387 replies to this topic

[Marbleheader]

Given the last month of the season, playoffs or not, it would seem there will almost certainly be changes. Aside from the obvious players like Drew coming off the books, what do you forsee happening?

I'd be surprised if Curt Young returns, he would seem to be the most likely candidate to take one for the team. Bogar might not be back either, but I think Young is more likely because of his position.

Roster construction may well undergo an overhaul. Theo's had a mixed bag of success (Gonzalez, Saltalamacchia) and failure (Lackey, Crawford, etc.) in trades and free agency. Are organizational changes needed or do certain players need to be shipped out?

Even if the team totally collapses, I can't imagine Theo or Tito are in any danger of losing their jobs.

Who is on your chopping block, and who is most accountable for the current state of the team?

[Red(s)HawksFan]

Given the last month of the season, playoffs or not, it would seem there will almost certainly be changes. Aside from the obvious players like Drew coming off the books, what do you forsee happening?

I'd be surprised if Curt Young returns, he would seem to be the most likely candidate to take one for the team. Bogar might not be back either, but I think Young is more likely because of his position.

Roster construction may well undergo an overhaul. Theo's had a mixed bag of success (Gonzalez, Saltalamacchia) and failure (Lackey, Crawford, etc.) in trades and free agency. Are organizational changes needed or do certain players need to be shipped out?

Even if the team totally collapses, I can't imagine Theo or Tito are in any danger of losing their jobs.

Who is on your chopping block, and who is most accountable for the current state of the team?

No one's head is going to roll, because no one in the organization is going to over-react Steinbrenner-style to some bad luck and injuries.

[Marbleheader]

No one's head is going to roll, because no one in the organization is going to over-react Steinbrenner-style to some bad luck and injuries.

I don't think there will be an overreaction, the 'heads rolling', is tongue-in-cheek, but even with the injuries the pitching staff has been a mixed bag. Is any of that on Young or can you only expect so much from the talent on the staff?

[Paul M]

Biggest root causes are guys with albatross contracts, the injury to Buchholz and later Youkilis.

Curt Young might be culpable but it's not likely a different pitching coach changes how the pitching performed. In a perfect world, I guess he fixes Andrew Miller but other than that there wasn't a huge failing that I see. Just not quite as strong as Farrell, but who is?

So, I am not sure heads can roll unless it is a symbolic gesture. Usually the manager gets the brunt of a collapse but Francona has two rings unlike McNamara or Little.

[Red(s)HawksFan]

I don't think there will be an overreaction, the 'heads rolling', is tongue-in-cheek, but even with the injuries the pitching staff has been a mixed bag. Is any of that on Young or can you only expect so much from the talent on the staff?

The "mixed bag" of the pitching staff has a whole hell of a lot to do with Buchholz's back, Jenks' back, Matsuzaka's elbow and Hill's elbow though. More so than anything Curt Young did or didn't do. You can't coach health.

Lackey is about the only "talent" that failed that you might possibly try to put on Young's head, but there's plenty of speculation that his issues are at least in part health-related as well. He took a cortisone shot in his elbow earlier in the year, and was supposedly going to need some kind of surgery on his elbow in the off-season. He's either gutting it out because of Buchholz and Matsuzaka already being gone, or he's simply a blockhead who doesn't want to admit he's hurting.

[Buzzkill Pauley]

Theo won't be gone, but I have to think baseball ops will be shaken up.

I'm hopeful that Allard Baird will be shown the door -- high-end pro scouting for acquisitions has been a significant weakness for the team since Oct 31, 2006.

[Carl Everetts Therapist]

The "mixed bag" of the pitching staff has a whole hell of a lot to do with Buchholz's back, Jenks' back, Matsuzaka's elbow and Hill's elbow though. More so than anything Curt Young did or didn't do. You can't coach health.

Lackey is about the only "talent" that failed that you might possibly try to put on Young's head, but there's plenty of speculation that his issues are at least in part health-related as well. He took a cortisone shot in his elbow earlier in the year, and was supposedly going to need some kind of surgery on his elbow in the off-season. He's either gutting it out because of Buchholz and Matsuzaka already being gone, or he's simply a blockhead who doesn't want to admit he's hurting.

Not addressing the weakness of starting pitching depth at the trade dealine was a huge issue (or addressing it by getting a guy who was one start off the DL). Add in all the other injuries and the biggest reason for collapse was not enough bullets in the gun.

I lay the blame at the feet of Theo and the medical/training staff and of course god.....

[NomarRS05]

So do they just throw up their hands and chalk it up to bad luck, again? I don't want to see Theo or Francona go anytime soon but maybe this will cause the front office to alter their talent evaluation methods and/or personnel. It doesn't seem like the farm system is teeming with pitching talent, and at some point you have to ask why the rotation is in such shambles right now.

This was discussed in the game threads but dating back to 2003/2004, the Sox have been consistently out-drafted by the in terms of pitching, particularly after the first round. The Rays got Hellickson in the 4th round of the 2005 draft, Matt Moore in the 8th round in 2007, Andy Sonnanstine in the 6th round in 2004, Wade Davis in the 3rd round in 2004.

I know the Rays are a tough bench mark to compete against, but looking at the Sox' drafts from 2003-2007, there aren't a lot of success stories after round 3 on the pitching side. If you want an explanation of how the Rays are beating the Sox right now, a lot of it goes back to drafting well.

[Doctor G]

If the carousel does end up with LaRussa in Chicago , Duncan replaces Don Cooper.Cooper might be a candidate to replace Young, if he doesn't follow Ozzie to Miami.

Edited by Doctor G, 19 September 2011 - 04:59 PM.

[smastroyin]

So do they just throw up their hands and chalk it up to bad luck, again? I don't want to see Theo or Francona go anytime soon but maybe this will cause the front office to alter their talent evaluation methods and/or personnel. It doesn't seem like the farm system is teeming with pitching talent, and at some point you have to ask why the rotation is in such shambles right now.

This was discussed in the game threads but dating back to 2003/2004, the Sox have been consistently out-drafted by the in terms of pitching, particularly after the first round. The Rays got Hellickson in the 4th round of the 2005 draft, Matt Moore in the 8th round in 2007, Andy Sonnanstine in the 6th round in 2004, Wade Davis in the 3rd round in 2004.

