August 2nd, 2007 → 10:18 am @ Seth Mnookin
Despite the blatherings of some folks on sundry Yankee boards, Eric Gagne did not, as the entire world now knows, end up in the Bronx; instead, he now makes up a third of the best back-end bullpen in baseball. Lord knows we all love Papelbon, but there’ll definitely be days when it’ll be better for everyone to have Hideki “Darkman” Okajima or Eric “I can once again break Hefty trash bags with my fastball” Gagne on the mound. (Despite his recent disappearance, even Mike Timlin has been pitching well — much to my surprise.)
Plenty of ink has already been spilled about this deal, so I’ll keep my thoughts brief. To wit:
* Unlike many folks, I wasn’t overjoyed about this deal when I first heard it. Trading prospects for half-season rentals oftentimes doesn’t work out — the team giving up the young guns is more likely to be on the Bagwell-to-Houston side of things than the Tek-and-Lowe to Boston one. But — and this is a big, big, but — the Sox are going to get two compensatory draft picks if Gagne goes somewhere else in ’08 (and you can bet your ass Boras will make sure he closes in ’08 and beyond) b/c EG is a Type A free agent. (If that was all gibberish to you, here’s an explanation.)+ The Red Sox have developed among the best, if not the best, group of talent evaluators in baseball, and I’m 100 percent confident those two picks will be put to good use.
* Most crucially — to me, anyway — is the fact that this deal is a clear indication that Theo, Jed, John, Larry, and the rest of the Sox’s front office fully believes this team is good enough to win a championship. At last year’s trade deadline, the absence of any moves was justified, unconvincingly, by Theo crying poverty. He said that because there was no way he could go public with the truth: the ’06 Sox weren’t ever serious contenders and it didn’t make any sense whatsoever to sacrifice prospects (or cash) for a half-season rental just to appease some instant-gratification addicted fans. Gagne’s contract isn’t prohibitive, but Gabbard and Murphy are two legit prospects, the kind it’s only worth dealing if there’s a clear and obvious reason for the person coming over in return. The Sox shelled out a lot of money this offseason, and they’re still adding players. The last time we saw this kind of outlay? Before the ’04 season, when Theo & Co went all out to get Schill and Foulke on board.
* Another crucial aspect of this deal is the protection it gives to Red Sox arms. Tito has been excellent in his bullpen use this year; that said, Okajima has been in a lot of games and there have been times when Papelbon hasn’t been in enough games. (This is two sides of the same coin: the Sox are understandably worried about JP’s arm and want to keep him available whenever he might be needed, which has resulted in both other reliable guys getting thrown out there a lot and Papelbon not getting as much tune-up work as he would ideally have.) One more ace will make it a lot easier to mix and match in the 8th and 9th.
* Gabbard, as we all saw over the last month, has a chance to be a good major league pitcher, and lefty starters don’t grow on trees. That said, the Red Sox still have the best collection of young pitchers/rising prospects in the game: Papelbon, Lester, Delcarmen, David Pauley, Clay Buccholz (who some members of the Sox FO think is the best of them all). (Yes, Craig Hansen, he of 4.47 Pawtucket ERA, is not included on this list.) Likewise, Murphy will likely have a healthy major league career…but in addition to the still under-market salaries of Youk and Pedroia, the Sox had Jed Lowrie, Brandon Moss, and Jacob Ellsbury, a trio of promising (and occasionally mouth watering) 23-year-olds. This is the best example of the ruling philosophy I wrote about in Feeding the Monster (available from Amazon for $10.20 – cheap!): the Sox want to hoard prospects not only so they can develop their own talent, but also so they a) can control high impact players before they hit the open market precisely so they can afford to shell out big bucks to difference maker free agents, b) will have a deep enough reservoir of minor league talent to have available trade chips when they have a chance to land a crucial piece of the puzzle.
* The season, obviously, is still not over and there remain, obviously, some holes — most noticeably in right field. That said, if everything starts clicking at once, the ’07 Sox will be scary good. A fully healthy rotation of Beckett-Dice K-Schill-Wakefield-Lester and a back-end bullpen of Okie-Gagne-Paps has to be terrifying. (To put it another way, a starting five consisting of a fastballer with a 10-6 curve, someone who combines mid-90s heat with three other plus pitches (including a nasty change), a control and split-finger specialist, a knuckler, and a lefty…and a pen with a soft-throwing lefty with a baffling delivery, the man with the best change up of the last decade, and the original Baby Faced Assassin. That’s nasty.)
* At the beginning of the year, a member of the Sox FO told me he felt the team had had more difficulty putting together a bullpen than anything else. They finally seem to have figured it out, and now they look like geniuses. But they’re not — or at least they’re not because of the bullpen — and they weren’t morons because the pen didn’t work out in the past. Relievers, more than anyone else, are hard to predict. Obviously no one knew Okajima would be the Sox’s equivalent of K-Rod in ’02; if he, along with Joel “Wild Eyes” Pineiro, had both sucked ass, a lot of things would be different right now.
