You got to lose to know how to win...

OK, maybe the title's mostly from NPH killing Aerosmith's classic (and probably my favorite song ever). Still, I think it sums up the Sox pretty damn well. And, since this is a dual-purpose baseball/politics blog, the Dems. But I'll focus on the Sox for at least the first paragraph or four.

A great deal's been written about the "Pink Hat" phenomenon; that is, the prevalence at the ballpark of "Red Sox fans" who couldn't pick Carl Yastzremski out of a lineup or who think (I swear this actually came up on blogs) that Alex Gonzalez was the "greatest shortstop in Sox history." I have two big problems with this outcry. The first is just that bandwagons are a price of success, and one I'm willing to pay. The second, and more important, is that "Pink Hat" mostly applies to female fans, and that's not cool. There's absolutely no shortage of male bandwagon-jumpers, and just playing the percentages of "guys are required societally to like sports and girlfriends are considered awesome if they play along," it truly sucks to use women as the object of annoyance there.

Regardless. I won't claim true hardship as a Sox fan. I was born in 1983. So I missed Slaughter beating Pesky's throw, Gibson destroying the Impossible Dream, Lee tossing an eephus to Tony Perez, and Bucky Fucking Dent (it's a blog, I don't need asterisks, ha ha). And I was a toddler barely adjusting to "wait, what do you mean I've got a sister" when Mookie hit that grounder to Billy Buck. So there's a lot of shit I missed.
On the other hand, my first baseball memory is watching Dave Stewart eviscerate the Sox in 1990. I saw Mo Vaughn on that goddamn horse in '95, watched the Sox kill the Indians in Game 1 in 1998, then drop the three non-Pedro starts. 1999... more Pedro heroics, then a complete collapse in the face of the Yanks. The sad self-destruction of the late Harrington-Duquette Sox, with Carl Everett going nuts and Jimy Williams getting canned (on my 18th birthday! Hooray adulthood!) And all of that, leading to the 2003 ALCS, the end of which frankly would serve as an entirely acquittable defense for the murder of Grady Little by any resident of New England.
So yeah, it's a bit annoying when I'm at Fenway surrounded by 19-year-olds in Ellsbury jerseys who don't quite understand the whole "three strikes and you're out" concept. I've never hated being at Fenway before, but I did on Patriot's Day this year, when the Sox were getting annihilated by the Rays (and I remember when they were the Devil Rays, and SUCKED, which none of the Ellsburys can say) and the seven rows around us only cared that the kiosks would stop selling $7 Budweiser in the 7th.

But I reassure myself with the knowledge that they can't appreciate a Sox win the way I do. There's just no way. To watch everything that unfolded between Millar's walk and Stewart's steal and that bouncing grounder from Renteria to Keith Foulke... Ask any true Red Sox fan how they spent that week, and you will hear some tales. Lack of sleep, sitting in the same position for hours so as not to curse our boys, going to work and/or school in a complete daze having watched the game till 2 am... It was a frigging gauntlet. And we came out the other side with the pennant that eluded every Sox team for nine decades prior. That 9th-inning toss from Foulke to Minky, the same toss that happens in a hundred games a year; it killed a century of demons. And if you were in New England and truly watching, you could feel them die. There was actually a whisper in the air.

So when Tony Massarotti and Dan Shaughnessy start screaming that the 2010 Sox, with their newfangled stats and oddly ineffective Josh Beckett, are doomed to failure, I can take the long view. The baseball team I live and die with is not exactly playing its finest baseball right now. But the players involved are better than this, and there's four more months in the season. And if they don't happen to win the Series this year, then you know what? That'll suck. But they'll still have a Beckett-Lester-Buchholz-Lackey rotation going into next year (and the three after that), and an almost unfair farm system feeding new guys in. The Sox have a lot of season left, and a lot of seasons ahead. I'm only 26, I've got plenty of time to watch them.

21-20? All that means is they need to go 74-47 to win 95 and make the playoffs. Easy. Go Sox.

