Bobby Valentine – Page 2 – Keefe To The City

Apr 22, 2014

Jacoby Ellsbury Doesn’t Get the Johnny Damon Treatment

It’s the first Yankees-Red Sox series of the season in Boston and the first time Jacoby Ellsbury will play in Fenway Park for another team and that means it’s time for an email exchange with Mike Hurley.

After this week in Boston, the Yankees and Red Sox won’t meet again for two months and they won’t meet again in Boston until the first weekend in August. (Never change, Major League Baseball schedule, never change.) But this week in Boston is not only the first meeting between the two teams at Fenway Park this season, it’s the first time Jacoby Ellsbury will be in the third-base dugout at Fenway Park.

With Ellsbury making his Yankees debut in Boston and the teams playing a three-game series before a two-month break, you know what that means. An email exchange with Mike Hurley.

Keefe: It’s been only 12 days since we last talked and after this it will be over two months until the Yankees and Red Sox meet again. There’s nothing quite like seven Yankees-Red Sox games in April and then none for basically half the summer. It makes sense though, right? I mean it makes more sense than Major League Baseball’s replay/review/challenge system, doesn’t it?

Last week you sent me a series of videos showing how the transfer play is no longer being called in baseball the way it has been since the invention of the game. I laughed watching umpires and the umpires in the New York offices decide games on balls being dropped “during the transfer” but I wasn’t laughing anymore when the Yankees nearly lost on Sunday to the Rays because of a transfer call involving Brian Roberts at second base.

I was all for replay in baseball and I didn’t and still don’t care about the length of review time or extending games because of replays as long as the calls are made correctly. But that’s clearly not what’s happening right now with no one knowing what a catch in baseball is anymore, the umpires in New York not having the same views and angles as those watching at home and ancient baseball rules being changed overnight.

Hurley: Replay in baseball is utterly useless.

I was never strongly for or against it. I’ve always been able to live with a missed call on a bang-bang play, the same way you have to live with a bad strike call. But I also watched disasters like the Jim Joyce botching of Armando Galarraga’s perfect game or Phil Cuzzi blowing his only job of calling balls fair or foul in the 11th inning of a playoff game at Yankee Stadium, and mistakes like that were just so egregious that I supported a system that could easily correct those obvious screw-ups.

As it turns out, we got a system that neither fixes the obvious mistakes or fine-tunes the close plays. We just got a stupid, stupid, stupid system that has tried to change the sport for absolutely no reason.

The new emphasis on the transfer rule is not only nonsensical (a catch and a throw are two different actions; how a bobble on the throw negates a catch that has already been completed is beyond me) but also far more common than I think anyone anticipated it would be. It reminds me of the NHL’s crackdown on toes in the crease in the late ’90s, a rule that may be the worst in sports history. I remember the Bruins losing a playoff game because Tim Taylor’s toe was just barely touching the blue paint on the opposite side of Olaf Kolzig’s crease.

After that season and after the Brett Hull/Dominik Hasek controversy, the NHL came out and were like, “Oh, well, yeah, you see … that is a terrible rule and we will get rid of it. Because it’s stupid.”

If MLB doesn’t have the same sense as a league led by Gary Bettman, then baseball is in bigger trouble than I thought.

Keefe: I’m not sure that Bud Selig has more sense than Gary Bettman. We’re talking about a guy who allowed performance-enhancing drugs to revitalize his sport after a strike and then a decade later started to pretend that players who use performance-enhancing drugs are the worst people in the world, and he got the beat nerds to buy into it the way he got them to buy into the idea that having at least player a year hit 60 home runs (after two people had ever done it) was no big deal. He also still allows the All-Star Game — an exhibition game — to determine home-field advantage in the World Series after a six-month, 162-game daily grind. I like to think that the commissioners of the four leagues get together once a year and talk about their increased revenues and think about new ways to ruin their respective leagues while laughing at the expense of the fans. Then before they leave, they play credit card roulette to see which commissioner will have to impose the next lockout and Gary Bettman always loses.

In the last Yankees-Red Sox series, Dean Anna (I’m sure you’re aware by now that he is a real person) doubled and then when he slid into second base, he came off the base for a split second while the tag was still being applied to him. He was called safe on the field and then safe again after the umpires at the New York office apparently didn’t have the same views as those watching at home. I don’t think when expanded reply was instituted it was meant to make such ridiculous calls, but if it’s going to be used for those (and it shoudn’t be), how is it possible that fans watching at home have better information than the paid umpires and officials at the league’s headquarters? Real life?

Hurley: Yeah, precisely. We don’t need replay to break down every split-second of these plays. The Francisco Cervelli play at first base last Sunday night ended up being correctly made after a replay review, but we were all subjected to watching frame-by-frame breakdowns of the ball entering Mike Napoli’s glove, and we had to hear John Kruk blabber on about whether it’s a catch when the ball goes into the glove or when the glove is closed around the baseball. What are we really doing?

Replay should fix the aforementioned obvious mistakes, but on Friday night at Fenway, John Farrell challenged a Nick Markakis double, claiming the ball landed foul. Farrell believed this to be the case because the ball did in fact land foul. We all saw it on our televisions. There was a dirt mark where the ball landed in foul territory. It was a no-brainer.

Yet after review, the double stood. For some reason.

There is no point. It’s a disaster.

But not according to Selig, who said, “We’ve had really very little controversy overall” and “you’ll hear about the one or two controversies, but look at all the calls that have been overturned.”

The guy is an idiot.

The scenario you created got me thinking, I’d like to see a Celebrity Jeopardy! episode with Gary Bettman, Bud Selig and Kim Kardashian as the contestants. They would all obviously finish with negative money, and then Alex Trebek could spend the time normally reserved for Final Jeopardy to just berate them for being dopes.

Keefe: Speaking of “idiots,” let’s talk about Johnny Damon’s return to Fenway Park in 2006 because on Tuesday night, Jacoby Ellsbury will return to Fenway Park for the first time as a Yankee.

I was at Damon’s return and was actually surprised by the amount of cheers he received from Boston fans. He had been the face of the Red Sox’ culture change and the symbol of their change from losers to winners and there he was wearing a Yankees uniform and tipping his helmet to Red Sox fans before his first at-bat. Sure, there were people throwing fake money at him once he took his position in center field, but for the most part, Johnny got about as many cheers as anyone could get in his position.

When it comes to Ellsbury, I think he will receive a better ovation than Damon because he wasn’t as iconic of a figure in Boston, even if helped them win two World Series, and it felt like during his entire time with the Red Sox, everyone knew once he became a free agent that he would bolt for the highest bidder. People will boo on Tuesday night in the first inning just to boo and they will continue to for every Ellsbury at-bat for the rest of his career, but are Red Sox fans upset that he signed with the Yankees as a free agent?

