Sleuth out who Bill James is talking about - 2011 Sox

mauf · Jan 19, 2022

James strikes me as the sort of guy who would anticipate the kind of speculation that’s happening here and would choose his words carefully, such that any conclusions we draw about individuals are more likely to reflect our projections than his intent.

It’s interesting to have a report from someone adjacent to the 2011 team saying that the culture problems may have been even worse than previously reported, but it’s just one data point. It would be more interesting if we knew who the first-hand source was.

djbayko · Jan 19, 2022

Minneapolis Millers said:
This can’t be quite what he said, because in the initial passage he calls Tek, Wake, Pedey and Papi leaders and “super guys.” Really, he seems to be saying that choosing players who fit in the clubhouse as much as on the field is important, because too many bad apples spoil the pie (or something like that).

Related question for historians/old timers: Which was worse, the 2011 team or the 25 players/25 cabs squads?

Or maybe that's exactly what he said in the Podcast and people here are misapplying that quote to this description of the 2011 team.

TFisNEXT · Jan 19, 2022

curly2 said:
This got me to call up the 2011 team on BB Ref. There was a guy named Drew Sutton who played 31 games and had 60 plate appearances. I have no recollection of him at all. At lot of times I look at a team page and see an unfamiliar name and go, "Oh yeah, that guy," even if they just got in two or three games. Not Drew Sutton, even though in his 60 PAs he put up .315/.362/.444.

I have zero recollection of this guy either (except maybe a very vague recollection of the name) and I probably watched 150 games of the 2011 season. I guess I tried to erase that season from my memory.

2011 was a weird season in that the team started off April absolutely horribly. They were something like 2-10 after 12 games? Then surprisingly (considering the makeup of this team), they were easily the best team in baseball the next 4 months. I went to a game at Fenway against the MFY in late August that they won. It was Beckett vs Phil Hughes. I think it put them 31 or 32 games over .500 and into first place in the AL East. Their collapse started shortly after that game.

nighthob · Jan 19, 2022

Frisbetarian said:
To the best of my knowledge, this is 100% correct. There is very little chance Bill James ever was in the Red Sox locker room before or after a game, and less chance he witnessed any of this.

I mean I can tell you firsthand what it was like to work for IBM at its bureaucratic worst even though I never set foot in any of its offices. You don't need to be physically present to experience all the horror (I was a subcontractor working remotely for them). It's not like Bill James never spent any time talking to all the front office people who had to deal with the bullshit on a daily basis.

Average Reds · Jan 19, 2022

mauf said:
James strikes me as the sort of guy who would anticipate the kind of speculation that’s happening here and would choose his words carefully, such that any conclusions we draw about individuals are more likely to reflect our projections than his intent.

It’s interesting to have a report from someone adjacent to the 2011 team saying that the culture problems may have been even worse than previously reported, but it’s just one data point. It would be more interesting if we knew who the first-hand source was.

I’m predisposed to agree with this, but when I notice glaring factual errors (conflating 2005 with 2011 with the “gorilla suit” story) it makes me wonder just how careful he is with the details. (Though I have no doubt that he’s on the mark about the culture.)

Sandy Leon Trotsky · Jan 19, 2022

John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
It's interesting that James singles out Varitek, Wakefield, Pedroia and Ortiz as "the good guys" on the team; but neglects Youkilis and Lester, who we've all thought were "good guys". I wonder if that was done consciously?

And while Crawford is probably the one who was "in it for himself", it wouldn't surprise me if Lackey wore those horns too. JD Drew could appear that way too. The more I think about it, the more lonely that outfield was. Crawford never seemed to fit in or look happy, Ellsbury seemed to be plotting his escape and next big contract, Drew seemed like a baseball robot. Obviously, this is all psycho analysis from the cheap seats--and why I used the word "seemed".

I loved Youkilis but I recall there were quite a few whispers that he was a bit uneven temperamentally and could have tantrums. Part of it was competitiveness but that can really be a shitty personality if it shifts into blaming others.
Lester.... again... loved the guy but I didn't care for his closeness with Beckett and Lackey around that time. I think they smartly removed Beckett from the mix and shit settled down

Sam Ray Not · Jan 19, 2022

Mooch said:
?

