It’s Like a Whirlpool, and it Never Ends

OK. Before I get into the craziness, the analysis, the recounting, let’s keep it simple. The Red Sox are a better team with Adrian Gonzalez on Monday than they were without him on Friday. They are much better. I couldn’t be happier. Now, for a couple things…

I’m going to assume that Theo knew the deal would get done no matter what happened on Sunday. I’m going to assume that he didn’t pass on the deal, see Werth sign his ridiculous contract with the Nationals, go “Oh shoot!” and go begging back to A-Gone. I’m going to assume that he knew he’d eventually find a way to sign Gonzalez, even if it wasn’t within the 24-hour window. I’ll assume that he had no intention of walking away from a guy he so coveted just because of a couple million dollars…you know, like he did with ARod. Why am I going to assume this? Because the alternative is just too frightening.

So, the Sox have their man. They had to give up some prospects to do it. Not a terrible issue. You weren’t going to strip a premier player from San Diego by offering them up Dice-K. It takes money to make money. Thankfully, the Sox had some money they didn’t need any more. Casey Kelly has lots of upside. He has tons of upside. But, it’s upside that the Red Sox don’t need. Jon Lester is under contract until at least 2013. Buchholz is still working through his cheap years, and will be around for a while now. Beckett and Lackey are here through 2014. So, the Sox may have lost a guy who would be their fifth starter for the next four years. Even if Kelly becomes an elite pitcher, will we regret being stuck with Lester and Buchholz at the top of the Sox rotation? Not if it means we also have Gonzalez. Likewise, the need for a top first base prospect drops with Gonzalez clogging up that spot for the next eight years. The only spots the Red Sox should need to fill in the next three-five years are shortstop and outfield. They hung onto their top prospects in those two positions. Not a bad job. Plus, trading potential for proven is OK any day of the week. And, apparently, twice on Sunday.

So, how much better are the Red Sox now? It depends on what you’re using to measure things. Adam was nice enough to point out that Gonzalez+Salty is less than Martinez+Beltre. That’s kind of true, but not true enough. It may be true when you consider the monster year that Beltre put up in 2010. It may be true if you don’t look down the road. But, it’s not true if you look at the whole picture. Would anyone project those numbers from Beltre again in 2011? I doubt it. Does anyone think that even if V-Mart put up the same numbers, he wouldn’t be doing some playing at first or DH? If Victor is playing first or DH, Saltalamacchia is catching those games. Maybe, just maybe, if you took the supposed 2010 starting line-up and used either projections or finals results, the Sox might be worse off. Take the Ellsbury-Pedroia-Martinez-Youkilis-Beltre-Ortiz-Cameron-Drew-Scutaro line-up. Use projections for Ells, Pedroia, Youk, and Cameron and add on actual results for Martinez, Ortiz, Scutaro and Beltre. Now, take the 2011 projections for the Ells-Pedey-Gonzalez-Youk-Ortiz-Cameron-Drew-Salty-Scutaro line-up. You might be slightly higher with the first one, but that doesn’t really matter. If you want to do that, you need to do it at the end of 2011 as well. Which is a pretty round-a-bout way of saying, I don’t care about the G+S-M-B math. I care about the math where Pedroia replaces Hall, Youkilis replaces Beltre, Salty replaces Martinez, Gonzalez replaces Anderson, Ellsbury replaces Nava, and Cameron replaces McDonald. That’s the one that matters. The 2011 line-up is leaps and bounds better than the line-up the Yankees faced last October. That line-up was almost good enough to reach the playoffs. That line-up was among the league leaders in offense. And, it will be much better on Opening Day 2011. That’s what matters. It will be better on Opening Day 2012, 2013 and 2014 as well. That’s a very good thing.

That would be an amazing line-up with any sort of pitching staff. But, a rotation headed by two of the top six pitchers in the AL? A rotation with Josh Beckett and John Lackey in the #3 and #4 spots! (Although, I bet Beckett is still considered the “ace” of the staff) Look out American league!

Now imagine Cliff Lee as the fifth starter.

Too Good To Be True?

What if MLB Did Their TV This Way?

