Bos-Wash Corridor

Big Budget Realities

The trade deadline is looming on Friday. I’ve made my view known that the Red Sox should proceed with great caution and won’t reiterate that again today. All the trade talks at this time of year are really about something deeper--the overall economic structure of baseball itself, and setting reasonable expectations for teams within that structure.

The Boston Red Sox, as presently constituted, are good enough to make the playoffs. They are, beyond a reasonable doubt, one of the best eight teams in baseball and the only thing that could keep them out would be a fluke of history that has arguably three of the top five teams in the same division. Even given that oddity, the smart money is still on Boston to survive and at least pick up a wild-card berth. They would then be at least even money to beat their opponent in the Division Series. After that, whether they have the juice to win the LCS and World Series, presumably against the Yankees and Dodgers (if form holds), is up for legitimate debate. Right now, I would say the odds are against us, but not by much. We’ve got great top-of-the-rotation pitching, a great closer (even if he had his first real tank job last night against Oakland), a steady bullpen (25 straight scoreless innings prior to last night) and playoff-toughened vets in the lineup. We are showing weaknesses at the back end of the rotation, as the injury to Dice-K has taken its toll and the offense doesn’t have the same depth in years past.

To make a long story short, we have a team that virtually anyone else in baseball would jump head over heels to take, warts and all. Why would the thought of compromising this team’s future for a short-term fix be even remotely contemplated by sane people? Answer: the economic structure of baseball is pushing it. Boston is one of the few teams with the resources to afford a big payroll. Even when they clinched the playoffs last year, Boston Globe scribe Dan Shaughnessy said that was only to be expected from a team shelling out $140 million. And though Shaughnessy is often deliberately antagonistic, was he really that far off the base? Being among the last eight standing in a field of thirty teams, with that kind of payroll is indeed a minimum expectation. Particularly when your ticket prices are gouging your fans to the point that families have to save for months in advance to take their kids to Fenway Park. People are going to want something in exchange for that.

So the high expectations aren’t a problem per se. That’s entirely reasonable. I grew up in Milwaukee and lived in Pittsburgh for eight years, so I know all too well that the world the Red Sox must function in is entirely different than the one the Brewers and Pirates face. C.C. Sabbathia pushed the Brew Crew into the playoffs last year almost singlehandedly, and the memory of that stretch drive alone will carry Milwaukee baseball for the next ten years. Making the playoffs was tantamount to winning the World Series. It’s not that way in Boston, and given the economics of the game, it shouldn’t be.

But let’s now take my current home of Baltimore, where the current national misperception of the Red Sox has its home base. With the Orioles being one of only three true East Coast teams in the AL East, there’s a lot of antagonism toward the Twin Powers of the division. As we get set for the Sox to come into town on the weekend, the local regional sports network is running an ad of an Orioles fan seeing Boston fans come into town and saying “They’re almost as annoying as Yankee fans.” And hey, this is a divisional rivalry, so fair enough. However, this is also reflects a general national perception which is that the Yanks and Sox are virtually indistinguishable as teams populated by hired Hessians, bought and paid for, with Boston perhaps being the lesser of two evils.

Lumping the Red Sox in with the Yankees is no more reality than lumping the Sox in with the Brewers Boston’s a big-budget team. But New York is a no-budget team. When did you ever hear of the Yanks letting a quality veteran go because they could no longer afford him? In the last few years alone, the Red Sox have cut loose Johnny Damon and Pedro Martinez at times when both still had good years ahead of them (in fact, Damon’s still productive) and lost out on the bidding for Mark Texeira. Those are only the most visible examples. It doesn’t happen often and fans in Milwaukee and Pittsburgh would rightly say “Cry me a river”, but it happens more often then in the Big Apple, where it never happens.

In reality, Boston is on a par with the Angels, Dodgers, Mets and Cubs, as a team in a big market. I think you can also add teams like the Phillies (fifth-largest market in the country), the Braves (Superstation access) and the White Sox (still have Chicago, even if they don’t always pony up the cash), as teams that have the resources to compete at the highest level, but still have to set priorities and occasionally pull back. And there’s a further group of third-level teams led by the would-be populists here in Baltimore and joined by St. Louis, Colorado and Arizona as teams in markets that are either baseball-passionate or potentially lucrative as growing cities. These teams might not be big-budget, but they’re not small-market either. And winning consistently is a very reasonable hope.

Compare the Red Sox to those teams I put in the second tier. Would we expect those teams to win the World Series and demand they do everything possible at the trade deadline to get there, even at risk to the future? Or would we simply see them as teams in a good situation who should be expected to contend consistently and get over the top once in a while, say every ten years? The fact Boston, under the John Henry ownership group, has met that reasonable expectation should not be turned against them, into a demand that it happen every year.

Ultimately, it would be better if MLB were like the NFL, where teams were on equal footing and we could judge them all by the same standard. That utopia is a long way away. But we can at least get the standards in the current environment right. The Red Sox are not the Yankees, nor should we try to be. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and who wants to flatter anyone in Pinstripes?

