Martinez is here but the complicated part is still to come

I pulled a Homer predicting there'd be no blockbuster by the Sox Friday. Will Theo Epstein be the one slapping his head come October, though? Photo from this site.

We’re all about the accountability here at Fighting Words (more on that over the weekend or early next week), so here goes: I took a Tex Cobb-sized beating Friday, when Roy Halladay remained with the Blue Jays and Victor Martinez was traded to the Red Sox.

In my defense, who could have known J.P. Ricciardi would hammer the final nail into his coffin by not selling high on Roy Halladay and that the Indians would just flat-out quit?

Seriously, how would you like to be an Indians fan today? Twenty-two months ago, the Indians had CC Sabathia on the mound at Jacobs Field and were one win away from eliminating the Sox and advancing to the World Series and a very favorable matchup with the Rockies. Now they’ve traded the reigning Cy Young Award winner in consecutives seasons and just gave their best player to the Sox. 2007 has to feel so far away for Indians fans, but not as far away as their favorite team’s next World Series run.

This is not intended to denigrate the players the Sox sent to Cleveland—Justin Masterson and Single-A pitching prospects Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price. Maybe Hagadone—whom the Sox absolutely love—turns into an ace and Masterson and/or Price develops into a mid-rotation guy or reliable closer.

But who will be the Indians’ ace now? How can the Indians trade Cliff Lee earlier this week and not get for Martinez either Clay Buchholz or Michael Bowden, either one of whom would immediately become the Indians’ best starter? The Sox reportedly turned down a Martinez-for-Buchholz deal earlier this week, at which point, if I were Indians GM Mark Shapiro, I would have said thanks for calling, see you at the winter meetings.

That he ended up handing Martinez over for a struggling middle reliever and two prospects means it almost surely wasn’t his call. I wonder if the Indians’ fire sale is either the first step in the Dolan family selling the team and/or the Tribe doing Bud Selig’s dirty work and laying the groundwork for the bloody negotiation of a new collective bargaining agreement following the 2011 season.

Get enough teams complaining they can’t compete—isn’t it interesting the Pirates keep dumping players and the Royals have, according to Peter Gammons, been told they will lose the 2012 All-Star Game if they go above slot to sign their June draft picks?—and Selig has all the ammunition he needs to engage in a high-stakes game of chicken with the union (no longer led by the unbeatable Donald Fehr) and go for the salary cap he’s been salivating over for nearly 20 years.

Hey, by 2011, it will have been 17 years since he killed a World Series! And maybe home runs will once again lure fans back after the Great Strike of 2012!

Or maybe it’s just a crappy trade. What do I know?

Anyway, from a pure talent standpoint, I can’t blame Theo Epstein for making the Martinez trade. To get a perennial All-Star catcher—and someone who buys the Sox time to find and develop that young franchise catcher—in exchange for three pitchers, only one of whom has reached the majors, is a no-brainer, and he still has his Buchholzes and Bowdens and Casey Kellys and Daniel Bards and Lars Andersons in reserve.

But the challenges are just beginning now that Martinez is in the fold, and I wonder if Epstein has committed a rare misstep here—both in trying to overhaul a team in midseason, when history suggests blockbuster summer deals rarely lead to fall glory, and in reading the pulse of the Sox.

One of Epstein’s greatest traits is his ability to remove emotion from the decision-making equation while also recognizing the intangible value of certain players. Epstein deviated from the norm in re-signing Jason Varitek after 2004, when he came up with a way for a team that didn’t hand out no-trade clauses to give Varitek a no-trade clause. The Sox typically don’t like to negotiate with players during the season, but David Ortiz signed extensions in May 2004 and April 2006. And the negotiations with Mike Lowell following the 2007 season seemed unusually testy, but the Sox eventually gave him the three-year deal that convinced him to pass on the four-year deals reportedly offered by the Yankees and Phillies.

