Bobby Valentine 10 years later - NBC 10 Boston web documentary

[TDFenway]

NBC 10 Boson has released a web documentary looking back at the 2012 season. Of note, Valentine sat down with the station and tried to present his side.

In 2011, the Red Sox looked poised to win their third World Series in eight seasons. However, an epic collapse resulted in Boston missing the playoffs. Shortly after the season, it was revealed that pitchers were drinking beer and eating fried chicken in the clubhouse during games in September while the team was falling apart on the field. The "chicken and beer" scandal led to the departure of Manager Terry Francona and General Manager Theo Epstein – two men responsible for leading Boston to World Series championships in 2004 and 2007.

Enter Bobby Valentine. He was chosen as Boston’s manager in 2012 despite being out of MLB since 2002. It was a wildly unpopular move among the players, and the 2012 season was a disaster. Boston had their worst record in 47 years, but that doesn’t really tell the full story. Valentine was brought in to clean up the mess from the previous year, but instead butted heads with players and created more conflict than resolution.

Ten years after his memorable year as Red Sox manager, Bobby Valentine shares the stories, scandals and struggles from that season. From confrontations with players to poor communication with his coaching staff, Valentine takes you behind the scenes with what really happened in 2012. Players from the team and media who covered that season offer up their perspective as well. Come ride the rollercoaster known as the Bobby Valentine Experience!

Ways to watch: You can watch the full series on your Roku, Apple TV or Amazon Fire TV device: add NBC10 Boston your collection, open the channel and select "The Bobby V Experience." Or, scroll through the videos below.

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/the-bobby-valentine-experience/2659011/

It is a season we all try to forget coming on the heels of the 2011 collapse. Francona and Theo were gone and somehow Lucchino convinced Henry and Werner that Valentine was the answer. The red flags started in Fort Myers and it really went off the rails on the weekend of Fenway Park's 100th anniversary. Ownership was shaken when they saw the fan response to Francona on the day of the 100th.

Yet a year later Cherington reconstructed the team and they won it all.

It is worth watching.

 

[m0ckduck]

I guess I'd be interested to watch this for more evidence to determine if Valentine is merely a jerk, or rather an outright sociopath.

I remember Gammons reporting in 2001 how Valentine had beef with Cliff Floyd and so deliberately misled Floyd into thinking that he'd made the all-star team just to fuck with him. Personally called Floyd to congratulate him. (Valentine was the 2001 NL all-star manager since the Mets went to the WS the season before). Floyd had bought a bunch of tickets for friends and family before he found out that he wasn't on the roster. I remember the story didn't get much circulation, but there was a lot of stuff like this attached to Valentine even before the Sox misguidedly hired him.

It's also sobering to remember the lows that this franchise has sunk to at times over the last few decades (2001 and 2012 in particular). It's hard to think of a franchise in any sport that's had more radical ups and downs outside of the NBA (where single player movement has such an outsized impact that teams regularly hit the penthouse and the outhouse in rapid succession)

 

[Hendu for Kutch]

The red flags didn't start in Spring Training, the red flags started on Sunday Night baseball the previous seasons. He'd routinely say incredibly stupid things as a color commentator. I remember thinking the morbid silver lining to the Sox hiring him was that at least Sunday Night Baseball would be tolerable again. That decision had catastrophe written all over it, but the Nick Cafardos of the world somehow managed to sell it to the ownership group.

 

[cannonball 1729]

The red flags didn't start in Spring Training, the red flags started on Sunday Night baseball the previous seasons. He'd routinely say incredibly stupid things as a color commentator. I remember thinking the morbid silver lining to the Sox hiring him was that at least Sunday Night Baseball would be tolerable again. That decision had catastrophe written all over it, but the Nick Cafardos of the world somehow managed to sell it to the ownership group.

