So with the Toronto Blue Jays in town, naturally NESN kept showing the Blow Jays manager John Gibbons on TV and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It finally dawned on me. John Gibbons is Dr. Evil’s henchman from Austin Powers, No. 2. This is the same goddamn guy, no doubt.
Finally had enough of trying to take over the world so he settled for Toronto.
Wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t also post the “Who does No. 2 work for?” scene, right?
I’m old enough to remember the last time the Yankees made a mid-season deal to pick up a third baseman and, spoiler alert, it did not end well for the Red Sox.
Looks like this tweet didn’t age well:
Red Sox are in enviable position of needing a position at deadline no other contender really needs https://t.co/CXZLybPH4F
— Rob Bradford (@bradfo) July 17, 2017
Regardless, I can’t get too worked up over this deal. I don’t know what the answer is at third base for the Red Sox, but I never thought it was Todd Frazier. Everyone said the Red Sox could get him for nothing, so I would’ve been okay if they brought him in as a flyer but Bobby Abreu he is not. Despite his pop™, Frazier is still just hitting .207 this season. Pablo Sandoval was hitting .212 when the Red Sox DFA’d him.
On a related note, here was Brock Holt after hearing that Frazier went to the Yankees:
The Red Sox – Yankees rivalry cooled off a few years ago, but hopefully this trade puts it back on the front burner. Every Red Sox – Yankees game was an event in Boston from 2003 through about 2010.
Maybe the rivalry cooling off had to do with George Steinbrenner passing away and Brian Cashman running the Yankees like a normal franchise. But the urge to dump high-ranked prospects for washed up veterans is hard to shake. I’ll take this as a sign that the rivalry is back on. I’m in.
Yahoo – The New York Yankees are going for it. They boosted their lineup and the backend of their bullpen in a trade Tuesday with the Chicago White Sox that’s sending slugger Todd Frazier and relief pitchers David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle to the Bronx..The White Sox (38-52) were already in full rebuilding mode and this adds to their minor-league riches, as the Yankees send Chicago a package that includes outfield prospect Blake Rutherford (New York’s No. 3 prospect) and left-handed pitcher Ian Clarkin (No. 19). Big-league reliever Tyler Clippard is also reportedly in the deal, as is outfielder Tito Polo.
The Yankees traded for Todd Frazier last night, swept in under the cloak of night and traded for the guy while I was enjoying a few Bud heavys at Fenway.
This trade did not come lightly though as the Yankees (with a suddenly flourishing minor league system) dealt their No. 3 prospect as part of the deal. Pretty steep for a guy who’s hitting .207 and will be a free agent at the end of the year if you ask me. He does provide some pop though with 16 Home Runs and 44 RBIs on the year. Not convinced? The last 3 years Frazier finished with 40, 35, and 29 Home Runs respectively. (On a side note, as that story points out the White Sox are rebuilding the smart way as they now have 5 of the top 30 prospects and 10 of the top 100 in all of baseball thanks to their recent fire sales.)
Now I wasn’t one of the people clamoring for the Sox to deal more prospects just to put a band-aid on third base. Especially with $50M in dead money from the euthanized Panda we just DFA’d. I’m definitely in the camp that the Red Sox should bolster the bullpen before brining in your 12th third baseman of the year.
HOWEVER, seeing this trade instantly reminded me of 2006 when the Yankees traded for Bobby Abreu because its a similar situation. Abreu, like Frazier, was a solid if not spectacular hitter who was on the market and the Red Sox were rumored to be in on. Then the Yankees swooped in and made the deal for Abreu. Wouldn’t have been as big of a kick in the dick if it wasn’t for the so called Boston Massacre that summer when the Yankees came to Fenway and swept the Red Sox in a rare 5-game series. Complete beatdown. And how’d Abreu do in that series you ask? Oh he merely hit fucking .500 in the series going 10-20 over the 5 games.
Over the course of the 2006 season Abreu hit .297 with 15 Home Runs, 107 RBIs and also had 30 stolen bases. In the second half of the 2006 season alone, playing for the Yankees Abreu hit .330 7 Home Runs, 42 RBIs and 10 stolen bases.
So, yea not a bad guy to have.
Ended up biting the Red Sox in the ass as they never really got right after that 5-game sweep and famously missed the playoffs. Lets just hope Todd Frazier doesn’t repeat history and go on a goddamn tear for the Yankees.
PS – Complex ranked that 5-game regular season sweep as one of the greatest moments in Yankees HISTORY. What a sad and sorry existence in the Bronx.
I’d also like to point out that @Complex had that as a Top 50 moment in #Yankees HISTORY #RedSox pic.twitter.com/UM6D7mUlzG
— The 300s (@The300sBoston) July 19, 2017
Bartolo Colon will reportedly be called up to start for the Twins on Tuesday https://t.co/p2mn43L0As
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) July 16, 2017
The last time we saw Bartolo Colon at the Major League level was on June 28 in San Diego. As a member of the Atlanta Braves, Colon gave up six runs on eight hits and three walks over four innings against the Padres. It was his fourth straight clunker of start, and it looked like the end was near for the 44-year-old Big Sexy.
