Nomar No more

You may have heard that the Red Sox were involved in a four-team trade on Saturday that sent local hero Nomar Garciaparra from the Red Sox to the Chicago Cubs, whose rabid fan base and storied, snakebit history will seem all to familiar to the All Star shortstop. In return for Nomar and '03 first draft choice Matt Murton, the Sox recieved two gold glove fielders, Expos shortstop Orlando Cabrera and Twins first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz.

Call me disappointed, both with the circumstances that apparently made it necessary for the Sox to move Nomar, and with the players they recieved in return. Nomar's troubled relationship with the front office is well documented, and it appears that he forced Theo Epstein's hand by suggesting that he may have to go on the DL in August to rest his ailing achilles heel. (Allow me a brief digression to address my peeve at people who claim "Nomar rejected a four year, $60 million contract. He obviously didn't want to be here." What Nomar did was counteroffer at a higher dollar amount - it's called negotiating - and the Sox ignored the counteroffer until months later, when they actually lowered their original offer. The lower offer made sense based on market conditions, but it was the start of the downward spiral that led us here). If that's true, I'm disappointed in Nomar's actions, too. Still, the Sox could have made out better in this deal.

The real "catch," as far as Red Sox fans are concerned, is Orlando Cabrera. Cabrera does have a gold glove in his trophy case (2001 NL), and would certainly improve on Nomar's play this season, and he has had a couple of good seasons with the bat. The problem is, there are a lot more not-so-good seasons with the bat on Cabrera's resume. Cabrera's 297/347/460-17-80 line from 2003 looks good on the surface, but the Olympic/Hiram Bithorn combination was one of the most hitter-friendly environments in the majors last year (park factor of 118), leaving Cabrera with an OPS+ of 95. That was the best of his career (excluding the 97 posted in a half season of play in 1998), but pales to Nomar's career mark of 135.

This year, the discrepancy has been huge. Nomar hit 321/367/500-5-21 in 38 games for the Red Sox, while Cabrera left Montreal hitting 246/298/336-4-31 in 103 games. Nomar leads in runs created/27 outs by a margin of 6.43 to 3.36, an enormous margin! Both players are free agents at the end of the year, and both were unhappy, but an injured, unhappy Nomar is far more productive than a healthy, unhappy Cabrera. The only way this switch helps the Sox would be if Nomar was going to miss more than half the games the rest of the way (which I suppose was a possibility).

Mientkeiwicz is a good-field, no-hit first baseman. The Sox already have one of those (David McCarty), the only difference being that Minky can't hit lefthanded while McCarty can't hit right handed. Mientkiewicz doesn't have a history of hitting well in Fenway, and from what I've seen, his swing isn't well suited to take advantage of LF. The Sox now have three first basemen (Ortiz, Millar, Minky) under contract for next season, as well as Manny and Nixon in the corner OF slots. Minky is a career 275/378/409 hitter (250/342/365 this season). You have to get a lot of glove to make that kind of hitting work at first base. Minky does have pretty good plate discipline and draws his share of walks, but he basically duplicates Boston's worst first baseman. Hooray for that.

So on the field the Red Sox sacrifice a ton of offense for improved defense. Boston's defense wasn't all that good, but they also have a power pitching staff that relies less on defense than any other team. Still, an error to lose a game looks a lot worse to the fans than having a player fail to start or continue a rally. I'm a strong believer in measuring the total offense+defense contribution, however, and this just doesn't measure up. The fact that the Sox also gave up a top prospect in this trade is salt in the wound.

Worthy of mention, on top of this trade, the Sox also dealt a minor leaguer for Dodger outfielder Dave Roberts. This is another case of filling a non-existant need. Robers basically duplicates Johnny Damon - a base stealer on a team that doesn't run. I guess he'll fill Gabe Kaplar's role, now that Gabe is in the lineup for Trot Nixon, as a pinch runner and defensive caddy for Manny Ramirez. I expect his impact to be minimal, too.

This feels for all the world like Theo Epstein throwing in the towel on this season (or, at the very least, throwing his hands up in desparation). At this point, the best that can be hoped for is for the rest of the team to come together as a unit and start winning games due to improved chemistry. In Spring Training the Red Sox appeared to be poised for a run at the World Series, so to be in this situation where "improving the defense" was the best they could get for a potential Hall of Fame player is a great disappointment.