Con: Two-time All-Star player traded.Whitten for Cooper was the ultimate, each side knows their dealing shit, but thinks they're getting something great.
But wasn't Reggie Jefferson already primarily used as a platoon hitter, until he was competing for a battle title, after which they began to play him more or less full time against lefties too?That team also served as the launching point for Reggie Jefferson, professional hitter, over the next 4-5 years. He OPS’d at .868 for the Sox over 5 years with 1996 and 1997 being fantasticly productive years for him at the plate. He was out of the league at age 30 though because he couldn’t hit Lefties. He was probably 20 year too early — would have been a great platoon guy in today’s game as he crushed RHs.
You know, when I was eight or nine, I remember asking my older cousin how to tell if a player was any good. It was explained to me in pretty simple terms, by batting average.Con: Two-time All-Star player traded.
Pro: Four homers in one game player acquired.
I might be misremembering, but I remember a lot of ado about his PAs/G (or was it AB/G?) - where the rule was you had to average 3.1 per game played by your team. I think one of the newspapers kept track of how close he was to qualifying for the batting title...But wasn't Reggie Jefferson already primarily used as a platoon hitter, until he was competing for a battle title, after which they began to play him more or less full time against lefties too?
This has been discussed before, but deserves repetition. DD (the original DD, not DDski) does not get enough credit, not just for helping to build what Theo would take over, but for being ahead of the curve in a lot of ways. He was an expert dumpster diver who looked for value (the gambits were not always successful of course, and he didn't necessarily strike gold or platinum like Ortiz, but he found some valuable parts that could be used in creative roster construction, not to mention the invaluable Tim Wakefield). He was also willing to use statistical analysis with Mike Gimbel on evaluating players before the moneyball era and Billy Beane--I don't think it was quite Bill James-quality SABR, but he was looking past the counting stat lines when almost no executives seemed to. And DD took some heat for this and got lampooned when word got out.I enjoyed the hell out of this team. It was Duquette’s first year and he was so much bolder than former GM Lou Gorman. Coming off the strike he signed Kevin Appier, John Wetteland and Sammy Sosa to deals. When they were negated, he started a plan B and was picking up anyone he could.
Wakefield, Troy OLeary, Lee Tinsley, anyone who had a pulse.Some of them would okay well for a while, some would for slightly less than that and others were flashes in the pan. But they all seemed to contribute.
He was the first Sox front office person who I felt knew WTF he was doing. Duquette was a true breath of fresh air.
Due to the strike and three seasons of brutal baseball, it took awhile for Boston to fall back in love with the Sox. This was a good thing because it was easy to get tickets. $10 bleacher seats bought 20 mins to starting pitch? No problem.
I saw Wakefield keep the A’s hitless through seven plus one hot July night that way. That was a fun team at a fun time in my life.
I remember that Jefferson was hitting really well against righties one year (I think) and how Jimy Williams used to keep him benched against lefties. Jefferson and the fans were complaining about it because it was costing him the batting tile and finally Jimy gave in and Jefferson just couldn’t hit lefties, went into a tailspin and never recovered.I might be misremembering, but I remember a lot of ado about his PAs/G (or was it AB/G?) - where the rule was you had to average 3.1 per game played by your team. I think one of the newspapers kept track of how close he was to qualifying for the batting title...
Agreed 1000%. Duquette got a bad rap because he wasn’t Lou Gorman spinning tales and telling reporters every single thing he was going to do. DD was a bit more secretive and thought that he was smarter than the reporters and it drove them nuts.This has been discussed before, but deserves repetition. DD (the original DD, not DDski) does not get enough credit, not just for helping to build what Theo would take over, but for being ahead of the curve in a lot of ways. He was an expert dumpster diver who looked for value (the gambits were not always successful of course, and he didn't necessarily strike gold or platinum like Ortiz, but he found some valuable parts that could be used in creative roster construction, not to mention the invaluable Tim Wakefield). He was also willing to use statistical analysis with Mike Gimbel on evaluating players before the moneyball era and Billy Beane--I don't think it was quite Bill James-quality SABR, but he was looking past the counting stat lines when almost no executives seemed to. And DD took some heat for this and got lampooned when word got out.
Couple that with Phil Plantier OPSing over a thousand, and they were looking setup for having a great offense in 1992 and beyond.You know, when I was eight or nine, I remember asking my older cousin how to tell if a player was any good. It was explained to me in pretty simple terms, by batting average.
