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Look, no one can predict the future. It's the future, dammit, and it's always running away from us. And believe me, I recognize that it's the lowest form of Internet I-told-you-so-ism to copy and paste someone's opinion from a year ago and crow about how ridiculous it looks now. But fuck it, sometimes it's fun to take the low road, especially when that someone's opinion is so emphatically confident. So let's have some fun with it. Wrote one semi-prominent Boston fan/writer, seemingly eons ago:
I could spend the next 3,000 words ranting and raving about the unacceptable performance of the Henry/Theo regime since they won the World Series -- the catastrophic Renteria/Clement signings; lowballing Pedro/Damon, then half-heartedly renewing talks at the last second; overvaluing Beckett (a genuine disappointment) and Crisp (a colossal disappointment); undervaluing their own prospects (Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez) in the Beckett trade; freezing at this year's trading deadline; dealing Arroyo without knowing about the health of Wells and Foulke; allowing 40-year-old Mike Timlin to pitch in the WBC (he's a walking corpse now); letting Roberts and Cabrera go; handing Beckett that unconscionable $30 million extension (I yelped out loud when I saw the headline); and we haven't even mentioned last winter's soap opera with Theo yet -- but I don't want to ruin my chances of getting a key to the office next season. So let's just say that everyone did a swell job and I fully support every moronic decision that was made. Now where's my key?
The date on this is about 15 months ago. Whoops! Maybe next year the front office will have turned into morons again, though. We'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, here's something from me for intrepid Internetters to copy and paste into their blogs 15 months from now:
If Journeyman doesn't sweep the Emmys next year, I will eat my hat.
HatGuy, Red Sox, Heyman, A-Rod, And Super Special Surprise Guest!
It's all happening at once, people. Let's savor this, the day after the final day of baseball, before we all begin obsessively following Memphis Grizzlies basketball and Columbus Blue Jackets hockey and Columphis Blue Grizzlies Lazyjokemashupball.
The Red Sox had generations of teams that were characterized by 25 players taking 25 cabs. No wonder they spent 86 years between championships. Now, they’ve won twice in four seasons by becoming a band of brothers who seem to genuinely enjoy each other’s company. They have stars, but you think of them as a true team.
Of course! Fuck! Why'd they wait 86 years? Friends are what win in baseball! Friendshipball! Watch out, Red Sox. Your 2008 favorites for the championship: my uncle Steve and his friend Mike. So what if they're only two guys instead of twenty-five and Mike has a shriveled left arm and Steve drinks crystal meth dissolved in Mountain Dew Game Fuel, the Halo 3-themed Mountain Dew. They go deep-sea fishing on the weekends! They're friends!
Now let's readjust our monocles and look at the bread around this idiocy sandwich:
That’s why he won’t end up in Boston. The Red Sox had generations of teams that were characterized by 25 players taking 25 cabs. No wonder they spent 86 years between championships. Now, they’ve won twice in four seasons by becoming a band of brothers who seem to genuinely enjoy each other’s company. They have stars, but you think of them as a true team. To add a person who has never had many friends in the clubhouses he’s inhabited doesn’t make sense.
Zero guesses as to whom HatGuy is referencing. Negative three guesses. Yep, you got it, and I took guesses away from you before you made any. There you have it. Not enough friends = no deal. I like the image of A-Rod calling up his old teammates, begging them to tell the Red Sox that yes indeed, I, Hank Blalock/Jay Buhner/Bobby Ayala/Hideki Irabu, was A-Rod's friend you better believe it.
I am undecided whether A-Rod will be worth the hundreds of millions of dollars he will be seeking, but the number of friends he has on Facebook will be low on my priority list.
Now you, Jon Heyman, sally forth with your offering!
The Red Sox disproved the old "crapshoot'' theory espoused by a lot of folks who keep losing in the playoffs. The best team won in 2007, and that is no fluke.
Look, I'm not losing in the playoffs. My favorite team isn't losing in the playoffs. Joe Torre has won a lot in the playoffs. Joe Torre often disagree, but he and I agree on two things: Top Chef is now more enjoyable than Project Runway and as long as the series remain as brief as they are, the playoffs are distinctly, perversely crapshootish. The best team probably won in 2007, but how about just last year? 83-78 sound right to you, Jon? Was that a fluke?
And finally, we grow closer to the emergence of our special guest star for the evening, who appears courtesy of Bob DiCesare:
Rodriguez appeared in the American League Championship Series twice with the Mariners, once with the Yanks, and distinguished himself in none of the three.
Exactly right. None of the three except for the first two, in which he slugged .773 and .516 and slammed a combined 4 HR and 10 RBI. And hey, in that last one he OBP-ed .353 and hit a horrible, team-damaging solo home run.
One number echoes within the mountains of glorious statistics compiled by Rodriguez throughout his career:
13.7, his earth-shattering WARP3!
zero, his number of accrued World Series at-bats.
Oh.
Fact is, the Yankees are in far greater need of a Scott Brosius, a Bernie Williams, a Paul O’Neill than an uninspired (and uninspiring) A-Rod.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Brosius nostalgia tour continues. May his glorious name live on throughout the offseason and for all offseasons throughout eternity!
Pags has a new little ditty over at The BaseLine Report. In this one, he lists every transaction Theo Epstein has made since he became the Sox' GM, and rates them on a scale of 1 to 10. I think he's just baiting us, frankly, but consider me baited.
1/14/03 Claimed 1B/OF Kevin Millar off unconditional release waivers from the Florida Marlins. The Sox pleaded with [Kevin Millar] for months not to go to Japan as if he were the second coming of Babe Ruth. Millar was brought in for his bat but after a solid first half of the 2003 season, struggled tremendously for the next two and a half seasons as a member of the Red Sox. Because of his personality and cozy relationship with both the media and the fans some of his shortcomings are overlooked. Millar was a well below average major league first baseman. He peeked in 2003 with 25 home runs but declined rapidly over his three years culminating in a 2005 season when he hit only nine home runs. Grade: 3.5
In 2004 Kevin Millar hit .297/.383/.474. An .857 OPS (117 OPS+). That's pretty effing good for $2.65m. In 2003 he made $2m and hit 25 HR. And in order to get him they pissed off some Japanese dudes but actually gave up: nothing.
My Grade for the Millar Deal: 7.0 My Grade for Pags' Evaluation: 38.8 (on the 115-point FJM Writing Scale)
7/29/03 Acquired RHP Scott Williamson from the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for minor league LHP Phil Dumatrait, a minor league player to be named and cash considerations.
This was theoretically the solution to the bullpen problem that had killed Boston all year long. This was easy to predict even before the season started when Epstein decided to Bill James’ “bullpen ace” model for the 2003 season...Maybe [Epstein] was too busy using up the sixth highest payroll in baseball to sign sabermetric studs like Jeremy Giambi and Kevin Millar to address the bull pen properly...Williamson takes the fall because this move symbolizes the lack of a shut down closer in the pen and the feeling that the Sox did not need to acquire one during the season. Grade: 1
It's hard to judge whether this is a good evaluation of the Williamson deal, because the smoke coming out of Pags' ears due to his fury at non-traditional thinking is clouding my keyboard. More on this insane misreading of Bill James' "Bullpen Ace" model in a minute. For now, allow me only to say that Phil Dumatrait is 26 and made his MLB debut this year, giving up a tidy 39 hits in his first 18 innings. So, I think we can say that this deal is not a "1," because Epstein didn't give anything up except cash. I will also add that in 2004, SWilly gave up 11 hits in 28.2 IP, posting a 388 ERA+. A very small sample size, to be sure, and the guy was always hurt and kind of unreliable. But he gave the '03 and '04 teams some crazy hi-leverage innings, and the image of people flailing at his ceiling-to-floor curve is one of my most lasting memories. (Save your emails, people. Not every single sentence I write has to be fact-based.)
