Tag: Pablo Sandoval

Red Sox Ownership Defiant in the Face of Fan Backlash

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Boston.com – Red Sox fans are not at all happy, and the team knows it.

Well before the Red Sox traded away one of the best players in Major League Baseball, fans had begun to tune out, either by turning off NESN or not filling the seats at Fenway Park toward the end of last year’s 84-win, playoff-whiff of a season...Kennedy said last fall that attendance over 79 games at Fenway Park last season was down 0.7 percent, while NESN ratings dropped 23 percent.

The day after the Betts trade, Kennedy said overall ticket sales were behind last year’s pace by more than 15 percent, and that the renewal rate of season-ticket holders was down from the usual percentage in the high 80s to the low 80s.

Ticket sales are down. Season ticket renewals are down. Ratings were *significantly* down already last year. THEN the Red Sox traded Mookie Betts and David Price. I wrote extensively about the trade and how I’m not losing any sleep over it, but Betts was a fan favorite and arguably the best player in the game so a little fan backlash was to be expected. Yet, Red Sox ownership somehow still looked wildly unprepared for the heat. John Henry, Tom Werner, and Sam Kennedy had their annual picnic table presser down in Fort Myers this morning and it went about as well as a Jeb Bush pep rally.

Henry then released a statement on the team’s twitter account that compared trading a former MVP to the time they traded a burnt out, broken down player in Nomar. Not exactly the same, John.

“I know many of you – particularly our youngest fans – are angry or disbelieving or sad about it. I know it’s difficult and disappointing. Some of you no doubt felt the same way when we traded Nomar in 2004.”

I am amazed at how poorly the Red Sox handle the media year after year. Few organizations in America would benefit as much as the Red Sox from a complete PR overhaul. Henry was not only glib to the reception of the Mookie trade, but he openly scoffed at legitimate criticisms.

Kennedy said nobody has asked for a refund – “I think you underestimate our fans,” said Henry at the suggestion – and that the team will not roll back the ticket price increase, another idea that amused Henry.

“As a result of making trades?” he asked.

Red Sox fans don’t complain about paying one of the highest ticket prices in the league, but thats only because they expect the team to compete and spend, every year. It may not be fair to expect the Sox to have the top payroll in the league every year, but it is fair for fans to be upset when the team raises prices (again) and subsequently dumps two of their best players to shed payroll.

Henry can continue to spin tall tales every time he denies this trade was a salary dump, but thats exactly what this was. As I said in my blog about the trade last week, I am an adult and I understand there are budgets in business so while fans may not be happy about it, I get it. But when Henry continues to outright deny it after saying it *himself* just a few months ago is a bad look for the team.

Both Henry and Kennedy wanted to alter, by almost 180 degrees, the prevailing and understandable perception that the Betts trade was made for purely financial reasons. It’s a line of reasoning that was launched last September by Henry himself when he told reporters “This year we need to be under the [competitive balance tax].”

Henry downplayed the notion that financial tailwinds steered the trade.

“…It’s surprising that anyone would think we would outspend every other team in baseball every single year. To me, that’s a little surprising…it has nothing to do with CBT.”

To be fair, this could still be a very good Red Sox team heading into the 2020 season. With young studs like Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, Eduardo Rodriguez and veterans like JD Martinez and Chris Sale (if healthy) – it would not shock me to see this team in the mix for a playoff spot. Boston fans aren’t stupid though. This team could be pretty good, but this trade was still a way to shed payroll while recouping assets. Both can be true.

Henry and co. tried to stump on their track record of spending, which includes leading the league the last two years, and never being outside of the Top 5 in terms of payroll since they took over.

Guys, thats what you’re supposed to do.

The Red Sox and Fenway Sports Group as a whole are one of the most valuable franchises on the entire planet. You don’t get credit for acting accordingly.

Not to mention, A LOT of that spending that Henry and Kennedy are fond of pointing to is littered with horrific contracts that nearly sunk the team for years at a time. Carl Crawford, Pablo Sandoval, Rusney Castillo, David Price, Nathan Eovaldi etc. etc.

So we are now just 38 days away from Opening Day, but it seems like the noise surrounding the team is only rising. This is before we even get into Alex Verdugo’s stress fracture in his back and the troubling allegations against him, injuries to Sale and Eovaldi, the term “Opener” being thrown around a bit too much for my liking, and the fact this team still doesn’t have a real closer.

It seems like 2020 could be quite the rocky ride for the Red Sox as they prepare to cross what ownership doesn’t want to admit this is; a bridge year.