Rice Enters The Hall

Jim Rice got his just reward today, with his induction into the Hall of Fame. Rice, elected last January, was enshrined along with Rickey Henderson. It looked like history was going to pass Rice by, as he had reached his final year of eligibility on the ballot before finally winning baseball’s version of immortality.

It’s fair to wonder what changed voters' minds in this most recent election. Why were Rice’s credentials previously inadequate, but now suddenly Hall-worthy? One fact is probably that it was his final year and that fact heightened voter attention to his case. Players who miss election for 15 years can still be enshrined by the Veterans’ Committee, but that is a very difficult route to take. But the other fact is that with each passing year of steroid revelations regarding recent superstars, Rice’s career numbers suddenly looked better and better. 382 home runs might not dazzle at first glance, but consider recent entries into the 500 Club have included Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro. Notice a common thread among them?

Rice’s case still wasn’t clear cut. He wasn’t the greatest defender in the world, but he was an honorable part of a long tradition of BoSox left fielders—from Williams to Yaz to Rice to Greenwell to Manny. I’m not sure if I would have voted for him I had a ballot, but I’m very glad he’s there. I had the chance to visit Cooperstown in 2007. With my wife and a good friend being devout Orioles’ fans we joined the rest of the city of Baltimore at the induction of Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn. I look forward to my next chance to get to beautiful upstate New York and the greats of baseball history that Rice is now a part of.

The Hall of Fame induction was a great ending to a week that was very busy in Red Sox Nation and ended a lot better than it began. Boston was swept in Texas early in the week. While letting the Yankees move out to 2 ½ game lead hurt, more damaging was the fact that this was a missed opportunity to remove the Rangers from the wild-card chase. Texas is now hot on our heels for the playoffs, with Tampa still lurking. But taking two of three from the Orioles at home on the weekend at least stopped the bleeding. We can aim for recovery in Week 17.

Theo Epstein was on the move during the week as well, as he made two moves that were low-risk and potential high-reward. The first was acquiring Adam LaRoche from the Pirates for a pair of low minors prospects. LaRoche is not a spectacular player by any stretch, but he is a reliable fill-in if Mike Lowell should be unable to go down the stretch and Youkilis has to move to third. While I generally disdain giving up prospects for pedestrian big-leaguers, this one was worthwhile. Neither of the two kids we gave up are highly regarded and Pittsburgh’s track record in heisting talent from big-budget teams is absolutely horrible. Since 2003, the Pirates have now traded away Aramis Ramirez (Cubs), Xavier Nady (Yanks), Jason Bay (Red Sox) and Mike Gonzalez (Braves) and none of the players they’ve gotten have amounted to anything in the majors. Smart money says that whatever LaRoche gives Boston, you can’t beat the price—practically nothing.

Epstein also traded Julio Lugo to St. Louis in exchange for Chris Duncan. I love this move. Simply getting rid of Lugo was a stroke of good fortune. He might well resurrect his career away from the high-pressure confines of Fenway, but what matters from our perspective is what he was going to do for the Red Sox, and that was precious little. In the meantime, Duncan needed a fresh start himself. He had a great year in 2007, but the past two years have gone rough for the young outfielder. If he can find the potential he flashed in ’07, we have a legitimate starting outfielder on our hands and at worst we’ve got a decent backup. All in exchange for shedding $11 million of dead weight in Lugo.

The rumors are heavy that this coming week will be even busier for the front office. I renew the calls I’ve made on this pages already for extreme caution. There’s talk of a deal for San Diego’s Adrian Gonzalez in the air. This one at least is worthwhile, as Gonzalez is a potential All-Star who, along with Youk, could secure the corner infield for the next several years. But the watchword among Red Sox Nation must be long-term contention not all-or-nothing in 2009.

There’s no shame in missing the playoffs on a fluke of history that has three great teams in the same division. There’s certainly no shame in not winning the World Series (acceptance of this fact being what distinguishes real fans from Yankee fans). But there is shame in a team with enough resources to be in the hunt every year, blowing it by squandering the future for a mess of raw pottage in the present. If we get a truly good player like Gonzalez, that’s one thing. But it’s not worth trading young pitching to get an above-average player in return (see Aubrey Huff) or even a great player who’s hitting the peak of his career (see Roy Halladay). Good things come to those who wait. No one knows that better than Sox fans.

Youk Or Texeira?

Youkilis or Texiera? That was the question my boss posed to a colleague at work as we talked a little baseball at the end of the workday. The question was admittedly laced with East Coast bias, the kind that seems to think baseball isn’t played west of the Hudson or south of Jersey. But it’s a question sure to inflame passions in the New York-Boston corridor over the next several years, with both players in the prime of their careers. Texiera won the fan balloting for the All-Star game. My work colleague, a passionate and knowledgeable baseball fan, replied Youkilis. This blog may be partisan in nature, but an objective analysis of the facts suggest that it’s not just pro-Red Sox propaganda to take Youk’s side in this positional rivalry.

Youkilis leads the American League in on-base percentage, with a sparkling .418 number, the only AL first baseman to break the .400 barrier. He is close to the top in slugging percentage, trailing only Justin Morneau. Conversely, Texeira is sitting fourth in OBP and sixth in slugging.

