Sox still lag behind in AL
Francona’s conquering Tribe surpasses on the power meter
There’s no denying the Red Sox made a great trade when they acquired rotation-booster Chris Sale last month.
But let’s not be taken for a ride on that river in Egypt about how good they became.
They still aren’t better than Cleveland.
The Indians not only vanquished the Red Sox in three straight games in a lopsided American League Division Series last October and went on to win the pennant and nearly the World Series but they also got better this season.
Unlike the Red Sox, who lost their best slugger, David
Ortiz, and did not replace him with a comparable solution, the Indians wound improving their already formidable run-scoring operation.
They went out and snagged the best slugging free agent on the market,
Edwin Encarnacion, and at a team-friendly rate of three years for $65 million.
And, oh yeah, they expect to have a full season from underrated slugging catcher Yan Gomes and their best all-around player, MVP-caliber outfielder Michael Brantley, is expected back for next season after missing the bulk of 2016 with a shoulder injury.
Combine that with a rotation that is expected to be back at full health — unlike the ’16 postseason, when we all thought that the battered, depleted core would be run over by the Red Sox offense — and a bullpen that features both Andrew
Miller and Cody Allen, the Indians did not take a hit anywhere. They only got better. And it all started with Encarnacion.
“I don’t think (the Cleveland front office) expected that Edwin would fall to where we could jump in there, but they did and got creative and good for us,” manager Terry Francona said last week. “Because (departing Mike Napoli) was a free agent — he had meant so much to us that signing a bat like Edwin’s should really help us.”
As is his wont, Francona was not ready to deliver a motivational speech for the team as it prepares to play in this October’s World Series.
But it’s clear that he likes his team.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen — we didn’t know guys were going to get hurt at the end of the year, you just kind of play and see how well you can do,” the former Red Sox skipper said. “Going into this spring, yeah, we’re excited. Everybody is. But you don’t know what’s going to happen but I do think it’s a good place to start from. We’re thrilled and hopeful that Brantley’s going to be OK. He’s our best player. And we had him for (39) at-bats. Missed two-fifths of our rotation and not having Yan Gomes — so yeah, we’re excited.”
The Red Sox are hardly roadkill in the Indians’ way.
The top of their rotation is as good as Cleveland’s, and their offense is still more than formidable. Their bullpen is not as good. The Indians have a young core, including Jose
Ramirez and Francisco Lindor, plus key veterans in
Jason Kipnis and Brantley, who combine to make the Indians very much a model franchise.
They play in a smaller market, but the Encarnacion signing was a deft addition that makes an already powerful ballclub into one that’s much better.
Teams such as the Red Sox, who are constantly reloading and restocking when one approach or another does not work, have the resources to adapt quicker and more dramatically, which is why their window for winning stays open for awhile.
Francona noted that his team has less margin for error.
“I think you’ve got to be realistic that in the winter, for the most part, we play in a different neighborhood and our guys do a great job of trying to be realistic about, ‘OK, who can we go after and not waste time on players that are not going to come?’ ” Francona said. “I’ve actually been really impressed with how (the baseball ops staff) do things there. They’ve put together a really good nucleus that hopefully keeps our window open. I think windows for small market teams are probably shorter than the big markets. I don’t think that’s out of line to say that. But I think because our nucleus is younger, the core group, hopefully it keeps our window open longer.”
As the Encarnacion move shows, the Indians are playing within their margin for error.
The Red Sox probably are, too, when it comes to the AL East. But when it comes to moving past the Indians, that’s still a question of if, not when.
Tiant: Hub at heart
In accepting his Fuchs Award for long and meritorious service to baseball, the highest honor bestowed by Boston baseball writers, at last week’s dinner, Red Sox legend
Luis Tiant delivered a poignant love letter to Boston and Red Sox fans. Recalling how little English he spoke when he first arrived — “‘floor,’ ‘ceiling,’ ‘table’ and ‘chair,’ ” said Tiant — he intimated that when managers spoke to him it sounded like gibberish, as if an adult from a “Charlie Brown” cartoon was speaking. But he persevered, worked hard at being a better baseball player and English speaker and now, “I’m still here, I’m still living, I can’t complain about anything.”
In addition to thanking his wife of 55 years, Tiant explained why he decided to set down roots in cold New England vs. retiring in, say, Miami.
“New England people showed me admiration and respect,” he said. “I got used to cold weather.”
Junior achievement
It sounds as if center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. will enter his second full season in the major leagues with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. The fact that he had a weaker second half than first — .296 vs. 233 batting average and .926 vs. a .728 OPS — is not significant. It’s the total result that counts, and anyone looking for another meaning is looking in the wrong place.
“I think anything I did last year had everything to do with my year last year,” Bradley said last week. “A lot of people talk about the hitting streak and say, ‘If you take out the hitting streak, what kind of year did he have?’ If you’re going to do that, why don’t you take out my August when I had the worst month of the season and crunch the other numbers up? It seems like everyone is always trying to take away the positive and never take away the negatives.”
The positive Bradley is taking away from 2016 is that he performed at a high level in a season where for the first time he stayed in the major leagues from April through September.
“That’s what you want to do,” Bradley said. “We always heard at a young age that getting to the majors isn’t the hardest thing; staying in the majors is. Last year being my first year being able to stay in the majors the whole time, I kind of feel like I used last year as a stepping stone or as a platform for myself. Hopefully I continue to grow to learn and get better.” . . .
Francona conceded that he will not be using Miller so early in games next regular season as he did in the postseason, when he brought him in frequently in the seventh, even the sixth inning, if the threat warranted it.
“No, you can’t, you can’t, I think the postseason is different,” he said. “With days off, games, as much as they mean… I take it back — if we had a week to go in the season and we were going to get eliminated, hell yeah. But you can’t hurt guys.
“If you tried to do that with guys during the season, it would eventually catch up and either hurt them, because you can’t keep getting guys up in the fifth when you don’t know if they’re going to get in.
“I’d do it again in the playoffs.”