Carl Crawford used to CRUSH the Red Sox

...apparently nothing has changed.

At least for now.

When Crawford signed with the Sox, I thought that the value of keeping him from facing us 18 times a year was good for at least $50 million. Keeping him from the Yankees was worth another $50 million. So really, the Sox were paying a little over $50 million for what he actually did on the field. Over 7 years, that's a little over $7 million per year for a solid defensive LF with great speed and a little bit of pop in the bat. Hey, we'll take it.

So far, CC's not been what we're looking for. It's clear from watching Sox games and what we read in the local fishwrap that the dude is pressing. Pressing wicked hard. The whole team's plate discipline has gone to nothing short of pure shit. What to do? Relax. Everyone. Relax. Let the game come to you. Don't worry about contracts, the fans, or that iffy lobster roll sticking around after lunch. Chil-lax, dudes.

Fresh-Squeezed Opening Day in Texas

Like every other Red Sox fan, I eagerly anticipated yesterday's Opening Day tilt down in Texas. Our first look at A-Gone and Carl Crawford couldn't come soon enough as we all wanted to see if this team was as good in real life as it sounded on paper..because, as Kenny Mayne from ESPN used to tell us, "games aren't played on paper...they're played inside TV sets." Lucky for me there's a TV in my office so I caught the first few innings at work before heading home. Right from the top, I could tell this would be a grinder. Why? One reason and one reason only: Home plate umpire Tim McClellan.

Now, before you dismiss this as just another rant from just another entitled Masshole Red Sox fan, hear me out: McClellan didn't cost the Sox the game yesterday. He squeezed EVERYBODY. Jon Lester clearly didn't have his best stuff, and I'm not blaming his performance on the strike zone. However, losing 3 inches on each side of the plate clearly didn't help. Lester was pissed at McClellan in the SECOND INNING because his strike zone was smaller than a 1st-grader's attention span. C. J. Wilson wasn't too pleased from the looks of it, either. He clearly didn't get a couple of calls in the first inning, and it cost him. So I have to ask: What's the point?

Listen up, Bud Selig. It's the first of April. Teams just spent 6 weeks in Florida and this is their first game in more normal game and perhaps climate conditions. Everyone's still a little rusty. Why subject them to 4 hours of torture that a thimble-sized strike zone creates? We all know that the size of the zone has an inverse relation to the pace of the game. A tight zone disrupts game flow, causes fielders to doze and results in these 4-hour AL-East style suck-a-thons full of sloppy fielding, 10-8 scores and multiple innings by the 10th, 11th and 12th pitchers on each squad. You could just about golf a full 18 holes in 4 hours. Who the hell wants to watch a baseball game that long, that sloppily-played, and in most cases, under less-than-ideal weather conditions?

The fans sure don't. Again, it's the FIRST OF APRIL. Most casual fans forget about baseball after the first NFL regular-season kickoff unless their teams are in a pennant race. It's been a good six months since they've given two shits about baseball. Tim McClellan and his anorexic strike zone sure aren't helping. There's the Final Four still going on. Both the NHL and NBA are in their stretch runs. While yocu're at it, NASCAR is a month into it season. Like no other time of the year, baseball really needs to scratch and claw for its viewing audience in early April. Keeping game pace and flow is critical to engaging the fans. So how do we fix it?

The Solution

Here's what we do, Mr. Selig. Look down the roster of every umpire and go through whatever statistical sources (such as BaseballProspectus.com) to evaluate the OBP for every MLB home plate umpire. The information's there. For the first two weeks of the season, make sure that the 10% of umps with the highest "called OBP" are allowed nowhere near home plate. I'm actually being borderline charitable here. If there wasn't that pesky little nuisance known as "collective bargaining," I'd say fire the fuckers outright, but I guess that wouldn't play too well with the National Labor Relations Board. Perhaps in the umpires' next contract negotiation MLB can work in some performance clauses to rid the game of those that continue to slow the pace of the game, making it next-nigh unwatchable. Mr. McClellan and his grandstanding ilk are literally killing baseball, and they must be stopped. In April. NOW.

Red Sox Offseason: Weird Harold, Bizarro Theo?

I woke up early this morning and caught the replay of MLB Network’s “Hot Stove” program to see if there was any new off-season moves that I didn’t catch earlier in the day. What I got, instead, was Harold Reynolds about 3 days behind in the news cycle. As the other panelists, including Mitch Williams and Matt Vasgersian spoke of the pending John Lackey and Mike Cameron signings by the Red Sox, Reynolds was a little slow in catching up. He wondered aloud where that left Jason Bay in the mix, noting that “the window may be closing for Bay to sign with the Red Sox.”