+ As Keith Law pointed out, we won’t know until the year if Gagne’s going to be a Type A FA, so the Sox actually aren’t guaranteed to two picks…but he’d need to pretty awful for that to happen.
Post Categories: and Mnookins & Denis Leary & Mel Gibson & Mike Timlin & Wrestlemania
August 15th, 2006 → 8:34 pm @ Seth Mnookin
WEDNESDAY MORNING EDIT: In retrospect, this was the most fun I had on Tuesday night.
Denis Leary and Lenny Clarke came by the NESN broadcast booth for an inning of tonight’s game. It started out smoothly enough — you know, Clarke talking about sex hernias, that sort of thing. Then, as so often happens in baseball, the conversation turned to race a religion.
Denis Leary: Now, Youkilis, is he a Greek kid?
Jerry Remy: No, I don’t think so.
Don Orsillo: I think he’s Jewish.
JR: He’s Jewish, yeah.
Lenny Clarke: Really?
DL: that’s fantastic. That’s one bottle of whiskey away from being Irish Catholic. They got the Manischewitz, we got the Jamesons. It’s the same guilt, the same bad food. That’s fantastic, we got a Jewish first baseman! I didn’t know that. This is fabulous. …I’m so proud to have a Jewish first baseman. i didn’t even know!
LC: I hope Mel Gibson doesn’t come into this park. We’ll run him out of here on a rail.
Jerry Remy begins hacking; it sounds as if he might be on the verge of losing a lung. Sean Casey hits a ball sharply in between first and second. Youkilis snares the ball from his knees and tosses to Curt Schilling for the out.
DL: Nice! Yeah, where’s Mel Gibson now! Where’s Mel Gibson now, huh? He’s in rehab! he’s in rehab and Youkilis has got first base, alright Mel! (Don Orsillo giggles uncontrollably.) You happy Braveheart, huh? You see that grab, Mel? I hope in rehab they’re showing replays of that. A Jewish first baseman makes the play, Mel Gibson! Good luck when you come out. Call Jeffrey Katzenberg and ask for a job when you get out. We’ll have a whole Jewish infield by the time he gets out. Bring back Sandy Koufax, Mel Gibson, huh? Braveheart, my ass. Thatta boy, Kev.
LC: We should have Sandy Koufax pitch at Mel’s head.
DL: That should be his community service, get in the box against Sandy Koufax. Guess who’s at first base? Kevin Youkilis!
LC: Now what other Jewish players are there, because I’m not aware.
JR: Gabe Kapler, I think.
DL: Gabe Kapler! We got two Jews on this team, Mel! Where’s your father now, huh?
LC: How about that, Mel?
DL: Yeah. It feels good to get that out, didn’t it?
LC: We’ve got quite a team.
LC: Are we in trouble?
DL: No, we’re not in trouble. They don’t have TVs in rehab.
LC: Oh, I don’t care about Mel.
Beat.
DO: Um, your website‘s here. (Points to computer monitor.)
DL: Oh, wonderful!
DL: That’s learyfirefighters.org, and if you go to the Jeremiah Lucey Fund that will help all the New Orleans firefighters, and if you didn’t know, no firefighters, not a single member of that department quit between the time Katrina hit and right now, a year later, not one member.
LC: That’s right.
Beat.
DL: Boy, I’m so happy about that Kevin Youkilis thing.
LC: And Kapler! I didn’t even know!
DL: Well you know what’s gonna happen, Gibson’s gonna make amends: ‘Oh, I love the Red Sox! I love the first baseman!’ Oh yeah, sure you do. Sure you do Mel.
LC: If I were Youkilis and Kapler I’d say, well, listen, am I in your next movie?
DL: Can we put some blue paint on our faces? Come on, Braveheart, huh? Look, I don’t know Mel. Why are we jumping all over him, you know what i mean? He had a little bit of tequila. You know those days. You were there.
LC: Now wait a minute, I never got personal. I never went with religion.
DL: No you didn’t. You always went with the face and the ugly and the fat and the nice dress and your girlfiend.
LC: It doesn’t matter what religion, you treat me good I’ll treat you better.
DL: That’s right.
Curt Schilling throws to Youkilis to pick Craig Monroe off of first.
DL: Ahhhh! Mel gibson take a look at that!
LC: Mel Gibson, eat your heart out! Youkilis tosses the ball to a fan in the stands. And look at that! The ball went to a fan! That’s more than Mel Gibson’s ever done!
DO: See you later.
DL: Hope we didn’t get you in trouble.
DO: Thanks a lot, guys.
And…scene.
UPDATE: Deadspin has tracked down the video.
Post Categories: Denis Leary & Mel Gibson
