Pretty much every player in the Majors goes on waivers at some point in August, so the fact that Josh Beckett was placed on waivers isn’t really news. However, unlike most players in baseball, Beckett will almost certainly clear waivers, since he’s due approximately $4 million over the remainder of the 2012 season and $15.75 million in each of the next two seasons. Any team claiming Beckett would be on the hook for $36 million, and he’s clearly not worth that kind of investment at this point, so he’ll sail through waivers without any blinking.

Once he clears, the Red Sox will be able to trade him to any team that’s interested, and they can create additional interest by picking up a significant chunk of his salary in order to move him. At that point, the question becomes how much cash Boston should be willing to eat to move on from their struggling former ace.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Red Sox entered this season with high hopes. Fast-forward 122 games and they’re a disappointing 59-63 with just 4% odds of making the playoffs. The front of the rotation has had issues preventing runs. Several members of the lineup have performed below their established level of production. Plenty of key contributors have spent time on the disabled list, and recent reports suggest players have a mutinous relationship with their manager.

Plenty has gone wrong for the 2012 Red Sox, but one of the bright spots has been Cody Ross. The 31-year-old outfielder, who signed for just one year and $3 million, has a .359 wOBA, 122 wRC+ and 2.4 WAR. His strong production has many wondering about his next contract. Ross has said that he’d like to return to Boston, and all signs point to the team having mutual interest. Ross may have put himself in line for a multi-year deal similar to Josh Willingham’s most recent contract — three years and $21 million — despite being less consistent and not as talented. Willingham has produced in the 3 WAR to 4 WAR range during the past several seasons while Ross has been in the 2 WAR to 3 WAR range.

And then there’s this: the main area in which Ross excels — crushing lefties — can be replicated fairly easily. Interested teams may be able to acquire cheaper Ross-like production by considering a few players with similar skill-sets.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Sunday, Jon Lester took the hill as a pitcher who had been beaten up over the last month. In his previous six starts, Jon Lester had an 0-5 record with a 8.73 ERA, allowing a .321/.385/.588 slash line to opposing hitters. He had given up 42 hits in these six starts and almost half of them were for extra bases. The vultures were swarming above Fenway, and many observers were simply waiting for the inevitable announcement that he was hurt. After establishing himself as one of the best pitchers in the American League, Lester was having his worst season as a major league pitcher, and it was only getting uglier as the season wore on.

And then on Sunday, Lester went and struck out 12 Cleveland Indians over six innings pitched. He gave up just three hits, all singles. He likely could have gone deeper in this one, but the Red Sox were already up 14-1 at that point. After weeks of getting beaten around like a Triple-A reject, he was nearly unhittable. Did Lester do anything fundamentally different in this outing, or was this just the old adage of sun on a dogs backside?

Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Bailey is set to make his Red Sox debut this week. After being sidelined with a thumb injury for the entire season, the Red Sox are expected to activate Bailey on Tuesday. Bailey was acquired to take over the closer role after Jonathan Papelbon left for Philadelphia. And while his injury has certainly hurt the Sox, they’ve performed pretty well without him.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Cameron already covered the best and most obvious candidate in Cliff Lee here. Here are three more pitchers who could get moved as a post-waiver deal:

Brandon McCarthy

McCarthy could potentially pass through waivers due to the shoulder injury he suffered back on June 24. Although he’s already in the middle of a rehab assignment, he was crushed (six runs in 3.2 innings) in his first start. As such, he could potentially slip through waivers.

Although it would seem odd for the A’s to deal a pitcher of McCarthy’s caliber — 2.54 ERA, 3.39 FIP and coming off a similar season last year — they have much bigger needs than starting pitching right now. Oakland starting pitchers notched a 3.60 ERA and 3.26 FIP with McCarthy out.

Instead, the Athletics have major needs on the left side of the infield. Brandon Inge (.221/.278/.398, 82 wRC+) has somewhat stabilized the position, giving them at least some pop and a good glove. But shortstop remains a disaster, with Brandon Hicks’s .183/.246/.417 in 65 PA the best hitting performance the club has seen at the position this season. Cliff Pennington and Eric Sogard own wRC+ marks of 51 and 42 respectively.

