If you use an RSS reader, please add Red Sox Rundown to it so you can be notified when I post again. Thanks for your patience and I look forward to writing again!

Graffanino was traded to the Red Sox in July 2005 from the Kansas City Royals, where he had spent the previous two seasons. He was drafted in 1990 by the Braves, for whom he made his Major League debut in 1996, and was shuttled to the Devil Rays and White Sox before landing in Kansas City. Graffanino was brought over to replace Mark Bellhorn, who had struck out a whopping 109 times in just 283 at-bats over 85 games. Bellhorn then broke his finger, conveniently giving the Red Sox an excuse to release him.

Graffanino hit .319 in the 51 games he played for the Sox en route to a career-best .309 for the season. Game 2 of the ALDS notwithstanding, he was steady with the glove as well, posting a .987 fielding percentage, committing only three regular-season errors. Graffanino was sent back to the Royals for 2006 while the Red Sox acquired Mark Loretta to play second base, a similar but younger player with a higher career batting average.

Since Graffanino left the Red Sox at the end of the 2005 season, he’s had trouble finding a place to stay. He was returned to the Kansas City Royals to begin the 2006 season, where he hit only .268 in 69 games. The Royals couldn’t seem to decide where to place him: he played 16 games at first base, 10 at second, 27 at third base, and 9 at shorstop, and the rest at DH. At the trading deadline, he was shipped to the Milwaukee Brewers, where he played 57 games at his natural position, second base.

Graffanino remained with the Brewers throughout 2007, but got off to a slow start. His batting average remained under .200 until the end of May. He raised his average to a still-crummy .238 before tearing his ACL on August 8, ending his season. Graffanino was active off the field that winter, when he and his wife established the Tony Graffanino Foundation, which is a Christian organization partners with a pregnancy center and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. The charity educates women throughout pregnancy and puts on sports clinics.

In 2008, Graffanino signed with the Cleveland Indians as a free agent, but never saw a day of major league action. He is with the Indians again this season, but it was announced at the end of March he would again begin the season in Triple-A along with former Sox Andy Marte. He is considered organizational depth and not expected to receive much playing time at the major league level, save for a major injury to a current starter.

Graffanino could get another chance in the big leagues should a team need a reliable utility infielder - Graffanino plays all four positions, plus left field - midway through the season. His attitude and work ethic would make him an appealing pickup for some team at the deadline if he should experience success in the minors this season.

Best of luck to the dirt dog who could have been.

It turns out that the Manny Ramirez Show is a travelling act. And ladies and gentleman, the show is no longer playing in Boston.

If there was an award for the most hamstring injuries in Major League Baseball history, I can’t imagine anyone even challenging Ramirez for the prize. It was announced in mid-March, only two weeks after finally, mercifully signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers for two years. Although Ramirez did stick to his one-week time frame - playing his first post-injury Spring Training game on March 25, eight days after stepping out with sore hammy - he’s beginning to make some noise.

After leaving the Dodgers’ final Spring Training game this afternoon, Manny complained, of all things, of not getting any fly balls in the game. Who are you, and what did you do with the Manny Ramirez who played in Boston? It’s not typical Manny to gripe about a lack of playing time, but it is typical Manny to gripe, period.

This is only the beginning. Manny and his agent, Scott Boras, openly sought a deal of at least four years and $100 million. They got neither. Shortly after the 2008 season ended, Ramirez announced that the price of gas had gone up, and so had he. Apparently, this metaphor was more accurate than he probably would have preferred - when the price of gas bottomed out, so did his. So sorry, Man-Ram.

We all know Manny was loafing with the Red Sox in order to dissuade them from picking up his option year so he could instead hit the free-agent market, which he assumed would bring him more money. That plot didn’t exactly work out, and may have been the biggest backfire since Richard Nixon thought it might be a good idea to see just what those Democrats were up to.

Even though Manny’s request for more playing time may seem benign, this is only the beginning of the deterioration of his relationship with the Dodgers and manager Joe Torre. It was clear through the statements Ramirez made to the media that he thinks he knows better than Torre how often and for how long he should play. Using the media as a weapon is a new tactic for Ramirez, but if history holds true, it won’t be the only weapon.

If Manny, and presumably his agent, Scott Boras, were low enough to hold the Red Sox hostage by refusing to give effort, why should we assume he wouldn’t do the same to the Dodgers? Ramirez and Boras can’t be happy that they didn’t get the deal they want. The Dodgers made concessions, but concessions aren’t enough when dealing with that pair. Ramirez and Boras expect no less than fervent worship, and they throw a tantrum when that’s not what they receive.

