Background story of Red Sox' epic collapse

[nickagneta]

Some truly eye opening stuff. A must read:

Tito with a pending divorce, possible addiction to pain killers, and worried about kids in Afghanistan.

Ownership divided on whether to invest in Crawford.

Lackey, Beckett, Lester and Buchholz drinking beer, eating fast food chicken and playing video games during games.

Players ignoring the strength and conditioning coach.

Wakefield, Varitek, Ortiz and Gonzalez showing me first attitudes and little to no leadership.

Rift in clubhouse against Jacoby Ellsbury.

Only 4 players seemingly still trying and training hard come September.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2011/10/12/red_sox_unity_dedication_dissolved_during_epic_late_season_collapse/?page=1

[PosImpos]

Wow.  I had read about many of these things, but not all of them in such depth and all together.  Really paints an awful picture.

Sounds to me like it'd be best if the team looked into moving on instead of re-signing Ortiz, and possibly looking to trade Youkilis (since Ellsbury is more valuable and younger).  Might be worth considering getting maximum value for Beckett and / or Lester too (Lackey, of course, is untradeable).

I guess it all makes sense . . . when your roster is that good and you disappoint to the degree that the Red Sox did, it's clear there's a lot more going on than just stuff on the field.


Definitely need to get a manager in there who won't tolerate bad attitudes and lax behavior from players.  We could also use a general manager who will be more careful about personnel decisions, perhaps taking more time to consider intangibles (like leadership capabilities re: Gonzalez, ability to deal with adversity re: Lackey, and ability to thrive in big market re: Bedard and Crawford).


The lack of leadership from Ellsbury and Gonzalez is disappointing to me, since I really like both of those guys.  Hopefully Pedroia can be more of a leader going forward, as it seems like he has the right attitude at all times.  Hopefully he doesn't check out now that Tito is gone.

[Fafnir]

Smear job to assign blame after the fact. Given that the GM/Manager are on the way out I wonder if they or ownership contributed to the "sources" of the story. Given how Fancona is treated in the story I think its safe to say it wasn't him, that leaves theo or ownership/management of Red Sox.

Best part of the hack story was pointed out on Deadspin, there is a line bemoaning the turnover form the 2004 Red Sox team. Does the author really think that after 7 years many of those players should be around? The reason most of those guys are gone is that they're largely now older and much worse players.

One of the reasons the Philly's have a crappy offense is that they have largely the same offensive lineup they had four years ago, and their defense has also dived in the time sense...

[Donoghus]

Smear job to assign blame after the fact. Given that the GM/Manager are on the way out I wonder if they or ownership contributed to the "sources" of the story. Given how Fancona is treated in the story I think its safe to say it wasn't him, that leaves theo or ownership/management of Red Sox.

Can't wait to see what Shaughnessy writes once Theo is officially gone.  He already did it once back in '06 and that led to the "Theo the Gorilla Gate".

Its not going to get any better any time soon.

[StartOrien]

I don't know what's more upsetting:

Some of the information in the article or how obvious it is that ownership leaked about 99% of this information.

[Fafnir]

I don't know what's more upsetting:

Some of the information in the article or how obvious it is that ownership leaked about 99% of this information.

I think its 100% that ownership leaked all of this crap.

Professional athletes are a fairly narcissistic group of people, do you really think that the 2004 Red Sox didn't have a ton of similar things? Or given the immense overlap in players the 2007 Red Sox?

When ownership is burning the "face" (manager/GM because the players are harder to get rid of and more expensive) of the team that can be easily turned over its not a good sign for the future.

[nickagneta]

I don't know what's more upsetting:

Some of the information in the article or how obvious it is that ownership leaked about 99% of this information.

Yeah I love the part about people wanting to remain anonymous for fear of losing their jobs. Didn't know Larry Lucchino's job was in that much jeopardy.

All that said, yes, it is a smear job, but, this probably had to get out to justify some of the upcoming moves to the people who buy tickets. There's some seriously bad stuff that went on and everyone suspected it. This just confirms it, whether the ownership set the story in place or not.

