Kuzul

Before repairing the damaged hearts, fixing the broken city and rebuilding player personnel for the 2012 season, one of the big pieces needs to be put in place. Will GM Theo Epstein stay with the Boston Red Sox?

Well, one thing is for sure, Red Sox owner John Henry expressed that he would welcome Epstein back should he choose to want to return. 

During a radio interview in Boston, Henry gave his support to Theo and basically said the ball is in his court. So now that we know how ownership feels, will Epstein come back to the Sox and if so, when will he make that announcement?

There is a lot to think about for Mr. Epstein in this situation. The pressure level in Boston and New York is unlike anywhere else. But losing like the Sox have lost the last couple of seasons only raises the tension of the job. 

He could take it as a challenge in terms of returning to Boston. Fix what was broken in 2011, make sure it doesn’t happen again and reclaim the keys to the city that he owned in 2004 and 2007.

Or you can look at it in terms of the option of leaving Boston. To me, the only place Theo would go if he left Beantown would be to the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs are in need of a powerful GM, one that can bring winning back into the hearts of the fans in Chicago—much like the Boston Red Sox were doing when they found Epstein. 

The Cubs have not won a World Series since 1908! That is a longer curse than the one broken in Boston. Now in my mind, Theo Epstein is already a Hall of Fame manager, but think of where he would be if he could end the drought in Chicago. He would be a legend with a legacy that would be tough to match.

What will be the ultimate end decision? Well, only one person can answer that question, but if you ask Boston, Red Sox Nation and owner John Henry, Theo is welcome to come right back home to Fenway Pahhhk.

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Dear Mr. Ricketts,

With yet another baseball season having gone by, and again nothing to show for it, this is my final plea.

We as Cubs fans need a change.  For years, we were stuck with the Tribune Company, which looked at the organization as a business. Yes, I agree it is, but it appeared their sole interest in this company was purely monetary. 

Once you and your family came along in 2009, the stories of your love of the team and desire to push them towards a World Series seemed like a dream come true for Cubs fans.  We understood that you needed to sit back and watch the operations of the organization to see what your large moves would be.

Finally, in the middle of this season you let go of General Manager Jim Hendry, and you have set out on the path to finding his replacement.

It has been no secret that you want to build this organization from the ground up.  Build a strong farm system, make smart investments on players worth the large contracts, and use sabermetrics and statistics as a basis for evaluating talent. 

When thinking of potential candidates that completely embody those beliefs, one person stands above the rest: Theo Epstein.  Epstein has already had to deal with many of the same things in his time in Boston that the Cubs are dealing with.  Boston at the time was a team that had not won a World Series in over 80 years, and with his player personnel decisions, Epstein was able to bring a World Series to Boston.

Listen, we all know Theo is not just going to come here for nothing.  Still being under contract with the Red Sox, it’s going to take some investing to bring him in.  Now the Cubs system is not the best, but you do have a player, in the beginning of his prime, that would make the Red Sox forget all about Theo: Starlin Castro.

Sure, Castro batted .307 and had over 200 hits this season, but is one player worth more than a guy who can completely change your organization?  Theo has the ability, as we have seen with Boston, to build a farm system, sign free agents, and put a competitive team on the field, year in and year out.

Now I am not asking you to give up all you’ve got, but we Cubs fans are tired of waiting for next year, and no longer want to be the lovable losers, so do us a favor, and bring in Theo.

Sincerely,

Cubs Nation

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The Red Sox and Yankees have been battling for the AL East so long it is hard to remember anyone other than Tampa Bay Rays actually competing with them. This year has been no different. Honestly, no one outside of Boston or New York particularly cares who wins the division. Both teams are going to the playoffs again and that is all that matters.

Theo Epstein has abandoned his principles some in the past couple of seasons. He added Carl Crawford for a huge sum of money this season and added John Lackey last season. Neither lived up to his advanced billing, but in the new economic order, Boston doesn’t have to worry about bad contracts as much as they used to.

Key Statistics

Team Payroll: $161.7 million (3rd)

Lineup: 3.4

Starting Rotation: 10.1

Bullpen: 7.0

Composite Ranking: 6.8

Analysis Score: -3.8

Lineup

The Carl Crawford signing was significantly out of character for Theo Epstein. For one, his style of play doesn’t fit the mold of the player the Red Sox typically go for. Most of their players have great plate discipline, and Crawford isn’t that player. Moreover, the contract itself seemed really foolish. Crawford is a versatile player who brings a lot of value to the table when all things are considered.

