The blog began with the CFBPS 2013, and we’ve been posting spring training reports, game threads, and near-hourly Jackie Bradley Jr. updates. All the fun of the blog, in a new, redder, differently url’d home.

Happy Opening Day!

With that in mind here is one man’s pass at an Opening Day roster (note this is a guess, not a wish);

1B – Mike Napoli
2B – Dustin Pedroia
3B – Will Middlebrooks
SS – Jose Iglesias
LF – Jonny Gomes
CF – Jacoby Ellsbury
RF – Shane Victorino
C – Jarrod Saltalamacchia
1B – Mike Carp
UTIL – Pedro Ciriaco
OF – Ryan Sweeney
OF – Daniel Nava
C – David Ross
Notable DL – David Ortiz, Stephen Drew
Notable Minor Leagues - Ryan Lavarnway, Brock Holt, Mauro Gomez

There are two meaningful decisions to be made it seems.  I think Sweeney is well-regarded enough by the club and has played well enough (.265/.359/.294) that the club would prefer not to lose him so he has the inside track on the OF/DH slot that is freed up in Ortiz’ absence.  The other one is the backup first baseman.  I go back and forth on this one between Carp and Overbay and I think Carp by virtue of youth and the fact that he was traded for probably gets the gig.  I think Overbay is a better fit as a superior defensive first baseman though.

One guy I want to mention is Juan Carlos Linares (.345/.355/.586).  Sample sizes and opposition quality issues impact all Spring numbers of course but Linares doesn’t seem to be on the radar.  Frankly I’d love to see him take the DH role for the first couple of weeks and see what happens.  I’ve been a fanboy of his for awhile though so take that for what it’s worth.

I think Iglesias gets sent down upon Drew’s return.

Pitchers

SP – Jon Lester, Ryan Dempster, Clay Buchholz, John Lackey, Felix Doubront
RP – Joel Hanrahan, Andrew Bailey, Junichi Tazawa, Koji Uehara, Alfredo Aceves, Andrew Miller, Clayton Mortensen
Notable DL – Craig Breslow, Franklin Morales
Notable Minor Leagues - Daniel Bard

I think the Sox like Mortensen enough that he’ll be kept since he is out of options (according to Sox Prospects).  It’s a bit frustrating that Bard and Tazawa are quite possibly the two best relievers the Sox have yet they also are likely to be on the Pawtucket shuttle by virtue of having options.

The return of Morales and/or Breslow is going to make things hinky if there isn’t an injury or a trade before they return.  I would not be the least bit surprised if Aceves is dealt before Opening Day.

I don’t think that Allen Webster’s great Spring has vaulted him into serious consideration for a spot to start the season but I think a good start as a starter in Pawtucket will put him a bit higher on the depth chart when an injury to a starter happens. 

Inevitably every time I go through an exercise like this I miss someone obvious.  I look forward to someone pointing out “hey, you missed this guy you idiot.”

—First and foremost, Pedroia is the face of the team and a really excellent player. In his first 6 years as a full-time player he’s put up 31.1 fWAR. He’s beloved by the fans, well-liked by his peers, and seemingly has an exemplary work ethic. 

—The Red Sox have more flexibility in their payroll right now than they likely will in a couple years. Inking Pedroia now will mean that his rather cheap 2013-2015 seasons will be averaged in to later years, where they may not have such flexibility.

—Robinson Cano. He’s going to get a monster deal this offseason and that is going to make it very hard to convince Pedroia that a smaller deal, even if it’s fair, is fair. Let’s guess Cano gets 7/$170M at age 31. What is Pedroia going to expect for age 32? 6/$140M?

—Signing Pedroia now allows the Sox to sign him through age 34-35 rather than 37-38.

An offer to lock in Pedroia’s 2015 option and extend him for 3-4 years at $20M per year would keep him in a Boston uniform through his most productive years. Getting a new “$100M deal” should enough to turn his head. And if you want him in Boston beyond 2015, now is the time to do it.