If you're into stats instead of anecdotal musings: in the 2003 postseason, Williamson pitched in eight games, and went 2-0 with 3 saves. He threw 8 innings, giving up 3 hits, 1 run, 3 walks, and 14 (!) Ks. You're telling me that and the 28 innings he threw in 2004 wasn't worth Phil Dumatrait? Oh -- no, you're not. You're actually telling me that on the 10-point PagsScale that trade gets the worst possible score.
My Grade for Williamson: 7 My Grade for Pags' Write-Up of Williamson: -40 Trumpets (on the -500 to 600 Trumpet evaluation system; remember -- 355 is highest)
7/31/03 Acquired RHP Jeff Suppan, RHP Brandon Lyon and RHP Anastacio Martinez from the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for INF Freddy Sanchez, LHP Mike Gonzalez and cash considerations.
This was a deadline day deal in which Epstein looked to bolster the starting rotation. The hope was to gain something in the short term while giving something up in the long term. Turned out they were half right: they gave up something in the long term. Suppan started ten games for the Sox and posted a 3-4 record with a 5.57 ERA. Sanchez on the other hand is a two time all star and also the 2006 NL batting champ with a .344 average. He was one of the most valuable prospects in the entire organization and was given up for a pitcher who ultimately hurt the Red Sox. While Suppan would later find some success in the national league, he was a huge bust in Boston and Theo totally misused one of his most valuable trading pieces. Grade: 2
A lot = bad about this. Yes, Suppan sucked after the trade. But he was the best available starter, and the Sox badly needed one. Second, Sanchez was a decent prospect, but he was blocked in the Red Sox system by Hanley Ramirez, so he was expendable. Third, this was actually a great deal, because originally the Sox were getting Mike Gonzalez, a lefty reliever who could have greatly helped them. I quote from Baseball America:
The Red Sox and Pirates accomplished two things with the trade on Thursday that sent Jeff Suppan, Brandon Lyon and Double-A righthander Anastacio Martinez to Boston and two Triple-A players, infielder Freddy Sanchez and lefthander Mike Gonzalez, plus $500,000 to Pittsburgh. The Red Sox got a much-needed starter in Suppan, while the Pirates got rid of his salary. Secondly, the teams straightened out their July 22 trade.
In that deal, Boston got Scott Sauerbeck and Gonzalez for Lyon and Martinez. The Pirates said Lyon had fraying in his elbow and placed him on the disabled list on July 25. The Red Sox maintained he was healthy and had pitched for them two days before the trade. The net effect of the two transactions is that Boston gets Sauerbeck and Suppan for Sanchez.
When the Bucs started hissing that Lyon had arm problems, the Sox essentially gave them Gonzalez back to soothe their huffy nerves. But the way Pags writes it up here, it seems like the Sox traded Gonzalez and Sanchez for Suppan, which = no. Also, getting to two All-Star Games when you play for the Pirates doesn't mean very much at all, methinks.
My Grade for the Suppan Trade: 4 My Grade for "3:10 to Yuma," Which I Saw Last Night, on the 1-18 Pagliarulos Scale: 14 Pagliarulos
11/14/03 RHP Mike Timlin to a one-year contract.
Epstein game Timlin a two and a half million dollar deal to help improve the bull pen. Timlin was a veteran pitcher who helped with a lot of the younger arms in the pen. On the field he was a reliable, but not shut down, middle relief pitcher. His playoff experience would prove to be valuable down the stretch. Grade: 5
In 2003 Mike Timlin threw 83 innings with a 133 ERA+ and a 65/9 K/BB ratio and a 1.02 WHIP. How is that not a "shut down" middle reliever? That's a better WHIP than Frankie Rodriguez has had in 3 of the last 4 years. And 83 innings is a lot of innings. In 2004 he threw 76 innings with a 1.23 WHIP. Not overwhelming, but pretty good. And by the way, that deal in 2003 was for $850,000 plus incentives. $2.5m was for 2004. So for $850,000, Theo got a guy with a WHIP of 1.02 over 83 innings. That's a really really really good deal. And every year since, he's been on a 1-year deal, so there's no long-term commitment. Also, as if I need to keep going, the guy's got a 1.12 WHIP in 57 innings this year at age 41. What don't you like about the Timlin deal, dummy?
My Grade for the Timlin Deal: 8 My Grade on my Junior Year AP History Report on the Role of "Neo-Yellow Journalism" in U.S. Involvement in Central American Military Conflicts: A-minus
12/13/03 Signed free-agent RHP Keith Foulke to a three-year deal that includes a vested option for a fourth year.
Real quick: the answer is 9. Maybe 8, but almost definitely 9. Keith Foulke should have been the ALCS MVP. He might have been the Sox' team MVP for 2004. His 2005 and '06 were disappointing and injury-riddled, but the guy was lights-out in the regular season, and sold out his body and soul in some of the most hi-lev innings in team history in the playoffs and came through every single time. So, 8-9, and I'd even kick it up to 10 if I were feeling saucy.
Foulke was brought to Boston to be the permanent shut down closer that the Sox decided they didn’t need in 2003. This was blatantly admitting that Bill James’s “bullpen ace” model just didn’t work.
No. No, sorry. That's not true. Foulke was a "bullpen ace," and the actual theory is that the bullpen ace shouldn't always just pitch the ninth inning no matter what the situation is, but rather should be used in the most hi-lev situations, be they in the 6th, 7th, 8th, what have you. So, no, acquiring a bullpen ace was not "blatantly admitting" that the "bullpen ace" model didn't work; it was an attempt to get a better bullpen ace in order to more effectively use the "bullpen ace" model. And maybe if you had thought about what you were writing for ten nanoseconds, or had bothered to read about the theory, you wouldn't have embarrassed yourself by writing that.
Foulke was being paid like a premium closer making over eighteen million dollars in his three years. Unfortunately he only pitched like a premium closer for one year. Foulke was everything he was supposed to be in 2004 and exceeded all expectations when he dominated the post season opposition. He had a miserable season in 2005 and by the first week of the 2006 season he had lost his job to Jonathan Papelbon. While Foulke has to be given credit for the 2004 championship, he was being paid for three years and only performed in one of them. The Sox did not get good value for Foulke at all. Grade: 4
How can you say they did not get value for Foulke? They gave up nothing but cash, and in 2004 they got a .94 WHIP in 83 innings. Then, in a postseason that featured back-to-back extra inning games with the Yankees, when the margin for error was exactly zero, he threw 14 innings, giving up 7 hits, and getting 19 Ks. He gave up one run in those 14 innings.
Keith Foulke won the World Series for the Red Sox. I'm not kidding. Go here and read about what he did in the ALCS, if you don't believe me. They never get out of that series -- not even close -- if not for Keith Foulke. The rest of his tenure fell flat, but that one year was easily worth $18m. Easily.
My Grade for the Foulke Deal: 9 My Grade for the Folk Implosion Album "Dare to be Surprised": 6.8
12/16/03 Acquired IF Mark Bellhorn from Rockies for a player to be named.
Bellhorn was almost the same player as Todd Walker. He was below average defensively and had no range at all. Offensively he was a downgrade. While he did come up with some big hits in the 2004 playoffs, he often went through painful droughts where he wouldn’t be able to hit the ball for weeks at a time. The one positive of the Bellhorn deal was that he came cheap and the Sox were able to get away with him at second for one year. Grade: 4.5
Theo Epstein paid Mark Bellhorn $490,000 in 2004 and he gave them 6.4 WARP3. Plus, the dude was so the Anti-ARod, banging a key 3-run homer in Game Six of the ALCS against the Yankees in New York. And then another go-ahead late-inning dong in WS Game One. ARod would never do that because he is a choker! He chokes and Bellhorn did not. Bellhorn is better than ARod. Jeter Rules!
($490,000 for six and a half wins = well done, Mr. GM.)
12/17/04 Signed SS Edgar Renteria to a four-year contract with a club option for 2009.
