That jpeg makes the page look fat.

That jpeg makes the page look fat.

Not as fat as the pinata.

All this "Moneyball," intangibles, clubhouse discord stuff is just chatter. The Red Sox season really isn't that complicated. If you told us at the start of the season that Youkilis would miss 42 games, and Buchholz would miss 60% of the season, we'd have pegged them at around 90 wins.

If anything, that would be optimistic. Tito got better than expected years out of Beckett, Ortiz, and Ellsbury; without those, you'd probably peg the team at a sub-90-win team. It's not my dog and not my fight, but I don't see how you evaluate the roster and everything that happened over a complete 162 game schedule, and conclude that 90 wins is grounds for the manager to go. If you think his expiration date has come and gone, that makes sense but that has nothing to do with what Lupica's babbling about or babbling against.

All the numbers-crunching, numbers-loving general managers and boy wonders of the sport, all of the disciples of the Bills James and Beane must have pushed back from their laptops and had a pretty good laugh when Torre said it in his book, and when Francona echoed it Friday in Boston, when he was the World Series manager on his way out the door.

Theo Epstein was not available for comment, as he was too busy polishing his two WS trophies.

In all seriousness, it never ceases to amaze me, how easily people confuse cause and effect. Show me a team that's been winning, and I'll show you some happy people, show me a team that's been kicked in the nuts, and I will show you some grumpy clubhouse cancers. It's not magic. Yet people seem to believe that the team won because they were happy, or lost because they aren't, instead of the other way around.

Winning breads chemistry. The best way to build a good clubhouse, is to build a winner.

...because what the FO will listen to more than anything is Mike Lupica...

All this "Moneyball," intangibles, clubhouse discord stuff is just chatter. The Red Sox season really isn't that complicated. If you told us at the start of the season that Youkilis would miss 42 games, and Buchholz would miss 60% of the season, we'd have pegged them at around 90 wins.

Well no, because we should expect every team to have some injuries and bad luck. And if that were the extent of the misfortune, they would have won 105 games. Throw in big fat zeroes (and worse) from Crawford, Drew, Lackey, Dice-K and Wakefield, and some terrible hitting with RISP, and you're in the ballpark.

The Red Sox component numbers - hits, hits allowed, homers, homers allowed, etc - project the club to win 99 games. That's including September. The talent was there to win a lot more games than they did. The pitching and defense were unspeakably bad in the clutch down the stretch. I think that the "this was a 90-win team on talent" thing can stem only from not looking closely enough at the underlying data.

FPH - Tito identified clubhouse problems before the unpleasantness. He called a clubhouse meeting in early September after a win in Toronto. So this isn't simply after-the-fact. The club didn't just lose games, they lost ugly, with lots of fielding errors, mental mistakes, outs on the bases, and so on. (They committed fielding errors in September at a rate between double and triple their numbers before September, for instance.) This was a club that was playing poorly, playing tight, and coming up small in the clutch, and we have people on the inside saying that there were interpersonal problems in the clubhouse which were identifiable before the collapse.

Now, I think the primary causes of the collapse were bad luck, injuries, and lack of SP depth. I think, though, that the magnitude of the collapse is such that a fourth cause - choking stemming from a messed up clubhouse that wouldn't listen to Terry Francona - can be reasonably identified.

Throw in big fat zeroes (and worse) from Crawford, Drew, Lackey, Dice-K and Wakefield, and some terrible hitting with RISP, and you're in the ballpark.

I tend to agree with Sugarbear. I don't see a team that should have exceeded much beyond what it achieved given the roster (of course, you show me the Yankees starting rotation before the season and I'm probably guessing they finish third). I mean, what about Ortiz? No one could have predicted he'd put up a 154 OPS+ after years of 123, 101, and 137. Also, Ellsbury's massive improvement wasn't something that was projectable. And Beckett put up the best ERA+ of his career! A lot of that has to offset the dual debacles of Crawford and Lackey.

I went into this thinking that one shouldn't have expected much from Drew, but its true that the Red Sox probably could have reasonably expected to get a bit more out of him, although it's not surprising that a 35 year old, frequently injured player fell off the map. Dice-K though, I don't see how he could have been expected to contribute much (although even a 85 ERA+ would have looked nice by the end of the season, I suppose).

and we have people on the inside saying that there were interpersonal problems in the clubhouse which were identifiable before the collapse.

