Strange Goings On

I’m a bit baffled by the moves that were made last night. I’ll start with Alan Embree. I’m not actually surprised to see him go, I just thought the timing was a little strange. He has lost some velocity on his fastball, was not spotting very well, and as a result was getting hammered. About a month ago, I was right there with the rest of Sox Nation who thought it was time for him to go. But the Sox really didn’t have any good alternatives so they decided to remain loyal to him in the hopes that he would turn it around. And it seemed like he was actually doing that.

For the month of July he made 9 appearances, pitching a total of 5.3 innings, giving up 4 hits, 1 walk, and 3 runs. The runs came in 2 appearances and he was good in the other 7. Of course, he was only being used for 1 or 2 outs at a time for the most part, with an occasional complete inning, and Francona really couldn’t trust him to go more than that.

That, combined with the fact that lefties were actually hitting .304 against him and they have 2 other lefties in the pen, 1 (Myers) who is very good at getting out lefties and 1 (Halama) who can give you some innings, the writing was pretty much on the wall for him.

It’s too bad it had to happen. I really would have liked to see him turn it around. He’s a good guy and he was a major contributor to the World Championship last year. So, we say goodbye to yet another one of our World Champions.

Embree was designated for assignment to make room on the roster for Adam Hyzdu, a move I don’t completely understand. First of all, this is a guy who is now with the organization for the 4th time in his baseball career. In fact, we traded him away in spring training to the Padres for a pitcher (Blaine Neal) who didn’t stick.

Nixon is only hitting .238 against lefties and since Payton left, our only option was to either play Nixon, or move Millar to right and play Olerud, who is also a left-handed hitter but gives us a better chance against lefties than Nixon (.260 over the last 3 years). But we’ve addressed that situation by bringing Kapler back, more on that later. I don’t see Hyzdu having any kind of impact in the next week or 2 while we wait for Kapler to get back into playing shape. He's really not much of hitter and doesn't give us any better of an option than playing Nixon or Olerud.

Tony Graffanino doesn’t make a ton of sense to me either. This guy is a true utility player who can, and has, played all 4 infield positions as well as the outfield corners. Although he’s spent some time at short and third, he’s primarily been a second baseman which is what we got him for. Problem is, I don’t see him doing much better over there than Cora will while Bellhorn is out. Cora is a much better defender and only slightly inferior with the bat. Seeing as we weren’t getting a ton of offense out of that spot when Bellhorn was there anyway, I think we’re better off just leaving Cora there and getting the defense.

The only reason I can see for obtaining Graffanino right now is to give us some insurance when we have to pinch hit for whichever one of them is playing, Graffanino or Cora, and then the other one can go in and play second base. He can also play against left-handers in place of Cora, but it's only until Bellhorn comes back. He may be a slight upgrade over Bellhorn, he has a higher BA, strikes out a lot less, and has a higher OBP, but I'm not convinced it's enough to warrant taking Bellhorn's job away from him when he’s ready to come back. The time off might be good for Bellhorn and I think we have to give him a chance to see if he can turn it around. When he is ready to come back, one of those 3 will have to go, it’ll be interesting to see who. It wouldn’t surprise me though if it ends up being Bellhorn.

We said goodbye to 1 World Champion and hello to another one on the same day. Gabe Kapler stopped by the clubhouse yesterday as he prepared to head to Lowell to begin his rehab to get back into playing shape. I loved Gabe when he was here, and hoped he might make it back someday, so I’m glad to see it happening.

Speaking of World Champion baseball players that I love, there are rumors out there that the Sox are looking to acquire J.C. Romero from the Twins, and the Twins are interested in Bill Mueller in return. Romero would be a good addition to the pen (although he has walked quite a lot of hitters), but I don’t want to see him coming at the expense of Mueller. The deal makes sense for us, we can plug Youkilis into 3rd without losing anything and get a desperately needed reliever in the process. Plus, there’s probably a very good chance that we won’t even resign Mueller when his contract is up at the end of the year because we have Youkilis.

It’s just that, I love Mueller and don’t want to see him go. As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t know much about him before he came here, but since he’s been here, he’s become one of my favorite ballplayers.

There’s also talk that they may send Youkilis instead (the Twins do need a 3rd baseman) and expand the deal to have it include a starting pitcher for us. The Twins don’t really have a surplus of starters so I’m guessing they’re referring to a minor league starter. I happen to like Youkilis as well, but we need a reliever and it’s likely one of these 2 guys will not be here next year so it makes sense to trade one of them now.

I didn’t want to see Nomar go last year and look what happened. I have complete faith in Theo so I’ll live with whatever moves he ends up making, knowing that it’s all being done in an attempt to net us another World Championship.