Deadspin.com

By Adam Cancryn

The Angels, Mets and Red Sox. Three teams with the same goal, and wildly different strategies.

With apologies to Kenny Rogers, the secret to surviving the MLB offseason is knowing what to throw away and what to keep. Every trade and no-trade, signing and release, is sure to reverberate through the subsequent season, subtly tipping the scales of wins and losses. String a few good moves together, and you've set the franchise on a prosperous long-term path. Yet for every dynasty in the making, it seems there are an equal number haunted by the mistakes of winters past.

These stakes make for a kind of segregational dynamic when the weather turns and ballcaps are replaced by suits and ties. This isn't Opening Day, where hope springs eternal and everyone has a shot at glory. This is business: cold, calculating and jarringly realistic. You're either in it to win, to sell, or floundering somewhere in the middle.

Narrowed down, you're either the Angels, the Mets or the Red Sox.

While others have certainly made moves that could prove momentous down the road, these three franchises captured much of the attention this offseason. The Angels are the proud new owners of center fielder Josh Hamilton, which is the equivalent of buying a Lamborghini to wedge in between your Bentley and Maybach. Sure, it's probably too expensive and not the most practical investment. Hamilton's addiction struggles could sink him at any moment. But when everything is humming just right, it's a rare experience. After all, how many players have found themselves compared to Mickey Mantle? In Hamilton and Mike Trout, the Angels now have two. 

There was Twitter speculation that Trout could score 200 runs in front of a lineup including Hamilton, Albert Pujols and Mark Trumbo. That might sound absurd, but consider that he reached 129 runs in just 139 games during Pujols' worst year ever. Maybe 200 is a bit of a stretch, but 180 certainly seems reasonable.

Lost amid all that late-offseason excitement was the fact that Los Angeles also shored up its pitching corps. That unit held the team back in 2012, but Ryan Madson, Joe Blanton and Tommy Hanson should help on the margins and provide significant upside for an 89-win team that only needs a small boost to leapfrog its way to a division title. 

With the Angels holding all aces, the Mets can take some consolation in the fact that they are finally playing with a full hand again. General Manager Sandy Alderson warned that the rebuilding process would be lengthy, and on that point at least, the underachieving Mets have come through. But give them points for sticking to a plan, especially amid the typical New York uproar. They chose one fan favorite (David Wright) over another (R.A. Dickey), an accomplishment considering their still-stretched finances. And for all of the botched optics around Dickey's trade, they played the 38-year-old knuckleballer into an impressive haul. By adding Travis D'Arnaud and Noah Snydergaard, the Mets now have long-term solutions at catcher, shortstop (22-year-old Ruben Tejada) and for three-fifths of its pitching rotation. Add in Wright, and it's almost enough to dull the pain of being perhaps the first franchise to let a batting champ (Jose Reyes) and a Cy Young winner (Dickey) walk in two consecutive years. It could be ugly for a season or two, but Alderson and the Mets are hoarding their chips and settling in for the long haul.

Which brings us to the Red Sox, the third big-market player and perhaps the most baffling. The team's main haul so far is catcher/first baseman Mike Napoli and outfielders Jonny Gomes and Shane Victorino, which sounds like the core of a .500 team in 2009 and isn't much more promising in this day and age. Napoli is wholly unpredictable, following a standout 2011 with a .227/.343/.469 line in 2012. He also creates a glut behind the plate. The Sox already have backstops Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Ryan Lavarnway, and this offseason also added human placeholder David Ross. At first base, meanwhile, Napoli's total zone defense was a bruising five runs below average.

Similarly, it's hard to see where the impatient, low-power Gomes fits in beyond a stopgap role. He did hit .480 with runners in scoring position and two outs, but for that to pay dividends, there's a lot of work that needs to be done with the rest of the lineup. 

Victorino could be the worst signing of them all. For three years and $39 million, the Sox get an aging center fielder coming off his worst year for a price on par with with what more promising players like B.J. Upton or Angel Pagain are receiving. Not to mention that Boston already has a centerfielder in 29-year-old Jacoby Ellsbury. For those scoring at home, that's four catchers, two center fielders and approximately zero progress toward replacing the talent lost following this past year's epic collapse.

That's the difficulty with getting stuck in the middle, though. The Angels see an opportunity and are throwing everything at it in hopes of a grand payoff. The Mets are folding in 2013 and in search of a more promising future. And the Sox can either bide their time and bleed chips or jump the gun and do something crazy. Either way, you hope they have a plan.