When the Red Sox unloaded the contracts of Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, and Carl Crawford (and Nick Punto!), they cut about $57 million off their annual payroll (after accounting for the cash paid out by Boston to LA). While it was pretty widely agreed upon that the players were, as a group, pricey, many questioned whether they would be better able to spend that money in 2013. With the Red Sox shopping essentially done and a number of projection systems now published, we can try to answer that question. First, let’s look at the local favorite, ZIPS and average annual salaries:

Departures
Gonzalez 3.9 WAR ($22M - $3.9M paid by Boston)
Beckett 2.3 WAR ($17M)
Crawford 1.7 WAR ($20.3M)
Punto 0.7 WAR ($1.5M)
Total: 8.6 WAR for $56.9M 

Arrivals
Victorino 3.4 WAR ($13M)
Napoli 2.0 WAR (assuming he’ll get about $10M given his projected playing time)
Drew 2.0 WAR ($9.5M)
Dempster 1.9 WAR ($13.25M)
Ross 1.0 WAR ($3.1M)
Uehara 0.8 WAR ($4.25M)
Gomes 0.6 WAR ($5M)
Total: 11.7 WAR for $58.1M

Before getting into this too much, I want to fully acknowledge that there are different ways to look at this. You could, for example, say that the Drew transaction should be viewed as a choice to pay $5M more to try to upgrade on Aviles. Or that the Red Sox could have afforded some of these guys without the trade. But I think, in general, this is a fair way to look at it. Just about all of these guys are playing positions where they will be replacing either the guys who left or filling in where there aren’t other good options.

And, if you believe ZIPS, it’s pretty clear that the Red Sox were able to find better ways to spend the money that they saved on the trade. They picked up a projected 3 wins for about the same amount of money owed to the other players. You could believe that ZIPS is biased a fair amount in favor of the Sox’ moves and still conclude that it was a wise tradeoff. And this is before ever considering a) the flexibility in 2014 and beyond as the Red Sox’ new contracts expire and Gonzalez/Beckett/Crawford age, and b) that the trade also netted two promising young pitchers and a player that helped them get Brock Holt.

Below, we look at how Steamer sees it. Despite a few differences, the conclusions are about the same:

Departures
Gonzalez 4.3 WAR ($22M - $3.9M paid by Boston)
Beckett 2.4 WAR ($17M)
Crawford 1.3 WAR ($20.3M)
Punto 0.3 WAR ($1.5M)
Total: 8.3 WAR for $56.9M

Arrivals
Victorino 2.8 WAR ($13M)
Napoli 2.0 WAR (assuming he’ll get about $10M given his projected playing time)
Drew 1.5 WAR ($9.5M)
Dempster 2.3 WAR ($13.25M)
Ross 0.9 WAR ($3.1M)
Uehara 0.3 WAR ($4.25M)
Gomes 1.1 WAR ($5M)
Total: 10.9 WAR for $58.1M

But that isn’t a guarantee, and even if Ortiz is ready by the end of April, that’s quite a few Ortiz-less games to plan for.  A plan is needed, and I figure there are three basic options. 

1) Same plan, more AAAA sluggers.  Left field was already ticketed to a R/L semi-platoon arrangement between Gomes and Carp.  Now you add Mauro Gomez into the mix, work out some sort of job sharing (maybe Gomez and Carp platoon in the lineup while Gomes moves between LF ad DH).  You could also do this with Daniel Nava, if you wanted, though the job sharing would have to look a little different.

2) Jackie Bradley, Jr.  He’s been playing excellent ball in spring.  His current projections really aren’t bad (ZiPS 330/370, for instance).  If Bradley has made some qualitative improvements to his game, which is entirely normal for a kid his age, then he might be the best left field option for the Red Sox regardless of Papi’s injury.  With the injury to Papi, all Bradley needs is for his combination of CF-quality glove and not-incompetent bat to beat out the combination of Gomes/Carp’s gloves and Mauro Gomez’s bat.  ZiPS thinks Bradley’s already an equivalent hitter to Gomes and Nava.  Dan projects Bradley to a 308 wOBA, compared to 310 and 307 for the DH competitors.  Then you upgrade LF defense from bad to excellent.  Even if Fenway significantly cuts into the value of a left fielder’s glove, that’s still worthwhile.

