Writings on baseball by Matt Barnard and Dan Stein.

 
Okay, that took a bit longer than I hoped it would.

"Charles" Bronson Arroyo claimed by the Red Sox
Going to a high school in New York with many kids of foreign descent, I noticed the very odd trend that many of them had typical American last names as their first name. For instance, a good friend of my brother's is named Johnson. That's his first name. I had classes with a kid named Williams. Not William...Williams. You see this a little bit in the baseball realm as well, with young guys like Jackson Melian banging around the minor leagues. My assumption has always been that people moving to the United States (or who just dream of being able to do so at some point) want their children to be able to fit in with American society, and they figure that if they give their kids what they think of as an "American" name, that'd help. Of course, because they're in fact last names, it sounds kind of stupid, at least to me. I could be totally wrong about the motivation here...I just can't think of any other explanation for it.

Of course, there are American-born, American-bred people with last names for first names too though. Every so often you'll hear about someone named Lennon or something like that. Generally, this is done to honor someone who the parents admire a great deal, just as you might name a child after a relative to pay respect to them. I like to think that this is the case for Bronson Arroyo, who hopefully is named after cinematic legend Charles Bronson, most notably the star of the Death Wish series of films (one of my all-time favorites).

So that's enough intro. This doesn't cost the Red Sox anything, other than the cost of the waiver claim, as Arroyo doesn't make much. This is a good risk and exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see my team doing rather than signing guys like James Baldwin. While he hasn't had any sustained major league success yet, he's also only 26 heading into the 2003 season, and if he spends the entire year filling out the AAA roster...so what? If he never pitches for the Red Sox, the only thing lost is time in the minors (significant only if he were blocking the non-existent Red Sox pitching prospects in the minors) and his minimal salary. This is an extremely low-risk pickup that may well turn out to be nothing...but it could also pay off for the Red Sox if he turns into a viable fifth starter should Fossum falter, or long man out of the bullpen.

I should note that Arroyo posted really nice numbers at AAA Nashville (Pirates affiliate) last season, where he pitched in 22 games (21 starts), allowing 126 hits, 28 walks and 57 runs (47 earned) over 143 innings. Over that span, he struck out 116, threw 3 complete games (2 shutouts) and was 8-6 with a 2.96 ERA. Nashville's not Boston, but numbers like those are an indication that the guy's got some ability to get hitters out. It's notable that he's improved his strikeout rate over the past several years, posting a pretty decent rate during his brief stint with the Pirates last year as well, striking out 22 over 27 innings (7.3 K/9 IP) as compared to his previous and less successful major league showings (4.0 K/9 IP in 2001 over 88.1 innings, 6.3 K/9 IP in 2000 over 71.2 innings). Perhaps this is a sign he's doing something different and bodes well for his success going forward...but I'm no scout, so I don't know. I do know that this is the kind of smart move that'll help the Red Sox going forward.
posted by VZW Watcher at 1:40 PM -