Which Playoff "Lock" is Least Likely to Make It?

[mitlen]

How sweet it would be to play a part in the elimination of the Braves.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Only today and tomorrow to change your vote and make yourself look prescient.

[DPMOmaha]

Braves about to get served by StLCards from law office of Anibal, Vazquez, Strasburg & Wang.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Verducci is all over the Red Sox / Rays race.  Just great stuff.  Just excerpts here, but the whole thing is a nice read.

This is no fluke. The big picture about the Red Sox, which you can read about in the Moneyball issue of SI out this week, is that they are a model organization when it comes to acquiring and using information. Only the Yankees have won more games since the front office regime of Theo Epstein went to work for the 2003 season. But this September snapshot of Boston highlights the two areas that vex the organization: free agents and player health.

At crisis time, the Red Sox have $420.2 million worth of free agents nowhere to be found, at least as far as even marginal contributors: Crawford, Jenks, Matsuzaka, Drew, John Lackey, Mike Cameron and Dan Wheeler. Crawford was benched against David Price on Sunday and then missed the doubleheader Monday with a stiff neck. No word on whether he also suffered from writer's cramp from his ill-advised "diary" in which he (wrongly) called out teammate Marco Scutaro for not telling him to slide and looked ahead to postseason matchups -- which sounded a lot like a skydiver dreaming about the landing when his chute won't open.

If Crawford thinks his first year in Boston was tough, wait until he sees next year if the Sox don't reach the postseason. Every calamity needs someone to absorb the blame -- goodbye, Grady Little -- and Sox fans have Crawford in their sights. He has been awful. He is hitting just .255 with a .292 on-base percentage and has been so overmatched and late -- he was a threat every time up only to fans sitting behind the third-base dugout -- that hitting coach Dave Magadan took away his leg kick and gave him a toe-tap trigger. That hasn't helped much, either. Fastballs are overpowering him. (Crawford is hitting .189 against power pitchers.) The mechanics of his swing are technically unsound, which foretells more timing problems as he ages and the athleticism he relies on fades even a little more.

Lackey has been another bust over a longer sample. It is not a question of whether he has the makeup to succeed in Boston. It is a question of his stuff, which had been diminishing in his runup to free agency and is short. He has not been suited to pitching varsity baseball in the AL East. His ERA inside the division this year is 7.52.
...
Meanwhile, just as injuries killed their 2010 season, players keep breaking down on the Red Sox in the second half. You can talk all you want about finding the "next market inefficiency" as if you need some secret formula and an M.I.T. degree. The surest way to winning baseball remains as simple and timeless as keeping your players healthy, particularly your starting pitchers.

(Psst! Spoiler alert: From 2000-04, Tim Hudson, Barry Zito and Mark Mulder ranked 1-6-8 in starts by AL pitchers, averaging a combined 93 starts a season for Oakland. Do not, however, look too hard for them in the movie.)

This year there are 10 teams that have had three pitchers make at least 29 starts. Five of those teams are going to the playoffs (Tigers, Diamondbacks, Brewers, Phillies and Rangers) and three others have winning records.

One of these days somebody is going to put research and development into the health issue of baseball, and not just hire some strength training coach from a college football program and build a weight room with a killer sound system. The needs of baseball players are unique, and a conditioning specialist from another sport may not translate to this one. One belief I have, for instance, based on nothing but anecdotal observations, is that position players hit too much because of the improvements in facilities with the ballpark building boom. I'd love for somebody to count swings the way coaches do pitches; people would be shocked at the wear and tear. Can you say "oblique"?



Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/tom_verducci/09/20/red.sox.collapses/index.html#ixzz1YaxEXXyo

[Kevrock]

What is Crawford doing in that picture?

[Tyler Durden]

What is Crawford doing in that picture?

Making $18 million.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

After recounting that the Red Sox have gotten 2 quality starts since 9/3, Peter Abraham brings up a sign of how desperate they are for starting pitching:

That's why, as John Tomase of the Herald reported earlier today, the Sox were trying to trade for Mets lefty Chris Capuano to start on Sunday against the Yankees.

That's how desperate the Sox are. They would be willing to trade for a pitcher knowing he couldn't be on the postseason roster.

Sources say the deal won't be made.

[tomterp]

After recounting that the Red Sox have gotten 2 quality starts since 9/3, Peter Abraham brings up a sign of how desperate they are for starting pitching:

The Nats would have probably been happy to deal them some of our excess pitching (Wang, Lannan, Marquis) but they value their prospects too highly for such pedestrian players in return. 

Anyway, you must get a lot of credit JCA, for seeing the crash well before it was recognized by most.

Playoff probability (BP) for the Red Sox is now 55.1%, vs. Rays 44.9%

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I expected Wang to be dealt in August near the roster deadline.  As it turns out, he's been mostly effective in September.  They could have used a replacement level starting pitcher, like maybe a Livo, in September.  Recall Theo dealt for Stanton for the last weekend in 2005.  I'm surprised he did not pull the trigger.

[imref]

The Nats would have probably been happy to deal them some of our excess pitching (Wang, Lannan, Marquis) but they value their prospects too highly for such pedestrian players in return. 