I know the Rays are a tough bench mark to compete against, but looking at the Sox' drafts from 2003-2007, there aren't a lot of success stories after round 3 on the pitching side. If you want an explanation of how the Rays are beating the Sox right now, a lot of it goes back to drafting well.

I don't know if heads will roll in terms of people we readily recognize. I expect some shakeups in the minor league pitching instruction, in the major league scouting, and like someone said above, Allard Baird has at best been not so damaging and at the worst really really horrible. Almost every significant major league acquisition has done poorly, and especially when you talk about guys who the stats could only have been lukewarm (say, Lackey, but there are others) you have to think it was his guys saying "no, do this."

[Red(s)HawksFan]

So do they just throw up their hands and chalk it up to bad luck, again? I don't want to see Theo or Francona go anytime soon but maybe this will cause the front office to alter their talent evaluation methods and/or personnel. It doesn't seem like the farm system is teeming with pitching talent, and at some point you have to ask why the rotation is in such shambles right now.

The rotation is in shambles because their second best starter from last year has spent more than half this season on the DL, the fourth best starter needed Tommy John, and the third best starter from last season went from merely disappointing to outright horrible. I don't know how much talent evaluation is needed to prevent/resolve the Buchholz/Matsuzaka injuries and no way could the best scouts foresee the nosedive Lackey took. Predict him to be bad, maybe, but not this bad.

Not addressing the weakness of starting pitching depth at the trade dealine was a huge issue (or addressing it by getting a guy who was one start off the DL). Add in all the other injuries and the biggest reason for collapse was not enough bullets in the gun.

I lay the blame at the feet of Theo and the medical/training staff and of course god.....

At the deadline, they got Bedard, who has been good when he's pitched (he's missed, what, two turns through the rotation, which wasn't all that unexpected). Something else to note is at that point they were expecting Buchholz back a lot sooner...he was throwing off a mound four days before the deadline. They were also 10.5 games up on the Rays at that point and the rotation they had was in reasonable shape. Beckett and Lester were doing their thing. They had added Bedard. Even Lackey was showing signs of turning it around (4-0, 2.52 ERA in the last 4 starts before the deadline).

I'm not sure what more could have been done to bolster the rotation. Adding Harden? Eh, he's been no more effective for the A's since the deadline than Wakefield's been for the Sox. (44 IP with a 5.08 ERA in 8 starts vs 50 IP with a 5.12 ERA in 9 appearances) I'm not convinced he'd have been the answer either.

[Wingack]

Not addressing the weakness of starting pitching depth at the trade dealine was a huge issue (or addressing it by getting a guy who was one start off the DL). Add in all the other injuries and the biggest reason for collapse was not enough bullets in the gun.

I lay the blame at the feet of Theo and the medical/training staff and of course god.....

I do not no why this is not a bigger issue. I am beginning to think that fans like to use injuries as a crutch of an excuse for teams falling apart. I keep reading, well Buchholz got hurt, and Youk, and Player X,Y, and Z. But teams can overcome injuries and this is what also happened last year.

As an outside observer, it seems to me that there is either a problem with the types of players that Red Sox roster (they seem to have more injury-prone players than most teams at a quick glance). They may have a major problem with their medical/training staff. The "shit happens" attitude when it comes to injuries by the fanbase is really perplexing. There are things that can be done about it, like retooling the training staff so that the team doesn't break down at the end of the season.

[Snodgrass'Muff]

The Red Sox have not been prone to knee jerk reactions for the most part (Doug Mirabelli aside), so I don't think any major pieces of the front office or coaching staff are going anywhere. I'd love to see Bogar replaced, though they seem to have blinders on with him.

I don't think you can make a credible argument that a team with Pedroia, Lester, Buchholz, Ellsbury, Bard, Papelbon and to a lesser extent Youk (he was nearly major league ready when they took over the team) has a player development problem. You can even add Reddick and Kalish, who have had success at the major league level at young ages, and then look to Lavarnway and Middlebrooks as near major league ready prospects who both have a shot at being top 100 prospects (top 50 in Middlebrooks' case). They have a highly regarded short stop prospect in Iglesias, though he has a long way to go, and a system teeming with low minors talent like Brentz, Coyle, Cecchini, Ranaudo, Jacobs, Bogaerts, ect ect, who all had good seasons.

This organization develops talent just fine. We're looking at a bit of a lull in promotions right now because they used a good chunk of their depth to bring Victor Martinez in a couple years ago, and Adrian Gonzalez in this year. Both guys delivered in their time here, Gonzalez still has 6 years to keep paying dividends. But the loss of Casey Kelly, Anthony Rizzo, Justin Masterson and Nick Hagadone definitely stings in a season like this where our pitching fell apart and we spent a few weeks having to DH Pedroia and hit Lowrie 5th.

If there's one area of the team that might need to be reevaluated, it's probably the medical staff as this is two years in a row with a ridiculous amount of injuries. Of course, the nature of many of them is closer to fluke than chronic, so I'm not sure even *that's* a fair statement. Pedroia with his foot, Youk with the thumb, then his hip, Matsuzaka's elbow (that was a ticking time bomb from day 1), Tazawa's elbow (did anyone see that coming?), Ortiz' heel, Tek with a broken toe... hell, Buchholz had a broken back. Who could possibly have predicted these things?

I hate to say it, but bad luck seems to be more at fault here than anything else. I think the ownership group will recognize that.

[xpisblack]

Dave Page might get a long, hard look, which might be a bit of a pity-- one perception I keep hearing is that this side have gotten injured in part due to poor conditioning, so perhaps the conditioning coach should go. Page had the same position in 2007, and that team had nowhere near the number of injuries as this current squad. The average age of the 4-man roster in 2007 was 30.2; this year, it's 30.1, so average age isn't a factor. The 2007 Sox had as many players aged 35 or over, too-- roughly 7 apiece (although, in full disclosure, I'm looking at the current 40-man for this year and the B-R qualifiers for 2007, so the comparison isn't near perfect). This year, the Sox have been snakebit, health-wise, and I'm not sure there's a cure for that this side of not drinking Jobu's rum or cribbing off whatever the Rays have been doing.