Under .200 = historically bad
Under .230 = garbage
.230-.250 = bad
.250-.270 = mediocre
.270-.280 = decent
.280-290 = good
.290-.300 = very good
.300+ = one of the best players in the game
He also told me Ted Williams hit .406 once, and no one really came close since (this was pre-Tony Gwynn nearly hitting .400)...
A year or two later, I came across a 1992 Scott Cooper card. His 1991 batting average was a robust .457, after he came up and went 16 for 35. I thought Scott Cooper was a legend.
Too young to remember if there was serious hype around him when he came up in '91... A 23 year old third baseman coming up and hitting .457 sounds really cool. Taking a closer look at his game logs, he came up and hit .263 for 9 games, 19 ABs... then got insanely hot for the final 5 games of the season, going 11 for 17, a .688 clip.
I was at that game too. Annual (back then) pilgrimage to Fenway. Speaking of easy to get tickets … scored a seat directly behind home plate , about five rows up about two hours before the game. (I waved)I enjoyed the hell out of this team. It was Duquette’s first year and he was so much bolder than former GM Lou Gorman. Coming off the strike he signed Kevin Appier, John Wetteland and Sammy Sosa to deals. When they were negated, he started a plan B and was picking up anyone he could.
Wakefield, Troy OLeary, Lee Tinsley, anyone who had a pulse.Some of them would okay well for a while, some would for slightly less than that and others were flashes in the pan. But they all seemed to contribute.
He was the first Sox front office person who I felt knew WTF he was doing. Duquette was a true breath of fresh air.
Due to the strike and three seasons of brutal baseball, it took awhile for Boston to fall back in love with the Sox. This was a good thing because it was easy to get tickets. $10 bleacher seats bought 20 mins to starting pitch? No problem.
I saw Wakefield keep the A’s hitless through seven plus one hot July night that way. That was a fun team at a fun time in my life.
Regarding One M … he loved defence and, as a result his lineups were beyond bad. But , if memory serves he was excellent with the pitchers and ran a great bullpen. Of course KK was manager in 95.I remember that Jefferson was hitting really well against righties one year (I think) and how Jimy Williams used to keep him benched against lefties. Jefferson and the fans were complaining about it because it was costing him the batting tile and finally Jimy gave in and Jefferson just couldn’t hit lefties, went into a tailspin and never recovered.
I believe that was the only time Jimy Williams was right about anything.
Agreed 1000%. Duquette got a bad rap because he wasn’t Lou Gorman spinning tales and telling reporters every single thing he was going to do. DD was a bit more secretive and thought that he was smarter than the reporters and it drove them nuts.
The one thing I like about DD was when a move he made was an obvious mistake, most of the time he’d get rid of the player. Gorman would hope that the player would play out of a slump but DD would cut mistakes Before they hurt the club.
I appreciated that.
Right. This had to be 97, I think. And you’re correct Jimy could handle a bullpen but his handling of stars (Pedro in particular) and his lineups were insane.Regarding One M … he loved defence and, as a result his lineups were beyond bad. But , if memory serves he was excellent with the pitchers and ran a great bullpen. Of course KK was manager in 95.
Poster child for managing as if trying to justify his own shitty skill set as a player.Right. This had to be 97, I think. And you’re correct Jimy could handle a bullpen but his handling of stars (Pedro in particular) and his lineups were insane.
He drove me absolutely crazy.
That was my theory. He loved the end of the roster and would often fight with the stars. Same thing happened to him in Toronto.Poster child for managing as if trying to justify his own shitty skill set as a player.
Duquette is underrated, but his other weakness was he was just kind of a dud as a personality.One of Duquette's weaknesses was the managers he would end up hiring: Kennedy, Williams, and, Joe Kerrigan, the last by the far the worst for his trying to destroy Pedro's career.
They were definitely interested in Torre and Piniella after they fired McNamara but then Morgan went in a run and they kept him. Torre was already managing St Louis by the time they hired Kennedy and was with the Yankees when they fired him.Duquette tried to hire Felipe Alou after firing Jimmy Williams but Alou turned him down.
I might be misremembering things, but didn’t the team have interest in Joe Torre before hiring Kevin Kennedy?
That’s correct. He attempted to make the majors as a pitcher in the Reds organization after it was clear he would not make it as OF. This was long after he was traded by Duquette.Great write up. But wasn’t Asoodorian drafted as an outfielder? Or did he turn into one after his pitching career ended?
