November 8th, 2006 → 11:03 am @ Seth Mnookin // No Comments
Back in September, I wrote about how I thought that the departure of a bunch of Red Sox scouts and talent evaluators may have hurt the team as much as the loss on on-field personnel.
Now granted, the next day I acknowledged that I had no idea what I was talking about; that was true about the specifics, not my more general belief that the behind-the-scenes folks (and I mean way behind-the-scenes, not Theo, Jed, and Ben behind-the-scenes) are far more important than casual fans (and the media) realize or acknowledge.
In that spirit, it’s worth pointing out that the team has made more than its share of personnel moves — completely restructuring the scouting department in the process — in the last 48 hours…
Gary DiSarcina (former Angels shortstop and recent NESN post-game analysis-izer) was hired as Baseball Operations Consultant.
Todd Claus, the skipper of the 2006 Portland Sea Dogs team that won the Eastern League Championship (helping proper Claus to Baseball America’s 2006 Double-A Manager of the Year) was hired as a major league advance scout, where he’ll split duties with Dana Levangie.
In other scouting news…
Jaymie Bane was snatched away from the ChiSox.
Keith Champion was grabbed from the Cubs.
Dave Klipstein was picked up from the Rangers.
Jesse Levis joined the Red Sox after a stint with the Brewers.
(These pick-ups, according to the Sox, mean Galen Carr, Dave Howard, Gus Quattlebaum, Jerry Stephenson, and former intern Matt Mahoney will spend their time more or less exclusively focusing on major league coverage.)
But that’s not all!
Duane Gustavson, formerly with the Pirates, will scout the swing states of Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, in addition to Republican stronghold Kentucky.
Tony Guzzo will also be heading out into battleground states, scouting Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virgina. As a college coach, Guzzo skippered Justin Verlander, although he apparently didn’t teach Verlander how to field bunts and throw to third.
Rounding out the G’s, Laz Gutierrez will scout South Florida. Gutierrez was stolen from…Coral Gables High School, where he was the baseball coach. (OK, fine, technically he was the pitching coach at Barry University in 2006, but before that he was in Coral Gables.)
Former part timer Josh Loggins, who teamed with Mike Mussina to produce the adult-contemporary classics “Angry Eyes” and “Danny’s Song”, is now a full-timer, wandering across swing states (wait a minute: are they all swing states?) Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin.
Edgar Perez, late of the Cleveland racist-mascots, will be focusing on Puerto Rico, and Quincy Boyd and Jon Lukens will move from the Midwest to the Carolinas and from South Florida to the West, respectively; Victor Rodriguez becomes the minor league hitting coordinator, moving Jose Zapata over to the Dominican, where he’ll manage the Sox’s summer-league team; Eddie Romera gets a promotion to become the coordinator of the team’s Latin American operations; and Ricardo Petit will spend his days (and nights) trolling in Venezuela.
What does this all mean? I’ll be damned if I know. About the specifics, I mean; I do know that the Sox’s baseball ops department places an enormous amount of importance on minor-league coaching and player scouting, and this many moves is evidence that the team tries to search out advantages in any way possible. (A quick aside: this relates to the actual theory behind “Moneyball” (search out undervalued skills, in this case, scouting and minor league coaching), as opposed to the “Joe-Morgan, I-have-no-idea-what-I’m-talking-about-but-I-know-we’re supposed-to-talk-about-this-whole-Moneyball” theory (on-base percentage is important.) It also means scouts have cool names. I mean, seriously if Claus, Quattlebaum, Klipstein, Gustavson, and Laz don’t work out, they can either join the U.N. or become a traveling vaudeville act.
More food for thought: the Rookie of the Year Awards at The Feeding the Monster Blog — In which the author discusses Boston, the Red Sox, the media, and very occasionally popular music.
16 years ago
[…] debate was an excuse to talk about the Sox’s scouting department, which has gone through a considerable makeover recently.) And today? Well…I’m not sure. I do think playing in Boston is unique; on the […]