Too lateAnd please call 911 when I start typing gibberish. I would greatly appreciate it.
Mookie redux
- Thread starter John Marzano Olympic Hero
- Start date
I have nothing against Mookie but I don’t have the love for him that a lot of other people do. He decided he wasn’t going to sign an extension so we traded him. It sucks, and Mookie leaving stung more than Brady did to be honest because there was so much more he should’ve done here, but that’s how it works sometimes.
I don’t necessarily want to see him fail but I couldn’t give a flying fuck how he does in LA. He got what he wanted and we appear to be doing okay without him.
Double amen. Fred Lynn gets mentioned a lot when Mookie comes up and it's an apt comparison not just in terms of talent, but also a wanderlust for CA. Growing up, Lynn was one of my favorites - no surprises there as most of the region seemed to favor him - but there was always some background noise about his desire to play in CA. Kind of got used to a low level of unease until the deal to the Angels confirmed that he was never going to play his career in Boston. I don't know if Mookie ever dropped any clues during his early years, but by the end, it seemed he was heading west come hell or high water. It's the biggest reason - not the LT - that I give the Sox a pass on the trade. They couldn't offer the real estate he was set on and the Lynn saga had prepped me decades earlier.
That said, good luck, thanks for the memories and I'm enjoying Verdugo's current Trot Nixon imitation. Great group of guys with grit jamming out of their pores. And given Devers' continuing approximation of mini-Papi, I would be upset if they traded him any time soon. That guy rakes with ice water in his veins. The untouchable on the roster.
More seriously, we see here the danger of analysis based on extremely small sample sizes. A player can look like he's struggling horribly and then 1 AB can change the entire picture. David Ortiz was having a horrible 2003 ALDS until Game 4, when one hit meant suddenly he wasn't.
Every time I’m ready to turn the page on Mookie, I see something like this, courtesy of my daughter:
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8LnQGcD/
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8LnQGcD/
Yep, Mookie had a big game in a spot where his team really needed it. Credit to him. By WPA it was his 7th best ever playoff game.
This goes back to the earlier point about why he wasn't in the Sox pantheon (aside from length of tenure), but 10 of his top 13 playoff games by WPA have come with the Dodgers.
This goes back to the earlier point about why he wasn't in the Sox pantheon (aside from length of tenure), but 10 of his top 13 playoff games by WPA have come with the Dodgers.
Ortiz also batted 0.091 with a 0.427 OPS in the 2013 ALCS. But nobody who's anybody would say that Ortiz choked in that series. And he followed that up with a 1.948 OPS in the World Series.
Ortiz' overall playoff numbers are excellent, but not as otherworldly as it *feels* like they are, given how many huge hits he had.
85 g, 369 pa, 51 r, 22 2b, 17 hr, 61 rbi, .289/.404/.543/.947
85 g, 369 pa, 51 r, 22 2b, 17 hr, 61 rbi, .289/.404/.543/.947
Eerily close to his career slash line of .286/.380/.552/.931. The 32.4 HR/162g is very close to his career rate of 36. The runs scored (97.2) and RBI (116) also compare to his career averages of 95 and 119. Basically, his playoff line is a reflection of his career line, which itself is Hall of Fame worthy no matter what the idiots feel about him being a DH.
For sure. It's excellent. It just feels like he's been even better than that in the postseason, doesn't it? With the number of signature moments he's had, it just felt like his ops would be 1.000 or something like that.
This is a really interesting observation and I wanted to compare it against regular-season Ortiz on a per 150 game basis and do the same for Mookie:
Ortiz played 85 playoff games and pretty much put up numbers identical to his regular season stats. He was an excellent player, ergo excellent playoff stats. Mookie has clearly underperformed his regular season stats so far but, given that it's only 44 games so far (roughly half the size of Ortiz), you have to think that he would approach his baseline numbers as his sample size grows. If he strings together a handful of games like he had last night, he can get there pretty quickly.
Edit: Replaced the table with an easier-to-read screen grab from Excel.
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He had some down performances in years where they didn’t win it all (2002 with Minny, 2003, 2008, 2009, e.g.) In the three championship seasons:
2004: 1.278
2007: 1.204
2013: 1.206
That’s why it feels better than the career number.
