A Time To Reflect
It’s been a while since I’ve wrote. It has not been because we got swept. Or because I am a sore loser or bandwagoneer. I just wanted to take the time to reflect on 05′ and write without ( or less) anger. As everyone of you know, us Sox fans have had high expectations for this team. And to lose three strait to the south side Sox, was pretty demoralizing. I mean……this team almost didn’t hold a 15 game lead and their manager has a mouth like Millar, Schilling and Foulke combined. But, they strait up beat us. And that’s that. We were pretty lucky to be in the playoffs ourselves. So what did you all expect? That we would put in a heroic performance in 05′, a year marred with injury an the drama of a day time soap opera? If most of you haven’t figured from my earlier posts, that my cup is half empty. This has gotten me through life as a Red Sox fan. A ALDS loss doesn’t surprise me but a sweep does. How many of you thought that either Varitek, Graf or JD would come through with bases loaded no outs? To me maybe Graf had a chance but I thought that Tek and JD would strike out. Our guys were tired, and since they are human….it’s ok. I’m not the type to say if you make 10 mil a year you shouldn’t be tired or hurt.
I’m going to try to break this down by four sections. Offence, Defense, Pitching and Front Office. Please bare with me as my memory is good but not perfect. And please feel free to pick me apart, as after all this is my opinion.
FRONT OFFICE
I wanted to start here because this is where the season starts and ends. Coming into this year the things we knew were, 1. Schilling wasn’t ready to start the year 2. Miller wasn’t ready to start the season 3. Pedro was in Queens.
We just picked up Renteria, who I thought was and is an upgrade over Cabrera. We signed Varitek and made him team captain, which was the right thing to do. We picked up a big game pitcher in Wells. We took a risk on Miller and Mantei, neither of which is a real failure. We traded Dave Roberts for Jay Payton, which was done out of respect for Roberts and his playing time. As always I thought we looked pretty good on paper to start the year.
Now the things we didn’t know were, 1. Foulke wouldn’t even be close to his 04′ form 2. Millar’s rapid decline 3. The bullpen would’ve been better with actual bulls 4. Renteria wouldn’t live up to his billing
The thing that burns me most about what we didn’t know, was that we didn’t do anything to fix it. We just tried to ride it out. We kept on thinking that Foulke would get his head back. That Millar would come around. That Timlin could cure his inherited runner problem. That Renteria would stop kicking the ball and hitting into double plays. That Bellhorn would make contact. That Embree would stop throwing 400 ft fast balls. That Tito could make a correct decision. Instead we turned all our energy to dealing Manny. We could’ve landed a top 1B prospect, but instead Evil Larry turned all his trade deadline thinking to rid himself of the best right handed hitter in the game. Red Sox Nation waited for that missing piece in the bullpen, but instead we got nil.
But I do give a lot of credit to the trades for Grafanino and Bradford. They definitely helped us to the Wild Card. In my overall opinion on Theo, he is not the greatest thing since sliced bread. He did conduct one of the most controversial trades in Boston history by trading Nomar. And it ultimately ended up as the Sox being WS Champions. He also got Schilling and Foulke on board. But two out of three years he has come up dry at the trade deadline. We need bullpen and pitching in 03′. Instead we got B.Kim, Sauerbeck and Suppan. Williamson was a good pick up, but we also stayed with the dreaded Closer by Committee. This year we got Remlinger and Harville. When Theo was hired he promised us one thing. That this team will score runs. And that we’ve done. But pitching just isn’t his forte and it hurt us a bit this year.
Now I could write a whole separate post on Terry Francona, but I’ll keep it simple. I don’t like him much. I think that he is afraid of discipline. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. When you’re the field General, you don’t have friends. You have a duty, a mission. It seemed to me this year that the only way to keep Tito from playing someone, was to get rid of them. You know who those guys were. Olerud needed to play more. Cora needed to play more. He, like Theo, is not good with pitching either. Too many late decisions and bad bull pen calls. I will not tear him up too much on the bullpen issue, because they were horrible but he still made plenty of wrong calls there. Does anyone remember game 7 last year ALCS when Pedro came in for relief? I don’t need to say more.
OFFENSE
Now this is something we had plenty of. Even with Manny have a off year ( 45 HR and 144 RBI). I wonder how many players would just love to have a “Manny” off year? Big Papi was immortal. This guy carried the team. And there has never been anyone so clutch. Johnny Damon turn in a career year and played through injury. It may be because his next paycheck depends on it but at least he was playing for us. Renteria matched his career numbers, but wasn’t in his style of play. He came around now and then, but he’s a small baller. Varitek turned in an outstanding year, showing that even if you get a big contract you can still perform. Olerud and Graffanino performed way above expectations and leave a question in Theo’s mind to bring them back or not. Even though Millar didn’t output the numbers a starting 1B should, he wasn’t detrimental. He was a rally killer, but so wasn’t Renteria. Bill Mueller was gold when men were on base.
