The Red Sox released Doug Mirabelli today, a move that comes somewhat of a shock to a lot of Red Sox fans.
The player immortalized by Dougie’s Going Deep Tonight! was expected to serve as Tim Wakefield’s personal catcher.
Mirabelli, who hit .202/.278/.360 and had become a liability with the bat in recent years, was in uniform this morning and slated to play in a spring training game before being abruptly scratched and later released by the team.
Makes me wonder if there’s something going on that we don’t know about that caused Mirabelli’s release…
(Yesterday was the last day a player could be released with the club only on the hook for one-sixth of his salary, and now Mirabelli should get a quarter of his salary. It’s possible the Red Sox released Mirabelli yesterday before the deadline but there was a communications breakdown. If that’s not the case, this decision is even more curious because they could have saved some money by releasing him yesterday.)
Or is a trade on the way?
Either way, the favorite to act as backup to Jason Varitek and as Tim Wakefield’s personal catcher now is Kevin Cash, who is even more anemic with the bat (.167/.223/.265 in 369 career AB). The 30-year old appeared in 12 games for the Red Sox last year and impressed defensively.
Look out for wild card George Kottaras, who is hitting .500 in 10 AB for the Red Sox in spring training. The to-be 25-year old may sneak in as the backup for Varitek, but since he had a lousy cumulative offensive season for Pawtucket last year, don’t bet on it.
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Wow. Can’t say I don’t understand it, but wow nonetheless.
I know he can’t hit, and I know I should only care about performance, but damned if I didn’t love Dougie. He saved our bacon at several games I attended over the last few years (probably because I’ve seen Wakefield 1000x), and the scattered DOUGIE’S GOING DEEP TONIGHT chants and signs were a welcome sight.
I’m gonna miss you Dougie, and your massive bomb hitting. Enjoy your two rings.
There has to be some other reason for this. Why re-sign him only to release him like this?
I agree with Shane… this smells fishy…
I will mis Dougie Fresh, but I’m more concerned about how this will effect Wake… they’ll both pros, but unless Tim knows something we don’t, he’s gonna be bummed.
I always envisioned them riding off into the sunset together… at age 60… (sniff)
Wild speculation/wishful thinking on my part…Perhaps Crisp, Moss and Bowden to Sea for Jeff Clement/Jeremy Reed. Gives them a CF, a potential 1B/corner outfield in case Sexson sucks or Baltenien is not ready and a pitcher on a team that lacks pitching depth at the major/minor level (even with Bedard)
More then likely they see Cash or Dusty Brown being hable to handle the knuckle adequately. I’ll miss Doug as well. I’m not sure about Kotteras, his catching skills have been called into question handling more traditional pitchers.
Sean, I’ve had the same experience, always catch Wakefield when I go to a game, its actually a running joke between my brothers and I when we score tickets.
Me too! I’ve seen Wakefield way too many times to count.
This is definitely sad. (Although I really like Dusty Brown, and from what I’ve heard he has as good a shot as Kottaras to make the backup catcher slot sometime this year).
They signed a ton of guys with no intention of having them make the team. There was 17ish NRIs this year.
This is with all seriousness the best news I have had all week. Dougie is awful. I have no emotional ties to the guy. Get out of town and let ANYBODY take you place. Hell, throw some gear on me and i might out hit him.
I can’t say I’m glad that Dougie’s gone, but … I’m almost certain that we can get equal production out of Kevin Cash, who’s much younger, and probably more durable.
But I do think that there may be something going on behind the scenes. The Sox got Lincoln Holdzkom back, but he got Schilling’s former spot on the 40-man roster, so that’s probably unrelated. This could mean that there’s a Coco deal coming, or we might just be over-thinking it.
Colon: 2IP, 2H, 1R, 1ER, 1BB, 1K…not bad for a first start. The run came on a homer by Jon Weber, who was batting ninth and had a .757 OPS at AAA last year.
Jaredk – WEEI just mentioned the Jeff Clement possibility.
.375 last year in 16 ML at-bats. .275, 20, 80 in the minors.
But Seattle have Ichiro… I don’t see how Coco helps them unless he’s the 4th OF or takes over for Wilkerson in RF… or Ichiro moves over…
Ichiro is pretty decent in CF but he is amazing in RF…Coco would play center, Ichiro in right, Wilerson/Baltenien in left. Wilkerson has had dismal averages the past three years (decent walk/power rates) and if anything should be a platoon player…he could face righties and Baltenien could face lefties.
makes sense… guess we’ll have to wait and see.
In addition Ibanez is horrible in the outfield…he could split time with Sexson at 1B and Vidro at the DH.
Seattle has been my back-up team since moving to the Northwest. Ichiro needs to get back into right field, and Ibanez either needs to just go away or split DH time like JaredK suggests.
I would hate to see Bowden and Moss go but at least I’d get to see them play more often. We do have a history of getting pretty decent catchers from Seattle. Could be a win win.
Well that wasw purely speculation on my part…I imagine Bowden would need to be included…not sure if Moss would greatly interest them and I think Lowrie would make more sense for them…in case Lopez continues to be mediocre or worse at 2b, also an option at ss as Bettancourt is not great with the bat and while capable of great plays botches way too many easy ones….but who knows…teams fall in love with certain players.