So basically when Papi was en fuego in the postseason we won titles, and when he wasn't, we didn't. Just makes him all the more larger than life.He had some down performances in years where they didn’t win it all (2002 with Minny, 2003, 2008, 2009, e.g.) In the three championship seasons:
2004: 1.278
2007: 1.204
2013: 1.206
That’s why it feels better than the career number.
As for Mookie, while it would be interesting if it turned out there was some reason for his relative postseason underperformance, I doubt there is, it's very likely just luck and not predictive of anything. He is a very good player for whom playing here was not the priority, and now he plays for someone else. Too bad because he was great, but we seem to be doing all right.
Anyone know where to find post season splits? I'd be curious how he did with runners on base amongst other things.He had some down performances in years where they didn’t win it all (2002 with Minny, 2003, 2008, 2009, e.g.) In the three championship seasons:
2004: 1.278
2007: 1.204
2013: 1.206
That’s why it feels better than the career number.
Ortiz with runners on in the postseason:
181 PA, 10 HR, 54 RBI, .326/.442/.653/1.095
Ortiz with runners in scoring position in the postseason:
112 PA, 4 HR, 41 RBI, .326/.446/.581/1.028
I have a Stathead subscription, which is where I found these splits.
Any chance you can post Late and Close and High Leverage?
I'm guessing that and runners on is why Ortiz is a legend.
Close and late:
50 PA, 2 HR, 9 RBI, .351/.520/.622/1.142
High Leverage:
82 PA, 7 HR, 32 RBI, .369/.488/.815/1.303
Mookie is a fantastic player on a team that will make the playoffs on a regular basis. He is going to have big moments and small moments. There is not a single playoff bound team that wouldn’t start him and barring injury that should continue to be the case for another 5 years and maybe more.
He is a great and exciting player who was too expensive and became a free agent at the worst time for the Red Sox long term ability to compete thanks to some pretty complex rules.
That’s really all there is to it, to me.
He is a great and exciting player who was too expensive and became a free agent at the worst time for the Red Sox long term ability to compete thanks to some pretty complex rules.
That’s really all there is to it, to me.
I don’t know if I would call it verified but there definitely seemed to be a prevailing feeling over his last couple years in Boston that he might not stick around long term. Speaking purely for myself, I started to feel like he didn’t exactly have a whole lot of attachment to being a Red Sock and playing in Boston.
Wanting to be paid at market value does not mean he didn't want to stay in Boston. It means he wanted to be paid fairly.
Fangraphs' player value tool has Betts being worth $297.1 million over the course of his Boston years, based on WAR added compared to the worth of 1 WAR across the league. Boston paid him $32.1 million for that performance. It would be beyond insulting to think he should take any sort of discount for his services at all, never mind a hometown discount.
This true enough. Johnny Damon was having a horrible 2004 post season until he wasn't (in fact there were calls that he should be benched).
Every single other player is also underpaid in their pre-free agent years. Some of them take less to go to or stay in a place they want to be.
If Mookie became a free agent after the 2020 season and the Red Sox and Dodgers both offered identical contracts, where would he be playing today?
I suppose wherever he felt his contributions were most valued.
He has never said anything negative about Boston or his experience here to the best of my knowledge, which is why the cries of "he never wanted to be here anyway!" when he took a contract that was $100 million more than the one the Sox offered always struck me as sour grapes.
1. The Sox offered him 10-300 which included buying out 2 arb years, which worked out to around 31-32m a year post arb.
2. The Dodgers gave him 12-365 with no arb years bought out, 30m a year
3. He asked the Sox for 12-420 including buying out 2 arb years which is about 37m a year post arb.
Pretty sure the sour grapes have more to do with 2 relative to 3 than 1 relative to 2. This is ignoring taxes too, decent chance he would have ended up making more money overall if he had taken the Sox initial offer.
Going wherever he felt his contributions were most valued doesn't mean he wanted to be in Boston. He just didn't mind being in Boston if the Red Sox happened to be the ones giving him the most money. I don't blame him for that. That's how A-Rod became a Ranger, Manny became a Red Sox, and Eric Hosmer a Padre. But I don't see the point in blaming the team for making a purely financial decision when the player did as well. That's just how the game is played.
They can't offer identical contracts though, in the sense that they're always proposing different experiences in different places. Different leagues, ballparks, organizations, team-mates, fan-bases, cities, cultures, climates, schools, etc.
I'm not saying one ought to value one factor over the other, or that any given player will weigh them the same as another, or that these are in the control of the parties.