I think James is referring to the 2011 team, right?

I'd bet that Crawford is the nuts one. "In it for himself" would probably be either Beckett or Gonzalez.

Whoops. Clay Buchholz / I am an idiot.

Seemed to fit the ‘04 team so well…

Yelling At Clouds · Jan 19, 2022

I would think the “in for himself” guy would be someone nearing FA and not someone who’d just signed a big deal recently. So maybe it was Papelbon and somebody else was “just nuts?”

snowmanny · Jan 19, 2022

Old Fart Tree said:
That whole arc was pretty amazing from a narrative perspective. 2011 is an impossibly horrible collapse, up to the last day where they had a lead and the Rays were losing and both flipped... Then 2012 is the Bobby V Chernobyl year, and 2013 is the marathon bombing and the WS (with a team that frankly wasn't *that* good but literally every guy in the starting nine except for one as I recall had a career year).

That's a pretty wild rollercoaster of three seasons. Not sure I know of another team in baseball that has had those highs and lows (in the span of three years I mean). Maybe Brooklyn 1956-1959? Lose the WS after finally breaking through in 1955, devastate millions of fans by moving to LA, Campanella has his car accident, and then the 1959 WS win.

The 2011 collapse followed by the total 2012 implosion of the team culminating in the August sell off the stars/Punto trade to the big market GFIN Dodgers...immediately followed by winning the whole damn thing in 2013 is one of the most incredible reversal of fortunes you'll ever see. I feel it somehow gets lost in the mass of Boston sports success of the past 20 years. That 2013 team played damned good baseball down the stretch and in the playoffs.

Daniel_Son · Jan 19, 2022

uk_sox_fan said:
In 2014 Aceves was suspended from the RailRiders (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre - MFY's AAA affiliate) for recreational drug use and on his Wiki page it asserts that he chose his number 91 because of his admiration for Dennis Rodman. I lean more towards nuts but agree that Paps probably claimed that mantle so he's probably the criminal. I vote for Buchholz as insufficiently sensitive to race relations.

Given that the suspension was for weed, wouldn't pegging Aceves as the smoker and the laptop thief as the criminal make more sense?

My picks:
Smoker - Aceves
Criminal - Buch
Selfish - Crawford
Nuts - Youk
Racist - Beats me... I could see Pap being a guy who talks too much about something he doesn't understand. But a lot of the players are from small towns in the deep south... Reddick, Drew, Varitek (doubtful), Nate Spears...

scott bankheadcase · Jan 19, 2022

RG33 said:
My votes:

In it for himself: Adrian Gonzalez
Nuts: Alfredo Aceves
Racist: Bobby Jenks
Criminal: Hideki Okajima (I kid)

Didn't Jenks literally get arrested for DUI? Maybe he's the criminal.

TFisNEXT · Jan 19, 2022

Old Fart Tree said:
That whole arc was pretty amazing from a narrative perspective. 2011 is an impossibly horrible collapse, up to the last day where they had a lead and the Rays were losing and both flipped... Then 2012 is the Bobby V Chernobyl year, and 2013 is the marathon bombing and the WS (with a team that frankly wasn't *that* good but literally every guy in the starting nine except for one as I recall had a career year).

That's a pretty wild rollercoaster of three seasons. Not sure I know of another team in baseball that has had those highs and lows (in the span of three years I mean). Maybe Brooklyn 1956-1959? Lose the WS after finally breaking through in 1955, devastate millions of fans by moving to LA, Campanella has his car accident, and then the 1959 WS win.

The 2013 ironically had its two most iconic players as the ones who didn't have career years (Pedey and Papi). Papi made up for it in the playoffs of course with his epic run in crushing the Rays (2 dingers off David Price?), Grand Slam in game 2 ALCS, and then winning MVP of the World Series.