Now, I think the primary causes of the collapse were bad luck, injuries, and lack of SP depth. I think, though, that the magnitude of the collapse is such that a fourth cause - choking stemming from a messed up clubhouse that wouldn't listen to Terry Francona - can be reasonably identified.

Okay, now that they've gotten rid of the manager who couldn't control those "interpersonal problems", how is the new manager going to do it? Is the mere appearance of a new face supposed to do the trick, or do they have to hire a known disciplinarian to replace the mild-mannered Francona?

And what if they don't listen to the new guy? What if the Dick Williams style doesn't play well with this particular roster? Then what?

And BTW, is it known exactly which players were causing those "interpersonal problems", and is anything likely to be done about them? Or are some players too productive ever to have their attitudes questioned? To draw an analogy that may or may not apply to the Red Sox (probably not), what does a team do in a Bonds/Leyland type situation, humor the player and bring charges of favoritism, or confront him about his behavior and risk even further disruption? This is why even though what you've said about Francona may well be true, I'm not so sure if changing the manager is likely to do all that much good, if the underlying "interpersonal" problems aren't addressed.

I think it all comes down to this: nobody could have predicted 9/11.

I tend to agree with Sugarbear. I don't see a team that should have exceeded much beyond what it achieved given the roster (of course, you show me the Yankees starting rotation before the season and I'm probably guessing they finish third). I mean, what about Ortiz? No one could have predicted he'd put up a 154 OPS+ after years of 123, 101, and 137. Also, Ellsbury's massive improvement wasn't something that was projectable. And Beckett put up the best ERA+ of his career! A lot of that has to offset the dual debacles of Crawford and Lackey.

Should you have expected those performances in particular? No of course not. But it's the flip side of expecting injuries and bad luck I mentioned above. You should absolutely expect somebody to outperform their projection/ have a breakout year/ career year type season.

The team had the best offense in baseball, a very good defense, a 1-3 front of the rotation that can stack up too anybody this side of Philly, even with a typical Beckett season, and 2 guys at the end of the pen that can close out games. If you look at that and say "90 wins on average", you don't know baseball.

But when it was all over, a good, tough baseball man from a baseball family named Terry Francona, who managed this season with an officer son with the Marines in Afghanistan,...

Holy sentence structure nightmare, Batman! Could someone teach Lupica how to write a sentence in intelligible English, please?

This drip was on WEEI the morning after the Orioles lost. He is the most clueless, grating, self-promoting douche in all sports media. I'd rather listen to Jim Rome, who at least has a sense of humor.

The Red Sox season really isn't that complicated. If you told us at the start of the season that Youkilis would miss 42 games, and Buchholz would miss 60% of the season, we'd have pegged them at around 90 wins.

Well, you have to counter that with the totally unexpected MVP caliber performance from Ellsbury.

that has nothing to do with what Lupica's babbling about or babbling against

Lupica's babbling never has anything to do with anything.

what does a team do in a Bonds/Leyland type situation

I thought Leyland handled Bonds pretty well. Got him to jog out grounders and everything.

And sometimes a change of managers is just plain good for everyone.

This may or may not be relevant, when I was managing in IT, I was given 2 programmers who had just been put on probation. Company policy dictated a change of managers at that point, if feasible. Both had had decent track records in the past, both had run into problems with their managers, which both individuals felt were the source of the problem. IMO, one of these was ego (not getting assigned the best work) and the other got personal (old friends, now one was managing). My starting off point with them was the past was past (other than that little probation thingee which could go away); if I ended up having problems with them then the finger would point to them. Both seemingly took that advice to heart and worked out pretty well from then on.

Sometimes having the same discussions with a new voice matters; the message sinks in the second time.

Holy sentence structure nightmare, Batman! Could someone teach Lupica how to write a sentence in intelligible English, please?

It's very simple. There's a baseball man, whose baseball family is named Terry Francona, who managed in Afghanistan with the Marines this season with somebody's officer son.

The club didn't just lose games, they lost ugly, with lots of fielding errors, mental mistakes, outs on the bases, and so on. (They committed fielding errors in September at a rate between double and triple their numbers before September, for instance.) This was a club that was playing poorly, playing tight, and coming up small in the clutch, and we have people on the inside saying that there were interpersonal problems in the clubhouse which were identifiable before the collapse.

Now, I think the primary causes of the collapse were bad luck, injuries, and lack of SP depth. I think, though, that the magnitude of the collapse is such that a fourth cause - choking stemming from a messed up clubhouse that wouldn't listen to Terry Francona - can be reasonably identified.

