“I don’t even know what the rule is. I’ve turned the best double play in the major leagues for 11 years. I don’t need the (expletive) rule, let’s be honest. The rule is irrelevant. The rule is for people with bad footwork, and that’s it.”

The rule is irrelevant. As is typical for him, Pedroia did not mince words. He is not the only player to publicly state his dislike of Rule 6.01(j), better know as the Utley Rule. As one example, take this article titled “Utley Rule has Fundamentally Changed Baseball”; a bold statement from the get-go. In it, Blue Jays’ center fielder Kevin Pillar, third base coach Luis Rivera, and old-school-lovin’ play-by-play man Buck Martinez all speak to how the rule has removed an important part of the game: the baserunners’ ability to physically break up double plays. And by doing so, life has become much easier for middle infielders.

But has it? Has it changed baseball? Or is Pedroia’s assessment of the situation – that the rule has not changed play for those who can appropriately dance around the second base bag – more correct?

Double play data should reveal any impact of the rule. To be clear, I am interested in the grounded-into-double-play rate. So the total number of GIDP out of all plate appearances for which a GIDP was possible (i.e., less than two outs, runner on first). If the Utley Rule really has created an environment in which middle-infielders need not worry about runners bearing down on them, then we should see an uptick in the GIDP%. Here are the data (from Retrosheet and Baseball Prospectus) for the years that Pedroia has been in the league:

As you can see, there is year-to-year variability in GIDP%, but 2016, the first year with the Utley Rule, does not appear to be out of step with the years preceding it. 2017 has the highest rate in recent seasons, but is based on only a month’s worth of games, so temper any grand conclusions until we are deeper into the season. From 2007 to 2015, given the necessary conditions, double plays were turned 10.86 percent of the time, which is less often than in 2016 after the rule was implemented. But the higher 2016 rate is only a smidge higher and works out to each team turning an average of one extra double play over the course of the year. That is basically a nothing change, and crediting it entirely to the change in the rules is a difficult case to make.

Perhaps considering any plate appearance where a double-play was possible takes too wide a view of the possible impact of the rule, and it is more appropriate to only focus on double-play situations where the batter ended his plate appearance by hitting the ball on the ground; the necessary beginning of a potential GIDP. Here are those data:

2017 is not included because the Retrosheet play-by-play data are not yet available, and they are necessary for me to isolate the batted ball outcomes. Similar year-to-year variability is present, but now we see that the 2016 season had the highest rate. However, note that the increase from 2015 was half (or less than half) of the change seen across seasons in each of the prior five seasons. Applying the 2007-2015 rate (30.26) to the 2016 opportunities means on average each team gained five double plays. Is that enough of a change to make a big deal about it? Perhaps, but given the existent variation in the year-to-year GIDP rate I am not comfortable attributing the 2016 increase to the new sliding rule.

These data show, to me anyway, that statements about how the Utley Rule was going to dramatically change (or ruin) the game was empty rhetoric. Rather, it seems as though the combination of the Utley Rule and stricter enforcement of middle infielders needing to be on-the-second-base-bag rather than in-the-neighbourhood of the bag has kept the game right where we left it. In retrospect, this should not have been difficult to anticipate. The lamentations for losing the opportunity to blow up the infielder and stay out of double plays was likely just a result of a fairly typical error of memory. People were probably preferentially recalling the slides that worked to disrupt the second-baseman or shortstop despite those almost certainly being fewer in number than instances where the infielder handled (or avoided) the contact and still spun two. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing.

This analysis raises the question: if the rule has no effect on play, then why bother having it at all? Well, safety. The primary intention of the rule is to protect middle infielders from violent plays. The fact that the rule can do that while simultaneously not having an effect on the rate of double-plays is really a best-case scenario. The game goes on as we know (and love) it, and infielders are safer from injury on plays around the bag because they are better able to predict where the runner will be sliding. With all that said, of course boneheaded plays, like Machado’s careless slide, will still happen. But as a result of the rule the collisions that result from these momentary errors in judgment should be tame relative to what they could have been just a few years ago. That is undoubtedly a good thing.

Photo by Evan Habeeb – USA TODAY Sports

Top Play (WPA)

Mookie Betts Jackie Bradley Jr. hit a two-run homer with two outs in the third inning scoring Mookie Betts wait yeah it actually was Mookie (.213).

Bradley’s been hitting .190/.292/.333 with a .626 OPS over the last two weeks, so hopefully this dinger helps him get back on track.

Bottom Play (WPA)

Dustin Pedroia lined out to left in the second inning (-.067). This particular line out is an especially large bummer because it was Pedroia’s 33rd birthday and no one deserves to have their name attached to the worst play of the game on their birthday. Additionally, he also made an error. Worst of all, however, is that it was his birthday and while I’m not in my 30s yet I imagine that’s around the time that birthdays begin to betray you.

Quick Shouts 

Weather – The official MLB rulebook required the teams to wait an hour before calling the game, but everyone knew the deal. The rain-shortened affair probably helped the team get on a plane to Detroit earlier than expected (editor’s note: maybe not) and definitely helped a bullpen that is best used in minimal doses or arguably not at all. The Red Sox’s next off day is September 1, so every little bit helps.

David Price – Six innings, four hits, one run, four strikeouts. That works just fine. Minus the home run he allowed to Chris Davis, Price pitched well. Good stuff.

Sandy Leon – Sweet, sweet Sandy Leon. There are two dozen incredibly intriguing and entertaining storylines to the 2016 Red Sox and yours is probably the most intriguing and definitely the most entertaining. Another home run tonight, his sixth this year, put the game away in the 5th. He quite literally brought the thunder. Sandy Leon brings the thunder.

