February 2nd, 2007 → 10:28 am @ Seth Mnookin
“With Curt Schilling in danger of being supplanted as the team’s top pitcher by Dice-K, Schill pulled a Pedro and picked up the gun #45 had pointed at the Sox’s front office before the ‘04 season.”
— Me, February 1, 2007
“And now that the Big Lug is back in the news again — putting a gun to the head of the Red Sox and telling them they must extend his contract before the season starts or risk losing him to free agency…”
— Dan Shaughnessy, February 2, 2007
Thanks, Dan. I always knew you were secretly reading my work. (Speaking of Shaughnessy, here’s an early way to tell if the Sox’s 07 season is going to be a bust: make sure to read his columns the last week of June.)
February 1st, 2007 → 10:06 am @ Seth Mnookin
Let’s see: in the months since the ’06 season ended, the Sox were seconds away from trading Manny, until they weren’t. They were about to lose the rights to Daisuke Matsuzaka, until they didn’t. They signed J.D. Drew to a five-year deal, until they didn’t, and then they did. And in just the last week, the Red Sox were thisclose to a deal to bring Todd Helton to Boston, and then they weren’t. In the midst of all this, the New York Times has been waging a bizarre jihad against Theo Epstein, who, oh, by the way, happened to get married. (Don’t worry: he nuptials did not really feature Coney Island’s Nathan’s hot dogs.)
It’s been a hectic offseason. It shouldn’t be too much to ask for a calm couple of weeks until spring training starts.
It shouldn’t be too much to ask, but it is. With Curt Schilling in danger of being supplanted as the team’s top pitcher by Dice-K, Schill pulled a Pedro and picked up the gun #45 had pointed at the Sox’s front office before the ’04 season. Less than a year after saying ’07 would be his last season in the bigs, Schilling announced — on WEEI, naturally — that he would pitch in 2008. Oh, and he sure as shit better get a deal before April 1. “There won’t be any distractions in questioning because if I don’t have a contract before the season starts, then I’ll get a contract after the 2007 season, as a free agent,” Schilling said last night. What if the Red Sox want to, you know, see how a 40-year old whose last two years could generously be described as up and down was doing once the rigors of the season started? “That’s not going to happen,” he said. “I think I’ve earned the right to do one or the other. If they don’t think the risk is worth the reward, or vice versa, I get that.”
That language might sound familiar to readings of Feeding the Monster. Here’s how I described the situation as it stood in spring training 2004…a couple of months after the Sox signed Schilling:
“Pedro Martinez, meanwhile, who was paid $14 million in 2002 and was signed for $15.5 million in 2003, said he felt disrespected by the fact that the club hadn’t picked up his $17.5 million club option for 2004. If the Red Sox didn’t act by the time the 2003 season started, Martinez said, he’d assume his career with the club was over. ‘It’s bye-bye once the year starts,’ he told reporters. ‘I’m gone. I’m just going to pitch. I won’t wait until the All-Star break to talk to them.’ …
With Schilling on board, Martinez wondered if the Red Sox were planning on keeping him around beyond the 2004 season, and without a contract, he was both hesitant to risk further injury and worried about giving the impression he was less than totally healthy. Martinez’s anxiety about pitching during one season before he knew if he’d get paid for the next had been apparent since 2003, when, during spring training, he began agitating for the Red Sox to pick up his 2004 option. Now, when he spoke of Grady Little’s decision to leave him in Game 7 of the previous fall’s American League Championship Series against the Yankees, he talked not of the fact that the game was on the line but of the risk to his arm. “I was actually shocked I stayed out there that long,” he told Sports Illustrated. ‘But I’m paid to do that. I belong to Boston. If they want me to blow my arm out, it’s their responsibility.’ …
The same fragility that made Martinez anxious about securing a long-term deal made the Red Sox concerned about giving him one. ‘The arm angle Pedro had in spring training was very worrisome,’ says John Henry. When Henry asked one of the team’s top baseball operations executives what kind of season Martinez would likely produce, the answer stunned him: ‘I was told, ‘He’ll win 12 or 15 games, have a 4.00 ERA or a 3.50 ERA.’ And I was like, ‘Fuck.’’ Despite this prediction, the team wanted to re-sign its star. ‘I thought he should finish his career in Boston,’ says Henry. …
On April 30th, as the Red Sox sat in the visiting clubhouse in Arlington, Texas, waiting for a thunderstorm to pass, Martinez decided to chat with the Herald’s Michael Silverman, his favorite reporter on the beat. Martinez told Silverman he was cutting off all negotiations with the Red Sox until season’s end. ‘I’m just really sad for the fans in New England who had high hopes that…I was going to stay in Boston,’ Martinez said. ‘[The fans] don’t understand what’s going on, but I really mean it from my heart—I gave them every opportunity, every discount I could give them to actually stay in Boston and they never took advantage of it. Didn’t even give me an offer.’ His contract status, he said, wouldn’t be a distraction for him or the team ‘because I’m not going to allow it.'”
