June 26th, 2006 → 10:30 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Welcome to the Feeding the Monster Sweepstakes. Two Grand Prize winners will receive a personally inscribed copy of Feeding the Monster and three First Place winners will receive a signed copy. The sweepstakes is open to the first 500 people who sign up for the Monster Newsletter–with info about readings, media appearances, and more–through the sweepstakes entry form below.
The sweepstakes will take place between June 27 and July 10, 2006. Entrants must be over 18 years of age, and must have a valid e-mail and mailing address. For the full sweepstake rules, click here.
To enter the Feeding the Monster Sweepstakes, click here.
Post Categories: Feeding the Monster Sweepstakes
June 26th, 2006 → 9:34 pm @ Seth Mnookin
This is the second in an occasional series of Sneak Peeks from Feeding the Monster. In the section below, which takes place in January 2003, the Red Sox debate whether to offer David Ortiz, recently released by the Minnesota Twins, a one-year contract. This excerpt is in honor of Ortiz’s walk-off single in the 12th inning of today’s Red Sox-Phillies game, Ortiz’s second walk-off hit in as many games and his 13th game-winner (10th in the regular season) since signing with the Sox.
At the beginning of the offseason, the team had compiled a list of about 15 first basemen and designated hitters who might be available for a discount. They’d gotten Jeremy Giambi and still hoped to get Kevin Millar. As a backup, they had pursued options like free agents Brad Fullmer, Greg Colbrunn, and Travis Lee. Another name on the list belonged to a burly 27-year-old Dominican left-handed hitter: David Ortiz. …
Within the Red Sox, Ortiz intrigued virtually everyone involved in the discussions. One of the scouts loved his swing–it was, he said, a thing of beauty. After looking over his hit location charts, Theo Epstein’s crew thought he was likely the type of player who would be able to take advantage of the left field wall in Fenway. Bill James liked the fact that, while he hit only .234 in 2001, his secondary average was almost .400. (“That’s my kind of player,” James says.) Dave Jauss, a scout who was down in the Dominican Republic for the winter, reported that in the winter-ball leagues on the island, Ortiz was a superstar, as big as Manny Ramirez or the Montreal Expos’ Vladimir Guerrero. Finally, Epstein was consciously trying to find players who could help make the Red Sox clubhouse a more positive place to be, and Ortiz, like Millar, had a reputation for being both outgoing and upbeat, which Epstein felt was crucial at that moment in the team’s history. …
That’s not to say the Red Sox didn’t have reservations. Most pressing were their concerns about Ortiz’s age–foreign-born players are known to claim to be younger than they really are so it will seem as if their peak years are still ahead of them, and Ortiz had given his age as 17 when he broke into professional baseball in the States a decade earlier. Instead of simply throwing up his hands, Epstein asked James to see if he could find a way to determine anything further about Ortiz’s likely age. “I did a study of his career progression up to that point, identifying historical players who had very similar career paths up to that point in time, and concluded that, on average, they were exactly the age that David claimed to be,” says James. “That was a fun little study. I had never done anything like that before.” With that settled, Epstein made his move, acquiring the player that would change both Epstein’s and the Red Sox’s futures. On January 22, 2003, the Red Sox signed David Ortiz to a one-year, $1.25 million deal.
“We knew he had breakout potential,” says Epstein. … Still, not long before the Sox signed Ortiz they inked former Yankees pitcher Ramiro Mendoza to a two-year deal worth $6.5 million and, as Bill James notes, “We weren’t any more excited about the one than we were about the other.”
There are many more exclusive details about the acquisition of David Ortiz, the work of Bill James, and the formation of the Best Hitting Team Ever Assembled in Feeding the Monster, out July 11 from Simon & Schuster.
Post Categories: Bill James & David Ortiz & Feeding the Monster Sneak Peeks & Red Sox & Theo Epstein
June 26th, 2006 → 6:40 pm @ Seth Mnookin
October 17, 2004: David Ortiz hits a home run in the bottom of the 12th to win Game 4 of the ALCS.
October 18, 2004: David Ortiz muscles a single into center field to drive home the winning run in the 14th inning of Game 5 of the ALCS.
June 24, 2006: David Ortiz hits a two-run shot in the bottom of the tenth for his second walk-off homer of the month.
June 26, 2006: One game (and one rain delay) later, Ortiz muscles a single into center field to drive home the winning run in the bottom of the 12th.
At this rate, they’re going to need to updatethis on a daily basis.
Next up: the Mets. Right arm of god, meet the left arm of god.