Anyway, you must get a lot of credit JCA, for seeing the crash well before it was recognized by most.

Playoff probability (BP) for the Red Sox is now 55.1%, vs. Rays 44.9%

oh how i wish we could have gotten elsbury before the start of the season.

[Minty Fresh]

The Red Sox season is playing out like a Greek Tragedy.  How long before residents of Sawx Nation start banging their own moms and ripping out their own eyeballs?

[HalfSmokes]

I love how the brave's own historic collapse is getting forgotten in all of this- up by 1 with St Louis finishing in Houston and Atlanta finishing in Philly

[blue911]

The Red Sox season is playing out like a Greek Tragedy.  How long before residents of Sawx Nation start banging their own moms and ripping out their own eyeballs?

I thought that was 1978?

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Not to be too crazy, but Wang would be on his normal rest on Thursday.  I believe tie breakers are regular season games, so playoff eligibility does not factor in. The Red Sox are starting Lester on Wednesday.  I wonder if they will try to pull a trade for a starter for the tie-breaking game, if it looks like it will happen.  Surely a marginal minor leaguer, say Che-Hsaun Lin (think Komatsu but younger and at AAA), should be enough for a guy like Wang. It'd be Wang (or another acquistion), or going with Wakefield or Lackey on 3 days rest.  Wang does not have a great playoff history, but short of an acquisition or a bullpen mix / match burning Aceves and Atchison, it might not be a bad alternative.  You win, either Beckett on short rest or Lackey on normal rest opens against Detroit.

[Tyler Durden]

I'd rather keep Wang and sign him to an extension for next year.  I'm sure some other teams would be willing to make a trade like that, though.

They might as well start Lackey so if he gets bombed again, Red Sox fans will focus their anger on someone who actually deserves it rather than Tim Wakefield.

[MarquisDeSade]

Send Wang to the Red Sux for whatever you can get. 

[tomterp]

Jammage!

Drink!

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I'd rather keep Wang and sign him to an extension for next year.  I'm sure some other teams would be willing to make a trade like that, though.

They might as well start Lackey so if he gets bombed again, Red Sox fans will focus their anger on someone who actually deserves it rather than Tim Wakefield.

Nothing stopping the Nats from signing him on Friday.  He's an FA, so the notion of keeping him means signing him.  No special privileges. 

I'd only do it if it was not offensive to him, and with the understanding that the team would make him an offer.

[Sharp]

Well, I was wrong.

[spidernat]

Boston and Atlanta. 

[lesterm]

Braves have nothing.  Still owe Lowe and Chipper $35 million.  Hudson is slowing down. 

[Coladar]

So damn, the Nats and ex-Nats really played a part in yesterday's historic baseball. First, obviously the Nats destroyed the Braves over the weekend, taking 2 of 3 and thus being the difference between the Braves advancing right to the playoffs if we'd been swept, or playing game 163 if we won only one.

But then the ex-Nats. Brian Schneider entered the game for Philly as a PH in the 13th, and scored the winning, walk off run! Yes, our old catcher is *the* reason the Braves are buh bye from the playoffs, he was driven in by Hunter Pence.

Then an ex-Nat, another longtime Nat btw, not just a "here for a week" player, is *the* reason the Red Sox and all their godawful bandwagon fans are crying on their pillows as I type. Luis Ayala. He is *the* reason the Rays came back. If not for him, the Rays almost definitely lose and thus game 163 would have been played in Tampa tonight. He gave up three runs in one inning, two hits and a walk, including a HR. If not for him, the Rays lose and the Red Sox avoid their epic collapse for at least one more night.

Here's something I don't get, not one single one of these games sold out. Two home games for the playoff contending team, two away games, but including Boston at Baltimore. How the freak does that freaking happen? How does Atlanta not sell out at home? 92% attendance in Atlanta. 59% in Houston for the Cards, not a huge shock. 82% in Tampa Bay, again, not a huge shock. But only 62% in Baltimore for Boston's uber pivotal game? Wtf? You'd think legions of Boston fans from all over the North East, despite the weather, would have sold out that game in a heartbeat. Only 62%?!?!?! I don't get that at all. So the most exciting night in baseball history, four freaking amazing games, and all four of them we could have walked up and purchased tickets?!? That's just insane, bizarre and quite frankly, sad.

[mitlen]

Boston and Atlanta. 

Two of the teams that I simply love to hate.

EDIT:    Just watched highlights of all the games on MLB.com.    Wow, what a great day/night of baseball.

[blue911]

Theo Epstein's decision to cut Kevin Millwood probably cost Boston a playoff spot. Kevin Millwood, good lord a $160M+ payroll and your playoff hopes rested on cutting a guy trying to salvage his career.

[Minty Fresh]

Two of the teams that I simply love to hate.

EDIT:    Just watched highlights of all the games on MLB.com.    Wow, what a great day/night of baseball.

I watched it unfold on MLB Network.  They kept going between the three games that mattered.  Great television.  The Red Sox absolutely CHOKED - and Papelbon in particular.