It was in stark contrast to the 2011 team where it was a VERY top-heavy lineup. The top 5 were as nasty as you could get with Ellsbury in his career year, Pedey, AGon, Ortiz, and Youk in his final great season. Scutaro was decent with the bat at SS...it's almost hard to remember he played for Boston. But then the bottom 3 were AWFUL....you had a cooked JD Drew, Carl Crawford, and then a combo of underperforming Salty and a cooked Tek at catcher. When a few of the top guys went cold, the team struggled, and they all seemed to go cold in September except Ellsbury. 2013 seemed to be the opposite....nobody MASHED out of their mind that year (well maybe Ortiz, but not a career year) but the lineup was really balanced with no weak spots with the lone exception of 3B, but they started spelling WMB with Brock Holt and later on Xander down the stretch.

Omar's Wacky Neighbor · Jan 19, 2022

When it was reported that some starting pitchers were drinking in the clubhouse during games, wasn't it Lester who stepped up to admit, yeah, we were drinking, but only on our off days?

And Lackey has to be included somewhere in this. I googled to confirm that he divorced his wife while she was undergoing cancer treatment.

BaseballJones · Jan 19, 2022

snowmanny said:
The 2011 collapse followed by the total 2012 implosion of the team culminating in the August sell off the stars/Punto trade to the big market GFIN Dodgers...immediately followed by winning the whole damn thing in 2013 is one of the most incredible reversal of fortunes you'll ever see. I feel it somehow gets lost in the mass of Boston sports success of the past 20 years. That 2013 team played damned good baseball down the stretch and in the playoffs.

Aside from the horrific marathon bombing, which obviously wasn't a baseball thing but was part of the 2013 team's storyline, how many Sox fans would take that three year cycle every year:

Year 1 - very good team that absolutely horrifically implodes the last month of the year to fall out of the playoffs on the last day in crushing fashion

Year 2 - just an epic disaster with a completely unlikable manager

Year 3 - a random bunch of additions and the team wins the World Series

Then repeat that cycle.

I'd take it, even though it would be INSANE.

wade boggs chicken dinner · Jan 19, 2022

Petagine in a Bottle said:
Erik Bedard could be among the described; wasn’t he pretty unpopular?

Erik Bedard hated the media and had a reputation of being very aloof (probably connected). For example, see this article from his time in SEA: https://www.seattlepi.com/sports/moore/article/Bedard-a-jerk-worth-keeping-1280127.php.

Not sure who he related to other players though.

SemperFidelisSox · Jan 19, 2022

Francona was also living in a hotel while going through a divorce, and Bob Hoehler then wrote about the painkiller dependency after the season.

Smiling Joe Hesketh · Jan 19, 2022

scott bankheadcase said:
Didn't Jenks literally get arrested for DUI? Maybe he's the criminal.

James says the “criminal” had a career year in 2011. That’s def not Jenks.

Daniel_Son · Jan 19, 2022

BaseballJones said:
Aside from the horrific marathon bombing, which obviously wasn't a baseball thing but was part of the 2013 team's storyline, how many Sox fans would take that three year cycle every year:

Year 1 - very good team that absolutely horrifically implodes the last month of the year to fall out of the playoffs on the last day in crushing fashion

Year 2 - just an epic disaster with a completely unlikable manager

Year 3 - a random bunch of additions and the team wins the World Series

Then repeat that cycle.

I'd take it, even though it would be INSANE.

I think for many fans, 2004 takes the cake for obvious reasons, but 2013 was my favorite championship team. So many improbably good seasons from random players, so many things went just right - I don't think we'll ever see a team quite like that again.

Omar's Wacky Neighbor · Jan 19, 2022

Red(s)HawksFan said:
Crawford was the first one that came to mind for me as the in it for himself guy. The biggest thing that jumps out was how he felt about his place in the batting order.

His whining and vilifying of Boston after he left didn't really help shake the self-centered vibe, either.

John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
And while Crawford is probably the one who was "in it for himself",

And wasn't it reported that he was tremendously offended when it came out that the Sox vetted him in part by having him tailed/shadowed by PIs for like a month before committing all that money to him?

nvalvo · Jan 19, 2022

This is fascinating even if we knew something like this must have been going on, and it really makes sense. That 2011 team was wildly talented to not make the playoffs: three starting pitchers with ERA+ above 124; five starting position players with OPS+ over 123; a really good bullpen, too. Both Ellsbury and Pedroia cracked 8 bWAR, and Gonzalez got pretty close to 7.