It’s no secret that Pedro and Schilling were not the best of friends, and it’s no secret that Pedro was wounded that Schilling overtook him as the Sox’s best pitcher. It turns out the two pitchers might not be that different after all. Negotiating in the media? Check. Playing on fans’ emotions and Boston’s tendency towards soap operas? Check. Needing the attention focused on himself? Check.
On the upside, 2004 — another season with its fair share of drama — ended up okay when all was said and done.
(Obligatory FTM plug: The reviewers love it, it was a New York Times bestseller, and it’s available for only $17.16 on Amazon. Oh, and, of course, signed, personalized bookplates are still available free of cost. And How can you resist?)
Post Categories: 2004 Playoffs & Curt Schilling & Daisuke Matsuzaka & Pedro Martinez & Red Sox front office & Theo Epstein
January 31st, 2007 → 10:25 am @ Seth Mnookin
Murray Chass articles about the not-yetness of J.D. Drew’s contract with the Red Sox in the three weeks before January 25: five.
Articles in the week since the final details of the contract were announced: one.
Nonsensical, logically inconsistent suppositions (based, naturally, on anonymous sources) contained in said article by the only baseball beat writer on record who has compared himself to Woodward and Bernstein: one. (“Word out of the Drew camp was it agreed to the out clause to allow the Red Sox’ doctor to save face after a second opinion supposedly found nothing suspicious about Drew’s shoulder. But the final structure of the contract seems to enable Boras to save face because he recommended that Drew walk away from the Dodgers’ deal. Had the Red Sox contract extended the out clause to the final three years, Drew could have wound up with only $28 million.”)
Corrections attached to any of Chass’s Drew-Red Sox articles, despite the on-the-record insistence by the story’s main characters that Chass’s unnamed sources are completely incorrect: Zero.
Post Categories: Media reporting & Murray Chass & New York Times
January 29th, 2007 → 11:30 am @ Seth Mnookin
In other news:
* Schilling wants to see how many up-and-down years he can tack on to the end of his career, declaring he’ll play in 2008. He also says, “”It wouldn’t be in New York. No. I could not make that move.” I love when Red Sox folk heroes lay it on the line and say they’ll never play for the Yankees.
* Phildaelphia Inquirer columnist Jim Salisbury makes the point that revenue sharing is having some not-so-great effects on player salaries and small-market spending. Weird. I feel like I’ve heard something like that before.
* The world of baseball writers can be a pretty clubby place; it’s why I love guys like Keith Law, who think nothing of spanking colleagues for voting for Justin Morneau for MVP: “The reality of baseball is that a great offensive player at an up-the-middle position is substantially more valuable than a slightly better hitter at a corner position. And when that up-the-middle player is one of the best fielders at his position in baseball, there’s absolutely no comparison. Joe Mauer was more valuable than Justin Morneau this past season. … I have a hard time fathoming why any voter would put Morneau at the top of his ballot with so many obviously better candidates — Mauer, Jeter, Ortiz, Jermaine Dye, unanimous Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana or the criminally neglected Carlos Guillen (the best player on the AL pennant winner) — and in reality, more than half the voters did just that.”
Along those same lines, Sunday provided me with a reminder of why I love Bob Ryan. His column about the boneheads who left Ripken and Gwynn off their Hall of Fame ballots is a true classic; it’s not every day a sportswriter calls out his brethren for being, well, retarded. Some choice quotes:
“What if someone actually thought I were one of the eight who didn’t deem Cal a legit Hall of Famer or the 13 who didn’t think Gwynn had done enough to get in? I may not leave the house without a bag over my head.”
“Can you honestly look me in the eye and say that this man should not be in the Hall of Fame? Yes or no?”
“The primary reason, we are often told, is that some members of the voting body have a personal policy not to vote for someone the first year he is eligible. I cannot begin to comprehend the depths of such idiocy.”
“But please don’t think I’m one of them. I did the right thing. I swear.”
