MIND GAME: How the Boston Red Sox Got Smart, Won a World Series, and Created A New Blueprint for Winning is a book penned by the writers of Baseball Prospectus, and I am reviewing an advance copy book on Fire Brand of the American League as I read the book.
I. Introduction to MIND GAME
II. Chapters 1, 2, 3 – The Banality of Incompetence; Shopping for Winners; The A-Rod Advantage
III. Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7 – Squeezing the Merchandise, Varieties of Relief, Walking Wounded, Arms and the Man
IV. Chapters 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 – You Want Me to Hit Like A Little B-tch?, The Caveman Cleans Up, The Holy Gospel of On-Base Percentage, A Streak of Insignificance, Nomar’s Spring and Regression to the Mean
V. Chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 – Better Winning Through Chemistry, Brothers of the Mind Game, Basebrawl, Nomargate, Invunerable
VI. Chapters 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, Epilogue – Cracking the Rivera Code, Deconstructing Pedro, Reframing History, Insult and Injury, The 512-Square Inch War Zone, Beat the Devil, The Substance of Style, Beat the Yankees, Be the Yankees, Epilogue
It’s been a while since I wrote about this book. With a couple other books to review on these pages, I figured I should finish this one up as I have three in the queue – “The Numbers Game” by Alan Schwarz, the “Last Nine Innings” by Charles Euchner, and Fay Vincent’s coming book titled “The Only Game in Town.”
What I’m going to do for the final chapters of this book is, instead of providing a recap, I’m going to give you some excerpts from the book because they’re very interesting, and I believe, important, excerpts. Away we go:
Since 1990, only three teams have averaged at least four pitchers per plate appearance: The 1994 Tigers, the 2000 Mariners, and the 2004 Red Sox. The Fenway hitters weren’t simply fouling pitches off or looking at strikes, either; only the Yankees, Giants, and Indians saw a higher percentage of balls in 2004. (Removing intentional balls and, effectively, Barry Bonds moves the Sox up to number three.)
The next excerpt has to do with Isolated Power against power and control pitchers. Which group did the Sox fare best against? Their plate patience would seem to denote that they would do better against power pitchers. I’m sure we can all remember Rodrigo Lopez’s inexplicable dominance of the Sox as a control pitcher. Theoretically, a team such as the Sox would have to suffer against control pitchers because they’d keep taking strikes. Wrong. Against the control pitchers group, the Sox had an ISO of .192, and against power pitchers they had an ISO of .193.
Essentially, the only difference between Boston’s results against power and control pitching is that they walks they drew against power pitchers became singles when they faced control artists.
That’s the hallmark of a good team – adaptation – and balance.
The reason for this consistency was not that each individual Red Sox hitter did well against both kinds of pitching, but rather because team management had assembled a linep that was nearly equally divided into two groups of players: one that did well against the control artists, and one that did well against the power pitchers.
POWER: Mark Bellhorn, Kevin Millar, Johnny Damon, Trot Nixon
CONTROL: Bill Mueller, Gabe Kapler, David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis
EQUAL: Manny Ramirez, Jason Varitek.
This makes me think that the Red Sox, while valuing OBP, don’t overwhelmingly value it. They value versatality, the ability to succeed against any opponent, and I think we got away from that in 2005.
This book also has a section on Pedro Martinez, where they say that he he is simply the best pitcher ever, and use statistics to back it up. I think we already knew that. We also know about his inexplicable struggles against the Yankees, and Baseball Prospectus attempts to find out why, but there’s no real reason, because Pedro was still a very good pitcher against the Yankees – a 3.30 ERA. BP can’t quite figure it out either, but we do find out that against any other team, Pedro went 108-27 for the Red Sox.
How did the Yankees do so well? Who knows, but we know this:
Yankees Against Pedro: 748 PA, .215 AVG, .286 OBP, .334 SLG
Others Against Pedro: 4750 PA, .205 AVG, .256 OBP, .314 SLG
In the context of the current era’s offensive explosion, these numbers are still staggeringly low. Essentially, the Yankees went 17-10 against Martinez with a lineup that was no more productive than nine (2005) Tony Womacks.
