White Suburban Punk

In the wake of the Mike Cameron signing, rumors persist that the Red Sox would consider sending Clay Buchholz and Jacoby Ellsbury to San Diego in exchange for Adrian Gonzalez.  I can understand Padre GM Jed Hoyer asking for Ellsbury, but I seriously doubt Theo would bite.  Ellsbury is the only legitimate speed on the team and should continue to progress into a consistent lead off hitter.  The only move Ellsbury should make is to left field.

According to FanGraphs.com, 36 year old Mike Cameron was the third best defensive center fielder in baseball last season, based on Zone Rating, or UZR, at 10.0.  This measures the number of runs above or below average a fielder is in both range runs, outfield arm runs, double play runs, and error runs combined.  Jacoby Ellsbury was last in baseball, at -18.6. 

Offensively, Cameron may not be as much as a drop off from Jason Bay as the media projects.  2009 statistics:

Admittedly, Cameron’s stats are from the National League, but it’s not as big a discrepancy as one would think.  And Bay’s 2009 zone rating was -13.0.  It looks like he’s going to disappear into the abyss that is the New York Mets.

Meanwhile, what the hell is happening to the Disney Angels?  They’ve lost their ace, John Lackey, their sparkplug, Chone Figgins, and apparently will lose their aging superstar, Vlad Guerrero.  They did sign Hideki Matsui, so I guess all is well.  Their division rivals, the Mariners, have taken Figgins from them and added Cliff Lee to King Felix.  And the Mariners led the AL in ERA last year. 

Liverpool beat Wigan yesterday at Anfield, 2-1.  Once again no clean sheet, after Wigan scored one minute into second half added time.  Liverpool goals came from David Ngog and Fernando Torres, who came off the bench.  Ngog is looking better and better every game.  The team played with much more spirit and verve, unlike the seemingly indifferent play in the Arsenal game.  It was a very entertaining game, pretty open, chippy, and lots of scoring chances.  Torres now has 35 goals in 37 league games at Anfield.  Next up is at Portsmouth on Saturday.  Liverpool still sit in sixth place, 13 points behind Chelsea.  By the way, Fox Soccer has “upgraded” their website, and it’s a total disaster.  It was obviously done by people who have never surfed a sports website in their lives.

The US will play Honduras in January in a World Cup tune up.  Fine, but they would be much better off playing teams they haven’t played before, non-CONCACAF teams.

Wisconsin basketball beat Cal Poly 90-42 last night.  Not quite like in football in 2008, when Cal Poly took UW to overtime and only lost because they missed two extra points.

More Randy Moss analysis: From Merril Hoge, via Michael Vega at Boston.com: 

John Lackey and Mike Cameron to the Sox.  Sweet.  Lackey as a #3 starter?  That’s pretty freaking good.  It’s great that Theo kept these moves so quiet, too.  Just last week I wrote that I wished Lackey was more on the Sox’ radar, and it turns out he was.  I guess Theo isn’t writing off 2010 after all.  Lackey will fit in great with Beckett, Youk, Pedroia, and Victor Martinez.  I really like this plan of attack — there’s no way we’ll ever be able to outslug the yankees, but we could outpitch them.  And improving the defense is key to that.  Jason Bay never seemed like a particularly bad outfielder to me, but the defensive metrics apparently say otherwise.  And Mike Cameron is unquestionably an excellent defensive outfielder.  He can play any of the outfield positions, too, allowing Tito great flexiblity to sit Ellsbury or Drew against tough lefties.

I would also be fine with Adrian Beltre at third base.  Again, excellent defensively, but don’t expect too much with the bat.  If the offense is as bad as the Boston media says it will be, they can always try to add something during the season.  I’m afraid to mention it, but Big Papi claimed he was going to come into camp next year in the best shape of his life.  Just sayin’.

I guess an Adrian Gonzalez deal could still be in play, maybe even more so since they’ve added a quality starter without giving anything up.  It seems that would create a very left handed heavy batting order, though, without a real right handed power hitter.  Still, that would be a nice problem to have.