Three games doth not a season make

So the Sox had themselves an unpleasant ALDS. The offense went to sleep for the first two games, and when it finally did wake up, the best closer in baseball had the worst outing of his career. Damn it all. Congrats to the Angels, who finally figured out the complicated "occasionally it's ok to draw a walk" concept that had confounded them for so long and thus fielded a big-boy offense.

Anyway, with the Sox done for the year, the talk in Boston inevitably turns to the hot stove. And with the Sox exiting the playoffs in such ignominious fashion, the talk tends a bit shrill. "The offense is rusting away!" "We don't have a legit closer anymore!" "My God, how will we ever compete with the Yankees' endless supply of dollars?" Clearly the Sox are a team in crisis, and only a miraculous offseason will save them. Or, you know, not.
The Red Sox this year won 95 games. Again. In fact, since Theo's front office took over, the Sox have won 95+ every year save 2006. In those 7 years, they've made the playoffs 6 times, the ALCS 4 times (winning two, and losing the other two in Game 7), and have swept two World Series. That's a pretty impressive run. Especially in baseball, where the playoffs are notoriously fluky. This is what Billy Beane meant when he said, "My shit doesn't work in the playoffs." You build a team to win 95 games and make the postseason. Once they're in, it's a sample size of at most 19 games, in which anything can happen. (For example, in the first 19 games of this season, the Yanks were 9-10 and the Royals 10-9. Clearly the Royals just know how to win in April.)
Also, in winning those 95 games, the Sox scored 872 runs (3rd in the AL) and allowed 736 (also 3rd). This was a hell of a team. It had weaknesses, obviously, and several of those weaknesses need to be addressed, but a teamwide overhaul is hardly necessary.

So what to do in the offseason, beyond basic Douglas Adams-style not panicking? Well, here are one complete amateur's ideas, position-by-position:

Catcher: I'm fine with a Martinez-Varitek platoon here. Victor's clearly the superior player, but his time in Cleveland made it pretty clear that an entire season behind the plate isn't an option. Pick up V-Mart's option, give him 100-120 starts, let 'Tek handle the rest (maybe a Wakefield-style "personal catcher" thing could work). Then, at season's end, throw $30 mil a year plus concession rights at Joe Mauer. Because a guy can dream.

First base: Yooouuuukk! Plus Martinez when he's not catching or DHing. Kotchman's also in the mix here, but we'll get to him when we cover third.

Second base: Pat Dusty on the head, congratulate him on a job well done, and invest heavily in those quick stain-remover pens.

Shortstop: Hoo boy. Here's the single biggest hole in the franchise. Shaughnessy's probably already copyrighted "The Curse of Nomah," since it's been a problem ever since 2004. The bigger problem is just that there aren't that many good SS's out there. (Yeah, insert "if only we could draft guys like Hanley Ramirez" joke here.) I think the Sox have two good options here.
1. Trade for J.J. Hardy. Milwaukee's clearly taking the Alcides Escobar Express at short, and it's hard to blame them. So they're heavy one shortstop, and Boston's heavy a few pitching prospects. Toss Michael Bowden or Junichi Tazawa, plus a reliever, at the Brewers, and spend the offseason fixing whatever happened to Hardy's swing this year. We know the kid's got power, and at Fenway he could become a doubles machine. Failing that,
2. Re-sign Alex Gonzalez. Yeah, he's a career .294 OBP hole in the lineup, but the Green/Lowrie platoon wasn't exactly Ripkenesque. He's good with the glove, and hits just enough to not actively harm the team. In other words, he's a shortstop.

Third base: Entirely dependent on Lowell's hip. If the offseason rest is enough to give him his range back (or even a decent approximation thereof), then I'm comfortable with him there. If not, then we need to see what Kotchman can do offensively. If they can get him hitting enough to justify an everyday lineup slot (and the skill set's there), then one could do worse than Kotchman at first and Youkilis at third. If nothing else, Kotchman-Pedroia-Gonzalez-Youkilis might be the best defensive infield in baseball.