What’s next

The Detroit Tigers at 1pm. It will be Clay Buchholz (and a well rested bullpen!) vs Matt Boyd. Prepare for offense.

Photo by Tommy Gilligan/USA Today Sports Images

The Red Sox have been tailing the Orioles and staying ahead of the Blue Jays for some time now, and even though they regained the divisional lead for a short while last week, they did a fine job of squandering it by losing four of their last five games – and unless they can beat Michael Fulmer and the Tigers today, five of their last six. What’s worse is that they’ve done so while playing at Fenway. With the road trip that’s coming up, that sort of mediocrity can’t be allowed to happen anymore. The Red Sox are facing an uphill battle when it comes to the next two months.

While the Red Sox have enjoyed 58 of their 98 games played at home, that leaves them having only played 40 games on the road. 41 of their remaining 64 games will be on the road. Fourty-one! For context: the Blue Jays have just 32 more games on the road, while the Orioles have slightly more, with 34. The Red Sox also don’t have a homestand longer than seven games for the rest of the season – two six-gamers, a seven-game stretch, and the final three-game series against Toronto at the very tail-end of the season.

Red Sox reality: 34-24 home, 21-19 road means 23 of 41 on road including trips of 11,10,9

— Peter Gammons (@pgammo) July 27, 2016

The worst part? The Red Sox haven’t even gone on one of their West Coast road trips yet. The first of two massive 9+ game ventures start Thursday, while the second one comes during the first week of September. This team has been historically meek when it comes to traveling cross-country to play baseball, and there’s been nothing to convince us that 2016 will buck the trend. The 2013 version of the Red Sox went 9-7 on their road trips – and it wouldn’t have been a winning record if they didn’t face National League competition on the second trip. Even the good Boston teams struggle on the road, especially if the road goes along the Golden Coast. All-in-all, it’s not looking good on the scheduling front.

But wait, there’s more! Remember the first series of the season? You know, in Cleveland, where one game got postponed twice? Yessir, it’s back. Thanks to that one game getting bumped all the way to August 15th, the Red Sox will have to play 23 games in 23 days in August, starting on August 9th against the Yankees and ending on August 31st, against the Rays. That massive stretch of no off-days also includes a 13-game road trip, which is comprised of three games against current first place teams (one at Cleveland, two at Baltimore), four games against Detroit (a second-place team), and four at Tampa Bay. Those games against first place teams? Yeah, they’re clustered at the front of the trip, too. What a doozy that’s going to be. The dog days of August are here, real, and they might just eat the Red Sox up.

The scariest part of this whole thing might just be how Toronto looks right now. They too suffered an awful June, and just like the Red Sox, they’ve picked it up in July. Thing is, luck hasn’t been going their way. The Blue Jays are an unlucky 10-18 in games decided by one-run. Now, there’s been a lot of talk about how a team’s record in one-run games can be attributed to just plain luck, but let’s face it: the Blue Jays are a good baseball team and aren’t going to be that bad at close games forever. With some luck and little bit of improved performance, those numbers are going to start reversing. They’re dangerous, and they’re poised to make a strong second-half surge, even more so than the Orioles.

But what this really means for the Red Sox is that they cannot continue to squander home games. There’s precious few of them left, and they naturally perform much better in Fenway, so they need to start capitalizing on what they have left. Luckily for them, they don’t face a team anywhere close to first place until the Orioles in mid-September. The Red Sox will see the Yankees, Diamondbacks, Royals, and Rays in Fenway over their next 12 home games. That’s where they’ve got to bear down. The Red Sox have a massive +66 run differential at home – which is more than Baltimore’s +55 and their incredible 37-15 record at Camden Yards – and they need to lean on that if they want to keep up with Baltimore and Toronto in the pennant race.

This all could just be pessimism. The Red Sox sloppily split a series with the Twins and have bumbled their way to a losing series against the Tigers, and look terribly unsettled right now. Will they bounce back from this? Probably. But there’s a lot to be said about having a half-game lead on the Orioles going into a four-game set hosting the worst team in the AL, and coming out of it 1.5 games behind. The Red Sox can’t let an opportunity like that slip away again, if it does happen again.

The odds don’t look good. Toronto and Baltimore have a lot more home games, and they only have two west coast road trips between them. The Red Sox have two on their own. This is where those home wins count just a little bit more. The Sox need to tighten it up while playing at Fenway, or they’ll be forced to win on the road, something that they haven’t been able to consistently do – even when they’ve won it all.

Photo by David Banks/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA): Clay Buchholz was actually looking pretty solid until the sixth inning. It wasn’t his best start, granted, but he flashed the changeup and curveball that he needs to be successful. Then the sixth inning happened. It started with Chris Davis effortlessly crushing a ball off the wall in left field, a noteworthy achievement given the wind blasting toward right field. Of course, that was nothing compared to Mark Trumbo, who followed that up with a blast over everything in left (+.223) that tied the game up at four. The Orioles have some stupid power, you guys.

Bottom Play (WPA): Let me start this by saying Mike Wright is not a good pitcher. I don’t think that’s a controversial statement. He was solid last night, but the Red Sox had a chance to put him away in the fourth. The score was tied at two, and after two quick outs the bases became loaded with a single and two hit batsmen. Blake Swihart came to the plate with a chance to give Buchholz a much-needed cushion early in this game. Instead, he hit a routine grounder to Jonathan Schoop at second (-.086) and the inning was over without a run being scored. It was a rough night for Swihart, but we’ll get to that in a second.