Ah, Randy Moss.  Sixth in the NFL in receiving.  Opponents double team him so much that it allows Wes Welker to have an absolutely crazy day.  In fact, Welker is #2 in receiving yards and Moss #6 in the league.  And Moss is #5 in the NFL in receiving touchdowns.  Not bad for a quitter.  Sure, his production Sunday definitely didn’t pass the smell test.  So he had a bad game, but the team won.  It appears the coach is behind him, the QB is behind him, and the rest of the team is behind him.  He’s still a captain.  As the Young Fresh Fellows say, everything’s gonna turn out great.

The Patriots should retire Kevin Faulk’s #33 when he retires.

The Celtics have won 11 in a row and have the best record in the NBA.  When is Big Baby coming back?  I thought it was supposed to be December.  Anyway, the only win over an elite team was opening night against Cleveland, but they’re definitely beating the teams they should beat, and looking good doing it. 

Big 10 to add a twelfth team?  I think it would be a good thing at this point.  It could even help in recruiting, and of course an elite conference shouldn’t be sitting home watching everyone else play.  But divisions will be awkward, especially for football.  Do you go east/west, or north/south?  I would think that Michigan and Ohio State have to be together, but then do you include Penn State with those two?  And who exactly is the twelfth team?  Notre Dame, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Missouri?  Don’t even freaking joke about Rutgers.

Liverpool lost to Arsenal 2-1, this weekend, and the misery continues.  They didn’t even look passionate, which is extremely worrying.  So far this year, they’ve really risen to the occasion against the big teams, but not so in this game.  The Europa League draw is Friday.  Juventus and Marseille joined Liverpool in dropping out of the Champions League.

Flight of the Conchords is over after two seasons.  Great show, but probably a good decision.  How far could these guys really go before things got tired?  It was just too creative to go on for too long.  Hopefully they’ll come up with some one-off type stuff, and maybe some HBO specials.

On another TV note, Friday Night Lights has been incredible this season.  Best show on television, bar none.

The news from Patriots camp is pretty insane, with the two losses in a row, the inability to win in someone else’s stadium, the four players being sent home, Adalius Thomas essentially blasting BB, and now Brady supposedly has a rib injury.  Things really seem to be falling apart, but BB has four games to rally them.  It’s been a confusing year.  They still have so much talent on offense, but stunningly can’t execute, especially in crunch time.  I think Bill O’Brien has to get a lot of blame for the play calling.  It seems that whenever they start running the ball effectively, they immediately go away from it.  Please come back, Charlie Weis.  The defense has probably played about as well as anyone could have expected, with the youth and all the new players.  Adalius Thomas and Derrick Burgess appear to be bums, and the lack of a pass rush is killing them.  Any secondary would look bad put in that situation.  It’s incredible that they’ve already lost as many games this year as last year, especially considering how Matt Cassel has played this year.  Four games to get their act together, get back to basics, and PLAY TO WIN THE GAME.

The Sox are reportedly close to consummating the deal trading Mike Lowell to the Rangers.  Great guy, 2007 World Series MVP, but the team just has to have better defense on third base.  Of course, they now have to replace his bat, too.  I would think they’re either going to trade for Adrian Gonzalez or sign Adrian Beltre.  If they trade for Gonzalez, Roy Halladay is obviously out.  My guess is that Jason Bay will re-sign here, but if not, I don’t think they’ll get Matt Holliday.  LF would probably end up being a platoon between Jeremy Hermida and somebody like Xavier Nady. 

Is everyone excited about Marco Scutaro?  No.  Boof Bonser?  No, but I’ve actually always liked him.  He was a first round pick in 2000, and is now coming off shoulder surgery.  Good risk, but probably not lots of upside.  After the yankees traded for Curtis Granderson, if they get Bay or Matt Holliday or, god forbid, Doc Halladay, just forget 2010 and 2011.  Although Doc is probably out for them now after trading away one of their top prospects in the Granderson deal.  They could sign John Lackey, though, which would be almost as bad.  I’ve always liked him; it’s too bad the Sox don’t seem to be looking at him any closer.  Theo did have a comment about 2010 being a “bridge” to the future, and it’s getting to the point where no one will be able to compete with yankees next year anyway, so why bother.