That said, the health of the starting pitchers has become a perennial source of concern, and the ailing position players don't help. A certain number of injuries are going to happen in any season, but when 5 out of 5 starting pitchers and a few of their replacements (not to mention the ailing bullpen arms and the position players and their backups) miss starts due to pitching injuries, some eyebrows are bound to quirk. So, assuming Boston fans insist that blame be assigned, who is more culpable, the pitching coach or the conditioning coach? Add to it that Page's first year was 2006, when the Sox endured injuries to about a third of their key players-- Varitek, Ramirez, Papelbon, and Foulke (not including Lester, obviously, whose injury time was-- shall we say?-- not baseball related, or Clement, who was never really that crucial and hadn't recovered from getting hit in 2005, or Wells, whose body almost precluded health, or even Wakefield, who was also not really crucial to that team). Suffice it to say that when Kason Gabbard was called up on 21 July, he became the ninth rookie to pitch for the Red Sox that year, two and two-halves of whom (Lester and Papelbon, and then half of Delcarmen and half of Breslow) worked out for the team.

Injuries happen, but when the majority of the injuries are both DL-worthy and fluky to the point of being bizarre, then some doubt has to fall on the people whose job is to get the players into season-long baseball shape. Obviously, the coaches can't force them to be healthy, but sometimes, what looks like bad luck can end up being preventable bad training.

[NYCSox]

I hate to say this but Wingack is right. The entire medical/training staff has to go. The last two seasons and three of the last six have been destroyed by injuries. Maybe the current staff can't be held accountable for 2006 but they sure as hell need to pay the price for 2010 and 2011. There is no excuse for a team in Boston, with some of the finest doctors and medical centers in the world, to have this kind of recurring problem.

Oh and Curt Young. Apparently he only does well when his home park has 25 square miles of foul territory.

[BosRedSox5]

I'd be surprised if Curt Young returns, he would seem to be the most likely candidate to take one for the team. Bogar might not be back either, but I think Young is more likely because of his position.

So Beckett, Lester, and Buchholz have been as effective as ever (barring injury); Papelbon has had a major resurgence, Aceves is having his best season and you're ready to fire Young? Why? Because John Lackey sucks, and Dice K, Buchholz, Lester, Jenks, Bedard and others have spent time on the shelf? I doubt we'll see a strong reaction from the Sox in firing people. They have a good organization and just got bit by the injury bug.

I'd predict they stay the course, maybe get one big name guy in FA (a pitcher perhaps?) and pay more attention to organizational depth next season.

[Clears Cleaver]

anyone who looks at this team, the way it is constructed, the way the payroll is split and spent would immediately say the GM has to be grossly incompetent. But since it is "Theo" everyone looks for other places to blame. If they continue, this team will have been one of the top eight teams in the sport (top four of 14) twice in four years despite spending more money than 28 of the other 29 teams. and will have won exactly one postseason series in those four years.

I don't want to go through what went right and what went wrong, but they clearly spent money on the wrong players, especially when they decided to make long-term commitments.

Edited by Clears Cleaver, 19 September 2011 - 06:42 PM.

[BucketOBalls]

Oh and Curt Young. Apparently he only does well when his home park has 25 square miles of foul territory.

Well, whatever Young did to Beckett worked.

[OCD SS]

The entire medical/training staff has to go. The last two seasons and three of the last six have been destroyed by injuries. Maybe the current staff can't be held accountable for 2006 but they sure as hell need to pay the price for 2010 and 2011. There is no excuse for a team in Boston, with some of the finest doctors and medical centers in the world, to have this kind of recurring problem.

I've been to start a thread just to criticize the medical staff for awhile, but this seems like a better place. The Sox entered the last 2 seasons with arguably the best all around team for the last 2 seasons and we've now seen 2 years where that team just can't stay on the field. At a certain point you've got to look at this as a "fool me once.." situation. Of course it's at least partly the players, but this is pretty much an unprecedented string of DL time and if this crew can't keep these players on the field, it's much easier to replace the medical staff than the players.

[BosRedSox5]

anyone who looks at this team, the way it is constructed, the way the payroll is split and spent would immediately say the GM has to be grossly incompetent.

Um, no. Just no.

Have you seen the Cubs, the Mets or the Dodgers? Anyone looking at the Sox roster would see a couple mistakes but a whole host of homegrown talent on the cheap.

[aron7awol]

All of the people arguing for the firing of the training staff: Which specific injuries should they have been able to prevent?

[OCD SS]

I don't want to go through what went right and what went wrong, but they clearly spent money on the wrong players, especially when they decided to make long-term commitments.

Actually I give them a lot of credit for spending the money they did. If there was a miscalculation, it was in not signing Matt Holliday away from the Cardinals, but I don't think you can fault the Crawford signing for one bad season (especially where his numbers are going to be victimized for his horrendous 1st month). Some of the other unpopular signings (Lackey, and maybe I should count DiceK here) there were not better options available (if you consider that Theo is never going to give a pitcher $20M+ a year).

The Sox FO has been using FA to plug holes that were not going to be filled any other way, and despite how they've performed, those signings look to me like a sound process where the results didn't match up.

[yecul]

They should make Lackey the highest paid third base coach in history. You know... two birds.

[OCD SS]

All of the people arguing for the firing of the training staff: Which specific injuries should they have been able to prevent?

It's not necessarily about preventing specific injuries as much as it is proper preventative "maintenance" that will keep players on the field and then making an accurate assessment of what's wrong when they are injured so that they know how much time that will be missed so the FO can make the appropriate moves. Besides the situation with Ellsbury last season, it seems that guys really linger on the DL and have to go back after playing like crap for a couple weeks as they fight through an injury that hasn't healed.

[Red(s)HawksFan]

Besides the situation with Ellsbury last season, it seems that guys really linger on the DL and have to go back after playing like crap for a couple weeks as they fight through an injury that hasn't healed.

Examples please?

[Papelbon's Poutine]

I'd predict they stay the course, maybe get one big name guy in FA (a pitcher perhaps?) and pay more attention to organizational depth next season.