That’s just the crude data to establish a baseline for the discussion. If we look at deeper intangibles, Youkilis only widens his lead. First and foremost, he doesn’t play in the new bandbox the Yankees are passing off for a ballpark. And as stat analysts have been on top of, Fenway Park has changed in recent years to become less hitter-friendly. Some of the new construction has altered the wind currents. It would be a stretch to call the Fens a pitchers park, but it’s certainly not the same advantage to Youk that the new Yankee Stadium is to Texiera.

Then let’s go to defense. Both players field their position very well, but Youkilis ability to shift over to third base without any appreciable loss in production is a huge asset to the Red Sox. This is a value unmatched by any other top first baseman in baseball. Finally, we have to add the fact that Texeira was in the tank until A-Rod came back from the disabled list and gave him some protection in the lineup. Conversely, Youk joined forces with Jason Bay to carry the Boston offense when David Ortiz was slumping.

Texeira is a good ballplayer, and it would have been great to get him in free agency, moving Youkilis over to third. Now that he’s with the Yankees, there’s no point in bitter screeds shouting that he really sucks. He doesn’t and if they win the World Series, the addition of Texeira will be a big reason why. But he’s not as good as Youk and I think the facts would stand up to examination by an independent auditor.

One thing that wouldn’t stand up to independent examination is restricting this conversation to Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. Within the American League alone, supporters of Minnesota’s Morneau, the 2006 AL MVP, must cringe at questions like the one we had at work the other day. Morneau is a close second to Youk in OBP and as mentioned, leads the league in slugging. He, along with Joe Mauer, carries an offense that doesn’t have the same top-to-bottom depth as the Yanks or Sox. And out west, Russell Branyan is enjoying a big year in Seattle. He’s not the best in the league, but he’s been a big part of the Mariners’ stubborn staying in the race. In Detroit, Miguel Cabrera is the key to the Tiger offense. He can’t field to save his life, but his bat will be a big factor in the Central division race.

We’ve only covered the American League. The real power at first base is over on the senior circuit. All discussion at this position has to begin and end with Albert Pujols, the consensus best player in baseball. And while we’ve noted Youkilis is the only AL first baseman with an OBP over .400, no less than six players hit that benchmark in the National League. The NL Central in particular, is a haven for first basemen. After Pujols, there’s Home Run Derby champ Prince Fielder in Milwaukee. Prince has not missed too many meals, nor too many fastballs. He also trails only Pujols in OBP and slugging. Cincinnati has been energized by the return of Joey Votto to the lineup—though we must note that Votto has a hitter’s park to play in similar to Texeira. As does the always-steady Todd Helton of Colorado.

One player who doesn’t have a hitter’s park to work in is San Diego’s Adrian Gonzalez. He also doesn’t have much a lineup to support him either. But it hasn’t stopped him from posting a .389 on-base percentage and a .523 slugging. Imagine if this lefty slugger could hit to the short porch in the Bronx and be surrounded by A-Rod and Posada.

In the latest manifestation of the Sox-Yanks rivalry, Boston has the edge at first base. Before New York fans get too loud about it, they might want to ask if Texeira is even in the top five.

Losing Ground

It wasn’t a great weekend for the Red Sox, as the schedule didn’t work in our favor for this set. We dropped two of three in the Rogers Centre to Toronto, something that’s not too big a deal in of itself. But it was made worse by both New York and Tampa putting sweeps up on the board. The Yanks were particularly impressive, taking out the AL Central-leading Tigers and doing it in a pair of 2-1 wins to end the weekend.

Boston did get three key cogs back though. Mike Lowell returned from the disabled list at third. Jed Lowrie is back from his long rehab from a broken wrist at short. And Clay Bucholz was recalled from the minors and pitched well in picking up the win on Friday night. We need Lowell’s bat if we’re going to hold off the Rays for the last playoff spot and have any chance at beating the Yanks for first in the division. Lowrie will help shore up what’s been a problem spot. I’d still keep Nick Green as the primary shortstop and use Lowrie for defensive purposes.

Lowrie’s return also means the long-awaited end of the Julio Lugo era. Lugo was signed prior to the 2007 season to hit leadoff and play short. His production to that point in his career justified confidence, although a four-year deal at $11 million a year did seem a little excessive. He still gets on base at pretty respectable rate, but any punch in his bat has been gone ever since his arrival in the Fens, and his defense was deplorable.

This just the latest in a saga in what has been massive instability at the shortstop position since the trade of Nomar Garciaparra. In the timeframe from July 2004 to the present, the Sox have trotted out Orlando Cabrera, Edgar Renteria, Alex Gonzalez, Lugo and then Lowrie this season as guys they were committed to. Cabrera had some success the first couple years after leaving Boston and Renteria would leave Fenway and do well in Atlanta. But neither one is doing much anymore. Alex Gonzalez dazzled us with the best glove I’ve ever seen the Sox have at the position. But he got a hefty three-year contract with the Reds following the ’06 season. There was no way it was worth it to match him and Gonzo has been injury-prone ever since. After that came the foibles of Lugo, most notably his dropped pop fly in the Game 7 of the ’07 ALCS against the Indians that nearly cost the Red Sox the pennant, before some bad Cleveland baserunning and a late Sox explosion saved the day.

