Month: August 2023

Like Snow On the Beach

This past weekend, there was a hurricane watch in Southern California. Two weeks ago, people fled rather than vacationed in the paradise that is Hawaii. Soon we will be awash in political ads telling you to believe or disbelieve truths and untruths in equal measure. In short, the world is off kilter. Taylor Swift had it partially right: It’s “weird,” but I’m not too sure it’s “fu*^ing beautiful.”

There are many theories for what is happening today – from global warming to massive income inequality to hyper partisanship. But I have a much simpler explanation: In the space of about four minutes on October 17, 2004, the universe tilted off its axis. Nothing has been the same since.

In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, Mariano Rivera – the only unanimous Hall of Fame selection – walked the leadoff batter. In 19 regular seasons, Rivera walked only 286; in 96 playoff games over 32 series, he only walked 21; in over 1,000 career games, he gave a free pass to the first batter a mere 43 times. In short, it basically never happens, and then it did. That was the first glitch.

The second came just two minutes later when pinch-runner Dave Roberts stole second base by a hair’s breath. After days of flatlining, the Red Sox had a heartbeat.

Bill Mueller then singled Roberts home to tie the game. The rest, as they say, is history. But really, it is not. The Red Sox still needed a David Ortiz dinger in the 12th inning; and then they still needed to win three more games. But, what we didn’t yet know was that the walk + the stolen base + the single were three distinct acts that changed everything … forever.

There was Tony Clark’s ground-rule double that should have been a run-scoring triple. There was Mark Bellhorn’s homer that was first called a double. There was Alex Rodriguez’s “slap heard ‘round the world” that was reversed. There was the Yankees refusing to bunt on the obviously incapacitated Curt Schilling. There was the silence of Yankee Stadium in a Game 7 blowout. All of which was a prelude to the sweep of the Cardinals for the first World Series title in 86 years.

After Bill Buckner, Bucky “Fu*^in’” Dent, and Aaron “Bleeping” Boone, and decades of heartbreak, the Red Sox were on top. And they would be on top three more times over the course of the next 14 seasons. The Yankees tried to square the ledger with a World Series win in 2009. But we are now at 14 years and counting since the Yanks’ last championship, and after this past weekend, they may have hit rock bottom.

To say the Yankees have been listless this year would be an understatement. And yet, prior to their recent nine-game losing streak (which ended with a win on Wednesday over the Nationals), they were four games over .500, on their way – maybe not to the playoffs – but to their 31st consecutive winning season. So, when the Red Sox rolled into the Bronx last Friday night, I had this nagging fear that all of the old tropes would come back; the Yankees would sweep the BoSox to go back over .500 on their way to a late Wild Card push. And, when the Yankees hoisted the World Series trophy later this fall, we would all point back to this weekend as the turning point. Pre-2004, that is exactly what would have happened.

But on Friday night, the first four batters of the game reached base, culminating with a Masataka Yoshida three-run homer. The Red Sox tacked on three more in the second inning. But – true to form – 17 out of the next 19 Boston batters were retired, as the Yankees chipped away, making the score 7-3. The Red Sox scratched out a run in the top of the ninth to give a little more cushion, but I was still not relaxed.

Gleyber Torres led off the bottom of the ninth with a single. That was followed by Jarren Duran misplaying an Isiah Kiner-Falefa single into a double. In pre-off-kilter times, two runners in scoring position with no outs would have led to a six-run rally, netting the Yankees a series-opening victory and a ton of momentum. But the world no longer spins like that. Rather, Harrison Bader and Anthony Volpe struck out looking and Ben Rortvedt (who?) flew out to end it.

Gerrit Cole took the hill on Saturday to square the series. Cole is the current AL Cy Young front-runner. If anyone could right the ship, it was he. Instead, Cole gave up Luis Urías’ second grand slam in three games. Cole went only four innings on his way to his fourth loss, while the Red Sox pushed his ERA over 3.00 for the first time all season.

