Staying or Going?

Its been two days since the train fell off the tracks for the Red Sox and stories are starting to fly. It also appears that the first domino to fall is the the choice to not have Terry Francona return to Boston for his 9th season. The report is that Tito had a meeting with the Red Sox brass and that no decision has been made on if he is going to come back. Gorden Edes reports that Francona has told some staff members that he wont be back and Edes, at times, is a credible source.

My gut says that Francona isn't coming back. Like I wrote about yesterday I think the players started to tune him out and stopped working hard. Yesterday at the press conference Francona said that he had a team meeting in Toronto after a 14-0 win. That shows the problems this team had where they had to have a meeting after a 14-0 win. You also hear reports about drinking in the clubhouse during games and little things that added to this collapse. This team really wore on Francona with how arrogant and entitled they thought they were and I don't think he can take it anymore. I think the choice is Tito's here. Frankly, I don't think he wants to comeback. He's has had a history of health problems and this job could kill you. Its been a miracle he lasted this long. 8 years is a long time. The average length for a manager with one team is 4.3 years. I think hes tired of the media, tired of the questions, and just tired of the prima donnas in that locker room. He looked dead tired at the press conference yesterday. Right when it ended he jetted out the press room so fast. By far the fastest hes ever moved.

Lets get another thing straight, Red Sox fans- he's not being fired. His contract is up and its up the front office in weather to pick up his option for a new two year deal. This is going to be a mutual parting of the ways here I think. I would love Francona to stay. Hes been a unbelievable manager here. Hes been the guy for two World Series championships. He handles the media tremendously and he handles a clubhouse tremendously. Well up until this year. I don't know who we are going to hire to replace Tito but I doubt it will be anybody better. Bobby Valentine wont. Tony Larussa wont. Maybe Joe Torre. Who knows.

After the Francona situation is done, the next decision to make is the status of Theo Epstein. Theo has one year left on his deal. They can't give extend him or promote him to president after this fiasco. That would be an awful PR move and their so PR conscience down there. I think Theo wants to stay and fix this. Theo was very accountable yesterday. He stood up and took blame which I give him credit for. Theo's John Henry's golden boy so maybe he'll stay. I think Theo is the guy to fix it here if management doesn't butt in. Your up next, Theo. Fix this thing.

Until next time....

Too Infante and Beyond

In keeper league fantasy baseball, I have won. I just need to thank my final roster

C: Salvadore Perez

1b: the bottom feeder Mike Carp

2b: Eric Young Jr.

3b: Too Omar Infante...

SS: Marco Sca Sca Scutaro

of: Jacobe front and back Ellsbury

of: Dexter i sucked for 4 straight months Fowler

of: Michael dot dot dash Morse

utl: Ben the steals are coming revere

bench: Tony same name as me Campana

Brent Morel Orel

Corey Fart Hart

Alex same name as my father Gorden

Jason ride the pine till i die Heyward

Buster Posey

sp: Cliff Lee the adverb

sp: Madison Bumgarner

sp: Josh im back, im hurt, im back, im hurt, im back, im hurt Johnson

rp: David Hernandez, Marc good luck spelling Rzepczynski, Joe im still ok Nathan, Kyle control problems Farnsworth, Joel Hanrahanranhanrahan, Sean Marshall Mathers, Im an alcoholic, I have a disease and they don't know what to call it, and Joquin Benoit.

And a special thanks to everyone who i picked up along the way. Don't worry. Memory lane didn't take that long to go through.

