Buchholz Worth Every Penny

Photo Credit Providence Journal

So Forbes Magazine printed an article yesterday about the best MLB pitchers for their buck and what do you know, Clay Buchholz of our beloved Boston Red Sox was second. Forbes calculated this by using Baseball Prospectus‘ Value Over Replacement metric. A pitcher’s VORP score equals the number of runs he prevented opponents from scoring over and above what a minimum-salaried replacement would have allowed.

This doesn’t really surprise me since Buchholz makes just $433,000 annually and was in the AL Cy Young conversation all season with 17 wins and 2.33 ERA.

Buchholz was edged out by Colorado’s Ubaldo Jiminez who had a VORP of 61 to Buchholz’s 51.3.

Youk Happy to be Back at Third

Photo credit Mahalo.com

Why you say?…

Because he hated having conversations with the runners on base. He also wants to add a Gold Glove to his trophy case at the other infield corner, already having won a Gold Glove as a first baseman.

Here is the quote straight from Youkilis on being a conversationist as a firstbaseman.

“It’s just not interesting,” Youkilis said. “It’s fun sometimes if you have guys you know and you’ve played against. There’s some guys you might not care for too much. You get to know people over there, too. You get to understand people a lot more. But the social scene over there, I can do without. I’ve never been a social-scene kind of guy.

“It’s not fun. You want no-hitters and perfect games thrown where you don’t have to cover the base, but that’s not possible all the time. For me, I’ll leave it to Sean Casey, Jim Thome, guys that are really good over there. Kevin Millar. I’ll leave it to them to master that.”

 

Daniel Bard: Music or Baseball?

As I was surfing the web for blog ideas I came across this hilarious interview between WEEI’s Rob Bradford and Daniel Bard. Bard has a striking resemblance to Charles Kelly from Lady Antebellum. Bradford and Bard joked about how Bard lives a double life as Daniel Bard and Charles Kelly. With the Grammy Awards last night, Bard joked about getting text messages backstage at the Staples Center from teammates congratulating him on winning a couple Grammy Awards. Who knew Bard was such a comedian?

Watch the entire interview in the video above.

Photo Credit Zimbio

How closely do you think Bard resembles Kelly? Vote in the poll below.

Photo Credit Boston Herald

Spring is Here!

Photo Credit CBS Boston

At least for baseball it is.

Yesterday was the official report day for pitchers and catchers and manager Terry Francona updated us on some pressing issues.

On Jacoby Ellsbury’s Health

“He’s healthy now. He says he’s doing everything without being limited, which is good because that had been a while. It’ll be fun to watch Ells. A year ago this time we’re talking about him playing left field, being our leadoff hitter and being a game-changer. Now we have the game-changer in left field (in Carl Crawford) and can move Ells back over to center and hopefully allow him to continue his development.”

On a Potential Closer Controversy

“I don’t think this is as much of an issue for Paps as maybe it was for people talking about Paps. He knows where I stand on this. I don’t think it’s much of an issue.”

On the Catching Situation

“We have Tek and Salty and I think we’re pretty comfortable with that, maybe more than people realize. Salty’s had a tremendous winter. This guy’s potentially a power-hitting, switch-hitting catcher. If that doesn’t come to fruition right away, that’s not the end of the world. We love the way he wants to run the game and he aspires to the run the game. And Tek’s in a good spot. He feels good about where he is and that makes us feel better.”

Positional players are due to report Friday with the first full workout coming Saturday.

Nice Hair Dustin

Photo credit ESPN Boston

A 27-year-old man should not be balding this much. I don’t care what Dustin says he needs to call up Hair Club for Men. Pedroia commented on his hair today.

“The jokes are cool when I’m 20 and losing my hair. But I’m a grown-ass man now. I think it looks solid. My wife likes it.”

Oh, his wife likes it? I may have to do my hair like Dustin from now on then because she is a looker.

Terry Francona was reportedly giving him a hard time about his hair and Dustin fired back with this…

“He was pouring water on himself to pretend he was working out, like he was sweating. I might kick his ass before we start.”

Gotta love Pedroia!

In other news, Dustin says he is ready to go.