ESPN Insider...

[Mole 0]

There is a Peter Gammons article about the BoSox on ESPN Insider and I don't have it. Does anyone have it? If so, can they post the article? Please.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Stephen Joseph 0]

Jan. 3

 

 

The Red Sox are now two months removed from Theo Epstein's King Kong escape from Fenway Park, six weeks from the reporting of pitchers and catchers. They have gained a starting pitcher (Josh Beckett), third baseman (Mike Lowell) and second baseman (Mark Loretta), deepened their bullpen, enhanced their future (Andy Marte), lost Johnny Damon to the Yankees, and now have ideas for shortstop and center field.

 

Even Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan, the most reasoned voice in the city, begged Red Sox owner John Henry to replace Larry Lucchino as the face of management and was dismissive of co-general managers Jed Hoyer and Ben Cherington. Buster Olney, without malice, stated that Lucchino had mishandled the three most significant human negotiations of his tenure as Red Sox CEO -- Alex Rodriguez, Epstein and Damon.

 

 

It's mostly been a tumultuous offseason for Red Sox team president Larry Lucchino.

Publicly, and even more privately, Lucchino has agonized over and accepted heat for the Epstein blowup. And once the Sox's primary GM targets -- Cleveland's Chris Antonetti, Toronto's Tony LaCava and Atlanta's Dayton Moore -- declined the job for personal and professional reasons, and Lucchino's recommendation -- Jim Beattie -- did not pass ownership's approval, he has tried to explore ways to bring Epstein back into the business in some manner.

 

In the meantime, Lucchino has found that last winter's festival of good feeling has turned bitter. Talk-show callers have gone from "we" to "they" in referring to the Red Sox.

 

Henry, club chairman Tom Werner and Lucchino did believe the glow of the 2004 world championship would have a longer life. "But," says Lucchino, "I guess that comes with the passion, with the way people care. We have to accept that passion works both ways."

 

Did Lucchino submarine the A-Rod negotiations with his press statement that attacked the Players Association, effectively separated Rodriguez from the union and made any further compromise impossible? Probably. The Epstein negotiations were far more complex. Yankees GM Brian Cashman's negotiations with the Yankees involved many of the same issues, and owner George Steinbrenner and general partner Steve Swindal essentially freed Cashman from the barbed wire of the Tampa contingent and, to a degree, team president Randy Levine.

 

The financial issues in the Epstein negotiations did not get resolved until nearly 48 hours before his old contract was to expire, which did not give the GM and CEO time to work out other issues -- most of which involved Lucchino loyalists, who the baseball-operations folks believe have undermined the situation, sourced countless leaks and (with their attempts to make Lucchino look good) roved over Epstein and the baseball staff.

 

"It isn't fair what's happened to Larry in this process," says one club executive. "He's the victim of people who claim to be his friends but have done him in."

 

There are several levels to this offseason for the Red Sox. Before Epstein left on Halloween, assistant GM Josh Byrnes, a ballast of the baseball operation, left to become the Diamondbacks' GM. As soon as Epstein left, Peter Woodfork, the Red Sox's director of baseball operations, joined Byrnes. Without Epstein, and given the messy GM search and media rumors and the waterfall of leaks, Craig Shipley -- the Sox's best talent evaluator and an invaluable member of the operation -- seriously considered going to Arizona. And when Grady Little got the Dodgers' managerial job, he took advance scout and trusted evaluator Dave Jauss to L.A. as his bench coach.

 

What would be different if Lucchino had gotten the financial deal done with Epstein in midseason and he, Theo, Henry and Werner had addressed the ancillary issues? "In terms of personnel, it's hard to envision what would be different," says a club executive. "We have been held up by the whole Manny [Ramirez] situation, there's no doubt about that. We knew we'd take a hit with Damon leaving, but we also were not going to panic and do a deal that we felt was inappropriate."

