And then I remember this guy…

The Yankees own 5 year mistake

But it’s not very likely.

Today is April 12th. This is still the same team that was expected to outlast all others just two weeks ago.  As I just pointed out, they’re 4.5 games out of first place. If they were 4.5 out of first on August 15th, would we be counting them out? No way.

Do they have problems? Sure.

The starting pitching was supposed to be a major strength with Jon Lester continuing his ascension to Ace status, John Lackey and Josh Becket both due for rebounds, Clay Buchholz primed to break out and push the older guys aside to become pitcher number 1B to Lester’s 1A and Daisuke Matsuzaka there to be the best number 5 starter in all of baseball. So far, Beckett has been pretty good, Lester has been OK, Buchholz has been up and down and Lackey and Matsuzaka have been pretty bad. But as I write this they’ve each started 2 games.  That means, assuming good health, each will start around 30 more times this season.

This is still the same batting lineup that was going to lead the league in runs scored with as dominant a 1 through 5 as there is in the game today. Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez were the big time free agent additions who were going to lead the hit parade. So far Crawford has done little as he and the rest of the team have combined to rank 12th in the AL in extra base hits and 9th in OPS. Seriously, with talented players like Gonzalez, Crawford, Kevin Youkilis, and Dustin Pedroia still in their primes, it’s only a matter of time until they start pulling themselves up near the tops of those rankings.

Lastly, the bullpen had been fortified with a blend of veteran and up-and-coming arms that would keep teams shut down after one of those aforementioned starting pitching stars needed to hand the ball off early.  They were now well prepared for the potential (and, some say, inevitable) implosion of Jonathan Papelbon since Bobby Jenks was brought in to be his safety net and Daniel Bard was another year closer to stardom.  So far the group, overall, has been OK with a few rough outings from Bard, Tim Wakefield and the already jettisoned Dennys Reyes. But the collective group’s performance should not have raised any red flags.

When will (not “can”) they turn it around? Soon.

They’re too talented a team to continue to play this poorly.  Eventually the bats will get in sync and the runs will come in bunches.  The starting pitching will settle in to be one of the better overall units in baseball and the bullpen, which will undergo some minor tweaks (as all bullpens do in April and May), should also come together to provide stability late in games.

If you’re a Red Sox fan, don’t panic. Sure, you should be frustrated and anxious about the team’s lackluster start.  But don’t reserve your spot on the edge of the Tobin Bridge just yet.  I have a strong suspicion that the Sox will be at or near the top of the standings by late May and your world will be back to normal.

Before Opening Day there are likely to be several more moves like this that should only really amount to minor roster tweaks.  But, to me, these are exciting times that test GMs and their ability to build a competitive roster from players 1 through 40.

Essentially, they’re replacing one with the other and shifting Kevin Youkilis back to 3B, right?  Obviously Beltre is the inferior player with one big question (does he only rise to the occasion when his next contract is on the line?) and is the older of the two Adrians (29 in 2011 for Gonzalez v. 32 for Beltre).  But, looking solely at 2010 numbers, they’re not that far apart.  Gonzalez posted an OPS+ of 152 while Beltre posted a 141, outstanding seasons for both.  If you look prior to 2010 it’s a whole different story: Gonzalez has posted an OPS+ over 125 in each of the past five seasons while Beltre has only had an OPS+ over 125 twice (2004 and 2010).  Defensively, they’re both very good, as is Youkilis, so let’s call this a wash (mostly because I have absolutely no business trying to determine defensive value and don’t have enough faith in defensive metrics to start throwing numbers around).

Having looked closer at the numbers it’s apparent that Gonzalez is worth the big money the Sox are going to pay him and is clearly more valuable than Beltre.  I still think the question of their relative value is legitimate when you include the likely three or four player package Boston is sending to San Diego.  However, I can’t disagree with the decision being made by Theo Epstein and the Red Sox front office.  A player such as Gonzalez is rare and you have to expect to pay a steep price in order to acquire that player.  And a six, seven or eight year deal for a player of Gonzalez’s age and history of performance may be the safer bet than giving a four year contract to a 32 year old player with Belre’s past ups and downs on the field.  Especially if you have the financial resources of the Boston Red Sox.