Now that Manny is somewhat settled in with his new team, his true colors are going to start to show. Right now, it’s only a request for more playing time. But that’s a sign that he expects to run the show, and will later turn into demands for days off, mysterious injuries, grandmothers who die multiple times, and so on. If Ramirez and Boras are unhappy with the length of the deal they signed one month ago, they are going to show it.

Was there ever really any doubt?

One of those other players, apparently, has been Mark Teixeira. The Boston Globe reported Saturday that the Yankees had been Teixeira’s first choice all along, that “if all things were equal, the Yankees were the place I wanted to go.” And yet Teixeira also says the Sox’s public comments on the negiotiations hurt them somewhat. How does that work? It’s no secret the Yankees have the power to outbid anyone at any time for a player they really want. Did a few statements leaked to the media really make a difference?

The comments Teixeira made about the media are a bunch of malarkey. He stated that the media involvement in the process hurt the Sox “a little bit,” but the Yankees had been the leaders before negotiations even began. Teixeira was dazzled by the pinstripes; his agent, Scott Boras, was dazzled by the dollar signs. Boras has never been opposed to negotiating through the media, as we all learned through the Manny Ramirez disaster. If Teixeira cared about the media’s knowledge of his negotiations, he was the only one.

It’s more likely, actually, that the Teixeira-Boras duo wanted the Yankees to keep quiet simply so they could use other teams, including the Red Sox and Angels, to get the Yankees to up their offers. If the Sox and Angels knew just how badly Teixeira apparently wanted to go to the Yanks, would they have kept their offers on the table? Instead, Teixeira and Boras were able to get offers from the Red Sox, Angels, Orioles, and Nationals, so the Yankees could see exactly how much they needed to pay to reel them in. That equals more money for Teixeira. And a bigger cut for Boras.

The Red Sox were never really in the running for Teixeira in the first place. Read this recap from Bats, a New York Times blog:

Boras is renowned for using one offer to try to get another team to increase its offer. It is possible the Red Sox are comfortable with an offer of eight years and more than $20 million a season, and they are calling Boras’s and Teixeira’s bluff.

If Boston has ended its pursuit of Teixeira, which seems unlikely since they have been so smitten with him, it would leave the Los Angeles Angels, the Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles as the teams trying to sign him. The Yankees have not made Teixeira an offer.

This came after John Henry stated the Red Sox were obviously not in the Teixeira running anymore after hearing about Tex’s “other offers.” Why do you think Theo Epstein stated after Teixeira signed with the Yankees that he no longer wished to negotiate with Boras unless he could be sure it was on the level?

It wasn’t the media that prevented the Red Sox from landing Mark Teixeira. It was Teixeira’s fascination with pinstripes, and Boras’s ever-present obsession with money and power. Don’t be surprised if Boras even used these talks to get back at the Sox after they finally traded Manny Ramirez, and rejected Boras’s offer to keep Manny at full power in return for the Sox not taking Ramirez’s option year.

Remember, the MLB promised to look into the way Boras orchestrated the Manny debacle, and the Teixeira negotiations endeared the so-called super-agent to no one. If the MLB doesn’t write Boras’s ticket out of the game, his own stupidity just might.

First, a little history: after being drafted in ‘04, Meredith made short work of each of the Sox’ single-A affiliates, pitching 13, 16, and 1 games with each team before moving to the next level. In 2005, Meredith pitched for single A Wilmington, AA Portland, AAA Pawtucket, and the major league club. So much for not rushing young pitching, Theo. Meredith’s stint in Boston was nothing short of disastrous (and is it any wonder?) - he racked up an ERA of 27.00 in only three appearances - and he opened the 2006 season in Pawtucket before being shipped to San Diego.

Once with the Padres system, Cla Meredith played 24 games in triple A Portland, posting an impressive 1.39 ERA before being promoted to the bigs. There, he pitched 45 games with a 1.06 ERA, holding batters to a .170 average. Obviously, the California sun did this boy some good. He even set a franchise record by pitching 33 2/3 innings without giving up a run. Where was that when he pitched in Boston? Oh yeah, he probably left his out pitch somewhere between Portland and Pawtucket after being shipped between the two cities so fast.

Things didn’t continue to improve for Meredith, however. In 2007, he had a disastrous spring training, allowing 8 runs in 8.1 innings pitched for an 8.64 ERA but managed to stay with the major league club the entire year and posted a respectable 3.50 ERA in 80 appearances. Meredith is one of those guys who probably would have benefitted from a little patience from his club. Instead, he was bumped to a different minor league team every time he got his suitcase unpacked, which probably helped lead to him to run out of gas toward the end of the 2008 season, when his MLB ERA was 4.10, and his subsequent demotion back to triple A.