But acquiring Martinez means a reduction in playing time for three of the Sox’ most pivotal personalities. I’d go so far as to say that while Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia are on the cover of the 2009 yearbook, the foundation of that locker room is still Varitek, Lowell and Ortiz.

All three are well-regarded for their professionalism, so don’t expect Varitek, Lowell or Ortiz to channel Mike Lansing and flip off the lineup card on the days he/they are not starting. But that doesn’t mean fitting four players into three spots won’t be a delicate and perhaps messy endeavor for Terry Francona, who will earn every cent of his salary and will need every last shred of his people skills over the next two or three months. Phasing out one leader in midseason, never mind three, isn’t an easy endeavor, and I wonder how the process will filter into the rest of the clubhouse.

Epstein has certainly earned the benefit of the doubt, and one thing we all should have learned the last few years is there’s always more going on behind the scenes at Fenway Park than he lets on. Maybe the Sox recognize Ortiz will not be the same after the news of his failed drug test, or maybe they know Lowell’s hip ailments will limit him to one or two starts a week for the rest of the season, or maybe they know Varitek is more banged up than usual.

Maybe this all makes sense in October. Or maybe it doesn’t, and Epstein realizes December is a better time to begin a transition than July.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com.

Repeat after me: Roy Halladay will get traded, but not to the Red Sox

Acquiring a spare part like Brian Anderson might not leave Sox fans jumping for joy, but if history is any indication, they'll have to be satisfied with it anyway once the trading deadline arrives today. Photo from this site.

The Yankees are getting hotter and the Red Sox are getting colder (sorry, but needing a late comeback today to split a series with the Athletics, who stopped trying around March 31, does not reverse the post-All-Star Break slide) as the trade deadline approaches, so the first instinct is to say the Sox have to do something, anything, to keep up with the Yankees, especially with the Phillies no longer in the running for Roy Halladay.

And don’t let J.P. Ricciardi fool you: The Blue Jays will trade Halladay within the next 24 hours. I have no sources telling me that, or anything cool and juicy like that. But Ricciardi is like that owner in your fantasy league who tells everyone you better hurry up and make him an offer for his star player because he’s got big deals on the front burner, except he’s just bluffing like crazy in hopes someone actually believes him and overpays. When the rest of the league doesn’t panic and overpay and instead makes a more reasonable offer with someone else, Ricciardi—err, the owner in your fantasy league—is forced to dump his star for less than he would have liked.

Further complicating things for Ricciardi and the Jays is the fact Halladay’s trade value will never be higher than it is right at this moment. Just look at what the Rangers got for Mark Teixeira at the 2007 deadline, a year-and-a-half before he reached free agency, and what the Braves got for him last year

But when Halladay is traded, it won’t be to the Sox, even if they’ve gone from having way too much starting pitching to not enough over the last couple weeks. And it’s precisely because the Sox have stumbled badly this month and because they need Halladay that they won’t get him.

Oh sure, there have been plenty of rumors proclaiming the Sox the frontrunners for Halladay, and chairman Tom Werner told reporters in Cooperstown Sunday that Theo Epstein was “…burning the midnight oil” as the deadline approached. Of course, Werner also said the Sox didn’t want to part with any of their top prospects, which correlates with what John Henry Twittered following the Adam LaRoche trade.

Now is it possible the Sox are just bluffing when they declare off-limits the best of their young players? Of course. But to execute a midseason blockbuster—without an unhappy superstar forcing his way out of Boston in the process—would deviate drastically from Epstein’s m.o.

Again: The Sox are the only two-time champion in baseball this decade, run by a bulletproof general manager who stood pat three years ago, when the Sox were in first place and he had nowhere near the political capital he enjoys now. He maintained the status quo even though the Yankees were pursuing a difference-making bat, Bobby Abreu, whom they acquired for almost nothing.

The Yankees are probably the team most likely to land the prize of this trade deadline, as well, especially now with Chien-Ming Wang out for the season, NL castoff Sergio Mitre serving as their fifth starter and the suddenly surging Joba Chamberlain approaching his laughably secretive innings limit. Imagine how sturdy the Yankees would look in October with a top three of Halladay, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett.

