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I Think I Discuss This Every Year

It's that time again. The Red Sox Hot Stove/Spring Training Rant. And it's always about one player. Yes, the Sox have dumped Doug Mirabelli. Again. They waited longer this time to do so so maybe they were right to do so this time. Doug's production has been down. He apparently batted like .202 this past season. Even for a back-up catcher, that isn't good. So what do they do? They release him and replace him with Kevin Cash who is a career buck-sixty hitter. The official line is Cash's defense has been better than Doug this spring which could very well be true. Cash also did fill in pretty well when Dougie went down in August. I've seen only one spring training game this year which I think Mirabelli was catching and he seemed fine to me but then I think Matsuzaka was pitching not Wakefield...I have to point out they're paying Cash much less than Doug had Mirabelli stayed. Coincidence? Hell, no.

Back-up catcher is a tricky position. If their offense and defense was that good, they'd demand to me traded to start on another team. Mirabelli, and now Cash, had/have a rare regular gig serving as a personal catcher. You see more of this now than you used to but still. The only other early example I can think of is when Greg Maddox refused to have Javy Lopez catch him when they were both with the Braves because Lopez was, and still is frankly, a horrible defensive catcher. When I play my Baseball Mogul game I frequently use a catcher that would ordinarily start in real life but as I said earlier, the real players are too much of a primadonna...

Let's play ball already!





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