Key Moment: Remember that Trumbo home run that ended up being the most important play in the game? It probably never should’ve happened. Earlier in that at bat, he popped a ball in foul territory in front of the Red Sox dugout. It looked like a routine play. The wind messed things up for fielders all night, but if we’re being honest with ourselves it should’ve been caught. Instead, Swihart misread it and it fell past his outstretched glove. Maybe Hanley Ramirez should’ve called him off, as he had a better read on it. He probably should have. But either way, that’s a ball Swihart should’ve had. Buchholz still shares plenty of the blame for allowing Trumbo to hit a ball 1200 yards, but the whole situation could’ve been avoided.

More Swihart Sadness: That’s probably enough sadness for Swihart in one game, but there’s one more play that gets added to this list. Not only did he account for the worst play in the game by WPA, but he also was the proud owner of the third-worst play. After that mess of a sixth inning, the Red Sox still only trailed by one run in the bottom half. Once again, Boston’s catcher found himself at the plate in a big situation, this time with Travis Shaw on third and two outs. A single would’ve tied the game, but instead he hit yet another routine ground ball to second base. People on the twittersphere were already wondering when Christian Vazquez would take the starting role behind the plate, which is obviously insane. However, there’s no denying it was a rough night for Swihart. He’ll likely get a much needed night off tonight with Joe Kelly taking the hill.

The Most Clay Buchholz Start Ever: Well, that’s probably not true since he left the mound healthy, but everything else about it was quintessential Buchholz. He started the outing with some shaky control, walking two of his first six opponents. Then, he settled down and started looking like a near-ace with both his changeup and his curveball working. At one point, he struck out four of eight batters he faced while allowing just one to reach base. Then, he was hurt by a bit of dumb luck, with JJ Hardy hooking a ball around Pesky’s Pole with as short of a home run as humanly possible*. Then, of course, he imploded in the sixth. Buchholz is still the shrug emoji personified.

*He did that twice, by the way. Baseball is dumb.

Failure in Middle Relief: The Red Sox’s bullpen was supposed to be a strength for this team in 2016, and for the most part it has been. Tonight, though, they were really feeling the absence of Carson Smith. Noe Ramirez came in after Buchholz, and while he only allowed one inherited run, that was because of big defensive plays from Mookie Betts and Travis Shaw. After him, Robbie Ross entered and promptly allowed three runs (plus one inherited runner from Ramirez) to score. Things will look better once Smith comes back, but Boston really needs one more arm to step up at some point this year.

David Ortiz Still Rules, Though: No matter what else happens this season, never lose sight of the fact that we still get to watch David Ortiz. The man is incredible. He hit another home run last night, his third of the year. He also hit an RBI double in his last at bat of the game. The man is hitting .346/.393/.846 on the season. Are we sure he has to retire?

Coming Next: The Red Sox and Orioles will finish their series tonight, with Boston trying to avoid the sweep and trying to inexplicably give Baltimore their first loss of the season. On the mound, it’ll be a matchup of enigmatic pitchers with sometimes-electric stuff and generally poor results with Joe Kelly facing off against Ubaldo Jimenez. First pitch will be at 7:00 Eastern.

Photo by Mark L. Baer/USA Today Sports Images

]]> http://boston.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/13/game-7-recap-baltimore-9-boston-5/feed/ 0 http://boston.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/04/25-and-under-talent-in-the-al-east/ http://boston.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/04/25-and-under-talent-in-the-al-east/#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2016 14:06:29 +0000 http://boston.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3751 The most difficult thing to do in sports isn’t to win, it’s to predict the future. That’s the entire point of sports analytics in fact. We want to know how players will do in the coming seasons, whose skills will step forward in the minors, which players will make the leap, and on and on. These are unknowable questions, but we can make smarter and smarter guesses. And we have. The analytical community has been getting better and better at answering these questions, incrementally at least, over the years. If we’re good at anything, it’s making intelligent guesses about the immediate future, what will happen next season, next month, tomorrow. The further we get from right now, the more iffy things become. And yet that’s exactly what I want to do here in this article. Specifically, I want to look at the future of the American League East. But not the end of 2016 future. The end of 2020 future, five years from now.

As for 2016, our starting point, PECOTA, will tell you the Rays will win by three games over Boston, five over Toronto, six over New York, and 18 over Baltimore. FanGraphs has a different projection, featuring the Red Sox by four games over the Blue Jays, six over the Yankees, seven over the Rays, and nine over the Orioles. Look up other projections and they’ll tell you something different. That’s because there isn’t a clear consensus on who has the best team this season. Things are jumbled. I present this paragraph on the throwing spaghetti at a wall that is 2016 to indicate that, as we stand now, things are pretty equal as long as you aren’t Baltimore. If you are, well, sorry.

The most difficult thing to do in sports isn’t to win, it’s to predict the future.

Of course, team performance in 2016 won’t necessarily be indicative of team performance five years from now. Many of the players currently on AL East teams will be gone by then. Don’t believe me? Okay, who played shortstop for the Red Sox in 2011? Who was Boston’s top prospect back then? Right. This is hard. And we’ll never know for sure until the time has come and gone, but there are some ways to start to figure out how things might go in 2020 in the AL East right now. We here at BP publish a number of articles which may be of assistance, most notably the Top 10 prospects lists for each team and, within those, the 25-and-under lists. Those lists show us who the good young players are and what we might expect from them. We can combine the quality in those lists with what we know about the current state of the franchises going forward and that should give us our answer, or what will pass for it. Remember, this is guesswork. Intelligent (I hope!) guesswork, but guesswork.