Hurley: It’s a weird thing. I don’t think many people, aside from maybe the folks who think Fever Pitch is a good movie, are actually “upset” with him for going to the Yankees. I think if anyone knows Ellsbury, it’s those of us in Boston who have seen him come up and develop over the past seven years. And I don’t think anyone here thought Ellsbury would be worth the money he’d be getting on the free-agent market. And knowing he was going to the free-agent market, and knowing the Angels had already spent a billion dollars, how many realistic suitors were really in play for him?

So obviously, there was a good chance he’d be going to New York, and obviously, players on the Yankees get booed at Fenway Park. He’s going to get booed, and for a lot of people, just the sight of a former Red Sox player in a Yankees uniform is enough to boil up some rage. But in terms of people being really mad, I don’t think that’s the common feeling.

At the same time, the Red Sox leadoff situation is so dire this season, there might be some extra boos rained down that are coming from a place of frustration.

Keefe: I thought the Red Sox would survive fine without Ellsbury at the top of the lineup and they likely will once they sort it out, but I don’t think I realized how important he was to the top of their order and extending the lineup until now. Seeing just about everyone except for David Ortiz and Mike Napoli get a chance to hit leadoff for the Red Sox has shown how important Ellsbury was for them. John Farrell hasn’t been afraid to try anything and has even gone with Jonny Gomes in that spot and Jonny Gomes as a leadoff hitter in a lineup that wasn’t picked out of a hat is pretty comical.

Right now the Red Sox seem to be having the same problems the Yankees had last year with injuries and an inability to score runs. There were long stretches of time where I knew the Yankees would be lucky to score just two runs in a given game and that meant the pitching staff would have to be perfect to win. (Granted they had Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay hitting in the heart of their order and not Ortiz and Napoli.)

It’s never good to have several hitters slumping at the same time, especially your best hitters, but that seems to be the Red Sox’ problem early this season.

Hurley: Yeah it’s pretty bizarre how a team that has averaged 860 runs per season since 2002 is on pace to score just 616 runs this season. They’re hitting .209 with RISP, which ranks 25th in MLB, just two points ahead of the Cubs, so that gives you a good indication of where they’re at.

Overall, they’re hitting just .238, which ranks 23rd. It’s largely the same roster as last year, save for A.J. Pierzynski taking Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s place (kind of a wash), Shane Victorino being injured and Daniel Nava looking like Neil Keefe if he was asked to play Major League Baseball. So it should all come around at some point.

I think Clay Buchholz is a much bigger problem. He took the mound on Marathon Monday and looked like he was throwing knuckleballs with a Wiffle Ball. He allowed five straight hits in the third and ended up leaving after allowing 6 runs in 2 1/3 innings. For as much time as he missed last year, he was a major reason why the Red Sox won 97 games. If they don’t have even that half-season of a contribution from him this year, they’re in serious trouble.

Keefe: I have never been a Clay Buchholz believer, even for as good as he has looked when he is healthy, mainly because he is never healthy. He’s going to be 30 in August and the most starts he has ever made in a season is 29, after that 28 and after that just 16. So I would say banking on just a half-season from him is a good bet since that is all the Red Sox are likely to get.

I’m headed to Boston for the series and when I looked at tickets, I was surprised at how cheap they are. In the past, I would be looking at spending at least $100 just to sit in the right-field grandstand, which are the worst seats in any stadium in the entire league. You might as well sit on your couch or in a bar somewhere and get 1,000 times the viewing experience than sit in a low-number section in Fenway. I thought that winning the World Series after a few disastrous seasons and the one-year Bobby Valentine era would bring Red Sox ticket prices back to what they were from 2003-2011, but that hasn’t happened. Maybe it’s because the Bruins’ Stanley Cup run just started or maybe it’s because the Red Sox aren’t what they were to the city of Boston a decade ago?

Either way, I can’t complain since I’m saving money. Maybe we’ll run into each other at Fenway this week and can finally settle these email exchange debates with our fists.

Hurley: You’ve been challenging me to a Lansdowne Street throwdown for years. Given how dormant the rivalry is right now, I don’t think it’s the best time to actually throw fists outside Fenway. If Ellsbury goes into second spikes up and takes out Dustin Pedroia, then maybe we can circle back and meet up outside Gate E.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Jul 19, 2013

Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry Back in Boston

The first meaningful Yankees-Red Sox series in Boston in over a year calls for an email exchange with Mike Hurley.

It’s July 19 and the Yankees are in Boston for the first time this season for Games 96, 97 and 98. So good job, MLB schedulers! You nailed this one!

But it’s not only the first time the Yankees are in Boston for the first time this season, it’s all the first time a Yankees-Red Sox series in Boston has meant something since July 2012 and you can argue it’s been longer than that. And with a Yankees-Red Sox series comes the mandatory email exchange with Mike Hurley from CBS Boston.

Keefe: Is that you? Is that really you, Mike Hurley? (Or Michael F. Hurley as your Twitter handle suggests.) It’s been a while. Actually it’s been a really long time. It’s been two months to the day since we last did one of these. Back then the Rangers and Bruins were about to start their Eastern Conference semifinals series, the Knicks were about to play Game 5 against the Pacers and the Yankees had a one-game lead in the AL East. Since then, the Rangers were embarrassed by the Bruins in five games, the Knicks were eliminated two nights later and the Yankees are now six games out of first place in the AL East. So things have been going great over the last 61 days! Thanks for asking!

But I’m not emailing you to rehash what happened to the Rangers against the Bruins and I’m certainly not emailing you to talk about basketball. That leaves us with baseball where the Makeshift Yankees have put together a run to be proud of when you consider Lyle Overbay, Vernon Wells, Travis Hafner, Luis Cruz, Alberto Gonzalez, Chris Stewart, Austin Romine, Zoilo Almonte.

This winter, even without A-Rod, it looked like the Yankees lineup would look something like this:

Derek Jeter, SS
Ichiro Suzuki, RF
Robinson Cano, 2B
Mark Teixeira, 1B
Curtis Granderson, LF
Kevin Youkilis, 3B
Travis Hafner, DH
Francisco Cervelli,
Brett Gardner, CF

But that has been the lineup for zero games this season. Instead here is a list of the players that have the most plate appearances for each position:

C – Chris Stewart
1B – Lyle Overbay
2B – Robinson Cano
3B – David Adams
SS – Jayson Nix
LF – Vernon Wells
CF – Brett Gardner
RF – Ichiro Suzuki
DH – Travis Hafner

And here are the other players that have gotten at least one at-bat with the Yankees:

Brennan Boesch, Ben Francisco, Luis Cruz, Reid Brignac, Chris Nelson, Alberto Gonzalez, Thomas Neal, Corban Joseph and Travis Ishikawa.

I didn’t even put Eduardo Nunez, Zoilo Almonte or Austin Romine on that list because they represent the top-tier of Makeshift Yankees.

But don’t worry, I’m doing fine! Everything’s going well!

How’s your summer?

Hurley: Hey, Thomas Neal is a friend of mine, good guy, we used to work the Saturday night shift at the liquor store down the street. I’m glad to see he made the Yankees this year. Good for him.