Meredith is still somewhat of a question mark. He’s spent parts of four years in the majors, but only one complete season. Lefties hit .351 against him last year, which marked the third consecutive year that number has increased. He does have good command and the ability to induce lots of groundballs, ideal for a relief pitcher, particularly a setup guy. Meredith - whose first name I will forever read as “Claw” - is not eligible to become a free agent until 2013, and is not even eligible for arbitration until 2010. His success or lack thereof  this season will be worth watching and will certainly have an enormous effect on how he fares in arbitration next season. Meredith has the potential to become a dominant setup man, but has to work on his consistency issues and approach against lefties. Keep an eye on this Sox draft pick.

Game four. October 17, 2004. The stolen base to end all stolen bases. Fireworks from David Ortiz. Did you believe then? They still had three games to win. Did you believe after game five? Still down 3-2 to the Yankees?

Or did you believe that this comeback was really possible after the bloody sock performance by Curt Schilling? If Schilling, battered in game one, could pitch like that with an ankle held together by sutures and a prayer, maybe this comeback really could be possible.

Curt Schilling ended his twenty-year major league career Monday, not with a tip of the cap and a wave, but with a few grateful words posted to his blog, 38 Pitches. And face it, Red Sox Nation. You’re going to miss him.

Oh, he won’t be far out of eyesight. Tune into the radio, surf the web, watch TV. He’ll be there. But he won’t be where it matters, on the pitching mound at Fenway Park.

Call him a blowhard. Call him opinionated; call him an idiot. None of it matters.

Call him a hero. That matters. Remember just how big 2004 was. Remember that the Sox were down 3-0 to the Yankees, a deficit no Major League Baseball team had ever made up. Remember that a stolen base, a few idiots, and a bloody sock later, the Sox were World Champions for the first time in 86 years. Remember that, in late October five years ago, you would have petitioned the Pope for Schilling’s canonization. To be glad of his retirement, to base your entire opinion of him on his political beliefs, to cast him into a pile of has-been pitchers, is not only ungrateful but entirely forgetful.

It absolutely disgusts me when Red Sox fans claim to hate Curt Schilling. The only Sox fan who could hate Curt Schilling is a bandwagon fan who suddenly discovered the Red Sox in the ninth inning of the seventh game of the 2004 ALCS. Did you forget? Is your memory really that short? Did you forget making 55,000 people from New York shut up? Did you forget coming to Boston for one purpose and accomplishing it in one year?

So, Red Sox fans, show your gratitude to one of the clutchiest pitchers (and word inventors) the Red Sox have ever had, and judge him on his accomplishments in a baseball uniform. Forget about his big mouth, forget the political beliefs you may disagree with. Remember the bloody sock, and be grateful.

At any rate, Paddock’s assessment of the farm system seems to be correct. The Sox aren’t giving away their draft strategy (why would they?), but it does seem that Sox scouts value pitching over slugging. That’s an about-face from Red Sox theories of the past, who relied on power hitting and not much else. (And how many World Championships did Mo Vaughn win?)

The article is fairly dispassionate - you can read the whole thing here if you want - although BDD’s commentary gives one a hint they might miss the old sluggers. But is the lack of power hitters in the farm system really such a bad thing?

Slugging certainly doesn’t hurt a team, but is it really essential for a championship-caliber team? The 2008 Phillies had four players with more than 20 homers: Jayson Werth had 24, Pat Burrell and Chase Utley each had 33, and Ryan Howard had a whopping 48. But if you recall, the Rays didn’t do so bad last year either - and they had only two guys with more than twenty homers: Evan Longoria had 27, and Carlos Pena had 31. Even the 2007 Red Sox only had two hitters with more than twenty round-trippers: David Ortiz with 35 and Mike Lowell with 21. Manny Ramirez had exactly 20.  Their World Series competitors that year, the Rockies, more resembled the Phillies: four guys with over twenty homers.

Examining team stats shows much the same thing. While last year’s Phillies were second in the league in homers, the runner-up Rays were tenth. The 2007 World Champion Red Sox were eighteenth in homers; the 2006 Champion Cardinals were twelfth.

Clearly, you can win World Championships with or without a glut of power hitting. The Sox farm system is certainly stronger in the pitching department, but don’t overlook hitters like Lars Anderson, Josh Reddick, and Yamaico Navarro. It’s not like the Sox system is full of hitters like Jerry Remy, who hit for decent average but, as he loves to remind NESN viewers, hit only seven home runs in his ten-year career.