Since this is BP Boston, let’s start with the Red Sox. We know the Sox have a strong farm system, but we also know it’s a very young farm system. Much of the strength of the system is in players that haven’t played above A-ball yet. That’s okay, though, as Boston also has Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Blake Swihart at the major league level, and some help on the pitching side of things as well. The next five years of this franchise will depend on two things. First, how well the top-tier prospects develop, like pitchers Anderson Espinoza and Michael Kopech, as well as bats like Yoan Moncada and Rafael Devers. Second, it will depend what kind of team GM Dave Dombrowski builds around the team’s already existing young core of stars and promising pre-star-level players. That, combined with the owner’s willingness to spend and Dombrowkski’s mostly smart (though kind of scary if you’re prospect-hugger like me) penchant for winning trades, bodes well for Boston in the long run.

The Blue Jays are in a far more precarious spot. They don’t have the system Boston does, though they do have some promising young players like Anthony Alford and Connor Greene. The depth of the system isn’t there though, at least not right now. That’s the bad news. The good news for Toronto is most of their good young talent is already at the major league level. Marcus Stroman shows signs of being a front-of-the-rotation stud, and Dalton Pompey, Aaron Sanchez, and Devon Travis all showed promising though varying degrees of ability. As currently constructed the Jays don’t have the Red Sox’s ability to spend, though that comes with it’s own curses for sure. The new front office also comes well regarded. The future is bright in Toronto thanks to a talented veteran roster, but unlike in Boston, the further you project out, the hazier it gets.

The Yankees are somewhat the opposite of Toronto in that the further you project out, the more promising they get. It’s right now that is hazy. That has less to do with the specifics than the fact that they are the Yankees and can bring in a Manny Machado or Bryce Harper should one of those players hit the market. As for their good young players, almost none are in the majors. The almost is Luis Severino, who throws gas and should break camp with the rotation, but after him the rest of the Yankees are grey beards, or would be if the Yankees allowed beards. The strength of the Yankees 25-and-under players is Severino and outfielder Aaron Judge, who wouldn’t look out of place on an NBA court. Those are nice players to have, but it takes more than a powerful right fielder and a single good young starter to make a franchise go. The Yankees are coming off an off-season that saw them be the only team to not sign a free agent to a major-league contract. That’s astounding. In the next few seasons older players and their contracts will fall away, and the way the younger Steinbrenner’s spend that space under the luxury tax threshold will dictate how good this team will be in five years.

In Baltimore it’s the Manny Machado show. Dude is crazy good and somehow still just 23. To put him in cotext, he’s Baltimore’s Mookie Betts, but if Betts had just put up a seven-win season instead of a five-win season. Jonathan Schoop is both good and promising, though in a step down from Machado kind of way. After that is when things start to fall apart. The Orioles’ inability to develop starting pitching, which has plagued them for over a decade now, needs to be rectified before Kevin Gausman, Hunter Harvey, and Dylan Bundy all explode like Spinal Tap drummers. The Orioles as currently constituted are a veteran-heavy team, led by Chris Davis, Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, and J.J. Hardy, 30 or older all. Machado and Schoop are a good start in the way that Severino and Judge are good starts (though they’re much better than Severino and Judge) (probably) but it’s not enough. With the Orioles lacking the desire and/or ability to bring in top of the rotation starters like David Price and Zack Greinke, they simply have to create the good pitchers themselves.

For the Rays, the challenge is to constantly reinvent themselves. This goes for the team but for the front office as well. Fortunately, they seem to have hit upon a strategy that works for them, and as long as they continue to scout well, they should have some level of success on the field. Their system now is probably the second-strongest in the division behind only Boston. Number one prospect Blake Snell could step in and help the Rays rotation this season. Beyond him, the upside might not be present but the low ceiling means lots of major league average players coming to Tampa, which means the team doesn’t have to spend money on the James Loneys of the world. Smart trading will also help and the Rays’ newish front office has bolstered the team by acquiring players like Corey Dickerson. Things look bright in Tampa, but as always, holding on to star players and continuing their good drafting will the difficulties going forward.

At the end of the day, we can’t know who will win in 2020, but the sheer tonnage of talent, from high-ceiling arms to power bats, in the Red Sox minor league system, combined with the will to win of ownership and a capable front office, give the Red Sox a powerful combination of smarts, money, and talent. That’s the total package, folks. Things aren’t perfect, but when 2020 rolls around, based on these crude data points, the Red Sox should have won more than their share of the division championships.

Now, please burn this article so there are no copies around in 2020 to throw in my face after the Orioles have run off five straight AL East Division wins. Thanks.

Photo by Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports Images

The team that Dombrowski inherited has not been easy to change; of last year’s team, the only players to depart as free agents were Rich Hill and Craig Breslow, and while the former’s late-season flash of brilliance may be missed, the latter was unlikely to have a pronounced role. A few days after those players elected free agency, the Red Sox outrighted Alexi Ogando and Allen Craig and his now-onerous contract to the minors, and to this point, those four players and Ryan Cook (lost on waivers) are the only ones from the 2015 major league picture who may not be among the rows of smiling faces in the 2016 team photo.

Dombrowski has managed to put his stamp on this team already, but what he hasn’t done is violently shake up the roster.

