Kuzul

Spring training is upon us. The Red Sox have been busy this offseason. The Yankees, on the other hand, were uncharacteristically quiet. How could the New York Yankees make noise this offseason with a payroll of over 200 million dollars? Yes, even the “Evil Empire of New York” has limitations on how much they can spend.

This article will break down the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry as it stands today and forecast what the 2011 season may hold for each team and/or their players.

Looking at the resurgence of the Boston Red Sox this offseason by means of key acquisitions Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, one has to wonder, will the Red Sox push the Yankees around in 2011? Are they better than the Yankees? 

When Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman was asked if he agrees that the Red Sox are better on paper today than the Yankees, he said,

“I would agree because they have a deeper starting rotation. I’m not saying they’re going to beat us. We’re not conceding anything. But if somebody asked me right now, they might be a finished product. We’re an unfinished product,” he said last night at a charity event.

“But you don’t win championships in the winter, you win them in the summer. We’re looking forward to going head-to-head with everybody and anybody.” 

“That does not discount anything I have got here,” Cashman said. “It’s just that I have more work to do. I might have the answers right here in front of me. I like what we have coming. Is it ready right now or not yet for an American League pennant race? We’re going to find out and weigh that vs. what becomes available over time. But what I do have, I’m very proud of. And what I do have is going to compete for that title. Can I make it better? I can make it better.”

His opinion that, as of now, the Red Sox are better is shared by most in baseball. There are of course exceptions, including Hank Steinbrenner.

On Tuesday, Hank Steinbrenner had this to say about Brian Cashman’s comments and where his team stands heading into the 2011 MLB season..

“I think we’re the hunter. At the end of the day, listen, no one’s conceding anything. No one’s conceding anything. But as I described the other day in full force, if this was the start of a race..from their winter, they (the Red Sox) qualified for the pole position. Their pole position right now is better than ours because of the winter that they had compared to the winter that I personally had.”

“When you guys are looking at me straight-faced in the eye and (say) what did you think about their winter and where does that put them compared to you, I think they’re the hunted, we’re the hunter and that’s as simple as that and I don’t think anybody would disagree with that,” Cashman said.

“You can make with it whatever you want, I don’t really care, but that’s not selling us short. I like our talent. I like our talent a lot. I give myself an incomplete. Simple as that. If you want to insult anybody …I’m insulting myself. It’s as simple as that. I have more work to do.”

Brian Cashman also was quoted as saying, “We have a lot of talent here because they (the Steinbrenners) allow us to go the extra mile to try and find as much as we can to put us in position to succeed,” Cashman said.

“We almost got back to the World Series but almost obviously is not good enough in our market, so every now and then, a healthy reminder of what comes with not crossing the finish line, that’s going to happen. Why we fell short, how we fell short, the bottom line is we fell short.”

Now that we have heard the sentiment from around the league, let’s now analyze for ourselves which team is better. A good place to start is by looking at the projected opening day lineups. Next, an assessment of the two team’s defenses and pitching staffs will be in order. Lastly, every team is only as good as the coach(es) behind it, so we will take a look at each team’s coaching staff.

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As teams prepare to begin the exhibition season, the fans continue to prepare for what the upcoming season may bring from their favorite teams and players.

With plenty of unexpected movement this past offseason, we are guaranteed to experience some more major surprises, as the season is just over one month away from the first pitch.

After all, how many people predicted that the San Francisco Giants would defeat the Texas Rangers in the 2010 Fall Classic? If you did, can you please tell me who you like in 2011?

The Giants will try and defend their crown, while 29 other teams will look to dethrone them. Many new players will be heavily counted on to bring their new team to glory, while the teams who stood pat this past Winter will be expecting to take the next step toward reaching their destiny.

So even though most fans are expecting the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies to meet in the 2011 World Series, nothing can ever be counted on as a foregone conclusion.

Like I already said, how many of you had the Giants and Rangers squaring off last year before the season started?

Exactly. That is why they play the games.

The games may not start for a little longer, but the questions have already begun. Here is a look at a few pesky questions that each team will face heading into the 2011 MLB season.

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As spring training gets underway in Florida and Arizona, we take one last look at the recent Major League Baseball offseason and how the various trades and acquisitions will affect the fantasy landscape for 2011.

