A completely made up trade rumor

According to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, Colby Rasmus is really unhappy with Tony LaRussa, going so far as requesting a trade. LaRussa has given away a good deal of Rasmus' playing time to the recent AAA call up Jon Jay (no, not that John Jay) because of Jon Jay's "savy", essentially referring to Rasmus' struggles with strikeouts this year (32.7% of his PA, 3rd worst in MLB behind two of the biggest all or nothing hitters in baseball - Mark Reynolds and Adam Dunn).

Despite the massive spike in strikeouts (up from 20% last year), there really is an awful lot to love about Rasmus this year. His jump in strikeouts has also been accompanied by an increase in walks, from 6.9% of his PA to 11.5%, allowing for a respectable OBP of .349, despite an average of only .264. Perhaps most importantly, Rasmus seems to be trading strikeouts for some very impressive power (.230 isolated power, which is slugging percentage minus batting average, and a .495 slugging percentage), especially for an up the middle player. Out of all full time center fielders, only Vernon Wells has a higher isolated power and no other full time center fielder had a higher OPS. To top it all off, Rasmus has played slightly above average fielder according to both the ultimate zone rating (UZR) as well as John Dewan's plus/minus system.

Personally, I think LaRussa is nuts for antagonizing the third best hitter on his team, especially considering that the Cardinals have an emerging star who is putting up these impressive numbers at 24 and would be under team control for another 4 seasons. But, Tony LaRussa works in strange ways. You can't argue with his track record, but I still think he's kind of nuts. This is a man who wears sunglasses during all games so his eyes don't give away anything about the signals he's giving baserunners.

Again, this is a completely unfounded rumor, but you have to wonder if the Red Sox and Cardinals would consider swapping "problem" outfielders, sending Ellsbury to St. Louis in exchange for Rasmus. The Sox front office has shown they have no problem with strikeouts if you're producing runs, and LaRussa has always valued, perhaps over valued, speed guys. The big impediment to any deal might be service time and age. Ellsbury, though hardly old, turns 27 on September 11 and is three full years older than Rasmus. As such, he doesn't really have a ton of growth left in his game - I doubt he's to be able to markedly improve on his 2009 numbers, particularly in the power department.

Rasmus, on the other hand, is only 23 and has tantalizing power for a center fielder. If he can learn to get the strikeouts down to similar numbers to his rookie season without giving up the power stroke he could be a superstar. Of course, he may need to cut down on his strikeouts in order to maintain some of his gains this year - Rasmus' overall numbers are buoyed by a .331 average on balls in play. Based on some off the cuff estimates and some guesses (25% K rate, 10% BB rate, similar 2B, HR, 3B/PA rates as this season) I ended up with a .261/.335/.474 projection. While an .800 OPS is very good for a center fielder, it falls well short of superstar level.

The other complicating factor is money. Next season, I believe that Rasmus will still be a prearbitration player, making only about $400,000 (poor guy), while Ellsbury will be arbitration eligible for the first time. Ellsbury's "lost" season will certainly depress his value, but with all the negatives stacked towards Ellsbury (age, cost, length of team control, injury history) in the end the Red Sox and Cardinals might not match up. If you're Theo Epstein I think you have to give the Cardinals GM a call about Rasmus in the offseason.

Walking Wounded

It has been a tough week for the Sox. A tragic gasoline fight accident amongst bullpen members left one game dead and another wounded in Colorado. Then, in a three game series against the Giants in San Francisco the Sox lost Pedroia for six weeks with a broken foot, Buchholz for a couple starts with a strained hamstring, and Victor Martinez for at least a few days with a broken thumb. These are just the latest in a rather long string of injuries for the team.

Update: So the Red Sox are going to place Victor Martinez on the DL after all. Hopefully he'll miss close to the minimum. With Mark Wagner and Dusty Brown, the two AAA catchers, on the minor league DL, it isn't clear who the back up will be. You wonder if the Red Sox will revisit Ianetta with the Rockies, although they've avoided making impulsive moves in the past.

The Sox "ace", Josh Beckett has missed about half his starts due to back and oblique injuries. When he was healthy enough to start, Beckett posted a gaudy ERA well over 7. If all goes right, Beckett would return in late July.

The expensive Japanese import, Daisuke Matsuzaka, has also missed about half of his starts for the team, mostly due to a sore fore arm. He has been solid, if unspectacular, in the nine starts he has been able to make, although it may be due to a bit of luck when it comes to keeping balls in the park (4.50 ERA vs a 5.13 xFIP, which is normalized for home run rate).

Even Clay Buchholz hasn't been spared. Trying to break up a double play in San Francisco on Saturday, Buchholz came up lame. Initially diagnosed with a hyper extended knee, Buchholz was later diagnosed with a minor hamstring tear. That sounds a lot scarier than it is; technically speaking, any strain is a tear. Buchholz is slated to be skipped in the rotation once, then return. The Red Sox have some flexibility here because they have two off days over the next week.

The guy who was supposed to lead the offense, Jacoby Ellsbury, has played all of NINE games all season, thanks to broken ribs courtesy of Adrian Beltre. Ellsbury was off the DL for a bit, before new fractures were discovered after he was unable to play effectively. Ellsbury is supposed to return sometime after the All Star Break, although very little information has been released since he went out to Athlete's Performance Institute in Arizone for rest and rehabilitation.

The player whose defense pushed Ellsbury from center field to left field, Mike Cameron, has battled an abdominal injury. At first, it was diagnosed as appendicitis, then kidney stones, but it turns out Cameron had kidney stones AND a tear in his abdominal wall. Ouch. This injury often requires surgery, but through rest and rehab, Cameron was able to come back after a month on the DL. However, for two weeks he wasn't able to play in consecutive games and is still bothered by pain from the injury.

Jeremy Hermida, the outfield depth for the Red Sox and one of the most talented 4th outfielders in the game, was another victim of a collision with Beltre. He was thankfully able to avoid breaking his ribs, instead just bruising them. Hermida has been out since June 9th and is looking at an early July return.

And finally we get to Pedroia, who Buster Olney argues is one of the most irreplaceable players in the game. The Sox are extremely weak at 2B in the farm system and off the bench, and even some of the players in the minors who might be able to fill in are hurt, such as Jose Iglesias, who broke his finger a week ago and Tug Hullet, who had been signed to be their back up infielder, has been horrendous in AAA. The Sox did snag Eric Patterson in a trade with the A's, although he's only slightly more of a real 2B than Bill Hall is. Patterson's minor league numbers are outstanding (.309/.363/.487 over 1300 AAA at bats), but he's struggled in his major league career (.224/.301/.340). We'll see if he can pull a Nava.

Yet somehow, despite all of this, the Red Sox are leading the wild card and only a game back of the Yankees. To start the season, if you had told me Beckett was going to miss half his starts and Ellsbury would have only played nine games by July 1, I would have taken 5 games back of the wild card in a heartbeat. I am not really sure how they've managed to do it, but they're just winning games.