Analyzing the 2011 Red Sox Meltdown

This should be fun.   Uplifting.  Here in the heart of Red Sox Country.

The World Series begins tonight.   

I am not a big follower of Major League Baseball.  Nor of the Boston Red Sox.  Yes, I know, this is a sort of heresy in these parts.  It’s not a total heresy – for total heresy consists of rooting against the Red Sox and for the Yankees. 

In fact, it wasn’t until the September Sox meltdown was complete, and they didn’t qualify for the playoffs, that I understood what an absolute mess of a collapse these guys had authored.  I mean, really, the team lost 20 of 27 games in September – the worst September team plummet in Major League Baseball history. 

Sure, I root for the Red Sox, and when the team is in the playoffs, my spirits are lifted when they win.  I am also immensely grateful for the feel good and the soul stirring that the Red Sox have transmitted to, and induced in, so many. 

But I am mostly a bandwagon Red Sox backer. 

I do think, though, that what is wrong with the Red Sox, in as much as we can understand what is wrong with the Red Sox, offers a trove of helpful lessons and suggestions and perspectives on other areas of life.

I found the media and public reviews of the Red Sox season interesting, enlightening, and educational. 

And I suspect that within all of this review and speculation and analysis and criticism are important and helpful lessons. 

So what did we learn?  This casual follower and fan weighs in.

It is all about team – and we can all look for scapegoats, but there is plenty of blame to assess broadly.  And depending on how you want to formulate and present an argument, you can point to any one of the players, to the manager, or to the general manager, or the owners.

You win as a team, you lose as a team. 

In his Red Sox postmortem piece in the Boston Globe, Bob Hohler described the team-wide culpability of the mess.   Hohler wrote, that, for sure, the story of the meltdown was “in part … an indictment” of “three prized” starting pitchers:  Josh Beckett, John Lester, and Jon Lackey.  

Yet Hohler also put forth this assessment: 

But the epic flop of 2011 had many faces: a lame-duck manager, coping with personal issues, whose team partly tuned him out; stars who failed to lead; players who turned lackluster and self-interested; a general manager responsible for fruitless roster decisions; owners who approved unrewarding free agent spending and missed some warning signs that their $161 million club was deteriorating.

Yeah, there was a lot going on, and a lot we can learn.  For example –

If you don’t have a central, respected, highly capable, and inspiring leader then the squad can easily disintegrate and several competing agendas can emerge.  Tito Francona, an exceptional manager – perhaps a Hall of Fame manager – did not have the stuff this season to keep the players together and working cooperatively. 

Dustin Pedroia is a champion and a winner – and accountable.  I love it when, following the season, Pedroia said, “I just know that playing in Boston, you’re required to play your tail off every day to try to win ballgames for this city.   That’s what hurt so much as a player, that we not only let each other down in the clubhouse but we let the city down.’’

If everyone had Pedroia’s attitude, the Red Sox would be playing in the World Series this week.   

Money, as much as any factor, contributed to the Red Sox winning the 2004 and 2007 World Series.  That’s not to say that managing and executive leadership wasn’t important – but without carrying the second highest payroll in the Majors, the Sox would still be stuck on 1918. 

Theo Epstein is a very good general manger.  I do wonder, however, if he is accorded too much “Boy Wonder” status. 

Almost every member of the Red Sox, except for Pedroia, and maybe, Jacoby Ellsbury, are in need of attitude adjustment and could use a “Come To Jesus” meeting.  

Really, I don’t begrudge a star athlete his contract and his big money, but please give it your all and show an appreciation for the hard labor that others put in, others who weren’t born with the physical and mental talents that, properly nurtured, and brought forth and refined with hard and focused work, allow you to make mind boggling amounts of money – even as, for sure, you deal with extraordinary pressure.

Count your blessings, and be thankful for them.  Or if you don’t believe in deity, appreciate your good fortune. 

This nation has young men and women, not much older than boys and girls, on the other side of the world, putting their lives on the line, day in and day out, and I dare say almost not one of them don’t squawk with these attitudes and lack of graciousness with which some of these Red Sox squawk. 

Some of these young Americans don’t come home.  Some come home horribly wounded. 

Really.  Let’s put things in perspective. David Ortiz made $12.5 million this season.  Which averages out to, over a 162 game season, $77,160 a game.   He is most likely worth it.  Yet you wonder about paying him this money when he starts talking about going to the Yankees to escape the drama of Boston. 

Josh Beckett made the most in salary last season, $17 million, of all players on the Red Sox.  Beckett had a record of 13-7 in 2011, with 193 innings pitched.   That works out to $88,083 per inning. 

Beckett was King Everything in 2007, and without him there would have been no World Series championship.  So, who knows, maybe all the money he was paid then, before, now, and in the future is worth it.   He might be a bargain.   I do invite people to do their own research on what Red Sox insiders have to say about Beckett's training and preparation and focus during this past season.

An active duty staff sergeant in the U.S. Army with six years experience earns in basic salary about $34,000.  With housing allowances and other benefits the package gets up to near $60,000 a year.  This is the package this soldier earns even if he on the front line in Afghanistan. 

Take from this commentary what you will.   Maybe some of this is helpful. 

I for one am not going to get too worked up about the 2011 Boston Red Sox.