November 11th, 2006 → 4:58 pm @ Seth Mnookin
As expected, plenty of folks — including Buster Olney, the man who broke the story — are doing a bit of backpedaling on the whole “the Sox won the bidding rights to Matsuzaka” story. Yesterday, Olney said the Sox had won the right to bid for the Japanese phenom. (Today’s version of the story — which had been edited this morning at 11:44 — read that the Sox “may” have won the bidding; that’s not my recollection of how the piece read yesterday, but I stupidly didn’t save it.)
Today, Olney is making the whole thing sound as imprecise as exit polls (which, *cough cough* is a quip I made yesterday). “Nothing has been confirmed,” Olney writes. “No announcement has been made,” which, at the very least, is a far cry from the “according to Major League Baseball sources” we were hearing about yesterday.
Indeed. It wouldn’t be much fun to discuss if it wasn’t true (for Olney or anyone else); unfortunately (for me), some people who’ve made comments on my last post and Olney himself have already delved into some of the aspects of this supposed bid I wanted to make. The most relevant ones:
* The $40 mil the Sox may or may not have bid is a one-time cost; it’s not added payroll, which would result in: a) raising the Sox’s payroll to a new high, and with this fan base (and this media coverage) it’s hard to ever reduce payroll, b) putting the Sox well above the luxury tax threshold, which would mean every dollar they shelled out would cost much more than that at the end of the day.
* The notion that this is a worthwhile investment solely because of the prospect of increased revenues from the Far East is a load of crap: every dollar the Sox earn is only worth about 50 cents; the other 50 cents goes into the revenue sharing pot, which essentially means the Sox are paying teams like the Orioles and the Blue Jays to continue to run their clubs in a determinedly bone-headed way…the better to bleed the Sox and the Yankees. (Revenue sharing — and baseball economics in general — is a weird and confusing thing. There’s a bunch about it sprinkled in between shocking behind the scenes revelations and hilarious anecdotes in the book. Which, by the way, makes a great gift, and signed copies are available here.)
Without getting into all the ins and outs of Olney’s piece, he comes down on the Sox front office pretty hard, criticizing them for both not paying for players like Johnny Damon (or for trading players like Bronson Arroyo) while (maybe) dedicating a boatload of money to Matsuzaka. He also raises the possibility that the Sox are working without a plan. There are a lot of good possibilities; that’s not one of them…
***
In other news, Tony Massarotti has this take on Foulke’s departure. I need to confess, I’m a bit confused by Foulke’s not taking the $5 mil-plus he would have gotten by exercising his player option, because he ain’t getting anything like that kind of money from anyone else. One thing I disagree with in Tony’s column is this: “Now Foulke is gone and here is the truly amazing thing: No one is shedding a tear.” Fine: I’m not crying. But I think Foulke — along with David Ortiz — is the single most important reason why the Red Sox won the ’04 World Series. Without Papi’s superhuman heroics, he would have been a shoo-in for ALCS MVP; as it was, he sure as hell should have beat Manny for the WS award.
And finally, Sheffield is off to the Tigers in exchange for three pitchers. This whole thing was shrewdly done by the Yankees, and the fact that they’re re-stocking their minor league system — and really without losing anything in this case — has to be upsetting for the folks on Yawkey Way.
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & Buster Olney & Daisuke Matsuzaka & Gary Sheffield & Keith Foulke & Red Sox front office
November 10th, 2006 → 6:17 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Even on North Carolina’s Outer Banks we got the word that the Red Sox seem to have posted the top bid for Daisuke Matsuzaka…and said bid is somewhere between $38 and $45 million dollars. (At least according to Buster Olney; the Globe‘s Nick Cafardo says there’s a growing consensus that Olney’s right.)
Let’s take this with an appropriate grain of salt. Many times over the past several years, Manny Ramirez has been all but traded…”according to [nameless] Major League Baseball sources,” who are cited in the Olney piece. (Cafardo also cites MLB sources as saying, essentially, “Yeah, that wouldn’t surprise me.”) According to Major League Sources, Boston was going to suit up Alex Rodriguez at short and Magglio Ordonez in left. And according to MLB sources, John Kerry won the 2004 election.