While there was much more movement than the players listed below, this is a fantasy roster comprised of the most notable players per position that will be wearing different uniforms from Opening Day 2010 and should be on radars come draft time 2011. Not all players in this article are necessarily top-tier options, but each carries some value all the way through the mid-to-late rounds if you have a position of need during your draft.

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One of the most exciting, positive “unknowns” about the 2011 Boston Red Sox is the combined impact Carl Crawford and Jacoby Ellsbury will have on the basepaths. 

Speculation has focused on the Sox’ newly improved hitting lineup and its strong pitching rotation, but, relatively little attention has been given to just how extraordinary it is for a team to have two of the game’s most prolific base stealers on the same side for nine innings.  

The Red Sox have never had a duo who can run this fast, and it’s rare for any team to have two of the game’s best baserunners.  Crawford and Ellsbury will have an obvious potential to increase the team’s run-scoring capacity, but perhaps their influence may go beyond that. 

It’s hard to measure the full impact of a base-stealing threat on opposing pitchers and the outcome of a game.  Yet, for one example, Red Sox fans grew painfully familiar with the undeniable impact Crawford’s speed had on many Sox-Rays games in recent years.  When he got on base, he distracted many Sox pitchers, contributed to many Rays’ rallies and was a “game-changer.”  (Remember when Crawford stole a record-tying six bases in one game last season!)

Sox fans have seen the benefit of Ellsbury routinely getting to second-base via a steal and scoring important runs.  Now pitchers will have to worry about both Crawford and Ellsbury on base at the same time.   

Sometimes people overrate base stealing.  I’ve heard Tony Massarotti on his Boston radio show with Michael Felger, “98.5—The Sports Hub” frequently comment that fans tend to exaggerate the significance of base-stealing.  Massarotti has commented that Ellsbury draws disproportionate attention for his steals, but he’s flawed in other areas such as on-base percentage. 

I agree with Massarotti to a large extent, but I think he overlooks one point:  Explosive baserunners like Ellsbury and Crawford can not only distract opposing pitchers but often throw them out of their rhythm and into a bad spurt on the mound.  

That factor can lead to a team scoring a run or two and result in a win.  There is sometimes an intangible, psychological effect that goes with having runners like Crawford or Ellsbury taking a huge lead off first base.  

Ellsbury and Crawford have both put up incredible stats for steals so far in their careers. In 2008, Ellsbury’s first season in the majors, he stole 50 bases.  In 2009, he stole 70 bases—tops in the American League.  He missed most of 2010 due to his rib injuries.  Crawford, the stolen-base champ for four seasons, has stolen 40 or more bases in seven of his eight seasons, and in five of those, he had more than 50 SB.  (Injuries limited his SB total to 25 in 2008.)  He stole 60 in 2009 and 47 last year.  

The last pair of terrific base stealers on the same team were Marquis Grissom and Delino DeShields of the Montreal Expos in 1991 and 1992, according to an article last month by ESPN Boston’s Gordon Edes.  Grissom stole 76 in ’91 and 78 in ’92 while DeShields stole 56 in ’91 and 46 in ’92.  

Only once in the history of both the American League and National League have two teammates stolen 60 or more bases.   Crawford and Ellsbury may not equal that incredible combined total, but they might come close.   Their speed and presence on base could be a difference maker in whether the Red Sox go all the way in 2011.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Now that spring training has begun, it’s time to look back at this offseason. And what an offseason it was. Spending was up and it was like 1999 all over again.

However, some teams spent wisely and made some good acquisitions, while other teams didn’t spend their money so wisely. As the knight said in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, “They chose poorly.”

We’ll look at the teams that chose poorly later, but for now, we will look at the five winners from this offseason.

 1. Boston Red Sox

 To get Adrian Gonzalez seemed like a stretch. To sign Carl Crawford seemed like a reach. To get them both seemed impossible. Yet, GM Theo Epstein managed to do both within a week.

The Red Sox acquired Gonzalez from the San Diego Padres for four prospects and then signed Crawford to a seven-year, $142 million contract, giving Boston two superstars at the top of their order. Not only are Gonzalez and Crawford great hitters, but they are great defenders as well and will improve Boston’s overall defense.

