Red Sox Get Gonzalez After Two Year Pursuit

While it seemed as inevitable as the Yankees re-signing Derek Jeter, the Red Sox finally made the deal to land their coveted slugging first baseman in Adrian Gonzalez. The Padres won a surprising 90 games in 2010 but rode out their plan to ship Gonzalez off before he became a free agent after the 2011 season. The Padres made the right move in dealing Gonzalez in the off-season to collect a greater haul of prospects and this most certainly puts the writing on the wall for the future of Heath Bell in San Diego. Although, the Padres might wait until the trade deadline approaches to move their closer because there should be more teams bidding on arms for a playoff push.

What This Means For Adrian Gonzalez
There is one and only one drawback for Gonzalez in this deal. He no longer gets to live in San Diego. The Red Sox are and always have been the ideal landing spot for the slugger. In his five years of playing half of his games in the cavernous Petco Park, he still managed to hit 161 home runs and average a .288/.374/.514 line. With Fenway's short porch in right field, Gonzalez should see a nice tick upwards in his slugging numbers. He also becomes a very rich man. The Sox will, presumably, extend him seven years for around $170 million.

What This Means For Boston
The Red Sox have coveted Gonzalez for two years after it became clear that the Padres had no shot at retaining him with free agency looming. Plugging Gonzalez in at first will move Kevin Youklis to third while urging Adrian Beltre not to let the door hit him on the ass on the way out. The Sox also had to hand over a nice package of prospects from a deep if not great system. Casey Kelly, Anthony Rizzo and Reymond Fuentes are three of the top six or seven prospects in Boston's system plus San Diego will receive what's behind curtain number three in a player to be named later. The move certainly sparks a fun debate about which infield is better between the Sox and the Yanks. I figure Jeter and Marco Scuturo are about a wash.

What This Means For San Diego
The Padres managed to not get all delusional after last season's surprising push for the playoffs and kept their game plan on track. It must have been tempting to take another run with Gonzalez and move him at the deadline if they fell back to earth. But they made the smart move and dealt him when they could get the most bang for their lack of bucks. In Casey Kelly, they get Boston's top pitching prospect who was already pitching at Double A as a 20-year-old. Anthony Rizzo might be the heir apparent to Gonzalez at first base. As a 21-year-old in Double A, he hit 20 home runs and a .263/.334/.481 line. Reymond Fuentes is a toolsy outfielder and the cousin of Carlos Betran. At just 19-years-old, he stole 42 bases during his A ball season. The Padres will certainly deal Heath Bell at some point during the season to continue their youth movement.

Adrian Gonzalez's Golden Sombrero

A golden sombrero is awarded to a player who manages to strike out four times in a single game (real golden sombrero not included). It's quite the feat unless you're Ryan Howard or Mark Reynolds. Unfortunately, cycles and no-hitters are all the rage nowadays. Not for me, though. I will pour over the box scores to bring you the finest at swinging and missing.

Listen, I love my little strike out segment here but 4 Golden Sombreros in one day? What are MLB hitters doing this season, aside from not hitting the ball? I hope you guys will be patient as these posts trickle in over the next day or so. I tackled Koyie Hill's masterpiece yesterday so Adrian Gonzalez is the first up today.

I like Adrian Gonzalez and I will continue to do so until he is inevitably traded to the Red Sox. Then I will hate him because that's how I roll. But Gonzalez had an unusual night yesterday when he went 0-6 with 4 strikeouts. He also only saw 17 pitches because, I assume, he was in a hurry to get home in time to watch Top Chef. Let's break out this tequila and duck amuse bouche I made in the Quick Fire Challenge and see why Gonzalez struck out so much.

Top 1st: Gonzalez struck out swinging against Tommy Hanson. By the way, I covered Tommy Hanson's MLB debut here and here. I'm not so good at the reporting.

Top 5th: Gonzalez struck out swinging against Tommy Hanson again.

Top 7th: Gonzalez struck out swinging against Jonny Venters. You might remember Venters as the guy who rented you The Scout at Blockbuster last week. And I hate to break it to you but you have terrible taste in baseball movies.

Top 11th: Gonzalez struck out swinging against Takashi Saito.

Weekly Cup Of Joe

I prefer to think of this as more of a tribute to Fire Joe Morgan than a blatant ripoff. But who are we really kidding here?

