Time for some summer fun: Sox/Yankees ! (Boston: home, pros and cons)

[LeavingMA]

Well theo did make the deal that got orlando cabrera and traded away nomar garciaparra. That was a huge and controversial move at the time.

[ogre]

Originally Posted by NY'er lost in MA

That was Duquette's team that Theo inherited! Theo got 100% of the credit for the win and did little to nothing to build the team.

Yeah- Yanks brought up Joba Chamberlain- 90mph curve and 99mph fastball.
Farnsworth should be gone soon!

Chamberlain: Obviously that's some impressive power. An arm like that can turn heads, but there's more to pitching than this. If he does look good all around, though, I'm inclined to agree that Farnsworth's days in pinstripes are probably numbered, or certainly should be numbered.

Theo and the '04 Sox: The team Theo inherited was a solid team which in its best years might have had the potential to be a typical wild card. They had some good players: Petey, Manny, Damon, Lowe, the catching tandem that's been there so long they're becoming an institution, Flakefield, Trot. Living up to their very highest potential might have gotten them the wild card, maybe the division if the Yankees had happened to falter for a season, and maybe winning the division series, and that's it. They lacked the depth to put them over the top. Mueller, Millar, Schilling, Foulke, Arroyo, Myers, Kapler, Pokey, Mientkiewicz, Roberts (he of THE stolen base), Cabrera, some nobody named Ortiz . . . these were all Theo's acquisitions.

Still, as I said in the earlier post, it turned out to be a wealthy club's version of a fire sale. Through one concentrated effort they brought together a team that won the Series, then immediately began to break them up so they didn't get hung with all the big contracts. The difference since then has been that the Sox have had the bucks to remain where they're sort of knocking on the door of serious contention, instead of winning the Series, then quickly dropping out of sight, like the Marlins after their championships, for example. So, Theo has shown he can build a great team for one season (even with the occasional B.K. Kim sort of fiasco mixed into the deal). What he can do over the long haul remains to be seen.

[ogre]

Okay, Theo has shown that he can build a great team for one season if he has a good team to start with, and builds from there. Don't know whether he could build a champion from scratch, since he's never tried to. Another reason I'd say the jury's still out on Theo.

[NY'er lost in MA]

Originally Posted by ogre

Okay, Theo has shown that he can build a great team for one season if he has a good team to start with, and builds from there. Don't know whether he could build a champion from scratch, since he's never tried to. Another reason I'd say the jury's still out on Theo.

I think people put Theo on the same level as Beane- which I disagree with. He did inherit ALOT of core players, so really he shouldn't get much credit at all. He has made 2-3 good moves, but most GMs make 2-3 good moves...

Get what I'm saying. People treat him like he is the second coming of Jesus and they guy simply got pretty darn lucky. As far as the Roberts acquisition- pure luck that he stole the base at that exact moment- why should Theo get credit for a on the field play??

ANYWAY.....sorry to bring this up to Sox Nation, but the Yanks did falter. It would have been an equally easy win over the Cardinals. But the Sox played with hearts of champions and deserve the win. The one thing I disagree with about 2004 is that they were the clear winners- there definitely were alot of mistakes made by the Yanks to let that series slip away. But hey- that's what the 'wild' card is all about folks!

[ogre]

Originally Posted by NY'er lost in MA

I think people put Theo on the same level as Beane- which I disagree with. He did inherit ALOT of core players, so really he shouldn't get much credit at all. He has made 2-3 good moves, but most GMs make 2-3 good moves...

Get what I'm saying. People treat him like he is the second coming of Jesus and they guy simply got pretty darn lucky. As far as the Roberts acquisition- pure luck that he stole the base at that exact moment- why should Theo get credit for a on the field play??

ANYWAY.....sorry to bring this up to Sox Nation, but the Yanks did falter. It would have been an equally easy win over the Cardinals. But the Sox played with hearts of champions and deserve the win. The one thing I disagree with about 2004 is that they were the clear winners- there definitely were alot of mistakes made by the Yanks to let that series slip away. But hey- that's what the 'wild' card is all about folks!

Well, as I've discussed earlier, Theo has made several really boneheaded moves. And I say it's still too early to judge completely because we haven't seen whether he can build several champions--or at least very serious contenders--or just manage to put together one world champion with an all-out blitz, then sort of cruise along. It also remains to be seen whether the farm system produces the kind of talent that would prove the system to be as stacked as the sports talk guys are saying (yeah, LostNYer, I know what a fan you are of WEEI--right). Basically what I'm saying is that it remains to be seen what Theo, and the current management in general, can do for the long haul.

But give credit where it's due. Okay, maybe the only truly marquee moves Theo made in his first couple of years involved Schilling, Foulke, and Ortiz. And, Lost, maybe those were the two or three good moves you figure Theo made that put him on a par with other GMs. Okay, these were the only real head-turners Theo pulled off while building the '04 team, but ya know, there never has been one team that was stacked with all-stars from top to bottom. Winning championships is all about depth (especially true in baseball and football, where the rosters include more players than in the other two sports). It's about having maybe one or two more major stars than the typical middle-of-the-pack team, and a LOT more very good players at the level of being lower-level stars, plus a bunch of really solid players to fill roles. Look at all the players Theo dealt for at these second and third levels.

