Meanwhile, Back In Beantown…
Great stuff from Red Light Schilling on the state of the Boston Red Sox, via ESPN -
ESPN Boston baseball analyst Curt Schilling was on ESPN Boston Radio with Adam Jones on Friday afternoon…
[Schilling said,] “The days of the manager running through the clubhouse and turning stuff over and fearing guys into performing is gone in baseball. It’s been gone for a long time. The smarter managers understood it before a lot of the other managers did: You need players that will police themselves and police each other. We always had that here.
“It’s very clear, when you look around this team, you’ve got some guys—the Pedroias, the Ellsburys, the Papelbons, the Variteks—they’re not guys who are going to stand up in the clubhouse. That’s not their makeup. That’s the big piece. You can’t have a guy be that because he’s your best player. You have to have a guy, multiple guys in the clubhouse who do that, regardless of what their batting average or ERA is. That’s the challenge.
“Doug Mirabelli was a tremendous clubhouse presence. He wasn’t an everyday player, but Doug Mirabelli was not afraid to talk to anyone based on their status on the team. Orlando Cabrera’s first week in this clubhouse, he marched back to Manny Ramirez’s locker and, literally, they almost got into a fight because Manny asked himself out of the lineup. Orlando said, ‘Listen, no, you’re playing.’ Mike Lowell, another one. Those guys, I don’t know that they have those guys.”
The Red Sox might as well start from scratch, says Schill, because they’re be [sic] losing the one guy with the makeup to handle that clubhouse.
“I would argue that with this… group of players in this market, that Terry Francona is one of the few guys that can manage this team,” Schilling said. “If you’re going to get rid of him I think you have to blow it all up.”
Schilling also called Adrian Gonzalez’s comments blaming injuries, schedule and “God’s plan” for the team’s collapse “embarrassing” and an example of the type of excuse-making that he doesn’t think is tolerated by Sox fans.
“God’s plan was to put a test in front of him that they did not pass, in my mind,” Schilling said. “Don’t embarrass yourself and disrespect the game, the organization and the fans by making excuses.
Have to admit, I like what Schilling is saying here. And, as much as I love and respect Sabermetrics, this is a huge part of having a winning team, in my opinion, having enough “character” guys on the roster. That was a huge part of why the Yankees did so well from 1996 to 2001. New York had such players in the clubhouse.
Character guys like Charlie Hayes, Cecil Fielder, Wade Boggs, Doc & Darryl, etc…
Character wasn’t the reason the Yanks did so well from 1996-2001 and it wasn’t the reason the Red Sox missed the playoffs this year.
@ Raf:
Don’t confuse off the field bad judgement and the ability to play the game it was meant to be played.
Mickey Rivers had all sorts of issues outside the clubhouse. But, when it came time to go to war between the lines, he was a guy you could count on.
I agree Steve. Do I think character and chemistry can be overblown by the media and the players themselves? Yeah, but it’s still a factor. And I think it played a huge part in causing this collapse. These guys folded. And it will be very interesting to see where Boston goes from here. They don’t seem to have quite the young talent that they’ve claimed (or others have claimed), and they’ve got some guys like Crawford and Lackey who are albatrosses.
Steve L. wrote:
The guys Schilling called out all have “the ability to play the game it was meant to be played.”
Funny to see Gonzalez ripped for “God’s Plan” when Mo has made similar faith based comments for, oh, the past 20 years.
Injuries and ineffectiveness doomed the Red Sox, not “character.”
JeremyM wrote:
I’m fairly confident that next year’s Red Sox team will look very much like this year’s team. Pedroia, Gonzalez, Youklis, Beckett, Matsuzaka, Buchholz, Crawford, Lackey, etc, etc, etc probably aren’t going anywhere.
Some 25 or so years ago I was listening to a call-in radio program featuring Bill James and some other fellow (I forget who). One caller wanted to know why his hometown nine were performing so poorly, given the level of talent on the roster. James’s mate suggested it might have to do with chemistry.
“What is chemistry?” James sneered.
“It’s a subject I failed in high school.” his co-host offered.
“That’s just it!” James rejoined, going on to pontificate that chemistry is something that can’t be defined, much less measured and analyzed, and therefore cannot be considered in evaluating any ball club. IIRC he went so far as to opine that “chemistry” was just an excuse used when people couldn’t explain why a particular team was winning or losing more than expected.
Given his position with the Red Sox now, I wonder what James’s take on chemistry is these days?
It’s shocking to hear Schilling say that Varitek and Pedroia — of the four he mentioned by name — are “not guys who are going to stand up in the clubhouse” because it’s generally accepted that those two guys are exactly the guys that stand up in the clubhouse and try to lead the team.