He interviewed informally for the post-Grady Little job in 2003 and took himself out of the running by announcing confidently to Luccino that he would have left Pedro in against the Yankees just like Grady did. Not sure what made the Sox think he got smarter over the next ten years.

 

[Van Everyman]

The documentary literally nobody was asking for!

(other than maybe Bobby the Fifth)

What a crazy concept for a documentary, I think I might actually prefer a fictionalized Adam McKay version of this called "Losing Time" ...

 

[m0ckduck]

What a crazy concept for a documentary, I think I might actually prefer a fictionalized Adam McKay version of this called "Losing Time" ...

What about Tony Sirico as Bobby V?

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

I can't for the life of me imagine why anyone would think Valentine's horrible year here was interesting enough to revisit at any point in time.

From the moment he was hired the whole world knew he would be a terrible manager, and boy did he live up to those expectations. He was all about himself, he was a malignant narcissist and an unrepentant jackass who picked fights with two extremely popular veterans (Aviles and Youkilis) for absolutely no reason at all except to throw his weight around.

Bobby Valentine is, to put it bluntly, a raging fucking asshole, and his name and visage should never be mentioned by anyone in this area again.

 

[chrisfont9]

I heard him talk about that year recently on a podcast where he talked about the players being too comfortable in their ways and resistant to new ideas etc etc. Not that I think he's an honest broker in a discussion like that, but it's possible that him being manager for a year did shake them up sufficiently for the team to do a real cultural restart for 2013. Sort of like a good cop/bad cop routine played out over consecutive seasons.

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

I heard him talk about that year recently on a podcast where he talked about the players being too comfortable in their ways and resistant to new ideas etc etc. Not that I think he's an honest broker in a discussion like that, but it's possible that him being manager for a year did shake them up sufficiently for the team to do a real cultural restart for 2013. Sort of like a good cop/bad cop routine played out over consecutive seasons.

He's full of shit. One thing that's been consistent over the years is that Bobby Valentine has never made a mistake in his life, just ask him.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

I heard him talk about that year recently on a podcast where he talked about the players being too comfortable in their ways and resistant to new ideas etc etc. Not that I think he's an honest broker in a discussion like that, but it's possible that him being manager for a year did shake them up sufficiently for the team to do a real cultural restart for 2013. Sort of like a good cop/bad cop routine played out over consecutive seasons.

I suspect the Punto trade did the job of allowing for the cultural restart in 2013, by freeing up the money and roster spots to bring in fresh blood. I guess that wouldn't have been possible if the team hadn't nosedived under Valentine's guidance, so sure, give him credit I guess. No, wait, don't. I can buy into the idea that a new manager and some new ways of doing things could shake things up for a complacent roster. No reason it couldn't have been accomplished with a competent and reasonable manager rather than a narcissistic asshole going out of his way to alienate important and popular players. Fuck Bobby V.

 

[TFisNEXT]

I suspect the Punto trade did the job of allowing for the cultural restart in 2013, by freeing up the money and roster spots to bring in fresh blood. I guess that wouldn't have been possible if the team hadn't nosedived under Valentine's guidance, so sure, give him credit I guess. No, wait, don't. I can buy into the idea that a new manager and some new ways of doing things could shake things up for a complacent roster. No reason it couldn't have been accomplished with a competent and reasonable manager rather than a narcissistic asshole going out of his way to alienate important and popular players. Fuck Bobby V.

This is how I view the Bobby V fiasco in light of the 2013 championship season. His job piloting the plane into a tailspin allowed them to make that epic trade which helped the reset in the offseason between 2012 and 2013. If he had been a little more competent and the team was 5 or 6 games better in late July, things would have surely worked out differently and probably not for the better. So in that sense, maybe Bobby V was a "Good thing" to happen. But that obviously wasn't the intention of the hire....they got lucky with how it worked out.