The team had a 116 OPS+ while getting basically nothing from either corner outfielder — Drew was 35 and on fumes, and Crawford was just terrible. It's pretty wild to take that much talent and end up with 90 wins, but that's what going 7-20 in September will do.

Omar's Wacky Neighbor said:
And wasn't it reported that he was tremendously offended when it came out that the Sox vetted him in part by having him tailed/shadowed by PIs for like a month before committing all that money to him?

Isn't that genuinely pretty creepy?

scott bankheadcase · Jan 19, 2022

Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
James says the “criminal” had a career year in 2011. That’s def not Jenks.

Yeah. I probably shouldn’t fight crime.

nvalvo · Jan 19, 2022

So many weird pitching subplots that season, each of which is magnified by how narrow the margin ended up being.

Felix Doubront was 23 and sucked out loud in the bullpen. If he could have pitched as well as he did in his age 22, 24, or 25 seasons, when he was basically replacement level as a starter, they would have made the playoffs. The next season they turned Andrew Miller into a reliever, and he broke out majorly. If they move Miller to the pen in 2011, they probably make the playoffs. You could tell similar stories about seven or eight pitchers on the roster, all of whom were good just prior to or just after that season, from Jenks and Okajima to Lackey and Wakefield. Buchholz melted down after 80ish excellent innings. Rich Hill took a 0.00 ERA and 1.53 FIP through 8 IP (9 G) and then got hurt. Matt Albers underperformed good peripherals.

Basically, you can see what the front office was going for. It should have been an incredibly deep pitching staff, but basically Beckett was great, Lester was good, Bard and Papelbon were incredible, and everyone else imploded in health, performance, or both.

John Marzano Olympic Hero · Jan 19, 2022

BaseballJones said:
I'd take it, even though it would be INSANE.

I definitely would not. That 2012 season had to be one of the worst non-pandemic baseball seasons that I've ever witnessed. There was a new debacle seemingly every day and coming off that terrible collapse the year before, it was like seven straight really shitty baseball months. Obviously I was happy with the way 2013 turned out (what a team) but during that season, I had a funny feeling in the back of my head thinking that the other shoe was going to drop and that they were either going to a. collapse or b. start playing to their level. They had a decent team, but I don't think that they--at any point in the season--were the hands down best team in the league.

That was a fun year.

Omar's Wacky Neighbor said:
And wasn't it reported that he was tremendously offended when it came out that the Sox vetted him in part by having him tailed/shadowed by PIs for like a month before committing all that money to him?

Jesus. I forgot about this. The Sox FO can really step in it sometimes.

IIRC the story was that Crawford was signed because the TV people wanted some "sizzle", no? I was under the impression that Theo and his crew wanted no part of him.

Mueller's Twin Grannies · Jan 19, 2022

Wasn't Crawford the one who did the Dunkin commercial where he, a Black man, looked at the camera and read a line that was like "I've always enjoyed stealing" and arching his eyebrows a couple times? How different times were in 2011, where race-baiting was played off for laughs.

Aceves is 100% the career year criminal. No one else really makes sense. The in it for himself guy is "Guys Gotta Eat" González, without fail. The racists... who was from the south on that team? Pick one and you're probably not going to be totally wrong. I'd say the northeast too, but they didn't have many people from this part of the country on the team unless they were part of the staff.

cornwalls@6 · Jan 19, 2022

Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
He lived in Brookline for 5(?) years. He talked about it in his True Crime book.

Complete digression, but I don't ever remember being more disappointed in a book I was really looking forward to, than I was with True Crime. Gawd, what rambling, incoherent mess that was. Could barely finish it. Anyway, my picks:

Weed - Buchholz,Miller
Criminal - Buchholz(guessing he's referencing the laptops).
In it for himself - Gonzalez
Nuts - Aceves
Racist - A few candidates here: Jenks, Beckett, Lackey.

BaseballJones · Jan 19, 2022

How in the world did Daniel Bard lose 9 games that year?

73.0 ip, 3.33 era, 0.96 whip, 9.1 k/9

He gave up runs in 15 of the 70 games in which he pitched. So in 9 of the 15 games he gave up a run, he got the loss. That seems amazing to me. Basically, he either mowed the other team down or he took the loss.

