he’d been dominant at that level in 2005. Once they brought him to Pawtucket, they decided they were going to use him as a starter to strengthen his arm and get some innings under him. That lasted four starts, until the Red Sox decided they needed him in the majors, despite some high walk rates. Their interest was understandable. Hansen’s ERA was below 3.00, he was highly touted, and the Sox had success throwing Papelbon into the fire.

From there on, he was terribly inconsistent, and usually downright bad at Fenway, where his ERA was 8.70. Hansen’s biggest problem was his first pitch. When he throw a first pitch strike, the OBP against him was .268, against a .488 OBP when he threw a first pitch ball. There’s almost always a difference there, but rarely is it so profound. There’s little shame in having a bad season in the majors at Age 22. Hopefully he’s a strong enough kid to overcome it. He needs to start the season in Pawtucket though, and stay there through June. With any luck, he’ll be the closer in 2008.