The Many (Potential) Injuries of Mike Napoli

I've made a conscious effort to not make the primary topic of this blog "How Much I Want To Cockpunch the Mike Napoli Deal", but some news items I just can't ignore.  This info about Napoli's hip is one of those items:

A major league source said this about Mike Napoli’s hip condition: “It’s one of those things where it could go anytime or five years from now. Nobody really knows..."

To fully digest this news, let's go over a brief history of Napoli being a walking, talking injury:

• 2003 - He injured his right shoulder in the minors.
• 2007 -  Two injuries this year, as Napoli sprained his ankle before straining his hamstring.
• 2008 - Napoli had shoulder issues, not sure if it's related to 2003 but I'm gonna take a wild guess and say yes, it is.
• 2012 - Napoli's hamstring acted up again. This injury occurred after he played full time and injury free in 2011, but he broke down in August.

So, before hearing about Napoli's hip issues, we already knew that he had recurring issues with his hamstring and shoulder.  Napoli's hip hasn't even caused him to go on the disabled list during his career, yet the potential for his hip to "go at anytime" is what's holding up his contract talks.  We're looking at a player who has three big injury issues that would cause him to lose a significant amount of playing time.

As far as I know, Michael Morse on the Nationals had lower back issues at the beginning of last season, but that's the only injury that has nagged him during his whole career.

Why, again, is Napoli supposedly the best option out there?  Because of his overrated statistics at Fenway Park, which no one has mentioned that poor Red Sox pitching may have caused?  Because of his high OPS, since the Sox want to pay millions more to a guy that has 18 more walks than Salty last year while posting the same power numbers?

What happens if any of Napoli's injury issues flair up in April?  Or Spring Training?  And if the Sox are looking at a hole at first base that just cost them $11-12 million in 2013?  What happens then?

There's a reason why Texas didn't give Napoli a competing offer so they could be awarded a draft pick when Napoli signed with another team -- they were afraid that Napoli would take that competing offer. Then they would be stuck with him.  Indeed, given how contract negotiations with the Sox have gone, Napoli probably would have accepted a competing offer from Texas by now if they had placed one on the table.  And it's not like Texas doesn't need power in their lineup, after letting Hamilton walk.  But Texas considered even one more year with Mike Napoli to be too risky.  If that doesn't make a statement about Napoli, than I don't know what will.

Red Sox need to step away from Napoli and focus on acquiring Michael Morse, if they want to make a splash in the headlines; or use Mauro Gomez.  Hell, Gomez is a better option than Napoli at this point, because you can't depend on a player this risky.

Overrated Roidhead or HOFer, I decide: Sammy Sosa

Sammy Sosa broke into the big leagues in 1989 as a 20 year old, and he didn't look like a slugger.

Judging from that photo, Sosa was destined to be a speedy outfielder type of player who provided a little pop at the plate, but when he was with the Cubs in in 1993, he hit 33 homeruns -- topping his career best 15 homers for the White Sox in 1990.  Then in 1996, Sosa hit 40 homeruns; following that up with 36 in 1997.  

Then, in 1998, he exploded: 66 HR, 63 HR in '99, 50 in 2000, 64 in 2001...  Just unbelievable power numbers that came out of nowhere.  We all know now that Sosa hit the 'roids, of course.  Players like Canseco and McGwire were always big, though, so it's worth comparing the size of Sosa's arms in the above photo to this one to remind ourselves of the extent of how much some players juiced: 

The dude fucking quintupled the size of his arms.  That shit's just ridiculous.  So how do we determine if this roid beast belongs in Hall of Fame? 

All Sammy Sosa has going for his HOF credentials are his homeruns: 609 for his career.  Some members of the 500 Homerun Club aren't going to be allowed in Cooperstown, but how can someone who hit over 600 homers be shutout?  

Sosa's game was one dimensional, though.  He ended his career with a .273 batting average.  Until he bulked up, he wasn't a gargantuan force at the plate, just an outfielder with 30+ homer power.  There are plenty of MLB players like that throughout history, and they don't deserve enshrinement in the Hall.  So how many homers would Sosa have hit without juicing up?