That's how it appears now, at least. Fortunes can turn on a small decision, and the games are far from started. The Red Sox could stage a full reveal that puts all the seemingly mismatched pieces each perfectly in their place. The Mets could grow up quick, reeling off win after precocious win and wash away this year's sour taste. Los Angeles could trip and then topple under the pressure, becoming just the latest superteam to disappoint. The offseason is a crucial time, but ultimately just one hand in a long and unpredictable game. 

Adam Cancryn is an editor and co-founder of Began in '96.

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By Adam Cancryn

Mislabeled his entire career, Kevin Youkilis is now painted as a washed-up veteran on his last legs. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Kevin Youkilis never was exactly who people thought he was.

He was never the "Greek God of Walks," despite his coronation in Michael Lewis' Moneyball. Youkilis never actually had an ounce of Greek blood in him, and soon after reaching the Majors renounced his claim to the throne of bases on balls as well. The Red Sox infielder never led the league in walks, and only drew as many as 90 once in his career, an accomplishment achieved in the same year he struck out 120 times. In fact, Youkilis tended to do that a lot, topping 100 whiffs in five of his seven full seasons.

He never was much of a fearsome power hitter either, contrary to appearances. A burly 6'1", 220 pounds and sporting a classic woodsman's goatee, Youkilis would have looked natural walking to the plate in flannel, twirling an axe instead of a bat high above his head. His Paul Bunyan impression was convincing that his managers instinctively slotted him into the middle of the order; Youkilis spent 361 games in the four hole, more than any other spot in the lineup. He responded by hitting 60 homers over that period, a ratio of about one every 21 at bats. By comparison, the league's top power hitters have often knocked homers at twice that pace.

Youkilis never was quite the top-flight defender he was touted to be, especially not by the standards set by the MLB's current elite. Though good with the glove and light on his feet, Youkilis never quite did enough to become an institution. Rather, his strength lay in the fact that the Red Sox could insert him practically anywhere and be sure that he would do an above-average job. He played well at first base and third, spectacularly at times even, and at each outpost received praise. But soon after, he was on the move again, a nomadic defender with a career built on plugging the leak of the day.

Now, the false label attached to Youkilis after nine years as a Greek god, power hitter and rangy infielder is that he is washed up. Done. The 33-year-old is the last thing standing in the way of a young hotshot primed to return the Red Sox to the top of the division. Injured and aging rapidly, Youkilis is suddenly the last holdover from Boston's bygone era.

As has been the case throughout his career, the 2D image assigned to the very much three-dimensional Youkilis is dead wrong. He is, and always has been, a collection of strange contradictions: a free swinger with a high on-base percentage, a natural-born slugger who prefers poking singles into right, an adept fielder with no real position. This season, he was the talented player with no spot on the Red Sox' roster.

That Boston traded Youkilis is no surprise. It was the right decision, as third baseman Will Middlebrooks has more upside now that Youkilis ever had in his career. With the Red Sox floundering in the intense AL East, the team needs to put its best player at each position on the field every day. But don't mistake this cold-blooded business move as the death knell for Youkilis' career. If anything, it is likely the beginning of a second act with the Chicago White Sox. 

Already, the White Sox are in a promising place. They sit first in the AL Central at 38-35, propelled by a balanced lineup and the surprising pitching duo of Jake Peavy and Chris Sale. They are a steady, if bland, squad that Youkilis should welcome after all that time at the helm of dysfunctional Red Sox teams forever listing to one side, wondering each year if they'll be toppled by a final push.

In Paul Konerko and Adam Dunn, meanwhile, Chicago has its power hitter and god of walks. In third base, it has its permanent opening. For the first time, Youkilis can define himself by his play, rather than the caricatures already constructed for him. The White Sox will simply hope that he does what he's always done best and provide consistent defense and timely hitting. When the season hits its home stretch, there may be no better place for him to do just that. Youkilis has historically hit well against the Indians (.290/.382/.524), Tigers (.297/.401/.558) and Twins (.313/.373/.486), three division rivals that the White Sox will face numerous times in what should be a tight playoff race. 

Should this trade accomplish its objective for both teams, Chicago and Boston will be playoff bound in September. Perhaps they will play each other. It would inevitably be a series painted as Youkilis' chance to exact revenge on the team that unceremoniously dumped him after years of loyal service. And again, that narrative would be wrong. The Red Sox gave him just as much love as they got, right up until the very end. Nevertheless, Youkilis has dutifully played the role he was dealt for years now. Given the chance to do so one more time, odds are he'd take it.

Adam Cancryn is an editor and co-founder of Began in '96.

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By Adam Cancryn

Tim Wakefield's time as a baseball player was supposed to end in 1988. Yet here he is more than two decades later, stepping away from an improbable career built on one improbable pitch.

