Crisp for Ramirez trade; what it means for Mark Teahen; Mike Mussina retires

Deal: The Boston Red Sox trade Coco Crisp to the Kansas City Royals for right-handed relief pitcher Ramon Ramirez.

Analysis:
Seriously, Dayton Moore, i understand that with the death of Fire Joe Morgan, there's a lack of humor in all of our baseball-related lives. But that's no reason to keep making 99% of the baseball world laugh themselves to sleep, grateful that they're not Royals fans.

The Kansas City Royals made another trade, dealing another relief pitcher for another bat. Once again, the Royals traded a pitcher who may be at a value peak, but the return is nothing spectacular. Now there is talk that the Royals are in the market to acquire relief pitching, but their only trade pieces are the players that the first two trades have now made superflous, giving other teams little reason to pay much for them.

Crisp is a serviceable player, who will hit between .270-300 with an OBP between .320-.350. He has 15-20 home run potential and could probably steal 30 bases as an everyday player. But he's not a major offensive producer and regressed badly in Boston, where he mustered OPS+ of 77, 83, and 93 in his three seasons. But the Red Sox apparently regarded him as a luxury with the equally underwhelming, but more stolen base-prone Jacoby Ellsbury roaming in center field.

In exchange for Crisp, who will now likely lead off for the on-base and slugging-starved Royals, the Red Sox got Ramon Ramirez, a three-pitch reliever (fastball, changeup, slider) who has had two solid seasons in the majors and one disastrous one (2007), but has also been traded three times in his brief career. Ramirez fared well in 2006 and 2008, but his success in 2008 was due in no small part (as Dave Cameron notes on fangraphs) on an extremely low home run rate. Moving out of Kauffman Stadium, a pitcher-friendly venue even for the home team that's not pitching to the Royals, into Fenway Park will not help Ramirez on that count.

The Red Sox didn't get much in return for Crisp, who ended up being a substantial player for the 2008 squad because of Jacoby Ellsbury's impatience at the plate and late-season struggles, but they did get rid of a sizable contract for a part-time player and got someone who is at least going to be a replacement-level reliever that the Red Sox can use in lieu of a Mike Timlin. And yes, it means Justin Masterson might be able to make the move to the rotation, but as we've seen with Papelbon in 2007 and Clay Buchholz in 2008, things don't always go as planned in that rotation.

And I think the Red Sox got the better end of the deal, in any event. The Royals made a trade that's not bad, they got the better of the two players -- or at least the player who is a safer projection as the better of the two. But they also acquired a player who basically requires another move to be made. They have now added another outfielder to a mix that already had three guaranteed starters in Mark Teahen, David DeJesus, and Jose Guillen. Teahen's name has been in trade discussions and rumors -- with potential suitors being identified (falsely, apparently) as the Indians (who were, again, apparently falsely rumored to be willing to part with Ben Francisco, Franklin Gutierrez, or Trevor Crowe to get Teahen to play third) and the Cubs. But now, by acquiring a center fielder that will move DeJesus to left to suit the Royals' desires, they also put Mark Teahen on an obvious trade block. There's no room at DH, where the Royals already have a mess of players led by Billy Butler and, if Trey Hillman is an active observer of the game, Mike Jacobs -- a more woeful first baseman than the woeful Butler. They still have Ryan Shealy, Kiia Ka'ahuie, and theoretically Ross Gload.

They now basically have to move Mark Teahen in a trade or convince him to make another position change -- this time to second base, where he wouldn't be much worse defensively than the Royals' current leading option -- Esteban German. And there's little reason to believe he can bring back much in a trade when 1) other teams know he's worthless dead weight to the Royals and 2) he's not a particularly valuable player (91 OPS+ as a right fielder in 2008), he's really more of a poor man's Casey Blake because of the 1B/3B/RF position versatility -- a role that I think we can all agree is already filled by a readily-available free agent: Casey Blake.

Projected Royals' lineup:
LF DeJesus
SS Aviles
3B Gordon
RF Guillen
1B Jacobs
DH Butler
C Olivo/Buck
CF Crisp
2B German/Callaspo

Note: This presupposes that the Royals are observant enough to note that DeJesus' OBP warrants him being a leadoff batter. Deep down, I think we'll see Coco Crisp leading off and DeJesus dropping to third, plus a regression to the mean that will see Mike Aviles fall to 8th or 9th in the lineup. Keep in mind that Aviles' career minor league numbers fall well short in nearly every category of the numbers he posted in Kansas City last year.

In other news...
Mike Mussina has apparently decided to retire after his first 20-win season. Mussina had an impressive year in 2008, and even one that looked relatively sustainable, since so much of his success was attributable to a remarkable ability to avoid walks (31 BB in 200.1 IP), but it seems likely that the Yankees weren't counting on Mussina as a linchpin for their rotation.