I touched on this a bit last week and the Boston fans didn’t really appreciate it, but I have to expand on it. The New York Yankees went into Fenway Park last Friday with a tenuous, at best, 1.5 game lead on the Boston Red Sox. Four days and five games later, the Yankees left Boston for the West Coast leaving a shattered Red Sox team in their wake. Not only did the Yankees walk into Boston and decimate the Red Sox, but the Yankees walked into Boston to remind the baseball world just who the f*ck they were. They left a Red Sox team not only crushed out of the division (6.5 games back with six weeks to play) but pretty well crushed out of the wildcard race, too (5.5 games back against 2 teams who both are putting on a dogfight down the stretch and showing no signs of fading).
The Yankees have put up with, as they do every year, with people writing them off as soon as they fall under .500 or whenever they start to have injury troubles. When Matsui and Sheff went down, they called for the end. “Without those 200 runs, the Yankees are finished,” folks said. Whenever Mariano blows a save, “has he lost it?” dominates the headlines. The Yankees then proceeded to turn around and do what they do every year, much to everyone’s continued surprised, which is go down the August/September stretch playing what feels like .800 baseball. The Braves used to do this, too, when half their team wasn’t on the DL.
The Yankees needed help at the trade deadline, and they got it by making two perfect trades. They dumped a bunch of whatever and picked up a reasonable 4-starter in Corey Lidle, a great OBP guy to replace Gary Sheffield next year, and a defensive upgrade for Giambi’s first-base next season (who will DH until Sheffield comes back… if Sheff comes back). Meanwhile, a few hundred miles away, the Red Sox, as they’re wont to do, completely froze at the deadline doing absolutely nothing to improve the team and, thus, sitting in the Yankees’ dust yet again.
Here’s the funny thing. Since Theo Epstein managed to put a team together to break the Curse 2 years ago, the Red Sox management quietly reverted to pre-2004 form, making bonehead move after bonehead move and sinking the organization slowly back into their pre-series doldrums.
Moving aside the brain fart that let the Yankees get A-Rod (which, yes, it was a bonehead move. The Boston Media may be a group that revels in their collective misery, but had A-Rod come to them, he’d be THE guy on the team, not standing in the wrong position in the long shadow of the short stop), the Red Sox have really done nothing to improve their ballclub since 2004, but the collective euphoria of the Red Sox Nation have kept them from noticing. I’m not sure if the team management took the opportunity to shed players and payroll because they knew they’d have carte blanche for a few years, or if they really thought all these moves were good. Let’s take a quick look at their lineup and rotation from 2004.
Lineup:
- Johnny Damon
- Orlando Cabrera
- Manny Ramirez
- David Ortiz
- Kevin Millar
- Trot Nixon
- Bill Mueller
- Jason Varitek/Doug Mirabelli
- Mark Bellhorn
With Dave Roberts, and Gabe Kapler as their main bench guys. Their rotation was:
- Curt Schilling (w/ Bloody Sock)
- Pedro Martinez (w/ Midget)
- Bronson Arroyo (w/ Dreadlocks)
- Tim Wakefield (w/ Dirty hat)
- Derek Lowe (w/ D-Lowe nickname)
Again, there are email response rules to this column. Well, one rule. You are not allowed to email anything about the Red Sox salary woes. Boston is not a small market. While the Red Sox might not have Steinbrenner’s checkbook, they have options.
Five Moves of Doom (with apologies to Scott Keith)
- Pedro Martinez: The bloodletting began when, fresh off a Game 3 win in the World Series, the Red Sox made their first patented “we know you meant a lot to the team, but here is our take it or leave it offer” to Pedro Martinez. They offered him 3 years, Pedro wanted 4. The Mets, in their bid to build a team that could actually make it into September playing meaningful games (which they still failed to do this year, but hey, I’ll take it) happily sold him their vision. “Fragile” Pedro Martinez still made his 30 starts last season and went 15-8. He’s spent two stints on the DL this season, but has still pitched well enough to even make next year a cause for concern. The Sawks steadfastly refused to possibly eat the fourth year for three good years in the interim. Problem is, do you know what I’ve noticed in recent years? Pitchers over 30 seem to be more durable than pitchers under 30. I have no idea why this is and it’s based on nothing but general observation, but it seems like the babied guys under 30 are the ones who are throwing their arms out every season, not the guys who have been at it for a while. Does that mean that I think a diminutive Dominican Fireballer can keep it up after 40? No, but I do think there’s something to be said for Jim Leyland’s theory of “they’re big boys. I don’t want to kill them, but I’m not going to baby them either.” Who did they replace him with? A younger guy who equally loves the DL in Matt Clement. This season? While Pedro’s started 18 games and spent about 30 days on the DL, Clement has started 12 and has been on the DL since 6/15… their other big (pun possibly intended) signing, David Wells, has spent a good portion of this season on the DL. They also lost Pedro’s Dwarf, which could not had boded well for the team’s karma.