The only good news this offseason has been the report that Peter Gammons is leaving the four letter network to join MLB Network and NESN.  Welcome home, Commish.

Badger football doesn’t get a New Year’s Day bowl game after the Outback Bowl bizarrely picked Northwestern.  Sure, they beat the Badgers, but we had a better overall record.  Anyway, I much prefer the matchup against Miami.  Better team than Auburn, and Miami is a team I truly hate.  Incidentally, ESPN’s 30 For 30 show is doing “The U” this Saturday night.  I’ve watched all the episodes so far of this thing, and it’s really good.

Badger hoops got themselves ranked after beating Duke, and then lost in OT at UW-Green Bay.  Harsh, but it looks like UWGB is actually a pretty good team, so hopefully that loss won’t look so bad later in the season.  Marquette is up this Saturday at 6:00 Eastern on ESPN2, in Madison.  Gotta win that one.

Badger hockey is on a nice roll, and they look like they could be for real this season.  They’re #11 in the country now, and they play at #3 North Dakota this weekend.  Friday night’s game will be televised on the NHL network, and I think they usually use the Badger announcers for those games.  The trend this year is for the Badgers to massively outshoot their opponents, at least with shots that reach the goalie.  Five of Wisconsin’s six defensemen have been drafted in the first two rounds of the NHL draft.

Liverpool finished up their Champions League schedule with yet another hard luck loss, this time to Fiorentina at Anfield, giving up the game winning goal basically at the death.  They play a huge game against Arsenal Sunday at Anfield.  I think it will be televised on Fox Soccer Channel.  It looks like Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard will both start for the first time since October.

Everton is supposedly in talks to get Landon Donovan on loan from the MLS.  Hopefully it happens, but I’m skeptical.  The league owns all the contracts in the MLS, and they have a history of asking for exorbitant sums for players on loan.  It would be great for Landycakes, though, and I would be really curious to see how he performs in the Premiership.

That’s all I got.

I’ll add my voice to the joke of the Gold Glove (or as Dennis Eckersley would say, golden glove) Awards voting.  The great Bill James provides the best counterargument with his Fielding Bible.  He uses a panel of ten experts, including himself, to vote on the best fielders by position in major league baseball.  Of course, this is subjective, but so is the Gold Glove voting, which is done by managers and coaches in each league.  The Fielding Bible uses Bill James, Joe Posnanski, Peter Gammons, and Rob Neyer, among others.  Here are the 2009 Gold Glove winners, with their rank by the Fielding Bible:

AL

C Joe Mauer     3rd

1B Mark Teixeira     4th

2B Placido Polanco     6th

3B Evan Longoria     4th

SS Derek Jeter     17th (tied with Hanley Ramirez!)

OF Torii Hunter    9th

OF Adam Jones    22nd

OF Ichiro     1st

P Mark Buehrle     1st

NL

C Yadier Molina     1st

1B Adrian Gonzalez    3rd

2B Orlando Hudson     5th

3B Ryan Zimmerman     1st

SS Jimmy Rollins     8th

OF Michael Bourn     5th

OF Matt Kemp    14th

OF Shane Victorino     13th

P Adam Wainwright     24th (tie)

Now, some caveats.  The Fielding Bible ranks all major league players by position, that is, there is only one winner in all of baseball for each position.  And the Fielding Bible also breaks the outfielders down by position, left, center, and right, which seems to make more sense.  The NL Gold Glove outfield is all center fielders, while the AL has two center fielders and a right fielder.

The biggest disparities are Mr. Fist Pump, Adam Jones, and Adam Wainwright.