I'll be generous and put the line of demarcation at 1998, even though Sosa hit 40 homers in 1996.  From 1990 - 97, Sosa had six seasons with over 425 AB.  He hit 185 homeruns over these seasons, and that averages out to 31 per season.  Then, from 1998 - 2004, Sosa hit 367 homers, averaging an eyepopping 52 homers per season.  Replacing the juiced average with Sosa's for his natural power over those 7 seasons, 31 * 7 = 217.  367 - 217 leaves us with a difference of 150 homers that we can remove from Sosa's career total to see how many he would have without the help of steroids.

609 - 150 = 459. 

Knocking down Sosa's career average to .260, that leaves us with a career .260s hitter with 459 homeruns. That's a pretty good career, but it won't get you into the Hall of Fame under normal circumstances.  Unfortunately, we're gonna hear about Sosa for the next 14 years, so grab your barf buckets and hold on tight. 

How to tell if a Roidhead is a Hall of Famer

If there's one thing professional, very serious baseball writers do best, it's throw hissy fits when shit just doesn't go their way.  So when the 2013 Hall of Fame ballot came up for debate, all these morons did was bitch and moan about how steroids ruined the previous era of baseball -- which stands in stark contrast to their willingness to take money to glorify baseball and ignore steroids during the mid-90s -- and instead of developing some sort of system to judge suspected cheaters, they just continued to piss and moan.

Since baseball writers have never actually created anything, this doesn't surprise me.

This problem is relatively easy to solve.  Use HOF standards of yesteryear and find a way to adjust the numbers of suspected PED users to see if they would have made it to the Hallf regardless of drugs.  Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, under those standards, would be (and perhaps should have been), first ballot candidates.  But what about Mark McGwire?

McGwire was always a power threat, slugging 49 homers in his rookie season, but his numbers really exploded in the mid-90s, and he ended up with 583 homeruns and a .263 average.  Let's assume he started 'roiding up in 1995.  Before 1995, when you take the homerun totals from McGwire's season when he had over 450 at-bats, that's six seasons and an average of 36 homeruns.  Then let's assume that from his peak period, 1995 - 1999, he hit 36 homeruns during each of those seasons because that's fair.  McGwire hit 284 homers in that 5 year time span, but since 36 * 5 = 180, let's say he shoulc have hit 180 homers.  284 - 180 = 104, so let's remove 104 homers from his career mark.

That would give McGwire just 479 homeruns over his career.  His career batting average would probably dip below .250, too.

Would you put a .250 hitter with 479 homeruns in the Hall of Fame?  Of course not.  Therefore, McGwire shouldn't be considered worthy of enshirement since the only reason he has HOF-worthy numbers are because of steroids.

There, we have a formula to determine what candidates are worthy. Wasn't that fucking easy?  Now maybe the professional baseball writers can stop bitching, get over their smug satisfaction over their perceptions of their own intelligence, and fucking do something for once.

Could there really be no toMauro?

With a picture of Mike Napoli's contract populating milk cartons across New England, it looks like the Red Sox are trying to expand the options they have at first base.  And the team must think that they have cast a broad net in their search, since they flew down to Venezuela to watch Bobby Abreu work out and take some grounders at first base.  Looking at Abreu's stats, it appears that he's never played a game at first base in his entire career.

That's "never" as in "never, ever", "never, ever ever" and "No really, Ben, why the fuck are you looking at outfielders to play first base?"

Especially an outfielder who will be 39 at the beginning of the 2013 season and is showing the obvious signs of decline. Don't get me wrong, Bobby Abreu has had a get career, amassing almost 300 homers and 400 steals while being incredibly durable.  From 1999 - 2010, Abreu's plate appearances didn't dip below 600 per season.  In 2011, he still had 585 plate appearances and 20 steals.  That's pretty good for an outfielder who was then 37 years old.  But last season, at 38, Abreu had just 257 plate appearances with a .242 BA and 6 steals.  With an OBP of .350, Abreu can still draw a walk, but he's going to be 39 and he's never played at first base.  I don't see how Abreu could be an option, beyond pinch hitting and replacing him with a pinch runner when he gets on.

All of this makes me wonder about the in-house option for the Red Sox, Mauro Gomez.  The Sox must not think much of Mauro if they think they are reduced to considering aging veterans like Bobby Abreu an option.  But why?

Much of my following analysis of Mauro Gomez was published this past October, so I'll be repeating myself a bit.  But since all options are on the table if Abreu is being considered as even a slight possibility, then let's consider all options.

