Well, I guess I was wrong about Theo. Less than 24 hours after I put up my last post John Lackey is parading around Newbury street for a physical. And considering his new deal, he may actually be able to afford to buy a t-shirt there. Lackey’s deal is being classified as “the most expensive free agent signing of the Theo Epstein Era” with 5 years/$82.5M, although we should be fair and really say it’s only the second most expensive. The fat, out of shape guy from Japan is costing the Red Sox about $20M more.

When Lackey was with the Angels, let’s be honest, I hated him. He moaned, he whined, he was basically a perfect Mike Soscia disciple. I bet most of you can still remember his quote after the Angels lost to the Sox in the 2008 ALDS. (And if you don’t remember, “We are way better than they are. We lost to a team not as good as us.”) And entering the 2009 season, his numbers at Fenway blew. (From 2006-2008: 5.1 ERA) But in 2009 I started to gain more respect for the Texan. For one, he finally stopped fearing the Green Monster as much as Tacoby does when tracking a fly ball. He also nearly tore Soscia’s head off in the ALCS when Soscia came to the mound to take the ball from him. The last pitcher I can really remember doing that to a manger was Schilling. Not that Lackey is the same quality of pitcher as Schilling in his prime, but non-political references to Curt Schilling in a Red Sox uniform can only be a good thing.

With Lackey, suddenly this pitching staff looks like it could, on paper stand up to any in the American League. Lester, Beckett, Lackey, Buchholz, Dice-K and Wakefield. Lester, Beckett and Lackey probably shouldn’t be numbered one through three, but one-A, one-B and one-C. Buchholz and Dice-K both showed a lot of promise in the last third of 2009, and both of their hot streaks seem like they were caused by a specific repeatable change in their mechanics/workout that will hopefully carry over to 2010. And Timmeh, well, I just hope he can get to 192 in the next two seasons.

At the same time as the Lackey signing, Mike Cameron also picked up a Sox jersey. While Cameron’s numbers, including his date of birth, aren’t going to make people forget Jason Bay, the first time you see him read a fly ball it may change your mind. People love Tacoby’s speed in center, until they watch him an entire game from the upper deck. Then they realize that he needs the speed to make up for first the three steps he took in the wrong direction. If Schilling taught Beckett how to pitch and not just throw, then hopefully Cameron can teach Tacoby how to patrol center, and not just catch.

Clearly Theo has opted to go the “pitching and defense wins championships” method for building the 2010 Red Sox. It may not work, but unlike a few weeks ago when I was afraid of battling with Toronto for 3rd/4th place in the AL East, at least on paper, we’ve got a chance! (So do the Kansas City Royals…shit.)

Well it’s been over two months since my last post, and I’m still trying to block out the fact that the MFY finally succeeded in buying another World Series. But it’s December, and as the NFL commercial from a couple of years pointed out, “the sun will come out tomorrow” since every team is now 0-0.

So let’s talk Hot Stove. OK, it’s kind of hard to have a hot stove that’s anything warmer than a baby’s bathwater when you have the GM meetings in Indy in December. In past years the GM meetings were in places like California, or Florida so the GMs could have a few Mai Tais out on the beach and find the guts to make big blockbuster trades (or maybe to allow Scott Boras to roofie their Pina Colada and sign Nancy Drew to a 5/$70M contract). The biggest news story to come out of the Winter meetings was Peter Gammons leaving ESPN for NESN and the MLB Network. For that you might as well save people the trouble of traveling and do the meetings by conference call.