The Red Sox gave up some top prospects for Gonzalez, but they didn’t gut their system. They still had three prospects land in Keith Law’s top-100 for 2011.

The Red Sox also brought in Jarrod Saltalamacchia to catch and shored up their bullpen with the additions of Dan Wheeler, Bobby Jenks and the re-signing of Hideki Okajima.

2. Philadelphia Phillies

The Phillies already had a top starting rotation with messers Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt. Then they go out this offseason and sign Cliff Lee to give them a rotation baseball hasn’t seen in years.

Lee was the biggest free-agent prize this offseason and he signed with the Phillies for five years and $120 million with an option for 2016. The fact that Hamels is now their No. 4 starter is a joke.

The Phillies did lose Jayson Werth to the Washington Nationals, but should be able to adequately replace him with Domonic Brown.

3. Milwaukee Brewers

Brewer starters finished 15th in ERA, 15th in WHIP, and 14th in innings pitched amongst National League teams in 2010. So what did GM Doug Melvin do to fix this issue? He went out and acquired a legit No.2 starter in Shaun Marcum and then hit the mother load when he acquired the 2009 American League Cy Young award winner in Zack Greinke from the Kansas City Royals.

In two fell swoops, the Brewers went from having one of the worst rotations in the NL to, on paper at least, having one of the best. Marcum, Greinke, and Yovani Gallardo as a top three is pretty legit.

The Brewers also brought in Takashi Saito to help out with the bullpen and signed Rickie Weeks to an extension.

4. Toronto Blue Jays

I don’t care what other moves a GM makes during the course of an offseason, anytime he unloads the worst contract in baseball, he is a winner. When GM Alex Anthopolous unloaded Vernon Wells and the $86 million remaining on his contract, the Blue Jays became a big winner this winter. This one move alone will allow the Blue Jays to aggressively pursue other free agents or put more money into their farm system.

I wasn’t a big fan of the Jose Bautista extension because I thought there is a big risk involved, but I liked their other acquisitions of Rajai Davis, Octavio Dotel, Jon Rauch, Frank Francisco and Scott Podsednik. I also thought they did well in acquiring Brett Lawrie, who they will move over from second to third, in the Marcum trade.

5. Oakland A’s

The A’s finished 11th in the American League in runs scored, 13th in HRs, and tied for 10th in OPS. Offense was a top priority for Billy Beane’s ballclub.

While Beane didn’t land Adrian Beltre like he hoped, he did go out and get Josh Willingham from the Nationals, David DeJesus from the Royals and signed Hideki Matsui away from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Beane also spent money in the bullpen as he brought in Grant Balfour and Brian Fuentes to compliment Andrew Bailey and Brad Ziegler.

Later, we’ll take a look at the five losers from this offseason.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghosofmlg

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Boston Red Sox GM Theo Epstein made a remark late last week that likely drew less attention than it deserved, especially as the world gears up for Albert Pujols to hit free agency after the 2011 season. 

In discussing the tactics that helped Boston sign free-agent Carl Crawford in December—despite rumors that Crawford would go to the Angels—Epstein mentioned that Boston scouted Crawford exhaustively throughout “the last three, four months of the season at the ballpark, away from the ballpark.”

That is a significant thing to admit, and although I confess to a lack of intimate knowledge about the behind-the-scenes world of big-league scouting, I cannot imagine that this level of scrutiny is within normal limits of scouting intensity. Epstein and his staff undertook that colossal task because they were very high on Crawford, and because they knew it would take a sizable commitment of both money and intangible incentives to lure him to Boston.

No player in the history of the game has demanded this kind of scrutiny on par with Pujols, whom every team would love to have. He has a very real chance at collecting the biggest contract in MLB history, and the highest per-year salary is all but assured. Five or more teams will make serious pushes to land him.

Therefore, it is time for Jim Hendry to take a page from Theo Epstein’s book on player evaluation and free-agent diplomacy. The Cubs are, almost without a close second, the top potential bidders for Pujols’ services in 2012 and beyond. If it comes down to the money, Pujols will—not might or should, but will—be wearing a Cubs uniform on Opening Day next spring.

If Pujols has other boxes on his checklist, though, the Cubs may have some obstacles to overcome. How seriously does Pujols take the rivalry between St. Louis and Chicago? Does he enjoy playing at Wrigley Field? Are there any specific players he’d like to team-up with?