Here is the Fielding Bible’s list of 2009′s best defensive players in baseball:

C Yadier Molina

1B Albert Pujols

2B Aaron Hill

3B Ryan Zimmerman

SS Jack Wilson

LF Carl Crawford

CF Franklin Gutierrez

RF Ichiro

P Mark Buehrle

And here are the Fielding Bible’s ranks of Red Sox players:

C Varitek 11th

1B Youk 2nd

2B Pedroia 2nd

3B Lowell received no votes

SS Alex Gonzalez received one vote, 19th

LF Bay 10th

CF Ellsbury received no votes

RF Drew 8th

P Lester was the only Sox pitcher to receive any votes, 17th

The great Joe Posnanski wrote a great article for SI about the Yankees here.  Actually, his blog posting may be better, and that’s here.

He breaks down the numbers, and here they are:
In 2002, the Yankees spent $17 million more in payroll than any other team.
In 2003, the Yankees spent $35 million more in payroll than any other team.
In 2004, the Yankees spent $57 million more in payroll than any other team.
In 2005, the Yankees spent $85 million more in payroll than any other team.
In 2006, the Yankees spent $74 million more in payroll than any other team.
In 2007, the Yankees spent $40 million more in payroll than any other team.
In 2008, the Yankees spent $72 million more in payroll than any other team.
In 2009, the Yankees spent $52 million more in payroll than any other team.

And the Red Sox have twice as many championships as the Yankees this century.  Now that’s quite an accomplishment.  Now word comes that the Yankees are supposedly interested in John Lackey.  I guess they have Matsui and Damon coming off the payroll, and maybe Pettite, but WTF?

The Sox traded for Jeremy Hermida, who I have always liked.  I’ve had him on fantasy teams twice, always for that unfulfilled potential.  It’s a good risk, a risk that a team like the Red Sox, with a top 5 payroll, have to take.  Not much risk-taking in the Bronx.  Meanwhile, the Sox declined the $6 million option on Alex Gonzalez, which is not surprising, and picked up the $7.1 million option on V-Mart, also not surprising.  I guess they’re going to look into bringing Gonzalez back for less money, especially now that JJ Hardy was traded to Minnesota by Milwaukee.  My eyes say that Gonzo really shored up the infield D last season, but apparently the defensive metrics say he wasn’t that good.  I know I had a lot more confidence with him out there than anyone else last year, that’s for sure.  He also showed some rare pop with the bat.

The GM meetings are coming up soon, so maybe there will be some hot stove action.  I don’t think there usually is, though.  Action comes later.

Cliff Lee dominated the yankees last night, just dominated.  From the nonchalant catch of a pop up to his behind-the-back stab of a one-hopper, to his ten strikeouts and complete game, 122 pitch performance.  The Stadium was silenced.  A-Roid, after tearing through the division series and ALCS, went 0-4 with 3 strikeouts.  Back to the old A-Roid?  Now Pedro takes on AJ Burnett tonight in Game 2.  Burnett is an imposter, but I really hope Pedro pitches well.  I haven’t looked forward to a WS game like this that didn’t involve the Red Sox in a long, long time.  I really wonder if the fans will chant “who’s your daddy” at Pedro.  Do they remember how that worked out for them last time?  Hopefully the Phils will pound Burnett so hard that Pedro can just go six and leave with the lead.  That would be perfect.  Then Girardi can go through 10 more pitchers all while having the look on his face like he’s taking a crap.

The Celtics are 2-0 in the new season, beating the Cavs on the road and destroying Charlotte in the home opener last night.  The Celtics didn’t even play all that well last night and still cruised.  Looking good.  They’re so much deeper than last year and KG looks better than I thought he would.  The defense is intense as always, too.  And Rondo hasn’t really shown all that much yet, at least as far as being aggressive taking the ball to the hole.  I’m sure that will come soon.  Rasheed is an absolutely awesome addition to this team.

Liverpool beat Manyoo 2-0 on Sunday and looked terrific doing it.  Torres played and scored, but Gerrard wasn’t able to make it onto the field.  They did show him sitting with his lovely wife Alex several times, though.  They played with great tenacity and life, really for the first time this year.  The team apparently lost yesterday to Arsenal in the Carling Cup, but the big teams usually play a lot of youngsters in that competition.  Alberto Aquilani was supposed to make his Liverpool debut in that game and he should be able to help the big club soon.  He was one of the two big signings over the summer, and I think he’s coming back from a broken ankle.  Looking forward to seeing him play.  Liverpool now sits fifth in the Premiership, six points behind Chelsea, although Man City and Villa have a game in hand behind them.  The Reds play Fulham on the road Saturday.