Anyways, the Sox clearly have a number of big question marks going into the holiday season. The middle infielders are now set with the signing of Marco Scutaro to a 2-year deal. It’s going to be hard for Marco, but hopefully he’ll do an adequate job trying to fill the huge shoes that H1N1E6 left. So that leaves us with the following starting lineup:

C: V-Mart
1B: Youks
2B: Pedey
SS: Marco Scutaro
3B: Mikey Lowell???
LF: ???
CF: Tacoby Bellsbery
RF: Nancy
DH: Papi

Looking at that lineup I see four players entering/in their prime (V-Mart, Youks, Pedey and Tacoby), two who could be leaving their prime (Nancy and Scutaro — if he ever had a prime) and two players whose prime ended when they hoisted the 2007 WS trophy (Lowell and Papi). The problem, as I’m sure you all know by now, is that this free agent class doesn’t make any owners eager to break the bank. J-Bay and Matt “I can only hit NL pitching” Holliday are the only two players that deserve a long term-deal. There are no great corner infielders who could replace Lowell, who is rumored to be in a trade to Texas. Which means we could end up with Casey Kotchman as the starting 1B and Jeremy Hermida as the starting LF. Not even Beckett, Lester and Buchholz all pitching to their potentials will make this team a favorite for the AL East.

I know this is supposed to be the time when every team looks good and everyone has a chance. Bullshit. This is the bleakest offseason since Theo took over as GM. I hope he’s got an ace-up his sleeve (Halladay?), otherwise it looks like Sox fans are getting coal in their stocking this year. Happy holidays Sox fans.

I was hoping this was all a nightmare. Damn. Anyways, the 2009 playoff umpires would like to wish everyone a belated happy Halloween.

I guess a half-billion dollars can buy happiness. When does Spring Training start?

Update: Not long after I posted I found this article from Joe Posnanski about the MFY payroll. Here’s a quick blurb:

The Yankees are not a big market team. They DWARF big market teams. They are quantitatively different from every other team in baseball and every other team in American sports. They don’t just spend more money than every other team. They spend A LOT more money than every other team. The Boston Red Sox spend $50 million more than the Kansas City Royals? Who cares? The Yankees spend $80 million more than the Boston Red Sox.

Read the whole thing, in a lot more than nine words he says much more eloquently why the MFY suck.

With Pedro pitching for the Phillies today, and Manny obviously on the Dodgers, there are quite a few connections to the 2004 Sox in the NLCS. Doug Mientkiewicz is on the Dodgers’ 40-man, but not active for the NLCS. Billy Mueller is currently an assistant to the GM for the real LA team.

Even though he’s not a member of the 2004 Sox, I also chuckled a bit when Miguel Cairo came up to bat for the Phillies last night. He was a member of the MFY in 04, and was involved in one of the most entertaining non-A-Rod-getting-soved-in-the-face regular-season moments of 2004. Hopefully we can get a repeat in 2009, cause seeing this again would be awesome:

Well, so far I’m 2-2 in predicting series, and sadly the wrong 1-1 in the AL series. So, here are my very scientific predicitons for the pennants:

• MFY over Angles in six

• Phillies over Dodgers in six

Now for those of you who have properly grieved over the Sox season and are able to turn on a live baseball game again I’d like to make a suggestion. Don’t listen to Carey, Darling and Martinez call the NLCS games. Now this normally goes without saying, but in this case it’s especially true. Mute the TV, load up mlb.com and stream the Dodgers radio broadcast so you get to hear Vin Scully.

Most of you know probably already know that Scully is the best baseball announcer, period. But what you may not know, is that aside from the playoffs, he doesn’t even work is in best medium anymore. During the regular season every game that Scully announces is done as a TV broadcaster, except for the first three innings which he simulcasts the TV and radio. It’s still a good play-by-play, but doing both at once really doesn’t put him at his best. However, with Fox doing the TV coverage of the NLCS it means that Scully gets to do what he does best: radio, and just radio. I don’t know how many more times Scully will get to do Dodger playoff games, so if you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and listen Vin Scully remind you that “It’s time for Dawwwwwdger baseball!” What, are you going to listen to Suzyn Waldman instead?

Edit: Ed is right, TBS has the NLCS this year, which probably reiterates that you should listen to Scully. At least I can stand Buck. McCarver, Martinez, Darling and especially Carey are just nauseating.