Awesome: the man is actually embarrassed that someone might confuse him for someone else from his profession.
Post Categories: Bob Ryan & Curt Schilling & Keith Law & Slate & Sports Reporters
January 29th, 2007 → 11:08 am @ Seth Mnookin
So yeah, apparently the Sox and the Rockies are discussing a trade that would bring Todd Helton to Boston. On the one hand, it’s hard to argue with adding a guy with these career numbers: .333 average, .430 OBP, .593 (!) slugging (good for fourth among active players…behind Pujols, Bonds, and Manny ), 286 HRs, 996 RBIs. And a 2-6 of J.D. Drew, Papi, Manny, Helton, and Youks is pretty damn intense. (I know, I know: the Jewish god of Denis Leary routines doesn’t belong in that rarified company, but his pitches-per-at bat would help tire some arms.) On the other hand, the average age of the 2-5 hitters would be over 32, and the Sox would owe those four players a total of 13 years…and the two best players (#24 and #34) going off the books first. Without debating the effect of Coors Field on Helton’s career numbers (and his road splits aren’t nearly as extreme as you’d suspect), he sure as shit ain’t a player on the upside of his career, and even if the Rockies eat about half of the $90 mil he’s owed over the next five years, that’s a lot of cash to be laying out.
What’s so confusing about this is a Helton acquisition would seem to be precisely what the Red Sox have tried so hard not to do: pay lots of money for past-their-prime superstars. That’s Yankee behavior. Meanwhile, the Yankees are trading guys like Sheffield — a formerly prototypical New York pick up that suddenly seems as if he’d fit in perfectly with the Sox mid-to-late 30’s contingent — in favor of prospects. What’s going on here? Is it opposite day (or off-season)? I hope not. I always thought that episode kind of sucked.
Post Categories: oblique references to hendrix songs & oblique references to seinfeld episodes & Red Sox front office & todd helton
January 29th, 2007 → 10:51 am @ Seth Mnookin
I’ve already come clean about my man love for Ben Stein, especially as it relates to his column in the New York Times‘s Sunday business section. The current state of American capitalism has been depressed ol’ Ben as of late despite the fact that, as he often reminds us, he’s been incredibly lucky in life, love, and business.
His latest masterpiece (punnily titled “A Hard Rain That’s Falling on Capitalism,” and yes, there are Dylan references throughout) has Stein saying he “feels queasy” as the behavior of the country’s CEO’s. “These misdeeds and many, many more are hammer blows at the granite foundation of trust we built in the 1940s and ’50s. How long democratic capitalism can survive these blows before it gives in and gives birth to revolution or to an out-and-out aristocracy, I am not sure,” he writes. “Empires come and go. Economic systems come and go. There is no heavenly guarantee that capitalism will last forever as we know it. It’s built on man’s notion that he can trust his neighbor with his money, and that if the neighbor misbehaves, the law will chase him and catch him, and that the ladder of law has no top and no bottom, that even the nobles get properly handled (Bob Dylan again) once they have been caught. If that trust disappears — if the system is no longer a system for the ordinary citizen but only for the tough guys — how much longer can the miracle last?”
Yeow. Stein thinks that trust is disappearing. And it scares him. “Each day’s newspaper, it seems, brings more tidings of unrestrained selfishness and self-dealing and rafts of powerful people saying it’s good for us to be robbed if only we truly understood the system,” he says towards the end of the piece. “The problem is, we’re getting to understand it all too well. And there is no one in Washington — absolutely no one — to help.”
Let this sink in for a minute. Ben Stein — capitalism stooge, former Nixon speechwriter, longtime insider — is so disgusted as the state of our current economic system he fears for its future. And this is despite the fact that he’s done well enough to reach this epiphany while floating on his back in his Malibu pool.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Post Categories: Ben Stein & New York Times
January 26th, 2007 → 12:08 pm @ Seth Mnookin
By the end of the day, the Red Sox and J.D. Drew will have signed a contract. (I know at least one person who’s gonna be pretty disappointed by this.) The conspiracy theorists who speculated that the Sox had “come to terms” with Drew merely as a way of greasing the skids with Scott Boras in advance of the Dice-K contract have been proven wrong.
The two sides came to some specific agreements concerning Drew’s surgically repaired shoulder; the deal is similar to the ones the Tigers worked out with Magglio and Pudge. The details are pretty straightforward. Now we can all focus on pitchers and catchers…
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & J.D. Drew & Murray Chass & Scott Boras