My summer? My summer is confusing. I didn’t think the Red Sox were going to be terrible this year, but I definitely didn’t expect them to sit 58-39 at the all-star break, looking like a legitimate playoff team. In April, I hardly gave it much attention, figuring they’d level out at some point. Yet they rebounded from a .500 May to maintain their spot in first place for months. It makes no sense, really.

Consider that through 97 games, the Red Sox have 58 wins. Through the same number of games in 2007, when they were the best team in baseball, they had the exact same record — 58-39. Um, huh?

It’s been pretty impressive, and frankly it’s giving this summer an unexpected boost. I was sort of anticipating a mediocre Red Sox team playing out the string, waiting for a decent but not great Patriots team to kick off their season in September. Instead, thinking about the playoffs is something that non-crazy people are allowed to do. And, the general population still hasn’t caught on, so tickets are still easy to come by for most games. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Hold on, I’ll be right back. Corban Joseph just showed up at my door with my pizza.

Keefe: I hope you tipped him well.

In the offseason, we laughed about the Red Sox rotation after Jon Lester citing Ryan Dempster pitching in the AL, Clay Buchholz’s constant injuries and decline in results over the last few seasons, John Lackey’s awfulness and Felix Doubront being in experienced.

Despite the Red Sox’ record, we weren’t that far off.

Jon Lester hasn’t been good (and hasn’t been since pre-2011 collapse). Ryan Dempster has pitched the way everyone thought “Ryan Dempster in the AL” would pitch. Clay Buchholz got off to an All-Star start, but hasn’t started since June 8. That leaves us with John Lackey, who is having his best season since 2007 and has actually been better than that and Felix Doubront, who has been much better than last year, but hasn’t been anything special.

So if we weren’t that far off, how are the Red Sox in first place in the best division in baseball?

Hurley: Despite you saying so (based on nothing except for your desire to just say it), we actually were pretty far off.

If you can have just five guys make most of your starts, it means you’re in a pretty good spot. And the Red Sox have gotten 86 percent of their starts from those five guys. Buchholz was exceptional for two months, and John Lackey has defied all odds by losing 300 pounds and pitching well, but the rotation as a whole has just simply been consistent and better than you want to give them credit for. The starters’ 3.82 ERA is the second-best mark in the AL, and they’ve gotten 582.1 innings out of their starters, just 3.1 innings fewer than league-leading Detroit. Boston’s starters are second in the AL in strikeouts, too, with Dempster — Dempster! — leading the way with 104 and Lester just behind with 103.

I get your confusion, because when you look at the guys individually, it doesn’t look good. Lester is 8-6 with a 4.58 ERA, Dempster is 5-8 with a 4.24, and Buchholz has joined the witness protection program because — 🙁 — his neck is sore. But collectively, they’ve done the work necessary to keep the Red Sox in just about every game they play. And when you lead all of baseball in runs scored by a huge margin, it always makes the pitching staff look a little bit better.

Keefe: I know that hockey season in Boston just ended like 15 minutes ago and you have a terrible memory anyway, so we’ll let it go, but we did talk about it.

After the magical month that was September 2011, I was treated to the hire of Bobby Valentine and everything that came with the 2012 Boston Red Sox and hoped it would last a lifetime. But here we are at the All-Star break and the Red Sox are right back to where they were in August 2011 thanks to being able to dump their trash on the Dodgers by throwing Snickers wrappers and newspapers and spray painting “The Red Sox were here.” If that trade in August 2012 doesn’t happen, we’re probably still talking about Josh Beckett’s off days and Adrian Gonzalez’s lack of accountability for anything. Instead the Red Sox are in first place and it’s like they got a mulligan for all of their bad decisions and were freed of their clubhouse cancers. It’s bullshit.

Did that trade change the Red Sox back to their pre-September 2011 ways or are guys just performing better after the atrocity that was last season?

Hurley: Are you saying that the Red Sox f’d the Dodgers’ whole a-hole up? That’s a bold call, Larry.

That ridiculously lopsided trade was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. Everyone — locally in L.A. and nationally in places like SportsCenter and Sports Illustrated — rushed to praise the Dodgers for “proving they were committed to winning!” Meanwhile, everyone in Boston was just like, “Wait, for real? What’s the catch? Don’t those people know that Josh Beckett is just the worrrrssssttt???”

But that’s not the only reason the Red Sox are playing so much better. It cannot be overstated how much of a poison Bobby Valentine was to this team. From everything I’ve heard from behind the scenes, the guy was every bit the clown he looked to be publicly and then some. Publicly, we got little snippets of it, like the time he didn’t know whether the opposing starter was a righty or lefty and had to be told by Jarrod Saltalamacchia that the lineup was wrong. Stuff like that was a common occurrence with that goober in charge, and frankly I’m a little surprised the athletic department of Sacred Heart hasn’t completely crumbled yet.

So getting rid of him was huge in that players’ spirits weren’t completely broken down upon their arrival at the ballpark every night. Ben Cherington, who’s still hard to really read or evaluate to this point, also made a few small but key additions. Shane Victorino, much to my surprise, has been pretty awesome filling a spot in the top of the lineup that’s been vacant for years. Mike Napoli signed on for $39 million, only to be told his hip was so bad that he’d only be getting $5 million, and he’s been a pretty solid, reliable addition to the middle of the order, despite all the strikeouts.

Add in Ortiz, Pedroia and Ellsbury all pretty much playing like you’d expect them to, and it’s easy enough to see how it’s all working. The Dodgers, committed to winning, are one game under .500 since taking on all of the Red Sox’ dead weight. Thanks, L.A., you’re the best!

Keefe: Shane Victorino’s playing? And Mike Napoli? And David Ortiz? And Dustin Pedroia? And Jacoby Ellsbury? Wow, that must be nice. I guess you’re feeling the way I would feel if Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson, Alex Rodriguez, Kevin Youkilis and Francisco Cervelli (yes, Francisco Cervelli) were playing. But they’re not and we’re stuck with the names I gave you earlier.

Things aren’t getting any better either as Derek Jeter will start the second half on the disabled list retroactive to when he injured his quad in his first game back since the Game 1 of the ALCS. But A-Rod is coming back on Monday night in Texas, if he isn’t given a 150-game suspension or banned from the game Pete Rose style, so at least we’re getting back our 38-year-old $29 million singles hitter!

The weird thing is I still believe in the Yankees. Not the Makeshift Yankees. But the real Yankees, when and if they ever come back. I think it’s a miracle this team has the record it does and is in the position its in despite having everyone short of you playing for them this season.

If I believe in the 51-44 Yankees who are six games back in the division then you must really believe in the Red Sox for the first time in 23 months. Do you believe in the Red Sox or do you miss the days of 2012 when Bobby Valentine was being praised for building a fence, fans were wearing paper bags over their heads and tickets to Fenway Park cost less than a single T Fare?