DH: Papi finished the year on a power tear, but for the first ten weeks of the season, the Sox might well have been better off letting Beckett and Lester hit for themselves. Theo claims Ortiz is planning to work on whatever went wrong this year over the winter, and Boston fans will certainly be willing to cut him some slack, but if the April-May version of Papi shows up again, a change needs to be made. DH needs to be a wait-and-see.

OF: Drew's fine, Ellsbury's alright. Bay's a free agent, and someone's gonna pay him way too much. I'd say make a serious play for Matt Holliday (younger, better fielder, swing tailor-made for Fenway). Failing that, take a swing at Abreu. I mean, the Wall will scare him shitless out there, but I'll take that hit for a guaranteed .400 OBP.

SP: Pretty solid. Beckett and Lester are the obvious 1-2, Buchholz finally looks ready for primetime, and if Matsuzaka can throw a whole season the way he pitched in September, then the Sox are already 4 deep. If Wake's back is better, he's the probable #5. As far as depth, the Penny-Smoltz moves didn't exactly work out, but the theory was sound. A high-incentive short-term deal for someone like Harden or Sheets wouldn't be a bad idea.

RP: Another area of strength. Despite his Game 3 meltdown, and his higher BB/9 this year, Papelbon's still a top-tier closer. The pen behind him is deep and talented, and there's really no reason to mess with it. There's always a bullpen arm or two on the market, and maybe the Sox'll grab one, but as a complementary piece, not an upgrade.

Miscellany/speculative ideas: Since Theo's shown a definite willingness to trade anyone if it'll improve the club, I figured I'd muse on some guys who could be traded.

1. Jacoby Ellsbury. Ellsbury is a player I enjoy watching, but his skill set is spectacularly overrated and might be more useful to the team as trade bait. Both Colorado and SF seem enamored of speedy outfielders with minimal pop, and both have catchers they're clearly not going to use (Colorado favoring Torrealba over Ianetta, and SF's inexplicable infatuation with anyone other than Buster Posey). Either Ianetta or Posey would be a solid long-term solution at C for the Sox. Another interesting possibility here would be to send him to Anaheim for Brandon Wood, another heavy hitter (and SS!) trapped behind a player who better fits the manager's philosophy.
2. Jonathan Papelbon. There's been a lot of talk in this realm, partly due to Game 3, mostly due to his slightly reduced control this year. Pap's slowly approaching free agency, Theo's made it clear that the Sox won't overpay for a closer, and Danny Bard looks like an awfully good option to take over the 9th. So Pap's value might be pretty damn high. The Rays and O's could both use closers, but I doubt an in-division trade is likely, especially since neither Tampa nor Baltimore is parting with any of their young guys. Either the Braves or Marlins could benefit from a stud closer, and both have interesting outfield prospects kicking around, along with decent young starters. More likely, though, would be a Central team, since the two wins or so one gets from an elite closer would be enough to put a team over the top in either of the Central divisions. Cleveland could be a good spot, or Cincinnati.

OK, that was more than a few thoughts. More later, I imagine, as the postseason winds down and the free agent class sorts out.

Well, that was abrupt...

And just like that, the Sox are in the Championship Series. I'll resist the temptation to write five paragraphs of "See, OPS is better than BA, and a much better stat around which to build an offense." Of course, it helped that Beckett was unconscious in Game 1, and that Schill continued to pad his "big-game pitcher" resume on Sunday in finishing the sweep. Still, I think the quote I heard that summed up the difference between the two teams best came after Manny's walk-off in Game 2, when an analyst pointed out that the Angels didn't have anyone (other than Guerrero) who can win the game with one swing, while the Sox have about five. That about covers it.