Now that Curt Schilling seems to be back to normal, perhaps we can stop worrying about his ankle. Below you’ll find some information about his ankle:
Schilling’s injury was often described in the media as an ankle sprain or a torn tendon. Neither was medically correct. He had a different problem, a retinaculum tear that inhibited rotation. …
Schilling’s retinaculum tear first manifested itself on May 13 during a start at Rotonto. Video of the game is inconclusive, but Schilling seems to have injured himself on a fielding play. The injury did not appear to affect Schilling’s pitching motion significantly and where it did, the medical care he recieved from the Red Sox medical staff was effective. During the season, Schilling showed little or no indication of injury effects. His performances were remarably consistent both before and after the injury.
This note below, while might look out of place to you, is an argument supporting the fact that the Cardinals were a strong team and not as inept in the World Series as we saw…
Baseball’s long season gives great teams many opportunities to look bad and bad teams to look great. … In other team sports, those more dependent upon moment-to-moment cooperation among the players, it’s different. Watching a superior basketball team outplay its opponent in all phases of the game only to miss one too many jumpers in the waning minutes, we would recognize that the better team lost. The same goes for a football team that dominates the game, but fumbles away the ball, and the victory, in the fourth quarter. But the .190 hitting shortstop who smacks two homers and a double on a day when the win’s blowing out at Wrigley? He’s the new Sultan of Swat – if only for a day.
Here’s a funny excerpt from the book – and true.
Just as there are the famous four stages of grief, so, in the throes of the championship season just completed, Red Sox Nation experienced the four stages of World Series bliss:
Stage 1: Orgiastic pleasre at finally attaining something so foreign, and once so out of reach.
Stage 2: ecent history is the only history that matters – we are the greatest.
Stage 3: This has been really super nice, and we’d like to do it again.
Stage 4: Don’t screw this up, Epstein.
Now, more importantly, BP notes that the Red Sox have more to learn about the Yankees’ recent history than the A’s. By using history as the guide to how to win, the Red Sox can notice what the Yankees did to win in the late ’90s, but also how they failed, and keep failing despite rolling up regular season wins, in the ’00s. Anyone think this cautionary tale is what spurred this makeover in 2006?
That’s the end of the book. Just in time, too, as the start of the season started today. What happened today? Timely hitting, solid pitching, good defense, and a new contender for Most Popular Red Sox. The entrant here is Coco Crisp, who had a 1 for 5 day and exhibited awe-inspiring speed on the basepaths, with solid outfielding (see that catch in the bottom 9th?) and a true desire to play all-out to win games. Mark Loretta being the quintessial #2 hitter, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez doing their thing. Mike Lowell inspiring hope, Alex Gonzalez’s improbable two hits, (goes to show you what a sub-.200 batting average in spring training means…) Schilling’s dominance, Papelbon’s dominance, and Foulke’s road back.
I’m not going to apologize for the scary ninth inning. Yes, Foulke didn’t hit 90, but he did hit 89. That’s one mile an hour away, friends, and it’s Opening Day. Schilling topped out at 93 or so today, and he’s going to be throwing an easy 93 consistently once the season really gets going, so I’m sure Foulke can get up. It’s all about confidence, timing, and “the right moment”. I’m not dismissing Foulke yet. One run scored, it could have been worse – but it wasn’t. Just like Ortiz’s homer was a shade fair. Should we look on the negative side and pretend he has zero home-runs? No – what matters is what happened, and what happened is that Ortiz hit Home Run #1 of 74, and Keith Foulke gave up one run while getting three outs, being able to pitch with a five-run cushion. I’ll take it for Opening Day.
Let’s try to take the series today. It shouldn’t be too hard, as we have the immortal Tim Wakefield going up against newcomer Vincente Padilla, who posted a 4.91 ERA last year – in the National League. The Rangers’ pitching woes may very well continue on this year…or at least until the Sox leave town.
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