In his 9 losses, here was his pitching line: 7.0 ip, 17 h, 21 r, 19 er, 8 bb, 24.43 era, 3.57 whip
And in the other 61 games, his line was: 67.0 ip, 29 h, 8 r, 8 er, 16 bb, 1.07 era, 0.67 whip

Amazing. He also had a stretch of 25 straight appearances where he didn't allow a run and put up this line:

25 g, 26.1 ip, 11 h, 0 r, 0 er, 6 bb, 25 k, 0.00 era, 0.65 whip, 8.5 k/9

Soxy · Jan 19, 2022

Old Fart Tree said:
2013 is maybe second for me. I still don't think they had any business beating Detroit. They're down 5-1 in the 8th and 1-0 in the series about to go back to Detroit and someone decides to groove a fastball down main street to Ortiz with the bases juiced...

I'm totally picking nits here, but I'm about 99% certain it was actually a changeup. Tim McCarver said it was a fastball on the broadcast, which is probably why you remember it as a fastball. If my memory serves (always questionable), it was actually a changeup and McCarver was incorrect (shocking, I know).

absintheofmalaise · Jan 19, 2022

The "they are from the South racist" crap is getting very old. Yes there is racism in the South, but there is racism everywhere in this country.

Van Everyman · Jan 19, 2022

SemperFidelisSox said:
Francona was also living in a hotel while going through a divorce, and Bob Hoehler then wrote about the painkiller dependency after the season.

Sidebar: the thing that always blew me away about Francona getting canned after that season was that 2010 was arguably the best job he did managing the Sox. No, they didn't make the playoffs but that team avoided collapsing despite losing anybody and everyone to injury that year -- Pedroia, Ortiz, Ellsbury, Even Year Beckett, etc. Tito was hugely responsible for being able to get a team of Bill Hall's and Darnell McDonald's to nearly 90 wins.

Max Power · Jan 19, 2022

Soxy said:
I'm totally picking nits here, but I'm about 99% certain it was actually a changeup. Tim McCarver said it was a fastball on the broadcast, which is probably why you remember it as a fastball. If my memory serves (always questionable), it was actually a changeup and McCarver was incorrect (shocking, I know).

It was definitely a first pitch changeup. I remember an interview with Ortiz where he said he went up there looking for that for some reason. I can't seem to find it now. There was history that led to him jumping on the pitch.

YTF · Jan 19, 2022

Omar's Wacky Neighbor said:
And wasn't it reported that he was tremendously offended when it came out that the Sox vetted him in part by having him tailed/shadowed by PIs for like a month before committing all that money to him?

Not sure how much truth there may have been to it, but IIRC Crawford claimed they even went through his trash cans.

Niastri · Jan 19, 2022

Soxy said:
I'm totally picking nits here, but I'm about 99% certain it was actually a changeup. Tim McCarver said it was a fastball on the broadcast, which is probably why you remember it as a fastball. If my memory serves (always questionable), it was actually a changeup and McCarver was incorrect (shocking, I know).

Hanging slider that just sat and spun into the reddest of red zones for Big Papi.

Terrible pitch

Wallball Tingle · Jan 19, 2022

The 2013 team WAS incredibly lucky with last gasp great performances from aging vets and "Put it together for 1 year" magic...and they had the highest team BABIP of all time up to that point (record was broken later), so luck was definitely part/most of it.

At the same time, nobody had a better record than them (the Cardinals tied), and they had exactly two stretches of fairly shitty baseball, one in May, and one in August. That was a hell of a team, magic/luck or no.

Weed - Buchholz, Salty, Miller
Chicken and Beer - Beckett, Lackey, Lester
Criminal - Aceves
Nuts - Papelbon
For himself - Lackey? Crawford? Gonzalez?
Racist - I'd go for Papelbon or Jenks

Brand Name · Jan 19, 2022

nvalvo said:
This is fascinating even if we knew something like this must have been going on, and it really makes sense. That 2011 team was wildly talented to not make the playoffs: three starting pitchers with ERA+ above 124; five starting position players with OPS+ over 123; a really good bullpen, too. Both Ellsbury and Pedroia cracked 8 bWAR, and Gonzalez got pretty close to 7.