Fully purged of major league Craigs, the front office made its first major move of the offseason in picking up a new one. The addition of Craig Kimbrel almost definitely made the bullpen better, but also made it more difficult to upgrade. The REd Sox hope to enjoy more complete years from the better-utilized Junichi Tazawa and Koji Uehara, and Joe Kelly is too good to not gamble on, especially in light of potential need in the bullpen. Tommy Layne and Steven Wright both have something to offer if used in their optimal roles, and both are out of options. Robbie Ross may be the most spare of spare bullpen parts, and yet after Uehara, his may have been the steadiest of hands in the bullpen last season.

Where position players have those pesky positions to worry about, one can always upgrade a starting rotation with an ace. But while the addition of David Price may or may not fix the rotation, it does do to the starting crew what the Kimbrel pickup does to the bullpen; further changes to the rotation may be difficult to the point of leaving value on the table. It may be that no team would value Clay Buchholz as highly as do the Red Sox, and if you’re looking for someone to bet against Rick Porcello, don’t look at Dombrowski. Trading Eduardo Rodriguez would threaten to make this team the post-dynasty Yankees, and while the bulk innings of decent quality contributed by Wade Miley are why he’s valuable, they also make him something of an upgrade bottleneck.

Dombrowski has managed to put his stamp on this team already, but what he hasn’t done is violence to the roster. No valuable player has been cut, no useful but below-average player marginalized. He does have a mandate for change, though, and may yet declare some contract money a sunk cost, or some decent player not good enough to worry about losing. If the pitching staff is all but calcified–and that’s not a given–change may be coming on the position player side of things.

Small problem: every position player currently slated for a starting role is either a Red Sox institution, within a year and a half of signing a long-term deal, or part of the team’s young core. We could quibble about whether Jackie Bradley, Jr. fits in that last category, but with a solid platoon match in Chris Young on board, Bradley wouldn’t be an easy subtraction either.

The “backup plan” part of the offseason tends to come later in the offseason than December, and so even though the Red Sox are likely to pick around for rehabbing pitchers and journeymen outfielders like the rest of the sport, that’s not what we’re likely to see out of the team in Nashville. None of us know what the Red Sox know, and we may not agree with their priorities even if we knew them and had the same information. But ask yourself: if you were tasked with re-making the Red Sox into a contender and agreed there were no more roster holes to fill, what would you be looking to do at the Winter Meetings?

The Red Sox may have all manner of conversations this week, but Hanley Ramirez may dominate the team’s end of the rumor mill.

Chances are you’d wish you could snap your fingers and make the contracts of Pablo Sandoval and/or Hanley Ramirez disappear. And since the former would be about as easy to move as Benjie Molina standing between a runner and home plate, you’d probably focus your energy on trying to move Ramirez. You wouldn’t be playing with house money anymore, but you would be playing with house time; the Red Sox don’t need to do anything this week. Reality is setting in around the game right now — a deal like the Great Dodgers Contract Purge is not likely to happen, but depending on what happens this week, the Red Sox could end up in the right place at the right time by keeping their fingers on the pulse of possible Ramirez destinations.

Whether it’s in the rotation, bullpen or on the position player side, at this point the Red Sox would need to subtract to accommodate more additions, although the order of those don’t necessarily matter and Boston’s back-end starters could generate a ton of interest this week in a new spending climate they helped create. The Red Sox may have all manner of conversations this week, but Hanley Ramirez should dominate the team’s end of the rumor mill. What would that look like, you ask? Well, about that…

With no uber-prospect knocking on the door for playing time at first base, the Red Sox have almost nothing to lose by trying Han-Ram there to start the season. All it has to be is better than awful; with David Ortiz out of the picture after the 2016 season, a worst case scenario has Ramirez playing out the last two years of his contract as a potentially overpaid but eminently useful DH. That could make for an uncomfortable 2016, but it does mean that the Red Sox won’t just cut Ramirez. Dump in a trade that requires eating a ton of money, sure, but not cut.

Just as Ramirez’s defensive shortcomings and positional mystery make him a wild card for Boston, they make him very difficult to move. His contract is so big that if he’s traded somewhere to be a first baseman, that team is betting on him being a first baseman; an expensive backup option is as unlikely as Ramirez displacing a young, established starter. What the Red Sox are looking for in sizing up potential trade partners, then, are three things: 1) teams that can play Ramirez at DH now, 2) teams with a hole at first base who are also a little desperate; or 3) teams who currently have a plan in place for first base, but that can move that player somewhere else on the diamond (probably outfield). All three kinds of teams would be better trade matches if they had a bad contract or two of their own. Sure, there could be some team out there willing to give Ramirez another shot to play elsewhere in the infield (third base, if anything), but that’s a matter of lines of communication, not of advancing talks.

With the acknowledgement that in trade talks, any team can shut things down unilaterally, some fits we might hear:

• Baltimore Orioles. When Nick Cafardo reported at the end of last month that the Red Sox were looking to move Ramirez, he followed that with this: “The Mariners, Orioles, and Angels seem to be the targets, and all three make sense.” It’s not clear to me whether that’s part of what Cafardo was reporting, or whether that was just his opinion, but all three teams are probably priorities if the Red Sox are actively looking for fits. The awkward part of this math is that the Red Sox might look at Chris Davis if they did move Ramirez — but the Orioles are unlikely to trade for Ramirez unless Davis is already off the board. Mark Trumbo is actually a fine first baseman, which would slot Ramirez nicely at DH — and although the Orioles dealt with a little catcher logjam by trading Steve Clevenger for Trumbo, they may have been a little surprised when Matt Wieters accepted their qualifying offer. Prospect Chance Sisco may be two years away from contributing for Baltimore, and catchers that far from the majors are anything but sure things. Although it would involve taking on two players with current question marks at once, a deal that sent both Ramirez and Christian Vazquez to the Orioles could start a conversation, with Wieters sharing time with Blake Swihart and Ortiz in Boston for 2016.