Kelly 200ks baby Johnson, Vernon Well(s) i did ok, Nate random extra capitol letter in my name McLouth, Brett white jacobe Gardner, Carlos Ruiz, Juan in a million Uribe, Stephen Drew, Albert Pujohls hey hey hey, Adam i had 100 rbi's once LaRoche, Jose Lopez, Hisanori ching chang chong talk Takahashi, Jesse Crain, Travis gave me soft Wood, Brandon Beachy, Sean Burnett, Derek Netherlands Holland, Rafael Betancourt, Javier Vazquez, Chad Billingsley, Sean 4 position eligable Rodriguez, AJ Burnett, Yorvit Torrealba, Mark sad Trumbo, Ryan broken dreams Doumit, Sam LeCure, Justin Turner, Adam im all Dunn, Jonathan Lucroy, Al Alburquerque, Alberto Callaspo, Eli White power Side, Brandon Tighten yo Belt, Allen Craig, Josh Collmenter, Brian Tallet, Matt Thornton, Matt Reynolds, Maicer Izturis, Brennan Boesch, James Loney, Vance Worley, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Roger Berandina, Jon baseballs tallest man Rauch, Edwin Encarnacion, Daniel White McCutchen, Rubby De La Rosa, Phil blow Coke, Bobby Parnell, Michael Martinez, Sweet Willie Bloomquist, Alfredo Aceves, Glen Perkins, Clint Deer Meat Barmes, Mike Minor, Bill Bray, Ervin Santana, Cory Anal Luebke, Jed Lowrie, Aaron Crow, Rafael Soriano, JD Martinez, Bobby Abrea, Ryan Raburn, Jesse Litsch, Kyle Seager, Raul Ibanez, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Wade Davis, Drew Pomeranz, Steve Cishek, and Jim Johnson

I love you all.

Who will be the sox 3rd starter in postseason?

This question has been bothering losertown since the trade deadline. Lackey? Bedard? Wake? Ted Williams head? Obviously Jon Lester and Texas tough guy Josh Beckett will be dominate, but that third game against Texas has all the question marks. In my opinion we should star... wait, what's that god? The Sox didn't make the playoffs? Well that makes the Red Sox biggest summer question easier to answer.

Your Boston Red Sox failed to make the postseason again, but unlike bj, i'm placing the blame elsebury... i mean elsewhere.

Theo? What Kind of tricks was he supposed to pull? This was almost unanimously (somehow spelled that right) the best team on paper in march. At the Deadline for trades, they had a 99.8% chance of reaching the postseason. Two questions bring us back to July 31st. Who was available to get, and who did we have to trade? We are talking about a team that couldn't pull Chris Crapuano from the mets with their farm system. Yes, the same guy who's 2007 Brewers once lost 22 straight games he started in. I'm not saying its an mlb record but because this blog is a half ass commitment on my part, i'm not looking it up.

tito? Guy lost the team. I'm not saying he should be fired, I just hope he's on the wrong side of the new seth rogan movie 50/50.

That may have been harsh. You don't fire tito. But when you pull Lackey from a start next season and he stares you down, dropkick him.

Speaking of which, Lackey. BJ is claiming he had the worst ERA in baseball this season. In a dark room somewhere sits Brian Matusz who actually set the MLB record for reals for the worst ERA. 59 Earned runs in 49 2/3 innings. I know you didn't graduate from a prestigious college like Eastern Michigan BJ, but that ERA is 10.69, just beating out Roy Halladays prior record of 10.64. Bet you didn't know Doc had the previous record did you? Look it up.

Carl, good to see you... drop that ball in the 9th. Call me soft but im a sucker for guys who hit triples and steal bases. Wait. Crawford had his lowest amount of triples and steals since his rookie season? Well that's cause he was hurt all year. he did miss 20% of the season. And he has only had 1 gold glove so let's not try to compare him to griffey whose glove is actually the gold glove now.

I blame the fans. I blame Lackey's wife. I blame Neil Diamond. I blame Dustin Diamond. I blame everyone who thought this team had a chance three months. Unlike anybody in Boston, that's when I knew the season ended.

July 24th. Wakefield pitched 6 1/3 innings, 7 earned, and got win 199. Fast forward to september 13th, 9 starts later, the red sox finally get him his 200th win. That isn't real pressure and the red sox folded for 2 months. Start after start they blew leads, didn't hit, choked away games, (any of this sound familiar?). The comparison between games Wakefield started and the month of september are mirror mirror. Am i surprised the Red Sox are at home today? Yeah, but i'm not losing sleep over it because this wasn't a team. This was a bunch of scared little girls. A team full of guys waiting for someone else to step up. Hoping the ball is hit to someone else. Hoping someone else does all the work. This team had no leader. No one ever called anyone out. We burned Manny to the ground but won't say a word to Crawford or Lackey? I'd rather have my left fielder beat his wife than hit .250 while making 142 million dollars.