The one argument against Bradley has to do with his development.  The Red Sox had a plan for Bradley.  Will it be better long-term to stick to the plan?  In one month, the difference between a 4-WAR player and a 1-WAR player is just five runs.  With Bradley compared to the LF/DH flotsam, we’re probably not talking about more than two or three runs of expectation.  Even if he’s the best choice, he’s not the best by so much that other considerations might hold more weight.  Unless of course Ortiz is seriously injured, but if Bradley is the better choice for a longer-term problem, he can be called up in May.

3) A new acquisition.  Maybe a Jim Thome.  Unless Ortiz’s injury is more significant that what’s been reported – yeah ,yeah, I know – a one-month rental of a guy who’s going to expect more playing time when that month is over seems like a poor addition to the clubhouse.  Even if he’s a small upgrade, a month just isn’t long enough to make the cost in talent or money worth it, especially if it adds a clubhouse problem on top of that.

My preference is for Bradley, but I can understand why the Sox might prefer the AAAA slugger plan.  So long as Papi comes back in a reasonable time frame, it should not matter too much.  But Bradley would be way more fun.

I have been able to brave the elements and get to a few Spring Training games so far and as always it is a ton of fun.  The week started on a bit of a maudlin note as I walked through the retired numbers section in front of JetBlue Park and passed Johnny Pesky’s number 6.  John hasn’t been an active part of Spring Training for a few years but it was still a sobering reminder that the beloved Pesky was no longer with us.  I can’t imagine a better ambassador for the game of baseball.

Watching the big boys has been fun.  Just in general it seems like things are going well.  Jackie Bradley Jr. has clearly become a huge fan favorite generating the biggest cheer when lineups were introduced on Saturday night.  He’s great fun to watch playing with a certain joie de vive without being over the top about it.  A great example of this was Wednesday’s game that he ended with a fine running catch near the wall, stopped, then took two running steps and jumped spread eagled against the wall.  It was a funny and fun moment. 

I’ve seen Felix Doubront twice.  The first time he looked awful.  His delivery was all over the place and he couldn’t hit his spots at all.  His second start against the Orioles was up and down.  He got a bunch of swing and misses(6 on 53 pitches) but when he got hit he got hit hard.  He had no command of either his curveball or his change up (which seemed to be sitting around 85/86 MPH, too fast for his 90 MPH fastball) but his fastball was effective.

I don’t know if it was just usual conditioning stuff or not but on Wednesday Doubront was in a solo part of the complex doing some running drills (think suicides on a basketball court).  I never saw other pitchers doing this and it was just Felix and a coach/trainer.  It looked like “hey fat ass, get in shape” type drills to me.

A few other guys of note;

Joel Hanrahan - I saw him against Baltimore and he looked sharp.  His slider was really snapping, not at all the pitcher we had seen in his first few outings.

Jose Iglesias - Iggy looks like he’s added some speed.  He’s not Jacoby Ellsbury or anything but he seems to be considerably quicker than he was last year and he still hits the ball hard when he makes contact.  He’s not a Punch and Judy hitter, he just needs to hit his pitch, not the pitcher’s pitch.

Will Middlebrooks - It’s a small thing but Middlebrooks had a few chances to start double plays on Saturday night and was tentative on all the throws.  I’m sure it was nothing but the throws were a bit Knoblauch-esque frankly in the way he shot-putted them over.

Jon Lester - Lester seemed like he was focusing on mixing his pitches a LOT more than he did the last couple of seasons.  A scout sitting near me mentioned his arm slot seemed a bit lower.

Mike Napoli - It’s possible that it was just a function of the heavily right-handed lineup Baltimore employed against Doubront Saturday night but Napoli was playing way off the bag at first in a very Overbay-like manner.  His footwork over there was underwhelming.  Considering that he has played a fair amount of first the last couple of years he looked surprisingly uncertain.  I wonder if the Sox are trying a break him down/build him back up approach to his defense.