McCarthy’s is eligible for free agency after the season. He is clearly good enough to help the A’s win in 2012, but if the A’s can fetch a reasonable shortstop for him, the upgrade could be bigger than the upgrade he presents over Bartolo Colon or A.J. Griffin or recent callup Dan Straily. The shortstop market was so rough prior to the waiver deadline, though, so there just might not be a match out there.

Josh Beckett

Beckett, due $31.5 million over the next two seasons and having his next start skipped to boot, should have no trouble clearing waivers. He’s having his usual even-year bad season (at least in terms of results), posting a 4.54 ERA. His strikeout rate is a career low 6.81 per nine innings and injuries have limited him to just 18 starts. Still, he has a FIP- of 82 and showed as recently as last season he can still put up elite results with his solid peripherals, notching a 68 ERA- to go with an 84 FIP-.

The Rangers were among the teams to show interest in Beckett prior to the trading deadline and could remain on the Rangers’ radar should he clear waivers, although the Ryan Dempster . However, despite classic media-driven issues such as those surrounding a round of golf in May, Beckett likely hasn’t done enough to force himself out — the Red Sox likely aren’t willing to take a discounted price just to get rid of him.

Randy Wolf

The Brewers would love to get rid of Randy Wolf not only because of the price tag — he has just over $3 million remaining on this year’s deal as well as a $1.5 million buyout of next year’s option — but also because the Brewers may want the opportunity to give their younger players some chances in the major leagues. The Brewers are trying to see what they have in players like Michael Fiers, Marco Estrada, Mark Rogers and also minor leaguers like Wily Peralta and Tyler Thornburg. Once Shaun Marcum returns from his injury, there will only be two spots for those youngsters (after Yovani Gallardo, Marcum and Wolf).

Wolf has been horrible this season, with a 5.45 ERA and 4.78 FIP. His 2.10 K/BB is actually slightly better than last season, when he notched a 98 ERA-, but the home run issues have returned, as Wolf is allowing 1.36 HR/9. The upside is minimal, but ZiPS projects a 4.29 ERA the rest of the way, which could be an improvement on a few fifth starters for contending teams. Jayson Stark said the Brewers would trade Randy Wolf “for nothing if you take the money,” so the risk for an acquiring team would be minimal. A team with a fly ball friendly park might be able to make it work for a tiny cost.

When the Red Sox dealt Kevin Youkilis to the White Sox in June, it was as much a vote of confidence for young third baseman Will Middlebrooks as anything else. The trade left Middlebrooks as the only MLB-ready third baseman in the organization (Mauro Gomez doesn’t count), meaning the Red Sox were ready to let it ride on any would-be rookie growing pains.

Such pains haven’t surfaced yet. Middlebrooks owns a .301/.331/.525 line on the season, good for a 126 wRC+, tying him for eighth among third basemen with at least 250 plate appearances. All this comes despite 62 strikeouts against 10 walks.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Indians acquired Lars Anderson from the Red Sox on Tuesday, sending knuckleballing prospect Steven Wright — not to be confused with this guy — to Boston. Anderson was once considered one of the top prospects in the game, but struggled in major league cups of coffee (or shots of espresso given how short his major league stints were in 2011-12) and was never viewed as a viable long-term solution at first base or designated hitter.

From 2008-10, however, he was the talk of the rumor mill. His name popped up in practically every Red Sox trade rumor. Last offseason, the Athletics were interested in him as part of the Andrew Bailey package. In July 2011, the Athletics were close to acquiring him in exchange for Rich Harden.

In 2009, Anderson was frequently discussed as part of a potential prospect package for Roy Halladay. The year before that he was mentioned as a key part of a rumor surrounding then-Padres starter Jake Peavy.

As recently as two years ago, Anderson was viewed as a key part of potential returns on all-stars and award winners. Since then, his stock has fallen to the point that he only netted the Red Sox a risky Double-A knuckleballer.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the weeks leading up to the 2012 Major League Baseball Rule 4 Draft, Deven Marrero was considered a potential top-10 overall pick. The Pittsburgh Pirates were considered an ideal landing spot at eighth overall considering the organization has fielded just one, two-win shortstop since 1995 in Jack Wilson.

