Red Sox up to their old tricks again
jdip9
Posts: 1,894 ✭✭✭
in Sports Talk
The Red Sox have the premier hospitals and medical community in the world in their backyard, and yet continue to employ doctors who can't get things right. I have no doubt this is all being set up to get the fans against Ellsbury, who is a pretty popular player. If they can convince the fans he's soft, when they trade him (and I believe they really want to), the backlash won't be quite as bad. Pretty pathetic.
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<< <i>Ellsbury doesn't seem like he is that good of a player to even worry about. Sure he was brilliant in '97. The Sox don't win the series without him. >>
he brings speed to the Sox...something they never have had. When he is on base, the pitcher is thinking about Ellsbury and not so much the batter. Ellsbury helps to make things happen when he is on the basepaths. Sort of like Carl Crawford or the way it used to be with Mickey Rivers. Speed is an important missing component to the Red Sox scheme this year.
I understand Ellsubry cut a mutual deal with Red Sox management to do whatever he/they felt necessary for him to do while recouping in Arizona. Why Arizona I have no idea. Seems to me with a rib cage injury he could remain with the team (as Pedroia) has done to recoup with whatever therapy or rest needed to get back to player status. I seriously doubt that fan like or dislike for any player is gonna influence Theo one way or another. These are really not stupid people running the show and I believe trying to poison any well with regards to Ellsbury or any other player is not only counter-productive, but stupid.
Manny may be a recent case in point...fan favorite, but the Red Sox went out of their way to accomodate his whims and antics till he simply became a pariah. Several players went to management asking that Manny go, and go he did.
A player gets hurt, and team management is upset/pissed off that the player isn't getting better quickly enough. They start rumors that the player is "soft" or "dogging it" (see what happened with JR Richard in Houston when he suffered a stroke on the field, and it wasn't diagnosed correctly!).
To prevent this, and to satisfy team management, the player does what they are told is the only/quickest way to get back on the field.....they take HGH/steroids. The drugs do their job, the player gets back on the field, and everyone's happy.
We're now seeing the effect of players not taking the HGH/steroids.....injuries are keeping them out longer. As a result, management is going after the player(s), since they're taking longer than management is used to to get back into playing shape.
It's a classic Catch-22 for the player: They can rehab the "natural" way, not taking HGH/steroids, and get dogged out by management. Or, they can take HGH/steroids, get healthy more quickly, satisfying management, and pray to God that their HGH/steroid use isn't found out.
Steve
Even if I conceded steroid use is lower to the WEAK testing, there is no HGH testing available.
I'll trust the players are clean when they start admitting their techniques in the past.
As for Ellsbury, if it's ownerships intention to package him in a trade, I think this is an interesting (and at the same time, sad) strategy. They can publicly call him out for being soft and raise doubts as to whether he's really a team player. At the same time Ellsbury comes out and says he isn't soft and he looks believable. End result: the fan base that once adopted him the next son of Boston questions his value while, more importantly, GMs from other teams see through the subterfuge and value Ellsbury appropriately.
Manny was only the thought I had at the moment while responding to the OP's post. Perhaps Nomar might have been the better choice, or Fisk. Fisk of course was not offered a contract timely and thus he was gone to the WS. Clemens who ended up in a pissing contest with the then GM Duquette, who trashed him openly...he chose to opt out and head to Toronto. Damon aka "I'd never play for the Yankees", chose to go for the bucks, as did Bay.
The premise of the OP is that the Red Sox management are "up to their old tricks" does not hold water with me. I don't think it matters a gnat's ass to them what the fans think. They're main deal is to win a WS and to do that, they have to put the best team they can acquire and afford between the lines. Ellsbury may be getting pumped full of BS from his mouthpiece, (Borass), who is notorious for antics with management. But seriously, I really doubt the Red Sox front office is planting any seeds into the minds of fans.
Who knows what's gonna happen by the end of the month? Could be Ellsbury's gone, maybe Lowell too, could be some dead wood in the bullpen or an outfielder...dunno. But saying that Ellsbury is being set up is not cutting the mustard with me.
Still waiting BTW for Jdip9 to explain his post and what other players the Red Sox have done this to (WITH FACTS), as opposed to personal opinions as stories unfold.
Nice to see the big guy win the batting thing last night. Odd in a nice way that it was a Yankee employee pitching to him. Let's hope the walking wounded are recovering and can make a good run the 2nd half.
Hope the world turns well on your side.
Al
From FanHouse.com:
<<<Outfielder Jason Bay was one of the bigger prizes in this winter's free agent class before he signed a four-year, $66 million deal with the New York Mets in early January. Of course, had it not been for some concerns of the Boston Red Sox and their medical staff, Bay may have never reached free agency at all.
