Risks and Costs

Now that Matsuzaka's signed, the Sox have shored up their bullpen a bit, and it appears that Manny's staying, at least for now, we can turn our minds and attentions to the next stressful issues of the offseason. The condition of J.D. Drew's surgically repaired shoulder has apparently thrown a bit of a monkeywrench into the finalizing of his contract. Speculation has been pretty much all over the board, with some saying that this is a minor issue, and a second opinion is all that is needed from a t-crossing, i-dotting stance. Others are claiming that this will affect some of the language of the contract, with the Sox protecting themselves in a contractually similar way to the Tigers when they signed Pudge. Still others are claiming that this will torpedo the contract and J.D. Drew will have to look elsewhere to sign, leaving the Sox to turn back to a platoon of Wily Mo and possibly Trot Nixon. Even wilder (in my estimation) speculation has the Sox somehow stealing Alex Rios from the Blue Jays in the wake of the Vernon Wells signing.

The bottom line, to me, is that the J.D. Drew signing has been revealed as being much riskier than originally anticipated. Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus seemed to anticipate this with his PECOTA projection, showing Drew will miss fairly significant time and come up with only 14 homers. If you're not a pitcher, you really shouldn't produce less than one home run per million dollars you're paid. Oh, sure, he projects at about a .400 OBP with good doubles numbers and probably great defense. But when your medical history has your power trending down to 14 homers, something's amiss. Drew needs to devote himself to a workout regimen from Rocky IV. We gotta get that boy healthy.

Speaking of healthy, in the absence of a clear closer for the Sox, the debate over using Jonathan Papelbon as closer again continues to rage. The Sox seem to be convinced that for some (not fully explained) medical reason, Papelbon will be better served being a starter. I don't know if this has to do with rest between appearances or the increased strain on one's arm that relieving brings. I'm not a medical specialist, but it seems to me that innings are innings. Fewer, highly effective innings for another year or two would seem to be less stressful than more innings. I know that having Papelbon come out night after night after night might not be optimum, but if there is some dedication to using him a bit more strategically and a bit more sparingly (one and two run leads, not three runs, for example), this could still possibly work out. Nate Silver (again) weighs in on this in another Unfiltered segment from the BP website, as do the guys over at the Sox blog on the MVN website.

There's no way I would advocate throwing Papelbon in a situation where he's really likely to be seriously injured. I could even understand if this were strictly an economic thing for him (starters get paid more than relievers), but if he's a high-strain pitcher, who puts a toll on his arm regardless of the inning, AND if he's been shown to be incredibly valuable at the back end of the bullpen, I don't know why you'd be so resolute to make that change. Putting Papelbon at the end of a bullpen with Timlin, Okajima, Donnelly, Romero, Delcarmen, Hansen, and maybe Hansack? That's a really solid group, with a top-five closer. Do we really think pitching 60 innings at the end of games is a much higher risk than pitching 170 at the beginnings?