Congratulations to My Good Friend Rusney Castillo On Making His Second Straight Triple-A All-Star Team

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Rusney Castillo, now 31-years-old, is sneaky having one of the best seasons a Pawtucket Worcester Red Sox player has ever had. He just earned his second straight All-Star nod down in Triple-A and is batting a league leading .323 and if he keeps that up he’d be the first PawSox player to win a batting title since Wade Boggs did it in 1981. May he rest in peace.

This is just another stark reminder of how badly the Red Sox have bungled their roster and their payroll over the past several years. It’s not even all payroll luxury taxes the Sox are afraid of either, its just old fashioned money that John Henry is probably sick of spending. According to Spotrac the Sox currently have $164 million in salaries on the Active Payroll, $36 million in salaries on the Disabled List, and $42 million in RETAINED Salary. Thats $1 million to Allen Craig, $22 million to Hanley Ramirez, and $18 million to Pablo Sandoval. All of whom are obviously no longer on the Red Sox. Woof.

Oh and Manny Ramirez is making $2 million from the Sox this year in Deferred Salary as well.

While Rusney is only a career .262 hitter in 337 plate appearances at the major league level, it’s a goddamn shame the Sox can’t won’t call up a guy hitting the cover off the ball in Triple-A solely because of his salary.

The contract they gave him based off an out of context And 1 Mixtape was absurd, which is why he currently makes $11 million to play at McCoy Stadium. BUT to refuse to bring up a guy who is challenging for the Batting Title in Triple-A because of money is an unthinkable move from a franchise as rich as the Boston Red Sox. He could bat .400 and they wouldn’t call him up because they don’t want to go into the luxury tax.

Yup, I would much rather have Tzu-Wei Lin (career .230 hitter), Tony Renda (career .183 hitter), and Sam Travis (career .250 hitter) coming off the bench in September and October.

Oh well, here’s to you Rusney Castillo, friend of The 300s, Triple-A All-Star, and the highest paid person in the history of Rhode Island.

John Henry Just Son’d Tom Werner Saying “We Don’t Need to Be Popular, We Need to Win.”

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ABC – As the Boston Red Sox stepped out into the sun Monday for their first full-squad workout of spring training, owner John Henry maintained that he’s more concerned about W’s and L’s than the team’s Q rating. “We really don’t need to be popular,” Henry said. “We need to win.” But despite winning 93 games and the American League East title for a second straight season in 2017, questions were raised about the Red Sox’s likability. Although attendance at Fenway Park remained almost unchanged, regional television ratings were down 15 percent on New England Sports Network, according to Nielsen Media data, while sports-talk airwaves were filled with the grievances of dissatisfied fans.

If you’ve ever read “Feeding the Monster” then you know exactly what I’m talking about here. In the behind the scenes book covering the inner workings of the Red Sox you read about a young Theo Epstein going to battle time and time again with Tom Werner and the entertainment side of the Sox over player personnel.

Theo wanted to build a farm system and sign smart, albeit boring, free agents to, ya know, win. Tom Werner isn’t against winning per se, but goddamnit the Red Sox needed to be sexy. He wanted more big names, more story lines.Winning be damned. The team had to be marketable to more demos with more attractive stars. Seriously. Read the book, Werner said that shit. You think hits like Roseanne just fall into place? No way. It takes years of creative genius steering the ship and shame on Theo for not listening to the Neilsen Rating System more when building his roster. Guy never stood a chance as a baseball executive going up against brainpower like Tom Werner.

Goddamnit. Can you tell I’m still bitter about the Red Sox running the best baseball mind of our generation out of town?

Anyways, if we’re going to take John Henry at his word, it seems like he may be smartening up. He’s not exactly George Steinbrenner so he’s not going to just punt on everything that doesn’t directly lead to winning. But, Henry is a smart dude, he knows that popularity follows winning, not the other way around. If the Red Sox are hammering opposing teams all summer on their way to a World Series then they’ll be pretty damn popular. However, if the team is focused on signing guys based solely on their marketability (i.e Pablo Sandoval the Panda) well thats how you find yourselves in a shit storm you’re still digging out of 3 years later.

Dave Dombrowski is Playing Fast and Loose With the English Language to Cover His Ass if Red Sox Falter

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So the MLB trade deadline was yesterday and the Red Sox added a legitimate reliever in Addison Russell, whom they acquired from the Mets. However, the Yankees did more than just add a nice piece, they loaded the fuck up. They added Sonny Gray, the A’s ace thats currently sporting a 3.43 ERA and 8.7 Ks per 9 IP. Not to mention their slew of other moves, without having given up too much of value…

So now we’ve got Dave Dombrowski in full on Cover Your Ass mode it would seem. The Sox added Nunez, who’s been playing really well and then just picked up Reed, but this is a team with glaring holes that has been struggling badly, and now the hottest team in the division just got a LOT better.