Rubby De La Rosa - Fine, he’s not freakin’ lanky.  He looked a bit like a taller Tom Gordon.  Watching him pitch it is hard to see him as a starter.  He has a real maximum effort delivery and while his stuff is good he just looks like a reliever out there.  It’s hard to see his approach working for 6-7 innings.  Appier is the one guy who comes to mind that was able to succeed as a starter in such a way.

Brian Butterfield - I like watching Butterfield as a third base coach.  Unlike the last couple of 3B coaches we’ve had he gets way down the line when sending/holding runners which should allow him to make later decisions.

Defense - Other than Napoli being off the bag I haven’t seen anything in the three games I have attended that speaks to a plan to play radical defensive shifts.  It’s early in the Spring through so that is hardly proof of anything.

Walking among the minor leaguers was its usual great fun.  Deven Marrero seems to be a really coaches favorite.  He was singled out (“that’s how you do it boys, look at Marrero running that drill the right way!”) for the way he did drills and every time he did something he would seek out a coach for a quiet word afterwards and seemed to be lapping up instruction.

Dwight Evans was actively working with the outfielders one of the days I was there on their throwing techniques.  Not a bad guy to get some input from.

The minor leaguers as a group seemed to be really focusing on stretching and conditioning more than I recall in years past.  It almost had a high school football team vibe with everyone in a circle diligently doing their stretching drills.  The other big focus on days I was there was base running.  The general sense I got was that fundamentals are a big part of John Farrell’s first Red Sox camp.

In general the coaches seem heavily empowered at all levels.  Unlike last year when you couldn’t get away from Bobby Valentine Farrell is a much less obvious presence but the coaches on all fields are much more vocal and engaged than I recall under either Valentine or Francona.

Thoughts on a few kids;

Bryce Brentz/Drake Britton - Both guys were working with the minor leaguers, Britton two days after the arrest.  Brentz seemed to be moving fine, I didn’t see a limp.

Pat Light - Light is a big solid guy who takes the Will Middlebrooks mantle of “that’s how you’re supposed to look in a baseball uniform.”

In Shape - A couple of guys who I thought looked like they were in better shape than when I saw them last were Anthony Ranaudo and Travis Shaw. Shaw particularly looks a bit more athletic than he did when I saw him in Portland in August.

Henry Owens - If Owens has anything at all on the baseball LOOGY should be the floor for him.  Haircut aside he physically resembles Andrew Miller and I can’t imagine standing in the batter’s box against him if I’m a lefty.

Manuel Margot - My first thought upon seeing Margot was a young Ron Gant.  That level of power probably isn’t going to be there for Margot but he has a sturdy, explosive look about him for a young kid.

I’m going to games Tuesday and Friday this week.  If you’ve got something or someone you want me to see, let me know (and if someone could go shovel my driveway that would be great).

Want to talk about the ballgame?

+201 Ryan Braun
+185 Jose Bautista
+180 Andrew McCutchen
+161 Matt Kemp
+161 Josh Hamilton
+156 Matt Holliday
+141 Curtis Granderson
+133 Carlos Gonzalez
+128 Ben Zobrist (statheady!)
+116 Adam Jones
+113 Shane Victorino
+112 Corey Hart
+110 Michael Bourn (hey!)
+110 BJ Upton (and again)
+106 Shin-Soo Choo
+105 Angel Pagan (yup)
+104 Giancarlo Stanton (just two seasons)
+103 Jayson Werth
+102 Torii Hunter
+102 Nick Swisher (indeed)

It’s simple.  Of the free agent outfielders of the past offseason, Shane Victorino has the most VORP from 2010 to 2012.  It’s close, but he’s perfectly qualified to be a solid free agent signing if he went for roughly market value, and indeed he did. 

