The Great Back-and-Forth Between the Red Sox and Yankees

Sometimes the most amazing parts of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry are not the games that take place on the field, but rather the games that take place behind the scenes. These two teams have not only battled in the Bronx and Boston, but also on free agents all over the country, Latin America, Japan, and all over the globe. They fight each other over draft prospects and trade targets. They battled on everyone from Jose Contreras to Mark Teixeira to Roy Halladay to Eric Gagne to Carl Pavano. And I think some of the fascinating things that go on are hardly noticed by fans. Let’s look at this season.

Mark Teixeira was the big free agent acquisition on the market. He would have fit perfectly in the Red Sox lineup and helped them out on the field as well. When it seemed like it was a foregone conclusion he was going there, the Yankees swiped in and bid $10 million more to grab him. The Red Sox decided to take that money and fill holes going the “let’s throw them against the wall and see if they stick” route. They signed Brad Penny, John Smoltz, Takashi Saito and Rocco Baldelli to fill holes on their team with the money they didn’t spend on Teixeira. And it looked like a great move through the first half of the year as the Red Sox went 8-0 against the Yankees and Penny was one of their best pitchers, while David Oritz’s slumping wasn’t hurting them.

But since, the roles have switched. The Yankees are 6-1 against the Red Sox since that point and have gone from 6.5 behind to as much as 7.5 ahead. The Yankees have gone out and don’t the “let’s throw them against the wall and see if they stick” route with guys like Eric Hinske, Jerry Hairston, Jr, Alfredo Aceves and, to some degree, Nick Swisher (who they traded for Wilson Betemit and/or a bag of balls). The Red Sox moves worked for a while and are not working. Kevin Youkilis is complaining about the media something the Red Sox have started to taking to doing which has gotten the media to fight back. Now the Yankees moves are working (though Oritz is now productive again) and even A-Rod isn’t having a problem with the New York media.

Reviewing the Red Sox “low-risk/low-reward” offseason moves, Boston’s sports flagship WEEI said:

Two of the three are already gone. Smoltz was designated for assignment on August 7 after eight starts, five losses, and an 8.32 ERA. Penny produced what a No. 5 starter should produce– seven wins and an ERA in the mid-to-upper-fours– through his first 19 starts, but since then, Penny has pitched like more of a No. 8ish starter. In his last five starts in a big and tall Red Sox uniform, Penny went 0-4 with a sky-high 9.11 ERA. When he asked for his release yesterday, it’s hard to think Sox GM Theo Epstein teared up.

Saito, on the other hand, has posted an 2.80 ERA that does nothing but reinforce the idea that looking at a reliever’s ERA as a barometer of effectiveness is like looking at Penny as a barometer of athletic builds. From watching the games you can tell that Terry Francona has little-to-no faith in the reliever. Here’s a stat that backs up the notion: In 45 appearances for Saito this season, he has entered only four tie games. Furthermore, he has been called into a one-run game just three times. If that stat can prove how little he is trusted, let this one prove how ineffective he’s been. Saito– remember, the same guy who has a shiny 2.80 ERA– has allowed 67 percent of the runners he has inherited to score

This wasn’t the end of their dealings. With the money the Red Sox saved in the offseason by not signing Teixeira, they went about trying to get guys like Roy Halladay, Adrian Gonzalez, and even Felix Hernandez at the trade deadline before finally getting Victor Martinez. A Teixeira clone he is not, but a valuable piece for the Red Sox he definitely has been. The Red Sox saved about $2.5 million by waiving Smoltz and about $500K by releasing Penny so they felt comfortable taking on $3.3 million for Billy Wagner who may be a valuable member of that bullpen for the next few months injecting himself into the rivlarly (@lenno212: Wagner excited about going to #RedSox. Already told Francona, "I'm not coming to be a cheerleader). Wagner also has a 2010 option which FanGraphs points out could come into play through arbitration even if the Red Sox do decline the option.

Now here’s where the maneuvering gets interesting. The player going to the Mets in that deal? Chris Carter. But the Yankees are going to make that a bit more difficult as Buster Olney explains:

The rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox burns strongly even when it comes to waiver claims.

When the New York Mets and Red Sox worked out a trade for left-handed reliever Billy Wagner earlier this week, Chris Carter, an outfielder-first baseman currently playing for Triple-A Pawtucket, became part of the deal as a player to be named headed to Boston, sources said. In preparation for the deal, the Red Sox placed Carter on waivers, with the intention of moving him on to the Mets.

But the Yankees, sources said, placed a claim on Carter -- perhaps to create some 40-man roster discomfort for the Red Sox. In order to complete the Wagner trade, the Red Sox are now pulling Carter back from waivers, and for the rest of the year they must carry him on their 40-man roster.

And Boston may struggle to squeeze bodies onto its 40-man roster in September. When Paul Byrd was a free agent, he informed teams that as a condition for signing him -- he since has signed a minor-league deal with the Red Sox -- he wanted a guarantee that he would be added to the 40-man roster for the final month of the regular season.

If Boston has made that same concession, the Carter claim by the Yankees might have made that just a little more difficult.

The Yankees may have just made the Red Sox life a little more difficult and/or forced them to designate a player for assignment that they would not have DFA’ed before. The Red Sox are already low on pitchers to the point they had to pitch Nick Green last night.

Even with the lack of Red Sox pitching, Brad Penny was released by the Red Sox and the Yankees have shown interest. But Buster Olney wonders whether some assurances were made that something like the Yankees picking up him would not occur: “You would guess that before he left the Red Sox, he gave Boston assurances he would not wind up with an AL contender, because the Red Sox front office certainly could have kept him in purgatory until after Aug. 31 and prevented him from being eligible for the postseason with another team. Boston did him a favor by cutting him loose with four days remaining before that deadline.” But the Yankees put a claim in on Brad Penny already in August to prevent the Red Sox from trading him and the Red Sox pulled him back. As River Avenue Blues points out, this is a great job by the Yankees for no other reason than “to make life a little harder on your opponent”.

I couldn’t agree more. That’s why the thought of the Red Sox fans cheering for the Yankees this past week has been so deliciously evil. They have to cheer for Mark Teixeira, a guy who they could have had, who could have been the difference maker, who could have brought them the division title instead of a fight for a Wild Card berth.

The two teams have one more series against each other in the regular season and could face each other again in the ALCS. But so much has happened between the two teams leading up to that point. We’ll never know everything going on behind the scene, but from major signings to minor annoyances, these two teams will continue to battle on everything both on and off the field.