The AL East Heats Up
And not just because of this heat wave, which is, of course, President Bush's fault. But because the Yankees and the Red Sox are in a virtual tie for first place (the Yankees are up by .002 points).
Did anyone else sense a subtle turning of the tide in the past few days? The Red Sox, until last night, had been in first for 44 straight days. The Yankees were hanging around, but they frequently flailed, as when they lost to the Devil Rays, baseball's worst team, by a score of 19-5.
But just before the trade deadline, the
Yankees acquired outfielder Bobby Abreu and pitcher Cory Lidle from the Philadelphia Phillies, giving them help at two positions where they really needed it. They gave away four low-level minor leaguers to make that trade. Then they dumped pitcher Shawn Chacon, whose every gentle toss made batters' eyes widen with delight, for
first baseman Craig Wilson—another area where they needed help.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox made no trades. Last night they served up a pitcher with a record of 1-8 and an ERA of 7.38, who, predictably enough, lost. Worse, catcher
Jason Varitek, a Yankee-killer, hurt his knee and will be out for at least a month.
Red Sox fans are surely nervous.
Incidentally, I finished
Seth Mnookin's Feeding the Monster. (Why it's called that, I have no idea.) I stand by my earlier concern that the writing of the book is pedestrian, but in fairness, that's not really the point of this work, which is more about taking you inside the business workings of a baseball team. On that, it's pretty strong. Mnookin nicely captures Theo Epstein's cautious approach to building a team, his refusal to sacrifice the future for the present (something the Yankees, in the past, were frequently guilty of). You can see that conservatism manifest itself in the Sox's current decision not to make any moves....
Of course, the book does make you wonder about sourcing. It's very kind to Epstein and principal owner John Henry; it's not so nice to Larry Lucchino and PR man Charles Steinberg. (In fact, it's brutal to Steinberg.) But it could be argued that Epstein erred in allowing Pedro Martinez and Johnny Damon to escape to New York teams....and it could also be argued that what happened in the last week has tilted the season decisively towards the Yankees. We'll see.
Epstein talks frequently in Feeding the Monster about how the Sox can't expect to win every year and they shouldn't condition fans to expect that. Some years will be for rebuilding, he argues; it's inevitable.
That philosophy, of course, is the exact opposite of George Steinbrenner's; the Yankees owner wants to win
now, especially given his age. But he seems to be sticking to his promise to let GM Brian Cashman run the team, and Cashman, who's well-liked and respected in the baseball world, is doing a great job of not trading away the team's top prospects.
The question I wonder is whether accepting that you can't win every year make it easier to live with defeat? And is that a good thing?
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Another caveat about Feeding the Monster: In the entire book, Mnookin mentions steroids in just two contexts. The second is the fact that the crackdown on steroids made it harder to judge whether players were having an off-year or simply had been juiced in the past. The first is the implication that Nomar Garciaparra used steroids, as suggested by his statistics and the type of injuries he suffered.
In other words, the only Red Sox Mnookin discusses as a possible steroid user is one who happens not to be on the team any more...which, given by what you hear of the widespread use of steroids in baseball, would be a statistical freak on a team obsessed by statistics.