Here's a list of FA starters at the end of the year:

Mark Buehrle CWS
Chris Carpenter STL *
Bruce Chen KC
Aaron Cook COL *
Kyle Davies KC
Ryan Dempster CHC *
Justin Duchscherer OAK
Zach Duke ARI *
Jeff Francis KC
Freddy Garcia NYY
Jon Garland LAD *
Aaron Harang SD
Rich Harden OAK
Livan Hernandez WAS
Edwin Jackson CWS
Kenshin Kawakami ATL
Scott Kazmir LAA
Hiroki Kuroda LAD
Rodrigo Lopez CHC
Paul Maholm PIT
John Maine COL
Jason Marquis WAS
Kevin Millwood NYY
Scott Olsen PIT *
Roy Oswalt PHI *
Brad Penny DET
Oliver Perez NYM
Joel Pineiro LAA
CC Sabathia NYY (may opt out)
Carlos Silva NYY
Javier Vazquez FLA
Adam Wainwright STL *
Tim Wakefield BOS
Chien-Ming Wang WAS
Brandon Webb ARI
C.J. Wilson TEX
Chris Young NYM


I've struck through Carpenter (who signed an extension) and Wainwright (whose option has already been picked up).

That leaves you with Beurhle (who will either resign in CHW or go home to STL; not to mention, I seem to remember him vetoeing a trade to the Sox a couple years ago? Am I making that up?); CC (who the Yankees will resign); Wilson (who the Yankees will sign) and Jackson as "attractive" options.

How much you want to sign Edwin Jackson for and rely on him to right the ship?

There's no help in the FA market uness they take a flier on Bedard and he pans out or Darvish gets posted and they dip their bitten fingers back into that honey pot.

[lexrageorge]

If anything, this season is an example of why starting pitching is one of the most unpredictable elements in the game, and why it is important to keep the pipeline of developing young pitchers moving along. If there's any criticism to be deserved, it's this; they have only developed two starting pitchers from their minor league system: Lester and Buchholz, and they really didn't have anything in AA/AAA worth bringing in for a handful of games.

Theo does get credit for developing Lester and Buchholz, and also should get credit for extending Beckett, especially when everyone here was ready to dump him overboard. With regards to Dice-K, keep in mind that his career arc after his first two seasons looked quite promising. While we like to think of Dice-K as a "failure" (and he certainly wasn't a success), it wasn't obvious to anyone after the 2008 season that he would turn into a complete disaster and end up on the shelf. On this one, I'm willing to give Theo a pass.

Lackey was unfortunate, and was partly a result of the dry pipeline of good young pitchers in the upper minor leagues. It was an expensive lesson in the risks of signing FA pitchers; Theo's not the first GM to be burned by this, and Brian Cashman has had his own set of failures as well (Kevin Brown, anyone?).

Criticizing Theo for signing Tazawa is ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as criticizing the A-Gon trade. That was a low-risk signing that cost the organization essentially nothing, and may still bear fruit. It was no different than drafting and signing a college pitcher; some work out, and some don't.

I'm sure there will be changes, but I don't expect the FO to make changes based solely on the last month of the season. If anything, they will look at the season as a whole, evaluate what worked, what didn't, and try to go from there.

[Rudy Pemberton]

Look at the amount of money the organization invested in Lackey, the worst pitcher in baseball, and Crawford, one of the least productive outfielders in the league. I get that life is unpredictable, but these are two huge signings that were complete misses this season, and the presence of these players really restricts what the team can do going forward. Why were these players targeted, how was their value determined, and why haven't they succeeded? How will the same mistakes not be repeated? If I'm John Henry, I need some answers to those questions before I give Theo more cash to work with. The track record on signing free agents from other teams just isn't very good. Perhaps that's the nature of free agency, if so, the organization needs to find better ways to allocate resources. Why were Miller, Weiland, Etc, not ready to help? Why was Okajima resigned and then buried? Not saying anyone should get fired but no matter how the season ends up, the recent string of free agent signings needs to be examined and explained.

[dcmissle]

If anything, this season is an example of why starting pitching is one of the most unpredictable elements in the game, and why it is important to keep the pipeline of developing young pitchers moving along. If there's any criticism to be deserved, it's this; they have only developed two starting pitchers from their minor league system: Lester and Buchholz, and they really didn't have anything in AA/AAA worth bringing in for a handful of games.

Theo does get credit for developing Lester and Buchholz, and also should get credit for extending Beckett, especially when everyone here was ready to dump him overboard. With regards to Dice-K, keep in mind that his career arc after his first two seasons looked quite promising. While we like to think of Dice-K as a "failure" (and he certainly wasn't a success), it wasn't obvious to anyone after the 2008 season that he would turn into a complete disaster and end up on the shelf. On this one, I'm willing to give Theo a pass.

Lackey was unfortunate, and was partly a result of the dry pipeline of good young pitchers in the upper minor leagues. It was an expensive lesson in the risks of signing FA pitchers; Theo's not the first GM to be burned by this, and Brian Cashman has had his own set of failures as well (Kevin Brown, anyone?).

Criticizing Theo for signing Tazawa is ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as criticizing the A-Gon trade. That was a low-risk signing that cost the organization essentially nothing, and may still bear fruit. It was no different than drafting and signing a college pitcher; some work out, and some don't.

I'm sure there will be changes, but I don't expect the FO to make changes based solely on the last month of the season. If anything, they will look at the season as a whole, evaluate what worked, what didn't, and try to go from there.

Sadly, I suspect Lackey also was party a result of unspent Teixeira money burning a hole in their pockets. "We didn't get Mark ... Let's outflank them by building a pitching advantage."

Smartest-kid-in-the-class, too cute by half crap.

I really wish when they approach these things that the RS would pretend for a few minutes that they are the St. Louis Cardinals. And by that, I don't acumen, but instead wherewithal and mindset. Discipline can help.

[xpisblack]

All of the people arguing for the firing of the training staff: Which specific injuries should they have been able to prevent?

Well, let's start with Jenks. He was clearly not in shape to play baseball this season, and his three trips to the DL support his unpreparedness. Yes, this very latest stint has nothing to do with baseball or conditioning, but the earlier back problems are probably due to his weight and ill-advised training.

Buchholz's back problems are not likely due to his weight, but could be due to uneven strength training. His pitching motion isn't so violent or so convoluted as to presage lower-back strains, much less stress fractures, so hearing that he has had back problems all season including tightness is surprising, to say the least. I know young cricketers, particularly bowlers, are prone to lumbar stress fractures and even spondylolysis, but those are adolescents with far less control over their bodies than professionally trained and conditioned pitchers, and one of the most common causes for lumbar stress fractures is overtraining.

