As the 98-99 offseason wound into February, writers and fans continued to find fault with the regime of Sox GM Dan Duquette. Peter Gammons, who liked to refer to Fenway as Yawkey Tower, roasted the Duke again in his Sunday Baseball column.
"As Duquette's fifth anniversary with the Red Sox passes," he wrote. "one of the cruelest twists of fate for fans is that a sadly deteriorated organization won a division title in his first year, 1995, an aberrational season. Erik Hanson won 10 in a row, Tim Wakefield 14 of 15….That sidetracked Duquette from what appeared to be a mission to rebuild the farm system, and in the last 3 years the Red Sox have sidetracked great talents like lefty hurlers Rick Ankiel and Ryan Anderson and even third baseman Mark Texeira…who would have signed for $18 million because they're spending so much on retread major leaguers."
Though of the three prospects mentioned only Texeira became a solid major leaguer, Gammons had a point. A look at the Sox' spring training roster listed 11 players 30 or older, and many of these were journeymen with questionable stats. Lets look at some of them.
First the pitchers. Jim Corsi, 38, had spent parts of 8 seasons in the minors and had very average stats. Kip Gross, 35, had been in Japan for 4 years after a mediocre major league career. Mark Guthrie, 33, was a .500 hurler in his third organization. Mark Portugal, 36, was with his sixth, and both were up-and-down. Pat Rapp, 31, was coming off a 12-13, 5.30 ERA in Kansas City. Among position players, Jeff Frye, 32, had missed the entire 98 campaign with a knee injury. Reggie Jefferson, 30, had also missed most of the previous year after two fairly productive seasons in Boston.
Duquette was hoping that second baseman Jose Offerman, 30, would make up somewhat for the loss of Mo Vaughn. Offeman had put together some fine years at bat in LA and KC, but showed little power. Mike Stanley, 35, was a career journeyman, averaging only 250 at bats. John Valentin, 32, the lone holdover from the Lou Gorman regime, had slumped badly in 98 with 12 homers and 53 rbi's. Finally, Darren Lewis, 31, was coming off a career year, but Boston was his sixth major league team.
There were, of course, productive young players like the incomparable Pedro Martinez, budding superstar Nomar Garciaparra, and hard-hitting outfielder Troy O'Leary. However, they were the exception, and the minor leagues seemed low on talent. Would these problems adversely affect the Sox in 99? Not as much as you might think. But that is an article for another day.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