This was a classic case of Theo looking only at the talent of a player and not taking into account the player’s make-up and how he would fit into the team. Edgar Renteria is an above average major league shortstop, but he could not play in Boston.
And what, exactly, about Edgar Renteria's past would have indicated this to be the case?
The entire season was a mess all around. At the plate he hit .276 and racked up 100 strikeouts while putting up weak power numbers. He wasn’t any better in the field committing a career worst thirty errors. However, it was letting go of Cabrera that was more of a problem than signing Renteria. Cabrera’s career has taken off since his time in Boston and every Sox fan still dreams of him playing shortstop for the Sox.
I do not dream of that thing.
OCab 2005 EqA: .255 Renteria 2005 EqA: .263
I loved OCab in the stretch run of 2004, because he was fun and energetic and played good defense and did funny handshakes with every member of the team, and also because they traded Nomar to get him, and if I didn't distract myself constantly by saying "Cabrera is good!" I would've ended up crying a lot. Cabrera put up some great AB in the postseason. But if he had been signed to a big 4-year deal, and had put up OPS+ of 82, 95, and 101 in the next three years (like he's done in LA), the love affair would've ended right quick.
Renteria got paid like one of the best shortstops in the game but his play was far from that assessment. Like his former manager Tony La Russa predicted, Renteria struggled mightily under the pressure of Boston. Grade: 1
Yes. We should all listen to Tony La Russa more. That's the problem.
My Grade for the Renteria Deal: 2 My Grade for Tony La Russa -- Just, Like, An Overall Grade for His Whole "Deal": 0
12/23/04 Signed RHP Wade Miller to a one-year contract.
This was a puzzling move. Epstein decided to take a risk on the often injured Miller. Miller lived up to his reputation making only sixteen starts on the year due to injury. He had a 4-4 record with a 4.95 ERA, average numbers at best. Grade: 2.5
It was a 1 year, $1.5m contract laden with incentives. For a guy who at one point was dominant. And for whom they had zero expectations. It didn't work out. They non-tendered him. These are exactly the kind of deals that teams with money to throw around should be making.
My Grade for the Wade Miller Deal: Eh My Wade for the Grade Diller Meal: N/A (nonsense)
There's more of this crap, but I'm going to dinner now. (I do like how he labels the Lugo and Drew deals as "1"s, after one year of 4- and 5-year deals, respectively.)
Close up shop. Blow the team sky-high. Take that 81-55 record and shove it up your pee holes, because it's meaningless.
As we all know, the World Series trophy is awarded every year to the team with the fieriest passions. Who will scream and yell and curse the most? Who will fill the dugout with tears of insanity? Who will give the most hugs? These are the questions that will be answered in October, when we once again crown The Most Emotional, And Therefore Best, Team In Baseball.
What a bunch of losers! They have the best pitching in the majors, but with a lineup of increasingly frustrating incompetence.
And we all know the old saying: hitting wins in the playoffs.
They are going to win the American League East for the first time since 1995. They may even have home-field advantage throughout October.
But there is no way these Red Sox are winning the World Series.
There you have it. Eric Wilbur is offically putting the odds of the Red Sox, the team with the best record and best run differential in baseball, at 0%. 0 out of 30. 0 out of a million. Zero.
I'm going to go ahead and say that if the Red Sox make the playoffs, their odds of winning the Series are about 1 in 8. But let's read on. I'm sure Eric has some sound baseball reasons behind eliminating them altogether on August 30.
As far and as much as a fire for playing the game is concerned, the Yankees, Angels, and Indians all have to be considered superior American League squads.
Yep. Did it. Changed my mind. Forgot about fire. My bad. Can't win shit without fire. Gotta be fiery. Fire it up, Yankees, Angels, and Indians! You're all contenders for the World Series this year! Of course, as is the case every year, the World Series will be awarded to Ozzie Guillen and Ozzie Guillen alone.
First-place Los Angeles put on the clamps, and shut down the Mariners to take control of the West with a 5 1/2-game lead over Seattle. The Indians put any lingering thoughts the Twins might have had about getting back into the race by sweeping and putting Minnesota in a nine-game hole.
Very good use of the little-known MLB loophole (Rule 35.17 in the rulebook): "Performance in the last series of August shall be used to determine World Series championship eligibility, pursuant to Fieriness Clause in Rule 42.9." Red Sox got swept by the Yankees, as you recall, so they are ineligible for the World Series this year. Too bad, fans.
Additional note: the Yankees (run differential of +144) are a much, much better team than both the Mariners (+4) and the Twins (+23).
Your Boston Red Sox? They go to the Bronx and show all the passion of a weasel on Xanax in getting swept by the Yankees, who made them look foolish offensively and even suspect on the mound, where Boston has honed its greatest strength this season.
Is a weasel a particularly passionless creature? It seems like this joke would've worked better with an especially docile animal. My pitches:
sloth (a little obvious, but point gets made) basset hound (droopy face, droopy eyes, droopy ears; slow-moving) armadillo (these things don't seem that passionate -- prove me wrong) Asian person (get a pulse, am I right, guys?)
Auxiliary pitch:
instead of Xanax, how about "(passionless animal or Asian person) on downers"?
It's a different brand of baseball come autumn, and it's now completely evident that the Red Sox don't have that (bleep) 'em attitude that defined their 2004 predecessors. The Yankees have it. The Angels have it. The Indians seem like they have it. The Red Sox? I give you J.D. Drew.
2007 Red Sox: Good pitching, not enough fuck 'em 2007 Yankees: Rag-taggest, underdoggest, scrappiest, fuck 'em-iest team ever!
Doesn't it seem like J.D. Drew is the quintessential fuck 'em player? The guy clearly doesn't give a shit, ever. The always helpful Urban Dictionary defines "fuck 'em" as "In a state in which a person could careless [sic] about a person, place, thing or a group." J.D. Drew cares so little about baseball it looks like he's on the verge of taking a nap in between pitches. If you look closely at his face, he actually mouths the words "fuck 'em" on every feeble missed swing he takes.
For all the warranted criticism hammered upon the underperforming outfielder, his emotionless approach to the game has seemingly become this team's calling card.
J.D. Drew = Emotion Cancer For all the passion emitted from guys like Josh Beckett, Kevin Youkilis, Jonathan Papelbon, and David Ortiz, on the whole the Red Sox are a squad that comes to the office, does their business with zombie-like efficiency, says all the right things afterward, and then has fans scratching their heads wondering if there is anything special here at all. That's J.D. Drew, and that is the Red Sox.
There you go. It's not enough to have the best record in baseball. It's not enough to have the best pitching staff. They're not special enough. Not special like the turd of a team the St. Louis Cardinals were last year. Not fire-breathing passionate personality monsters like the dynastic San Antonio Spurs are in basketball. Not emotional, constantly weeping, frighteningly volatile like Bill Belichick and the Patriots.
I also love that he names four very passionate essential Red Sox players in an article decrying the lack of passion on the team. I mean, seriously, let's do an inventory real quick:
Passionate (Special, World Series-worthy, Fiery, Prone To Being On Fire, Combustible, Flammable, Inflammable) Beckett Youkilis Papelbon Ortiz Schilling Varitek Pedroia Lowell (borderline, but he's a Cagey Veteran who sublimates his fire into Lunchpailism) Wakefield Gagne (facial hair! curses in French!) Crisp (diving catches! leaps into walls!) Buchholz (hugged a lot of people last night!) Tavarez (once murdered a drifter with a mini-screwdriver!)
Dispassionate (Not Special, Emotionally Cancerous, Membership On Team Automatically Disqualifies Team For World Series)
Drew Manny Lugo Matsuzaka (Japanese robot)
Honestly: Red Sox, passionate or not? You make the call.
Curt Schilling came out of New York with the best outing of any starter, but was victimized greatly by a Manny Ramirez-less lineup that had the following 6-9 hitters: Drew, Jason Varitek, Eric Hinske, Alex Cora. Beckett pitched well when he needed to wriggle out of jams, but 13 hits?