Unfortunately, most of that value is tied up in speed. Speed tends to leave when players start getting into their early 30s. So, we can’t hold Crawford’s bad season against Epstein, but we can hold the bad contract against him. Otherwise, this is a very good lineup with a lot of patient hitters. Adrian Gonzalez was a stroke of genius, but again, the contract seems a bit bloated.

Rotation

Red Sox haters were pointing and laughing about Josh Beckett’s extension at the beginning of the season. His first two starts were on the rough side. Epstein has the last laugh for now, as Beckett sports a 2.49 ERA over the whole season. He is “only” 12-5 despite the low mark, but this has been his best season as a Red Sox.

Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz have been as good as advertised when healthy. If both are healthy they will settle in as the second and third starters in the playoffs. Buchholz should be back by playoff time, but might not have enough strength to start. That will leave either the ageless Tim Wakefield and/or the struggling John Lackey as the third starter.

Looking at Lackey’s numbers, it is hard to fathom how he has a 6.00-plus ERA this year. At any rate, they may have to bite their lip and let him get a start in the ALDS.

We almost forgot the artist formally known as Dice-K. He has been Boston’s most famous disappearing act since Harry Houdini. He is out for the season with right elbow surgery, but he still has another year on his contract. Andrew Miller is taking his spot for the time being, but with $10 million on the books, Matsuzaka will likely get another chance.

Bullpen

Epstein tried to make the Red Sox bullpen the deepest in baseball. He already had Jonathan Papelbon and Daniel Bard. He turned around and added Dan Wheeler, Bobby Howry and Matt Albers. So far, none of them have exactly lived up to advanced billing, but at least Wheeler and Albers have been productive. Howry has been yet another disappearing act.

In fact, a look up and down the 2011 roster is a veritable who’s who from the past several seasons. Franklin Morales also appears on the list. His numbers have actually been pretty good. Alfredo Aceves might be the biggest surprise of the campaign and all playoff teams have at least one player in each phase that surprises.

Response to Crisis

The injury to Dice-K and the ineffectiveness of John Lackey put the Red Sox behind the eight ball in terms of starting pitching depth. They were able to maintain for awhile, but when Clay Buchholz went down with a stress fracture in his back, Epstein had to act. He had a deal worked out with the Athletics for Rich Harden, but Harden failed his physical. So, he turned to the Mariners and acquired Erik Bedard. Somehow, he passed his physical.

Bedard made six starts as a Red Sox and actually was productive before he went on the shelf. He is officially listed as day-to-day (aren’t we all), but he may not make another start this season. The Red Sox will keep him on the postseason roster as a situational lefty. He did bridge the gap between Buchholz and Andrew Miller though.

Analysis Score: -3.8 (22nd)

Final Analysis

There is no way that Theo Epstein ranks this low in reality, but when you spend as much money as the Red Sox there is no way you can get bang for your buck. A number of players on the roster have either been ineffective or hurt. In the lineup alone, you have J.D. Drew and Carl Crawford. The mound has more names on that list.

On the other hand, if the AL MVP doesn’t go to Jose Bautista, it will likely go to either Adrian Gonzalez or Jacoby Ellsbury. Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia have also been excellent when healthy.

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With September here, it’s only a month away from the Cubs starting the only season that matters to them this year—hunting season for a new general manager. And according to all reports, Cub owner Tom Ricketts is hunting big game.

You keep hearing Andrew Friedman, Brian Cashman, Theo Epstein and Billy Beane’s names thrown out there.

Cashman and Friedman will be available once the season is over, while Epstein has a year left on his contract, and Beane owns a piece of the A’s and is signed through 2014.

Epstein is an intriguing figure. Having broken the Bambino’s curse, would he be brave enough to take on the billy goat?

Others came close before him in Boston, but in Chicago, we’re not playing with hand grenades – because the Cubs haven’t been close enough to cause collateral damage.

He is exactly what Tom Ricketts described when talking about what he was looking for in a new GM. The problem is he would probably want a title that has president in it.

