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September 11, 2005
Baseball Prospectus Crew: 2004 Yankees Stunk
From a Boston Globe report on the book "Mind Game: How the Boston Red Sox Got Smart, Won a World Series and Created a New Blueprint for Winning" -
"Red Sox players beat the Yankees players, Terry Francona beat Joe Torre, and Theo Epstein beat the tar out of Brian Cashman. The Sox had a championship-caliber team; the Yankees had a super-sized payroll and nine guys who should have been Devil Rays."
Wow, what a relief. And, to think, all this time so many thought it was just a matter of New York choking.
Actually, this is kind of stupid. I can tell you how the 2004 Boston Red Sox "Got Smart" and "Won a World Series." It's simple: Boston did what everyone gets on the Yankees about - they went out and paid a lot of money to get stars from other teams and then went out and won. Is that clever? I think it's just deep pockets and being a copy-cat.
Maybe a better book would have been: "The 2004 Boston Red Sox: The team that should have went to the World Series the year before - but, because they lost, they went out and paid tons of money to get the ace starter and stud closer that they needed to win the following year" - but, that's a hard one to then come up with 200-something pages to fill.
Posted by Steve Lombardi at September 11, 2005 10:16 PM
Comments
Well said.
Posted by: Patrick at September 11, 2005 11:14 PM
Just reread the first sentence. "New Blueprint."
LOL. That's great.
Posted by: Patrick at September 11, 2005 11:15 PM
Speaking of payrolls and such, someone at Sportfilter.com just posted a link that illustrates salary vs. performance.
http://benfry.com/salaryper/
Posted by: Jen at September 11, 2005 11:42 PM
I agree 100%.
I've kept this post for ages, because it makes other points about the Red Sox success and the media's perception of it that one doesn't read too often:
http://www.all-baseball.com/mikesbballrants/archives/016729.html
Posted by: Paul in Boston at September 12, 2005 07:16 AM
Actually, this is kind of stupid. I can tell you how the 2004 Boston Red Sox "Got Smart" and "Won a World Series." It's simple: Boston did what everyone gets on the Yankees about - they went out and paid a lot of money to get stars from other teams and then went out and won. Is that clever? I think it's just deep pockets and being a copy-cat.
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Not to mention trades like Pavano/Armas for Pedro & Lowe/Varitek for Slocumb.
Or picking up guys like Arroyo, Ortiz & Wakefield off the scrap heap.
Give credit where/when it's due
Posted by: Raf at September 12, 2005 11:29 AM
The Pedro, Lowe, and Varitek deals 'tho were not Theo and crew.
Posted by: Steve Lombardi at September 12, 2005 11:51 AM
Ok, then they traded for Schilling, Cabrera, Walker, Bellhorn et. al. And they picked up pen men like Meyers & Leskanic.
And they still get credit for Ortiz & Arroyo, among others.
The foundation of the team was there before Theo came on board, like the foundation of the Yanks was there before Cashman came on board.
Posted by: Raf at September 12, 2005 12:20 PM
I just think it's funny that they had to write an entire book to explain how they won their first championship in 86 years. Will they write one this year if they don't win a championship to explain that as well?
Posted by: JohnnyC at September 12, 2005 01:54 PM