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[bryant]

The Red Sox picked up a pitcher at the trade deadline, to nobody’s surprise. But it’s a really interesting trade — I’m coming to the conclusion that Theo Epstein has some kind of a mind control ray. Follow this one with me:

A couple of weeks ago, the Red Sox traded Brandon Lyon and Anastacio Martinez to the Pirates for Scott Sauerbeck and Mike Gonzalez. Sauerbeck and Lyon were the meat of the trade. Sauerbeck is a very good lefthanded reliever, and Lyon is a young guy with promise but a tendency to be wild. Good trade for the Sox.

The Pirates soon reported that Lyon was injured, and complained that the trade should be redone. The Red Sox held firm.

Then, today, the Red Sox traded Freddy Sanchez and Mike Gonzalez to the Pirates for Jeff Suppan, Anastacio Martinez, and Brandon Lyon. Yes, that’s the same Martinez, Gonzalez, and Lyon. So — for those of us keeping score — that comes down to trading Freddy Sanchez for a really good lefthanded reliever and a guy who’s won five in a row including three complete games and two shutouts. Suppan led the Pirates in innings pitched, ERA, wins, and was second in strikeouts.

Now, Freddy Sanchez is a good prospect, but I believe the Red Sox just traded him for two of the three best pitchers on the Pirates. That’s what you call a steal. It’s incredible that Epstein managed to pick up three quality pitchers over the course of the season without really touching the deadly Boston offense.

I don’t think you can count on Suppan to keep on reeling off five game winning streaks, but when you’re pitching for a team that’s averaging over 6 runs per game, you get a little more leeway. I’d be really surprised if the Sox don’t make the playoffs. How’re their chances against Oakland’s starting rotation? Frankly, I’d rather they get the Yankees bullpen.

The other cool thing about the trades this year is that they aren’t just about this year. Everyone’s contract expires in 2005 — so there’s another year of opportunity before (probably) Pedro moves on, and maybe Nomar.

Comments

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

An interesting Trade Deadline week for the AL pennant races.

Boston already has an offense that's scary-good. The bullpen has suddenly gone from shaky to solid. Their bullpen is more important than, say, Oakland or New York's, given the injury history of their starters - you definitely want the luxury of pulling them after 100 or so pitches, regardless of innings. This is the best Boston team in a long while.

But, the Yankees also made some moves. In addition to adding some depth here and there, they added a solidly good third baseman in Aaron Boone, and they seem to all be getting healthy. It'd be hard to predict who wins the division this year - they're both solid teams.

The AL Central is not going to matter for the Wild Card race, so, it's looking strongly like 3 of New York-Boston-Oakland-Seattle in the playoffs. Seattle stood pat, which is strange given that they had the largest hole of any contender (third base) and two quality third basemen changed hands (Boone and Ventura.) Oakland addressed their offensive woes by adding Guillen, who is having a mighty fine year. In addition, calling up Rich Harden has worked as well as I'd dreamed, with 2 ER in his first 3 games (all 7 IP affairs.) He won't be quite this good every start, but it's concievable that he could be a fourth awesome starter.

All these teams are very close to each other, and very good. Boston has the best offense, Oakland has the best pitching, New York is a close second on both. Seattle, I don't think is quite as good as the other three, but they've ignored me and kept on winning anyway.

Unless someone collapses down the stretch, I think it'll be decided in late September. Which is so cool!

In the playoffs - it's not _quite_ flipping a coin, but it's pretty darned close. Anyone can win a short series. It's very interesting to plug a world class offense like Boston against Oakland's starters, and everyone has theories about whether good hitting beats good pitching or the other way around, but actually looking at the numbers always ends up putting them pretty much even. It's equally good to score a run as to prevent a run. Which doesn't mean that it's not a thrill to watch the playoffs, just that analysis and prediction goes out the window at that point in terms of utility.

Fun stuff!