In the earlier post, where I listed a bunch of the players Theo inherited, and others he had acquired, three I forgot to mention among Theo's babies were Timlin, Bellhorn, and Embree. Hombre, by the way, shows one example of the element of luck invovled in all of this, since '04 was his last decent season before he went south. The luck of timing, in his case. Anyway, let's look at players from '04 who were Theo's kids. Start with Kapler, Pokey, Roberts, Mientkiewicz--basically the entire bench. To these guys add Bellhorn, Mueller, Millar, and Cabrera, and you've got the entire infield, starters and bench guys, brought in by Theo. Then there's the DH, that nobody named Ortiz I mentioned in an earlier post. Pitchers? How about Timlin, Arroyo, Schilling, Foulke, Leskanic, Myers, Williamson, Hombre. So, of the major players in '04, basically, Theo inherited both catchers, the three starting outfielders, and three pitchers, Pedro, Wake, and Lowe. He put together the rest of the pitching staff, the starting infield, the DH, and the entire bench. Sure, these were not all big-name players. But, champions are not made entirely of big names. It's about depth, depth, depth, and more depth. Theo built that depth (along with bringing in a couple of true stars in Ortiz and Schilling).

True, one of my earlier posts did offer the caveat that this team did have several key players Theo inherited. But there were way more members of that team brought in by Theo. It's just not close to being true that Duquette really put together that whole team and then Theo got lucky enough to take the helm just as Duquette's team gelled. Not true at all.

But, for all the reasons discussed in earlier posts, yes, I do agree that I'm not yet ready to ordain Theo as the all-time king of the GMs the way some Sox fans might do. Not at all. As stated before, the jury is definitely still out.

[NY'er lost in MA]

ok, ok- I agree that he did fortify the core with all those supplemental players. Part luck? Probably. But the team did mesh very well.

Flash forward to this year. The Sox have the best record in baseball, but I don't see how they will win it all with a back of the order of 3-4 guys with sub .280 batting averages.

We're getting closer....all the stress and anxiety will be here soon

[ogre]

Personally, I wouldn't read a whole lot of playoff implications into the series this weekend involving the two teams featured on this thread. I think I said something earlier about the ebb and flow of the regular season, and not reading too much into a few games. In the playoffs there's more of a concentrated effort to bring all a team's strengths to bear, for the purpose of winning a few games, without so much need to keep guys fresh over the long haul. So, they do things like using starting pitchers in relief, etc., which they're not going to do in the regular season, no matter how big the series.

If you're going to read anything at all into the results of this weekend, I'd pay more attention to the Sox and Angels than to the Detroit-NY series. The Sox and Angels both are healthy right now, and basically, barring injuries, will have the teams they're playing with right now the rest of the way, while the Tigers are hurting now, and it's still uncertain who for them will be in prime form in October. Still, being that it's the regular season, with all the usual ebb and flow, I wouldn't draw any definitieve conclusions from the outcomes of either series.

It's interesting to speculate, though!

[country pride]

I live in Az and am a big fan of the Yankees. Yay!!!

[SuperGrover]

Gagne. Ouch. For this we lost young starting pitching? All of the good mid-carrer starters seem to get extended before their contract year.

I wanted to see Dye instead, but neither move made sense to me. You've got JP closing, Okajima with his 1.28 ERA probably competing for closer in his mind, and you bring in a guy who's been an all-star closer. Dye is the guy Drew was supposed to be, but if you pull Drew now he becomes another Rentarian subsidy for next year's braves.

I wanted to to see see Wily Mo for a 40-year old utility outfielder, or middling minor leaguer just to make room on the bench for Jacoby Elsbery. He's cleared waivers, but that does not really indicate nobody wanted him. Waivers have conditions.

[NY'er lost in MA]

Originally Posted by SuperGrover

Gagne. Ouch. For this we lost young starting pitching? All of the good mid-carrer starters seem to get extended before their contract year.

I wanted to see Dye instead, but neither move made sense to me. You've got JP closing, Okajima with his 1.28 ERA probably competing for closer in his mind, and you bring in a guy who's been an all-star closer. Dye is the guy Drew was supposed to be, but if you pull Drew now he becomes another Rentarian subsidy for next year's braves.

I wanted to to see see Wily Mo for a 40-year old utility outfielder, or middling minor leaguer just to make room on the bench for Jacoby Elsbery. He's cleared waivers, but that does not really indicate nobody wanted him. Waivers have conditions.

Looks like Wily Mo is going to the Nationals. No big deal here, but honestly- if you give a guy more at bats, he'll do a little better. What did they expect from him with that few at bats!?

Gagne is a bust....right NOW. Put him in the playoffs and we'll see if he can rise to the occasion.

Everyone keeps thinking it is the Yankees/Sox- to the death battle or something. I'm getting tired of hearing on WEEI: Look at the Sox record against AL east teams......yadda yadda yadda, now look at the Yankee record against AL east teams...blah! Well- when you get to the playoffs, the slate is clean and the Yanks are just a half game out of the Wild Card folks. Who really cares about their AL east record? Not me!!

I actually would like the Sox to win the division and see if they can hold their own. I'll take the Wild Card any day!