Mauro's career cuts a strange path, starting as a Dominican player who wasn't drafted and started playing in Texas's farm system in 2004, when he was 19.  He spent 6 seasons in the Texas system and never rose above high A ball.  In fact, Mauro never even played over 100 games in a season until 2007, playing A ball in Clinton, where he hit 21 homeruns.  That earned Mauro a promotion to play High A ball in Bakersfield, where he had a disappointing 2008 (80 games, 8 homers).  Spending the next season in Bakersfield, Mauro turned things around by playing 124 games, and hitting .285 with 28 homers.

But Mauro was 24, mastering A ball and facing pitchers who were 3-5 years younger than him.  I don't know if Mauro had a history of injuries that stunted his development, but after spending 6 years in the Texas system, they sent him to Atlanta instead of promoting him to AA ball.

Texas may have made the wrong bet, because 2008 was the start of a great minor league career for Mauro. His games and plate appearance totals while playing in the Red Sox and Braves' systems show a player who hasn't been hindered by injuries, and 48 homeruns between 2011-12 in 893 at-bats at AAA ball shows some pop in his bat.  Mauro's batting average -- hence, how well he sees the ball when hitting, for all of the Sabermetcians reading and scoffing -- has improved at each level of his stay in the minors, too.  In High A, he hit .267; in AA, he hit .281; and at AAA, he hit .307. Mauro's improved ability to see the ball, get on base and hit for power are also reflected in the decrease of he K:AB ratio.  In 2011, Mauro struck out once every 3.86 at-bats; but he improved that to 4.39 at-bats in Pawtucket last season.

At AAA Gwinnett in 2011, Mauro hit 24 homeruns in in 506 at-bats.  At Pawtucket in 2012, he hit 24 homeruns in 387 at-bats.

There's a lot to consider here.  The knocks against Mauro is that prospects are expected to have conquered the AA and AAA levels of minor league ball by 23-24 years old if they are to be considered Major League ready with star potential, but Mauro was still playing in A ball when he was 24.  That's a red flag, but that said, there's a huge difference between the quality of pitching at the A and AAA levels, since A ball is where prospects are learning how to pitch, and AAA is like a quasi-senior circuit where batters see a lot of Major League players in the latter stages of their career, mixed in with prospects and other Major Leaguers who are playing rehab games to recover from injuries.  It's certainly not at the level of pitching regularly seen in MLB, but when a batter hits .310 with a .370 OBP and 24 homers in 387 at-bats against this level of pitching, then it's hard to say that they are not Major League ready with some potential to be in impact player.

Of course, Mauro did all of this when he was 27 years old, and some would say this makes him a "Four A" player.  Instead of having some impact at the MLB level, Mauro could be just another Izzy Alcantra-type of player who slams minor league competition but fizzles when he's in The Show.  I'm going with my gut feeling here, but I don't see Mauro as being this type of player -- I lean towards thinking he would become a good player for the Red Sox next season.  But is it a crapshoot?  Just a guess?  I hate to not sound confident but, uhm, kinda.

I'm confident, though, that placing a bet on Mauro Gomez would be safer than betting on Bobby Abreu.  That's an easy bet to make, though.  The real questions we want to ask is if Mauro is a player that we want over Mike Napoli or Adam LaRoche.

I laid my chips down in October, when I supported giving Mauro the starting job over getting a free agent like Mike Napoli.  I haven't been shy about my distaste for spending money to bring Napoli here.  That said, if  the Sox could sign Napoli for one year, $8 million, then great -- sign me up for the Napoli bandwagon at that point.  The Sox would be getting an often injured player with potential to hit for a lot of power at Fenway, and if an injury found him again (as they often seem to), then Mauro can come off the bench and play first until he returns.

But the Napoli contract mess has become a shitshow.  Napoli wants three years and nearly $40 million, and honestly, I can't fathom why a 31 year old, often injured, mostly part-time player with only one really good season under his belt is worth that much.  That's why I don't want Napoli in Boston.

That leaves us Adam LaRoche or Mauro Gomez.  As a player, LaRoche is a better option than Napoli or Gomez.  LaRoche has been a durable player providing power and a steady glove at first base, and giving him a deal similar to what Napoli was offered should be considered a no-brainer given the expense of free agents in today's market -- except, of course, signing LaRoche means giving up a second round draft pick.

So, what do you do?  If you think you're going to make a playoff run, then you get the best player out there and that's Adam LaRoche.  But if you're going to have a bridge season and want to keep the draft pick, then taking a risk with Mauro Gomez makes more sense unless you can acquire a better option via trade.   Given all of the expendable players on the Red Sox roster right now, I'm still expecting the trad rumors to start.