The Dodgers also gave him a $65 million signing bonus, which changes the math. The signing bonus is guaranteed against work stoppages or other lack of play, and is not subject to CA's state income tax as he's not a CA resident. We do not know if the Red Sox offered the same.
The 10/300 offer was grossly belies his market value and the whole world knew it. The 12/420 counter offer was a counter offer and the normal order of things would be to engage in negotiating to meet in the middle. The Sox chose to walk away.
The Sox decided that they didn’t want Mookie in their organization any more and so traded him. He promptly won a WS with his new team. The Sox bet on themselves that they could do better with that money; obviously this year is fun but it remains to be seen if they can win a WS without Mookie.
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Also in-between 1 and 2 there was a global pandemic, lost half a season, and economic uncertainty in both baseball and real life. People seem to forget that there are non-baseball things making decisions here.
10-300 at the time was not at all grossly low, it was more in relative value than Machado had just gotten, and about the same as Arenado got, it was basically going to make him the 2nd highest paid player in baseball at the time.
Also, you of all people writing "obviously this year is fun" when you've been trashing the team for months is beyond hilarious.
Whether they win or lose the WS this season I don’t see how you could tie that into it being “without Mookie” or the implied opposite- they won while he was here therefore they didn’t in 2020 because he left.
He was here in 2019 and they didn’t win with him. There’s far too many other factors involved to say something so slippery-slopey like that.
The ironic thing is that keeping Betts probably would have meant dumping Eovaldi (because they were always going to get under the tax in either 2020 or 2021 and had limited ways to do it), and they'd probably have been a worse team this year.
Nothing more fun on an off-day during an unexpectedly fun Red Sox October than rehashing the Mookie debate for the eleventy-millionth time.
Mookie is happy in his new baseball home and playing well. The Red Sox retooled and have a fun team making noise in the postseason ahead of schedule and playing well. Why can't everyone just be happy about this state of affairs instead of trying to turn every twist of Sox/Dodgers fate into yet another referendum?
Mookie is happy in his new baseball home and playing well. The Red Sox retooled and have a fun team making noise in the postseason ahead of schedule and playing well. Why can't everyone just be happy about this state of affairs instead of trying to turn every twist of Sox/Dodgers fate into yet another referendum?
Thank you for this. At this point, both teams have moved on. We would be wise to do the same.
I'm kind of waiting to show up at SoSH one day and find that all Mookie discussion has been relegated to V&N.
Point of order... SJH is responsible for the GT's of an essential series sweep of the Nats and the WC win over the NYY. He is a large part of why this year is now fun.
I must have missed his on field contributions in between all his complaining for months about what a disaster this team was and how we should all be embarrassed to be happy with their performance this year
I dunno, I kind of like the idea of an annual Mookie Betts contract discussion through 2032. By then, we should finally be able to figure out who's right.
Right?
I guess that's one way of looking at it... and obviously I was shooting for some levity. But I did see that he did concede that he lost some bet so I think he gets it. But let's be realistic. If not for a comeback from a 5 -1 deficit in the last four innings of the last game of the regular season against one of the worst teams in the league, we likely could be looking at a Blue Jays/Astros ALCS... and, let's be honest... not much fun in that.
Someone mentioned in another thread, and it was a pretty good observation, that it's interesting looking at the decisions of the Bloom/Cora brain-trust have made this year and figuring out why they made the decisions that they did and working their way backward (for example, Hansel Robles). I think we're at least couple years away from knowing whether or not the Sox organization did the right thing by trading Mookie.
If he had started some game threads during the COVID weeks, we could have been looking at home-field advantage through the World Series. Lazy doofus.Took him long enough.
So much grumpy.
Mookie was great. Our team was too expensive & our farm system was non-existent, but hey 2018 was cool.
Repeater tax is crazy harsh. Desperate times, desperate measures, best available return. Mookie was happy here. Mookie is happy & well-paid in LA.
Bloom is great. Red Sox are fun. They'll get even better.
Everything is awesome.
Mookie was great. Our team was too expensive & our farm system was non-existent, but hey 2018 was cool.
Repeater tax is crazy harsh. Desperate times, desperate measures, best available return. Mookie was happy here. Mookie is happy & well-paid in LA.
Bloom is great. Red Sox are fun. They'll get even better.
Everything is awesome.
Come on! It was Nomah!!!!!! I know you were saying this tongue and cheek.