By now, 19 major league seasons later, Tim Wakefield's story is a familiar one.

A light-hitting first baseman drafted out of Florida Tech by the Pittsburgh Pirates, Wakefield had just finished a 1988 season in which he hit .189 and managed just 11 extra base hits over 54 games. It was an uninspiring performance and, to Wakefield's good fortune, at least one scout had no problem telling him just that. You'll never make it past the AA level as a position player, said the scout, whose name has long been lost to history. Not with your skill set.

Desperate to do the improbable and salvage his career, Wakefield turned to the most improbable solution in baseball: the knuckleball.

Difficult to learn and impossible to master, with a tendency toward insubordination ("A curveball that doesn't give a damn" is how sportswriter Jimmy Cannon described it), the knuckleball is a questionable pitch to hitch your fortunes to; just 85 pitchers in Major League Baseball history have successfully put their career in the its shaky hands, by Rob Neyer's unofficial count. And none of them were light-hitting first basemen clinging to a career just a year old and fading fast.

Yet Wakefield and the knuckleball clicked almost instantly. In 1989, he threw 39 2/3 innings and finished with a 3.40 ERA. It earned him a promotion, and the next year he won 10 games. The wins grew to 15, with a 2.90 ERA, at AA Carolina in 1991. Three years removed from the bowels of the Pirates' organization, Wakefield was a knuckleballer and a rising star.

He burst onto the Major League stage in '92, going 8-1 and helping the Pirates to a playoff berth. Pittsburgh would lose in seven games in the NLCS. Wakefield would record two of the team's three series wins.

The knuckleball is a cruel mistress, however, and its dips and dives deserted him soon after that breakout year. Wakefield spent the next four up-and-down seasons in the minors. There, he simply did what he'd done his entire improbable career: show up every day, pitch whenever called upon and hope the knuckleball continues to dance and twirl.

Even after catching on with the Red Sox, Wakefield's approach never changed. His numbers were never great, but Wakefield entrenched himself at the major league level as the team mule. A string of better, more talented pitchers filtered through the organization, but none could match Wakefield's constant state of rubber-armed readiness. He filled whatever role was necessary, and threw whenever and for however long was required. A year after going 17-8 as a starter, Wakefield in 1999 switched to the bullpen and finished 28 games, saving 15 of his 18 opportunities. It would be three years until he got another crack at the rotation. When he did, he won 11 games and posted a career-best 162 ERA+, and still saved three games in the process.

That would be the sort of anti-rhythm of Wakefield's career: scattered, unpredictable and hanging by a thread, yet always available when needed, just like the knuckleball he put his faith in each time out. Nevertheless, it would net him two World Series rings, an All-Star Game appearance, and the nod in 1995 as the American League's Comeback Player of the Year.

In recent years, it's been suggested that Wakefield became selfish and single-minded in his pursuit of 200 career wins. There may be some truth to that-- after all, 200 wins is an unthinkable milestone for a converted first baseman with one pitch. Yet even then, Wakefield was a constant, the rock that the Red Sox sorely needed amid the injuries and frayed nerves that have plagued them in recent years. He pitched 33 games at the age of 44, starting 23 and finishing six. He showed up every day. And sometimes even, everything would come together and that knuckleball would swerve and drop and swirl, and Wakefield would be dominant again.

As a whole, Tim Wakefield wasn't a great pitcher, and he was never going to be. But for 19 years, he showed up every day, and piece by piece, fashioned an honorable career. For a light-hitting first baseman out of Florida Tech, that's not too bad.


For Sox fans, a long-awaited goodbye

By Parker Swenson

Tim Wakefield and his nervous breakdown-inducing outings are thankfully gone... for now.  

Wave goodbye to Wake. This past week, Tim Wakefield, the infamous Red Sox knuckleballer, called it a career. With exactly 200 wins to his name, Wakefield boasts some gaudy stats for a man who’s built his 19-year career on one pitch. He finished behind only Cy Young and Roger Clemens in all-time Red Sox wins, sits behind only Clemens in strikeouts (2,046 to Roger’s 2,590) and bested both in starts (430) and innings pitched (3,006).

Yet even though the career numbers are impressive, I’m excited that Wake has finally stepped away. No pitcher in recent memory generated more anxiety among the Red Sox faithful. His knuckleball, which Wakefield threw more than 75% of the time, came in at about 65 mph to 70 mph. That's about the speed of a 13-year-old’s fastball. And Wakefield’s fastball? It wasn't much better, hitting just 73 mph to 78 mph. If the knuckleball wasn't dancing, his outings quickly become a rousing round of home run derby.