There are reasons to worry about Victorino.  He was relatively poor this last season.  Sometimes when players have a down season, it’s a sign of more, badder things to come.  Usually it isn’t.  So what do the projection systems say?  Here’s ZiPS for the free agent outfielders, ranked by projected runs created:

90 Shin-Soo Choo
89 BJ Upton
85 Shane Victorino
84 Josh Hamilton
80 Michael Bourn
75 Angel Pagan
74 Nick Swisher

Victorino is in the middle of the pack, toward the top.  His stathead profile is solid.  Why is he cited as the symbol of everything that’s wrong with the Red Sox offseason, by people who generally identify as statheads?  I don’t get it.  This isn’t to say he’s the greatest ever.  But he’s a good ballplayer with a reasonable contract and a solid projection.  He’s a perfectly normal free agent signing for a statheady front office.

Of course I’m not going to let Spring Training lie.  As always I plan on going down to Ft. Myers to do my part to ruin careers, seasons and even lives.  For the record I was at Spring Training in both 2004 and 2007 so the Sox CAN win despite my jinxing skills.  I’m curious to see how Spring Training is this year. 

Last year there was a definite energy in the way things were being run.  Valentine was notably present and active all over the new complex.  My observations at the time suggested a pretty upbeat camp and nothing obvious in terms of the troubles that came.  I expect Farrell’s camp will be more in keeping with Francona’s more, pick your word; professional, businesslike, sedate, boring, camps.  For what it’s worth it seemed that last year the minor leaguers were not being worked as hard as they had been in the past.  I don’t know if that was organizational or a Valentine thing or a Jose-perception thing though.

Despite that I think this year’s camp has the chance to be fairly interesting.  Coming on the heels of 2011’s collapse and the big change in the manager’s office there were all manner of things going on.  This year the Sox head to camp with a fair amount of certainty in place considering this is a team that won 69 games a year ago.  Everything just feels more settled than it did twelve months ago.  Off the cuff a few things I’ll be looking for;

1. Integration with minor leaguers – For those who don’t know prior to last year the Sox’ Spring home was segregated.  The minor leaguers were about 3 miles away from the big boys.  Despite the physical move to bring everyone together the groups were still pretty segregated last year.  I wonder if this year the Sox try to integrate the minor leaguers a bit more.  This could provide a bit of “this is how you do it” instruction to the youngsters while also putting some onus on professionalism from the veterans.

2.  Controversies -  The Sox aren’t exactly loaded with controversies heading to Florida but there are a few potential problems;

Alfredo Aceves -  Aceves is a one man crazy clownshoes and it’s not hard to envision him butting heads with Farrell.  His absence for the WBC probably is a plus in this regard.
Andrew Bailey -  Bailey seems a pretty steady guy but he also has been stripped of his closer’s title and while his performance in 2012 certainly made that reasonable it would be a shocker if he weren’t frustrated.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia – The Sox brought in David Ross this off-season and Salty has been mentioned as potential trade bait.  For his flaws the guy has hit 41 homers the last two seasons, done a credible job as a starting catcher and probably has a bit of a chip on his shoulder. 

Farrell should be heading into camp with some authority both from the club and the support of the fans.  If that authority was going to be challenged these are three guys who could do so.

3.  WBC Impact – The WBC is not going to impact the Sox as it has in years’ past.  The Sox only have four players heading to national teams and none of them are likely to lose out on any opportunities because of it (Aceves, Victorino, Bogaerts, de la Torre).

This may create a bit of an opportunity for the outfielders who get to jump into Victorino’s spot.  Brentz, Hazelbaker and Hassan (stress fracture in his foot…never mind) may all get a bit more playing time, or at least playing time in more high profile situations and against stiffer competition than they otherwise would have.

4. Daniel Bard – One thing I remember from last year but didn’t notice in my piece was that Bard was consistently last in his group when they did their outfield running.  I don’t know if he is just slow or was in fact out of shape but it struck me since he looks like a guy who would do well (I didn’t expect him to be trailing Lester for example).  I’ll be curious to see if that is true this year and what if any impact it might have.  Today’s story on Boston.com says Bard looks like “his old self.” 

Anyway, I just had to get something out there because I’m getting excited.  I’ll make the Southwest Florida Chamber of Commerce happy and say that if you have the means to head down to Ft. Myers to do so.  It’s a ton of fun, flights are pretty reasonable and there is a lot to do including plenty for misguided family members who aren’t baseball fans.