Kuzul

Headed into the 2011-12 offseason, the biggest need of the Boston Red Sox was starting pitching. With the way the pitching staff performed down the stretch in September, it was clear change needed to happen.

But, to this point, the Red Sox have not done much to address the hole in their roster. 

Two underwhelming pitchers, Aaron Cook and Vicente Padilla, have been signed to minor league deals but neither should have an impact on the starting rotation in 2012 barring any major injuries.

Cook started 17 games in 2011 for the Colorado Rockies with a 6.03 ERA and 3-10 record. Padilla pitched just 8.2 innings in 2011 for the Los Angeles Dodgers with a 4.15 ERA.

Neither of the two pitchers is guaranteed a roster spot, and it wouldn’t shock anyone if both were left off the major league roster come April. 

With Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester and Josh Beckett all expected to be 100 percent in spring training and Daniel Bard expected to transition to a starter in Fort Myer’s, the Red Sox have one open spot in the rotation.

The longer Ben Cherington takes to address the hole in the rotation, the player pool to choose from will diminish. The New York Yankees signed Hiroki Kuroda and the Arizona Diamondbacks re-signed Joe Saunders, who were both believed to be Red Sox targets at one point.

But there is still a very serviceable pitcher left on the market that finished sixth in the Cy Young Award voting just a year ago: Roy Oswalt.

There is talk that Oswalt could be had at the price of $8 million over one year, a bargain for a pitcher of his caliber. 

It is no secret that Oswalt isn’t the pitcher he was back in the mid-2000’s when he won 20 games in consecutive seasons for the Houston Astros—but the Red Sox don’t need him to be that guy.

If he can post the numbers that he did last year in Philadelphia, a 3.69 ERA and a 1.338 WHIP, the Red Sox would be ecstatic, considering what they got out of the back end of the rotation this past season.

At a 50 percent pay cut from last season, Oswalt is probably the biggest bargain on the market right now. And with John Lackey out for the season and Daisuke Matsuzaka’s status up in the air, he would provide some stability in the rotation that the Red Sox did not have in 2011.

The report that the Red Sox cannot afford to sign Oswalt seems a bit far fetched for a big-market team such as Boston. The team has some big issues if they can’t afford to sign the former Phillie for $8 million. 

Cherington would be wise to draw up some papers for Oswalt’s agent as he would solidify Boston’s rotation as one of the best in baseball entering the 2012 season. 

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It seems as though we may be having a bit of deja vu inside of the Boston Red Sox front office.

For much of the managerial search, Dale Sveum was the front runner to become the 44th manager in Red Sox history. And up until a couple days ago it seemed he would be the man to get the job.

He got a second interview with Ben Cherington and met ownership as well at the GM and owners meetings. All signs pointed to Sveum becoming the next manager of the Red Sox. They picked up his tab to fly him out to Milwaukee, and Sveum anticipated an offer being made after the meeting and it seemed as though Cherington was ready to offer Sveum the job.

So what changed?

Enter Red Sox ownership. 

It has been reported that although Cherington wanted Sveum as his manager for the Red Sox, he was overruled by ownership.

John Henry, Larry Lucchino and Tom Werner simply didn’t want the former Red Sox third base coach to be the team’s next manager. 

“We just want to make sure we get the right person,” Lucchino told reporters Thursday. “We have to consider all the possibilities. This is not a process where everybody is walking in lock-step.”

Well Larry, the man you hired to run the baseball team thought he had the right person and you and the other two higher-ups gave him the cold shoulder and told him he was wrong.

This could be the beginning of a shaky relationship between Cherington and ownership, and sounds eerily familiar to that relationship former GM, Theo Epstein, had with Lucchino and company.

On Halloween of 2005, Epstein famously rejected a contract extension from the Red Sox, seemingly because of a rift with Lucchino, and left Fenway Park in a gorilla suit.

It was assumed that Epstein stepped down because he didn’t like the shadow Lucchino cast over him, always having to report to the higher-ups.

Only after being offered a more prominent position in the organization did Epstein agree to come back, but he still had to report to Lucchino, the team’s president.

By now we all know that Epstein left the Red Sox for a better position with the Cubs where there will be no middle man between himself and the owner like Lucchino.

Now this could just be an isolated incident and Lucchino and ownership will let Cherington handle much of the baseball operations but if he keeps getting overruled, this could escalate to him leaving Fenway Park in a gorilla suit just like Epstein back in 2005.

Cherington was hired to run the baseball operations side of the Red Sox. Let him do his job. If he is made into some figurehead to filter information from Lucchino to the media the relationship won’t last long.

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The Boston Red Sox have the best offense in baseball and it’s not close. 

They hold the top spot in runs scored, average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. 

With the best offense in baseball, you’d expect the Red Sox to have a player in the MVP conversation, but not three.

Adrian Gonzalez, who leads baseball with a .353 average, was pegged as an MVP candidate from the moment he arrived in Boston in the offseason.

Few expected the Red Sox to have two other MVP candidates, but that is the case.

Joining Gonzalez in the MVP conversation are Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia, both unexpected after both losing the majority of the 2010 season to injury.

In the end, the three will end up taking votes away from each other, but of the three whom is the most deserving candidate?

The case can be made for all three but Ellsbury has been a step ahead of his two teammates. Ellsbury has been electric in every facet of the game this season.

He is second on the team in batting average with a .319 average, only trailing Gonzalez. He leads the team in both stolen bases with 31, and runs scored, 83, and has hit an unprecedented 18 home runs out of the leadoff spot, which is good for second on the team. 

Ellsbury has also picked up the clutch gene this season providing walk-off hits on back-to-back nights against Cleveland last week. Gonzalez has a walk-off this season as well and Pedroia has yet to get one.

