I can still remember the day I stopped being a baseball fan. It was the day Tony Tarasco’s career was snatched away by a boy named Jeffrey Maier. It was the day that my beloved Orioles led the AL East wire to wire only to fall to the Yankees. The Yankees became a dynasty of champions. The Orioles became a dynasty of losers. Baseball was never the same for me. Innocence lost around the time I turned 11. I’ll tune in for a couple playoff games if the teams are interesting or the game is close in the late innings but the love is lost. I guess it wasn’t meant to be.
Somehow ten years later I find myself watching a Boston Red Sox spring training game. Flipping channels I saw that Daisuke Matsuzaka was pitching. Apparently hype does work. The hundred million dollar myth from Japan had piqued my interest. I’m an automatic skeptic when it comes to prospects. There is no way a pitcher who has never pitched in the big leagues could be worth over fifty million dollars just to negotiate. That price still blows the mind but in today’s free agent market it may be a bargain after all. He looks good though. He looks very good. The gyroball may not exist but whatever he’s throwing is bending around the bats. Dice-K was facing spring training Pirates so it’s a little early to be extremely impressed. Yet he had attitude, reaching back for a 95 mph fastball strike in response to a called ball that he didn’t agree with. A player willing to fight, willing to be angry, willing to put a little extra on that fastball when he’s frustrated but still level enough to put it over the plate is a commodity indeed. That’s the kind of head you want on your pitcher.
My favorite moment though was when, with two strikes, he threw some kind of screwball that the announcers said is the gyroball if anything is considered the gyroball. The batter tipped it into Varitek’s mitt but the umpire ruled that the ball had hit the dirt first. Dice-K threw the exact same pitch in the exact same place on the next pitch. The batter swung and missed. Inning over. That is a strikeout pitch. They say this guy has somewhere in the area of four and six quality pitches he can use. Yet he throws the same bizarre curveball out of the strike zone twice in a row and the batter can’t deal with it. I think we may have something special here.
Another interesting moment was listening to the announcers talk about Jonathan Papelbon. They consider him the fourth best starting pitcher on the Red Sox. He was moved from closer to starter because doctors believe the regularized routine will help keep his arm healthy after he broke down at the end of last season. The announcers didn’t agree with this assessment. Their secondary argument was that Papelbon should remain closer but that Terry Francona should just manage him better, giving up a game here and there by putting in someone else. In other words, keep Papelbon the closer but use him in a more routine fashion and don’t let him pitch two innings at a time or too many days in a row. This seems like a good idea although who knows how it would actually fly in practice. Maybe having a shutdown fourth starter will be more beneficial than having a closer you have to worry about every time you call his name.
What caught my attention was the first argument given by the announcers. They were explaining about how the move was related to health issues rather than baseball issues and finished up their explanation by saying “doctors don’t make baseball decisions”. The thrust of the following exchange was that maybe the doctors were right but who cares because they don’t know baseball and the Red Sox need Papelbon to be a closer. Papelbon is only 26 years old and very obviously talented. If he can start he should start. If being a closer may ruin his arm he should not be a closer. Having a quality starter for the next ten years is a lot better than having a great closer for this season until his arm falls off and he turns into Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. They are both starting the season on the DL again. Their careers are never going to get back on the track of promise where they began.
The doctors are there to tell you which baseball moves will ruin your players. They are there specifically to tell you that Papelbon’s arm will stay healthier for longer as a starter instead of a closer. Plus there is the moral issue of treating your players the right way. Hearing announcers actively encourage disregarding the orders of doctors in such a nonchalant way and making it sound like it was obvious, wise advice was somewhat shocking. They backed off to some extent by talking about managing Papelbon as a closer and I hope the Red Sox have discussed that option. If he can be a closer without hurting himself then he might as well be a great closer. Either way I hope he can stay healthy and as much as I dislike the Red Sox these days I hope they destroy the Yankees who will never be sufficiently avenged for that night in October ten years ago.
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