[Chris]

I don't think ownership leaked this per se.  I think all of this stuff is common knowledge among the writers, and stuff they have had in their back pockets forever.  I just think ownership finally gave the green light to print it, without the fear of losing access.

I also think a lot of that stuff came from players, who were not happy with how things went down (Youkilis comes to mind), but again, a lid was kept on it until ownership decided it could benefit them if it was printed.

[Fafnir]

I don't think ownership leaked this per se.  I think all of this stuff is common knowledge among the writers, and stuff they have had in their back pockets forever.  I just think ownership finally gave the green light to print it, without the fear of losing access.

I also think a lot of that stuff came from players, who were not happy with how things went down (Youkilis comes to mind), but again, a lid was kept on it until ownership decided it could benefit them if it was printed.

If they have the media so captive that they can redlight or greenlight it then the distinction between leaking it directly and "allowing" them to run it isn't meaningful in my mind.

Either way the information is out there because they wanted it to be out there.

[nickagneta]

I don't think ownership leaked this per se.  I think all of this stuff is common knowledge among the writers, and stuff they have had in their back pockets forever.  I just think ownership finally gave the green light to print it, without the fear of losing access.

I also think a lot of that stuff came from players, who were not happy with how things went down (Youkilis comes to mind), but again, a lid was kept on it until ownership decided it could benefit them if it was printed.

If they have the media so captive that they can redlight or greenlight it then the distinction between leaking it directly and "allowing" them to run it isn't meaningful in my mind.

Either way the information is out there because they wanted it to be out there.

I'm just kind of surprised it wasn't Shaughnessy that wrote the article.

[Donoghus]

I don't think ownership leaked this per se.  I think all of this stuff is common knowledge among the writers, and stuff they have had in their back pockets forever.  I just think ownership finally gave the green light to print it, without the fear of losing access.

I also think a lot of that stuff came from players, who were not happy with how things went down (Youkilis comes to mind), but again, a lid was kept on it until ownership decided it could benefit them if it was printed.

If they have the media so captive that they can redlight or greenlight it then the distinction between leaking it directly and "allowing" them to run it isn't meaningful in my mind.

Either way the information is out there because they wanted it to be out there.

I'm just kind of surprised it wasn't Shaughnessy that wrote the article.

Just wait a day or two.  Shanks will chime in on the issue.

[Chris]

I don't think ownership leaked this per se.  I think all of this stuff is common knowledge among the writers, and stuff they have had in their back pockets forever.  I just think ownership finally gave the green light to print it, without the fear of losing access.

I also think a lot of that stuff came from players, who were not happy with how things went down (Youkilis comes to mind), but again, a lid was kept on it until ownership decided it could benefit them if it was printed.

If they have the media so captive that they can redlight or greenlight it then the distinction between leaking it directly and "allowing" them to run it isn't meaningful in my mind.

Either way the information is out there because they wanted it to be out there.

I'm just kind of surprised it wasn't Shaughnessy that wrote the article.

Shank doesn't have that kind of access anymore.  The fact that it was Cafardo makes it even more obvious that management played a role in this.

[StartOrien]

I don't know what's more upsetting:

Some of the information in the article or how obvious it is that ownership leaked about 99% of this information.

Yeah I love the part about people wanting to remain anonymous for fear of losing their jobs. Didn't know Larry Lucchino's job was in that much jeopardy.

All that said, yes, it is a smear job, but, this probably had to get out to justify some of the upcoming moves to the people who buy tickets. There's some seriously bad stuff that went on and everyone suspected it. This just confirms it, whether the ownership set the story in place or not.

I loved the part where they mentioned that ownership bought them all 300 dollar headphones and a night on John Henry's yacht.

If it wasn't obvious enough...

Surely, this'll make us look like an attractive team to play for. When things are good, great! If they're bad we'll leak pretty much everything and anything to the media.

[StartOrien]

I wonder how nervous ownership is. I have a feeling this town is really ready to turn on them.

[Redz]

A glaring case study on how much of a factor "team chemistry" truly is.