Smith, Gossett, Kim, Sugano, and Puig: Red Sox Notes or Ambulance Chasing Law Firm
Some Hot Sox Notes On A Cold Morning
It’s a tough time to be a Red Sox fan. The baseball off-season is barely moving, like my cat after dinner. Four days into 2021, I feel let down, and now the baseball off-season is puking up hairballs on the stairs. This is not going well!
Rough start aside, the Red Sox are reportedly doing stuff. They’re looking at players, talking to players, talking to agents, talking to teams, looking at players talking to teams, talking at agents talking to players, looking at teams talking to other teams, talking to teams talking to agents talking to players talking to teams, and talking to teams talking to players talking to agents talking to players. Probably they’re also eating lunch. Sandwiches, I suspect. Point being, there have been some goings-on at ol’ Fenway Park over the weekend and I thought I’d address them here in a notes-style column because that’s what I thought I’d do and now I’m doing it and you’re going to have to deal with it.
The Red Sox hired Bianca Smith as a minor league coach. Normally I wouldn’t bring up hiring a minor league coach, but Smith is a Black woman and her hiring makes her the first Black female coach in Major League baseball history. This is a momentous, impressive, happy occasion, and sadly long overdue. If you’re interested in hearing from Ms. Smith, she was interviewed on MLB Network and you can watch that here. I don’t know much about her beyond the interview and a few articles, but overall she seems wildly overqualified for her position (par for the course with MLB) and seems smart and capable. From a team perspective it seems like an excellent hire. Congratulations to her, and good on the Red Sox for finally doing what should have been done a long time ago.
A side note, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that she had to put up with Harold Reynolds during her interview on MLB Network. It’s both bizarre and monumentally inappropriate that Reynolds, who was fired from ESPN amid allegations of sexual harassment, was MLB Network’s choice to interview Ms. Smith.The Red Sox signed former A’s starting pitcher Daniel Gossett to a minor league deal. Gossett has a great smile but if he’s starting for the Red Sox more than a handful of times in 2020 that means there were more than a few injuries at the major league level. So why did Boston sign him? He’s shown some promise in Triple-A over his career and after returning from Tommy John surgery he pitched well in the Arizona Fall League following the 2019 season. So that’s something, which is more things than you might normally associate with a guy signed to a minor league deal.
The Red Sox hope to contend in 2021 and they’re going to need better starting pitching to do that (more on that in an upcoming post) but they’re also going to need depth and Gossett (two S’s and two T’s) can be a part of that depth without causing searing pains to my abdomen should the team call upon him. That wasn’t always the case in 2020, so it’s good to see GM Chaim Bloom address both the organizational deficit in starting pitching and my potential stomach pain. Seriously, can we just trade for Jacob deGrom? My tummy hurts!
I speculated about the Red Sox interest in Korean free agent shortstop Ha-Seong Kim and how he could solve their hole at second base in a previous post. As it turned out, I was correct. The Red Sox were interested, just not quite interested enough. Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe says the Red Sox were in on Kim until the end, but ultimately Kim preferred San Diego because it is warmer and closer to Korea. Physically moving the city of Boston west of San Diego to sign Kim was impractical to say nothing of the expense of purchasing enough outdoor heaters to adequately warm the city to Kim’s standards, so sadly we can cross that particular second base solution off the list. It’s a shame too, because the Sox could really use the infusion of talent at the position that Kim possesses. The Red Sox have Jeter Downs, but he’s not ready for MLB action and likely won’t be in 2021 given he’s 22 years old and hasn’t played an official game above High-A ball yet. And yes, more on this in a future post.
The Red Sox search for starting pitching continues. It’s like the Star War prequels, overly long, excessively drawn out, and ultimately fruitless and boring. One option remaining is Japanese starting pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano, who has been posted by his NPB (Japan’s professional baseball league) team. Sugano has been one of the best pitchers in the NPB since coming up as a rookie in 2013. There is some question about his less-than-imposing stuff translating to the major league game, but enough teams are interested that he likely profiles as a number three starter at least. Here’s the juicy part: the Red Sox are reportedly one of the teams in contact with Sugano! Imagine: pitcher-needy team contacts team-needy pitcher! It’s a bad Onion article sprung to life.
Sugano is an intriguing name because of his success in Japan, but how effectively he will pitch once he joins an MLB team remains unknown. Recall Daisuke Matsuzaka, a name I improbably remember how to spell correctly. Potential upside is always attractive, though as we’ve seen for Japanese players, it can be complicated by the transition from Japan to MLB, both on and off the field. Presumably it’s something the Red Sox have studied extensively, so their interest in Sugano should be grounded in the latest statistical translations and scouting acumen. Or they could offer him a $50 gift certificate to Pizzeria Regina and a four pack of whatever he wants from Trillium. Truthfully, if pressed, I’d take that offer.
I’ll have a lot more on Sugano if he signs with Boston. And if he doesn’t you’ll likely not hear about him again! Funny how that works.
A report surfaced today saying the Red Sox and Yankees have interest in free agent outfielder Yasiel Puig. You may remember Puig from such roles as “I’m Not Interested In That Fly Ball” and “I’ve Crushed A Homer And Will Now Spend Some Time To Watch It.” Puig is a fun personality but he hasn’t been a great player for some years now, which explains the overall lack of interest in his services, not unlike his feelings on playing outfield defense.
As to the report, it smacks of something Puig’s camp would put out to generate interest because it doesn’t make much sense otherwise. Unless the Yankees plan to continue yanking (sorry) Clint Frazier around then I don’t get the connection to them. The Red Sox are even easier. They don’t have a need in the outfield corners with Andrew Benintendi in left field, and Hunter Renfroe/Alex Verdugo in right. Puig isn’t going to play center because putting a goat in center would be both cheaper and funnier. Probably. Puig is right handed just like Renfroe, so there’s no platoon option there, and doing that would require the Red Sox to move Verdugo to center permanently which they absolutely should not do unless they’re going all in on the goat thing and the one they signed is only a corner outfielder. JD Martinez is penciled in at DH so there’s no time available there either. One of those weird rumors that pops up during a slow off-season, I’d guess. If things get slower or weirder I’m going to have to start mainlining antacid.