The Sox, top to bottom, are guys who will extend at-bats, force pitchers into long counts, and wait for a ball to hammer. It's very tough to take them out of a game. Any pitcher with decent command, though, can force the Angels to swing at a lot of bad pitches and either strike them out or get easy fly balls. The only time they showed any life at all in this series was against Dice-K, and mostly because he was nibbling, trying to pitch around them rather than attacking.

Which brings me to an interesting thought. Old-school baseball writers, the sort who sit about complaining about how all these newfangled stats are ruining the game, love nothing so much as a team that "manufactures runs." Generally what they mean by this is any team that lays down a lot of bunts, steals a lot of bases, and puts on a hit-and-run every other inning or so. In other words, a team that can't hit for shit, and thus has to gamble on the basepaths in order to score.
It strikes me, though, that "manufacturing runs" is completely the wrong term for this. Manufacturing is the process of sticking to a proven, deliberate method in order to create a product. So wouldn't the approach favored by the Sox (take lots of pitches in order to either drive a good one over the fence or get on base so the next guy can knock you in) fit that label much better than trading outs for bases? Perhaps that's too logical for baseball.

The way somebody (I think it was Rob Neyer, but I really can't recall) put it once is that outs should be thought of the same way that we think of the clock in football or basketball. You'd never think it was a good idea for Tom Brady to spend two minutes on a single pass, because even if he gets a first down on that pass, the loss in time takes away opportunities for future first downs. Same deal in baseball.
Man on first, nobody out. If the batter bunts, the man on first will be on second, and thus can score on any base hit (unless he's Mo Vaughn in the later years). Better, right? No. Because while a man on second is more useful than a man on first, you know what's much more useful? Having two men on.
The league's OBP this year was .336. Thus, if an average major-league hitter is at the plate, he's got about a 1 in 3 chance of getting at least to first. If he bunts, his chances go down to just about zero, since the only way he'll reach base is if the fielder misplays the ball (or if the throw goes to second to force the lead runner, in which case the bunt was even more counterproductive). This is of course a massive oversimplification, since it ignores the possibility of double plays, or the slight increase in run expectancy with a man on second as opposed to first. But the basic point is there. In the bunt scenario, your chance of having blown one of your three alloted outs is almost 100%. If you let the guy swing, your chance goes down to about 67%. Not only that, but in the 33% of outcomes where the batter gets on, there's the possibility of a double, triple, or home run, any of which could score the runner from first without sacrificing the out.
This doesn't mean that a sac bunt is automatically a bad idea, just that its use should be really limited. As an example of reasonable use: if you look at the stats on sacrifice hits, you'll notice that the average NL team has almost twice as many sac hits as the average AL team. NL teams, of course, make pitchers hit, and since every pitcher in the league is pretty much a guaranteed out (pitchers OBPed to the tune of .177 this year), it's much more defensible to go for the bunt.

This went on a lot longer than I'd planned for it to, so I'll leave it at that. Tomorrow I'll likely write a bit on whether I'd rather see Cleveland or New York arrive in Boston on Friday.

1.5 games up. Unpleasant.

That the Yankees were able to close what was once a 14-game gap wasn't really surprising to me, they spent the first three months of the year playing way below what their run differential would have suggested. I am a bit unnerved that it's gotten this close, but with the collapse of the Mariners and the Tigers, the Sox will be playing in October whether they win the division or not. Taking the pennant, and the homefield advantage that comes with it, is obviously preferable, but wild-card status didn't seem to hurt the 2004 edition. (I know, I can't believe I'm forced to pull this rationalization crap either, but so it goes) What worries me is how the Red Sox have played the last week or so, which doesn't exactly instill confidence in me that they'll play far into October.

The offense has been alright, though the lack of Manny (Where the hell is he, by the way? Did he just forget to get on the team bus after a game in Baltimore?) has definitely hurt a few rallies. Ellsbury's been a phenomenal addition, but the bottom of the order, Tek in particular, just looks wiped out. The less said about offensive sinkhole J.D. Drew, the better. Still, scoring runs isn't the big problem lately.

