Posts Tagged ‘Rob Bradford’
Adrian Beltre: Cool as the other side of the pillow with his two hits, scoring three runs, hitting three RBI and knocking his first home run in a Sox uniform. (Let's forget about the error for today, shall we?) Photo courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission.
It’s nice to wake up on the morning after a sports night like last night.
Before anything else I have to own up to my Bruins bandwagonism. I consider myself a genuine Red Sox and Celtics fan but my fandom for the Bruins has definitely waned over the years. Don’t get me wrong, as a Boston sports fan I always want the Bruins to win even if I don’t follow them closely. (Heck, I want the Revolution to win and I think I’ve ever watched all of one game they’ve played.) Back in the day (’the day’ being, for me, the Cam Neely era and earlier) I was a big fan and paid much more attention. Nowadays, I hope they do well and if they don’t I don’t lose any sleep over it. But last night, last night I really wanted them to win.
 Photo day for the Mets was today! Getty Images didn’t disappoint – at least they posted ONE of Kyle and it’s good one! Photo taken by Doug Benc. |
Getting updates today on intrasquad games made me happy and I needed to be made happy. After dodging the illness bullet for as long as I could, today I succumbed just a bit so I needed SOMETHING to get me going.
Kyle Snyder got some real pitching in today. Two innings. His first inning was 1-2-3 (caught Ramon Martinez looking, Ryan Church grounded out and Nick Evans struck out swinging). His second inning he gave up a single to Brian Schneider. So that made me happy as well. (Oddly enough, for all my complaining about not getting Kyle info, when I finally DO get some, it’s incomplete. I have no idea how the three outs in his second inning were made and, yes, this is information I find interesting.) Tuesday night the MLBN focuses on the Mets on their 30 days/30 teams show. So I’m eagerly awaiting that!
 Photo I took off Javier Lopez coming off the mound in 2008 |
On Monday, a friend asked what was going on with Javier Lopez. We were tired of trying to figure out what the deal was with Tek and we weren’t holding out hope anything would quickly be resolved with Paps so Javy’s name came up. I started to do some research and then real life got in the way so I was pleasantly surprised to get news on both Papelbon AND Lopez in the same shot.
Before I go on about Lopez, I wanted to point out that Rob Bradford has an interesting take on the Papelbon contract:
But when looking at the first stage of this thing, Papelbon accomplished what he had set out to when first mentioning his payroll progression. He set the standard.
The deal is the largest given to any first-year arbitration eligible pitcher, and is the third-highest agreed to by any first-year arbitration eligible player, behind Ryan Howard ($10 million) and Miguel Cabrera ($7 million).
So when Papelbon speaks, the Red Sox seem to listen. This is something that should make us all very happy. Sox didn’t jump into some crazy, long-term contract, but put it out to Paps that they do value him. So folks can stop worrying that the Red Sox are disrespecting our closer. Yay for putting that behind us.
Now back to Lopez. I spent way too many games in 2008 arguing with seemingly baseball-intelligent people about him. I can’t count how many games I went to where I ended up hearing “Oh no, not LOPEZ!” or “Tito’s putting in Lopez, this game is over” or anything close to either of those. I just have never understood the Lopez hate. And, it seems, neither did the Red Sox. The Sox signed Javier to a one-year contract for $1.35 million. The Sox were so impressed with Lopez that they game him a raise. (Last season he made $840,000.)
In 2008, Javier appeared in 70 games, even winning two of them. In a little more than 59 innings, he gave up 18 runs (16 earned) and struck out 38. Sure he also gave up 53 hits and walked 27 in that same period, but he finished off the year with a 2.43 ERA, 1.35 WHIP and a .245 BAA. Might not be All Star stats, but he was quite solid. It amazes me that people still consider him a detriment to the bullpen. I’m happy Theo sees his worth and signed him up for another year – it’s certainly good for the team.
Now if he can just finish up with a catcher, folks won’t have anything to complain about until the WBC!
Totally pimping my soon-to-be new online boss: Rob Bradford has a video blog (along with Lou Merloni) today from the winter meetings in Las Vegas. Check it out below. Interesting stuff, but the most interesting is the revelation that word is Clay Buchholz is NOT on the table. Nope, the front office wants to keep the kid around.
This pleases me, but doesn’t surprise me. Kelly O’Connor was already talking about this before Rob and Lou ever made it to Vegas. Hearing it from Rob just verified what she had already told me. It’s nice to have friends who are wicked smaht. 
Of course, now I’ll be worrying about the future of Justin Masterson for a while now.
It was a busy weekend and I, obviously, didn’t spend much time writing…and, unfortunately, I’m going to be a little lazy today as well and just throw out some random bits:
* Jason Varitek declined arbitration. So this means other teams get to toss their offers at him. I worry for Tek. I worry that there isn’t anything out there better than what the Sox will offer him – and that he’s going to be made to look the fool thanks to his agent. I hope I’m wrong. And I still want him back in Boston – even if it’s only for another year.
* Alex Rodriguez has decided to play for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic. Slappy was born in New York City and played for team USA in the first WBC. I think it’s a little slimy to switch sides this time. He truly seems to be someone desperate for acceptance. He creeps me out more and more each day.
* Also possibly playing for a country he isn’t from is Lenny Dinardo. Rumor has it that he’s been asked to play for the Italian team – again. Lenny pitched for them last time around. I really don’t get representing a country you aren’t from, regardless of your heritage.
*Rob Bradford had a cool piece of trivia: Joe Thurston is CC Sabathia’s first cousin. In this same piece, he mentions that Ken Rosenthal (a writer I will never link to from here) says his best bet is that the Sox are going to get Mark Teixeira and Derek Lowe. I know you’d be crazy to not want Teixeira – but I fear adding him means subtracting Mike Lowell. And Derek Lowe? As long as he can not get drunk the nights before he pitches, I suppose the team could do worse. Still, I’m not jumping up and down about this. Then again, it’s Ken Rosenthal. He’s lost a lot of credibility in my eyes – so I’m not buying into any of it just yet.
* Today is Mike Mussina’s 40th birthday. As you all probably know, Moose has announced his retirement. There goes another MLB player who is older than me.
I leave you with this photo – taken in November. There are two reasons it makes me smile. See if you can find them.
Rob Bradford is reporting that “sources familiar with the negotiations” are sayting that the Red Sox have made an offer to Jason Varitek, and the offer is only for one year.
Eesh.
Of course no one from the Red Sox nor Varitek’s camp are commenting on the story so it could all just be smoke…but if it isn’t – one year? Hell, even I was convinced they’d offer him two. If the one year offer is legit, it speaks volumes to Theo’s thoughts on where the team is going. The folks saying ‘keep him around a year to help him train his replacement’ might not be too far off.
Also, I received an email from someone saying they’re from Sarasota and telling me to keep an eye out for Kyle Snyder news this week. Don’t mess with me on this one, Sarasota. I’m excited for some Kyle news, yet worried what it could be.
Ah, the Hot Stove. Ugh.