According to Peter Gammons, the Red Sox were ready to sign Bay to a four-year, $60 million deal last July but when an MRI raised some concern about both of Bay's knees, the Red Sox lowered the offer to two years which Bay rejected and instead opted to hit the open market. Gammons suggested that the dispute illustrated the need for an independent medical staff in the majors, since there is sometimes distrust by players about the health findings of doctors who are employed by a team.
"You had the same thing here with Jason Bay, when he agreed to the four-year, $60 million deal near the end of July and then the MRI showed some problems with both knees," Gammons said. "Ownership wanted it to be two years and he had to prove that he was healthy to be able to make it four years, and he wouldn't sign. This is no reflection on [Red Sox team physician Dr. Thomas] Gill and the Red Sox doctors, because they are probably the best in any sport. But the fact is, there becomes this disconnect where the player says, 'Is he doing this for the owners or is he doing this because of my knee?' That independent panel, I think, will almost certainly be a compromise that the owners will make.">>>
So basically, in July, the Sox were willing to give him 4 years/$60m, then found a "problem with his knees", so the Sox lowballed him, and Bay played out the season heading towards free agency. Except Bay's knees seemed fine when he put these two ridiculuous months to end last season:
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
August 22 76 18 22 4 0 9 18 12 26 1 0 .289 .400 .697 1.097
September 25 87 18 26 3 1 7 23 12 33 1 1 .299 .390 .598 .988
So either Red Sox medical staff was wrong about his knees, or it was a convenient excuse not to sign him to a long term deal.
And then there was the Curt Schilling debacle, where they didn't want him to have surgery in hopes his arm might miraculously recover, when surgery gave him the better chance to come back late in the year. Of course, they couldn't just come out and say "Curt, you're washed up and we don't want you to pitch for us", which is what they really thought.
Again, either they were wrong about the best course of action to allow Schilling to pitch again, or it was convenient way to keep a washed up pitcher sidelined.
And now there is Ellsbury, who has proven the Red Sox doctors wrong on a couple of occasions, while the appearance that Ellsbury is "soft" gains traction in Boston as he sits out (and after last season in which he had 70 steals, I bet the Sox secretly hope he stays out all season to allow the illusion that he is a great player to remain out there - after all, his replacements are doing just fine).
That's quite a track record for the "best medical staff in any sport", as Gammons calls them.
My point is, the Sox continually use the media and hide behind the medical staff to either substantiate unpopular moves or create doubt about players they don't want.
This is what you said in your OP...nowhere in your lengthy response do you mention fans and their opinions, which is the part I disagree with you in your post. You do however, mention the medical staff in every example...nope, no fan stuff.
FWIW, I think Bay was greedy and the Mets ended up with a less than stellar performer, just my opinion. You did get the part in the article that "This is no reflection on [Red Sox team physician Dr. Thomas] Gill and the Red Sox doctors, because they are probably the best in any sport." I didn't read anywhere where Bay opted for a second opinion, not affiliated with the Red Sox staff. He basically said screw you, I'm goin' for 4, not 2...cya.
I think past transactions between Sox mangement and players leads to sour grapes on both sides of the issue in some cases. I simply don't buy the premise that the Red Sox are intentionally trying to influence fan opinion of anybody to avoid any "backlash"...what would the "backlash" be? Fans don't sign contracts, make trades or anything else pertaining to the longevity of a player. They pretty much just moan and groan about parking near Fenway, the cost of beer and tix, no more, no less.
The Ellsbury thing remains a bit of a strange story, could be more to it than "ribs" at this point. I firmly believe Boras is guiding his client, and maybe to his detriment.
As for the Red Sox fans, no matter the decisions made by the Red Sox staff, they're still gonna fill those 35k+ seats every game for eternity. They have zero leverage on anything Theo does, they might grumble (as they did with the Nomar issue), but they generally go with the flow, recent history will show Fenway is a perennial sellout.
I think July 31st might be an eye-opener with trades
That's about all I need to read from you. Clearly your mindset is biased against the Red Sox AND their "witch doctors", which just so happen to be some of the best in the world.
And for being "some of the best (doctors) in the world", they sure have bungled a lot of medical diagnoses lately.>>>
I can't believe I'm going to agree with a Yankees fan, but you are spot on the money on both counts. We don't even have to go back that far to see the sellout streak almost end - 2006, after the Yanks swept 5 at Fenway, leaving the Red Sox something like 6-1/2 out with 35ish games to play. The fans threw in the towel then, the only thing that saved the streak during mid-late Sept was walkup sales on game day (which were probably falsified by the Sox to keep the streak alive).