Personally, looking at Mauro's track record of constant improvement as a player since 2008, I think he's a safe bet to place at first base.  But the problem for the Red Sox is that first base has become the bellwether position that fans will look at to see if the Sox are making a serious attempt to win games in 2013.  Since Ben has committed the club to spend money and bring a power bat to first base, he's painting himself into a corner.

Unfortunately, first base is also a double-edged sword -- it serves as a bellwether before the season, but as a metaphor during and after the season.  When Adrian Gonzalez was signed in the winter of 2010, every Red Sox fan wanted to purchased 2011 World Series tickets in advance.  When Gonzalez was traded in the summer of 2012, the weight of the club's failures were placed squarely on his shoulders.

Maybe the Sox front office actually does see Mauro Gomez as a viable option in 2013.  Despite all of the PR they've pumped out through their usual mouthpieces in the Boston media about Mauro being low on the depth chart, they haven't booted him off the 40 man roster despite making a number of transactions that required roster moves.  But Mauro's biggest barrier to becoming the Red Sox starting first baseman isn't dependent on the quality of player he is, but the philosophical value of the first base position to this organization.

Still, let's not get crazy and place Bobby Abreu at first.  If the Sox options are whittled to that, then Mauro has to get the nod.

Revisiting Jack Morris

I've mentioned before that Jack Morris belongs in the "Dwight Evans" class of players -- they were excellent and very dependable ball players.  They excelled above the standards of what, with today's players, constitutes an "all star" but not somebody who should be considered a future Hall of Famer; like Torii Hunter.  And you don't want to insult the careers of the Dwight Evans and Jack Morris's of the world, but when considering their Hall of Fame candidacy... Well, you have to let the criticisms fly at that point.

For Jack Morris right now, that means his stats must be scrutinized.  To be fair, I'm not going to compare Jack Morris to a first ballot legend like Nolan Ryan.  Instead, let's look at how Jack Morris stacks up against Bert Blyleven, another borderline pitcher who spent over a decade on the HOF ballot before being inducted.  Blyleven pitched 24 seasons during the same era that Jack Morris pitched 18 seasons, which partially explains why Blyleven has 3701 career strikeouts compared to Morris's 2478 career Ks.  But Blyleven was dominant in most other areas, too.  Take a look at these stats:

Seasons with an ERA over 4.00:

Morris - 8

Blyleven - 4

Seasons with over 100 earned runs:

Morris - 8

Blyleven - 4

Seasons with an ERA under 3.00:

Morris - 0

Blyleven - 9

Taking into account the entire careers of each pitcher, including their latter years when they were old and kinda stunk, Blyleven's was more consistent.  Even given the fact that he played six more seasons than Morris, Blyleven still had less seasons with an ERA over 4.00 and earned runs above 100. 

That's what the stats of an ace, top of the rotation pitcher looks like -- and that's why Blyleven was finally inducted into the Hall of Fame.  He deserved it.

If Blyleven was a borderline candidate, than I don't see how Jack Morris can even be considered a Hall of Famer at this point.  These stats go beyond Morris's 3.90 career ERA, which would be the highest of any pitcher in the Hall if he's inducted.  Morris was a great pitcher for almost two decades, but he wasn't an ace.  He doesn't belong in the Hall.

Update: From the (lack of) page views received by posts where the topic is Jack Morris, I can tell nobody cares.  But since this is my blog and I don't give a fuck, I'll drone on some more.  I kinda have to after what Muarry Chass wrote to defend his HOF ballot, where he only voted for Jack Morris.

I know the stats zealots don’t think Morris is a Hall of Famer because his rankings in their new-fangled ratings fall below their standards. 

I stuck to old school stats and compared Morris with a borderline candidate who made it into the Hall, and Morris just didn't make the cut.  But Chass's reasoning continues to get worse:

But they don‘t have a formula for intestinal fortitude or determination.

Johnny Damon hit a grand slam in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, helping propel the Red Sox, from 3 games down, past the Yankees and into the World Series.  That takes "intestinal fortitude", right?  Fucking first ballot HOFer right there. Last season, all 5 feet and 6 inches of Daniel Nava grinded out an at-bat against Cy Young/MVP/King of the fucking World Justin Verlander, taking fastball after fastball until dumping one 100mph offering into the opposite field for an RBI single, chasing Verlander from the game and pinning him with a loss.  Intestinal fortitude!  Hallf of Fame right there!