Now after the Yankees were wheeling and dealing all week loading up and basically making the Bombers the favorite to win the AL East, Dombrowski starts off by jokingly calling them the Golden State Warriors.

Just really playing up how great the Yankees are and how the Red Sox are really just underdogs for the rest of the season, except leaving out the fact that the Sox were the heavy pre-season FAVORITE to win the AL East. This is the definition of hedging your bets.

Now, I’m sure Dombrowski had some limitations put on him by ownership to avoid going over the luxury tax, but he still built this team. He signed Price and traded for Sale, and Kimbrel, and Pomeranz. Not to mention the trades for guys who have been injury plagued disasters in Tyler Thornburg and Carson Smith. If this team fails its on him. But, by pointing out how stacked the Yankees are and how the Sox are just some plucky underdogs  (with a $190M payroll) scrapping to compete, he’s already hedging so that if the Sox falter and don’t win the division or even straight up miss the playoffs, its not on him. Bullshit. Dave’s conveniently forgetting the fact that the expectations for this team were to compete for a World Series, not sneak into a Wild Card one-game playoff.

Dombrowski has been doing this a lot recently too, its not just his reaction to the trade deadline yesterday. After the Sox put David Price on the DL the same day he was supposed to start and potentially take a verbal beating from the fans, people were rightfully suspicious. Dombrowski scoffed at the suggestion they DL’d price just to skip a start. Dave went on a rant about how you can’t just put a guy on the DL without a serious medical issue that gets clearance from MLB. Uhhh did we already forget about Pablo Sandoval’s ear infection that knocked him out for like 2 weeks?? Thats a vicious ear infection. Did the Sox send a full ear X-ray to the commissioners office to get approval? Get the fuck outta here.

Dombrowski is preemptively chilling his seat before it gets too hot if the Sox do get bounced early, but I’m on to you Dave.

Yankees Trade for Todd Frazier and I Can’t Help But Think of the 2006 Bobby Abreu Trade the Red Sox Didn’t Make

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Yahoo – The New York Yankees are going for it. They boosted their lineup and the backend of their bullpen in a trade Tuesday with the Chicago White Sox that’s sending slugger Todd Frazier and relief pitchers David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle to the Bronx..The White Sox (38-52) were already in full rebuilding mode and this adds to their minor-league riches, as the Yankees send Chicago a package that includes outfield prospect Blake Rutherford (New York’s No. 3 prospect) and left-handed pitcher Ian Clarkin (No. 19). Big-league reliever Tyler Clippard is also reportedly in the deal, as is outfielder Tito Polo.

The Yankees traded for Todd Frazier last night, swept in under the cloak of night and traded for the guy while I was enjoying a few Bud heavys at Fenway.

This trade did not come lightly though as the Yankees (with a suddenly flourishing minor league system) dealt their No. 3 prospect as part of the deal. Pretty steep for a guy who’s hitting .207 and will be a free agent at the end of the year if you ask me. He does provide some pop though with 16 Home Runs and 44 RBIs on the year. Not convinced? The last 3 years Frazier finished with 40, 35, and 29 Home Runs respectively. (On a side note, as that story points out the White Sox are rebuilding the smart way as they now have 5 of the top 30 prospects and 10 of the top 100 in all of baseball thanks to their recent fire sales.)

Now I wasn’t one of the people clamoring for the Sox to deal more prospects just to put a band-aid on third base. Especially with $50M in dead money from the euthanized Panda we just DFA’d. I’m definitely in the camp that the Red Sox should bolster the bullpen before brining in your 12th third baseman of the year.

HOWEVER, seeing this trade instantly reminded me of 2006 when the Yankees traded for Bobby Abreu because its a similar situation. Abreu, like Frazier, was a solid if not spectacular hitter who was on the market and the Red Sox were rumored to be in on. Then the Yankees swooped in and made the deal for Abreu. Wouldn’t have been as big of a kick in the dick if it wasn’t for the so called Boston Massacre that summer when the Yankees came to Fenway and swept the Red Sox in a rare 5-game series. Complete beatdown. And how’d Abreu do in that series you ask? Oh he merely hit fucking .500 in the series going 10-20 over the 5 games.

Over the course of the 2006 season Abreu hit .297 with 15 Home Runs, 107 RBIs and also had 30 stolen bases. In the second half of the 2006 season alone, playing for the Yankees Abreu hit .330 7 Home Runs, 42 RBIs and 10 stolen bases.