Did you guys completely make up that trade proposal? Besides WEEI. It sounds extremely interesting and semi plausible.
Letting Mirabelli go makes me a little nervous … I’m scared that some other team might pick him up in the hopes that we will come offering a young pitcher to get him back after Cash fails miserably … it just doesn’t bode well … but whaaaaatever lol
I did make up that proposal…I actually put it out there before I knew WEEI had brought up Clement as a possibility…just guessing as to what Seattle would want. Crisp does make some sense to them and they could use some pitching for the back-end of their rotation and in the minors…but it was all just guess work.
Anyone see Colon throw today? I was at class and I missed it. His line seems alright though.
2 IP, 2 H, ER (HR), BB, SO
Nick Cafardo said he threw well on EB. But what did you guys think?
I was thinking of the article Daniel Rathman wrote about a theoretical Lester for Clement possibility from this article:
http://mvn.com/mlb-source/2007/12/16/lesterclement-swap-could-make-sense-for-bosox-mariners/
Obviously we’re not going to give up Lester at this point, but Crisp plus one in a 2:1 should work out. It’s a matter of whether the plus one needs to be an infielder, outfielder or pitcher. Of course, this is all speculation on my part.
[...] me get the first question out of the way: no, I have no idea what prompted this morning’s shocking-for-Sox-fans release of Dougie Parm. If you deduce from that that I don’t buy the simplistic “Kevin [...]
MR:
Thanks for linking to my column from awhile back…
I definitely still see Clement as a possibility for the Sox, and Coco + Bowden could come close to doing the trick. Though it’s hard to say exactly what Bavasi would want for him, because Clement is tentatively slated to become the M’s everyday catcher from 2009 on, after Johjima leaves in free agency next winter.
More amazing is that Doug has been having a great Spring, hitting the ball well, commanding behind the plate.
With Wake probably pitching in Tokyo in less than two weeks, in a very important game (because it counts towards the 98 we will need to win), this is a strange time to let him go. In fact it is a dumb time to let him go, unless something profound is happening; more than just a Crisp/Clement trade.
In the face of injuries to 4 starters (Schill, Becket, Lugo and Crisp), Theo has been too quiet. He saved $150M on Santana. Perhaps he is about to spend some of it . . . so long as we don’t go through the whole Buckholz, Ellsbury, Lester, Lowrie, Moss, Bowden thing again.
They should handle Jacoby like they handled Youk in ‘04: spelling Billy Ballgame at 3B and take a few games at 1B throughout the years. Jacoby could do the same thing for Coco, playing all fields.
Well Gerry, since we missed our chance on a true game-changing player, we don’t have many choices. Players like Santana do not become available all that often, so I don’t see any way we’re getting a solution any time soon.
Agreed, Sean, that Santana is a rare game-changer, and could carry the Mets to October, and would sure help our confidence about now. The dilemmas of Becket, Daisuke, Crisp and Lugo will quickly pass, but concern that our excellent rotation faces health and fatigue issues beyond this, and Schill, are real.
The perception is that if Tavarez repeats his ‘07 start, as you project, and Becket, Matsuzaka, Wake, Lester, Buckholz, Colon approach their upsides, we will be fine.
Do you think it possible that Coco’s “negative attitudes” are media-hyped and not really an issue? If so, and he stays and plays as part of the team and its chemistry, the perception is that our OF will still be superior. If not, Moss and Cash could enhance offense off the bench. And the IF, with Casey and Lowrie nearby, will improve. Talent, depth and health.
That perception was shaken today with Mirabelli’s quick exit, continuing talk by the Freel family about joining the Sox, and all kinds of rumors. It seems that, after a long slumber, something big is afoot, and it could, although perhaps not on a Santana scale, result in a solution or two. Either way, we seem to be in good shape.
All I can say is Cash or Brown is no better than Dougie.
Dougie hasn’t been good at the plate since the 2004-2005 seasons. The last amazing game I can remember of his was when he got the police escort from Logan after being traded back to the Sox from the Padres. Cash, Brown or Kottaras are all capable of maintaining a .202 avg.
Now, I should say that I by no means expect Sexy Lips to pull two consecutive sub-4 ERA months out of thin air this year, only that he has done so recently for us. There’s no denying that his 5.15 ERA ain’t great, but you never know when he could pull down another 3.3 or 3.99 ERA.
I think Coco would be highly disappointed if he weren’t a starter, but I don’t know if he’d be a Jay Payton-like disaster. I just don’t see the point in slapping down Coco after his great season defensively for… what exactly? Just so Jacoby can get some extra ABs when he likely won’t be an overall more valuable player?
It had looked so simple before ST. Buckholz, Ellsbury and Lowrie in AAA for a while to finish up, giving Lester, Coco, Julio chances to strut their stuff. Now, there seems to be no time for that. And Tavarez has gone from luxury to necessity. We just need one sub-4 month from him to get us through.
Sorry, I meant Moss and Carter, earlier, not Moss and Cash. Moss, Carter and Colon may be unexpected surprises in 2008.
Are Theo and Bellichek talking to each other about not resolving lost-player issues? Now seems like a good time to begin. The sounds of silence are hurting my ears.