First off, congratulations to the The Angels Angels of Anaheim. They were clearly the better team in this series. They pitched better, they hit better, they ran the bases better and their bullpen was better. You won’t hear anything like “We are way better than they are. We lost to a team not as good as us” here, for two reasons. One, I’m not a member of the Boston Red Sox starting 25. And two, because I have more class than John Lackey. Now I hope they go and beat the living shit out of the MFY.

Coming into the series I thought there would be three big questions: Josh Beckett’s dominance (fail), the Sox bats against good starting pitching (fail), and the umpiring crew putting everybody on an even playing field (do I really need to re-hash this?). And yet I didn’t worry at all about Paps. I mean, why would I? The guy had pitched 27 innings in the playoffs and allowed (carry the two) ZERO runs, as in none, nada, zip, zilch. He had been the one person the Sox could always count on in October.

But by the time Paps was intentionally walking Torii Hunter, this series was over. It’s not that Paps didn’t have the ability to get Vladdy out with a one run lead and the bases loaded, it’s that even if he did, this team looked so shaky I couldn’t imagine them winning another two straight, and then four of seven against the MFY. I screamed obscenities when Abreu got the double, I sat in silence when Vladdy got to the go-ahead single.

So another season has ended, but as bad as the Sox getting swept felt, it could have been worse. They did make the playoffs for the third straight season. And getting swept is still better then losing four straight to our arch rivals after having a 3-0 lead and the lead in the 9th innings.

1999. 2003. 1999. 2003. That’s what I have to keep repeating to myself, hoping that I’ll actually believe it. Sadly for us D-Lowe won’t be starting game three. But if the Red Sox continue this lovely offensive trend of scoring an average of a half a run per game, not even D-Lowe and his magic in playoff elimination games would help.

Right now this just isn’t the same Red Sox team that played in back-to-back ALCS. The starting pitching has been good, but not step-on-your-throat-until-you-can’t-breathe good. And the offense, well, pardon the pun but it has been truly offensive. One run in 18 innings is awful, but what might be worse is the whopping 12 baserunners they’ve had over that span. That’s a WHIP of 0.67 over two freaking games. As much as I want to blame CB Bucknor, not even he could have done that much damage to the Sox bats (yes Dana, you’re right). Although I do wish that he wouldn’t give the Angles free bases. I didn’t think he could do it from behind the plate, and after the first game you’d think he might have tried to give the Sox a makeup call or 15, but letting Napoli get a free pass to first after leaning that far into a curveball is unacceptable. Can we fire Bucknor and bring in Harry Wendelstedt?

This certainly isn’t the first time this team has been behind the eight ball. We all remember 1999, 2003, 2004, and 2007. Hell, even last year they came back from being down 7-0 in the 7th inning of an elimination game. So no decent Sox fan should have given up on this team yet. In the famous (adapted) words of Kevin Millar “don’t let us win today, cause then we’ve got Lester and then Beckett.” Plus, seeing Mike Scioscia’s face after coming back from being down 0-2 would be unbelievable. I bet he’d put Peyton Manning to shame.

I should have known it was a bad sign. For the past couple of years, Kim and I have watched the playoff games either at our house, or at our friend’s house. But this year we decided to try watching the game at a sports bar that we’ve grown to love. However, we didn’t expect a dart league that stood directly in front of the TV while they were throwing. But at the time, Lester was still putting up zeros, so we figured that it wasn’t worth moving.

But then in the fourth inning we started to notice some strange music. It wasn’t country, and it wasn’t a marching band. It was a combination of the two: a couple of banjos and a sousaphone. I can only describe it as “county fair music.” Since a sousaphone and baseball haven’t been paired together since the 1920s, I immediately had a feeling that this game was not going to end well. (The waa-waa-waa-waaaaaaaa from the sousaphone didn’t inspire confidence either.)

