Posts Tagged ‘VORP’
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Ramirez, Sox End Volatile Relationship: Latest “Manny Being Manny” Antics Swelled Into Selfish Discontent, Forcing Boston To Make A MoveAugust 4th, 2008
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And just like that, he’s gone.
After 1,083 regular season games played, 274 home runs launched into the ether, and 868 runs driven in, Manny Ramirez will no longer stand before the Monster in left field wearing home whites with red embroidery. No longer will he bat behind David Ortiz, forming one of the most prolific offensive combos in the history of the game. And no longer will he stir that fickle cauldron mixed with absolute indignation and pure jubilation.
Just like that. Like so many of the baseballs that effortlessly smacked off the barrel of his bat. Gone. Long gone, in fact.
With just minutes, if not seconds, to go before the clock struck four on Thursday afternoon, the Red Sox sent the disgruntled Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers via the Pittsburgh Pirates in a three-way deal that landed All-Star outfielder Jason Bay—quite fittingly—in the Bay State.
In a move similar to the Nomar Garciaparra trade of 2004—and for largely the same reasons and under eerily equal circumstances—the player, teammates, manager, and front office all agreed: a point of no return had been reached, and Ramirez had to go; and what better place than Frank McCourt’s SoCal Red Sox Retirement Home. Read more
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The Offense is Offensive.May 22nd, 2008
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Hey, remember that time when I wrote about the Indians offense being bad? What’s that you say? That’s all I’ve been writing about recently?
Well, I hate to sound like a broken record, but: the Indians still can’t hit. And, with the pitching staff seemingly coming back to earth after that absurd 23-runs-given-up-in-a-14-game-stretch, the Indians have now lost five in a row and have dropped from first to third in the standings.
So what’s the remedy? Without rehashing old ideas too much, here are some ideas:
Fire Derek Shelton: Look, I already wrote about it here, but enough is enough already; it’s time for someone to get blamed. Maybe it sends a message and fires the players up, or a new guy comes in and the players respond to the new authority. Or, maybe nothing happens because the hitters are beyond repairable. However, I do know this: statistically speaking, they can’t be any worse than they are right now, so the whole don’t-fire-a-guy-unless-there’s-someone-better-to-replace-him thing doesn’t really apply. It’s time to make a change.
Shuffle the lineup: This is something Manager Eric Wedge has tried, and the results have been equally as poor as the offense. In the last 10 games, Wedge has filled 9 different lineup cards. Ben Francisco has hit 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 8th; Jhonny Peralta has hit 2nd, 3rd, and 6th; Franklin Gutierrez has hit 5th, 6th, and 8th; David Dellucci has hit 3rd, 5th, and 6th; I could go on, but you get the idea. And remember, this is just in the last 10 games. Maybe you could blame Wedge for not sticking to a lineup that works (except none of the seem to work), or blame him for not trusting his players in specific lineup spots (he trusts they’ll be bad in all the spots), or even for not providing the players with lineup and playing consistency (even though none of them deserved it), but you can’t blame Wedge for not trying something different. Even if it’s different every single game.
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Deficit, Smeficit: Sox Proving No Lead’s Too LargeApril 24th, 2008
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Just call them “The Comeback Kids.”
No, I’m not talking about John McCain and Hillary Clinton, though their individual runs for the presidency have also prevailed over seemingly insurmountable odds. But rather, I’m talking about the American League’s best team, record-wise and, perhaps, otherwise, through the first four weeks of the still very young season.
Or maybe “The Cardiac Kids” would suit them better. Not sure, but considering some of the key igniters behind the Red Sox recent barrage of late-inning magic, the noun ‘kids’ seems more than apropos.
Off to a start filled with more last-minute drama than an episode of Lost, the team from the Back Bay has quashed, in convincing fashion, any worries of a slow start due to the aftereffects of an opening-morning excursion through Japan and an April schedule chocked full of playoff contenders.
But despite the 15-8 record, you can hardly call the Red Sox play on the field dominant. More like opportunistic and absurdly resilient, bordering on miraculous.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s not to say they’ve been lucky—ever since going the way of Snake Plissken and escaping from Toronto after a weekend nightmare in early April, the Boston Nine-plus have been rolling through the competition … just not in a—let’s say—Arizona Diamondbacks-like manner.
Breaking Out The Calculators: Run Differential Meets Pythagoras
The D-Backs (through Wednesday) have scored 128 runs and yielded only 79 tallies to their opposition—good for a run differential of 49—whereas the Red Sox (through Wednesday) have plated an AL-leading 123 runs but allowed 112 runs to score—a run differential of just 11.
So, what? Both teams top their respective leagues with 15 wins apiece. It doesn’t matter.
Well, in the land of sabermetrics, where the VORP-petals fall and the Win Share trees tower, it does matter. Yes, the wins are in the proverbial bank, but a team’s run differential can tell us a different story.