Taking a look around at media coverage in the AL East power centers, Theo Epstein told The Boston Globe that he likes the composition of the roster, and his comments were clearly skeptical of a big deadline deal, a la Roy Halladay. It’s been expressed here before that I agree completely with this approach and would rather risk missing the playoffs this year than jeopardize future contending Sox teams. Halladay is 32 years old and getting him not only means giving up some of our better young arms, but also inking him to a contract extension that will take him through his declining years. Ideally, I would prefer to see Halladay end up in Philadelphia or another National League team and stay away from the Yankees. But if, like Veruca Salt of Willy Wonka infamy, Boy Hank in the Bronx is so desperate to have a World Series right now, that he’ll jeopardize his team’s future, then by all means let him have it.

******

Don Zimmer got a warm welcome back to Yankee Stadium for Old-Timers Day, after he left the team amidst acrimony between him and the Boss following the 2003 season. Call me cynical and unappreciative, but I’ve always had a problem with Zimmer being portrayed as the lovable old coach. Recall the ’03 ALCS and his famous run-in with Pedro Martinez when he tried to hit the Sox ace after a beanball attempt. Pedro then attempted to shunt Zimmer to the side in self-defense and the old coach went tumbling face forward on to the Fenway grass. Given he has a plate in the side of his head, it was a genuinely frightening moment, but what was uncalled for was the universal vilification heaped on Martinez for the incident. The vilification was started by Fox’s Tim McCarver, who must secretly wear pinstripes underneath his Fox blazer.

I’m sorry, but it was Zimmer who created the problem by attempting to slug the opposition’s best playe. Pedro made every attempt to move him out of the way as delicately as could be done under the circumstances (“circumstances” being a mad bull charging at you). Blaming the pitcher because he was young and strong while the coach was old, is as logical as saying a senior citizen driving recklessly on the interstate isn’t responsible for anything that goes wrong as a result of his actions.

There’s one other reason Zim might have gotten a warm welcome to the Bronx. Younger fans might not recall that he was the manager of the 1978 Red Sox team that blew a 14-game lead to the Yanks and lost a one-game playoff for the division title. A lot went wrong in that stretch drive, but Zimmer bears exclusive responsibility for one in particular. He took his most effective lefty, Bill Lee, and buried him in the bullpen, because he didn’t like Lee’s flaky personality. Now Lee is a little nuts, but he was always effective, particularly against the Yanks. So how many innings did he pitch against New York in the final five head-to-head matchups at Fenway that year? Zero. How many games of the five did Boston win? Zero. The manager of the Red Sox let his personal feelings get in the way of winning a pennant, and that’s a very good reason for him to get a warm welcome in New York.

*****

Down south, John Romano of The Tampa Tribune writes that J.P. Howell has become the de facto closer for the Rays, even without a formal declaration. Howell is doing a fantastic job stepping for Troy Percival, whose season (and probably his career) ended early this season. The problem Tampa has is not filling the void at closer. It’s now having to fill the role Howell played in setup and that is going to be a challenge. With Boston’s bullpen deep and talented and New York’s coming into form, it’s a shortage in this area that threatens to leave Tampa as the team without a chair when the music stops.

The AL-NL Playoff Problem

Another All-Star game, another American League victory. The AL has not lost this game since 1996, obviously including every year since 2003, when the game began settling homefield advantage for the Series.

The All-Star streak is a symptom of a larger disease, in that there is an unhealthy imbalance between the two leagues. It’s not just the Mid-Summer Classic. That’s fairly harmless and in of itself not much of an indicator. But interleague play has been a feast for the American League. And an imbalance this heavy ultimately undermines the credibility of the World Series itself.

Baseball, indeed all sports, is no stranger to having teams who are not the best play in their showcase events and win championships. Think back to the NFL in the early 1990s, when the Cowboys and 49ers were far and away the top two teams, yet forced to meet one round prior to the Super Bowl. Closer to home, let’s look at 1978, when the Yankees and Red Sox were the best two teams in baseball, but the Sox were left home for the postseason because of Bucky Dent. But simply having the best two teams on the same side of the bracket is not the sign of an intrinsic imbalance. It can be just a case of one league being top-heavy, with a couple great teams, but more really bad ones, while the other league is more balanced. The credibility of the showcase event is not compromised, because it draws its integrity from showing off two teams who have won fairly equivalent leagues.

But what happens when one league is far and away superior, top to bottom? That’s what’s going on in baseball. Think back to the 2007 World Series (always a pleasant topic). The Colorado Rockies were a nice story because of their big win streak coming in. But do you really think there was as good as any of the playoff teams in the American League that year? Would the Rockies have finished ahead of the ’07 Indians, Yankees or Angels? For that matter, were they even better than the Tigers, the first team left out. I don’t think so. While reasonable people may disagree, especially on the latter, I submit simply that a credible case can be built for a non-playoff team in the American League being better than any National League squad is a serious problem.