And unfortunately, his knuckleball had had some tired legs for several years now. Over his last six seasons, Wakefield was 56-57 in 147 starts and 23 relief appearances. Over those same six seasons, the Red Sox averaged roughly five-and-a-quarter runs per game, second only to the Yankees during that period. But the run support was often not enough for Wakefield, who finished with a record over .500 just twice in those six years.

In fact, Wakefield managed a winning record in only nine or his 17 seasons with the Sox, and a big contributor to that is the ease with which he could lose big leads. Wakefield pitched his way to an ERA over 5.00 six times in his career, a mark that many pitchers don’t get a second or third chance to recover from, let alone six.

Yet despite all that, he held on with the Red Sox because of his consistent health and ability to step into any role, be it starter, reliever, or even closer. He’s always been there when the injury bug hits the rotation, and could be penciled in for six innings and three earned runs on any given night.

When asked if he would consider a midseason comeback with the Sox if called upon, Wakefield responded with “more than likely.” Though his roster spot is going to someone newer and, hopefully, more talented, something tells me we're just one injury away from several anxious, knuckleball-filled games in the future for the Red Sox faithful.

The Week Ahead (all times EST)- Your guide to what to watch-- and what to watch for-- this coming week

College Basketball
Kansas St. at Missouri- Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. (ESPN2)
Virginia at Virginia Tech- Feb. 21 at 9 p.m. (ESPNU)
Duke at Florida St.- Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. (ESPN)
Missouri at Kansas- Feb. 25 at 4 p.m. (CBS)
North Carolina at Virginia- Feb. 25 at 4 p.m. (ESPN)
Wisconsin at Ohio St.- Feb. 26 at 4 p.m. (CBS)
NBA

Blazers at Lakers- Feb. 20 at 10:30 p.m. (TNT)
Hawks at Knicks- Feb. 22 at 7:30 p.m. (SportSouth/MSG)
Knicks at Heat- Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. (TNT)
NBA All-Star Game- Feb. 26 at 8 p.m.
NHL
Rangers at Penguins- Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. (MSG/FOX PITT)
Red Wings at Blackhawks- Feb. 21 at 8 p.m. (NBCSN)
Bruins at Blues- Feb. 22 at 8 p.m. (NESN/FOX MIDW)
Lightning at Penguins- Feb. 25 at 1 p.m. (NHLNET)
NASCAR
Daytona 500- Feb. 26 at 1 p.m. (FOX)
Baseball
Pitchers and catchers report during the first half of this week, including the New York Yankees and Washington Nationals on Feb. 20; the Boston Red Sox on Feb. 21; the Miami Marlins on Feb. 22; and the Texas Rangers on Feb. 23. A full list can be found at Big League Stew.

In the Kitchen- Tracking the major hot stove stories

• Lions defensive end Cliff Avril is in a standoff with his team over a new deal. Avril is pushing for a long-term contract, while Detroit is mulling using its franchise tag on him. 
• Outfielder Mike Cameron will retire after 17 major league seasons. A great defensive center fielder with pop at the plate, Cameron won three gold gloves and hit .249 with 278 home runs during stints with eight different teams.
• Kyle Kendrick-- who was once tricked into thinking he got traded to a Japanese team-- signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for $7.5 million over two years. 
• Jorge Soler is the next Cuban outfielder drawing attention after Yoenis Cespedes signed with the Oakland Athletics last week. The 19-year-old has reportedly received interest from as many as seven teams, including the Yankees, Phillies and Red Sox, and could command $15 million to $20 million over five years.

Web Gems- The week's best, worst or strangest Internet sports finds

Man in Full- SI's Chris Ballard on Mike Powell, the Chicago wrestling coach who's built a high school powerhouse and inspired countless kids along the way, all while fighting a muscle-weakening disease. Brandon Sneed later interviewed Ballard about the story.

John Fairfax, who rowed across the Atlantic, dies at 74- "At 9, he settled a dispute with a pistol. At 13, he lit out for the Amazon jungle. At 20, he attempted suicide by jaguar. Afterward he was apprenticed to a pirate."

The best NY athlete (Hint: Not Lin)- Amid all the attention paid to Victor Cruz and Jeremy Lin and others, New York's best athlete has flown under the radar.

The Empire State building lit blue and orange Feb. 17 in honor of the late Gary Carter.

Coming Up- What's next at Began in '96

• Tuesday: A guide to sticking with your fitness goals, and then putting your progress to the test, by Parker Swenson.
• Thursday: Joe Schackman breaks down all of Major League Baseball's active Hall of Fame candidates.

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