It's the pitching. Which, given that pitching has been the strength of this team since April, is terrifying. Schill has clearly gotten to the late-Pedro "turns into a pumpkin after 6 innings" phase of his career. Matsuzaka just looks lost on the mound, his control's fluky and he can't seem to get through a lineup the third time. Lester's been up and down, and Wake just can't seem to find his good knuckler. If it weren't for Beckett continuing his Cy Young push, the rotation would be a wreck right now.
And the bullpen... Ugh. Papelbon's picked the worst possible time to get tired/have a bad week. Okajima looks like his arm's about to fall off (which, given his workload, it just might). Then there's Gagne. Now, my bet that Gabbard wasn't a big loss has turned out to be right so far, his ERA and WHIP have shot up since he got to Texas (David Murphy's OPS-ing 1.001 in 80 at-bats, but let's just try to pretend that's not true). That said, here's Gagne's line since coming to Boston:

9.00 ERA, .365(!) BAA, 2.14(!!) WHIP.

These are not encouraging numbers. They're certainly not the sort of numbers you want from your 8th-inning bridge guy. Especially when that bridge guy is a three-month rental grabbed for the express purpose of shoring up an already strong bullpen for a playoff run. There's still a week of regular-season play to prove otherwise, but Gagne seems unlikely to join Papi and Schill in the Pantheon of Theo Acquisitions.

The Sox have a day off, which hopefully they'll spend pulling their heads out of their asses. Then, it's off to Tampa for three. Nothing like a visit with the D-Rays to get a team back on track. If they can't pull out of the slump there, it may be a sign that it'll be a very short October.

Thoughts while trying to distract myself from the fact that my beloved Red Sox have whittled away their lead in the East to 2.5 games...

The flap that's erupted over the MoveOn ad in the NYT has been a lovely object lesson in the difference between liberal and conservative politics. The ad in question, while ill-advised and dumbly headlined, was certainly no worse than even the tamer GOP ads of recent years. So why the massive hoopla? For one thing, the Republicans are simply better at exploiting this sort of thing. Any party that can turn a few illicit blow jobs into the second impeachment of a sitting President has quite the talent for turning a tiny mistake into a party-destroying fiasco.
The other aspect is that liberals, for the most part, don't support this sort of tactic. When your aim in politics is the betterment of the state, rather than simply seizing power, there's a tendency to dislike slash-and-burn tactics. Not that there haven't been ruthless liberals (LBJ comes swiftly to mind), but that ruthlessness tends to involve backroom deals rather than public character assassination. The point being that anytime a liberal group or politician goes in for smear tactics or shrill attack ads, they not only open themselves up to attack from their opponents for playing dirty pool, but they alienate their own base, which lacks the stomach for this sort of thing.

Meanwhile, the right eats it up. I'm reminded, actually, of an essay on Russian politics I just read. Yury Luzhkov, the popular mayor of Moscow, was attacked by a Kremlin-affiliated journalist who accused him of, among other things, murder. The accusations were, of course, false, but the very fact that the Kremlin could get away with making blatantly slanderous attacks on Luzhkov proved that the Kremlin was the stronger of the two. As such, they could be trusted to be powerful leaders.
There's a similar dynamic at work on the right in America. Whether the mud they fling at Democrats has any relation to reality is beside the point. The point is that they can get away with it, which makes them powerful. More importantly, it makes the Dems look weak, since we inevitably take the high road for just long enough for the slander to stick and bite us soundly on the ass.
Now's normally the point where I'd suggest a concrete solution. Can't think of much beyond floating the idea that every Democrat should memorize the line "That's the sort of pathetic attempt at character assassination that has no place in a legitimate political campaign. If my opponent has the werewithal to make those accusations to my face, I'll gladly answer them. Otherwise, let's continue to chat about why my healthcare plan will actually provide everyone with healthcare." And perhaps, just perhaps, leave the childish name-calling bullshit to the Republicans.