That is probably the storyline I remembered the most from early in the 1995 season. Jefferson was up around the .370s at one point if I recall, the first chase for .400 prior to the REAL chase for .400 Nomar put on in the 2000 season. I was actually transitioning from HS graduate to college freshman that year, so understandably the team did not have my full attention. But in retrospect this certainly restored my faithfulness in the franchise coming out of the strike, and led me to future ticket purchases and being a more diehard follower in '98-'99 and going forward.Reggie was awesome. I remember a homer he hit to dead center off the back wall. The ball was just on a straight line. There was no trajectory. A laser.
Edit: his 1996 was ridiculous. .347 average / 593 SLG and a 981 OPS. He rarely walked but man could he hit
Yeah. I wrote about that a few posts back.He was doing well because Jimy knew when to use him. But Jefferson (and the fans) were getting pissed because they all felt he should be playing every day. As soon as Jimy did that, Reggie fell off a cliff.Jefferson flirting with .400 was ‘97, I think. Wasn’t Jimy the manager?
Tim Wakefield 1995 Game by Game Pitching Logs In Chronological Order / Tim Wakefield Stats | ||||||||||||||||
Date / Box | Opponent | W | L | Sv | ERA | IP | SO | H | ER | R | HR | BB | IBB | WP | HBP | BK |
05-27-1995 * | at Angels | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.29 | 7.0 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
05-30-1995 * | at Athletics | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 7.1 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Drafted as a power-hitting OF, but yes, I believe he converted to pitching later.Great write up. But wasn’t Asoodorian drafted as an outfielder? Or did he turn into one after his pitching career ended?
I felt somewhat distant from the '95 team precisely because I couldn't follow them in any meaningful way. I graduated from college in May '95 and wouldn't have home or work internet for another year or two. I was living in central NY most of that year, so my only Sox news was brief highlights on SportsCenter.This was the first team I was able to follow online for every game. I loved Luis Alicea because he walked a lot.
IIRC, Jefferson was originally a switch-hitter who abandoned hitting right handed, maybe right before the Sox picked him up. I can't remember why he did it, but I do remember wondering how bad he must have been as a RHH that he chose to hit lefty against LHP despite how poorly he did it.I had forgotten how good Reggie’s numbers were; crazy that he was out of the league at the age of 30. 869 career OPS vs RH and 591 vs LH; and in ‘97 it was 921/494. With more backup position players though, easier to keep a guy like that on the roster and almost totally avoid facing a lefty.
Revere’s own. They also grabbed Jay Yanaco from Southern NH, a kid from Portland, ME whose name I can’t remember and Peabody’s Steve Lomasney who had an AB or two in the 2001 season.What about Mike Spinelli. Didn't he exist?
I abhor playing the role of spelling police, but it was Jay Yennaco. I know this because he is the cousin of a close friendRevere’s own. They also grabbed Jay Yanaco from Southern NH, a kid from Portland, ME whose name I can’t remember and Peabody’s Steve Lomasney who had an AB or two in the 2001 season.
I remember the story was that drafting NE kids was some sort of way of taking advantage of good athletes who didn’t have a lot of miles on their arms. The idea was that NE baseball kids (like Tom Glavine and Billy Swift, etc) didn’t play as much as Californian or southern kids so while they might not be as technically as good, their arms should be stronger and you could reach what they need to know in the minors.
Another memorable facet was Dustin Hermanson's amazingly sculpted goatee.The 1999 top pick, Rick Asoordian, was traded in one of Duquette's final moves for mid-rotation starter Dustin Hermanson, which seemed to be a sell high move, given that Asoordian never threw a pitch in the majors. Unfortunately, Hermanson's career with the Sox never got off the ground when Grady Little let him return to a game after an extended rain delay; Hermanson promptly got hurt and was never the same
Yeah. I wrote about that a few posts back.He was doing well because Jimy knew when to use him. But Jefferson (and the fans) were getting pissed because they all felt he should be playing every day. As soon as Jimy did that, Reggie fell off a cliff.
It was one of a few times Jimy was correct.
SSS, but he did hit lefties pretty well in '96, so there was some reason to think to expand his role in '97. Or at least get him in the game against particular types of lefty pitchers.I had forgotten how good Reggie’s numbers were; crazy that he was out of the league at the age of 30. 869 career OPS vs RH and 591 vs LH; and in ‘97 it was 921/494. With more backup position players though, easier to keep a guy like that on the roster and almost totally avoid facing a lefty.