Hurley: It’s weird here. On the one hand, seeing this team compete like this has been a pretty fun, refreshing change of pace. Don’t get me wrong, last year was hilarious, and it was fun to watch, but only in the way watching awful reality television is entertaining. (Speaking of which, I can’t believe Bob Valentine doesn’t have his own reality show.) This year’s team has done enough to prove to me that they’re for real.

The problem with the Red Sox is, like you, I’m not counting out the Yankees, and you can’t count out the Orioles or the Rays. All of this positivity for the Red Sox could end up leaving them at the end of the season with the same playoff prospects as last year. It’s a pretty ridiculous race in the AL East right now, but hey, thank goodness some crappy team from the NL West will by default be given a free pass to the divisional round while a much more qualified team in the AL East (or perhaps two teams) will be forced to put its season on the line in a three-hour exhibition that will wipe out the work done over the previous six months! Wahoo!

With the reality of a one-game playoff, how can you ever feel good about your team’s chances when it’s involved in a tight divisional race? An idiot umpire could botch an infield-fly call and allow a team that won six fewer games than you to advance to the divisional round while you go home for the winter.

I guess my point is that baseball is stupid.

Keefe: You still haven’t come around on the one-game playoff? OK, good because I haven’t either and I never will. But don’t forget what everyone says: Just win your division! It’s that easy!

I guess my optimism for the Yankees comes from the fact they still play the Red Sox 12 times, the Rays nine times and the Orioles seven times. And let’s not forget the Yankees have three games with the Padres and close the season with a three-game series in Houston. So if the season comes down to the final weekend, I will feel good knowing that the Yankees will play the Astros, but I will be worried about my emotional state if the Astros keep the Yankees out of the playoffs. Let’s hope the season doesn’t come down to the final three games.

As for this weekend, we get Andy Pettitte-Felix Doubront, Hiroki Kuroda-John Lackey and CC Sabathia-Jon Lester. So that means the Pettitte-Doubront game will be the 2-1 pitching duel and the Sunday Night Baseball matchup will be the 14-12, six-hour affair that leaves you owing all of next weekend to your wife for staying up until 2 a.m. to watch baseball on Sunday night and being too tired to do anything on Monday after work.

The Yankees are still very much alive, but they need to start putting together series wins like they did in April and May. What better place to start doing that than this weekend in Boston?

Hurley: D will be asleep before first pitch, because she’s better at life than you and I.

This is a fun series, though. For the first time in a while, I’m really excited about a series in Boston. I kind of feel like baseball’s back, though I do have this sort of guarded position. When things were as bad as they were last year, it still feels like this whole “winning” thing is a mirage. At the same time, if the Red Sox sweep the Yankees this weekend and crush your soul, I might be fully on board.

Blogs • MLB

Jun 26, 2013

The 2013 All-Animosity Team

It’s time for the Fourth Annual All-Animosity Team, which consists of one player at each position, along with a starting pitcher, a closer and a manager from around the league.

It’s time for the Fourth Annual All-Animosity Team. Once again the team consists of one player at each position, along with a starting pitcher, a closer and a manager from around the league. The standards to be considered for the team are simple and only one of the following three requirements needs to be met.

1. The person is a Yankee killer.

2. The person plays for the Red Sox.

3. I don’t like the person. (When I say, “I don’t like the person” or if I say, “I hate someone” I mean I don’t like the person who wears a uniform and plays or manages for a Major League Baseball team and not the actual person away from the game. I’m sure some of the people on this list are nice people. I’m glad we got that out of the way since I can already see Player X’s fan base in an uproar about me hating someone who does so much for the community.)

So, here is the 2013 All-Animosity Team with the winners from the previous years also listed.

C – Jarrod Saltalamacchia (2012 – Matt Wieters, 2011 – Jarrod Saltalamacchia, 2010 – Jason Varitek)
Matt Wieters has been so bad this year (even against the Yankees) that I couldn’t justify putting him in the lineup. So I gave the nod to the one they call “Salty” in Boston even if I don’t have any real animosity toward him since I welcome his at-bats against the Yankees.

Congratulations on making the team, Salty! Even if you don’t deserve to be here. We’ll just consider it the same as when Jason Varitek made the 2008 All-Star Team because Terry Francona was the manager despite Varitek hitting .218 with seven home runs and 28 RBIs at the break.

1B – Chris Davis (2012 – Adrian Gonzalez, 2011 – Adrian Gonzalez, 2010 – Kevin Youkilis)
You have to be good to make this list and Chris Davis isn’t finally good, he’s unbelievable. Not unbelievable in the sense that he is getting help like Melky Cabrera did, but unbelievable like Jose Bautista became between his age 28 season and his age 29 season.

Davis has 28 home runs and 72 RBIs in 77 games this season and is hitting .333/.409/.716. If Miguel Cabrera didn’t exist, Davis would be a potential Triple Crown winner, but Cabrera does exist and has him beat in RBIs (77) and average (.368).

Last season he hit only .220 with three home runs and nine RBIs against the Yankees in 15 games. But this season Davis is hitting .409 with two home runs and three RBIs in just six games against the Yankees with 13 still left to be played.

2B – Dustin Pedroia (2012 – Dustin Pedroia, 2011 – Dustin Pedroia, 2010 – Dustin Pedroia)
There isn’t much left to be said about Dustin Pedroia that I haven’t already said about him over the last three years here. So I will just put down what I put for him the last two years.

Pedroia is like Tom Brady for me. He has that winning instinct that you just don’t see all the time these days, he plays hard and he’s the type of guy you want on your team. But if I didn’t put him here again it would just be weird.

3B – David Wright (2012 – Robert Andino, 2011 – Kevin Youkilis, 2010 – Chone Figgins)
Another change at third base where we have had a different player each season. This year I’m going with David Wright and the only reason I didn’t go with him in the past was because he plays in the National League and only sees the Yankees in the Subway Series. But it’s David Wright: the face of the Mets. He deserves to be on this team. He has deserved it all along. Sorry for the delay, David.

SS – Jose Reyes – (2012 – Jose Reyes, 2011 – Jose Reyes, 2010 – Jose Reyes)
Is anyone still debating whether Derek Jeter or Jose Reyes is the better shortstop? No? I didn’t think so.

It’s no surprise that the Blue Jays tied a franchise record with 11 straight wins and briefly climbed over .500 and people are wondering if it’s a good idea to insert Reyes into the lineup when he returns from a high ankle sprain. If it were any other player of Reyes’ supposed caliber, it would be a no-brainer, but when you’re talking about a player like Reyes, who brings with him nine years of Mets stink and a year of miserable failure with the Marlins, well it’s a little more complicated.

Obviously the Blue Jays are going to put the guy they owe at least $96 million between this season and 2017 back at shortstop since chemistry in baseball is overrated and unnecessary. But hopefully Reyes’ return sends the Blue Jays back to where they were two weeks ago.

