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 3 4 >I find this kind of short-sightedness obnoxious. It's bleedingly obvious that Boston now has a huge amount of cash dying to be spent right. Whether they'll spend it right is anybody's guess. But they're definitely not going to just sit on the cash. So Boston fans won't need to be that patient.
Correct. This is a move for 2014 and beyond. Xander needs to oil his first base mitt.
I'm aware of that. But right after this trade? I'm not chalking it up to coincidence.
The easiest way would be to briefly scan the article submissions for like content, and not approve all of the similar ones.
Or stick the Red Sox submissions in Sox Therapy.
Perhaps not. Anything is possible now. Jackie Bradley might push Ellsbury, but even the most optimistic forecast won't have Bradley as a 30-30 guy. And trading Lester during his worst year would be dumb.
I'm fine with what happened today--I won't be if they trade Ells and Lester. They've got plenty of money to use now.
Do you think Crawford regrets opting for TJS in August? The Dodgers - his Dodgers - might well make a playoff run and could use even an enfeebled left fielder.
Pretty hard to be a baseball fan and not care about such a huge, unprecedented deal.
I'm not getting this. The Red Sox play the Orioles an Yankees 6 more times too. Their last 24 games are six apiece against the rest of the division.
If it was between the Royals and Pirates, it would still draw energetic discussion and interest. But I don't believe that four of the top five stories in Hot Topics would be devoted to it.
They have Victorino for the rest of the season to play LF. I'm sure they'd rather have Crawford healthy for next year to replace him than force Victorino to the bench or into a platoon in LF with Crawford.
Forget it, he's rolling.
EDITED to add context.
Did I misread the schedule? I'm sorry, and my advice to everyone is to Ignore me.
This deal moved one quarter of a billion dollars in contract commitments. The teams involved might make it a bit more featured, but this would be making huge waves regardless of the Red Sox specific involvement.
Like trading Beckett and Gonzalez during their worst years?
The much discussed upgrade will allow much more customization to allow more customization. Not quite what you are discussing but the spirit of it.
Well, that's not fair because the Royals and Pirates combined don't have $250M in contracts to trade. Much less $250M all on one side of the deal.
If this was the Yankees, or Phillies, or any big market team making the trade, I think you'd see a bunch of threads.
and it would suck, for the double-barreled reasons mentioned above. People who don't want to talk about it have no other way of knowing what discussions are going on, and those who want to know all about it are put into disparate, non-communicative spaces from each other.
I agree. A lower payroll will make the Red Sox more profitable and will allow the ownership to take larger dividends for years to come.
Yikes--this year has been so bad that I forgot just how good Beckett was last year. As for Gonzalez, he'd been in the midst of a Gonzalez-of-old hot streak--my guess is that his value was not diminished by his overall yearly performance.
EDIT: Though Beckett isn't really a guy to be relied upon--he's pretty erratic from year to year, and misses time frequently.
Hot Topics currently includes articles that haven't been posted in in over 90 minutes. All the conversations taking place right now are readily available.
I agree. A lower payroll will make the Red Sox more profitable and will allow the ownership to take larger dividends for years to come.
Is there any particular reason you cut off the first part of what I wrote? Obviously my comment is predicated on the assumption that the owners will do more than simply pocket the money. I can see why a Red Sox fan might be cynical about their team at this point, but it's not as if their last 12 months' performance are a necessary prelude to what's to come ahead. They're certainly well aware of the necessity to keep grinding out winners in order to keep their cash cow flowing, and I doubt if they're going to do anything to hurt that goal.
Are we really being asked to sympathize with people who choose to block entire subjects from their sidebars?
EDIT: I apologize if I'm missing your point. I've never paid any attention to Furtado's self-sorting gizmos, and I've never blocked any topic myself.
I didn't know it was that easy to get around a waiver claim. Or maybe I did know and just forgot. And maybe I'll promptly forget again until the next time it comes up.
I don't think the Steel Drivin' Man and company are just looking to pocket as much money as possible. The Red Sox aren't the Marlins, they're miserable and humiliated right now being also-rans; these guys want to compete against the Evil Empire, every single year if possible.
Boston is now the clear #1 contender to land Josh Hamilton, and possibly Zack Greinke or another top of the line pitcher as well.
My point was in the other direction; a generally interested baseball fan who has had his fill of this topic sees the site drowned in threads about this particular trade. A corollary of this is that responding to points across-threads is suboptimal for many reasons.
Upton is almost a lock to bounce back. If you look at his stats he's the exact same player as he's been the 3 years prior, just without the power. His OBP, his speed, his defense, all there. It's very clear he's been nursing at least one or more nagging injuries, specifically to his thumb.