When the superior team from the superior league wins the championship it does reduce the problem, even if the networks can’t be happy about an anti-climactic final round. But what about when the National League team wins the Series, as happened in 2006 & 2008? Does it compromise the credibility of the championship? Again, I think so. I don’t believe that the best team must win a playoff for it to be credible—surely no one thinks the ’07 New York Giants were better than the undefeated Patriots. But the team that ultimately prevails should have to navigate a championship-worthy route to get there. To pull off their unexpected Super Bowl title, Tom Coughlin’s Giants had to win games at Dallas, at Green Bay and then against the Pats. Whether they were the best team or not, they did something genuinely worthy of a title.

Compare that against the St. Louis Cardinals of 2006. They beat the 88-win Padres. Then they beat the 97-win Mets, who were reduced by injuries to a team that probably couldn’t have made the playoffs. So when they got a crack at upsetting the Tigers, it was hard to see them as having been truly tested. And last year’s Phillies? They vanquished the Brewers and Dodgers, neither of whom had broken 90-wins. In fairness, the Dodger team that took the field in October was of higher-caliber than their win total would suggest, because of the addition of Manny Ramirez, but it was again far from a killer gauntlet Philly had to run to get a shot at favored Tampa. The consequence is that it’s hard to see either the ’08 Phils or the ’06 Cards as much more than a team who happened to see the dice come up right in a week’s worth of games against a better team. They’re as good, relative to their league, as the Super Bowl champ Giants were, but they never had to do anything worthy of winning a crown.

So what’s the solution? The AL/NL imbalance has been going on too long to just write off as a fluke. And the presence of the Yankees, pushing the Red Sox to spend more, who in turn push the Angels to spend more (and look for Baltimore to follow, as they get closer to contention) means there’s probably something inherently structural about the disparity. I am a traditionalist and love the AL-NL distinctions, but this does require some sort of change, to make sure NL teams have to run a more worthy championship route.

How about this (and I have to say in advance I’m indebted to ESPN’s Bill Simmons, who came up with this idea for the NBA)—continue to determine the eight playoff teams exactly as we do now. But make the league showdown in the first round, rather than the final one. Let the top seed in the American League play the fourth seed in the NL and vice-versa. The #2 and #3 seeds in each league would similarly crisscross. The networks and casual fans would love it, because the possibility of the best two teams, regardless of league, meeting in the Series, would increase. Those that like the league rivalry would be in clover, with a minimum of four matchups to look at.

No team would get away with a cheap route to a title. The ’06 Cardinals, who had the fourth-best record in the NL, would have played the Yankees in the opening round instead of the Padres. The ’08 Phillies would have opened up with the Red Sox. If those National League teams face up to that schedule and win, then they are a worthy champ, regardless of whether one thinks they are the best team or not.

I’m not completely sold on my own idea yet. The traditionalist in me is concerned about effectively eliminating things like the American and National League pennants. The very word would be excised from the vocabulary of baseball and that change itself is disconcerting. In my ideal world, the pro sports leagues would coordinate, and we could test this somewhere like the NHL, where conference rivalry isn’t quite as strong.

But all tradition recognizes that sometimes circumstances irrevocably change and the best thing to do is to preserve what’s best about tradition, while adjusting to new times. If we determine that the NL isn’t going to close the gap (and if I haven’t made it clear already, I don’t consider one team from the NL beating one team from the AL in a single best-of-seven contest to be indicative), then we need to change. The AL vs. NL First Round War would be the best option to start with.

Halladay Trade Talk

It was a hairy weekend in Fenway Park, but it all worked out right in the end. The Red Sox’ bullpen continued its recent slump by nearly coughing up a 9-0 lead after five innings on Saturday night against Kansas City. This was on top of a rather ugly loss on Thursday in the series opener and then stealing a 1-0 win on Friday. But when the dust settled, Josh Beckett sent the Sox into the All-Star break with a complete-game shutout and a three-game win streak. In the meantime, the Yankees were swept in Anaheim and Boston is plus-3 in the AL East and up 5 ½ on Texas for the wild-card.

The big rumors on the trade market right now are for Roy Halladay. Toronto’s fading fast as it is, and Scott Richmond has joined the long list of Blue Jay pitchers on the DL. Nick Cafardo of The Boston Globe asks who’s in the “the Halladay spirit.” Within the article Cafardo quotes soon-to-be Hall of Famer Jim Rice, who doubts the value of acquiring the 2003 Cy Young Award winner. Rice believes, with all due respect to the Toronto ace, that it’s more important to have a position player, who’s out there every day, rather then a starting pitcher for every fifth day.

I have to disagree with Rice. The comparison of every day to every fifth day makes for a nice soundbite, but it has no bearing on reality. The impact a starting pitcher makes on a game is incomparably more than that of a position player. A position player may bat 25 times in a five-game time span. In making one decent start, a starting pitcher will face that many hitters. Rice was a great player, but he was part of an era of Red Sox baseball that should understand that better than any other. The Boston teams of 1977-78 were powerful, but lacked the pitching depth the Yankees and Orioles had. That’s why the Sox lost close races to New York those two years and eventually gave way to Baltimore the following year. Not until Boston put Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling in the same rotation, did they have the arms to win it all.