Colon was 2-8 this year for the Braves with an 8.14 ERA. Even with the weak definition of a quality start, only two of Colon’s 13 starts with the Braves this year qualified as quality starts. But rumors of his demise have been greatly exaggerated (for now), and Colon will play for his tenth Major League team on Tuesday night when he starts for the Minnesota Twins. The Twins will be hosting the New York Yankees.
It’s a start, and a series, with potential playoff implications. The Yankees currently find themselves just a half game ahead of the Twins for the second wild card spot in the American League. After getting out to a 38-23 start, the Yankees have gone 9-20 since June 13. The Twins, after losing 103 games last year, have returned to respectability this year.
The Twins have been a surprise near the top of the AL Central this season. They haven’t set the world on fire but they have been consistent – they’ve never been up or down more than three games for first place in the AL Central. But their run differential is -63, 12th in the American League. They are the only team in baseball with a negative run differential and a record better than .500. They’re 10-5 in one-run games, but 12-21 in games decided by five runs or more.
Despite being in the wild card race near the trade deadline, I’d bet against the Twins making the playoffs. That’s why picking up Bartolo Colon is a great move. It will only cost the Twins a few hundred thousand dollars and no prospects. No need to “mortgage the future” to make this move.
If Colon catches fire, it’s a great story and fun little run in August and September. If Colon can’t straighten things out, and it really is the end of the road for him, he’s not much worse than what they’ve been running out there every fifth day anyways. And I find it hard to believe that a veteran pitcher could seriously disrupt any clubhouse chemistry. So again, all there really is to lose is a few bucks.
And then there’s this. The Twins 60-year-old manager, Paul Molitor, played his final Major League game on September 27, 1998. He faced the Cleveland Indians and Bartolo Colon that day. Molitor went 1-for-3 that day against Colon, and was 2-for-8 lifetime against Colon.
Update: It was pointed out to me the compiled Batting Averages were calculated wrong, so those numbers and the graphic have been updated in the post below.
So as everyone knows by now, the Red Sox designated Pablo Sandoval for assignment today. Look the Red Sox have given out a lot of shitty contracts over the years. Thats what big market teams do. You throw money at problems that other teams can’t afford to do. Except the problem with that is by definition free agents are most often older players who rarely live up to the pay day. You’re usually paying for past performance and almost always are eating money towards the end of the contract when the player is a shell of what he once was. Which is fine. I accept that.
BUT, when you have guys that are a disaster from Day 1 and can’t even make it through an entire 162 games then you have a huge problem.
So who was the worst Red Sox contract of all time? Well looking back over the years the two names that standout as the frontrunners are soft-ass Carl Crawford (who STILL complains about his 2 seasons in Boston) and the recently departed Sandoval. While a lot of people want to say Crawford is the worse deal because of how toxic his attitude was and how bad his play was, its got to be the Panda. Look, I made a spreadsheet to make it easy for you.
Although Sandoval was here for parts of 3 seasons and Crawford only two, due to DL stints by both, their total number of games played for the Red Sox is the EXACT SAME at 161. Which makes this the perfect sample size.
Compared to Sandoval, Crawford had more:
Now want to compare their slash lines as members of the Red Sox?
Both completely SUCKED for guys who had signed gargantuan contracts. Granted Crawford’s deal was for $142 million to Pablo’s measly $95 million, but Pablo has been so bad that they’re gonna have to eat the last 2+ years of it. At least the Red Sox were able to dump Crawford onto the Dodgers. So while Crawford signed a much larger deal, he wasn’t so far gone that another team thought “Hey Boston is a bitch to play in, we can turn this around.” Barring an even more stunning deal than the Crawford/Gonzalez/Beckett Dodgers heist, there’s no getting out of this one.
So yea, the Kung Fu fucking Panda is by far the worst contract in Red Sox history.
MassLive.com – Pablo Sandoval’s day with the Red Sox are over.
The club announced on Friday morning they designated the 30-year-old for assignment.
Sandoval appeared in just 32 games this season hitting .212 with a .622 OPS.
From a pure baseball perspective, this move comes as no surprise. When the manager is afraid to put you at third base with a lefty on the mound – and your team has four left handed starting pitchers – the situation has become untenable. There’s no such thing as an $18 million pinch-hitting specialist. Clearly the team had to move on.
From a financial standpoint, though, it does come as a mild surprise. The Red Sox still owe Pablo Sandoval roughly $50 million and I’ll bet Dave Dombrowski had to run this move by John Henry before pulling the trigger. I’ll also bet that Dombrowski frequently reminded Henry during their conversation that it was the guy here before him that signed Sandoval to that outrageous contract. Classic office move, “I’m just cleaning up the mess left by the last guy.”
[On a side note, Dombrowski also better hope that David Price’s arm holds up. If that guy breaks down, it will make the Sandoval situation look like paying a parking ticket. And there’s no way to blame that one on anyone else.]