Disregard this paragraph; we're talking about who's going to win the World Series, not about baseball stuff.
Daisuke Matsuzaka at this point is an enigma, and has not had a memorable, step-up, "wow" performance in his rookie season other than a recent 1-0 outing at Cleveland.
Would've rewritten to say "Daisuke Matsuzaka is at this point an inscrutable, crafty, math-genius enigma ... "
Also, re: "wow" games -- how about that complete game, one run affair against the vaunted Tiger offense? How about a span of four consecutive games where he allowed a total of two runs (and in the process struck out 8, 9, 8, and 9)? How about the month of June, when he had a 1.59 ERA? (I guess that doesn't count because there were some National League teams mixed in, and everyone knows you do not play National League teams in the process of winning the World Series.) Is anyone wowed by the fact that he's struck out 174 Major League batters in 176.1 innings? The days of late-inning heroics are long gone; the celebrations of leaping men in uniform at home plate a thing of the past.
That was the identity of the Red Sox these past few years, more than often bailed out by Ortiz. What is this team's identity?
Best record in baseball. Good team. Good pitching. Solid starters, excellent bullpen.
We've sought so long and hard for one that by now it has become evident that it doesn't really have one. Theo Epstein wanted to rid himself of the "Idiot" culture, but he has replaced it with a collection so vanilla in attitude that one has to wonder what the consensus is when adversity is placed in front of the OPS objective.
Not to get all Michiko Kakutani here or anything, but how can an "objective" encounter "adversity"? Can an "objective" really reach a "consensus"? Can an "attitude" be "vanilla"? That's just weird. A lot of abstract nouns doing a lot of active things in there, Wilbur.
Where's the fire? Where's the passion?
Mark my words: Tim Duncan will never win a championship. Pete Sampras will never win a tournament. John Stockton sucked balls. Ivan Lendl was so bad at tennis whenever he touched a tennis ball it would explode and kill fourteen innocent bystanders. Unless you scream and curse and cry and pump your fist and chop your groin all at the same time, you will never be good at sports.
The Yankees welcomed the Red Sox into their home and were ready to pounce, even after falling one night earlier to Detroit, 16-0. Their zeal was evident from pitch one on Tuesday.
Their zeal was evident in that they won. They won the games. That's why this article was written. If the Sox had taken one or two of the games, regardless of how passionate they looked while doing it, this article doesn't exist. Winning. Winning is important. Winning makes guys leap into each others' arms. Winning makes David Ortiz crush people with bear hugs. Winning at sports.
Now, before we get out of hand, let's be fair and rewind the clock. It was Sept. 17-19 of '04 when the Red Sox invaded Yankee Stadium for three, starting with a thrilling 3-2 win on Friday night, and ending with embarrassing 12-5 and 11-4 losses the next two days. The next weekend, the Yanks made Pedro Martinez their adopted son.
One month later, none of it mattered.
Way to disprove your own article.
Maybe we're being a bit too revisionist, erroneously remembering the 2004 squad as a group that could change water into wine, slay the dragons that unwelcomingly inhabit the Charles, and accurately able to translates the mayor's jabberings. But still, that team had a certain undeniable ardor that this edition is severely lacking.
New sports word: ardor! Ardor: does your team have it? A short radio play: Joe Buck: Well, Tim, you have to like the Red Sox' starting pitching and bullpen, but how do you feel about their ardor?
Tim McCarver: Ardor is a funny thing, Joe. It's like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said about pornography: "I know it when I see it." And with these Red Sox, I just don't see it.
JB: How do you know it when you see it, Tim?
TM: For me, it's when you see the dick going in.
(ten minutes of silence)
TM: Oh. I see. You were talking about ardor.
"You know what happens when you wake a sleeping giant," Papelbon said yesterday after the Chamberlain incident.
Yes. But whether the Red Sox are indeed a snoozing leviathan or indolent group of nondescript ballplayers remains the question.
Hey Eric Wilbur, indolent means "slothful, lazy, idle." You really think a large percentage of Red Sox players are slothful, lazy, and idle? Okay, dude. Have fun telling them that.
Plus, nondescript? Tell me: which team, other than the Yankees, has more descript players than the fucking Boston fucking Red Sox? We're talking descript as hell here. Ortiz, Schilling, Manny, Dice-K, Papelbon, Beckett. These guys are unique, superfamous uberstars. Even the role players are descript: Youkilis is Moneyball-famous, Pedroia is three feet tall, Coco Crisp has a funny name, Wakefield throws a knuckler, Varitek is supposedly a god of intangibles. I'll tell you who's nondescript: the Pittsburgh Pirates.
They're one of the best teams in the game, no doubt, and have an outside shot at a 100-win season. But be honest, can you really imagine this group as World Series champions?
Yes. Broken record: very good pitching, decent hitting, dependable bullpen. No one's a lock, of course, but they have a shot, sure. On the flip side, nobody expected Detroit and St. Louis to be in the World Series last year after the way they played much of August.
Way to disprove your own article, part II. But the fact that there is something so maddeningly lacking on the Red Sox in terms of fire and inspiration still has much of the baseball world looking elsewhere when trying to pinpoint a winner. They can do it.
No, you can't backtrack and say they can do it now. You can't. I'm not allowing it. The whole thesis of this article is that they can't do it because they're not emotional. They're not special. You're not buying it back here.
They just have shown us no reason why anyone should think they could.
81-55. AL-best 3.75 ERA. Fourth in MLB in runs scored. No reason.
Guys scream and pump their fists and point to the sky and give each other funny handshakes when they win. For the last time, it's not the other way around.
Yesterday the White Sox dropped two games in dismal fashion to the Red Sox. Ozzie Guillen, post-game:
"A tough day for everyone. Pitching, hitting, defense. You just name it. I think that's one of the reasons they're in first place and we're in last place."
Pitching, hitting, defense. One of the reasons the Red Sox are in first place and the White Sox are in last.
Why Would You Ask This Man A Question About Baseball?
Of course, no one should listen to sports talk radio. Clinical studies have definitively shown that even brief exposure to ESPN Radio causes memory loss and reduction of cognitive function in lab mice.
So I was just in my car listening to a man whose name I believe is Erik Kuselias (Wikipedia helpfully notes that this man "is a member of Mensa International, the society for people with high IQs"). I have very little to say about Erik, except to plaintively ask him, Why would you ask Stephen A. Smith questions about baseball?
I didn't transcribe any of this, but I believe in about a (loud) five-minute span, Mr. Smith said approximations of the following things: I'm not really a baseball guy
I'm a big Yankees fan
I'd like to see the Yankees get Gagne, or the Mets
(on whether the Red Sox need Jermaine Dye) David Ortiz gave me a hug
The Boston Red Sox KNOW HOW TO WIN
The Red Sox play WillieBall
The Yankees rely on home runs
The Red Sox steal bases, hit and run, and again, KNOW HOW TO WIN
He also once (loudly, confidently) referred to the Boston Red Sox as the Boston Celtics.
Just for the record:
Yankees SB: 80 Red Sox SB: 56
Yankees WillieBall Quotient: 9.36 Red Sox WillieBall Quotient: -3.42
Erik Kuselias, you are a member of Mensa International, the society for people with high IQs. Please, do not ask this man about baseball again.
It's Always the Same Problem with Mickelson: One Guy, One Cab
Only MSNBC's Michael Ventre -- rapidly becoming my favorite sportswriter in America -- dares to ask the question that is on everyone's mind: are apples like oranges?
Red Sox on Verge of Mickelson-like Collapse?
For the record, Phil Mickelson has won three majors. This year alone he has won at TPC at Sawgrass and the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. He's #2 in the world, and #2 on the money list.
He is also a professional golfer, which means he has nothing to do with baseball.
The Boston Red Sox have been doing business a lot longer than Phil Mickelson has been alive.
Yet I can’t help but think of the Red Sox as the Phil Mickelson of baseball.