• Seattle Mariners. I don’t see how the Angels fit in trade; C.J. Cron may be replaceable at DH, but Albert Pujols may need that spot — and since the team doesn’t have a similar contract to send back. acquiring Ramirez in a salary dump seems like a very unlikely way for new GM Billy Eppler to put his first stamp on the team. While Trumbo’s first team may not be a fit, though, his third might be as promising a destination for Ramirez as his fourth. The conversation would almost definitely be short; if we hear rumors of talks and a declaration from Jerry Dipoto that he’s not interested, that might be the kiss of death for Boston’s trade chances. Why? Because as Cafardo reported or observed, the team actually does make sense, and so Dipoto passing might be read as acting from a position of better-than-market knowledge about Ramirez. The Trumbo swap means that some mix of Jesus Montero, Seth Smith and Shawn O’Malley may cover most of the 1B/DH playing time, and there’s enough flexibility there for Ramirez to fit in comfortably in some way. The years involved may end up being the problem, if Dipoto is actually open to the idea: the DH spot may be needed for Nelson Cruz not too far down the line.

• Toronto Blue Jays. If one division rival makes sense, why not another? The Blue Jays had success veering wildly toward offense, and yet if Jose Bautista is in right field and Edwin Encarnacion is at first, there’s playing time available at DH with Ramirez almost definitely an upgrade over Justin Smoak. Dombrowski’s Canadian counterpart may prefer to keep DH open for regular rest for Bautista, Encarnacion and especially Troy Tulowitzki, but Mark Shapiro would probably listen — and if the talks expanded to include Wade Miley, R.A. Dickey and a prospect or two, they might gain some traction. Heck, you might even fit Alexi Ogando into a swap.

• Atlanta Braves. Hear me out. No, the team doesn’t have a DH slot to use, and no, they aren’t looking to move Freddie Freeman. What they do have, though, is a need for some kind of outfield bopper, a willingness to make big changes and a significant commitment to Hector Olivera — with a lot of uncertainty about whether Olivera can actually play in the outfield. If the Red Sox really do eat a ton of the money owed Ramirez, the Braves have little to lose. And while the Braves did get some salary relief in taking on the puzzling Olivera, they can trade that contract at sticker price. Characterize it as unlikely, but possible — even though coming across a roster with Ramirez, Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher on it would be like coming across a bunch of furniture you left next to your apartment building dumpster a few months earlier.

• Miami Marlins. Admit it, trading Bad Hanley to the Marlins would feel at least as good as trading Good Hanley felt bad. If a deal were pitched to Jeffrey Loria as some kind of expanded roster sharing, maybe he bites? And while the team wants what seems like an unrealistic return for Martin Prado, the 11,000,000 dollars remaining on the Prado contract seem to form the makings of a promising trade scenario. The Marlins could be willing to try Ramirez at third with Prado gone, and if that didn’t work — or if they didn’t want to try — Ramirez makes for a nice platoon pairing with first baseman Justin Bour. This would be a salary dump kind of move, but adding Prado to uber-utilityman Brock Holt would allow the Red Sox to break camp with just four true outfielders, providing insurance for a Travis Shaw experiment and potentially enabling the team to carry all three of Blake Swihart, Ryan Hanigan and Christian Vazquez.

• San Diego Padres. Reports are that the team would be willing to move James Shields, but that they don’t want to eat money, and that they’d like a middle infielder back in return. That we’re hearing that Shields is available is some indication that he’s really available. And had Shields pitched about as well as expected in 2016, his contract would still be effectively a liability, with only his older seasons left on his deal and with the winner’s curse of the Padres paying more for him than anyone (including the Red Sox) were willing to pay a year ago. Sure, they could get an infielder back without kicking in Shields money — if they took another contract back. And while the optics of having two diminished recent Dodgers in the lineup may be a hard sell in San Diego, there’s room here for a match — and with Yonder Alonso traded to Oakland for Drew Pomeranz, default first baseman Wil Myers could slot back into the outfield. Deven Merrero would seem like a small price to pay to swap Ramirez for Shields, even if the Red Sox had to eat $30M of the $68M owed Ramirez while picking up the Shields tab. Wade Miley might also be a candidate to be included in that kind of deal, although it would change the dollars involved — and if the Red Sox trade Miley first, Shields/Ramirez becomes a lot more interesting.

This week should be as fun a Winter Meetings period as it ever is, but if your heart is with the Red Sox, there’s really no anxiety factor — the team can only make a strong offseason stronger, and there’s no way for failure to act to be a failure. We’ve only begun to see Dave Dombrowski remake the roster, with only the easiest parts out of the way. Regardless of the circumstances and whether or not it’s through one of the matches above, trading Hanley Ramirez would pave the way for even more changes — and it may be the biggest possible win the front office could pull off this week.

Photo by Winslow Towson/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA): Wade Miley’s rapid-fire assault on the strike zone worked masterfully though five innings. Then the sixth inning happened. The biggest play, WPA-wise, was Asdrubal Cabrera’s game-tying double (.187). Previously in the inning, Miley recorded two quick outs before throwing an 89 mile-per-hour fastball down the middle of the plate, a pitch Evan Longoria vaporized somewhere in the direction of the Monster (+.111). There was also a go-ahead double from Steven Souza Jr. (+.174) and, later, a seventh-inning homer from Kevin Kiermaier (+.124) mixed in. All told, Miley gave up seven extra-base hits, five of which came in the sixth or seventh frames.