Ortiz's back spasms fall somewhere between the Jenks and Buchholz cases: he's a big fellow, and he could have pulled a muscle back there doing any of a number of things, but proper stretching, strengthening, and conditioning can go a long way towards preventing spasms, if not all the pulls and strains that can lead to them. Same goes for Youkilis's "back stiffness" and Lester's strained lat-- good conditioning can often prevent this kind of tweak-like injury, or at least keep them from involving DL stints.

Bedard has a mild lat strain due to overcompensating for a strained knee. A good medical staff could have diagnosed the knee and pulled him before allowing him to compound the injury.

I don't remember the cause of Scutaro's left oblique strain back in May, so I'll not put it to poor conditioning-- he plays a twistsome game, at times, and my memory isn't good enough to call it a natural tweak (like McDonald's quad strain or Youk'e hand injury) or something more preventable.

Here's a list of the Red Sox' injuries this year. I'm not sure it's complete, but it'll do for reference. By my count, that's 46 discrete injuries and illnesses (27 Day-to-Day, 6 60-Day), roughly- very roughly-- half of which appear to be standard, unavoidable (illness, in-game bruising, etc), or next-day reassessments (Hill, Drew, Buchholz). Regardless of the nits you might care to pick with any particular injury assessment, the sheer number of uncertain-origin injuries should call some of the conditioning into question. By comparison, the Rays have had 27 injuries, 17 of which are classified as Day-to-Day (0 60-Day), the Tigers have had 21 injuries (8 Day-to-Day, 3 60-Day), the Rangers have had 25 total (6 Day-to-Day, 7 60-Day, 1 7-Day), and so on. The Yankees have also had a huge rash of injuries-- 45 total, 25 Day-to-Day, 11 60-Day-- but they had several more before the season had actually begun and what looks like many more recent preventative shelvings (probably because they're in the lead). And more of theirs look like the direct result of playing-- jammed thumbs, lacerated finger, broken foot, bruises, hamstring pulls, etc-- and a few more unavoidable ailments-- Peña's appendectomy, more illnesses, concussion, etc-- than the Sox' injuries have done.

And yes, many of the injuries on this list are due to repeat offenders, but that's also on the medical staff. Everyone knows Drew is going to see Day-to-Day time, and possibly DL time, and Youkilis plays hard and gets beaned a lot, but Hill, Jenks, Buchholz, Lowrie... The number of injury-prone players on this team is getting tiresome.

[OCD SS]

Examples please?

Just for that example, off the top of my head Ellsbury, Cameron, Pedroia with his foot, I believe there was some scuttlebut about Lowrie not really trusting the medical staff (and who, to be fair, simply may not be as good as some of us thought), Jenks, and Youks (who also to be fair is not going to be right until the season is over regardless). There are also the guys who seem to take awhile to be correctly diagnosed and/ or linger on the DL like Buchholz.

The larger issue is that for 2 seasons this team has not been able to stay on the field, and it's the biggest issue with why they've found themselves where they are/ have been. While it is certainly falls on the players and luck (because hey, guys do get hurt), exactly how many supposedly unconnected events do they need before they figure that it's not just an unprecedented run of bad luck and maybe they should start looking at making some changes to the system and people who operate that system?

[Gene Conleys Plane Ticket]

I've been to start a thread just to criticize the medical staff for awhile, but this seems like a better place. The Sox entered the last 2 seasons with arguably the best all around team for the last 2 seasons and we've now seen 2 years where that team just can't stay on the field. At a certain point you've got to look at this as a "fool me once.." situation. Of course it's at least partly the players, but this is pretty much an unprecedented string of DL time and if this crew can't keep these players on the field, it's much easier to replace the medical staff than the players.

This is what I've been thinking for a while. It seems like the Red Sox get hit not just by injuries, as any team does, but by a major injury crisis every year -- the two World Series years being the notable exceptions.

That may be partly on the medical staff and it is of course partly bad luck. Who knew that Pedroia would foul a ball of his foot last year, for example, or that Beltre would break Ellsbury's ribs.

But the injuries aren't all bad luck. Youkilis, for example, seems very injury prone. Beckett was already injury prone when they acquired him. I wonder if the next phase of the evolution in player evaluation is the prediction of injuries. If so, the the Red Sox might want to get out in front of that trend.

[PedroKsBambino]

So, I am not sure heads can roll unless it is a symbolic gesture. Usually the manager gets the brunt of a collapse but Francona has two rings unlike McNamara or Little.

Most importantly, Francona is an excellent manager who has made few bad decisions during this ill run (talk-radio level commentary notwithstanding), so in addition to the rings he has a lot more merit as a manager than Grady Little or John McNamara!

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

Wow. I would love to see some sort of evidence that any medical staff in the world has the ability - over the long run - to prevent injuries and make teams healthier. And I'm not just talking baseball.

And it wasn't that long ago we were all lauding the Red Sox for their shoulder strengthening programs preventing injuries.

I mean let's be real about this for a minute. If there were a doctor who could statistically show that he or she could prevent more injuries than the average doctor (and I'm not even limiting this universe to team doctors, who make up some of the most well-regarded doctors in the world), what would that doctor be worth? More than A-Rod?

As far as I understood it, the medical staff is there to treat injuries, not prevent them.

Yes, this may be a really bad year. But at least this didn't happen pre-2004.

[aron7awol]

Well, let's start with Jenks. He was clearly not in shape to play baseball this season, and his three trips to the DL support his unpreparedness. Yes, this very latest stint has nothing to do with baseball or conditioning, but the earlier back problems are probably due to his weight and ill-advised training.

Jenks is and always has been fat and out of shape. What ill-advised training are you referring to?

Buchholz's back problems are not likely due to his weight, but could be due to uneven strength training. His pitching motion isn't so violent or so convoluted as to presage lower-back strains, much less stress fractures, so hearing that he has had back problems all season including tightness is surprising, to say the least. I know young cricketers, particularly bowlers, are prone to lumbar stress fractures and even spondylolysis, but those are adolescents with far less control over their bodies than professionally trained and conditioned pitchers, and one of the most common causes for lumbar stress fractures is overtraining.