LF – Carl Crawford (2012 – Delmon Young, 2011 – Delmon Young, 2010 – Manny Ramirez)
It’s unusual for me to put a National League player on the team if they aren’t a Met, but Crawford is a former Red Sox. However it’s surprising for me to put Crawford on the team because prior to joining the Red Sox, he was (along with Ichiro) my favorite non-Yankee in the league.

Crawford signed his seven-year, $142 million deal with the Red Sox and then hit .255/.289/.405 in 2011 before playing just 31 games for the Red Sox in 2012 prior to being traded to the Dodgers. He complained about the media coverage in Boston while still playing there and whined even more about it after leaving. He didn’t like the fact that he was criticized for hitting 41 points below his career average in his first season as a newly-signed free agent. So Crawford made sure everyone knew his feelings were hurt on his blog on ESPN Boston and then with reporters because it’s no fun playing baseball when you’re due $142 million over the next seven years and people are mean to you.

CF – Ben Zobrist (2012 – Josh Hamilton, 2011 – B.J. Upton, 2010 – Vernon Wells)
With Dustin Pedroia having a stranglehold on second base for as long as this team exists, I needed to find a way to get Ben Zobrist into the lineup. And the only way to do that was to put him in left field or move Crawford to center and put Zobrist in left, but that would mean putting two people out of position. And I don’t want to take Crawford out of his comfort zone since we all know how much he doesn’t like hitting leadoff or playing center field.

Why is Zobrist on this list when he’s a career .261 hitter and the most overrated fantasy baseball player ever because he has played every position in his career other than pitcher and catcher? Because he’s the most feared hitter against Mariano Rivera since Edgar Martinez. Zobrist is 3-for-3 lifetime against Number 42. Those hits? Two doubles and a triple.

RF – Nick Swisher (2012 – Jose Bautista, 2011 – Magglio Ordonez, 2010 – Magglio Ordonez)
I started doing the All-Animosity Team in 2010 and I have waited since then to put Nick Swisher in right field, but because he was on the Yankees, I couldn’t. (The same way I couldn’t include Nick Johnson in 2010 or A.J. Burnett in 2010 or 2011.)

My feelings on Swisher are well documented (especially here) about his time as Yankee and how badly I wanted him out of New York. I’m happy with the way he went out by turning his back on the fans, who put up with his nonsense and clown act for four seasons, but I’m unhappy about the way he was greeted like he had something while playing here when he returned with the Indians.

SP – Josh Beckett (2012 – Josh Beckett, 2011 – Josh Beckett, 2010 – Josh Beckett)
The face of the franchise keeps his spot as the ace of the All-Animosity rotation despite moving to Los Angeles. And if you haven’t kept track of Beckett now that he is in the NL West, let me fill you in.

Beckett is 0-5 with a 5.19 ERA in eight starts. He has a 1.500 WHIP and has made it past the sixth inning once. He’s been on the disabled list with a groin strain, but is also experiencing numbness in his pitching hand and hasn’t started a game since May 13.

Back in December before his first full season with the Dodgers (or what would have been his first full season with the Dodgers if he hadn’t landed on the DL again), this picture surfaced from TMZ showing Beckett riding a surf board that his wife was paddling. I want to know if he had to use one of his 18 off days to enjoy this activity? Oh, no, that’s right. I forgot that he doesn’t just get 18 days off between April and September. He also gets the six months off when he isn’t “working” or pitching 33 times a year. Then again, he hasn’t made 33 starts since 2006.

Can someone remind me again why the Dodgers bailed the Red Sox out?

CL – Fernando Rodney (2012 – Jose Valverde, 2011 – Jonathan Papelbon, 2010 – Jonathan Papelbon)
Rodney earned himself this spot on Sunday after his theatrics following the Rays’ 3-1 at Yankee Stadium as his charades rivaled Jose Valverde’s (a former All-Animosity Team member).

Rodney wears his hat to the side in a way that hasn’t been seen since Abe Alvarez did so for the Red Sox in four games between 2004 and 2006 and on top of it all, people think Rodney is good to great when he really isn’t.

Last season at the age of 35, Rodney saved 48 games for the Rays with a 0.60 ERA and 0.777 WHIP in 74 2/3 innings. But prior to 2012, Rodney had a 4.29 career ERA and 1.367 WHIP with the Tigers (2002-09) and Angels (2010-11). This season, Rodney is back to being his old self with a 4.83 ERA and 1.453 WHIP and I’m happy to have the old Rodney back even if he did embarrass the bottom of the Yankees order on Sunday.

Manager – Mike Scioscia (2012 – Bobby Valentine, 2011 – Mike Scioscia, 2010 – Joe Maddon)
With Valentine out of the league and serving as the athletic director at Scared Heart University in Connecticut (how is he qualified for that job?), the managerial job goes back to Mike Scoiscia.

Scioscia is widely regarded as a baseball genius, and to some the best manager in baseball, who teaches the game the right way and has the most fundamentally sound team in the league. (What? You didn’t know that they go first to third better than any team in the league?). As of Wednesday, the Angels are 34-43 (.442) and 10 games back in the AL West. The only team with less wins than them in the American League is the Houston Astros, a team with a payroll of $26,105,600, which is $1,894,400 less than A-Rod is making this season and he has played zero games and written one newsworthy tweet this season to earn his paycheck.

The Angels haven’t been to the playoffs since 2009 when they lost in six games to the Yankees in the ALCS. In 2010, they went 80-82 to finish 10 games back and in third place in the AL West and 14 games out of a playoff spot. In 2011, they went 86-76 to finish 10 games back and in second place in the AL West and five games out of a playoff spot. In 2012, they went 89-73 to finish five games back and in third place in the AL West and four games out of a playoff spot.

Scioscia’s teams have one postseason series win (2009 ALDS vs. Boston) since reaching the 2005 ALCS and have five postseason appearances in the 10 years since winning the 2002 World Series. It might be time for Mike Scioscia to stop being given unnecessary praise.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Sep 11, 2012

Yankees Bid Farewell to Fenway for Season

The Yankees and Red Sox meet for the final time at Fenway Park in 2012 for what should have been a huge series and that means it’s time for an email exchange with Mike Hurley.

This Yankees-Red Sox series at Fenway Park should have meant something for both teams. It should have been the biggest three games to date on both team’s schedules. Instead, what happens in Boston the next three nights only matters to the Yankees.

It’s weird that the Yankees and Red Sox will play a series in mid-September that should have had the same feeling as the postseason, but will now have the same feeling as the Yankees-Blue Jays series next week. With the Yankees fighting to maintain their AL East lead and the Red Sox fighting to get to the offseason in three weeks, Mike Hurley joined me for the second-to-last Yankees-Red Sox email exchange of 2012.

Keefe: If only this series had been played last week, it would have been a lot better. Not only because the Yankees wouldn’t have been losing to the Rays and Orioles in that case, but because you would have been more miserable to talk to about the Red Sox. Now with football in full swing and the Patriots demolishing the Titans, you’re probably in a good mood, and you probably haven’t watched a full Red Sox game since the Fourth of July weekend series. I will fill you in: the Red Sox suck.