 

[chrisfont9]

I suspect the Punto trade did the job of allowing for the cultural restart in 2013, by freeing up the money and roster spots to bring in fresh blood. I guess that wouldn't have been possible if the team hadn't nosedived under Valentine's guidance, so sure, give him credit I guess. No, wait, don't. I can buy into the idea that a new manager and some new ways of doing things could shake things up for a complacent roster. No reason it couldn't have been accomplished with a competent and reasonable manager rather than a narcissistic asshole going out of his way to alienate important and popular players. Fuck Bobby V.

Heh yeah, we can give him credit in the most backhanded way possible. But that's about it.

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

Jon Lester:

2011: 15-9, 3.47
2012: 9-14, 4.82
2013: 15-8, 3.75

Real hard to figure out which one was the Valetine year, eh? He was so much about himself that the veterans checked out hard. Maybe you can say that's on them, but a manager's first directive is to do no harm. Valentine alienated these guys immediately.

Valentine sucked. He's always sucked, he always will suck. He was the worst personality in the manager's seat since Pinky Higgins and it would be best for all if he spontaneously combusted, preferable somewhere we can't see him.

 

[jmcc5400]

Jon Lester:

2011: 15-9, 3.47
2012: 9-14, 4.82
2013: 15-8, 3.75

Real hard to figure out which one was the Valetine year, eh? He was so much about himself that the veterans checked out hard. Maybe you can say that's on them, but a manager's first directive is to do no harm. Valentine alienated these guys immediately.

Valentine sucked. He's always sucked, he always will suck. He was the worst personality in the manager's seat since Pinky Higgins and it would be best for all if he spontaneously combusted, preferable somewhere we can't see him.

There are times, SJH, where I think you are a little too negative. Here, however, I am disappointed at how gently you are treating Bobby V.

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

There are times, SJH, where I think you are a little too negative. Here, however, I am disappointed at how gently you are treating Bobby V.

You should have been reading me back in 2012. I called this shit the second he was hired. I'm not quite raged out on him but this is old and familiar ground.

 

[jmcc5400]

You should have been reading me back in 2012. I called this shit the second he was hired. I'm not quite raged out on him but this is old and familiar ground.

I'm sure I was and on that point, at least, we were completely aligned. It was one of those moves that, from the start, you recognize as a disaster and are just waiting for it to be over.

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

I can't for the life of me imagine why anyone would think Valentine's horrible year here was interesting enough to revisit at any point in time.

From the moment he was hired the whole world knew he would be a terrible manager, and boy did he live up to those expectations. He was all about himself, he was a malignant narcissist and an unrepentant jackass who picked fights with two extremely popular veterans (Aviles and Youkilis) for absolutely no reason at all except to throw his weight around.

Bobby Valentine is, to put it bluntly, a raging fucking asshole, and his name and visage should never be mentioned by anyone in this area again.

I think that this documentary might be interesting in the way it's interesting to read/see pieces on huge disasters.

And getting Bobby Valentine on record is like getting Katrina's side of the story. "It wasn't my fault! I'm a hurricane, I was just trying to peacefully pass over New Orleans looking for more water."

 

[TapeAndPosts]

Since the Henry group came along it has been nice to feel like the team is pretty well run with most decisions more or less understandable from some point of view, even if they don't work out. But every now and then they've made the sort of inexplicable horrible move you expect from a terribly run team, one that is just obviously awful from the moment it happens. Panda was one of them but hiring Bobby V was the daddy of them all. He had a reputation for being "smart" with the Mets, which must have come from his own mouth because he wasn't; this is the man who made Kenny Rogers issue two intentional walks to load the bases when a run would end their season, and then seemed genuinely surprised when an unintentional walk followed. 2012 was the only time in twenty years I felt like the team was a joke (yes, including 2020). I refuse to give him any credit for 2013, and if I have to look for a silver lining, the best I can do is, I hope John Henry learned to say no to stupid ideas like that one.

 

[Van Everyman]

I was going to say that maybe Bobby V also helped us get rid of Lucky (who I liked more than most), but I think it was the Panda and Hanley signings in 2014 that precipitated that.

