Tomorrow, February 19th, might well be the best day of the entire winter. On that magical day, pitchers and catchers are required to report to their respective spring training camps, and the rituals of baseball begin anew. It's been a long winter, kids, but it's almost over.

This week at Over the Monster, we talked of many things. Of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax. Of cabbages and kings. Nope, that wasn't us, that was the Walrus. The Lewis Carroll one, not the Beatles one. We talked about baseball. Who's good at baseball, who's going to be good at baseball, and who would rather sit in a duck blind all summer than play baseball in Boston. We also bid farewell to one of the Red Sox' all-time greats, and did not at all weep like babies while doing so.

To the recappening!

Continue reading this post »

The Yankees are apparently very close to sending A.J. Burnett to the Pittsburgh Pirates, picking up $13 million in albatross contract relief and a pair of presently unnamed prospects.

Two years ago, the Red Sox signed their own A.J. Burnett in John Lackey. The Yankees had set the market for declining pitchers with ERAs in the mid-to-high 3s, and the Sox--anticipating a year with a dominant rotation of Beckett, Lester, Lackey, Buchholz, and Daisuke took the plunge.

Unfortunately, Lackey took after Burnett in performance just as he had in free agency. A disappointing debut, followed by a disaster sophomore year. Frankly, that he's now out for all of 2012 might mean we win as far as third-year performance is concerned.

So, if the Yankees can wipe their hands of Burnett for $20 million, can the Red Sox do the same with John Lackey? Should they? Let's take a look after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

According to every Red Sox beat writer on Twitter, Tim Wakefield is set to announce his retirement from baseball at 5 pm this afternoon. The Red Sox had invited him to spring training on a non-guaranteed deal, and there were rumors he had some other offers, but after 19 seasons, one of The 25 has decided to stop knuckling.

Wakefield finishes his career as one of 24 pitchers who struck out over 2,000 batters with the same team. He's also ranked first in Red Sox history in innings pitched, second in games pitched, third in wins, second in strikeouts, first in games started, and, in less talked about news, also first in homers, hits, walks allowed, and losses. Longevity will do that to you, and Wakefield certainly had longevity. He also had a knuckler, making his franchise-leading 125 wild pitches and 176 hit batsmen more like badges of honor than shame.

We covered the man's career in detail this year, as he chased after win 200. Honor Tim Wakefield today by reliving those moments; I know I'll be reminiscing about the best days of that butterfly pitch today.

Thanks, Timmy. See you at the number retirement ceremony.

Courtesy of a Red Sox press release, the full non-roster invite list for Boston's spring training was unveiled. It's unlikely most of these players make the team, but there is a chance many of them will end up with minor league deals, and some of the pitchers are in line to even start the year on the Opening Day roster. While that sounds depressing at first, there's an inordinate amount of pitching talent invited to camp on NRIs, whereas on the offensive side of things, there's quantity, but not necessarily quality.

To make things a bit easier for reference purposes, here's a "lineup" and rotation made up entirely of NRI players. Tony Pena Jr. is in camp as a pitcher, as he gave up being an infielder years ago, but we were an infielder short of a full lineup, and he isn't likely to make the Opening Day roster as a pitcher, either. Take one for the hypothetical team, Tony:

Continue reading this post »

Sometimes you buy something and it's exactly what you thought you were getting. Like, for example, this charming Red Sox garden gnome, supposing of course that you bought it. If you did, it would sit majestically outside in your front garden-type area until it was inevitably stolen and violated by drunken teenagers. So things can turn out well, but, other times, you buy something and it turns out completely differently than you thought it would. Take these two passenger seats from an MTA bus. Well, don't take them, because doing so would cost you $500, but as an example take them. So, now you bought your great new-to-you bus seats and upon arrival one sniff reminds you that you've just dropped five big ones on two giant fart sponges. Buyer beware indeed.

Another example of the second scenario which you'll be thankful to hear has nothing to do with farts, is Red Sox first baseman Adrian Gonzalez. Gonzalez had an odd first year in Boston. He was very productive and it's difficult to quarrel with his output, but the way in which he was productive wasn't particularly sustainable, a point which makes one wonder about the future of the Red Sox first baseman.

Continue reading this post »

Ross Ohlendorf signed with the Red Sox instead of accepting other offers, and, according to Alex Speier, it's because Ohlendorf wanted to pitch for a team that will compete. Given he has been in Pittsburgh since 2008, it's hard to argue with that. Ohlendorf isn't guaranteed to be a part of the major league roster, but Boston has him signed to a minor league deal, and he has an option remaining. He also has just over three years of service time, so the Red Sox have him under team control through 2015 if they so choose.

Speier notes the similarities between Ohlendorf's situation and that of Alfredo Aceves last winter:

The same idea came to mind in early December, when I wrote about how Ohlendorf, by virtue of being hurt in the past, was likely to slip through the cracks and sign a minor league deal, a la Aceves:

Continue reading this post »

Give Garin Cecchini 32 games, and apparently he'll convince you he's a top 10 prospect in Boston's system. Imagine what he can do with a full season?

Drafted in the fourth round of the 2010 draft, Garin Cecchini is the kind of prospect you love to dream on. Expected to go in the first round before an ACL injury robbed him of his 2010 season, Cecchini has just about all the tools that stars are made of, and he showed them off some in his first season of professional ball at Lowell. Hitting .298/.398/.500 with a 19:17 K:BB ratio, Cecchini was likely on the fast track to either a promotion or a ridiculous final line given that those figures are dragged down by a very slow start.

But then came a pitch to the wrist, a fracture, and yet more baseball missed for the exciting young player due to injury. It's not necessarily the sort of injury that screams "fragile", but between two straight shortened seasons and his lack of playing time against age-appropriate competition, Cecchini will have to put together a long, solid season to get a bump up the charts suitable to his talent.

You know the drill by now: rec to vote, or make your own voting thread if you don't see your choice for #9.

The 2012 Boston Red Sox will feature three of the top five hitters in the American League last season by wRC+. They have two more hitters in the top 20. As Marc has pointed out on more than one occasion, the 2011 team raked at nearly historic levels. The player who ranks as Boston’s best overall hitter has a good case for best hitter in all of baseball.

Thanks to the advancements begun by Bill James and Pete Palmer and carried on by the fine people at Fangraphs, Baseball Prospectus and The Book Blog, we are better at measuring offensive ability now than ever before. Metrics like wRC+, wOBA and True Average have joined the more traditional numbers like batting average, OBP and Slugging and in many respects they have replaced them. Even with these statistics, which weigh the value of each batting event with great accuracy, one number doesn’t tell us everything we need to know. There is still a mix of luck and skill at play. The results need to be weighted equally with the process to determine the best hitter.

Lucky for us, we can take a good look at both results and processes-

Continue reading this post »