That is a truly outstanding piece of journalism. As a reader of a number of northern California's major dailies, I'm quite jealous that we don't have anyone in Dan McLaughlin's league as a baseball writer. Readers of the Providence Journal should be pleased.

If you look around here closely you'll find some remarks from the Crank. His thoughts fit in well here.

I congratulate him on his new assignment.

No posts in almost an hour and a half? The silence is deafening.

Looks like a reasonable hire to me. Not much to say, really. He has some sticky issues to address and it will be interesting to see how he addresses them. Sean McAdam posted a list of "tasks" for the new manager already, on ESPN.com.

But what McAdam missed is what I think will be the most telling indication for all of us of what Little's philosophy is:

Who plays 3B? Shea Hillenbrand? If Little is an OBP proponent, and I hope he is, he has got to punt Hillenbrand in favor of someone, anyone, else (Carlos Baerga?!). Unless Hillenbrand starts drawing a respectable number of walks, of course. This will be a key litmus test for Little, and by implication the entire new front office. Hillenbrand needs to show in spring training that he can get on base, and if he fails to do so, the organization needs to find someone who can.

I'd love to see the Sox trade for one of Texas' young 3Bs. Though that's a pipe dream; the Sox don't have anyone left to give. Unless John Hart would want a Hermansen or Wakefield or Arrojo.

The big news here is that Martone is apparently back. Good; I had taken projo off my bookmarks months ago.

I figure if John Hart is willing to deal away Carlos Pena then he might be willing to also deal away a Blalock or Texeira ... or Catalanotto? But certainly Lamb is worth looking at too. Slightly better offense, and I think his defense is better than Hillenbrand's, too.

The big news here is that Martone is apparently back.

That was my feeling too. Look back at the piece from 3/7 for an explanation, but the gist of it is that he went from an August vacation to a small staffing crisis to Sept 11 to the Super Bowl and has only recently been able to catch his breath. For anyone who cares about the Red Sox, Art writes good things in this space.

Even this Yanks fan finds Martone a worthwhile read. He seems to be one of the few daily-paper writers comfortable with using sabermetric stats in his columns. Pythagorean Method, OPS, Offensive Winning Percentage, Support-Neutral Wins Above Replacement have all made appearances there. I wish a few NY beat writers could take a lesson from him.

He's also one of the more objective voices when it comes to covering the Sox--doesn't come off like a puppet of the front office or a scorned lapdog either (see Gammons, Peter).

April is no more or less important than May, June, July, or August.

October is, IMHO, the most important month of all.

Vlad--

I hope that you're being ironic.

Not every month has equal value, except in the direct effect of the games played on the standings. This has always been one of my biggest problems with Sabermetrics--sometimes people can take it too far.

Perhaps Pedro was doing the Sarcastic Clap, and the rest of the team didn't catch on.

Any chance Pedro was doing the Slow Clap Roger Ebert likes to talk about, where one person breaks an uncomfortable silence by slowly clapping, and then everyone else joins in?

Yes, Little knows the organization. But he wasn't party to the most recent dysfunctions. So he gets to be both insider (from when Dan was brilliant and Jimy funny) and outsider (when Dan was heartless and Jimy elusive).

Re: Larry Manhken

If the games are more important later in the year, why bother going in April? If the early games aren't as important, why do the players play just as hard?

The way I see it, the rules are the same, the players are (mostly) the same, and early wins get added to the total the same way late ones do. When I go to a game, I'm not more excited by a late-season win than an early-season one, and I'm not more depressed over a late-season loss than an early one. I like baseball, not just August baseball. I cheer for my team from day one.

The not re-signing Pedro is just idle speculation on my part. I wouldn't be shocked to see Henry, et al, scale the payroll back a little bit and Pedro might be one way to do it. There has to be some concern whether he will be able to pitch into his mid-30's. Of course, Clemens failing to think that about Clemens bit them in the butt before.

Personally I have a theory that Jimy Williams' practice of pitching Pedro every 5 games rather than every 5 days (i.e. giving the entire rotation an extra day's rest whenever there was an off day in the schedule) is itself damaging to a pitcher's arm. The body thrives on regularity, and deliberately throwing it off its regular cycle has always seemed dangerous to me.

I have no evidence to back this up of course, just instinct.

I'm a believer in monitoring pitch counts and treating Pedro carefully, but to me it would be more careful to put his arm on a regular 5-day routine. And that goes for the entire rotation, not just Pedro. Give him an extra day when there's reason to believe that he actually needs it, not when the fortuity of the schedule allows.

I'm not that concerned about the comment on pitch counts. Much has made about pitch counts with no conclusive data. Rather than set a pitch count as some arbitrary limit, it makes more sense to consider the pitcher's pitch count, current physical status, and mechanics when deciding whether to remove him from the game.

All things being unequally equal,if Pedro were to get his 30 starts the Sox should win 88-92 games......If Pedro were to be moved to the bullpen,he would save 35-40 games of the Sox 75-80 wins.

Dick,

In your day you also got some side money by firing oranges into a pain-lover's exposed rear end, which is just not politically correct in these days of pitch counts and family values. Maybe it was the Lord who gaveth you your fast ball, and took it away when He saw you getting kinky with all that fruit... :-)