Winning the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka doesn’t mean he’ll be starting ahead of Curt and Beckett next year; all it means is that the Sox are the sole team with the right to negotiate with Boras (DM’s agent). And Boras has shown he has absolutely no problem keeping his players out of the majors for a year if it means they/he will get more money (see: Varitek, Jason). Forty mil is a lot. It’s conceivable the Sox wanted to make sure the Yankees didn’t get him, bid an outrageous amount of money but don’t think they can sign him for something reasonable. It’s also conceivable that the Sox will trade the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka to another team, pay a chunk of that $40 mil, and ask for a young, proven player who hasn’t yet hit free agency. (In some very weird way, this fits in well with the Sox’s roster development philosophy, but it might be too clever be half, just as it might be against the weird and wooly rules governing this whole “posting” phenomenon. But it also might be the kind of Red-drafting-Larry-when-he’s-a-junior type of thing that the Sox would actually put in play.)
If the Red Sox have put in the winning bid, and if they do end up signing him, I’m sure as shit be excited. I’d also be worried, for reasons I’ve previously explained. In either case, it’s an early sign that the ’06 Hot Stove season will be plenty active in Boston. But isn’t it always?
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & Daisuke Matsuzaka
November 10th, 2006 → 5:56 pm @ Seth Mnookin
From our friends at the soon-to-be-launched Very Short List: this amazingly gorgeously weird and wonderful ad for Sony’s Bravia TVs. (VSL — still in its test phase — called it “awesomely explosive eye candy.” It’s lots of exploding paint in an apartment complex in Glasgow, orchestrated by Jonathan Glazer, and remarkably, 100% genuinely real. (If you want the details: it took 10 days, 250 people, and paint that was delivered in 1 ton trucks…or as the Brits say, “1 tonne tricks.” Also, for what it’s worth, the paint was edible.)
If all of this sounds vaguely familiar, either you have an amazing memory or you’re spending too much time on my blog; in either case, way back in July I was similarly overwhelmed by Sony’s previous Bravia commercial…the one that featured 250,000 superballs, which is just as worth watching.
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & Daisuke Matsuzaka
November 9th, 2006 → 6:05 am @ Seth Mnookin
There was a player on the Red Sox — and I’m not giving any hints as to whom I’m talking about except that he currently plays for the Yankees — who was known around the league as a great interview, because he was usually open and available and more importantly because he’d pretty much say whatever it was any given reporter needed him to say at any given time. “So isn’t it awful that so-and-so keeps on putting himself above the team by playing while injured?” and “Aren’t you glad so-and-so puts the team first by playing while injured?” would both produce affirmative results, even if they were asked within minutes of each other.
Gary Sheffield has a similar reputation. I have no idea if it’s deserved…but in today’s paper, Sheffield once again shows why he’s a reporter’s wet dream, slamming Brian Cashman (“If George Steinbrenner was feeling better, my situation would already be resolved”), Bobby Abreu (“I’ve done more for the Yankees than he will ever do”), and the team in general (“I will tell you that not everything is rosy in Yankeeland. It’s all a facade — it ain’t real”). “Sheffield was soon talking about Alex Rodriguez,” the story goes on to say, in what could be code for, “Reporters then proceeded to press Sheffield on the Yankees’ most controversial and unpopular player; soon, we were asking why that jerk-face Derek Jeter didn’t stick up for his teammates.” The answer? Just what any good scribe would want: “When you have a teammate under fire like that, why would you keep your distance and just let people keep taking shots at him? If it was anybody else, their teammates would have stood up for them.” (Like Jeter?) “I’m not naming names, it is what it is, but it tells you a lot about the situation here. I like Alex, but we have different personalities. He doesn’t fight back because he wants everyone to like him, but that doesn’t work here. I will not let anyone take shots at me like that.”
Let’s see: shots at the team, the general manager, the new guy in the clubhouse, and the captain. Yeah, it definitely sounds like Sheff’s gonna be wearing pinstripes on Opening Day.