 

Agent Scott Boras left the Damon press conference at Yankee Stadium on Dec. 23 and flew to Boston with Kevin Millwood, anticipating that the Red Sox would be panicked into giving the pitcher a five-year deal. But Boras learned that while Hoyer and Cherington wanted Millwood, and while Fenway is a far better place for his power/fly-ball style, the Sox would not jump at the kind of numbers that the Rangers laid out for Millwood.

 

Lucchino has heard constant refrains of "if Theo were still here..." Lucchino's fault here may have been that he so wanted Damon that he might have waited too long to start to drive toward the club's end-game position. Epstein's negotiating style was to get to the club number quickly. If Theo had been the GM, he likely would have gone to the club's ceiling of $45 million for four years the weekend of the winter meetings, and if Boras did not back off his (then) seven-year demand, would have called off the negotiations and done the Jeremy Reed deal with Seattle in Dallas when the Mariners thought they could get Juan Pierre from Florida.

 

In Lucchino's defense, the Red Sox did get confused in the Damon negotiations. Five days before he signed with the Yankees, Damon told Dan Roche of Boston's Channel 4 that he was going to Los Angeles and expected to do a deal with the Dodgers. Damon got there, and the Dodgers canceled their meeting with him.

 

The top leadoff hitters in 2005 (numbers in the leadoff position):

Player Team OBP OPS

Roberts Bal. .384 .893

Jeter NYY .391 .846

Sizemore Cle. .353 .846

Damon Bos. .367 .808

Clark Mil. .372 .798

Suzuki Sea. .351 .787

Furcal Atl. .348 .778

Eckstein St.L. .364 .761

 

Damon claimed to be put off by a letter Lucchino sent him "threatening" to take the team's $40 million, four-year deal off the table on Christmas Eve. In reality, Lucchino requested a meeting with Damon to try to work things out but felt that there had to be an expiration date on the long-standing offer.

 

At no time did Boras indicate he would take four years from Boston, and while Cashman made a stealth move -- since in the end Damon wanted only the high bid -- if the Sox had gone to even four years and $46 million, it wouldn't have been enough. "[The Red Sox] did the right thing," one AL GM says. "To sign Johnny after his four best years was a much greater gamble than not signing him."

 

Defense the name of the game

Part of the strain between Epstein and those around Lucchino who worry about the immediate-gratification demands of the media is that Theo wanted to take the 2006 season and use it to build another five-year run; he also wanted to place a far greater emphasis on defense, as the 2005 Red Sox were at the bottom of the Baseball Prospectus defensive efficiency chart. The Boston club that was so good in 2003-05 was now an old team.

 

Anyone who looked at the 2004 team and believed it should have been held together for 2007-08 was encouraging a blueprint for a team that -- barring a jump to a $200 million payroll -- would not have been able to compete with the 2007-08 Devil Rays that will feature Delmon Young, Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, B.J. Upton, et al. Last winter, Lucchino was the advocate for keeping Pedro Martinez ("I have a theory that you never give up on superstars," Lucchino said), and had he been able to strike with a three-year deal, it would have been in the long- and short-term best interest of the franchise to do so.

 

"Theo has been the principal advocate of the longer view of the Red Sox," says Lucchino, "and I have to say I think he has been correct."

 

Epstein's view is that without a $200 million payroll, it is practically impossible in the American League East to win 95-100 games every year. The goal is to be in position to make that run seven or eight out of 10 years, which means that about once every five years they have to step back and, in Lucchino's words, "retool. Not rebuild, retool.

 

"We probably have not done as good a job of explaining our long view as we should have," Lucchino added. "We're not paring down payroll [Henry is adamant that they have $135 million to spend]. But we do have to try to start working young players into Fenway Park."

 

Trading Ramirez to Baltimore -- which would also include Matt Clement -- for Miguel Tejada could be determined later this week. It has long been fueled on the Tejada end by his close friend, David Ortiz. It does not in any way include a four-way creation of a Mets fan's Internet fantasy.