But Epstein was willing to absorb the short-term hit to better position the Sox for long-term success in 2006. In addition, to trade for someone like Halladay would bolster the Sox in the short-term but also leave them with precious little young pitching depth. Beyond Clay Buchholz, Michael Bowden and Justin Masterson, the Sox don’t have any impact arms ready to move into the rotation. Junichi Tazawa was just promoted to Triple-A Pawtucket, but the rest of the Sox’ most promising pitchers are at Double-A or below. So what do the Sox do if injuries strike over the next 15 months?

That said, dealing prospects for an impact hitter would make more sense, since the Sox have bucked conventional wisdom by having more luck developing pitchers than hitters. But a deal for the Padres’ Adrian Gonzalez and/or the Indians’ Victor Martinez is a lot less risky in the winter than in July.

This already seems like a team headed for some kind of overhaul after the season. Lowell and Jason Varitek are playing less frequently. Jason Bay is playing himself right out of a long-term deal. J.D. Drew is, well, J.D. Drew. Daisuke Matsuzaka is complaining about how the Sox have treated him, which seems to be a fine way to assure that the Sox have to give the Edgar Renteria/Julio Lugo treatment to someone who doesn’t actually play shortstop. Tim Wakefield’s not going to make a start on his 43rd birthday. The Sox’ starting shortstop, whomever he is on a given day, still would not start for the majority of big league teams.

And that’s just the guys who don’t fit into the long-term plan. David Ortiz learned this week that hitting .220 may be the least of his problems. Kevin Youkilis is hitting .251 since returning from the disabled list May 20.

Most notably, Jonathan Papelbon is allergic to the 1-2-3 inning, and Jon Couture made a pretty good case Wednesday why Papelbon may not even be among the top tier of closers anymore. For all his talk about wanting to inherit the title of best closer in baseball from Mariano Rivera, Papelbon has never seemed the type to remain durable or dominant well into his 30s. What if we’ve already seen the best of Papelbon and this recent ineffectiveness is the beginning of the end? Why would the Sox deal potential heir apparent Daniel Bard for Halladay?

A lot of difficult decisions will have to be made after the season. Why begin the process in midseason and try to make all the new pieces fit on the fly—and, perhaps in the process, further reduce the playing time of the captain and his unofficial first lieutenant—instead of during six or seven weeks in Ft. Myers? Especially when the diluted nature of the AL means even the flawed Sox, who still lead the wild card race, can still make quite a run at the AL pennant or beyond?

Assuming the current division leaders all hang on, the Sox would face the Angels in the AL Division Series, which, even in the Sox’ weakened state, is like earning a bye into the AL Championship Series. Figure the Yankees beat the Tigers, even if the decidedly underdog Tigers crushed the Yankees in the 2006 ALDS and the Yankees haven’t moved beyond the first round since 2004.

In the ALCS, would you want to bet against the playoff-hardened Sox—led by the 1-2 punch of Josh Beckett and Jon Lester atop the rotation—figuring out a way to beat the Yankees, even if they did field a rotation of Halladay-Sabathia-Burnett? That’s two ex-Blue Jays who have never made a postseason start and Sabathia, who has recorded an ERA of 9.47 the last two Octobers and is 0-2 with a 5.66 ERA against the Sox and Rays this season.

For all the internal reasons why it behooves the Sox to stand pat, none is as convincing as an external one: History indicates the teams that make the biggest moves at the trade deadline are not the ones that win the World Series. (More on that tomorrow)

More than two-thirds of the way into the season, a team—to borrow the most tired phrase of the decade—is what it is. Whomever is going to win the World Series is going to do it with a core it has been establishing since April, not players it’s adding this month. So as fun as it is to wonder how good the Sox would be with Halladay, Gonzalez or Martinez, the most exciting thing to happen today will probably involve adding another former big leaguer to Pawtucket’s outfield.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com.