You're making a big assumption that the two things are causally connected: i.e., that interpersonal problems in the clubhouse/not listening to Tito somehow causes fielding errors, baserunning mistakes, poor hitting in the clutch, etc. This isn't necessarily a crazy idea -- a player who is unhappy for some reason might lose focus and become more prone to mental mistakes. But it isn't completely self-evident.

Further, it seems to me that many of the specific things people have been trotting out in the wake of the collapse as evidence of a dysfunctional clubhouse don't plausibly translate to poor on-field performance. For example, much is being made of the stories that Beckett/Lackey/Lester formed a little clique and didn't hang out with the position players, and that some pitchers drank beer in the clubhouse during games on their non-pitching days. Are we to infer that this upset the position players so much that they started making mental errors on the field? How plausible is that, really?

All the chatter, and ironically, I think NOT trading for Harden may have actually hurt them. If they picked up both Bedard & Harden, then there's at least 1 extra arm that could've helped. Things MAY have played out differently.

I thought Leyland handled Bonds pretty well. Got him to jog out grounders and everything.

The only thing Jim Leyland could have done better with Barry Bonds was have him throw Sid Bream out at home.

All the chatter, and ironically, I think NOT trading for Harden may have actually hurt them. If they picked up both Bedard & Harden, then there's at least 1 extra arm that could've helped. Things MAY have played out differently.

Almost certainly, really. They needed another arm.

Hell, they probably make the playoffs if they don't give Millwood his walking papers.

Well, you have to counter that with the totally unexpected MVP caliber performance from Ellsbury.

Add up Ellsbury and Crawford and you get a 292/339/488 line in 1267 plate appearances, 130 extra base hits and 57 steals. I can't imagine anyone associated with the Red Sox would be disappointed with that if you told them the combined numbers before the season.

I certainly would have put money on Crawford instead of Ellsbury though, as the one more likely to hit 30 homers.

How plausible is that, really?

The direct effects of bad chemistry upon the 2011 protomatter Red Sox was that you had 9 guys going up to the plate doing things their way instead of the 'Red Sox way' because they didn't trust their teammates.

You've got a roster with too many pinheads and very little leadership who came out of ST out of shape, played themselves into shape but then got complacent again after feasting on the weaker part of their schedule and then fell apart when they had to rely upon a pitcher who gained 20 pounds over the season, and another who just got tired.

Also there was the whole 'played without a sense of urgency in September'. Why should they? They had a 99.4% of making it remember?

The Sox played like a very undisciplined team in September. Whether that's chemistry or accountability or testing it seems like it should be laid at the feet of the manager. I'd bet they gave away half a dozen runs due to missed cutoff men alone.

re 23: the bad chemistry SUDDENLY manifested itself on Sept 1st? Before that the 9 guys trusted their teammates, or at least they continued to pitch and hit anyway?

The direct effects of bad chemistry upon the 2011 protomatter Red Sox was that you had 9 guys going up to the plate doing things their way instead of the 'Red Sox way' because they didn't trust their teammates.

Really? If the hitters changed their approach at the plate, this should be measurable. Even if they did, how do we know that this was because they "didn't trust their teammates"? Why didn't this affect their performances in July and August, but only in September? Would the hitters really have worked the count better if Beckett and Lackey (or whoever) had been sitting in the dugout cheering rather than in the clubhouse drinking beer?

The argument that some players were complacent, got lazy and fell out of shape, if true, at least makes sense as a causal explanation about the team's performance. But how does this connect to the specific examples of clubhouse problems I referred to? Why should we assume that Beckett slacked off and got fat and that Lackey and Lester stunk because they formed a little clique and didn't hang out with the hitters?

My theory is that the bad chemistry is offset by playing well but exacerbates a problem. Go back to the 2-10 start, as that progressed they made some bad mistakes, some great pitching performances pulled them out and they got rolling. Once they hiccuped again things snowballed.

I don't think they suddenly hated each other come September 1st, but I think the issues that already existed raced to the surface when things went badly.

I knew the SABR-glossing of recent events was inevitable but didn't think it would be this quick.

Oh...and anyone who didn't actually watch this team the last 30 days can Gfysd

I dealt with your #### enough every time you said "Oh please, the Sox are too good not to make it."

To put 27 in simpler terms; good play overwhelms bad chemistry but bad chemistry reinforces bad play. In my opinion anyway.

I live in San Diego, so I guess I should get into this now.