So, yea not a bad guy to have.

Ended up biting the Red Sox in the ass as they never really got right after that 5-game sweep and famously missed the playoffs. Lets just hope Todd Frazier doesn’t repeat history and go on a goddamn tear for the Yankees.

PS – Complex ranked that 5-game regular season sweep as one of the greatest moments in Yankees HISTORY. What a sad and sorry existence in the Bronx.

Who Was the Worst Red Sox Contract of All Time? I’ve Made It Easy for You

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Update: It was pointed out to me the compiled Batting Averages were calculated wrong, so those numbers and the graphic have been updated in the post below.

So as everyone knows by now, the Red Sox designated Pablo Sandoval for assignment today. Look the Red Sox have given out a lot of shitty contracts over the years. Thats what big market teams do. You throw money at problems that other teams can’t afford to do. Except the problem with that is by definition free agents are most often older players who rarely live up to the pay day. You’re usually paying for past performance and almost always are eating money towards the end of the contract when the player is a shell of what he once was. Which is fine. I accept that.

BUT, when you have guys that are a disaster from Day 1 and can’t even make it through an entire 162 games then you have a huge problem.

So who was the worst Red Sox contract of all time? Well looking back over the years the two names that standout as the frontrunners are soft-ass Carl Crawford (who STILL complains about his 2 seasons in Boston) and the recently departed Sandoval. While a lot of people want to say Crawford is the worse deal because of how toxic his attitude was and how bad his play was, its got to be the Panda. Look, I made a spreadsheet to make it easy for you.

Although Sandoval was here for parts of 3 seasons and Crawford only two, due to DL stints by both, their total number of games played for the Red Sox is the EXACT SAME at 161. Which makes this the perfect sample size.

Compared to Sandoval, Crawford had more:

  • Runs Scored
  • Hits
  • Doubles
  • Triples (shocking)
  • RBIs
  • Stolen Bases (Panda with the elusive 0 in that category).

Now want to compare their slash lines as members of the Red Sox?

  • Pablo .236/.303/.360
  • Crawford .260/.296/.418

Both completely SUCKED for guys who had signed gargantuan contracts. Granted Crawford’s deal was for $142 million to Pablo’s measly $95 million, but Pablo has been so bad that they’re gonna have to eat the last 2+ years of it. At least the Red Sox were able to dump Crawford onto the Dodgers. So while Crawford signed a much larger deal, he wasn’t so far gone that another team thought “Hey Boston is a bitch to play in, we can turn this around.” Barring an even more stunning deal than the Crawford/Gonzalez/Beckett Dodgers heist, there’s no getting out of this one.

So yea, the Kung Fu fucking Panda is by far the worst contract in Red Sox history.

Red Sox Win, Moreland Homers Again and Farrell Takes a Dig at Hanley

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After topping the Angels with Chris Sale picking up win No. 10, Craig Kimbrel going 1-2-3 in the 9th for the save and Mitch Moreland homering in his 3rd straight game, John Farrell praised his guys for persevering. But mostly he took a pretty subtle (read: blatant) dig at guys like Hanley Ramirez for being soft.

Last night Hanley sat out because he had a sore knee. Before that he had a sore shoulder. Then of course there’s the whole debacle of Hanley not being able (read: willing) to play first base because all the throwing hurts his shoulder. Meanwhile Mitch Moreland is balling out, hitting bombs and playing the field with a broken fucking toe. So it would seem like Farrell’s over it. Especially with bums like Pablo Sandoval in and out of the lineup, its time to start cutting the dead weight.

I like this new Farrell. Blowing up on umpires and calling out guys for being assholes. Lets get more of this Farrell and less of the robot Farrell.

If the Red Sox want to go anywhere come October they’re gonna need guys like Hanley and David Price to get their sit together. Otherwise this is gonna be a reaaally expensive team to get knocked out in the first round. Not to mention, the more the team struggles the more Dave Dombrowski’s collar gets a little tighter. This guy has traded just about all of the Red Sox top prospects in a concerted effort to win now. Except most of the guys he’s traded for have either gotten hurt (Tyler Thornburg, Carson Smith) or just straight up sucked (David Price). Obviously guys like Kimbrel and Sale have been lights out this year, but that was another half dozen prospects to acquire those two. So if this team doesn’t pick it up soon then thats another wasted year for a veteran team with a more narrow win-now mindset.