What we shouldn’t forget here is the overall strength of the Red Sox farm system. Whatever the club’s strategy is, it’s working. The system consistently ranks highly in comparisons of farms in the MLB, and you can’t argue with the success of the club. There are so many highly regarded prospects the Sox don’t have anywhere to put them. Pitching has been a particular strength: what team wouldn’t love to have young arms such as Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, Michael Bowden, Justin Masterson, Daniel Bard, et al? And, if the Red Sox truly find themselves lacking in the hitting department, it shouldn’t be too difficult to swap a young gun for a hitter.

The Red Sox have their priorities in the right place. Last year’s Phillies had the MLB’s eighth-best ERA; the Rays had the third-best. The 2007 Sox were second in ERA, while the Rockies - who, if you remember, were a late-season surprise - were fourteenth. In fact, the only two World Series Champions since 2000 who were not in the top ten in ERA was the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals (16th) and the 2004 Red Sox (11th).

Pitchers make good trade bait if the Sox start lacking in hitting, which, if you notice, they aren’t. Last time I checked, the only two regulars who hit over .300 were home-grown. Does it really matter if runs come across the bases via home run, double, or single? No.

Once the season starts, we’ll have plenty to complain about. Let’s not make things up when we don’t need to.

My favorite Bill Mueller memory is easily the two grand slams he hit in a single game in 2003. The memory is marred slightly, though: while watching the game on TV, I stepped out to use the restroom during the game - something I rarely did. I came back to replays of Bill Mueller hitting his first grand slam. Then, the next inning, during an apparently abnormally short commercial break, I decided to switch TVs. I flipped on the second TV just in time for - you guessed it - replays of Bill Mueller’s second grand slam. Only this time, the TV I had chosen was in such good condition I could only hear the replays of the hit until the set warmed up sufficiently to actually show me a picture. Oh well.

Mueller’s three-year tenure with the Sox ended after the 2005 season. In three seasons with the club, he batted .303, including .326 in 2003, when he won the AL batting title. He was a steady fielder, making forty-four errors in three years. Mike Lowell has made only 31 errors in three seasons with the Sox, but Lowell’s .975 fielding percentage at third base is the best in MLB history for players with at least 1,000 games at the hot corner. Mueller, like Lowell, was known as a good clubhouse guy who got the job done with no complaints. Both players are unselfish professionals who played through injuries to help their team.

Mueller left Boston in 2005 as a free agent and signed a two-year deal with the LA Dodgers. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, Mueller played only 32 games in 2006 before his third knee surgery ended his career. The Dodgers graciously hired him in 2007 as a special assistant to GM Ned Colletti. Colletti, who was assistant GM for the Giants when they drafted Mueller in 1993, used Mueller to assist with scouting, player development, and player evaluation.

Mueller did not even spend a full season in this position, though, before becoming interim hitting coach for the Dodgers in June of 2007. This is unsurprising, given both his prowess at the plate and his willingness to do whatever it takes to help his team (Mueller played 29 games at second base for the Sox and even filled in for an inning at shortstop).

The Dodgers had led the NL with their .276 batting average in 2006, but it slumped to .261 in 2007 before Mueller took over as hitting coach. Mueller was able to raise the team batting average to .275 by the end of the year and the word “interim” was removed from his title after only one month on the job. How’s this for irony: in 2007, Bill Mueller was Nomar Garciaparra’s batting coach under manager Grady Little, whom they had both played for just a few years earlier. After the 2007 season, Mueller returned to the front office of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Although he announced in early 2008 he’d love to return to the field as a player again, he would need to regrow cartilege in his knees to even have a shot at it. Let us know how that works out for you, Billy.

I predict Jason Varitek’s post-player career will follow a similar path to Mueller’s. Both guys are hard-working, team-first players who love the game of baseball. Varitek would be a tremendous asset to any team as a bullpen coach, and don’t be surprised if the Red Sox offer him the role after his current contract expires. Mueller has been a success both on and off the field, and leaves an admirable legacy of professionalism, hard work, and grit.

Bard’s spring numbers, though, have been superior to Kottaras’s. Bard hit .429 in six games while slugging .786 with a .529 on-base percentage. Kottaras was impressive, but his offensive numbers pale in comparison to Bard’s: he’s hit .286 in ten games, slugging .500 with a .375 on-base percentage. As we know, however, Spring Training stats often belie a player’s true potential - or lack thereof. Bard’s 2008 numbers were actually worse than Varitek’s, and not just by a little. Kottaras has only three major league games to his name, but his offensives stats from Pawtucket in 2008 are easily better than both Bard’s and Varitek’s.