Man, reading up on that, Panda only had 6 total ABs in 2016? And one of them was the belt breaking?!?

 

[Petagine in a Bottle]

I think the idea was that Valentine had gotten a lot out of his Mets teams, had learned a lot from his time in Japan (the Zen of Bobby!) and would know that this was his last shot in the bigs and would manage accordingly. After the players manager, Tito, you can kind of see the logic if you squint really hard. Granted, it was clear early on that it was an absolute failure and that Bobby hadn’t changed at all. They should have canned him early on, but the maybe we don’t get the Punto deal and what followed in ‘13.

Regardless, seems like a year best left forgotten for all involved. Not sure why anyone would want to relive this and it seems pretty obvious that Valentine will never accept any blame for what happened, so what’s the point?

 

[JBJ_HOF]

I just watched it. It's Bobby, Holley, Tomase, Middlebrooks, Salty, and Ross talking about the events. It was a first rate clown show by Bobby for sure, but the players, coaches, and front office were pretty much pieces of shit as well that year. I thought it was worth watching,

 

[jacklamabe65]

Caroline Simmons, the new mayor of Stamford, was one of my former students. I jumped for joy when she beat him last November.

 

[TDFenway]

 

[ngruz25]

The 2012 season was a disaster from the jump. That April was so bad that it's hard to believe it was just one month. It started with a 3-game sweep at the hands of the Tigers, with two of those games being spectacular blown saves by newly acquired closer Mark Melancon. Melancon lost his job to Alfredo Aceves, who wasn't much better. He blew a game against the Yankees in which gave up 5 runs on 4 walks and recorded 0 outs.

April was also the start of the Daniel Bard the Starter experiment. His start against the Rays on the 16th was the most memorable. Bobby V let a wild, gassed Bard walk the park and walk in the only run of the game in the 7th inning. Bard took the crushing 1-0 loss. Final line: 6.2 IP, 4 hits, 1 ER, 7 BB, 7 SO, 111 pitches.

April also saw Jacoby Ellsbury's season derailed by a collision at 2nd base. This meant the Sox swapped an MVP candidate's at bats for Ryan Sweeney and Jason Repko. This was capped off by a forced hand trade of a reliable bullpen arm (Michael Bowden) for an aging Marlon Byrd.

Pretty fun month.

 

[TDFenway]

The 2012 season was a disaster from the jump. That April was so bad that it's hard to believe it was just one month. It started with a 3-game sweep at the hands of the Tigers, with two of those games being spectacular blown saves by newly acquired closer Mark Melancon. Melancon lost his job to Alfredo Aceves, who wasn't much better. He blew a game against the Yankees in which gave up 5 runs on 4 walks and recorded 0 outs.

April was also the start of the Daniel Bard the Starter experiment. His start against the Rays on the 16th was the most memorable. Bobby V let a wild, gassed Bard walk the park and walk in the only run of the game in the 7th inning. Bard took the crushing 1-0 loss. Final line: 6.2 IP, 4 hits, 1 ER, 7 BB, 7 SO, 111 pitches.

April also saw Jacoby Ellsbury's season derailed by a collision at 2nd base. This meant the Sox swapped an MVP candidate's at bats for Ryan Sweeney and Jason Repko. This was capped off by a forced hand trade of a reliable bullpen arm (Michael Bowden) for an aging Marlon Byrd.

Pretty fun month.

Then in May longtime Fenway PA announcer Carl Beane was killed in a car crash

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYY14bREHt0


There was a black cloud over that team.

 

[Petagine in a Bottle]

That Aceves game against the Yankees was a disaster. IIRC, the Sox were up like 9-0 and then ended up losing by a ton.

That being said, they made a little run at one point and were a few games above .500 after ~100 games before the floodgates opened, IIRC.

