Whatever happend to ... the likely lads... or the Big 4 if you prefer?

Prior to the Red Sox World Series season in 2004, much breath was spent discussing the likely outcome of negotiations with the Big 4 - Martinez, Garciaparra, Varitek and Lowe.

As I noted in this early post if you had told any Sox fan before the 2004 season that the outcome of our negotiations with the 4 would have seen only Varitek return, then most of us would have been unhappy - but given how 2004 turned out... Theo could have tossed all 4 and pretty much gotten away with it... except the pitching rotation would have lynched him for the loss of V'Tek.

So now, 12 months later - how did losing three of the four work out?

1) Pedro Martinez

	IP	ERA	WHIP	K/9	BB/9
2004	217.0	3.90	1.17	9.41	2.53
2005	217.0	2.82	0.95	8.63	1.95

A simple analysis says that the Sox made a big mistake here - that performance in Boston would have been enough to make the Sox easy winners of the AL East, regardless of which of Wells / Clement hadn't been hired. But that clearly isn't the full story. Those numbers were achieved in the more pitcher friendly NL, while Pedro shut down early in 2005 due to pain from his toe, which can only continue to get worse as the Mets cough up $39m over the next 3 years. I don't think any Sox fan, or any member of the Sox front office thought the Sox would be better off without Pedro in 2005, but if I remember to repeat this in 2007 and 2008... I still think that the Sox made the correct call here.

2) Nomar Garciaparra

	HR	RBI	BA	OBP	OPS
2004	5	21	.321	.367	.867
2005	9	30	.283	.320	.772

Perhaps the key issue, and key number is - 62 - the number of games that Nomar played for the Cubs last year. Nomar of course never made it to free agency with the Sox, having been traded away to the Cubs mid way through 'that' season. The issues that the Sox had with Nomar - increasingly prone to injury - continued in his time with the Cubs, leading the Cubs to make the same call as the Sox, and now forcing Nomar further along the defensive spectrum from SS, to 3b to 1b with the Dodgers. Painful as it may have been at the time, and still is for many Sox fans, Theo clearly made the right call, eventually (we could still have another 2 years at $15m to go remember) on #5.

3) Derek Lowe

	IP	ERA	WHIP	K/9	BB/9
2004	182.2	5.42	1.61	5.17	3.50
2005	222.0	3.61	1.25	5.92	2.23

Derek Lowe pitched better in 2005 than he did in 2004 - no question. But by much? He pitched in the NL, he went from a hitter's park to a pitcher's park... and watching him on MLB Extra Innings - he was pretty much exactly the same pitcher as he was in 2004 - capable of great outings, but capable of awful outings, capable of great innings, capable of awful innings... in the same game. One particular outing against the Reds early in the season, 5 scoreless innings followed by a 6 run 6th inning to earn the loss would have satisfactorily summed up the Red Sox fans experience of Lowe in 2003 and 2004. Again, for me, the Sox made the correct call on Lowe as well.

Next year we can add JD to this list - I think his year 1 analysis will look an awful lot like Pedro's - a mistake in year 1, but thereafter....