The Red Sox’s biggest play of the game, not surprisingly, was David Ortiz’s first-inning blast, a two-run shot that landed in the Monster seats. Ortiz’s OPS+ has dropped every year since 2012, but he started at 173 and he’s at 134 this year, so everything’s a-okay at the DH slot.

Bottom Play (WPA): Speaking of Big Papi, Ortiz’s game-ending double play (-.101) ran away with negative WPA honors, nearly doubling a Souza Jr. second inning ground out (-.056).

Key Moment: Oh, I don’t know, let’s say the sixth inning as a whole. Miley, who worked through the first five innings like he was late to a game of high-stakes bingo, lost whatever he had going with two down in the sixth. After retiring 13 of 14, Miley dealt Longoria a first pitch, get-me-ahead heater, and Longoria didn’t miss it. Okay, that happens. Logan Forsythe followed with a single down the left field line, then Cabrera and Souza followed with back-to-back doubles. That happens, too, unfortunately.

What went wrong with Miley? Maybe the answer’s out there, somewhere in the video footage or the PITCHf/x files, but perhaps it’s simpler than that. Maybe the Rays just got to him, after five innings of just missing pitches or failing to string together rallies, they stopped missing and strung together a rally. Miley’s solid outing went sour in a hurry. That happens.

Trend to Watch: This space is usually reserved for on-field trends, but I’d like to make an exception to write a few words about Don Orsillo. Unless NESN has a sudden change of heart (wait, what heart?), Orsillo only has a handful of games left to call as the Red Sox play-by-play guy, a gig he’s handled in (mostly) full-time capacity since 2001. Orsillo’s greatest strength is/was his wonderful ability to mesh seriousness and fun, as he, along with partner Jerry Remy, have been able to successfully toggle that switch on and off given the situation.

Back when I was watching the Red Sox on the Extra Innings package in the early 2000s, every once in a while the audio feed would stay live during a commercial break, and my ears would suddenly perk up for some hot, juicy behind-the-scenes commentary. Usually all I’d hear was Orsillo and Remy still laughing, often hysterically, about whichever thing they were carrying on about from the previous half inning. Orsillo (and Remy) has made the game more fun for the past 15 years, and he seemed to genuinely enjoy doing it.

Go ahead and enjoy Orsillo’s final days in the booth; there’s bound to be a good bit of laughter, maybe some tears, and the usual helping of good, old-fashioned play-by-play craftsmanship. It’ll be missed.

Coming Next: The Red Sox finish up the 2015 home slate with three games against the Orioles starting on Friday night, a matchup that features a pair of lefties in Rich Hill and Wei-Yin Chen. Hill was a once-promising starter with the Cubs back in 2007, but he’s thrown just 167 innings since, thanks in large part to near ceaseless trips to the operating table and, when healthy, bouts of extreme wildness. He’s found surprising (small sample) success this year in Boston, striking out 20 and walking just one in two starts and 14 innings.

After the O’s series, the Red Sox look to play spoiler in the season’s final week, as they travel to New York and Cleveland.

Photo by Mark L. Baer/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA): The top two plays in the game were homers from each team in the fourth inning. Baltimore scored six times in the inning to end Eduardo Rodriguez’s day early, led by Matt Wieters’ two-run home run, which proved to be the top play by WPA (.219). Boston’s offense, which has been trending upwards recently, answered in the bottom of the inning with three runs of their own when Alejandro De Aza homered against his former team to drive in Pablo Sandoval and Mike Napoli (.149). However, the bullpen could not hold down Baltimore’s offense as the Red Sox attempted to come from behind. Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts plated two more runs in the seventh on a single and a double, respectively.

Bottom Play (WPA): The man who had Boston’s top play in the game also produced the bottom play against his former team. In the sixth inning with no outs and Napoli on first, De Aza grounded into a double play (-.089) to kill Boston’s hope for a big inning.

Key Moment: Wieters’ two-run home run in the top of the fourth and the ensuing offensive outburst by Baltimore knocked Rodriguez out of the game. The bullpen allowed just two more runs over the final 5 1/3 innings, but those runs proved to be the difference in the game.

Trends to Watch: Eduardo Rodriguez has now made six major league starts. In the first three, he looked invincible, allowing just one earned run over 20 2/3 innings while striking out 21. His fourth start was where he showed he’s still a young player learning how to pitch at the major league level, allowing nine runs to the Toronto Blue Jays. He followed that up with a solid 6 1/3 innings of one-run ball, before going just 3 2/3 on Thursday. This is to be expected with young players, especially considering his quick ascent and age of 22. He’s shown flashes of his potential so far, and although he doesn’t project to be an ace, he has the highest ceiling of any pitching prospect in the system and a bright future ahead of him.

Napoli broke up a streak of six strikeouts in a row in his first at-bat of the game with a bloop ground-rule double. He added another single in the fourth inning and scored two runs to raise his average just above the Mendoza line to .203. Napoli is known as a streaky hitter. Could this be the start of one of his hot streaks? Maybe, but that question has been asked many times already this season.

Jonathan Aro was called up from Pawtucket prior to the game, and was thrust into action right away due to Rodriguez’s early departure. He allowed four hits and one run while striking out two over his 1 1/3 innings of work. At this time last year, Aro was pitching in Low-A Greenville, but he has continued to excel and rocketed through the system. This season in 44 2/3 innings pitched split evenly between Portland and Pawtucket, he owns a 2.22 ERA with 49 strikeouts and just 11 walks. Even more impressively, he put up a ratio of 30 strikeouts to three walks after his promotion to the PawSox. While he doesn’t profile as a future closer-type, the 24-year-old looks like a nice bullpen piece with some late-inning upside.