 

[TDFenway]

Only one good memory from 2012

 

[Archer1979]

Anyone who followed the Sox knew that Bobby V. was going to be a train-wreck. We're not talking self-fulfilling prophecy here either.

He was always a BS artist. Got better/worse at it as he convinced himself that he was the smartest man in baseball. Putting him in front of the Sox-fanbase with that level of arrogance, you might as well mixed Mentos with Diet Coke.

I think it was mid-April that I was hoping that the Mayan calendar thing wasn't just a myth.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

The 2012 season was a disaster from the jump. That April was so bad that it's hard to believe it was just one month. It started with a 3-game sweep at the hands of the Tigers, with two of those games being spectacular blown saves by newly acquired closer Mark Melancon. Melancon lost his job to Alfredo Aceves, who wasn't much better. He blew a game against the Yankees in which gave up 5 runs on 4 walks and recorded 0 outs.

April was also the start of the Daniel Bard the Starter experiment. His start against the Rays on the 16th was the most memorable. Bobby V let a wild, gassed Bard walk the park and walk in the only run of the game in the 7th inning. Bard took the crushing 1-0 loss. Final line: 6.2 IP, 4 hits, 1 ER, 7 BB, 7 SO, 111 pitches.

April also saw Jacoby Ellsbury's season derailed by a collision at 2nd base. This meant the Sox swapped an MVP candidate's at bats for Ryan Sweeney and Jason Repko. This was capped off by a forced hand trade of a reliable bullpen arm (Michael Bowden) for an aging Marlon Byrd.

Pretty fun month.

Is the last thing sarcasm? Bowden was hardly reliable and was out of the big leagues a year later. In fact, he was part of that Byrd trade after the team had designated him for assignment, so getting anything for him was a bonus. If anything, the only complaint about trading him is they didn't do it four years earlier when he was a highly touted prospect and might have gotten something good in return.

 

[lexrageorge]

And, fwiw, the Daniel Bard as starter was something that Bard had essentially demanded from the front office. Given the fact that he had been a lights out reliever with command of multiple pitches, aside from some bad outings in September 2011, the experiment made sense. What literally nobody could have known at the time is that Bard was struggling with a poorly understood and still debated condition (TOS) that had apparently reared its head in that September collapse.

Now, there could not have been a worse manager/pitching coach combination to deal with that transition than Bobby Valentine and Bob McClure. Whether Valentine's (and McClure's) mishandling of the starter experiment exacerbated Bard's condition is unknowable, but the results were predictably ugly.

 

[hoothehoo]

Then in May longtime Fenway PA announcer Carl Beane was killed in a car crash

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYY14bREHt0


There was a black cloud over that team.

Plus Johnny Pesky died that fall.

 

[Petagine in a Bottle]

Wasn’t Valentine not allowed to hire many of his own coaches, too? And there were coaches openly hostile to him. Probably for good reason, of course. Terrible hire but not really set up to succeed either. Cherington was really treated pretty poorly by Lucchino and company, wasn’t he?

 

[simplicio]

This seems like a good place to note that for only $60, Bobby V will record personalized messages for your friends, loved ones and/or enemies.

https://www.cameo.com/bobbyv?qid=1649104200

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

I believe that Bobby V. took credit for throwing Andrew Miller in the bullpen, no?

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

2012 was also the 19 inning game against Baltimore, when Baltimore brought in Chris Davis to pitch, essentially punting the game, and Valentine countered by bringing in Darnell McDonald to pitch, essentially refusing to accept the gift. The Sox lost. I've never been so disgusted in my life.

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

That Aceves game against the Yankees was a disaster. IIRC, the Sox were up like 9-0 and then ended up losing by a ton.

That being said, they made a little run at one point and were a few games above .500 after ~100 games before the floodgates opened, IIRC.

At one point they were 43-37, something like that. I remain convinced that had the Sox fired Valentine at that point, they would have rebounded and had a decent season. He drove them straight into the ground from there.