Excellent thesis statement. You're the Stephen Jay Gould of MSNBC free-lancers.
Lefty had once held the title of Best Golfer Never to Have Won a Major. Then in 2004, he won a major, the Masters. He added to his credentials by winning the PGA Championship in 2005, and another Masters in 2006. Life was good.
But it appears Mickelson had intended only to visit his sport’s peak, not set up camp there. Since then, he collapsed in the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot. This year, he faltered badly in the Scottish Open, a warm-up tournament for the British Open, then missed the cut at Carnoustie.
Just so I am clear. He won the Masters for the second time last year. He lost in the final round of the Open, missed the cut at the British, and now he is terrible?
If you stare at Mickelson long enough, you can see Mike Torrez. If you look even harder, you can see Bill Buckner.
Oooh -- I love those things. Here's a neat one -- if you stare hard enough you see a toucan!
This bizarre metonymic Mickelson-as-All-Chokers trope is flimsy, man. The guy's won three majors in three years. Also, he is a golfer, and the Red Sox are a baseball team. That should be the most obvious reason why the comparison doesn't work, given the -- shall we say -- significant differences in the two sports. But hell, I admire your can-do attitude. Let's keep rolling.
And if you study the Red Sox these days, the phenomenon is mutual. Stare intently at the wobbly American League East leaders and you’ll see Mickelson, smacking errant tee shots and bogeying three of the final five holes at Loch Lomond.
I'm going to make a good-faith effort to back you on this journalistic suicide mission.
The Red Sox have tripped a bit recently, yes. They are basically .500 since June 1. But they just took 3 of 4 from the best home team in the AL and have a 7.5 game lead in the AL East. BP puts their odds of winning the AL East at 95.9%, and 98.67% to make the playoffs.
Phil Mickelson...is a golfer...who...forget it. I give up. This is insane.
It may not be completely fair to compare the two, since
One is a baseball team and one is a golfer?
Boston’s bustling infirmary has had something to do with its recent vulnerability.
Oh.
David Ortiz is just recently back from resting a strained shoulder. Curt Schilling is rehabbing in the minors because of right shoulder tendinitis. Jon Lester recently returned to the team after battling a form of lymphoma. J.D. Drew has constant hamstring issues. Matt Clement is still working his way back from offseason shoulder surgery. Brendan Donnelly is recovering from a strained forearm.
Clement was never in the 2007 gameplan. Donnelly was pitching pretty well when he went down, but in his absence the bullpen hasn't missed a beat. Lester returned from his cancer scare, and ahead of schedule, so that weakens your argument. Drew's problems have not seemingly been injury-related. Ortiz missed like four games and has a .991 OPS this year.
Mickelson had a wrist thing a little while back. I think with a little tinkering, this "injury" run could be rejiggered to support your claim. Think about it.
But the Red Sox have shown disturbing signs — for their anguished fans, at least — that they might not feel comfortable at the top. Despite their World Series breakthrough in 2004, their natural tendency to collapse appears to be surfacing.
Their "natural tendency to collapse." Because a team's inherent nature transcends ownership and personnel changes from generation to generation. Because baseball franchises are like the four Hogwarts Houses in Harry Potter books. (You're a Slytherin, Michael Ventre. ASlytherin.)
Before Thursday’s games, they held a 6.5 game lead over the second-place New York Yankees, who had been stuck in as large a mental quagmire as they have ever had to try and overcome. It marked the first time since May 11 that Boston had held a lead of fewer than seven games. The Red Sox held a 12-game lead in early July, but the Yankees have somehow asserted themselves.
Excellent analysis. They didn't "somehow assert themselves." They began performing exactly the way their ExWL numbers predicted they would. In fact, they are still underperforming by about 5-6 games, so we can expect that their good play will continue. The Red Sox, meanwhile, had been very slightly overperforming, but in general just hit a slump. Kind of like Luis Delís between the '87 World Championships and the '93 Central American and Caribbean Games.
And despite the fact that the Red Sox had won five straight before falling on Wednesday against Cleveland, the omens are present.
For the motherhumping record, there is no such thing as: curses, omens, augurs, ghouls, ghosts, True Yankees, or franchises being haunted by fat ex-ballplayers who would have no reason to haunt said franchise, since the trade of the fat player led to him becoming the most famous athlete, maybe, in history.
But please, on with the omen discussion.
For instance, on Wednesday night Boston lost to Fausto Carmona and the Indians, 1-0. Nothing to be ashamed of, yet it was unsettling that Josh Beckett threw an outstanding game but lost on one measly mistake to Franklin Gutierrez, which turned into a solo shot. And it was Beckett’s first road loss since last September.
So spooky! So omen-ish!
The night before, The Sox won 1-0 on several bloop singles that fell just out of the reach of Indians' fielders.
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble!
Also, Fausto Carmona is a very good pitcher. He defeated another team by pitching excellently.
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble!
Not a problem. Nothing to panic over. Sometimes a black cat crosses your path, and most of the time it means nothing. Most of the time.
No, all of the time it means nothing. I know I'm losing my argument thread here, but now Ventre is crossing over from bad analogy to superstitious piffle. And I don't care if he's winking and "goofing around" and "being lighthearted." Black cats are not any different from other cats. And even in a universe where I good-naturedly agree to play along with the idea that there are "omens" in baseball, this isn't a fucking omen. Being defeated by an excellent pitcher 1-0 in game 3 of a series in which you win the other three games is not an omen of anything except that you are a good baseball team -- indeed, you have the best record in baseball -- and that you should be happy with the results of that series.
Meanwhile, the Yankees, a team some consider the luckiest men on the planet — usually the people who believe that live in, or hail from, the New England area — have managed to avert a complete oil spill of a season and are making a run.
They have gotten their share of good breaks in the last ten years or so, yes. They are also a $200m+ collection of excellent players who, recently, have been absolutely destroying the baseball in exactly the way that mathematics and reason predicts they should. They have also been pitching better. And thus: winning. To draw an analogy for you, Ventre: the Yankees are currently performing much like Carolina Klüft during her magical run at the 2003 World Championships in Paris.
The Yankees trailed by 14.5 games in late May, but they’ve won 11 of their last 13. Probably nothing to fret over. I’m sure the Red Sox will be cool. Historically, they’re known for their composure down the stretch, especially with the numeral “14” involved. They had a 14-game lead in 1978, but it disappeared down the stretch, and Bucky Dent put an exclamation mark on the disaster with a game-winning home run over the Green Monster in a playoff game.
Yes, that is factually accurate. Tell me, though -- how is the number "14" involved here, though? Because at one point, several months ago, the lead was 14.5 games? And that means that this year and 1978 are linked, portentously? Excellent. By the way, man -- I enjoyed your movie.
But it’s silly to toss and turn over what might happen in the future. After all, what are the chances that the Boston Red Sox will somehow fail to live up to their promise? They have legions of devoted fans who live and die with their exploits. Why in the world would a team disappoint their fans like that?
What are you trying to prove here? I honestly don't understand. Are you blaming the team for falling short in past seasons? And insinuating that they did it, like, intentionally?
David Ortiz has 16 home runs this season. Last year he finished with 54. I’m sure that if he bears down and goes on a tear he can match that total. I wouldn’t worry about it.
The team signed Drew to a five-year contract in the offseason worth $70 million. Lately he’s been limping a lot. So far he’s batting .247, with six home runs and 38 RBI. But he’ll catch fire soon, I’m sure.
...this season [Curt Schilling] is just 6-4 with a 4.20 ERA in 15 starts, and he hasn’t pitched since June 18. Yet I feel certain that the 40-year-old veteran of 21 major-league seasons will spring to life soon and power the Red Sox to victory like he did in the days when he was pitching in Arizona alongside another invincible war horse, Randy Johnson.
Michael Ventre is sarcastically pointing out that: Ortiz is having an off-year (.340 EqA, .991 OPS), JD Drew is having an off-year (true) and Curt Schilling isn't as good as he was six years ago when he was in his absolute prime. As if he should be.