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & Gary Sheffield & Sports Reporters & Yankees
November 9th, 2006 → 12:14 am @ Seth Mnookin
…of here? Okay, so that didn’t really work. But here goes anyway:
The bids are officially in for Japanese stud Daisuke Matsuzaka. (By bids, I mean the amount of money an MLB team will pay Matsuzaka’s Japanese team, the Seibu Lions, for the right to negotiate with Scott Boras for the right to sign Matsuzaka. Got that?) The CW is that the Red Sox, Mets, and Yankees all submitted bids, with the winning price expected to be somewhere around $20 mil. If that’s not confusing enough, Buster Olney raises the possibility a team could win the bidding and then trade the right to negotiate with Matsu. (Does that work as a nickname?)
In other baseball news, the Red Sox surprised exactly no one and declined to pick up Keith Foulke’s $7.5 option for 2007. Keith could still exercise his ’07 option for $3.75; if he doesn’t come back to Boston, he’ll be owed $1.5 million. The economics of baseball are so…logical.
I’m writing this from Springfield, after an incredibly lovely evening at the Springfield Public Forum; tomorrow I’ll get up at 4:30 for a 6 am train to NYC, and then I’ll grab a 11-ish flight to Virginia, after which I’ll drive out to North Carolina…which is to say I’ll be out of town at a multi-day Southern wedding extravaganza for the next couple of days. Just watch: my the end of the weekend the Sox will have signed Matsuzaka, traded for Dontrelle, and kidnapped Ryan Howard. And I’m sure folks will still find plenty of stuff to complain about.
November 8th, 2006 → 11:04 am @ Seth Mnookin
Proving that media companies know how to manipulate the news just as well as politicians or over-the-hill pop tarts, the news broke yesterday — a day in which all of the country was focused on a total re-alignment of political power in the country — that the Tribune Company has finally forced out Dean Baquet as the editor of the Los Angeles Times. Baquet fought valiantly against Tribune Co.-mandated staff cuts, but a year and a couple of months after John Carroll, Baquet’s former boss and mentor, quit in protest, Baquet is out as well.
There’ll be lots of hand wringing and debate over what this means for the state of journalism in America. But I want to focus on what’s really important: what this means for The New York Times.
Back in 2003, after Howell Raines was forced out as the Times‘s editor in the wake of a staff revolt against his autocratic ways, Baquet, who’d been the national editor in New York before heading out to L.A., was heavily recruited by Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger. Baquet was all but offered the managing editor position by Sulzberger, with an implicit promise that he’d be in prime position to become the Times‘s first African-American editor in the not-distant future, but Baquet, out of loyalty to his troops in L.A. and a belief in what he and Carroll were trying to accomplish, decided to stay put. (So determined was Baquet that he used his decision to stay as an argument as to why his reporters should resist the urge to jump ship and head to New York.)
It’s hard to imagine Baquet hasn’t had some restless nights reliving this decision. Still, Baquet may be just as well positioned to take over the Times when Bill Keller steps down as he would have been had he taken Sulzberger up on his offer three years ago. Before Baquet became a free agent, there was really only one viable candidate to replace Keller: current managing editor Jill Abramson. After all, a century of white, male editors would have made it difficult for Sulzberger — and avowed and vocal proponent of increased gender and racial diversity in the newsroom — not to promote Abramson. Baquet offers what is likely the most politically acceptable alternative: it’ll be hard to criticize the Times for passing over a woman if the paper ends up promoting an African-American.
I doubt this angle will get much play; for all its coverage of and obsession over race and gender, the media isn’t that great at discussing difficult issues in its own house (just as it’s often a bit clumsy when it comes to increasing diversity in its reporting ranks — see Blair, Jayson). But a couple of years down the line, when Keller (who seems as if he’s always enjoyed reporting and writing more than managing) approaches the mandatory retirement age of 65 (Keller is 57; Abramson is 55 and Baquet is 50, which means in theory both Abramson and Baquet could both get the Times top post), this will likely be one of the major issues and intrigues facing the paper.
Post Categories: Dean Baquet & Los Angeles Times & Media reporting & New York Times & Race gender and diversity
November 8th, 2006 → 11:03 am @ Seth Mnookin
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.