Coming Next: The Red Sox head down to Florida for the start of a three-game weekend series against the division-leading Tampa Bay Rays tomorrow night.  The Rays are coming off a series loss to the Blue Jays, but still lead the New York Yankees by a game. If the Red Sox plan to mount any sort of a comeback this season, they need to win this series.

Photo by Greg M. Cooper/USA Today Sports Images 

Top Play (WPA): In the bottom of the sixth inning the Red Sox tied the game at one after poor defense by the Orioles allowed Alejandra De Aza and Sandy Leon to get on base via error, and then a Mookie Betts single scored De Aza. Brock Holt grounded out, advancing Leon and Betts to second and third. Dustin Pedroia then came to the plate and knocked a Bud Norris offering into left field, plating the two runners on base (WPA: + .150). Unfortunately, Pedroia appeared to pull his hamstring while rounding first base and was removed from the game. More on team injuries in a bit.

Bottom Play (WPA): In the bottom of the fifth inning, Hanley Ramirez led things off with a single to right field. Then on a second botched hit-and-run play of the game involving Hanley, he was struck on the hand by a Xander Bogaerts line drive. Hanley was called out, and left the game due to the injury. Just when things seemed at a comical low point, Pablo Sandoval rolled into an inning ending 4-6-3 double play (WPA: – .068).

Key Moment: Much has been made of David Ortiz’s struggles this season. His 94 wRC+ leaves much to be desired. But, even with these troubles he has still hit right-handed pitching really well (148 wRC+). This ability was on display in the sixth inning as he crushed a two-run homer to straight away center field:

It was Ortiz’s 11th homer on the season, and another positive sign that he can still be a productive hitter.

Trend to Watch: Team health! Coming into the game the Red Sox were already without Blake Swihart, who is currently battling a sprained left foot, and just got Sandoval out of a walking boot after his ankle sprain. Well, now they could be without Ramirez and Pedroia. As noted, Hanley was hit on the left hand by a Bogaerts line drive while he was running to second as part of a hit-and-run. The injury has been reported as just a ‘contusion’, and luckily not something more severe like a fracture. As noted above, Pedroia had the game’s top play with his key hit in the bottom of the sixth, plating two runs, but he grabbed at his right hamstring as he rounded first base. He was immediately removed from the game. Later reports indicated that it was ‘hamstring tightness’. To a somewhat lesser extent, which depends on your perspective of the ongoing Joe Kelly situation, the Red Sox may have also lost Triple-A standout Brian Johnson, who collided with a runner while covering first base in the PawSox game last night. This rash of injuries happened within a 30 minute period. The hex that is on the 2015 Red Sox continues to be working.

Coming next: The Red Sox finish up their series with the Orioles tonight before heading to St. Petersburg/Tampa Bay for a weekend series with the Rays. The Sox will send Eduardo Rodriguez to the mound, who in his most recent start in Kansas City (6.1 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 0 HR, 1 BB, SO) confirmed that the rough outing against the Jays was merely a blip. The Jays’ offense is ridiculous, and even more so against left-handed pitching. Rodriguez is still a bright spot in this season. The Orioles will counter with Miguel Gonzalez who will be activated from the disabled list to make the start. Gonzalez, who has been shelved with a groin injury, has not started since June 9th when he battled the Red Sox for 4.1 innings giving up four hits and no runs. Gonzalez is not exactly a top-level pitcher, so hopefully the Red Sox can do some damage.

Photo by Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports Images

I do not want to be reactionary but I think the Red Sox might not be very good.

— Ben Carsley (@BenCarsley) June 12, 2015

Top Play (WPA): First up is a Pablo Sandoval double with two on and two out in the fourth that scored two (.184), followed by a Xander Bogaerts single in the sixth (.121) that scored Hanley Ramirez. Yes, the Red Sox lost this game.

The next three plays go to Manny Machado’s homer in the fourth (.117), Adam Jones’ homer in the first (.115) and David Ortiz’s homer in the eighth (.096). All three were solo shots.

Bottom Play (WPA): Dustin Pedroia striking out swinging in the top of the ninth (-.072) to end the game was the worst play, followed closely by Mookie Betts striking out with the bases loaded in the sixth (.070).

Incredibly, the Red Sox had 14 of the 15 worst plays by WPA in the game. Not that they squandered some opportunities or anything.

Key Moment: You hate to pick on a guy, but Sandoval’s error in the bottom of the seventh let Machado reach first, and he eventually proved to be the winning run. Sandoval’s made some nice plays this season, but he now has eight errors, a few of which have arguably cost the Sox some games. It’s been tough to watch, because you can tell he’s pressing.

Trend to Watch: Well, Wade Miley blowing up at John Farrell in the dugout after he was pulled was something to behold. On the one hand, Miley was really bad and has no right to be upset. On the other hand, it’s nice to see that someone on this team has a pulse. This won’t help the “Farrell has lost the clubhouse” angle on sports talk radio, though.

On a positive note, Bogaerts is, like, a good defender now. That’s pretty cool.

Coming Next: It doesn’t get any easier for the Red Sox, who go back home for a three-game set against the talented Toronto Blue Jays. It should be mildly interesting to see whether it’s Boston’s offense, rotation or bullpen that costs them some wins over the weekend.

Photo by Tommy Gilligan/USA Today Sports Images