Friday, March 22, 2002

Introducing "The Clubhouse Lawyer"

The Futility Infielder is no longer just the sound of one man yapping. Today I'd like to introduce you to Nick Stone, who will be contributing his own column to this site on an occasional basis and perhaps collaborating in other areas as well. More than just a great friend who lives around the corner, Nick's been a big part of my baseball experience since moving to New York City. We've spent countless hours talking ball and taking in ballgames over the past six years, from the seats of Yankee Stadium, Wrigley Field and the now-departed Tiger Stadium back to barstools in some of the lowest dives in the East Village.

It's not much of a stretch to say that if we hadn't become friends, I never would have started this web site. Because in Nick, I found somebody whose head receives the same telepathic baseball channel as I do. The one which always has its receiver watching a ballgame in some parallel dimension, and so makes "The funny thing about those Yankees in 1949..." seem like a perfectly acceptable social greeting. Somebody just as crazy about baseball as I am.

Which is not to say that Nick's opinions are my own. He and I can clear a room when we get to arguing about an issue we don't see eye to eye on, especially once we break out the folding metal chairs or the flaming emails. I'll be clearing a space for Nick's column (tentatively titled "The Clubhouse Lawyer") elsewhere on this site in the near future. But before his first contribution to this site, a post-mortem on the Dan Duquette era in Boston, totally dries out on the back burner, I wanted to post it here. So without further ado, I give you the first installment of "The Clubhouse Lawyer".

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In his March 1 column, ESPN 's Rob Neyer, whose work I've enjoyed for years, wrote a piece suggesting that on the whole, Dan Duquette didn't do a bad job as GM in Boston. Neyer went on to suggest that Duquette deserves another chance in another city, and would be a welcome addition in Kansas City.

Frankly, that's a poor comparison. To say that Duquette has done a better job than Allard Baird would be akin to saying I could write a better novel than a monkey armed with a typewriter. To be honest, if I were a long-suffering Royals fan like Rob, I probably would have abandoned baseball for Jai-alai years ago. To say that Duquette has done a better job than the two most incompetent people in his field (Allard Baird in Kansas City and Cam Bonifay (formerly of Pittsburgh) would be the equivalent of calling a player worthy of the Hall of Fame because he has better numbers than the least accomplished members of the hall. The fraternity of General Managers is similar to the Hall of Fame in that at any given time, their are people in both who simply don't belong, and being better than them does not necessarily qualify one for membership (A point that Neyer and his mentor Bill James have made many times).

A General Manager's job is made up of two parts; the evaluation and procuring of talent, and the creation of a harmonious environment where everyone, from futility infielders to superstars, bullpen coach to manager focuses on winning, with a minimum of distractions. In the former category, Duquette's record was spotty at best. In the latter category it was downright atrocious.

Duquette clearly hit paydirt by trading for and re-signing Pedro Martinez. Regardless of his injury problems, when healthy (which has been often enough) Martinez has almost singlehandedly made a contender out of the Sox. The wisdom of Duquette's other big free agent signing, Manny Ramirez, has yet to be determined. Ramirez is fairly young and extremely talented. What remains to be seen is whether his injury prone body can hold up over the life of the contract. An even greater concern is whether his fragile, moody, and childlike psyche can withstand the rigors of the toughest local media and fan base in baseball. Let's not forget this is the same town that booed Ted Williams. From the raging alcoholic Dave Egan in the 1940s, to Bob Ryan today, Boston has had a long tradition of writers determined to find fault in anyone and anything.

Duquette's two most controversial decisions were letting two legendary homegrown free agent walk; Mo Vaughn and Roger Clemens. Clemens has had three 20-win Cy Young seasons since his departure, although its probably fair to say that it his unceremonious dumping lit a fire under him. I do think his poor '96 was an aberration, but I don't think he would have done quite as well had he stayed in Boston. Mo Vaughn has failed poorly in California, although his injury plagued '99 season was a result of a freak accident that was ballpark-specific. Still, signing heavy-set 30-year olds to long-term contracts has never been a wise strategy.

