Yankee's Future looks to be more of the same

I posted this on CBSSportsline.com recently. The composition is a little sloppy but I get my points across.
Yankee's Future looks big - CBSSports.com Message Boards http://www.sportsline.com/mcc/messages/thread/12488317
Nathan Mylott sent this using ShareThis.

Red Sox: Evil Empire II?

I've seen people saying a lot lately that the Red Sox have become like the new Evil Empire. Although I certainly understand why people are saying that, it really is not true. It's true, they are a big market team and they are enjoying the perennial success that the Yankees did for 11 years, but the reasons for it are clearly different.
Image by phillenium1979 via Flickr
At first, I delighted in seeing people say that because all my life until 2004, the Red Sox were the perennial failures and really gave us nothing to look forward to. The Yankees shafted them on every front: from every big free agent to the benefit of every bad umpire call to winning the division every year somehow, some way, to always winning the World Series. So for the Red Sox to take the Yankees' place perched atop the baseball world is poetic justice.

But the reason the Yankees were always called the Evil Empire was the way they overpaid for every big star on the market so that no other team, even the second richest team the Red Sox, had a chance at improving their team. Even if any team did improve, the Yankees still always one upped them. And the Yankees pay roll is just sickening. They're a team of mercenaries thrown together to manufacture a championship. Thus the Yankees bought championships.

The Red Sox do have some big stars and have paid out big contracts to big free agents. But the difference between the Red Sox' 2008 payroll and the Yankees' 2008 payroll, just the difference between them, is bigger than the entire payroll of 18 of the other 28 teams. And most of the Red Sox stars were cultivated in the farm system. The Red Sox are perennial winners because they're just good. They have smart management that builds from within. The team is made up of guys that came up through the system together, not greedy primadonnas who came together for the biggest jackpot. Image via Wikipedia

Red Sox management also spends wisely. They invest just enough in proven players who are still in their prime. How many big name has beens and never will be's did the Yankees bury under a pile of money, only to be disappointed? (for example, Kevin Brown, Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, Jose Contreras, Carl Pavano, etc.)

So let's look at the Red Sox current team and see how many overpaid mercenaries they have.

1B: Kevin Youkilis. Came up through the farm system.
2B: Dustin Pedroia. Came up through the farm system.
SS: Jed Lowrie. Farm system.
3B: Mike Lowell. Expensive player. Not really a mercenary though.
C: Jason Varitek. Acquired as a minor leaguer so farm system.
LF: Jason Bay. Gray area but we'll call it mercanary because Manny is the second biggest merc below Gay Rod. And he would still be there if he wasn't just as greedy and selfish and a cheater as Gay Rod. Jason Bay is only there by circumstance. So Bay is not a merc but we're gonna count this position as one.
CF: Jacoby Ellsbury. Farm system.
RF: JD Drew. Expensive player.

Pitchers:
Dice K. Definately a merc.
John Lester. Farm system.
Josh Beckett. Expensive player.
Closer Jonathan Papelbon. Farm system.

So by my count, most of the Red Sox big stars all came up through the farm system. That's about as far from an evil empire as you can get. That's the kind of make up that small market teams are built with.

One final point. The Red Sox, along with the White Sox, Cubs and maybe a couple others, went so long without anything to be happy about that they are entitled to having a dynasty for a while. Maybe not the Cubs though because they are a pathetic disgrace to baseball.

Kudos to Tim McCarver for standing by his comments on Manny Ramirez

Like we didn't know who Manny Ramirez is

Manny is a disgrace to baseball

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Schilling blasts Manny

Email|Link|Comments (23) Posted by Chad Finn, Globe Staff September 17, 2008 05:12 PM

Injured Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling threw some high heat at former teammate Manny Ramirez this afternoon on sports radio WEEI's "The Big Show," saying the slugger's "level of disrespect to teammates and people was unfathomable."

"The guy got to dress in a locker away from the team for seven years," said Schilling, talking via telephone with Glenn Ordway and former Sox players Lou Merloni and Brian Daubach. "And then [when] he's on this crusade to get out of here, all of a sudden he's in the locker room every day, voicing his displeasure without even having to play the game that night."

Schilling said Ramirez's antics particularly weighed on manager Terry Francona.

"Nothing makes a guy that respects the game and respects human beings like Terry Francona feel worse than looking at a guy and saying, 'Go ahead, [mess] with me, [mess] with your teammates, I'll put you in the lineup,' and then turn around to a guy whose there every day early working his [butt] off who gets 110 at-bats a year and saying, "You know what? Yeah, I can't put you in there tonight," Schilling said. "There were times when you had players who were on like fire duty, 'Show up tomorrow, I'm not sure if you're playing or not, we've gotta find out what [Manny] wants to do.' That's not fair to anybody."

Other comments from Schilling:

On whether David Ortiz was frustrated with Ramirez (Ordway noted that he appeared to be shortly before the trade): "What you guys hear and see is generally 10 to 20 percent of what exists."

On why he is speaking out now: "The thing about it for me, is, I haven't thrown a freakin' pitch all year, I've been the biggest waste of space, I've been robbing payroll for the entire season, no one feels worse about not contributing than me . . . I'm the last person in the world who should be telling you who's right and who's wrong in this. But I was a teammate, a member of this family, and I saw it, and it's no different than what Lou [Merloni] and Brian [Daubach] saw. And to me, it was always those guys, the guys who played a crucial role on teams that weren't the marquee players, are the ones that were disrespected the most, because if any of those players ever acted or did or said anything. [Speaking to Merloni:] Lou, you're in Seattle, and if you refused to get on a team plane, you know what they'd do? They'd give you an Air France ticket home."

On whether teammates are upset Ramirez is doing so well with the Dodgers "I don't know about [ticked] . . . as an everyday player, with what you have to go through mentally, getting ready to play, you don't spend a lot of energy worrying about stuff like that. I wouldn't say [ticked], I'd probably say disappointed more than anything. Because the one thing about Manny is that he was . . . he was very kind, and well-mannered, but there were spurts and times when you didn't know who he was. You know, he was always kind and nice for the most part, but he'd show up the next day and say, 'I'm through with this team, I want out now.'

Perhaps the most damning quote about Ramirez during the interview came from Merloni:

"When all this stuff was going down with Manny, I remember walking in the clubhouse talking to a couple of guys, and I got one response that just threw me for a loop, and I said, 'Guys, how bad is it?' I knew it was bad, and I just said, 'How bad is it?' And all I heard, what they told me, was, 'Carl Everett.' And I lived that nightmare. . . and when I heard that, I said, 'OK, I know exactly what's going on, I can't believe it got that bad.' "