- Dave Roberts: Possibly the most important stolen base in Red Sox franchise history. Baseball-reference.com has a quote attributed to him: Maury Wills once told me that there will come a point in my career when everyone in the ballpark will know that I have to steal a base, and I will steal that base. When I got out there, I knew that was what Maury Wills was talking about. With one stolen base, Roberts endeared himself to the entire city of Boston. Maybe it’s not worth an enormous contract, but it’s certainly worth not being traded off 90 days after your World Series victory for three guys who already aren’t in the Red Sox system any more. I don’t think Roberts would have demanded a nine-figure package, but a one-year deal to see what he could do probably wouldn’t have been a bad idea. Sometimes, you have to make signings to please your fanbase and help your karma. The Yankees call this the “Bernie Williams Rule” who is playing this year for no other reason than he wanted to play another year and Yankee fans would have been furious if management let him play for another team.
- Edgar Renteria: You know how Red Sox fans are kind of getting on the Yankee fans for booing the pants off A-Rod if he sneezes in the wrong direction? One might want to remind them of their shortstop situation in the last few years. After trading off Nomar Garciaparra after Boston and Sawk’s management turned on him, they replaced him with Pokey Reese in 2004 after the A-Rod deal fell through. After Pokey, the Red Sox brought in Edgar Renteria as a free agent, who promptly responded by having an off-season… if by “off” you mean “exactly the same season he had in 2004.” As Renteria did not come in and immediately become Nomar, the management mind-numbingly traded him to the Atlanta Braves for Andy Marte and tons of cash (Cot’s says that the Sawks are paying 11 of the remaining 29 million left on Renteria’s contract) and replaced him with Alex Cora who is… NOT Edgar Renteria. This move would have been the equivalent to the Mets trading off Carlos Beltran after his off season last year for Shawn Green, while agreeing to pay half of Beltran’s contract, while replacing him with Mike Cameron.
- Bronson Arroyo: OK, he’s certainly not as good as his first half record indicated, but he certainly wasn’t bad either. On a roster that has longed for pitching all season, and has seen nearly every starter spend some time on the DL, the Red Sox traded off a guy who, while not a hall of famer, pitched very well against division opponents and usually managed to elevate his game when the situation warranted. The Red Sox apparently noticed this in January of 2006 when they signed him to a three-year contract, then promptly forgot it when they sent him to Cincinnati for Wily Mo Pena and cash. Wily Mo has turned in 11 homeruns and 38 RBI in 67 games. One can argue the AL/NL nonsense but trading a pretty good pitcher for a pretty good outfielder is really dumb when your team has spent the year short on pitching.
- Johnny Damon: Remember what I said a little while ago about signing guys to make your fans happy? Well, this is partly one of those. Damon became the defacto face of the Red Sox during the 2004 run to the World Series. He had basically become their Jeter… the guy people who don’t know anything about the team can identify. Red Sox fans explain this as Damon being a greedy asshole. Everyone with a brain explains this as Red Sox management being morons. You take the guy who your fanbase loves and make him a half-hearted 3/30 offer, meanwhile, you’re actually negotiating with Coco Crisp. The division rivals gives him what he wants… a fourth year. No more money than you were offering really, but a fourth year. The face of your franchise comes to you and gives you the opportunity to match the offer and you say no. By doing this, you give your division rivals a replacement for their retiring centerfielder and a leadoff hitter that they didn’t have. To replace him, you send Andy Marte (who you just got in the Renteria mess), to the Indians for Coco Crisp. Meanwhile, you suck the heart out of your franchise. Management tells you Crisp plans for the future. Everyone else in the universe knows you’re going to get at least three more good years out of Damon with a 50/50 shot of having a good season in the fourth year.
Without too much of a stretch, your 2006 Red Sox lineup could look something like this:
- Johnny Damon
- Edgar Renteria
- David Ortiz
- Manny Ramirez
- Kevin Youklis
- Mike Lowell (trade for him and Beckett still would have happened)
- Trot Nixon
- Mark Loretta (trade for Mirabelli still would have happened, and later tradeback)
- Jason Varitek/Doug Mirabelli
With a rotation of:
- Curt Schilling
- Pedro Martinez
- Josh Beckett
- Tim Wakefield
- Bronson Arroyo
With their upgraded closing situation… kind of deadly, don’t you think?
Do you want to know one of the primary reasons the Yankees are always good? They continually bring the same nucleus of players and, once the fanbase falls in love with a player, he has a job forever. Guys stay with the Yankees once they’re comfortable there and the Yankees will pay them through their free agency. Take the Johnny Damon scenario above. Do you think, when Derek Jeter’s contract comes up in 2010, there will be half-hearted offer by whoever is running the team at that particular moment, followed by complete disdain while the Red Sox make him a better offer?
Short answer, no. Jeter will play his entire career for the Yankees, probably retiring in 2013 or 2014 while hordes of people try to convince anyone who will listen that he’ll only get into Cooperstown because he played for the Yankees, 3,000 hits or World Series rings be damned. This is something the Yankees do that no other franchise really does. Yes, some of it is because they are the only ones who can afford it, but that’s not the whole thing. The Red Sox, Angels, Mets, and Dodgers can certainly afford to keep their free agents, but they rarely do. If Mike Piazza had played for the Yankees instead of the Mets, he would not be Padre this year. Do you know what other team does this? The Braves. They’ve had some success, too.