This is not to say they should rush to acquire Halladay. Theo Epstein backed off trading for Johan Santana prior to last year, not wanting to give up Jacoby Ellsbury and Jon Lester. And while Santana’s done very well for the Mets, it’s hard to quibble with Theo’s foresight. Santana was a lot surer bet than the 32-year old Halladay, whom Cafardo points out, is at the high end of the age the Sox want their prime contracts to be. And any trade would surely require a contract extension to go with it. It’s unlikely Boston could get him at a price that’s tolerable. The ideal is to see him dealt out of the American League, though given their injuries, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Angels get serious.

Checking on media coverage elsewhere, Joel Sherman on The New York Post continues the Halladay discussion by talking to several general managers who have been involved in big deadline-deal swaps before. One of the points out of there I thought was good, was not to wait if you know you need a star. Last season, Milwaukee picked up C.C. Sabbathia relatively early in the summer. The Brewers won the wild-card by one game. Had they waited until the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, they might still have gotten Sabbathia, but missed a playoff drive that meant an enormous amount to the city this writer used to call home. The difference Sabbathia made—virtually single-handedly, he put an otherwise collapsing Brewer team on his shoulders and carried them home—is another rebuke to Rice’s argument that starting pitchers aren’t difference-makers.

Sherman’s article also advises sellers not to be shy about trading within the division. This is also applicable to Baltimore and the market for first baseman Aubrey Huff. The Red Sox are not as likely to be active for Huff, now that Ortiz is back and hitting. But one point I thought was missed here, is that the contending team ought to be more wary than the trading team about dealing with a division rival. If Halladay or Huff found his way to Fenway, he might make a difference for a little while, but would either be gone or in decline by the time the trading team finished rebuilding. In the meantime, the contender has handed their rivals the prospects they need to get back on their feet.

Boston need only look at a 1988 trade that brought Mike Boddicker to the Fens and sent a couple unknown minor leaguers named Curt Schilling and Brady Anderson to Baltimore. Fortunately for Boston, Schilling didn’t find his form until a couple stops later in Philly. But Anderson haunted American League pitchers for years after. Boston did okay for themselves too—Boddicker was a key part of a rotation that won the AL East in ’88 and again in 1990. But consider how dangerous this was on a deal that actually worked for the contender. Then think about how ugly it might get if it went the way of most deadline deals, and ended up causing the contender more headaches and prospects than it was worth.

The bottom line for Boston? Move carefully in any trade prospects. And ideally, don’t move at all. We have a team right now that’s favored to get to the playoffs and in the eyes of many are the favorite to win it all. Even if we come up short on the latter goal, the season’s still a success by having been in the mix. The young talent we have ensures us that we can stay in the mix for years to come. Don’t screw that up for a quick fix.

The AL East Trio Up Close

In the perpetual search for some type of insight on what we can expect to see unfold in the AL East race, I decided to break down the three principal contenders based on the four areas that decide winning and losing—power and the ability to get people on base offensively, the starting rotation and the bullpen. Here’s the fruits of that research:

Power
The Yankee attack has been as fearsome as in years’ past, with eight players as legitimate power threats. Only Melky Cabrera isn’t in this category, and even he isn’t a pure Punch-and-Judy hitter. Of the Big Eight—led up by Mark Texieria, Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui, and supported by A-Rod, Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon and Robinson Cano, only Jeter and Rodriguez seem to be carried along by the new ballpark. And A-Rod’s a very safe bet to crank it up both home and away. And the only long-term problem the Yanks face here is whether Damon can maintain the pace in the second half. Sox fans may remember 2005, when he made a legit push for the MVP award in the first half of the season, but tailed off in after the break, due to nagging injuries. And those aches and pains have only piled up on Damon in the ensuing four years. Nonetheless, if New York does not win the division or make the playoffs, it won’t be because they lacked the lumber.

Tampa and Boston rank 3-4 in American League slugging, but I believe the Red Sox are better situated to maintain that pace in the second half. Can we really believe that Ben Zobrist will slug close to .600 for the rest of the year? Or that Jason Bartlett will stay at an above .500 clip? Tampa’s got a great duo in Evan Longoria and Carlos Pena. They have hope for Pat Burrell to pick up some of the slack if anyone falls off, but this has the look of an offense that’s hitting over its head right now. The Sox are maintained by Youkilis, Bay and Drew. If Mike Lowell comes back and David Ortiz builds on the signs of life he showed in June (.653 slugging for the month), there will be more than enough power to support an offense that’s very good at getting on base. Which leads us to…

Men On Base
The Red Sox have no serious weaknesses here. A while back, I wrote a column saying Jacoby Ellsbury did not get on base at the rate needed for him to hit leadoff. He’s been moved out of that role, but his production has improved to the point that would acceptable for him to be at the top of the lineup. Even at his lowest points, Big Papi takes his walks and gets on. The only weak link is Nick Green, and here we could always put in Julio Lugo who remains good at getting on base, even if his defense is a problem. The main concern is that Lowell was not getting on base consistently before his injury and will need to improve that when he returns.