Overtraining, such as throwing hundreds of pitches for many months in a row? How can you try to blame the medical staff for a stress fracture?

Ortiz's back spasms fall somewhere between the Jenks and Buchholz cases: he's a big fellow, and he could have pulled a muscle back there doing any of a number of things, but proper stretching, strengthening, and conditioning can go a long way towards preventing spasms, if not all the pulls and strains that can lead to them. Same goes for Youkilis's "back stiffness" and Lester's strained lat-- good conditioning can often prevent this kind of tweak-like injury, or at least keep them from involving DL stints.

A 35-year-old Ortiz having back spasms could have been prevented with stretching, strengthening, and conditioning? He's now appeared in 138 games this season. There's nothing to see there. A 32-year-old Youkilis who isn't exactly graceful in the field has back stiffness and a sports hernia. With Lester, he strained a lat. He's throwing hundreds of pitches at maximum effort. Pitchers get these types of injuries.

Bedard has a mild lat strain due to overcompensating for a strained knee. A good medical staff could have diagnosed the knee and pulled him before allowing him to compound the injury.

They knew he had the knee injury when they traded for him. There's nothing the training staff could have done.

Here's a list of the Red Sox' injuries this year. I'm not sure it's complete, but it'll do for reference. By my count, that's 46 discrete injuries and illnesses (27 Day-to-Day, 6 60-Day), roughly- very roughly-- half of which appear to be standard, unavoidable (illness, in-game bruising, etc), or next-day reassessments (Hill, Drew, Buchholz). Regardless of the nits you might care to pick with any particular injury assessment, the sheer number of uncertain-origin injuries should call some of the conditioning into question. By comparison, the Rays have had 27 injuries, 17 of which are classified as Day-to-Day (0 60-Day), the Tigers have had 21 injuries (8 Day-to-Day, 3 60-Day), the Rangers have had 25 total (6 Day-to-Day, 7 60-Day, 1 7-Day), and so on. The Yankees have also had a huge rash of injuries-- 45 total, 25 Day-to-Day, 11 60-Day-- but they had several more before the season had actually begun and what looks like many more recent preventative shelvings (probably because they're in the lead). And more of theirs look like the direct result of playing-- jammed thumbs, lacerated finger, broken foot, bruises, hamstring pulls, etc-- and a few more unavoidable ailments-- Peña's appendectomy, more illnesses, concussion, etc-- than the Sox' injuries have done.

Looking at injuries for a few select teams in a single season tells us absolutely nothing. You'd have to look at a lot more teams across multiple seasons to come up with any kind of conclusion. I would guess that younger teams like the Rays would consistently have less injuries than older teams like the Sox and Yanks.

And yes, many of the injuries on this list are due to repeat offenders, but that's also on the medical staff. Everyone knows Drew is going to see Day-to-Day time, and possibly DL time, and Youkilis plays hard and gets beaned a lot, but Hill, Jenks, Buchholz, Lowrie... The number of injury-prone players on this team is getting tiresome.

Why is having injury-prone players on the medical staff?

You're just conjecturing and trying to come up with a scapegoat, when the most reasonable explanation is that they are an older team, they have some injury-prone players, and they have had bad injury luck. You're grasping at straws with little to no evidence.

[lexrageorge]

Just for that example, off the top of my head Ellsbury, Cameron, Pedroia with his foot, I believe there was some scuttlebut about Lowrie not really trusting the medical staff (and who, to be fair, simply may not be as good as some of us thought), Jenks, and Youks (who also to be fair is not going to be right until the season is over regardless). There are also the guys who seem to take awhile to be correctly diagnosed and/ or linger on the DL like Buchholz.

The larger issue is that for 2 seasons this team has not been able to stay on the field, and it's the biggest issue with why they've found themselves where they are/ have been. While it is certainly falls on the players and luck (because hey, guys do get hurt), exactly how many supposedly unconnected events do they need before they figure that it's not just an unprecedented run of bad luck and maybe they should start looking at making some changes to the system and people who operate that system?

So, we have for examples:

Ellsbury, who just about every medical expert say his recovery time from a broken rib was very much outside the typical range for an athlete. In other words, a fluke injury, which was caused by an event no medical staff could prevent.

Cameron, who was at the age that most athletes start having chronic muscle type injuries.

Pedroia, whose injury was described as being quite complex, and again, was caused by an event no medical staff on the planet could fix.

Lowrie: Enough about him. He's lucky he has a job, so he shouldn't be complaining.

Jenks: Was out of shape from Day 1. This one's on Theo.

Youks: Every team has a guy that goes through a season like this, battling nagging injuries. This is the one guy, however, that admittedly concerns me the most going forward.

Buchholz: Diagnosed with an unusual and unexpected injury, that medical experts feel was not predictable or forseeable until symptoms started to appear.

As tough as it may be to admit, some times bad luck does happen.

[dcmissle]

Wow. I would love to see some sort of evidence that any medical staff in the world has the ability - over the long run - to prevent injuries and make teams healthier. And I'm not just talking baseball.

And it wasn't that long ago we were all lauding the Red Sox for their shoulder strengthening programs preventing injuries.

I mean let's be real about this for a minute. If there were a doctor who could statistically show that he or she could prevent more injuries than the average doctor (and I'm not even limiting this universe to team doctors, who make up some of the most well-regarded doctors in the world), what would that doctor be worth? More than A-Rod?

As far as I understood it, the medical staff is there to treat injuries, not prevent them.

Yes, this may be a really bad year. But at least this didn't happen pre-2004.

It does seem odd, but I don't know why the presumption should be that the RS are simply unlucky.

This team appears to have multiple system failures. My hope is that it will stand down after the season and analyze them carefully before deciding the heads to be rolled. Maybe the process has already begun. Thankfully, John Henry seems to understand return on investment. Right now, it's not very good.

[radsoxfan]

Why is having injury-prone players on the medical staff?

You're just conjecturing and trying to come up with a scapegoat, when the most reasonable explanation is that they are an older team, they have some injury-prone players, and they have had bad injury luck. You're grasping at straws with little to no evidence.

Bingo. Should we fire doctors when their smoking patients get lung cancer? Or their old patients get Alzheimers? Sometimes there is only so much you can do.