 

[ngruz25]

Is the last thing sarcasm? Bowden was hardly reliable and was out of the big leagues a year later. In fact, he was part of that Byrd trade after the team had designated him for assignment, so getting anything for him was a bonus. If anything, the only complaint about trading him is they didn't do it four years earlier when he was a highly touted prospect and might have gotten something good in return.

I didn't really mean to express any opinion as to Michael Bowden, but rather to point out that the team lost one its star players a couple weeks into the season. That the Sox traded a pitcher that made the Opening Day roster didn't help. I don't remember him being DFA'd but I guess it wouldn't surprise me. The bullpen at that point was a revolving door of mediocrity (the aforementioned Melancon and Aceves, Vicente Padilla, Franklin Morales, Justin Thomas).

 

[Seels]

I'm no longer the fan I was back in the 2000s. If I had to pick the start of the decline of my love for this team, it's that time frame of replacing Theo and Tito with Ben Cherington and Bobby Valentine. It just smacked of not being a serious team, and a stark contrast to the previous ten years. You can't convince me a team that hires a 62 year old retread is looking to seriously compete in the short term future.

 

[Van Everyman]

I'm no longer the fan I was back in the 2000s. If I had to pick the start of the decline of my love for this team, it's that time frame of replacing Theo and Tito with Ben Cherington and Bobby Valentine. It just smacked of not being a serious team, and a stark contrast to the previous ten years. You can't convince me a team that hires a 62 year old retread is looking to seriously compete in the short term future.

They’re won 2 titles, been to 3 ALCS and won the AL East 4 times since then.

I understand why Henry’s boom or bust/hedge fund style of leadership rubs some fans the wrong way. He cuts his losses quickly, replaces his leadership team frequently and sometimes (tho not always) drives a hard bargain with players.

In retrospect, Valentine was a culture reset and a mistake they moved on from quickly. My sense is that once they knew he was the wrong fit they traded away the bulk of tradable value and left him there to finish things out, rather than depreciating another asset.

Why this needs a documentary is beyond me.

 

[Rovin Romine]

I didn't really mean to express any opinion as to Michael Bowden, but rather to point out that the team lost one its star players a couple weeks into the season. That the Sox traded a pitcher that made the Opening Day roster didn't help. I don't remember him being DFA'd but I guess it wouldn't surprise me. The bullpen at that point was a revolving door of mediocrity (the aforementioned Melancon and Aceves, Vicente Padilla, Franklin Morales, Justin Thomas).

You should check out Melancon's before-Valentine and after-Valentine numbers.

I suspect the Punto trade did the job of allowing for the cultural restart in 2013, by freeing up the money and roster spots to bring in fresh blood. I guess that wouldn't have been possible if the team hadn't nosedived under Valentine's guidance, so sure, give him credit I guess. No, wait, don't. I can buy into the idea that a new manager and some new ways of doing things could shake things up for a complacent roster. No reason it couldn't have been accomplished with a competent and reasonable manager rather than a narcissistic asshole going out of his way to alienate important and popular players. Fuck Bobby V.

It's interesting to look at the macro and micro.
On April 30, the team was 11-11. (Trade: April 21 - Bowden for Byrd)
May: 15-14 to finish 26-25.
June: 15-12 to finish 41-37. (6.5 games back.) (June 24, Youk for Lilibridge and Zach Stewart),
July: 12-14 to finish 53-51 (7.5 back). (July 31 - Lars Anderson for Stephen Wright, and Albers/Posednik for Craig Breslow)

As of that point, from a numbers/moves perspective, it looks moderately competitive. Breslow was plugged into the team, but Wright wasn't quite ready. Though the Sox had gone up and down in the standings, they finished July with a 4 game win streak. They'd never again be closer than 7.5 back though.

The Punto Trade was on August 25th.
The Sox were 60-67 at the time, 13.5 games out.