And his red flags are that his owner publicly criticize him for underperforming, and he fired back with
The fans boo him and he says
And then he stormed off to take extra batting practice.
You are really worried about getting snookered by Kevin Towers? He was handed the keys to this team and was lucky enough to take it to the NLCS on his first drive. He's spent the rest of his tenure running it into ditches and selling off spare parts for gas. He literally has no clue which players help the team succeed or fail, or how likely they are to rebound, he signed Willie Bloomquist to a multi-year deal for christ sakes.
Kevin Tower is like a caveman confronted with a flashlight. He'd rather trade it for a shiny rock than try to figure out how to turn it on again.
Just to make sure, you're talking about Upton, not Adrian Gonzalez here, right?
So they had to get out from under these enormous long-term contracts to players on the wrong side of 30 so they could sign players on the wrong side of 30 to enormous long-term contracts?
Boston is now the clear #1 contender to land Josh Hamilton, and possibly Zack Greinke or another top of the line pitcher as well.
You say that like those players are slam dunk, minimal risk signings.
Also, given how MLB is awash in cash, no one is the clear #1. There are probably 20 clubs that'll be interested in one or the other. e.g. the Pirates and Royals could each afford to give Greinke 6/130 if they choose to.
If the Red Sox are the clear #1, that means they're prepared for a massive overpay. Which gets them right back where they were yesterday.
Edit: Coke to ca. Typed too much.
I think Danny nailed it in #42:
What contracts do people think Gonzalez, Beckett, and Crawford would get if they were free agents this winter? Seems like a huge overpay for the Dodgers, almost entirely because of Crawford.
I wouldn't be that surprised to see this work out for the Dodgers, but they are taking a ton of financial risk here.
@dylanohernandez The #Dodgers trade with the #Red Sox is official.
Gonzalez is easily the best player in the deal. Beckett and Crawford, I think, will have some bounce back next year.
-- MWE
I thought the Crawford deal was defensible at the time (even tho it de facto meant ditching Reddick, which I hated), as getting some help for when you are on the road would help the team.
2 years later the Sox have their worst home record like in eons, and even tho Crawford barely had a hand in that, now I just want to say, "The hell with it-get 9 beefy righthanded pull guys, and pork away at the wall all season, pal."
I've been listening to Joy Division's [[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BP-LIntM6c"]Day of the Lords] on endless repeat this afternoon:
This is the room, the start of it all,
No portrait so fine, only sheets on the wall,
I've seen the nights, filled with bloodsport and pain,
And the bodies obtained, the bodies obtained.
Where will it end? Where will it end?
Where will it end? Where will it end?
These are your friends from childhood, through youth,
Who goaded you on, demanded more proof,
Withdrawal pain is hard, it can do you right in,
So distorted and thin, distorted and thin.
Where will it end? Where will it end?
Where will it end? Where will it end?
I thought the Crawford deal was defensible at the time (even tho it de facto meant ditching Reddick, which I hated), as getting some help for when you are on the road would help the team.
2 years later the Sox have their worst home record like in eons, and even tho Crawford barely had a hand in that, now I just want to say, "The hell with it-get 9 beefy righthanded pull guys, and pork away at the wall all season, pal."
I've been listening to Joy Division's Day of the Lords on endless repeat this afternoon:
This is the room, the start of it all,
No portrait so fine, only sheets on the wall,
I've seen the nights, filled with bloodsport and pain,
And the bodies obtained, the bodies obtained.
Where will it end? Where will it end?
Where will it end? Where will it end?
These are your friends from childhood, through youth,
Who goaded you on, demanded more proof,
Withdrawal pain is hard, it can do you right in,
So distorted and thin, distorted and thin.
Where will it end? Where will it end?
Where will it end? Where will it end?
I wonder if Crawford will have the surgery? The Dodgers have Victorino, Ethier, and Kemp, so it seems like they could tell Crawford to do it.
Although he seems to have lost some velocity, IMO Beckett will be helped by the league/scenery change, and I think Gonzalez is probably really stoked: this way, he got the huge deal and now he is back in SoCal.
That they didn't get rid of Ellsbury, Lester (yet, and I don't think they will), Pedroia, or Ortiz says, to me, that they were looking to make a big splash and not upset the fans. There was a poll taken last week about what was the most popular sport in town, and football won, easily. If the Red Sox were winning, baseball would have done much better. Whenever the Red Sox are winning, they are kings in this town, even though football is also very popular. But fans' attentions wander elsewhere when the team stinks, and ownership needed to do something to re-stoke interest. This oughta do it, in spades.
Let's see who they get for next year. They better hit a home run.
Crawford already got the surgery on Thursday.
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