Normally a team will let you out of your contract if you are bettering yourself, but moving laterally doesn’t fit that criterion. Would he really want to leave his favorite team growing up, along with deep pockets for the challenge that is the Chicago Cubs?

While I would love him, I don’t see that happening.

Speaking of deep pockets, there is talk Cashman is ready to leave the Yankees because he is tired of working for the Steinbrenner boys. He’s had a lot of success in New York, but he inherited a stacked team, and has unlimited funds that nobody else can match.

You have to ask if he is as good a GM as his record indicates. It’s easy to build a team when you can pay for your mistakes to go away. He’s not going to have that in Chicago.

The question is if he really is that good a general manager. I don’t think he’s good enough to break the curse in Chicago, and I would take a pass.

That brings up to my choice—Andrew Friedman. The word is that he is very comfortable in Tampa.

THIS IS NOT MY COMPLETED ARTICLE. I PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED THAT EVERYTHING AFTER THIS DISAPPEARED TO THE EDITOR, AND THEY DELETED THE MESSAGE AND LEFT MY ARTICLE AS-IS ON THIS SITE. IT HAPPENED NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE. I DELVED INTO MY THOUGHTS ON FRIEDMAN AND BEANE. I WAS GOING TO REDO THE ARTICLE FOR A THIRD TIME TONIGHT, BUT AFTER THE EXTENSION FOR ONERI FLEITA TODAY, I DON’T THINK IT MAKES SENSE ANY LONGER, BECAUSE I THINK BIG-NAME GM’S ARE NOW OUT OF THE MIX. IF I CHANGE MY MIND AND HAVE SOME TIME, I’LL FINISH IT, OTHERWISE, SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE, BUT IT WASN’T MY FAULT, IT WAS BLEACHER REPORTS.

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The Boston Red Sox got some bad news earlier this week, when it was made clear that the return of starting pitcher Clay Buchholz was going to come later rather than sooner.

The Boston starting rotation, seen as a major strength of the team going into the season, has been decimated by the loss of Daisuke Matsuzaka, Jon Lester and Buchholz for varying lengths of time.

Even Josh Beckett went down for a while earlier this season after becoming ill.

Despite this, the Red Sox have managed to hold their own and even maintain a small lead in the American League Eastern Division over their arch-rivals, the New York Yankees.

Relying on ageless veteran Tim Wakefield and a handful of reclamation projects, the Red Sox are getting just enough people out to win more than two-thirds of their games.

Still, there is a strong call for the team to swing a deal for one of the starting pitchers being peddled by teams that are out of contention.

One of the biggest names available is the Colorado Rockies‘ Ubaldo Jimenez, who can apparently be had by any team willing two trade about three Grade-A prospects. Jimenez has been mediocre this season, but he was a top contender for the Cy Young award in 2010.

The Red Sox could easily get him if they wanted. I’m sure a package including players like Anthony Ranaudo and Ryan Lavarnway could get Jimenez in Boston.

The Yankees could easily get him too, if they were willing to cough up the Rockies’ high asking price.

I can’t help but think—and have done so out loud on this site three times today—that this is one that the Red Sox should just walk away from. If the Yankees want Jimenez in the Bronx, let them have him.

Last year, Jimenez, who was an established starter with an ERA typically in the mid- to high-threes, opened the season white-hot and through mid-June, posted an ERA of 1.15.

Sportswriters, who should have known better, openly speculated on the possibility that he might beat Bob Gibson’s modern record for the lowest ERA in a season, 1.12, set in 1968.

Of course, he came back to earth after that, as soon as his luck, in the form of a .215 BABIP (batting average on balls in play, typically about .300), evened out.

Since then, he’s lost some velocity on his fastball, and over the past 13 months, Jimenez has posted a 12-16 record with an ERA of 4.27 over 242.1 innings. Granted, this is in Coors Field, but he’s also in the weaker league and doesn’t have to face teams with designated hitters in their lineups.

These things tend to cancel each other out, so Jimenez should probably be regarded as a pitcher who would pitch about .500 ball on a good team, with a 4.27 ERA right now.

Now, even at that, a starting pitcher on the Red Sox is going to pile up some wins if he posts a 4.27 ERA. The Red Sox seem to put up numbers that look like football scores a few times each week.