Normally that would be a belligerent and intoxicated Yankee fan trying to win a war of drunken words, but right now they actually do suck. They are 63-78, in last place in the division and have lost 11 of 12. When I was in Atlantic City for Labor Day weekend, the Red Sox lost to the A’s 20-2! 20-2! And somehow I didn’t find out about this until eight days after it happened. I feel like I fell asleep on Dec. 23 and woke up on Dec. 26 and completely missed Christmas Eve and Christmas. When the Yankees got beat by the Indians 22-0 a few years back, there were T-shirt stands outside Fenway Park commemorating the brutal loss, and it wasn’t even at the hands of the Red Sox. I have a feeling there won’t be any 20-2 shirts with the line score written out.

The Yankees are in a weird spot. Their 10-game lead is now a one-game lead, and they split the season series with the Orioles. A month ago I was worried about the postseason rotation, but now I’m worried about winning each day just to get to the postseason.

That was the bad news. The good news is the Yankees have 22 games left and six of them are against Boston. This week was supposed to a meaningful series when the schedule came out and then it looked like it would be meaningless at the beginning of August, but now it’s meaningful again (well, for the Yankees). While the Yankees are playing the Red Sox, the Orioles and Rays will be playing and since someone in that series has to lose, the Yankees have a chance to create separation thanks to the worst team in baseball.

Is there any possible way the Yankees don’t win at least two of three games this week? And should they feel embarrassed if they don’t sweep?

Hurley: I watched the entirety of that 20-2 game, and I reveled in it. It was a glorious evening.

At this point, I enjoy watching the Red Sox finding new ways to fail. Whether it’s serving up grand slams to Josh Reddick, or making Brandon Moss look like Babe Ruth, or having the manager melt down on live radio, the Red Sox are just awesome. I never knew I’d enjoy this level of failure so much. But boy is it hilarious.

Now, you’re asking me about the Yankees, I guess, which makes sense because they’re a real, major league-caliber baseball team. I was confused at first why you were emailing me about the Yankees until I remembered that they’re actually coming to Boston this week. I honestly forgot. Like you said, it’s football season, so much so that what should be the best home series of the year has become a complete afterthought in Boston.

To answer your question, yes, the Yankees should not only feel embarrassed if they don’t sweep, but they should probably just quit and excuse themselves from the playoff race. The Red Sox just got swept by the Blue Jays. They were outscored 20-12 in the series. They were swept in back-to-back series by the Angels and A’s, getting outscored (wait for it … ) 58-16 in those six games (average score: 10-3). They have the same number of wins in September as the New England Patriots, despite having seven more chances. They let Omar Vizquel drive in two runs – including the game-winner – on Sunday. He’s old enough to be Derek Jeter’s dad. They are 32-41 at Fenway Park. They bat Scott Podsednik and Pedro Ciriaco and Ryan Kalish at the top of the lineup, and when asked to explain his lineup choices, the manager utters some curse word and a flippant remark, literally telling the world, “I really couldn’t care less about my lineup.”

So you tell me, will it be embarrassing to not sweep this team?

Keefe: Yes, it will be embarrassing. But while other teams have an easy time with the Red Sox, it seems like they could let you start a game and the Yankees would have trouble winning. That’s just the way Yankees-Red Sox series seem to go.

The other day I read the Tom Verducci cover story in Sports Illustrated about the Red Sox, hoping for some new info or some great behind-the-scenes story that would cause even more problems and more turmoil for the Red Sox entering the offseason. But there was no new information in the story. I guess since I have spent the last five months reading every Boston media outlet religiously to make sure I don’t miss out on anything there was really nothing new for me to learn. Unless we find out that Bobby V has been doing drugs during the seventh-inning stretch or that the bullpen has been running a prostitution ring out of the clubhouse, there is really nothing left to be discovered about the Red Sox.

The only thing that really stood out to me in that story was how out of touch with the city of Boston and reality Larry Lucchino is. He had several quotes in the story telling Red Sox fans how to act and how to accept the team’s fate and the idea of rebuilding period. But if I’m correct, your city has been calling for a rebuilding period since last year and it wasn’t until a few weeks ago when they undid everything Theo Epstein had done that the ownership group finally realized. I haven’t seen a positive thing written or heard one said about Lucchino in at least five years unless it was because he forced a Globe writer to portray him in a positive light.

Boston sports fans hate A-Rod and Peyton Manning and LeBron James and the Canadiens and Canucks organizations, but has there ever been anyone involved with a Boston team that has been hated as much as Larry Lucchino is?

Hurley: Jose Offerman, for one. He was just the worst. In terms of non-players, Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs was pretty much hated for decades before they won the Cup in 2011. Even then, he was booed at the banner-raising celebration by some fans who will never forgive him for his tight wallet in the pre-lockout days.

But yeah, Larry Lucchino has always been pretty transparently phony. Only a truly blind Sox lover would look at Lucchino with googly eyes and say, “Gee, whiz, Larry, you’re really the cat’s pajamas.” Nothing is really new here. I remember reading “Feeding The Monster” by Seth Mnookin and noticing that it put a pretty solid smear job on Kevin Millar, for no real reason. I wasn’t in the media or anything at that point, just a college kid reading a book, and it was obvious that that was how Lucchino operates.

So yes, to try to tell fans how they will respond to front office decisions is hilarious, considering Theo Epstein uttered the words “bridge year” a few years ago and the front office went into DEFCON 1 to diffuse the situation. And what do we have to show for it? John Lackey! Way to solve that one.

Lucchino is correct in saying fans will be more open to a rebuilding-type year, because we’ve seen this team fall flat on its face for a while now. It was a bad mix of big-money guys, and there’s plenty of blame to go around, from Theo to Larry to John Henry to Ben Cherington to whoever else was involved in any decision for the past four years, things got ugly, and it’s going to take some time for them to crawl out of it. Knowing Larry said it’s OK to feel that way makes me feel even better though!

Keefe: We started talking about Bobby Valentine the day he was hired when no one other than Larry Lucchino thought it was a good idea. Well, I thought it was a good idea from a Yankee fan perspective hoping that it would be a disaster, but never did I think it would have been this much of a disaster. I figured the Red Sox would bounce back from September 2011 and just be good again and it wouldn’t matter if Terry Francona or Bobby Valentine or the delivery guy from Big Daddy’s in Boston that looks like Steve Buscemi’s character in Airheads and only wears Bruins apparel were the manager.

I’m scared that the Red Sox are going to fire Valentine. That would mean someone competent would take over the team and that would mean that the Red Sox would be in a better position than they are currently in. Though I do think the Red Sox aren’t going to get their first postseason win since 2008 for several more years now that after Game 162 this year they won’t have a left fielder, right fielder, shortstop or first baseman, and their rotation consists of two guys that have pitched a full season in the majors and one of those guys gets hurt every years.