As the draft unfolded, the story of the day became Stanford University pitcher Mark Appel falling out of the top-three and into Pittsburgh’s lap. That turn of events played a role in Marrero slipping to the Boston Red Sox at 24th overall. Soon after being drafted, the Red Sox and Marrero agreed to a 2.05 million dollar bonus — $300,000 more than the recommended slot number for the 24th pick. Read the rest of this entry »

[With apologies to Mike Keneally]

[Author’s note added later for anyone who cares: the mentions of the differences between subjective and objective senses of time should not be taken as technical or precise in the way one would expect when reading, say, a historical explication of classic philosophies of time. This is just supposed to be an entertaining way of launching a discussion of how a few years can seem so distant with respect to certain things in baseball. For a technical and precise account of the different senses of time in Augustine, Husserl, or whomever, you should look elsewhere. Sorry.]

The existential experience of time passing is different than the intellectual acknowledgement of “how much time has passed.” I do not mean anything “deep” by that — I’m generally opposed to depth, or at least the appearance of depth. What I mean is simply that while, for example, every year is about 365.242199 days, on a subjective, personal level, it feels as if some slices of time go by faster than others. An hour spent staring at a clock feels longer than an hour playing video games. An hour watching Stephen Strasburg pitch flies by faster than an hour watching Jonathan Sanchez pitch. You get the idea.

That is all a prelude to saying that 2009 “feels” pretty recent to me. I am not sure why. Maybe because when I first started blogging (for the dearly-departed SB Nation site Driveline Mechanics) around that time. “Pretty recent” is itself a vague description — it is not “objectively” a correct or incorrect description. But it really has been a while since 2009. It was three birthdays ago. Looking at the changing perceptions of particualr baseball players is one way of measuring how much time has passed. Without giving a full recap of the year, here are a few things from 2009 that drove home the reality that, in fact, 2009 was a “million” years ago.

Read the rest of this entry »

From 2008 to 2010, there were only six pitchers in baseball better than Jon Lester, and you can probably identify them all by first name — Roy, Cliff, Tim, Zack, CC and Justin. Last year however, was a different story. Lester was still one of the top 30 pitchers in the game, but he was ensconced safely outside of the top 10. While many expected a rebound, or at least for Lester to plateau in 2012, he has continued his descent, with the exclamation point coming yesterday, when he allowed 11 runs in four innings to the Blue Jays.

As we noted last week with Jonathan Sanchez, part of Lester’s trouble may stem from the fact that while his fastball velocity is declining, his changeup velocity is increasing. The changeup hasn’t been a problem for Lester this season, but his fastball certainly has. Lester has not even lost a mile and a half on his four-seamer, and it is still the ninth-fastest four-seamer among left-handed starters. But that sentence is a bit of a tip off, isn’t it? Two seasons ago, that sentence would have read “tied for 11th-fastest in the game.” Now, it needs qualifiers. Also, it is getting hit hard — he is allowing a .397 wOBA on his fastball this season.

Still, that’s not what is most troubling. In 2010, when Lester posted a 3.13 FIP, he allowed a .396 wOBA on his fastball, so clearly he can be effective without a dominating fastball. But what Lester does need to be effective are the pitches that break — his cutter, curveball and sinker — and right now, they are not. His cutter, in particular, has been a mystery. For starters, he is either throwing it less frequently or he has been throwing it in a way that makes it harder to identify as a cutter. That can sometimes be attributable to a computer or user error or change in how pitches are identified, but if it isn’t, it’s a big issue for Lester moving forward. Over the last three seasons, the cutter had been Lester’s bread and butter, and had been one of the most effective cutters in the game. From ’09-’11, he threw it 20.5 percent of the time. This year, that has dipped to 11.5%. Hitters are still having trouble squaring up the pitch, but they’re not missing it with the frequency they have in the past — his SwStr% on his cutter is four percent lower than it has been the past three seasons.

Read the rest of this entry »