August 23rd, 2006 → 9:19 am @ Seth Mnookin
“When Robert Rubin left Goldman Sachs 14 years ago and came here to join the Clinton administration, he brought a couple of big ideas with him. …
“The idea was simply that uncertainty was an inevitable part of life and only the foolish imagined they could eliminate it. To make the best possible decisions, bond traders and policy makers alike had to weigh every relevant piece of information, estimate the risks that something unexpected would happen and then make a judgment based on the odds, aware all the while that success could not be guaranteed. They had to understand that a good decision could produce a bad outcome. That is what uncertainty meant, and recognizing it maximized the chances that they would succeed next time.
“‘Unfortunately, Washington — the political process and the media — judges decisions based solely on outcomes, not on the quality of the decision making,’ Mr. Rubin wrote, with his co-author Jacob Weisberg, in his 2003 memoir, In an Uncertain World.”
–“This Fed Chief May Yet Get a Honeymoon,” David Leonhardt, The New York Times, August 23, 2006
Post Categories: Red Sox front office & Robert Rubin
August 22nd, 2006 → 1:08 pm @ Seth Mnookin
For decades, Bob Ryan has been referred to as the dean of Boston sportswriting. Most of his renown has come from his writing on the Celtics — and deservedly so — but today he shows why he’s worth reading on almost any subject. His column, titled “Warning: These truths may hurt,” does a better job of encapsulating the disappointment with the 2006 Red Sox than almost anything I’ve read.
Ryan’s critiques can be more or less summed up as follows:
* The absence of a legitimate number 5 hitter
* The loss of Johnny Damon
* The disappointment of Coco Crisp
* The enigma that is Josh Beckett
* The failure of the bullpen
* The absence of a lefty reliever
I think Ryan’s right-on, both not only because these are obvious problems but because they’re all the result of legitimately second-guessable decisions. Unlike folks who were in favor of the Arroyo-Wily Mo deal when it happened, opposed to it when Arroyo put up ridiculous first-half numbers, and in favor of it during those first several weeks of August, Ryan’s raising serious concerns that could have (and perhaps should have) been addressed.
Ryan also points out – as Nick Cafardo did yesterday — the very real monetary difference between New York and Boston. (There are those who think that’s simply a result of the Sox’s pecuniary conservatism; I disagree, but that’s a topic for another day. Don’t worry: that day will come soon.) In spite of this, Ryan argues that Yankees are – dare I say it – a fun team. A team that, for those non-Red Sox fans out there, it’s pretty easy to root for. As painful as it is to admit it, it’s hard not to agree. Putting aside the question of buying a trip to the playoffs, the Yankees – from Melky Cabrera to Robinson Cano to Jeter to Damon to Williams to Mariano – are oddly appealing, Cabrera and Cano because they’re youngsters coming up big; Mariano and Bernie because they’re vets still plugging away; Jeter because he’s one of the fiercest competitors out there; and Damon because he’s growing a porn-star mustache and still loves his naked pull-ups. (Sheffield, Johnson, and A-Rod are most definitely not appealing; Dumbo, er Posada, is on the fence.)
But Ryan’s most crucial point comes towards the end of his column. He writes:
“The truth is that this is not a good time to be Theo Epstein. For two years running, he has been unable to construct a viable pitching rotation. (We haven’t mentioned Matt Clement, a very nice guy; no one is in a hurry to see him come back, because it’s clear he wasn’t cut out for Boston.) Theo was cut one year of afterglow slack, but overheated fans, already in a bloodthirsty mood, are downright rebellious now that the Yankees have humiliated their team with a five-game sweep. …
“The truth is that in this perverted sports climate, the other team is never just allowed to be better, even for a day, let alone a series or a season. No, no. Blame must be affixed. Heads must be severed.
“Once upon a time, losing brought a brief period of sorrow. Now it brings rage. The rest of the season, I fear, will not be much fun.
“The truth is we need to sit down and figure out what sports are all about. We’ve lost our way.”
Amen to that, brother. This is baseball, folks. This is a game in which senior citizens are asked to put on unflattering uniforms if they want to manage. The Sox have clearly made some mistakes and miscalculations; they’ve also had a lot of success. It sucked ass to lose five-straight to the Yankees. It sucked so much even my friends who are Yankees fans feel bad for me. But let’s not let a disappointing season result in hate mongering. It’s not going to make anyone feel any better. And it’ll make Red Sox fans look a lot worse.
Post Categories: Bob Ryan & Red Sox Fans
August 21st, 2006 → 11:13 pm @ Seth Mnookin
David Ortiz is shilling for hard-on helpers. Seriously — check it out. And it gets worse: he compares failing in the clutch to failing in the sack. (“There are some at-bats where one can’t afford to fail, the same is true during the intimate moments. Take Elevex. Take it from me, David Ortiz (big wink) ‘Big Papi.'”)