All of Red Sox Nation has forgiven Bill Buckner for his error in the 86 World Series. (Most real Sox fans realized that the game was tied anyways, so it’s not like he singlehandedly lost them the series.) But it’s going to take a lot longer to forgive CB Bucknor for his not one, but two errors at first base.

The reason the Red Sox lost last night was because the offense was terrible against the Angels best pitcher. Give Lackey credit, he pitched well, but just because none of the “errors” directly lead to runs for the Angels I don’t think most people are recognizing was an effect Bucknor’s terrible calls had on Lester. First, there’s the nine extra pitches that Lester had to throw. Without those, he could probably have pitched the 7th, and maybe kept the game at 3-0 instead of 5-0. But the bigger problem is that because of Bucknor’s calls, Lester had to throw a lot more high-leverage pitches. Think about it this way (and I know, it’s a lot of assumptions): if Lester is correctly given the 3rd out of the 4th inning he leads off with Mathis, who Ks. Then Aybar’s double is with one out, not none, so he can still pitch to contact. Instead, he’s got to try a strike out everybody after the sac bunt, and eventually leaves a pitch up to Torii Hunter. With Bucknor’s calls would Lester have been able to match zeros with Lackey? Who knows, but he certainly would have had a better chance.

So there will be no sousaphones, banjos or darts tonight. I will be watching the game from home, where the only noise will be from me yelling at the TV. Sadly, there will still be CB Bucknor, and he won’t be in hiding as he calls balls and strikes. Let’s just hope that Beckett strikes out everybody swinging so he doesn’t have a chance to hand the Angels a 2-0 lead.

For the past couple of years I’ve done the “Dr. Jack-style breakdown” for the playoff series by comparing the staters of one team to the starters of the other, the bullpens, the offenses, etc. But considering that the Sox have played the The Angles Angels of Anaheim in the ALDS the past two seasons, that seems like a bit of overkill. Instead, I’m going to look at the major issues that will either win or lose the Sox this series:

1. Josh Beckett. The man was the ALCS MVP in 2007, although you could have just called him the playoff MVP that year. Last year he had back problems and was mediocre bordering on crappy, and the Sox were within a game of the World Series. Sadly, he’s been having back problems in the last couple of weeks, so that begs the question: will we get the “playoff” Josh Beckett, or the injured back Josh Beckett?

2. How much are the umpires going to have a hand in determining the series? This crew reads like a who’s-who of umpires that you’ve heard of because they make it their business to try and take over a game. Joe West, CB Bucknor, Eric Cooper, Greg Gibson, Brian Gorman and Dan Iassogna. Why not throw Angel Hernandez in there too? Or is MLB saving him for the ALCS?

My first thought when seeing this crew was “oh shit, this is gonna suck.” However, the more I thought about it, the crew may work in the Sox favor. You see, Mike Scioscia bitches and whines more than any other manager I’ve seen (see here, or here). He makes Youks and Papi look like mutes. So with Joe West and company, you wonder if he’s going to piss them off just enough to get a few extra calls to go the Sox way.

3. Can the offense finally hit #1 and #2 pitchers? We know they can crush the three, four and five pitchers for the Orioles, but ever since June it seems like they struggle more than the average team when facing the ace and #2. Lackey certainly is no Zack Grienke with a 3.83 ERA, and Weaver’s numbers are heavily skewed towards the first half of the season (Trust me, he was on my fantasy team. Before the ASG he was magnificent, after he was average). And Scott Kazmir has an .834 OPS-against the current Sox lineup. But it’s going to be up to the offense to try to get the Sox a slim lead or at least keep it tied before entering the Angels’ pen.

Will these three points determine the outcome of the series? If my track record means anything, then absolutely not. But truthfully, I won’t care as long as the Sox find a way to push the The Angels Angels of Anaheim to the curb for the fourth time in six years. Oh, and in case you didn’t believe me about the bitching, let me leave you with this gem from last year: