Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Gold Glove for Coco!
It's plays like the one he made tonight that are the reason we continue to watch the game, even 'though the Red Sox are doing... whatever it is that they're doing right now. Thanks for making things at least marginally interesting, Coco. And hey, Josh Beckett didn't let his gently sliced fingertip keep him from pitching a quality game. That was nice to see. Of course he was paired with Dougie again, which indicates that maybe someone up there is paying attention finally?
The problem was, and is, offense.
Which is to be expected. Check this out.
The lineup we had on Opening Day had a payroll of $60,306,830.
The lineup we're fielding right now has a payroll of $23,33,000.
That's a difference of $36,975,830. Nearly 37 million dollars in difference.
The Red Sox are a $120 million team. Figure their starting lineup to be about half of that, as it was on opening day, and we've gone from having the players you would expect to find on the team with the second-highest payroll in baseball to fielding the financial equivalent of the ROYALS. I'm not even kidding. The Royals team payroll is about $47 million. $23 million, what our starting lineup tonight is collectively making, is about half of that.
The guys we have on the field have been whittled down by 37 million dollars'-worth of baseball player meat. The difference between what our lineup made when healthy and what our current lineup makes is, in and of itself, still higher than the overall payrolls of two teams: the Devils Rays ($35 mil overall) and the Marlins (an unreal $15 mil overall... Manny Ramirez by himself is making more this year than the entire Marlins roster. Boggles the mind).
Now I know that salary is not an indication of how good or bad a player is. Some guys are making way too much and skewing it; some guys are making the league minimum* just because of their age, not their ability. Heck, the Marlins, with that puny payroll, are playing some darn good ball right now.
But the fact of the matter is that the Red Sox are not hitting like a $120 million ballclub right now, and it's at least in part because they are no longer fielding the equivalent of a lineup that is on a $120 million team. Just something to think about.
And, incidentally, another reason why all this mess isn't Tito's fault. You show me the manager who has the ability to prevent about 43 million dollars'-worth of injuries to his players and I'll show you someone who's really lucky, or has magical powers.
*I got all the salaries off of ESPN.com and the team payrolls from the Hardball Times. For a few of the Sox ESPN had N/A as their listed salary; I'm assuming that means they're making the league minimum? Two of them (Carlos Pena and Dustin Pedroia) were in the lineup tonight, so obviously my numbers will be off a little if that assumption was incorrect.Labels: baseball, Coco Crisp, injury, MLB, numbercrunch, Red Sox
2:52 AM
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
We'll get to that image in a second.
By now you've probably all noticed the change 'round these parts; that is, the new banner. It was a sad day when I realized it was pitiably anachronistic to have Joey Harrington and Bill Mueller as the visual focal points of a site covering the Lions and the Red Sox. So now we have a blue cat (of the appropriate species) wearing red socks, which should withstand the test of time. Or something. I may tweak that banner a bit (if you were swift on the day I first put it up you might've briefly seen a version without any borders), but that's how we're gonna do things here at BCRS nowadays.
And by 'we' I of course mean me, my computer, and Mortimer, the collective cactus being that lives on my windowsill. He's very helpful.
But anyways. It's been a bit, and during this time of year that means that I've missed quite a lot. I blame education. I see that Coco Crisp has done something shattering to his hand and/or finger, the official word being "a non-displaced fracture at the base of his left index finger," which, for us nonmedical sorts, is a hairline fracture (see, non-displaced, the bone hasn't moved).
Doesn't sound too bad in the grand scheme of awful and terrifying possibilities, but I don't like the location. The base of his index finger... ugh, that's something he's gonna need for both fielding and batting. It's a part of the hand that gets a lot of pressure put on it, if you think about how much you use your index finger (even on your nondominant hand) for. But the front office doesn't seem panicked, and it's early yet, and it's not like Adam Stern is a horrible replacement. More Red Sox Jews for Passover, huzzah!
In happy good yay-making news, however, David Ortiz has been signed to a 4-year extension, with a club option tacked on at the end. I'm sure if you tried hard enough you could find some someone who is unhappy with the deal, because no matter what it is there will always be some Red Sox fan who finds something about a deal to be unhappy with, but in this case that person is a bitter, bitter soul who lives out their days in the darkness of their parents' basement, pecking away at their computer and cursing the sun like Gollum and generally hating life and joy. Or maybe they're a Twins fan and they feel ever so shafted.
Also, the presser gave us this image, which is clearly one of the greatest AP photographs to ever exist and in a way validates the entire signing all by itself. Seriously. LOOK AT HOW COOL HE IS. And the bling! And the SMILE. And the FUZZY THEO BENIGNLY PRESIDING OVER ALL IN THE BACKGROUND. His hat kind of looks like a bicycle seat but even that is OK because it's David Ortiz and if he wants to wear a bicycle seat on his head, you damn well best sit back and whistle at how sharp he manages to make it look.
The home opener is in a few hours but I, of course, will not be able to see it, as I'll be frantically painting away in my last (official) painting studio of the year. Beckett's going and I'm just a wee bit annoyed that I won't be able to get a good look at him, but it's OK.
Why is it OK, you ask?
This is why it is OK.
I almost didn't want to say anything beforehand, because I hardly believed we were actually going until we were walking up past Ford Field and into the park. The weather was perfect and Bondo was pitching and we had prime Brandon Inge viewing seats (although not necessarily the best seats for photos, what with my telephoto-lens-less camera and all, but I tried). The Tigs lost but it was an amazingly good time and you should all go look at the photos so that you may enjoy it as well.
For more detail on it you can check out my exhaustion-crazed and vaguely incoherent post about it over at RotT.Labels: baseball, blognews, Coco Crisp, contract, David Ortiz, injury, MLB
10:59 AM
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