This past postseason, I watched a lot of the National League side of things. Since I avoid watching Yankees games whenever I can, I focused on the NLCS and the World Series. Neither of those series, thankfully, had those dastardly pinstripes in them. Over the two series, I saw quite a few Giants games. By the end of the World Series, I was starting to get familiar with their players. I had seen Lincecum a few times, the first time I had ever seen him on TV. I saw their line-up, obviously, quite a bit and started to get to know it. It was nice. I recently read an article that stated that was one reason the Giants-Rangers World Series was good for baseball. It gave a chance for the whole country to see two teams that weren’t the Red Sox or Yankees. Not only are those two teams in the playoffs a lot, but they dominate the nationally covered games on Fox and ESPN. If the Red Sox are playing the Yankees, it’s assumed that both networks will cover those games. So, it was nice for the rest of the country to be Texas and San Francisco fans for a while. That got me to thinking. That is really the reason there are so many Yankees fans all over the country. Back when the World Series was the only nationally televised game, the Yankees were in it every year. People across the country became familiar with Mickey Mantle, the way I became familiar with Buster Posey. It’s also the reason there are so many Braves fans all over the place. Not only were they in the playoffs every year, but their games were all televised nationally on TBS. Simple exposure created such large followings. What if Major League Baseball took that idea, and ran with it?

What if MLB selected national telecasts in order to build fan bases? What if they selected a team or two that needed some help, say the Pirates and the Royals, and showed their games all year? What if they tried to build larger fan bases for weaker teams? Would that work?

Naturally, there are all sorts of rights issues that would need to be worked out. I’m assuming that Fox would balk at the idea of showing a Pirates game every Saturday, just as ESPN would protest having to show the Royals. But, the MLB has their own network, right? They can just do it themselves. So, have a game of the week, or two. But, instead of always showing a “top” match-up, show the Pirates and Royals. How about Royals on Tuesday, and Pirates on Thursday? The MLB network could simply show the feed from the regular local broadcast. That way the Royals and Pirates wouldn’t lose their television broadcast profits…if they have any. The MLB network wouldn’t need to hire a new broadcast team. They could find an ad spot or two to make it even more worth their while. Maybe even start those games early…say six o’clock…to give them no competition from other games for an hour. But, then just go from there.

So, every Tuesday night, there’s a Royals game on TV. You’d still get to see all the other “major” teams. You’d still have the other stars from other teams on national TV. But, the nation would build a relationship with the Royals. I could see Zack Greinke quite a few times if I wanted to. Probably four or five times, on average, over the course of the year. I’d see the young stars in 25 games over the year. Maybe I’d become a fan of one or two of them. Maybe a couple extra people would buy a Royals hat. Maybe one extra person would buy a Greinke jersey. Same thing would go for the Pirates. Just a little bit more exposure over a season for these lesser-known clubs. When the Sox play the Royals, I’ll at least know the other players. That has to help my interest. When the Sox go to Pittsburgh, knowing the other team a little better would be nice. The next year? Pick two different teams. Maybe they Royals and Pirates will keep some of their new fans. Maybe pick each team for two years? Then, pick different teams from each league, and build their fan bases as well. Isn’t that win-win for the teams, the fans, and MLB?

Or, I guess, win-win-win?

Salty Captain

Yup. That looks like it will be the catching tandem for the 2010 Red Sox. Is that a problem? Well, yes and no.

Yes, it’s a problem. Neither of those guys is Victor Martinez. Neither of those guys will put up the numbers he did from the catcher’s spot. Heck, combined those two guys might not put up the numbers that Victor did. So, yeah, that’s a bit of a problem. But…it’s not exactly horrible. It’s different having a light-hitting catcher than, say, a light-hitting first baseman. Hardly any teams have catchers that can hit. Having one is a great bonus…but not having one isn’t putting yourself in a hole. Sort of like not having a solid fifth starter. Who does?

And, it could be good. Salty was considered good once. As I mentioned when I was talking about the Giants championship, talent often sticks around. Players who were a main part of a trade package for Mark Teixeira had some talent. He could still have some talent. It probably won’t show up as an all-star birth. But, Salty could be a solid addition to the line-up. Not great. Not an awful choice for the eighth spot though. After all, someone needs to bat at the bottom of the order, right?