I take this as a much welcomed challenge, to see how many other teams not only meet such criteria but also failed to make the playoffs. For starters, they had to have started at least 10 each since Buchholz at 14 starts had the fewest of the three. Batters had to be qualified for the title. ERA+ was reduced to 123 because technically Clay’s was a roundup from 123.

Well, as it turns out, all the others made the playoffs: 2021 and 2019 Astros, 1935 Cubs, and 1927 Yankees. Each team had five such batters, but only the 1935 Cubs/1927 Yankees had four applicable pitchers: French/Lee/Root/Warneke* and Hoyt/Moore/Pennock/Shocker, respectively.

As far as bWAR goes to further limit our comparable teams, only the 1927 Yankees match/exceed it with three (or more) position players at 6.0+: Lazzeri 6.4, Combs 7.1, Gehrig 11.9, Ruth 12.6.

*Lon remains the only P with a triple in ASG history as well as scoring NL’s first ever run in the Midsummer Classic.

Manuel Aristides · Jan 19, 2022

deythur said:
From a purely "I've smoked pot for 25 years and think i can sense a smoker" perspective here would be my guesses:
Buch - always seemed spacey
Beckett -did a little partying, LA lifestyle
Miller - stoner vibes
Reddick - aloof, had that look
Salty - always thought this about him even before this

All about himself to me seems like Gonzalez but I could be way off. I just never liked him and he was gone quick. I never felt like he liked Boston.

I have similar authority and no objections to this list. That said, my additional candidate is J.D. Drew. Not the social smoker type but rather the "I'd rather stay at home than go out" type.

Petagine in a Bottle · Jan 19, 2022

For all about himself, what about the all out pursuit to get Tim Wakefield his 200th win?

Ultimately though, isn’t the creation of these narratives kind of silly? This team wins one more game and we wouldn’t be talking about any of the stuff…they weren’t destined to collapse down the stretch, they just did.

Red(s)HawksFan · Jan 19, 2022

John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
IIRC the story was that Crawford was signed because the TV people wanted some "sizzle", no? I was under the impression that Theo and his crew wanted no part of him.

I think sizzle was definitely part of it, but I recall Crawford being a Theo binky. I believe he was the one who sent the PIs and was doing his "due diligence" thing by taking it to an extreme degree, in the name of selling ownership that he'd be a good investment.

Crawford was absolutely a bad fit all the way around and I never understood the fascination. They already had a younger, arguably better version of him in Ellsbury (LHH speedster at the top of the order). He was limited to a single position where his best defensive asset (speed) was totally wasted during home games. Always felt his contract was a massive overpay compared to what he might otherwise have gotten on the market.

CR67dream · Jan 19, 2022

Petagine in a Bottle said:
For all about himself, what about the all out pursuit to get Tim Wakefield his 200th win?

Doesn't jibe as James pointed to Wakefield as one of the leaders/good guys.

John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
IIRC the story was that Crawford was signed because the TV people wanted some "sizzle", no? I was under the impression that Theo and his crew wanted no part of him.

Wasn't that more the case with the Panda?

CoffeeNerdness · Jan 19, 2022

John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
IIRC the story was that Crawford was signed because the TV people wanted some "sizzle", no? I was under the impression that Theo and his crew wanted no part of him.

Peter Gammons spent years priming the pump for Crawford coming to Boston and, as I recall, there were stories put out after the signing all about how his game was going to play up in Fenway. I believe he was a Theo guy for sure.

Omar's Wacky Neighbor · Jan 19, 2022

YTF said:
Not sure how much truth there may have been to it, but IIRC Crawford claimed they even went through his trash cans.

That does sound vaguely familiar.

I forget what old TV show that dubbed it the science of garbalogy, practiced by garbalogists.

BornToRun · Jan 19, 2022

I’m gonna guess that the selfish one was Bedard. I feel like I remember him coming to Boston with that kind of reputation and I can see him weathering the collapse with “Screw you guys, I’m doing my bit and getting out of here.” Aceves being the criminal is almost too easy. And I agree that Carl Crawford can get bent.

chrisfont9 · Jan 19, 2022

YTF · Jan 19, 2022

CR67dream said:
Doesn't jibe as James pointed to Wakefield as one of the leaders/good guys.