The bigger question is whether or not they actually need him, at any price.

The Red Sox have another option. There is a pitcher on staff who has thrown 198.1 innings over the past four years, moving between starting and relieving roles. He’s been equally effective in each.

His entire major-league career, consisting of 89 games, has been with contending teams in the AL East. In those 198-plus innings, he’s posted a 3.22 ERA, a stellar 37 percent above league average for the environment he’s pitched in.

Does this pitcher have any experience pitching in a pennant race? Check.

In September of 2009, he was a regular member of the Yankee relief corps, where he appeared eight times, pitched 16.2 innings and was 1-0 with a 2.16 ERA. Five of those eight appearances came against the Angels, Red Sox and Rays.

The year before, he came up on Aug. 31, while the Yankees were still on the fringe of a pennant race they would ultimately fall out of. It certainly wasn’t his fault. He made two strong relief appearance and then entered the rotation.

Over 30 innings, he posted a 2.40 ERA (with a solid 1.167 WHIP for those who think that is useful to know), and even that is misleading, because he had one bad outing at the end of the season after the Yankees had been eliminated from the race.

On top of all that, he’s pitched well when he’s had to. His career won-lost record is a remarkable 20-2.

Any Red Sox fans out there knows that I am talking about Alfredo Aceves. So do Yankees fans, although probably to their regret.

Aceves was injured last year after making 10 strong appearances early in the season, and the Bombers cut him loose in the offseason. Theo Epstein promptly grabbed him off the scrap heap on Feb. 8, for a paltry $650,000 salary.

For the Red Sox, he has started four games and also stepped in for a struggling starter early in several other contests, racking up a 6-1 record and a 3.24 ERA with solid supporting numbers.

I don’t know about you, but 3.24 in Fenway Park, in the AL East, sounds a lot more impressive than 4.27 anywhere else.

Theo Epstein needs to hold on to his top prospects and patch up the Red Sox’ starting rotation with the addition of an “Ace,” not a pitcher that the media wrongly perceives as being one.

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Boston Red Sox Executive Vice President and General Manager Theo Epstein knew what he was getting in to this past offseason when he acquired Adrian Gonzalez from the San Diego Padres.

The acquisition was made in exchange for outfielder Reymond Fuentes, right-handed pitcher Casey Kelly, first baseman Anthony Rizzo and a player to be named later.

The question is, did the Red Sox know Gonzalez might be viewed by some as a legitimate Triple Crown Candidate in his first year with the club and worth every dime of his 2011 $5.5 million contract?

A batter earns the Triple Crown when he leads the league in three specific categories, those being, home runs (HR), runs batted in (RBI) and batting average (AVG). The Triple Crown generally refers to leading a specific league such as the American League (AL) or National League (NL) in these three major categories.

Through the first 63 games, Gonzalez leads the AL in runs batted in with 57, is second in batting average at .338 and has 12 home runs, eight home runs shy of Jose Bautista’s AL-leading 20.

Gonzalez is on pace for a .347 average, 148 runs batted in and 31 home runs.*

If these numbers come to fruition, his projected average and runs batted in maybe enough to lead the American League but his home runs may fall shy for a league leader.

The glimmer of hope may be that 81 of his games played will be at one of the smallest ballparks in all of major league baseball, Boston’s Fenway Park.

Fenway, known as a hitter’s park, especially for left hander’s with a short right field porch, makes it entirely possible that Gonzalez hits in upwards of 45 to 50 home runs which just may be enough to lead the AL.

The triple crown hasn’t been won by any player since 1967, 44 years ago, coincidentally by a former Red Sox player named Carl Yastrzemski. 

*Source: Yahoo Sports

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Theo Epstein is the general manager of the Boston Red Sox.  He is also a practitioner of sabermetrics. 

At least that’s what we’re lead to believe.

After all, Bill James has been a senior advisor for the Red Sox since 2002.

You see, in the Church of Sabermetrics, Bill James is the deity. Many of his followers believe that he was begotten, not made, and that he will reign eternal in the halls of Strat-O-Matic Valhalla.

Their “good book” is divided into an old testament, Baseball Abstract, and a new testament, The Bill James Handbook.  When in groups, they speak in a tongue that is incomprehensible to most heathens.

