Thursday, February 26, 2009

WBC rosters announced, six Red Sox selected

On Tuesday the final rosters for next month’s World Baseball Classic were announced. Among the players selected were six members of the Boston Red Sox.

Reigning AL MVP Dustin Pedroia and fellow infielder Kevin Youkilis will play for the United States. Joining them in the tournament will be pitchers Daisuke Matsuzaka (Japan) and Javier Lopez (Puerto Rico), as well as position players David Ortiz (Dominican Republic) and Jason Bay (Canada). They will also be sending eight prospects to the classic bringing their total to 14. The only team with more players participating is the New York Mets with 15, including nine major leaguers.

The Red Sox will be keeping a close eye on all of their players in the tournament, but will monitor Ortiz and Matsuzaka the closest. Ortiz will be facing live game pitching for the first time since last season when he was bothered by a wrist injury and his performance will help determine how it will affect him, if at all.

On the other side, Matsuzaka is currently training with the Japanese team and hasn’t reported to Red Sox camp yet. Both Matsuzaka and the Red Sox decided it would be easier if he would stay in Japan until the conclusion of the tournament. Matsuzaka was the MVP of the inaugural World Baseball Classic back in 2006 when he helped lead Japan to the championship.

The primary concern with Matsuzaka’s participation is the extra innings he will be expected to pitch. The ideal situation for the Red Sox would be for Matsuzaka to skip the tournament, but that is not a realistic scenario. It will most likely cause little problems, if any, later in the season since the innings thrown during the classic won’t be a significant jump from a normal spring schedule. However, any additional innings will make a pitcher’s team uncomfortable.

The double elimination tournament begins on March 5, and will conclude on March 23. Youkilis, Pedroia, and the rest of Team U.S.A. will begin play on March 7 against Jason Bay and Team Canada.

The Red Sox' Success Hinges on John Smoltz

When opening my inbox of e-mails this afternoon, Nino Colla presented me with a tough question:

"Both the Red Sox and Yankees are big spenders, probably one more than the other, but this offseason Boston opted to patch their holes with lower risked-high reward type signings like Brad Penny. The Yankees meanwhile retooled with cash. Which single offseason acquisition will prove to be the most successful in 2009?"

Without any doubt from me, the American League East will be the most competitive division in the MLB for the 2009 season.

The Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees have loaded 25-man rosters, and the Rays are no slouches either. The Toronto Blue Jays can be factored in as well, they have long been a good team stuck in the wrong division. The only real cellar-dweller team looks to be the Baltimore Orioles.

The 2008-2009 offseason saw the Yankees bring in marquee names like Sabathia, Teixeira, and Burnett. The Rays added left fielder/designated hitter Pat Burrell, as well as trading for then-Tigers outfielder Matt Joyce. The Red Sox combated these solid acquisitions by the division rivals by adding Ramon Ramirez, Takashi Saito, Brad Penny, Rocco Baldelli, Brad Wilkerson, and John Smoltz.

Of those signings, John Smoltz is the most important of the division from this past winter. Here's my logic as to why.

The Yankees did add two front-line starters in Burnett and Sabathia. However, those are essentially replacements for their 2008 rotation. Mike Mussina, who won 20 games in 2008, retired after the season. He will be replaced with CC Sabathia.

While Burnett is a solid pitcher when healthy, that "when" is a big "if." Injuries have plagued Burnett for years now. In 2008 Burnett made 34 starts, the first time he hit the 30-start mark since the 2005 season, and only the second time in his career.

Obviously, Cashman didn't learn much from the Carl Pavano deal, or he was so desperate he became willing to grossly overpay for a pitcher who owns the Red Sox on a regular basis, despite the fact he is rarely able to put a full season together.

Also, the Teixeira deal is essentially a replacement for Jason Giambi. While Tex obviously is a better hitter and defender than Giambi, their power production is incredibly similar. I would also like to point out that before his Yankees career began, Giambi was essentially the same hitter that Teixeira is now. A perennial .300 hitter with Oakland, Giambi never reached that mark with the Yankees.

The Red Sox flooded their pitching staff with talent this winter. Theo Epstein added depth to the rotation and bullpen by bringing in Penny, Smoltz, Ramirez, and Saito.

