Thursday, May 23, 2013
Demystifying Red Sox Ownership - What Do They Do? (WEEI)
(www.weei.com)
Read More...“I have [former Red Sox CEO] John Harrington’s old office. The day he turned over the reins, he was sitting at the desk and handed me his pen with a warm smile,” Henry wrote in an email.“I still have it. Red ink. I work more of my hours though in my home offices in Florida and in Brookline. But there is nothing like driving into Fenway Park to go to work. I am thankful every day that I get to do that. It’s one big reason why these rumors of a potential sale of the Red Sox are so ...
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1 2 >There is other stuff in here, though, beyond the excerpt.
1) Henry flew out to Seattle. That is the sort of thing that happens before the manager is fired.
2) Henry also talked about the Red Sox future plans. He made clear that the postseason rules change means the Red Sox can't be content with the Wild Card, but that they have to focus on building a core that can win the division over the Yankees and Orioles.
Good job, Selig.
I've read this sentence about five times and I still can't quite believe it's real. I keep waiting for someone to unplug me from the matrix. (but if someone is actually planning to unplug me, please don't.)
Yeah. This is a very 1996 moment.
Nothing that going out and buying the best pitcher and batter off the market can't solve!! ####, Sox arn't sniffing .500 next year. This is all mouth-service for the hoi polloi.
LF: Non-existant
CF: Who knows what we'll get
RF: Needs to be re-signed and platooned
3B: Has more red flags than a hurricane warning
SS: Relatively passable, but the least odious 3 day old fish still stinks
2B: A real player!
1B: Non-existant
C: See SS.
DH: 1,000 years old, and needs to be re-signed
SPs: Didn't have a single one post an OPS+ over 100. Regardless, really only have 3. (4, forgot..gnarf...Lackey)
Long man: Strangled the manager and awaits trial.
MR: a few guys that actually got good results
SU: Both broke.
CL: Good when not broke.
Rotsa Ruck Red Sox.
The quotes about competing in 2013 are just silly.
Your track record says to think this over.
Not true, Franklin Morales went 1 for 2 against the Cubs for an OPS+ of 169.
With "competing", I mean, an 85-win team in the current set-up is most likely going to be competitive for one of the play-in spots. I don't expect the Sox to be standing atop the division in October, absent a whole ton of good fortune, but I do expect the 2013 Red Sox to play meaningful games in September.
It depends on how much neck you leave on the head.
I sense an interesting Mythbusters segment.
The problem is that that's basically the core, at this point, and I don't think you can expect to contend for the division with that core. (Which I realize you agree with per the rest of your post 16, but I'm just reiterating the point.) You can win 85 games if things break right. But more likely you'll be mediocre.
I mean, I love Ellsbury, but he's not someone you can really count on to turn in an All Star season right now - despite the fact that he's obviously capable of it and so it wouldn't shock anyone. But he went through his theoretical peak seasons of 26-28 with two lost years in three.
Ross, Salty, even Middlebrooks -- these are all nice pieces to championship teams, but they're not core players.
Baltimore is contending for the division with a less-impressive core.
edit: ooops I read your post without seeing the word 'expect'....
This looks eerily familiar. Good thing you didn't pick LFC as your team, Matt -- you'd be ripping your hair out.
Having watched Saturday's Spurs game with Matt I can assure you he is ripping his hair out anyway.
Was there an O's fan who didn't think they'd finish last in 2012?
On the other hand, there's a narrative of the Red Sox 2012 season that looks rather like the worst-case scenario for Tottenham 2012-2013. A highly talented team has a very good season that comes up just short, they fire the manager who presided over the most successful years of the club's recent history and bring in an unexpected, high-risk, high-upside hire, and the club starts the new season with a run of horribly painful losses, the manager loses the clubhouse (if he ever had it), and they never sniff competition.
And this is exactly why I dumped Newcastle back in the day.
I thought they were underrated and that there was a good chance they'd win 78-80 games. But I still thought they'd finish last because of the division.
Is this just corporate-speak? They pursued the same philosophy, as near as I can tell, as they did from 2003-2007. They just made bets on the wrong players.
*Lackey is 'only' 16 mill actually, and Theo papered over the Crawford contract as "The new going rate"...well, maybe kinda Theo.
The Crawford mess was something new. As was doing things like trading useful talent for relievers (the Reddick/Lowrie deals) or, even worse, for nothing (the Youkilis deal).
I mean EMERGENCY duty. Like the Sox are knocking on 21 losses in a row with a man in scoring position of the ninth inning of a tie game. I think Ortiz striding to the plate like Kirk Gibson would be awesome.*
*In a sick, sick Bizarro way... since Gibson was trying to win a World Series game, and Papi would be trying to prevent the Red Sox from being associated with the 1988 Baltimore Orioles.
The Red Sox did not get out-sabered by trading Reddick. They got out-evaluated. Probably they relied too much on saber projections. This was a trade where their own scouts either failed to see Reddick's ability or saw Reddick's ability but weren't heard within the organization.
When the Sox say they need to get back to the old way of doing business, I take it to mean they need to go back to being a rich but bargain-hunting player development machine.
i get why a boston in fenway park a low obp slugger may not have as much appeal. if things had broken differently in boston the chatter on reddick wouldn't be as great.
and the kid still doesn't get on base. he could see his average plummet and be out of the league in 3 years unless he's one of the few that can keep hitting for power while not really controlling the strike zone
Yep. He'll either adjust and be Jayson Werth or he'll be hanging on to the last spot on the bench in 3 years if his average slips. The one advantage he has is he is an exceptional defender. He probably won't win a gold glove because, hey, who the hell is Josh Reddick, but he certainly deserves one.
True, but Seattle has some fairly steep hills. Given the phrasing of the question, the answer is definitely yes.
That's a fair point. I just went back and checked two sources: the Sox Therapy thread on the deal, and Joe Sheehan's newsletter (checked because it's easily searchable). The general consensus in the Sox Therapy thread, headed by MCOA, as well as the analysis by Sheehan, thought the Sox had made a good deal.
The thing is, though, that the Red Sox were still getting back as the centerpiece of the deal Andrew Bailey, who was good on a per innings basis but was missing a lot of those "innings." Trading an OF even of Reddick's pre-2012 caliber -- 24 years old and holding his own and at the age when improvement is certainly not atypical -- for an oft-injured reliever is foolhardy, especially when you have two good outfielders if lucky (Ellsbury and Crawford) plus Cody Ross.
Just to clarify what the trade was. From Bailey's b-r page:
December 28, 2011: Traded by the Oakland Athletics with Ryan Sweeney to the Boston Red Sox for Miles Head (minors), Raul Alcantara (minors) and Josh Reddick.
Your comment is not unreasonable, but at the same time we have to remember that the overall numbers are a much better gauge than the various peaks and valleys, the order of which can simply be completely random. Joe Sheehan fell into a similar trap during the offseason when commenting on the Reddick deal, because Reddick did something similar to this last year and the thought was that opposing pitchers had found a hole -- but if so, why didn't they continue to exploit it at the beginning of this year?
Quoting now from Sheehan's trade analysis at the time:
And just to finish up with Sheehan's overall assessment:
Yes, but can he roll?
I'm always skeptical of this reasoning.
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