Most important of all may be this question: How badly does Pujols want to win more World Series rings, and will his perception of a team’s commitment to winning swing his decision? If it will, Hendry might need to demonstrate Chicago’s willingness to get aggressive as soon as possible. 

Extending Matt Garza could be a good idea in this scenario. If the team senses Pujols will have little patience for a potential rebuilding project, they should also exercise Aramis Ramirez’s club option for 2012. Ramirez is aging and declining at third base, but he remains the best short-term option for the team unless prospect Josh Vitters breaks out in 2011 and proves himself big-league ready at the hot corner.

Should an organization really allow the preferences of a potential free-agent to dictate its decisions this way? In this case, absolutely. So long as the Cubs know what decisions will legitimiately help lure Pujols, they should act within reason to make their club as appealing as possible.

Chicago is not as down and out of a franchise as some believe: Its farm system remains ready to graduate two or three solid contributors by the start of 2012, even after trading for Garza. 

They also have solid vets like Ryan Dempster, Carlos Marmol and Ramirez alongside young stars Starlin Castro, Tyler Colvin and Andrew Cashner. Add a very sturdy supporting cast composed of low-cost regulars Geovany Soto, Marlon Byrd and Kerry Wood, and this team looks ready to take a step forward. 

In a vacuum, the Cubs are not merely one piece away from winning their first pennant in nearly 70 years.

Of course, Pujols doesn’t amount to merely “one piece.” He is a difference-maker, a game-changer and any other hyphenated cliche the reader chooses. He counts as two pieces at once. With the Phillies getting older faster than they are getting better and the Giants facing the specter of expenses exploding over the next two years, the Cubs could easily be the team with the inside track to a title in 2012.

Another factor makes the stakes extraordinarily high in the potential pursuit of Pujols, and it calls to mind another snippet from Epstein last week.

“We covered him as if we were privately investigating him,” said Epstein of Crawford. Similarly, the Cubs—and any other would-be investors—need to delve deeply into Pujols’ past.

For years, the whispers have floated around baseball that Pujols, whose listed age is 31, is actually two or three years older than his birth certificate indicates. Obviously, this is not uncommon among Dominican players. Vladimir Guerrero and Miguel Tejada are just two of many high-profile players whose ages proved inaccurate under greater scrutiny later in their careers. 

The question of a player’s true age may never have been this important, though. Pujols is in line for a record-breaking contract that will last until he’s 40. If he is in fact 33 or 34, his aging profile for the life of that deal looks far less appealing. 

Consider: Pujols hit .312/.414/.596. Those are elite offensive numbers, but they are the worst in every category for Pujols since 2007. At 31, that mild regression is nothing to worry about. At 34, though, it could signal the start of an unpredictable decline. Which is the truth? The answer is critical to valuing Pujols as a free agent, and the Cubs—along with other Pujols suitors—ought to have one or more hired hands to spend the next nine months in the Dominican Republic, searching for any evidence of Pujols’ true age.

If all these proposed evaluation methods seem a bit extreme, it’s because they are. But then, the investment Pujols will require is extreme, too. This is the new world of baseball, and to survive in it, no team can afford to be shy.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

It’s official—the 2011 Major League Baseball season is right around the corner. Don’t believe me? Just ask the groundhog. Or maybe the fact that the next edition of Major League Baseball video games are primed for release will convince you. No?  Ok, the Super Bowl is over and so is another season of the National Football League. Pitchers and catchers have reported for Spring Training. Yes, the 2011 season is swiftly approaching.

With nearly all of 2011’s top free agents signed, it’s time to evaluate how all 30 big league teams did this offseason, and predict where they will finish in their respective divisions in this rendition of MLB 2011 Predictions. Concluding now with the American League.

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As the title suggests, there’s rampant optimism among Red Sox fans after this winter’s acquisitions. The club traded for Adrian Gonzalez, a highly-prized first baseman whom the Boston brain trust has coveted for years. That grab was followed by the signing of Carl Crawford, the former Tampa left fielder who was the top free agent available this offseason.

The team then made some other changes, bringing in Bobby Jenks and Dan Wheeler to shore up an ailing bullpen, moving Kevin Youkilis back to third base after Adrian Beltre signed with Texas, and inking a diverse supporting cast of role players.

