I’m going to two consecutive Red Sox games next week, on Tuesday and Wednesday. They will be my fifth and sixth trips to Fenway this season. I was getting excited about this earlier, and then looked at the rotation and saw that the local nine are set to trot out John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka for both of those games. At which point, I began to contemplate scalping. Very seriously began to contemplate scalping.
Coming into the season, there were two kinds of attitudes on the Red Sox’ staff. There’s the Beckett, which is angry, heated, jacked-up, always ready to go – he’s the KG of the team. Then there’s the Lester – always cool, calm, confident, in control, just completely emotionless. You get the feeling he picked that up from Wakefield, who’s always been very much that way. Buchholz is the same way. But the Lester has spawned another kind of attitude –the un-responsible attitude that either emotes carelessness or flat-out states it. And it belongs to the other guys on the staff.
We’ve grown accustomed to Dice-K’s ritual loading of the bases before somehow squirming out of trouble, but when Epstein and friends brought John Lackey to Boston during the offseason, I don’t think anyone expected that. Not many in the Nation were quick – or even willing at all – to support Lackey, but over spring training, we watched him and started to warm to him, his seemingly fiery attitude and desire for the ball in big spots. And that worked for him in April, but while his attitude is still there, it’s more frustration than anything else. And after the game, when asked about his control issues, he says to the media that he’s “not at all concerned” and – most recently, after he got the win in the final game of the Rays’ series – “you guys are awfully negative after a sweep.” It’s Lackey-faire. And it’s frustrating for a lot of reasons, mostly that this isn’t the guy the Sox signed.
This is not the attitude we asked for. But it doesn’t help any when the guy after him in the rotation walks the stadium, looks like he doesn’t care and then makes excuses after the fact, summoning phantom injuries that he told the coaching staff nothing about beforehand. Look, I get that Dice can’t be DFA’d. And the chances the Red Sox could trade him, and moreover that anyone else would want him, are very slim, since he has a full no-trade clause. But he’s not only wasting the fans’ money and their interest, he’s also wasting the team’s energy and wearing on his teammates’ patience. Take a look at the perks that his contract provides him: physical therapist, massage therapist, interpreter, 8 first-class round-trip airline tickets per year between Boston & Japan, spring training housing allowance of up to $25,000, Boston housing allowance of up to $75,000, one-time moving allowance of up to $35,000, use of Lincoln Town Car or similar car, Red Sox player ticket package, including 2 field box seats, team employee to assist Japanese media, uniform No. 18.
If you’re Victor Martinez and you don’t know where you’ll be playing next year but you’re playing with a severely bruised foot/toe and hitting the cover off the ball, there’s no way you’re happy about that precious little detail. Every time Matsuzaka whines, you want to put his head through his locker stall.
It’s not about the money they paid for him or even the money that they’re paying him. He doesn’t belong here. It doesn’t take someone with a dual degree in English and Japanese to read his body language. He’s not happy. He’s not enjoying himself. He’s making excuses. He’s causing problems with his catchers. He’s hardly the apple of his teammates’ eyes, even though everything in his contract says they should be Celtic green with envy about his situation.
For all the bad press that Scott Boras gets, it’s worth noting that while he does represent Matsuzaka, he also represents Varitek – who’s been an exemplary professional all year long in what must be a difficult situation for him – and it really doesn’t have much to do with the agent, but the client (for the record, Lowell isn’t represented by Boras – if he was, you can be sure you’d have heard from Scotty B by now).
The Sox owe Matsuzaka $20 million after this year, plus $8 million for this season. Fine. He doesn’t deserve the money, but there’s really no way to take it from him. At the least, he doesn’t deserve to play baseball for a team that doesn’t need him anymore. With Beckett, Lester, Lackey under contract through 2014 and Buchholz sure to receive an extension at the end of this season, and with Doubront, Kelly, Castro and Bowden waiting in the wings at Pawtucket/Portland, there isn’t going to be room for someone with Dice-K’s lack of work ethic and even greater lack of desired results on the roster by 2012. And considering we may be seeing Iglesias, Westmoreland, Brown, Reddick, Anderson, Bates, Velazquez and/or Kalish playing for the home nine by then, the Sox will have more than enough money to spare if they’re still paying Matsuzaka for services he’s no longer rendering.
Look, the Matsuzaka experiment was fun. It helped generate interest in the Sox after a couple of offseasons that had been dominated by the Yankees making moves. It expanded the Red Sox’ fan base to the global market, which it had to do to really be able to compete with the Yankees. His fellow countryman, Hideki Okajima, has been far more than advertised at a much lower price tag for the Sox, who are hardly hurting for starting pitching, but could use a shot in the arm in the bullpen department. It was exciting when Dice followed the WS year in 2007 with an 18-3 campaign in 2008, but it ultimately meant nothing. And his stay in Boston, whether it ends after this year or in November, 2012, will be remembered much the same way.
The Red Sox didn’t sell the farm to get Daisuke Matsuzaka. And because of that, they’re still in very good shape, in spite of their current 2-game losing streak against the heretofore unimpressionable Kansas City Royals. Their farm system is deep, their pockets are deeper. Their 25-man roster is impressive, and still hasn’t started firing on all cylinders yet this year. Baseball is a game where superstars can rule the day, but role players are crucial. Matsuzaka has proven himself to be neither. He is a lab rat of sorts – and other teams will learn from the experiment the Red Sox conducted with him – and his career may have followed a different path were he given some time in the minor leagues to adjust to the nuances of American baseball. But he’s been here for four years, and only had one good one. When he goes, whenever that is, he will be remembered neither fondly nor fairly, but such is the onus of a player that a team pays $51 million just for the rights to talk to.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, after the King is informed that his wife has died, it elicits the following response from the King:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Shakespeare, Macbeth, 5.5.19-30)
So is (was) Daisuke Matsuzaka’s tenure in a Boston Red Sox jersey – a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Just six days removed from what could have been a most memorable performance in Citizens Bank Park, Matsuzaka has impressed his impressionless image on Red Sox Nation for the last time.
That is, unless he comes out next time and throws 8 innings of one-hit ball. Then I’ll take my cap off to him and we’ll start this all over again.
Thanks to http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/ and http://www.soxprospects.com for all the information I stole from them in writing this.
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