I saw Boston play about ten times in September, and Matt's stat about the errors carries some weight. Boston was almost certainly a little tight down the stretch. But I don't buy the argument about component stats. At one point late in September Boston SPs, according to someone here, I think Matt, had allowed 94 earned runs in 103 innings. That happens, you are going to lose a lot, even if you have Derek Jeter and Darin Erstad as your team chemists. They also has two huge FA signings that played far below projections. Defense contributed some to those numbers, but Boston's problems IMO were about 80% bad SPs and maybe 20% defensive mistakes, "chemistry" and "choking."

Entitled fan bases in all sports (Lakers fans are just awful about this) have a hard time getting to, \"#### happens. We just lost." It is very understandable in this case, given that most of the Boston fanbase seemed to think they had a World Series team and how badly September went. But Boston was 83-52 on September 1, bad chemistry or no, and it took some incredibly unlikely events in Games 162 to keep them out of postseason in spite of how they played in September.

but Boston's problems IMO were about 80% bad SPs and maybe 20% defensive mistakes, "chemistry" and "choking."

I agree with that but when you lose by one game, hell by two pitches (both Tampa and Boston were down to a final strike for the "right" result on Wednesday) that 20% matters. I don't think anyone disagrees that the pitching was the driving factor but they also did a lot of little things that really mattered.

#30 (add to my list of things to check) I wonder what Boston's support neutral starting pitching stats were down the stretch. Also what the team defensive numbers for that period only are like.

I knew the SABR-glossing of recent events was inevitable but didn't think it would be this quick.

Kinda funny how this works. Lupica writes an article about how the stathead Red Sox front office doesn't understand that a dysfunctional clubhouse can cause a team to underperform. Naturally, this makes absolutely no sense, because if Theo and the gang did believe that the "mood in the clubhouse" is meaningless, then why the heck would they have gotten rid of Francona? (Perhaps they could eliminate the managerial position altogether, since it apparently would be useless, but there would be no reason to change managers.)

However, the comments to the article then proceed to prove that there are people who think that it is impossible for a manager or other interpersonal relations to affect a player's performance. (Note that none of them, however, run major league teams.)

@ Ron J

Excellent point.

@ Jose

Good point as well. I would suggest, though, that there was strong random element to many of these events, particularly those that occurred late going in Games 162.

Defense contributed some to those numbers, but Boston's problems IMO were about 80% bad SPs and maybe 20% defensive mistakes, "chemistry" and "choking."

You write this as though the bad starting pitching and the bad chemistry are not linked. If you read the recent stories about some of the starters not being disciplined about conditioning, and annoying their teammates by fatiguing the bullpen and putting too much pressure on the offense, then it's not at all hard to understand what happened based on "chemistry".

Oh I don't dispute there was a \"#### happens" element here. I'll leave it to others to run the numbers but when a 95-100 win talent team plays SO poorly for such a lengthy period I think there is reason to believe there was more at work than sample size variance. I realize 27 games is not a big sample, but it's not like they got swept over 3 games or lost 4 out of 5.

Like I said, I may be wrong and the numbers guys here can tell me that but I would expect that even the worst case scenario for such a good team to play so poorly over 27 games is better than 7-20. and I think the variance between that worst case and 7-20 is probably assigned in part to some of the non-calculable issues we've been discussing.

If you read the recent stories about some of the starters not being disciplined about conditioning,

Well, I don't see that as a "chemistry" issue. Barry Bonds was always known as a chemistry-killer and was also, shall we say, a guy who cared just a bit about conditioning. If that is actually the case, then that IS on Francona as well as the players involved. Also, were people writing those articles in July? If so, fair enough.

and annoying their teammates by fatiguing the bullpen and putting too much pressure on the offense, then it's not at all hard to understand what happened based on "chemistry".

This just goes back to what someone said earlier. The MSM narrative is always that "bad chemistry = cause of losing." But I think it is just as true to say that "losing = cause of bad chemistry."

To riff on Earl Weaver: Chemistry is tomorrow's starting pitcher.

Well, I don't see that as a "chemistry" issue.

Well, it is. You're too narrowly defining what chemistry means.

To riff on Earl Weaver: Chemistry is tomorrow's starting pitcher.

That's true, but what if bad chemistry is affecting tomorrow's starting pitcher? Then what?

Exactly.

Or even worse, what if bad chemistry is being caused by tomorrow's starting pitcher?

Well, it is.

Hard to argue with that.

You're too narrowly defining what chemistry means.

