Offseason Review: Boston Red Sox

I know there is a good chance that we'll see some last minute trades and signings, but with the 2012 season just weeks away I figured I'd start recapping the offseason team by team. I'm going do it Eastern, Central, Western, American League first.
 

BOSTON RED SOX

Perennial MVP Candidate Adrian Gonzalez

Last year I picked the Red Sox to beat the Phillies 4-1 in the World Series. WOOPS! This year I predict that the Boston Red Sox are going to beat the Phillies 4-1 in the World Series. Here's why: the Red Sox went all out in acquiring and signing Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford respectively. And while there was a bust in Crawford, Gonzalez did exactly what he was expected to do, and that is smash the living shit out of the ball.  The starting three pitchers should be, at the very, very least competent enough to win games assuming they stay healthy. By my estimation it would be a very reactionary move to identify a team of this caliber with last year's late season collapse.

The Red Sox let iconic fist pumping, death glaring closer Jonathan Papelbon walk and responded by acquiring Mark Melancon from the Astros and Andrew Bailey from the Athletics. They are replacing a mediocre/aging J.D. Drew with possible breakout candidate Ryan Sweeney who is trading in the cavernous Coliseum for the hitter-friendly Fenway Park. There is a weak back two spots in the rotation but Oswalt is a likely candidate to help shore that up, and with the likely departure of (probably former) captain Jason Varitek, a door opens for promising catching prospect Ryan Lavarnway.

THE POWER OF RYAN LAVARNWAY



The only major issue is at short. The Sox...for whatever reason... traded away Jed Lowrie in the Melancon deal and Scutaro for RHP Clayton Mortensen. They have Nick Punto, but I can hardly type that out without wanting to punch a whole in my goddamn computer screen for how goddamn stupid it is to not even trying to rely on Nick goddamn Punto to play the hardest defensive position in baseball... still I'm sure they will figure it out. Worst case scenario, Pedro Ciriaco is in their system and for some dumb reason I have faith in that guy.

Nick Punto in all his wobbly glory

Seriously though, you have my prediction. Boston Red Sox in five.

Contract Corner: Elvis Andrus, Jeff Suppan

2010 All Star Elvis Andrus

Yesterday the Texas Rangers and shortstop Elvis Andrus avoided arbitration by coming to an agreement on a three year 14.4MM contract. This is a pretty sensible contract, albeit questionable in necessity. The three year deal eats all of his arbitration seasons doesn't delay his free agency, so it kind of begs the question as to why this would even need to happen? With promising prospect Jurickson Profar waiting in the wings it seems a little premature to lock someone down at a position that's as difficult to draft suitors for as shortstop. Still, three years gives both players time to prove their  respective roles in the organization. If I had to guess, they wanted to lock proven all-star Elvis Andrus down in case his value increases without gambling a whole lot of cash.  All in all I'd say it's a win.

As a Brewer's fan seeing this dingus' face pisses me off, but I guess I get it. Depth is important for any franchise and it won't be bad for Padres coming up to get some pointers from ol' soup but don't expect much in terms of quality.  Apparently he'll make almost a mil if he makes the majors but given his close to 5 ERA last year in Kansas City's minors, I wouldn't count on it. You can pretty much copy and paste the review of this deal for Russell Branyan and Mike Cameron's contracts using mediocre offensive/defensive stats. Wasn't even thinking about the fact that they are all ex-Brewers.

21-17

THE INTIMIDATOR

I know I said I don't care about the Super Bowl, but if you're anything like me there were a few instances where you were thrust from your throne of ambivalence and made to hop around like you were being controlled by a drunken marionette operator. I had no vested interest in either team, my enthusiasm was wrought from the admiration of skill and effort. The instinct that I had indicating a Giants win held true but it was all gut. My capacity for drinking heavy beers was dramatically overstated.

The reason I'm approaching my Super Bowl review with zero analysis or play by play is because I think there are a ton of people like me who watched and enjoyed despite who might win. I missed the Eastwood commercial so I can't give that credit for getting all jacked up, but I went in to the second half energized and focused, which is way more than I can say for most events that I don't deem sobriety worthy. Perhaps it was Madonna's innovative and unprecedented call for world peace... either way.

Admittedly, and probably horribly evident in my writing, my sports renaissance occurred later in my life. Unlike other Wisconsinite 80's babies who carry with them vivid memories of Favre's green and gold victories, my youth was spent collecting awful punk compilations and adhering to since-proven-fairweather politics. Still, I've been absorbing sports and sports information at such an intense frequency over the past half of a decade that not everything Wisconsin sports can excite me anymore. My loyalty towards a team is less about uniform and more about athletic performance. So, it goes without saying that the Super Bowl, the cumulative showdown resulting from a series of one and done games, shouldn't be exciting. This game was.