Sunday offered the faltering Bombers one last chance at redemption, and they did their level best. The Yankees fell behind on three different occasions, and tied the score each time (much to the consternation of Red Sox Nation). Pre-2004, the Yankees would win this game and thwart a Red Sox sweep. Post-2004, the following happened:

  • With the score tied in the bottom of the eighth, IKF led off with a single.
  • Somehow, Bader’s 107 mph liner landed in Adam Duvall’s glove.
  • There was a lazy fly to right for the second out.
  • IKF was running when Volpe singled to left. Rob Refsnyder – just into the game for the injured Duran – fell down fielding the ball, which allowed IKF to come all the way around. Trevor Story’s relay throw was low, but Connor Wong picked it and applied the tag. The call on the field was “safe,” giving the Yankees their first lead of the entire weekend.
  • The Red Sox challenged the call, and after an interminable wait, with the NESN announcers predicting the run would count, IKF was called out and the game remained tied.
  • But now the Yankees wanted to check to see if Wong illegally blocked the plate. In times of yore, the “safe” may have become “out,” but then the call would go against Wong, allowing IKF to be “safe” again. It’s just that we no longer live in those times.
  • Alas, we went to the ninth knotted at 5.

The Red Sox took a 6-5 lead in the top half.

Greg Allen led off the bottom half smacking an 0-2 fastball to within two inches of a game-tying home run. In my day, a next generation Jeffrey Maier reaches over the wall, but no one sees it, and the game would be tied. Today, Allen found himself standing on second base. After plunking DJ LeMahieu, Kenley Jansen had the winning run on base with Aaron Judge coming to the plate. Before Dave Roberts, Judge would have done what he had already done twice in the series. 

But after DR, he struck out looking on three pitches. Torres (then hitting .367 with a 1.221 OPS vs. the Red Sox this season) followed with his own strikeout. But, Jansen still needed to get past Rortvedt. He lined one hard, but right to Duvall who corralled it to complete the sweep.

As of Tuesday night, the Yankees had lost nine straight – doing so for the first time in 41 seasons; were five games under .500; and in last place in the AL East. I will NEVER claim the Yankees are done, but they are getting ever-so-close. Before Rivera walked Kevin Millar, none of this ever could have happened. The Red Sox may not make the playoffs this year, but if they effectively ended the Yankees’ season, well, that is pretty good consolation.

The BoSox swept the Yankees in the Bronx. Multiple New York threats were squelched before they began, and Boston got both clutch pitching and hitting. The Red Sox are alive, and the Bombers are in disarray.

Maybe Taylor Swift had it right after all: “Weird, but fu*^ing beautiful.”

PLAY BALL!!

Trust, But Verify

With the trade deadline behind us, the recriminations have come fast and furious. Fans from coast to coast were left scratching their heads trying to figure out what their favorite team did, and why? All these fans have theories, and ways in which they would have done it better. Those fans include my son, who continued to send me text messages that simply read: “Chaimmmmmmm!” in the days and hours leading up to the 6pm ET cutoff.  

But, as I have previously written, and as I have repeatedly explained to my son, it takes two to tango. A general manager cannot make a deal by him/herself; they cannot make a deal just because they want to or because the fans are demanding it. Heck, they cannot even make one when they make one (more on that below). GMs need a trade partner. This has been true for time immemorial. And in the compressed moments of the trade deadline, reasonable minds often differ on value and compensation, on outlooks for the future and assessments of the present. In short, regardless of what Phil from Fall River says on WEEI, it may not be Chaim Bloom’s fault. 

Further, not every deal that Steve from Spokane thinks will be great for the Mariners will actually improve the team (either this season in the years to come). Rationality and reasonableness are not necessarily the coin of the realm on Twitter or talk radio. 

Nearly every MLB team is owned by a billionaire. And each such owner employs a head of baseball operations and/or a general manager, each of whom leads a team of scouts, evaluators, and quants, all of whom are in active dialogue with their coaches and players, as well as their counterparts throughout the league. Those people have risen to decision-making positions within an organization that is one of only thirty in a $12 billion industry. They watch every game, they review every prospect list, they scour every farm system, they track nearly every collegiate program. At this moment in time, this group of roughly 600 people know more about the current state of Major League Baseball than anyone on the planet. And yet… 

And yet, Walt from Washington Heights is calling for Brian Cashman to be fired because the Yankees didn’t do much at the deadline. Walt, who works for UPS, or is a tenth grade Social Studies teacher, or is an accountant or lawyer, has no compunction about calling into WFAN to tell Brian Cashman how to do his job, or how to do his job better. Forget the fact that Cashman has forgotten more about player evaluation and the competitive balance tax and winning and losing than Walt will ever learn; forget that Cashman has an owner in one ear and a staff of people in another. According to Walt, he knows something that Cashman doesn’t. 