What happens to your favorite sports figure of the last decade in Bobby V at the end of this year? I can’t imagine he will be back, but then again I never could have imagined that a team would trade all of their players instead of changing their manager and the Red Sox did that, so nothing would surprise me at this point. Please bring back Bobby V!

Hurley: Wow. It’s pretty disrespectful for you to mention the delivery guy from Big Daddy’s in Boston that looks like Steve Buscemi’s character in Airheads and only wears Bruins apparel, because you are pretty much single-handedly responsible for him losing his job when you moved to New York and stopped ordering from Big Daddy’s every day. That guy was a legend.

But yeah, he could manage the Red Sox better than Bob V. Nobody is crazy enough to pin all the blame on Valentine; he inherited a team with problems. But he definitely made things worse. There’s no reason for the Boston Red Sox to be this bad.On whether he’ll be back, it’s weird. On the one hand, you have to fire him, because he says things like “Who cares?” and “What does it matter?” at press conferences, and he acts like a lunatic on the radio, and he forces Alfredo Aceves to fly commercial across the country, then forces him to pitch in four out of five games for 125 pitches, and so on and so forth. It’s a bad joke that he’s still employed, and it’s an even worse joke that he’s due $2.5 million next year. Two-and-a-half million!! Cue the “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” clip.

All that being said, a part of me thinks, why wouldn’t he be back? Valentine is exactly the nut I expected him to be. If they hired him in the first place, are they really going to fire him simply for coming as advertised?

I’d hope they’re smart enough to recognize they made an awful error in judgment last winter by firing him this October, but if I told you I was 100 percent confident in that happening, I’d be lying.

Keefe: I keep hearing Red Sox fans and media members debate about Jason Varitek becoming the next Red Sox manager and I think the only thing better than Bobby V would be Varitek. He’s one year removed from being the captain of a team that experienced the worst September collapse in baseball history and played with most of the guys on the team. The age separation and difference isn’t that of someone like Joe Girardi, who only played with Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte, and no one is going to tell them what to do regardless of age.

If Bobby V is out, I can only hope they bring in an inexperienced friend and pal of guys on the team responsible for Terry Francona being fired, Theo Epstein leaving town and the trade of their No. 2 starter, left fielder and first baseman. Unless you think those first two things happened because of those three guys.

If Bobby V is out, who do you want in? Does it even matter?

Hurley: I can’t even follow the things you say, that’s how crazy you are with giddiness.

They should let David Ortiz be MLB’s first player-manager-general manager. His first move as a triple threat would be to sign himself to the four-year contract he feels he deserves. That’d be a good start.

I really don’t care who manages the team next year. A lot of people are excited about John Farrell, but I don’t understand that one. Cherington’s choice last year was apparently Dale Sveum, who is exciting as a bag of old rocks and had the Cubs out of the playoff picture by June. I’ve heard the Mike Scioscia rumors, and I’ll just say that if Mike Scioscia manages the Red Sox, I’m moving to Toronto and I’ll stop following baseball. But BOY, OH BOY the Red Sox would get from first to third more often!

Keefe: Not only would they be the best team at going first to third, but they would also be the best fundamentally sound team in the majors. That’s not an opinion. That’s a fact. Mike Scioscia’s teams don’t make errors or baserunning blunders. They also haven’t been in the playoffs since 2009 and they have played in a four-team division and have played 36 games combined against the A’s and Mariners the last few years. But who cares about that? Mike Scioscia is the best manager in baseball and a genius!

It kind of sucks that the Red Sox suck. Don’t get me wrong, I loved every second of them being in last place and seeing entire sections of Fenway Park without people in the seats while the organization chases a sellout streak that isn’t real. But this series should have been important for both teams and not just the Yankees. (I can’t actually believe I’m saying any of this.) I just miss the idea of waiting all day for a meaningful Yankees-Red Sox game or traveling up to Boston for a regular season game that has a postseason feel. I have a feeling I won’t be seeing one of those for at least five more years given the Red Sox’ current state.

Now that the Patriots have started your attention is on a quest for the Patriots’ first Super Bowl since 2004 and since Gary Bettman is a horrible person it doesn’t look like we will get to talk hockey this season unless you recently became a labor lawyer and want to talk about collective bargaining agreements. It’s sad that you have to turn to other sports right now and don’t care about baseball right now as much as you should because you can’t. What is going to take for the Red Sox to win you back in 2013?

Hurley: It is sad, but it’s not like it’s entirely new. I mean, the Yankees crapped the bed in their final year at the REAL Stadium, and even I was kind of bummed about that. And the era of the Red Sox being equal with the Yankees really only began nine years ago, so it’s not like we haven’t been here before. It does feel strange though.

For me to care about the Red Sox again, they’re going to have to make smart baseball decisions. Dumping Beckett and Crawford was a good start, even if it meant giving up a steady bat and glove in Gonzalez. In free agency, they need to go more the Cody Ross route than the Crawford/Lackey route. They need a manager who hates the media and the spotlight and can keep his frigging mouth shut. They need honesty from ownership (which has only happened once, when John Henry invaded Felger & Mazz, but will never happen again). They probably need lower ticket prices too. It costs $75 to sit way up in left field foul territory higher than the Monster seats and farther from the field. That BS just isn’t going to fly for a last place team.

I don’t think the last two things will happen, but the reality is, if they can just get back to baseball and stop inundating us all with the over-the-top marketing garbage, everyone here will be much happier. Oh. They also need to stop playing Sweet Caroline. I’ve been at Fenway this year when they were losing something like 18-3 to the Rangers. So many dopes were happily singing that awful song that I nearly started ninja kicking everyone in my section. It is the greatest embarrassment in sports.

Keefe: I take it you didn’t buy a Fenway brick or that CD that included Kevin Millar and David Ortiz sing-alongs?

So with the Giants and Patriots not playing each other unless they reach the Super Bowl, which is a situation I know you’re petrified of, and the NHL looking like they are ready to say “Eff You!” to the fans for the second time in eight years, this might be the second-to-last-time we talk via an email exchange in 2012, and maybe it’s better that way. I don’t know how much one person can take of Mike Hurley, but I think I have reached my limit.

The Yankees and Red Sox meet one more time to close out the season in Games 160, 161 and 162 of the regular season. When the schedule came out I didn’t sleep for two weeks thinking about the implications those three games might have. Now they have different implications since the Orioles and Rays will be playing each other those three days and it will likely mean the division, one-game playoff or nothing for the Yankees. I’ll talk to you on Oct. 1.

Hurley: Talk to you later, but if the Giants and Patriots make the Super Bowl, delete this email address.

Blogs

Sep 4, 2012

The Trade-Off That Came True

The Red Sox blew up their team and entered into the “rebuilding” stage for what could be years to come. It might be all Mike Miccoli’s fault.