Taken to its logical conclusion, this means no one on the Sox has been laid in a week. And it puts Ortiz’s comments after Friday’s double-massacre — “I feel like somebody just kicked my ass. Actually somebody did…That was fucking unbelievable” — in a whole different light.
No wonder everyone’s been so pissy lately.
(Link via Deadspin.)
Post Categories: David Ortiz & Deadspin & Erectile Dysfunction
August 21st, 2006 → 4:06 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Emotions are running high these days — which I certainly understand — but let’s not have the comments section here turn into a flame war. Once you’ve made your point, leave it at that. I’ve posted almost everything people have written in, but I’m going to get a little more selective. Insulting me is fine. Racist, sexist, homophobic, or hateful comments are not, and repeating yourself ad infinitum will no longer be, either.
Post Categories: Comments & Oblique References to Eminem Lyrics
August 21st, 2006 → 1:48 am @ Seth Mnookin
Believe me, I know how much this sucks. I stayed up until 1:30, too. I also had to wake up at 6:30 in the morning. And I also had trouble sleeping. That was a brutal, brutal game. A brutal game in a brutal series in a brutal month.
So take a day off. Take a week off. Don’t read the sports section. Don’t listen to ‘EEI — or any sports radio, regardless of where you live; it’ll only make you depressed, or mad, or both. Take a walk. Treat yourself to a nice lunch. Find something to be thankful for — the weather, or the lobster roll at Legal, or your family, or your dog. If you don’t live in New York, be thankful for that: there’s nothing like a couple of days of intense humidity to bring out the stench of rotting garbage. Look on the bright side: now you can schedule that October vacation. And remind yourself: it’s only a game.
Then, if you still find yourself itching for some baseball, watch this. There’s no way you won’t get goosebumps. (You can also read my book. It’s cheery. Inspiring, even. Honest.) And remember: This is not 1986, or 1978, or 1975, or 1967, or 1948. This is 2006. The Red Sox won the World Series less than two years ago. They won it by staging the most amazing comeback in the history of sports. They won it by sweeping the best team in the National League. And they will win it again.
I promise.
***
EDIT: Despite all this optimisim, one thing I need to get off my chest. For two and a half years, Francona has been a good manager — good on-field decisions, good handling of an oftentimes tough clubhouse, good dealing with both rookies and veterans. But he blew it big time last night. Papelbon hadn’t pitched in four days, Timlin’s been a mess and Javy Lopez (the pitcher, not the catcher) had been called up about 2 minutes before he came in the game. I know Francona wanted to try to keep Pap fresh for today, but last night was a two-inning save situation if I ever saw one. And then asking Youkilis to bunt over Ortiz was a horrendously bad move. Despite chugging around first after his shot down the line, Ortiz is, to put it mildly, not a fast dude. And Youk? He has exactly one sacrifice in his professional career. And that includes the minors.
Post Categories: Videos that restore faith in humanity
August 21st, 2006 → 12:38 am @ Seth Mnookin
Not that Mike Timlin’s a guy who believes in karma, but its been five days since Timlin decided to blame the team’s woes on an offense that’s scored the third most runs in baseball: “We’ve been throwing the ball really well. I’m not calling anybody out, but we haven’t scored a whole lot. We’re pitching well, we’re holding teams down, and they’re doing the same to us.”
Since then, Timlin has faced nine hitters. Seven have reached base, on two singles, two doubles, two walks, and a hit batsman. He’s inherited three runners; all of them scored. And he’s giving up five earned runs. Tonight he put two men on with three pitches.
I’m assuming that Timlin doesn’t spend a lot of time hanging out with Jason Lee. But if he did, I’d bet he’d be looking both ways before he crossed the street.
Post Categories: Karma & Mike Timlin
August 20th, 2006 → 3:51 pm @ Seth Mnookin
“I feel like somebody just kicked my ass. Actually somebody did…That was fucking unbelievable.”
Thus spake David Ortiz in the wake of Friday’s twin killing; one can only imagine what his mood was like after yesterday afternoon’s abomination. Ortiz (putting up monster numbers for the fourth straight year) and Manny Ramirez (putting up monster numbers for the 12th straight year) are far and away the best 3-4 combo in the game; at this point, there’s legitimate debate about whether they’re the best ever.
