Birthday Opinions

Yes, today is my birthday, and that's about as much as I will say about it. I am writing this from The Ocean Club in Yarmouthport, MA, on a short getaway from work, family, and friends.

My Rant

While driving around Cape Cod and doing some after-Christmas shopping, I focused on listening to XM Radio's "MLB Home Plate" station (Channel 175). After three weeks of technical issues with XM -- the culprit being a malfunctioning receiver -- I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to the station and its hosts. After all, this is where I first heard that the Red Sox signed RHP Brad Penny and C Josh Bard.

Casey Stern and Rob Dibble were enjoying a spirited discussion today about the overuse of the terms "stuff" for pitchers and "tools" for hitters. They shared a great deal of common sense on the subject. All pitchers have a certain degree of "stuff." Stuff is not what makes a major league pitcher. Dibble has been characteristically critical of the Yankees' signing of RHP A. J. Burnett to be one of the top pitchers in their rotation. Burnett, though frequently injured except in his 2008 salary drive, is a pitcher with good and maybe great "stuff." "Stuff" has nothing to do with mental maturity or guts or an ability to handle tough fans, media, and criticism. It's only one slice of the pie, and I give Stern and Dibble credit for saying that. An afterthought to this discussion was the overuse of the term "tools" for hitters.

A Shout Out

It's definitely worth giving a shout out to something that is new to me and something that will be brand new all baseball fans: XM Radio's MLB Home Plate and the new MLB Network. Both venues keep baseball alive and kicking for fans and should help make the offseason as relevant as a September pennant race.

My Take

My take on a few things:

As Kevin Millar so eloquently put it in his Sunday interview on XM Radio, "Teams win championships, players don't." While the sense of this works for any team in any sport, it may best be served on a platter to the New York Yankees. This offseason, in belated reaction to the 2004 ALCS spanking by the Boston Red Sox, the inability to go further than the first round of the playoffs, and finally missing the postseason entirely and finishing in third place behind Tampa Bay and Boston, the Steinbrenners, Randy Levine, and Brian Cashman have done their best to assemble the most expensive talent possible. What remains to be seen is whether or not this impressive array of talent develops into a winning team or stews in its own ego all season long. Best wishes to Joe Girardi as he navigates through these potentially choppy waters.

The Boston Red Sox helped themselves by entering into short-term contracts with starting pitcher Brad Penny and reserve catcher Josh Bard. Penny, a 16-game winner in both 2006 and 2007, has everything to prove for his one-year, $5 million deal. This should be a win-win situation for the team and the player: The player can use a healthy and productive 2008 in the Red Sox rotation to catapult himself to a lucrative multi-year deal somewhere, and the team can enjoy the short-term dividends of a player motivated to make an impact on his future bank account. What is required here is Penny remaining healthy and making 25-plus starts for a team that remains in contention all season.

Josh Bard, a sometimes good hitter and a sometimes capable receiver, is something of an enigma to Red Sox fans. We all know about his celebrated failure to handle Tim Wakefield's knuckler a couple of years back as well as the disastrous trade that sent him and sidearming righty Cla Meredith to the Padres for end-of-the-line knuckleball catcher Doug Mirabelli. After a strong first year in San Diego, Bard became injured and then available. Hence, he returns to Boston as the lone major league ready receiver on the 40-man roster.

Sean McAdam of the Boston Herald believes that the negativity of the Mark Teixeira negotiations and the all-around bad feeling that Sox upper management has for agent Scott Boras has all but ended hope for the return of captain Jason Varitek. Varitek appears short on offers and has absolutely no chance of falling into the long-term pot of money that Jorge Posada did as recently as one year ago. At this point, Varitek and Boras must wonder if anything longer than a one-year deal is in the mix.

This & That

USA Today's Baseball Insider (Sports Weekly Special Edition, and on sale through December 15) is an outstanding compendium of useful information, sure to lend support to any offseason statistical argument imaginable. For example:

• Based on USA Today's expert analysis of all MLB franchises concludes that the Boston Red Sox ranks first overall, using the following criteria (2004-2008): postseason success, regular-season success, 2008 regular-season success, drafting/signing success, front-office continuity, franchise value, attendance, fan affordability, and payroll dollars per win.
• Specific comments about the Red Sox: "Combining a resilience on the field and a vision for excellence in the front office, the Boston Red Sox have brought unbridled joy to the ever-growing population of Red Sox Nation in the past five seasons." "The Red Sox have become winners on the field and in the community, and they've had a measure of fun doing it." "Four postseason appearances in the past five years didn't hurt, but the team also earned high marks in player development, management continuity and attendance."
• The Red Sox again in 2008 led the major leagues in road attendance at 38,367 per game -- more than 2,000 a game more than the second-place Chicago Cubs.
• The New England Sports Network (NESN) has the highest rating among sports networks, even over the YES Network.
• USA Today's top five in the franchise rankings: Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Angels, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Yankees, and Los Angeles Dodgers.

There is definitely much to read in the Baseball Insider.