The Red Sox are in first place, but the walls are beginning to collapse
By Rick McNair
The Boston Red Sox are a first place team, but lately, the walls are crumbling as internal and media issues surface. Will this team collapse?
The Red Sox apparently are turning into a dysfunctional teenage level mob as the season moves forward. The well-documented indiscretions – most notably David Price – need no further embellishment. They are factual and no matter what the Red Sox do to attempt to sanitize the situation the team appears to be without responsible leadership stem to stern.
Beer and chicken were supposed to be relegated to the past – just an unpleasant historical note in the “Great Collapse” of 2011. With disaster comes the necessity to point fingers and assign blame – a sacrifice was needed as trying to mollify the howling masses among the baseball hoi polloi. That became manager Terry Francona. And then came Bobby Valentine.
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Now the asylum seems to have risen again from the ashes of that dismal past. A championship was won, but two last place finishes are also on the ledger. Now manager John Farrell is on the proverbial hot seat and columnist Steve Buckley certainly brings some sage commentary on the issue.
Just where do you begin with a house cleaning? In the real world, the stockholders and board of directors would be clamoring for management changes, but this is not a public corporation. John Henry isn’t going anywhere unless he hangs out the For Sale sign, but I suspect his ego will keep him bolted down for the foreseeable future.
The inner sanctum – locker room to us neophytes – has been lost. Players running roughshod over the fans conduit to all things Red Sox – the media – demonstrate that adult responsibility has vacated the elementary school located on Yawkey Way. The Red Sox have had their chances in the past for a managerial shift, but Torey Lovullo is elsewhere.
A managerial change is merely cosmetic as the root causes go far deeper – a baseball cultural disconnect. Removing Farrell would do little except sooth – and only temporarily – the fact that this Red Sox squad needs a talent and attitude adjustment.
The 2013 team performed far better than anyone expected and part of the reason was personalities the melded perfectly for one season. Internal enforcement is a manager’s best friend and that team – by all accounts – had it. This one does not. David Ortiz and his towering presence are gone. Dustin Pedroia is more of a baseball irritant than the de facto captain. A player and manager leadership vacuum exists and has not been filled.
Dave Dombrowski has made stellar moves as president of baseball operations, but also some dunderhead ones, including the obvious choice to ignore adding some significant replacement punch in the off-season. DD’s premier signing of Price has had mixed performance results, but toss in the maintenance and it is just an expensive mistake. And I thought I was a curmudgeon. The very good news is that a blueprint for change does exist.
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The Red Sox found a Sugar Daddy on the West Coast that bailed them out of some ungodly poor management decisions. Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, and Adrian Gonzalez all departed and all had become rather irascible personalities. Crawford became persona non grata and Gonzalez was not far behind – both brought in for 2011 as a possible cure for a somewhat disappointing 2010 season. Then there was the money. Boston saved a bundle.
For a Price, you will find someone and somehow I doubt Price will place any roadblocks in the way. The same may apply to several other players who may just need to find new homes that will offer a bit more in leadership and quite possibly motivate a sudden growth spurt in maturity. Price is just the most visible.
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As the 2017 season goes forward the only miracle that will rescue any and all is a push into the World Series. That may take an extraordinary coalescing by team and management. There is certainly talent available – especially pitching, but somehow this team seems to be imploding and it isn’t getting any better.