Post Categories: 2004 Playoffs & David Ortiz & Red Sox & Walkoffs
June 26th, 2006 → 11:39 am @ Seth Mnookin
It’s been five-and-a-half years since the Red Sox signed Manny Ramirez to an eight-year, $160 million contract, which was at the time—and remains today—the second largest contract in the history of baseball, behind only Alex Rodriguez’s $252 million, ten-year deal. Manny and A-Rod signed their deals within days of each other (A-Rod on December 11, 2000, Manny on December 13), and while their contracts were the offseason’s gaudiest, those two deals ended up being the smartest long-term deals given out in the winter of 2000. In one two-week span, from November 30 through December 13, seven players signed contracts worth a total of $770 million. The average annual salary of those deals was $16.7 million. Outside of Manny and A-Rod, the only other deal that worked out—and the only other deal that was really justifiable at the time—was the six-year, $88.5 million contract Mike Mussina got from the Yankees.
The other four deals would be funny if there weren’t families living in this country that can’t afford food or health care. Denny Neagle got a five-year, $51 million contract from the Rockies; that deal included a $9 million buyout for 2006. Neagle pitched a total of 370.3 innings in 2001, 2002, and 2003; over that time he had a 19-23 record and a cumulative ERA of 5.57. On December 4, 2004—exactly four years after he signed his contract—the Rockies terminated their deal with Neagle after he was busted with a hooker. (Neagle sued the Rockies and the two parties eventually came to terms. How things have changed: In 1960, both Ted Williams and Stan Musial insisted on pay cuts–Williams from $125,000 to $90,000; Musial from $100,000 to $80,000–after sub-par 1959 seasons.)
Amazingly, Neagle wasn’t the biggest mistake the Rockies made that offseason. Five days after signing him, Colorado inked Mike Hampton to an eight-year, $121 million deal. Hampton lasted two years with the Rockies before being shipped off to Atlanta, going 14-13 with a 5.41 ERA in 2001 and 7-15 with a 6.15 ERA in 2002.
At least Hampton had a decent track record. Darren Dreifort was a career 39-45 pitcher who’d had exactly one season with an ERA under 4.00 when the Dodgers gave him $55 million for five years. Driefort didn’t pitch in 2002 and likely won’t ever pitch again. For those $55 million, he went 9-15 with a 4.64 ERA, picking up approximately $267,000 per inning pitched and $6.1 million per win.
By those measures, the Mets deal with Kevin Appier—he was given $42 million for four years—looks almost rational. Appier spent a season in Queens, going 11-10 with an ERA about half a run under the league average, before being traded to Anaheim (for Mo Vaughn, of all people). Last year, with the Royals, Appier pitched a total of four innings.
In the five-plus years that Ramirez has been in Boston, one of the most enigmatic players ever to wear a major league uniform has been the focal point of any number of controversies. Ramirez was signed by former Red Sox GM Dan Duquette, and the Red Sox and Ramirez have been on the verge of severing ties on any number of occasions since John Henry and Tom Werner bought the team in 2001. (You’ll need to read the book to find out the real stories behind the various times Ramirez and the Red Sox have come close to parting company.) But with a two-and-a-half years left on his deal, it’s increasingly likely that Ramirez will finish out his contract in Boston, and perhaps even retire as a member of the Red Sox.
In the eleven years since Ramirez became a full-time player, he’s hit 416 home runs and driven in 1349 runs. That’s an average of 38 HRs and 123 RBIs a year. In the five full seasons he’s been with Boston, his production has been remarkably similar, with an average of 40 home runs and 122 RBIs. There are those odd times when Ramirez decides he needs a day off, but he’s averaged 143 games a year since 1995; since coming to the Sox, he’s averaged 144 a year. This year, Ramirez looks like he’s heading towards his twelfth straight year of 30-plus home runs and 100-plus RBIs: as of this morning, he has 20 homers, 51 RBIs, and an OPS of 1.027. There have been plenty of times the Red Sox have been frustrated by Ramirez’s petulance, his intermittently lackadaisical fielding, and his failure to hustle. But the Red Sox realize that Ramirez is rarely a clubhouse distraction, they appreciate his consistency, and are often as awed by his hitting prowess as the rest of us. Ramirez, for his part, seems to realize how good he has it in Boston—for all the talk of the city’s voracious press corps, Manny is pretty much left alone—and he’s kept his pre-season promise to hunker down and focus on his game.
Assuming Ramirez doesn’t get dealt before the July 31 deadline, there’ll be two more years on his contract. This year, he’s one of 18 major leaguers making $14 million a year or more. Is he overpaid? Sure. Are there cheaper options out there? Not really. (It’s worth noting that that hasn’t always been the case in the last several years.) The league’s exuberant revenue sharing policy means more medium- and small-market teams are signing their young stars to long-term deals before they hit free agency, and even the Mets finally seem to understand it makes sense to hold on to prospects who can be cheaply controlled for the first years of their careers. If Ramirez maintains his production—and he shows no signs of significantly slowing down—paying a premium for that kind of power (and that kind of protection for David Ortiz) isn’t the worst thing in the world. The Red Sox–who have one of the smartest front offices in the game–realize that.