There are multiple arguments in play here. Are the team doctors/staff failing to:

1. prevent injuries
2. diagnose injuries
3. treat injuries

There have been a few minor decisions I thought were curious and may have delayed a few diagnoses (which for the most part didn't affect treatment, but may have delayed efficient roster decisions). Overall though, blaming any of this on the medical staff is ridiculously misguided.


Edit: It's also kind of funny to be having this discussion when they are still leading the WC by the way. In theory (I know it seems crazy), but this team still has a chance to win the World Series this year.

Edited by radsoxfan, 19 September 2011 - 10:22 PM.

[lexrageorge]

It does seem odd, but I don't know why the presumption should be that the RS are simply unlucky.

This team appears to have multiple system failures. My hope is that it will stand down after the season and analyze them carefully before deciding the heads to be rolled. Maybe the process has already begun. Thankfully, John Henry seems to understand return on investment. Right now, it's not very good.

Probably because John Henry is smart enough to realize you don't make changes for changes sake. Without evidence to the contrary, a string of bad luck on the injury front is all one can go by.

The only evidence we have is that some of the older players on the team have had to deal with nagging injury issues, but nothing that is atypical of older players on other teams. The other evidence is that some players have been on the DL longer than expected, or had had more complicated injuries than originally thought. But there has yet to be a case where a player was definitively brought back "too early".

I do agree that the team will take time to assess the issues before doing anything. And, given that, I wouldn't expect that a bunch of heads will roll.

Again, Theo and Tito are 100% safe right now.

[reggiecleveland]

Sometimes nobody is to blame. Christ.

This is like when somebody dies and people look for some bad habit to blame it on. "Oh he smoked that's why he got hit by that bus." Blaming the doctors fits this analogy as well.

Nobody gets axed, but some of them, like Theo, are no longer bullet proof.

All I can say is I hope Lackey gets surgery this off season and I hope Crawford was nursing an injury that will heal this winter.

A more realistic decision is Papi or Youk. Seems they are a year or two away from Youk Dhing.

[Reverend]

Sometimes nobody is to blame. Christ.

Lies.

All the variance in our perceived reality is the product of the agency of someone--we just need to find that person and hold him accountable!!

On the other hand, that might be an incredibly juvenile, even primitive, relationship with being--one that is not only not constructive but can lead one to take counterproductive and damaging action out of the quixotic need to feel a sense of control.

Tomato v. tomato...

[BroodsSexton]

Lies.

All the variance in our perceived reality is the product of the agency of someone--we just need to find that person and hold him accountable!!

On the other hand, that might be an incredibly juvenile, even primitive, relationship with being--one that is not only not constructive but can lead one to take counterproductive and damaging action out of the quixotic need to feel a sense of control.

Tomato v. tomato...

Is the "qu" in "quixotic" pronounced like "queen" or like "quiche"? And is the "i" rhyming with "he" or "slick"? And what's the pronunciation's relationship to Don Quixote? I never understood this.

Edited by BroodsSexton, 19 September 2011 - 10:44 PM.

[BucketOBalls]

Is the "qu" in "quixotic" pronounced like "queen" or like "quiche"? And is the "i" rhyming with "he" or "slick"? And what's the pronunciation's relationship to Don Quixote? I never understood this.

Pretty much the driving force of the book is Don Quixote(the main character) being idealistic and impractical. Now that you mention it, I'm not sure on the pronunciation, I've never heard anyone actually say the word.

[Rasputin]

Is the "qu" in "quixotic" pronounced like "queen" or like "quiche"? And is the "i" rhyming with "he" or "slick"? And what's the pronunciation's relationship to Don Quixote? I never understood this.

I've always heard it pronounced quicksotic.

Also...I don't get the Curt Young hate.

The notion that this roster represents incompetence from the front office is absurd.

Back to the original question, I don't understand why Bogar still has a job.

I'm neither going to be surprised nor terribly disappointed if both Wakefield and Varitek retire in addition to Drew whose non retirement would astonish me.

I'd kinda like to see Scutaro back.

I think the interesting story lines this offseason other than retirements are Papelbon, Papi, and the end of the rotation. We cannot carry a guy performing like Lackey. He simply has to perform better and I'm sure he will. Whether that is like his 2010 or something approaching actual competence I hesitate to speculate upon.

[Rasputin]

Lies.

All the variance in our perceived reality is the product of the agency of someone--we just need to find that person and hold him accountable!!

I blame Jesus.

[JakeRae]

Is the "qu" in "quixotic" pronounced like "queen" or like "quiche"? And is the "i" rhyming with "he" or "slick"? And what's the pronunciation's relationship to Don Quixote? I never understood this.

The majority of the quixotic question has been answered. However, to complete the response, the pronunciation is the Anglicization of Don Quixote's last name turned into an adjective. (The latter process also occurs via English language rules rather than Spanish language rules.)

On subject, I don't really expect Theo or Henry to behave in a reactionary manner. If there are members of the organization who they feel are not adequately performing their job, those people will be gone. If they feel that everything that has happened is simply the result of epicly bad luck, nothing will change.

At the same time, I really hope they give serious consideration to either shopping Youkilis this offseason or giving him a mandatory month plus vacation in the middle of next season. He breaks down by the end of the season every year. He's a great player. But, a great player who doesn't play in September and October is of questionable value.

[aron7awol]

I blame Jesus.

Jesus, son of BABIP? Or is he one of the many Sons of BABIP?

That's a good name for the game thread subforum, given the BABIP worship and sacrifice going on in there these days.

[smastroyin]

The role of the medical staff is not just treatment. It is also prevention and evaluation. Saying there is nothing the medical staff could do about guys who were injured is like an oncologist saying he only performs the surgery or prescribes chemo. Somewhere, it seems there is a systematic problem. the Red Sox are under 70% in getting starts out of their top 5 rotation starters since 2007. That's not one year of bad luck, that is 4 years of poor performance in keeping pitchers on the mound, and that number doesn't even count Schilling missing the entire 2008 season or Beckett throwing like crap for two months last year battling in and out of his injury problems. Since they are also spending a ton of money on pitching, this is bothersome.