Adding two big bats to an already productive lineup got fans excited and competitors scrambling to devise ways to combat an offense that could be historically great. It’s true that these Sox need to prove themselves on the field before we can crown them division champs (or better), but the enthusiasm is justified.

Let’s quantify just how good this offense might be.

In doing so, it’s important to remember that offensive production doesn’t necessarily equate to wins. You could have the best lineup in history and still struggle if adequate pitching isn’t in place. But this year’s Sox have an improved bullpen and a serviceable rotation. In fact, if John Lackey and Josh Beckett can rebound from last year’s poor numbers, the starting five might be among the better rotations in baseball.

So if we take it as a given that the pitching can hang in there and keep the team in games, how good might the offense be, and what might that mean for the win column?

To figure it out, I took a look at the franchise’s historical data, specifically team OPS. OPS, which is on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, is one of the better metrics at providing a snapshot of how good a player or team is (or was) at the plate.

Going all the way back to 1901, the franchise has a correlation of 0.92 between team OPS and runs scored. A value of 1.00 would have been perfectly positive, indicating that higher OPS always equates more runs scored, so a value of 0.92 is very strong. In simple terms, it’s been statistically true that the better the team does in one of those categories, the better they do in the other.

This doesn’t mean that an increase in OPS causes an increase in runs (or the other way around), but it doesn’t mean that two are connected.  So if we want to figure out how the 2011 offense might produce, we can draw some reasonable conclusions based on the OPS numbers its likely to put up.

Taking a look at the recent and career stats for each player likely to make a significant contribution, I came up with some ballpark expectations of what we might see.  

These are crude predictions; I can’t really estimate what effect the team chemistry might have, or what advantages the better players might enjoy as a result of having more big bats in the lineup. It’s also hard to determine how adjusting to Fenway will impact the newcomers. And there will almost certainly be a handful of other guys playing in a handful of games whose numbers will also factor in.

But on the whole, these are pretty defensible.

I also made some assumptions about playing time, guessing that Lowrie and Scutaro will share time at short, that Cameron and Kalish will rotate in the outfield taking some time away from Drew and Ellsbury, and that Ortiz will have some days off periodically.  In short, I applied percentages to make these 13 guys add up to nine full-time players.

The result is an estimated team OPS of .836.

So what does that mean?

These calculations assume that everyone does more or less what he’s been doing recently. At that “average” pace, the team’s OPS of .836 would be the third best in Red Sox history.

In 2003, the Sox posted an OPS of .851 while scoring 961 runs, and back in 1950 they finished with .848.  The 1950 also featured a team record 1,027 runs.

Are you starting to see what all the excitement is about?

If doing the expected could net that kind of output, what might happen if even one guy breaks out? What might happen if Big Papi repeats his .899 from last year? The 2011 season is, after all, a contract year for him. What if Gonzalez proves that Petco Park and the weak-hitting Padres were holding back and breaks the 1.000 mark? Or if Youk improves? Or if Lowrie plays well enough in the field to keep Scoots on the bench?

Just a two percent increase from these estimates would be a new all-time mark for the 110-year-old club.

All kinds of good things can happen that would make this team even better than I’m suggesting, and that, as Bostonians might say, is a wicked good thought. 1,000-plus runs is within reach, and if a few things break the team’s way, we could very well witness the best offense in Red Sox history.

And that would almost certainly lead to a playoff berth, a deep postseason run, and possibly more.

So fire up the DVR. Take some extra time off work. And plan on staying up for the West Coast games. Because it’s not too hard to imagine that 2011 might just be a record-breaking year.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

There isn’t much content online about auction drafts. I think that’s mostly because its more challenging and therefore less popular.

You can auto-draft (a.k.a. skip the draft) and end up with a very good team. Going into an auction, the best laid plans win.

While the auction never goes exactly as planned, the guy who does the best job at executing the plan will end up with the best team, at least out of the gate. There are many different strategies for auctions, and I cannot adequately explain them all, but here are a few simple rules to follow.

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Today, the common baseball fan wakes up from his winter hibernation. Eleven teams will start their workouts today in preparation for the 2011 season.

This is sure to be a season filled with great teams, great players, great games, and great moments. But there are still lots of questions to be answered during the season.

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