I don’t remember the exact state I was in the morning of Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final between the Bruins and Canucks, but I’ll try to describe it as what it’s like to be a puppy that just heard thunder for the first time after drinking four Double Americanos. Needless to say, I was a nervous wreck. After playing 106 games that season, the Bruins’ chance at their first Cup in 39 years had come down to 60 minutes in an arena where they had sucked all series long. To borrow a phrase, this was not real life.

This led to a pretty telling Gchat conversation between Neil Keefe and I where the subject centered on what I’d trade in the sports world for a Bruins championship that night. Here’s the most important passage:

Neil: Red Sox don’t make the playoffs for the next 12 years, and the Yankees win five in a row in that span…would you trade it? 

Me: Yep.

Neil: Damn.  

Me: Didn’t even need to think about it.  

Neil: That’s serious.

This, of course, came on June 15, 2011 when the Red Sox were 40-27 after winning nine of their last 10 games. Their .597 win percentage made them the best team in the American League.

You probably know what happens next. The Bruins go on to win Game 7, shutting out the Canucks on the road to win the Stanley Cup. The Red Sox win that night too, but go 50-45 the rest of the season, which includes an epic September collapse that causes them to miss the playoffs.   More than a year after our conversation, Terry Francona, Theo Epstein, Kevin Youkilis, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez are all former Red Sox, while Bobby Valentine’s club sits 15 games out of first with a 62-74 record. Oh, and they were just outscored 330-5 (33-5 actually – it just seemed like 330) in a three-game sweep in Oakland over the weekend where almost every former Red Sox player did some damage against their former team.

Whoops.

This is all a very strange, maybe even funny, coincidence – at least, I keep telling myself that. I’ve fashioned myself as a ‘hockey-above-all-else’ fan first and foremost, with all sports falling into place thereafter. From the handful of people I’ve told about mine and Neil’s conversation, Bruins and Red Sox fans alike, I’ve gotten mixed responses. The night after the Bruins’ win, I remember two people telling me, “Nah, never happen with this year’s Sox.” Those same two people now send me the occasional, “I hate you” or “Hope you’re enjoying that Cup, douche” tweets and texts whenever something goes side-splittingly wrong for the Red Sox. I even had a co-worker tell me, in all seriousness, that I needed to “strongly reconsider my alignments” after the Red Sox collapsed last September against the Orioles. I avoided eye contact with them for the next few weeks.

You can only imagine what I was thinking about when the Red Sox dropped this bombshell of a trade on its fans. Curse reversed.

Personally, I love the deal. I love it because this team was unlike any other club from years past. The thing that the Red Sox needed the most was a reset, a clean slate to wipe away all of the BS that had been surrounding them for so long. This move was a step in the right direction, even if it means it’s going to feel like pre-2004 for the next few years.

Regardless of how you feel about the Red Sox, it’s hard to deny that the trade of Gonzalez, Crawford, Beckett and Nick Punto (who will no doubt become the answer to the trivia question, “Who was the fourth Red Sox player traded to the Dodgers in the 2012 Summer Blockbuster move?” in 10 years) to the Los Angeles Dodgers was a blockbuster. It was the most necessary move to get the Red Sox back on track for the upcoming years, purging over $275 million in sour contracts and stale players along the way. It also means that opposing teams will get to see a potential heart-of-the-order of Jacoby Ellsbury, Ryan Lavarnway and James Loney (a combined batting average of .241 between the three of them) for the remainder of the season. If this doesn’t scream “Hey! We give! We give! We’ll just start rebuilding now, OK?!” I don’t know what will.

And you know what? That’s fine.

The 2012 season was a lost cause for the Red Sox early on and everybody knew it. Plagued by injuries, leaks, a lack of effort and insufferable players, coaches, managers, owners, media members and fans, it became too easy to point fingers. In fact, all of the hype that was conjured up about this team after the 2010 offseason simplified it. I was drinking the same Kool-Aid as every other Red Sox fan, believing that yes, the 2011 club would be one of the best ever. Clearly, that wasn’t the case. The Dodgers trade serves as what should be the midway point to massive remake of the Red Sox. It also should have woken everyone up.

The expectations are being lowered for the Red Sox, as they should be. The once laughed-at “bridge year” idea that Epstein floated by Boston in 2009 seems reasonable for the immediate future pending any ridiculous moves this offseason. The Red Sox need to take a step backwards if they’re going to be a successful club in the future. In Boston, it needs to feel like 2003 again if there’s ever going to be another 2004 and that begins with churning out players who are easy to root for.

Want to know why everyone liked the 2004 Red Sox team so much? Because they worked their asses off. It was about baseball in the end – not contracts, not leaking things to the media, not about never giving 100-percent effort. Sure, there were big-name players on the roster, but it was always about putting the team first and the individual second. It’s part of the reason why guys like Trot Nixon, Bill Mueller and Kevin Millar were so crucial to the 2004 team’s success. It was never really about themselves. For the past few years, that same ideology became lost.

It was about Adrian Gonzalez citing “God’s plan” as an excuse for the Red Sox collapse last season and later blaming the Green Monster, an inanimate object, for his lack of power at Fenway Park.

It was about Carl Crawford deflecting post-game questions from the media regarding the team’s struggles to Jason Varitek (“Go ask the Captain”) and only being able to play on certain days due to his injuries.

It was about Josh Beckett and his 18 days off a year, his faded interest and baseball and (lest we forget) chicken and beer.

It was never about the Boston Red Sox as a whole, a unit, a team, as it was about themselves for these players. They had to go, every single one of them, if it meant putting this organization back on the right path.

It’s a lot easier to root for guys like Mauro Gomez, Pedro Ciriaco and Ryan Lavarnway right now because they’re competing for a spot next season. They haven’t grown complacent with the team, gotten comfortable and accepted their given roles with mediocre play and lousy attitudes. They want it.

The roster is filled with unknowns to the casual baseball fan, but maybe that’s for the best. Let’s weed out the pink hats and the jaded “first time/long time” fans whose day revolves around them bitching about the Red Sox on sports talk radio. While we’re at it, let’s rip apart the staged ‘sell-out’ streak and put a stop to singing “Sweet Caroline” when the Sox are getting blown out. Let’s get back to playing baseball.

There’s still a lot of work left to be done to salvage the Red Sox for the upcoming years. Bobby Valentine has become the Michael Scott of the Red Sox organization circa Season 1 of The Office (awkward, intolerable and sometimes the only reason to watch), while the ownership has matured to be far too problematic with their priorities lined up outside of Fenway Park. That’s just the beginning, of course, but it’s important to remember that it needed to get worse for the Red Sox before it got better.

According to my calculations, just 10 more years of bad luck for the team. At least there’s a new curse to reverse. Now about those World Series titles for the Yankees I agreed to…

Tag: Bobby Valentine

Jacoby Ellsbury Doesn’t Get the Johnny Damon Treatment

Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry Back in Boston

The 2013 All-Animosity Team

Yankees Bid Farewell to Fenway for Season

The Trade-Off That Came True