In fact, this article (link below) says the exact opposite thing.
http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/7036983/underachieving-boston-red-sox-flunked-chemistry
Given the competing and conflicting accounts of Boston’s clubhouse I’d say it pretty much tells me that NO ONE that reports about a clubhouse knows a damn thing. If the ex-teammate and the career journalist are at odds over Varitek’s and Pedroia’s leadership capabilities then I have no reason to believe either party and, in effect, any other source on such topics.
My take: the Red Sox didn’t fail in September due to poor chemistry. Chemistry is the convenient excuse for what amounted to a flukish and unfortunately-timed bad month. Were there chemistry problems from May-August when the Red Sox were perhaps the best team in baseball? If there were, neither Schilling nor MacMullan were saying so…which tells me it’s bunk.
Jim TreshFan wrote:
That it’ll earn you a 50 game suspension?
The Sox fell apart largely because their rotation fell apart, which, in turn, put tremendous pressure on the bullpen until it too fell apart.
If the Sox get about 3 more good starts, the Wild Card race is over when the Yanks take 3 in a row from the Rays the week before the end.
Then no one’s talking about guys being overweight, out of shape, the injuries, the chemistry, Theo’s ability to crack down, etc.
This Red Sox team had 3 bad losing streaks: the 2-10 to start the season, the 5-14 stretch in mid-June when they blew the lead to the Yanks the 1st time, and the 7-20 stretch that blew the division and Wild Card in September. Those 3 stretches add up to 14-44.
The Sox were 76-28 in the long hot streaks in between those 3 shorter streaks; 40-17 in the 1st one, and 36-11 in the 2nd one. That’s .730 ball over 104 games. Nobody was talking about chemistry or staying in shape or drinking in the clubhouse, or Francona not being able to control or motivate them then. But because their pitching fell apart at the wrong time, and I don’t think that Matsuzaka’s injury or Buchholz’ injury was due to their being “out of shape”, Francona got the ax.
Bottom line is, if Papelbon had gotten that third strike Wednesday night, nobody is talking about this.
Evan3457 wrote:
How many good teams did they play during those stretches?
The 2-10 at the start of the year were all against good teams, if you count the Indians, because they got off to a great start before fizzling.
In the middle streak, most of the losses were losing 2 of 3 to the Pirates, Padres, and Phillies. And it wasn’t a 5-14 streak, it was just a 3-7 streak.
In the 7-20 streak at the end, they lost to everyone; good, mediocre and bad. They dropped 4 of 6 to the Yanks, 2 of 3 to the Rangers, and 6 of 7 to the Rays, but they also dropped 4 of 6 to the Jays, and 5 of 7 to the Orioles. They never won 2 in a row in the entire streak.
Steve L. wrote:
True Dat.
Looking down the road… I’m glad he’s gone from Boston. I think ownership blew it and I’m glad to have Tito out of the BloSox dugout. Better moves would have been to pushout an overaged captain, dump Lackey, get over the Wakefield era, etc… Moreover, since Francona was so highly regarded by the fan base for having got them championships, I can see fan backlash being aimed at Crawford & Lackey, Bard, Matsuzaka, and others, maybe even Papsmear if he stays (for what it’s worth, Nancy Drew too): “You slug. YOU GOT TITO FIRED!
Nice. It will only make those guys grip even tighter. Now bring in Bobby V. and queue the clowns.
[Schilling said,] “The days of the manager running through the clubhouse and turning stuff over and fearing guys into performing is gone in baseball. It’s been gone for a long time. The smarter managers understood it before a lot of the other managers did: You need players that will police themselves and police each other. We always had that here.”
I don’t agree with Schilling at all here. Managers have the ultimate weapon in that they can bench players. If a guy isn’t hustling, then bench him. If he sulks or wants out of the line-up (like Manny) then trade him. Why would you want that guy on your team anyway? If you have players that police themselves, then fine, that’s a bonus. If you don’t, then it falls on the manager.
@ Jim TreshFan: Interesting. Bill James shows off his intellectual blind-spot here. What is chemistry? Chemistry is what the Vietnamese laid on the French and the Americans when they wanted to win more than the other side. Chemistry is what the Americans at Bastogne had to be able to hang in and not give into the Germans. Anyone under the assumption that because chemistry can’t be graphed that it doesn’t exist needs to start reading history.
Chemistry kicked the British asses out of North America. It wasn’t about guns and munition counting. Right?
KPOcala wrote:
It cuts both ways: the South had better chemistry than the North, which held the issue in doubt for over 2 years. Then the North’s superior numbers, and a general who was willing to use them to grind the South down, ended matters without much doubt.
In Vietnam and the American Revolution, the Numbers Power was unwilling, or unable, to bring the full weight of its numbers to bear, so the Chemistry Power was able to bleed them enough to make them quit.
@ Evan3457:
Valid points, but it still illustrates that chemistry exists, is important, and that Bill James gets a little too full of himself…