Duquette's major mistake was that level of animosity that his poor handling of the situation engendered in both players helped create the perception that "no one wants to play here" (a now famous off-the-cuff remark that Nomar made during last September's meltdown). These guys were both homegrown MVPs after all, not fly-by-night Jack Clark-type guns-for-hire [I think Nick just set the AL record for mixed metaphors in an electronic medium-ed.]. Wherever he ends up next, Duquette will also have a hard time signing big name free-agent pitchers, unless he can explain his attempts to bully Pedro into pitching with a partially torn rotator cuff even after the Sox had fallen far from contention. To question Martinez's heart after he singlehandedly brought the Sox back from the brink during the '99 ALDS vs. Cleveland simply defies belief.

Duquette's greatest gaffe as a "manager of people" had to be the handling of the Jimy Williams/Carl Everett rift. Duquette 's willingness to take a chance on clubhouse cancer like Carl "we beat the kids" Everett was already a questionable decision. When the Williams/Everett rift exploded, Duquette had two choices; support his manager, or tacitly support Everett and fire Wlliams. By siding with Everett, he turned Williams into a lame duck, whom he inexplicably kept around for another year. If the general manager doesn't recognize the chain of command, why should any of the players? The fostering of a harmonious clubhouse environment is as important as any part of a general manager's job. Rule number #1; if a player has a public dust-up with the manager, you support the manager or fire him. If you side with the player AND keep around the manager, you clearly lack the basic interpersonal skills required of a general manager.

Duquette saved the Sox tens of millions of dollars by not re-signing Clemens and Vaughn, which is crucial considering that the Sox will always have less revenue to work with than the Yankees. Unfortunately, his tenure was filled with spendthrift gambles that one would expect of a team with almost unlimited amounts of money and finite amounts of sense, like the Dodgers. How about $25M over 3 years for José Offerman? Then there's my personal favorite; picking up over $19M for a year and a half by taking in over-the-hill malcontents Mike Lansing and Dante Bichette, in order to get Rolando Arrojo for 1.625M per, who's been a decent middle reliever.

Duquette pulled off a great deal early on, trading veteran Heathcliff Slocumb and getting major contributors Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek in return. One would think that he'd try to repeat that formula, but most of his time in Boston he's been more interested in trading away inexpensive young talent and collecting rickety veterans like Mark Portugal and Pete Schourek. While Duquette certainly hasn't traded away anyone who's blossomed into a star (yet), one wonders why someone with limited financial resources would place more of an emphasis on overpriced veterans rather than developing prospects. Brian Rose and Tomo Okha, while not exactly setting the world on fire, both showed enough promise at various points to merit more attention than they got. It's no secret that scouting and player development have been thoroughly neglected during the Duquette era.

The cruelest irony (well, not for me, I'm a Yankees fan) of all is that Duquette fired the one manager who was best suited to organizing this motley assortment of ill-fitting parts into a winning team. Jimy Williams is blessed with a Stengel-like ruthlessness; he will pinch hit and juggle lineups without any regard for players' feelings, concerning himself only with creating the best opportunity to win. With a team long on role players and short on everyday players, he didn't have a choice. Unfortunately, Williams is distinctly un-Stengel-like in his ability (or lack thereof) to charm and cajole the media and his players into going along with his plans. Then again, who's going to listen to you when your own GM is too busy listening to some guy who doesn't believe in dinosaurs?--Nick Stone

--posted by Jay at 8:17 PM LINK

Tuesday, March 19, 2002

All Yankees All the Time? Just Say YES

Tuesday marked the debut of the Yankees Entertainment and Sports network, the cash cow that George Steinbrenner plans to milk to cover all the eight-figure annual salaries he's accumulated. YES isn't quite all Yankees, all the time. The New Jersey Nets, Columbus Clippers, Staten Island Yankees, and Manchester United soccer team all figure into the programming as well--not to mention the New Jersey Gladiators of the Arena Football League, in case you need your fix. But the Yankees are undoubtedly the star attraction.

YES will televise 130 regular season games and rerun another 20 local broadcasts, also producing a one-hour pregame and a 30-minute postgame show per telecast. The network's other pinstriped programming will include a weekly magazine show, airings of famous games from throughout Yankee history (David Wells' perfect game and the no-hitters of Dave Righetti and Jim Abbott are on tap the first week) and something called Yankeeography, the network's "signature biography series." Those of you reading this who are not Yankee fans can be excused for gagging at the thought of yet another fawning profile of Derek Jeter; me, I think I'll find something better to do at 7 PM on Friday when it airs.