In September everyone struggled a bit in and out. But our pitching didn’t help that. This offence scored a lot of runs, but just couldn’t carry the load all year. It makes a tough night when you have to score 6 or 7 runs just to win by one. You can only come from behind so many times a year.
DEFENSE
Errors were a big problem all year. Most of the error came from one position. SS. Not all of Renteria’s errors were completely his fault. If Millar could stretch an extra inch or dig a ball better than a HS player Renteria’s errors may have been down. Manny’s laziness in left field is the main reason why he is above average in Fenway and below everywhere else. But his quick release gunned down more runners than any other outfielder. Mueller has got to have gold glover consideration at 3B. This guy gets everything and has an unbelievable arm. Despite a timely error in the post season, Graffanino was a definite upgrade over Bellhorn on all aspects. Besides we didn’t lose that game because of that error. Cora was a defensive guru anywhere he played on the field. Damon played a decent CF and dove into anything he could find, but his arm and shoulders are just wrecked. It will play a major factor into his contract. I particularly don’t think he’s anything but above average, because he takes a lot of bad routes on catches but usually has enough closing speed to make up for his mistakes. Trot Nixon was again spectacular in RF.
PITCHING
Now here’s another subject that I could go on all day about. Bottom line is this. As bad as it seems it was this year, it wasn’t much different than last year. Starting Pitching was about the same as last year. Arroyo and Wakefield won more games. Wells and Clement combined for a few less wins than Pedro and D.Lowe. But since the world revolves around Schilling and he was brought back way too early, it seems that this was a complete mess. Well it wasn’t. The Bullpen was though. The last three out are the hardest out in a game. Foulke miss led everyone and won the Blown Save of the Year award. With Schilling hurt, Foulke could’ve been the hero. He could’ve been the one to save the season. But instead he blew it. Timlin, who is only younger than Wells, had to pitch a million innings in every situation. With our main stay lefty Embree, throwing 84 MPH and a bunch of other no names, this bull pen is what the difference was. Not to mention that it was poorly managed and maintained.
Since we all know that story, lets look back on something better. This year we showcased three young arms. Paplebon, Hansen and Delcarmen are the future. Is there anyone out there that didn’t like what they saw from these three? Just imagine after a full spring training in Fort Myers. Do you think teams are a little shaken about facing these guys for a whole season?
Bottom line is that it that we won 95 games with great offense and poor defense and poor pitch management. Some would say that Tito is the MVP of this team and I wouldn’t completely disagree, because it could’ve been a whole lot worse. Well it’s back to the drawing board, and lets hope that this winter is more productive than not.
S.
October 14th, 2005 at 9:50 am
Boy, it’s been a long time… I see you’ve been gearing up for this post. Although I agree on many points, I couldn’t disagree more with Renteria being an upgrade over Cabrera, and not one at $40mm over 4 years — hey, wait, isn’t that what our captain makes?
Why do I think this? O-Cab was a lock. He thrived in Boston. He is one of those rare players from a small market that just explodes when they hit the big time. He exhibited the mentality and character of so many of the cowboys, idiots, whatever you want to call them. Oh, and he also carried a vaccuum in his back pocket when he played the field.
I don’t think trading Manny is the thing to do. And I would suspect that on occassion the top brass have said “no” to deals Theo has had lined up to move the Left fielder. Like you said, it’s not the money that’s the issue with Manny — remember we gave Renteria $40mm, Clement $25+ mm, and have a chunk tied up in Foulke that may make it hard to move him. But, perhaps we shouldn’t move him quite yet.
However, I digress. Manny being Manny, is the Sox being the Sox. We’ve lost a number of key components to our previous winning teams (Pedro, Lowe, Roberts, etc.). The young players will hopefully get the chance to step up, and hopefully they’ll perform. Manny will continue to put up big numbers and protect David Ortiz, he just doesn’t know any better… keep him around, we’ll need him.
Without writing my own post here, I just want to mention that I really hope they give our young guys in the farm system a chance. As much as I’d like to add a Konerko and keep a lot of players, I can’t help but want to see what the minor leaguers can do given a steady chance. It may be crazy, but there could be more than 1 Papelbon ready to explode next year. Without abusing them, let’s use them and start making this team younger, cheaper, and better!
October 14th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
I’m suprised you liked O-Cab so much. He doesn’t fit your money ball system. The guy swings at first pitch too often, sorta like Nomar. I can’t write Renteria off unless he plays the same way in 06′. I believe he’ll be better next year. He’s a quiet guy, but so isn’t Bill Mueller.
I don’t think we add Konerko, becuase he has said he doesn’t prefer to play in a big market like Boston or NY. We need someone who wants to step it up a bit and play in our maniac baseball corner of the world.