Oh those laughy, daffy Sox

Thank goodness for extensive empical evidence supporting the idea that spring training W/L records are completely meaningless. The Sox regularly lag behind the Jays and Rays around this time of year, however that's not often the case come September.

Having said that, the Sox simply aren't hitting or pitching very well in ST. Pitching has been acceptable, with several fringe bullpen player implosions marring quite a few good pitching performances. However, hitting is simply not coming along at this point. Last spring, here were the numbers a few of our regulars ended up with at the end:

Nomar: .373/5/10
Manny: .490/5/14
Ortiz: .333/3/10
Millar: .328/4/11

Here's their stats thus far this spring:

Nomar: .000/0/1
Manny: .100/0/0
Ortiz: .400/2/3
Millar: .125/0/2

I am NOT suggesting that this is clear evidence that our offense is going to collapse this year (Rob Neyer seems to think it will, though) I've been watching all those guys lately (not so much Nomar as he's just coming back from a heel injury) and they all look pretty frantic and useless at the plate right now. I'll just feel a lot better about stuff once they're hitting fairly well and not weakly hacking at the ball with their bats like a gay lumberjack would cut down a tree.

I can't find a link to it, however ESPN has a fairly distressing little blurb on the Sox team homepage

The Red Sox made their third contract-extension offer to Nomar Garciaparra last week, the Providence Journal reported March 10. The offer, which was not accepted, reportedly is for four years ($13-$14M per year), and may include a fifth option year.

What the hell else does he want? Even the low end of that contract is for 52 million over 4 years. If Sox management ups that offer I will strangle them. I'm not a huge stat head, but I really believe OPS is a good measure of a hitter's overall usefullness to a team. Guess what Nomar's OPS was? Actually, don't guess, it was .870. Doesn't sound so good, does it? Okay, guess this one: What rank does that give him in the AL? (Not baseball, JUST the AL)

If you guessed "In the top 20, but JUST friggin' barely", then you're right. 20th in the AL. That's not such hot stuff. Good, no doubt, but not 14 million a year good. There's always a chance ESPN blew this one in the same fashion as a inept television reporting sprinting out of the Martha Stewart courtoom frantically waving her "Red for not guilty on count 3" scarf, and if that's the case I'm still not worried, but if Nomar's really stonewalling on a potentially 5 year deal for 69 million, then he's either A) an idiot or B) has no interest in playing in Boston at all anymore. 2005 has some decent shortstops on the FA market if I'm not mistaken, including slightly below top tier names such as Renteria, Furcal, and Cabrera. Any of them would suit me fine, if Nomar makes 18 million dollars a year to play 2B for the Yankees then good for him. I suppose he could always hit a 9th inning game winning home run against us in the playoffs sometime soon, but if that happens there's so many effective ways to kill myself I'm not even worried about it

With how much I like Bronson Arroyo and how much Kim's incessant whining and under-achieving bothers me, this article is no surprise and hopefully further evidence that Arroyo might actually grab the 5th starter's slot out of spring training. Kim's numbers actually aren't all that horrible this spring, however if there's one person whose pure numbers cannot be trusted, it's BK. His numbers for us included a 3.18 ERA, 8-5 record. and 16 saves. However, and anyone who actually watched a game with him pitching knows this, those are merely evil, lying statistics of the worst kind. He was very rarely in control of a game and always seemed one bad break away from a horrible blowout inning. There's no numbers I can find to back it up, but he came out of a lot of games with 2 or 3 runners on base that the relief pitching did a great job of cleaning up for him. With his fragile body and mind, I wouldn't shed any tears if he ended up our long man out of the bullpen and Arroyo was starting, is all.

Johnny Damon is doing his best Brian Daubauch impersonation by admitting he's a bit of a free spirit and might have had the occasional chardonnay, what of it? I'm all for players staying out till 2 AM and getting sledged, waking up with an ugly groupie, and complaining to the umpire to "make the pitcher stop spinning the stadium like that". As long as it doesn't affect his performance, who gives a crap what players do? Johnny's overpaid and not all that great a leadoff hitter, but he's decent and his hitting woes come from just plain not being that talented, not from boozin' it up. I say he should take the advice and be a little more agressive at the plate, and if he happens to be in really bad shape and sees three balls coming at him, swing at the one in the middle, Johnny.

Because I can't resist taking a parting shot at the Yankees, I'll publicly delcare the clubhouse shenanigans in full swing thanks to Gary "G-Money" Sheffield. Cashman said this is a non-issue, and it probably is, but it's a wee bit early for Cashman to have to be going out and doing damage control. I think I might be taking out a subscription to the Post just to keep abreast of this stuff.

In closing, here is a picture of Todd Zeille making a playful grab for Mike Piazza's manliness.