The PGA Championship is scheduled to take place in two weeks at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla. The best thing that could happen to the Red Sox would be for Mickelson to snap out of his funk and win another major.
(EDIT: I missed completely how dumb this last sentence was -- the phrasing, I mean. So I will here insert Junior's comment from the comments section below. Take it away, Junior.) Best thing? Best? You know, actually, if you think about it, of all of the infinite things in the world that could happen between now and the end of the season, Phil Mickelson winning a major is somewhere right around 50th percentile. Because it has no impact on the Sox whatsoever. It goes something like this:
Bestest -Sox win 60 games in a row, Yankees franchise disbands -Ortiz gets healthy, Schilling comes back strong -A-Rod starts looking human -Barack Obama is revealed to have killed Pat Tillman -Ugly Betty wins five Emmys -Phil Mickelson wins a major -A mother elephant sacrifices its life to safe its baby -I eat a duck confit sandwich with fig jam -Youkilis gets super into scuba diving and loses his love for baseball -Manny loses his hand in a meat cutter -Sox lose 60 games in a row, Yankees are awarded a Peabody and a Humanitas Worstest
(END EDIT. Back to Ventre's column.)
That would illustrate to them that negative habits can be broken.
One more time -- "negative habits" like winning the Masters twice in three years and being one of the best golfers of his era and making millions and millions of dollars by being good at golf? Those negative habits?
I tell you what would be a good omen for the Red Sox. If Nathan Deakes could regain the form that led him to Gold at the 2002 Manchester Games. Deakes and the Sox are like totally parallel in terms of what they do athletically.
And very special thanks to reader David, who pointed out that the bird in that Magic Eye thing is actually a toucan, and not a parrot, as originally reporter.
The best thing that could happen to the Red Sox would be for Mickelson to snap out of his funk and win another major.
Best thing? Best? You know, actually, if you think about it, of all of the infinite things in the world that could happen between now and the end of the season, Phil Mickelson winning a major is somewhere right around 50th percentile. Because it has no impact on the Sox whatsoever. It goes something like this:
Bestest -Sox win 60 games in a row, Yankees franchise disbands -Ortiz gets healthy, Schilling comes back strong -A-Rod starts looking human -Barack Obama is revealed to have killed Pat Tillman -Ugly Betty wins five Emmys -Phil Mickelson wins a major -A mother elephant sacrifices its life to safe its baby -I eat a duck confit sandwich with fig jam -Youkilis gets super into scuba diving and loses his love for baseball -Manny loses his hand in a meat cutter -Sox lose 60 games in a row, Yankees are awarded a Peabody and a Humanitas Worstest
I Think We're Overrating Everyday Players Here, Steve
Steve Phillips, calling the Red Sox-Mariners game today:
If you're an everyday player in the major leagues, you have to do something special. You either have to be a power hitter, you have to run and steal bases, and if you don't do either of those, you better be a .320 hitter or a guy that hits over .300 and make solid plays defensively. And that's really what Dustin Pedroia is going to have to do to lock himself into that role every day here in Boston.
Let's break it down.
If you're an everyday player in the major leagues
like Jack Wilson or Geoff Jenkins
you have to do something special
like Jay Gibbons and Ronnie Belliard do.
You either have to be a power hitter, you have to run and steal bases,
These things are of absolutely equal value.
and if you don't do either of those, you better be a .320 hitter
14 people in the major leagues did this last year.
or a guy that hits over .300 and make solid plays defensively.
37 people in all of baseball hit .300 in 2006. There are approximately 240 "everyday" position players. (Not counting DHs, platoons, etc.)
And that's really what Dustin Pedroia is going to have to do to lock himself into that role every day here in Boston.
Dustin Pedroia is the everyday starting second baseman for the Boston Red Sox. At this point, he's going to have to play himself out of that role.
Other than that, perfectly legitimate paragraph, there, Steve.
Of course, this makes sense because it happened on sports radio, a place where no one is supposed to make sense -- you're just supposed to shout at increasing volumes and play funny car horn sound effects. Specifically, it was on WEEI, and even more specifically, it was from the mouth of Gerry Callahan, who, like 97% of the world, hates Mr. J.D. Drew because he's not a "gamer." He doesn't "game," he doesn't have any "fire," and he certainly doesn't bring any "lunch pails" to "work" at his "blue-collar" "job" of being a "baseball" player.
Seriously. In a game where a million people did a million shitty things for the Red Sox, Callahan sticks it to Drew for taking a walk in the first inning. It's right here, at about the 2:20 mark.
One point in this game I took note of J.D. Drew -- and I know everyone's going to jump on me and say all I do is knock the guy, which is probably true, but -- he comes up in the first inning, Ortiz on second, two outs, you need a hit from him. You need to drive the ball. You can't afford a walk. The bottom of the order is weak. Mike Lowell's coming up next. They're going to walk him all game, all day, if he doesn't kind of take a more aggressive approach at the plate.
That's right, Nancy Drew. Why don't you swing, you girl named Nancy? Afraid of swinging at balls outside of the strike zone? Don't want to swing at bad pitches because that's a bad idea when you're playing baseball? Afraid to be a man and strike out instead of walk like some kind of sissy girl?
You're such a girl.
At this point Callahan asks Jerry Remy if he agrees. Rem-Dawg?
Uh, uh, yes and no. First of all, that's been his reputation his whole career. You know, I mean, that's one of the things that's made him appealing to the Red Sox is the fact that he'll take a walk. You know, he has that high on-base percentage, but I agree -- you know, guys in that situation have to expand the strike zone a little bit. And I don't mean by swinging at bad pitches, but you know, if you get a bad pitch on 3-1, you gotta wiggle at it instead of taking it and letting the count go to 3-2. You know, Frank Thomas was also criticized for doing the same thing when he was with Chicago, you know, trying to take the walk instead of trying to drive in the run. Um, I think it's too early, I still think as the season develops and depending on how the guys behind him hit, you know, I think he'll make the adjustment. Watching him in spring training, this guy is loaded with talent, he really is. I really feel he's going to have a pretty good year with the Red Sox.
Much more reasonable. Yes, walks lead to a high on-base percentage, which is good, and yes, it is still early. It's the first inning of the first game of the season. Thank you for your sanity, Rem-Dawg. Frank Thomas, by the way, is one of the most remarkable hitters of recent times, and the fact that he got criticized for the same exact thing puts Drew in excellent company.
Imagine what will happen to Callahan's brain when Drew actually does something bad. My prediction: it will sublimate directly from a solid to a gas and flow out his ears into the WEEI studios and everyone will be happy unless they accidentally breathe in the Callahan brain-gas.
MLB Gameday allows you to look at the pitch by pitch at bats from previous games. Go load up the Red Sox and Royals from Monday April 2nd and look at the J.D. Drew at bat in question.
Pitch 1: Waist high, off the side of the plate. Ball. Pitch 2: Same location, farther outside. Ball. 2-0. Pitch 3: Just off the middle of the plate, slight lower than first two pitches. Called strike. This is obviously the pitch Drew was supposed to hit, However, Gameday doesn't tell us what type of pitch this was. It could have been a well placed ball that fooled Drew. Pitch 4: Well low, another Ball. Pitch 5: Outside, just below the location of Pitches 1 and 2.
So which one of these pitches was J.D. Drew suppose to swing at? And how does having a 2-2 or 3-2 count improve a batter's chances more than actually being on first base? Obviously Drew should have foreseen that Lowell would strike out on the next at bat and that attempting to get one run from Ortiz on base would be better than letting Lowell attempting to get two with multiple runners on base (since this was the 9th inning of a tie game, after all.... what? It was the first? Oh, never mind).
From annoyingly intentionally controversial Dan Shaughnessy, writing about the Red Sox' Opening Day loss:
Worse than Ellen DeGeneres's first night hosting the Oscars. Worse than Arsenio Hall's first shot at late-night television. Worse than Patriots coach Clive Rush's first press conference, when he was nearly electrocuted.