Bold predictions from this year’s winter meetings:

1. Yankees re-sign Mariano Rivera to a one year deal at the highest AAV ever for a Closer.  I know, nothing shocking about this one but it’s Mo so let’s get excited everyone! You know who’s really going to be excited about this? All the big-name closers who will be free agents after the 2011 season: Papelbon, Bell, K-Rod, etc.

2. A major trade will go down that no one saw coming. It could happen. You never know.  More likely it’ll be something that everyone’s been watching for a while.  Say, Prince Fielder or Adrian Gonzalez to the Red Sox? Anyway, I’m kind of excited for  a major trade to go down and have a strange feeling that something like this might happen next week.

3. Cliff Lee signs with the Yankees for 100 years and $2 billion.

Alright, enough with the stupid predictions that I have no idea about.  All I know is I’ll be glued to twitter and www.mlbtraderumors.com for an insane number of updates.  If you’re a baseball nerd like me you’ll be tuning in too.  Enjoy!

Maybe the problem is that there are as many baseball writers and reporters covering this event as there are covering the World Series. Or maybe it’s just that in the past we’ve seen some surprises come out of these meetings and we now come to expect the unexpected. Or maybe I just spend too many hours in front of the computer refreshing MLB Trade Rumors home page anticipating some major nugget of baseball news to come pixel-ating before my very eyes. Nah, the easy answer is to blame Scott Boras. The devil of all devils “forcing” general managers to pay his clients exorbitant amounts of money so that he can accomplish his life’s goal of ruining baseball. That’s gotta be it.

So, what better way to wrap up my complete waste of time over the past 4 days than with my list of the least significant and least impactful moves to come out of Las Vegas this December? I know, you can’t wait… here you go!

Least notable moves

1. Twins re-sign IF Nick Punto – Really? Was there ever a question on this one? I know there were rumors of him going to the Yankees or some other team, but putting Punto in any uniform other than a Twins getup would be as weird as those pictures of Joe Namath in a Rams jersey… it just ain’t right.
2. Royals sign Horacio Ramirez – Dayton Moore continues his off-season of puzzling moves. First Mike Jacobs comes to town, then he signs crazy Kyle Farnsworth for twice as much (and twice as long) as the Giants spent on Bobby Howry. I just don’t understand what’s going on in KC. Can I get a crack at it? I mean, can I really foul it up any more than this?
3. Another reliever gets a two-year deal: Arthur Rhodes signs with the Reds. Yes, Arthur is 39 years old. Yes, he had a good season in 2008 (albeit abbreviated – only 35 1/3 innings pitched). But, come on, two years? It’s true what they say about left handed pitchers, I guess. They’re never out of work for long, right Billy Traber?
4. Marlins release catcher Matt Treanor – poor Matt.
5. Jake Peavy traded nowhere – all the Peavy talk must have generated a record number of rumors (or at least come close to a record) and then netted absolutely nothing. Seems the Padres have completely overplayed their hands here. I say “trade him already” but what are they going to get in return at this point? Everyone else knows they NEED to dump his salary so why would they offer anything close to market value? It’s going to be a tough few years in San Diego…

I get it that he’s not worried too much about the stadium deal but he sure as heck should be worried about holding off the Boston Red Sox in the division and he should know that with Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria out with injury that he is being relied upon for significant offensive contribution and some degree of leadership. He has to know how many outs there are when he’s at bat and he has to hustle like every out matters (even if the game is all but over).

Making it even more embarrassing for Upton (I assume) and frustrating for manager Joe Maddon is that this is not the first time this season he’s been benched for not hustling. So, now Maddon is forced to bench one of his better available players to further prove a point that Upton has yet to fully understand. Way to help the team B.J.