So, sure, maybe it is Theo's "fault" for signing injury prone players but doesn't the medical staff give some advice on the condition of those players before they are signed? Or does Theo have scouts and baseball ops people looking at MRIs then going on wikipedia to diagnose guys? Doesn't the medical staff inform some of how these guys are treated? Or is Tito telling the trainers GFY? Or are we playing the game where the trainers and dietitians and all the other assorted support staff aren't part of the medical team?

edit: also, I have said this a ton already, but it is also appropriate here. Think about the Lackey decision. Granted there are three more yeas in which he could show himself to be something. All of the stats that you look at (we did) prior to the signing say the guy is a pretty big risk to expect to continue pitching like he had in Anaheim if he came to Boston (dominance against AL West teams, declining peripherals, etc.). Perhaps there is another layer of peripherals the Sox baseball ops guys used to say that he would be better than those, but I tend to doubt they revealed anything concrete (given hindsight this point seems obvious). So, it comes down to scouting which is already counter-intuitive for a guy with a large statistical sample. And he had been injured. So then scouts had to say "well we think he has this and this and this" and the medical staff says "the elbow isn't that bad" And Tito or the other coaches had to say "we know his teammates don't like him but we will make it work here." None of this has really happened. He sucks, he might be injured, his teammates don't like his antics (though they are professionals and will deal and probably have more empathy for the guy and his wife's health than we do). It just seems like either a lot of pieces of the system had to break down to make that happen. Was it hubris? Did they think that they saw something that they could exploit, but then, why pay top dollar for that? Or, maybe one guy over-rode all of the other evidence. We don't know. But it seems to be a fairly large problem with the process and I can't see it just being written off to bad luck by any person who is serious about their processes, which I assume Theo is. It doesn't mean "heads will roll" but it might mean that some of the core processes get a pretty thorough scrubbing.

[OCD SS]

I should probably amend my idea to be that I was considering the entire "player matinence" staff; training and medical. Also despite this thread's title, I'm not necessarily advocating a "rolling heads" approach to restructuring, but I do want to address the question in way that might be more considered and constructive than just throwing up our hands and saying "bad luck, oh well."

Wow. I would love to see some sort of evidence that any medical staff in the world has the ability - over the long run - to prevent injuries and make teams healthier. And I'm not just talking baseball.

As a side note isn't this why we have doctors around as profession in the first place? If not perhaps we should just save the money by reverting all our M.D.s to Barber-chirurgeons.

You're just conjecturing and trying to come up with a scapegoat, when the most reasonable explanation is that they are an older team, they have some injury-prone players, and they have had bad injury luck. You're grasping at straws with little to no evidence.

Short of some sort of catastrophic smoking gun (probably in the form of something career ending), exactly what would you accept as evidence? Do you need someone to come out and say that they don't trust or agree with the team doctors and make a stink about it in the media? At what point are we actually allowed to start looking past luck at underlying factors, be they training procedures, communication between departments (medical/ training) and player, or even roster construction and player acquisition?

As tough as it may be to admit, some times bad luck does happen.

Of course it does (2007, IIRC was highlighted by the team remaining pretty (relatively) healthy the entire way through) but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't consider that there may be areas/ occurrences that do not fall in the province of luck and should be examined for a way a team with the resources that the Red Sox have may gain an advantage. The previously mentioned arm strength program for the pitchers is a good example, as from the looks of it none of the pitchers are looking at arm surgery (with the caveats for DiceK, who never really seemed to get on the program, and maybe Lackey, for reasons in his contract). I think 2 straight years of injury driven collapse could very easily just be bad luck, but it should also be a reason to look at what is going on and see if maybe there might be some things they could do change their "luck."

[Gene Conleys Plane Ticket]

The role of the medical staff is not just treatment. It is also prevention and evaluation. Saying there is nothing the medical staff could do about guys who were injured is like an oncologist saying he only performs the surgery or prescribes chemo. Somewhere, it seems there is a systematic problem. the Red Sox are under 70% in getting starts out of their top 5 rotation starters since 2007. That's not one year of bad luck, that is 4 years of poor performance in keeping pitchers on the mound, and that number doesn't even count Schilling missing the entire 2008 season or Beckett throwing like crap for two months last year battling in and out of his injury problems. Since they are also spending a ton of money on pitching, this is bothersome.

So, sure, maybe it is Theo's "fault" for signing injury prone players but doesn't the medical staff give some advice on the condition of those players before they are signed? Or does Theo have scouts and baseball ops people looking at MRIs then going on wikipedia to diagnose guys? Doesn't the medical staff inform some of how these guys are treated? Or is Tito telling the trainers GFY? Or are we playing the game where the trainers and dietitians and all the other assorted support staff aren't part of the medical team?

Yes, it seems silly to dismiss the role of the medical staff in predicting and preventing injuries. If that was NOT supposed to be part of the medical team's role, why bother subjecting every player signed or acquired by the Red Sox to a physical exam? Presumably the point there is to discover any underlying or unreported injuries and to evaluate existing ones. And in the past, the Red Sox have made decisions not to sign or re-sign particular players based on those evaluations. Definitely Jason Bay and, I would guess, Pedro Martinez fall into that category.

But it could be that the Red Sox' methods of administering the medical exams needs to be updated. I have no idea.

But I do know that, as in any profession, within the medical profession there are doctors who are intensely interested in the latest theoretical and technological developments in their field. And then, there are doctors who are set in their ways, maybe a bit lazy, and resistant to changing how they've done things for their entire careers.

Perhaps the Red Sox staff has too many of the latter and not enough of the former? I wouldn't know. But if I were Theo, I'd take a look at it.

My question is, beyond the medical staff's work, could there be a statistical metric that could help predict future injuries? Of course, it's much harder to predict "freak" and fluke injuries (though some players, for instance, tend to foul balls off their feet more than others, so maybe that type of injury could be predicted with some degree of certainty). But there must be a way to look at a player's injury history, age, physical characteristics (e.g. heavier players might be more injury prone etc.) and come up with a formula that assigns a likelihood of time missed due to injury in any given season.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Red Sox have Bill James at work on that right now. I hope so, anyway. Because it seems like the Red Sox have suffered an annual injury crisis for the past half-decade or more, and it's cost them wins and possibly championships every year.

Just throwing up their hands and saying, "Darn the luck!" doesn't seem like the Red Sox way.