The 2014 Sox: A Re-Diagnosis

Bernie Carbohydrate

writes the Semi-Fin
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Dec 2, 2001
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We've tried to explain them with numeracy (look at X's dWar!) and psychology (how dare Nava complain!).  But we've grown so arrogant in our knowledge, so smug in the tools of modern baseball diagnosis we've missed the wisdom of ages past.  And since this front office and this coaching staff came into the year armed with the best methods of this modern age, and yet still failed, we've got to look at what they missed.
 
Look at all the threads on the Main Board, all trying to make sense of a miserable squad.  Yet all the SoSH horses and all the SoSH men could do nothing but watch and grasp at airy theories. Who are we to think we understood the Burke Badenhop transaction?
 
We should look to "Spleen and Vapours" by Sir John Midriff.  
 

 
When thinking of the Sox of 2014, we must recall that 
 
 
It is no wonder therefore if the ordinary Methods can avail nothing, but that we are forced to have Recourse to all the Stratagems and Arguments our Wit and Reason can afford us.
 
I submit that instead of starting threads about what is wrong with Middlebrooks, and wondering --vainly-- if his struggles are a function of poor eyesight, we instead consider Spleen.  In "Spleen and Vapors" a patient is described thusly:
 
 
He told me, when I asked him if he had been ill, that he had found the Distemper creeping on him for above a month, but that he was every day dawns worse than another; that the Giddiness was but newly come upon him...
 
What if WMB were to be put to right by a Spleen adjustment? Do we discard this approach because we think we know better?  
 
Clay Daniel Buchholz loses games; we look at location and velocity.  But we discount the vapors:
 
 
The Gentleman was fully persuaded that I had fallen rightly upon his Distemper, and began to tell me of his own accord, that he had been a considerable Loser of late....after which he asked me if I thought his Disease would prove mortal..I advis'd him to be chearful, and not to think too much on his losses, and I would order what was proper, by way of Physick; and when i had prescribed for him a Vomit and some Pills, I left him.
 
The 2014 Sox, taken as a whole, have defied the modern logic of roster construction. But in 1721 Dr. Midriff had methods that we've forgotten.  Going into the offseason, I wonder if the front office can test for spleen.  In this age of urine samples for PED's, surely we can use men's water to learn why they can't make solid contact, even on a 3-0 count:
 
 
Then I ask'd if he had. not a Pain, or rather a Weight and Uneasiness on his left Side. At that Question his Colour chang'd, his Hands trembled, and I perceived at the fame Time a universal Disorder ; But recovering a little, he went into the Closet, and brought out three or four Pots and Basons, one after another, in which he had made Water at several Times.
 
I know this kind of thinking will scare thy knights of the keyboard, to say nothing of the Old School Baseball Men and the young school SABRmeticians, but can you look at Kelly Johnson and not crave answers?  And if the answers won't come from our current vogue for intelligent roster construction....look to the Spleen.
 

mabrowndog

Ask me about total zone...or paint
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Dec 23, 2003
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It's unfortunate that such posts of brilliance only come around these parts with the frequency of Halley's Comet.
 
This is gold.
 

RG33

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Nov 28, 2005
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CA
I would contribute to a crowd-funding site if this were to be made into a Short of some sort.
 

nattysez

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Sep 30, 2010
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Then I ask'd if he had. not a Pain, or rather a Weight and Uneasiness on his left Side
 
 
Drew, X and WMB certainly provided plenty of Pain and Uneasiness on the left Side this year, and the Weight of expectations may explain what happened to X.
 

Bernie Carbohydrate

writes the Semi-Fin
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Dec 2, 2001
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With Pedey's head injury we see once gain how the Splenetic
must not be ignored:
 
 
Per Dr. Midriff:
 
 
When i first enter'd the Room, I was somewhat surpriz'd; his Head was as large as a Porridge-pot....I took an Opportunity to ask him how long he had been ill.  He was so much out of Breath, that it was some time before he could make any answer. 
 
There days we might treat a concussion with rest and inactivity...that's how 100-loss teams lose 100 games, friends... rest and in activity.  But if we refame Pedey's head injury not as a newfangled "concussion" but as the classic "Porridge-pot" we come upon a different --and more efficacious--treatment:
 
 
AS yet, it was not proper to prescribe any Thing for him, excepting only white Wine and Water, which I ordered him to drink.
 
Midriff is silent as to the specifics of his treatment, but a nice Sam's Club Pinot Grigio and some Charles River Water would get our second-bagger back in the game.