Wasn't that more the case with the Panda?

You may be right with this. Once again, IIRC the word used wasn't sizzle, but sexy. They were looking to make a "sexy" signing and I think this was after the departure of Ellsbury which raised a few eyebrows. Some took this to mean that they were trying to appeal to "The Pink Hats", but I believe they claimed that they were talking about making a splash in the FA market after the 2014 71-91 follow up to the 2013 World Series Championship. That off season netted us Pablo and Hanley.

lexrageorge · Jan 19, 2022

BaseballJones said:
How in the world did Daniel Bard lose 9 games that year?

73.0 ip, 3.33 era, 0.96 whip, 9.1 k/9

He gave up runs in 15 of the 70 games in which he pitched. So in 9 of the 15 games he gave up a run, he got the loss. That seems amazing to me. Basically, he either mowed the other team down or he took the loss.

In his 9 losses, here was his pitching line: 7.0 ip, 17 h, 21 r, 19 er, 8 bb, 24.43 era, 3.57 whip
And in the other 61 games, his line was: 67.0 ip, 29 h, 8 r, 8 er, 16 bb, 1.07 era, 0.67 whip

Amazing. He also had a stretch of 25 straight appearances where he didn't allow a run and put up this line:

25 g, 26.1 ip, 11 h, 0 r, 0 er, 6 bb, 25 k, 0.00 era, 0.65 whip, 8.5 k/9

Bard's season fell apart in September:

0-4, 10.64 ERA, 11 IP, 14 runs, 13 earned runs, 11 K's, 9 BB's, 1.82 WHIP

He had some bad BABIP luck (0.344), but also started to show signs of the control problems that would soon derail his career.

Back to James' comments about the clubhouse: have to wonder how atypical it was. I'm sure the presence of pot smokers and drinkers and racists and cliques and self-absorbed players was hardly unique to the Red Sox clubhouse, that season or any season since. Was it markedly worse that season compared to others? Or did we just get to hear more things that went wrong because the season went to shit in September? And how does the collapse impact Bill James memory of that season?

Maybe chicken-and-beer was unique. But when Lester apologized, he did note that they did it a couple of times thinking they were having some fun, and really did not think it a big deal at the time. Maybe it was just him being a young 20-something male being oblivious, and I do wonder if other clubhouses periodically had players doing similar "mischief", especially starting pitchers who were definitely not going to pitch that day.

John Marzano Olympic Hero · Jan 19, 2022

CR67dream said:
Doesn't jibe as James pointed to Wakefield as one of the leaders/good guys.

Wasn't that more the case with the Panda?

I think you’re right.

For as much of a stiff as Sandoval was he gave us the at bat where he snapped his belt taking a swing. I had never seen that before.

He’s also proud owner of four World Series rings.

InsideTheParker · Jan 19, 2022

Omar's Wacky Neighbor said:
That does sound vaguely familiar.

I forget what old TV show that dubbed it the science of garbalogy, practiced by garbalogists.

Candid Camera?

nvalvo · Jan 19, 2022

Brand Name said:
I take this as a much welcomed challenge, to see how many other teams not only meet such criteria but also failed to make the playoffs. For starters, they had to have started at least 10 each since Buchholz at 14 starts had the fewest of the three. Batters had to be qualified for the title. ERA+ was reduced to 123 because technically Clay’s was a roundup from 123.

Well, as it turns out, all the others made the playoffs: 2021 and 2019 Astros, 1935 Cubs, and 1927 Yankees. Each team had five such batters, but only the 1935 Cubs/1927 Yankees had four applicable pitchers: French/Lee/Root/Warneke* and Hoyt/Moore/Pennock/Shocker, respectively.

As far as bWAR goes to further limit our comparable teams, only the 1927 Yankees match/exceed it with three (or more) position players at 6.0+: Lazzeri 6.4, Combs 7.1, Gehrig 11.9, Ruth 12.6.

*Lon remains the only P with a triple in ASG history as well as scoring NL’s first ever run in the Midsummer Classic.

This rules. Thanks for running that down.

Sleuth out who Bill James is talking about - 2011 Sox

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