Wisconsin plays Purdue at Camp Randall Saturday.  Hopefully the bye did them a world of good.  They’re on a two game losing streak right now, and are seven point favorites.  That may be a little high.  The Badgers haven’t really beaten anyone soundly all year, and we’ll see if Scott Tolzien continues to throw bad interceptions.  Maybe the kid, Curt Phillips, will see more of the field in this game.

Badger hockey hosts UNH for two this weekend, but neither game is on tv.  I wonder if there will be any arrests of UNH players, given that it’s Halloween weekend in Madtown.

The Bruins host New Jersey tonight.  The Devils were a boring team to watch before, now their coach is Jacques “neutral zone trap” Lemaire.  I plan to stick to baseball.  The Devils are 6-4 on the year, the Bruins 5-4-1.  The B’s currently sit in fourth place in the Northeast Division.

October 13, 2009

Well, that sucked.  Badgers lose to Ohio State for their first loss of the season, Red Sox lose game 3 at Fenway to get swept by the Angels, and the Patriots blow a lead and lose at Denver in overtime.  Ouch.  That’s gonna leave a mark.

To start with Badgers, what a bizarre game.  Wisconsin basically dominated the game, outgaining OSU 368-184, owning the time of possession 42:47-17:13, and only turning the ball over one more time than the Buckeyes, 2-1.  But the team that dominated got blown out.  Killed.  Destroyed.  Annihilated.  Both Wisconsin turnovers were returned for touchdowns and the real killer was the kickoff return for touchdown in the third quarter after UW had cut the lead to 21-13.  That was all she wrote, despite the statistical imbalances.  The encouraging thing for Badger fans is that there is no doubt that UW belonged on the field with Ohio State.  Matt Millen kept repeating (and repeating and repeating) that UW was losing the battle at the line of scrimmage, and maybe they were on certain plays.  But taken as a whole, Wisconsin moved the ball extremely effectively all day, and Ohio State simply did not.  Wisconsin had 22 first downs, Ohio State, 8.  Terrelle Pryor: 5-13 for 87 yards, 1 TD and 1 interception.  Of course, the touchdown was huge, coming right before the end of the first half, and really the only time all day that Ohio State moved the ball offensively.  The bottom line is that Ohio State made big plays when they absolutely needed to, and that won them the game.  Ouch.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, simply got outplayed for three games.  The Angels were just as good as the Red Sox last year, but they essentially choked late in games (remember, they were all close).  This time, they didn’t choke, and if anything, the Red Sox did.  At least, their closer chose an awful time to not be clutch.  But really, the Angels weren’t really lacing the ball off Papelbon, they were more Texas Leaguers that showed that it just wasn’t the Sox’ year.  Now, next year is probably the last run for this group of core players.  Ortiz, Lowell, Beckett, and Victor Martinez, are all free agents after next season (although Sox have 2011 club option on Ortiz for $12.5 million).  One would have to believe that Theo and company will try to extend Martinez this winter, but it’ll be interesting to see what they do with Beckett.  Clearly, he is among the best pitchers in the game and he is 29 years old.  Do the Sox risk letting him play out his contract next year, or try to extend him this winter?  My guess is they try to extend him, but it will be costly.  He made $10.5 million in 2009 and is due for $12.1 million in 2010, relatively a bargain for a starting pitcher of his caliber.  Of course, the big question immediately is Jason Bay.  How aggressive will teams like the Giants, and, yes, the Yankees, be in going after one of the only outfielders with thump who is on the market this winter?  The top of the minor leagues is now essentially bereft of talent, so can we really expect the Sox to improve over this season?  Right now, it doesn’t seem likely to this observor.  For this reason, I believe the Sox will be aggressive this winter in trying to trade for a young, impact player, be it Adrian Gonzalez, Felix Hernandez, or Prince Fielder.  If that doesn’t happen, I think it will be a while before the Sox approach 95 wins again.