And right how they’re toiling for a team that appears to be heading quickly down the toilet. There’s a lot of time left in the season, and even after a frighteningly bad stretch, the Red Sox are still only 4.5 games out; a pair of wins tonight and tomorrow will bring them back within 2.5. Admittedly, that doesn’t seem likely. And admittedly, this appears to be a Red Sox team that will miss out on the playoffs for the first time since 2002. Are the Sox squandering one of the last remaining years of Manny and Papi?
***
Ever since the trade deadline, there’s been a lot of chatter — online, in print, over the airwaves — about the Red Sox’s long-term plan versus a focus on the present. I’m at least partially the cause of (or at fault for, depending on your perspective) this discussion because of a scene in the introduction of my book, where I write about a senior staff meeting the Sox held in the days immediately following last year’s playoff loss to the White Sox. In that meeting, Theo Epstein spoke frankly about the future of the organization. “In general, we’ve had a lot of success in player development,” he said. “We’re going to need a lot of patience, because there’s going to be a lot of failure. It could get rough. … Sooner or later we might need to take a half a step backward in return for a step forward. … What if we win 85 games [next year]? We’re bringing up some young players that are going to be better in ’07 than they will be next year. And they’ll probably be even better than that in ’08. … We can be both a large revenue club [that can afford to sign high priced free agents] and have a strong farm system. But it’s probably not going to be a seamless transition. This year we had a great year. We will probably be worse next year.”
In my book, Epstein’s comments — made less than a month before he walked out of Fenway in a gorilla suit — are offset against those made by Larry Lucchino. This scene has been interpreted as Epstein throwing in the towel for 2006 and Lucchino wanting to go for it year after year.
That’s not accurate. Epstein and Lucchino were both, in their own ways, discussing the team’s approach to dealing with the public, not its approach to dealing with the team. That hasn’t changed much: take advantage of what you have, don’t mortgage the future, search out possible bargains, and spend big money when you find someone worth it. This Sox administration has always been willing to trade its prospects so long as it felt like the deal made sense — it was Jon Lester, after all, who was set to go to Texas along with Manny during the week or so in which it looked as if A-Rod would be playing in Boston. And last month it was Lester (along with Coco Crisp) who would have gone to Atlanta for Andruw Jones.
What’s more, it’s hard to look objectively at this year and see a team that had decided to throw in the towel. The 2006 Red Sox have a $120 million payroll. Among this year’s new acquisitions, there’s Mike Lowell, a $9 million third baseman. The Sox spent $5.5 for two middle relievers, and a combined $6 million for a shortstop and second baseman. That, right there, is higher than the Florida Marlins payroll, and more than half of that of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Instead of Mike Lowell, Alex Gonzalez, Mark Loretta, and Kevin Youkilis — a $15 million infield — the Sox could have had Andy Marte, Hanley Ramirez, Dustin Pedroia, and Youkilis — a $1.25 million infield (slightly more if you factor in the money the Sox sent to Atlanta in the Renteria-Marte deal). Instead of Rudy Seanez and Julian Tavarez, the Sox could have begun the season with Sanchez and Hansen, for a savings of about $5.5 million. Instead of Beckett, they could have begun the year with a rotation of Schilling, Wakefield, Clement, Wells, and Papelbon, with Foulke out there as the closer, Lenny DiNardo as a backup starter, and Arroyo sent packing for Wily Mo Pena, who would have been the team’s full-time center fielder. That, my friends, would have been a rebuilding year.
Instead — and despite the fact that the Sox were basically held together in 2005 by spit, luck, Damon, Ortiz, and Ramirez — Boston made a series of moves it thought would both allow the team to compete in 2006 and compete down the road. (I’m not going to argue the Damon non-signing again. The Sox couldn’t have re-signed Damon unless they’d offered him a seven-year deal. And I still think within a year or two we’ll all be glad Johnny’s not picking up his annual $13 million check from Yawkey Way.)
So what happened? Well, where do you want to start? Jason Varitek hit like a shell of his former self; then he got injured. Trot Nixon hit for less power than at any point in his career; then he got injured. Matt Clement, David Wells, Tim Wakefield, and Keith Foulke all spent (or are spending) serious time on the DL. Coco Crisp got injured and had a harder time adjusting to Boston than was predicted. Mike Timlin got injured and stopped looking like an ultra-durable 33-year old and started looking more like the 40-year old he actually is. Seanez and Tavarez were both busts. That’s a whole mess of crappy luck. The real mystery isn’t why the Sox are sucking right now; the real mystery is how they managed to do so well for so long with so much going wrong.