Pythagorean Winning Percentage

Win Shares

Runs Created

Range Factor

What looks like pure gibberish to the non-believer is sacred text to the SABR-phile.

Fortunately, for those individuals unable to grasp the majesty of it all, along came Michael Lewis, a modern-day Martin Luther.  He translated the complexities of James-speak into a language most people could easily understand. 

Lewis’ book, Moneyball, made the abstract tangible.  The masses were no longer in the dark. 

Moneyball taught us that a walk was as good as a hit and that objective values can be used to find a player’s true worth. 

Chubby guys that could work a pitcher are now sexy.  No longer does it matter if a guy “looks” like a ballplayer—he needs the numbers.  To quote Billy Beane in Moneyball: “We’re not selling jeans here.”

What is being sold is a philosophy—one that favors empirical data over gut reaction.  Some owners and general managers buy into it with fervor.  Epstein purports to be one of those people.

The fact is, he waivers from James’ philosophy so frequently that, in my opinion, he is a SINO (Sabermetrician In Name Only).

In many ways, Epstein is a bit of a paradox: he does a good job drafting and building talent for the future based off very little except college and high school production and scouting reports.  Evidence of his success: Dustin Pedroia, Clay Buchholz, Jonathan Papelbon, Jacoby Ellsbury and Daniel Bard.

Yet, when a player has a body of work in front of him that includes significant major league experience, Epstein appears to deviate tremendously from sabermetric philosophy by allowing emotion to cloud his vision and, in the process, overvaluing that player. 

And it’s not just a few isolated sins; he has a litany of offenses that require much penance. 

The list is long, yet undistinguished:  Matt Clement, Edgar Renteria, Wily Mo Pena, J.D. Drew, Coco Crisp, Julio Lugo, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Eric Gagne and John Lackey, just to name a few.  Add Josh Beckett’s contract extension to that list, too.

Now, I’m not saying that all of these players lacked value at the time.  Some did; others did not.  But all of the players were grossly overvalued by Epstein.

And that’s the crux of the matter.  James’ philosophy looks for the true value in a player.  Implied in that philosophy is to not pay above market value for a player.  Epstein has violated this principle repeatedly.

Take Carl Crawford this year. He is a good ballplayer, but is he really worth a $142 million contract? 

I don’t think so.

But Epstein signed Crawford as a way to renew interest in the Red Sox after a lackluster performance on the field and in the ratings last year.  In sabermetric terms, the move made no sense—Crawford’s added value was not on par with the size of the contract. 

However, when you have the funds, sense sometimes takes a back seat to politics.  Epstein might not be selling jeans, but he is trying to sell tickets.

What this tells me is that Epstein is human.  And as such, when put in a situation where he has more cash to throw around than his competitors, he will play loose with the sabermetric ideal and give in to temptation.  In other words, he has a larger margin of error that forgives lapses in judgment.

I don’t fault him for this; it’s his prerogative. 

Indeed, sabermetrics is for the have-nots with no money (and to help members of the BBWAA make Hall of Fame decisions).  But for the landed gentry, sabermetrics is a convenient little way for them to pretend to be hip, in much the same way that a wealthy person might have a “Stop Global Warming” bumper sticker on his Cadillac SUV.

As for Theo Epstein, he should quit committing heresy against sabermetrics and renounce his faith. Perhaps, he can be like Henry VIII who separated the Church of England from the Vatican. 

Once excommunicated from the Church of Sabermetrics as being the anti-Beane, Epstein can base his church on this simple philosophy: I have money; you don’t.  Deal with it.

It may be harsh, but at least it speaks the truth. And as the saying goes, the truth will set you free.  

So, set yourself free, Theo.  Set yourself free.

Do I get an Amen?

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We’re counting down the hours to the start of baseball season.  Hopes are high in Minneapolis, Chicago and Detroit and not so much in Cleveland and Kansas City, as the AL Central race is about to get under way.

Most pundits have the Twins, White Sox and Tigers battling it out for the division title while the Royals and Indians play hot potato for last place.

All of the expected front runners have their weaknesses and could use a little more help as the season rolls on.  There are a bunch of players that will be, or are, available who could help each team in this division.