Ah, the Patriots.  It seems so bizarre to be worried about the offense when Brady and Moss are both healthy.  And this talk that the offensive struggles were due to Welker being out appear to have been overblown.  Yes, Fred Taylor is out now, too, but this is football, for crying out loud.  Somebody is always hurt.  Remember, in 2007, this offense overcame absolutely everything to win and win and win.  So what’s wrong?  I’ve got to come down on the quarterback play, although the offensive line doesn’t look the same, either.  I have every confidence that the quarterback play will improve as the season goes on, and the Patriots will be a dangerous team come playoff time.  Super Bowl?  I don’t know.  I was very confident before the season started, but now this team just doesn’t look like the old dominant Patriots.  And there are some much better teams in the AFC now, as well.  The Colts are playing as well as they ever have, the Broncos are one of those teams that plays good defense and doesn’t make mistakes, Baltimore is good, and you’ve got to believe that Pittsburgh and San Diego will be there at the end.  I guess I’d even have to put the Jests up there.  I think we’ve got parity here, folks.  Of course, it’s only week 5 and things tend change rather gradually between now and the playoffs.  Teams that look unbeatable now will look very beatable in January.  And hopefully for the Patriots, the opposite will be true as well.

It’s been bothering me for quite a while how J.D. Drew seems to get far more than his share of criticism from the Boston media and even some of the fans.  I remember sitting in the first base side grandstand in early 2007 for Drew’s first homestand with the Red Sox and after an opposition single to right field, the rather large and certainly loud woman sitting in front of me stood up and yelled, “Nixon woulda had it!”  This attitude does not seem to have diminished despite a World Series championship and stellar individual postseason play.  Personally, I love the way Drew plays the game.  I love the smooth swing and the gap power.  I feel confident with him in right field at Fenway, the most difficult in the game.  I consider him a good baserunner and a heady player.  But it seems I’m always defending him.  So let’s look at the numbers.  How does J.D. Drew compare to other American League right fielders?  With Sunday’s close of the regular season, Drew’s third season in Boston, we can take a look at relevant offensive stats and salaries for American League right fielders.

The incessant drone from the local blabberers of the airwaves about “Nancy” Drew and the supposedly overpaid Red Sox right fielder simply is not borne out by his production on the field.  In fact, Drew played very close to his career averages in 2009, at the age of 33.  He missed just 25 games (less than Kevin Youkilis) and ranked fifth on the team in games played, behind just Pedroia, Ellsbury, Bay, and Ortiz.  Ichiro had nearly 100 more hits than Drew, yet Drew still led him in OBP by .006 and outslugged him by the relatively wide margin of .057.  And Ichiro only had four more runs scored than Drew, while being paid $4 million a year more.

Michael Cuddyer certainly had an excellent season for the Twins, yet despite the eight more home runs, their slugging percentages were essentially equal and Drew reached base at rate of .050 more.

Shin-Soo Choo appears to be a player on the rise.  At age 26, the Indians outfielder completed his first full season in the majors.  20 home runs and 21 stolen bases in 156 games are very impressive numbers.

Nick Swisher has the reputation of an on base machine, but he actually had a career high slugging percentage this year, at age 28.  Neither his OBP nor his slugging compare to Drew’s.  In fact, Swisher has never reached Drew’s 2009 OBP in any season of his career.

If the local blabberers want to focus on overpaid AL right fielders, check out Magglio Ordonez, Jermaine Dye, and Jose Guillen.  In fact, Guillen is signed through 2010 by the Royals for $12 million.  Also, Nick Markakis signed a contract extension before the 2009 season for 6 years and $66 million.  The 25 year old may have brighter days ahead, but 2009 was fairly typical of his previous three seasons of full time big league play.

It appears that Drew is penalized for not kissing the butts of the knights of the airwaves, and they will have two more seasons to continue deriding him.  But with his production in a Boston uniform so far, Theo and the rest of Red Sox Nation should be quite pleased with the results.