Papelbon closes one door, opens another

CLEARWATER, Fla.

With a blue P adorning his shiny red hat yesterday, occupying a new seat on baseball's Northeast Corridor, Jonathan Papelbon paid his respects to the adversaries whom he need sweat no longer.

Asked if he will miss all of those Red Sox-Yankees games, Papelbon -- now the Phillies' closer after finishing Boston's wins for the previous six years -- said, "Yeah, oh yeah. For sure."

The 31-year-old continued: "I think those series against the Yankees, those are series that you elevate your game. And you see how good you can be against great teams in great division rivalries. But there's great ones in this division, too -- the Braves and the Mets. I'm excited to start experiencing those."

Nice lip service; the only thing "great" about the Mets right now might be their debt. Nevertheless, Papelbon's words and uniform bring to light an interesting issue as we kick off 2012 spring training:

Did any player do better for himself over the winter than this guy? Yankees fans may loathe him, but they should salute him for both his Rivalry contributions and his Hot Stove savvy.

"For me, getting into a new clubhouse, meeting new guys, new teammates . . . putting my years in Boston behind me and being able to start a new chapter in my career is one of the more exciting things I've been able to do at this point," Papelbon said at a Bright House Field news conference.

In a free-agent market flooded with closers, Papelbon and his agents, Sam and Seth Levinson, moved quickly and secured a four-year, $50-million contract -- a record-setting package for a closer -- from the Phillies. Ryan Madson, the man Papelbon succeeds in Philly, operated more deliberately and settled for a one-year, $8.5-million deal with Cincinnati.

Papelbon is not the only player who fared well on the open market, you counter? OK. But Albert Pujols had to sever ties with the baseball haven that is St. Louis in order to get paid as he desired, and Pujols' new Angels teammate, C.J. Wilson, departed one of baseball's best-run franchises in Texas.

Jose Reyes has to deal with the likely tension of an unhappily supplanted Hanley Ramirez sliding over to third base. Prince Fielder? He did quite well for himself, although he left a good situation in Milwaukee. Papelbon stands out because he escaped a shaky work situation for a great one and received a great contract to do so.

The righthander threw the final pitch of the 2011 Red Sox's season, allowing Robert Andino's single to leftfield that drove in Nolan Reimold and gave Baltimore a 4-3 win on Sept. 28. Boston's historic collapse became official just a few minutes later when Tampa Bay outlasted the Yankees to win the AL wild card.

Few blamed Papelbon in the bloody aftermath, however, because he put up an overall great season. Instead, the torch-bearing masses went after the fried chicken-eaters and beer-drinkers in Boston's starting rotation, and questions remain about whether the Red Sox can rebound.

A 2006 All-Star Game conversation with the Yankees' Mariano Rivera taught him about the value of a short-term memory, Papelbon said. He professed to have moved past the Andino hit.

And now he can work for a team with arguably baseball's best starting rotation, tremendous fan support and inferior competition to that of his old team. He need no longer worry about Rivera ("I call him The Godfather, jokingly, because he's the godfather of closers," Papelbon said) or the Yankees' lineup.

"There were really some days where it got kind of old sitting there saying, 'OK, I've got to face Jeter again. He's seen everything I've got, I've seen everything he's got," Papelbon said. "And that's why I say it brings a little bit of life, being with new guys."

Few guys leave the Rivalry and wind up better off. Papelbon looks as if he could be the exception to that rule.