Ummm…have you been paying attention, Mr. Reynolds? Bay’s agent himself said over the WEEKEND (mind you, this was a Tuesday night broadcast) that Bay was prepared to move on. Toss in an imminent signing for 2 years at $15.5 million to play the same position, and you’re STILL wondering where Bay fits in? It was funny to watch Wild Thing deadpanning his expression in letting Weird Harold (Fat Albert is one of the most underrated cartoons of the 1970s, by the way) know that he probably doesn’t. I won’t speak for anyone but odds are that Mitch was wondering at that exact moment what was in Reynolds’ coffee, and also wondering if he could get some.

The moral of the story: Peter Gammons can’t get to that desk soon enough. I tired of just about everything ESPN over the last few years so I haven’t been able to catch Gammons on TV much at all, so it’ll be good to see him on MLB Network and NESN in the coming months. Sure, he uses his Twitter account to express his political views on an unsolicited basis (@pgammo, I get it. You don’t like Sarah Palin. You live in Massachusetts. That fact alone puts the smart money, sight unseen, on you leaning a little towards the left), but there’s nothing wrong with expressing your opinion. He’ll be a great add to both sets.

Regarding the signings of Cameron and Lackey, as a Sox fan, I don’t really care for them. Unlike many, I am OK with the “bridge year” concept if it involves creating payroll flexibility. A LF manned by a platoon of Jeremy Hermida, Josh Reddick and a non-tender would work fine. Paying almost $8 million/year for TWO years for an aging outfielder seems to be a bit much for the organization. Paying $16.5 million/year for an over-30 pitcher with durability issues and a less-than-stellar record in his new home park seems steep as well. Lackey was the only solid option of the barren free agent starting pitcher class of the 2009-2010 offseason. He was the best house in a bad neighborhood, if you will, and of course he was going to be overpaid. That doesn’t mean Theo Epstein has to be the one overpaying. If I have to guess, this was more Larry Lucchino’s call in a gut reaction to keep pace with The Empire rather than the emergence of Bizarro Theo. I can’t see them keeping Josh Beckett now. Really, I couldn’t see them keeping him before this; the last two years haven’t been stellar for him; he seems to be reverting to fighting himself and trying to Nuke LaLoosh everyone with his heat. That’s not going to work now, and it sure won’t work as age and loss of velocity set in while he toils well into his 30s.

Not sure what’s going on with the Sox tripping over themselves to eat $9 of $12 million for Mike Lowell in 2010. Sure…he was defensively a shell of himself at 3B, displaying range almost as bad as a previous Sox aging infielder (Mark Loretta at 2B c. 2006). He can still hit, though. It’s well-documented that he was annoyed with the ramifications of the Sox pursuit of Mark Teixeira last year. Do his declining range and ill temper over being dangled as bait for 2 years add up to a salary dump? I guess they do. Still, Adrian Beltre is NOT the answer, unless you want to overpay a Scott Boras client for declining production and advanced age, regardless of how solid the glove is, all the while further hampering payroll flexibility. If that’s the case, be my guest…y’all just go on with your bad self. It’s much cheaper to sign a 1B or go with Kotchman and move Kevin Youkilis to 3B than to find a 3B option on the open market. I don’t really like Theo’s track record with free agent signs on the left side of the infield, either. Not since Bill Mueller, anyway.

As for Harold Reynolds, as Marty McFly said in “Back to the Future,” “watch for the changes, and try to keep up, okay?”

Huuuge grains of salt…2009 Cubs = 2001 Red Sox?

When I was a kid I spent a couple of years in the Chicagoland area and the next couple of years in the Boston area. For some reason my borderline-nomadic self has kept the allegiance to both the Cubs and the Red Sox. Because of this sickness, late October 2003 was a wicked crappy time for me…with one exception – I didn’t have to expend too much effort to think up a Halloween costume. I just wore my Red Sox jersey and my Cubs hat and was instantly transformed into the World’s Most Pathetic Baseball Fan.