So there it is. There is no real scapegoat here. This team simply didn't have when it takes to win. I'll end with a bible passage. The bruins once blew a 3 games to none lead in the playoffs and came back the very next season and won everything...

goodbye

Best Team Never

They say to never write anything in anger so if I wrote this last night it would be the most hate filled, venomous, sad, depressed, angry blog of all time. But don't worry there's still plenty of anger in here. So I barely slept last night and thought about the whole season and whose to blame for the collapse. So welcome to BJ Shea's morgue and lets examine the 2011 Red Sox body while its still fresh. I'll name of the biggest culprits of this disaster.


Theo Epstein- I'm a Theo apologist but its got to start at the top with this thing. There were holes to fill at the trade deadline and throughout the year that Theo didn't fill. Erik Bedard was a disaster, he couldn't even get INTO the 5th never mind get out of the 5th. Not picking up a good bat to pinch hit throughout the year was a mistake as evidenced by the fact we had to have Ryan Lavarnway hit in the top of the 9th with the bases loaded. Theo admitted this year at spring training that we don't have the pitching depth that we should and that one injury or pure ineffectiveness by anyone will doom this team. Well guess what Clay Buchholz got hurt, Dice K (remember him?) got hurt and John Lackey had the worst season of any pitcher in history. After we won in 2007 I thought we had the next baseball dynasty. We just needed to fill in a few holes here and there but Theo hasn't done that.

Terry Francona- With collapses like these there's always going to be a scape goat and in this case it will probably be Tito. I don't know what happened in that clubhouse and we will probably never will know. I don't know if the players started to tune him but hes been here for a long time. And when a manager or a coach has been around awhile players start to tune they guy out. Its not in Francona's nature to be the flip out type of guy like a Lou Piniella and his way has worked obviously but along the way he lost this teams focus. Guys running into outs that shouldn't be. Playing awful defense. They were among the league leaders in errors in September. Something happened along the way and its more on the players than Francona but the manager always is the fall guy.

The Players- The players of this team get the biggest slice of blame pie for this debacle of a season and month. This team had no heart whatsoever. Do not blame injuries like Adrian Gonzalez did last night. When things got tough they got tight and almost pretty much gave up. The 2004 and 2007, two teams with great heart and mental toughness, would be ashamed. There are guys that have heart, like Pedroia, Ellsbury, Papi, Scutaro and Papelbon, but there was bigger factor here at work where it just snowballed. There were guys walked around with a sense of privilege that they didn't deserve.

John Lackey- Probably the most hated player ever. Whoever is running the ship next year, weather its Theo or someone else, has to find a way to get rid of this guy. He cant pitch here. He's just sensitive and thin skinned for this environment. The signing was a ultimate disaster. He has an excuse for everything. The numbers speak for them self. Highest ERA in the league. Highest WHIP in the league. Whatever you have to do to dump him you have to do it. Probably gonna have to eat more than half of the contract.

Carl Crawford- I was for the signing when it happened but in the back of my mind it never felt right. It always felt like a Yankee type signing. He was the best player on the market but he never seemed like a good fit. I don't think they thought about the fit here. It was the definition of round peg in the square hole. There was nowhere in the lineup for him to hit. They tried 3rd, 2nd, 6th, 7th and he didn't fit in any of those spots. This year was just a lost year for him. I don't think hes gonna be as bad next year as he was this year. of course I said the same thing after Lackey's first year and he somehow got worse. He looked scared this year. He had a glazed look on his face all year. Guy once played in a World Series! What is he scared about? That final play last night it was almost fitting how the ball got hit to him in that fashion. He has to catch that ball if hes a so called gold glove award winner. Ken Griffey Jr probably makes that play right now.

Jonathan Papelbon- There is a group of Red Sox fans out there (and you know who you are) that doesn't like Papelbon. Pap is the last guy I blame for what happened. Its too bad that he blew up at the worst possible time. This was probably Papelbon's best year. He was one of the few guys that showed up and took blame when it was necessary. If we let Pap go we are screwed. Bard isn't a closer. I mean look at his September. He was puddle on the mound. You have to bring Pap back.

