Philosophy 101: Time to question the Red Sox’ core beliefs
COMMENTARY
The Red Sox have become the punch line to a joke not even worth telling.
In what was supposed to be a summer of resurgence they are instead irrelevant, an afterthought on the local sports landscape that plays fickle fiddle with its baseball team, destined for its third last-place finish in the last four years.
Whatever glimmer of hope Sox fans may have had for their team bookending the All-Star break have vanished, a fleeting period that turned out to be about as short-lived as a Rick Porcello outing. Left for dead in June, the mirage came to light earlier this month, the floundering Red Sox, somehow, finding themselves within striking distance of the American League East, and, for the first time since they raised the 2013 World Series banner, nearly found something they delivered for the last year-plus.
A reason to care.
But if the Red Sox’ post-break performance has made anything evident, it’s that the reason, the ability, to have any remaining interest in this team is a barren proposition.
The Red Sox as a franchise — not just the team, mind you — are an utter disaster. Since winning the World Series, Boston is only 113-142, one fewer win than the 1998 New York Yankees amassed in a single season. General manager Ben Cherington has proven a stark inability to assess talent on the trade market (Joe Kelly, Allen Craig for John Lackey), in free agency (Pablo Sandoval), or in the draft (Michael Kopeck seems like a winner already). Other than that, he’s doing a bang-up job. He and John Farrell seemingly have jobs for life with the team, since there’s little evidence of culpability trickling down from ownership.
With each embarrassing defeat, the brand takes a blow, spiraling it further and further away from its fortune of two seasons ago into a realm of questions concerning the very philosophies that have run the ship into the ground. Despite the title, it’s fair to note that the Red Sox have made the playoffs only one time since 2009, a six-year stretch that is soon to include a trio of rock-bottom finishes in the division, not to mention the worst September collapse in franchise history. If you refuse to call 2013 a fluke, then at least have the decency to call it an aberration from the norm, a reality that has made the Red Sox the most expensive laughingstock in Major League Baseball.
What a weekend it was in Anaheim, Calif., where Boston got out of the second-half gate as if they held their team-building luncheon at a local dispensary. The Red Sox didn’t score their first run of the second half until the fourth inning of the first game of Monday’s day-night doubleheader. It went down as a 21-inning scoreless streak over eight days, a season-high, but in no way a lock to remain that way. The Angels, winners of five in a row, have turned on the jets, in first place in the AL West, two games over the Houston Astros.
The Red Sox can’t even seem to find the right fuel to propel them into any sense of pertinence. It’s now a five-game losing streak for the team heading to Houston on its current road trip, a complete nine games in back of the Yankees in the AL East.
Even the most patient, ardent baseball fan will admit that it is all over for the Red Sox.
Cherington could sell at the July 31 trading deadline, but it’s lot easier process when you actually have the pieces to surrender. Koji Uehara, who has shown few signs of slowing down at the age of 40, could bring a nice return for a competitive team seeking a closer who happens to be signed through 2016 at a reasonable $9 million. Mike Napoli might bring a middle reliever of some worth.
That’s about the extent of things.
Yes, the Red Sox need an ace, but short of the tired-spectacle of pining for Cole Hamels, you can forget about David Price of Johnny Cueto making their way here this summer, not with free agency looming for each pitcher. Maybe the Red Sox will bid for their services over the winter, even if John Henry refused to go past a certain point financially for Jon Lester a year ago, standing strong to his team’s stance against signing pitchers over 30 years old to long-term deals.
Of course, Price will be 30 next month. Cueto, 30 come February.
Forget that then. By the way, has anyone mentioned that Rick Porcello is only 26?
If the same projections from the Powers That Be are suggesting long-term deals for middle-of-the-road pitchers simply because they are of a certain age, then one can imagine what other sorts of folly are occurring behind closed doors on Yawkey Way. It’s been a bad year for Bill James projections, which have been about as accurate for this team as Hanley Ramirez’s left field depth perception. Yet no team relies on the numbers more than the Red Sox, a matter that has given them both a long stretch of success, and enough futility over the last six years that should give them pause and reflection.
But the stubborn nature of this regime doesn’t seem to be to admit wrongs, rather to drive their beliefs into a sense of delusion. Last year’s team should have been better. The projections for this season submitted a much different outcome.
Neat.
At what point do the Red Sox just admit they suck?
Something isn’t working, and it doesn’t just come down to a poorly-constructed pitching staff or the fact that the left fielder has as much chance at winning a Gold Glove as Freddie Prinze, Jr. does an Academy Award. The very philosophies of the franchise should be questioned, particularly with a new crop of young talent on the rise. Based on their beleaguered talent evaluation system (hello, Rusney Castillo), should you really have any faith that a number of these players have even the slightest chance of turning into the sort of performers the Red Sox think they will?
Patriots training camp begins next week. The MLB trading deadline is next Friday.
Come Aug. 1, there will be no more reason to watch. No more reason to give a damn.
Why should you feel any shred of confidence that that’s going to change anytime soon?
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