Post Categories: A-Rod & Manny Ramirez & Red Sox ownership
June 25th, 2006 → 11:16 pm @ Seth Mnookin
This is the fourth in a series of outtakes from interviews done for Feeding the Monster, to be published on July 11 by Simon & Schuster. It is the second of three outtakes from this interview with Nomar Garciaparra, which was conducted in Austin, Texas on October 28, 2005. Read the book for exclusive details on Garciaparra’s career with the Red Sox, his reaction to the July 1, 2004 game against the Yankees, and the contract negotiations that began in spring training 2003 and ended on July 31, 2004.
On baseball management: If you lose the guy and then if you say anything great about him then why did you let him go? You should watch who knocks on our door and watch the death threats we get. That’s happened to all these guys—every single one—and when you are in that position and you are supposed to be focused on baseball and you are trying to block this out because all the stuff that is said about you. Probably the biggest problem [for players] was they got no support from the organization. And you see Mo [Vaughn], it was the same thing, and at the end with Roger [Clemens]. If you look, as a player, when you know you were getting all that heat from the media that’s one sided, that any little thing can be taken and run with, it sounded like all of those years when I read about it, when I read [Ted Williams’s] book as well, when I read about other players, when I talked to other players, people were just looking for support from your team. You want them to speak on your behalf, to eliminate some of that stuff. And a lot of times when they finally ask the management about you, and a lot of times its at the end of your contract, so they’re going, ‘Well I’m on the verge of negotiating with the guy and I can’t blow you up’ because if they blow you up so much they have to pay for it.
On whether he wanted to leave Boston: My fiancée at the time, we bought a home that year. I bought two apartments at this new building downtown, two places combined as one, spent over three million dollars on this place. I was like—and this is the discussion between us two, not that I ever let this out—’Well, at least we know we got the 15 million, four-year deal [that Garciaparra rejected before the 2003 season]. We are so close [to coming to an agreement] that even if we don’t get [more money], we are going to sign for that. So we might as well commit to this home.’ Because my wife and I are, shoot, we’re gonna be here for a while so let’s build our home. We are going to make a home here. So we purchased it and we were gung ho, and no one knew, it was just something we did. We didn’t want anybody to know, even though I can’t do anything in that city, I can’t go outside. I am showing my cards when I’m still trying to negotiate with the Red Sox. I knew it was going to come out anyway because I know you can’t do anything in that city without it coming out, so I’m thinking, even if it does come out, boy I’m really just showing my cards. But I’m like, ‘Whatever—I’m happy with this. That is fine, ok. I don’t want to go. I want to be here.’
On his reaction to being traded: It sucked. And then that night I got a phone call from Larry Lucchino. That was the last person I wanted to talk to. He called me that night in the hotel, and said ‘Hey Nomar, how are you doing?’ And I’m going, ‘I feel great. Just fine, I don’t want to talk to you right now, I’ve got a hundred phone calls and it’s all over.’ All my friends are going, ‘What’s going on?’ And I’m calling my family. And it sucks because I can’t call my wife because we are in different time zones. And I have to pack and now I gotta figure where I’m going tomorrow, because I have to play in Chicago. And there are just a million emotions going on and I don’t want to talk to the people who just got rid of me, who just changed my life in an instant. That’s what it felt like.
Post Categories: Baseball & Feeding the Monster Outtakes & Larry Lucchino & Nomar Garciaparra
June 25th, 2006 → 11:24 am @ Seth Mnookin
The Cardinals have lost five straight, Mark Mulder is out of commission until at least the All-Star break–and possibly much longer–with a frayed labrum, and Jim Edmonds has missed three straight starts with a concussion. At least Albert Pujols is back from his oblique strain. How could that not be good news?
Here’s how: in today’s Boston Globe, the always enterprising Gordon Edes–a reporter whose columns are full of interesting scoops and tantalizing nuggets–has a quote in his Baseball Notebook from a Buzz Bissinger interview on XM Radio. Bizzinger, the author of Three Nights in August, about the Cardinals, says the following: “One thing I remember about Pujols is he was…a little bit overweight as a minor leaguer, and he came into camp the following spring looking like a million bucks. Unfortunately, because the owners allowed drugs in the game, you just have to wonder, and it would be an absolute tragedy. I hate to say this…but no one is immune from this stuff, including Albert. It’s an unfortunate aspect of the game, and it may take a generation of baseball, baseball players, a generation of testing to get rid of steroids, HGH, and everything else.” It’s not the first time a journalist has questioned Pujols’ transformation, but it’s the first time someone who had such prolonged access to the Cardinals raised the issue.
I think the players union is more at fault for the current mess, but certainly there’s plenty of blame to go around. Bizzinger’s quote is more evidence that regardless of who is eventually revealed to have been using and what revelations are still to come, there’s going to be a lot of speculation and a lot of finger-pointing until a relaible testing program is put in place.
Post Categories: Albert Pujols & Baseball & Boston Globe & Gordon Edes & Players Union & Steroids
June 24th, 2006 → 5:13 pm @ Seth Mnookin
I have no idea why this even surprises me anymore.
Post Categories: Charlie Manuel & Tom Gordon & Yankees