Beckett and Lester- After being good to great all year and then exploding all of the themselves in September was the most troubling. Their supposed to be our two aces and they didn't have one big win during this collapse. An ace has to be a stopper and put the team on their back and come through when the team needs them most. Pedro did it. Schilling did it. These two didn't do it.

And that's just going through some of the carnage of this team. Everyone is to blame. A wasted great year by Jacoby Ellsbury who will probably be gone after 2013. I don't know whats going to happen to David Ortiz. Hes an icon here that can still hit. Personally I would like to see him come back but who knows. Changes will be made and heads will roll. My gut says that Francona wont return and that's a shame I don't know what free agents are out there to get but that's never been a success for us to go out and get high priced free agents.


With all that being, let me try to be an objective fan here and be a fan of baseball for a second. What a great, dramatic night of baseball last night. Congrats to Rays for being a true team and having heart (unlike the Red Sox) and coming through in the biggest stage. I'm sure there's young 10 and 12 year olds in Tampa in love with Evan Longoria in the same way I was in love with Nomar Garciaparra and thinking he could do anything. Nights like last night is why we watch sports.

Until next time...

The Moneyball World

The last time I blogged I gave NBA playoff predictions which turned into a debacle and I wrote about how the Bruins were collapsing in the playoffs. Well the NBA picks were awful and the Bruins went on to win the Stanley Cup so I suspended myself from blogging for awhile. Well that and I didn't have wireless internet but I'm back now and hopefully better than ever.


When "MoneyBall" was released back in 2003 it changed how baseball teams were built and how baseball players were looked at. More of an emphasis was put on raw data rather than raw talent. Stats such as OPS (on base plus slugging) and range factor ( a way to judge how good a player is defensively) became more important when evaluating a player than physical skill. Ive embraced some of these stats such as on base percentage and OPS but I think some of them are ridiculous such as UZR ( ultimate zone rating), VORP ( value over replacement player), and WAR ( wins above replacement).


Building a team strictly on sabermetrics you could turn your team into a clubhouse full of robots. Take for instance this years Red Sox team and their recent collapse. General Manager Theo Epstein is part of the sabermetric revolution and hes built his team by looking at the advanced stats and churning players out of the super computers down at Fenway. Hes built a great team but this last month has been a disaster. My theory is everyone in that clubhouse from top to bottom is relying on the percentages. Theres no one in that clubhouse to get people loose. Theres no Millar to say something stupid and get people in a relaxed mood. I think Pedroia has tried to do it but when your stuck in the same locker room as John Lackey who is sucking the life of everyone in Red Sox nation its tough to be relaxed. I personally would like to see more a blend of numbers and intangibles out of the Red Sox and how they build their team. More Pedroias less JD Drews.

Many moves Epstein has made I've agreed with. Adrian Gonzalez is a no brainer. The Nomar trade in 2004 turned out great. His commitment to the farm system speaks for itself. But Theo is at fault in some moves. Letting Orlando Cabrera go after the 2004 World Series and choosing Edgar Renteria was the definition of choosing numbers over intangibles. Orlando's OBP with the Red Sox in 2004 was .320. Renteria's in 2004 was .335. Carrer OBP is .317 OC to .343 for Edgar. No doubt Renteria has better numbers over his career than Cabrera but just by looking at the way they player in their short times with the Red Sox there's little doubt who has better intangibles. Orlando thrived the atmosphere in Boston while Renteria was a wreck. Cabrera fit in perfectly with that teams and remains a fan favorite and a personal favorite. Also I believe that the fact OC has been on teams that made the playoffs in 6 of the last 7 seasons adds to the intangible factor. Guys a winner.

The summary of this post is that you cant strictly build your team out of a computer. Numbers are important but I think the personality and intangible factor is just as a important. Recent championship teams have had a good mix of sabermetrics and old school way. Reliance on the computers doesn't get you any where as evidence by the 2002 and 2003 Oakland A's.

Until next time....