It all feels more than a little excessive, but then most Steinbrenner productions do. At least until the moment when you realize that, by George, you ARE hungry for a Yanks-Reds preseason game. I reached said moment at approximately 8:12 PM EST on Tuesday night while waiting for my sushi take-out to arrive. And so, with my cable package and rooting interests putting me squarely in the demographic crosshairs, I decided to get a first look at both the team and the channel. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

From the first glance, the channel appears to be a refreshing upgrade from the Madison Square Garden network, where for the past several years the Yankee coverage has been mired in a sea of dated graphics and tired production. Maybe it's my cable system, but the quality of signal just seems better than its predecessor--volume at the same level as the other channels, lighting looking as if it was supplied by something besides a backup generator, Al Trautwig and Marv Albert legally prohibited from appearing. The graphics are attractive and occasionally elegant (especially the player stat lines), though the game status bug in the upper left corner is a bit clunky. The visual effects are relatively tasteful, and the sound effects accompanying all of this are mercifully muted (and good riddance to--CLANK! CRASH! CLUNK!--Fox as the Yanks' broadcast partner).

The Yanks brought several familiar faces and voices over from MSG and Fox to YES. Play-by-play Michael Kay has moved from radio broadcasts and postgames to the TV booth. He's a bit of a homer, though less gratingly so than his former partner, John "Theeeeeeeeeee Yankees Win! " Sterling, and for all his faults he's probably closest to the team's pulse than any of the other announcers. Ken Singleton, who did smooth and subdued play-by-play on MSG, moves into a role as a game analyst. The excellent Jim Kaat and not-so-excellent Bobby Murcer will also serve as analysts, with Murcer also working the pre- and post-games. Freshly-retired Paul O'Neill is slated to work a small handful of pre-/post-games, hopefully without smashing any helmets or water coolers. Former CNN/SI anchor Fred Hickman will be the studio host as he searches for a middle ground somewhere between the extremes of the undead Bill Daughtry and the back-from-the-dead Marv Albert. Fox know-it-all Tim McCarver is gone, a welcome departure from where I sit. Only the presense of Suzyn Waldman as pre-/post-game reporter and occasional play-by-play is cause for worry--her voice can cut through tin, and the camera doth not flatter her, either.

I watched about four innings of the debut broadcast. Kay and Kaat did a solid job and seemed to establish a rapport when Kay asked Kaat about his famous slide-step move to hold runners on first. Befitting their experience around this team, the duo exhibited a strong familiarity with the Yankee roster well beyond the regulars, touching on several of the battles for spots on the Yankee bench (which I'll discuss more in the coming days).

I tuned in around the time that most of the Yank regulars were taking their last at bat, and so got a glimpse of new faces like Jason Giambi, Robin Ventura and John Vander Wal, as well as youngsters like Drew Henson, Eric Almonte, and Juan Rivera. The big news in tonight's game was David Wells' performance, five strong innings with all of his pitches working, as he struck out 4 and walked none. Boomer is indeed slimmed down, and with his strong spring, he's squarely in the starting rotation, leaving the fates of Orlando Hernandez and Sterling Hitchcock still to be determined. "I'm ready. I'm throwing everything right where I want to throw it," Wells told Waldman in a postgame interview. Derek Jeter was the offensive star, with a homer among his three or four hits from the leadoff spot. Only the team's fielding looked suspect; Wells apparently dropped a throw at first base before I tuned in, second baseman Alfonso Soriano threw one past Giambi at first base (though Jorge Posada nailed the runner at second), and outfielder Vander Wal misplayed a fly ball into a double. But for the most part, the Yanks looked ready to go, right down to Mariano Rivera closing out the ninth inning and striking out the last batter. It don't mean a thing, but it's sure nice to look at again.

Even if YES weren't any good, I'd probably find myself watching it over 100 times in the coming season--a championship-caliber ballclub will do that. It's too early to say whether the new network itself is of the same caliber, but it definitely looks a damn sight better than what came before.

--posted by Jay at 10:53 PM LINK