 

"If I were to wager a guess today," says an Oriole executive, "it would be that Manny opens the season with the Red Sox and Tejada is with the Orioles. As far as I'm concerned, Tejada is one of the five best players in the game. His contract [$12 million annual average value] was signed in a down market, as opposed to Manny's [$20 million annual average value], which was signed in an inflationary market. If Tejada went on the market this winter, he'd probably get between $14 million and $16 million a year."

 

Some Orioles voices are afraid of trading within the division, although now that they play 19 times a season, Ramirez's returning to Fenway and Tejada to Camden Yards would only magnify a rivalry that has so died that, in a September series in Baltimore, Red Sox fans occupied nearly 70 percent of Camden.

 

Neither Ramirez nor Tejada has any hammer in demanding trades, and Henry has insisted the Red Sox will not take 50 cents on the dollar. The same holds true with David Wells' trade demand. They cannot take a Woody Williams, who has an 8.52 ERA at Fenway Park written all over him, as opposed to Wells and his 16-1 record in that park since 1998. Once it's resolved where Jeff Weaver will wind up, the Red Sox might be able to move Wells to the Dodgers.

 

As for center field, the focus is still on Reed, although Boston has to get another center fielder to add to the deal, be it Joey Gathright or Corey Patterson.

 

Lucchino backs the reluctance of Cherington and Hoyer to deal Andy Marte, whom Boras told Lucchino is earmarked by Boras' corporation as "one of five minor-leaguers who can be $100 million players." They do not want to trade Jon Papelbon or Jon Lester; Papelbon is expected to be in the rotation at the beginning of the season, Lester perhaps as early as September. They will not trade relievers Craig Hansen or Edgar Martinez or infielder Dustin Pedroia, especially after trading three big power arms (right-handers Anibal Sanchez, Jesus Delgado and Harvey Garcia) to Florida. After having six of the first 57 picks in the 2005 draft, they will have seven of the first 100 this coming June, and with the possibility that after this draft there will be no compensation picks for free agents and there will be bonus slotting, good teams have to be resigned to drafting in the Nos. 22-30 range every year with no hope of a player like Hansen (for financial reasons) sliding to the end of the first round.

 

At the moment, the Red Sox look like a team that could finish third behind the Yankees and Blue Jays in the American League East. The White Sox, Indians, Athletics and Angels appear to have better chances of making the playoffs -- and the Twins, with their pitching potential, could contend if they can find a way to score runs.

 

But there is a long way until the July 31 trading deadline. Anyway, it's all going to come down to pitching in the end.

 

Red Sox pitching, 2004 vs. 2005:

2004 Starters 2005

4.31 ERA 4.56

73-47 W-L 68-45

7.11 SO/9 IP 5.95

2004 Relievers 2005

3.87 (3rd) ERA 5.15 (14th)

.715 (4th) OPS .805 (14th)

73% (5th) Save Pct. 67% (13th)

 

If Curt Schilling comes back and Beckett builds off what he did in 2005 and makes 30 starts, with Papelbon the Red Sox potentially have three power right-handers who are made for Fenway because of their high strikeout numbers and enough gas to make hitters use the big part of the ballpark.

 

Look at the bullpen numbers (see the chart to the right). If Keith Foulke comes back -- with Mike Timlin, Guillermo Mota, Rudy Seanez and eventually Manny Delcarmen, Hansen and Martinez -- the bullpen has the makings of being able to win 7-5 games, not turn them into 13-7 losses.

 

The Sox will miss Damon, but they should still be a top-six offense if Lowell comes back strong and if they come close to duplicating Damon's .367 on-base percentage in the leadoff position in front of Loretta; they are convinced that Kevin Youkilis will produce with a .400-something on-base percentage and 15-20 homers, and hence have tried to sign someone like J.T. Snow as a complement, not an alternative. They hope their defense is better.

 

Are they better off now than the afternoon Epstein left in the gorilla suit? In terms of their pitching and positional team, no.