New York is again the class of the AL in this offensive category. The worst at getting on base in their lineup are Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera. When you consider Cano’s hitting over .300 (though he draws very few walks, resulting in him being a good offensive threat, if an overrated one) and Cabrera’s a tough out, that tells you how tough this lineup is. Tampa’s situation is similar to their power production—Bartlett and Zobrist are leading the charge. Here though, expecting Bartlett to continue his big year might be more realistic, even if I’d bet on a Zobrist fade across the board.

Starting Pitching
It’s here where doing the home/road splits becomes most alarming if you don’t like the Yankees. Joe Girardi’s rotation may rank 12th in the league in ERA, but three of the top four starters see their ERAs dip under 3.00 if they leave the bandbox in the Bronx. C.C. Sabbathia, Andy Pettite and Joba Chamberlain are tough to handle away from home. And the fourth, A.J. Burnett is just under 4.00 both home and away. The inability of Chien-Ming Wang to fill his spot has been the major problem. With Phil Hughes having done poorly as a starter, but very well in the pen, Girardi’s not going to move him into the rotation. But if the problems in the #5 hole persist, Chamberlain’s lack of endurance—he’s good, but only for five innings at a crack—will become magnified as the summer wears on.

Boston ranks ninth in starters’ ERAs ,but Josh Beckett is in full gear now and Jon Lester looks to be as well. Brad Penny has been steady, but not much more durable than Chamberlain when it comes to eating innings. But the silent innings-eater remains in Fenway Park and at long last is heading to the All-Star game. Tim Wakefield is on pace for 200-inning season and continues to be the kind of pitcher whose value best shows up over the long haul. Ultimately though, whether the Sox rotation fulfills its potential depends on either John Smoltz finding his form, or Dice-K returning and being effective in August and September. The Sox have a good rotation by general standards, but by the rigorous standards it takes to win in the AL East, it’s only above average right now. Tampa is similar, though I think they trail Boston by a little bit in this area. Steve Kazmir, sitting on a 6.79 ERA after 11 starts in an injury-riddled first half, is perhaps the biggest X factor in the division right now.

Bullpen
At long last, some unqualified good news. Boston’s #1 in the American League in bullpen ERA. Even after the meltdown in Baltimore last week, they still have three setup men (Ramirez, Delcarmen and Bard) with ERAs under 3.00, Okajima just slightly above that and Masterson and Saito very respectable. And by the way, the most dominant closer in the game right behind them all. What is surprising is that Tampa is right behind the Sox, sitting at #2. We’ll see how long J.P. Howell can be lights-out as a closer, with Randy Choate and Lance Cormier being so solid in setup roles. Count me as a skeptic, especially on the latter.

New York’s pen is their biggest liability, but it’s no longer the huge rock dragging them down to Luca Brasi's neighborhood that it was about a month ago. Hughes has posted a 1.23 ERA in his ten relief appearances, and Girardi’s gotten good work out of Phil Coke and Alfredo Aceves. And old reliable, Mariano Rivera, is still at the end of the line. Like Tampa, the issue will be maintaining performance. And whether the rotation can keep the pressure off them. With Chamberlain requiring a lot of relief help, the #5 spot being a mess and Pettite a good candidate to wear down in the second half, this unit is going to be called on a lot. Another thing to point out is that Rivera’s ERA, while strong at 2.60, is easily the worst among the three AL East contenders, and can’t be considered likely to improve at this stage of his career. It won’t matter in most cases, but it’s something that could hurt just enough to tip the balance in a close race.

What’s the conclusion? The results of this study decidedly give the Yankees an edge. They rank as the best in three of the four areas, with the pen no longer as weak as it once was. I’ve flip-flopped on this a lot over the first 13 weeks of the season, opening with NY as a slight favorite, shifting over to Boston and then shifting back now. But there’s been reasons each time. The first change came when the extraordinary depth of the Sox bullpen became apparent. Moving the Yanks back to the favorite role has come as a result of exploring the home/road splits in more detail and seeing that the pitching staff is much better than what you’ll get from a quick glance at league ERA totals. The biggest problem they face is intangible, and that’s the number of aging players, who must continue to produce as Indian summer arrives.

The other thing that looks clear is that Tampa is a notch behind the two rivals. It’s close, as the Rays’ run differential is strong enough that the possibility for a surge has to be respected. And the Sox? We still are what we are. We’re a solid ballclub, most assuredly among the best eight in baseball, forced to sweat it out because of the oddity of having three of the top five teams (the Dodgers and a mostly healthy Angels squad being the other) in the same division. We’re a smart bet to make the playoffs and have a reasonable shot at winning the World Series. I’ll take that any day of the week, but the ever-ominous shadow coming out of the Bronx is always looming. We’ve got to hope our bullpen can wear them down over the next 12 ½ weeks.