The August games till the 23rd, since I assume the decision to purge Punto wasn't made the day of the trade.
Detroit 0-1
Min: 1-3
Tex: 1-2
Cle: 2-2
Bal: 1-2
NY: 1-2
LA: 0-3

Scrolling through those game logs is interesting. There are some players having not great seasons to date (Ellsbury, Gonzalez) and others who were surprisingly effective at the time (Crawford, Cody Ross, Buchholz). The box scores show plenty of players with high OPS and low ERA numbers. And some truly bizarre lineups.

 

[lexrageorge]

You should check out Melancon's before-Valentine and after-Valentine numbers.



It's interesting to look at the macro and micro.
On April 30, the team was 11-11. (Trade: April 21 - Bowden for Byrd)
May: 15-14 to finish 26-25.
June: 15-12 to finish 41-37. (6.5 games back.) (June 24, Youk for Lilibridge and Zach Stewart),
July: 12-14 to finish 53-51 (7.5 back). (July 31 - Lars Anderson for Stephen Wright, and Albers/Posednik for Craig Breslow)

As of that point, from a numbers/moves perspective, it looks moderately competitive. Breslow was plugged into the team, but Wright wasn't quite ready. Though the Sox had gone up and down in the standings, they finished July with a 4 game win streak. They'd never again be closer than 7.5 back though.

The Punto Trade was on August 25th.
The Sox were 60-67 at the time, 13.5 games out.

The August games till the 23rd, since I assume the decision to purge Punto wasn't made the day of the trade.
Detroit 0-1
Min: 1-3
Tex: 1-2
Cle: 2-2
Bal: 1-2
NY: 1-2
LA: 0-3

Scrolling through those game logs is interesting. There are some players having not great seasons to date (Ellsbury, Gonzalez) and others who were surprisingly effective at the time (Crawford, Cody Ross, Buchholz). The box scores show plenty of players with high OPS and low ERA numbers. And some truly bizarre lineups.

Ortiz went down with his heel injury on July 16th. They promptly lost 7 of 10 before they recovered with that 4 game winning streak to close out July. And of course Valentine alienated Papi by insinuating his injury wasn't that serious; I think the front office essentially shut Ortiz down for the season in August over Valentine's objections.

Interestingly, it was that same day that Crawford made his season debut, as he was hurt to start the season. Then he got hurt again in August and missed the remainder of the season. A-Gon was starting to come around in July and August after a mediocre first 3 months of the season.

 

[cornwalls@6]

Seeing Springsteen at Fenway was the only good thing that happened there that summer. I shan’t be reliving that egomaniacal little shit-brain’s reign of incompetence.

 

[Rovin Romine]

Ortiz went down with his heel injury on July 16th. They promptly lost 7 of 10 before they recovered with that 4 game winning streak to close out July. And of course Valentine alienated Papi by insinuating his injury wasn't that serious; I think the front office essentially shut Ortiz down for the season in August over Valentine's objections.

Interestingly, it was that same day that Crawford made his season debut, as he was hurt to start the season. Then he got hurt again in August and missed the remainder of the season. A-Gon was starting to come around in July and August after a mediocre first 3 months of the season.

Crawford's last game was August 19 - he went in for Tommy John after that.

In retrospect, the most remarkable things about the Punto Trade are:

1) the amount of money and time that went to LA: Becket 2 years, $47M, Crawford 5 years, $61M. Gonzalez 6 years, $129M.
2) the value LA got: Crawford 2.7 bWAR in 4 years. Becket, 2.3 in 2. Gonzo 14 in 6.
3) the value the Sox got from the 5 players that came back - pretty much zip in direct value.
Some were part of a trade that netted Brock Holt, fan favorite and 8.6 WAR with the Sox. Others directly got us Wade Miley for 2015 (2.3 WAR). But much of that value was traded for injured arms: Hanrahan, Carson Smith, Elias.