Clay Buchholz (Boston Red Sox v. New York Yankees) 6 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 3 K

It’s easy to see why he’s such a highly touted prospect and how he’s already got a Major League no-hitter on his resume. His fastball looked to be in the low to mid 90’s for most of his six innings of work which probably seem like 100+ after his changeup and curveball were coming in right around 80 mph. The curveball was buckling some knees and making some Yankees hitters look completely foolish. While he did get a bit wild in the fifth inning – walking Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada before allowing a run scoring double from (red hot) Jose Molina -he was excellent throughout the night and showed more of what Red Sox fans have to look forward to.

Manny Parra (Milwaukee Brewers v. New York Mets) 4 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 K

I didn’t see as much of this one but I watched a couple innings from Parra so I could see what this youngster is all about. The first word that came to mind after watching him throw one pitch was “smooth”. He looked really easy getting the ball to the plate, reminding me of Andy Pettitte at times. I didn’t see any of the knee-buckling off-speed stuff that Buchholz was tossing but he did a nice job against a tough Mets lineup. As with most rookies, he would benefit from increasing the percentage of strikes thrown as he was at about 60% (43 of 72) last night.

Chien-Ming Wang (New York Yankees v. Boston Red Sox) 9IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3 K

It’s tough to fault a pitcher who just threw a complete game two-hitter against a tough Red Sox lineup, but I saw an alarming number of fly balls during Wang’s performance. He started off the first inning by fly ball outs from Coco Crisp and Dustin Pedroia (and then striking out David Ortiz) which is when I first said to myself “he’s not getting his sinker down enough”. Of course, he made it work well enough to complete the game on only 93 pitches so what do I know?

Barry Zito (San Francisco Giants v. St. Louis Cardinals) 6 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K

Zito’s going to be haunted by his massive contract until it expires because there just seems to be no possible way he’s ever going to regain the Cy Young form that ended up earning him that contract in the first place. He’s trying to transform himself into a “crafty lefty” a la Jaime Moyer because his fastball just isn’t overpowering enough at this point. He showed through most of Friday night’s game that he is indeed making this transition and was quite effective against all Cardinals not named Pujols. I don’t expect to see many more lines like he had last night and he’ll struggle to get to 10 wins for the eighth straight season with the anemic Giants offense supplying minimal run support.

So far, after about five games per team, we haven’t gotten many answers but the three things that jump out at me at this point are the fact that the Rays are atop the AL East (tied with Baltimore), the performance of potential phenom Johnny Cueto of Cincinnati and the 0-5 record of the supposedly World Series bound Detroit Tigers.

The Rays are the darlings of the league this year with many predicting a breakthrough for the perennially losing franchise and through four games (an exceptionally small sample size to be sure) they’re showing what they’re capable of. If their starting pitching continues to perform at this level (and presumably the return of Scott Kazmir in early May will only improve the situation) there’s no reason they can’t be in the middle of the Wild Card race come August and September.

As for Cueto, who knows what his major league debut will turn into? He dominated a good Arizona lineup for seven innings, striking out 10 batters, to show that his strong spring performance was no fluke. According to scouts across the baseball world, he’s got the stuff to continue succeeding at this level, but you never know with rookies. It’s good to see him get out of the gate like this but I expect a typical bumpy first season for him like most rookie pitchers.

And what’s up with Detroit? With that lineup they should be able to overcome the shortcomings of their bullpen, but so far that hasn’t been the case. Scoring only 13 runs in five games just isn’t getting it done. And with Miguel Cabrera and Gary Sheffield already banged up, it’s possible that this team could be chasing Cleveland for the rest of the season. It should be a great race throughout the summer and I’m really looking forward to it! Of course, when I head to Stockholm in mid-May I will again be relying on internet cafes and CNN International for my baseball fix!