Pap Is Free At Last!

What a day. On Tuesday, I planned on writing something about Manny the Used Grill Salesman. I scrubbed that idea on Wednesday when my offspring called me out. In fact, I had already written my response to the 9.5 Theses and was planning to post them today. But that will have to wait until next time.

Today is Emancipation Day!

The Sox finally came to their senses and made the only decision they could make...and one they should have made from Day One. The Hostage has been released. Pap is back at the end of the pen where he belongs. The Red Sox staff is much better off for it.

So much for the first of Kevin's "Theses."

To review Theses #1 postulated that "Starters are more valuable than closers." Kevin ended his statistics-laden analysis that a good starter is better than a good closer with this question: "Would you rather have 200 innings (13% of a season) of top-ten pitching, or 35 saves instead of the 25 to 30 you'd get from the next best closer?"

Theo, Tito and the Red Sox organization's answer? "Uh...We'll take the saves."

And for good reason. Here's what I wrote last night in response to Thesis #1 prior to today's great news.

"Yes good starting pitching is crucial. This year's Sox staff can be terrific. But Kevin misses my point. Without someone on the back end to close out games, a ton of quality seven and eight inning starts are going to be wasted. I think we can all agree that if each of the Sox starters pitched 225 innings this year, it would be awesome and probably unprecedented. But even with that Herculean workload, with 32 starts for each, that would still average out to only 7 innings per game. A lot can happen in those final two innings.

Let's take...oh...Roger Clemens as an example. In his final three years with the Sox (94-96) Roger was 9-7, 10-5, 10-13 and was accused of being fat and out of shape. In those three seasons, his ERA's were 2.85, 4.18, 3.63. According to Diamond Mind Baseball, in Roger's career with the Sox, he turned 147 games over to the bullpen with a lead. The Sox arson squad in those days blew 37 of them. That's 25%. So my point is not that starting pitching is not important, it's that it can be totally neutralized without some coming in and nailing down the wins. (Pap held hostage: Day 31)."

My point was reinforced by former Met GM Steve Philips who appeared on ESPN's Mike Felger show today after the announcement. He basically started with the same assumption as Kevin, that Pap could give the Sox 200 solid innings as a starter as opposed to 80 innings as a closer. But he went on to say that it doesn't work that way. He stressed that by putting Papelbon back in the closer's role, the Sox would be "protecting" potentially 800 innings (200 innings each from Schilling, Matsusaka, Beckett and Wakefield). He stated that without a solid closer, many of those innings would be wasted without someone to nail things down in the end game.

Philips also said that earlier in the day before The Announcement, someone asked him in an interview if the Yankmees had anything to worry about from the Sox. He answered that the Yanks would only have to be concerned if two things happened: 1) Beckett regains his National League form and 2) Papelbon goes back to the closer role. We're halfway to giving New York something to think about.

Which brings me to my final point. What was this entire charade about anyway? I have a theory and I believe it was borne out in one of Pap's quotes today. In announcing the decision it came out that Papelbon went into Francona's office and asked to be put back in the closer's role. Tito went on to say that "if the team had any doubts about Papelbon's health, it wouldn't have mattered that Papelbon wanted to close. He would have walked Papelbon right out of his office if that had been the case."

Despite all the protestations, I believe the real issue behind all this was that Pap wanted to start. The Sox realized that the kid was lights out last year but he was still going to be making only about $350K this season. I think Paplebon went to Theo and Tito and said something like, "Look if you're not going to pay me, can you at least let me be a starter again?" The Sox then used the flimsy medical excuse as a reason to appease the young star without having to come up with any additional cash. Pap going in today and asking for the role back took the Sox off the hook and let them do what they wanted to do all along but didn't for fear of upsetting their young stud.

Either that or Our Lady of Lourdes made a miraculous appearance in Fort Myers, sprinkled some healing water in the whirlpool at City of Palms park and...poof!...the shoulder was all better.

Please. Don't be naive.

In either case, let's not quibble about the process. Let's rejoice that all's right in the Sox pen and that the Sox sterling starting staff may have a chance to put up the numbers we think they can.

Now as for Julian Tavarez as the fifth starter? That brings us to the next obvious decision the Sox have to make. Jon Lester held hostage.....