The Futility Infielder

In Sunday's New York Times, William Rhoden notes the rumors swirling along the Northeast Corridor regarding the possibility of two sure-thing Hall of Fame aces, Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson, being injected into baseball's hottest rivarly. While the Yankees and the Red Sox represent two of the AL's strongest teams, neither has a bulletproof rotation, and both are looking for reinforcements to add to their hefty payrolls and battered pitching staffs.

The other day I noted the Value Over Replacement Player for the Yankee rotation; here's the Sox, for comparison:

Pitcher         VORP

Curt Schilling  40.4

Pedro Martinez  30.1

Tim Wakefield   13.7

Derek Lowe     -14.5

Bronson Arroyo  -3.0

TOTAL           66.7

The Yankee quintet raised their VORP to 57.9 over the past couple of days, thanks mostly to Jon Lieber, but that's still about a game worse than Boston's starters.

Still, the idea that either Johnson or Clemens -- two of the four members of the 4,000 strikeout club, owning ELEVEN Cy Young awards between them -- would be traded to either of the two teams is a longshot, thanks to the presence of no-trade clauses in the pitchers' contracts, their professed desires to finish their careers in the uniforms they're currently wearing, and the dearth of blue-chip prospects in the two teams' systems. Nevertheless, one can mix and match the two aces and the two teams and salivate at the story lines. Operas have been written about less.

Clemens to New York
After "retiring" following an emotional extended farewell which not only ran through the most recent postseason but barely missed coming to an end in the most ignominious way -- at the hands of his former team in an elimination game -- the Rocket shocked the baseball world by resuming his career in Houston. Joining fellow Yankee exile Andy Pettitte, Clemens entered the senior circuit for the first time in his 21-year major league career and immediately made an impact, wining his first seven starts to the tune of a 1.99 ERA, running his record to 9-0, and carrying a 10-3, 2.62 ERA line with 121 strikeouts in 116.2 innings into the All-Star break. He'll start for the NL on Tuesday night, and he's earned it.

Coming into the season, the Astros were co-favorites in the NL Central based on Clemens' and Pettite's arrivals, and they held first place until a swoon late in May sent them reeling. They've gone 20-28 and despite trading for Carlos Beltran on June 24, entering Sunday a mere game over .500, 10.5 in back of the division-leading St. Louis Cardinals. Speculation abounds that the 'Stros not only will flip Beltran but might also consider moving Clemens, notions that both ESPN's Jayson Stark and Rob Neyer dismiss. The reason? Houston's still within reach of the NL Wild Card, only 3.5 games behind the San Francisco Giants as of Sunday. Of course, seven other teams are between the Astros and the Giants, so they shouldn't exactly start printing tickets yet.

While the Yankee organization has greeted the Rocket's resurfacing in Houston with mixed emotions, right now he's as dominant as he ever was in pinstripes. He's clearly got something left in the tank, he's outperforming every single Yankee starter, and he may finally have figured out the need to balance the rigorous workout regime he puts his 41-year-old body through with the physical demands of starting every fifth day. The man won two rings and helped the team to four World Series, going 3-0 with a 1.50 ERA in five starts. As awkward as a reunion would be, it's a safe bet the Yanks would welcome him back with open arms if the opportunity presented itself.

Clemens to Boston
If a pinstriped reunion would be awkward for Clemens, a return to Boston would be downright surreal in a cats-mating-with-dogs way. Clemens built his legend pitching thirteen seasons for the Red Sox, going 192-111 with a 2.97 ERA, 2,590 strikeouts and 38 shutouts. He won 20 or more games three times in Boston, garnered the first three of his Cy Youngs along with an MVP award, led the league in ERA four times, and left Game Six of the 1986 World Series with the Sox six outs away from their first championship in 68 years. But Boston's failure to win that Series, along with the Rocket's injury-aided descent into a perceived mediocrity (a 40-39 record despite a 131 ERA+ over his last four years), came to define Clemens' tenure with the Sox. General Manager Dan Duquette allowed Clemens to leave after the '96 season, declaring the pitcher to be in "the twilight of his career".

Within a year, the Boston exec had egg on his face, as Clemens won a Cy Young in Toronto, and then another. A trade to the Yankees allowed him to hitch his star to a contender, and the Rocket won the title that had long eluded him, notching the clinching victory in the '99 World Series and sending Red Sox Nation into paroxysms of jealousy and rage.

Four World Series and five years in pinstripes, not to mention his stated desire to go into the Hall as a Yankee pretty much guarantee that the rift between Clemens and the Sox will never heal. But the cognitive dissonance induced by a Clemens return via trade would be worth the price of admission for Yankee fans who bask in their foes' misery. Hey Sox fans, how badly do you want to win? Badly enough to take back the man you've called a traitor and worse for the past several years while jeering yourselves hoarse? Mwah-ha-ha...

Johnson to Boston
Nobody beats the Yankees like Randy Johnson beats the Yankees. While the Big Unit is only 6-8 with 4.23 ERA against them over the course of his regular-season career, he's 5-0 with a 1.64 ERA and 35 strikeouts in 27.1 innings facing them in two postseason series. But as dominant as those statistics are, they only hint at the drama behind them.