Or, you know, not.

Then Chass gets to the heart of his argument for Morris, that game.  That 10 inning game: "Morris willed the Minnesota Twins to win Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, refusing to leave as long as the game was scoreless..." and blah blah blah for another six paragraphs.

Yes, the game Morris pitched was legendary.  But: 1) One game doesn't make for a whole career, and 2) If critical games like this mattered more than a whole career, why didn't Chass vote for Curt Schilling?  The man who one-upped Morris by pitching 7 innings on a bleeding ankle.  When Schilling got up that morning, he couldn't walk.  He had surgery before the game just to be able to push off the mound.  Say what you want about Morris, but he was 100% healthy when he pitched his legendary game.

None of Chass's arguments make sense.  But he gets payed the big bucks and I'm just joe-schome fan, so what do I know? 

An In-Progress History of the "B" Logo

The Red Sox "B" cap insignia, as displayed by Ted Williams in 1939, is arguably the most enduring logo for the franchise.  It was adopted well before the Hanging Sox, but where exactly did the B originate?  I've been wondering about that, and after browsing through some old photos I think I've finally pinned it down.

Old baseball uniforms had a heavy focus on Olde English lettering, a legacy that lives to this day on Detroit Tigers' uniforms.  Back at the turn of last century, Olde English lettering was used by a few teams: Boston Americans, Boston Beaneaters, Brooklyn Superbas, and the Detroit Tigers.  Besides the Americans -- who later renamed themselves to the Red Sox after the Beaneaters, who were once the Red Stockings before becoming the Braves, decided not to wear red stockings with their uniform in 1908 -- all of the teams using Olde English lettering were in the National League.  But this was the first decade of the 1900s, the upstart American League had just formed and they wanted to differentiate themselves from the Senior Circuit.  Both leagues had teams in New York, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia, so unlike today when most cities only have one team, both leagues were competing for the same fans.

Uniform fashion became one method the American League used to separate themselves from the older league. In 1903,  the Chicago White Stockings and New York Highlanders used uniforms with a style of lettering that still exists in the current Red Sox  logo:

Note the "pointy" styling of the letters, a departure from the familiar Olde English that featured grand, curvy letters like one would see in newspapers. 

But it didn't take long for this fashion of lettering to migrate to the National League.  In 1906, the Cincinnati Reds came out with a new uniform that looks similar to what they wear today:

Take note of the empty space in the bridge of Cincinnati's "C".  They kept this hollow space for their 1908 uniforms, but they increased the height of their logo for that season:

Cincinnati is the city that originally used the name "Red Stockings" for a team, before the Cincinnati Red Stockings disbanded and moved to Boston, becoming the Boston Red Stockings in 1871.  Boston's first professional baseball team went through numerous name changes: Red Stockings, Red Caps, Beaneaters, Doves, Rustlers, Braves, Bees, and Braves again.  In 1908, the then-Doves removed red from the uniform color scheme, a decision the Americans reacted to quickly by renaming themselves to the Red Sox.  For a historian who doesn't have access to primary sources for Americans/Red Sox ownership during the time period of 1907-1908, it would seem that Boston's American League team, the one that we all love and cheer for now, ripped off much of their crosstown National League rival's identity.  

Coincidentally, the last time the then-Doves were a good team was when they called themselves the Red Stockings and Red Caps.  Talk about smart marketing and giving yourself the identity of being a winner -- the fact that the Americans won the World Series in 1903 and a pennant in 1904 also helped give them a reputation for winning. 

While Boston's National League franchise was still named the Doves, they took a liking to the lettering trend in American League uniforms that was spreading into the National League -- particularly Cincinnati's interpretation of this new styling for uniforms.  The Doves went with a red coloring scheme again and wore these threads in 1908:

Take a closer look at the B logo, worn by the Doves' shortstop Bill Dahlen in 1908:

The Doves' B logo looks mighty similar to the logo worn by Ted Williams in 1939, doesn't it?  With the hollow space in the middle of the backbone, you have the logo that Cincinnati would have used if their city's name started with a "B".  

