Loose Change

The Sox signed eight guys to minor-league deals yesterday- the Boston Globe's Extra Bases website has the details. There are a couple of names there that are faintly recognizable- Joe McEwing, formerly of the Cardinals and Mets, Kerry Robinson, a former outfielder with the D-Rays, and journeyman catcher Alberto Castillo. None of these guys are likely to join the big-league club at any point, and will probably play out the year in Pawtucket. What interests me more- what I'd really like to know- is how these guys get chosen in the first place. What distinguishes them from the hundreds of other minor-league free agents and journeymen out there? I suppose with something like that, they have these major databases of available players, and they ask the database to give them the top middle infielder, catcher, corner outfielder, etc. and these names get spit out.

From there, it's just a copy and paste or a MS Word mail-merge wizard to make the invitation labels, right? I guess these guys all have agents and there are phone calls involved and all. I'd just be interested in seeing these machinations happen- maybe this is how Jed Hoyer is spending his time these days- it's quite a step backwards from acquiring Josh Beckett last year, isn't it? Ah, well, that was his cup of coffee. Maybe he'll get another shot, like Josh Byrnes.

One other thing that has been going through my mind these days is the future of Dustin Pedroia. I really wish that his first taste of the majors had gone better last fall. I have great confidence in him and know that he is fully capable of success in the majors, but, well, when you're surrounded by the negativity of the Boston media and everyone is clamoring for the Sox to bring back Mark Loretta, you can't help but be a little nervous. I'm trying to keep some context, though. He's only had 89 AB in his career. His line looked like this: .191/.258/.303. That's actually about on par with Doug Mirabelli or Alex Cora, but that's not something we'd expect out of our next-decade 2B. Let me give you a couple of other first-taste-of-the-majors lines:

.204/.241/.204 over his first 17 games? Alex Rodriguez.
.224/.250/.320 over his first 65 games? Alex Rodriguez, again.
.202/.240/.303 over his first 26 games? Miguel Tejada.
.181/.290/.209 over his first 81 games? Jose Offerman.

Ok, so I threw that last one in there because David Eckstein, Derek Jeter, and Nomar Garciaparra all did pretty well in their first few games. My point, however, is that it is very possible to overcome a less-than-stellar first few games and still be a highly productive player. I'm still bullish on the little guy.