Red Sox Have Up and Down Memorial Day: Price Looks Good, Pedroia Gets Hurt

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Yesterday was a shitty loss for the Red Sox that can be pinned pretty much on anyone in the bullpen not named Craig Kimbrel. But the point of this post is to talk about the return of one David Price. In his first major league start of the season Price’s line looked like this: 5 IP, 2 Hits, 3 Runs, 2 Walks, and 4 K’s

After getting smacked around in Pawtucket and getting chirped by fans *in Pawtucket* I think we all weren’t expecting such a solid start. Now did Price look dominant? No. But for a guy who hasn’t pitched in a major league game in about 8 months, not too shabby.

Remember, Price missed all of spring training so this is basically still his version of that. And of course I have no idea what to expect out of his health, I still am pretty pessimistic about a guy in his 30s who opted to skip surgery and let it heal naturally because that rarely works in the long run.

But, for a guy with a shaky elbow, Price was juicing his fastball consistently at 94 mph and even hit 97 on the gun. Not bad at all. So while the Sox shit the bed in the last few frames…

And Price did serve up an absolute batting practice ball to x for a 3 run dinger. But with it being his first start of the year, all in all I’ll take it. Hey, at least he seems like he cares, which is more than some other guys.

Now onto the bad shit.

Dustin Pedroia got tabletopped by Jose Abreu who was sliding into first to try and beat Pedey to the bag. With the 6’3″ 255 pounder basically diving into Pedroia’s path, he banged into Abreu and flipped over landing awkwardly on his wrist.

Initially it looked like Abreu took the brunt of the hit, but Pedroia was slow to get up and left the game. Dustin’s headed back to Boston to get an MRI on his wrist, which concerns the shit out of me. As a 5’8″ second baseman, Pedroia is diving all over the place every single day, but now he lands on his wrist and can’t finish the game. I. am. concerned. These little bumps and bruises like the Machado knee injury are starting to stack up for him, so hopefully its nothing, but flying back to Boston mid-series to get an MRI is obviously a red flag.

But hey guys, don’t worry, with all the injuries piling up it might force the Red Sox hand and leave them no choice but to call up the $95 million disaster, the kung fu fucking panda.

Sandoval, who by the way is healthy now, is currently playing down in Pawtucket and went 1/4 with another error last night. So thats good. Him and Rusney Castillo are probably laughing their balls off at the money they’re making to play baseball in fucking Rhode Island.

Even Price was down in Pawtucket for like a week and a half before saying get me the fuck out of here.

At least Chris Sale takes the mound tonight.

Addison Russell is Using Pokemon Cards to Flip the Autograph Game On Its Head

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ESPN – When Chicago Cubs shortstop Addison Russell asked those two All-Stars — and many others around the league — to autograph the back of his Pokémon cards, he knew he would get some puzzled reactions. And he most certainly did. Yes, Russell is sending clubhouse attendants to opposing locker rooms armed with Pokémon cards for some of Russell’s favorite players to sign.

Did Addison Russell just become my new best friend? Yup. You see it all the time; professional athletes asking other pros to sign balls or even exchanging jerseys, but this, this is something. Busting out Pokemon cards and asking people to sign those instead is so awesome. Thats how you know Russell is a stud. He doesn’t need to front like he’s the baddest guy on the block and pretend Pokemon is only for kids. He loves Pokemon and he owns it.

If you’re in your 20’s and deny liking Pokemon then you are a walking, clinical definition of insecurity. We all loved the Pocket Monsters. Sure, maybe not all of us were illegally playing Pokemon Red emulators on our laptops in class back in college, but theres a reason Pokemon Go is one of the highest earning mobile apps of all time.

Did I spend hours upon hours playing Pokemon Go in traffic so I could snag the special edition Christmas Pikachu with a Santa hat? I mean, I didn’t not do that.

There is a method to his madness. He doesn’t just pick the cards randomly. He’s looking for a card that fits the player’s game or personality. “If there are flame balls on them, I’ll get a closer like Kenley Jansen to sign,” Russell said.

This isn’t just some gag from the 23-year-old, Russell is doing his research. You can’t just have anyone signing holographic or legendary cards. Thats bullshit. That would be stupid and childish. The autograph needs to fit the Pokemon.

So keep doing your thing Addison, hopefully you get Pablo Sandoval to sign that shiny Snorlax card. Get it? Because all he does is sleep and eat! Woof.

PS – Shoutout to my dude Kenley Jansen for dropping the Dragon Ball Z reference.

“I watched Pokémon a little bit. I was more of a Dragon Ball Z type of guy. I was watching more Dragon Ball Z growing up. So I get it,” Jansen said of Russell’s hobby. “Pokémon is his stuff, and everybody has their own unique way.

Now that is a goddamn show and if you’re not a fan, thats fine, but you’re wrong.