The Red Sox already have a dominant front end of the rotation, headed by Beckett, Matsuzaka, and Lester. As if the Red Sox aren't good enough, imagine a healthy John Smoltz pitching as a fourth starter for Boston, with Brad Penny bringing up the rear. Smoltz has won 210 games in his career, serving as an excellent strikeout pitcher. Penny, who was plagued with injuries most of last year, started for the National League All-Star team in 2007.

If Beckett, Matsuzaka, Lester, Smoltz, and Penny are all healthy and locked in at the same time, this would really make the Red Sox a force to be reckoned with. With these five star pitchers firing on all cylinders by the end of the year, paired with Boston's fabulous bullpen and great offense, Boston will be very hard to beat down the stretch or in a short series.

How far the Red Sox go in 2009 largely lies on how Smoltz performs. If Smoltz can click in and find his "A game" in sync with the rest of the Boston staff, the Red Sox could go all the way once again. If Smoltz has more injury trouble or is ineffective, the Red Sox could suffer another disappointing end like in 2008.

New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox say they're still chasing the Tampa Bay Rays as the team to beat in AL East

TAMPA — With all of the money the Yankees spent and the veterans the Red Sox added to dethrone the Rays and return the division race to its rightful order, there has been some question over which team is the beast of the AL East.

But not Thursday morning along the far wall of the Yankees clubhouse, where Derek Jeter reminds that he had been predicting for years the Rays were going to be good, and now the whole league has had to deal with it.

"You hear people say, 'Who is the team to beat?' They're the AL champs, so they are the team to beat until somebody beats them. That's what you have to say," the shortstop said. "I think everyone pays so much attention to what a team does in the offseason, and I understand that. But the bottom line is we're trying to do what they already did."

Pitching coach Dave Eiland knows as well as anyone in pinstripes how far the Rays came, having spent his last three seasons as an active pitcher, 1998-2000, in Rays colors.

"We're chasing them and Boston, so we've got two teams we've got to jump over," he said. "We feel good where we're at, who we added and what we've got here. But we're still the chaser, not the chasee."

As the Rays get their first looks of the spring at the competition, losing 5-1 to the Yankees on Thursday and hosting the Red Sox this afternoon, manager Joe Maddon maintains the mantra that he's more concerned about his team and not what the others did; that the big-ticket additions are "a way of life in this division."

He did allow Thursday that with the signings of CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, "the Yankees obviously made their pitching staff a whole lot better," but quickly added, "We've countered a bit by being able to hit lefties a little bit better with Pat (Burrell) and Gabe (Kapler)."

And the Red Sox "juggled it around just a little bit. I think they are going to be as good as last year, which puts them right there."

He also says the Orioles have improved and the Jays are still tough, further demonstrating how competitive the division is. And, as a result, how the little things Maddon so covets will be even bigger.

"I know everybody's better," he said. "I think we're better also. I know we're better. It comes down to execution, playing the game right. I believe there's going to be a lot of close games this year decided by either a baserunning play or a defensive play.

"For me, let's catch it even better than we did last year. Let's pitch it better than we did last year. I believe we're going to be better offensively. I'm just preaching execution. I'm preaching the process, and I want us to believe that's how we're going to continue to be good."

Still, the reality is it's going to be harder for the Rays as they have the usual 18 games against both beasts of the East.

"The Yankees made some upgrades, so they're definitely going to be tougher to beat," Rays veteran Carl Crawford said. "Throughout our division, it's going to be a battle all year. … We've got a good team, so there's always a shot. But it's just going to be a little tougher now."

Since the 1994 realignment to six divisions, there have been only three instances (among 90) when three teams in a division had 90 or more wins.

The Yankees and Red Sox both say 2008 could be just the start of things for the Rays.

"They're going to continue to get better as they mature," Boston second baseman Dustin Pedroia said. "Obviously, they got to the World Series, being that young with their staff. They're just going to continue to get better and better. The division is definitely getting tougher and tougher every year."

"You could tell they had a lot of great young talent," Jeter said, "and it was just a matter of them getting experience. And they've got that now. I think they're going to be good for a long time."

By Marc Topkin