Obviously it’s disappointing the Sox couldn’t ship Sandoval off in a salary dump trade a la the Nick Punto Trade of 2012. But it’s hard to see another team taking a flyer on Sandoval at this point. If he got back into shape and still couldn’t play, what else is there left to see?
Boston was never a great fit for Sandoval. As is so often the case, he would have been better served taking a few less bucks to stay in a better situation in San Francisco. The next time a player does that may be the first time, though. In any event, the search for a third baseman goes on for the Red Sox. I look at players like Adrian Beltre and Travis Shaw and can’t help but ask, “Why can’t we get players like that?”
Aaaand we’re back. Episode 008 of The 300s Podcast is hot off the presses and we’re diving into the Celtics offseason, grading Danny Ainge’s recent moves and the Paul George situation. We also debut The 300s Ballpark Reviews with the Miami Marlins, how Aaron Judge has put the fear of god into Red Sox fans, the dominance of Chris Sale and we ask what is wrong with David Price? LETS GET IT.
We’re excited to launch a new series at The 300s today – ballpark reviews. We haven’t been to all 30 parks yet, but we’re working on it. With the MLB All-Star Game taking place in Miami tonight, we’ll kick off this new series with the a review of Marlins Park, home of the Miami Marlins.
Walking up to Marlins Park, it’s clear that this place is not trying to be your classic ballpark. It’s not Fenway. It’s not Camden Yards. It’s not even Petco Park. It’s baseball’s first “modern” ballpark to open since the new Comiskey Park U.S. Cellular Field Guaranteed Rate Field opened on the South Side of Chicago in 1991 (as opposed to “retro modern” or “retro classic” ballparks). It’s worth noting, though, that Guaranteed Rate Field underwent extensive renovations last decade to be considered more “retro classic.”
Walking into Marlins Park felt like walking into the future. It was unlike any other baseball park I’ve ever been too. The concourse was brightly colored and well lit, with no bare concrete walls or floors like those seen at Fenway and even newer parks like Miller Park. Lots of contemporary artwork, too. Here’s the back of the home run structure in center field:
A very cool feature on the concourse was the Bobblehead Museum.
It featured players from every team, obviously too many to mention individually. But here’s old friend Mo Vaughn!
The concourse was also filled with really pushy promotions crews. “Listen dude, I’m just in Miami for the weekend. I’m not entering your contest to win a coupon to Publix.”
I forget how hot it was the day I went, but it isn’t really relevant. It was Miami in August so the roof was closed. It wasn’t like I was at a hockey game, but the temperature with the roof closed and the AC on was pleasant. Felt a bit like a dome without a breeze, though.
The atmosphere definitely left a lot to be desired. It was a mid-week interleague game, but the low-capacity ballpark was still barely half full. The upper deck in the infield was actually literally closed that night. That can’t be a good long-term business move.
Being in Little Havana, Marlins Park featured many Cuban food options. I went with the pork nachos which were good, but nothing earth shattering. I didn’t take a photo of them, so that might say something too.
I’ve been to eleven ballparks, eight of which are still in use. Of those eight, I’d rank Marlins Park ahead of only Tropicana Field. I wouldn’t say it should be ranked 29th out of 30, I just haven’t been to places like Toronto or Oakland. Yet. Still, these modern ballparks seem to miss the mark.
The last “modern” ballpark to open before Marlins Park was the White Sox’ Guaranteed Rate Field. That ballpark is barely 25 years old and as I mentioned earlier, underwent massive renovations fairly early in its life to stay relevant. We’ll see what happens to Marlins Park going forward.
I didn’t expect Wrigley Field in South Florida, but this stadium felt like something Marty McFly would’ve walked into in Back to the Future Part II.
Big Z Ballpark Rating – 5.5
Not exactly unexpected, Chris Sale has been lights out this year. It’s rare that someone comes exactly as advertised and performs even better than expected (i.e. not David Price). Some guys can’t hack it in a market like Boston. Other guys *thrive* and Chris Sale definitely falls into the latter.
Among pitchers in the American League, Sale is top-3 in WAR, ERA, Wins, WHIP, IP & leads all AL pitchers in K’s by more than 30. Sale has 178 K’s, which is THIRTY strikeouts more than the guy in second. It would have been a slight against god to not give Sale the start.
Lets take a step back though and really examine Chris Sale’s dominance on the mound this year. He’s the most electric Red Sox starter since Pedro. He’s the first guy I will run home to sit down and watch since Curt Schilling in 04. Beckett was dominant for a stretch, Lester was great, Buchholz was infuriatingly amazing and terrible at the same time. But none touch Sale.
Can we also point out that Chris Sale is on pace for 356 K’s this year, which would be the most K’s in a single season since Randy Johnson had 372 in 2001. The Big Unit also won the Cy Young that year (the 2nd of his 3 in a row).
To put that into perspective, here’s the list of pitchers that have had 300 K’s in a season over the past 20 years:
Four guys in 20 years. Thats it. Pretty good company to have. Now it’ll be hard to ever top Pedro striking out 5 guys in 2 innings in the 1999 All-Star game at Fenway, but goddamnit Chris Sale will try.
The 300s 