Even though the Boston Americans changed their name to the Red Sox in 1908, developing an identity with that franchise name that we know today, they didn't use the B logo as a part of their uniform until adopting a new cap in 1933:

The Doves, for their part, changed their name to the Braves in 1912, won a pennant in 1914, then had a couple more decades of failure.  Placing an aging Babe Ruth on their roster in 1934 didn't help the team's fortunes, so they tried another name change: They became the Boston Bees in 1936.  In 1937, they even added the B back to their uniforms with this rather ugly color scheme: 

The Bees' uniform looks like a ripoff of uniforms that Brooklyn wore before they became the Dodgers. Maybe they thought that ripping off a team's uniform was a tried and true strategy since the Red Sox did it to them.  But, after letting New York purchase Babe Ruth from them before the 1920 season, the Red Sox hadn't experienced much luck for a while, either. 

The Red Sox streak of bad luck would last until 2004, but the Bees' luck would turn around after renaming themselves back to the Braves in 1941 and adopting their own, now familiar, style in 1946:

The Braves finally ended a 43 year world championship drought in 1957, winning the World Series as the Milwaukee Braves.  Upon receiving their first Major League franchise, Milwaukee only had to wait four years to enjoy a World Series title.  Boston had to wait 86 years between World Series titles -- and for 35 of those years, Boston had two baseball teams.  That's a combined 121 seasons of baseball in Boston before seeing another World Series title.  While that sounds torturous for baseball fans, it's certainly better than enduring the combined 176 seasons Chicago waited between the titles for the White Sox, from 1917 - 2005.  

The Cubs had a chance to end this streak before it started, just a year later in 1918, but they lost the World Series to the Red Sox in six games.  If the Cubs had the clairvoyance to see a baseball scandal on the horizon in 1919, perhaps they would have waited a couple seasons to steal part of their crosstown rival's identity to change their own luck. If my memory serves me right, I recall that -- just like the Doves in 1907 -- the Chicago White Sox also changed the color of their stockings by the end of 1919. 

As for the B, adopting this Boston Doves design didn't help the Red Sox win for a few decades.  Quite a few decades, actually...  But if I find out any more information about its origins, I'll let you know. 

The Redundants

The players acquired by the Red Sox this offseason has led to some interesting redundancies on the team's roster:

• Shane Victorino could replace Jacoby Ellsbury
• Stephen Drew will replace Jose Iglesias
• David Ross makes either Salty or Lavarnway expendable 
• And Joel Hanrahan makes Andrew Bailey expendable 

This gives the Red Sox flexibility to trade players who could serve as key pieces for another team's playoff run.  Let's consider the positive case for each player: 

• This is a contract year for Ellsbury, a player capable of surpassing the season Mike Trout had in 2012
• Salty's 2012 stats are comparable to those of Mike Napoli, and look at the contract he was offered (I'll touch upon that later)
• Lavarnway is 27 and has shown a lot of promise at Pawtucket
• Andrew Bailey is only 28 and won Rookie of the Year as a closer in 2009
• Jose Iglesias is still a defensive wizard that could come off the bench to solidify a team's defense in the late innings of close games

I realize that I'm a total crackpot conspiracy theorist who thinks any trade or free agent acquisition Ben makes right now means that another Sox player we've come to know is on the move, but even the most ardent, knuckle-scraping Sabermetician douchewad has to admit that Ben has given himself a lot of leeway to trade away MLB players to stock the Sox farm system with good prospects.

Or make a trade for a first baseman. 

We've all heard the PR spin on Napoli: It's just contract language, and it took the Red Sox five weeks to put the language in JD Drew's contract in place where the team felt protected if his health went south.  That's a nice story, and, hey, maybe it will turn out to be true.  But it assumes that Mike Napoli and JD Drew are the same person with the same problems, and that just isn't true.  

The Mike Napoli story is different, because this story includes the caveat that Napoli's former team wouldn't even offer him a qualifying deal, which would have placed the Rangers in line for a free second round draft pick from the team that ended up signing Napoli.  The Rangers weighed the risk of Mike Napoli taking their one year qualifying offer against the reward of Napoli going elsewhere and leaving them with a high round draft pick, and they decided that placing themselves in the position to keep Napoli for a year was too risky a bet to place on that coveted draft pick.

Think about that for a second, then consider the acquisitions that Ben has made this offseason that makes other Sox players redundant.  And now you see why I'm a conspiracy theorist about one big trade, if not more, being in the works, since the expendable players needed for such a trade exist along with holes at first base and in the farm system.  

The Red Sox currently have supply and demand, and this situation rarely ends in a stalemate.