I get it. The Red Sox were bad and Dan Shaughnessy has watched TV.
Now, I would just like to add the sentence "It's one game" after the following paragraphs.
Blogmaster Schilling threw like a man suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome, yielding five runs on eight hits and two walks in just four innings. 38pitches? That's almost how many Schill needed to get out of the first inning, when he threw 33 and walked home a run. It was his shortest outing since July 2001 and hardly a good start to his 2007 campaign for a new contract.
Meanwhile, Bill James-mandated shortstop Julio Lugo started his Red Sox reign in Renteria-esque fashion, fanning in his first three at-bats, Japanese lefty Hideki Okajima yielded a home run on his first big league pitch, two Sox runners were cut down at second base, and spring strugglers Jason Varitek and Coco Crisp had hitless starts. Sox pitchers yielded 12 hits and two walks in eight innings.
It's one game.
(When Julio Lugo does something bad, it's because a computer liked him.)
Facing the widely mocked Gil Meche ($55 million over five years?), the Red Sox lineup was hardly the relentless run-producing machine that Theo and the Minions envisioned when they hovered over their computers during the wild-spending winter. The Red Sox struck out 10 times, and six of their eight hits were singles.
It's one game.
(Whenever the Red Sox lose, it's because of computers.)
In conclusion, it is my belief that Dan Shaughnessy's daughter once had sex with a computer and he is not comfortable with that.
The Post Wherein I Take A Throwaway Sentence in the Penultimate Paragraph of a Murray Chass Column Absolutely Devoid of New Information or Insight ...
... and I use it to bludgeon him to death.
Look, the column is no good. Boring, stale, rehashed -- and the big revelation is an allegation by an anonymous source that gasp! the Red Sox wanted to keep Daisuke Matsuzaka away from the Yankees.
Well, no shit.
My issue is with this paragraph, which appears in an odd little below-the-dot addendum at the end of the piece: Varitek was speaking before the Red Sox abandoned their plan to make Jonathan Papelbon a starter and restored him to the closer role he filled so capably for most of last season. But his exit from the starting rotation presumably weakens it. It now has two 40-year-olds, one of whom, Tim Wakefield, had a losing record last season that might have made the difference between the Red Sox making and not making the playoffs.
Read that last sentence again. According to Murray Chass, Tim Wakefield was (okay, "might have" been) the reason the Red Sox didn't make the playoffs last year. This is sort of like blaming Azerbaijan for fucking up the war in Iraq, except a million times more egregious and important and serious.
Mr. Chass, let me explain to you how you go about not writing a sentence like that. I know you don't cotton to VORP or WARP or people who believe, as I do, that the game of baseball is played by animatronic numbers swinging bats and fielding balls. Unfortunately, this method involves a computer, which you may have to purchase, and the Internet, which you may have to look up in a dictionary and then dismiss as a fad.
Alternatively, you could probably find this information at the library with your knowledge of card catalogs and the Dewey Decimal Classification System. It would only take several more hours and ten times the work.
First, find last year's baseball standings. You will discover that the Red Sox finished eleven games behind the AL East champion Yankees and nine games behind the Wild Card Tigers. So we'll go with nine games as the ground the Sox needed to make up to reach the playoffs.
Now look up Tim Wakefield. Yahoo (don't worry about what that is) provides a record of all of the games he pitched in last year. Huh. Look at that. In 23 games started by Wakefield, the Red Sox went 11-12.
Your claim, remember, is that "Tim Wakefield had a losing record last season that might have made the difference between the Red Sox making and not making the playoffs."
11-12. Nine games out. So Tim Wakefield would've had to have willed his team to go 20-3 in his games he started in order for them to even pull into a tie with the Tigers.
I think it's pretty fair to blame him for that.
---
I'm jumping all over Chass for a minor mistake in a minor piece written before the season has even started. But I think it's a minor mistake that reflects either carelessness (if you're willing to be charitable) or a fundamental misunderstanding of very basic statistics and player value. It's like Chass saw on a piece of paper that Wakefield went 7-11 and decided he had a terrible year because hey, that's losing and losing is bad. The year before he went 16-12. That's winning! There you have it: Tim Wakefield, 2006 goat.
Here's the thing: Wakefield may have finished 16-12, but in games Wakefield started in 2005, the Red Sox went 17-16. That's basically .500. Which is basically what they did in his starts in 2006. Because that's what Tim Wakefield gives you -- league-average ERA and hopefully, lots of innings. (His last three ERA+ years have looked like this: 100, 106, 100.)
Wakefield did miss starts last year, and that hurt the Red Sox, but keep in mind that that's not what Chass is saying. No: he is saying that 7-11 (losing!) somehow damned the Red Sox to that ignominious third place finish.
See, being afraid of numbers and resistant to change and unwilling to learn new things doesn't just make you look like a sad, anachronistic old kook. It can actually hurt your writing in concrete, demonstrable ways. It can make you assert things that with an ounce of research can be shown to be patently ridiculous.
I am beginning to think that Murray Chass could improve as a sportswriter.
A Meta-Post (Original Title: "Dan Shaughnessy Still Hates Theo Epstein")
I'm torn. Genuinely so. At around 6 pm PST today, I put up a post called "Dan Shaughnessy Still Hates Theo Epstein." It was okay. A little light on hard analysis, perhaps. A lot of digs at Shaughnessy. Mainly, I felt the need to respond to Shaughnessy's most recent column because he took some fairly cheap, name-calling-style shots at the Red Sox front office, most of them in the computer-nerd-bookworm-cyber-spreadsheet vein. You know, he entered the Plaschke zone. That kind of stuff boils my blood.
But then I got to thinking: sure, Shaughnessy didn't write a good article. I disagree with the way he went about attacking Theo Epstein (basically, through insinuation, strange veiled threats, and schoolyard name-calling rather than substantive roster move analysis). That said, isn't the Red Sox front office partly responsible for what's happened in the years following the 2004 championship? If you're a Red Sox fan, you have to start considering the 2005 and 2006 (barring a miraculous turnaround) seasons as failures. Why? The team has an enormous payroll and a core group of talent that theoretically could be built around to form a championship-level team. I'm speaking mainly of two MVP-caliber hitters performing at peak or near-peak levels and a near-Cy Young-caliber starter. And yet for whatever reason, championship-level ballclubs have not been assembled. Essentially: shouldn't Red Sox fans be worried that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez' remaining superstar-type years are being squandered on teams with next to no pitching? And shouldn't some blame for that lack of pitching be placed at the feet of Theo Epstein and those working with him? I think these are legitimate questions, so I'm a little concerned about whether my defense -- if you want to call it that -- of Epstein in the post below is completely fair. If a front office is failing to do a competent job, they should be criticized, no matter if they're using sabermetric methods or picking players' names out of badly soiled stovepipe hat.
Let's not forget, however, that (let's get horribly, stupidly nerdy) the philosophical telos of this site isn't to assess whether front offices are doing a good job or not. It's to lambaste bad sportswriting and commentary. And I think this Shaughnessy piece is unequivocally bad. Am I bending over backwards to defend Theo because he doesn't claim Moneyball was written by a three-headed robot made of tin, wax and papier-mache? I don't know. Tell me what you think.
Here's the original post.
---
You're Dan Shaughnessy. For years, you pay your bills selling the idea of a magical curse dooming a baseball franchise forever. The more famous the curse becomes, the higher your profile. You write a book about the curse. Documentary filmmakers come to you for your curly-headed opinions on the curse. You're pretty much known as Dan Shaughnessy, That Curse Guy.
Then, sudddenly, it's all over. You write your cash-in book about the end of the curse. But uh-oh, now no one cares about the curse anymore. It's done. It's almost like this supernatural curse was never real to begin with.