The element of surprise also plays into the fact that Ellsbury tops the list of Red Sox MVP candidates. After last season, when many questioned Ellsbury’s heart and toughness, no one could have predicted what has happened thus far in 2011. 

Ellsbury carries a 5.9 WAR—wins above replacement—making him the second most irreplaceable player on the Red Sox, just behind Pedroia who has a WAR of 6.7. Gonzalez is third on the team with a WAR of 5.2.

He leads the team in WPA—win probability added—at 3.85 as well as the clutch metric at 1.44, 1.26 points ahead of Pedroia (0.18) and 1.67 points ahead of Gonzalez (-0.23).

Sabermetrics aside, Ellsbury proves he is most valuable every night by setting the table for the offense. Ellsbury on base leads to RBI for Pedroia and Gonzalez. 

In the end, the three will likely take votes away from each other, being on the same team, and the award could go to someone like Jose Bautista or Robinson Cano. 

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The July 31 Major League Baseball trade deadline is looming, and it is clear that the Boston Red Sox biggest need is pitching. 

Rumors are swirling about a possible deal for Colorado Rockies ace, Ubaldo Jimenez.

At first glance, Jimenez would seem like a great piece to add to the first-place Red Sox, but when you look more into it, the deal becomes less and less appealing. 

For one, the asking price for Jimenez is very high. The Rockies are asking for two to three top prospects from any team in return. 

The Red Sox would have to clear out their farm system just to get Jimenez. 

Jimenez also seems to be a shell of the pitcher he was in the first half of the 2010 season, when he was as dominant as a pitcher could be. His velocity is topping out in the low 90’s in 2011. He was hitting triple digits with some pitches in 2010. 

In his last 38 starts, Jimenez is just 12-15 with a 4.17 ERA, including a 6-9 start this year with an ERA of 4.20.

Another thing against Jimenez is that history has shown that pitchers ERA’s jump when moving from the National League to the American League. 

Before C.C. Sabathia was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers in 2008 he had a 3.83 ERA with Cleveland. Sabathia went on to post a 1.65 ERA in his time with the Brewers. When he jumped back to the AL with the Yankees, Sabathia’s ERA moved back up into the three’s. 

It seems that there is just too much risk to be comfortable making a trade for Jimenez.

Maybe he is hurt. Maybe the first half of 2010 was a fluke. But the stats show that Jimenez is not a top of rotation pitcher—and is not worth the prospects that would have to be parted with in a trade.

The Red Sox best move at the deadline would be to pass on a deal for Jimenez. Let him be another teams’ problem. 

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Nine different shortstops in eight seasons. 

That is the harsh reality of the Boston Red Sox since the beginning of Theo Epstein’s tenure as general manager of the team. Nomar Garciaparra, Pokey Reese, Orlando Cabrera, Edgar Renteria, Alex Gonzalez, Julio Lugo, Jed Lowrie, Nick Green and Marco Scutaro all the starting shortstop at one point in time in those eight seasons.

For the right pieces, the Red Sox may be able to trade for the franchise shortstop Epstein has been after since the departure of Garciaparra in 2003.

The recent financial quagmire of the New York Mets and majority owner Fred Wilpon, Jose Reyes has become very available with the team unlikely to be able to keep him beyond this season. Reyes’ contract is up at the end of the season, and in all likelihood he will be looking for a long-term deal in the area of the seven-year, $142 million deal Carl Crawford signed with the Red Sox this past offseason. 

With the Mets in such a financial bind, Reyes may come at somewhat of a discounted price. Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett and Adrian Gonzalez are proof that trading prospects for proven veterans works, so why not do it again with Reyes? Both Beckett and Schilling were major keys in championship runs for the Red Sox, and Reyes could prove to be the same by filling the ever empty hole at shortstop.

Despite trading three top prospects in the deal that brought Gonzalez to Boston, the Red Sox still have plenty of talent in the farm system to include in a trade for Reyes. One player who would almost certainly need to be included in a deal is outfielder Ryan Kalish.

Kalish, considered by many as the top prospect in the Red Sox system, is seen as the right fielder of the future when J.D. Drew’s contract expires. He has become expendable with the emergence of Josh Reddick who seems to have finally figured it out and is ready to produce at the major league level.

Top shortstop prospect Jose Iglesias would become expendable as well because Reyes, just 28, would become your starting shortstop for the foreseeable future. The Red Sox could then package a mid-level prospect such as Double-A pitcher Stolmy Pimentel or Triple-A pitcher Kyle Weiland to complete the deal.

The Red Sox certainly have the personnel in their farm system to complete a deal, yet many would question the financial logistics of committing to another $100 million long-term deal having handed out $142 million to Carl Crawford and $154 million to Gonzalez this past offseason. 

This is a legitimate concern, but the Red Sox have some money coming off the books at season’s end that would ease the financial burden of a potential Reyes extension. 

One contract that is coming off the books after the season is that of J.D. Drew. Drew’s departure will take $14 million off the payroll. It is widely believed that Jonathan Papelbon is in his last season with team as well. If he walks at the end of the season, the Red Sox would have $12 million more coming off the payroll. With Reyes’ arrival, the likelihood of the team picking up Marco Scutaro’s option for 2012 is slim, which clears another $5 million or so off the payroll.

With a few smaller contracts expiring, it would appear that the Red Sox would have the financial flexibility to complete an extension for Reyes if a deal is done. 

When the opportunity to deal for a player of Reyes’ caliber presents itself, you jump at it, especially when you have the resources that are at the fingertips of Epstein. 

Think about it Theo. This could be your chance to finally get the shortstop you have longed for. 

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