I keep forgetting to check in with Joe Morgan on Tuesdays. This World Cup fever is really getting to me. I might have to go to the free clinic. I gave my grandpa a yellow card the other day for taking too long at the refrigerator. Usually, I like to just grab a nugget of wisdom from every Joe Chat over at the Four Letter but today's Weekly Cup of Joe is going to be a grande. Let's get going kids...

Brian (New York)

Joe, has Robinson Cano finally reached his potential or is there more to come?

Joe Morgan (11:04 AM)

I don't know if there is more to come, but he's a great player, and you can't always measure a great player by numbers, so I don't know what you mean by "potential". To ask, is there more to come? I don't know.

I love how Joe's standard reply has become, "To answer your question, I don't know." That's the hard hitting analysis I deliver here for free. Somebody needs to start sending me money. I could have sworn I copyrighted that. And I thought all we did was measure great players by their numbers. Why do you think people spent so much time on WAR or wOBA? Why do you hate metrics SO MUCH? Then this happened...

Joseph (St. Louis)

Who's will be the NL Central Champs?

Congrats Joseph in St. Louis, you failed English. After I wiped the blood from my eyes, I moved on to this question...

Tito (Brooklyn)

Joe, with the emergence of Joey Votto and Adrian Gonzalez, is Ryan Howard now only the 4th best hitting first baseman in the NL?

Joe Morgan (11:25 AM)

Are you kidding? Ryan Howard's the only guy besides Pujols that does what a first baseman is supposed to do -- he hits home runs, drives in runs, and leads his team to the World Series. Everyone took a shot at his contract -- he's been Rookie of the Year, MVP, and led his team to a World Championship and two consecutive World Series appearances. Has anybody done that other than Pujols? None of those guys have done that. I wonder why no one questions Matt Holliday's similar contract -- he's never won an MVP award or won a World Series. His numbers were put up in Colorado, where everyone puts up big hitting numbers. He's the second-best first baseman in the league, not fourth-best.

Uhh, *head explodes* Yeah, Howard jacks home runs and has a surprisingly high OBP for the amount of strikeouts he accrues. He's a three-true-outcome player. He's Adam Dunn in a better lineup. Just, let's just look at the last three years of OPS+. Does that sound reasonable?

Howard: 2010 - 124 OPS+, 2009 - 140 OPS+, 2008 - 124 OPS+

Gonzalez: 2010 - 173 OPS+ (best in the NL), 2009 - 166 OPS+, 2008 - 139 OPS+

Votto: 2010 - 154 OPS+, 2009 - 155 OPS+, 2008 - 125 OPS+

Recap: Joey Votto and Adrian Gonzalez have been better hitters than Ryan Howard over the past three years.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Off Base Percentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy: Quilvio Veras




Cubs 6, Pirates 1. Carlos Silva is 8-0 with a 2.93 ERA after Monday's seven inning, four-hit effort. Carlos Silva: 2nd to Ubaldo Jimenez in the 2010 NL Cy Young voting? Maybe. 2010 Pirates: awful? Certainly.

Mariners 4, Rangers 2. This is the kind of game Seattle envisioned happening when they traded for Cliff Lee and signed Chone Figgins. Lee, despite having the middle name of Phifer, pitched a complete game, seven-hitter and threw 83 of his 106 pitches for strikes. Figgins had three hits in the nine-hole protecting the Babe Ruth of Lambrick Park, British Columbia (just coined it), Michael Saunders, whose three-run home run in the second was the difference.

Padres 3, Phillies 1. Cole Hamels had a no-hitter through 6 1/3 innings of a scoreless game until Adrian Gonzalez poked an opposite field home run. Scott Hairston followed with a his own Citizens Bank Park Special (hit the ball in the air, wait for it to travel over the outfield wall) and that was enough because Philly's offense was kidnapped by the surviving members of the 1951 Cincinnati Reds.



Diamondbacks 7, Braves 4. Derrick Lowe was locked in a 2-1 game until the bottom of the fifth happened. Mark Reynolds looked initially like he'd been jammed, but ended up launching a solo home run. After a single, three walks and another infield single made it 4-1, Stephen Drew, who looks just as interested in playing baseball as his brother, J.D., roped a three-run triple to put the game out of reach. Arizona remained 7 1/2 back of Colorado for fourth place in the NL West.

Angels 4, Athletics 2. Scott Kazmir allowed two or less earned runs for just the fourth time in 11 starts, but this was probably his best start of the year (6 1/3 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 5 K) and the Angels won their sixth straight to gain sole possession of first place in the putrid AL West. Oh, I'm sorry, the competitive AL West.