There's a guy who a lot of people are cheering as the non-player most responsible for reversing the curse. He's young, handsome, and he has used a computer before. Perhaps numerous computers. He hasn't paid his dues. He's not a "baseball man." And he's a pretty boring quote.
Do you a) hate this guy or b) really, really hate him and take every opportunity to needle him in your columns whenever possible?
The Red Sox brass set sail on John Henry's big boat last night. The owner held a party to celebrate the engagement of his star general manager, Theo Epstein. Nice gesture. Toasts all around, no doubt. A three-hour tour.
Funny stuff. I remember that show. If the Professor could build a radio out of a coconut, why didn't he just build a boat? Am I right, people? (general silence, the soft clinking of glasses)
It was undoubtedly nice to get away for a few hours, but there is no safe place for Epstein and Sox management at this moment -- not even on the high seas. The SS Red Sox is sinking fast in the American League. The sun no longer shines on the handsome head of young Theo (wonder if he's signed his much-celebrated contract yet).
I only mentioned that Theo was handsome earlier because Shaughnessy really likes bringing it up all the time. Also, did you know that he's young? Shaughnessy would like everyone to know that.
The computer-geek management style has been thoroughly exposed in the last two days and there's a perfect storm brewing upstairs on Yawkey Way.
Ah. Here we go. Get those claws out, Shaughnee! These geeks can't run a baseball team! They don't even chew tobacco or drive mud-splattered pickup trucks to minor league games in the boonies. What exactly has been exposed in the last two days, no matter how horrific they've been for the Red Sox? A lack of pitching? That Josh Beckett is severely underperforming almost everyone's expectations? That the Yankees' lineup is capable of feasting on chumps like Jason Johnson and Kyle Snyder. I think we knew these things? I don't see a lot of solutions to these problems, and I didn't see too many at the trading deadline. If you want to go back further in time, the Beckett trade doesn't look all that great now, but I don't recall too many people objecting to it at the time. Hardly anyone projected Beckett to stink as much as he has. Bronson Arroyo for Wily Mo Pena? Still doesn't look that bad. Maybe what's being exposed is that Matt Clement was a terrible signing? Is Shaughnessy still misty-eyed for Pedro and Lowe?
The way things are going, Young Theo --
He's young.
-- might don that gorilla suit again, but this time he might need it to hide from an angry Nation of paying customers who want to know why nothing was done at the trade deadline and how you try to win a pennant with no lefty in the bullpen and a collection of dead arms and dead presidents (Mr. Van Buren, I presume) posing as major league pitchers.
Get it, "Nation"? You should be angry! Angry at Theo Epstein! Not angry at Beckett for being terrible or Wells and Wakefield and Foulke for getting hurt or Seanez and Tavarez for totally falling off from what they did last year. Did anyone think Seanez and Tavarez would both pitch this historically badly? Or that Ramon Ortiz would have a better ERA than Beckett? I see a few hands raised. Fine. Congratulations.
Three of the five crucial games against the Yankees have been played, and the numbers are more ghastly than snakes on a plane.
NICE. That'll get the kids on board. First hit 'em with Gilligan, then boom! SoaP. Dano, my boy, you've still got it. The first three games of this series have been equally hideous, and young Theo,
Not old.
who was unavailable after yesterday's carnage, is getting his lunch fed to him by one Brian Cashman as the Sox threaten to suck all the wind out of what's left of summer.
Brian Cashman, who personally drove in 23 of the Yankees' 39 total runs. Brian Cashman, who led the team in pitches per plate appearance, eating up the Sox' bullpen. Brian Cashman, who hid in Jason Varitek's wine cellar for weeks before sneaking into his bedroom and inserting a time-release poison capsule into his left knee, causing its cartilage to rapidly deteriorate.
I'm not saying that you can't talk about the construction of these ballclubs when you see one beating up on the other so thoroughly and devastatingly. But is the story here that the Red Sox front office has unconscionably failed? I haven't seen any actual analysis yet. Wait, here we go:
Oh, and is anybody rethinking that Johnny Damon decision now?
Sort of? I think it's pretty clear that the problem here is pitching, not hitting. Even after those three amazing performances by the Yankee offense, guess how many more runs the Yankees have scored than the Sox this season? Seven. I'm pretty sure that as recently as about four days ago, the Red Sox led the majors in runs scored.
Then Shaughnessy has a quote from Larry Lucchino. Hmm. The article bashes Theo and includes thoughts from Lucchino. Anyway, the quote is boring. Let's skip it. Manager Terry Francona, ever the company man, will not state the obvious and tell us, ``How am I supposed to beat these guys with this pitching staff?" but he is clearly as frustrated as a lot of Red Sox fans. Yesterday he watched the talented and hard-headed Josh Beckett walk nine (most by a Sox pitcher since Rogelio Moret in 1975) while giving up a career-high nine earned runs in 5 2/3 innings.
So ... maybe Beckett is at least partially to blame for what happened?
Beckett's ERA is 5.35 and he looks like he needs to stop listening to Dave Wallace and Al Nipper and go see Dr. Phil.
Another sweet reference, man. The Shaughn-man is on fire.
To his credit, Beckett answered all questions and assumed full responsibility for his outing (``unacceptable, brutal").
To his discredit, his performance so far is one of the biggest reasons you're bashing Theo Epstein.
The last time the Yankees scored in double digits in three games in one Fenway series was in 1927 when the Pinstripes had guys named Ruth and Gehrig in the lineup. The Yankees have batted around five times in three games. One wonders if perhaps even cyberowner Henry has seen enough spread-sheet baseball for one season.
That's what I call bad pitching. Spread-sheet baseball. Ooh, that John Henry! Maybe if he would stop hitting on girls on MySpace all day he would learn how to build a damn baseball team! Computers bad! Computers make baseball team lose! Odd that Henry would be celebrating Epstein's engagement at a time when the honeymoon is officially over for the most popular and bulletproof general manager in Boston sports history.
What exactly is odd about this? Odd that John Henry likes Theo Epstein and wanted to do something nice for him? Odd because you're forcing a false connection between an actual engagement between two humans and a theoretical "honeymoon" that you made up in your brain? It seems like you're angry that Theo Epstein seems to be "bulletproof." Is it really so strange that people sort of like a guy who was the general manager when the team finally won the World Series after 86 years? This paragraph has too many rhetorical questions in it. In fact, this whole post is infested with them. I apologize. I'll try to do better the next time. The cruise is over and so is the free ride for Theo. No disgrace in that, it happens to all of them, but the Sox need a quick turnaround to keep Epstein out of the shark-infested waters that devoured the likes of Lou Gorman and Dan Duquette.
The crazy, crazy, crazy thing about this concluding paragraph is that Dan Shaughnessy is one of the very sharks in the "shark-infested waters" he's writing about. He's basically saying, Hey Theo, you better watch out -- if the team doesn't start winning more games, people are going to try to get you fired. In fact, watch: I'm doing it right now. Me, Dan Shaughnessy. I am one of the sharks I'm talking about here.
How old do you think Murray Chass is? It turns out if you look at his Wikipedia page, you can figure out that he's around 68, which is way off from my guess of 5.348 x 10^7. Although you can never rule out the possibility that Murray himself edited his page to say that he graduated from Pitt in 1960 instead of 5.348 x 10^7 B.C.
Anyway, Chass has fired up his bellows-powered typewriter to throw some more not-so-subtle jabs at his least favorite assemblage of baseball players, the Boston Red Sox. The result is not so much a Celizic-style disaster as an overwrought, underthought, giant sneer of a piece. Basically, par for the Chass course.
Ahem. The Boston Red Sox are a poor excuse for a good baseball team.
Zing!
A less biased sentence would read: The Boston Red Sox are a good baseball team, tied for third in the AL and fourth in all of baseball. They trail the Yankees, a team with -- and no, we can't harp on this enough -- a payroll more than $74 million greater than theirs, by two games.
Digression: I know, I know. What right do Red Sox fans have to complain about payroll? Jo