As Tony Massarotti points out, though, this isn’t about the numbers game. Kottaras is cheaper (to the tune of at least a million dollars) and a four years younger (which is twenty-four years younger in catcher years.) Not only that, but Kottaras caught knuckleballer Charlie Zink last season in Pawtucket with success, and if you remember, Bard’s experiment with the knuckleball in 2006 was less than successful. And the fact that the young catcher is out of options in the minor leagues didn’t hurt his odds any. Nor did his left-handed bat.

Mazz theorizes in his article that, in retrospect, Bard may have been signed as an insurance policy in case the club was unable to re-sign Varitek over the offseason. That’s a sensible enough guess, but I’ll take it a step further. I’m skeptical, after Bard’s performance with the Sox three seasons ago and his miserable year at the plate in 2008, the Red Sox would have signed him to be their full-time catcher under any circumstance. I’d be willing to wager instead that the Sox signed Bard to give the Wakefield experiment another go in case Kottaras wasn’t ready for the bigs. Massarotti tells us that internally, the Sox were leaning toward Kottaras for the backup job since the beginning of camp. At least. That wouldn’t have made sense if the Sox had signed Bard to be Tek’s replacement: if he was good enough to replace Tek (not quite the superhuman feat it was once considered), he should have been a lock for the backup job and may not have been offered the non-guaranteed contract. Kottaras was at least in the back of the front office’s mind when Bard signed on the dotted line.

Whatever the Sox’s intentions, I have a sneaking suspicion they got what they wanted this off-season: Varitek back to handle the pitching staff, and a (mostly) promising young catcher who proved he was ready to catch Wake and back up Varitek. Should Kottaras’s rookie campaign prove successful, expect to see him in a Red Sox uniform for several years.

The Red Sox front office has been productive since October: Pedroia signed a six-year deal in December, Youkilis a four-year extension in January, and Lester agreed to five years in March. With the long-term deals rolling in, I had great expectations for the Jason Bay negotiations - and was disappointed when it was announced that the talks had been put on hold. Theo Epstein stated that the “unusual marketplace” was to blame for the breakdown, while Jason Bay admitted it was in his best interest to “kind of explore.”

Jason Bay, don’t break our hearts. We were just starting to trust you after the breakup with our previous left fielder, and now you give us the “I need a little time” line. It’s like proposing and hearing “Just let me make sure I don’t have any better offers” in response. It stings a little.

I interrupt this blog to tell you that the USA just scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth to beat Puerto Rico and advance to the semi-finals in the World Baseball Classic. I can’t even predict the winner of a game after eight and a half innings have been played. And you wonder why I don’t gamble.

Anyway, I’ve gathered a bit of hope from Chad Finn’s most recent article, in which he states that he believes talks will continue throughout the spring (That’s not what I infer from Epstein’s statement that “we’re not going to get anything done in spring training,” but let’s not split hairs) and that the two sides will eventually come to an agreement. But here’s where Finn is dead-on: Bay is a perfect fit for the club, and the Red Sox would be wise to get the deal done.

As Finn points out, Bay’s deal won’t favor the Sox as much as the deals signed by Youkilis, Pedroia, and Lester for one reason. Bay will be entering free agency, while our merry trio were still several seasons away from free agency. But the idea of Bay being a perfect fit for the Red Sox intrigued me, so I did a little research. Unusual for a blogger I know, but try to bear with me.

The Red Sox farm system has very specific philosophies it tries to imprint on its players. Plate discipline is a big issue for the Sox. After comparing Bay’s plate discipline stats (who even knew there was such a thing?) to the stats of Youkilis,  and Pedroia, two guys who came up through the Red Sox organization, I found that while Pedey is a ridiculously effective contact hitter, Bay’s stats were quite similar to Youkilis’s. Not a bad comparison, eh? Ellsbury makes contact a higher percentage of the time than does Bay, but Bay swings at a higher proportion of pitches within the zone. It’s give and take.

Another key point of the Red Sox philosophy is on-base percentage. Bay’s OBP on 2008 was .373, Pedroia’s .376, Youkilis’s .390, and Ellsbury’s .336. Bay is a fit in that group, but players are not judged on numbers alone. Bay has all the intangibles the Red Sox desire as well: he’s a scrappy, baseball-centric guy who knows how to handle the media and the pressures of playing at Fenway with class. He’s not a head case, he’s not a drama queen, he’s not a free-swinger and he loves the game of baseball.

Bottom line: Bay’s so similar to the prototypical Red Sox recuit he could have been drafted by Theo himself. He is a perfect fit for the organization and the Red Sox will be well-served when they finally sign him to a multi-year deal.