In 1995, the Mariners ended the regular season tied with the California Angels atop the AL West. In the tiebreaker, Johnson tossed a three-hitter, but his start meant he couldn't pitch against the Yankees in the AL Divisonal Series until Game Three. He won that one, but the thrilling series came down to the fifth game. In the bottom of the eighth inning, the M's pushed two runs over on an exhausted David Cone, tying the score, and the Big Unit came out of the bullpen on one day's rest to hold the Yanks. Pitching on fumes, Johnson went three innings and struck out six, but allowed the go-ahead run in the top of the eleventh. He was rescued when Edgar Martinez smacked a two-run double off of Jack McDowell, sending the Yankees down in defeat.

Six years later, Johnson, pitching for the Diamondbacks, returned to haunt the Yanks in the 2001 World Series. He posted a three-hit shutout in Game Two, then beat them again in a 15-2 Game Six rout. The next night, two outs after Curt Schilling allowed a go-ahead solo homer to Alfonso Soriano in the eighth inning of Game Seven, Johnson came on in relief to limit the damage. The Yankees got to within two outs of their fourth straight World Championship before the Snakes rallied to score a pair in the bottom of the ninth off of indomitable closer Mariano Rivera, giving Johnson another improbable victory in relief over the Bombers.

Two heroic performances to help slay the big bad Yankees are more than enough reason for the Red Sox to go chasing the 40-year-old lefty. A reunion with Schilling in Boston -- the 2001 World Series co-MVPs -- might seem to be icing on the cake. But the duo's relationship isn't quite so cozy, at least according to a New York Times Magazine article by Pat Jordan from a few years back. It's no longer available for free online, but here's an excerpt:

"When he pitches I believe there's a lot of unhealthy anger there, but it's what makes him what he is," Schilling says. "We're friends. We'll remain friends forever. We golf together, go out together, our wives and kids get together."

Schilling's "friendship" with Johnson is something of an obsession. He needs it for some reason. Possibly, he is just trying to give Johnson a blessing, the friendship of a gregarious and charitable man (the public's perception) toward a misanthrope (also the public's perception). Schilling sees it as his duty to bring Johnson out of himself, to bring him up on the stage under the spotlight that Schilling himself loves, whether or not Johnson loves it.

Johnson plays down their friendship. He doesn't like being photographed with Schilling, especially those fabricated shots that show two men laughing and tussling in a jocky manner on the golf course. It offends his sense of propriety. ("Their friendship is just for the media," says Jerry Colangelo, managing general partner of the Diamondbacks.) When Johnson talks about Schilling, you can detect a hint of disdain.

"I appreciated what Schilling is doing this year,'' Johnson says, "because I wanted him to do it again, not just one year. The level of excellence is measured over time. It's nice to see him continue to get better. I appreciate it because it's what I strived to do the last eight years."

A few days earlier, a local writer, Pedro Gomez, went on TV to declare that the Schilling-Johnson friendship was merely cosmetic. This incensed Schilling. "Gomez is the worst in his profession," Schilling says. His anger at Gomez goes back to last year's World Series, when Gomez called Schilling "a con man" in a column.

Friends or not, the duo of Johnson and Schilling, while boosting the team's chances this year, would also give the Sox some insurance against a potential departure by Pedro Martinez, who's a free agent at the end of the year and a fragile, risky, expensive one at that. That Boston and Arizona connected on the Schilling deal may work in their favor; that Casey Fossum -- the only one of the four players the Snakes received who is in the majors -- is 2-7 with a 5.55 ERA may cause the Snakes to think again about letting Theo Epstein burn them.

Johnson to New York
If Yankee owner George Steinbrenner knows anything, it's that if you can't beat somebody, you should trade for him. He's been openly pursuing Johnson for the past few weeks, so vocally that the commissioner's office is reviewing his remarks to decide whether a fine for tampering should be levied.

It may not matter. Johnson, who signed a 2-year, $33 million extension before the season, has a no-trade clause, the bad fashion sense to desire finishing his career in that godawful purple and teal combo, and a justifiable impatience with any writer who wastes his time speculating about whether he'd waive his no-trade clause to come to New York. Additionally, there's enough bad blood between the Yanks and Diamondbacks that a deal might be hampered. First came David Wells reneging over a verbal contract agreement with Arizona to sign with the Yanks. Then over this past winter, when the Yankees pursued Curt Schilling, Arizona demanded a package including Alfonso Soriano and Nick Johnson. Neither player is still in pinstripes, and the Yanks have nobody nearly so young and desirable to offer for a pitcher who's even better than Schilling. About the only think working in the Yanks' favor towards this deal is that they could take second baseman Roberto Alomar off of Arizona's hands as well.

In the end, the rumors of Johnson/Clemens to Boston/New York have more to do with East Coast media blather and wishful thinking from fans who feel a sense of entitlement to this great rivarly than they do substantial possibilities for the midsummer swap meet. But it sure is fun to think about the various scenarios. The rest of the baseball world may cringe, but why shouldn't we have all the fun? Mwa-ha-ha...