I’ll propose one player acquisition for each team in the division that could push them over the top as the favorite to win the division.

For baseball purists, I’m not taking salaries, WAR stats, BABIP, etc., into account here.  This is just for fun and it’s trying to match up a player who’s either unhappy, on a terrible team or on an expiring contract in his current situation and extracting him from there and putting him on a AL Central team.

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From a hardcore Red Sox lifer and armchair Orioles fan (gotta love that Camden Yards), I am a Buck Showalter admirer. Heck, I think he’s the best thing to happen for that team since Albert Belle retired.

The results for the Birds after he took the helm last year speak for themselves. Not only did he turn around what would have been an abysmal season, Buck actually got his young crew playing like October meant something other than golf and Xbox 360.

He makes any team better by his sheer presence. The thousand yard stare and instant authority will get more out of any given club than almost any manager. But as baseball gears up for the Showalter-Orioles era, Buck has stepped on Superman’s cape for his opening act.

For those who hadn’t read the minor war of words this past week, Buck Showalter called into question (among other things) the ability of GM Theo Epstein to put a winning team together without the Wayne Manor-like trappings that come with a big-market franchise in Boston.

Fundamentally, I agree with the principle behind his complaints. I have been a firm salary cap believer for many years, going back to the early-2000s when New York’s payroll trumped the competition by a cool $80-90 million annually. The NFL is Exhibit A on why firmer payroll limits actually improve the sport by balancing talent across the League.

Would this negatively impact my team? Absolutely. The Red Sox would be forced to dilute their current talent pool down, which almost assuredly means the departure of two or three impact players over the next few seasons. But the game will be bettered by breaking up the power broker teams and seeing postseason baseball again in Kansas City, Oakland, Washington, and Pittsburgh.

But…my sympathies for the plight of small market teams stretch only so far. The current revenue-sharing model pours millions, and in some cases tens of millions, of dollars into the pockets of low income teams every year. There have been seasons when the Marlins actually spent less on their team than the total amount received from the rest of the League.

Showalter also singled out the Red Sox’s free agency pick-up of Carl Crawford, needling Epstein for spending so much more than everyone else offered, a tactic which requires no special intelligence.

While the Red Sox definitely priced Crawford out of reach of nearly every other team in the hunt, their deal came on heels of the shocking contract struck by Jayson Werth and the Nationals. Washington may get a pass for setting a skewed free agency standard this offseason, given their franchise’s desperate need for an attendance boost after Stephen Strasburg’s injury.

The irony is that it’s often been the mediocre also-rans whose forays into free agency have established bloated high-water marks for baseball elites. Baltimore (Albert Belle in 1998), Colorado (Mike Hampton in 2000), Texas (A-Rod in 2001), Toronto (Vernon Wells in 2006), and San Fran (Barry Zito in 2007) are all guilty of establishing ridiculous precedents in order to get talent in small-mid markets.

Getting back to the issue of Showalter’s criticism of Theo Epstein…Buck may have lamented the big contract, which is a highly visible symbol of franchise wealth. But large free agent signings are not synonymous with the big teams, and frankly are not Showalter’s problem. No, the Orioles’ biggest hurdle is the Red Sox’s ability to pay market rates to everyone on top of their deals with the A-listers.

I also have to take exception with the idea that Buck suggests Boston’s money can take the place of strategy. Let’s not forget that Theo cut his teeth in San Diego, one of the stingiest clubs in modern baseball.

Theo & Co. also deserve a tip of the cap for their work on the farm system. This is one area where the losing clubs don’t get much of my patience or sympathy. The top 15 draft picks are untouchable. They can’t be traded for under any circumstances, or lost due to a Type A signing. Fundamentals are fundamentals, and the inability of teams like Pittsburgh or Houston, whose drafted talent chronically under performs winning teams with lower picks (like the Sox), is frustrating and inexcusable.

I’ve rambled quite a bit, but I wanted to illustrate how unnecessary Buck’s comments were, particularly his choice of targets. I empathize with his team’s needs and the realities of playing in the AL East. Major League Baseball is an unfair game, and I’ll be the first in line to sign a petition to spread the talent out. But attacking the Red Sox on their merits is like spitting in the wind. As if they needed more motivation.

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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.

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