***
But back to the trade deadline. Let’s say the Sox had pulled off one of the blockbuster deals that was being discussed. Let’s say they’d acquired Roy Oswalt. Or Andruw Jones. They’d both be worth between 7 and 8 win shares for the two months remaining in the season — and that could, potentially, be enough to make up for the lost ground with the Yankees. Except these were trades, and in most iterations of these trades, the Sox would be losing Crisp, Lester, and perhaps another player. Lester and Crisp are projected to be worth between 7 and 8 win shares each over the season’s final two months…which leaves a net gain of zero. Having Andruw Jones in center would undoubtedly have made the Red Sox a better team…but the rotation would still be relying on two guys closer to AARP membership than they are to their teenage years, and the non-Papelbon bullpen would still be frighteningly shoddy. Oswalt would have bolstered the rotation, to be sure…but he wouldn’t have done anything about the relief, and wouldn’t have done anything to help bolster the offense. This is, after all, a team that yesterday relied on Javy Lopez for protection after Manny drew a couple of intentional passes.
How about Bobby Abreu, whom the Yankees picked up for chump change (in terms of what they had to give up)? As Gordon Edes and Nick Cafardo pointed out in yesterday’s Globe, Abreu would have cost the Sox $27.7 million for a season and a third. That’s a lot of cake. Instead, they got Eric Hinske for a little less than a season and a third at a cost of just over $4 million. Last year, Abreu had 17 win shares; Hinske had 12. And if twenty million dollars can only get you a net gain of five win shares, you’re not spending your money wisely. (A quick aside: the Sox haven’t made a decision to forego high-priced free-agents; to the contrary, they’ve decided that in order to cough up the money for truly valuable free-agents — those in their late 20’s as opposed to their late 30’s — they need to spend their money wisely.)
I’m not saying win shares are the be all and end all of evaluating players; like every metric, it’s flawed. Clearly the Sox thought straight up deals of Crisp and Lester for Jones or Crisp and Lester for Oswalt were worth it: they would have pulled the trigger on either one of those. But start throwing in other young pitchers in their first year of MLB service, and a good deal becomes a bad one.
***
On October 27, 2004 — you remember that day, right? — John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino sat in a hotel suite in St. Louis. “We don’t really want to go for it in any particular year,” Henry told me. “We want to be competitive every single year. Larry thinks we can expect to make the playoffs eight out of 10 years. I feel like we can do 10 out of 10.”
I asked what the difference was between going for broke one year and staying competitive every year.
“You’ve got to keep your eyes on both goals,” Lucchino said. “You can’t go for broke without some longer term perspective and you can’t have a longer term perspective, particularly in Boston, without some kind of annual focus on getting to the postseason. We have to operate on both dimensions every year, and I think we have. There’s a lot of focus on what we’ve done at the major league level and our post-season success and all that but if you look below the surface, we’ve had a pretty good couple of drafts the last couple of years. And commitments to player development.”
That was Lucchino talking, not Epstein. It’s true that Epstein warned of the possibility of needing to take half a step back before the team could take a step forward…but not because he was advocating that. He was advocating a more tempered public relations approach. The Red Sox have been on the verge of an aging team for several years; all things considered, they’ve managed to make that transition pretty gracefully.
***
As of late, I’ve been accused of being an apologist for the Red Sox administration. I understand where that comes from — in Boston, anyone who doesn’t turn into Chicken Little is accused of being an apologist. But the fact that I understand where the Red Sox are coming from does not mean I think they’ve executed their plans brilliantly. I’m no baseball scout, so I won’t try to pretend to know what to look for when it comes to evaluating pitchers. I do know this administration has a mixed record (at best) of picking up pitching talent. There are obviously reasons (beyond the 2003 World Series; Mark Bellhorn had a great 2004 World Series and no one’s throwing cash at him) the Sox felt Josh Beckett was worth $30 million. I don’t know what they are, and the past month has made me wonder if any of us will ever know. The failure of Seanez and Tavarez this year would be easier to take if it hadn’t been preceded by the failure of a lot of other middle relievers the Sox thought might succeed, from Matt Mantei to Chad Bradford to Ramiro Medonza…the list goes on.
This season has been hard to stomach, but I understand what’s going on: shitty luck plus aging players is no recipe for success. I also understand why it didn’t make sense to go all in this year: all in still likely wouldn’t beat the Tigers or the Yankees. If, in a year, Beckett’s ERA is still hovering around 6.00 and the young guns in the bullpen are still coughing up runs, I’ll be more upset, both at the time and for the future. After all, we only have two more years of Papi and Manny anchoring the middle of the batting order.
Post Categories: David Ortiz & Feeding the Monster Sneak Peeks & Josh Beckett & Larry Lucchino & Manny Ramirez & Oblique references to Marvin Gaye lyrics & Red Sox ownership & sabermetrics & Theo Epstein & trade deadline
