This baseball season, I’ve been trying to figure out if the 2008 Red Sox were going to be like the 2007 team (which would have been awesome), the 2005 team (good but the pitching wasn’t quite there) or the 2006 team (superficially good but one step away from falling off a cliff). 

After the big Manny Ramirez trade, however, I can now add 2004 to the possible list of teams — scuffling team goes on a big-time tear after trading away a talented malcontent.  I love this tidbit from Nick Cafardo:  “Ramirez was asleep when the trade went down [at 4 PM!!--DD] and didn’t know about it for a couple hours later.” 

Seth Mnookin has a good Soxfan rundown of the pros and cons of the trade.  I’ll add four points:

1. If ESPN’s Steve Phillips thinks the trade was a loser for the Red Sox but Baseball Prospectus’ Joe Sheehan and Christina Kahrl think it’s a winner, then I’ll sleep well tonight. 
2. In his tick-tock on the trade, Gordon Edes wrote:  “Management had taken an informal poll of the club’s veteran leaders; what it was hearing was that [Red Sox Manager] Francona was in danger of losing the clubhouse if Ramírez was allowed to continue in the same vein, begging off from playing because of injuries teammates privately questioned, obsessing on his contract, playing hard when the mood suited him.”  You know what?  Francona has been so underestimated as a manager of modern-day baseball, I’m actually willing to say that I’d trade not winning the World Series this year if it meant Francona was hale and hearty enough to manage the next five years.  As Edes’ story suggests, I think trading Manny did just that. 
3. At lot of fans think the ownership of the team were “enablers” of Manny.  I think the Red Sox’s calculation for years has been that while they wished Manny had given them max effort all the time, 90% effort from a transcendent player was better than 100% from most other players.  Ramirez is still a great player, but statheads will tell you that he’s no longer transcendent.  I’ll miss the 2003-2005 Manny, and the Manny from the 2007 playoffs — but it was time for him to leave. 
4. The Red Sox have not had good luck with deadline deals for Canadian ballplayers — I hope that Jason Bay can break that jinx. 

Tagged as: Sports

Posted by Dan     3 Comments »

Rather than link to silly things like cartoons, let’s link to more serious things, like baseball. 

Maybe it’s the incessant ads, or anticipating the irony of Terry Francona being the home manager at Yankee Stadium, or (most likely) my son’s excitement about the whole shindig, but I’m actually looking forward to the All-Star Game for the first time in a long while. 

During the All-Star break, here are some articles worthy of perusal: 

• On Baseball Prospectus, Dayn Perry makes the case that, across a variety of dimensions, baseball is morally superior to football;
• In the New York Times, Alan Schwarz pens a fascinating article about the media responses to Josh Hamilton and Milton Bradley of the Texas Rangers.  Because of their checkered past (Hamilton’s drug/alcohol addictions; Bradley’s temper), they call themselves the Risk Brothers.  By standard metrics — on-base percentage and slugging — Bradley is having the better year.  Hamilton is receiving all the better press, however.  Intriguingly, while some Rangers’ players suggest that this can be explained by race, Bradley himself rejects that idea.  He thinks it’s more about, “his refusal to kowtow to the news media for something as relatively benign as a wicked temper.” 
• Slate’s Nate DiMeo has a fun little essay on how sabremetricians are trying to devise new metrics for defensive efficiency, and why all of them conclude that Derek Jeter is a lousy infielder. 
• The American League has been on quite the All-Star winning streak.  The secret to their success?  Yahoo! Sports Jeff Passan reveals it — Ichiro’s profane pre-game speech.  An excerpt:  “Bleep … bleep bleep bleep … National League … bleep … bleep … bleeeeeeeeep … National – bleep bleep bleepbleepbleep.” 
• I had no intention of watching last night’s Home Run Derby, but because my son was into it, I watched it with him.  I’m very happy, because Josh Hamilton put on a hitting display that really has to be seen to be believed.  Joe Sheehan summarizes the good parts: 

Over the next 20 minutes, Hamilton hit a total of 28 home runs, including 13 in a row at one point. He hit a series of blasts into the upper deck, a few more scattered through the right-center bleachers, a pair of balls into the “black seats” in center field. Along the way he converted a crowd that had been fairly apathetic to that point — largely ignoring Yankee broadcaster Michael Kay’s repeated requests that they cheer one guy or another on — into Josh Hamilton’s 50,000 biggest fans. Chants of “Ham-il-ton” and “M-V-P” spread from the bleachers to the crowd, each bomb off of Hamilton’s bat raising the volume a bit more.

Enjoy the break!

Tagged as: Sports

Posted by Dan     1 Comment »

I was on the road when I found out that George Carlin had died.  Here’s my favorite bit of his: 

Readers are invited to suggest their favorite bits.

Tagged as: Uncategorized, culture

Posted by Dan     1 Comment »