Thursday, December 22, 2005
'The Sox are trying to do ...': Reader No. 1 isn't giving up:
"Please don't mistake this for complacencys: Damon flipped to our archrival is a significant short-term setback, which Baseball Prospectus estimates is worth an 8 game swing. The team must act as Mike Silverman points out in his great wrapup today.
"But the real issues, as with Pedro last winter, are the long-term ones which Gordon Edes hints at in his column today. The Sox are trying to do one of the hardest things in business: win today AND win tomorrow. Dan Duquette came here with a track record of farm system success to win tomorrow, and he never really recovered from winning the AL East in 1995 (hello and goodbye, Jose Canseco, Kevin Mitchell, Dante Bichette...). Just something to keep in mind as we live through RedSox365..."
Hub Blog's response -- I'll keep it in mind. I hope I'm wrong about the team being in chaos. But when they screw up so many personnel moves (Theo being the most glaring; Damon less so), you have to wonder if there's a method to the madness or just madness. Plugging leaks is not a plan.
... This is a management fault that I've only recently begun to appreciate in watching the Sox: They signal their intentions too early and too often. Maybe that's a function of A.) Being in Boston and feeling compelled to feed the media/fan beast or B.) They love the limelight and think they're PR-savvy enough to handle the beast or C.) They're not good at poker or D.) a combination of the three. But you can literally see patterns of thoughts and actions developing when it comes to their personnel moves. Charlie Weis covers his mouth with a laminated sheet when calling plays. Maybe Sox management ought to try a variation of the same during the off-season. ...
Update -- From Reader No. 1: "RE: the signalling of intentions, this is mainly a Lucchino phenomenon and probably a combination of (A) and (B). I don't think (C) is really the case because the team wasn't going to pay Damon what the Yankees wound up doing - the method won't allow it."
"Please don't mistake this for complacencys: Damon flipped to our archrival is a significant short-term setback, which Baseball Prospectus estimates is worth an 8 game swing. The team must act as Mike Silverman points out in his great wrapup today.
"But the real issues, as with Pedro last winter, are the long-term ones which Gordon Edes hints at in his column today. The Sox are trying to do one of the hardest things in business: win today AND win tomorrow. Dan Duquette came here with a track record of farm system success to win tomorrow, and he never really recovered from winning the AL East in 1995 (hello and goodbye, Jose Canseco, Kevin Mitchell, Dante Bichette...). Just something to keep in mind as we live through RedSox365..."
Hub Blog's response -- I'll keep it in mind. I hope I'm wrong about the team being in chaos. But when they screw up so many personnel moves (Theo being the most glaring; Damon less so), you have to wonder if there's a method to the madness or just madness. Plugging leaks is not a plan.
... This is a management fault that I've only recently begun to appreciate in watching the Sox: They signal their intentions too early and too often. Maybe that's a function of A.) Being in Boston and feeling compelled to feed the media/fan beast or B.) They love the limelight and think they're PR-savvy enough to handle the beast or C.) They're not good at poker or D.) a combination of the three. But you can literally see patterns of thoughts and actions developing when it comes to their personnel moves. Charlie Weis covers his mouth with a laminated sheet when calling plays. Maybe Sox management ought to try a variation of the same during the off-season. ...
Update -- From Reader No. 1: "RE: the signalling of intentions, this is mainly a Lucchino phenomenon and probably a combination of (A) and (B). I don't think (C) is really the case because the team wasn't going to pay Damon what the Yankees wound up doing - the method won't allow it."