 

How much would be different had Epstein been there? Very little. Not only has he served as an advisor to Hoyer and Cherington, but they have exhausted every avenue, to their credit refusing to try to make splash deals for their benefit at the cost of the long-term view of the team.

 

If Epstein does return this month, how much was lost during the interim period?

 

"Nowhere near as much as the perception," Lucchino says. And, after all the self-congratulations that came in moonshadow of the 2004 world championship, in the long view the reevaluation and circumspection that has taken place these last two months may have been the best thing that could have happened to this ownership.

[nl5xsk1 0]

Even Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan, the most reasoned voice in the city, ...

 

It's funny to have Gammons, who is truly the most reasoned voice around here, blow smoke up a blowhard like Ryan, that very few people take seriously. If it wasn't for Shaughnessey (spelling?) Ryan would probably be viewed with much more disdain in Boston. But, luckily for him, there's a public enemy #1 to take all the heat.

 

Some Orioles voices are afraid of trading within the division, although now that they play 19 times a season, Ramirez's returning to Fenway and Tejada to Camden Yards would only magnify a rivalry that has so died that, in a September series in Baltimore, Red Sox fans occupied nearly 70 percent of Camden.

I'd think that making a huge trade within the division would help increase the home attendance at these games. It'd give the O's fans a reason to go to the games, at least.

 

EDIT: And thanks for posting this, SJ. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but it's interesting to read what Gammons has to say on things.

[Mole 0]

Yes, thanks SJ.

[jwpeer 0]

Anybody that does have ESPN Insider: Is it worth the price.

 

 

all the good NBA articles are insider stuff, but I don't know HOW much content you get with it. It certainly is no more expensive than a good magazine subscription...only with apparently tons more content.

 

 

Between NFL, NBA, and College sports would it be worth my coin?

[Guest Leelee]

I'd say it isn't worth the price.

 

At least for sports like college bb, tennis, golf... you can find less biased, more informative articles by searching around other sites.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

And what about for the NBA? I don't care about bias, if the information is accurate.

[Mole 0]

The BoSox have offered Manny, Clement and cash for Tejada but the O's have turned that down. They want the deal to be "more sweeter" with Lester or Papelbon thrown into the mix.

 

What I don't understand is how Manny for Tejada isn't a straight up deal in the first place, let alone with those pitcher A or B.

[Stephen Joseph 0]

For my purposes, (fantasy baseball, football) insider is very helpful

 

And yeah, I've got insider, so if anyone ever needs anything, just pm me

[CanadianChris 0]

I bought Insider mainly for the Sports Guy archive. Aside from that, though, it's got a lot of little things besides the columnists that make it worthwhile (for me, at least).

[Mik 0]

I think it's worth it.

 

Rob Neyer, Chat archives, Sports Guy archives, all of the STATS matchup previews (NCAA, NFL), Baseball America.

 

And you get a years sub to ESPN the Mag.

 

Definitely worth it for baseball fans, in my opinion.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I'm letting the article go for now, but please remember that posting ESPN Insider articles could be copyright infringement, and thus a TOS violation. It's safer to spread these via PM.

[Failed Bridge 0]

I wouldn't worry too much about it Al. People on the ESPN Messageboards post the insider stuff. ESPN.com just doesn't have anybody checking on anything.

[jwpeer 0]

And what about for the NBA? I don't care about bias, if the information is accurate.

 

 

That's what I'm looking for. the NBA -seems- to have tons of overseas scouting info and great trade rumors that you can't really find anywhere else. I just don't know how MUCH of it there is

[Urban Warfare 0]

I have it, and I'd have to say that so far, it's been worth it to me, because I follow recruiting heavily, so those scouting reports are great. But other than that, there's nothing all that special about it.

 

Edit: I don't get my ESPN Magazine with the Insider Subscription, which was pretty disappointing.

Edited January 4, 2006 by hockey_fan

[Art Sandusky 0]

I'd tell them to keep the magazine.