I take it to mean "How the people on the team (or in the office, etc.) interact with each other and how or if that affects their ability to perform." It is quite possible to be a known as a giant a-hole and be in great shape (Barry Bonds, Kobe Bryant, Jim Palmer) or to be a great guy that everyone loves and not be serious about conditioning (Charles Barkley, Frig Perry, Mickey Lolich).

If Beckett let himself get fat, then, yeah, that will piss people off if the they think the team starts to lose because of it. But Beckett could be a huge dickweed to everyone from John Henry to the clubhouse attendants and still get his conditioning work in and be ready to pitch.

Conditioning is a tangible, measurable, observable thing.

That's true, but what if bad chemistry is affecting tomorrow's starting pitcher? Then what?

How do you know it's affecting him? What is bad chemistry? He's pissed off at another guy, so he can't concentrate and grooves a fastball? How do you know being pissed at the other guy was the root cause? Maybe it was being twenty pounds overweight. Maybe it was an arm-slot problem the pitching coach missed and could have corrected, no matter how pissed off the pitcher was at the third baseman.

These things certainly go on, but as people have talked about going back to James in the early 1980s:

1. You can't prove it and you probably can't measure it.
2. Cause and effect are very hard, if not impossible, to identify in these cases.

I do think the mental aspects of the game probably affected Boston down the stretch. But how much and at what moments is mostly unknowable.

Conditioning is a tangible, measurable, observable thing.

It also requires effort- something that's missing on teams that lack chemistry.

And we're talking about more people than Beckett. Lackey doesn't look like he's in the best of shape either. What would you think if you were an outfielder who got ugly stares from the mound after barely missing a laser roped into the gap and you had the previous pleasure of observing some of these guys at the buffet table? And Bedard's and Lackey's separation proceedings probably didn't help either. And when you're feeling like crap, you're going to play like crap.

That's not too hard to understand.

Oh bloody period.

Dale Sams exitus stage left

The least of John Lackey's issues are chemistry concerns.

It also requires effort- something that's missing on teams that lack chemistry.

This is just an assertion. If you were in the clubhouse all the time, maybe. And again, was this an issue in July? Or it just became one in September? If so, why was it an issue in September? They weren't trying hard enough all along, but they stopped getting away with it on 9/1?

And when you're feeling like crap, you're going to play like crap.

Perhaps, but I think that depends on the individual. Some people in all fields are better than others at putting aside personal distractions and fousing on the job at hand. Doing so doesn't make anyone better than anyone else; people are wired differently. And I would be willing to bet that some guys on the Rays have some personal issues of various types in their lives as well. Probably not as intense as Lackey's, but we really don't know much about these guys' lives. And, again, there is no way to prove that Lackey's personal problems affected his pitching. I am sure he thinks so, and he may be right. I am not as sure.

It sounds to me like you are making a case that Francona was right to leave because he didn't do his part as manager to keep the team focused. MCOA seems to think that, and fair enough. If you want to put that, as well as conditioning, all under the "chemistry" label, then I think you are defining chemistry in a way that can make it an explanation for almost anything--which is what the MSM guys do.

I think robin's 80/20 split is very reasonable. 20% of a collapse in which the Red Sox lost about 10 games more than they should have is a significant effect. Two games is the same effect that you get from exchanging a replacement level player with an average one - the same effect as if you replaced Tim Wakefield's starts with a healthy Matsuzaka's.

@ MCOA

I wil be interested to see how Epstein (or Cherington?) approaches the Boston SP situation. Big-ticket items (Matsuzaka, Lackey) and bargain-hunting have not worked well. Not to say their next decisions won't work out, but I would assume they will have to look internally at process, at the conditioning program and the pitching coach.

Of course, all the sturm and drang aside, I think they'd be playing this week if Buchholz had not gotten hurt, choking and chemistry included. One question is whether they think that was just bad luck.

This is just an assertion.

Well, it's an assertion that is drawn from numerous newspaper articles, so unless several reporters close to the situation are conspiring to construct a misinformation campaign, I think there's quite a bit of truth to it.

Some people in all fields are better than others at putting aside personal distractions and focusing on the job at hand.

But it's more than that. It's about conditioning too and I've yet to hear an athlete say "Yeah, I had a great year. I think the key was to slack off on my conditioning program".

And I would be willing to bet that some guys on the Rays have some personal issues of various types in their lives as well.

Haven't heard any stories about any Rays players going through bitter divorces just as the September stretch commenced.

But we're agreed the Braves just suck right? Or was Randall Delgado sleeping with David Ross's wife or something?