I know people spin this as a win-win, and the Dodgers had money to burn, so that might be true. But I think the relative value to the Red Sox franchise is several orders of magnitude greater, both for the likely fate they avoided, and the turns their fortunes took in 2013.

 

[jon abbey]

know people spin this as a win-win, and the Dodgers had money to burn, so that might be true. But I think the relative value to the Red Sox franchise is several orders of magnitude greater, both for the likely fate they avoided, and the turns their fortunes took in 2013.

There's not really any reason to compare, but that trade happened in Aug 2012 and the Dodgers went on to win the NL West the next 8 seasons in a row before just falling short last year despite winning 106 games, so I think they're fine with their side of things too.

 

[trekfan55]

The 2012 season was a disaster from the jump. That April was so bad that it's hard to believe it was just one month. It started with a 3-game sweep at the hands of the Tigers, with two of those games being spectacular blown saves by newly acquired closer Mark Melancon. Melancon lost his job to Alfredo Aceves, who wasn't much better. He blew a game against the Yankees in which gave up 5 runs on 4 walks and recorded 0 outs.

April was also the start of the Daniel Bard the Starter experiment. His start against the Rays on the 16th was the most memorable. Bobby V let a wild, gassed Bard walk the park and walk in the only run of the game in the 7th inning. Bard took the crushing 1-0 loss. Final line: 6.2 IP, 4 hits, 1 ER, 7 BB, 7 SO, 111 pitches.

April also saw Jacoby Ellsbury's season derailed by a collision at 2nd base. This meant the Sox swapped an MVP candidate's at bats for Ryan Sweeney and Jason Repko. This was capped off by a forced hand trade of a reliable bullpen arm (Michael Bowden) for an aging Marlon Byrd.

Pretty fun month.

Slight nit, Melancon wasn`t the closer.

He had a bad April, was sent to AAA, found his stride there and never made it back to the team. Then proceeded to have very good seasons as a setup man and closer for the Giants and Braves. Still baffles me.

The Sox of 2012 had some shitty luck but they had a lousy manager. And I was one of the few people who thought he might be good (before the season started) but then it all went downhill.

BTW, the whole Bard as a starter thing was maybe mishandled by Bobby V but the word was he did not like it and the FO forced his hand (which may be the only thing he got right if true).

 

[Humphrey]

That Aceves game against the Yankees was a disaster. IIRC, the Sox were up like 9-0 and then ended up losing by a ton.

That being said, they made a little run at one point and were a few games above .500 after ~100 games before the floodgates opened, IIRC.

Yeah, I remember a pulse being detected around the 100 game mark. Nick, RIP, even had the nerve to write that Valentine was doing a great job.

Regarding Melancon, Valentine IIRC seemed to go out of his way to humiliate the man. He did come back to the team in June and spent the rest of the year with them, appearing in 37 games; but only one save https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=melanma01&year=2012&t=p

 

[Rovin Romine]

There's not really any reason to compare, but that trade happened in Aug 2012 and the Dodgers went on to win the NL West the next 8 seasons in a row before just falling short last year despite winning 106 games, so I think they're fine with their side of things too.

I agree trades aren't zero-sum game transactions. I think the Dodgers might have easily found another route to competitiveness - say if they had spent that money on free agents, or absorbed other contracts from other clubs. However, I'm not sure the Sox could have shed those contracts anywhere near as easily with any other club, or that they would have been successful in 2013 if they kept them. That's why I think the trade had more value to the Sox, relatively speaking.

 

[Sandwich Pick]

Caroline Simmons, the new mayor of Stamford, was one of my former students. I jumped for joy when she beat him last November.

I received a ton of Valentine's campaign mailers during the whole ordeal. I wish I'd saved them just to share with the board. They were laughably bad.

 

[Granite Sox]

I miss the cheerful Cody Ross.

 

[Ale Xander]

Why am I looking in the unanswered threads link and not finding this thread where it belongs?