I had a Tweet the other day noting that this year’s disheveled Cubs squad reminded me a lot of the 2001 Red Sox. You may argue that the 2009 Cubs may have even more potential talent on their roster with their reasonably solid pitching and slightly less dead weight than the likes of the 2001 editions of Mike Lansing and Troy O’Leary. But examine a few ailments befalling both teams and the likeness is uncanny…

Affliction: Malcontent behavior in the dugout
2001 Red Sox: Manny Ramirez slouching during the National Anthem before first game back after September 11 terrorist attacks (note absence of the term "man-made disasters")
2009 Cubs: The Gatorade cooler as endangered species

Affliction: Crotchety episodes from a manager whose act is wearing thin
2001 Red Sox: Jimy Williams' “manager’s decision”
2009 Cubs: Lou Piniella ripping Milton Bradley a new one after yet another meltdown

Affliction: Ace fragile diva extraordinaire
2001 Red Sox: Pedro Martinez
2009 Cubs: Carlos Zambrano

Affliction: OBP nightmares
2001 Red Sox: Troy O’Leary (.298), Mike Lansing (.294), Shea Hillenbrand (.291)
2009 Cubs: Alfonso Soriano (.298), Micah Hoffpauir (.287), Aaron Miles (.240)

Affliction: Heart attack closers
2001 Red Sox: Derek Lowe, Ugueth Urbina
2009 Cubs: Kevin Gregg

Affliction: Big-ticket, overpriced free agents signed in prior years never living up to erroneously high expectations
2001 Red Sox: Jose Offerman
2009 Cubs: Alfonso Soriano

Affliction: Injured catcher
2001 Red Sox: Jason Varitek (broken elbow)
2009 Cubs: Geovany Soto (strained oblique)

Affliction: Coaching staff sacrifices
2001 Red Sox: John Cumberland
2009 Cubs: Gerald Perry

Affliction: Beleaguered GM
2001 Red Sox: Dan Duquette
2009 Cubs: Jim Hendry

Affliction: Old ownership with a callous personality towards its fan base
2001 Red Sox: John Harrington, once dubbed “the world’s luckiest CPA,” CEO of the Yawkey Trust
2009 Cubs: Tribune Company (but as a former public company and LBO gone bad, a sharper eye on the bottom line and maximization of stakeholder return is required)

Affliction: Charming yet rotting ballpark in desperate need of a face lift
2001 Red Sox: Fenway
2009 Cubs: Wrigley

Affliction: Impending sale with hiccups
2001 Red Sox: Sale to John Henry’s group at a not-quite-highest bid and the ensuing Commonwealth of Massachusetts inquiry on the trust’s fiduciary duty to get maximum price
2009 Cubs: Possible Cubs bankruptcy to expedite sale to Ricketts group

Solution: New leadership with keen eye on financial markets
2002 Red Sox: John Henry, a longtime commodity trading adviser
2010 Cubs (projected): Tom Ricketts of Ameritrade and Incapital

Based on this admittedly highly superficial yet convincing evidence, the stars have re-aligned in 2009 in a similar pattern to 2001. Knowing what we know about that brutal Red Sox season (regardless of how many days Dan Duquette said the Sox were in first place) and the following years, several conditions must ring true for the Cubs to win a World Series:
· The sale can’t go through soon enough. This organization needs a thorough housecleaning of all that is previous ownership – not for change’s sake alone (after all, there was an ownership ticket-scalping fracas in 1908, too…how’d that work out for ya?), but so the new group can develop, articulate and execute their plan with efficiency and purity.
· Strong chance that when the Cubs win the World Series, Lou Piniella isn’t their manager. Maybe a calmer, less impulsive voice with a keener eye towards statistics and in-depth analysis. Perhaps a former manager with thickened skin from an unfortunate and untenable situation (Manny Acta, anyone?)
· A new GM is a safe bet. Like Duquette with Pedro, Hendry made some good moves during his tenure (Aramis Ramirez, Derrek Lee) but others have been questionable (Jacque Jones, Soriano). The farm system isn’t the greatest in the world, either. Still, new bosses bring their own people in. May I suggest a youthful voice unencumbered by tradition and old methods? Maybe someone from Sox baseball operations (Ben Cherrington, Jed Hoyer or Mike Hazen are names that come to mind).

· The Sox reached the Promised Land in three years after the sale…with a little help from Yankee Lobster (I’ll explain one of these days). Provided the sale goes through by the offseason, that gets us to 2012. There’s the Cubdom mystique of the year 2014, but why wait two extra years?
· Enough of the friggin' goats already!

And another thing...when it finally happens, don't sign the guy that made the last out of the World Series against you.