Tag Archives: Adrian Gonzalez

The best and worst moves of the offseason

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MlbHlSqOn November 7th, exclusive club negotiations ended and baseball fans around the world turned their attentions from San Francisco to Little Rock Arkansas, home town to Cliff Lee: this offseason’s most desirable free agent.

After a predictable bidding war, the 32 year old southpaw and former Cy Young award winner snubbed the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees, deciding instead to return to the Philadelphia Phillies for a 5 year £74.5 million pound contract. He joins what seems to be (on paper at least) the best starting rotation since the Atlanta Braves of the 1990’s.

There has been considerable discussion as to whether or not this was the best signing of the winter. Certainly, Ruben Amaro Jr. deserves a pat on the back for winning the Lee sweepstakes. However, I think Theo Epstein of the Boston Red Sox takes the cake for ‘best offseason’ with the acquisitions of both Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford.

Adrian Gonzalez / Best Offseason Acquisition

Coming from the lofty dimensions of PETCO Park in San Diego, Gonzalez is going to have a field day in Fenway. According to Hit Tracker, his 31 home runs in 2010 seem to be equally distributed to all fields (see “Gonzalez HR Scatter” 2009 & 2010 below).

However, he hit more of his home runs to left in 2009. According to his spray charts (see “Gonzalez 2010 Hit Spray Chart” below), he definitely pushes the ball more than he pulls it, which is a good thing for left handed hitters in Boston. Furthermore, the left field wall in Fenway sits nearly 20 feet shallower down the line than the wall in San Diego. This will amount to a lot more hits for Adrian, either as home runs or as singles/doubles banking off the Green Monster. Moving from the NL West to the AL East also means more games in hitter friendly parks. According to ESPN’s park factors, Yankee Stadium, The Roger’s Centre, and Camden Yards are three of the top five home run parks in the MLB. PETCO, on the other hand, is ranked as the worst stadium for hits, 22nd (of 30) for home runs, and 26th for runs.  Continue reading →

No ordinary Sunday evening

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MlbHlSqYou don’t normally expect there to be much breaking baseball news on a British Sunday evening.  I innocently logged on to my computer with the intention of having a quick check on the latest rumours at around 10 p.m., only to spend the next hour or so clicking from website to website and tweet to tweet chasing all the stories and the immediate reaction to the news.

Every offseason move turns into a drama, but the Washington Nationals’ signing of Jayson Werth was one case where the ‘major event’ billing was fully justified.  It was genuinely stunning, leaving me doubting my eyes, even my sanity, for a few seconds as the news sunk in. 

Part of the shock was that it was completely unexpected.  That’s almost unheard of nowadays, as even the most banal developments and vague hints of potential interest are blogged and tweeted about on a non-stop basis.  That will become even more prevalent over the next few days during the MLB Winter Meetings.  You normally have some inkling that a deal is being discussed, followed by a flurry of activity just before the signing is officially announced.

In Werth’s case, I didn’t read a single story seriously linking the outfielder with the Nationals prior to last night.  There were rumours that the Tigers could have enough money left to pair him in the batting lineup with new recruit Victor Martinez, while some were planning out a potential Red Sox lineup including the former Philly and Adrian Gonzalez (more on him in a moment).  Continue reading →