It's refreshing to shut off the sports scope and just watch a bunch of dudes put there heart in to the game. Even the slop and the imprecision were noted by passion and intensity. Grit can be what separates a boring blowout or low-scoring  snore fest from a fucking awesome game, which we were given on Sunday. I'm happy for both teams and don't even really care that the Packers didn't make it this year.

I also want to think Scrimshaw Pilsner for being an excellent accompaniment to the implicit indulgence that comes along with watching a football game with friends and family.

Contract Corner: Todd Coffey

God damn you Dodgers and your taking all of my favorite mediocre ex-Brewer free agents! Relief pitcher and former National, Brewer and Red is now Dodger. After a pitiful 82-79 year for a team with a Cy Young award winning pitcher and deserving candidate for the NL MVP award, the Los Angeles Dodgers did an impressive job collecting forgettable free agents for no discernible reason.  Todd Coffey is now joins Chris Capuano and Jerry Hairston Jr as another not great ex-Brewer-now-Dodger who I still really liked for whatever reason.  I can't really make sense out of signings of players like this other than that they might serve as trade chips for low end prospects down the line, but to what end? I'd try and find the logic that's inherit in them not having an owner right now but that kind of got blasted to bits when I heard they made a huge run at Fielder. Oh well, whatever! Here's to you, Mr. Coffey. I hope the California sun casts beautifully over your giant belly at Dodger stadium as you make your mad dash from the bullpen.

The Fourty Million Dollar Bar Tab

2010 AL MVP Josh Hamilton

First off I want to say that addiction isn't even kind of funny. The chemical dependance on substances is tragic and the ability to resist it with even a measure of success should be applauded. The pressure Josh Hamilton must have gone through to remain sober as long as he did is immeasurable and shouldn't be looked down on.

All that being said, the mistake he made in a bar in Dallas on Monday should be criticized. The details regarding Hamilton's relapse are pretty foggy and probably will remain that way because it looks like it came with relatively little scandal. Something that is known is that at one point his teammate Ian Kinsler stopped by the bar to discourage Hamilton from further drinking. The fact that Hamilton was cognizant enough of the wrongfulness of his decision making to let Kinsler know what was up indicates a lot. Scandal or not, the sheer awfulness of this decision can't go unmentioned.

Seeing as this is at least loosely about sports I'll keep my opinions within that scope. In terms of an athlete's contract, this couldn't have come at a much worse time for Josh.  Internal debates within the Rangers organization, once seemingly split down the middle, likely shifted decisively in one direction about what's going to happen with the 2010 MVP. It simply can't make sense for an already strained franchise to invest heavily in a player who's afflictions are already laid out for them. The "three or four drinks" Hamilton ingested in a "weak moment" may have cost him millions and millions of dollars. I hope for his sake that the fan base and newspapers recognize that as punishment enough so he can focus on his recovery. Godspeed!

Kamikaze

In three days, a rematch between the New York Giants and New England Patriots of Homeric proportions will be staged in Indianapolis. Super Bowl Sunday, and no matter who wins, tales will be forged in the mouths of the fans of both teams that will be told until they die. The Super Bowl, an ultimately arbitrary happening, contends with and probably more often blights major disasters and war in overall new coverage. And I couldn't care less.

That's not accurate, I care. I care about the visceral experiences of snack eating, excessive drinking and yelling that elite athletes in their prime attempting feats on the biggest possible stage that would kill me if ever attempted by me... suck. I care about it because its fun, but the investment is non-existent.  Today a friend of mine asked who I wanted to win, and I came up short by half-assedly giving some forgettable bullshit about rooting for underdogs. Frankly, the pedantic grooming attributed to Super Bowl marketing irritates the shit out of me, and only serves to water itself down.

This a sports blog, and only kind of. I am a grumpy, impatient baseball fan who has thus far only written objective analysis in an attempt to seem professional. That got exhausting so now I'm going to write flailing opinion pieces ranting about what I think is so goddamn wrong all the time or how awesome something is. I'm not going to be too intellectual about it, I'm not going to go to deep. I figured I'd start by undermining any notion of integrity someone may have in me as a writer about sports by talking about how dumb The Super Bowl is. 

Take note: this is a clumsily written intro about what I'm going to attempt to do with this blog. Usually I won't start writing an hour before I have to go to work, but inspiration sparked me and I decided to not take it for granted. Spring training is just around the corner. I can't wait.