I don’t mean to pick on Walt or Cashman. These same conversations are happening all across the league. It makes some sense, insofar as “fan” is short for “fanatic,” and “fanatic” is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as “a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal.” But general managers don’t have the luxury of being excessive or single-minded. They have organizations to run, and not just for this season. They are fiduciaries for the long-term health and welfare of their team. Isaac from Indian Hills doesn’t have to worry about next season Reds’ lineup; all he cares about is winning, today! Fortunately for the Reds, Nick Krall does. 

Furthermore, as stated above, just because a GM wants to make a deal, it doesn’t mean the other side does. Maybe the Red Sox tried to get Tommy Edman from the Cardinals, but the Red Birds weren’t willing to let him go; or they wanted a king’s ransom for him. We know the latter to be the case for Dylan Cease. Sure, Cease would have solidified the Red Sox rotation, but at what cost? Was he worth two of the Boston’s best prospects for a flailing chance to make the second Wild Card slot this season? 

Sometimes a GM thinks they made a deal. The Dodgers and Tigers had a trade in place for Eduardo Rodriguez. However, no one asked Rodriguez if that was okay with him, and he invoked his no trade clause to thwart the deal. Andrew Friedman’s fault? That said, as an aside, I do believe there is fault to be laid on this one: (1) Scott Harris, the rookie President of Baseball Operations for the Tigers, screwed that up royally (Tigerly?); (2) Rodriguez claimed he wanted to stay on the east coast (Detroit?) to be closer to his family…in Florida, which might be plausible if; (3) Rodriguez’s agent didn’t acknowledge (albeit cryptically) that they were trying to sweeten Eduardo’s deal to allow the trade to go through, but they just ran out of time. But, I digress. 

The Orioles got crushed for not doing more at the deadline. By all accounts they are a year ahead of schedule, so they had to decide how much of their future they were willing to mortgage for the present. But, despite what Glenn from Glen Burnie posts on X, they most assuredly did the analysis. The decisions the Orioles made – regardless of whether or not fans in the DMV agree with them – were not rash and were based on considerably more information than that possessed by the guy sitting at the bar licking Old Bay off his fingers. 

Many teams reached out to Perry Minasian about Shohei Ohtani. Is it their fault that the Angels (most notably, owner Arte Moreno) elected not to trade him? I am sure that many organizations – the Giants and Mariners come to mind – wanted to improve their lots. But, it is possible they didn’t have the resources – financial and/or human – to make the trades that their fanbases would have loved. Which begs the question, which fanbase loves what their team did? The Rangers? Maybe the Astros? Possibly the Braves? That leaves 27 disappointed fanbases. You can’t please everyone. 

I truly wish that each team was required to deliver some sort of post-trade deadline “Truth and Reconciliation” report. They would state whom they were in on, who they made offers to, why they didn’t make certain offers, and which side scuttled potential trades. Of course, to quote Rodney Dangerfield, this type thing could only happen in “Fantasyland.”  

But fans do deserve some level of transparency from their teams. The fans pay the exorbitant tickets prices and the ridiculous parking fees and the obscene cost of beers. The fans buy the merch and watch the games on TV, which allows the team-owned RSNs to charge inflated fees to cable providers (for now, at least). In short, the fans are entitled to the truth – or at least some reasonable facsimile of the truth. So, if the “Truth and Reconciliation” report cannot be prepared, every GM should be required to give a post-deadline press conference wherein he/she answers questions from beat reporters about the choices the team made. And, for kicks, I would allow a few fans into the room so they can ask questions as well. 

The Red Sox did a truncated version of this, with both Chaim Bloom and GM Brian O’Halloran answering questions. I think O’Halloran summed up the experience and his team’s (and very likely many other teams’) choices quite well:  

“[Deadlines are] always an assessment of are there any trade opportunities that we can do that make sense in our position — not just in the standings, but our position organizationally. I think [all those deadlines are] actually pretty similar in that we contemplated tons of things, and just none of them made sense to do.” 

Fans are free to agree or disagree, that is what makes this a great country. But a little perspective is important. Acknowledging how little we actually know is important. These men and women want to win as much, if not more, than Hal from Huntington Beach, as their livelihoods oftentimes depend on it. So, some benefit of the doubt may be in order. But, as Ronald Reagan often said, “trust, but verify.” See you at the press conference. 

PLAY BALL!!