Up Close On The East Coast

I’m just home late on a Sunday afternoon and watching the finale of the Red Sox-Mariners game on tivo as this goes online. What a week it was to be a Sox fan living in the Baltimore area! Tuesday night was the lowest of the lows, as we blew a 10-1 lead in the seventh inning and managed to lose without the Orioles even having to bat in the home half of the ninth. It was the biggest comeback in Baltimore history, and for the Sox it was an ignominious moment rivaled only in recent regular season history by the five-game sweep at the hands of the Yankees in 2006.

Wednesday afternoon was the rubber match of the series and being my day off, I was able to get out to Camden Yards. I’ve often said that one should not be deceived by the apathy one often sees out at the Oriole home park—in reality, this is still a passionate baseball town that’s simply been run into the ground by Peter Angelos’ incompetence and alienation of most of the franchise’s biggest names from the glory days. But give them even a spark of hope and it will turn into a blazing inferno quickly. We got a glimpse of that on Wednesday. I’ve attended five Red Sox-O’s games since moving to Baltimore and this was the first time the locals outshouted the visitors. Quite frankly, it was heartening to see Charm City shed a little bit of its displaced Midwestern politeness and be an obnoxious East Coast town again.

With a slew of young pitchers not far from the majors, Baltimore’s going to have reason to get loud and obnoxious not too long from now. And one of them who’s already here, Brad Bergesen, turned in the latest of what’s been a string of excellent outings and turned a 5-1 lead over to the bullpen after eight. Beckett started for the Sox, and while he clearly wasn’t on his A game, he battled well. He was beaten by a couple home runs, and Nick Markakis hit a two-run double on an outstanding at-bat, fouling off several pitches, before finally winning the battle. The Birds did all their damage in the first four innings, yet Beckett still worked through seven and gave us a chance to win. And that’s exactly what happened in the top of the ninth, with a stunning four-run rally. The last two runs came after two were out and no one was on base. Finally, Julio Lugo, surely the unlikeliest of heroes, won it in the 11th. It was one of the best games I’ve ever personally attended, and also the longest complete game (I did watch 11 full innings at a Red Sox-White Sox game on the last day before the All-Star break in 2006. We lost that one in 19).

As a displaced Midwesterner myself (coming from Milwaukee by way of Pittsburgh), I enjoyed the combative atmosphere at Wednesday’s game thoroughly. If Andy MacPhail’s rebuilding project continues to bear good fruit, there should be a lot more like it in the years to come. I’m generally supportive of the Orioles and will pull for them as far as I’m able to without it hurting the Red Sox. I’ve joked that the rebuilding here will be complete the minute I’m no longer secure enough in rooting for the Birds in their non-Red Sox games. It’s a similar relationship that I have with a nearby NFL team. The Eagles (Philly’s only an hour-plus drive and the stadiums are perfectly situated off I-95) are who I’d realistically like to see win the NFC East if I knew in advance the ‘Skins weren’t. I like Andy Reid and I respect the raw, hate-filled passion Philly fans bring to any sporting event, but especially pro football. They mean to that city what the Orioles mean to Baltimore, and the success of the Ravens and Phillies can really never replace what it would mean to either town if the O’s or Eagles scaled the heights. They fall into the category of teams I like, but have to hold at a prudent distance given the division rivalry. Sort of like a political candidate in the same party that you want to tear apart in a primary, but will fall in line behind in November if they get the nomination.

Since this week’s column has turned into reflections on the East Coast sports culture, I guess this is as good a place as any to turn in a rant against Yankee fans. One of the genuinely coolest things in all of sports is what takes place at the start of every home game at the Stadium. The PA announcer asks everyone to remove their hats and offer a moment of silent prayer for “the men and women serving around the globe and protecting our freedoms and our way of life.” While other stadiums might do this occasionally, none make it a regular part of their pregame ceremony. And only the Yankees explicitly say “prayer”, as opposed to a moment of silence. I don’t want to encourage organizations draping every pregame moment in facades of insincere religious behavior, but a simple silent prayer for the troops surely fits the beliefs of 90 percent of the fan base.

So what’s the problem with Yankee fans? Of all the things they gloat about—and if you encounter them, you know that covers some broad territory—they never bring this up. It’s all about shouting “26 World Championships”, and acting as though it’s only the sheer genius of the organization, rather than dollars spent, that account for that. Yankee fans are completely lacking in any real appreciation of baseball as a sport and are primarily interested in jumping the nearest bandwagon available. They also lack any appreciation of how sports can impact culture in a positive way, as their ignorance of their own finest traditions proves. If we jump over into football, I really have nothing against the Giants per se (beyond the obvious points of division rivalry), but simply knowing most of their fans are Yankee fans in the summer, is enough to make me turn on them.

That’s a wrap for this week, and at the end of this game, it will be a wrap on half the baseball season. Papi and Pedroia have gone deep, Lester looks sharp and we’re up two-zip. It’s going to be an exciting second half. And it’s going to be an equally exciting time for this Big Ten immigrant in Mid-Atlantic Country, as I see more of the East Coast sports world live and up close.