The important part of this catching decision is what it now allows Theo to do. The Red Sox can go all year with Salty-Tek if that means they add Adrian Gonzalez, or Carl Crawford, or another major bat to the team. Theo has made his cost saving decision. He can’t make another one. He can’t stick his finger in any more holes in the roster. His next holes need to be filled by solid concrete.

Your move, Theo.

In This Season of Giving…

I felt I should give away some cards.

Get your attention?

But, first, I’m going to make you sit through a long boring explanation of my collecting habits and how they relate to this post. Hey, I have to make you earn them somehow, right? I decided years ago that I needed to somehow refocus and reallocate my collecting habits. I had, frankly, too many cards. I had too many cards I had no use for. I needed to do something. What formed the basis of my new collecting habits? Juan Gonzalez, and Phil Plantier. I was a huge fan of both these players. Gonzalez was, obviously, an MVP from the Texas Rangers. Plantier was an up and coming star of my beloved Boston Red Sox. I had nice sized collections of both these players. Then, they both fell off the face of the earth. Gonzalez “somehow” lost all his talents and became a washed up former MVP bouncing from team to team. Plantier never reached his stardom, and also bounced around a bit before calling it a career. I was left with stacks of cards of both these players. I realized that I didn’t have any attachment to the Gonzalez cards. Even though I was a fan, they didn’t do anything for me anymore. The Plantier cards, though, I still enjoyed. As a Red Sox fan, I remember watching him play. I remember the goofy batting stance. I enjoyed having the cards, even if Plantier was no longer with the team. Presto. A Red Sox collector was born. But, what about all the other cards I still had, or would still get by opening packs. Enter eBay.

EBay was the plan to both get rid of unwanted cards I would get in packs, and to limit my spending. I came up with a plan to try out. I would open packs of cards. I keep the Red Sox cards. Any cards of stars would be grouped together and sold on the bay. The money I got from those cards would be used to purchase new packs of cards. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. That way, the hobby would be self-funding. And, believe it or not, it’s worked. I had to cut down on my buying…say a blaster a month…but it’s been working out just fine.

But, what about the other non-Sox non-star cards I would get, or already had. When I started this reorganization, I had around 120,000 cards in boxes that weren’t stars and really had no appeal to me. They were really dumpster fodder. Rather then actually throw them out, I gave them away. How did I decide which cards I could get rid of? What about late bloomers? I’d hate to give away a stack of Josh Hamilton rookies just because he was out of baseball for a few years. I decided on a ten-year cutoff. If a player hadn’t become worth keeping in ten years, he was given away. Schools loved them. A high school physics teacher took about 25,000 of them. He used them as building materials for in-class projects. How high of a tower can the kids build using only tape and baseball cards? A middle school math teacher took 10,000 or so. She has the kids use the stats on the back as math lessons. How many at-bats did so and so have in the 80’s? An elementary school guidance counselor took 5,000 or so. When the kids flip through cards, they don’t realize they’re spilling their guts. It’s worked pretty well. The collection dwindled. I have limited myself to ten years worth of commons, in addition to my Red Sox collection. Plus, the hobby has been self funded for years. What could be better?

So, every year when the new cards are coming out, I give away the cards from ten years ago. With the 2011 releases coming out in short order, it’s time to clear out the 2001 cards. But, I’m starting to run out of places to give the cards away to. That’s where you all come in. If you’re a reader of The Phillies Room, you know that I’ve already sent the 2001 Phillies Jim’s way. That leaves me with 2001 cards of most of the other teams in the league. Obviously, the stars are gone. They’re some pretty poor players. They cover several brands. I seem to have somewhere between 15-50 cards of each team. Obviously, the fewer stars a team had in 2001, the more cards still left. Do you want them? Here is a list of teams available:

Reds

Angels

If you’d like a team, simply leave me a comment on the post claiming a team. Then send me an e-mail (section36 at gmail dot com) telling me where to send them. We’ll start with one team per person…and see where it goes from there.

What do I want in return? When Ron Popeil sold his pasta makers on TV, he had one requirement to get a great deal. You had to tell at least one person about the pasta maker. So, I’ll go with that. Just tell at least one person about this fine blog and the cards you got, and the cards are yours. (of course, I wouldn't object if you kept me in mind next time you had Sox cards lying about)